After taking over the post, Winters and Bud patrolled along the wall of the military academy carrying their halberds. They did not bring muskets because they were much heavier than the halberds.
Moreover, there is no gunpowder or projectiles at the gate, so the musket is just a decoration. If Winters had his way, he wouldn't even want to take the halberd.
The military academy is not a treasure trove, and the Army Officers Academy is nothing but nothing. The Army's philosophy of running schools has always been to save what can be saved and use the money saved to run more schools.
Such a poor place, where even a mouse would cry when he went in, was filled with strong young men.
Let alone a thief, even a ghost has to walk around.
For the school, the main purpose of night patrols is to prevent individual students from sneaking out of the school at night. But there is no need to use weapons to catch two classmates who want to escape from their dormitory. At the same time, it is unreliable to ask students to catch their classmates. Winters himself sneaked out to play many times while his classmates were standing guard at night, and came back in the middle of the night. And he always walked through the main entrance, so there was no need to climb over the wall.
The two of them strolled for a while. It was completely dark and the time to turn off the lights had passed. The military school at night completely bid farewell to the noise of the day, and the silent school in the darkness was like a beast dormant in the shadows. Winters often has this feeling when patrolling at night: the military academy at night is not a dead thing, it is breathing rhythmically every moment.
The nearby neighborhoods and the military academy were also asleep. Only the port area in the distance was still awake, and the two of them could vaguely see the stars and lights. It’s the place where drinkers and service workers are looking for fun.
There are some simple stone tables outside the military school wall near the residential area. The stone table is shaded by several broad-leaved trees, providing protection from the sun on sunny days and protection from rain on rainy days. Set up by the residents near these stone tables, these small traders usually set up stalls on the tables to do some business for officers and cadets.
Winters saw those stone tables. He wanted to take a rest, so he pointed at the stone tables and suggested to Bud: "Go sit there for a while."
"Okay, sit down for a while, I also want to have a cigarette." Bud saw that Winters didn't want to move.
The wind is a bit strong tonight, and it is blowing from the sea to the land. The wind brought a lot of water vapor, and the sky above Guitucheng was covered by clouds. The moonlight became very weak after passing through the clouds, and the road was only a little easier to walk on a moonless night.
Winters recalled what he learned in geography class, frowned and said, "Looking at the wind direction and clouds, it might rain tomorrow."
Rain is not good news for a person who is about to embark on a journey back home.
The two of them sat on the stone table. The wind blowing from the sea dried all the sweat on their bodies and took away a lot of heat from the surface of their bodies. The heat of the day is gone, now the nights are cool.
Bud took out an old pipe from his small shoulder bag. He first filled the bowl with some crushed tobacco leaves, then pressed them tightly, and then repeated the process of "filling tobacco leaves and pressing them" twice more.
When Winters saw that Bard had finished loading the cigarettes, he kept the gesture of pressing his thumb against his index finger with his left hand, and used the fire technique to light the tobacco in Bard's bowl. This is a small perk of being a good friend of a spellcaster. As long as Winters is around, Bard never has to worry about where to find a fire to light a cigarette.
"Ike even said he envied me during the day. If he found out that the biggest advantage of being a spell caster is that it is convenient to light cigarettes, I wonder if he would say envious words." Winters thought mockingly to himself.
A considerable number of men in this era are either smokers or alcoholics, and many of them have both identities at the same time. In this era of lack of entertainment options, many people who don’t smoke or drink do so not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t afford it.
But Winters doesn't smoke or drink, and he refuses to try any potentially addictive stimulants. Because Antoine Laurent believes that these addictive "poisons" will corrode the caster's will, paralyze the caster's perception, and destroy the caster's spell ability. Winters regards General Antoine Laurent as a god. He has always regarded Antoine Laurent's remarks as a guide, so he is determined not to be contaminated by such things.
I saw Bud taking a comfortable drag on his cigarette and exhaling again. Winters finally decided to ask the question that he was very concerned about. He asked Bud with concern: "Have you found out where you are going to be assigned?"
Under the weak firelight, Bud's expression remained as usual, unmoved by Winters' question.
"I didn't ask." Bud took a puff of cigarette and replied calmly: "But you can guess it without asking. He was just sent overseas."
After saying this, Bud continued to focus on smoking, a leisure activity that was harmful to his health. He seemed content and not at all sad that he was about to be sent overseas by the military.
"How can it be so easy to be dispatched overseas?" Bud said in a normal tone, but Winters became anxious upon hearing this.
But Bud smiled at Winters, as if to say, "It's nothing," and continued to smoke.
Winters looked at Bud, then at Guitu City at night, and finally at the sleeping school, and finally sighed helplessly. While Bud himself doesn't seem to be feeling sorry for himself, Winters feels bad about Bud's situation.
Overseas dispatch, strictly speaking, means that military school graduates are assigned to large and small nodes along the maritime trade routes. The two closest places to the mainland are the Holy Roman Empire and the Fremen Empire. The capitals of these two empires are world-famous bustling cities, and the Alliance has consulates. Being a military attache in the consulate in the colorful world is a job that everyone is vying for.
But the "overseas assignment" that Winters and Bader were talking about was obviously not a good job. They were talking about being assigned to a farther and more dangerous place.
Tomorrow Winters will embark on his journey home. He will be a trainee in his native Seablue Republic for a year. This time next year, Winters will be back in school. Because in the strict sense he has not really graduated yet, this year he only went to the army as a probationary officer with the rank of warrant officer.
As for students who are dispatched overseas, as long as they get on the ship to go overseas, they will never even think about going home. Don't even think about attending next year's graduation ceremony, because it will take more than a year to travel there and back.
The officers assigned to various trading points are nominally there to protect the alliance's overseas interests, but in many cases they are mere commanders. With no soldiers and no power, there is naturally no opportunity to make meritorious deeds. If you want to go home, you will either be put in a coffin or wait until you retire.
To understand why Budd was deployed overseas and Winters was not, one needs to understand the Army Academy's graduate allocation system. If you want to understand the graduate allocation system of the Army Officer School, you must start from the beginning of the school’s establishment.
One of the purposes of the old marshal in establishing this military academy was to bridge the rifts between the Confederate countries, especially the differences between the militaries of the participating countries.
Because the Alliance is not a "country" to be precise, but an "alliance", its full name is the Alliance of Senas Republics. The political ecology of the Alliance can be described by quoting the classic words of former Alliance Secretary of State Humphrey: "Country? Are we a (expletive) country? Aren't we five primitive tribes that hate each other?"
