Chapter 2: Indian Summer

Whiles I in this affaire do thee imply / Ile to my Queene, and beg her Indian Boy / And then I will her charmed eie release

Oberon, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Act III, Scene ii, lines 375-377

And so August turned into September. It was now the first Tuesday after Labour Day. Classes were starting up again, both for those registered at the University and for those with a far more practical syllabus.

“ROOM!”

Twenty-five young men and five women, all between 18 and 22 years of age and wearing the standard Canadian Disruptive Pattern Temperate Woodland or “CADPAT TW” combat uniform came to attention. Maybe a quarter of that number remained sitting at attention at first, then one after another came to their feet to join their fellows. Finally only one, whose black Royal Canadian Armoured Corps beret on the table before him bore the cap badge of the Prince Edward Island Regiment, remained sitting.

Captain Whitefeather, his maroon Airborne beret still perched atop his close-cropped head, paced slowly and silently and dangerously into the room. Everyone sweated as they waited for the legendary officer to say something. Anything. Even giving them a blast would be better than this angry glower.

“Why are you still seated?” he asked the one man in the room sitting to attention, his quiet voice velvet covering cold steel.

“Sir, the drill manual says, Sir, when a superior officer enters the room, Sir, all who are already seated are to sit to attention, SIR!”

“Very good,” he noted in that still dangerously quiet voice. “And as this man knows the Manual of Drill, I have to assume the rest of you have a passing acquaintance with it as well.” He calmly walked back to the lectern. “Well? What about the rest of you?” The velvet in his voice vanished. “You slack and idle INDIVIDUALS. We’re here to learn how to fight an enemy that does NOT allow us to make mistakes, and you haven’t even learnt the first lesson in being a soldier. God help us all. At ease. SIT.” As the room clattered to the noise of 29 men and women moving 29 chairs, he added in a bellow, “QUIETLY. The Sa’arm can hear you, and they’re all the way out thataway.” He pointed somewhere vaguely spaceward.

“You have to learn to be careful, to hide yourselves against their scrutiny, to be both hunter and hunted. For when you are up against them, you will be the hunted, and you must also be the hunter.”

Everyone soberly gulped.

“Over this week, we will build on the lessons from history you’ve been taught by Colonel Hollister. You will be given a scenario to develop a battle plan against, and then we’ll rip it apart. Then we’ll repeat the process with ever-increasing levels of complexity. Next week, we’ll start with classroom work and then go into the field, where you will actively try to lead ever-larger forces against each other on manoeuvres. Expect to spend two weeks in the bush.”

Everyone got a little excited at that. This course promised to be more than just boring, stuffy old lectures.

“This semester, we will be discussing at length the law of torts.”

Callie Dugan sat in a classroom elsewhere in the University. Like her contemporaries in Whitefeather’s classroom, she was wearing “CADPAT TW” Temperate Uniform Canadian Pattern combat uniform, with “GGFG” initials on the shoulder – she and the rest of her platoon were to be guinea pigs for Whitefeather’s students, along with a platoon of militia recruits from the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa. She could see a young man in this same lecture hall dressed similarly to her, his Cameron Highlanders Balmoral bonnet resting on the desk in front of him.

“Today’s class is ‘The Definition of Torts’,” the professor went on, and in a dry manner began his lecture, reading directly from his notes in a deadly monotone.

Callie secretly wondered why she was even trying for law. It took years before you could be called to the Bar, and years after that before you could even hope to become a partner, and everyone was talking about how the Swarm would be here inside a decade. Before she ever had a prayer of being made partner, the place would be overrun by three-legged, helmet-headed aliens looking fondly at her potential as soup stock.

Her father had influenced her choice of career. He had made partner by the time he’d turned 40. Despite the often killer hours that the typical lawyer would endure, he had always made time for his children, showing up at their piano recitals and school plays and games, and always keeping Sundays for them. Sunday morning, he would be surrounded by laughing children “helping” him make brunch. Saturday night was for her Mom, but all day Sunday was for the kids.

“Tort law may be defined as a body of rights, obligations, and remedies that is applied by courts in civil proceedings to provide relief for persons who have suffered harm from the wrongful acts of others. The person who sustains injury or suffers pecuniary damage as the result of tortious conduct is known as the plaintiff, and the person who is responsible for inflicting the injury and incurs liability for the damage is known as the defendant or tortfeasor.” The professor finally paused for breath. “We will now examine each word of this definition individually in turn.”

Callie’s mind began to wander a bit. This course promised to be nothing but boring, stuffy old lectures.

Whitefeather was pushing his class as hard as if they were in Regular Force basic training. He knew they’d had precious little of that sort of thing back in their militia units – maybe two weeks instead of the Regular Force’s twelve. They’d had a very quick lunch and dashed out into one of the University playing fields to find two platoons of about 30 infantry apiece waiting for them, one each of Camerons and Foot Guards, all dressed in “fighting order”: helmets, fragmentation vests and tactical vests.

Both platoons had been equipped with laser sensors over their bodies, and their rifles had small laser generators affixed to the bayonet mounts. Hits would be recorded, and any infantryman whose gear was buzzing was out of the fight, unable to fire.

“You and you,” he pointed to two second lieutenants at random. “You will take the platoon of Camerons and you will take the platoon of Guards. First the Camerons will attack the Guards, then the Guards will return the favour.”

Callie found herself standing in the middle of a hastily erected defensive work made of a single level of hay bales, in the centre of which was the flag they were supposed to protect. Whether it was Whitefeather’s sense of humour or just a case of improvisation Callie couldn’t guess, but the “flag” was an Elmer the Safety Elephant pennant – more typically flown right beneath the Maple Leaf flag by those elementary schools that had gone at least 365 days without any student getting injured. The day being sunny and warm as befit Indian summer weather, sweat was soon dripping down her forehead to sting her eyes with salt. Students walking in the park across the street jeered at their bizarre flag, further increasing her discomfiture.

The other platoon had been taken around the two little copses of woods that formed the far end of the field. Soon, the Guards and their temporary leader could see the forms of the Camerons making their way through the gap between the two thickets toward them – a simple tactic, easy for a raw recruit officer to lead his squad of raw recruit privates. Someone had obviously planned ahead somewhat and brought a smoke grenade, for within seconds their forms were obscured by an artificially generated smog.

The Guards’ officer decided to counter the attack by taking his force to meet the enemy and beat them back. Callie was no tactical genius, but this seemed suicidally unwise when one had “prepared earthworks” to crouch behind. She disobeyed his orders, and five of her fellow Guardsmen followed her example.

“Guys, you been listening to the old farts?” she demanded of the other five, referring to their Foot Guards sergeants.

The quartet with her shrugged their shoulders.

“Well, when they talk about Whitefeather and that other guy, they’re always going on about how those two are forever trying to misdirect you, hit you where you least expect it.”

“But we can see them, over there,” protested a guardsman whose name she did not yet know.

“Count them. Is that all of them?”

He stared ahead, trying to pick out the forms through the haze. “Uh, no, I can’t. But it’s got to be all of them.”

“And why?” she challenged. Deep in her mind was her father’s sage advice to always be on the lookout for any trick the other lawyer was willing to pull.

“Well, how else can they attack?”

“From another direction?” Callie suggested.

Eyes grew big as they realized the implications of her statement. Ahead of them, guardsman after guardsman began to swear as their gear began making beeping noises and their rifles stopped firing. One of those notional casualties was the foolishly brave student lieutenant.