Chapter 18

I reappeared near another large warehouse. On the side of the building, a large Sergeant was busy kicking a younger man on the ground. The one on the ground was the one with the Talent.

"That will be enough of that, Sergeant," I growled to get his attention. The Sergeant who was in the process of drawing his foot back for another kick instantly whirled around on one foot to see who was behind him.

What he saw was not a young Mark O'Connell. No, what he saw was the grizzled face and figure of Captain James Collins with my uniform on it.

"I came out to check on this man and found him sitting here daydreaming instead of working, sir," the Sergeant told me, after coming to the position of attention.

"I will take charge of this young man, and see that he is properly disciplined for his inattention," I told the Sergeant in a growl.

"Yes sir! Might I ask who you are, sir?"

"I'm Major O'Connell, the Commander of O'Connell's Border Rangers," I told him.

"Yes sir!" he said with a knowing smile and departed. The Rangers were known for their hard work and discipline. I quickly moved over to the young man still lying on the ground.

"Are you all right, young man?" I asked in Gaelic as opposed to the Old English that I had used with the Sergeant. The young man appeared startled by this.

"I wasn't daydreaming, sir," he told me in Gaelic. "There has been something ... something in the air the last few days. I don't know precisely what it is, but it is something that I can almost touch. It seems to be just out of reach," he said, and I could feel him searching for it again. "It seems closer," he whispered and stopped.

"It is closer!" he said in a louder more excited voice. "It's like it is very near now," and he paused for a second " ... it's you!!" he said in an amazed voice, as he tried to sit up and winced in pain.

"You're a part of what I have felt," he said in an astonished voice, as he looked up at me in time to see me change from a likeness of Captain Collins to myself.

"You have a fine Talent, young man, but it requires training," I told him in my own voice.

"What ... what are you? Are you the sidhe?" he asked with a tremble in his voice.

"No, I am not the sidhe or the Tuatha De Danann. I used a glamour so the Sergeant would think that I was older than I am. Where did you learn about the sidhe?" I asked.

"I was the youngest of my Mother's children, and she could spend more time with me since she had my older Brothers and Sisters to do part of the work. She told me all about the legends and myths of Ireland. Matters that neither the Church nor the British have managed to suppress completely.

"Mother was an educated woman and did her best to teach us to read and write in Gaelic, but none of that helped a lot when we moved here from North Carolina. Mother died and the others are now scattered. When I was old enough, I left and joined the Army. I had few other prospects," he told me in a disappointed voice.

"I'm starting a new unit. There are places in it for bright young man with a Talent like yours. There will be plenty of room for advancement for someone with your level of Talent," I told him, but he plainly had more immediate physical problems.

"I need to get you healed up, but this is not the place for that," I told him, and after gathering up his clothes, I cast the transfer spell again. We instantly appeared in Sergeant O'Flannagain's warehouse office, startling the daylights out of him.

"How do you do that?" two very shocked men asked when they could speak again.

"It's just a simple spell," I told them before turning to Sergeant O'Flannagain.

"This is... !" I started before turning back to the young man. "What is your name? I failed to ask before."

"I'm Private O'Callaghan, sir. Egan O'Callaghan," he told us.

"Well, Egan O'Callaghan, I am going to need to heal those ribs of yours before you can do anything," I told him before using my Magic senses to check his ribs. I found some bruising and two cracked ribs.

"Pull off your shirt," I told him. "I need to repair the two cracked ribs that you have and the bruising." With his shirt removed, I placed my hands on either side of the cracked ribs and began a spell tracing its sign on his skin over the ribs with a finger. It was no more difficult than repairing a piece of furniture. Egan was soon much better and redressed.

"I want you to stay here with Sergeant O'Flannagain until I get the orders for your transfer taken care of," I told Egan.

"That's not a good idea, sir," the Sergeant protested. "If he misses formations, they will list him as a deserter, and he will be hunted for the rest of his life," O'Flannagain told us.

"In that case, Private, we will need to see your unit Commander, and to arrange for you to be absent," I told the two of them. Egan didn't appear too happy about that.

"Come along, Private," I told him in my best command voice. "You stay here, Sergeant. I don't want to get you involved in this."

"Thank you, sir," he replied. I marched the now much recovered and redressed Egan over to his unit where we entered the orderly room. The Senior Sergeant there called 'attention' as I entered. The Captain of the unit rose to greet me after signaling the other Sergeant to stop his report.

"A good day to you, sir. What can we do for you?" the Captain, an older man, asked coming around his desk.

"I need to speak to you about Private O'Callaghan here," I told him.

"He is the one that I was disciplining, sir," the Sergeant from the warehouse told his Commander. "But who is this boy Major?" he asked to a sharp look from his Captain.

"You were more respectful when I looked like this," I told him, as I drew the glamour of Captain Collins around me again. Both men backed up in shocked surprise at this. Even Private O'Callaghan was surprised.

"Ah ... yes, Major! Major... ?"

"O'Connell. I am the Commander of O'Connell's Border Rangers."

"What did you want to say about Private O'Callaghan?" the Captain asked.

"Private O'Callaghan is being transferred to my unit. You will receive the orders in a day or so. Until that time, I have certain things for him to do. He will not be available for your formations or work details. He already knows what I want him to do, and where to report for what I have him doing. Also, where to report when his orders arrive. I hope this won't inconvenience you," I told them.

"Just what gives you the authority to remove people from my unit?" the Captain demanded in a harsh upset voice.

"If you have a problem with this, Captain, we can leave for General Greene's office right now, and we will see what he thinks of your objections. While we are there, your Sergeant can explain to the General why he was kicking Private O'Callaghan on the ground when I arrived," I told him. Mention of General Greene had a shattering effect on the Captain, whose posture sagged on hearing his name.

"No, I have no desire to see General Greene or his staff again. Take your man and do as you must," he told me. We departed then, and I dropped the glamour. O'Callaghan returned to the warehouse with Sergeant O'Flannagain, and I returned to the visiting Officers' barracks.

I had warned Egan before leaving him: "Do not spend more time at your unit than necessary. Eat there, and you can sleep there, but leave early and return late. It will only be for a day or two," I warned him.

The others had returned to the barracks before me and had a list of names and units already started. I added my two names, and then took the list to the Chief-of-Staff, Colonel Harrower, after assuring that we had a copy also. The Colonel was very accommodating and assured me that the orders would go out the next day.

"Where are we going to have all of these people meet when they get their orders," Seamus asked when I returned to our room. Again, I had failed to consider this, worrying about getting them assigned to us instead.

"They will need to report to someone who will know where to send them to wait for us to transfer them and their belongings to Hickory Hill," I said thinking out loud.

"The Senior Lieutenant would seem to be the logical choice," Gwyn suggested.

"Yes, and he knows the other Officers, and can alert them tonight at dinner," Sererena added.

"That leaves just the enlisted men, and where they are all to meet," Seamus added.

"We will need to locate each of the enlisted men again and advise them to report to the Lieutenant at Sergeant O'Flannagain's warehouse. They should all be able to wait there. There are people moving in and out of there all of the time, but I will need to check with him first. He also has a family that we will need to move," I told the others.

We all transferred to the warehouse again surprising both O'Flannagain and O'Callaghan. They were even more surprised at the presence of our Sisters and that they were Captains. I arranged for all of our new people to stay here at the warehouse until we picked them up and assured both men that we would check each day. The others then left to advise their contacts and the Cousins also went to see the Senior Lieutenant. I stayed for a time at the warehouse and spoke to Allistair about alerting his wife to their move and to have her start packing. He said that Egan could help with that tomorrow.

By the time we all returned to our room at the Barracks, it was past noon and meal time.

"There is no use going to see General Clark now. He will be at lunch," Gwyn reminded us before we all left for the Officers' Mess. We had our own meal before checking that everything was packed and the room was clean. After saddling my horse, we set out for the General's quarters.

General Clark was just returning from his lunch when we arrived, but Captain LeGras had everything packed. Seamus and I checked their horses, and we were soon ready to depart Fort Jefferson. Behind General Clark's quarters, we four surrounded the horses and calmed them before General Clark and Captain LeGras joined us. Gwyn cast the transfer spell drawing on all of our Magic, and we disappeared from Fort Jefferson to reappear in front of General Clark's Headquarters at Fort Henry. Our sudden arrival startled a number of people.

We four left General Clark at his Headquarters and returned to our rooms after I put up my horse. We were greeted boisterously by our relatives who were anxious to learn what had occurred after they left Fort Jefferson. The telling of it all required some time, and we showed them the various orders that I had received activating our unit, and the authorizations for the unit to use the various sites. We also informed them about those who we had recruited and would need to move here shortly. It turned out that they had been busy and not just been sitting around.

"We have located an administrative Sergeant. He only has a small Talent, but he knows how the Army is organized and run. He will be a great help in getting our unit up and running," Glanda told me.

"That's good, but first we need to determine where Hickory Hills is and check it out, so we will have a place for the people who we have recruited to stay," I told them.

"Oh, we know where it is," Saraid told me. "We have already been there. You'll really like it."

"How do you know about Hickory Hill?" Seamus and I both asked in surprise.

"Oh, Gwyn and Sererena mentioned it while here changing clothes," Amelia told us, much to the Cousins' distress.

"All right!" I said in a somewhat disturbed voice. "We will discuss the dissemination of information at a later date. For now, we need to check out Hickory Hill, and see what it will need to make it operational. We will need to move those who we recruited in the Capital there shortly. I will speak to General Clark about this administrative Sergeant tomorrow when he will be less busy than he probably is presently," I told all of them.

"We'll all go with you, as we haven't been inside -- officially," Glanda told me.

"And unofficially?" her Sister Gwyn asked.

"Very nice," Glanda told her twin. We all joined hands, and Glanda and Saraid cast the transfer spell. We all vanished from the barracks.

We instantly reappeared outside of a large three story brick house that was surrounded by trees and twenty-five acres of mostly open land. There were a number of cabins and two small houses behind the main house in addition to several barns and other buildings like a smoke house, creamery, pig pens and chicken coops.