Chapter 40

Chaos was the order of the day, even if it was a semi-organized sort of chaos. I know that doesn't make any kind of lexical sense, but I'm a redneck dammit, and that's what it looked like to me.

The white clothed "nurses" were nothing of the sort of course. They were merely women in the sixteen hundreds. The extent of their training was to take a bath, put on the white getup, pick up the "little black bag," and try to stop the bleeding with gauze pads and pressure.

The horses were a further complication. Scattered among the dead and wounded were several hundred, injured, dead, or dying horses; most of them were kicking, bleeding, and shitting all over the place. Other than that things were going fine.

Even Jaycee's talents were stretched thin by this clusterfuck. My first thought was an odd one too. Whoever said, "War is Hell" was now right at the top of my list of masters of understatement, and this wasn't even a real war, hell, it wasn't even much of a battle.

The most surprising and annoying thing that came to me was the smell of shit, and to a lesser extent, urine. Wounded and dying men and horses were shitting and pissing all over, not to mention bleeding. In the immediate aftermath of battle, the battlefield itself is a shitty place.

Even though I'm a lazy bastard at heart, I realized Jaycee needed some help. Not for physical work but some help leading her helpers and most of our bedroom crew just weren't prepared for this. Thankfully, Fawne, and to a slightly lesser extent Delphine and Adèle were. Well, shit, I guess I was elected too.

Triage was the most important first step, and buddy we had a hell of a job there. I was just wondering how to get started giving reasonable instructions and making someone understand them, since my translator was already hard at work sorting dead and dying, so I was happy to see Percy come trotting up.

The first thing out of his mouth was a request for some help with the mess he and Damien had made of the archers. From a distance it looked like a more nearly manageable crisis so I took the coward's way out and volunteered. Before we struck out I had Percy gather a few or the nurses and their gurney equipped "litter bearers."

As we approached the smaller mess, I saw that Damien had made the most logical first step here on his own. He'd pressed some of the pikemen into service to deal with the horses. They were gathering those still capable of moving around under their own power and killing and dragging off the rest. I had him send a hundred of so pikemen up to help out near the gate.

It was a damned good thing this mess had happened fairly early in the day, because it was nearly dark before we could even look up, and damned near midnight before we had all the wounded in the large basement of my home. We put them there because of the proximity to Jaycee's clinic, upstairs.

Of course the work wasn't over. Jaycee and her nurse corps were still bandaging, sewing flesh, and the like, and at least they were inside now. I was shuffled out of the healing trades and left to direct the clean up.

We were dealing with three hundred and sixteen dead horses, three hundred and forty three wounded but salvageable horses, and five hundred and thirty-one dead men. All that without mentioning three hundred or so practically unscathed horses.

Geron took over dealing with the horses that were in usable shape, and since he spoke the language, he was able to take care of most of it by delegating. I guess it helped that he knew the names of the men that usually took care of the stables.

Damien took over with the wounded horses that we thought we could save. He didn't try to have his men herd these, he assigned a man to lead each of them separately, and they took off toward the barns also.

Percy helped me with a cast of dozens as we put the rest out of their misery. Our next trick was skinning, cleaning, and butchering. Suddenly I was very proud of the basement freezers that Big Boy had provided. I got a funny feeling thinking about Big Boy again, for the first time in a while.

Think of the devil and up he pops. I got just a hint before Big Boy did the communication thing.

"How have you been, John?" he asked, into my head.

"I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I've felt a little lonely. It's been a little odd being the only one in my head."

"Excuse me, I don't think I understand," he thought to me.

"I was just getting accustomed to having someone to talk to, without the bother of talking, and lo and behold, you disappeared."

"I see. It was not my doing but some of the ones that think they control this situation decided that I was not doing my job correctly and I was recalled," he explained.

"So now you're back after being chastised and then promising not to do it again?" I asked.

"Not exactly. To use an earth expression that I find wonderfully colorful, You scared the bejesus out of them," he said.

"Who did I scare?"

"You scared those that think they are in control. I believe you would call them, higher ups."

"No, I would probably call them REMFs, though maybe I wouldn't use the acronym."

A short pause followed; no doubt Big Boy was searching for the reference, then he came back and he'd found it.

"Rear echelon mother fuckers. That is hilarious," Big Boy said.

"I'm so sorry, and I promise not to do it again, until next time."

Big Boy was silent for nearly a minute this time and I guessed he was trying to decode that last bit. He was, and he even admitted it when he came back to me.

"Just how did I scare them?" I asked, after explaining my last comment.

"Approximately half of them were afraid you were going to be hurt or killed, and most of the other half thought you would continue with your advantage and move to conquer Paris, or maybe even all of France."

"And they sent you back to make sure I did neither?"

"Again, not exactly, since I explained that I was sure you would do neither on your own. They sent me back because they decided they couldn't abide waiting to see what you'd do without having at least a little forewarning.

"They have instructed me to at least stop suggesting new things I can give you. I've been ordered not to furnish anything that you don't specifically request.

"Of course I'll do no such thing. In fact, we are communicating now via a process they aren't aware of. I discovered the ability before I was recalled and I didn't bother to tell anyone else about it," he said.

Now that he mentioned it, it was more like he was talking now, instead of projecting thoughts into my head. I didn't know how it seemed to him but I was going to take his word for it. I didn't even want to know the details.