The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  General Pollard had shared his binoculars with Subutai. “Well, sir!” he cried out. “What do you think of that?”

  “At first,” replied the conqueror of Muscovy, “I thought that they did well. But they seem to have little sense or discipline. They should have reformed and withdrawn immediately, for thus they would have lost almost no men at all, and could have done many more great deeds. Besides, their horses are very big and fat and sleek. Probably they cannot fend for themselves and must be fed like children, and I doubt whether they can endure hardship any better than the horses of the Teutons and the Poles.”

  This brief critique lost nothing in the translation, but it failed to dismay General Pollard. He announced that they would move on to another area of the field and gave the word to Papa Schimmelhorn to skip ahead an hour or so. When they reappeared, Marshall Ney had just launched his massed squadrons against the British line, charging over muddy ground against double-shotted guns and rocklike squares of British infantry. They watched the squadrons charge and crumble, and charge again and die; and the general, almost whinnying in his excitement, exclaimed that if only he had held command, there would have been a very different tale to tell!

  Subutai’s opinion of poor Ney was by no means complimentary. “Never,” he asserted, “have I seen a commander with such a genius for slaying his own men. Prince from the West, you will have to show me better sights than these to impress me; so far, even with the thunder-engines. I have seen nothing that frightens me and no forces with whom we could not cope according to our way of waging war.”

  At that point, they were themselves assailed by a small party of mounted stragglers, who looked like half-trained Brunswickers and who were speedily discouraged by two arrows from the younger Mongol’s bow, a few accurate shots from the sergeant’s .45, and one swift slicing cut of Thorfinn’s sword. Four of them remained on the ground, two rode off howling with their fellows and Sergeant Leatherbee got himself an excellent long saber and a dragoon helmet as souvenirs.

  The incident put Subutai into a better humor, and when the time-pony whisked them to Balaclava, he actually watched the charge of Sir James Scarlett’s Heavy Brigade—composed of the same regiments which had formed the Union Brigade at Waterloo—with approval, commenting that this commander at least was a man of resolution and not an idiot. The Charge of the Light Brigade, however undid it all, and he made it clear that, had Lord Cardigan only been a Mongol, he would have suffered a very painful fate indeed.

  General Pollard was disheartened. He pointed out to Subutai that poor leadership did not diminish the sterling qualities of the troops concerned who, under more competent command—his own, for instance—could be expected to accomplish any number of military miracles.

  Subutai replied, pleasantly enough, that he doubted it.

  The next stop was Brandy Station, the largest cavalry action of the Civil War, and for a while the general thought that at last he was beginning to get his message through, for Subutai watched the charges and countercharges with mounting interest, until finally the Federal cavalry, having failed to take Stuart and his headquarters, withdrew. Then the orlok’s critique dispelled his optimism, for Subutai was most interested in the small thunder-engines which so many of the troopers had, like Sergeant Leatherbee, carried in one hand. To the Prince from the West, the prospect of saving Western Civilization from the Mongols began to seem pretty dim.

  Discreetly, he took counsel with Count von Schimmelhorn. “I just don’t understand the man,” he said. “I’ve shown him some of the finest Western cavalry in action, and he’s not at all impressed. We’ll move on to Omdurman, and he can watch the British charging through the whole dervish army. However, I must admit that I don’t want to have to listen to his comments while we’re going there. Papa, if you don’t mind, this time I’d like to ride the pony.”

  “Okay, soldier boy,” said Papa Schimmelhorn, feeling genuinely sorry for his friend. “Only remember—chust die pedals, und leafe alone die dinguses.”

  He waited while the general mounted and then joined the party in the pony cart, barely managing to squeeze himself in next to his sworn brother who, fired with the lust for battle, was grumbling because so many splendid opportunities had gone to waste. He winked at Subutai. “Pretty soon, Herr Mongol,” he promised, “ve show you something maybe you don’t forget.”

  The general started pedaling. The pearly shimmer enfolded them, and moments passed. Then abruptly the fierce, hot sun beat down, a furnace wind blew, shots and shouts and wild screams surrounded them, and they were on the field of Omdurman.

  The general’s map work had been as accurate as before, and Papa Schimmelhorn’s adjustment of the dinguses quite as precise—but Omdurman was not a battle according to the rules. Where, according to the histories, there should have been no one, there was a mob of howling dervishes. Two of them instantly dashed at the general with their swords; two or three more did their utmost to impale him with their spears—and General Pollard reacted instinctively. He drove his spurs into the time-pony’s flanks and reined—or tried to rein—abruptly to the left. Instantly, the battle vanished; the pearly shimmer quavered on and off, flickering and hesitating; the time-pony emitted a dry, whickering sound.

  “Gott in Himmel!” shouted Papa Schimmelhorn. “Soldier boy, vot haff you done?”

  Then they were in a different place and time. Night was almost on them; no sun stood in the gray-black sky, and an icy rain was falling. Clearly, there was a war on, but it was a war far removed from the Sudan. In the distance, there was the growling of artillery, the roar of detonating bombs. The threatening drone of piston-engined aircraft sounded in the skies.

  The time-pony and its cart rested on torn mud, behind a thick hedge that screened them from the road. A number of dead Germans lay nearby; a little further off were some dead Americans and one or two who, by their helmets, could have been British or Canadian.

  The younger Mongols had their swords half drawn; so had Thorfinn Thorfinnson. Subutai, recognizing that something unanticipated had occurred, sat tense as a drawn bow.

  “Hey, General, sir!” called out Sergeant Leatherbee. “It sure looks like we’re back in France, round about ’44.”

  The general had dismounted. He was staring fearfully at the time-pony’s scarred wooden flanks, where his spurs had penetrated to its mechanism. The realities of his situation were just beginning to seep through to him, and they were by no means pleasant ones. Here he was a five-star general, at a time when he had been only a lieutenant colonel. Furthermore, he was standing in a war zone with a party of unauthorized and very extra-ordinary aliens, when officially, passed over for promotion, he was actually provost marshal at Fort Kit Carson, Oklahoma. Finally, not only would there be no cavalry with which to impress Subutai, but there was a distinct possibility that Subutai and all of them might be permanently stuck there in the Twentieth Century, while in the Thirteenth the Mongols would overrun the rest of Europe. Unhappily, he realized that the War Department might reasonably be expected to take a dim view of the whole affair.

  “Papa,” he pleaded, with a thread of desperation in his voice, “you—you can fix it, can’t you?”

  Papa Schimmelhorn shook his head sadly.

  “Soldier boy, I do not know until I look inside.” He opened up the tool kit and took out a screwdriver and a pair of pliers. “Anyhow I try.”

  As he set to work, General Pollard pulled himself together and surveyed the situation. From not too far away came the ominous roar of heavy internal combustion engines and the unmistakable earth-shaking rumble of tracked vehicles. Decisive action obviously was called for, starting with protective coloration.

  “Sergeant,” he ordered, “collect enough helmets from those casualties for our entire party. Be sure to get one or two of the British ones.” Then, fumbling for his Latin, he explained that here his own people were at war,
that behind their lines they were intolerant of strangers and might be in no mood to wait for explanations and that prudence required that everybody be as inconspicuous as possible.

  With Thorfinn’s help, the sergeant gathered up the helmets and issued them. He also passed out two rifles and a couple of pistol belts. The result, while not too convincing, was at least an improvement. Meanwhile, the sound of engines swelled, and a squadron of light tanks roared past along the road without catching sight of them.

  “Are you making progress, Papa?” asked General Pollard anxiously.

  “I haff found der piece you broke,” replied Papa Schimmelhorn “und maybe I can fix. But I must haff a longer shcrewdrifer und some friction tape.”

  Half a dozen attack aircraft, flying in the same direction as the squadron of light tanks, screamed unseen overhead.

  “Sergeant Leatherbee!” shouted the general. “We must get a long screwdriver and some friction tape! Where can we obtain them?”

  There was the grumble of even heavier engines coming towards them on the road.

  “I don’t know, sir!” the sergeant shouted back. “Unless mebbe we could borry some from one of them tanks been passin’ by!”

  General Pollard was violently opposed to tanks and their employment, and he recoiled even from the idea of borrowing tools from one of them, but he was too great a man to indulge his prejudices in this emergency.

  “Very well,” he said. “Let’s stand out on the road.”

  They pushed their way through the wet hedge with difficulty and found another armored column coming at them so rapidly that the general did not even notice that Subutai and Thorfinn Thorfinnson had followed them.

  Bravely, he stepped out into the road, and held up his right hand. At first, the leading tank seemed sure to run him down, but he stood his ground. Then, with grinding gears and clashing tracks, it slowed and halted. In its turret stood an extremely angry officer.

  “YOU GODDAMN IDIOT!” he roared. “What the goddamn hell do you think you’re—” He broke off. He peered intently through the gloom at General Pollard’s equine countenance, at the five stars on his helmet.

  “POLLY!” yelled George S. Patton, Jr. “Jesus Christ, what won’t they think of next? I never thought I’d see the day when you’d outrank me!”

  He saluted, and General Pollard returned the salute with precision.

  “What the hell are you doing out here, Polly?” Patton asked, shaking his head unbelievingly, and staring at Subutai, now decked out in a U.S. issue helmet and pistol belt. “Who’s this you’ve got with you—Genghis Khan?”

  General Pollard suddenly had a hideous vision of George S. Patton seeing the time-pony and its wicker pony cart and meeting Papa Schimmelhorn. “I’m on a secret mission, George!” he snapped. “A mission of the utmost urgency, with—with our allies. Our vehicle has broken down, and we require a long screwdriver and some friction tape. With these we can make our own repairs.”

  Patton regarded them suspiciously. “Looks mighty queer to me,” he said, and hesitated. Then, “By God, isn’t that Leatherbee?” he asked.

  Sergeant Leatherbee snapped to attention. “Sure good to see you, sir, and with your three stars!”

  “And I’m glad to see that you’ve made master, Leatherbee.” Patton laughed, looking at his stripes. “Never thought you would, not with all those 35-1440’s. Well, with you around I guess everything’s okay. Take good care of your general, Sergeant!”

  Someone inside the tank handed up a long screwdriver and a roll of friction tape. General Patton handed them to the sergeant. He saluted General Pollard once again. The tank’s engine roared. They stepped aside.

  As the long grim column thundered past them, Subutai simply stood there watching it in silence. Only after the last tank had disappeared did he follow Sergeant Leatherbee back to the time-pony.

  They sat there in the rain while Papa Schimmelhorn made his repairs, and Subutai asked General Pollard several questions in a much more respectful tone than he had used before. Was the great cart made of solid steel? He was informed it was. And did the great cart carry thunder-engines? It did. And could it move without men or horses? It could. And did the prince’s army have many more of them? The prince’s army had many thousands.

  Then Subutai said something which shocked General Pollard to the core. “If we had carts like those,” he said, “we would not need horses.”

  He also asked whether the fact that the officer to whom the prince had spoken had only three stars on his helmet betokened lower rank, and was informed it did. He closed his eyes and for several minutes was wrapped in silent thought. Then, very calmly, “Prince from the West,” he said. “You have succeeded. We shall go back into Asia, and we shall not return.”

  “It is well,” said General Pollard haughtily, sensibly suppressing the impulse to tell Subutai that tanks were inefficient, unintelligent, incapable of reproducing their own kind, and useless for such purposes as playing polo and hunting foxes.

  Now that everything was settled, Sergeant Leatherbee broke out a bottle of the general’s bourbon, and by the time Papa Schimmelhorn’s repairs had been effected, the atmosphere was quite convivial. On the return trip, however, it was the magician rather than the prince who rode the time-pony, after settling the controls so that they would return, not at the instant of their departure—which might have persuaded the Mongols that the whole thing had been a delusion—but after an interval of at least ten hours.

  They materialized where they had started and found stately deputations from both sides awaiting them. Then Subutai’s decision was formally announced, and the farewells which were said were, if not exactly friendly, at least respectful. Subutai presented General Pollard with his jeweled scimitar, as an expression of his esteem. The general, in return, gave the Mongol his binoculars (which were destined, some hundreds of years later, to shatter the mental balance of a Soviet archaeologist who happened to be digging into a mound in Central Asia). And Papa Schimmelhorn generously sent Prince Batu a cuckoo clock, which impressed everybody even more than the magic horse had done.

  Within a few hours the Mongol horde had vanished, and Count Rudolf—though urging caution in view of the long record of Tatar treachery—announced that festivities would begin on the morrow and urged his guests to stay on at least for a few days, until the rescue of Christendom could be confirmed with greater certainty.

  That night they feasted merrily, and Mrs. Pollard, who had been seriously concerned about her husband, played her role of the proud princess beautifully, even though she did confess to the general that she was getting rather tired of the Thirteenth Century’s lack of sanitary facilities. Thorfinn Thorfinnson rose with the ale to deliver an impasssioned account of his sworn brother’s cleverness and the Prince Palatine’s heroism, and to praise them both not only for saving Christendom, but for bringing Drachendonnerfels its fairest flower, at which Bluebelle blushed delicately. He then promised to compose a truly heroic saga telling the whole story, including all the battles and their carnage, and even Sergeant Leatherbee’s generous issue of the general’s whiskey.

  Finally they went to bed, and presently a serving woman came tiptoeing in to Papa Schimmelhorn and whispered to him to be as quiet as a mouse and led him through a secret passage to Ermintrude’s chamber.

  * * * *

  At the count’s insistence (and at Ermintrude’s) they remained at Drachendonnerfels five days, while swift messengers reported the ebbing of the Mongol tide from all those European countries they had ravaged and occupied; and each day more and more grandees, of both Church and State, came to the castle to pay their respects to their great rescuers; and every night the serving woman came tiptoeing into Papa Schimmelhorn’s bedchamber to lead him to his pretty pussycat.

  Actually, the festivities might have been prolonged indefinitely if the great magici
an had not boasted to the Prince Palatine of the reward he was receiving—which was tactless of him because the prince himself was never allowed out of Mrs. Pollard’s sight. As a matter of fact, she had been getting a little irritable. On the third day Thorfinn Thorfinnson had very formally asked the prince for Bluebelle’s hand, and the prince has passed the buck to her. She, of course, had asked Bluebelle, who had said, “Look, Mrs. P., it ain’t that I don’t wanta cook fer yer. You and the gen’ral been real swell to me. But if I stay back here and marry that big Swede, hell, I won’t be just nobody—I’ll be a baroness. It’ll be me tellin’ the hired hands what to do. Besides, it’s like he says, I got good teeth, and betwixt the two of us we oughta have some real fine sons, if we work at it—and I gotta hunch we will.” She blushed again. “And someday we’ll have a castle of our own, and—hell, Mrs. P., it ain’t all that bad. I was raised with a three-holer back on the farm.”

  So Mrs. Pollard dissolved in tears and embraced her and did her best to forget that she was going to have an awful time trying to find another cook and gave her all her costume jewelry and a genuine small sapphire as a wedding present.

  The marriage was solemnly celebrated next day by the Archbishop Alberic, who waived the ordinary posting of the banns in view of the high rank of the participants; and Papa Schimmelhorn, who as the groom’s sworn brother acted as best man, presented them with his one remaining cuckoo clock to hang over their nuptial couch.

  At Mrs. Pollard’s insistence—she told the general that she had actually picked up some fleas—they left the following day, after Papa Schimmelhorn had promised Ermintrude that he would return as soon as possible. They were allowed to leave only after many speeches had been made, countless toasts offered, and innumerable rich gifts pressed upon them.