"Lead us, Boyar Keane!" a voice shouted from the front of the crowd.
Within seconds the cry went up and soon turned to a chant.
"Boyar Keane, Boyar Keane."
Andrew looked over to where Kal stood and nodded.
The burly peasant, his left arm in a sling, and wearing the rough tunic and cloak of the common people, mounted the steps, and at the sight of him a wild thunderous cheer erupted.
Laughing, he extended his right hand for silence.
"So they have learned that the teeth of the mice are sharp after all," he began, and the crowd roared with delight.
"We need a strong leader," Kal continued. "One who knows war, for there will be war. We need a fox who can show all of us how to be foxes as well. I say that we will have this Yankee thing called a Declaration of Independence when the time comes. However, we must drive away the Tugars first, and for now I want a fox to lead us. I trust Keane. Let us name him our leader and listen to his words. He will not be a boyar—he told me he hates that word. So I say we should call him Colonel Keane, and let him show us how to fight to keep our freedom."
Again a wild shout went up, and before the crowd Andrew and Kal knelt before Casmar, who blessed both of them.
"So now let us celebrate!" Kal roared, the ceremony completed, and the crowd broke into a wild frenzy of laughing, dancing, and cheering.
Andrew looked back down the steps to Hans, who came forward.
"All right, Hans," Andrew shouted above the roar. "Staff meeting inside—the rest have passes till sundown."
"The boys are going to have a day they'll never forget," Hans said, grinning.
"It's going to be the last for a long time, so let them enjoy it."
Turning, Andrew walked into the cathedral, Kal and Casmar by his side. Looking over at the peasant, he couldn't help but grin.
The man was a political master equal to any ward boss back home. The whole thing, the triumph, Casmar blessing them, the speeches, the shout from the audience calling for Keane to lead them, had all been engineered by the wily, simple-looking man.
The morning after the battle it had been Kal who approached him, pointing out some of the political necessities required to bring order back to the city, and Andrew could only wonder if this man had been taking lessons on the side.
Turning past the altar, the three proceeded down the corridor and into Rasnar's old office.
Casmar, grimacing with pain, settled into one of the chairs arranged about the table, and as Andrew's staff and Kal's companions filed in, he beckoned for the rest of the group to be seated.
Casmar looked nervously about, obviously still uncomfortable at the position circumstance had suddenly thrust him into. When Dr. Weiss came in he immediately went up to the new prelate and checked him for fever.
"You should be in bed, dammit," Weiss growled.
"When there is time," Casmar replied good-naturedly, motioning for Weiss to sit by his side.
The last of the staff in the room, Andrew motioned for the doors to be closed.
Andrew looked around the table and felt a chill in his heart.
For some in the room there was still the exultation of what had been accomplished in the last two days. But for others a growing sense of what had been created was finally starting to sink in. For the regiment there was now no chance of backing out, of finding that safe place that Tobias had almost successfully argued for. The regiment was staking its life on Suzdal, and Andrew knew the chance was a slim one.
"All right, then, gentlemen, to business," Andrew said, and the room fell silent.
"First item is order in the city," and Andrew looked over at Kal.
"Yesterday was rough," Kal replied. "I followed your orders and organized a militia to bring control back. Dozens were killed nevertheless as old grudges were settled.
"And," he said quietly, "fifteen were executed this morning for looting."
Andrew looked at Kal and felt satisfied. There was no joy in Kal for the power of life and death. He could only hope it would stay that way.
"Several thousand have left as well, going east to Vazima."
"Glad to be rid of them," Boris interjected. "They're traitors."
"They're not traitors," Andrew snapped back in reply.
"That's another thing about freedom. We've overthrown the old order here in Suzdal, and if reports are to be believed, in Novrod as well. But there'll be many who do not like this. They must be free to leave and go east to live under Mikhail and the other boyars, if that is their wish."
"We've got over a thousand men at arms who've surrendered, and some wish to join us," Kal interjected.
"Good. We'll need experienced soldiers. I'll discuss them shortly. Anything else that needs to be reported now?"
He looked about the room, and all were silent.
"Then, gentlemen, there is one and only one issue that must consume our every waking moment. The Tugars."
The men looked uneasily at each other.
"It'll be impossible," Tobias snapped from the far end of the table. "You never should have destroyed those ballots without counting them. I'm positive the men voted to leave."
Andrew leaned over the table and fixed Tobias with a cold icy stare.
"I am in command of this detachment, Captain Tobias. I gave the men the option to vote when it was necessary. But the real vote was here in this city two days ago. The men marched with me, fully knowing what it would mean, knowing that we were committed to the liberation of these people from the boyars and the Tugars. That vote was taken, sir, and the ballots which I destroyed were no longer valid. For the duration of this campaign I am in command, and you shall follow my orders. Do I make myself clear?"
Tobias was silent but returned Andrew's glare with open hatred.
Andrew turned and looked at Kal, and then swept the room with his gaze.
"I did not want this power, but it is now mine. I am declaring military law for the duration, as we have always maintained with our own detachment. There can only be one person in charge—otherwise there will be chaos, and whatever slim chance we have of beating the Tugars will melt away."
"So you do not believe we can beat them?" Casmar asked.
"The chances aren't very good, your holiness, but by God we'll try nevertheless," Andrew replied.
"Gentlemen, from what little information the people of this city have given us, we can estimate that the Tugars will
be able to field well over a hundred and fifty thousand mounted warriors. As of this morning's roll we have less than six hundred men trained to meet them. The citizens of Suzdal and Novrod have no concept of how to fight the Tugars. If they attempt to do so as they are now, it will be a massacre, and Rus will cease to exist.
"If I were the Tugar leader I would not allow a single one of the people here to live, for you have overthrown the leaders they appointed over you. Their only alternative is to annihilate the entire population, or else the infection of what you represent will spread."
"Then why did you fight for us?" Kal asked.
"Because we could not let you die at the hands of the boyars."
"And now you agree to stay nevertheless?" Casmar asked softly.
"We have made our commitment. Our arrival helped to trigger this, and I and my command will not leave you now."
"Then how do we defeat them?"
Andrew fixed Kal and his companions with his gaze.
"In one year I plan to raise a national army. Every citizen will be trained to fight."
"But our bows do not carry like theirs," Casmar said quietly. "We have few horses—we do not have even enough swords."
"If we fight them that way, we'll lose," Andrew replied. "But we will not fight them in the way expected."
"How then?" Kal asked quietly.
"Gentlemen, in one year I plan to create an industrial state out of Suzdal. I intend to place in the field a modern army, armed with muskets and artillery and with all of the logistical support necessary. In th
at is our only hope."
The men in the room looked at Andrew as if he had proposed an unthinkable madness.
"Sir, may I speak frankly?" John Mina asked.
"Go on, major."
"Sir, do you realize the full import of what you are saying? It is not as if we had the factories waiting for us to churn out all the accoutrements of war. We'll be starting from scratch."
"I know, John, and if you can come up with a better alternative, tell me."
John leaned back in his chair, shaking his head.
"You know it's been done before," Bob Fletcher interjected.
"Where?" John asked.
"The rebs. When the war started they didn't have a single factory for making rifles, artillery, even gunpowder. Their cannon works in Richmond is now one of the biggest, and their powder mill down in Georgia was believed to be the biggest in the world—turns out powder as good as or better than our own."
"But they had four years to do it," John argued.
"And we shall have less than one," Andrew replied. "But I should point out we do have the resources to do it with."
"From where?" Tobias mumbled.
"You've already demonstrated it," Andrew said, looking back at the major.
"So far the boys have built four mills and made a good start on a railroad—Ferguson told me last night he could have a small locomotive ready in another month. Last night I went over the regimental rolls. Most all the boys in the regiment come from Maine, a lot from the factory towns. O'Donald's boys are from the city and quite a few tradesmen in the lot, and Cromwell has a number of men who know steam engines and other things as well.
"Gentlemen, I daresay nearly all the knowledge necessary to build a modern New England factory town is sitting around this table, or outside enjoying the celebrations. We're going to start from scratch, but by heaven we'll do it, because we know the price of failure if we do not."
The men visibly perked up at the passion in Andrew's voice. "I've drawn up a basic plan of organization," he said, and pulling out a roll of note paper from his tunic he put on his glasses.
"We are going to divide our organization into three areas— labor, industrialization, and military training.
"Kal, as of this moment you and your men will be in charge of organizing your people for work. I'm giving you full responsibility and power for this. The various people I appoint for building projects will come to you. You and your people in turn will marshal the necessary forces. We are talking about tens of thousands of men and women who will have to be organized. I'm giving you the full authority of military law under me. Do you understand that?"
The peasant, taken aback, merely nodded in reply.
"Next comes the industrialization. John, I am giving you full authority for that organization. You are to coordinate all projects, give them priority, assign whoever is necessary, and see Kal for the workers."
John leaned back in his chair and smiled.
"I'll be hell to live with for some of you," John said, looking about the table, and the other officers laughed good-naturedly.
"All right, then, John, let's see what has to be done in the following areas.
"The most basic requirement is iron and powder. What would you need for at least ten thousand muskets and a hundred field pieces?"
"One hundred!" O'Donald said excitedly. "Colonel dar-Hng, how in the name of the saints do you plan that?"
"They won't be Napoleons," Andrew replied. "I'm thinking of light field pieces, four-pounders at most, that can be moved by a single horse."
"Still, Andrew, that's a lot of metal."
"The artillery will be under your command, O'Donald— let me worry about where it comes from."
"From battery commander to chief of artillery," O'Donald laughed, grinning with delight.
"That's a lot of metal, as he said," John replied.
"What do you need to do it, John? I don't want to hear how much—I want to know what it takes to get the job done," Andrew said looking across the table.
"All right," John said quietly, sitting back and thinking while the room was silent.
"To start, we'll need a foundry, a damn big one, not that little affair back on the mill stream. And that means power, lots of it."
Andrew turned away from John and looked over at Ferguson, the only enlisted man in the room besides Hans.
"Ferguson, what about power?"
"I'd like to say steam engines, sir. Now if we could take the engine out of the Ogunquit—"
"Like hell you will," Tobias roared.
"We need the boat for transport," Andrew replied, "and Captain Cromwell, if I do want that engine at a later date, I'D take it whether you like it or not."
"Well then, sir," Ferguson continued, speaking quickly as if to avoid an argument, "I'd still like to say steam engines.
We've got a small one for our locomotive which is half done, but it'll be a weak one at best. To build bigger and stronger ones we'll need precision tools and equipment. That'll take time."
"But I want the power now," Andrew said.
"Sir, Dr. Weiss, Kal, and I went up to survey that site for the dam above the city. I figure it'll take six months with five thousand working on it to get all the earth moved. But once done, it'd deliver a tremendous head of power, enough to handle all we'd possibly need. From that power we can turn out all that the major wants, with plenty to spare for other projects."
"Kal, I want twenty thousand men to start on that dam within two days," Andrew said, and the peasant looked at him wide-eyed.
"But colonel—"
"Do you want to live past next year?" Andrew replied.
Kal nodded, looking somewhat overwhelmed.
"Then all of your people had better learn quickly that this is not working for some boyar and trying to do as little as possible—this means hard work from morning to night."
"But the ground is frozen."
"Then use picks, get below the frost, and start digging."
Andrew looked back to Ferguson and nodded for him to continue.
"Sir, I can have the plans and survey done for the dam in three days' time."
"Good, son. You're now promoted to captain and are hereby assigned all engineering design work. Start with the dam, then with anything that'll create power. You're also in charge of the railroad. I'm authorizing you to form an engineering company. Pick the best men—you can go through the roster book later."
"Thank you, sir," Jim said, beaming with pride.
John looked back at Mina.
"All right, what do you need, if Ferguson can give you the power?"
"Sir, we'll need a major foundry to cook down the ore. Then bigger forges to turn the runoff into wrought iron for the basic needs of metal, and then special furnaces to turn out steel for tools and springs for the gun locks."
"Pick all the men you need, and get started at once. Talk to Ferguson about the best sites, and to Kal about the labor."
"Sir, there'll be a hell of lot going into this," John said.
"Go on, John, I need to know."
"Sir, it's one thing to roll out a musket barrel, but cutting a rifle requires a lot more time and precision."
"What do you suggest?"
"Well, sir, I'd suggest that we turn out flintlock smoothbore muskets. It'd eliminate the need for percussion caps, which need fulminate of mercury, and I sure as hell don't know where we'd get the mercury for that. I know muskets will only give us a range of a hundred yards instead of the four hundred a good Springfield rifle can deliver. But we can turn out a hell of a lot more muskets than rifles, especially at the start. Maybe later we'll get up to something like flintlock long rifles."
Andrew had been afraid he would hear this. They already knew from experience that the Tugar bows would carry two hundred yards, maybe more, thus outranging flintlocks like the type his grandfather had carried in the Revolution. Tactics would somehow have to be adjusted, but it was better to have muskets than nothing at all.
"What else would you need?" Andrew asked, deciding to worry about tactics when there was more time.
"Sir, we'll need a constant source of iron ore. We've found only that one site. The quality of the ore is good, but we'll need to expand that operation significantly to supply our needs. I've already learned the Suzdalians have another site, but it's way the hell up the river. Next we'll need to cook an awful lot of limestone for flux. Finally, there's fuel, and that's the worst part.
"I can use wood charcoal, though it'll mean thousands of men cutting and cooking the stuff to keep the mills going. We need coal—good hard anthracite would be best. Then we need a retort furnace to cook the stuff into coke, to get rid of the chemicals in coal that would make the metal brittle. Without coal I can't turn out the amount of metal we need."
To Andrew the whole business of metalworking was a mystery. He turned and looked at Kal.
"Have you ever heard of coal?" he asked.
Kal, confused, merely shook his head.
"He means a rock that burns," Emil said. "It's black and shiny and smells when it burns."
"Ah, the gate to the devil," Kal said, and turning to Casmar he talked excitedly with the prelate for several minutes and then turned back to Andrew.
"We call it devil rock. Half a day's walk beyond the hills where you get the iron rock. There's a hole where smoke comes out. There are black rocks there. Casmar says it is dangerous, though, for it is the hole into hell."
This would require some long conversations, Andrew thought. The last thing he needed was to turn another prelate against him who might think that they were digging a tunnel into hell.
Andrew looked through the regimental rolls and found what he wanted.
"O'Donald, your roster indicates that Mike Polawski was a coal miner by trade."
"Came out of Scranton, just before the war. Only Pole in the battery, but a good Catholic boy nevertheless."
"See him at once. Tell him to get together some men, and Father Casmar will locate a guide to check the site out.
"What else will you need?" Andrew said, looking back at John.
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