river.
She wondered why the Bavarian commander, whoever he might be, was tolerating the state of affairs. If she’d been in his position, she’d have blown her stack by now.
Colonel von Schnetter blew his stack no fewer than four times before the sun finally set that day. He kept his mounted adjutants racing all over the landscape, bearing orders-first, firm; then, stern; then, peremptory; then, furious and profane-to the cavalry commander, demanding that he leave off his so-called “foraging” and attend to his proper duties.
Colonel Johann von Troiberz ignored each and every one of those orders. He didn’t refuse to obey, he simply made no response at all. He was able to do that because the orders given by General von Lintelo had not specifically placed von Troiberz under von Schnetter’s command. Most likely, the general had simply assumed that the cavalry commander would have the sense of a goose-or, more to the point, wasn’t desperately trying to cover up the fact that he’d sold off his cavalry unit’s supplies.
Von Troiberz had done that the day before the assault on Ingolstadt began. He knew that the assault was predicated on treachery and was primarily planned as an infantry affair. Thereafter, his cavalrymen would have access to the city’s resources and could surely obtain replacements for vanished supplies within a couple of days. So he calculated that he could safely sell off the supplies before the assault began. Who pays attention to such things as hay and oats?
He hadn’t considered the possibility that he might be ordered into an immediate cavalry action to pursue enemy soldiers who had managed to escape the city. That had been a tense moment, when he realized what might be in the offing at von Lintelo’s staff meeting after the successful seizure of Ingolstadt. But von Troiberz had acted quickly-he was still patting himself on the back for it-and immediately volunteered his own force for the mission. Secure in his knowledge that von Lintelo had an inexplicable dislike for him and always favored one of his pets. So he wouldn’t be given the mission anyway.
Then, to his horror, von Lintelo had set forth his intention to send all the cavalry units available on a raid on Amberg. Von Troiberz had simply not considered the fact-perhaps obvious, in retrospect-that the unsettled state of Bavaria’s line of succession would result in a cavalry expedition being sent north immediately. He was not, as an up-timer might put it, the sharpest pencil in Bavaria’s military box. He was a lot closer to the eraser end of that spectrum.
Thankfully-the only useful thing the annoying fellow had ever done, so far as von Troiberz was concerned- Colonel von Schnetter insisted that he needed cavalry assistance, after von Lintelo placed him in charge of pursuing the retreating enemy. The general had eventually agreed and given the assignment of “assisting” the infantry to von Troiberz.
Such a vague and uncertain word, “assisting.” Truly delightful, the way its borders and boundaries wandered about.
It was still a very awkward situation for von Troiberz to be placed in, of course, but far better-far, far better- than if he’d been assigned to participate in a raid on Amberg under the direct command of von Lintelo’s most favored officers. He’d have been in trouble almost immediately. As it was, von Troiberz figured he could fend off the pestiferous infantry colonel’s demands for at least two days. That would give his men enough time to plunder what they needed immediately from the countryside.
Those so-called “commands” were nothing of the sort, anyway. Given that von Troiberz and the infantry colonel were of equal rank and the fact that the general had never specified the command arrangement, von Schnetter’s “orders” were legally nothing more than requests.
Very rude requests, to boot. The man could be quite insufferable.
Night finally fell, on that first day. Tom thought it had probably been the longest day in his life. It had certainly been the most harrowing.
Two thousand feet above him, as she tried to get to sleep, his wife Rita thought exactly the same. And she was afraid she’d have the nightmares to prove it. Throughout the day, she’d been getting periodic flashbacks to the gunfights of the night just passed. The most upsetting was the look on the face of the soldier whom she’d shot dead outside the broken shop window.
He’d been young, barely more than a boy. At the very end, just before she pulled the trigger, he’d obviously understood that he was about to die.
That look…
It hadn’t been so much an expression of despair as one of sorrow, for the things he would now never see, never do, never know, never feel. Rita was quite certain that she would carry that memory with her for all her days on earth, however many they might prove to be. She could live to be a hundred, and would never forget the man whom she’d severed from whatever days might have been his.
Not far from her in the gondola, on the other hand, Stefano Franchetti and Mary Tanner Barancek were having a very pleasant evening. They were engaged in the sort of lively conversation that young people think is dazzling beyond belief-no greater conversation had been held anywhere on the planet since Socrates questioned his guests-because every sentence, every phrase, seemed loaded with suggestion and invitation.
The conversation was all the more dazzling for the fact that Mary’s grim aunt and her two fellow Furies were no longer on board the Pelican. They had been dropped off in Regensburg when the airship made its refueling stop earlier in the day. Rita had pointed out that there was really no purpose in the three auditors staying aboard, and the Pelican could use the extra lift provided by their departure to carry more fuel. Willa had been reluctant, but finally agreed when Maydene stated-quite bluntly-that there was not much opportunity for premarital coitus in the gondola of an active airship, especially with Rita not more than ten feet away from the youngsters in question. Estelle then weighed in by pointing out-just as bluntly-that even if such activity did take place, the girl was now of legal age and she’d hardly be the first country bumpkin to get screwed by a slick fellow of the Latin persuasion. She’d survive.
Bonnie Weaver and Heinz Bocler did not get to sleep until much later in the evening. The secretary stayed up for hours, checking with everyone in the refugee camp to make sure that they’d gotten something to eat and that no one, especially children and the elderly, was going to spend the night in freezing conditions. Those people who were short of blankets or other sorts of bedding got some loaned to them by people who were in better shape. On their own, they might or might not have made such offers, but the combination of Bocler’s quiet persistence and his ever-ready notebook turned the trick. No one doubted for a moment that if the province administrator’s personal secretary said he would keep accurate records of who had lent what to whom, it would surely be done and done properly.
In the event, Bonnie wound up keeping most of those records. She accompanied Heinz on his rounds and figured out early on that it made more sense for him to concentrate on wheedling people and for her to do his bookkeeping for him. It wasn’t that he was a better wheedler than she was. Actually, he was rather inept at it. But he was extraordinarily persistent, long past the point where Bonnie herself would have stalked off in disgust at someone’s recalcitrance and pigheaded selfishness.
So, she let him wheedle and cajole and harass and pester, while she wielded the magic pen. That worked because Heinz always introduced her as his secretary, which apparently satisfied the proprieties. It turned out that maintaining a clear and precise chain of bureaucracy was every bit as essential in Heinz’s line of work as maintaining a clear and precise chain of custody was for police work.
Who knew?
Chapter 13
The second day was a carbon copy of the first, for all intents and purposes. Two small armies kept moving slowly down the Danube. They were of approximately equal size, fifteen hundred people in each. But two-thirds of
