by Eric Flint
Chapter 59
Linz, capital-in-exile of Austria-Hungary
The first thing Thorsten Engler saw—quite fuzzily, for a few seconds—was the heavy-nosed face of Emperor Gustav II Adolf beaming down upon him.
His teeth sparkled; his eyes sparkled. Thorsten thought that might be an illusion produced by his lack of visual acuity, but even after he was able to focus clearly, it was apparent that he resided in the emperor’s good favor, at least for the moment.
“Well done, Colonel, well done!” Gustav Adolf leaned over and gave Thorsten a hearty clap of congratulation on his shoulder.
Which immediately sent a spike of agony racing down Thorsten’s spine.
“Ahhhhhhhh…..” The emperor stepped back a pace, grimacing with sympathy and apology.
Dr. James Nichols came forward, raising a cautioning hand. “We need to be careful, Your Majesty. I still don’t know the extent of the injuries to Colonel Engler’s back. He may have muscular-skeletal damage, possibly a slipped disk”—Nichols spread his hands in a gesture halfway between a shrug and a demonstration of life’s inherent uncertainty—“any number of things, which we have no way to determine quickly without an X-ray machine. That’s on top of his broken ribs, broken leg, and what I’m pretty sure is a ruptured spleen.”
He gave Thorsten a quick look of reassurance. “That last issue’s probably not too severe, Colonel. The bleeding appears manageable, so I shouldn’t have to cut you open. Some rest—that’ll take time, of course—will probably allow the spleen to heal on its own.”
Gustav Adolf leaned over again; this time, Thorsten was glad to see, while keeping his hands clasped behind his back. He seemed to be studying something on the right side of Thorsten’s face with keen interest.
“The wound should do quite nicely,” he said. He glanced up at Nichols. “Will the scar be visible enough? Perhaps we should…” He made a gesture suggesting someone sprinkling salt.
Nichols lips tightened. “I don’t believe anything but nature’s course is either necessary or proper, Your Majesty. Even with the sutures, the Colonel’s injury will… ah…”
He was obviously struggling to remain polite. More curious than alarmed, Thorsten reached up with his right hand and discovered that side of his head was covered with bandages.
“Did I lose the ear?” he asked.
“No,” said Nichols, shaking his head. “Although it was a close thing. As it is, you’ll have a fairly dramatic scar stretching from just under your ear down along your jaw line.”
“A true warrior’s mark!” boomed Gustav Adolf. “Perfect for our purpose. And now”—he turned away for a moment, gesturing at someone behind him and out of Thorsten’s line of sight. “I’d wait to do this in a proper public ceremony, but I’m afraid I can’t take the time. That bastard Murad is no slouch. Already he’s got infantrymen working their way up the hills toward the Pöstlinberg and I’m sure it won’t be long before he’s probing down the south bank of the Traun. We’re in for a proper siege now, make no mistake about it.”
A Swedish officer stepped forward and handed a pair of small boxes to the emperor. The officer still had several other objects in his possession, Thorsten saw, including what looked like a large sash of some kind, colored a bright scarlet.
“Let’s begin with these two,” said Gustav Adolf, “since they’re the simplest. Leave it to Americans! They even have a name for it, you know? ‘Minimalist,’ they call it.”
He set one of the boxes on the hospital bed and flipped open the lid of the other. Then, drew out what seemed to be a silver-colored emblem—a star, perhaps?—hanging from an elaborately decorated wide ribbon.
“This one is the Silver Star, presented by the USE Army for valor in combat.” He plopped it down on Thorsten chest; then opened the other box. “They call this one the Purple Heart, which they give out to wounded soldiers. A clever idea, that. I should have thought of it myself.”
The object—a stylized heart-shaped emblem, colored purple—was also plopped on his chest. The emperor turned back to the officer; then, brought forward the scarlet sash along with another emblem of some sort. This one was mostly gold-colored and consisted of a squarish variation on a Maltese cross suspended from a large octagonal emblem.
“Clearly, you’re not fit yet to wear this the way you’re supposed to, so…” Gustav Adolf glanced around, pulled a chair forward, draped the sash over it and placed the emblem-and-cross on the seat.
“They would have given you the Order of the Golden Fleece—the Austrians, I mean—except that’s only for Catholics and I was assured that you are”—here the emperor gave Thorsten a beady eye…
“Not Catholic,” Thorsten filled in for him. He saw no point in complicating the issue with an explanation of the intricacies of the religious negotiations between himself and his betrothed, Caroline Platzer, who belonged to one of those peculiar denominations the Americans seemed to breed like rabbits. A “Quaker,” in her case.
“So Ferdinand came up with this one just yesterday. He couldn’t give it to you himself because he’s preoccupied at the moment, as you can imagine. But it’s a brand new imperial distinction—you’re the first to hold it! Congratulations, Colonel Engler. You are now a member of the Imperial Austrian Order of Ferdinand. Eventually he thinks there will be four ranks, he told me, but this will remain the highest: Knight of the Grand Cross. And now…”
He turned back and received yet another item from his subordinate.
“Something from me,” he said. A short but heavy chain was laid on Thorsten’s chest, to which was attached a medallion, which was also gold but appeared to be blank.
“The Royal Order of Kalmar,” Gustav Adolf announced. “You’ll have to forgive me for the absence of an insignia. I’m still arguing with the king of Denmark over what it should be. Naturally, that drunken schemer wants the three lions of Denmark, which is preposterous, since it should be the three crowns of Sweden.”
The emperor grinned. “My daughter, of course, is advocating for three unicorns. She’d rather have horses but only barbarians use horses for an emblem. Eventually, we’ll settle it, at which time you can bring this insignia back and we’ll place a proper medallion on it.”
From the weight of the thing, the chain had to be made of actual gold. Thorsten tried to imagine what it must have cost.
“And now I must be off!” boomed the emperor. “Again, congratulations, Colonel! I am sure you will acquit yourself as splendidly in your new assignment as you have in this one.”
Again he leaned over, this time to shake a large forefinger in front of Thorsten’s nose. “And remember! Three, do you hear? Three! I’ll settle for nothing less.”
And off he went, followed by a small pack of officers. When the room cleared, Thorsten saw that Jeff Higgins had been waiting in the back of the room. He now stepped forward, smiling.
“I’ll add my own congratulations,” he said.
“Three? Three what?” asked Thorsten, feeling altogether bewildered. “What is he talking about?”
“They didn’t tell you?” Jeff shook his head. “It’s the old saying: there are three ways to do things. The right way, the wrong way—”
“And the Army way,” James Nichols concluded, chuckling.
“You’re being relieved of your command of the volley gun squadron,” Jeff said.
“On account of your injuries,” Nichols added. “You’re going to need months to recover, Thorsten.”
“So they’re sending you back to Magdeburg, and putting you in charge of recruitment.” Jeff nodded his head in the direction of the door through which the emperor had left. “That’s what the ‘three’ refers to. Three divisions. They want you to raise three new divisions.”
Thorsten stared at him. “Three… divisions. Divisions?” He started to throw up his hands but another spike of pain stopped him. “We’ve only got three divisions right now—total. You’re talking about doubling the size of the army!”
Jeff nodde
d sympathetically. “Pretty much. That why they’re piling medals and decorations on top of you—not that I don’t think you deserve ‘em—and why our not-exactly-sentimental emperor is tickled pink over your developing scar. He thinks it’ll add a nice dramatic touch.”
He leaned over and examined the bandage. “Can’t really see much, but… What d’you think, Doc? If we sprinkled some salt in it…”
“Over my dead Oath of Hippocrates,” growled Nichols.
Thorsten was feeling a little light-headed. That could be the effect of his injuries, of course.
“Look at it this way,” said Jeff. “You’ll be able to spend months snuggled up with Caroline.”
“Well… eventually,” said Nichols. “He does have a broken leg, at least four broken ribs, mostly likely a ruptured spleen and God only knows—we won’t, for months—what kind of shape his back’s in.” He gave Thorsten a sympathetic shake of the head. “I’m afraid you and Caroline won’t be doing anything more energetic than holding hands for a while.”
But he’d be with her again. Thorsten hadn’t seen her in months.
He felt a lot cheerier.
Naturally, Jeff had to add: “Three divisions. That’s only thirty thousand men, you know. Figure at the rate of recruiting fifty men a day—that’s only five an hour, figuring a ten-hour day—you’ll have it done in… what is that? Two years? A little less?”
“Your bedside manner really sucks,” observed Nichols.
Breslau (Wroclaw), Lower Silesia
Poland
After he had the antenna positioned properly, Jozef moved back to the small door leading into the attic—tip-toeing all the way—and listened for any sound coming from below.
Nothing. No sound at all. That was what he expected, since Christin, Denise and Eddie had left less than two hours earlier and shouldn’t be back until well after nightfall. Still, it was nerve-wracking.
Just extending the antenna had taken a quarter of an hour. There was still plenty of twilight to make any quick movement noticeable, and the antenna wouldn’t work properly unless it extended beyond the open window.
This was the first opportunity he’d had to send a message in more than two weeks. He couldn’t afford to waste the opportunity.
Once he had everything ready, he sat and stared at the wall for several minutes. There was nothing to see, not least of all because he’d blown out his candle and the attic was dimly lit.
What was he going to tell his uncle? How could he explain to the Grand Hetman of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania…
Eventually, he sighed and lit the candle again. As far below the window as it was, no one outside should see anything.
In any event, the message took little time to transmit.
NOTHING TO REPORT STOP
Linz, capital-in-exile of Austria-Hungary
“The way I see it, we’ll have one huge advantage,” said Tom Simpson.
Mike Stearns cocked his head. “And that is…”
“Our Dutch-built airship is powered by an internal combustion engine. That means no boiler to be blown up.”
“They can still shoot it,” pointed out Julie.
Dell Beckworth shook his head. “Yeah, but they’re more likely to kill us than they are to wreck the engine. We can only put so much armor on the Magdeburg before it won’t be able to get off the ground at all.”
By now, Mike had gotten enough sense for how dirigibles worked as combat vehicles to feel more confident expressing an opinion. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but since we’re planning to use the Magdeburg in a defensive capacity—at least for now—that means we don’t have to carry a big fuel supply. Just enough to get up in the air and fight off enemy airships, right? We’re not planning to travel anywhere. And how long can such a battle last? Not more than two hours, I wouldn’t think.”
He paused to look at everyone sitting at the table in the new building that was being erected to serve as “airship central.” Somewhat to Mike’s amusement, a turf war had emerged over which service controlled the Magdeburg—the air force or the army? Jesse Wood, the commander of the USE’s air force, was naturally arguing that his service should be in charge of it. But the army—more specifically, Gustav II Adolf in his capacity as the army’s top commander—was pushing back.
Possession, as always, was nine-tenths of the law, and right now the army had the Magdeburg. Building a new “operations center” for it was one of the emperor’s ways of staking down his claim further. He was no slouch at inter-service rivalry himself.
Mostly, Mike wanted the opinion of the two Dutch engineers at the table. They’d have a better sense than anybody of what the effective parameters were, with regard to the issue he’d raised.
Maarten Kortenaer finished the calculations he’d been doing with a pen and paper and looked up.
“It’s a good point, General. If we presume that we only keep enough fuel on board for three hours’ flight, then we can add a fairly significant amount of armor to the ship. Enough to protect three members of the flight crew on the gondola, certainly, which is all we need to run the ship for short operations.”
“And the gun crew?”
Kortenaer made a face. “That’s more difficult to calculate, because it would depend on the size of the weapon, where and how it could be positioned—I’m assuming it will be something too big and awkward for the gondola—and how many armored shooting positions we’d want.”
“Four positions,” said Dell. “Two aft, two forward, one either side of the keel.”
He nodded toward Julie. “And just big enough to protect her. Once we get Julie and the gun in position and loaded, me and the other gun crew guy can retreat back into the interior of the hull. We ought to be safe enough. Our main protection’s always going to be that we can outmaneuver them and outrange them. If they get close enough that they can start hitting us with any kind of accuracy, we’re probably screwed anyway.”
Julie frowned. “What other gun crew member? I thought it was just going to be you and me? The .50’s not that heavy.”
“To hell with that popgun,” said Beckworth, grinning. “I’m going to be making a new gun. Ollie Reardon up in Grantville is already machining the barrel for me.”
“What new gun?”
He pulled out a sketch and spread it open on the table. “Meet the Lahti L-39, year 1636 version,” he said. “I’m modeling it after a Finnish design for a 20-millimeter anti-tank rifle they built during World War II. It didn’t work against the later and heavier Soviet tanks like the T-34, but it’d take out anything with lighter armor and it made a dandy sniper’s weapon. I don’t figure the Turks will be lifting T-34s into the air any time soon, so it ought to do the trick.”
Mike thought Beckworth’s face might actually break in half, as widely as he was now grinning. Gun nuts were just plain weird, sometimes.
Vienna, former capital of Austria-Hungary, now occupied by the Ottoman Empire
Minnie had taken even more time than Jozef had, to extend her antenna out of the narrow window in the tower. Below, Judy and Leopold kept watch for anyone approaching the detached wing of the palace where the cellars were located.
When she was finally ready, she nodded at Cecilia Renata and the archduchess lit the small candle she had, carefully cupping it to shield the light.
Once Minnie had tuned to the right frequency, she began the transmission.
RATS EAT CATS
If he was listening and got the message—or, more likely, his operator got it and relayed it to him at once—her employer would be responding within half an hour. If they hadn’t heard anything by then, they’d have to retreat into the cellars and try again early in the morning.
“You can put it out,” she whispered. Cecilia Renata extinguished the candle.
It was perhaps twenty minutes later that a message was returned. Hurriedly, Cecilia Renata relit the candle while Minnie recorded the message.
CATS EAT RATS STOP CEDAR
“Cedar” ga
ve her the code they’d be using. Minnie had it memorized, as she had all three of them. But it would be a slow and laborious process to answer. Eventually, though, she’d sent the message. Once translated, it would read:
Hidden in secret cellars in palace. Stop. Me, prince, princess—that was technically incorrect, but shorter than “archduke” and “archduchess”—Judy. Stop. Supplied for months. Stop. Undetected. Stop. No immediate peril. Stop.
“You can blow it out again,” she said to Cecilia Renata. Then, in a louder whisper sent down the stairs: “Leopold, Judy—come up. We’re done.”
* * *
Once they were safely back in the cellars, Leopold started fretting again. “We should have sent it to our brother, instead. All right, too, not instead. It’s not right that he doesn’t know.”
They’d already had this discussion—twice—but Minnie didn’t bridle. She understood, and even sympathized, with Leopold’s feelings.
“I can’t send it to Emperor Ferdinand,” she said patiently. “All I could do is listen for a frequency on which there was a transmission that I thought might be from Linz. And then who would I be sending a message to? Which I’d have to send in the clear because we don’t have a code we share. Who knows who’d wind up getting the message?”
“Leave off, brother,” said Cecilia Renata. “Minnie’s right.”
“Don Francisco will know what to do,” said Minnie.
She was pretty sure she was right about that, too.
Ottoman encampment
A few miles southeast of Linz, at the confluence of the Danube and the Enns
In his command pavilion, Sultan Murad IV closed the book he’d been reading, which was a compilation of all the articles and pieces of text his agents had found in the Grantville libraries in which he was discussed or mentioned. By now, he knew the material extremely well and had parts of the text memorized.
…dead at age 29…
…cirrhosis of the liver
…untimely death…
…addiction to alcohol…
He had meant to rewrite the book. Beç had been the beginning. Now, after the setback at Steyregg, he wondered if all he was doing was scribbling over some of the pages.