Free Napoleon's Roads by David Brooks Page B

to watch for any who want to invade by water – and eastward almost nine hundred to where guards can wave at the guards of Sector 16, on the other side of the (guarded) staircase. In all weathers. Seven days a week with a half-day off each fortnight, during which the men are free to go down to the local villages – in fact to go anywhere they like – though most of them don’t want to, since it’s Imperial policy to send troops into provinces far away from their own, amongst unlike people, to reduce the risk of desertion. Though not, of course, of suicide, which has been known to happen. In all weather, but most often in winter, when the days are so short and so cold that seven-tenths of a guard’s life is lived in the dark, or half-dark.
    There is little for the guards to do but walk up and down the battlements, looking out every seven or eight metres when they come to a break just wide enough for one man to lean into and look out at more or less the same thing he looked at before, and think about jumping. Sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs (yes, the jumping, too). In the winter it’s most likely to be alone, since no-one wants to leave the guardhouse, which though not exactly warm is still a great deal warmer than the outside, and has the fire, food and drink. They can’t drink outside, not on duty, though in Moon Sector 17, as probably in most other sectors, no-one cares about that.
    In all weathers, seven days a week. Nothing happening. Nothing ever changing, except the day of the week, the weather. No enemies visible. No-one remembering when any were. The thought coming to everyone at some time or another that the Wall was not built to keep anyone out – how could it in any case with so many gaps in it? – but to convince those on the inside that they had enemies in the first place. After all, if there is a wall, there must be something that it divides. And if it is a Great Wall then there must be a very substantial reason.
    Here and there a hut is visible, a shepherd’s hut, or a farmer’s. And here and there a bit of track. Sometimes someone walking along it. Here and there a little human contact. Hardly a day, in fact, without human contact of a sort. It might be a wave, a shout, though most of the time the shout can’t be heard properly anyway. Unless the wind is right. Walls too high, and the air too damp, winter and summer. A shout could be almost anything, and they could shout almost anything back. Up to them to decide whether it’s polite or not. Only one of the seven soldiers speaks any of the local language. Not much need to, since the provisions – the food, the drink, the tobacco – are all pre-arranged, logged in by the staircase guards. And sometimes a woman, who will set herself up for a day or a night in the guardhouse before moving to another sector. Seven days a week no doubt; no doubt, like the rest, in all weathers. The frost on the ramparts, or the rain making them slippery, or the heat beating up from the stones. But mostly the frost and the rain, the stones greasy with cold. Nothing to do but walk up and down, drink, sleep, talk, fuck when they can. Think. After a year or so all arguments are argued out, all stories told. With a bit of luck there’s some variation in the repetition, or they weren’t listening the first time, or they’ve forgotten, or there’s a last little coin still rattling around in someone’s imagination. Every now and then someone is summoned to the staircase between the sectors and told to go home. For no apparent reason. Average time on the sector four years, give or take a year. That is, as far as anyone can tell. Four or five people sitting around comparing guesses is not much to go on. Any real idea of time requires watching it, and that only happens with new arrivals. It’s just that they think, Here’s summer again, how many summers is it now? Three? Four?
    A bleak place. Wind,