takes too long to get there from here unless I fly-and I had better things to do with our one and only airplane until last week when the Belle II here got finished…' He twitched his shoulders. 'I get the written summaries, anyhow.'
Changing the subject, he handed Stearns the chart. 'Hold this for a minute, would you, sir?'
Digging out his 'whiz wheel,' the circular aeronautical slide rule he'd had since pilot training, Jesse stared hard at the clouds darting past. He marked the wind side of the computer, moved the outer ring, and pursed his lips at the result.
'Good thing we took off when we did,' he explained to his passenger. 'We've got a front moving in from the north. Looks to me like about a fifteen-knot headwind component into Halle. After that, probably thirty knots into Magdeburg. We won't have much daylight left.'
Checking the clock, he made a quick calculation. 'Seventy-five nautical miles to Halle. About eighty-five miles to Magdeburg after that. We'll get there around 1615 or so. Uh, that's 4:15 P.M. I hope you know we might not be able to fly back tomorrow, if that front closes in. What's the rush, anyway?'
'I've got to meet with the admiral about helping Gustav Adolf,' Mike replied. 'There could be some work in it for you, so I'll want you at it as well as Simpson.' He took a breath and looked around. 'Kinda bumpy today, isn't it?
Jesse shrugged. 'Maybe a little.'
He settled back to concentrate on his heading, though that was becoming a tad difficult. They were traveling through what he called light chop and the whiskey compass was bouncing around quite a bit.
He'd missed lunch, but Kathy had fixed him up. He pulled a sausage out of his flight jacket pocket and took a bite out of it. Remembering his manners, he looked over at Stearns. And realized he wouldn't have to share his meal.
Mike stepped down from the plane, delighted to feel his stomach settling down, turned, and froze as a stentorian voice bellowed a command. Two dozen men, most of them armed with up-time shotguns, but six of them armed with the new-model muzzleloading rifles being turned out by the Struve-Reardon Gunworks, snapped to attention and presented arms. Their clothing could scarcely be called a 'uniform,' but every one of them wore a brassard with the fouled anchor-and-muskets design Simpson had adopted for his 'Marine Corps ' insignia, and one of those brassards carried the three embroidered chevrons of a sergeant.
Eddie Cantrell stood beside the sergeant, clearly torn between embarrassment and enjoyment. He snapped to attention and saluted far more sharply than anyone who had known him before the Ring of Fire would ever have believed he could.
Mike was still staring at the youngster, wondering where the changeling had come from, when John Simpson stepped forward and saluted even more sharply than Eddie had.
Somewhere, Simpson had managed to have a very credible duplicate of a 21 st -century officer's cap produced. The cap cover was a spotless white, and genuine gold leaf glittered on its polished black brim with eye-watering intensity in the bright afternoon sunlight. A single golden star flashed equally brightly on either side of his collar, and he carried a holstered 9mm automatic on a brilliantly polished Sam Browne belt he'd probably had made by whoever had made the cap for him.
He ought, Mike reflected later, to have looked absolutely ridiculous. But that thought came considerably later. What happened at the moment was that Mike Stearns, former president of a union local and now President of the United States, felt his own shoulders square themselves automatically, without any conscious thought at all, in acknowledgment of the formal courtesy.
Simpson held the salute for perhaps two heartbeats. Then the leather-lunged sergeant bellowed another order, and Simpson's hand came down from his cap brim at the exact same instant the honor guard snapped from present arms to stand easy.
'Welcome to Magdeburg, sir,' Simpson said formally.
It has to be for the benefit of the troops, Mike told himself. Even if it does feel like I've just stepped through the looking glass.
'Thank you, Admiral,' he said after a moment, deliberately pitching his voice to carry. Then he gave himself a mental shake. 'We have to talk,' he said much more quietly, and Simpson nodded curtly.
'It's a five-minute walk to my office,' he said equally quietly.
Simpson's office was another surprise. This was the first time Mike had been to Magdeburg since the meeting with Gustav and his staff to confer on matters of military production. He'd been too pressed at the time to take up Simpson's offer to tour the 'naval base.' He realized now that he'd been making some automatic-and erroneous-assumptions about exactly what Simpson had been up to. The office boasted a handsome desk and window glass, true. But aside from that, and an obviously locally manufactured filing cabinet in one corner, it was remarkably plebeian and utilitarian. Nothing at all like the 'Douglas MacArthur Oriental Splendor' HQ which one of Mike's great-uncles who'd fought in the Pacific Theater had once described to him, and which Mike had assumed Simpson would mimic.
Or, for that matter, the lavish CEO suite which Simpson's son Tom had once described to him that had been Simpson's before the Ring of Fire. Simpson's wife Mary, according to Tom, had been quite a connoisseur of art and a mover and shaker in Pittsburgh's upper-crust social circles. She'd had the executive suites in her husband's petrochemical corporation decorated in good taste, and at great expense. Here, the only things on the walls were a calendar, what looked to be a series of production charts and a Table of Organization, and…
Mike tried to suppress a grin, but found it impossible. There
The first-more of a professional sketch than a painting-was a straightforward depiction of one of the ironclads. The sketch was precise, done in pencil, and had almost the look of a diagram or blueprint. Mike wasn't certain, but he thought it had probably been done by Nat Davis, who he knew had a good hand for such things.
Next to it was the illustration which was the cause of Mike's grin: a large, cheaply framed canvas which depicted the ironclads under construction once they'd gone into action. Guns blazing in full glory. From the vaguely 'science-fictiony' flavor of the painting, Mike suspected that Eddie Cantrell himself was the artist. He knew Eddie was something of an illustrator, and had had ambitions in that direction before the Ring of Fire.
Simpson came to stand next to him. When Mike glanced over, he saw that for once the stiff-faced admiral had something of a smile on his face.
'Eddie's, right?'
Simpson nodded. 'He's actually got some talent for it, I think. So does my wife.'
'I'm surprised you let him put it up.'
'I almost didn't. But I agreed, once Lieutenant Cantrell agreed to leave off the gorgeous young woman in skimpy armor and wielding a sword perched on the bow he'd had his heart set on. He claimed that was 'the tradition.' I told him I couldn't imagine anything sillier in a naval battle, since she'd be mincemeat in five seconds.'
Still smiling, Mike moved over to the third painting. 'Who did this? I'm no connoisseur of the arts, but…'
'The man's name is Franz Knopf. Mary found him doing this painting on the wharf and took him under her wing.' The stiffness was back in his face. 'My wife
Mike studied the painting. There was no question that the technical skill involved was far superior to that displayed in Eddie's painting. Yet, in its own way, this third painting also had something of a futuristic quality. It depicted one of the still-unfinished ironclads in its full glory, with a cavalryman staring up at it. But the ironclad, as the 17 th -century artist envisioned it, bore little resemblance to what the warship would actually look like. It vaguely reminded Mike of photographs he'd seen of pre-World War I era dreadnoughts.
'Impressive damn thing,' he murmured.
Simpson smiled thinly. 'Isn't it? And don't I wish I'd
The perspicacity of the last remark intrigued Mike. But before he could pursue the thought, Eddie Cantrell came into the room and moved to stand against the office wall. Immediately, Simpson was all business. He offered Mike a chair, and then walked around to seat himself behind the desk.
There was absolutely no warmth in the look Simpson gave Mike, after they were both seated. But there was none of the bluster or posturing he'd more than half expected, either, he realized. It left him feeling off-balance, like someone prepared for a fight who isn't getting it. Almost uncertain, in fact, which was rare for Mike. He wondered if that was the reason Simpson was doing it.
Then he shook himself mentally and he drew a deep breath. 'We've got a problem,' he said bluntly.
Simpson nodded. 'So I gathered from your radio message.'
Mike drew a folded piece of paper from his pocket. 'Here,' he said. 'It'll probably save a little time if you just read Gustavus' message yourself, while we're waiting for Jesse to finish securing the plane. Especially the last two sentences.'
Simpson unfolded the sheet and laid it on his desk. The message wasn't a very long one:
YOUR MESSAGE RE DESTRUCTION DUTCH FLT RECEIVED. BALTIC ONLY LOGICAL TARGET FOR RICHELIEU. EXPECT JOINT DANISH-FRENCH NAVAL ATTACK SOON. PROBABLE TARGETS STOCKHOLM, LUEBECK, WISMAR, ROSTOCK, STRALSUND, GOTEBORG, OLAND. STOCKHOLM, LUEBECK, WISMAR ALL VITAL TO WAR. AM PREPARED TO ORDER ADMIRAL GYLLENHJELM TO DEFEND STOCKHOLM AND PERSONALLY UNDERTAKE DEFENSE LUEBECK. GARRISON FOR LUEBECK HOWEVER CAN ONLY BE DRAWN FROM WISMAR, ROSTOCK, STRALSUND. I CAN AFFORD LOSE ROSTOCK AND STRALSUND. NOT WISMAR. URGENTLY REQUIRE ALL POSSIBLE SUPPORT. MOST URGENT YOU ADVISE ME IMMEDIATELY ON AVAILABLE SUPPORT WISMAR. ALSO ADVISE IF YOUR IRONCLADS CAN ENTER BALTIC TO NEUTRALIZE DANISH-FRENCH NAVAL FORCES THERE.
He read it through twice, carefully. By the time he was done, Jesse Wood had entered the room and taken another chair. Simpson handed the message silently to Eddie and looked up at Mike.
'Yes,' he said simply. 'But not immediately.'
'Are you serious?' Mike asked. 'You think you really can get these monsters-' he gestured through the office window at the flank of a looming armored vessel which looked far larger in the flesh than he'd ever envisioned from the plans '-through to Luebeck?'
'I said I could,' Simpson replied a bit more testily, then gave his head an impatient twitch. 'Oh, it won't be easy. And there's no way in hell you can get one of these ships-not even one of the timberclads-through the Stecknitz, much less across the Schwerin to Wismar! If you're really serious about our neutralizing the Danes, we're going to have to go through Hamburg, into the North Sea, up the Helgoland Bight, through the Skaggerak, and down through the Kattegat. We'll have to fight our way through the Belt to break into the Baltic, but that shouldn't be a problem. As a matter of fact, I'm more worried about making the trip than I am about what we may have to fight at the other end. When we modified the original design for the ironclads, we made them a little more seaworthy than most river defense vessels, but they were never really intended to operate in the open sea, even in coastal waters. Fortunately, the Baltic is fairly sheltered. We should be able to handle any conditions we're likely to meet there.'
His confidence, Mike realized, was not at all assumed. He meant it, and the President felt his gloom ease ever so slightly.
