Ring of Fire III (62 page)

Geipel nodded, his expression obviously relieved. He’d never served under Major Simpson before, so he’d had no idea whether the American officer was reckless or not.

Once he got to the corner, Tom gingerly stuck his head out far enough to see the barracks. “This is Major Simpson!” he shouted.

After a moment, a voice shouted back: “What’s your mother’s maiden name?”

Tom frowned. That wasn’t a question a down-timer would normally think of; not, at least, as a security question. Seventeenth-century German women did not adopt their husband’s last name when they got married. In the here and now, that custom was mostly restricted to England.

But Tom himself was the only up-timer in the Danube Regiment. There were three Americans in the TacRail unit that had been stationed in Ingolstadt, but they’d left the city a couple of months earlier in order to work on a rail line leading north from Regensburg. So who...

The answer came to him almost at once. In the months he’d been in Ingolstadt, Bobby Lloyd McDougal had made friends with one of the artillery units. He’d probably been gossiping.

The sergeant in command of that unit was David Steinbach. “My mother’s maiden name was Forbes, Sergeant Steinbach! Now quit playing games or I’ll use you to demonstrate American football! You’ll be the playing field!”

He heard a distant laugh. “All right, Major, come on!”

* * *

From there, things went quickly. The artillerymen were every bit as eager to get out of Ingolstadt as all the other soldiers in what was left of the regiment. The only hang-up was that the heavy artillery units wanted to salvage their twelve-pounders.

That idea was impractical to the point of lunacy. Artillerymen were not entirely sane on the subject of their guns. The twelve-pounders had been taken off their carriages in preparation for placing them as defensive guns on the walls. It would take at least an hour of hard labor just to get them remounted. And then how would they haul the carriages? Guns that size needed to be drawn by large teams of horses. There weren’t enough horses in the stables adjoining the barracks for the purpose. In fact, there were barely enough to salvage the six-pounders, which would be a lot more useful in the field anyway.

That would have been true even in summertime. In midwinter, hauling big guns across the countryside would be extraordinarily taxing on men and animals alike. As it was, they were lucky there’d been no large snowfalls for the past few weeks. A moderate snowfall had struck Thuringia and Franconia a few days ago, but it hadn’t come this far south. The roads would be icy but still manageable for lighter field guns.

Tom managed to quell them soon enough. In the meantime, artillerymen less subject to madness went about the business of getting the six-pounders ready to go. Within twenty minutes, they were done.

It took another fifteen minutes to load the wagons available with as much ammunition as possible. Begrudgingly, Tom set aside three of the wagons to carry enough food for a couple of days. Three, if he imposed tight rationing. He hated to cut back on ammunition since they might be in for a lot of desperate fighting soon. But it would be foolish to assume he could get any supplies from the countryside until they got a fair distance from Ingolstadt. Once he was well into the Oberpfalz, he was confident he could obtain supplies from local towns and villages. The province was loyal to the USE and hostile to Duke Maximilian. It also had a large and active Committee of Correspondence.

He also decided not to take the artillery’s main radio. The device was powerful enough to transmit in voice anywhere in central Europe, at least during the evening window. But it was inoperative at the moment, due to a minor problem of some sort, so he couldn’t use it tonight. The radiomen assured him they could get it fixed within a day or two, but the radio was too heavy to carry except in a wagon, because of the batteries, and on the fragile side. It would slow them down and might break again anyway.

They didn’t really need it. He’d bring a small Morse-code-only radio that could be carried in a backpack. With one of those radios, he could transmit a brief signal to Bamberg that would tell Ed Piazza and Heinrich Schmidt everything essential. They’d have the bulk of the State of Thuringia-Franconia’s National Guard on the march within twenty-four hours.

He also took the company’s walkie-talkie. He’d been in such a rush that he’d forgotten to tell Rita to take the unit he kept in their home. He could only hope she’d thought of it herself.

For a moment, his fears for his wife surfaced, chittering for his attention. Savagely, he drove them under. He had no time for that now. The Bavarians could launch a counterattack at almost any time. He was pretty sure the only reason the enemy commander hadn’t already gotten one underway was because many of his soldiers were running wild, as often happened when a city was being sacked. Especially in a night attack, where maintaining control was harder than usual.

The inhabitants of the city were going to pay a savage price for the 1st Battalion’s defection tonight. But there was nothing Tom could do about that, so he pushed the matter out of his mind also. For now, at least. In the future, hopefully, there’d be a reckoning—and it would be a harsh one, if he had any say in the matter. He had no use for the duke of Bavaria and even less use for traitors who took his silver.

The commander of the artillery battery came over to him. That was Captain Martin Kessler, from the Thuringian town of Langenwolschendorf. He was accompanied by the two infantry captains, Geipel and Fischer, and Bruno von Eichelberg. Tom had been pleased to see that the young captain from Brunswick had remained faithful to his oath. Von Eichelberg’s company of mercenaries was undersized, barely a hundred men, but they were veterans. Between them, his artillerymen, and the two companies from the 2nd Battalion, he now had well over five hundred men under his command.

“We’re ready to go, Major,” said Kessler. “We’ve spiked all the guns we’re not taking and the big radio is destroyed. Are you sure about leaving the food and gunpowder, though?”

Normal practice, in addition to spiking the guns—better still, if they’d been next to the river, pitching them in afterward—would have been to destroy all the food and gunpowder they were leaving behind. But the only quick way to do that was to blow up the powder or set the whole barracks on fire, and the artillery barracks were right inside Ingolstadt. Nothing but city streets separated them from residences and places of business. Tom didn’t think the food and gunpowder was important enough to kill citizens of his own nation in order to deny it to the enemy.

If he hadn’t been so pressed to get out of the city quickly, he would have had the gunpowder casks opened and the contents spread all over the foodstuffs. Then, for good measure, soaked everything in water, wine and any other liquids available. That wouldn’t completely destroy either, but it would go a long way in that direction and certainly create a time-consuming mess for the Bavarians to deal with. But they were just too short of time.

“No, we’ll leave them as is.” He fought down the urge to look around for himself. Unless junior officers gave you reason not to trust them, you had to take their word for things like this or you’d undermine morale.

Instead, he just nodded. “Let’s go, then. Bruno, what’s the situation at the gate?”

Shortly after the fighting started, a few squads of artillerymen had seized the nearby gate that led out of the city walls to the east. That had been easy enough, since the gate was held by a platoon of still-loyal soldiers. As soon as Tom had driven off the enemy besieging the barracks, he’d ordered von Eichelberg to send most of his mercenaries to bolster the gate’s defenders.

“Everything’s quiet, sir,” replied von Eichelberg. “According to the last report, at least.”

That report would have been carried by a mounted adjutant. There were a handful of them attached to the artillery units. The USE army still didn’t have enough radios to provide them to many units smaller than battalions, unless they had special duties like the artillery. Most down-time officers weren’t really comfortable with the gadgets, anyway. So almost every unit larger than a company had at least one mounted adjutant ready to serve as a courier.

Tom motioned for the radio operator to come over to him. “Let’s go then,” he said.

It would take a few minutes to get hundreds of men with their wagons, guns, and other gear moving. Tom had enough time to send a message to Bamberg.

The radioman unlimbered his equipment. Once he was ready to start transmitting, Tom gave him the message:

Bavarians over-running Ingolstadt. Colonel Engels murdered. City cannot be held. Withdrawing what remains of regiment into countryside.

He wondered if there would be ever be a follow-on message. There was no way to know yet. Within a day or two, Tom and all of his men might share the same fate as the colonel who had once commanded them.

Well, no. Whatever else, they wouldn’t be murdered in their sleep.

Chapter 6

Once he realized who was coming—that had been a tense few seconds, until he recognized the women—Stefano was immensely relieved. Before they’d even arrived at the airship, he’d already begun deploying the envelope.

Trying to, rather. It really wasn’t a job for just one person.

Dina Merrifield and Amanda Boyd hurried over to help.

“Where is Hank?” Stefano asked, trying not to sound exasperated. The help of the girls—no, women—was appreciated, but neither Dina nor Amanda was large. Siers was big and there was quite a bit of muscle under the fat. That muscle would be useful at the moment.

Thankfully, it had been a cold and dry January night, with a clear sky. In damp conditions, the envelope had a nasty habit of absorbing moisture which not only reduced the lift but made it more difficult to deploy.

“He’s hurt,” Dina said. “Broken leg, we think, and he’s still unconscious.”

Stefano broke off from the work long enough to look at the other people who were now arriving. A small man he didn’t know was struggling with a wheelbarrow, heavily loaded with...

Sure enough, Hank Siers. He looked more dead than alive, although that might be an effect of the moonlight. One of his legs had been bound up in some sort of crude splint.

Bonnie Weaver was with him. Behind them came another group of women. He recognized all of them. The wife of the American artillery officer—she was also the sister of the former prime minister—was bringing up the rear, with a shotgun in her hands and a very fierce look on her face.

Mary Tanner Barancek was there, he was relieved to see. He was less relieved—considerably less—to see that her fearsome aunt was with her, along with the two women she seemed inseparable from. The three of them were something called “auditors.” Stefano wasn’t sure what the term signified, but he knew that a number of people viewed their comings and goings with considerable trepidation. They were police officials of some sort, apparently.

Mary came over to help also. Within a short time, the envelope was ready and Stefano began the process of filling it with air driven by the fan that would maintain pressure in the envelope during flight. This air was cold, not hot, and would not provide enough lift for the craft to actually fly. But it would fill out the envelope and get it prepared for the hot air to come.

That process was finished in a few minutes. While the envelope was filling out, Stefano used the time to operate the control surfaces and engine tilts to make sure they were functioning properly. Then he lit the pilot lights for the burners.

Now came the moment Stefano had been dreading. As soon as they were ignited, the burners would light up the entire area. The flames would be bright and visible even in broad daylight. At night, despite the moon in the sky, they would be like beacons.

But there was no help for it. They’d just have to hope they could fill the envelope with hot air and lift off the ground before anyone came out from Ingolstadt to investigate.

* * *

Slowly and carefully, as a man will when he’s worn out, Johann Heinrich Böcler lowered the handles of the wheelbarrow until the weight had settled firmly on the braces. Then, finally letting go, he staggered backward a couple of steps. He might have fallen, except that Bonnie Weaver came up quickly and steadied him.

“Easy, fella,” she said. “It’s done. Don’t hurt yourself now.”

He grimaced, thinking of the damage he’d already inflicted upon himself. By tomorrow, his muscles would be aching all over. Böcler was stronger than he looked, but his life was mostly a sedentary one.

The worst would be his hands, though. He dreaded to look at them. He hadn’t stopped once during the journey and he was quite sure he had a number of blisters.

Weaver had figured out as much herself. “Let me see your hands,” she said. He held them up, unresisting. May as well learn the worst now, he supposed. She took them in her own and gently turned them over so she could see the palms.

He heard a little indrawn hiss and saw her wince. “Let’s go over to the light,” she said. “I can’t see well enough just by the moon.”

Franchetti had the burners going by now, and the flames were very bright. Once they got near, Weaver resumed her inspection of his hands.

“Well, I won’t lie to you, Herr Böcler. I’ll see if I can find some salve and bandages. But even if I can, your hands are going to hurt like the dickens before too long.”

The term “dickens” was unknown to him, one of the many English words that slid in and out of Amideutsch according to the whim of the speaker. No German dialect was standard in this day; Amideutsch less than any. But the meaning was clear enough.

He shrugged. The gesture was minimal, since she was still holding his hands. “The problem should only be temporary.” He smiled, a bit ruefully. “I was not planning to do any more writing for a while, anyway.”

She chuckled. “Writing? I know you have a reputation for being meticulous, Herr Böcler, but I can’t imagine there’s any point in keeping records for a while. The Bavarians will already be turning everything upside down and inside out.”