by Eric Flint
“Jimmy Andersen was killed, Mike.”
There was silence on the other end of the radio for a moment. Then Stearns said: “I’m sorry, Jeff. I truly am.”
“War sucks, what can you say? Hangman regiment out.”
Bavaria, Third Division field headquarters
Village of Haag an der Amper
Mike stared down at the radio receiver he still held in his hand.
Jimmy Andersen dead…
The Four Musketeers, the kids had liked to call themselves: Jeff Higgins, Larry Wild, Jimmy Andersen, Eddie Cantrell.
Four teenagers, close friends in the way that geeky boys in a rural area will stick together—the more so because all four of them had lost their entire families in the Ring of Fire. For one reason or another, their folks had all been out of town that day in May 2000 when it happened. There’d been just the four of them, playing Dungeons & Dragons in the Higgins’ family mobile home.
Five years later… and now half of them were gone. Larry Wild had been killed in the Battle of Wismar on September 9, 1633. And now Jimmy Andersen was gone, also killed in combat.
He looked up at Christopher Long. “What’s the date?” He’d lost track. Middle of May was all he could remember.
“May 14, sir.”
“1636.” For some obscure reason, Mike felt the need to include the year.
Jimmy Andersen would have been… what? Twenty-three years old? That was Jeff’s age, Mike knew. His birthday had been in March. March 22, if Mike remembered right. Gretchen had sent Jeff a cookie—which hadn’t arrived until the next month, naturally.
His thoughts were wandering, and he couldn’t afford that. Not now. Not today. But before Mike shoved them aside he allowed a spike of sheer pride to race through his soul.
Everything he’d always believed had been confirmed over the past five years. Every ideal, every tenet of political belief, every guide to personal and social conduct. Mike took no credit for any of them, because like most people born and raised in the United States he’d grown up with those beliefs and ideals. What he did take pride in—and take credit for, to the extent he shared in that credit with thousands of other people—was that when a small town in America had been ripped off its foundations by a cosmic catastrophe and tossed into a maelstrom, the people of that town had risen to the challenge. And they’d done so by holding fast to their beliefs and ideals—no, more; championing them for everyone—rather than abandoning them.
Along the way, lots of compromises had been made, sure. Mike himself had been personally responsible for a good number of them. Things sometimes got ragged around the edges. But that was the nature of political affairs—hell, any human affairs. Marriages only survived by the willingness of people to compromise.
Still, all things considered, they’d done well. Damn well. And paid the price for it, too. Somewhere around thirty-five hundred people had come through the Ring of Fire, and by now—just five years later—at least five hundred of them were gone. Mike didn’t know the exact figure, and felt a moment’s guilt that he didn’t.
Most of those people had died because, like most rural towns in economically depressed areas, Grantville had had a disproportionate number of elderly residents, many of them in poor health. Anyone dependent on up-time medicines that couldn’t be duplicated down-time—and most of them couldn’t—was gone by now.
The others, though, had died in the line of fire, doing their duty. Some of them had died fighting tyranny; others had died fighting one or another of the diseases that ravaged this era.
Larry Wild had died at Wismar and Jimmy Andersen here at Zolling. Derek Utt had died in the Rhineland, fighting the plague. So had Andrea Decker and Jeffie Garand. The list went on and on, and it would keep going on.
Mike tried to remember the famous line from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. That cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion, he thought it was.
His people. They’d always been his people. Now more than ever.
“General?” Ulbrecht Duerr’s voice broke through his musings.
Mike turned. “Yes, Ulbrecht, I’m here.”
He grinned then, and though he didn’t know it—then or ever—that grin brought instant cheer to every soldier in the tavern who saw. They’d come to know that grin, this past year.
Mike slapped his hands together and advanced on the map spread over the table.
“Gather round, gentlemen. Another stinking duke is going down.”
Chapter 20
Moosburg
Six miles east of Zolling
“It’s clear, Colonel Engler,” said Alex Mackay, getting down from his horse in front of Moosburg’s Rathaus. The city hall, as was the case in almost all German towns, was located on a square. Quite a small square, in the case of Moosburg. As if to make up for it, the Rathaus was a rather imposing edifice, three stories tall with a square tower rising up another fifteen feet or so in the middle.
“The whole town is clear.” Mackay pointed to the east with a gauntleted hand. “I’m not certain, but I think the Bavarian cavalry the Pelican spotted came from across the river and have now returned to the south bank of the Isar. It’s wetlands below the confluence with the Amper, but from the looks of it, I think if you went a mile or so above the confluence, maybe even half a mile, you’d find a decent place to ford the Isar.”
“You’re right,” said Thorsten. “We just got word over the radio. That special Marine unit that scouted the area said there’s a ford right above the confluence where cavalry and flying artillery can cross without any aid. They think infantry and artillery would be better if we laid down a corduroy road, though.”
Alex had removed his hat in order to wipe his brow with a sleeve. Thorsten’s last words arrested the motion, however.
“We?’ he said, sounding alarmed.
Thorsten grinned at him. “I hate to be the one who has to pass this on, Colonel Mackay, but our instructions come directly from General Stearns. Major General Stearns, you may recall.”
Mackay jammed the hat back on his head without ever wiping his forehead. That minor discomfort had clearly been quite forgotten, in light of this new and profoundly horrid forecast.
“Don’t tell me. We have to secure the ford—and then we have to build that wretched corduroy road.”
Engler’s grin felt as if it was locked in place. “And it’s gets better—for us, not you. General Stearns’ orders were for the flying artillery squadron to set up in position to repel any possible cavalry attack while—”
“The puir downtrodden cavalrymen have to get off their horses and engage in manual labor.” Mackay’s Scot brogue, normally just a trace after so long on the continent, was easing back into his voice along with his disgruntled mood.
“Indeed so.” Thorsten spread his hands, in a placating gesture that would have placated absolutely no one, forget a professional cavalry officer.
“Fuck you and the horse you get to keep riding on, Thorsten,” said Mackay. “A profound injustice is being committed here.”
Bavaria, Third Division field headquarters
Village of Haag an der Amper
The radio operator looked up from his notes. “Colonel Engler reports that the ford has been seized and that his squadron is setting up a defensive perimeter while the cavalry prepares the crossing for infantry and artillery.”
“And in such good cheer they’ll be doing it, too,” said Christopher Long. The smile on his face fell short of outright evil, but by a hair so thin that only a theologian could have split it.
Duerr chuckled. “Cavalry hate being impressed as combat engineers.”
“Speaking of which…” He turned toward Mike Stearns, who was pointing out something on the map to Brigadier Ludwig Schuster, who commanded the division’s 2nd Brigade.
“General Stearns, pardon me for interrupting, but where do you want our combat engineers to be and doing what?”
Stearns glanced up and then pointed at Schuster. “I want them—al
l of them; Mackay’s cavalry can lay down a simple corduroy road and screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke—to go with Ludwig. He and his whole brigade should get to the ford above Moosburg and be able to cross it by nightfall.”
Duerr hesitated—but challenging his commander was his job, when he thought a mistake was being made. Thankfully, Stearns didn’t react as badly as some generals did to being questioned. Not badly at all, being honest about it.
“Is that wise, sir? If von Taupadel and the Hangman—which is already pretty bloodied—can’t hold back Piccolomini, you’ll have no reserve at all.”
He nodded toward the entrance of the tavern. The door had been propped open—more precisely, had been smashed open and was now hanging by one hinge—partly to let in some air and partly so the staff officers inside the headquarters could monitor the fighting that was starting to rage further up the Amper as more and more of Piccolomini’s troops crossed the river.
“I have to say I agree with him, General Stearns,” said Schuster. “Let me leave the Lynx Regiment behind.”
Stearns’ brow was creased with thought. Duerr had no difficulty understanding the issues he was weighing in his mind. On the one hand, the Lynx was a solid regiment and its commander, Colonel Erasmo Attendolo, was a very experienced professional soldier. If Derfflinger did wind up needing reinforcement, they’d be good for the purpose.
On the other hand, the Lynx also had something of a reputation for being fast and agile—at least as infantry regiments went. They weren’t what anyone would call “foot cavalry,” but they could move faster than any other regiment in the division except Carsten Amsel’s Dietrich Regiment.
Which, by no coincidence, Mike had already ordered to be the first infantry regiment to cross the Isar above Moosburg, as soon as Mackay’s cavalry had the corduroy road in place.
Ulbrecht Duerr had now served under General Stearns for almost a year—and it had been a year in which Duerr had seen more combat than in any of the previous years of his long career as a professional soldier. That was partly because his new commanding general was without a doubt the most aggressive commander he’d ever served under.
That aggressiveness could be a problem, sometimes. Stearns would always tend—to use an American idiom—to “push the envelope.” He’d take risks that skirted outright recklessness, as he had at the Battle of Ostra, when he ordered the Third Division to attack the army commanded by the much more experienced General Báner in the middle of a snowstorm.
He’d won the Battle of Ostra—and decisively. That same aggressiveness had now got him into trouble, though, when he’d advanced on Piccolomini without having adequate reconnaissance. But he proposed to turn the tables on the Bavarians by continuing to be aggressive, not by pulling back. He’d hold them in place with one of his brigades and the wounded but still fighting Hangman regiment, while he crossed the rest of his army to the south bank of the Isar—and would then march them downstream a few miles and cross back onto the north bank somewhere above Freising.
If it worked, the Bavarians would find themselves in a very difficult place. Stearns would now have most of his army between Piccolomini and Munich. He could go on the defensive and force Piccolomini to take the risks involved with offensive operations. And Piccolomini would have very little time to make his decision because he had more than enough cavalry units to know that Heinrich Schmidt’s National Guard of the State of Thuringia-Franconia had crossed the Danube from Ingolstadt and was coming south as well.
Under a different commander, Ulbrecht Duerr would probably have been reduced to a gibbering fit by now. But one thing he’d learned as the months went by was that Stearns’ aggressiveness worked in large part because he’d forged his army in that same mold. Simply put, the Third Division of the army of the United States of Europe had the best morale of any army Duerr had ever served in. It was a fighting morale, too, not just the good cheer of a unit whose officers did well by them in garrison duty.
What it all came down to were two things:
Could Derfflinger and Schuster, with the flying artillery to shield them against cavalry, make it across the Isar and back across a few miles downstream before the Bavarians clearly understood what was happening?
Duerr thought the answer was…. Probably, yes.
The Third Division was a marching army. They’d been able to outmarch every enemy force they’d faced. They couldn’t outpace cavalry, of course, but they didn’t fear cavalry. Not with the flying artillery to shield them—and, by now, after Ahrensbök and Ostra, the soldiers of the Third Division considered Colonel Engler something of a modern day reincarnation of the medieval heroes in the Dietrich von Bern legends. Dragon? Coming up, roasted on a platter. Enemy cavalry? You want that parboiled or fried?
Second question: Could von Taupadel and the Hangman hold Piccolomini’s army on the north bank of the Amper? For long enough—which Duerr estimated would take the rest of today, all of tomorrow and at least part of Friday. Call it two days. That was a long time for a battle to continue. On the positive side, they could slowly withdraw to Moosburg—in fact, that was no doubt what von Taupadel was already doing. It was hard for an army to break off contact with an enemy that seemed to be in retreat. Of course, on the negative side, it was also hard for an army trying to pull back not to disintegrate and begin a full-scale rout.
Which was no doubt the reason—Duerr was guessing, but he was sure he was right—that von Taupadel would move his three regiments forward and let the Hangman fall back into a reserve position. They needed the rest—and very few soldiers in the Third Division would be willing to risk annoying the Hangman by trying to scamper away from the fighting. That was likely to be lot riskier than dealing with sorry Bavarians.
The answer to that question wasn’t even probably. Ulbrecht was quite sure that part of Stearns’ plan would work. Especially with Higgins as the anchor. In a very different sort of way than Thorsten Engler, the Hangman’s commander had developed a potent reputation as well, among the soldiers of the Third Division.
Thorsten Engler’s reputation was flashy and dramatic. The man himself would have been astonished to learn that he had that reputation, but indeed he did. And why not? He’d wooed and won one of the fabled Americanesses, captured not one but two top enemy commanders at Ahrensbök, been made an imperial count by the emperor himself—and had personally decapitated the Swedish troll Báner at Ostra. (Using the term “personally” with some poetic license. The head-removal had actually been done by some of his volley guns—but he had given the order to fire.)
There was nothing flashy and dramatic about Higgins. He was a big man, true—quite a bit bigger than Thorsten Engler—but he was the sort of large fellow who was always running to fat, especially when he wasn’t on campaign. His belly tended to hang over his belt, his heels tended to wear out the cuffs of his trousers, and without his spectacles he was half-blind. He was in fact as well as in his appearance a studious man; more likely when he was relaxing to have his nose in a book than in a stein of beer.
But he had that one critical quality, in a commander. The worse the fighting became, the more desperate the battle, the calmer he grew. He was a steady man at all times; steadier, the less steady everything around him became. A rock in rapids; a calm place in a storm.
His men rather adored him, actually. “The DM,” they called him behind his back, referring to an obscure Americanism that Duerr had never been able to make any sense of. But it didn’t matter, because he understood the humor—and more importantly, the superb morale—when they said that “when the DM smiles, it’s already too late.” That was always good for a round of chuckles; sometimes, outright laughter.
And there was this, too. Higgins had one other critical quality, for the commander of a regiment that considered itself the elite regiment in the whole of the Third Division—which, by now, considered itself the elite division of the whole USE army.
He was Gretchen Richter’s husband. The Hangman had an even higher percen
tage of CoC recruits than the Third Division as a whole—which had a third again as many CoC recruits than the army’s average. Prestige, indeed.
New CoC recruits to the Hangman, after their first encounter with the regiment’s commander, were prone to ask: What does Gretchen see in him, anyway? To which the response was invariably: Stick around and you’ll find out.
With Higgins anchoring the Hangman and the Hangman anchoring the 1st Brigade and the 1st Brigade anchoring the entire plan…
Ulbrecht Duerr was in a very good mood, he realized. Amazingly good, given that the morning had begun with a near-disaster brought on by an overly-confident and too-aggressive commander who now proposed to correct his error by being even more confident and aggressive.
Ulbrecht Duerr had been born in Münster, the son of a baker. As a boy he’d been somewhat awed by the nobility’s august status. As an old professional soldier who’d encountered dozens of noblemen professionally, he didn’t have much use for dukes, any longer. There were some exceptions—Duerr was quite partial to Duke George of Brunswick—but Maximilian of Bavaria was not one of them.
Bavaria, the Isar river
About two miles northeast of Moosburg
For the last stretch of the work, Thorsten Engler had relented and used some of his own flying artillerymen to finish the corduroy road, allowing Mackay’s cavalry to get some rest. He hadn’t done that from the goodness of his heart, though. He wanted cavalry—rested, alert cavalry—to be scouting ahead for him when he and his squadron moved toward their next fording place.
The term “flying artillery” that was generally used to refer to his squadron was another piece of poetic license. It was true that because the volley guns were so light, they didn’t need many horses to haul them around. Two was enough, four was plenty, and the six that were normally used were simply so that replacements would be available if—no, when; it was inevitable on a campaign—some of the horses were killed or lamed.
All of the soldiers were mounted as well. Some would ride on the carriage horses, others would accompany the wagons carrying the ammunition and equipment, and still others including all the officers would ride their own individual mounts. In short, the squadron was much more mobile than an infantry unit.