Chapter 3: Now is the Winter of Our Discount Tents

“Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York”

Richard III (Duke of Gloucester), Richard III, Act I, Scene i, Line 2

October saw the leaves begin turning into a riot of colours, preparatory to the chilly months ahead. This Monday was still early in October, though, and so the piles of red and yellow carpeting had yet to be laid upon the lawns.

Callie walked to class slowly on this early morning, gathering stares as she went, for she was talking apparently to an invisible companion. She would not have been the first student in pre-law to go stark raving mad, but most tended to try to hide the fact. A handful noticed the wireless ear buds, but most just shook their heads and carried on.

Paul Mitrevics, the handsome young classmate she shared Torts with, was standing at the light, waiting to cross. He noted Callie’s strange behaviour. “Are you OK?” he asked with concern.

She regarded the crop-haired young man with all seriousness. “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life / Now wears his crown,” she informed him.

“What? My dad’s still alive...” His voice trailed off as she turned the cover of the script in her hands to show him, the name “Hamlet” written in big bold letters across the page. He nodded with sudden understanding. The entire campus knew that the play was opening in just one more weekend. Clearly Callie was brushing up on her role as the Ghost. Paul let her continue to harangue the absent Hamlet.

An even more bizarre sight met the gaze of students and staff entering the University of Ottawa’s Demarais Building. The tall, gangly, swarthy, dark-haired man was clearly dressed for war – along with his maroon beret and CADPAT camouflage uniform bearing captain’s pips, he wore a tactical vest and a rucksack. All he needed was a C7 rifle and maybe some hand grenades.

At his side was a curvaceous brunette, her B-sized breasts obviously unencumbered by a bra under her shirt – in the latest fashion, her shirt was undone to halfway between her diaphragm and her belly button, just hiding her breasts. She had been crying, that much was obvious from the streaks in her sparse makeup, but she had everything under control at the moment.

The man turned to her. “Della, it’s only one week. We’ll be back from Petawawa on Friday, and then...”

“And then you’ll crash and fall asleep, just like you do every time you come home from being in the field. It’s the next day that we’ll be together. I’ll miss you, but I’ll be OK.”

“That’s my girl,” he reassured her. Giving her a big kiss, he added, “It won’t be long. Just the week.”

“Stay safe,” Della pleaded. “You don’t have to do heroic things to impress me. We’re not at war or anything.”

He regarded her with sad eyes. “Yes, we are at war. Possibly the deadliest and most desperate war in the history of all humanity. It’s just the enemy hasn’t gotten here yet.” His voice turned grim as he added, “And if I have anything to say about it, they won’t.” He reached into a breast pocket and took out a small envelope. “Here.”

“Last will and testament?” Della asked, fearful of the answer.

“No,” Whitefeather informed her. “Two tickets to Friday’s performance of ‘Hamlet’. We are both commanded to be there.”

Della looked confused. “I can get us tickets any time. It’s one of the perks of being the director’s administrative assistant.”

Whitefeather grinned. “The staff at National Defence Headquarters don’t know that you’re Jimmy’s assistant – they only know you’re the only concubine in my prepack, meaning I’ve still got three empty slots to fill. They want me to fill in those missing pieces in my little family before it’s time for me to go. So they got me tickets to the play, with orders to bring my future concubine so we can look over potential candidates for your sister-wives.”

He walked over to where two olive-green Canadian Army MSVS medium trucks and an LSVW light utility vehicle sat waiting for him. The student soldiers from his Advanced Reserve Officer Combined Tactics course were already boarding the two medium trucks. With a final look backward at his beloved Della, Whitefeather hopped into the passenger side of the utility vehicle. As he waved at her, the trio of trucks took off for the roughly two hour drive north to Camp Petawawa, on the banks of the Ottawa River.

They arrived at Camp Petawawa by about ten in the morning and set up an encampment near one of the base’s many rifle ranges deep in the 300 square kilometres of training area. The first day consisted of fieldcraft training: setting up their “hooches” (three-man pup-tent-shaped shelters made of 3 neoprene ponchos domed together), establishing supply areas and digging a latrine. They made their own lunches from individual meal packs and spent the afternoon getting lectures in survival in the woods, with emphasis on such hazards as mosquitoes and poison ivy.

The evening saw Whitefeather taking the class on a meandering course through the forbiddingly dark woods near their encampment. It would have been pleasant, but he and his sergeants kept a killer pace that taxed the student soldiers’ physical fitness levels. They all came back exhausted.

As Monday drew to a close, the class relaxed around the campfire under a canopy of stars, roasting marshmallows from Whitefeather’s private stock and drinking hot chocolate from their ration packs. Many of them ended up napping around the fire pit, only rousing themselves to crawl off to the warm sleeping bags in their hooches when the fire finally burnt down to glowing charcoal.

Whitefeather had, as usual, improvised most of his training. It definitely didn’t fit any of the young officers’ limited previous experience with military training.

In order to test his trainees at concentrating while under fire, on this Tuesday morning he had them sit in the range’s butts, creating battle plans. While they scribbled their notes in the fantastic level of detail insisted upon by Whitefeather and his sergeants, bullets crackled unnervingly overhead.

None of the camp’s resident Regular Force units were originally scheduled to use this particular rifle range, but he managed to find assistance: the local Army Cadet unit. It didn’t take any arm-twisting to talk the kids of 2642 Royal Canadian Regiment Cadet Corps into a little range time – they were always chomping at the bit for more opportunities to fire the C7 rifle. The schools took a bit more convincing, but a certain trade-off earned him the needed permissions. The fact that his sergeants were both Royal Canadian Regiment soldiers aided him tremendously in this endeavour, as they knew which arms to twist and which palms to grease – and with what currency.

If Callie and Paul had known what Whitefeather was putting his squad through, they’d have happily joined him. As it was, both started that day looking forward to yet another in a long series of dry and dusty lectures on torts before spending the evening training with their militia units.

“Today,” their slightly portly, balding law professor began in his fussily pedantic manner, “we will continue the discussion from yesterday on the tort of nuisance, looking at this tort from the aspect of how it impacts ‘occupier’s rights’. What do we mean when we say ‘occupier’s rights’? Anyone?”

The first student he pointed to flubbed his response, as did the second.

“No, ‘occupier’s rights’ do NOT mean anywhere near ‘squatter’s rights’. All of you should have read this part by now. You need to come to class prepared.” The professor glowered at the class of legal beagle puppies. “It refers to the right to the normal use and enjoyment of his, that is to say the occupier’s, land. Now, what do we mean by ‘normal use’?” He pointed at another student at random. “You.”

It was going to be a dull, dull morning. Both Callie and Paul inhaled their extra-large coffees, desperate to keep themselves awake, if not alert.

In an office in the National Defence Headquarters building, a shining mirrored pile of extremely recent vintage, a lawyer from the Judge Advocate General’s Corps was busy with his morning paperwork. Major Lincoln Hopson was a tall, very physically fit black man with a closely trimmed moustache. His tan uniform’s creases were so sharp you could almost cut your thumb open on them. His oxford shoes gleamed, and his tie was neatly tied – all in all, the very image of a disciplined, dignified officer. Unusually for an office worker at 08:00 on a Tuesday morning, he had no coffee on his desk: he did not wish to risk spilling it onto the files that were piled neatly on the right side of his desk, nor on the sheets of paper attached to the file open in front of him, and especially not on the electronic note pad that sat tidily on his left, its stylus lying at an almost exact 45 degree angle.

“Sir,” his clerk advised him, the young man poking his head into Hopson’s office door, “call for you on Line Three.”

“Very well,” Hopson acknowledged. He pressed Line 3 on his phone, saw who it was first, and then closed the file on his desk. This was not likely to be a short phone call. As he picked up the handset with his right hand, he picked up the stylus with his left and tapped to a particular electronic file.

“Major Hopson ... Yes. Yes. I understand. No, thank you. We’ll handle it internally.” All the while, his stylus danced over the note pad, filling it up with remarks written in a tidy hand. Finally, he set the phone down and rolled his eyes in frustration.

The next call was one he did not want to make. He hesitated for a moment, and finally picked up the handset again. When the call connected, Hopson put on an utterly false air of bonhomie as he spoke. “Inspector! How pleasant to talk with you this morning. And how are things with the Ottawa Police Services today? Yes? Good. Well, yes, now that you mention it, I do have news, about that missing pennant. Yes, it appears to be at one of our bases right now. We’ll retrieve it from them, we promise. This goes no further, right? Good. The Canadian Armed Forces appreciates your consideration.”