Free Marching Through Georgia by S.M. Stirling

long !" He came forward to walk down the ragged line, the hunting-cat grace of his gait a contrast to their ploughboy awkwardness. They were all young, between seventeen and nineteen, all in good health and over the minimum height.
    Draka law required exact records, and he had studied them with care. The swagger stick poked out suddenly, taking one lad under the ribs. He doubled over with a startled oofff ! and fell to his knees.
    "Soft! Yaz soft! Tink cauz yaz c'n stare all day up't' arse-end of a plough-mule, yaz woan' drop dead onna force-march. Shit yaz pants when a' mortarshells star' a' droppin.' Whicha yaz momma's darlin's, whicha yaz houseserf bumboys tink they got it?"
    He drew a line in the sparse grass with his swagger stick and waited, rising and tailing slowly on the balls of his feet and tapping the stick in the palm of one gloved hand, a walking advertisement.
    The serf youths looked at him, at his comrade lolling lordly-wise at the table with a file folder in his hands, back at the humdrum village of all their days. Visibly, they weighed the alternatives: danger against boredom; safety against the highest advancement a serf could achieve. Two dozen crowded forward over the line, and the Master Sergeant grinned, suddenly jovial.
    His stick pointed out one, another, up to the six required; he had been watching carefully, sounding them out without seeming to, and the records were exhaustive. Their friends milled about, slapping the dazed recruits on the back and shoulder, while in the background Eric could hear a sudden weeping, quickly hushed.
    Probably a mother , he thought, rising with his father.
    Janissaries were not discouraged from keeping up contacts with their families, but they had their own camps and towns when not in the field, a world to itself. The plantation preacher would hold a service for their leaving, and it would be the one for the dead.
    Silence fell anew. "In honor of these young men," the general called, smiling, "I declare a feast tonight. Headman, see to issuing the stores. Tell the House steward that I authorize two kegs of wine, and open the vats at the brewery."
    That brought a roar of applause, as the family of the master descended from the dais to shake the hands of the six chosen, a signal honor. They stood, grinning, in a haze of glory, as the preparations for the evening's entertainment began; tomorrow they would travel with the two soldiers to the estates round about, there would be more feasts, admiration… and the master had called them "young men," not bucks…
    Eric hoped that the memories would help them when they reached the training camps. The roster of formed units in the Janissary arm was complete, but the ersatz Cohorts, the training and replacement units, were being expanded. Infantry numbers eroded quickly in intensive operations; the legions would need riflemen by the hundred thousand, soon.
    As he swung back into the saddle, he wondered idly how many would survive to wear the uniforms of Master Sergeants themselves. Not many, probably. The training camps themselves would kill some; the regimen was harsh to the point of brutality, deliberately so. A few would die, more would wash out into secondary arms, the Security Directorate could always use more executioners and camp-guard "bulls." The survivors would learn: learn that they were the elite, that they had no family but their squadmates, no father but their officer, no country or nation but their legions. Learn loyalty, kadaversobedienz —the ability to obey like a corpse.
    His father's quiet words jarred him out of his thoughts as they rode slowly through the crowd and then heeled their mounts into a canter through the deserted village beyond.
    "Eric, I have a favor to ask of you."
    "Sir?" He looked up, startled.
    "A… command matter. It's the Yankees. They're the only major Power left uncommitted, and we need them to counterbalance the Japanese. We don't need another war in East Asia while we fight the