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Kelvin walked out onto the tan grass of the training grounds. He looked around at all the boys standing around with sticks, just talking to one another. He distinctly remembered telling them to come for something besides mingling. He desired to remind them of why they were there, the whole idea of training troops had slowly and steadily gone down the drain day by day and he really wanted it to happen. But it seemed his desire was outweighed by his desire not to be noticed. He moved slowly through the bunched up crowd with his head looking down at the dead grass. He saw the boys doing more and more meandering and talking and his fear grew bigger and bigger the closer to the front of the crowd he became. He finally saw Alan at the front of the crowd with Rich. They were talking too, or as it seemed more or less observing. Rich was pointing his finger and looked around wiuth frustrated eyes. Alan was beside him, nodding his head, looking disappointed. Kelvin stood beside them and managed to break in on a little of their conversation.

"it's sad this whole thing is going under." Rich continued, "I had a feeling this wouldn't work out."

"It's a fucking shame too. We don't hold our own next time everyone is gonna just head for the hills." Alan added. "Oh there you are, Kelvin. When did you get here I didn't even see you."

Kelvin found hiomself at a crossroads. His twitching eye became uncontrollable. He ignored it and stepped forward. He put his thumb and forefinger in his mouth and whistled loudly with them. At that moment his worst fear came true. Every person in that crowd turned to him and waited for him to say something important. Kelvin didn't think he had anything relally important to say, but he said something anyway.

"I'm glad you all came." He could have swore a bead of sweat rolled its way down his face. "Now I want all of you to form 10 columns here," he looked at his watch, not really using it, "in 10...9...8...7..." Everyone magically seemed to comply. The crowd formed into 10 long, messy, but nonetheless 10 rows. By the time Kelvin was at 2 they had all done it. He was astonished. He hadn't thought it out this far. "Next time you'll need to do it a little faster." He glanced at Alan, whose arms were wreathed. He looked back at him with his mouth slightly opened.

"Now, I want everyone in every other column starting..." He walked over to the first column and pointed at the boy's feet. "here, to face directly to their left." Everyone turned, just like he had said. "Now everyone else, turn to face them." He paced back and forth watching them closely, trying to figure out what the hell he was doing.

"Now I want everyone to do their very best to kick the living shit out of th eperson they are facing in about 5 seconds." Mumbling rose steadily from the crowd. Alan and Rich didn't know what to do. "5... 4... 3... 2... 1!" As soon as he finished counting madness ensued. Kelvin watched intently, figuring he had boght himself some time to figure out what to do next.

After a few moments he shouted for them to stop. "Now, any of you who are either on the ground or have otherwise been properly had the shit beat out of them... could probably blame your hesitation for it." Complaints and whining started to muttle the air so he figured he shout shout a little louder.

"Those of you who did what I said, exactly when I said it, probably did not end up on the ground. Consider this," he was making shit up as he went at this point, "a lesson in obedience. I don't mean to sound like one of your parents but if you do not follow orders on the battlefield the very moment they are given, without hesitation, we will fail." He figured he was doing horribly but should just go on anyway while everyone was listening to him. "I want to be able to rely on everyone under someone's chain of command to be completely and utterly obedient, without question. And do not get me wrong. I admire a skeptic, but on the field if everyone were to ask their commander 'why' after every order nothing would get done efficiently. If we are to expect victory we must then expect absolute efficiency. I never want to come on this field agai just to see a bunch of people lying around talking to each other. I want to see some people learning how to beat the shit out of people out here." He noticed his eye wasn't twitching. He felt a hand on hois shoulder and his head bolted to see who it was.

"That's what I'm talking about." said Alan. "Now where the fuck did that come from?" he whispered quietly. Before Kelvin could shrug Alan looked up and shouted "What the fuck are you guys doing, start hitting each other around!"