After winning a battle near a water hole, Arnanak orders that his troops make an hour's march to the next water hole to camp. His reason is that, if they stay where they are, then the carrion eaters will hold off, thus delaying the release of the spirits of those who have been killed.
"'Luck follows an honorable deed.'" (p. 50)
Most believers in spirits would say that those spirits have already departed but the one constant about beliefs is that they vary.
D Day was eighty years ago and reminiscences have been on TV. One man who landed on a Normandy beach was an unarmed Scotsman who stood playing bagpipes until all the other Allied troops had disappeared over the horizon and he had to run to catch up with them. Apparently, German snipers considered it bad luck to kill an unarmed madman. And, indeed, if, in the heat of combat, I shot and killed an unarmed musician, then I would never forgive myself because he was not a threat. Regret and remorse would be the worst kind of bad luck.
(I remember my father commenting with surprise that D Day was all of twenty years ago! As an sf reader, I always knew that we were moving into the future and toward the twenty-first century and now we have experienced it.)
4 comments:
You don't have to be armed to be a legitimate target -- for example, carrying a standard in the old days made you a -prime- target.
Or driving a truck full of supplies, these days.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree! But I did wonder if those German snipers were also showing chivalry in not trying to shoot that British bagpiper.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: probably.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
There can be fleeting moments of magnanimity in war.
Ad astra! Sean
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