Chapter 1

"Sir!" Christian Marshal barked as he halted in mid-step, his chin tucked down to his chest and his arms locked, bent at 90-degree angles in a stiff posture called a "brace". "Mister Auburn, sir! Permission to drive up your stairs, sir!"

"Rack that chin in, scumbag!" the athletic Third Classman barked. He and two other cadets, dressed in their gray wool winter uniforms like Christian was, pushed off the railing at the bottom of the steps they'd been lounging around on and fanned out to get a closer look at the Rat who'd had the misfortune of coming across someone of higher rank in the Corps of Cadets than he was. That was everyone who wasn't a new cadet at the Virginia Military Institute, a lowly, disgusting thing which scurried about and tried to avoid the wrath of bigger, more powerful things. Hence the name of new students at Virginia's fabled military college: Rats.

Christian obediently tucked his chin in even further, praying that this encounter wouldn't last long. Everywhere he went, everything he did, he seemed to piss off an upperclassman. And like all bad things, it seemed, there were different kinds of them.

You had First Classmen, from whose ranks came the cadet officers. They were "seniors" at an ordinary college and had earned, and thus enjoyed, the most privileges- but they also bore the most responsibilities.

Second Classmen were the sergeants, from the regimental and battalion sergeants major to the buck sergeants who ran the individual squads. They were "juniors" at another school.

Then you had the Third Classmen, whose rank-holders were corporals. Just done with being Rats themselves, these guys were often the worst ones to run into. They were all too often full of piss and vinegar, eager to both prove themselves to the upperclassmen above them but also to celebrate their newly-acquired status by tormenting the newest group of Rats.

Not every upperclassman held rank; some cadets were privates all four years. Some became sergeants and stayed there, declining the chance to apply for cadet officer rank as their final year at VMI approached. But senior privates were a minority, even in peacetime, and this was not a time of peace. It was December 3rd, 1943, and the Virginia Military Institute was at war. The Confederate States of America was at war.

They were in their fourth war with the United States, a war that would take back all of the land the Yankees had so greedily stolen at the end of the First Great War. Across the Atlantic, the Confederacy's allies, Britain and France, were battling it out with the German Empire and the Austrian Empire, aiming to achieve the very same thing: the restoration of their stolen land, and victory.

In such times as these, the demand for the kind of man that VMI was known for producing had exploded. The CS Army, the CS Navy, the CS Air Force and the CS Marines, plus every civilian government and law enforcement agency in Dixie were all yelling for as many Institute grads as they could get. The entire country was waging war, with scrap-metal drives and war bond sales events going on all over the nation. Gasoline and coffee were being rationed so they could be more readily provided to the troops. Car production had stopped so trucks and tanks could be turned out for George Patton's Army of Kentucky, who even now were taking the best the damn Yankees could dish out and hurling twice as much back.

The Institute had no problem with the demand for its graduates, and in fact there was a general good feeling on the Post about it. VMI men were in demand, and for the very best of reasons. These were the times that tried men's souls- and those were the times VMI men were made for.

XX

Christian Marshal wanted to be one of those men. He wanted it very badly. He'd first written to the Institute when he was fifteen, and first applied when he was sixteen. Promptly rejected for being underage, Christian just applied again the next year, working through the night to perfect his application. On a mission, Christian had barely slept. But when he sent his application off in the mail, he'd felt good. The work had been worth it.

He'd felt a lot better when his acceptance letter came on May 8th, 1943, one month before his 18th birthday. It had felt like an early birthday present- the best one he'd ever received in his life.

But like a lot of Rats before him, Christian wasn't feeling so good about his choice of college right now. The war fever was indeed doing a lot of good things for VMI; in addition to the high demand for its graduates, cadets were revered as heroes wherever they went. Local children came running to get a look at them when they went on parade or came walking through Lexington on leave; business opened their doors to them, and girls just about always gave them a second look. All that was good. But it also meant that VMI was under a lot of pressure, that many, many people were looking to it to keep on making the men needed to lead the Confederate States of America to victory.

And since shit always rolled downhill, that meant that the stress and burdens of three senior classes came crashing down on the Rats. Christian knew the upperclassmen were actually good guys (mostly), that they'd come to the Institute for the same kind of reasons he had. But it didn't make him feel any better about having to wage a life-or-death struggle as he tried to get back to his room after a long, hard study session in the library, with blackout curtains forcing the use of lamps much earlier than normally would've been the case.

"Mister, you have interrupted my conversation with Stutz and Mercer here," Auburn said, staring hard at the lanky, red-haired Rat.

"Stop moving your eyes, Rat!" Mercer barked suddenly, and Christian jumped. The three corporals laughed.

"Lookit him," Stutz said in his lazy Mississippi drawl. "Boy like this wouldn't have made it five minutes in the Old Corps. I think the Institute's going soft."

"How we gonna win the war with little boys like you?" Auburn challenged, hands on his hips. "Talk, Rat!"

"Sir, I don't know, sir!"

All three Third Classmen responded at once, their faces showing the exaggerated incredulity in their voices.

"You don't know?"

"I wanna hear something better than that, mister!" Auburn almost shouted.

"Sir-" Christian began, but he was cut off almost immediately.

"Shut up, Rat!" Mercer barked, peering into the dark behind him. Out in the center courtyard of the barracks, the sentry, his M1910 Tredegar held at port arms, shouted suddenly, "Halt! Who goes there!"

A voice came back from under the Jackson Arch, the stone top of the entrance to the barracks: "Sir, it is Rat d'Arbanville, B.J.! Respectfully requesting permission to drive in your barracks, sir!"

"Drive in this barracks, Rat!" the sentry shouted, resuming his patrol.

"Oh, what do we have here?" Auburn asked, rubbing his hands together- and not because of the cold. A slight upturn of the edges of his mouth, and the delighted look in his eyes, gave away his glee at the approach of a second Rat.

Christian stayed frozen in place, now bracing stiffly at the position of attention, as his roommate and friend Brian d'Arbanville approached. An Old Families scion of immense wealth who had never once hinted that he had a problem with rooming with, along with two other boys, the poor son of a Clifton Forge logging foreman. It was just one of many things that had ensured the beginning of their friendship.

"Halt, you Rat!" Auburn shouted, holding out the palm of his hand in a "stop" gesture.

"Sir, Mister Auburn, sir! Permission to-"

"Get over here next to your BR, Rat!"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

Brian came running over and braced beside Christian; they didn't speak or acknowledge each other in any way; they weren't allowed to. Turning your head, speaking without permission- even moving your eyes in a non-authorized manner was an offense. It was hard to be a Rat.

"Now, I want to repeat what I was saying earlier," Auburn said, pacing in front of them. "Here I was, me and my two classmates, enjoying a cool night and this fresh Virginia mountain air. Then along comes not one, but two dirty, gray, scurrying Rats, no doubt out to destroy my evening and deprive me of any chance to carry on my conversation in peace. I think you're deliberately doing this to me, Rats. What do you say to that? Talk!"

"Sir," Christian said immediately, "It wasn't intentional, sir!"

"Sir, it was not intentional, sir!" Brian added right after.

"Oh, so you think I'm making this up?" Auburn said, putting his hands on his hips and staring at them. "Are you accusing me of lying? Talk, Blowjobs!"

Brian's first two initials, B.J., which he was forced to repeat constantly when identifying himself to upperclassmen or the sentry, had immediately earned him the nickname "Blowjobs". It was a source of constant embarrassment to him and he was tormented with it daily, in spite of his family name. Old Families boys who came to VMI tended to have it even harder than ordinary Rats, because the upperclassmen felt driven to prove there was no favouritism. There wasn't, not as far as Christian could see, but it made life even harder for the Old Families sons among this year's Rat class than it was for boys from more ordinary families.

But if Brian didn't care for his nickname, he didn't show it. Not in his expression, for that would've been noticed immediately, nor in his voice when he replied.

"Sir, I am not calling you a liar, sir. I further apologize for my Brother Rat interrupting you, and for the both of us causing you undue agitation, sir!"

The three Third Classmen laughed; Auburn clapped his hands. "Nice, Rat! Very nice! Spoken like a true Virginia gentleman. I almost feel like letting you Rats go." He paused, looking between them. "But I think that'd be letting you guys off easy. And we don't do things the easy way at the Institute- do we, Rats?"

"Sir, no, sir!" the two boys shouted together.

"How do we do them, Rats?" Auburn asked.

"The hardest way possible, sir!"

"Because anything less would make us damn Yankee pansies, Rats!"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

Standing in front of Christian now, the dark-haired corporal looked at Christian, his eyes hidden under the black visor of his cap. "What's that next to you, Rat?"

Wisely not moving his head as Auburn pointed, Christian raised his voice and responded, "My Brother Rat, sir!"

"Your what?"

"My Brother Rat, sir!" Christian shouted.

"Aw, lissen to the little boy, mumblin' to himself," Mercer drawled mockingly.

"Louder, Rat!" Auburn demanded.

"My Brother Rat, sir!" Christian screamed it until his voice broke.

Brian d'Arbanville screamed it with him.

"Together, Rats!"

Chanting it now, Christian and Brian yelled "Brother Rat! Brother Rat!" Just as loud as they could, their shouts echoing throughout the barracks.

Finally, after the two of them had yelled into the frigid air for almost three minutes, Auburn barked, "Shut up, Rats!"

Into the abrupt silence that descended, Auburn said, "I'm disappointed, Rats. That was pathetic. But it'll do for now. You two-"

Starting low, and gaining volume every second, the whirring sound of an air raid siren winding up began. In seconds, it became a high-pitched, keening wail. Falling off, it quickly rose to a wail again. Rising and falling off, rising and falling off. All around the barracks, doors opened and cadets came out, looking around, at each other, and skyward in confusion.

"What the fuck…?" Auburn said, staring up at the night sky.

"We've already had the drill for this month," Stutz remarked.

"Shit, we've had enough drills for the whole goddamn war!" Mercer replied.

Christian was abruptly seized with terror; with the realization that this was simply not any kind of drill or exercise. "Sir," he began, "Request permission to speak, sir!"

"Shut up with the sir sandwiches, Rat!"

Cadet Colonel Andrew Rogers shouted it as he banged open the door to his room and came running over, his roommates and fellow cadet officers rushing up behind him.

"What the fuck are you people standing around for?!" Rogers screamed, running out into the courtyard. "Get out of bed! Now, now, now! Move it!"

The regimental sergeant major came running down off the second level, hollering about everyone falling in by company outside the barracks.

"There's no time for that!" Rogers shouted, interrupting him. "Rats!" he yelled to the barracks, "Form up with the nearest upperclassmen with rank! I want every corporal, sergeant and officer taking at least 10 men and moving his ass out of here! Go, go! Let's move it! Gun crews get to your posts; everybody else to the shelters!"

And as if to emphasize his point, Rogers took off for the Jackson Arch at a sprint, waving to Christian and Brian as he went, his roommates following in a hurry.

"Come on, idiots! With me!"