Chapter 15

The following new character appears in the next few chapters:

Samuel Moore

Captain of Rangers, Chief Ranger Trainer, 6’-0” tall, 180 pounds, 25 years old, broad shoulders, long brown hair, blue eyes, a rugged individualist with a quick smile,

Gwyn and Sererena in their evening gowns made quite an impression on those gathered at the Officers’ Mess for their evening meal. On entering, they were immediately approached by several Captains and a Major, all of whom they brushed off with a quick spell, as they had no Talent. Instead, our Sisters concentrated on making the acquaintance of a number of young Officers, all of whom had reasonable amounts of Talent. Certainly none of them had sufficiently large enough Talents to interest either woman in marriage, but they had enough Talent to be useful in the organization that was beginning to coalesce in Seamus’s and my minds.

After a time, our Sisters brought them over to the table that Seamus and I were sharing and introduced them. There were a Senior Lieutenant, four Lieutenants and an Ensign. We all had our meal together. The young men seemed to really enjoy the meal and the company. However, I observed that our table received a number of disapproving looks from several senior Officers. As the meal drew to a close Gwyn had a suggestion.

“Why don’t we leave here. It’s too hot and crowed in here. I’m sure that it would be much cooler and more private out by the river,” she suggested.

“Yes, that sounds like a good idea,” Sererna agreed, as both women rose from their seats. We all rose with them, and Gwyn and Sererena led their charges out of the Mess. Seamus and I remained and sipped our ale.

The chief reason that we had remained was another young Captain who had just made a late arrival. He had received a number of disapproving looks from the same senior Officers who had not approved of our gathering, for his unusual and soiled uniform. We were more interested in him because of the fine if minor Talent that he possessed and the fact that he was a Ranger instructor.

I hailed him after a number of others had turned their backs on him, as he approached their tables.

“Over here, Captain,” I called, waving. “We would like to talk to you.”

“Good evening, Gentlemen,” he said on approaching our table. “I’m Captain Samuel Moore, Junior. I don’t remember seeing either of you here previously.”

“Good evening, Captain,” I answered. “I’m Mark O’Connell, and this is my Second-in-Command, Seamus O’Connell. We arrived today. Have a seat.”

“Are you sure that you want to be seen with me?” he asked with a smile. “I’m not all that popular here,” he finished goodnaturedly.

“All the more reason then to speak to you here and to be seen with you,” Seamus told him with a grin of his own. The Captain’s food was soon brought to him. We had an amicable time and learned that he was in charge of Ranger training and only had three Sergeants for assistants. He assured us that wasn’t a great impediment since most of those recruited to the Rangers were backwoodsmen and well acquainted with the skills required for their type of operation. His job was to mainly insure that they all had the proper level of those skills and to teach them to work together.

“And that Gentlemen is the most difficult part of the job,” he assured us. “They are used to working on their own, which is good in certain respects, but they are used to doing as they please as well, and that is not good. Getting them to work together and cooperate with the one another and the one in charge, can be a daunting task at times,” he finished.

“And how do you accomplish that?” Seamus asked with a knowing grin.

“Unfortunately, it often comes down to bare knuckles,” the Captain said with his own smile. “My three Sergeants are large rough individuals with little ‘book learning’ as they put it, but they have decades of experience in the woods fighting the Indians, the French, the Spanish, and the British.”

“How many Rangers do you turn out?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, nowhere near enough,” the Captain told us. “Oh, it isn’t because of a lack of volunteers. It’s because of a lack of money. The main emphasis here has been on building up the regular troops, ‘the Continentals’ as they are called. The problem is that they mainly sit in their barracks and perform routine chores rather than being out in the forest chasing the enemy, of course, they aren’t trained for that. Occasionally, we’ll get a few who have grown tired of that and want to transfer to the Rangers, but then we have to break them of the bad habits they have picked up,” he finished with a large grin.

“I take it that ‘break’ is the operative word there?” Seamus asked with his own grin. The Captain didn’t answer, but continued to smile.

“That situation may change shortly,” I told Captain Moore in a serious voice. “We are working on a new organization, and people with the kind of training that you provide will be in greater demand if what we are working on comes about,” I told him, but didn’t mention what would happen if it didn’t.

“What is it that you do if you aren’t a part of the regular Army?” he asked in concern.

“We’re a new unit. We accomplish things using Magic!” I told him to a look of shocked surprise.

“Magic!” he asked not understanding. “As in rabbits out of hats and eggs pulled from behind the ear kind of Magic? Are you going to make the British disappear with a puff of smoke?”

“Certainly not!” I answered, mildly offended that he would treat what we did as a joke. “We can move people and supplies considerable distances in just a few seconds. We create defensive structures that cannot be penetrated by musket or cannon fire. We can also create structures to keep entire camps and forts out of the rain or other types of storms. Additionally, we have a very effective offensive capability,” I told the stunned Captain.

“Those claims sound very wild!” he said when he recovered.

“We came here with General Clark and had a meeting with General Green today where we demonstrated a number of our capabilities,” Seamus informed him. “We are to meet with both of them again in the morning.”

“Do you think that you have a chance of convincing them to create this organization?” Captain Moore asked earnestly.

“Yes, we have a powerful benefactor who sent us here to remove the British from North America. That will not be accomplished by fighting them to the death with our regular Army soldiers. It will require different tactics -- something that the British aren’t prepared for,” I told him, but went no further as I hadn’t worked it all out in my head yet. Instead I gave him a warning.

“Be prepared to move to a new location and to set up training there,” I told him. Samuel Moore had finished his meal by then, and Seamus and I had finished our ale. We departed, with handshakes all around.

Gwyn and Sererena returned several hours after Seamus and I had returned to our room for the evening. They seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood and came in laughing and giggling.

“I take it that you ladies had an exceptionally good time this evening,” I said on seeing their demeanor.

“Yes!” Gwyn answered immediately and giggled.

“We burned those boys’ brains out,” Sererena added with a giggle of her own.

“All six of them?” Seamus asked in shock.

“Well, yes, but not personally,” Gwyn answered sobering quickly.

“Heavens no! What do you take us for?” Sererena demanded angrily. “After we reached the area near the river, we transferred to Fort Henry. Our Sisters were all waiting for us. Each set of twins chose one of them, and we all transferred to different locations to have our fun. Jillian was the only one who didn’t participate.”

“Those boys were certainly surprised when we explained that we wanted each them to have sex with a pair of us. Being young Studs though, they didn’t have any trouble filling up each of us a couple of times,” Gwyn told us with a huge grin.

“I hope that you brought them back with you,” I said.

“Oh yes, after they recovered some,” Sererena told us with a grin.

“All right. Did you check their Talents? Will they be useful when we get organized?” I asked them.

“Trust us. They will do whatever we want,” Gwyn told me.

“If they are working for us, you won’t be able to have sex with them,” I reminded them.

“Not even occasionally?” Sererena asked, disappointedly.

“Are you going to marry any of them?” I asked.

“No! Heavens, they don’t have strong enough Talents for that,” Gwyn answered.

“Then there will be NO FRATERNIZATION in the future,” I warned them. “You can’t fuck the help and expect them to obey you.”

“All right, but we are going to need to find suitable Husbands -- soon!” Sererena told us before they got ready for bed, behind silvered wards so we couldn’t watch them.

Breakfast the next morning wasn’t bad here. There was the usual porridge and oatmeal, but they also had sausage and eggs with toasted bread and lots of butter. There was coffee and tea to drink. We took the tea, as we weren’t big coffee drinkers. After breakfast, I went to care for my horse and the General’s horses. Seamus went with me while our Sisters waited outside not wanting to dirty their uniforms.

After meeting General Clark at 9:30, we arrived at the Headquarters building for our 10:00 o’clock appointment. We were ushered into General Greene’s office shortly after that. We found him pacing the floor.

“Let’s go into the conference room,” he immediately suggested. We all took a seat in there while he continued to pace. Finally, he turned toward us.

“I have spent a lot of time since you left yesterday considering where we could best use your talents, or expertise if you will. It was a difficult question to deal with. While I would love to take the offensive against the British with your help, that would leave our people open to even more attacks from their far flung outposts.

“That is NOT an acceptable solution!” he told us loudly. “We cannot leave the people undefended. We must be constantly vigilant for their attacks over the vast expanse of territory here west of the mountains. There are too many vulnerable settlements for us to put everything into an attack on the British on the coast, and that’s not to mention that we just don’t have the necessary supplies for such a venture,” he finished, and seemed to run out of steam before taking a chair at the head of the table.

“You are correct, sir,” I agreed after he hadn’t said anything further. “The present situation requires that we defend against all attacks from the borders. Over the winter, I hope to develop a plan to attack the British along the coast.” This pronouncement startled both Generals.

“It would take much longer than over the winter to accumulate sufficient supplies for an expedition like that,” General Greene assured me.

“There will be very few supplies required to do this the way that I’m considering,” I told him.

“But you would need fifteen to twenty thousand men and a huge supply train to attempt an operation like that, and your causalities would be horrendous,” General Clark objected.

“No, I would only require a few knowledgeable men and my own people. The objective would be to sabotage the British war effort by destroying their supplies,” I told them. My answer was an obvious surprise as no one said anything for over a minute.

“That could actually work given what I have seen you do,” General Green said after considering what I had said. “Are you familiar with the major seaports along the Atlantic coast?”

“We have been to many of the major cities on the east coast in our Reality, and based on the ease with which we moved General Clark here, there shouldn’t be a problem moving to them here. It would be best if we were able to take along a couple of people who are familiar with those cities in this time period as guides,” I told him.

“An excellent idea. I’m sure that we could locate a number of people familiar with the various major ports along the coast,” General Greene agreed.

“What do you propose doing until then?” he asked next.

“I believe that what is needed is a rapid reaction force to counter the attacks from the various British garrisons along your border. Kentucky, Ohio and the Illinois country cover a vast area, and quick responses to attacks can be difficult.

“I propose an organization composed of several companies of Rangers along with my people to patrol the Ohio and Kentucky areas. The Illinois country would only be entered if necessary,” I finished.

“Yes, the Treaty of the Greenville established the line between the Indian Territory and the land open to settlers in Ohio. It basically forfeited the northern part of Ohio. It ceded the entire Illinois country to the various Indian tribes also. The British are still doing their best to stir-up the various tribes against us,” General Clark told us.

“Where would you base your operations?” General Green asked.