1634: The Ram Rebellion

by Eric Flint

  “Herr Hatfield, we are going too slow,” von Dantz complained. “At this rate, we will never make it to Suhl before nightfall.”

  “Captain, we were figuring three or four days when we started. So even if we don’t make Suhl tonight, we’re still ahead of schedule. I packed a tent and enough sleeping bags for everyone. Wili made sure there was hay and feed for the horses. So we should be okay if we have to camp again.”

  “I want . . .”

  Anse never did find out what the captain wanted, because just then Gaylynn yelled from the wagon seat. “Wili, stop the wagon! Look over there!”

  Gaylynn was down from the wagon and striding across the road before anyone realized what she was talking about. Near the road were the huddled forms of two children. They were sitting together, wrapped in a blanket that was mostly holes. Wili tied the reins to the brake lever and dismounted to help her with the translation. The American woman’s German was passable, but probably not good enough to decipher what frightened children might be saying

  Captain von Dantz rode back to see what the delay was. “What are you doing, woman? We have to keep moving.”

  “I’m tending to these children!” Gaylynn snapped back. “What do you want to do? Just leave them here to freeze?”

  The captain shrugged irritably. “We can load them on the wagon and take them with us, if you insist. Quickly—we have only two hours of daylight left.”

  Now that he was closer, Anse could see the children were both boys, about five or six years old. He called to Rau, who was still mounted. “Jochen, ride ahead and see if there are any refugees on the road. These boys have gotten lost from their family.”

  “Nein,” Wili called, “they live over there.” He pointed toward a path that could barely be seen joining the road, about a half mile down. “They say men come and hurt their Grossvater this morning. They ran off.”

  “Jochen, check it out quietly,” Anse ordered. Rau dismounted and headed for the woods beside the road.

  Wili and Gaylynn had managed to get the boys to the wagon when Rau returned. “It looks like there are eight of them, all on foot, in a charcoal burner’s cabin. They left the old man tied to a tree outside. He looks dead. They have two men keeping watch in front of the house and the rest are in the house.”

  Before Anse could say anything, von Dantz spoke up. “If you will permit me to make a suggestion”—the words practically dripped sarcasm—“I think we should leave Frau Reardon and Fraülein Murphy here to watch the boys and the wagon. Private Schultz will take my spare horse, and we will ride to the house and demand to know what these men are doing.”

  Anse was not surprised by the captain’s “plan.” He didn’t doubt the man’s courage, but he had about as few brains as a rabbit.

  “Well, that might work, but Wili doesn’t ride. And if the bandits decide to make a fight of it, we’ll be out in the open with no cover.”

  “Herr Hatfield, these are bandits, not trained troops.”

  In Anse’s experience, the distinction in the seventeenth century between “bandits” and “trained troops” was a lot fuzzier than von Dantz made it out to be. “It never hurts to have an edge, Captain. Jochen, Wili and I will sneak up on the house through the woods. Then you and Lt. Ivarsson ride in with the wagon, with Gaylynn driving, to where the path from the house comes to the road before you ride up to the house. Noelle and the boys can stay in the wagon bed, where they’ll have some shelter if the stuff hits the fan. Gaylynn can cover the front of the house and give you some support. The three of us in hiding can give the bandits a nasty surprise if they try to attack you. And it gives us six guns instead of four.”

  After a moment, von Dantz nodded. “Do not fire until we arrive.”

  “Give us ten minutes to get in position.” Anse handed the captain his pocket watch.

  Rau went to the rear of the wagon and started digging in his pack. Anse was not surprised to see him pull out two hand grenades. Rau had developed a positive love for grenades since he discovered you could fish with them.

  As the three entered the woods, Anse asked, “How are you going to light those?”

  Rau held up a Zippo lighter. “Chief Schwartz gave it to me. He likes fish.”

  When they arrived at the house, it was much like Rau had described it: a simple one-room structure with one door and only two windows, one on each side. Not much more than a big hut, really. Definitely a charcoal-burner’s place, from the nature of the tools scattered around.

  The window panes appeared to be made from thin leather and were partially open. There were two out-buildings, a simple privy and a small shed. The shed, which was open on the front, was the home of a large donkey, which was inside. The privy was on the opposite side of the house from the shed and looked in need of repair. From the woods they could see the body of an old man tied to a tree close to the shed. Two bandits were standing guard outside the front door to the house.

  While they were still some distance away, Anse laid out his plan. “Jochen, work your way up to the far side of the house. If they start shooting, toss a grenade through the window. Wili, you and me will crawl up on the near side. You take the window and after the grenade goes, off bust open the window and cover the inside of the house. I’ll move on to the corner and take the two men out front. Understood?”

  When the two others nodded, Anse continued. “Now don’t do anything until someone takes a shot at the captain. They might surrender.” From the looks on Wili and Jochen’s faces, they doubted that as much as Anse did.

  Everything went as planned, up to a point. Anse and Wili had just gotten into position on either side of the window when they heard a shot from the other side of the house. That shot was followed by two more, and then some shouting.

  “Wili, watch the window. Don’t fire until I do.”

  Anse stepped to the corner of the house. A quick glance around it made immediately clear what had happened. Of the two men who had been watching the front of the house, one had gone to the privy. Either going to or coming back, he had seen Jochen near the house and taken a shot at him. He’d missed, Jochen hadn’t, and the man was down near the privy. His partner was kneeling by the door of the house readying his match lock and yelling at the top of his lungs.

  Anse stepped out and called, “Throw down your gun. Geben oben.” Either the man didn’t want to give up or Anse’s German wasn’t understandable, because he turned and raised his weapon. Before he could get it halfway up, he took two twenty gauge slugs in the chest. He was wearing a breast plate, but at a range of less than six feet it made very little difference.

  As Anse shifted his aim to cover the door he heard the familiar clackity-boom that told him Wili was unloading his shotgun through the window. Jochen’s warning call of “Grenade!” was almost covered up by the sound of Anse’s shotgun taking out a man trying to flee the pocket hell that Wili had made of the inside of the house.

  After the grenade exploded, there was nothing but silence.

  When his ears quit ringing, Anse called out, “Wili, Jochen! Are you all right?”

  “Ja,” the two responded, almost in unison.

  Captain von Dantz and Lieutenant Ivarsson were coming at a gallop. The two were just turning off the road. Gaylynn was close behind, driving the wagon.

  “Herr Hatfield, I told you to wait!” were the first words out of the captain’s mouth, as he slid from his horse. “We needed prisoners to question, not just bodies.”

  Just then a shot rang out from inside the house. The bullet made a wheeting sound as it passed between Anse and the captain. Anse and the captain both turned and fired at almost the same time. The wounded man standing in the doorway of the house, trying to reload his pistol, was driven back inside by the force of both shots hitting him dead center.

  “Sorry, Captain, but I don’t think they want to surrender.”

  “It seems not. So be it, then.” He drew his sword and stepped toward the house.

  Seeing the captain about to
enter with only his sword as a weapon, Anse said. “Wait a second, captain. Take my shotgun. Just point it and pull the trigger. There’s still two shells in it.”

  Von Dantz took the shotgun. Anse drew his pistol and the two moved to the door. Once they looked through the door, however, it was obvious that the shooting was over. The bodies of the bandits were scattered around the one room of the house. Wili and Jochen were looking through the two windows of the house, their guns pointing inside, but nothing was moving.

  “Lieutenant Ivarsson,” the captain called. “If you and Herr Hatfield’s men can clean the bodies out of the house, we can get the women and the boys out of the weather. We will have to camp here tonight.”

  Anse rolled his eyes. It was typical of the captain, that he didn’t give a thought to the reaction of the two boys or the women—or the men, for that matter—at the prospect of spending the night in a cabin that was splattered all over with blood and gore. Jochen’s grenade had practically shredded at least one of the bandits.

  “I think not, Captain,” he said firmly. “As I told you, we have perfectly serviceable tents with us.” Jabbing a finger at the inside of the cabin, he added: “That’s a charnel house in there. Even in winter, the stench will be unbearable.”

  Fortunately, von Dantz didn’t argue the matter. He simply stalked off, in a huff.

  Lieutenant Ivarsson came up.

  “Herr Hatfield, I think we should dig a grave for the old man. But what do you want to do with the bandits?”

  Anse made a face. “Well, I’m damned if I feel like digging any bigger hole than we need to, in this frozen ground.”

  The big Swedish lieutenant smiled coldly. “Why bother?” He nodded toward the privy. “There is already a big hole dug under that. For such as these, a fitting resting place.”

  Anse smiled back, just as coldly. The idea was certainly tempting, but . . .

  Leaving aside everything else, a poor charcoal-burner’s privy in the rocky soil of the Thueringerwald probably wouldn’t be big enough to hold all the corpses.

  “No, we’ll give them a grave.”

  * * *

  Wili and Jochen took turns and soon had the shallow graves dug, while Anse and Ivarsson gathered some rocks to cover them. Once they realized that the bedrock was less than a foot below the surface, they ended up piling the rocks into cairns. A respectable one, near the house, over the old man’s body; a make-shift one, a bit further off, for the corpses of the bandits. Meanwhile, in a small clearing a quarter of a mile down the road, Gaylynn and Noelle set up the tents.

  Once the old man’s grave was ready, Anse went over to the campsite. “Gaylynn, do you want to bring the boys out to say goodbye to their grandfather?”

  Somewhat dubiously, she looked at the tent where Noelle was keeping the children.

  “Yes, I suppose we should. It might make the boys feel better.”

  Von Dantz, by then, had settled himself into another tent. Anse pulled back the flap and asked: “Would you happen to have a Bible, Captain?”

  “Ja, a New Testament, but it is in German. Do you read German?"

  It’d be in Fraktur script, too, the Gothic style, which Anse still had a lot of trouble with. “Not too well, no. But Wili does. Wili’s a Catholic, but he’ll be willing to say a few words to send any Christian home.”

  The captain looked a little surprised, but got his New Testament out of his pack.

  Later, after the burial and a quick supper, Captain von Dantz approached Anse. “I think we should all stand watch tonight. Three on, three off. You, me and Private Schultz on the first watch and Sergeant Ivarsson, Rau and Frau Reardon on the second. Since the Murphy woman is unarmed and seems not very familiar with weapons, I see no point in including her. Besides, she is tending the children.”

  “Sounds good, captain.”

  January 19, 1633

  The night was quiet. Early the next morning as they were re-packing the wagon, Anse asked, “Noelle, what do you think we should do with the boys? We can’t leave them here.”

  “You should stop referring to them as ‘the boys,’ for starters,” she said, a little crossly. “You make them sound like luggage. They are Hans Felix Polheimer and Hans Ulrich Moser. They’re first cousins. Hans Felix is the older. As to what we’re going to do with them, we’re taking them to Suhl. Obviously.”

  Anse couldn’t help smiling at her frosty tone. He’d heard that Noelle Murphy didn’t suffer fools gladly—and, admittedly, his question had been a little foolish.

  “Load Hans and Hans on the wagon, then. We’re almost ready to pull out. Von Dantz will have kittens if they’re are any more delays.”

  “I’d say let him, except I’d pity the poor kittens.”

  That turned Anse’s smile into a real grin.

  * * *

  When they arrived in Suhl, a little after noon, Anse was surprised by the size of the city. It was a lot smaller than he’d expected from Pat’s letters. That must be caused by the wall crowding everyone inside, he thought.

  Then he noticed the people themselves. Over the past year and a half, he’d gotten used to the mix of up-time and down-time clothing worn around Grantville, and—though to a lesser extent—in nearby Badenburg and Jena. Now, having crossed the Thueringerwald, he was in a strictly German city.

  Not only was there no mix of clothing, but many of the people on the streets of Suhl were casting unfriendly looks at the party. Whatever was causing trouble in the countryside had spread to the city, apparently. Anse was getting a weird feeling of deja vu. This was all strange, but all too familiar.

  Then it hit him. The last time he’d felt this way was almost forty years earlier. In Saigon, in 1969, just before the Tet Offensive.

  There were no overt signs of hostility, however. That was presumably due to the tough-looking mercenaries who were guarding the city gates and, now and then, patrolling the streets in small squads. The Swedish garrison wasn’t very big, true, but it was big enough to keep the peace in a town the size of Suhl. The problem was that the Swedish garrison shouldn’t be patrolling in a NUS state, in the first place. The city council should be keeping the peace with constables or militia.

  Anse scowled. He let the wagon pass him and rode close to the tail gate so he could talk to Rau without shouting.

  “Can you pass for a local, Jochen?”

  When Rau nodded, Anse continued: “Pass me your shotgun and get your revolver out of sight. I want you to do a little walk around here in Suhl. Drop off the wagon when no one can see you. Find out what’s going on and meet me at Pat’s house. You have the address?”

  “Nein. But how many U.S. WaffenFabrik can there be in Suhl?” Jochen grinned as he handed Anse the shotgun. “I will find you.”

  Anse rode forward to the front of the wagon. When he turned to look, Jochen was already gone. “Slippery as an eel,” he said to himself.

  They only had to ask directions three times before they pulled on to the street that promised to hold Pat’s factory. Then Anse spotted it, immediately. Pat had marked his shop with a huge sign made like an up-time Kentucky rifle that reached most of the way across the narrow street. Across the front of the building was printed in two foot high letters, U. S. WaffenFabrik.

  “Anse Hatfield! What are you doing in Suhl?” Anse was disoriented for a moment, until he saw that what he had at first glance taken for a prosperous looking down-timer was actually his brother-in-law. Pat Johnson was dressed entirely in down-time clothing.

  “Hi, Bubba. We came to see you, partly.”

  “Allo, Wili.” Pat nodded to Schultz, sitting on the wagon seat. “Hi, Gaylynn. Gary didn’t tell me you were coming to Suhl.”

  “That’s because Gary didn’t know. I wanted to surprise him. Now where is he?”

  “Well, he’s either in the office, right through that door, or on the shop floor on the other side.”

  Gaylynn was off the wagon quick as a flash and headed for the door. Then she stopped and turned to the wagon. “
Felix, Ulrich, kommen mit me. I want you to meet Gary.”

  Her mixture of German and English might not have been understood by the boys. But Noelle’s nudge was clear enough. The two young cousins jumped from the wagon and followed Gaylynn through the door. Noelle went with them, after exchanging a brief greeting with Pat.

  After watching the little procession pass through the door, John turned back to Anse and Wili. “Does someone want to tell me who those two boys are and what’s going on?”

  Anse chuckled. “Well, it looks as if Noelle has convinced Gaylynn that her family just got a little bigger.”

  “Ja,” Wili added. “Gary chust become the father of two boys named Hans.”

  Pat waved his hand. “Tell me over lunch. Come on. We’ll put the horses, the donkey and the wagon in the factory yard and I’ll buy your lunch. There’s a good tavern nearby.”

  “No Freedom Arches? I make it a point to patronize them.”

  Pat seemed to grimace a little. “In Suhl? Not yet. And if those boys don’t . . . ah, never mind.”

  * * *

  Over a lunch of stew, cheese, and rye bread, the two travelers explained where the boys came from. After that they got down to the reason for the trip.

  When they were done, Pat Johnson nodded and pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I’d guess about fifteen hundred guns a week are leaving Suhl. Small arms, that is. Not more than one or two field pieces. Most are going north, either to princes who are members of the CPE or friendly to it. But at least five hundred a week are going to someone else. As far as I know, none of my rifles have gone to unfriendly people, although I can’t be sure. I suppose I should have put the factory in Jena, but . . .”

  He shrugged. “Property values in Jena are getting almost as high as in Grantville—and there were so many trained and experienced gunsmiths here.”

  “Nobody’s faulting you, Pat,” Anse responded. “Have you talked to the head of the city militia? Or the Swedish garrison commander? Or the NUS military liaison?"

  Pat’s grimace, this time, wasn’t subtle at all.

  “Not much, still less, and none at all. The garrison commander is Captain Bruno Felder, and I can’t tell if he’s dumb or lazy or both. Either way, he’s made it plain he’s not interested. As for the NUS military liaison, what idiot sent Johnny Horton down here in that capacity? He’s dumber than Felder, and I only wish he were as lazy. What he is, is a hothead. Seems like every other day, he’s quarreling with one of the locals. Especially with the Suhl militia captain. Usually over some petty bullshit.”