Grantville Gazette 38

counter-battery. One side was firing, the other was not, and screams of pain erupted on the valley road that wound down from the Fluelapass, through the battle lines, and into Susch.

Thomas turned the corner and the fight came into view, lines of ragged infantry spread across the field like skins from a shedding snake. Red and white and blue shirts, grey coats, ibex, lion, and shield banners, coat-of-arms of smaller houses whose children and subjects lay in heaps on the bloody ground. It was difficult to tell the opposing sides for these were all Swiss boys save for the small detachment of Spanish that Thomas could barely discern through the bleak smoke. So many men dead on the field and yet they kept on, re-forming lines and going at it again. He couldn't help but feel a certain pride as he watched it all. It did not matter who was friend or foe. They were Swiss, and they never retreated.

But that was not true, was it? At Marignano, Swiss pike had been decimated and forced to retreat. At Bicocca as well. Two old battles, barely remembered by the Swiss people but now ringing clearly in Thomas' mind like church bells. And just a few short weeks ago near Zernez, another retreat had occurred, and so here he was, just a boy, looking down on carnage that he had never seen in his life. You must lead the men. But how? Around him, the dead and dying lined the pass, the small wagon train of his force choked with civilians from Susch that he had yanked from their homes to make room for death and desolation. As he brought his horse to a slow trot, they looked at him, paid their proper respects, and reached up as if he were the American president, Abraham Lincoln, come to Richmond to free the slaves. He reached down and touched their hands and tried to offer them some reassurance, some hope in the stench of the billowing smoke and fire that ran through their homes.

He'd made a mistake. He realized that now. He had saved the civilians by moving them out, but not their town. Putting gunmen into the empty homes was a way to slow the enemy advance, force them to stack up in the streets and perhaps convince Gremminger to pull back and reconsider a different route. Then counter-attack. Gremminger, however, had surprised him. The duke had been bolder than first thought, more ruthless, a bigger risk-taker. Thomas had run the numbers, had calculated Gremminger's skills and had built in variation for his psychological profile. Not enough variation apparently. Thomas had made a mistake . . . yet he'd been right as well.

It was clear that Gremminger's superior force was having trouble finding complete purchase of the field. He could not push through Susch with all of his men at once, and thus, he could not attack in force. It was a natural choke-point that slowed his advance and allowed Elsinger's cavalry time to function as hobilars, like the Spanish had tried to do. Their guns were inferior weapons to the Spanish, but it appeared that Gremminger had committed his remaining up-time weapons to the full battle, in desperation no doubt, trying to whip the kalbfleisch here and now.

You must lead the men.

Thomas scowled. It was a damn fool thing for Goepfert to do: getting himself killed at such an important moment. He pulled out his field glass and focused on the battle in the center of the haggard line, hoping to see an opportunity to order his men off the field, or to pull them back enough to re-form strong, tight blocks and keep holding. But that was not going to happen. Too many men had died and even in Thomas' short experience, it was obvious that Gremminger's superior numbers would, in time, push through the town and take the field. So what to do? What do I do?

Then he saw a ghost coming down the ridgeline, Captain Goepfert, his banner of a golden shield on a red- and-white field waving carelessly in the air. Thomas blinked, wiped sweat from his face, and looked again. It was no ghost. It was the man in flesh, holding his saber high, mouth open and teeth bared although his battle cry could not be heard from this distance. He was alive and leading a charge. Alive . . .

'Goepfert, you son of a bitch, I'm going to kill you myself.'

Without thought, Thomas spurred his horse onto the battlefield. He could not take his eyes off his commander, holding his field glass like a club. If Goepfert were near, he'd knock the lying bastard off his horse with a crack across his skull.

Thomas found himself surrounded by his men, some crawling out of the battle, some falling back with exhaustion, some dumbfounded by the fact that he was among them. He held up his glass like a sword and said, 'Don't look at me, you fools. Get in and fight!'

His eyes, however, were fixed on Goepfert, who had turned his charge toward a clump of Spanish halberdiers stubbornly holding the center of the line.

'Goepfert!' Thomas yelled, but his captain did not respond. He either did not hear or did not care to answer.

Thomas' horse stopped abruptly as a pike was thrust into its face. It missed the horse by inches and Thomas grabbed the spear tip to keep it from plunging into the beast's neck. He twisted in the saddle, holding the pike and kicking at the man who tried desperately to knock him from the horse. Thomas, his mind wild with fear, dropped his field glass, drew the Enfield, and aimed it at the head of the enemy pikeman. He pulled the trigger back and was about to fire, when the man's shoulder blew apart, struck by a shot that hit him square in the back. He dropped the pike and fell forward dead into the bloody mud.

The young boy who had fired the musket from behind was shaking violently, clearly terrified by what was going on around him. Thomas was about to say something, but the boy ran off and disappeared into the smoke.

Thomas dropped from his horse and continued on foot, toward the block of Spanish halberdiers. Sweat poured from his face. His heart beat so fast he could barely hear anything around him but the coursing of his own blood through his sweat-soaked body. Everything was like a dream, moving slowly, a shadowy echo of battle in his mind. But it was real, all too real, as he watched Goepfert's charge hit the Spanish block and tear it to pieces. Goepfert was tossed from his horse. Thomas stopped and suddenly he could hear everything, every cry, every crack of bone, every plea for mother, every whinny of a horse, every clash of steel.

'Goepfert!' He ran to his fallen commander. He found him there behind the carcass of a skewered horse, wrestling with a Spaniard. They rolled in the mud, scraping with mad fingers at each other's throats, their eyes dark and furious. Thomas had never seen two people so intent on killing each other. What should I do? He didn't know. But he had a gun in his hands. He held it up and swung it like a club and hit the Spaniard square in the temple. The man went limp and Goepfert pushed him aside.

'Thank you, Thomas,' he said, rising and rubbing red, gooey mud off his face. 'But you can fire one of those, you know.'

'I thought you were dead!'

'Yes, but I'm not.'

'I should kill you my-'

Goepfert pushed Thomas aside. 'No time for argument. Look!'

He pointed to the town. Thomas turned to look and there, at the edge of Susch, a line of cavalry was charging down the road, thirty strong, led by Gremminger.

The duke's personal guard followed him closely, spread in a wedge that struck the first line of infantry. It did not seem to matter to Gremminger whether he hit his own men or not. It was clear to Thomas that the duke intended to pierce the infantry line and make for the center, where he and Goepfert now stood.

'What do we do?' Goepfert asked.

Thomas shook his head. 'I-I don't know. What should we do?'

'You're in command. Lead! Make a decision.'

His throat was paralyzed. No thought he could conceive measured up to what needed to be said. The men gathered around him, some on horse, some on foot, a mixture of pike, sword, and gun. All of them with their eyes upon him, waiting for his decision. He felt a mere foot tall, a tiny bauble, shiny and important, but shallow and without substance. In his tent, with dice and maps and blocks, there was substance. Here, there was . . .

'Hold the line!' he yelled, not believing the words that came out of his quivering mouth. 'Refuse the field!'

Goepfert barked the order up the line and men hastily fell in place. But Thomas did not hear. He was not a part of it anymore.

He stepped away from his men. Goepfert reached for him but Thomas shrugged him off and moved into Gremminger's path. He held the rifle forward and steady with both hands. The ground shook with the weight of the charge, but Thomas did not move. In his mind, he saw the faces of the two bright and capable young men from