We were already too old. They accepted only volunteers who had completed the Warrior's School and were fifteen or younger. An opportunity missed.
The next spring, 1243, our lance was given its own boat, of a totally new, special-purpose design — an oil tanker.
Oil wells had been drilled near Przemysl on the San River, and a refinery had been built on the Vistula, north of Sandomierz. Ours was one of three boats designed to transport crude oil to the refinery, and refined oil in bulk wherever it was needed along the Vistula and its tributaries.
Refined oil, in its various grades, was used in the new kerosene lamps, and as a replacement for coal on the steamboats, where it eliminated the need for a fireman, and, mixed with wood alcohol, as a very energetic fuel for the aircraft. Other products, like asphalt roads, were being developed.
The new boat's engines were the same as those we were used to, except they were oil-fired. The kitchen, mess hall, and living quarters were small, and the boat was only a single story high, plus the bridge, since there were only the seven of us on board. The rest of the boat was nothing but a collection of low-lying steel tanks, almost like a long, low barge that we pushed ahead of us.
We joked that our boat was lean, low, stripped down, and topless, and that her name,
We had no mounted weapons at all, since we didn't have enough people to man them, and we were too flammable to put up a serious fight, anyway. Faced with an enemy, our orders were to run away.
At first we were delighted to have our own boat and the responsibilities it entailed, but eventually the job palled.
For one thing, we now made far fewer stops in our travels, and those stops were invariably at industrial sites, which rarely had much going on except for the same work that they had been doing the last time we were there. We met fewer young ladies, and our love lives suffered.
We no longer carried passengers, who had seemed to be a great bother back when we carried them. After they were gone, well, it had been a long while since I heard an entertaining traveler's tale.
Also, a bulk tanker was much more difficult to keep clean that an ordinary riverboat, and we not only had to spend long hours scrubbing it, but found ourselves being dirtier than we ever had been before. This, too, did not help out our love lives.
Even our music was starting to get flat and stale.
But most of all, our increase in responsibility was not matched with an increase in status and pay. We had all been mere squires for several years, and we often heard of the promotions of others with less seniority than we had. This was particularly painful for Sir Odon. We called him our captain, but in fact he was still a mere knight, and he desperately wanted to advance in the army.
Also, there were no longer any opportunities to make additional money on the side. No legal ones, anyway, and none of us were thieves.
Suffice to say, after three and a half years on an oil tanker, we were all heartily sick of it!
Thus, we were all most interested when, in August of 1246, Sir Odon found a new possibility of employment for our lance.
The Construction Corps had been building a series of company-sized forts just like the one at East Gate, throwing them up at the astounding rate of one a week. They were built five miles apart all along the Vistula and now stretched along the west bank from the headwaters to the Baltic Sea. They were all part of an invincible defense against any future attack by the Mongols.
A second group had begun putting forts of the same design along the east bank of the Odra, some said against a possible invasion by the Holy Roman Empire, who were rumored to be very angry at us for eliminating the Crossmen.
The construction project was continuing and expanding, with plans to eventually put forts on both banks of every major river in Eastern Europe, but more important to us was what was being built at the mouth of the Vistula.
Sir Odon said that a major seaport and shipyard was being constructed there, and the plans were to soon begin building oceangoing steamships.
Were we interested in seeing if we could get involved with this new endeavor?
Well, of course we were! Over the last few years, we had been up every tributary of the Vistula, and frankly, one river is much like another.
But to travel the high seas! To explore, to boldly go where no Christian had gone before! We had been reading about how the world was really round, a great ball in the heavens. What would it be like to be on the first ship to steam around it? Glorious!
We all got together in writing our application for transfer, carefully explaining why we were the best possible people to choose for this new endeavor. We wrote about how our lance had been working smoothly together for years without any of the friction that had disrupted so many other groups.
We stressed that we had experience with various kinds of boats and had thus proved we could take on and master new things. We talked about our military prowess, of the battles we had fought under the watchful eyes of Lord Conrad himself.
We wrote about all of the other skills we had, from baking bread, farming, and handling cattle, to living off the land in the trackless wilderness of Lithuania.
We told our varied ethnic backgrounds and how among us we had speakers of Polish, German, Ukrainian, Latin (Fritz had been an altar boy), Pruthenian, and Lithuanian, so we would be able to communicate with the inhabitants of many different areas.
We explained how we were all bachelors who could take long trips away from home without distressing any wives or children. We wrote and rewrote that application so many times that we were sure if they did not transfer us to the High Seas Battalion, they would at least have to give us an award for literature! Finally, we had Zbigniew write up the fair copy, since he had the best handwriting in the group.
Then we faced the problem of just who we should send this application to. Normally, when one wished to transfer, one applied to the personnel department of the battalion or corps involved. But in this case, as far as we knew, the organization we wished to join did not yet exist.
'If it is new, you just know that Lord Conrad will be involved with it,' Sir Odon said. 'He likes being in on the beginning of things. You know him personally, don't you, Josip?'
I had to admit I did, that I had been a boy at Okoitz when he first arrived in Poland. However, I had to stress that our last meeting had been less than pleasant, and I quite possibly had been responsible for putting Lord Conrad's eye out or at least causing him to lose the use of that eye.
'I read in the news that he regained his sight in that eye years ago,' Kiejstut said. 'Anyway, Lord Conrad is not the kind of a man who would hold a grudge over a little accident like that.'
I said losing an eye was not a 'little accident,' and that I was still apprehensive about writing to so high a personage.
Sir Odon said, 'Nonsense, Josip. The worst that, can happen is that if he is still mad at you, he will throw the letter away without reading it, so the thing for us to do is to make up two copies, one to Lord Conrad with your name on the return address, and one to Baron Tados, who I heard was being considered for heading the ocean steamship command, with my name on it instead of yours.'
'I heard that it was to be Baron Piotr, of the Mapmakers,' Lezek said.
'Then we'll send him a copy of our application, too,' Sir Odon said.
In the end, we sent off nine separate copies to nine different army leaders.
And then we waited for a reply.
And waited.
Chapter Eleven
From the Diary of Conrad Stargard
JANUARY 4, 1246
