"Keep your asses in line! Get to bed early! I don't want to get up tomorrow morning to collect any of your fucking corpses!"
After dinner, Norman Cathedral was unusually quiet.
The last queue waiting for food outside the mess hall finally dispersed, and the scorched smell of cooking smoke gradually gave way to the cold scent of stone at night.
Under regulations, personnel not assigned to night patrols or fixed sentry posts were theoretically supposed to rest as soon as possible, conserving their strength for whatever the next day might bring.
In practice, however, several hundred thousand restless young soldiers stood between "theoretically" and "in practice."
Some did immediately climb into their allotted cold iron beds, pull blankets over their heads, and try to fall asleep amid the chorus of snores, grinding teeth, and stifled coughs peculiar to communal barracks.
More behaved like animals released from their cages, using their limited free time to explore this vast, unfamiliar temporary home.
Some strolled around the cathedral in twos and threes, treading dirt compacted by heavy vehicles as they watched engineers setting up artillery positions in the darkness.
The bolder ones pocketed their rationed cigarettes or other small trinkets and headed toward neighboring units' camps, a time-honored way for soldiers to gather information and break the monotony.
Sergeant Leki belonged to the latter group.
He dug three tins out of his storage locker. Their metal Shells bore the Colchis Sector's insignia and food-grade codes, making them something of a hard currency.
He also called over his two closest friends in the platoon, Werner and Corporal Holtz. The three broke their ration biscuits into pieces, stuffed them into their pockets as snacks, and slipped out through the small door in the cathedral's side wing.
Curfew was at eight in the evening, and