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A Filthy Story

Written by Aamund Breivik

Daniel Pedersson cursed, and swung the entrenching tool again. It went splat instead of crack, again, and he cursed some more. Not that swearing helped; he was already covered in filthy sewage slush beyond all imagination. The supply depot's jury-rigged sewer system had worked fine all summer, but now the outlet had frozen solid and the sewage had backed up all the way to the officers' latrines. Removing the blockage was a horribly filthy job, but this was the Swedish Army. There was always someone who could do with some "disciplinary measures." Ah well. Daniel had been punished before, and he probably would be again.

Not that he was entirely innocent of this current mess either, but he couldn't help feeling that it ought to be procurement officer Paal Nilsson-Loo down here clearing it up instead of him. They weren't even supposed to have a supply depot here, never mind sewers. So what if he'd helped construct this dodgy plumbing in the first place? Or that he and some other enlisted men had been a little too enthusiastic when they found the sewage was blocked, and the enlisted men's latrines were upstream of the officers'?

Nilsson-Loo had been ordered to set up a small Swedish Army procurement office for the Grantville area. The Swedes were buying so many goods and services from the booming industry there that they needed someone to sign contracts and inspect the goods, to ensure the crown always got its money's worth. He made a decent living, more than decent in fact, by skimming what he saw as his rightful share off every single deal. A bit more than what the crown might think he was entitled to, but he kept the witnesses quiet by sharing some of his questionable income with his subordinates.

Like when he decided he liked the up-time-style indoor plumbing so much that he had his men lay pipes from their fancy new latrines out to a nearby drainage ditch. Not just his own shiny porcelain throne, but the men's too, since he didn't want to smell their waste if he could help it. Now it had all gone wrong, and the Grantville authorities had gotten wind of their unauthorized plumbing. They'd declared it all to be the Swedish Army's problem, after repeatedly using the phrase "code violation." Along with other, less polite English words and phrases which Daniel could now add to his vocabulary. Other new additions were "septic tank" and "leach field." Nilsson-Loo had therefore declared it must be Daniel's problem, for not doing the job right in the first place. So while Daniel was down here in an overflowing ditch, Nilsson-Loo was probably off spending his "skimmings" on women. Or on something else Daniel didn't want to know about; there were rumors, and he worried that his boss might stain the Army's reputation one day.

Before he could employ his new skills in language and septic engineering, he had to remove all the effluent from the drainage ditch and deposit it in a more permanent location so it couldn't run off downstream to pollute the waterways. This was backbreaking, boring, seemingly endless work and he'd been at it alone all day. There had been some commotion earlier, but nobody had bothered to tell him what was going on and he couldn't leave his work to find out.

He'd just about finished hacking the frozen sewage into slush and dirty ice cubes, when a sour-looking military policeman arrived escorting a surprisingly cheery person who was carrying a number of buckets. Surprising, that is, for someone about to wade waist-deep in raw sewage with frozen crusty bits on top. Vague recognition kicked in.

"Hey, aren't you one of those ski-troop heroes? What are you doing here on punishment detail?"

The man answered something unintelligible: "Eig e skilaupar, jau, meinn neigu noukon hjelte" it sounded like. "Say again?"

"Sorry," the man answered. "I'll speak German instead. I've gotten used to my Swedish friends understanding me, but they've had some time to learn. My name is Torjer Lien, and I'm a skier but no hero. I'm here for offending a supply officer." He grinned.

"Why? And what's so funny about it?"

"Well, the reason isn't funny." Torjer's face darkened, all merriness gone. "It started when the ski troops were asked to test a new piece of equipment, a 'sleeping bag' made to an up-time pattern and with up-time-style zippers." Torjer spoke while he worked, filling two buckets with filth and handing two more to Daniel. "The 'prototype' we were shown looked good, and when we let a recruit use it for a week it didn't rip or break or anything. That's how we test new equipment—if it's recruit-proof then it's probably strong enough for general issue. We told them it was a great idea, if they would only make them big enough that we could actually use them while wearing all our winter clothes and equipment. The prototype was a bit tight when you put your rifle and everything inside, like we sometimes do to thaw out frozen locks and water bottles."

They carried the buckets over to a hand cart for transport uphill to a large pit. It was going to be some punishment, as there must surely be a hundred more bucketfuls to scoop up and remove.

"Our boss, Captain Virenius, ordered a full platoon set of sleeping bags just like the prototype except a bit wider. What we got—what the supply officer gave our captain—was bags the same too-small size as the prototype and with a thinner, finer-looking type of zipper. The supply officer claimed these were newer, better zippers than the one on the prototype".

The two men continued filling and emptying buckets of unimaginable filth. "We didn't know the zippers were bad—he'd charged the Army for a larger version with deluxe extra-strong zippers, and only bought the standard size with cheaper zippers. Zippers designed for ladies' dresses!" Torjer shook his head, and continued to work.

"So out we went, on an exercise to test our new tactics and equipment against friendly 'enemy' units who'd be looking for us, and if we were spotted they'd fire blanks at us. All pretty harmless, but nobody wants to lose a battle even if it isn't for real. So we decided to be serious about it, you know, moving quickly and making cold camp. Just the sort of job for up-time-style sleeping bags, if only the bloody zippers had worked." Torjer spat and cursed for a few minutes in unintelligible Norwegian, apparently without repeating himself.

"The first few nights were great. I had a good, thick reindeer pelt underneath my warm, cozy sleeping bag and I slept like a baby. Except for when that clumsy son-of-a-taxman Ante stumbled in the alarm line and woke me half an hour before it was my turn on stag. The fifth night, however, we were pretty close to the 'enemy' and everyone was a bit on edge. So when our mess kits began to rattle during dog watch, we all burst from our sleeping bags and ran to our defensive positions. I don't think anyone noticed at the time, but nearly all of us tore those lady-fashion zippers open without using the little pull tab thingy. Nobody had told us that would destroy the zippers."

Daniel felt confused. "Back up a little. Mess kits? What made them rattle?"

"We use them for an alarm system," Torjer explained. "You tie a long piece of string to a bunch of tin pots or whatever will make noise, like a couple of mess kits tied together. Run ...