The Russian version of the volley gun was an outgrowth of the same technology used in the AK3. The plates were loaded with AK3 firing chambers and were ignited by a quick fuse. They were slower firing than the ones in the west, but Russia was still having trouble with primers. They had twenty-four barrels arranged in three rows of eight. If all went well, the preparatory work was done on the chamber plates before the battle started, so all that was needed to reload was to pull a chamber plate and replace it with another before lighting the fuse. They were cranked, but only for traversing.
The last Russian slipped from in front of the volley gun. The gunner lit the fuse and started cranking. Crack Crack Crack Crack.. twenty-four barrels in order. Then the gunner pulled the plate, inserted another and did it again. The gunners for the volley guns were big men. The plates weighed upwards of thirty pounds.
The volley guns wouldn’t have been enough by themselves, but they took the pressure off the Russian troops long enough for a semblance of organization to occur. Unarmed peasants retreated to be replaced by armed Streltzi carrying AK3’s, and the weight of fire shifted. The battle for Rzhev was effectively over.
Chapter 61
“Lieutenant, you are to report to the general’s quarters.”
Two weeks after the battle, things had stabilized. Rzhev was surrounded by three walls, one inside the other. The Rzhev wall that had been built in a somewhat haphazard manner by the Poles and the two layers of golay golrod together constituted a fairly formidable defensive network. Starving the victorious Russians out would take time. Meanwhile, the walls were bolstered by sand bags and firing platforms. Neither Tim nor General Izmailov had yet had occasion to mention Tim’s orders to the volley guns, given in the general’s name. Tim had been starting to hope-against his better judgment-that the general was going to let the whole thing pass.
“What am I going to do with you, Lieutenant?” General Izmailov sighed rather theatrically. “I have been reading a translation of an up-time book on a French general who had an elegant solution for this situation. He was dealing with a general, not a lieutenant, who acted on his own authority. At their base, the situations are quite similar. Bonaparte’s elegant solution was to give the general a medal to acknowledge his achievement.” There was a short pause but Tim knew he was far from out of the woods.
General Izmailov continued, “Then, to maintain good order and discipline in the army, he had the man shot for disobeying orders.” General Izmailov paused again and waited. Tim remained silent.
“What do you think of Bonaparte’s solution, Lieutenant? I could have you a medal by sunset.”
Tim hesitated, looking for the right words. “I can’t say it appeals to me, sir. But I grant that the solution has a certain, ah, symmetry.” He stopped. Tim really wanted, right then, to bring up the political consequences to the general should he find it necessary to execute a member of a family of such political prominence, even a minor member of a cadet branch. He didn’t, though, partly because it would sound like a threat-probably not a good tactics against someone like Izmailov-but mostly because Tim understood that while what he had done was the right thing for that battle, it was the wrong thing for the army. He had sat in Testbed and watched as Colonel Khilkov used his family position to destroy a couple of Russian cavalry regiments. He knew as well as General Izmailov that if word got out, his example would be used to justify every harebrained glory-hound for the next hundred years. Who knew how many people that would kill? Tim had known when he was doing it that it would cost him, but not how much.
“For political reasons I can’t use Bonaparte’s elegant symmetry. You will get neither the medal nor the firing squad. Those political reasons are only partly to do with your family.” General Izmailov gave Tim a sardonic smile. “I will take the credit for your brilliant move and it may save my life when I must explain to the Boyar Duma my acquiescence to Colonel Khilkov’s less-than-brilliant actions. We will say that it was a contingency plan. You will get a promotion, then you will receive the worst jobs I can come up with for some time to come. You will accept those jobs without complaint! Understand me, Lieutenant. You deserve the medal you will never get, but you also deserve the firing squad that you won’t face this time. Don’t make the same mistake again.”
Tim was still doing latrine duty when Moscow finally decided to send reinforcements. At that point the ranking Polish officer withdrew his army. The Lithuanian magnate’s campaign had not been sanctioned by either King Wladyslaw or the Sejm. Such private adventures by the great magnates of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were not particularly unusual-and if successful, got after-the-fact backing. But if they failed disastrously, the magnate could face severe repercussions. If nothing else, he’d be in such a weakened state that other great magnates-they all maintained large private armies-would be tempted to attack him.
As for Third Lieutenant Boris Timofeyevich Lebedev, he continued to receive unpleasant assignments for the next six months, much to the irritation of his father. But Tim never complained.
Chapter 62
September 1634
“So how was the wedding, Colonel?” Boyar Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev asked.
“I found it quite interesting, sir,” said Colonel Leontii Shuvalov. “Though I will admit I was a bit disappointed to find that the Poles had held a war while I was gone and I wasn’t invited.”
“Rzhev made things much more difficult,” Sheremetev said. “Filaret is making noise about invading Poland again. And without Shein, we probably couldn’t hold him back. Shein figures we are getting stronger, faster, so time is on our side for now. But he will switch back as soon as he figures we’re ready.” Sheremetev shook his head in disgust. “None of them can see that Poland is not the real enemy. The real enemy is Gustav Adolf and his new USE. So tell me about the USE, Leontii.”
Leontii made his report. That the USE was rich and powerful and becoming more so every day was beyond question. He had seen several different kinds of airplanes. The largest of which was dwarfed by Testbed, but the slowest of which made the balloon seem a snail by comparison. But the real danger was the factories, which turned out hundreds of items in the time it would take a craftsman to make just one.
Yet Russia had factories, too. “While we are behind, we aren’t that far behind. I took a steamer from Rybinsk, one of the ones that they were using to resupply Rzhev. I was amazed by the factories along the Volga.”
Sheremetev grunted. “As new items come out of the Dacha, Princess Natalia doles them out to her friends at court. And they start hiring workmen and setting up ‘factories,’ as they call them. They are merely workshops.”
Leontii looked at his patron questioningly and Sheremetev grunted again. “Granted, they have a lot of serfs working in them except during planting and harvest. And I’ll even grant that the czar’s paper money has increased trade. But I don’t trust it. All these changes. It’s too much, too fast.”
“As you say, my lord,” Leontii said. “But it’s nothing compared to what they are doing in Germany.” Leontii went on to acknowledge the corrupting influence of the up-timers, but pointed out that Vladimir and the Dacha were proving incredibly valuable and were probably essential. “Sooner or later-not even Poles are that dumb-King Wladyslaw or some of the magnates will recruit up-timers of their own. By the way, how are they taking the events at Rzhev?”
“The Sejm seems very upset at the outcome. More upset than cautioned, unfortunately. It must be our fault and we must have somehow cheated, they think.” Sheremetev shrugged, acknowledging that they might have a point. “Made a deal with the devil, something, anything, other than that they attacked us and we outfought them. They seem especially worried that we had such things as breech-loading cannon and that the walking forts proved so effective.
“It hasn’t made things any easier on the diplomatic front. About the only thing keeping them from a full-scale invasion is Gustav Adolf’s presence on their western border. The Truce of Altmark expires next year, and the way that Sweden and the USE have been going, Poland simply can’t afford to be involved in a war with us when Gustav Adolf gets around to them. What concerns me is I don’t see any particular reason for the Swede to stop at the
