The Saxon Uprising-ARC

Chapter 45


The Saxon plain, near Dresden

Mike was tempted to order a night attack, but yielded to the advice of his advisers. All of whom were against the idea.

“Even in daylight, fighting will be hard enough, sir,” said Anthony Leebrick. His expression made clear that he’d have liked to add: And it’s a really bad idea to begin with.

“No way to control the troops,” added Colonel Duerr gruffly.

Mike chewed on the problem, trying to sort out how much of the advice he was getting came from his staff’s unhappiness with the whole idea of launching an attack in the middle of a snowstorm. They’d been almost aghast at the notion when he first raised it, although by now they’d reconciled themselves to the inevitable. Their commanding general usually took their advice, but not always—and there was nothing indecisive about him. If, after listening to their objections, he said he was still going to do something, then it was going to be done.

Christopher Long, the third of Mike’s regular trio of staff officers, was marginally less pessimistic than his two fellows. He was usually the more aggressively-inclined of the three. But even Long was dubious about fighting in a storm. He said nothing now, but his expression made it clear that he fully agreed with Leebrick and Duerr on the subject of launching a night attack.

In the end, Mike decided that his own instincts were probably not reliable in this situation and he’d do better to listen to his staff. His eagerness to start fighting was likely to be his emotional reaction to days of tension and anxiety. As a boxer, his biggest weakness had been a tendency to start swinging too quickly, too furiously, more as way of settling his nerves than anything else.

“At first light, then,” he said. “And I mean at first light. We’re not waiting for the sun to come up. We’ll just be waiting long enough for a man to be able to see ten yards ahead of him. Is that understood?”

As soon as he finished, he regretted the statements. That was just his nerves acting up again. He sometimes thought his staff officers were a bit too inclined toward caution, but he had no reservations at all about either their courage or their willingness to obey orders. There was no reason to have piled on that unnecessary verbiage.

Was that a slight smile on Duerr’s face?

Colonel Ulbrecht Duerr was fighting down a grin, as it happened. He’d added his own words of caution to those of Leebrick and Long, because he agreed with them as a pure matter of tactics. Fighting at night in the middle of a snowstorm was just piling on too many uncertainties.

Still, he’d been pleased to see the general’s combative spirit. A commander who wanted to launch an assault even in the dark was a commander who would press through an assault in daylight. And that’s what this mad little scheme of Stearns’ was going to require—pressing on, pressing on, pressing on. Damn the cost, f*ck the Swede bastards, just keep shooting and throwing grenades and firing everything you’ve got and keep at them and keep at them and keep at them.

Banér’s army was going to break. Ulbrecht Duerr was as sure of that as he had been of anything in his life, on the eve of a battle. There was a flow to these things, a sort of tide summoned by Mars rather than the sun or the moon.

People, including the division itself, thought of the Third Division as “inexperienced” compared to most other military units. And so they were, by the standards of mercenary soldiers. But Duerr knew those standards, and how hollow they really were. He should, after all, being a mercenary himself. Very few armies of his day fought major pitched battles in the open field. Gustav II Adolf’s great victory at Breitenfeld four years earlier had been the exception, not the rule. It was quite possible for a man to spend his entire life as a soldier—even in the middle of great wars such as the one that had wracked central Europe since 1618—and never participate in a single battle.

War in the seventeenth century was a thing of marches and counter-marches and, most of all, sieges. Sieges big and small. Sieges of cities, sieges of towns. Sometimes, sieges of villages or even hamlets.

A furious assault launched across open fields? At any time, much less February in the middle of a snowstorm?

It just wasn’t done. Too imprudent—and being prudent was in the nature of a mercenary. There was nothing at stake except pay, after all.

But the soldiers in the ranks of the Third Division didn’t think that way, and they had a commander who didn’t think that way either. Stearns’ inexperience was now actually working in his favor, just as it was working in favor of his entire division.

Because they were veterans, by now, even if they still didn’t think of themselves that way. Many of them—more than half, probably—had fought at Ahrensbök. The greatest battle on the continent since Breitenfeld.

Stearns himself hadn’t been on the field that day. But even in the time since he’d taken command of the division, the Third had fought the battles of Zwenkau and Zielona Góra. And while they hadn’t fought at Lake Bledno, that was only because the Poles had withdrawn from the field before they arrived. They would have fought—and not one man in the division doubted for a moment that they would have whipped them, too. Piss on the famous Grand Hetman Stanislaw Koniecpolski. Just another bum to be beaten senseless.

Just as, tomorrow, they were going to piss on the famous Johan Banér and beat his army senseless.

The soldiers of the Third Division were full of confidence. Confidence in themselves, confidence in their weapons and equipment, confidence in their officers; perhaps most of all, confidence in their commander. They’d been in more battles than most soldiers of the day, and they’d won every one of them. They knew everything they needed to know in order to win a battle—and hadn’t been soldiers long enough to learn all of the ways an army could fail and usually did fail.

Colonel Duerr was in a splendid mood, actually. If he survived another day—no way to be sure of that, of course—he’d be looking back on it fondly for the rest of his life. Great victories came rarely to a soldier, even one like him whose career had now spanned three decades.

After night fell, Mike spent the better part of three hours moving among his men, visiting each unit around its campfires. He had nothing particularly intelligent to say, but the soldiers didn’t need a speech, much less a lecture. They just needed to see their commander, see that he knew what they would all be doing come dawn—most of all, see that he was completely confident that they could do it.

Jeff Higgins spent less than two hours at the same task. First, because he only had a regiment’s worth of men to deal with. Secondly, because unlike Mike Stearns he wasn’t comfortable striding around the stage. Any stage.

He didn’t really need to do it anyway. No regiment in the division had higher morale this night than the Hangman. They were ready to go at Banér’s throat. Many of the standard bearers weren’t even planning to carry the regiment’s colors into battle the next day. They’d made jury-rigged substitutes, straw figures supposed to be Banér hanging from a gibbet. They’d carry the gibbets themselves into the fight, with their straw Swedish generals blowing in the wind along with the snow.

Thorsten Engler spent even less time at the task. No more than forty-five minutes. First, because he only had two hundred men under his command instead of a thousand. Secondly, because the morale of flying artillery units was a bit eccentric. The volley gun crews considered themselves an elite force. So, unlike common garden variety soldiers, they needed no artificial stimulants like silly speeches from officers to get them ready for battle. No, no, no. They were the cold-eyed killers, the deadly ones, the men who broke cavalry charges.

They needed nothing, thank you. Beyond a commander who passed through their ranks, from campfire to campfire, quietly checking to make sure no one lacked anything in the way of equipment or supplies.

A commander like Engler, in short. Detached, intellectual, reasoned. They all knew his ambition to become a psychologist after the war. Once the meaning of the term was explained to them, each and every man in the company agreed that he would make a superb psychologist.

And not one of them would consider using his professional services as such. Even by volley gun crew standards, that man was a little scary.

Berlin, capital of Brandenburg province

Colonel Erik Haakansson Hand was also contemplating the use of poison that night. In his case, though, the thought was neither idle nor fanciful. He had a real problem on his hands.

Unfortunately, after weeks of welcome slothfulness and incompetence on their part, one of Gustav Adolf’s doctors was taking a genuine interest in the case. Instead of a perfunctory few minutes breezing in and out of the king’s room every other day or so, this bastard was starting to spend time there.

A full hour, yesterday. Luckily, there had been no signs from the king that he was starting to recover from his condition. He’d been asleep most of the time and when he did wake up, immediately started shouting at the doctor in fury.

Incoherent fury, too. The annoying man had fled in five minutes.

But if he kept coming around, there was bound to be bad luck sooner or later. And once any of the doctors assigned to the king began to think the king might be recovering, he’d be sure to tell Oxenstierna.

Or if one of them didn’t, the king’s chaplain would. That was the Pomeranian Jacobus Fabricius. He’d been wounded in the battle at Lake Bledno but not badly enough that he hadn’t been able to start attending the king after a few weeks. But he’d resumed those duties too early and in his weakened state he’d fallen badly ill. A stroke of luck, that was, since the chaplain hadn’t been present during the recent period to see Gustav Adolf’s growing flashes of coherence.

Hand didn’t think any of the doctors, and certainly not the chaplain, wished any ill upon his cousin. But regardless of their motives, any of them who noticed was sure to inform Oxenstierna. Nor would it matter if the chancellor had already taken the army to Magdeburg by then. He’d be taking a radio with him. Several, in fact. Just as he’d be leaving several behind in Berlin. He’d get the news within hours.

And then…

There was no telling what would happen. But Erik now feared the worst. Three months ago—two months ago—perhaps even one month ago, he’d have sworn that Oxenstierna would do no personal harm to Gustav Adolf. Not to his own king, and a man who’d been a good friend for many years.

But Axel Oxenstierna had been changing, and the change had sped up rapidly over the past few weeks. The course of action he’d set for himself had careened out of his control, something which was now obvious to everyone except those reactionary imbeciles who guzzled the palace’s wine, gobbled food from its kitchens, and sang praises and hosannas to Oxenstierna every drunken evening.

It was certainly obvious to Oxenstierna. Most of his followers might be dull-witted but not the chancellor himself.

Nothing had gone the way he’d planned. His enemies had not reacted as he’d foreseen. There’d been none—very little, anyway—of the chaos he’d expected and had partly been depending upon. Wilhelm Wettin had dug in his heels once he stumbled across outright treachery and had had to be arrested. The princess had not knuckled under to pressure. Indeed, she and her consort-to-be had defied Oxenstierna in the most flamboyant fashion imaginable. Dresden had defied him and held out against Banér. And now Stearns had come out in open rebellion and marched his troops back into Saxony. By all reports, there would be a battle soon between his Third Division and Banér’s mercenaries. Only a new storm was delaying it.

As each setback and misadventure came, the chancellor’s mood darkened. No, not just his mood, his very soul. Always a hard man, Oxenstierna was now becoming a savage man, something he’d never been in the past.

So what would he do, if the final blow fell and he learned his king was returning?

Submit—knowing full well that Gustav II Adolf would not approve of his actions?

Maybe. And then…maybe not. The chancellor had men who were loyal to him, first and foremost. By now, he probably had entire regiments who were mainly loyal to him. He’d certainly have enough such men to overwhelm Hand and Erling Ljungberg and the king’s Scot bodyguards.

A few blows to the head—no need, even, for outright murder—and it would be done. Those who knew the truth silenced, some absurd concoction presented to the world in public—another treason plot, the details left vague—and the king condemned to everlasting madness, his brains turned to pulp.

So. Cyanide or arsenic? Those were the only viable alternatives.

Magdeburg, capital of the United States of Europe

Restlessly, Rebecca moved through the empty rooms of the town house, looking out of the windows to watch the snow fall. She had already made two complete circuits of all the rooms on the top floor except those of her children, whom she didn’t want to awaken.

She didn’t go down to the lower floors. Now that the crisis was reaching its peak, there were people there at all times. Her house had become the operating command center for the Fourth of July Party. Couriers raced back and forth from here to the Freedom Arches, where the city’s CoC had its center, every hour of the day and night. They were needed because the telephone lines were often overwhelmed.

The people in Magdeburg had good intelligence coming from Berlin. As always, servants were the weak link in the aristocracy’s armor, when it came to espionage. You’d think they’d learn not to talk in front of their servants, but some habits were just too deeply ingrained. That was especially true of the sort of cast-iron diehards who’d gathered in Berlin.

So they knew Oxenstierna was coming, and bringing his whole army with him. And while their intelligence didn’t extend so far as to know his precise intentions—Oxenstierna himself was far too shrewd to speak in front of servants—no one had any trouble guessing what they were.

Tonight, though, Rebecca wasn’t concerned about her own possible fate a few weeks or months from now. Not even that of her children. Tonight the snow was falling, and she knew what that meant.

Thought she did, at least. She’d gotten no messages from Michael. He wouldn’t have divulged his tactical plans to her anyway. But she knew her husband very well.

Mike Stearns was a charming man. Even his enemies would allow as much. Gracious, pleasant, courteous, rarely given to expressing a temper.

All of it was even true. But what the qualities disguised from those who didn’t know him as well as she did, was that he was also utterly pugnacious. Not belligerent, as such. He did not go looking for fights. But when a fight did come he would throw himself into it with a pure fury. Rebecca had never seen him fight with his fists, but she knew from Melissa Mailey what his record had been. All but one of his professional fights he’d won by knockout before the end of the fourth round.

So how would such a man fight as a general?

Snow was falling. Not only here but all across the Germanies. She’d checked the weather reports.

It would be falling in Saxony too. White, cold—and gentle, as snowfalls were. But tomorrow it would be bathed in blood. She could only hope Michael’s blood would not be part of that gruesome, incongruous mix.

Or not too much of it, at least. She was a Jewess. Her people had learned long ago that you had to be practical about these things.