1633

by David Weber

  He held the firing device firmly in his hand. It was a simple thing, just a lanyard tied around a stick. One good quick pull—and it would have to be quick—and the jury-rigged firing pin they'd made with the help of an Amsterdam watchmaker would set off the shotgun shell fixed firmly into the bomb at the end of the spar.

  His mind saw what amounted to a diagram. Pull too soon, and most of the force of the blast might be wasted. Too late, after the torpedo struck the hull and recoiled, and the same might happen. Or, worse, the spar itself might break, sending the torpedo to the bottom. Jeff didn't really think that was likely—it was a pretty hefty piece of wood—still . . .

  He just had time to realize that the ice shield was firmly in place—time, even, to realize that he would never again have to doubt himself, not, at least, when it came to this—when he felt the tremor.

  His arm flashed back, all the steadiness of his nerves translated into the speed of his hand.

  Afterward, he could never remember hearing anything that even vaguely seemed like an explosion. Just the sudden sensation that Leviathan had risen, roaring its monster fury, determined to consume entire the pitiful boat that had blundered across its great ridged spine. He glanced up—almost straight up, the boat had been driven at such an angle by the dome of water—a bit curious to see how long Leviathan's fangs were. He'd never really believed the illustration he'd once seen in a book.

  Later, Jimmy told him the spar had gone sailing overhead. No danger at all, Jimmy claimed.

  Of course, he also claimed the spar had landed somewhere in Brunswick. And made the claim, furthermore, while insisting that Katherine Hepburn had to be English. Since, in that movie African Queen, she'd managed to look dignified all the way through, even when she was sopping wet.

  Which was more than two scruffy young Americans and a bunch of scruffier Dutch fishermen and apprentices could say—for damn sure—as they desperately bailed water out of their boat while trying to avoid angry Spanish warships in the dark.

  That was actually the most dangerous part of the whole escapade, Jeff realized later. But, at the time, he hadn't been afraid at all. Not because of any mysterious quirk in his nervous system, but simply because he'd been too exasperated.

  "And that's another thing they don't tell you in the books," he grumbled, pitching another pail of seawater overboard. "It's all a fucking spongy mess."

  Jimmy was more philosophical about it. "Beats what happened to the Hunley."

  Gretchen was still on the wharf when they returned, along with a small number of other women whose husbands and sons had participated in the mad affair. For obvious security reasons, Jeff had kept the enterprise as much of a secret as possible. He hadn't even seen fit to notify Amsterdam's authorities, and was now finding himself a bit apprehensive about how they were going to react.

  Not too apprehensive, and certainly not for long. Gretchen's body and lips pressed against his, her breath coming heavy, was enough to dispel almost anything except love and lust.

  "I was so frightened," she whispered into his ear. "I was certain you would be killed."

  "I was scared too," he admitted, "until the very end. But don't tell anybody about that part. It'd ruin my image as a geek."

  "Stupid," she murmured, her lips back and eager. "You have never been a geek to me. Or the children. Who else matters?"

  He found himself agreeing to that sentiment. Though not, of course, verbally. Gretchen's kisses, when she was in the mood, made conversation impossible.

  The next day, when the news spread through the city, Amsterdam erupted. The city's populace had been mired in something of a gloomy depression since the siege closed in. Not despairing, to be sure. Dutchmen had been through many sieges since the Revolt began, decades earlier. Some of them lost, to be sure, but more of them won.

  Still, they had no illusions as to the price they would pay, even in the event of victory. "Winning a siege," to those experienced at the business, is a bit like hearing that your life will be saved and you'll "only lose a leg."

  The announcement of the alliance with the United States had lifted their spirits a bit. But only a bit. It had aroused more in the way of curiosity than hope, really. The fables about the Americans had already spread through Europe—and now, for long enough that most people had concluded they were probably fables indeed. What was known was that the United States was, first, a small nation; and, second, nowhere close enough to render much in the way of immediate aid.

  Overnight, that had changed. A Spanish warship lay on the bottom of the Zuider Zee. The force of the explosion, most of it channeled by the unforgiving near-incompressibility of water against the fragile wood, had ruptured the ship's hull. Most of the crew had survived, but the Spaniards had not made more than a token attempt to prevent the ship from sinking. Not after experienced seamen came up onto the deck and described the size of the hole the mysterious explosion had created.

  But the city's glee and elation was not really a matter of military calculation. The Spanish had plenty of other warships, after all. True, the blockading fleet had withdrawn a bit farther from the city. Far enough, in fact, to make a few smuggling runs feasible. But only a few. The Spaniards had also doubled the number of launches they set out at night for a picket line.

  No matter. The old enemy, now grown so huge and seemingly unstoppable, had finally been dealt a blow. And the fact that the blow itself had been delivered under the leadership of the very small delegation from the United States gave that new alliance a luster it had not possessed the day before.

  Jeff Higgins did for that. By nightfall, he was the best-known public figure in Amsterdam except for the prince of Orange himself. And, in all likelihood, even more popular. By noon of the following day, the fledgling Committee of Correspondence in Amsterdam would have dozens of new members.

  In mid-afternoon of that day in early October, Gretchen would give her first public speech in one of the city's squares. Most of the hundreds of people who would show up to hear the speech did so because they were curious to see the wife of Higgins, the now-famous American ship-killer. But, by the end, they would be listening to Gretchen Richter.

  By the morning after that, the Committee of Correspondence would have another dozen new members. And by the end of that day, Gretchen would have started looking for a suitable building in which to establish Amsterdam's Freedom Arches.

  On the day after the torpedo attack, however, it was a time for whoopee. Amsterdam's population poured into the streets to celebrate, the weather having cleared also. Many of them went to the walls of the city, to taunt the Spanish army in its entrenchments.

  At Gretchen's firm command, Jeff and Jimmy—indeed, all the members of the U.S. delegation, including Rebecca—were paraded around the city by members of the Committee of Correspondence. The crowds which met these little parades cheered wildly. Even the Dutch gunners manning the great cannon on the walls were grinning.

  Jeff noticed that one of their officers seemed a bit gloomy, true. Possibly because his own guns hadn't gained any such public acclaim. Or, possibly, because he came from a noble family—what the Dutch called the ridderschap—and was beginning to suspect that a Spanish ship wasn't the only thing which might be sinking.

  If there was glee, there was also tragedy. The crowd had been foolish, often risking too much in their taunts at the Spanish besiegers. Spaniards, of course, were also experienced in siegecraft. So they responded to taunts with taunts of their own. Sixty-four-pound taunts, in their case, iron balls sent sailing into the city. Most of those Spanish cannonballs simply damaged homes and warehouses, but several of them struck the crowd itself.

  And, in the case of one, destroyed a family. A Jewish family, as it happened; who, in most wars, would have sheltered in the ghetto. But these were Amsterdam Jews, more accustomed than most to feeling—at least to some extent—a part of the world around them. And the father of the family, like the ridderschap artillery officer, had a sense that the world might be changing.<
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  So, he'd come, a merchant bringing his wife and infant to see the parades. By sheer bad luck, a Spanish ball ranged onto the street just as Rebecca and her little entourage passed by. At the last instant, sensing the oncoming destruction, the man had grabbed his wife and tried to shelter her behind his own body. But a human body is a pitiful shield against sixty-four pounds of iron. The shot cut them both in half, spilling the infant to the ground.

  Rebecca—crouching against a stone wall, where the experienced Heinrich had yanked her as soon as he heard the oncoming shot—saw the whole thing happen, almost before her very eyes. For a few seconds, her face turned pale with shock. She tried desperately to control her heaving stomach. Blood and intestines had been scattered everywhere, some of it spattering the wall against which she was sheltered.

  The sight of the infant steadied her. The boy was unhurt. His father's body had not protected his mother, true; but that same body—a portion of it, at least—had been enough to cushion the shock of the child's fall. He was lying on the bloody cobblestones, coated with blood himself, wailing his protest at the universe.

  Without thinking about it, Rebecca lunged from her shelter, snatched up the boy, and hurried back.

  "Idiot," growled Heinrich, pulling her down. "You should have left him there."

  She stared at him, clutching the bloody little body. Heinrich's callousness left her as aghast as the carnage.

  The veteran mercenary soldier scowled. "Not forever, damn the world. You should have waited—picked him up when the barrage passed." His shoulders, pressed against the stone, moved in a little shrug. "Little chance of another ball striking such a tiny target. What does it matter if the child shrieks with fear? It won't be the last time he does it, be sure of that, not if he survives. Not in this damned world."

  When he was sure the firing had stopped, Heinrich immediately rose to add his share of jubilation to the crowd. Rebecca remained behind, still crouched against the wall. If there was no shelter needed against guns, any longer, she still felt a desperate need for the comfort of stone against the world.

  "Don't worry," she whispered, "I'll take care of you. I promise."

  The boy seemed to be settling down, a bit. Rebecca began wiping the gore from him, using her own dress for a rag. The garment would need to be cleaned anyway, and very thoroughly.

  Jeff and Jimmy found her there, some time later. The sight of her, ashen-faced and clutching an orphan to her chest, stripped away every trace of warrior self-satisfaction.

  "Aw, shit," said Jimmy. He looked away, his eyes bleak beyond his years.

  Jeff's eyes were not bleak so much as simply grim. Nor did he look away. "Next time," he said softly, almost hissing the words, "let's make sure we've got some real torpedoes."

  Chapter 43

  "I'm sure glad you're here, Jesse—I mean, Colonel."

  Eddie corrected himself quickly, but not quite quickly enough to keep him from blushing.

  "That's all right, Lieutenant," Jesse assured him gravely. "But I remind you that, as I understand it, the Navy's been designated the senior service here in Wismar. That makes sense to me, too. The Air Force—such as it is, and what there is of it—is very much a clear-weather-only force just now. Your surface units are going to have a lot better round-the-clock capability than we are, so it's only sensible to put a Navy officer in overall command."

  "It may seem sensible to you," Eddie said, grimacing, "but I sure as hell don't feel like an officer in overall command of anything!"

  "It'll grow on you," Jesse assured him. "Besides, it comes with the territory, I'm afraid."

  "Always seemed a lot easier than this in war games," Eddie muttered, but his voice was just low enough that Jesse decided he could pretend not to have heard it.

  "Now that I am here, and more or less for good this time," he said instead, "what can I do for you?"

  "Larry just copied a message from Magdeburg," Eddie told him. "The Danes are landing troops in Luebeck Bay."

  "I see." Jesse was surprised that his own voice sounded so calm. Or perhaps he wasn't. On one level, at least, the news was almost a relief. It certainly wasn't unexpected, and at least the Danes' arrival brought an end to the drawn-out anticipation.

  Unfortunately, it also meant enemy troops were coming ashore no more than thirty miles from Wismar, as well.

  "Well," he went on after a moment, "what does Colonel Holtzmüller have to say about it?"

  "Not a lot," Eddie admitted with a crooked smile. "According to our latest reports, General Aderkas is still at least four days out from Wismar. Larry handed Colonel Holtzmüller the same dispatch first, and he headed out to check his pickets immediately."

  "And Captain Stecher?"

  "I've already passed the warning on to him," Eddie said, and Jesse nodded. Jochaim Stecher was a German Lutheran fishing boat skipper. Actually, he owned no fewer than six small fishing vessels operating out of Wismar and Rostock. Eddie had entrusted one of his precious citizens-band radios to him, along with a German-born U.S. Navy sailor trained in its use. At the moment, Stecher was somewhere out on Wismar Bay, looking as innocent as possible while he kept a sharp lookout for the first sign of the Danish fleet. The chance of his seeing anything in the middle of a rainy fall night wasn't particularly great, but in this pre-radar era, invasion fleets were going to want at least minimal daylight before they tried to put any troops ashore. And as long as his boat showed no signs of trying to run past the Danes toward shore, they were likely to leave it alone . . . since there was no way for them to know it had a radio aboard.

  "I guess what I really need to know," Eddie went on after a moment, "is how likely it is that you and Hans can get into the air tomorrow, Colonel."

  "That's the sixty-four-dollar question," Jesse said with a humorless smile. "Right this minute, I'd say the chances were at least a little better than even. Judging from the way the rain's slacked off, it looks like the front's pretty much passed through, and while I was walking over here from the field, it looked to me like the cloud cover was breaking up. Of course, this time of the year in the Baltic, the only thing anyone can say for sure is that no one can be sure what the weather is going to do. Damn, what I wouldn't give for a decent weather service!"

  "I can certainly agree with you there," Eddie said feelingly. "But to be honest, better than even is a lot better chance than I'd figured on."

  He leaned forward, gazing down at the large-scale chart of Wismar and its approaches pinned down on the table between him and Jesse, studying it so intently that no one would ever have guessed he didn't actually see it at all.

  "What are your intentions?" Jesse asked quietly.

  "Um?" Eddie looked back up quickly and shook himself. "Well, Captain Stecher's supposed to be staying in line-of-sight from our antenna overnight, so we should be able to catch any transmission from him if he spots anything out there tonight. If he does, Larry and I may try a night attack with the low-light gear." He paused, and Jesse nodded in understanding. Given all of the deer hunters in and around Grantville, it had been inevitable that several someones would have acquired low-light vision equipment. As it happened, no less than thirteen Russian Army surplus night-vision glasses had turned up, along with four low-light telescopic rifle sights. Batteries would become a problem eventually, but not for quite some time. And in the meantime, they provided a limited, potentially invaluable night combat capability.

  "And if Stecher doesn't spot anything?" Jesse asked.

  "In that case, we're going to have to go looking for them ourselves," Eddie replied. "Either that, or just sit here and wait for them, and that's not what the admiral had in mind when he sent us up here. Which is why I hope you can get into the air tomorrow."

  "Understood." It was Jesse's turn to step closer to the map table and frown down at the chart. "At the very least, we can probably get up under the cloud deck and circle above the city. That would extend Stecher's range; you could send him further out and still give him a good line-of-sight
to the radio in the plane. And we could get back onto the ground in a hurry if the weather went bad on us again.

  "Of course," he continued, "his detection range is going to be limited. I doubt the Danes could slip an entire fleet past him, but it certainly wouldn't be impossible. Depending on how far he can actually see, we might need to send one or both of the planes out to do the scouting for you." His hand traced an arc across Wismar Bay toward the open waters of the Baltic beyond. "I'd be a lot happier about trying that if the weather really cleared instead of just improving, of course. But if we can get up at all, we should be able to see a lot further than you could from sea level. And we've got the camcorders rigged in both planes. So if we do see anything, we should be able to bring back pretty decent reconnaissance footage."

  "What about the rockets?" Eddie asked in a suddenly toneless voice, and Jesse's frown deepened. He understood the need to throw every possible weapon at the Danes. And there wasn't any technical reason why they couldn't strap a couple of rockets under either wing. The problem was that Jesse didn't see much chance that weapons that short-ranged and inaccurate were likely to do much damage, whereas their weight would certainly decrease the aircraft's safety margins. Not to mention their potential to explode in a bad landing . . . or takeoff.

  On the other hand, he reminded himself, the amount of actual damage they did might be pretty much immaterial compared to their morale effect.

  "All right," he said reluctantly. Then he sighed. "I suppose there never really was much question," he admitted. "Not after Greg Ferrara went ahead and wired the damned hard points for them!"

  Mike looked over the pile of equipment Harry Lefferts had brought to Magdeburg with him, now stacked in a well-shielded and guarded part of the naval yard. He shook his head, partly in bemusement at the weird assemblage, but mostly at the thought of Harry himself. And the barely veiled glee with which he and his handful of cohorts had so obviously put it all together.