Chapter 21

It was nearly ten minutes before the Lieutenant commanding the garrison here appeared, and even then he was only partially dressed and was unshaven. He was still drunk and stumbled as he entered. He looked at us through bleary eyes for a number of seconds before attempting to salute, which wasn't done well either.

"You are drunk on duty and also present a very poor appearance, Lieutenant," I growled.

"Additionally you set a very poor example for your men," Seamus added. The Lieutenant before us was a tall fellow at nearly six foot, lean with dark hair and gray eyes. His hair was long and shaggy, and his uniform, the part that he wore, was filthy. He appeared to be in his thirties and still a junior Lieutenant. One could easily guess why.

"You would be drunk too if you were stuck out here in the middle of nowhere waiting for the Army to decide what to do with this place and to be relieved," he managed to tell us but swayed while doing so. He shook his head to clear it on finishing, and his entire body shook immediately afterward.

"For your information, Lieutenant, I am Major Mark O'Connell, Commander of O'Connell's Border Rangers. I will be taking command of this post, and we will be moving in here in a few days," I informed him to a look of surprise from him.

"This place also isn't that far from civilization," Seamus told him with a grin. "Not for us, anyway."

"You can have this place. I'll be glad to get out of here. When will you assume command, Major?" he asked and was now sweating heavily.

"It will be a few days yet, Lieutenant. We will be going to Gilmore's Station tomorrow to look at it. The Ranger Training School will be moving in there shortly," I told him.

"That hole?" he asked in a derisive voice. "Rangers will probably find it appropriate, but no civilized gentleman would," he told us.

"And you consider yourself a civilized gentleman?" Seamus asked with one of his grins.

"Certainly! That's why I am an officer," he answered in indignation.

"There is where your problem lies, and why you are still a Lieutenant and not likely to rise any higher," Seamus told him. "The Army requires those that work hard and do things, not those that sit in the Mess and drink," Seamus told him.

"And is that how you two advanced in rank? You are both nearly old men," he told us with a sneer and in a sarcastic voice. He could be excused for this statement for what he and the others had seen since we arrived were the glamours that Seamus and I had created when we neared the fort. Mine was of a clean shaved Captain Collins, the Ranger Commander that I had met at Johns Creek. Seamus had used the image of the Ranger Commander that he had worked with on the left flank there.

"We aren't as old and crusty as you assume," I told him, as we both dropped the glamours. He was even more surprised at our real appearances.

"What kind of devils are you?" he demanded arrogantly in a loud voice a few seconds later but cringed at the sound of his own voice.

"We are Sorcerers, or Wizards if you prefer. We use Magic to accomplish things, and I believe that it is time to sober you up, Lieutenant," I told him, as I cast the spell to sober him up. The Lieutenant quickly turned a nice shade of green, and Seamus transferred him outside so he wouldn't throw up in the office. After several minutes, Seamus transferred a now sober but hung-over Lieutenant back into the office. His eyes were still bleary and bloodshot, and his clothes were even more of a mess. We used a cleaning spell on them and him. He just stared at us through all of this.

"How ... how did you do that?" he managed to ask after a time but wasn't at all happy about what had happened to him.

"Magic," I told him, but didn't mention the hangover spell. He could suffer as far as we were concerned.

"Now listen closely, Lieutenant. We will return in the morning to survey the fort to insure that it will meet our requirements. After I have officially taken command of the fort, you will be allowed to depart. You will report to Colonel Hubbard at Fort Henry. I will speak to him previous to that.

"My people will begin moving things here in a few days if we find the fort acceptable. Captain O'Connell and I will be going to Gilmore's Station tomorrow while our people are here," I finished.

"How do I know that you are authorized to assume Command of this fort, and that you are not some band of Irish knaves bent on mischief," he demanded angrily.

"I have the orders authorizing that right here," I told him, as I removed the envelope from my coat pocket before presenting the appropriate order to him.

"They seem correct," he said after looking at them for a short time, but Seamus and I both smiled as he handed them back. He had been looking at them upside down, and now both of us seriously doubted that he could read.

"We will return in the morning," I told him. We exited the office and retrieved our horses, leaving the Lieutenant standing there.

"He is likely to leave before morning," Seamus said in Gaelic rather than the Old English that we had been speaking with the Lieutenant.

"Yes, that is why I cast a marker spell on those orders before handing them to him. He will be easy to keep track of," I assured my Cousin, as we rode out of the fort and back into the forest before using the transfer spell after calming our horses. We instantly appeared in front of the main house at Hickory Hill.

Sergeant O'Faolain had been busy in our absence and intercepted us soon after we had seen to our horses.

"Major, I have a lot of orders for you to sign," he told us when we entered the main house.

"Orders?" I asked.

"Yes, you need to sign the orders promoting all of your Officers, and those assigning them their duties," he told us.

"Ah ... yes. You are correct. Have the various orders been prepared?" I asked.

"Yes, I prepared two copies of each order. One for the individual and the second for our higher headquarters. Just who is our higher headquarters?" he finished.

"Since all of the orders creating our unit and assigning the use of the various facilities to us came from Army Headquarters at Fort Jefferson, I assume that they are our higher headquarters," I told him.

"How will we normally send correspondence to them?" he asked.

"One of us will transfer there and deliver it to Army Headquarters," I assured him.

"They would go to the Office of the Adjutant there. Where is your office so I can leave things to be signed in the future?" he asked. I realized then that I didn't have an office yet.

"I'll have to use Sererena's office for a while until we get set up out at our operational sites," I told him.

"You won't have an office here?" he asked.

"No, I'll be at one of the operational sites overseeing things," I told him.

"I will set up a distribution center in my office for each activity as soon as I find out what they are and who is assigned to them," he told us.

"Yes, do that. We should cover that tonight during the operations meeting," I told him. He accompanied me to Sererena office, which was empty presently, and I signed the orders. One copy of each was placed in an envelope to be delivered to Fort Jefferson and the other copy went into a stack to be handed out that evening at the meeting.

Dinner, a short time later, was very good, and I was informed that Mrs. O'Flannagain had lent a hand in its preparation, before returning home to prepare her own family's meal. The operations meeting after dinner started with issuing the various written orders. First were the promotion orders for all of the O'Connells. This was followed by the orders assigning various people to the different positions: Gwyn as Quartermaster; Sererena as Commander of the School; Lieutenant Lister as Finance Officer, and Saraid as the Adjutant. More would follow later where needed.

Seamus and I then described our journey to Mount Sterling and what we had found there.

"It sounds rather small," Wolf said when we had finished.

"Our people and the Rangers will be the only ones that will be there," I reminded him. "Oh yes, and the guard force," I added before changing the subject. "We need to decide at which sites we are all going to be located," I finished.

"There are only two, aren't there?" Anann asked.

"True, but how do we divide the family to man them? We won't be able to conveniently switch locations once we are settled. The territory to be covered is too vast, and we will need to visit the settlements in our areas to become familiar with them. That is the only way that we will be able to react quickly to an attack," I told them.

"How was Fort Washington when you were there?" Meagan asked.

"It looked very good, but I didn't enter the fort and don't know how many are already assigned there besides the guard force," I told her.

"Was it larger than the fort at Mount Sterling?" Maureen asked.

"It was somewhat larger. I would say that it was about two hundred feet square where Mount Sterling is about one hundred and twenty-five feet square. Both of them are much smaller than Fort Henry" I told her.

"It's not that much larger then," Amelia said.

"No, not that much larger," I told her.

"I'll take Fort Washington and the Ohio Country if you don't mind," Seamus said after a bit of consideration.

"Okay. Who do you want to take with you?" I asked. Seamus looked thoughtful for a time after that.

"I'll take Carl, Meagan & Maureen plus C & D and Gerald," he suggested. I noted that they were all part of his family except Cessair. but she was teamed with Dealla, and Gerald was a Cousin.

"Fine. I'll take Mount Sterling with Wolf, Amelia & Anann plus D & C. James and Jillian can remain here for now to help out with the school," I told them.

"Who is going to do the cooking for you at those places?" Glanda asked.

"That is the question. Our Sisters won't be able to do it most of the time as they will be busy. That is something that we will need to address and shortly. Does anyone have any suggestions?" I asked.

"What about the Rangers? Someone has to cook for them," Dymphna suggested.

"Are you sure that you want to eat what they do?" Dealla, her twin, asked.

"Don't they eat regular food?" Coleen asked.

"That may depend on your definition of regular food, Sis. Whose regular food?" Cessair asked her twin.

"Yes, their food may not fit our palates very well," Meagan told her.

"We will have the same problem here with all of you gone," Sererena added. "The only solution that I can see is to hire some local ladies to cook for us. We have the money."

"Yes, that sounds like a reasonable solution," I admitted, but hadn't foreseen the need.

"We will need to do something about cleaning the stables here. When we begin receiving supplies, we are going to be too busy to have the few people here do that, work on supplies, and take Magic classes also," Gwyn told us.

"If I might add something," Sergeant O'Faolain injected. He had been quiet previously and only observing the meeting.

"Feel free to speak at any time Sergeant if you have a suggestion or a question," I told him.

"I know of a couple of Cavalrymen who were recently retired from the service because of age. They are good men and fought in the War for Independence. They are very familiar with the duties involved with the care of horses. I could easily persuade them to come to work here, but they would need a place to live," he told us.