Happy WAAAAAGHlentines Day!

In Gaunt's Ghosts, there are a number of short vignettes that take a few moments away from the plot or characters in order to make the larger world around them feel alive. This is one of those vignettes, and I love every chance I get to take a look into the absolutely boring inner workings of the Imperial Guard.

Short context: The Tanith 1st and Only has departed on a near-suicidal operation, and a batch of walking wounded who were left behind at a field hospital to be evacuated all feel the same divine inspiration and decide to unofficially tag along themselves.

At around half past six, the names of troopers Derin, Vamberfeld, Nessa and Bragg, and of Captain Daur and Colonel Corbec, were noted in the log of the evacuation officer as overdue. The lift shuttle left without them.

At a muster point further east across the Doctrinopolis, the Pardus chief surgeon noted the absence of Driver-Sergeant Greer.

Both reports were sent to Evacuation command and entered into the night log. The officer of the watch wasn't unduly taxed by this. He had over three hundred names on his list of absentees by then, and it was growing with each passing shuttle call. There were many reasons for missed muster: badly relayed orders; confusion as to the correct muster point; delays because of traffic in the holy city; un-logged deaths from the guard infirmaries. Indeed, some names on the evacuation lists were of troopers who had died in the liberation fight and as yet lay undiscovered and unidentified in the rubble.

Some, a very few, were deserters. Such names were passed to the discipline offices and the lord general's staff.

The officer of the watch passed these latest names on. It was unusual for senior officers like a colonel to fail to report.

By eight o'clock, the list had dropped onto the desk of Commissar Hyachas, who was away at dinner. His aide passed it to the punishment detail, who by nine thirty had sent a four-man team led by a commissar-cadet down to the Scholam Medicae Hagias to investigate. A report was copied to Lord General Lugo's staff, where it was read by a senior adjutant shortly before midnight. He immediately voxed the punishment detail, and was told by the commissar-cadet that no trace of the missing personnel could be found at the Scholam Medicae.

At one in the morning, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Colonel Colm Corbec of the Tanith First-and-Only, along with six of his men. No one thought or knew to tally this with the warrant out for Sergeant-Driver Denic Greer of the Pardus Eighth. Or the theft report of a class gamma transport Chimera from the Munitorium motorpool.