1635_ The Eastern Front - Eric Flint [36]
For a moment, Jeff wondered if there was a trace of malice in the brigadier's tone. He knew that a lot of the professional down-time officers in the USE army resented the pressures that often fell upon them due to the political attitudes of the enlisted men. A lot of the soldiers in the USE army had been recruited by the Committees of Correspondence. By no means all of those recruits were what you could fairly call "CoC men," to be sure. But there was no denying that the radical political views of the CoCs were very influential in the lower ranks of the army. Some of the army's officers had joined because they shared that idealism—a fair number, in fact—but most of the officers had the traditional motives of professional soldiers. Whether or not their own political views were conservative didn't really matter. Those soldiers under CoC influence tended to have attitudes on certain matters of discipline that pretty much drove any regular officer half-nuts.
Not on the battlefield, though. Whatever else aggravated professional officers about the enlisted ranks of the USE army, their willingness and ability to fight was not one of them.
After a moment, Jeff decided that Schuster wasn't being motivated by resentment. He really was just strapped for men.
"Uh . . . Sir. You know I don't have much actual battlefield experience—infantry battles, I mean, if you want somebody to blow up a warship I'm your man—and none at all commanding more than a squad. I'm not sure . . ."
"You'll do fine, Captain Higgins. The 12th is a good battalion with good companies. And the commander of your regiment is Colonel Friedrich Eichelberger, who is a superb officer."
"But . . ."
Schuster shook his head firmly. "The decision is made, Captain. I discussed the matter with General Stearns himself, and he concurred in my decision. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the officers of your battalion immediately. The campaign is already underway. We should reach the Saxon border within four days, possibly even three." He cleared his throat. "Whatever might be their other failings, our soldiers march quite well."
It took Jeff until sundown to find his battalion. Somehow or other, it had managed to get shuffled out of its officially allotted place in the marching order.
At least the battalion was ahead of place, not behind. Apparently they were eager-beavers instead of shirkers. Under most circumstances, Jeff would have thought that a positive trait. Under these . . . he wasn't sure. Bad enough some idiot brigadier had placed a twenty-three-year-old captain with an oddball military resume in charge of a whole battalion, after consulting with a top commander who apparently had the IQ of a turnip. (At a rough count, he'd silently cursed Mike Stearns at least five hundred times that afternoon.) To add to his misery, it seemed that his new battalion was full of vim and vigor and would have absurdly unrealistic expectations of their new commanding officer.
His fears proved too great and too little.
Too great, in that the 12th Battalion turned out to be a veritable CoC hotbed. Every noncommissioned officer, it seemed, as well as half the grunts, were hardcore activists from Magdeburg.
Given that Jeff was married to the woman who was generally viewed as the quintessence of the CoC spirit, his appointment as the battalion's new commander was very highly regarded by the enlisted men.
And that was the bad news too, of course. "Absurdly unrealistic expectations" was putting it mildly.
Chapter 9
After Jeff left, Gretchen didn't spend more than half an hour moping around and feeling sorry for herself. She'd inherited her grandmother's stoic disposition and hardheaded attitude toward life's travails.
Besides, there were the children to be settled down. There weren't