1634: The Baltic War (assiti chards)

by Eric Flint

  The rest went smoothly. Having been thwarted by Mike in the mean-son-of-a-bitch department, Hamers proceeded to restore his reputation by bullying several other merchant captains in the city's portside taverns. In this case, with him having the advantage of half a dozen armed CoC members at his side-who did a pretty good mean-sons-of-bitches act themselves.

  That left the curlicues, where Mike was on more familiar ground. The first thing he did, seeing as how they'd already provided yeoman service, was impress the half dozen CoC members who'd been serving as his enforcers. They'd come along on the expedition also, to see to the necessary political tasks.

  Those same tasks, however, required a printing press and experienced printers, which none of them were.

  Not a problem. If there was one single trade in Europe that the CoCs had penetrated thoroughly, it was that of the printers-already notorious in the seventeenth century for being a radical lot, even before the Ring of Fire.

  Soon enough, the printers arrived. Dismantling the printing equipment and getting it loaded on one of the timberclads took more time than anything. Mostly because the work itself was time consuming, but partly because Commodore Henderson put up a fuss. The ink would spill and ruin his deck, he claimed.

  There being no feasible way to just bully a commodore in the USE Navy, Mike assured him the government would finance whatever repairs might be needed-and what did he care, anyway, seeing as how it was the government's ship, not his?

  It took half an hour to bring Henderson around to an understanding of that point, proving to Mike's satisfaction as well as that of his CoC sidekicks that Henderson, at least, was a genuine Scotsman.

  They left Hamburg the next morning. A flotilla of five timberclads and seven merchant ships, carrying a full regiment of foot soldiers and one company each of cavalry and dragoons. Mike had even corralled a battery of four guns; only six-pounders, but every little bit helped.

  At the last minute, remembering an overlooked detail, Mike ordered the flotilla to remain at the docks until he and his sidekicks rounded up whatever soldiers in the garrison could play a musical instrument. That didn't take too long, since it was still before dawn and the troops were mostly asleep. Finding the instruments themselves took quite a bit longer.

  So, after stressing the imperative necessity to sail at first light, Mike delayed the whole expedition until ten o'clock in the morning. Thereby proving to both the real Scots captain and the phony one that he was a confirmed lunatic.

  Most of the soldiers probably thought the same, although they were more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The CoC members accompanying the expedition, however, were sure that this was just another example of the prince of Germany's canny ways.

  Exactly how, they had no idea. Mike wasn't talking. Partly because he thought silence helped keep what few scraps of dignity he still had left; but, mostly, because he wasn't sure himself if he was a lunatic or not.

  Jesse Wood kicked a loose clod into the dirt-filled hole and stomped on it. He looked across the field at the teams of farmers from the village still filling similar holes and depressions in the new airfield at Ochsen Werder, an island between the Elbe and one of its tributaries just southeast of Hamburg. By dint of back-breaking effort with their farm tools and wagons, the men, women, and children of the village were smoothing the ground of what had been a field of winter wheat only weeks before. The field had been hurriedly prepared by the army for their first flight over Hamburg. It was now approaching something close to an installation suitable for real flying operations and was already being called, inevitably, "The Ox."

  Normally, this time of year, the farmers would have been right in the middle of the spring planting. But Jesse had promised relatively lavish wages for all and sundry, including the kids, to work on the airfield. He didn't mind the expense-in his experience, the mission came first-and it wasn't his money, anyhow. He even felt a slight guilty pleasure; half gratitude at having what amounted to an unlimited budget and half satisfaction at the thought of giving Stearns the tab for this. He imagined Mike would have a hell of a fight on some future supplemental military appropriations bill, but that wasn't his problem.

  His problem was to make the field ready to provide air support to the war effort in the North German and Baltic areas. The weather was finally beginning to turn and, despite spring rains, was now okay for flying nearly two out of every three days. Once the aircraft returned from Grantville, the air force could get back in the war in earnest.

  Provided he hadn't forgotten something. As he walked toward the nearly finished wooden building that was to serve as base operations, he once again mentally ticked off the essentials.

  Airfield. Check. Nearly three thousand feet long, because he knew that eventually some ham-fisted or tired pilot would land halfway down the landing zone. The perimeter fence was done, so they wouldn't have to worry about cows wandering about. He'd spent more money paying for the removal of half an orchard just beyond one end of the field. The mature orchard had looked like it had been there since the time of Adam and the freehold farmer who owned it had initially refused to sell it. He had only agreed after the local Committee of Correspondence had spoken to him, rather emphatically. Jesse had ignored the sullen farmer's black eye, shaken his hand, and given him a signed voucher for payment.

  Jesse had been carefully absent during the conversation, partly because the CoC in Hamburg reminded him too much of what he imagined Mao's fanatic minions must have been like. They had all the vices of Magdeburg's CoC, without the discipline and tight organization that people like Spartacus and Gunther Achterhof provided. That was a common enough problem in outlying areas where new CoCs had sprung up. If the rumors were accurate, it was even worse in parts of Franconia.

  Hangars, repair shop, fuel storage, munitions bunker. Check. Other work gangs, carpenters from Hamburg, had thrown up the buildings in jig time and one of Simpson's motorized barges had delivered precious uncut gasoline and enough methanol to last until local production could begin. The same barge had also brought scores of rockets, ample black powder, mass-produced iron nose cones, and percussion cap fuses. Jesse had employed the best of the carpenters in producing the thin wooden slats and tail assemblies which, when fitted into the slots in the tapering nose cones and sealed with pitch, formed the fifty- and hundred-pound bomb bodies for the Gustavs. The stout munitions bunker, surrounded by an earthen berm, already stored dozens of inert bomb bodies. Jesse wanted his own people to fill them with powder, which could also be produced locally.

  Operations, communications. Check. Once the tower was built next to the operations building, the radios would be served by a methanol-powered generator in a separate and well-ventilated shed under the tower.

  Billeting, water, food, hygiene. Check. The barracks could wait. Since they'd be shorthanded at first, the hangars and operations building would do as sleeping quarters for now. They already had two cooks, a man and his wife who, despite having been CoC members, or maybe because of it, had run afoul of the local authorities in Hamburg. There was even a crew working on a brick, stone, and mortar communal bath, to be heated Roman-style, with a hypocaust floor. The island was cold and damp. Jesse reckoned they'd have enough problems without the men coming down sick from lack of some place to get clean. Women in the village would take care of the laundry.

  Equipment, spares, personnel. He'd sent word to Hal Smith for everything he could think of that might be needed to keep the aircraft operating. Crew chiefs, mechanics, munitions specialists, a trained carpenter, spare propellers, oil and filters, wiring, tires, tools, a spare engine or two, the list was near endless. Most of it would be delivered by barge and Jesse fretted about all the things that could happen to the literally irreplaceable stuff from the future. He'd kept two pilots with him, Enterprise and Endeavor Martin, who were supervising work elsewhere on the field. Initially, Ent and Dev had reacted to the non-flying duty with ill grace, but Jesse knew they would benefit from the experience. The air fo
rce needed leaders who understood that there was more to being an officer than sitting in a cockpit. More pilots would arrive today with the aircraft. Hopefully.

  Security. There wasn't much. Most of the USE contingents had moved on toward the borders and Luebeck. Those that remained seemed mostly interested in securing the future cooperation of Hamburg. Which meant, of course, staying in the city, where the beer was available, the beds were soft, and one could find women who were both. Jesse was armed with his personal Smith amp; Wesson Model 15 and the Martin brothers carried two of their moonshining daddy's pistols, left in the family farmhouse that had made the trip through the Ring of Fire. That was it. Luckily, there wasn't much need for security just yet. Being on an island cut down on casual traffic considerably. Still, Jesse would feel better when Sergeant Krueger showed up to take the situation in hand.

  "Mein Herr! Mein Herr! Das Radio!"

  Jesse looked toward the operations shack. Alois, the young man he'd left on radio watch was standing in the door, waving frantically. He broke into a run, clumping over the damp earth, and in seconds was inside the shack, grabbing the microphone from the youth. The instrument had been converted from the public address system in the Grantville grade school gymnasium, while the speakers had come from some teenager's bedroom, but the Americans were used to such jury-rigging by now. It still must have seemed like magic to the German boy who watched from the side. Jesse waited for the next incoming transmission.

  "Ox, Ox, this is Eagle Leader with a flight of four. Do you read, Ox? Over."

  The sound was faint and full of static. Jesse uselessly fiddled with the receiver volume and squelch switch before answering.

  "Ah, Eagle Leader, this is Ox. We have you about three by three. Over."

  "Roger, Ox, I have you five by five. Eagle Flight is ten minutes out. Three Gustavs and one Belle. Over."

  Jesse could recognize Eagle Leader's voice now. It was Captain Woodsill.

  "Roger, Woody, we'll be waiting." He glanced at the windsock outside the unglazed window. "The wind is from the southwest at about ten knots." Another glance at the barometer on the counter. "Set altimeter at three zero zero two. Give us a couple of minutes to clear the field."

  Jesse was about to send Alois to find Dev and Ent, when the two brothers burst into the door. Jesse wasted no time.

  "Go out there and get those people and wagons off the field. The aircraft are arriving in about eight minutes." The two spun about and raced back outside, yelling as they went.

  Minutes later, the field was cleared and Jesse stood in the door of the operations shack, holding the mike and listening to the growing hum of engines.

  "Ox, this is Eagle Flight, one minute out. Request permission to land."

  Jess took one last look around before answering. "Roger, Eagle Flight is cleared to land."

  The four aircraft approached from the south in a tight finger four formation, with the Gustavs in the first three positions and the Belle in four. The formation rapidly grew in size and the sound rose to a powerful multipitched growl as Woodsill brought them overhead and past at about two hundred feet. Alois stared in fascination at the aircraft, mouth agape.

  Jesse noted the tightness of the formation with professional approval. The three Gustavs looked very impressive with the thin wooden skin of their low wings and fuselages painted a rich gray-blue with the red, black and gold USE flag toward the tail and large red numbers, 1, 2, 3, painted on their vertical stabilizers. Sun glinted off their greenhouse-style canopies and Jesse suddenly grinned at the ferocious red and white shark mouths painted on the Gustavs' noses. The Belle in the formation looked positively dowdy by comparison.

  Jesse murmured, "It's okay, old girl. Don't pay any attention to the youngsters, you still look beautiful to me."

  At the end of the field, Woody shook out the formation into line astern and climbed up into a comfortable downwind, still moving north. Trailing fifteen seconds apart, the aircraft followed him into the distance, finally turning one by one back to the field. The machines glided over the demolished orchard, crossed the perimeter fence, set down neatly spaced across the landing zone, and began to taxi toward the hangars.

  Jesse let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. By God, they had an airfield.

  Chapter 47

  Copenhagen

  Prince Ulrik stared dubiously at the two dozen or so small vessels lined up next to each other in Copenhagen's harbor. They weren't more than thirty-five feet long, at a guess. "I suppose they'll do."

  The rising inflection at the end of that sentence turned it into a question. Baldur Norddahl shook his head. "For our purposes here, at any rate. Look at it this way, Your Highness. We only need to go a short distance. Then, either way, it won't matter."

  "It would be nice to have enough of a boat to make an escape, Baldur."

  The Norwegian hesitated, for a moment, then said, "Ulrik, I doubt very much if we'll have a boat left to make an escape in the first place. I hope you're a good swimmer." For good measure, he added with a grin, "I swim like a seal, myself."

  "You would," grunted Ulrik. But he didn't return the grin. The fact that Norddahl had used a personal form of address meant that he was dead serious.

  "I read some up-time accounts of spar torpedoes," he half-protested. "I had them obtained after we agreed on this scheme."

  "That must have cost a small fortune, getting them that quickly."

  "It certainly did." Ulrik attempted a grin himself, although he suspected it was a sickly affair. "But I'm a prince, you know. I have a small fortune."

  Actually, he didn't, since Christian IV kept his sons on a tight leash, financially. But it hadn't mattered, in this instance. The king had also informed his money-keepers that Prince Ulrik was to be given a free rein with spending on the new naval weapons.

  "It's true that the Hunley sank, after using a spar torpedo, but it was a submarine. Most of the surface boats that used spar torpedoes seem to have survived the impact, well enough. For certain, the one that Richter's husband used in Amsterdam survived."

  Baldur gave him a skeptical look. "I read the same accounts. First, the accounts are spotty, since the biggest use of spar torpedoes was by the Russians against the Turks and the American texts had no details. Secondly, the Hunley was not operating submerged when it destroyed the Housatonic-yet it sank anyway."

  "But nobody knows why it sank," the prince pointed out. He wasn't really arguing the matter, though, just trying to draw out Baldur's logic. "And there's still the example of the Amsterdam attack."

  The Norwegian adventurer shrugged. "Ulrik, there's simply no way to know. What I can tell you is this: From the reports, Higgins and his men were using a heavy boat. They had to, really, in that bad weather. We, on the other hand-"

  He jerked a thumb toward the slim galleys tethered nearby. "-at your orders, I remind you, are using light boats. The damn things are just barely big enough to hold a crew of rowers and either an eighteen-pounder cannon or a one hundred pound keg of explosives at the end of a thirty-foot spar."

  "We need to move as quickly as possible," Ulrik pointed out. "And I didn't see any reason to risk the lives of any more of our men than necessary."

  "I'm not arguing that. I agree with you, myself. But the fact remains that once one of those charges goes off, five or ten feet below the surface, we'll get as big a water column as anything a mine produces-and we'll be sitting not thirty feet away in what amounts to a cockleshell. Maybe the boat will survive, who knows? But I'm pretty sure it'll be upended, if not shattered outright, and we'll be dumped into the water. Like I said"-the grin came back-"I hope you're a good swimmer."

  Ulrik stroked his beard for a moment. "Well, yes, I am. Not as good as you, I'm sure, since I'm not a crazy Norwegian. But I can make it to shore, if I'm still conscious. Better wear light clothing, though-even though the water will still be very cold."

  Baldur glanced down. "Yes. And I do not recommend those cavalry boots. Barefoot would be best.
"

  "A prince, going to war in his bare feet? That's ridiculous, Baldur. However, I do have a pair of sturdy slippers that I can kick off easily."

  His half-sister Anne Cathrine had given those to him as a gift, as it happened. Ulrik made a note to have a servant blacken them with boot polish and remove the tassels. Their current color-bright green, with red trimmings and lemon-yellow tassels-would look just about as stupid on a prince going to war as bare feet would.

  "Do you have any cheerier things to tell me?" Ulrik asked a bit grumpily.

  "I certainly do. Come here and look at these."

  Two minutes later, Ulrik was looking just as dubious. "That's all? Just these ugly-looking-I won't tell you what they remind me of-things?"

  Baldur chuckled. "I know what they look like. Shit stuffed into a wooden tube with a fuse sticking out of them. But they'll work. I tested them out in the woods, a few miles north of the city. As God is my witness, I love those up-time texts. It's just sugar and saltpeter, you know, in the proper proportions. The only tricky part is that you have to melt them together carefully, not letting the stuff get too hot or stirring too hard."

  Ulrik didn't ask what would happen if you didn't do it properly. From experience, he knew that Baldur would regale him with grisly details. The Norwegian took a peculiar pleasure in mishaps and disasters.

  "Do we have enough smoke rafts?" he asked.

  "Yes, we've got a dozen. Half the galleys will tow those into action, while the rest tow the floating mines. In the end, I won't be surprised if those mines do more damage to the enemy than anything else we've got."

  "Do you really think Simpson will be fooled?"

  Baldur raised his hands, in a gesture that was halfway between uncertainty and devout hope. "Who knows? But I think so, Ulrik, yes. You've been in battles. You know how chaotic and confusing they are. A man's natural tendency is to react to any threat immediately, without taking the time to wonder if there might be a bigger threat coming after them, that the initial assault is partly designed to disguise. Even generals and admirals do it. Them, most of all, perhaps, since they have entire armies and fleets to lose if they react sluggishly."