Grantville Gazette 43

by Eric Flint

  He caught the line Matt threw him and pulled the dinghy against the Red Lion. Matt was the first off, to be quickly followed by the Red Lion's crew—Daniel Spieker and his son, Gottfried—and Paulus Hardenack, the dive team's number two diver.

  "Where is everyone?" Matt asked.

  "They're on the Crab, checking out the gear," George said.

  Matt nodded. "I'll tell them what's happening later then." He grinned at George. "You'll be pleased to hear that we were diverted here to rescue something for Glomfjord Hydro. Someone managed to lose a twenty-five kilowatt generator pack from a cargo net when they were unloading."

  George wasn't happy to hear that. "Twenty-five kilowatts? What the heck? Derek was talking about megawatts. You'll need dozens of those piddling little things to make as much power as he said Glomfjord was going to make."

  "It's all right, George. This generator was for use here in Arendal. They are planning on using it to refine copper for the Glomfjord generators here in Arendal rather than buy refined copper from Grantville."

  "And they will use it to train operators," Paulus said. "They need to get it out quickly before the salt water can damage anything."

  "You had me worried for a moment there," George muttered. "Still, why did they need to call you in? Can't they send down their own divers?"

  "They tried. It's too cold—the water's only about forty degrees—and too murky at the bottom. Paulus and I are going to have to do a grid search, and hope the packing case held together."

  "How long do you think it'll take?"

  "Who knows? We might get lucky and find it this afternoon or . . . "

  "Or we might never find it," Paulus said.

  Matt slapped Paulus on the back. "Don't be such a pessimist. We know roughly where to look. It just might take a few dives."

  ****

  Three days later, and they still hadn't found the generator. Unless something went wrong, George was surplus to requirements when the team was diving. Not that he would wish anything to go wrong, but he was bored. He could volunteer to have a turn turning the crank on the compressor, but that wouldn't alleviate the boredom. The only bright spots of the last few days had been when the divers sent up a lifting bag. There was a hint of excitement then, not just amongst the crew, but also the few people who'd gathered on the wharf to see what was happening.

  A change in the repetitive noise of the compressor told the deck crew that a lifting bag was being filled. Those not involved in powering the compressors hurried to the gunwale to watch the bag break the surface.

  They weren't the only people to rush forward to get a good view. On the wharf the crowd surged closer. There was a scream, and a small body landed in the water. George and the others on the boat looked up in shock. The people on the wharf looked down in shock. Finally, a man jumped into the water after the child.

  George expected to see the man surface and swim to the child, but after a dozen seconds the man still hadn't surfaced. Nobody seemed to know what to do, so George took charge. "Get a scramble net," he called to Jürgen before diving over the side.

  The water was cold, but he had expected that—he'd been for a swim in the same waters with Matt and the other divers first thing that morning. He struck out in a distance-consuming crawl, reaching the small bundle that was the child in no time at all. He rolled the child over. It didn't seem to be breathing. Using a life-saving hold he turned and headed back for the Crab where eager hands pulled the child out of the water.

  "The man who dived in still hasn't surfaced," Jürgen said as he passed the child to Friedrich. He pointed in the general direction of where the man had entered the water and where a man on the wharf was dipping a pole into the water.

  That gave George a place to aim for. He swam over and found that the man with the pole had pulled a body to the surface. George rolled it over and looked about for where to take it.

  On the Crab the crew had the decompression stage in the water. That decided George. He could swim onto the stage and they could easily lift both of them out of the water.

  The moment he had the man on the stage the crew lifted it. Finally out of the cold water George turned his attention to the man he'd rescued. George put a hand to the man's throat, trying to find a pulse, but his hands were too cold for him to be sure that there was no pulse. Still, the man's lips were turning blue. He took a risk and started CPR.

  George didn't notice when the stage settled on the deck. He was too busy muttering the cadence of CPR as he applied it. He was dragged clear and the body was pulled off the stage, then Jürgen took over the CPR. Suddenly George didn't have anything to do, and the adrenaline in his system ran out.

  ****

  George came to in a hammock in the Crab 's main cabin. He listened, and he heard strangers talking. He pulled away the covers and grabbed the bar above his head to pull himself out of the hammock. He lowered himself gently to the ground, not sure how well his legs would support him. They seemed to manage, so he let go and hunted around for some dry clothes. Then he headed up the steps to the deck.

  The first thing he saw on deck was Matt examining a large packing case with a stranger. He wandered over. "Is this what you were looking for?" he asked Matt.

  Matt jerked his head towards the stranger. "Trond here seems to think so."

  "Yes. We must get it to the warehouse so we can open the box and check for damage," the young man said.

  That drew George's attention to the fact the Crab was tied up to the wharf, and a crowd had gathered. He backed away.

  "Come on, George," Matt said. "The family you rescued wants to thank you."

  George so didn't want to do this, but Matt was insisting. He let Matt drag him towards the family. The father was all bundled up in blankets on a rescue stretcher while the child was safe in the arms of its mother. Maybe I can do this, George thought.

  The woman said something in Norwegian and thrust the child towards George. That seemed to upset the child and it started to scream. Memories from 'Nam hit George in a flood and he turned and ran for the gunwale, where he emptied his stomach into the sea below.

  He was leaning on the gunwale waiting for his stomach to stop clenching when a strong arm was laid across his shoulders. "Are you all right?" Matt asked.

  Of course he wasn't all right. George ran his hands up and down on his trousers as he tried to clean them of the burned flesh they'd been covered in thirty years ago when the medic had passed him a screaming child badly burned by a napalm strike on a village. He swallowed and tried to speak, but nothing came out.

  Matt patted him gently on the shoulder. "I'll tell the family that you must have swallowed some of the water and you're just brought it up."

  "Thanks," George managed to mutter. With the gunwale as a support he watched Matt walk back to the family and make his excuses. He envied Matt his life. Heck, he even envied him having had Melvin Sutter on his back. Maybe if he'd had a Melvin Sutter of his own he'd never have dropped out of high school, which would have meant he might not have been drafted, or at least not sent to 'Nam as a grunt. And then he wouldn't have been so totally screwed up for the rest of his life. Matt was everything George wished he was, and thought he could have been.

  ****

  The moment she heard about the loss of the generator Inger Mogensdotter had pulled every string she could to ensure the USE Navy dive team was sent to recover it. The recovery of that generator had been so urgent that she'd even forgotten that George Watson was with them. She'd seen everything clearly through her McNally Optics telescope. From the moment George Watson entered the water to that last moment when he cast envious eyes on the small family unit he'd saved.

  Inger lowered the telescope and thought about the women she knew had been introduced to George Watson. None of them had had young children. Maybe that's what she should be pushing in his direction.

  Inger headed for her study to check the family records. There had to be some widow in the family with young children who was also young eno
ugh to have more children.

  One thing was for sure. Inger wasn't going to give up getting George Watson attached to her family.

  ****

  Gloom, Despair and Agony on You

  Written by Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett

  "No, no, Johan," Bucky Carpenter croaked. "It's Wabash, not Vabisch."

  Johan Faber, the Johan most of the Old Folks' Band called "little weedy Johan who lives in the attic," shook his head at the old man. Bucky Carpenter was failing. That was plainly evident. It was Bucky's voice that had been recorded as lead singer in some of the work they'd done for Trommler Records, but that voice had been pretty thin when they'd started. Now the voice was nearly gone altogether. And Johan was supposed to be the replacement, since he'd been learning banjo from Bucky.

  "It's hard to say," Johan said. "I always have to stop and think about it, but you can't stop and think about it when you're singing."

  "That does kind of—" Bucky stopped to wheeze. "—interrupt the rhythm."

  "You und the band already recorded this one, ja?"

  Jerry Simmons spoke up. "Oh, sure. We've recorded just about everything we know, I think."

  "Then, it will not matter so much," Johan pointed out. "When we perform at the Gardens, if I say Vabisch, it will be okay. Not perfect, as you would like, but it won't ruin the song."

  "Probably not," Huey Jones said. "Heck, we get so much sing-along going that probably half the people in there are saying Vabisch anyway."

  ****

  Weedy Johan . . . well, he didn't think he was all that weedy anymore. He'd just finished a growth spurt when the old ladies had given him the nickname. He was learning English—almost had to, living with the various Old Folks' members—but not everyone in Germany was. And even with his English, some of the songs didn't make a whole lot of sense. "Vabisch Cannonball" was one of them. It was about a world that had railroads, not a world that needed them. He picked up one of the new steel-tipped pens, dipped it in the ink bottle, and began to write.

  Vabisch was the first thing he would change because he hated trying to pronounce it. To him, wabash looked like it should be vabisch. How about "The Bamberg Cannonball"? Bamberg was the capitol of the SoTF, after all. And the various railroad companies were already in negotiations with landowners for rights of way to build it. But the lyrics of the various versions of "Wabash Cannonball" weren't much help.

  Johan thought about the lines of the song. It seemed as though every up-timer he knew sung it a little differently. He couldn't help but wonder, "Where the heck was New Hampshire?" Curious, Johan got up, went downstairs and looked at the atlas. While he was looking, Bucky came in and looked at him. "Whatcha looking for?"

  "I wondered where New Hampshire was."

  "Up north. Why?"

  "Where are the New Hampshire mountains and why are they green?" Johan asked.

  "I gotcha," Bucky wheezed. "It'll help to know where you're singing about. 'Cajun lore' is talkin' about down south, round New Orleans."

  Bucky came over and pointed out New Hampshire, New Orleans and the other locations of the song. A few minutes later, Johan went back to his little room with a much better understanding of what the song was about, and with a different version that Bucky pulled out of the piano bench. It took him a little while to make the changes he wanted, but not all that long. By the time he went to bed he had new lyrics in German about European places and goals.

  ****

  Johan stopped singing and there was a dead, heavy silence.

  "Well, Johan," Ella Mae Jones began, " . . . I'm sure it makes a lot of sense to you. But it doesn't sound right to me."

  Johan sighed. Most of the Old Folks weren't good at learning German. They hadn't even really made a dent in learning Amideutsch, as the argot spoken around Grantville was called. About all any of them said with any regularity was "ja."

  "It works in German," he assured them.

  "I'm not sure I can pronounce the words of the chorus," Nancy Simmons admitted.

  Johan tried manfully not to grin at that. He failed, but he tried.

  Nancy snorted. "It's still Wabash, not Vabisch."

  "Yes, ma'am," Johan said, which was the only thing he could say. They started rehearsal of the new Amideutsch version and, much as had happened, when the Old Folks had started singing after the Ring of Fire, they drew a crowd of interested Germans. The Old Folks still took in boarders, though by now at least half their boarders were aspiring musicians, who wanted to live there as much to hear their music as for a place to stay. There were lutes and the like all over the place and more and more of the up-time instruments. Saxophones and trumpets. Guitars, tambourines and harmonicas.

  From the sandy-beached Atlantic to the Northern Baltic shore

  From the Hanseatic League to Lisbon's coast and more

  She's a thing of magic splendor and quite well known to all

  She'll be the culmination called the Bamberg Cannonball

  Then listen to the jingle, the rumble and the roar

  As she dashes through the woodlands, and speeds along the shore

  See the wonderful new engine, hear the bell and whistle call

  As she runs along in splendor, the Bamberg Cannonball

  Your western states are wealthy, so the people always say

  From Amsterdam to Paris, and down by Madrid way.

  Through the mountains of Tyrolia, where the glaciers make a wall.

  You'll ride along in safety on the Bamberg Cannonball

  Then listen to the jingle . . .

  By the second chorus, the boarders started singing along.

  There are other cities, partner, as you can plainly see,

  Venice, Rome and down the line, to the isle of Sicily

  The sea Adriatic where the pirates often call

  We'll pass them by, no problem with the Bamberg Cannonball

  The boarders sang the third chorus with hardly a miss at all.

  Here's to the falcon Richter, may his name forever stand

  And always be remembered throughout the German lands

  His mortal flight is over, the curtains 'round him fall

  May his spirit ever linger on the Bamberg Cannonball

  The fourth and last chorus was downright rousing.

  ****

  At the end of the song there was a babble of German. Mostly pleased German, some less pleased. Some of the Germans didn't want the up-timer music corrupted by being translated into down-timer music, but that was by far a minority view. Mostly, and especially among the musicians that had gradually moved into their little cul-de-sac as miners had moved out, instead of wanting to keep the up-time music pure, the musicians wanted to join the band and sing the German versions of the songs. That desire, when expressed, led to some serious discussions among the Old Folks and later among their families.

  "Well, you might as well recruit some of the kids," Hal Smith said. "I have so much to do with the aircraft design that there just isn't time for me to rehearse. Regina wants to keep singing, though."

  "I still have time for it, but I don't object to having some good-looking German boys on the stage with us." Regina looked over at Hal. "Groupies, that's what we need. Big, blond German boy groupies."

  Hal sniffed. "Yeah, go ahead. You get some big, blond German boys on the stage with you, and see who the groupies go after."

  "Well, I think Uschi should join the band. She is very talented and she loves the music. So does Rudi," Nancy Simmons said.

  "Rudi," Regina said. "He's short, skinny, with mousy brown hair. Though I do admit he can play the mandolin and he's getting pretty good on the banjo."

  "Oh, my God," Mildred said suddenly. "Ardis is going to want to join the band if we start letting Germans in."

  "Ardis can't carry a tune in a bucket and has never learned to play anything but a record player," Hal said. He had had his run-ins with Ardis Carpenter. She wasn't evil, but she ran like the hounds of hell were after her at the first sniff of work and she w
as always hitting her parents up for money. He was sort of all right with her kids, now that Mandy Sue was gone. Now, that had been a tragedy, that fire. But the other three kids, while they were no intellectual giants, they were willing to work.

  "I know, but that's not going to keep her from insisting that we let her join the band. She wanted to join when we got the record deal and the only thing that stopped her was the name, the Old Folks' Band. I told her she was too young," Mildred said. "Not that she's a spring chicken, by any stretch.

  "Her singing voice isn't bad," Mildred insisted, mostly because she felt she had to defend her daughter.

  "Fine, her singing voice isn't bad," Regina said, "not great, but not bad. That's not the problem. The problem is she won't do the work. Likely as not, she will forget about a performance, just like she forgets everything else. And then she comes bumming money from you. She'd be here with you if Duck and Big Dog hadn't bought her that place outside the Ring."

  "Never mind Ardis. What do you think about letting the down-timer kids into the group?" Ella Mae Jones asked. "We are all right with it." Ella Mae didn't consult Huey before speaking. She rarely did.

  Huey just grinned. He didn't much care; he had money if he needed it, fishing when he wanted it and pickin' and grinnin' in the evenings. All in all, Huey P. Long Jones was a happy, happy man.

  "Fine, so we let some of the down-time musicians that live here play with us, and if they are good enough we'll put them on the next record," Nancy Simmons said. She had several in mind. There was Johan, who had a good, deep voice and was turning into a handsome young man. And there were Osanna Reich and Maria Kershner, who were real good on their chosen instruments, and Uschi, really Ursula, who had a marvelous singing voice. And there was Rudi Finkel, who had learned guitar with a speed that amazed her. He could sing, too, although he was more of a tenor than Johan.