Towards a General - Part 1

From Blackwell, those final words were the most significant. They struck a chord with Oliver, likely more than any other man, for it was a pronouncement that went entirely the opposite way to the one Blackwell had quietly delivered to him. 'So that is a man that Blackwell approves of?' Oliver found himself thinking.

He studied the way Karstly walked, with that swagger in his step, oozing self confidence with every twist of his limbs. He studied the way his confidence seemed to swell, as he put his hand out for Blackwell to shake, and he compared it to himself. 'That's not a way that I am capable of acting,' Oliver thought. 'That is not a man that I am capable of being.'

The decisions that Karstly had made, harsh as they had been, Oliver could never see himself being able to make. 'If that is what Blackwell thinks makes the mightiest of Generals… Then I shall never come close to it.'