Black Watch Sketch

[kato13]

Webstral 07-05-2004, 10:19 PM I'm going through my files, purging and reorganizing. I came across some of my old Twilight: 2000 material. Before I got started on detailing the chronology of Twilight: 2000, and before I got started on southern Arizona, I created the Black Watch. The Watch was mostly former soldiers who took the threat of nuclear war seriously and formed their own survivalist movement in southern Vermont. When worst came to worst, these guys basically kept the Brattleboro corner of Vermont from completely disintegrating. What follows is a vignette I wrote several years ago and which I found earlier today:


November, 1999


The routine was endless. Each morning, the Commander of the Black Watch of the United Communities of Southern Vermont was awakened by the night watch runner at 0430. It was always painful. Dazed, he would lie for a moment after he gained consciousness but before he was fully awake. His body ached with the knowledge of another hard day ahead. Before the runner left the area, Buck would hurl himself out of bed and onto the floor. Often, the runner would come in, startled, and ask if the Commander was all right. Buck always replied that he was--he was just doing his morning exercises.


Buck straightened, the chill air of his little room washing over his bed-warm body. Thanksgiving was fast approaching, which meant that the Vermont nights were quite cold. Buck's body cried out for him to return to the warmth of the bed. Some days, it was easy to ignore his body's demands for more sleep and more warmth. Today, Buck twice fought to stifle the urge to crawl back under the covers. It was going to be a hard day, he reflected grimly. Working to control his shivering, Buck started to dress in the clothes he had laid out on his bare wooden desk chair the previous night. Quickly now: ragged Army-issue jockey briefs first, followed by the blessed wool socks that kept his feet off the cold wood floor. Buck pulled on a T-shirt to preserve some of the heat of his torso before jumping into his Battle Dress Uniform trousers. A thick wool sweater was next--military style but not Army-issue. After mid-November, the Commander typically switched away from the shirt-like BDU jacket and wore sweaters indoors. He wore his camouflage field jacket with Black Watch patch, name, and rank when out-of-doors during the day. Several of the Watchmen would wear their BDU jackets all year, putting layers of thermal underwear or green jacket liners under the BDU jackets once the weather turned cold, but Buck preferred his sweater-and-field jacket combination. He had two of each, which was more than most people in the UC, to say nothing of most of New England.


Saved from the original cache in Putney was a pair of Matterhorn boots, which had been a favorite among soldiers in cold climates before the war. Buck relished these boots during the bitter Vermont winter. Every Watchman in the field lived on the edge of frostbite and hypothermia during this season. The pre-war cold weather gear that had been cached or salvaged was often the margin that kept them going. With a grunt, Buck pulled a boot over each foot. The boots were cold at first, but they quickly warmed. Buck glanced at the frosted window of his room, noting by the bright moonlight that the night had cleared. He took a deep breath. The sharp cold of the room had receded, as had the pain of awakening after too short a rest. The Commander of the Black Watch blew out his breath and opened his door to begin yet another day in the struggle to keep the United Communities alive.



Webstral

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TiggerCCW UK 07-06-2004, 05:39 AM Have you any more of this? It sounds interesting and is very well written. One of my favourite things about T2K was the little narrative sections in the rulebooks - they really helped to set the scene.

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