1635: The Eastern Front

  So, the young captain whom they'd left behind to keep an eye on things—yes, it was foolish to do so, but men do foolish things in the chaos of a battlefield—was the only officer in the regiment who spotted the gap that had opened between them and the Green Brigade.

  He, too, was horrified at the sight. Immediately, he commanded the nearest company to follow as he raced to set things right.

  Which they did—thereby opening another gap. The captain hadn't intended to move more than one company. But he hadn't told any other to stay in place, either. Seeing the first company move, the captain in command of its neighbor concluded that he had to move also. As his company moved, yet a third—and then a fourth—was pulled in its train. It wasn't until five of the regiment's eight companies had shifted their positions that the two officers in command realized what was happening.

  But by then, it was too late. Gustav Adolf was still closing the first gap when two hundred hussars found the second. They poured through in a flood.

  The rain that the Swedish king had cursed was all that saved his army, then. Koniecpolski's view of the battlefield was even more obscured than Gustav Adolf's, because the rain was being driven from the west. So he never spotted the sudden disaster that had fallen upon his enemy. He knew nothing about it, in fact, until he got reports after the battle from the hussars who had survived to tell their happy tale.

  Three times the Swedish bastard and his armies had brought murder, destruction and rapine into Poland. There wouldn't be a fourth.

  A Scotsman's shout alerted Jönsson. Twisting in his saddle, he saw at least two dozen hussars racing toward him.

  No, most of them were racing toward the king. Gustav Adolf wore no distinctive insignia. But he was a big man, and an imperious one on a battlefield. Whether or not the oncoming hussars knew his exact identity, they obviously realized he was some sort of top commander.

  As children, Polish hussars-in-the-making heard the same advice children everywhere got from their elders. To kill a snake, cut off its head.

  A number of them set out to do so.

  Gustav Adolf heard Anders' cry of warning. When he saw the hussars coming his way, he swung his horse to face them, sword in his hand. He had two wheel-lock pistols in saddle holsters, but he wouldn't have time to use them.

  He'd always turned down the many offers of up-time pistols. Despite their obvious advantages, he simply didn't like the things. They didn't feel right. Childish, perhaps, but there it was. If the king of Sweden, emperor of the USE, high king of etc., etc., insists he don't need no steenkeeng up-time pistol, how are you going to make him take it?

  The first hussar's lance came at him. The king swatted it aside and struck the man down as he passed.

  A mighty stroke it was, too. Hussars were heavily armored, but Gustav Adolf had fought them before so he knew what to expect. His blade avoided the heavy cuirass altogether and passed just under the helmet's ear flap, with its characteristic heart emblem decoration. The neck is always a vulnerable part of any armor, especially for a man strong enough to drive a sword through whatever mail protection might be there.

  The king of Sweden was a very strong man, and he loved swords and knew how to use them. The hussar's head stayed with the body, but the man was dead before he fell out of the saddle. His neck had been cut halfway through.

  A second hussar was there. Frantically, Gustav Adolf swung back his sword.

  The lances used by Polish hussars had a distinctive design. They were partially hollow, being made of two pieces of fir glued together. That made them quite light, despite their great length—not more than seven pounds—and easy to handle in battle.

  It also made them brittle, of course. Gustav Adolf's sword broke the lance in half.

  But Polish hussars expected that their lances would splinter. The weapons had round wooden hand-guards and the Swedish king's stroke had severed the lance just above the heavy ball. The hussar shifted his grip in order to turn the lance-butt into an impromptu mace and slammed the ball into the king's head.

  Hard. The Pole was as big as Gustav Adolf and possibly even stronger. The Swede's head reeled back from the blow, his helmet coming loose.

  Seeing his chance, the hussar swung the lance butt again. The helmet came off altogether. The hammering stroke came a third time, and this blow caught the side of the king's head unprotected.

  Gustav Adolf was still in the saddle—barely—but he was now completely senseless. The Pole finally dropped the lance butt and drew his saber to finish him off.

  But Anders Jönsson had arrived by then and he had no reservations at all about up-time pistols. Years ago, the Americans had given him one of the most expensive guns in their possession, an HK .40-caliber USP automatic. The king's bodyguard had never spent a waking moment without it since. He'd even had his armor modified so he could wear his shoulder holster into battle.

  The hussar caught sight of the peculiar object in Jönsson's hand and might have been distracted for a split second before he raised his saber to defend himself. If there was a delay in his reaction, though, it didn't matter. He would have been killed anyway. Jönsson shot him three times, all of the bullets punching into his chest through the cuirass. Two of them penetrated his heart.

  Another hussar was there. Gustav Adolf was reeling but was still in the saddle, his legs gripping the horse from long-ingrained reflex. The first hussar to arrive drove his lance at him, ignoring Jönsson. He knew this target was the key one.

  Jönsson saved his king again. He shot the hussar twice—center mass, again—and knocked him from the saddle. Had he not done so, the lance would have pierced the king of Sweden in the center of his torso, rupturing his stomach and severing his abdominal aorta. He would have bled out in less than a minute.

  As it was, the lance swung aside at the last moment. It passed through the king's body, but well to the side. The peritoneum was pierced, but no major organs were damaged.

  Finally, Gustav Adolf began to fall from the saddle. A third hussar tried to lance him as he fell, but his aim was thrown off by the king's now-rapid slump. He drove his lance butt into the Swede's ribs as he passed, but the blow did little damage beyond bruises.

  And that was it. Anders shot him out of the saddle, too. Three shots, two in the back of the cuirass and one in the head.

  The last shot was an act of pointless anger. Pointless, because the Pole was already mortally wounded. Anger, at the hussar's cowardly strike at a defenseless man.

  So Anders Jönsson thought, anyway. And since he was the man with the .40-caliber automatic in his hand, his was the opinion that mattered.

  Justified or not, that last shot—the time it took, more than the round expended—left Jönsson vulnerable. The next hussar lance came at him, not the king, and almost slew him. All that saved his life was his armor; which, not surprisingly for the personal bodyguard of Europe's premier monarch, was the finest armor available.

  The lance slid off and Jönsson shot the man dead as he passed. Two shots, both in the neck. The Pole stayed in the saddle, though. Again, the ingrained reflexes of an excellent horseman. He wouldn't come out of that saddle until his mount returned his body to his own lines, and it was removed by human hands. Gently, almost reverently.

  The Scots arrived, forming a perimeter. Just in time, because the hussars were still coming. By now, many of them had deduced the king's identity. The ferocity with which Anders had defended Gustav Adolf was enough in itself, even if they didn't recognize his features.

  Stanislaw Koniecpolski was not the only Polish soldier who thought the king of Sweden had outlived his welcome. It would have been hard to find one who differed, in fact.

  They had their chance to kill him, here and now. They intended to do so.

  Anders had used up eight rounds. That left five in this magazine. But he had three more magazines and enough time to swap them out.

  He did so—just in time to shoot a Pole who'd gotten by the Scots and was aiming his lance at the king's body
. Gustav Adolf was now sprawled on his side in the muddy soil. He was unconscious and bleeding, both from his head and the wound in his side. Not bleeding profusely enough to pose an immediate danger to his life, though, so Jönsson continued to concentrate on the hussars.

  That last Pole had gotten close enough to his target that Anders had used four shots to put him down—and again, with the last shot being fired in anger. He found it infuriating that the hussars were still trying to kill an obviously helpless man.

  Had their histories been reversed, he might have had some sympathy for them. Might even have agreed with them, actually. For all Wladislaw IV's posturing and loud claims to being the rightful heir to the Swedish throne, it was not him—nor his father Sigismund III Vasa before him—who had invaded Sweden and laid waste to its lands, after all. The destruction and plunder had gone entirely the other way.

  Three times the bastard had invaded and ravaged Poland. There was not going to be a fourth.

  The Scots were crumbling. There weren't enough of them to hold off this many hussars.

  Jönsson made a quick decision. He'd do better on the ground. He slid off the saddle and took position guarding the fallen king, almost straddling him.

  And there he stayed, until a company of Småland cuirassiers arrived and finally drove off the Poles.

  He'd emptied two magazines in addition to the eight rounds fired from the first. He'd just loaded the last magazine when a Polish lance finally put him down. Even then, with his blood pouring out of a severed femoral artery, he shot down his killer. He spent the last minute of his life lying across Gustav Adolf's body, shooting any hussar who came into his sight.

  He would have died from blood loss, anyway. But a Pole he didn't see rode up and drove his lance all the way through Anders' body. The hussar was actually trying to kill Gustav Adolf, but since most of him was covered by the huge Jönsson, he saw no option but to try to slay the king through the bodyguard.

  He succeeded in the second, but not the first. The Pole reversed his grip on the lance and rose up in his stirrups in order to drive the lance straight down with all his might. The lance missed the sternum, passed between two of the ribs, cut open the right ventricle of the heart and almost made it through Jönsson's entire torso. But there was just too much muscle, too much mass. The king beneath was quite untouched.

  Chapter 39

  The rain was starting to let up. In the distance to the west, Koniecpolski could see patches of clear sky. By evening, the storm would have passed completely. And with it, his great advantage over the Swedes.

  The latest hussar charge had been driven back also, although this one had come close to shattering the enemy. If they'd been able to widen that gap just a bit more, a bit faster . . .

  But there was no point dwelling on what might have been. Once again, his men had been repulsed—and they were finally showing the effects. The grand hetman had been in enough battles to know that he'd driven his cavalry almost to the breaking point. They'd done all he asked of them. The time had come to accept that he'd accomplished all he could this day and not drive into ruin. He hadn't destroyed the Swedish army, as he'd hoped to do. But he'd hammered them badly. Added to the destruction of the Hessians, he'd leveled the odds a great deal in Poland's favor. The intelligent thing to do now was return to Poznań. From here on, this was going to be a war of sieges.

  Afterward, he would take a small private satisfaction in the knowledge that he'd already made that decision before developments made it inevitable. No sooner had he turned to give new orders to his adjutants than he saw a Cossack scout racing toward him.

  Literally, galloping at full speed—on this treacherous soil. The man was either a superb horseman or utterly reckless.

  Or most likely both, being a Cossack.

  Koniecpolski waited until the man drew up his horse. Obviously he was bearing important tidings. Not even a Cossack would run his horse like that for any other reasons.

  "The enemy is coming, Hetman!" The Cossack turned and rose in his stirrups, pointing a little east of south. "One mile away. No farther. Thousands of men."

  Already? He hadn't thought any of the three divisions of the USE army could get here until tomorrow. Even then, not till noon or early afternoon.

  Perhaps it was a different enemy force, although Koniecpolski couldn't think of any that would be in this region. Not numberings in the thousands, certainly.

  Cossacks could get fairly vague in their numbering. Still, a Cossack scout could tell the difference between hundreds of men and thousands of men at a glance. On horseback, at a full gallop. The scout's estimate wouldn't be off by that much.

  Just to make sure, he questioned the scout concerning details of their appearance. It didn't take long at all before he was certain that these approaching forces were part of the USE army. For one thing, Koniecpolski knew of no other large army that inflicted such dull uniforms upon its soldier. Upon its officers, even!

  Gray uniforms. Except for the odd stripe here and there, a bit of flair with the shoulder decorations, they were the sort of vestments that monks would wear.

  Dull monks. Boring monks. The sort of monks who took vows of silence and kept them.

  Koniecpolski's own full dress uniform was as uniforms should be. He was particularly fond of his leopard skins.

  In the distance, he heard a bugle. Marching orders, clearly. Whichever of the three USE divisions this was, it would be here within an hour. After the casualties he'd suffered today, the numerical odds would be even at best. And his men were exhausted. True, the enemy's troops would be tired as well, after the sort of march they'd made. But nothing wears men down like battle. Nothing in the world.

  Yes. It was time to go.

  * * *

  The one thing Mike hadn't expected when he finally met up with Gustav Adolf's army was that he would turn out to be the highest ranked officer present.

  Highest conscious rank, at any rate.

  He turned away from the bed where the king of Sweden lay recuperating from his wounds. There was no point in staring at the man any longer. What Gustav Adolf needed was the best doctor who could be found.

  That meant James Nichols. But it would probably be at least two days before planes could safely take to the skies again. The sky was clear at the moment—here, not in Magdeburg. It looked as if another storm might be on its way. If that proved true, they wouldn't be able to get Nichols here for a week or more. Assuming they could build a usable airfield, before this mucky soil finally dried out. Mike had his doubts.

  "Not a flicker, you're saying?"

  The man who served Gustav Adolf's troops as a doctor shook his head. "Nothing. Sometimes his eyes open, but there is nothing behind them."

  Weather or not, they had to get Gustav Adolf out of here. Leaving aside his terrible head injuries, the lance wound in his side had penetrated the peritoneum. That meant he'd probably come down with peritonitis. If they didn't get him on antibiotics soon—there was a good chance he'd need surgery, too—that would likely kill him even if he recovered from the head trauma.

  Mike had been told that the Jupiters, the new commercial aircraft, were equipped with air-cushioned landing gear that could land almost anywhere. If so, and if one of them were available, and if the weather held—that was a lot of ifs—maybe they could airlift the king.

  But there was no way to count on that. With the weather as uncertain as it was, even if one of the planes were available they might not be able to use it.

  Berlin. It was the only option Mike could see. Gustav Adolf could be taken there on a covered litter carried by a team of horses and guarded by a powerful cavalry force. By the time he got there, Nichols could have gotten to Berlin even if the planes still weren't flying.

  Magdeburg would be better, of course. But Magdeburg was just too far away. Berlin wasn't much of a city, but it did have a palace. The elector had even gotten some of the rooms fitted with modern plumbing.

  They might be able to get him to Magdebur
g anyway, Mike reminded himself. If the weather cleared and one of the ACLG-equipped planes was available—and the boasts about the capabilities of their peculiar landing gear were accurate—then a Jupiter could meet them on the way to Berlin and airlift Gustav Adolf to the capital instead.

  Mike glanced around the room he was in now, the main room of what had probably been Zbąszyń's premier tavern. Or possibly its only tavern.

  The floor didn't bear thinking about. The sewers of the town . . . ​didn't exist. There was a well here, but Mike thought he'd have to be really desperate before he drank any of that water without boiling it first.

  Berlin. Yes.

  Torstensson agreed, when Mike reached him on the radio. So, an hour later, did the chancellor of Sweden, Axel Oxenstierna. He was already in Berlin himself, as it happened, attending to the creation of an interim imperial administration for Brandenburg.

  "And you must come to Berlin yourself, General Stearns," said Oxenstierna. "It is imperative that we have a council of our army commanders."

  Legally, Oxenstierna was out of bounds. He was Sweden's chancellor, not the USE's, and had no formal authority over Mike. But the proposal—he'd see it as a command, but that was his problem—was sensible enough. Besides, Mike didn't have any doubt that if he got on his high horse about the matter, Oxenstierna would just get hold of Wettin and have the prime minister give him the order instead. Which would be an order he did have to obey.

  He found Jeff Higgins in the little room in an abandoned house where they'd put the body of Anders Jönsson. Come to pay his last respects, obviously.

  Mike wasn't surprised. He'd come for the same reason.

  It was a little over three years since the great Croat cavalry raid on Grantville had been driven off. The main target of the raid had been the town's high school.