1633

She took a long, slow breath, steaming into Germany's autumn. 'But I won't, John. Not any more. And the reason I won't is because I majored in history in college. And there is this little nagging voice in my head that is reminding me how much proper society detested another president the United States once had. And for exactly the same reasons. He was a crude bumpkin from the sticks, with a low sense of humor-and undoubtedly the most capable politician the country ever produced. I think it was the last part they hated the most. Couldn't forgive, anyway.'

Simpson's knowledge of history was, in general, not the equal of his wife's. But there were some exceptions, especially when it came to American history. Given Simpson's own brown-water experience in Vietnam, he'd read a great deal on the Civil War. He'd been mainly interested in naval history, of course, especially the use of gunboats on the interior rivers. But, obviously, studying the Civil War involved constantly running across a certain famous politician.

'You can't be serious,' he protested. 'How can you possibly compare Mike Stearns to-to-'

She just gave him a sideways stare. He never did finish the sentence.

Part VI

Those dying generations

Chapter 38

The last few miles were the worst.

Eddie Cantrell was quite certain he'd never been so exhausted in his entire life. He stood watching as the long, worn-out column reached more or less level ground south of Wismar at last and rubbed his eyes wearily.

Thank God Gustavus' canal-building crews had begun their efforts by hacking out a roadway (of sorts) to parallel the channel's course from Lake Schwerin to Wismar Bay! Without that, the entire trip would have been impossible… or, at least, so difficult trying to make it wouldn't have been worth the effort. He'd been this way once before already since Becky's warning had reached Grantville, but this time was different. Very different.

Louie Tillman's Chris Craft groaned past him on its improvised cart, fiberglass hull lurching as the clumsy wooden wheels found every uneven spot in the muddy, crudely graded roadbed. A long line of horses stretched out in front of it-thirty or forty of them, he couldn't really remember which in his exhausted state-and harness creaked as they leaned into it. Nor were they the only source of motive power. Scores of men, virtually all of them civilians from Wismar, conscripted for the task by the small garrison of Swedish troops Gustavus had left in the city, heaved and grunted right alongside the draft animals.

That launch had a dry weight of just over three tons. Intellectually, Eddie had known all along that 17 th -century Europeans were accustomed to moving such weights by brute muscle strength. After all, some of their heavier artillery pieces weighed at least half again as much. But that knowledge had been dry and theoretical, harvested from histories of events long past. Even now, after two years here, he hadn't been prepared to see something the sheer size of Tillman's launch moving, however slowly and clumsily, under nothing but the power of straining muscle and sinew.

'How much longer, do you think?' a weary voice asked beside him, and he turned to look at the speaker.

'I'd guess another six to ten hours,' he replied, and Jack Clements shook his head.

'Have to say I thought you were out of your mind to try it,' he admitted. 'Of course, I'd already decided you and Mike were both out of your minds to even contemplate something this crazy. I never thought we'd make it as far as the lake, much less cross-country from this end of it.' His thick thatch of white hair gleamed in the gradually strengthening light of a very early dawn, and his face was etched with deep lines of fatigue as he shook his head again.

'Never thought you'd make it as far as the lake?' Eddie snorted. 'Hey, you had the easy part! At least you got to use internal combustion engines! Best I could do was steam. And not very good steam, either!'

'If you think getting those monsters down the Saale was 'easy,' internal combustion or not, you're out of your frigging mind, whippersnapper,' Clements riposted with a tired chuckle.

Eddie grinned back at him. He hadn't known Clements very well before the Ring of Fire, but all of Grantville's younger people had been fond of him. Despite his own age, rapidly approaching that of mandatory retirement, Clements had spoken up for their interests before several meetings of the Grantville town council. He'd also been a member of the local school board, where he'd done his best to ensure that the board considered how the students might feel about the various issues which came before it.

'Damn,' Clements continued, kneading the sore muscles of his back, 'but that river is one shallow son-of-a-bitch. Couldn't even begin to tell you how many times we grounded. Even as slow as we were taking it, there was a time or two when I thought we'd never get Watson's Folly to float off again. Good thing Frank sent the zodiacs along. At least I could send them out ahead with Al's fishing fathometer to look for the really shallow spots.' He shook his head. 'Even then…'

His voice trailed off as Watson's Outlaw came creaking and groaning along in the Chris Craft's wake. The huge, angular slab of fiberglass loomed above the men and horses straining to move it, and Clements grunted.

'George Watson,' he declared roundly, 'is even stupider than I ever thought. Putting that monster,' he pointed at the rakish hull, 'on any river-except maybe the Mississippi or the Amazon!-is like trying to use a transfer truck for a golf cart. The damned thing is a speed machine, pure and simple. Sure as hell whoever designed it never expected some landlocked hillbilly to plunk down umpty-ump thousand dollars for it!' He snorted derisively. 'Course, only a lunatic would've done it, lottery win or not.'

'Maybe,' Eddie agreed, then he grinned again. 'All the same, I've got to admit I always really wished I could take it out and play with it myself. Seemed unfair someone like George had it sitting behind his house all that time.'

'That's because your poor teenaged brain is too awash in testosterone for rational thought,' Clements told him. 'Besides, you'd probably have killed yourself with it in nothing flat.' He hawked and spat on the ground while he absently massaged his chest with one hand. 'I know you kids. You'd have taken that over-powered bastard out on a river somewhere and shoved the throttles to the stops, wouldn't you?'

'Well…'

'Sure as hell that's what you would've done. And when you did, you really would have killed yourself. Trust me, Eddie-comparing that son-of-a-bitch to any bass boat or ski boat you've ever handled is like comparing an F-16 to some Piper Cub.' He shook his head. 'I spent eight years in the Coast Guard when I was about your age, son. Put in a lot of time handling small craft, and I've owned half a dozen good-sized boats of my own since. But this sucker is like a rocket on slick grass.'

'Then I guess it's a good thing Frank and Mike sent you along, isn't it?' Eddie chuckled. 'Without you to drive it, we'd have to trust Larry with it.'

'Larry Wild?' Clements shuddered. 'Eddie, I've seen him steering a ski boat. Trust me, it would be like… like giving Hans Richter a Corvette!'

'Nothing could be like giving Hans a Corvette,' Eddie replied firmly. 'Personally, I always figured the best thing about Jesse's teaching him to fly was that at least in the air there's nothing he can run into!'

' 'Cept the ground,' Clements agreed.

'Well, yeah,' Eddie conceded. 'On the other hand, Jack,' it still felt… odd to him to be calling Clements anything besides 'Mr. Clements,' but officially, he actually outranked the older man, 'it'd probably be a good idea for you to check Larry and me both out on the Outlaw.' Clements raised both eyebrows, and Eddie shrugged. 'Well, Larry, at least. Seems pretty obvious that it's going to be our 'flagship,' ' he pointed out. 'It's the biggest, fastest thing we've got. And Mr. Ferrara managed to put together an eight-cell launcher for her, and we can carry at least three or four complete reloads in the cabin. The Chris Craft and your boat are both slower, and they're both completely open-cockpit designs, too.' He shook his head. 'That's going to make stowing extra ammunition dicier. Too much chance of the exhaust from one launch touching off the backup rounds. So seems to me it only makes sense to have a backup driver just in case, well…'

He shrugged again, but this time the gesture carried a completely different meaning.

Trying resolutely to ignore the ache in his chest, Jack Clements looked at the young man standing beside him with his denim jacket buttoned against the October chill. The youngster could have used a shave, he thought. And for all the gold bars pinned to the collar of his plaid shirt, he looked like exactly what he was-a kid who'd stopped being a teenager less than two months ago. But there was nothing particularly kidlike about the eyes watching the Outlaw dragging its way past them. Or about the thoughts behind those eyes at this particular moment.

'Of course,' Clements said after a moment, his voice deliberately light, 'the proper Navy term is 'coxswain,' not driver, you ignorant lout.'

'Coxswain, driver-whatever,' Eddie allowed with a dismissive wave of his hand.

'Jesus, and you a full lieutenant!' Clements shook his head. 'I see I'd better take you in hand and teach you what's what Navy-style before Admiral Simpson has to do it.'

Colonel Holtzmьller tried not to hover anxiously as Lieutenant Cantrell and Lieutenant Clements oversaw a rowdy gang of dockside workers. In Clements' case, it was apparent that he actually understood what he was doing. Lieutenant Cantrell's expertise was less obvious, but his German was far better than Clements'. No doubt that had made him particularly valuable to the American Admiral Simpson in Magdeburg, and it certainly stood him in good stead now, as well.

'Achtung!' he shouted as Clements made a frantic hand-sawing gesture. 'Ease up on the left line!' he added, and Clements heaved an unmistakable sigh of relief as the thirty-three-foot boat slid stern-first into the waters of Wismar Harbor.

Holtzmьller heaved a deep breath of relief of his own. Personally, he had his doubts about this entire project. His king's orders had stripped his garrison to the bone-at the moment, he had fewer than three hundred troopers from his own regiment, whereas manning the extended fortifications the Swedes had erected around Wismar's original walls required a minimum of almost four thousand. Even at that, there would be precious little in the way of any central reserve.

He could make up some of the shortfall by impressing civilians from the city itself, plus the crews of any Swedish merchant ships which found themselves trapped in the port when the inevitable Danish blockaders arrived. Even at best, however, that wasn't going to give him the number of live bodies he needed. Worse, Wismar's civilians lacked much of the motivation Protestant cities in other parts of Germany might have had. After all, the Danes were also Protestants-fellow Lutherans, in fact. It hadn't been so very long ago that Christian IV had been the anointed champion of Protestantism. True, he hadn't been very good at it, but he was unlikely-to put it mildly- to indulge his troops in any massacres or introduce a religiously repressive regime if he should take the city. Which meant that any of the local civilians were more likely to be thinking about the consequences to their families' health and their own property rather than fighting defiantly to the death if the siege proved long and arduous.

'All right,' Lieutenant Cantrell announced. 'Let's get the Century into the water, and we can all take a break.'

His labor gang headed for the third of the large speedboats obediently. One or two of its members seemed less than fully enthusiastic, although they were scarcely likely to object with a half-dozen of Holtzmьller's rifle-armed dragoons standing around. The fact that four of Krak's Shooters were also keeping an eye on things didn't hurt, either. But most of the dock workers seemed as fascinated as Holtzmьller himself by the huge, sleek up-time craft floating majestically in the harbor.