Chapter 2901: New Journey (7)

At six sharp, reveille cut through Jeju Island's chill morning air. Tan Shuangxi was up at once. At the washbasin he paid careful heed, and seeing Han Zhongying and the others slip briskly into the coarse-cotton stable dress, he followed suit. They were old soldiers all, and the whole ritual of rising and squaring away a barracks was carved into their bones — quick without disorder, finished in minutes.

The assembly whistle shrilled, and they filed out one after another. Tan Shuangxi stuck close behind his roommates, jogging through the gray half-light to the training ground. A crowd had gathered there already, a murk of shapes. New to the place and hopeless with directions, he could only shadow Han Zhongying into the somewhat rowdy press of men, find a spot, and plant himself, chest out.

By now the training ground had sorted itself into three rough blocks. Tan Shuangxi scanned quickly: his own column was the smallest, a dozen-odd men; the next over held perhaps thirty or forty; the outermost block was a dark mass, a hundred-strong at a guess.

"Our column here is the 'special service cadets'..." Beside him Han Zhongying stood ramrod straight, lips barely moving, voice low and distinct.

"Special service cadets?" Tan Shuangxi didn't follow.

"That's the genteel name for candidate officers." The corner of Han Zhongying's mouth gave the faintest twist, and he tipped his chin toward the neighbors. "The bigger block over there is the proper academy-bred 'cadets.' And the biggest of all is the 'trainee soldiers' put through by the training squadron."

Shao Rui, on his other side, added quietly, "We are not serving officers, yet we are not ordinary academy cadets either — hence the name."

This white-horse-is-not-a-horse explanation left Tan Shuangxi only half-enlightened; the whole business of what they were felt twisty and byzantine.

"Count off!"

At the duty captain's command, short, forceful counts rippled down each column. The officer of the day stepped forward and took each squad's report that all were accounted for. Then, facing the paling eastern sky, the whole body recited the Senate's Military Edict in unison. The low, ordered recitation rolled across the empty training ground with a solemn rhythm of its own.

The recitation ended; the light gained a few degrees more, the fish-belly white taking on a thin rim of gold. The officers had arrived one after another and taken their places before the formation. The training ground fell stone silent but for the faint snorting from the distant stables and the occasional stir of the flag hanging slack on its halyard.

The duty officer stepped forward, voice full and carrying. "Attention to orders — the flag-raising ceremony will now begin!"

The band took position. The trumpeters lifted gleaming brass.

"Sound off!"

The solemn, full-throated prelude broke over them — "Rule, Senate!" Brass and drums wove a melody grand and unbending, and in an instant it seized the spirit of every man present. Tan Shuangxi knew this "national anthem" well enough: it sounded at every muster in Lingao, in Guangzhou, in every corner of soil the Fubo Army set foot on. Here and now, heard facing the first light breaking over Hallasan, it carried a sweep and surge all its own.

The color bearer and his escort marched out from the rear flank of the formation in slow, parade-perfect steps. The deep-blue Morning Star flag, folded into neat triangles, lay flat on the bearer's chest, and their heavy, measured tread kept faint time with the music.

At the flagpole the escort split to either side. The bearer hitched the flag to the halyard with movements clean and exact, not a wasted inch.

The music climbed into its climax. The duty officer's command met the final accent perfectly:

"Raise — the colors!"

The bearer's arm swung hard, and the blue flag cracked open, bathed in the day's first golden ray. At its center the silver Morning Star blazed.

The flag rose slowly. Every man held the position of attention, eyes following the Morning Star colors as they climbed. The band played on, the solemn melody seeming to bear the flag upward — and with it the gaze and spirit of every soul on the field.

Tan Shuangxi gazed at the flag. The morning light strengthened; the Morning Star emblem grew sharper. He thought of the first time he had seen this flag, years ago on the earthen embankment at Chengmai — powder-stained and dust-grimed that day, yet always flying at the fore. Now, on an island far from the mainland, on the eve of training unlike any before, it rose before his eyes once more.

The flag reached the peak and spread to the wind, snapping. At that very moment the music closed, the last note dissolving into the crisp morning air.

"Ceremony — complete!"

At the duty officer's command, the rigid figures on the field eased by a hair. Yet the solemnity the rite had drawn together did not at once disperse. Under the gaze of the flag, the new day had formally begun.

When the ceremony ended, their column was neither dismissed nor marched off to the regular drills. Instead there arrived a young sergeant major in a knife-creased service uniform, shoulder boards bearing the yellow arrowhead device and the Morning Star emblem, who walked with a regulation pace carrying just a hint of menace and planted himself square in front of the formation.

Twenty-five, twenty-six at most; skin weathered dark by years of outdoor work, jaw hard-set, and eyes that went down the ranks the way a horse-trader checks teeth. His arms were folded behind his back as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and his gaze raked slowly across each face, appraising without the least disguise.

The whole training ground went silent; even the noise of the distant stables seemed to crouch lower.

"Atten — shun!" Not loud, but it cracked the air like a whip, and every man went taut.

He paced off two steps and stopped before the candidate officers — Tan Shuangxi's column — one corner of his mouth curving into something that carried no warmth at all.

"I am Feng Laibao, this unit's sergeant major for basic horsemanship and horse care." When he spoke it was unhurried, but every word landed distinct, with an authority that did not invite questions. "In the days ahead you will be seeing a great deal of me. I hope you will remember my face — and remember my words even more. If there is anything you do not understand, you may come and ask me at any time! I will instruct you with the greatest kindness!"

He paused, his gaze passing over the dozen-odd faces — some nervous, some pretending not to be — like something with physical weight.

"You 'special service cadets.'" He gave a short sneer, his volume abruptly climbing. "You all fancy you're officers already. Right now you're worth nothing at all! Not officers, not soldiers! Neither donkey nor horse — a herd of mules!"

The crude but vivid figure drew the faintest stir from the ranks, instantly crushed beneath Feng Laibao's glittering eye.

Hands behind his back, he began to pace the line. "Your task at present is to learn how to be a 'good horse.' But before that, understand this — you aren't fit to be donkeys yet! A donkey at least knows enough to lower its head and turn the millstone! And you? Can you tell a horse's head from its tail? Do you know how to keep a horse from kicking your balls to paste?"

The naked, unvarnished language burned the ears of the thinner-skinned cadets red, but no one dared move.

Feng Laibao stopped an instant before Tan Shuangxi, gray-brown eyes boring into him as if to see clean through to the bone, then moved on.

"Here, forget your old ranks, forget your pitiful experience and your precious credentials! Here, you are nothing!" His head whipped back around, voice like a thunderclap. "From this day forward you have exactly one identity — mule! Do you understand?!"

"Understood!" The ranks erupted in a ragged but amply loud reply.

"What are you?!"

"Mules!"

"I will teach you how to brush a horse, feed a horse, walk a horse, and clean up its dung! How to saddle, mount, dismount, and not break your necks! How to sit steady when the horse is at a run, and how to make it mind when it's in a temper! For every action I will demonstrate once — twice at the very most! And then you will do it for me until it lives in your muscles! Can't manage it? Then you will keep at it until you can! There is no 'can't' here!"

He stalked back to the front of the formation, every inch of him authority.

"I know what you're all thinking: 'I came here to be an officer and learn command, not to muck out stables.'" He put on some mincing, affected voice, then let his face fall dark. "Shit! A man who can't see to his own mount — what in hell is he going to command? The horse is half a cavalryman's life! Do wrong by it, and it will hand you to King Yama on the battlefield! Is that understood?!"

"Understood!"

"Didn't eat this morning? A mule brays louder than you!" Feng Laibao went on roaring.

"UNDERSTOOD!!!" This time the voices came as one, ringing until eardrums hummed.

"Good." Feng Laibao seemed fractionally satisfied, though none of the severity left his face. "Now — all of you! Objective: the stables. Double time — march! Let your 'new comrades' get a good look at those mule faces of yours!"

At the command the column wheeled and ran for the stable lines, where more noise was already rising.

Once their assigned stable was designated, Interior Squad Three — his squad — got started on the horses. In the loose box, the horses stood resting pressed flank to flank.

"Lead them all out!" At Feng Laibao's order, everyone plunged into the stable and began taking up the horses.

"Start with horse number one, lead them out in order by the numbers! Memorize your own horse's number and coat!" Feng Laibao bellowed. "From now on, this one is your partner!"

Apart from a few men with riding experience and those who had arrived a few days early, most of them stood before the tied horses with no idea what to do. Feng Laibao came over to demonstrate: untie the rein, lead the horse out.

"One at a time! Mind where you stand!"

The whole crowd, terrified, led their horses out — afraid of being bitten, afraid of being kicked — though fortunately the stable also had stablemen assigned to assist. The instant a cadet's movements dragged, the sergeant major's roar would land on him: "No dawdling! Move!"

With all the horses out in the open, the second order came: "Change the bedding!"

Everyone fell to with pitchforks and shovels, clearing the bedding from the stall floors — straw soaked through with the horses' dung and piss, the reek near strong enough to glue a man's eyes shut.

"No slacking! Faster, faster!"

In pairs they wheeled the dung and straw out and stacked it on the manure pile. One barrowload finished, Tan Shuangxi felt the stench of horse dung soaked into every inch of him, and nothing would chase it off.

"Now, the care of the horse! Just like this. Watch closely!" Even as he spoke, Feng Laibao stepped up, took the horse's foreleg and began cleaning it, then went straight on to the hind leg. The whole sequence flowed, easy and unhurried.

"Got it? That's how it's done!"

Slow work meant curses, and the sergeant major's roars still rang in his ears, but there was no use dwelling on that now. Tan Shuangxi knew that the true trial began only here, as he stepped into these stable quarters steeped in the breath of fodder and beast.

A few swarthy stablemen with frayed cuffs stood about with arms folded beside the stalls, their eyes nailed into this herd of "mules." There was no road back. Tan Shuangxi swallowed hard and walked, half-terrified, toward the chestnut Mongolian horse assigned to him. At the sound of him the great head swung around, wet nostrils blowing a plume of white breath, amber eye regarding him sideways. His heart missed a beat; his feet stalled.

"What are you dawdling for? Waiting for it to invite you?" the old hand beside him said coldly.

Tan Shuangxi set his jaw and forced himself around to the horse's near foreleg. Remembering the old hand's demonstration, he drew a deep breath, bent, slid his left hand down the leg, cupped the hoof with his right, and heaved — and against all expectation the hoof left the ground meekly. His heart loosened; he lifted it on and set it across his bent left knee.

The ease lasted a heartbeat. He had barely eased his grip to adjust his stance when the heavy hoof slipped off his knee and thudded back to earth. The horse seemed startled and shifted a restless step. Sweat sprang out down Tan Shuangxi's back; he stumbled backward, certain that anvil of a hoof was a heartbeat from smashing into him.

"You've got the grip backward! Idiot!" the old hand swore, though with the resignation of a man who had seen every variety of fool. "Turn your wrist over and clasp the pastern — it takes the strain, and so do you!"

Tan Shuangxi tamped down his hammering heart, adjusted his grip as told, thumb hooked into the hollow at the inside of the pastern, and heaved again. This time the hoof sat locked on his knee, steady as stone. He took up the hoof pick in his right hand and began prying out the mud and dung packed into the sole. Every pass of the bristles over the horn drew a reflexive twitch from the leg, and every twitch strung Tan Shuangxi's whole body tight, his eyes nailed to the horse's body, cold sweat sliding down his temple.

Then the washing. He dragged over the iron bucket of cold water — morning water, icy. Gritting his teeth, he wetted the brush and flushed out the cleft of the hoof. The chill went through flesh on the instant, and his fingers soon numbed stiff — but he dared not slacken by a hair, gripping harder instead. He knew what letting go at this moment would cost him.

By the time he had somehow finished the forelegs and smeared on the evil-smelling black hoof oil, before he could catch a single breath, the old hand's roar arrived: "Hind legs!!"

The hind legs... Tan Shuangxi's scalp crawled. Everyone had heard what a horse's hind hoof can do. He worked around to the rear quarter, heart pounding, marked the left hind leg with its hard-drawn lines of muscle, bent, wrapped both arms around it — and the first heave did not budge it. The horse swished its tail, looking a shade impatient. He held his breath, threw waist and legs into it, and heaved again with everything he had — and this time it came up, but the straining force in it was far beyond any foreleg's. Half-crouched, bracing it with thigh and chest, he could barely keep it. The hoof slipped down again and again, and each time he hoisted it back up with his teeth bared from the effort. By the time all four hooves were washed and oiled, his arms were weak as water and the undershirt against his skin was soaked through with cold sweat.

He straightened and swept his eyes sideways. Apart from a few who had plainly kept or ridden horses before, the other "mules" were faring much the same: one wrestling a hoof the way he had just now; another dragging a big brush clumsily through a horse's back and mane, hair flying everywhere while he choked and coughed in it. The stablemen, meanwhile, mostly leaned on posts or by the mangers, easy-faced, offering a pointer or a curse only now and then — a study in contrast with the panic and fumbling on this side.

Next came brushing the body. Tan Shuangxi was issued two brushes: a toothed metal currycomb, heavy in the hand, and a long bristle brush. Watching the old hands, it all ran like flowing water — curry passes, dirt drops; brush passes, coat lies sleek. When his own turn came it was nothing of the sort. The metal comb on the horse's hide, at the least wrong angle, dragged the hair, and the horse twitched its skin in discomfort; the bristle brush, after a few strokes, clogged with shed hair and dust until it dragged unbearably. Not knowing how to clean it, he could only knock it against the ground, raising clouds of grit.

Through it all his nerves were strung wire-tight. Near the horse's head, he kept bracing for that row of solid yellow teeth to swing around and bite; behind its haunches he trod on thin ice, ready at any instant to dodge the hind hoof that looked casual enough and could snap a bone. Every stray toss of the head, every shifted step, every snort broke a fresh chill of sweat over him. Caring for livestock, this? It was working on the slopes of a live volcano of pure uncertainty.

Cleaning done, it was time for the first feeding. The feed was premixed — soybean meal, cracked sorghum, chopped fodder soaked soft — measured into the manger. Fresh water went into the bucket, and he fetched an armful of hay to bed the stall. He had barely finished, breath nowhere near even, before the hounding came down again.

"What are you standing there for? Move! Next horse!"

"Faster! Faster! Faster!" The urgings fell on their heads like raindrops. Everyone jogged about the work like headless flies.

No chance to breathe. All of them led their groomed horses back toward the assigned stalls — but which horse belonged in which stall was a fog.

"'Flying Armor,' stall five! 'Flying Red,' stall eight! Put one in the wrong stall and you can forget breakfast!" The old hands called the horses' names, voices ringing down the stable passage.

Tan Shuangxi floundered through the identification, racking his memory for the features of the horse he had just tended, and only under the old hands' pointing did he at last haul the chestnut called "Flying Red" into the right partition. As he slipped off the halter and latched the stall gate, his fingers were still trembling — from cold and nerves both.

With the horses settled, there was not even time to wash his hands properly. At the trough Tan Shuangxi gave his sticky, grimy fingers a hasty rinse; he had barely splashed cold water across his face when the shrill assembly whistle tore through the din of the stables.

"All personnel — fall in on the double!"

His head snapped up. He traded one look with the other "mules" — faces as grimed as his, reeking of horse dung and fodder — turned, and ran full tilt for the training ground they had come from. Behind him drifted the soft rustle of horses chewing their hay and the faint laughter of the old hands. Their first lesson as "mules" had drawn to its hasty close in that graceless, pelting run.

(End of chapter)