1637_The Volga Rules Read online

  Czar Mikhail was watching him. “What’s the problem? Is it that little blonde? What’s her name? Izabella?”

  “No! Of course not. You…” Alexander trailed off. Maybe it was Izabella. But if it was, it wasn’t only her. He was concerned about the villagers. He wasn’t sure how that had happened in just the few days it had taken to get here. But it had. “I’m concerned about the villagers.”

  “Well, the best thing you can do for them is keep Sheremetev’s army away from the village they are trying to build right now.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Meanwhile, go have a talk with the girl.”

  “Anya says that there should be more grain shipped up from the area around the Caspian Sea in the next month or so,” Izabella was saying. “She thinks that while there is going to be a market for grain next year, she’s not at all sure how good the market will be.”

  “That assumes that the Volga stays in our hands,” Alexander said. “I don’t see how Lebedev is going to hold it with the forces he has. Czar Mikhail’s proclamation got a lot of serfs to come join him, but not that many soldiers.”

  “But we have the dirigible and more of the steamboats!”

  “We have the dirigible, but they are working on their own. As for the steamboats, we have a few more, but not many. And the steam engine factory is in territory controlled by Sheremetev. So are the gun factories, especially when it comes to cannon. With the new gun carriages, they are going to be able to move the cannon more easily. The cannon will still delay Sheremetev, but not as much as they would have.”

  Izabella was starting to look frightened. Well, that made sense. Alexander was pretty frightened himself. Their biggest advantage was simply the amount of time it would take Sheremetev to get his forces into position. Moscow to Ufa was seven hundred miles as the dirigible flew. Over a thousand on any reasonable marching route. Even more along the rivers, but with steamboats they could travel fairly fast along the rivers. That was why Sviyazhsk and Kazan were so important. They blocked the river route and would have to be taken before the river could be used to attack Ufa, or even to supply an army marching on Ufa. “Don’t worry. It’s going to take them a long time to get here, and I think time is on our side.” That wasn’t true, but it sounded good.

  Izabella was giving him a careful look, but she let it pass. Suddenly she quirked a smile. “Then I guess you at least are some use to the former serfs of Ruzuka. Your job is to protect them while they grow the crops and build the machines. Now all I have to do is figure out what use I am.”

  “It has always been the job of the nobility to protect and govern the common people. It’s your job too.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to be leading any gallant charges.” She patted her increasingly prominent belly. “And they seem to be able to govern themselves quite handily.”

  Alexander wasn’t at all sure what to say to that. So he just sat there like a lump and she looked at him. Then she leaned forward and kissed him hard. Before he could react at all, she jumped up and ran off. Leaving Alexander—as uncountable young men before him—totally confused.

  There was too much on Alexander’s mind. There was the money and the new military assignment and that kiss. Alexander had to get on the road to Kazan, but he couldn’t take this…whatever it was…with Izabella any longer.

  He was tempted to leave and concentrate on his duties, but he had to face it. If he went off to Kazan, what would she do? She was pregnant. She wouldn’t have a lot of options, and she was worried about what she was going to do in the village. She might even get desperate enough to marry that damn horny priest.

  That thought galvanized Alexander. He didn’t want Izabella marrying Father Yulian, his baby or not. He rented a horse and headed for the village of New Ruzuka.

  “Izabella…Look, why don’t you marry me?” Alexander said. “We’re of the same class and I have all this money because Czar Mikhail decided that I now own my family’s lands, so you will be a proper member of the nobility. I’ll even forgive your dalliance with that randy priest of yours.”

  “You’ll forgive?” Izabella felt her face going red and didn’t care. “You arrogant ass! I hadn’t even met you! What business was it of yours what I did with who? And you’re going to buy me with your family’s money and lock me back in the same cage that had my mother running off to Father Yulian in the first place! I never want to see you again!”

  She turned and ran into the wagon, slamming the door behind her and not sure whether she wanted him to follow her or not.

  As it happened, he didn’t. And by the time she had gotten herself together and realized she might have overreacted, just a little bit, he was gone.

  Bernie was snuggling up to Natasha on the couch when the door opened. Not even a knock, just flung open with the little blonde from New Ruzuka, Izabella, charging through, followed by Anya. Every single time, he thought. Every damn time.

  “He’s run off to Kazan, the cowardly bastard!” Izabella screeched.

  “Father Yulian?” Natasha asked, sounding confused.

  “No! Alexander! Why would I care where Yulian went?”

  Bernie blinked, now totally confused. What did Alexander have to do with anything?

  “What did you say to him?” Natasha asked, this time sounding irritated, but not at all confused.

  Bernie looked back and forth between the women, trying to figure out what was going on. Suddenly Anya started to giggle.

  Natasha and Izabella looked at Anya, Natasha looking curious and Izabella looking betrayed. Anya pointed at Bernie. Both the other women looked at him and clearly saw something funny in his expression. Even the little blonde was starting to smile.

  “Why don’t you go check on the progress of something,” Natasha suggested. “The girls and I are going to be a while.”

  Since all that giggling had, er, reduced his circumstances, Bernie stood up and left. Muttering about “the female conspiracy” all the way.

  “Now,” Natasha said, not actually any happier than Bernie to be interrupted again, “what did you say to Alexander to make him run off to Kazan?”

  They told her. Izabella, now upset at herself, but still blaming Alexander for his presumption, and “the way he messed up everything and made me so mad!”

  “Wait a little while, then send him a radio message and apologize,” Natasha suggested.

  Izabella immediately bridled.

  “Do it, girl,” Anya told her.

  Natasha said, “Don’t blow your chance with him out of pride.”

  Izabella couldn’t bring herself to send that sort of radio message. Partly because she wasn’t real good at apologizing in the first place, and doing it where the radio operators could overhear…“Bunch of gossips…the lot of them…would be a public humiliation.”

  And that was how things stood as the steamboat took Alexander into the front lines of a war.

  CHAPTER 13

  The River Defense

  Kazan

  September 1636

  “The general is in the radio room.”

  “Radio?”

  “Yes. It’s in the tower.” The private in the city militia pointed at the Kazan kremlin.

  It took Alexander a few minutes to get to the tower located in the kremlin wall. It was a tall tower and above it was a pole reaching even higher. He made his way into the tower and was directed to a room on the bottom floor. Even with the large antenna, this wasn’t a powerful radio. They didn’t have the amplifiers that up-timers had to make radios that would reach across hundreds of miles. This radio only reached about twenty miles That meant it could reach Sviyazhsk sitting on top of Kruglaya Mountain and through Sviyazhsk a chain of back country radio outposts that would eventually reach the radio network already established in western Russia. It was also planned to reach Ufa eventually, but for now it was basically a link to Sviyazhsk.

  The radio room was also the telephone room. Within Kazan they used telephones connected by copper wire
s and a switch board. It allowed Tim to talk to just about anywhere in the kremlin and most of the rest of the city, at least within the city walls and bastions. Right now there was a great mass of construction work going on. It was mostly sandbags and using Fresno scrapers to dig trenches and build up mounds. Alexander found himself wondering how effective that sort of wall would prove against a determined cavalry charge. He had heard about the disastrous cavalry charge at Rzhev, but he hadn’t been there and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was just that it wasn’t carried through as it should have been.

  General Lebedev was standing behind the radio operator, reading over the man’s shoulder as he wrote out the message clicking in.

  “Four steamboats loaded with troops and cannon left Moscow by way of Moscova River yesterday.”

  “How does Sviyazhsk know that?” Alexander asked.

  “This isn’t from Sviyazhsk. It’s from the dirigible.” General Lebedev didn’t look up as he answered the question. He kept reading. “Estimate a hundred Streltzi and two cannon per riverboat. The dirigible is heading for Ufa, but will try to keep us informed as they can.” Then he stood and turned to Alexander. “Who are—Alexander Volkov?”

  “Yes, General.” Alexander decided at the last minute to address Tim as general. “Czar Mikhail has assigned me to your forces.”

  “Really? I must thank him when I get an opportunity.” Then General Tim shook himself. “I’m sorry, Captain. I should have long since given over schoolboy resentments. I really can use you. What do you know about river combat? Ivan Maslov is out at Sviyazhsk, with not much of anything to stop those boats, and I don’t have a lot more.”

  Alexander was at a loss, then something Cass Lowry had said while drunk in a tavern occurred to him. “‘Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.’”

  “What?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m not even entirely sure what a torpedo is. But I think it has something to do with naval warfare. It’s something Cass Lowry said when he was drunk. He said it’s from river fighting in the up-timer’s civil war. Of course, he also said his prick was a torpedo. It didn’t make much sense.”

  The general turned back to the radio man. “Is the Czarina still in range?”

  “I think so, sir.”

  “Have him ask Bernie about torpedoes in the American Civil War.”

  The radio man started clicking. “Well, Captain, I hope Bernie knows about torpedoes. Even if he doesn’t, though, it was worth a try. Welcome to Kazan.”

  As it happened, Bernie didn’t know about torpedoes in the Civil War. In fact, the information that Bernie had about torpedoes was useless…except to explain Cass Lowry’s reference to his prick. However, Ivan Alexandrovich Choglokov was very interested in American history. He had been at the Dacha since ’32 and had been on the second steamboat out. His family was prominent at court, but not quite of great family status. And Ivan knew where to find out what a torpedo was in 1860. He looked it up in the encyclopedia.

  And suddenly they had a plan.

  Colonel Mikhail Petrovich Kolumb looked at Alexander with a less than fully pleased expression. “Well, Captain, I take it you’re another of the baby general’s favorites.”

  Alexander listened to the colonel’s voice and the bitterness in it. “No. I’m one of the ones who picked on him in the Kremlin,” he said, putting as much regret and resentment in his voice as he could. He was able to put a lot of regret and resentment that statement. It was easy. Alexander hadn’t realized till just now how much he resented Boris Timofeyevich’s rapid advancement. Little Tim wasn’t even the smart one. That was Ivan Maslov. Tim was just in the right place at the right time. Alexander had been a full lieutenant when the Rzhev campaign had happened, but he had missed it and Tim had come back promoted. Then the little bastard had been in just the right spot when the czar needed someone, and now he was a frigging general.

  “Can’t blame you,” the colonel said, his voice much less resentful or at least a lot more congenial. “I haven’t seen much sign of the military genius that everyone talks about.”

  “Tim’s not the smart one. That’s Ivan Mazlov, the baker’s son. Tim was just his cover in the upper nobility.”

  “Is the baker’s boy really that smart?” Now the colonel was sounding doubtful but interested.

  Alexander considered. “At the time I didn’t think so. It just seemed like he had a knack for the war games that General Shein was so enamored of.” Alexander saw the colonel’s nod and held up his hand. “I’m beginning to think that Ivan Mazlov may actually be a very smart operator, and I’ve seen some things that make me think that the games may be more useful than I had thought when I was at the Kremlin. I think that the new rifles really mean a lot when it comes to tactics.”

  “Humph! Well, perhaps. But what about all these sand bags? General Lebedev is starting to be called Sandbag Timmy, and the price of cloth has gone up because of all of it he’s turning into sandbags.” The man shrugged. “Meanwhile, I’m supposed to fit you out with underwater mines.”

  Alexander nodded. Word had come back quickly and designs, even models, had arrived almost as quickly by riverboat.

  “Well, I’ve looked at the designs. The craftsmen of Kazan are quite capable of making the things.”

  They talked it through and Colonel Kolumb sent Alexander off to a craftsman’s shop. A few days later Tim had a load of mines and instructions about placing and retrieving them. And the craftsman had a voucher from the Czar’s Bank in Ufa.

  On the Volga

  September 1636

  Andrei Fefilatevich Danilov looked up at the dirigible and cursed. That monster had been tracking them since they left Moscow a week and a half—and three breakdowns—ago.

  It was hard enough convincing General Birkin to let him take the steamboats without that skywhale hanging up there marking their location. His was a small force. Partly that was because General Birkin had to deal with Director-General Sheremetev, who didn’t trust the steamboats, and at the same time didn’t want them wasted in combat. They were too valuable transporting goods, especially food, considering all the serfs that had run off. Reports that Kazan and Sviyazhsk had gone over to Mikhail Romanov had been ignored. Andrei hadn’t gotten permission for this expedition till the reports of diverted riverboats started coming in.

  Most of the army was slowly slogging along the Klyazma River, not that far from Moscow. And it was starting to look unlikely that they would be able to get to Kazan before the winter freeze started. If that happened, they would have to stop and wait for hard winter, after the rivers froze. Andrei looked forward and smiled. It wasn’t all bad news. If his was a tiny force, he still had two of the breech-loading six-pounder cannon mounted on each of his four river boats. That would let him fire on Sviyazhsk as soon as Kruglaya Mountain came in sight. Which, if they didn’t have another breakdown, ought to be tomorrow or the next day. He could steam right up to the docks, drop his troops, then stand off to give covering fire with the breech-loaders. Once Sviyazhsk was taken, he would move the cannon to the port side for the assault on Kazan. He might as well. He wasn’t going to have surprise in his favor, anyway. Not with that damned skywhale watching.

  Quietly, eighty feet ahead of Andrei Fefilatevich Danilov’s lead boat, eight inches below the surface of the Volga, an iron pot waited. It was upside down, filled with black powder and air, making it light enough to bob to the surface if it weren’t for the rope and anchor keeping it below the muddy surface of the Volga. There was no malevolence in the waiting murderer, nor any sense of fair play. No intellect at all. It was a device, nothing more. The pot had had holes cut in it and nails, driven through wax seals. It would only take a tap to drive one of those nails forward to release a catch and allow a wound wheel lock to spin making a shower of sparks to ignite the powder and…Boom!

  It wouldn’t be a good day for the steamboat.

  On the shore, not two hundred feet from the mines, was a group of sixty men, hiding in the brush that cover
ed the shore. Each man had a chamber-loading rifle—the AK3 flintlocks, not the new AK4 caplocks. The production of caps was also still in that part of Russia that Sheremetev commanded.

  Ivan Maslov was using an AK3. Not because he didn’t have an AK4, but because he didn’t have the caps for it. There was a cap factory setting up in Kazan and another in Ufa, but as yet they had very limited output. For now at least they used what caps they did have just as sparingly as they could. He watched as the lead steamboat approached the mine. Just about now.…

  Nothing happened.

  The boat hit the mine. The nail went in. The spring didn’t release. The nail was moved, but not quite enough to release the spring.

  Meanwhile, a trickle of water started to leak through the disturbed wax around the nail. The mine that had been pushed away by the contact with the hull of the steamboat floated back up and hit it again with a thump. Again, nothing happened. The spring quivered, but didn’t release. More drops of water leaked in. The iron pot went down and bounced up again. The spring released. The wheel lock spun and the powder, which was mostly dry, ignited.

  Whump!

  The explosion was contained by the water surrounding the pot, but it was less constrained where the water was closest to the hull. It ripped a four-by-seven-foot hole in the bottom of the boat. There was no sudden explosion…unless you count bilge water shooting all over the place. But a sixty-by-thirty-foot steamboat with a hole that size in the bottom of its hull amidships is going down. It’s just a matter of time. And not much time.

  The steam boat behind the leader turned to port to avoid the leader, which took it to the other side of the river from the waiting ambushers. Ivan cursed under his breath. Not only did that increase the range, it meant that the sinking steam boat would act as cover for the follower. The third boat in line, seeing the river blocked ahead and to port, turned to starboard. The fourth, having more time, reversed its engines and tried to back away at least long enough to gauge the situation. The standard conversion from sailing riverboat to steam riverboat was capable of reversing thrust, but it wasn’t a quick process and the steamboats had been traveling in line with not that much space between them.