Darrowby, Central West, United Kingdom…Lieutenant General Hiram Walsh’s sleek black sedan practically glid as he drove it through an impromptu chicane of HESCO style barriers that lead to the main gate of the Army Headquarters in Darrowby. They, he noted grimly, had not been there when last he had been to this place less than a year previously. Yet, it was no great surprise. Nor were the sentries, patrolling with workman like and effective looking submachine guns displayed conspicuously from slings draped across their necks and shoulders. Such was the reality of all Government and military installations since an attack by Scandin aligned insurgents on the Ironwynth DDSI Office some few months previously. Walsh waited patiently as the gate sentry the General’s military identity card across his handheld reader. The first pass of the card garnered no response from the machine and the sentry grinned sheepishly as he gave the card reader a quick shake, keeping half an eye on the General’s shoulder boards as he did so. On the second swipe of the card, the machine made its pleasing chirping chime and its light pulsed an acceptable green shade.
“Thank you for your patience there, General.”
The sentry said, as he leaned down to hand back the credit card sized identity card. The General, being a relatively laid-back man, brushed the mild inconvenienced off with half a laugh as he declared that occasionally these things happened. He raised his right hand in a salute, which the sentry snapped to attention to return. The car pulled smoothly forward as the gate lifted, and Walsh entered the Darrowby Garrison.
Garrisons, in the parlance of the Army of the United Kingdom, was the name given to any permanent structure – other than training bases or other schools – that housed a military facility. Almost all of them were the home and day to day workplace of some battalion or another or even an entire Regiment in some usually large cases. Darrowby was one of the few exceptions. No one Battalion called the Darrowby Garrison home. Rather, the entire Army did as it was home to the Army Headquarters apparatus. Darrowby might have been considered a usual choice for the Army to choose as its central hub. Located in the Central West of the country, it was a relatively modest town of only about 100,000. But despite that, it was known across the United Kingdom for its spectacular Annist architecture that made extensive use of the particular and somewhat peculiar sort of limestone that the local area is famous for. For this reason, the town of 100,000 was able to draw, on average, two million visitors a year and it was in one of these buildings that the Army had made its home.
The Army had been there for almost 140 years at this point, but the building itself had stood for considerably longer than that. It had been built, at incredible expense, during the late 1750s by a then General in the Queen’s Army. Upon his death, it had passed to his son who, in turn, bequeathed it to the Army upon his own, sadly heirless, death. For some years it languished as the Army failed to know what to do with it until, in 1878, it became the permanent home of the service – and what a home it was. The building itself was a shallow curve, just over 100 metres long. It was clad, as most Darrowby structures from that era were, in uniformly coloured limestone. Its tall windows ran the length of the structure, denoting each of the three floors. Each of the windows on the two uppermost floors were flanked by slightly inset Ionic columns, which ran all the way up to the slate roof above. The style and aesthetic of the building was a common sight in Darrowby, but its sweeping crescent was not. It was almost entirely unique and was a major tourist draw. Now, however, the HESCO barriers prevented the Grade 1 Listed building from being properly seen from the outside. It could only be really appreciated from the inside, but as Walsh’s car turned left through the gate, he barely even noticed it. He had been here so very many times before that the grand architecture of the building had lost much of its allure.
He pulled the car into one of the marked VIP spots, before heading inside. It was a pleasant enough Spring day, and it was quite warm in the sun. Too hot for a jacket, certainly, but he was a Lieutenant General and appearances had to be kept up. As he walked up the steps towards the main entrance, he did so with his Officer’s cap on and the uniform jacket that went with the black semi-formal uniform that was the usual fare of all staff or flag officers.
He walked quickly across the polished wooden floors, and watched as he went by portraits of officers who had gone before. Major General J.E. Butcher, the unfortunately named victor of Salsbury Hill in 1858, was there, staring down at the mere mortals who walked the modern Army’s halls. So were more recent officers, including Lieutenant General S.K. Warne who had, only 80 years prior, lead the invasion of the Gibetian Empire and ultimately forced the abdication of the Kaiserin. Walking under these portraits was something that Walsh never relished. These, most of them anyway, were true, fighting soldiers. He never had been. Indeed, he’d never come close in all his 36 years in the Army. He'd joined straight out of University as a bright eyed and bushy tailed Lieutenant. At that time he’d been a surprisingly bean poleish young man, although one whose already thin head of hair was becoming rapidly thinner. He had done well at the Royal Academy for Officer Candidates, and was shoved straight into command of an infantry platoon – having been adjudged as far too tall for the cavalry units that had always caught his eye as a boy. There he had done tolerably well, gaining the respect of his troops and managing to write for himself a favourable report in almost all training exercises. Company command followed, then a Battalion with multiple deployments to Westphalia, Gravasti, Osten and Mawerisme. He had spent some six years, from platoon to battalion command, manning the bulwark against the Red threat to Westphalia and the other Commonwealth nations. But in that time, he never fired a weapon in anger, and nor did he ever send anyone else to do so. Following battalion command, he moved up to an intelligence position within I Corps command structure and, again, spent years preparing for the titanic battle that as yet had not come. His latest command, one which he had just left, was more of the same. As General Commanding the multinational Southern Army Group, defending the vital Wachtamsee Gap, which follows the gentle curves of the Wachtamsee River in the central and southern portions of Westphalia, he had seen the equation from every possible viewpoint. He had played out every scenario for the action he might one day have to fight but still would not come. As he walked under the portraits of Butcher and Warne, Wilson and Mostert, he sometimes wondered if anyone would ever remember him and his deeds?
The anteroom he stepped into was a grand affair, as anterooms went. Books lined one wall, and one of the tall windows, so striking from the outside, gave the room a brightness that made it feel bigger than it actually was.
“Ah, good morning General!”
The Major behind the desk spoke with an upbeat tone to her voice
“You’re a little early, as always?”
It was true, Walsh had a reputation for habitually being five or six minutes early for his appointments. He abhorred being late to anything, especially in this building.
“General Key is actually ready for you, if you’d care to go in now?”
“Yes please, Major, if that’s alright?”
The Major suppressed a smile at that. There were some Generals known for their prickly personalities within the Goramite Army, but Walsh was not one of them. He was almost universally known as a good man to work for and courteous to a fault to his subordinates – to the point of asking a 29 year old Major ‘if it was alright'.
“Of course, Sir. Go right on in.”
Unseen, she pressed a button below the desk and the main office door clicked slightly open. Walsh nodded his thanks to the Major and stepped out of the grand anteroom and into the substantially grander office beyond it. Behind the desk, made out of dark, rich wood, sat General Sir Nick Key – the United Kingdom’s senior soldier. As Chief of the Army, he was one of only two that actually bore the rank of ‘General’. Everyone else had a prefix before it, but not Sir Nick Key or his deputy - or his deputy – Sir Eoin Roy. The two of them were just ‘Generals’ and that made them the senior men in the Army’s uniform.
Key was a friendly but sober soldier that took his duty very seriously. He was usually a warm man but, on entry into the office, Walsh felt that Key looked different somehow. He looked tired, Walsh thought, like a man with much to worry about and not enough with which to do it.
Don’t we all?
The thought flashed across Walsh’s mind. Certainly, the Army was big but the enemies to the East had been stirring these three months and the service was stretched thin.
“Hiram! Good to see you, do come in! How are you?”
The weariness seemed to disappear from Key as he invited Walsh into the room. The two men had known each other for more than three decades, going back to when Sir Nick had been a lowly Lieutenant Colonel himself, in charge of the battalion in which a 22 year old Walsh had had a platoon.
“Hallo, Nick. I’m well, and you?”
“Oh yes, very well thanks. You’re just back from Southern Army Group? Over the jet lag yet?
“Yes, over the worst of it anyway. Always a bit of a devil coming back from Westphalia, I find.”
“Certainly, yes”
Key gestured to one of the comfortable looking chairs opposite the desk.
“Do sit. We didn’t actually want you to leave that posting, as I’m sure you didn’t really want to do. I imagine after four years it feels a bit like your Army – at least, it did for me.”
“Yes, it did. I was loathed to go, truth be told.”
“Ah well.”
Key waved a hand across his face.
“I’d have preferred you stay there, but we have a new posting for you. Your official orders are here.”
General Key handed over a plain manilla envelope, marked as Open Subscription – the lowest secrecy level in the Goramite military and intelligence community – and bearing Walsh’s name.
“You can open that and read it all at your leisure. Tell me though, what do you know about ICON?”
Walsh looked surprised at the question.
“The International Council of Nations, isn’t it? I’ve heard we’re thinking of an application for membership?”
“Nearly.”
Key corrected him
“It’s the Internationa Coalition of Nations, and we’re not just thinking of it. We’re in. It’s also why you were pulled away from Westphalia.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, ICON is setting up a multinational Fast Reaction Force for intervention and self defence operations. We’ve been approached to put forward a candidate for the position of Allied Commander Ground Forces, and the Minister for Defence put you top of the list. We gave your resume to ICON and they voted you in.”
Walsh was, unsurprisingly, somewhat taken aback by the revelation.
“Allied Commander Ground Forces?”
“Yes. They wanted a man with experience commanding a multinational force and your record with Southern Army Group is exemplary. They vetted and accepted you very quickly indeed.”
Walsh was silent for a few moments. His mind raced. He hadn’t really known what to expect when he’d received the summons to Darrowby, but it certainly was not this.
“I’m sorry Nick, this is all just a bit to take in. When are they expecting me to start?”
“Just as soon as you’re ready, Hiram. Just as soon as you’re ready.”