1635: The Eastern Front (assiti shards) Page 34

  As it was, the lance swung aside at the last moment. It passed through the king's body, but well to the side. The peritoneum was pierced, but no major organs were damaged.

  Finally, Gustav Adolf began to fall from the saddle. A third hussar tried to lance him as he fell, but his aim was thrown off by the king's now-rapid slump. He drove his lance butt into the Swede's ribs as he passed, but the blow did little damage beyond bruises.

  And that was it. Anders shot him out of the saddle, too. Three shots, two in the back of the cuirass and one in the head.

  The last shot was an act of pointless anger. Pointless, because the Pole was already mortally wounded. Anger, at the hussar's cowardly strike at a defenseless man.

  So Anders Jonsson thought, anyway. And since he was the man with the.40-caliber automatic in his hand, his was the opinion that mattered.

  Justified or not, that last shot-the time it took, more than the round expended-left Jonsson vulnerable. The next hussar lance came at him, not the king, and almost slew him. All that saved his life was his armor; which, not surprisingly for the personal bodyguard of Europe's premier monarch, was the finest armor available.

  The lance slid off and Jonsson shot the man dead as he passed. Two shots, both in the neck. The Pole stayed in the saddle, though. Again, the ingrained reflexes of an excellent horseman. He wouldn't come out of that saddle until his mount returned his body to his own lines, and it was removed by human hands. Gently, almost reverently.

  The Scots arrived, forming a perimeter. Just in time, because the hussars were still coming. By now, many of them had deduced the king's identity. The ferocity with which Anders had defended Gustav Adolf was enough in itself, even if they didn't recognize his features.

  Stanislaw Koniecpolski was not the only Polish soldier who thought the king of Sweden had outlived his welcome. It would have been hard to find one who differed, in fact.

  They had their chance to kill him, here and now. They intended to do so.

  Anders had used up eight rounds. That left five in this magazine. But he had three more magazines and enough time to swap them out.

  He did so-just in time to shoot a Pole who'd gotten by the Scots and was aiming his lance at the king's body. Gustav Adolf was now sprawled on his side in the muddy soil. He was unconscious and bleeding, both from his head and the wound in his side. Not bleeding profusely enough to pose an immediate danger to his life, though, so Jonsson continued to concentrate on the hussars.

  That last Pole had gotten close enough to his target that Anders had used four shots to put him down-and again, with the last shot being fired in anger. He found it infuriating that the hussars were still trying to kill an obviously helpless man.

  Had their histories been reversed, he might have had some sympathy for them. Might even have agreed with them, actually. For all Wladislaw IV's posturing and loud claims to being the rightful heir to the Swedish throne, it was not him-nor his father Sigismund III Vasa before him-who had invaded Sweden and laid waste to its lands, after all. The destruction and plunder had gone entirely the other way.

  Three times the bastard had invaded and ravaged Poland. There was not going to be a fourth.

  The Scots were crumbling. There weren't enough of them to hold off this many hussars.

  Jonsson made a quick decision. He'd do better on the ground. He slid off the saddle and took position guarding the fallen king, almost straddling him.

  And there he stayed, until a company of Smaland cuirassiers arrived and finally drove off the Poles.

  He'd emptied two magazines in addition to the eight rounds fired from the first. He'd just loaded the last magazine when a Polish lance finally put him down. Even then, with his blood pouring out of a severed femoral artery, he shot down his killer. He spent the last minute of his life lying across Gustav Adolf's body, shooting any hussar who came into his sight.

  He would have died from blood loss, anyway. But a Pole he didn't see rode up and drove his lance all the way through Anders' body. The hussar was actually trying to kill Gustav Adolf, but since most of him was covered by the huge Jonsson, he saw no option but to try to slay the king through the bodyguard.

  He succeeded in the second, but not the first. The Pole reversed his grip on the lance and rose up in his stirrups in order to drive the lance straight down with all his might. The lance missed the sternum, passed between two of the ribs, cut open the right ventricle of the heart and almost made it through Jonsson's entire torso. But there was just too much muscle, too much mass. The king beneath was quite untouched.

  Chapter 39

  The rain was starting to let up. In the distance to the west, Koniecpolski could see patches of clear sky. By evening, the storm would have passed completely. And with it, his great advantage over the Swedes.

  The latest hussar charge had been driven back also, although this one had come close to shattering the enemy. If they'd been able to widen that gap just a bit more, a bit faster…

  But there was no point dwelling on what might have been. Once again, his men had been repulsed-and they were finally showing the effects. The grand hetman had been in enough battles to know that he'd driven his cavalry almost to the breaking point. They'd done all he asked of them. The time had come to accept that he'd accomplished all he could this day and not drive into ruin. He hadn't destroyed the Swedish army, as he'd hoped to do. But he'd hammered them badly. Added to the destruction of the Hessians, he'd leveled the odds a great deal in Poland's favor. The intelligent thing to do now was return to Poznan. From here on, this was going to be a war of sieges.

  Afterward, he would take a small private satisfaction in the knowledge that he'd already made that decision before developments made it inevitable. No sooner had he turned to give new orders to his adjutants than he saw a Cossack scout racing toward him.

  Literally, galloping at full speed-on this treacherous soil. The man was either a superb horseman or utterly reckless.

  Or most likely both, being a Cossack.

  Koniecpolski waited until the man drew up his horse. Obviously he was bearing important tidings. Not even a Cossack would run his horse like that for any other reasons.

  "The enemy is coming, Hetman!" The Cossack turned and rose in his stirrups, pointing a little east of south. "One mile away. No farther. Thousands of men."

  Already? He hadn't thought any of the three divisions of the USE army could get here until tomorrow. Even then, not till noon or early afternoon.

  Perhaps it was a different enemy force, although Koniecpolski couldn't think of any that would be in this region. Not numberings in the thousands, certainly.

  Cossacks could get fairly vague in their numbering. Still, a Cossack scout could tell the difference between hundreds of men and thousands of men at a glance. On horseback, at a full gallop. The scout's estimate wouldn't be off by that much.

  Just to make sure, he questioned the scout concerning details of their appearance. It didn't take long at all before he was certain that these approaching forces were part of the USE army. For one thing, Koniecpolski knew of no other large army that inflicted such dull uniforms upon its soldier. Upon its officers, even!

  Gray uniforms. Except for the odd stripe here and there, a bit of flair with the shoulder decorations, they were the sort of vestments that monks would wear.

  Dull monks. Boring monks. The sort of monks who took vows of silence and kept them.

  Koniecpolski's own full dress uniform was as uniforms should be. He was particularly fond of his leopard skins.

  In the distance, he heard a bugle. Marching orders, clearly. Whichever of the three USE divisions this was, it would be here within an hour. After the casualties he'd suffered today, the numerical odds would be even at best. And his men were exhausted. True, the enemy's troops would be tired as well, after the sort of march they'd made. But nothing wears men down like battle. Nothing in the world.

  Yes. It was time to go.

  ***

  The one thing Mike hadn't expected
when he finally met up with Gustav Adolf's army was that he would turn out to be the highest ranked officer present.

  Highest conscious rank, at any rate.

  He turned away from the bed where the king of Sweden lay recuperating from his wounds. There was no point in staring at the man any longer. What Gustav Adolf needed was the best doctor who could be found.

  That meant James Nichols. But it would probably be at least two days before planes could safely take to the skies again. The sky was clear at the moment-here, not in Magdeburg. It looked as if another storm might be on its way. If that proved true, they wouldn't be able to get Nichols here for a week or more. Assuming they could build a usable airfield, before this mucky soil finally dried out. Mike had his doubts.

  "Not a flicker, you're saying?"

  The man who served Gustav Adolf's troops as a doctor shook his head. "Nothing. Sometimes his eyes open, but there is nothing behind them."

  Weather or not, they had to get Gustav Adolf out of here. Leaving aside his terrible head injuries, the lance wound in his side had penetrated the peritoneum. That meant he'd probably come down with peritonitis. If they didn't get him on antibiotics soon-there was a good chance he'd need surgery, too-that would likely kill him even if he recovered from the head trauma.

  Mike had been told that the Jupiters, the new commercial aircraft, were equipped with air-cushioned landing gear that could land almost anywhere. If so, and if one of them were available, and if the weather held-that was a lot of ifs-maybe they could airlift the king.

  But there was no way to count on that. With the weather as uncertain as it was, even if one of the planes were available they might not be able to use it.

  Berlin. It was the only option Mike could see. Gustav Adolf could be taken there on a covered litter carried by a team of horses and guarded by a powerful cavalry force. By the time he got there, Nichols could have gotten to Berlin even if the planes still weren't flying.

  Magdeburg would be better, of course. But Magdeburg was just too far away. Berlin wasn't much of a city, but it did have a palace. The elector had even gotten some of the rooms fitted with modern plumbing.

  They might be able to get him to Magdeburg anyway, Mike reminded himself. If the weather cleared and one of the ACLG-equipped planes was available-and the boasts about the capabilities of their peculiar landing gear were accurate-then a Jupiter could meet them on the way to Berlin and airlift Gustav Adolf to the capital instead.

  Mike glanced around the room he was in now, the main room of what had probably been Zbaszyn's premier tavern. Or possibly its only tavern.

  The floor didn't bear thinking about. The sewers of the town…?didn't exist. There was a well here, but Mike thought he'd have to be really desperate before he drank any of that water without boiling it first.

  Berlin. Yes.

  Torstensson agreed, when Mike reached him on the radio. So, an hour later, did the chancellor of Sweden, Axel Oxenstierna. He was already in Berlin himself, as it happened, attending to the creation of an interim imperial administration for Brandenburg.

  "And you must come to Berlin yourself, General Stearns," said Oxenstierna. "It is imperative that we have a council of our army commanders."

  Legally, Oxenstierna was out of bounds. He was Sweden's chancellor, not the USE's, and had no formal authority over Mike. But the proposal-he'd see it as a command, but that was his problem-was sensible enough. Besides, Mike didn't have any doubt that if he got on his high horse about the matter, Oxenstierna would just get hold of Wettin and have the prime minister give him the order instead. Which would be an order he did have to obey.

  He found Jeff Higgins in the little room in an abandoned house where they'd put the body of Anders Jonsson. Come to pay his last respects, obviously.

  Mike wasn't surprised. He'd come for the same reason.

  It was a little over three years since the great Croat cavalry raid on Grantville had been driven off. The main target of the raid had been the town's high school.

  Jeff had been there, that day. So had Mike's wife Rebecca.

  The only reason they were still alive was because of this man here, and the nearby king he'd served who was now very close to death himself. The two of them had led the charge that turned the tide in that battle. With his own sword, Gustav Adolf had struck down the Croat who'd been about to kill Jeff.

  "I have to remind myself, sometimes," Mike said softly. "Whenever Gustav Adolf really pisses me off. The world is just sometimes a gray place, and that's all there is to it."

  Part Six

  November 1635

  Green to the very door

  Chapter 40

  Dresden, capital of Saxony

  Eddie crashed the plane.

  The soil of the jury-rigged airfield outside of Dresden turned out to be soggier than Noelle or Denise had led him to believe. They'd underestimated the potential problem with landing on such doubtful ground. In Noelle's case, because she was too anxious to get back to Magdeburg; in Denise's, because she was looking forward to seeing Eddie and was by nature given to overconfidence.

  Insouciance, too. The girl could have taken the motto of Mad magazine's Alfred E. Newman for her own: "What, me worry?"

  The front landing gear dug in, the tail came up, the nose buried itself into the ground-so much for the propeller-and slowly, almost gracefully, the plane flipped over onto its back.

  When the little crowd on the airfield reached the plane, they found Eddie and Gretchen Richter hanging upside down in the cabin, still held in their seats by their harnesses. Neither was hurt at all. A bit shaken, but otherwise in excellent condition.

  Not so the aircraft itself, of course.

  Eddie's first words upon emerging were recriminatory in nature. Unusually, for him, he was in a high temper.

  "You told me the airfield was in good shape!"

  Noelle, with the wisdom of her advanced years of life-she'd just celebrated her twenty-sixth birthday-was profusely apologetic. Denise, sadly, was still in her teenage years and thus ill-equipped for the task. Her own temperament didn't help, either.

  So, she started with the sort of mumbled, oatmealish, altogether unsatisfactory sort of phrases like "well" and "hey, look" that wouldn't mollify a saint. Then, under a continued barrage of heated comments from Eddie, retreated into her natural belligerence.

  "Hey, buddy, maybe you just fucked up the landing. Ever think of that, huh?"

  Peace was not restored for some minutes. Not until Minnie Hugelmair forced Denise to utter the needed words: "Okay, it was my fault. I'm sorry."

  Minnie didn't actually believe that herself. She thought the accident probably had been Eddie's fault. The soil wasn't that muddy. But unlike Denise, she understood that when the male mind was in formal and court-dress High Dudgeon there was nothing for it but that the woman had to take the blame or nobody would get anything to eat that day. Not in peace, anyway.

  Gretchen Richter's comments, upon exiting the upended aircraft, were more philosophical in nature.

  "That is the first time I have ever flown in an airplane. I believe it will be the last."

  Eventually, amity was restored. A workable semblance of it, at least.

  Eddie spent some time examining the wreckage, then, ruefully, scratched his head.

  "The propeller's scrap. We'll have to get a replacement from Grantville. No way to get one made here that I'd trust flying with."

  "What about the plane itself?" Noelle asked.

  "The engine seems okay. If we can get the plane into the city, we can probably fix the rest of it. But don't ask me how we're going to manage that."

  He, Noelle and everyone else present turned to gaze upon Dresden. The city was well-fortified; surrounded by walls, with a moat in front of those.

  Tata, Joachim Kappel and Eric Krenz were present also, having come out to the airfield with Noelle and her party. Tata and Joachim were there because they were the CoC delegation welcoming Gretchen to the city. Krenz was there because Ta
ta was there and she was less and less inclined to order him away. She would always remember Eberhard fondly, but the duke had been dead for half a year now.

  "Not a problem," said Tata.

  Eddie looked at her. Then, at Kappel and Krenz.

  Kappel shrugged. "Can probably be done."

  Tata sniffed.

  "Not a problem," agreed Krenz. "Tata has a flair for getting her way."

  Tata sniffed again.

  Two days later, it was possible to estimate the expenses involved with reasonable confidence. Tata had indeed gotten her way again. The city had winches and cranes used for construction, did it not? Lots of manpower in the form of soldiers idling about claiming their injuries were much worse than they were, did it not? The plane was designed to be as light as possible, was it not?

  So, the plane came over the moat and the walls. Soon enough, it was sitting in a small city square with a shelter already being built around it. By now, the city's artisans had gotten intrigued in the project-assuming that pay would be forthcoming, of course-and the CoC had decided that having an airfield inside the city itself was a matter of civic pride.

  Eddie had no idea how they'd manage that, but he had more immediate concerns.

  "Don Francisco is going to fire me," he predicted gloomily. "Leaving aside the cost of repairing his aircraft, he has four of his employees doing him no good at all. We're supposed to be in Prague by now."

  Denise was more optimistic. "No, he won't. He's a pretty good guy, actually."

  Coming from her, that was high praise. But it turned out to be justified. Francisco Nasi's radio message surprised Junker. It surprised Noelle even more.

  NOT A PROBLEM. STOP. SPARE NO EXPENSE FIX PLANE. STOP. DRESDEN GOOD PLACE TO BE NOW. STOP. THINGS WILL GET INTERESTING. STOP.

  "That's a Chinese curse, isn't it?" mused Minnie. "I read it somewhere."