WBY - MMA part 4
MMA part 4
Jamie was sitting in their room with a book ostentatiously called “Napoleon Bonaparte, from the Napoleonic Wars to Waterloo: A Strategic Guide of Military Brilliance and Defeat.”
What he was really looking at was a handwritten journal that he had found in the dusty archives of what passed for as a library on campus. The library had very little in the way of fiction, focusing on military history. MMA’s light reading consisted of stories of war and the caliber of automatic weapons.
Jamie knew all about weapons, and the war he was fighting had nothing to do with military prowess, that is unless somehow it was a military ghost haunting this place. Jamie stroked the journal softly, hands brushing the leather with fondness. He was fortunate to have found it. While he was not as good at researching as his Uncle Sam and even River was becoming better with a computer than he was, he held a perverse idea that he was pretty damn good at it, especially when it involved old books. Somehow he thought he got it from Gramps. It must have skipped a generation or maybe just skipped his dad because although his father was no slouch in researching, he really hated it. He pulled his “I’m the oldest” ploy to this day when he and Uncle Sam were both given the job of research. He just pawned it off on his little brother and went off to shoot things. If …he could pull it off. Uncle Sam wasn’t a rat but he got pissed occasionally at doing all the legwork and then there would be some pounding of brother on brother and then Gramps would step in and…
Well it never ended pretty.
So Uncle Sam enjoyed researching and although Jamie wouldn’t admit it, he did too. Something about having a specific idea and then teasing the information out whether by computer or a newspaper or an old handwritten book. Putting the pieces together was fun and challenging. He had to admit when he was a bit younger he was less inclined to want to research, but now he found it extremely satisfying.
He traced his finger down the journal’s entries. It wasn’t a hunter’s journal, that was for sure, it was more like a diary.
The entries were old, very old and handwritten, the ink sometimes almost faded to gray. The paper was weathered and tinged in yellow the way old books sometimes looked. He found it odd that he had managed to find such a historical document in the library. Usually these things were in cases or atmosphere protected rooms to preserve the integrity of the pages. Then again, maybe MMA could care less about a diary from the 1800s.
The diary didn’t offer much in the way of information as to who wrote it. It was a kid, that much was pretty obvious. He signed his entries with an M. Jamie read them in bits and pieces, skimming through the mundane, the day to day living of a cadet back in the 1800s. He found it intriguing. This boy had been alive over 100 years ago and yet some of his ideas and thoughts were just as true now as it was then. An entry caught his eye and he read.
September 18, 1896
I write this for myself, as I doubt that anyone else would believe me. While I feel privileged to have been given the opportunity to be educated in such a fine school, I find that this institution is often times a very terrifying place. Rabbie would laugh at me so I keep my thoughts in this diary. I am young, but I am not stupid. Rabbie isn’t ill tempered or cruel, he is just an older brother and that is what older brothers do. They torment and taunt.
Rabbie is a commander in the Cadre of Cadets and I am but one of the boys with no rank and nothing to call my own except the few books that Father gave me as a gift when I was sent away to school. I can not blame Father for sending us to Montford, Rabbie had made Montford his home before me and when Father was deployed to France, well, there was no one to keep me. I have been here since I was six, like Rabbie, but he is a full five years older than me and almost a man. Which is why I can’t talk to him. He would think me childish and foolish. I am both childish and foolish at times and it finds me often in the Commandant’s office at the receiving end of strap or cane.
Montford is a wonderful school with impressive instructors, well versed in academics and military law. I am fond of the history but I must admit my Latin leaves quite a lot of room for improvement. Then there is the concept of duty above personal desires. I get the idea of such a thing, and I do understand it’s importance, however, my personal desires sometimes get in the way. I have however, managed to avoid any Academic Probation. Father would sail back from France to tan my hide if such a thing should ever happen.
Maybe that’s why this journal is so helpful. Sometimes I feel like I have no one here to confide in. Father has always been a hard man, but a listener. Rabbie has his own friends and of course his duties as Commander. I have always enjoyed English and Composition. Rabbie laughs at that, stating of course I know English, it is our native tongue but Rabbie doesn’t have my way with words. Even Captain Melvin, one of the toughest professors here at Montford says I am educated beyond my years when it comes to putting pen to paper. I really don’t know about that, but I enjoy it and it helps sometimes to put my thoughts down.
Besides, as I stated earlier in this entry, no one would believe me anyway.
It is lights out now so until I write again,
M
Jamie stilled after reading the entry. What was bothering M? He was just a kid, but he seemed to be a smart one. And despite his interest in writing, from this entry and others he had read, the boy didn’t seem irrational or prone to lies, he didn’t seem the sort to jump to conclusions or frighten easy. Jamie had known a girl in fifth grade who made up things just to feel important. M seemed to be a level headed kid. Jamie started in again on the journal when he heard the door open and River stepped into their room.
Jamie nodded his head at River, “Looking rough, cuz,” he commented, closing the journal with a soft thud.
River grimaced, “Ya think?”
Jamie noticed with a quick glance that River was appropriately dressed. Tie neatly and carefully knotted into an ascot, shoes clean and bright and his shirt buttoned.
“What made you decide to stop the uniform revolution?”
“Fraser.” River said simply.
Jamie thought for a moment, placing the name with a face he had seen when the boys were prepping for this hunt. Commandant. Former Marine. No nonsense, a younger version of Gramps maybe. Although not that much younger.
Jamie hadn’t been able to go with River when the DS had pulled him from ranks, but he really hadn’t expected to. Cousins or no, they were part of a military cadre now. Besides River didn’t need Jamie to fight his battles for him.
That being said, it looked like River may have lost this particular one.
River sat down on his rack with apparent reluctance. It was a familiar sight.
“You got your ass beat?”
“Caned to be exact. What gave it away?”
Jamie grinned, “Well duh.”
“I fucking hate this place.” River said.
“Why because you got whupped? That’s no difference then home, Riv.”
“No, that’s not why. Its…too confining, too judgmental and above all, my head looks like a cue ball.”
“Nah,” Jamie smiled running his hand through his own closely cropped dark auburn hair, “You look more like a porcupine.”
River loosened his tie just a bit with a soft moan, “And that’s so much better…” he muttered.
Jamie nodded in River’s direction. “You okay, man?”
“Yeah, Fraser hits like a girl.”
Jamie arched an eyebrow at that.
“Okay, so maybe an Olympic Shot Put girl.”
Jamie offered a Winchester snort of sympathy. “Got something to show you, Riv.”
River stood, rolled his shoulders and adjusted his tie, “No time, James…we are off to mess and according to Fraser I had 43 minutes. Now I have twelve.”
Jamie nodded, glanced briefly at the journal on the table and tightened his own tie.
It could wait.
Part 5 http://wildblueyonder6.livejournal.com/46847.html
Jamie was sitting in their room with a book ostentatiously called “Napoleon Bonaparte, from the Napoleonic Wars to Waterloo: A Strategic Guide of Military Brilliance and Defeat.”
What he was really looking at was a handwritten journal that he had found in the dusty archives of what passed for as a library on campus. The library had very little in the way of fiction, focusing on military history. MMA’s light reading consisted of stories of war and the caliber of automatic weapons.
Jamie knew all about weapons, and the war he was fighting had nothing to do with military prowess, that is unless somehow it was a military ghost haunting this place. Jamie stroked the journal softly, hands brushing the leather with fondness. He was fortunate to have found it. While he was not as good at researching as his Uncle Sam and even River was becoming better with a computer than he was, he held a perverse idea that he was pretty damn good at it, especially when it involved old books. Somehow he thought he got it from Gramps. It must have skipped a generation or maybe just skipped his dad because although his father was no slouch in researching, he really hated it. He pulled his “I’m the oldest” ploy to this day when he and Uncle Sam were both given the job of research. He just pawned it off on his little brother and went off to shoot things. If …he could pull it off. Uncle Sam wasn’t a rat but he got pissed occasionally at doing all the legwork and then there would be some pounding of brother on brother and then Gramps would step in and…
Well it never ended pretty.
So Uncle Sam enjoyed researching and although Jamie wouldn’t admit it, he did too. Something about having a specific idea and then teasing the information out whether by computer or a newspaper or an old handwritten book. Putting the pieces together was fun and challenging. He had to admit when he was a bit younger he was less inclined to want to research, but now he found it extremely satisfying.
He traced his finger down the journal’s entries. It wasn’t a hunter’s journal, that was for sure, it was more like a diary.
The entries were old, very old and handwritten, the ink sometimes almost faded to gray. The paper was weathered and tinged in yellow the way old books sometimes looked. He found it odd that he had managed to find such a historical document in the library. Usually these things were in cases or atmosphere protected rooms to preserve the integrity of the pages. Then again, maybe MMA could care less about a diary from the 1800s.
The diary didn’t offer much in the way of information as to who wrote it. It was a kid, that much was pretty obvious. He signed his entries with an M. Jamie read them in bits and pieces, skimming through the mundane, the day to day living of a cadet back in the 1800s. He found it intriguing. This boy had been alive over 100 years ago and yet some of his ideas and thoughts were just as true now as it was then. An entry caught his eye and he read.
September 18, 1896
I write this for myself, as I doubt that anyone else would believe me. While I feel privileged to have been given the opportunity to be educated in such a fine school, I find that this institution is often times a very terrifying place. Rabbie would laugh at me so I keep my thoughts in this diary. I am young, but I am not stupid. Rabbie isn’t ill tempered or cruel, he is just an older brother and that is what older brothers do. They torment and taunt.
Rabbie is a commander in the Cadre of Cadets and I am but one of the boys with no rank and nothing to call my own except the few books that Father gave me as a gift when I was sent away to school. I can not blame Father for sending us to Montford, Rabbie had made Montford his home before me and when Father was deployed to France, well, there was no one to keep me. I have been here since I was six, like Rabbie, but he is a full five years older than me and almost a man. Which is why I can’t talk to him. He would think me childish and foolish. I am both childish and foolish at times and it finds me often in the Commandant’s office at the receiving end of strap or cane.
Montford is a wonderful school with impressive instructors, well versed in academics and military law. I am fond of the history but I must admit my Latin leaves quite a lot of room for improvement. Then there is the concept of duty above personal desires. I get the idea of such a thing, and I do understand it’s importance, however, my personal desires sometimes get in the way. I have however, managed to avoid any Academic Probation. Father would sail back from France to tan my hide if such a thing should ever happen.
Maybe that’s why this journal is so helpful. Sometimes I feel like I have no one here to confide in. Father has always been a hard man, but a listener. Rabbie has his own friends and of course his duties as Commander. I have always enjoyed English and Composition. Rabbie laughs at that, stating of course I know English, it is our native tongue but Rabbie doesn’t have my way with words. Even Captain Melvin, one of the toughest professors here at Montford says I am educated beyond my years when it comes to putting pen to paper. I really don’t know about that, but I enjoy it and it helps sometimes to put my thoughts down.
Besides, as I stated earlier in this entry, no one would believe me anyway.
It is lights out now so until I write again,
M
Jamie stilled after reading the entry. What was bothering M? He was just a kid, but he seemed to be a smart one. And despite his interest in writing, from this entry and others he had read, the boy didn’t seem irrational or prone to lies, he didn’t seem the sort to jump to conclusions or frighten easy. Jamie had known a girl in fifth grade who made up things just to feel important. M seemed to be a level headed kid. Jamie started in again on the journal when he heard the door open and River stepped into their room.
Jamie nodded his head at River, “Looking rough, cuz,” he commented, closing the journal with a soft thud.
River grimaced, “Ya think?”
Jamie noticed with a quick glance that River was appropriately dressed. Tie neatly and carefully knotted into an ascot, shoes clean and bright and his shirt buttoned.
“What made you decide to stop the uniform revolution?”
“Fraser.” River said simply.
Jamie thought for a moment, placing the name with a face he had seen when the boys were prepping for this hunt. Commandant. Former Marine. No nonsense, a younger version of Gramps maybe. Although not that much younger.
Jamie hadn’t been able to go with River when the DS had pulled him from ranks, but he really hadn’t expected to. Cousins or no, they were part of a military cadre now. Besides River didn’t need Jamie to fight his battles for him.
That being said, it looked like River may have lost this particular one.
River sat down on his rack with apparent reluctance. It was a familiar sight.
“You got your ass beat?”
“Caned to be exact. What gave it away?”
Jamie grinned, “Well duh.”
“I fucking hate this place.” River said.
“Why because you got whupped? That’s no difference then home, Riv.”
“No, that’s not why. Its…too confining, too judgmental and above all, my head looks like a cue ball.”
“Nah,” Jamie smiled running his hand through his own closely cropped dark auburn hair, “You look more like a porcupine.”
River loosened his tie just a bit with a soft moan, “And that’s so much better…” he muttered.
Jamie nodded in River’s direction. “You okay, man?”
“Yeah, Fraser hits like a girl.”
Jamie arched an eyebrow at that.
“Okay, so maybe an Olympic Shot Put girl.”
Jamie offered a Winchester snort of sympathy. “Got something to show you, Riv.”
River stood, rolled his shoulders and adjusted his tie, “No time, James…we are off to mess and according to Fraser I had 43 minutes. Now I have twelve.”
Jamie nodded, glanced briefly at the journal on the table and tightened his own tie.
It could wait.
Part 5 http://wildblueyonder6.livejournal.com/46847.html