Chapter 10

Our Sisters and female Cousins insisted on changing clothes before dinner, and the rest of us waited for them. None of us had a chance to bathe yet, but we had all washed up in our rooms.

The Officers' Mess was located on the far side of General Clark's Headquarters in a separate building. During our walk there, I again paid attention to the construction of the various buildings that we passed. I had been doing that since we had arrived here, and had drawn several conclusions.

The first was that there had been a fort on this site for a considerable period of time, though it may not have been this particular fort. The second, based on observations of the buildings, was that a huge amount of work had gone into its construction, and it had required a considerable amount of time.

This was no rude fort of round logs and a few cabins. This was a well planned and constructed permanent fortification. Just the job of getting sufficient timber here to build a fort of this size must have been horrendous. The buildings appeared to be of two different but similar types of construction.

All of the buildings and the stockade itself were made of square or rectangular logs that had been hewed into that shape from round tree sections. This in itself represented another huge amount of work, as it had been done using axes and adzes. Some of the heavier built buildings used the notched log technique of construction, and all of the square logs that I had seen so far had been neatly and closely fitted, leaving no visible gaps between the various levels of logs.

The second style of construction used rectangular log sections that had probably been sawed from squared logs, and they were nailed or pegged to stout wood frames of the post and beam type. Most buildings had roofs of split cedar shakes. There were a considerable number of barracks, warehouses, and stables inside the fort. The investment in time alone to complete all of this work had to have been tremendous.

My thoughts on the fort and its construction were soon interrupted by our arrival at the Officers' mess. We men entered first with the ladies behind us. There was considerable excitement when the ladies appeared in the evening gowns that they had purchased in the Other Reality.

As soon as we entered, we were approached by a heavyset individual in a fancy non-military uniform.

"See here, Captain... !" he started, approaching us from the side of the room.

"O'Connell," I informed him.

"Captain O'Connell, you can't bring those women in here," he continued.

"This is the Officers' Mess, is it not?" I inquired.

"Yes."

"And this is where the Officers assigned to Fort Henry dine, is it not?" I asked.

"Yes."

"These ladies are all Officers in my unit. They have chosen to wear evening gowns tonight, as their uniforms aren't ready yet. Are you going to tell me that Female Officers are not allowed to eat here," I demanded.

"Female Officers? There are no Female Officers!" he said with conviction.

"I'm afraid that there are now, and they are all assigned to General Clark's Headquarters effective in the morning, Claude," Colonel Williams informed the fat man, having just joined us from his table.

"But I never heard of such a thing," Claude said in protest.

"They are very powerful Magic users, so I wouldn't antagonize them, Claude, if I were you," the Colonel told him.

"Magic!!" Claude asked in confusion, not understanding.

"There are so many of you that it will require two tables to seat all of you, but please join us over on the far side of the room," Colonel Williams continued, speaking to us.

"Thank you, sir. We will be pleased to join you and the others," I told him. Two tables had been cleared on the far side of the room adjacent to the table where Colonel Williams and several other officers from General Sullivan's staff were seated, and we joined them there.

The room, while quite large by local standards, was not well lit, depending as it did on candles on the tables and two chandlers with candles. When we had taken our seats at the two tables, the ladies decided that we needed more light. Saraid and Glanda called their Magic-powered lanterns to them and hung them on hooks in the ceiling beams some ten feet above the floor. The two lanterns provided more light, even on the medium setting, than all of the candles in the room together. Their appearance caused quite a stir in the other Officers present for their meal.

It required some little time, but food eventually was brought to our tables. It appeared that the menu was a set one, and everyone was served the same meal. There was roast venison and roast pork. They were served with carrots, green beans, and potatoes plus wheat bread and butter. Additionally there was gravy for the meats. Thankfully, there were no peas served. We had had more peas on the trip here than we cared for.

Ale was served with the meal, but it was not very good ale, being just barely drinkable. I did notice that most of the Officers seemed to drain their mugs and order refills ... some several times. I also noticed that many of them were paying attention to our Sisters and female Cousins. The same could not be said for the ladies, who were ignoring them.

"If we are going to be here for long, we will need to see about getting some decent ale here," Gerald said, as we were finishing our meal.

"I'm not sure how we would do that," I told him. "Plus the French are big on wine, and those in New Orleans are their major suppliers. I'll have to check on what there are in the way of local breweries. General Clark should know."

"Most of the overmountain men drink corn whiskey," Anann told us. "They offered us some when we were working on the injured. It's terrible stuff," she finished, making a face. Apparently, some of the other Officers had been listening to our conversation, as one in the uniform of a Major addressed us.

"Don't you like our drinks?" he asked, sarcastically.

"We are used to a different and more pleasant tasting ale," Seamus told him.

"You won't find any fancy English ale here," he told us with a laugh.

"We were brought up on O'Connell's Irish Ale," Seamus told him. "It was perfected by our Great Grandparents."

"Bah, the Irish don't make any decent ale. Here what they drink is whiskey ... corn whiskey," he told us.

"We don't drink whiskey," Saraid told him, "and we are not fond of wine either." Since the meal was over, and we didn't care for the refreshments, we rose and left the Officers' Mess, taking our lanterns with us, since it was dark out by now. I stopped on the way out to thank Colonel Williams for his assistance in getting us admitted.

Once back in our quarters, Gwyn and Glanda started organizing the use of the tubs for bathing. Each pair of twins was allotted twenty minutes in which to bathe tonight. There was some grumbling, but that was all of the time available if everyone was to get a bath by a decent time today.

Of course, there was no problem with the hot water for bathing, either getting it or getting rid of it. We all knew the spells required, even our Mage Sisters. We guys were the last to have the chance to bathe though.

Breakfast the next morning was more than a little disappointing. We were used to eggs and bacon or ham for breakfast plus orange juice and toast. These people had no way to obtain oranges, and eggs were not plentiful here, even for Officers. Oatmeal was what we had for breakfast and some warm bread with butter. It really hadn't been toasted the way that we thought about toast. The highlight of the meal was a slice of hot baked ham to go with the bread. Our Sisters also managed to get some milk out of those in the food preparation area.

Following breakfast, the others went to check on the horses, while Seamus and I went for our meeting with General Clark. The others just wore the clothes that we had arrived here in, while Seamus and I needed to wear the uniforms used here. General Clark's Chief-of-Staff was not pleased to see us when we entered the Headquarters building.

"What are you here for?" he demanded angrily, when we were brought to his attention.

"Yesterday afternoon, General Clark told us to report here this morning for a meeting with him," I informed him.

"I wasn't told anything about that!" he said indignantly. After that we were told "You'll have to wait until I can check with him."

"Wait over there!" we were instructed, as he pointed to a bench along one wall. Someone finally came to get us about a half hour later, and we were ushered into the General's office.

"What have you done to antagonize Josiah?" the General asked when we arrived.

"Josiah?" we asked, unaware of whom he meant.

"Colonel Hubbard, my Chief-of-Staff," the General replied.

"Nothing that we know of, Sir," I told him.

"He seems less than happy with your presence. Of course, he is one of those tight-ass New Englanders," the General said with a smile. "I heard all about your arrival at the Officers' Mass last night from him. That may be a part of the reason," he finished before turning serious.

"So tell me what you can contribute to our War Effort, and why I should keep you," he demanded in a serious voice.

"You have already seen how we can move personnel. We can do the same thing with supplies. You also saw the kind of structures that we can create. They are proof against cannon and musket fire, and cannot be breached by people either," I reminded him.

"Yes, that takes care of movement and fortifications, but what do you have in the way of offensive capabilities? That is what wins battles," he told us, this last loudly.

"Would you like a demonstration, sir?" Seamus asked, speaking for the first time since we had arrived.

"Possibly! Where and when would this demonstration take place, and how many would be involved?" the General wanted to know before making a commitment.

"It could be just the three of us, or we could take several others with us, if you wish. There was a place that we passed on the way here that would suffice for the demonstration, and we could leave in the next few minutes, if you are ready, sir," I told him.

"How far away is this place, and how long will it take to get there and back?" the General wanted to know.

"It is more or less fifty miles from here, but it will only require a few seconds for the trip," I told him with a smile.

"It might be best for us to go alone this time," he answered, as he reached for his coat. Seamus and I joined hands with him when he was ready, and we vanished from his office.

We instantly reappeared on a promontory above the Red River Gorge. General Clark was very surprised by the rapid change of locations, but started studying the terrain to determine where he was. He spent over a minute checking the area out before saying anything.

"We're in the area of the Red River!" he finally said in amazement.

"Yes, we saw the area on the march here and came to check it out one evening," Seamus told him.

"How far can you actually move like that?" he asked next, inquisitively.

"If we know the destination, we can transfer several thousand miles with no trouble," I told him.

"But ... but that would be nearly to England!" he said in disbelief.

"Yes, we often transfer from Georgia to Ireland and Germany in our own Reality," Seamus assured him. It was only a slight misrepresentation, as it was actually in the Other Reality.

"That is the third or fourth time that you have used that ending to something that you have told me," General Clark said very perceptibly. "Would you please explain what you mean by that?"

"This is not our original Reality," I started, after looking to see what Seamus thought. He just nodded. "We come from a Reality or Universe where the Americans won the Revolutionary War almost three hundred years ago," I told him.

"Are you saying that there are different worlds where people exist?" he asked when he had recovered from the stupor that my last statement had left him in.