1635: The Eastern Front (assiti shards) Read online

  The Swedish officials who oversaw the running of the palace accepted that readily enough, even though so far as Caroline could tell the only difference between Swedish and Danish cooking was that the Danes used more cheese and sausages. Like Swedes, they doted on salted fish.

  For breakfast. The Ring of Fire had a lot to answer for.

  Perhaps the worst of it was that Caroline had had to learn to cook the damn stuff herself. These informal breakfasts also served them as impromptu gripe sessions, and it really wouldn't do to have servants overhearing the conversation.

  Naturally, that meant the woman in the group had to do the cooking. The seventeenth century wasn't the bottomless pit of male chauvinism that Caroline would have supposed it to be, in those hard-to-remember days when she'd lived up-time. Assuming she'd ever thought about the seventeenth century at all, which so far as she could remember she'd had the good sense not to. Still, some attitudes were so ingrained that they just weren't worth fighting over, if the issue wasn't really that important.

  So, she cooked and the men ate. She served them the food, too. On the plus side, they didn't think anything amiss when she sat down at the table to join them. Even more on the plus side, her willingness to cook minimized Baldur's periodic let-the-man-show-you-how-it's-done seizures. On those nightmarish occasions, Norddahl would show off his Norwegian skills at high cuisine.

  That meant fish, of course. Salted fish. Smoked fish. Salted smoked fish. Spicy salted smoked fish.

  Caroline's father had done the same thing-with hamburgers and steaks, though, not this godawful stuff-in outdoor summer barbecues. She could remember her mother saying on those occasions, "Men. They're still in the caves, you know."

  She'd been wiser than she knew. Caroline felt a pang of loss.

  "May I have some more dumplings, please?" asked Kristina.

  "Just one." Caroline spooned the dumpling into the princess' outstretched bowl, then spooned two more into a bowl of her own and sat down. "Or you'll get fat."

  "Ha!" jeered Kristina. With some reason. The eight-year-old girl seemed to have the metabolism of a furnace.

  Leaving the food aside, and the unpleasantness of dealing with Kristina's mother, Caroline thought this trip had had a couple of positive effects on the princess. For one thing, without her usual down-time ladies in waiting to keep disorienting the kid and reinforcing her bad habits, Kristina was starting to develop some social graces.

  Courtesy, first and foremost. Neither Caroline nor Ulrik-nor Baldur, certainly-treated the girl like she was the sunrise and the morning dew. Once Kristina had started absorbing the initial lessons, she'd quickly figured out that if she was polite to the servants of the palace they would in turn do favors for her. Like helping her hide from her mother and her mother's many obnoxious toadies.

  More important, though, Caroline thought, was that the trip had produced a subtle but profound shift in Kristina's relationship with Ulrik. She'd grown closer to the Danish prince and had begun to rely upon him.

  Trust was not something that came easily or readily to the Swedish princess. That had become apparent to Caroline early on in her relationship with the girl. At the time, she'd ascribed it simply to Kristina's innate character, but the experience of this trip had modified that assessment. Caroline could now easily understand how the girl's upbringing would have shaped her in that direction.

  If her father had been around more often, things might have been different. In the presence of Gustav Adolf, Kristina was a much happier and less difficult person than she was at most other times. But the king of Sweden, while he was obviously very fond of his daughter, was a man with many ambitions and preoccupations. He simply hadn't been around that often as she grew up.

  Ulrik didn't have as much in the way of sheer raw intelligence as Kristina did. The girl was almost frighteningly precocious. But he was still a very smart man in his own right. What was more important, in Caroline's opinion, was that the Danish prince was also a wise man. Amazingly so, in fact, for someone who was only twenty-four years old. Ulrik had an ability to deliberate that you'd expect in a man twice his age-assuming the man in question was a wise man himself. He was prudent without being unduly cautious; temperate without being indecisive; and his automatic first impulse in the face of any problem or challenge was to reason rather than emote.

  Caroline Platzer thought very highly of Ulrik, just as she did of Kristina. And, as she ate her dumplings at the same table with them, never thought twice of her presumption in analyzing and guiding the future rulers of much of Europe.

  Why should she? She was a social worker, just doing her job, in a time and place that really needed the job done.

  A field outside Dresden

  "This will do nicely," announced Eddie Junker. Hands on hips, he surveyed the pasture again. "Very nicely."

  Noelle Stull turned to the farmer and handed him a pouch full of coins. "Remember, you have to put up a good fence. There's enough in there to cover the cost."

  Eddie nodded. "Very important. Or you might have a dead cow and-worse still-I might have a dead me."

  The farmer didn't argue the point, once he finished counting the coins. "Not a problem. Keep my sons busy after they finish man-ma"-he stumbled over the English word a bit-"manicuring the pasture. Or they'll waste too much time in the taverns."

  "Remember," Eddie said sternly. "Not one stone left in the field bigger than my thumb."

  He held up the thumb in question. Standing next to him, Denise Beasley looked up at it and laughed.

  "That thumb! A rhino could stumble over it." She held up her own thumb. "No bigger than this one."

  The farmer squinted at the much smaller appendage, then shook his head. "Too much work."

  "Leave it be, Denise," said Eddie. "My thumb's not all that big and-"

  "I'm the expert on your thumb, buddy, not you, on account of-"

  "Hey!" squawked Noelle.

  Denise gave her a cherubic smile. "On account of I've hitchhiked with him."

  "It's true," said Minnie. "Eddie's thumb can stop a truck. Of course, it helps when Denise and I"-here she hoisted her skirt and stuck out a leg-"show off too."

  The leg was in stockings, but the stockings were very tight. The farmer looked a lot more intrigued at the sight than a man in his late forties with a still-living wife and three sons ought to look. But Noelle supposed it was hard to blame him. Minnie Hugelmair didn't have her best friend Denise Beasley's almost-outrageously good looks, but she was a still a healthy and shapely young woman. True, she had a glass eye and a little scar there, but people of the seventeenth century were more accustomed to such disfigurements than up-timers were. Smallpox left much worse scars on a face.

  "I think we're done here," Noelle said. It was less of a statement than a plea.

  Part Five

  October 1635

  The motion of our human blood

  Chapter 26

  The south bank of the Odra river, near Zielona Gora

  "I don't want a repeat of what happened in Swiebodzin, Captain Higgins. If you have to, shoot somebody. If that doesn't work, shoot a lot of somebodies. Shoot as many as it takes until they cease and desist. Is that understood?"

  Mike Stearns was still icily furious, as he'd been for the last two days. Jeff had never seen him in such a state of mind.

  Swiebodzin had been hideous, though, sure enough. Some of the Finnish auxiliary cavalry that Gustav Adolf had attached to the Third Division had run amok once they got into the town and got their hands on some of the local vodka, the stuff they called "bread wine." They started sacking the town, with the atrocities that went with it. To make things worse, a couple of companies from an infantry battalion joined in. By the time Mike was able to put a stop to it, half the town had burned down and at least three dozen Polish civilians had been murdered and that many women had been raped. Nine of the dead were children. So were six of the raped girls, including one who was not more than eight years old.

  There'd been
about twenty of the rioting soldiers who'd been too stupid or too drunk to hide once order starting getting restored. Mike's way of disciplining those soldiers caught in the act had shocked the entire division. He'd had them tied to a wooden fence in a nearby pasture and executed by volley gun batteries at what amounted to point blank range. There hadn't been a single intact corpse left. They'd just gathered up all the pieces and shoved them into a mass grave.

  Some of the Finns started to fight back, but Mike soon put a stop to that also. He had his own cavalry now, and they weren't fond of the Finns to begin with. Eight of the Finns were killed outright, and about forty deserted. Mike didn't bother to chase them. A few dozen light cavalrymen simply couldn't survive for very long in a countryside that was as hostile as western Poland. Sooner or later they'd have no choice but to turn themselves in to one of the army units. Of course, they'd choose one of Gustav Adolf's Swedish regiments rather than returning to the USE Third Division. But Mike would deal with that problem when the time came.

  The reason the Third Division now had its own cavalry regiment was because Gustav Adolf had decided to march into Poland in six different columns. Dividing his forces like that was risky, of course, but he hadn't really had much choice given that he was determined to move quickly. Marching fifty thousand men through country that had no travel routes except dirt roads and cow trails made spreading out a necessity. Gustav Adolf figured he could take the risk because the six columns were close enough to be able to reinforce each other fairly quickly.

  The northernmost column was made up of units representing about half of his own Swedish forces, under the command of Heinrich Matthias von Thurn. That column's mission was to invest the town of Gorzow from the north, while Wilhelm V and his Hesse-Kassel army would approach Gorzow along the south bank of the Warta river, one of the tributaries of the Oder. Between them, they should be able to take the town. A large part of the population was Lutheran and Gustav Adolf thought they'd be happy to switch sides.

  Gustav Adolf himself led the third column, marching south of Hesse-Kassel. That army consisted of the rest of the Swedish army-and all of the APCs. Gustav Adolf's column was going straight for Poznan, the principal city in western Poland. "Going straight," that is, insofar as the terrain allowed. Like most of Poland, the area was quite flat. But it was also quite wet, with lots of winding streams; and while it didn't have the profusion of lakes characteristic of northeast Poland it still had a fair number.

  Thankfully, they were mostly little ones. Still, one of the things Mike's short experience as a general had taught him was the geographic variation on Clausewitz's dictum. Terrain that doesn't look too tough is a lot tougher than it looks when you have to move ten thousand men through it. And keep them in some reasonable semblance of order. And provide them with a secure and hopefully dry place to sleep at night, with proper sanitation. And feed them. And do all that while being prepared at any moment to fight the enemy.

  Gustav Adolf had put himself in charge of that middle column because he was sure that Koniecpolski would have to defend Poznan. So he would come straight at him while Torstensson and two of the USE army's three divisions would approach Poznan from the southwest.

  That left Mike in charge of the sixth and southernmost column. His job was to take and hold Zielona Gora, thereby providing the Swedish and USE forces with a secure southern anchor. Zielona Gora would also serve later as the base for moving down the Odra to take Wroclaw.

  The area they were operating in was a border region that, over the centuries, had been controlled at various times by Poland, Brandenburg and Austria. In the timeline the Americans came from, it might well have been in German hands at this time. Many of these border cities had converted to Lutheranism and gotten out from under Polish Catholic control.

  In the here and now, however, Poland had taken advantage of the CPE and later the USE's preoccupation with internal affairs and the war against the League of Ostend to reassert its authority over the area. Brandenburg had tacitly acquiesced, probably because George William had figured he might someday need Polish support. The border between Polish and German lands now ran along the Oder-Neisse line just as it had in Mike's universe after World War II. The Odra was completely within Polish territory and Breslau was back to being Wroclaw.

  Gustav Adolf didn't expect Stearns would run into severe opposition. Koniecpolski had fewer forces than Gustav Adolf did, and he'd be hard-pressed to detach any large force to come to the assistance of Zielona Gora. In essence, the king of Sweden had given Mike the easiest and most straightforward assignment. But in order for him to carry out that assignment, Torstensson had had to give Mike one of his cavalry regiments, so he wouldn't be operating blind. The weather was erratic enough this time of year that the Air Force's ability to fly reconnaissance missions couldn't always be counted on.

  "Is that understood, Captain Higgins?" Mike repeated.

  Jeff nodded. "Yes, sir. But…?ah…"

  Mike waited, with a cocked eyebrow.

  Jeff took a deep breath. "Why me, Mike? Ah, sir."

  For the first time since Jeff had arrived at the Third Division's field headquarters, Mike's expression lightened a little. Not much, but Jeff was still glad to see it, he surely was. He'd known Mike Stearns most of his life. This was the first time the man had ever scared him. Really scared him. An enraged Mike Stearns bore no resemblance at all to the man Jeff had grown accustomed to.

  "Why you? It ought to be obvious, Jeff. You're the one commander I've got who's guaranteed to put the fear of God in every man in this division."

  Jeff stared at him. He was trying to make sense of that last sentence and coming up blank.

  "Huh?"

  "That's 'huh, sir.' For Pete's sake, Jeff, do you think there's one single soldier in this division who doesn't know you're Gretchen Richter's husband?"

  "Huh? Uh, sir."

  "Talk about the innocence of babes. I can guarantee you that at one time or another every soldier in this division has wondered what she sees in you and come to the conclusion that you must have one huge pair of brass balls. Given that she makes kings and dukes shit their pants."

  Mike shook his head. "So do they really want to run the risk of pissing you off, Captain Higgins? No, Colonel Higgins, rather. Now that I think about it, I'll have to jump you up to lieutenant colonel since I'm going to put a whole regiment under your command."

  "Huh? Ah… Huh, sir. Mike-General, I just got put in charge of a battalion three months ago, and now you want to hand me a whole regiment? But-but-"

  He was spluttering a little, he was so agitated. "But, first of all-uh, sir-we don't have the rank of lieutenant colonel in the USE army. And second of all-uh, meaning no disrespect, sir-but which regiment are you planning to give me? I mean, that's really gonna piss off whichever colonel-real colonel-you take it away from." He took another deep breath. "Sir," he added, not knowing what else to say. He didn't think Mike would have him put up in front of a volley gun, but…

  Mike smiled. There was no humor at all in it, but it beat a scowl hands down. "I'm a major general, Colonel Higgins. That means I can do damn near anything I want. I can sure as hell create the brevet rank of 'lieutenant colonel' for a special purpose. Just to keep all the other colonels happy, you'll stay at a captain's pay grade."

  "Thank you, sir. I'd appreciate that. I, ah, don't actually need the money anymore."

  Mike's smile widened. There still wasn't any humor in it, though. "As for your other objection, I'm not planning to give you any existing regiment. I'm creating a new one. It'll consist of your Twelfth Battalion, and a battalion taken from the Gray Adder regiment. That'll leave them a rump regiment, and ask me if I care, since they're the shitheads who let two of their companies run wild."

  Jeff swallowed. Mike had had the major in command of that battalion executed also, along with the captains in command of the two companies-although he'd done them the courtesy of using a regular firing squad, not the volley guns. Then he'd broken every off
icer in the battalion to the ranks and replaced them with newly promoted sergeants from other battalions.

  As a display of savage discipline, Jeff thought the ghosts of Roman tribunes past were applauding somewhere. The whole division was in something of a state of shock. Until Swiebodzin, Stearns had seemed like a very easy-going sort of general.

  "Then I'm giving you Captain Engler's flying artillery company instead of a regular artillery unit. For the purpose of your new regiment, he fits the bill perfectly."

  Stearns had used Engler's unit to carry out the executions. Between that and the man's well-known composure at Ahrensbok and Zwenkau, everyone in the division would take him dead seriously. Nobody made jokes any longer about "the Count of Narnia."

  Well, Eric Krenz probably still did. Jeff wondered how he was doing. And then wondered who he'd put in charge of the 12th now that he was being kicked upstairs. Krenz would have been his natural replacement as battalion commander, but he wasn't available and Jeff had no idea when or if he might be.

  "Your new regiment will fight alongside all the others in a battle," Mike continued. "But it has a special function as well whenever I call on it. You're the unit I'll be depending on to keep everyone else in line. Do you understand me, Colonel Higgins? I want no repetition of Swiebodzin. Ever."

  Jeff looked around. They were holding this private conversation in one of the rooms of the small village tavern Mike had taken for his field headquarters. "Taken" as in "expropriated," although no one had gotten hurt because the people who owned the tavern along with everyone in the village had fled before the division arrived.

  You could hardly blame them. The news of Swiebodzin had spread widely and rapidly. But the expropriation of the tavern itself illustrated the fundamental problem, which was practical at its very core.

  It would be nice if atrocities resulted solely and simply from the wickedness of men. Were that true, they could be suppressed by the simple use of harsh discipline. Unfortunately, the world was more complicated-and if Mike Stearns didn't understand that, Jeff would have to explain it to him.