July 1914

The battlefield Branches wanted all available Reapers quartered on-site. Most Branches thought that to be a logical move. London complied without comment.

The corridors grew quiet as Reapers were called away. Every fourth office was empty; then every third office, then second office, emptied except for Juniors too young in the job to accompany their Seniors onto battlefields. When footsteps began to echo, Humphries and Jacobs met with Brock to reassign seating. The London Branch contracted into the areas adjoining the Operations department. Keeping everyone together preserved a sense of community. In the abandoned areas, lights went out. Doors were locked. Only Maintenance walked those dark halls.

Housing attempted to reclaim the rooms and apartments left behind. With a very little prompting from Humphries, Spears went straight Upstairs. Madame Administrator paid a scorched-earth visit to the Housing Director. The disputed properties would remain assigned to their residents until such time as they were transferred or pronounced lost. Maintenance visited once to remove perishable food and agreed to return every week to dust and air the rooms.

The London workload was still manageable. London had recruited heavily for ten years. The personnel added in the last three were enough to cover the city's Death List, now that smallpox could be prevented by vaccination and the water supply had been cleaned up. Influenza and measles came through every year, but cholera and plague did not, and death rates from other diseases had diminished somewhat in the sixty years since soap had ceased to be a heavily taxed government monopoly.

The Juniors reaped in groups, led and protected by the remaining Seniors.

Staff meeting, London, 15 July 1914

After allowing a few minutes for comments and greetings, William T. Spears (Senior Reaper, Director of the London Branch) called the meeting to order. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are here to update each other on the status of war preparations in the Reaper and Human Realms. I would like to begin with Reaper plans in Belgium. Mister Slingby?"

Eric Slingby (Senior Reaper, London, Operations Enforcer, Personnel) began. "Our Reapers are stationed in barracks near Liège, where the invasion will begin. It's all very neat, aye, but soon they will realize that proper use of portals will let everyone come home off-shift. Easier and cheaper than feeding and housing us along the battle lines, especially since those lines are going to move quickly for a while. Frees the support staff for duty in the field hospitals and cook tents, ye ken, and they won't be forever moving the barracks to follow the armies. So don't go filling our empty seats with Admins."

"It's an effort to assert command, a need to feel in control," explained Roland D'Acres (Senior Reaper, London, Operations). "That's difficult when every rule they make can be overridden by the Death Lists. Soon they'll realize they're making extra work for themselves. Their focus should shift to efficiency."

Alan Humphries (Senior Reaper, Assistant Director of the London Branch, Chief of Operations) opened a folder. "The joint Angel/Reaper Hospital is under construction at the British Academy. It's primarily a tent city on the Gather grounds. More permanent surgical units are being set up in the new dormitories there. The Angels have their own infirmaries, but all are in the Divine Realm where we cannot go. Those facilities are small and have not been expanded. They will have to use ours, which means that they will assign Angels to guard it. That protection will cover the Academy as a whole, because we are going to set up small recovery wards in most of the buildings, and we will make sure that Angelic patients are in each of them."

Slingby grinned. "Sneaky, you are."

"Thank you. We are taking shameless advantage of the status quo. The Divine Realm is a little underprepared for this war. Using our hospital services will be far less expensive in personnel and equipment than setting up their own hospitals in the Divine Realm. In return, the Academy will be kept safe from invasion. For the battlefields, mobile field hospital units are being formed in all European and British branches and held ready to be sent wherever they are needed. They have ambulances to bring in the wounded and portals to deliver the stabilized patients to Infirmaries or the Academy. The portals will be interlocked so that transport is a matter of a single step from room to room."

"How will the hospitals be supplied?" asked Spears, whose attention never strayed far from his budget.

"Barter, actually. We're trading portal and tracking technology and training to Branches in countries which will not be fighting in this war. This will be managed by Senior Vollmer of Supplies. He'll make sure nobody shortchanges the Medical services."

"Very well," said Spears. "Human Realm?"

Slingby unrolled a map. "Status of the war in the human realm; any day now. Austria wants war to gain great-nation status and power, and to solve some internal problems. So does Russia, same reasons. Both countries see Serbia as essential to their plans. Treaties will force their allies to declare war also. The Russian generals are waiting to act but the Tsar is dithering. They can't mobilize without his consent, and the mobilization will take time due to the long distances involved and the unreadiness of their troops. Judging by the increased class sizes in their Reaper Academies, this is not going to go well for them. Those Academies have opened new campuses, too.

"Germany is allied with Austria. Germany does not have any interest in Serbia, though; it's just an excuse to declare war on France. They are fielding large, well-equipped, well-trained armies. They will demand free passage through Belgium and Holland, ignoring their neutrality. That will bring Britain into the war."

"Germany plans to conquer France within six to eight weeks, before Russia can mobilize, to avoid a two-front war," offered Gruber of Vienna. "They have a bold and effective plan to do that, but the man who designed that plan is dead. His replacement is neither bold nor effective. He will make changes according to his nature. The plan will fail."

"The only French war plan for many years has been to invade and retake Alsace-Lorraine." Moreau of Calais shrugged. "One intelligent person predicted a German invasion through Belgium and suggested that France should turn their attention there. They fired him. They know the Germans have superior artillery. They refuse to upgrade their own. It was suggested that their troops wear less eye-catching uniforms. You can imagine the indignation of the career military. 'Le pantalon rouge c'est la France!'"

"This is all part of a common military fiction," said Brock, the head of the Budget team. "The French insist that their troops will be victorious because of élan, their gallant fighting spirit. The Germans proclaim their troops will conquer all because of racial superiority. Everybody claims their cause is just and their hearts are pure. The underlying universal truth is that propaganda is far less expensive than proper training, arming and supply. But propaganda does not overcome the laws of physics or nature. Ballistics, weather and disease do not respond to oratory."

"European wars in the last 50 years have been short conflicts won by the side which arrived earliest with the biggest army," said Gupta. "Most expect this to be no different. They're ignoring the effects of new rapid-fire artillery and machine-guns that were used by Japan against Russia in 1904. Germany has adopted new technology but will still rely on a quick victory in France so they can turn on Russia before she gets mobilized."

"Britain is planning to send six infantry divisions and five cavalry brigades to France, with more to follow as soon as they can be inducted and trained," D'Acres reported. "Their generals and admirals are only beginning to talk to each other about arranging troop transports. Once delivered, the British Expeditionary Force will fall in with the French flank."

Avram Jacobs (Senior Reaper, London, Operations) sighed. "Belgium will refuse Germany's demand to open their borders. Because they have long expected that their neutrality would be defended by other powers, their army is small and poorly trained. The officer corps is a handsomely costumed, socially respectable occupation for well-born second sons. They will be overrun. Resistance groups will form. Invasions usually include atrocities against civilians after the sniping begins and nervous recruits fire on each other. That's hard on younger Reapers new to war."

"They must learn, as we did, to control themselves and do their duty." William T. Spears had never done battlefield Reaping. His more experienced subordinates prepared to educate him.

"In battle, we'll see general devastation from heavy artillery," said Chandra Gupta, who had Reaped with his partner Vanderveldt in the Second Boer War. "Admin is going to need to expand and reassign workers to new processes. Many younger Reapers have never dealt with a soul wandering after its body has been completely destroyed. There will be some whose life records have been blown away unreviewed. Some records and record fragments will be drifting about with neither soul nor body attached. We'll collect everything we find and turn them in. It's Admin's job to sort them out."

"Already on it," said Dorrie DePoy (Admin Senior, Auditing, attached to the Operations Department of the London Reapers). "We have done it all before, though never on this scale. London Admin has tripled in size and we are still constructing more office space. Once this war really gets started, most of the paperwork burden will have to shift from the Reapers to Admin. When we are overwhelmed, we'll transfer the excess work to Admin Branches in countries not at war. The Great Library is also expanding. They didn't expect to see this generation so soon."

"I've submitted a request to our Garrison for earlier notifications on the Death List," said Humphries. "We need more planning time to schedule responses to large battles with enormous casualties. They didn't reject it immediately, which indicates they'll pass it up the hierarchy for a judgement."

"Our Death Books can't handle the numbers," said Avram. "We'll be given daily Lists, with the understanding that if we encounter unattached Records or wandering souls that we'll collect them as well. We should warn our newer people that many souls will be hysterical or furious and will attack us as if we were enemy soldiers."

"I'll set up some seminars on each shift," said Humphries.

"We must also stress that we minimize manifesting fully into the battlefields of the Human Realm," added Gupta. "If gravity applies, so do explosions."

"Noted. I shall send out a memo. Time in recovery must be minimized." Spears turned to Humphries. "Are there any new devices in development that I should know about?"

"There is a long-distance mass transit portal being deployed in the Maritime Branches. It's powerful and stable enough to port the largest Flying Dutchmen with full crew and passengers. When several of those are in place, we'll receive land versions which will allow groups to travel across continents. Work continues on small devices to allow personal porting over longer distances. Scythes is stocking tools designed for mass harvest, such as basket scythes, and is working on designs for a harrow. They warn that we must be careful not to reap each other in hand-to-hand fighting. I am told that a new Branch of Engineering has been formed. It's very small but is expected to grow rapidly."

"Is that Automotive, Humphries? The trucks and ambulances?"

"No, sir. Newer. Aeronautics. Aeroplanes. At first the humans will use them for reconnaissance along the battle lines. Harmless until they start dropping bombs instead of their lunch wrappings. It won't be long before that occurs to them. It's unclear what use the 'planes might be to us, but we need to understand them for the effects they will have on humans."

"I suppose. I will want reports from Belgium on conditions and demonic activity there. The local Reapers have stated that they need no help with their harvesting. We have been ordered to stand by." Will made a dry sound that might have been a chuckle. "The decision is not theirs, of course, as the Death Lists will appear where the Highest decrees. But for now, I will use the opportunity to learn. I have formed a reconnaissance group to travel around our British outpost and report.

"To this group, I have assigned Sutcliff, who will join Gupta and Vanderveldt in triad; Ronald Knox, around whom people talk freely; Slingby, who will lead and listen; Park and Chen as rearguard. Seven should be enough. Too many to dismiss, not enough to be threatening."

"Director–"

"No, Humphries, you're not going. You will assume the whole management of Operations and Personnel while Slingby is gone. Promote a few of your best assistants. You will also assume the training of Knox's apprentice until he returns. Third year, is she not? She will be added to Operations Security. Keep her by you throughout your workday when she is not Reaping."