Chapter 199 - The Calm Before The Storm (4)
Robert reported on the 2nd Corps Military Wives' Association's work, and Ernest submitted the survey form template.
However, the investigation couldn't begin right away.
Given the nature of the military as an organization, it was difficult to move quickly in these situations.
Fortunately, the highest-ranking officer currently stationed at the front line, the 5th Division Commander, granted permission quickly.
It was unclear whether he, like Ernest, believed this was a step toward ending the war, or if he simply thought it best not to get in the way of the 2nd Corps Military Wives' Association.
Although the survey form template was ready, creating each individual survey would take an eternity.
On top of that, aside from the 1st Battalion of the 13th Regiment, soldiers who could read and write were very rare.
So, in most units, the platoon leader or squad leader would listen to the soldiers' stories, roughly summarize them, and fill out the survey on their behalf.
Of course, that wasn't the case for the 1st Battalion of the 13th Regiment.
"Are you sure we can write down the truth here?"
"They told us to write it, so I guess it's fine…?"
The soldiers who were literate copied the sample survey form by hand and filled in their answers themselves.
While soldiers in other units, unable to write, had to tell their superior officers and sometimes held back the truth out of caution, the soldiers of the 1st Battalion of the 13th Regiment could write exactly what they wanted to say.
Platoon leaders compiled these surveys along with their own summary reports and submitted them to their company commander, Ernest.
After Ernest reviewed everything, he handed it over to the battalion personnel officer.
The process went the same way in the other companies, and by sunset, all the tasks were complete.
Only at mealtime did the officers from the Imperial Military Academy have a chance to see Ferdinand and Charlotte again.
The two seemed much calmer than before, and thankfully, none of the worries about their meeting had come to pass.
Charlotte's lady maid had been keeping a sharp eye on both of them and was sticking close by their side.
"I'm sorry. I didn't even get to greet you properly earlier."
Charlotte, looking a bit embarrassed, gave a shy smile as she spoke.
Baumann had asked everyone to treat her as the Future Mistress of Hartmann, but no matter how you looked at it, she seemed more like a young girl completely flustered by her feelings for Ferdinand.
"No, if anything, we should apologize. You finally got to see Ferdinand again after so long, and it feels like we're intruding," Ernest said politely, though his attempt at manners only made Charlotte blush harder.
He couldn't help but remember how she'd been so flustered when they first met.
"But how's the food here? I mean, it's much better than the soldiers' rations, but since it's still military fare, I doubt it's anything special," Robert asked, covering for Ernest's blunder by changing the subject.
As the quartermaster, he felt personally responsible for Charlotte's meals.
"Yes, I'm fine… Actually, I was really taken aback at first. But I've gotten used to it on the way here," Charlotte said, trying to answer bravely, then realizing that everyone knew she was fibbing and softened her tone as she continued.
At the 2nd Corps Headquarters, she could at least eat reasonably decent meals.
But traveling with the Logistics Corps, they'd had to camp out several times.
The Logistics Corps did their best to serve proper meals, but to an ordinary noble lady, the food was little better than pig slop—she'd want nothing to do with it for the rest of her life.
The first time Charlotte was handed a stew—contents unknown, cooking method a mystery—she shivered in fear and nearly trembled to the bone.
But before her lady's maid could throw that wretched pig slop away, Charlotte steeled herself and ate it.
She thought of her beloved fiancé Ferdinand, fighting on the battlefield while eating things far worse, and that gave her the strength to eat just about anything.
Unlike the stew thrown together with whatever ingredients were on hand during camping, the meals now being served at the garrison were neatly and carefully prepared.
Of course, compared to the food Charlotte was used to, it was still dreadful, but after witnessing firsthand how much the soldiers suffered on the battlefield, she now understood how precious even this tough, foul-smelling steak and rock-hard bread really were.
For the soldiers, even a simple stew boiled with biscuit, vegetables, and jerky was something to be grateful for—it was proof of the Imperial Army's impressive supply system.
Before being conscripted by the war, some of them could barely afford one decent meal a day, and even on good days, two at most.
Yet the Imperial Army, almost terrifyingly, ensured that the soldiers ate three filling meals a day without fail.
Thanks to that, the longer the war dragged on, the more the soldiers plumped up, gaining muscle and growing sturdier.
"When I return, I'm thinking of talking to the Women's Association about the meals. Maybe it's presumptuous of me, speaking from a place of safety and privilege, but I want to help, even if only a little," Charlotte said.
"Don't say things like that, Lotte. Just your presence alone gives me strength," Ferdinand replied.
"Ferdie…"
"Lady Charlotte, to be honest, there's absolutely no problem with the meals," Ernest interrupted abruptly and carefully composed his thoughts, oblivious to the mood.
Thud! Thud!
On either side of Ernest, Robert and Baumann kicked him under the table at the same time.
But, as soon as Ernest, the oblivious fool, spotted their movements in his peripheral vision, he nimbly shifted his legs, taking their attack straight on with his sturdy boots.
"Oof...!"
"Grr...!"
Instead, it was Robert and Baumann who collided their shins against Ernest's sturdy boots and, groaning in pain, curled up in their seats.
Ignoring his foolish friends, Ernest turned to Charlotte, having quickly collected himself, and spoke solemnly.
"The soldiers are satisfied with these meals. For them, just being given food they can actually swallow three times a day is something to be grateful for. Their lives, having been spent as commoners, were far too harsh to even consider the taste or quality of the food."
For commoners, it was hard enough just to earn each day's meals.
Things like the taste or quality of their food only mattered in times of plenty, when they no longer had to worry about starving to death.
Soaking even rotten meat or entrails to fill their bellies—that was the life of a commoner.
Who were they to complain about taste or quality?
Ernest, himself an extreme pragmatist who cared nothing for flavor so long as he got a proper meal, was no different in this respect.
"Then, what should be done?" Charlotte asked.
This young man, with eyes as dry and somber as a withered tree, made Charlotte a bit uneasy.
If he hadn't been Ferdinand's friend, she honestly would have found it hard even to look him in the eye.
But Charlotte felt a sense of duty about her mission, and she couldn't be rude to Ferdinand's friend, so she gazed directly at Ernest and asked her question in earnest.
"What soldiers truly need now is proper treatment for their wounds, and a way to ease their longing for family and home."
Ernest spoke in a steady voice.
"When soldiers are wounded in battle, nine times out of ten they die from blood loss or infection."
"Ernest," Ferdinand interjected.
"It's alright, Ferdie," said Charlotte.
Ferdinand's face tensed at hearing something so harsh for a gently-raised lady, and he tried to warn Ernest, but Charlotte squeezed Ferdinand's hand firmly and shook her head.
"Please, go on."
"The best treatment most soldiers can hope for after a battle is to cut away the injured area entirely to stop the bleeding."
"..."
Charlotte had steeled herself, but when Ernest described the reality of military medicine so bluntly, her face turned pale at once.
"Officers are treated by a First-Class Baltracher, so as long as they make it back alive, they won't die. But as for the soldiers, if they're wounded, it's practically a death sentence. They need medical professionals with specialized knowledge."
"That's not really something you should tell the Women's Association, is it?" Baumann remarked, folding his arms.
Robert, meanwhile, propped his chin on the table and flicked his knife around idly with his right hand as he interjected, "Actually, it's better to tell the Women's Association. The army, at the end of the day, sees soldiers as expendable. From their perspective, it's not worth wasting resources treating wounded soldiers—it's easier just to let them die. Let's be honest here: nobody likes having a pile of wounded soldiers draining supplies and spreading disease, so they'd rather see them dead. After all, the corpses can just be burned."
"Robert, that's out of line," Ernest rebuked, frowning.
To be so disrespectful in front of the son of House Krieger—if they'd been at House Krieger itself, Robert would have been thrown out into the snowy street immediately.
"But the Women's Association is different. It's a place where people gather because they want their husbands, fiancés, sons, older brothers, younger siblings, and friends—their loved ones—not to die, but to come back alive. The whole direction of the organization is completely different. To the army, a soldier is just a tool. Whether they die for the mission or not, it doesn't matter—they're expendable. But for the Women's Association, the soldiers are the very goal itself. Isn't that right, Charlotte?"
"…Yes. That's right."
Charlotte nodded, her face pale and trembling in response to Robert's question.
She clung tightly to Ferdinand's hand, and Ferdinand, looking at her with concern, clasped her hand in his large, warm one and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
"The Women's Association may have noblewomen at its core, but the vast majority are commoners. All of them just want their husbands and sons to come home safely."
Charlotte spoke, her voice steadier now that the shaking had subsided.
"I'll make sure to report this to the Women's Association."
At least in this moment, Charlotte Spiegelmann didn't seem like a naïve girl in love, but like a woman worthy of bearing the heavy responsibility of being Hartmann's future mistress.
"Thank you. Lady Charlotte. The next issue is the soldiers' homesickness, but this can't be completely solved until the war is over, since they can't return home yet."
Ernest spoke in a calm, gentle tone.
His friends, who knew that this was how Ernest spoke when he felt comfortable, only now realized that, at this moment, Ernest had finally opened his heart to Charlotte and felt at least a minimum of goodwill toward her.
To Ernest, Charlotte had always been nothing more than his friend's fiancée—a woman who meant nothing to him.
But now, seeing that she was genuinely trying to help the soldiers, he found himself able to feel a little kindness toward her.
"If the front lines continue to be maintained even after the end of the war, there will be resettlement support policies for soldiers' families—but that would fall under the Imperial Ministry of Internal Affairs."
As usual, Ernest spoke about a major imperial policy as if it were nothing out of the ordinary, and everyone almost brushed it off—until they caught themselves, startled.
Only Charlotte, the delicately raised, innocent girl, failed to grasp the full weight of his words, instead listening with rapt attention.
"For now, merely helping to write and deliver letters for the soldiers and their families would be a great help."
"…Letters?"
For a moment, Charlotte couldn't quite understand what Ernest meant.
As a noblewoman, corresponding with Ferdinand at the front lines had never been difficult for her.
But remembering that most soldiers were poor commoners who couldn't read or write, she quickly realized the significance of what Ernest had said.
Even writing a letter was a challenge for most soldiers, since they were illiterate.
Actually getting those letters to their hometowns was an even greater challenge.
The Empire's administrative power had grown weaker after conquering Belliang.
They had taken over an entire kingdom, which meant an enormous number of officials had to be dispatched.
In this situation, there was no way it would be easy for letters written by ordinary commoner soldiers to be delivered to their families across the Empire.
Even if a soldier's family spent a lot of money to hire a ghostwriter and paid dearly to have a letter sent, there was no guarantee it would actually reach their loved one stationed on the front lines in Belliang.
This problem stemmed from the same cause as the medical issues mentioned earlier—namely, the fact that the army regarded soldiers as little more than expendable goods.
Supplying the troops well was simply for the sake of maintaining fighting strength.
There was no reason to expend money and administrative power to deliver letters, just to consider the feelings of men who were destined to die and disappear as expendables.
Most of the letters sent by soldiers and their families ended up stuffed into some storage room and, when they piled up so much that they became a nuisance, they would all be used as firewood and burned.
They wouldn't even bother informing a soldier's family if he died, let alone delivering his letters.
"Ernest, you're a smart guy, so you must realize that this would be an undertaking of unimaginable scale."
Baumann spoke, lightly tapping his chin with his fingertip, looking a bit troubled.
"You're talking about delivering letters across the entire Empire, hiring ghostwriters, reading the letters aloud on their behalf, and then there's the issue of letter paper and ink. Who's going to handle the administrative work? And where is all that enormous amount of money going to come from?"
At Baumann's question, Ernest straightened his back and turned his head to look at him like a ghost.
"Are you saying that, after dragging these men off to fight and die for the war, the Empire can't even send a single letter home for them?"
"…"
"And besides, the money could be covered using unpaid wages—salaries that were never given to the fallen."
"Ernest!"
Baumann turned pale at Ernest's dangerously bold words.
The Imperial Army did pay its soldiers.
But if they tried to pay all that money out in cash, problems were bound to arise.
So, instead, they simply recorded it on paper and only gave small amounts in cash when the soldiers actually needed it.
Most soldiers asked for that money to be sent to their families back in their hometowns.
But if they sent money every time wages were paid, that too would have been a huge waste of administrative power. So the army promised to collect the money and send it all at once.
But if a soldier was killed in action, the money that was supposed to go to his bereaved family would just get swallowed up by the Imperial Army.
Only the Imperial Army Headquarters would know how many soldiers had died in this war.
In effect, that meant countless soldiers were used and discarded without ever being paid at all.
With all that money, they could easily afford to deliver letters across the Empire, hire ghostwriters, read the letters out loud, and provide paper and ink—it would be nothing.
"There's no way that money still exists. It was only ever written down in the paperwork; they never had any intention of paying it out."
Following Ernest, Robert spoke up with a bitter laugh, his words scathing.
"Think about it. Sure, the Empire did reclaim a lot of funds through the purges, but war isn't child's play—you don't fight it with pocket change. If they actually tried to pay out all of that money, the value of the currency would plummet. The moment people realized that money was worth anything, everyone would rush to the bank to exchange it for gold or silver, and the Imperial Bank would collapse. The truth is, they never meant to pay it. Well, things have improved a little thanks to the conquest of Belliang. Like Ernest said earlier, with the new resettlement policies—they'll probably try to make up for it by giving away land or offering tax breaks in Belliang, something like that"
"Robert, this is your final warning: if you wave that knife around one more time, I'll make sure you never do something like that again."
Robert, who had been ruthlessly exposing the Empire's darkest secrets, sheepishly placed his knife back on the dining table at Ernest's chilling warning.
"So, what we're trying to say is, it would be great if it were possible."
"..."
Robert grinned playfully at Charlotte, but she was so stunned she couldn't respond at all.
"This reminds me of the old days."
At that moment, Ferdinand, who had quietly listened until now, finally spoke.
"It's like company-grade officers here think they're the Marshal of the Imperial Army or the Minister of Internal Affairs."
"Oh! Well, at least we're not the Marshal! Our adorable Ferdie, Marshal of the Imperial Army!"
"Don't call me that. That's your last warning."
"Charlotte, did you hear that? Your fiancé is actually this ruthless. He only treats you kindly. He's harsh with the rest of us. If you knew how much we've suffered because of that Rock, you'd be in tears too. If you don't mind, could you give Ferdie a smack for us? If I smack him once, I'd have to take ten hits in return."
"Don't talk to Lotte like that. That's your final warning, too."
"I'm shaking in my boots."
"Lotte."
Ferdinand turned his gaze from Robert, gently wrapped his arm around Charlotte's shoulder, and spoke to her tenderly.
Watching them, Robert made an exaggerated face, as if he were about to gag.
"Sorry, but could you pretend you didn't hear any of what was said here?"
At Ferdinand's words, Robert let out a sigh, and Baumann rubbed his mouth anxiously.
Ernest ate his meal in strict, silent adherence to proper etiquette.
If Charlotte spread this conversation, Ernest and Robert could be in trouble, but it wouldn't be good for Charlotte, either.
In truth, it might be fair to call this whole discussion a slip-up by Ernest and Robert.
Of course, they had spoken up fully aware of what they were doing.
Either way, their goal was simply to make Charlotte aware of how serious the situation was—so that she would tell the Women's Association that medical support and letter delivery assistance were needed.
And they'd also calculated that Charlotte, being Ferdinand's fiancée, wouldn't go around sharing this story with others.
"So could you just say there was a request for medical support and assistance with letter delivery? Could you put it that way?"
Ferdinand hesitated for a moment before adding this. Hearing it, the stiff, rigid look on Charlotte's face melted away.
"Yes. Ferdie. I'll do that."
"…Thank you."
"No, thank you."
The two gazed at each other with deep affection. Ernest couldn't quite understand the shift in Charlotte's mood. When Ferdinand had asked her to pretend she hadn't heard anything, she seemed disappointed, but the moment he asked her to simply report that a request for support had been made, she was happy.
Charlotte was someone who could eat stew fit only for pigs as long as it was for Ferdinand's sake.
Even though Ferdinand's words were meant to protect her, if she heard, "Please pretend you didn't hear that," she'd inevitably feel as if she was of no help, which would disappoint her.
So when Ferdinand asked her to at least pass on that there had been a request for support, she was delighted because she felt she could be of use.
'I just don't have enough samples…'
Ernest simply didn't have enough experience or data to empathize with such delicate feelings.
Even if he could perfectly analyze someone's outward emotions, he couldn't grasp the process behind how they ended up there.
He'd finished learning the Belliang language, and was now studying Konchanya as well, but when it came to matters of the heart, he hadn't advanced one bit since he first decided to learn about women's minds.
Marie was the only woman nearby, but her upbringing was so twisted that including her in his sample pool risked contaminating the data.
"Hmmm… This confusing atmosphere. Somehow, it doesn't feel unfamiliar."
Seeing Ferdinand and Charlotte lost in their own world again, and Ernest glaring fiercely at his food, lost in an unfathomably deep analysis, Robert commented slyly.
"Really? Personally, I find it a bit awkward and difficult. Don't you think so?"
Baumann gave a wry smile and turned to ask Charlotte's lady's maid.
Throughout the meal, the lady's maid had sat beside Charlotte, pretending not to see or hear anything, finishing her meal in complete silence, and now she answered with a calm expression.
"I'm used to it."
How many times do you think she's had to witness this as Charlotte's lady's maid?
One of her official duties is literally to prevent Charlotte from getting pregnant before marriage!
"Sigh… I wish I could see Major Kirchner."
Robert's muttered words echoed emptily into the room.
At this point, that perverse devotion almost seems like true love.