I instantly hated it. Not the construction aspect: I appreciated the chance to prove my skills and knowledge in a practical way. No, I dreaded having to choose between Spink and Trist, for I was certain they would be my only choices. And once we had selected one or the other, I feared the divided loyalties within our patrol would hamper our efforts to get anything done. As I dreaded, Trist immediately smiled round at us and announced, “How about it, fellows? You know I can get this done.”
Oron and Caleb immediately nodded, but Gord held up a warning hand. “Wait. I want to propose a different man for the job.”
“Not Spink,” Oron said decisively.
“No, not Spink,” Gord shocked me by saying. “I propose Nevare. His marks have been excellent and more than once he has shown that his father gave him a practical grounding in this sort of work. Isn’t that true, Nevare?”
Only a week ago, I would have flushed with pleasure at Gord’s praise, and at the newly appraising stares that my fellows gave me. Today, I only felt intensely uncomfortable. Did I want praise from fellows who would cheat or suggest cheating? So I only said, grudgingly, “I’ve built a cattle bridge or two. And helped with the footbridge for my sisters’ garden.”
There was a very long moment of silence. Trist looked shocked, not just that Gord had proposed someone other than Spink, but also that he had chosen me. But Rory, Nate, and Kort were all nodding vigorously, and after a moment Spink did also. Trist just shrugged. “If that’s what you fellows want,” he said, as if he didn’t care at all. Caleb immediately nodded also. Trist seemed to think it rather generous of himself to concede, and I suppose it was. As it was, we were still standing about uncertainly when Captain Maw announced, “Time is up. Name your commanders.”
“Cadet Nevare Burvelle,” Trist announced before I could say anything. Then, quietly, to me he added, “You’d best do your job, Burvelle. If we fail this, then we all go down because of you.”
His words changed my warmth at my comrades’ support to a liquid fear in my belly. Was that why neither Spink nor Trist had given me much challenge for this post? Because a failure now would be such a spectacular defeat? It chilled me, but Rory, grinning like a frog, tilted his head at me and jovially commanded me to “Lead on, Commander Burvelle.”
I think that, even said in jest, it does something to a man the first time someone actually calls him “Commander.” I thought about it as Maw ordered all of us to follow him outside into the raw weather. Each of us gathered an armful of supplies from our pile and followed him. In that moment, I decided I would step up to the challenge rather than, as I had first considered, insist that Trist take it on. Maw was whistling as he led us out into the cold and the wind. We tramped through the caked and icy snow on the lawns to the edge of campus. There he motioned us to set down our loads and invited us to survey the creek.
When I stood by the stack of supplies Maw had given our patrol, my heart sank. Tiler’s Creek seeped along, a muddy gash at the edge of our landscaped Academy grounds. The trees that grew along its steep, mud-flanked banks were pole-size saplings, now bare in winter’s grip. The gap we had to cross was not especially challenging. Once, perhaps, Tiler’s Creek had been a real creek. I suspected that nearby households siphoned off most of its water and dumped waste into the small trickle that remained. At the bottom of its muddy ravine, the “creek” was little more than a seep of slime under a coating of ice, and only about eleven mucky feet wide. It was immediately obvious that we had only one wooden plank that was long enough to span the creek. We had a quantity of shorter boards, rope, canvas, stakes, a mallet, several knives, a hammer, a saw, and some nails. My heart sank.
“Let’s sort out our materials and see what we have,” I suggested.
That was a mistake. Trist immediately added, “Let’s see if that one long piece will reach across the creek.”
Spink then chimed in, “Looks like we only have one. We may have to trade to get more.” I suddenly saw how it could go. I would ostensibly be in charge, while the two natural leaders actually made the decisions and set the tasks. I felt the familiar lurch of uncertainty that always plagued me when I wondered if I had the ability to be a good officer. I was too solitary, too independent, too accustomed to doing it all myself, my own way. Perhaps my father had been right about me; I did not have what it took to lead.
The rest of the patrol began to move to obey Spink’s and Trist’s instructions. I realized my error in not being more forceful. I would not err so again. I tried to put my father’s steel into my voice. “No. That’s not how you start a bridge. I’m not worried about spanning it now. The span is no good if we don’t have anything to support it. Foundation first.”