Grantville Gazette Volume 47
"You're Bartley, aren't you?" said a major with bright orange muttonchop sideburns.
"Yes, sir. Lieutenant David Bartley."
"Thought so, Lieutenant. We may be related. I'm Major David Barclay. Not quite the same, I grant, but the spelling could have changed over the years. It was the name, though, that struck me first a few months ago when I saw it in The Street. So what is a member of the new capitalist class doing in the army? It's not like you're here to make your fortune like I am."
Young Master David blushed a bit, Johan noticed, but there was no noticeable hesitation. "Civic duty, I guess. Someone's got to and it might as well be me."
The major, who Johan guessed to be in his mid-twenties, gave young Master David a sharp look that turned into a more measuring look. Then he nodded. "Good answer, lad, and makes me a little ashamed of my own motives. I was here a bit to defend Protestantism, but mostly to make my fortune, as I said. And that's honestly still why I'm here."
"There is nothing wrong with making a fortune that I am aware of, sir," David said with a smile. "If nothing else, it gives you the opportunity to do more. This is Johan Kipper, my aide."
Johan gave David a look that said, clear as if he had shouted it, that there was no reason for David to introduce him, then said, "Major," with a brief nod and a brace to not quite attention. But it wasn't really true that there was no need for an introduction, and Johan knew it. David sometimes introduced Johan to people specifically to see how they would react. It was a fairly good barometer of how they were dealing with the new rules. Major Barclay seemed to be adjusting well enough. He simply smiled and said, "Sergeant Kipper."
"So where are you stationed, Major Barclay?" Lieutenant David Bartley asked.
"I was just transferred to Third Division. Black Falcon Regiment commanded by Colonel Friedrich Eichelberger. I am to be their ess four. Do you happen to know what an ess four is supposed to be?"
"'S' stands for staff, four is logistics. Supply, not to put too fine point on it."
"Well, that's good. I was in supply before and I have found I have something of a knack for it."
That wasn't, from David Bartley's point of view, an overwhelmingly good thing. The question was whether Major Barclay had a knack for making sure his unit was supplied or making sure that his pockets got lined. Of course, there was no law that said it couldn't be both. David could live with both, though Major Barclay was unlikely to find as many ways to line his pockets as in the old-style army. David took a quick look at the man. He was well, but not extravagantly, dressed and was a bit on the portly side, but not overly so. "We will probably meet sometimes. I'm assigned to Colonel McAdam, the S4 for the Third Division."
"What do you do there?"
"I don't know yet, sir. I just arrived today and will be meeting him tomorrow."
****
As it turned out, David Bartley had rather less contact with Major Barclay than Johan did. David was much too busy with the special assignment that Colonel McAdam had given him to do the coordinating that was his official job. That fell to Johan and Sergeant Beckmann, who had come with David at Major Walker's insistence. "I don't want your tame crook anywhere near supplies without you there to watch him," Major Walker had said in his usual acerbic way. Actually, David wished he could have brought his company, but they were strictly National Guard. And, besides, they were doing quite well making clothing.
Johan, on the other hand, ended up doing most of the coordinating with the various brigade and regimental supply offices. Mostly through the supply sergeants. But not in the case of Major Barclay.
"So tell me, Sergeant, how does Lieutenant Bartley do it?" Major Barclay asked after he had invited Johan to sit and offered him a small beer.
Johan had been expecting that question or one basically like it. The smart ones always asked him that. "In large part, it's the way he sees the world, sir. He was born up-time and spent his first few years there, but was still young enough to adapt to down-time ways and he has come to understand how things work in both worlds, so he sees how they fit. And how they don't."
"Not something that could be readily picked up?"
Now that wasn't a question Johan was expecting. "No, sir, I don't think so."
"Yet you seem to have done quite well?"
"That's different," Johan said, then stopped. "You know, sir, I think there is something else to young Master David's success. He has a talent for picking people and then letting them do what they do without interfering. No, that's not it. He smooths the way."
"I'm not sure I understand."
"I'm a pretty good bargainer, sir." Johan smiled. "Delia Higgins, David's grandmother, says I bargain like a fishwife. Whatever that means. When I am bargaining with someone and most other up-timers are there, they will explain how this or that works and it can make the bargaining difficult, but David will watch what I am doing without seeming to and back my play."
The major nodded, and Johan realized that the major had some of what David had. Or something, anyway. This wasn't the sort of conversation Johan had been expecting and he hadn't meant to let so much out. "What did you wish to discuss, Major?"
"The powder consignment is fine, but the cartridge papers are short. We are going to need those if we are going to get the cartridges made up before we march," Major Barclay said. "But that's just the official reason. My real question, Sergeant, is: do you think you could get me into some of the lieutenant's projects? The whole brigade has heard about Jeff Higgins' good luck."
"I doubt that Captain Higgins is thrilled to have the world learn he is a millionaire, sir."
"Probably not, but there is no way something like that stays secret. And in this case, there was no way that how it happened was going to remain secret, either."
Well, that was true enough, Johan thought, and if there was one thing he had learned it was that success bred success. HSMC had made OPM possible and OPM had made any number of companies possible because the money to make that initial investment was easily available. That aura of success had apparently followed young Master David into the army. Which wasn't necessarily a good thing. There were going to be people trying to get into the good thing, just as there had been back in Grantville. The fact that some of those people were going to outrank David Bartley by a considerable margin could be a real problem. At least Major Barclay was being polite about it. So far, anyway. "I understand, Major, and I'll see what I can do. But we have only just arrived and young Master David is very busy arranging for foodstuffs to be available to Third Division as we head into Saxony."
****
"How do you do, Herr Krause?" David said. "I'm here to talk to you about arranging shipments of grain for Third Division."
"So I gathered, Herr Bartley. What I don't understand is what David Bartley is doing pretending to be a lieutenant in the army." Herr Krause was apparently a plain-spoken man and David responded in kind.
"Not pretending, sir. I am Lieutenant Bartley."
"That's a shame, son. I could use David Bartley, the man of affairs. Lieutenant Bartley isn't someone I would even bother to meet with."
"But Lieutenant Bartley is authorized to guarantee payment for goods delivered to the Third Division. And a division has a lot of mouths to feed and needs a lot of rye."
"Sure, son. But what are you going to pay me in?"
"American dollars."
"You mean the new USE dollars, don't you?"
"Yes, but if you would prefer I can get you silver. Though there will be an additional charge for the trouble."
Krause snorted. "You mean that they are already discounting the USE dollars, don't you, son?"
"No, sir. The surcharge for using silver goes both ways. You want to buy something and bring us silver, there is the same surcharge. We work from the most recent exchange rate on the Magdeburg market."
Krause tilted his head. "You're not bluffing, are you, boy? You really think the USE money is going to be just as good as the American dollars?"
"Yes, I do."
"What about Gustav Adolf?"
"What about him?"
"He has an army to field. He needs money. Giving him the keys to the printing house that prints money is like giving a drunk the keys to the winery."
"I know Coleman Walker, sir." David found himself grinning at the man. "It would take more than one of Gustav Adolf's armies to make him see reason. The biggest issue we are going to face is not enough money. We absolutely won't have too much."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Coleman Walker is a fiscal conservative, and the more he's pushed, the more conservative he gets. He didn't want to issue enough money to support the goods that we had with us in the Ring of Fire and he didn't want to issue enough money to support the new goods we were producing. His policies are delaying development because there isn't enough money to support the economy we have now. That's why the American dollar keeps going up," David said. "And he's certainly not going to want to issue enough money to support the economy of the USE as a whole. So there is likely to be a continuing shortage of money."
"If you people aren't issuing enough money, how are you running your business?"
"With Dutch guilders, Spanish doubloons, Holy Roman Empire riksthalers. Which isn't doing good things to the economies of those places."
Herr Krause didn't look convinced. David understood that. Most people thought of money as having some sort of intrinsic value, especially in the seventeenth-century world of silver and, occasionally, gold coins. "Don't worry about it, Herr Krause. If you don't want American dollars, I'm happy enough to give you silver and let you pay a surcharge when you get the silver from me and another when you have to turn it back into American dollars to buy the stuff you want."
"I don't want silver, son," Krause said. "I want steam engines and reapers and water pumps. That's why I'm here in Magdeburg with a chest full of silver riksthalers, which aren't buying me a cursed thing.
" 'There is a six month waiting list, Herr Krause.' 'There aren't any of those available, Herr Krause.' 'Check back in a few weeks, we are hoping for a new shipment then.' I have been—" Herr Krause threw up his hands, his frustration showing through his cynical persona.
"I was hoping that Herr Bartley of OPM could help me acquire some reapers, perhaps some seed. Maize would be very good. Instead, I have Lieutenant Bartley offering me silver, which won't buy me anything and assuring me that paper is even better. But, Lieutenant Bartley, paper American dollars won't buy me reapers, either. There are no reapers to be had, not for silver or paper."
David smiled. "As it happens, I know the owners of USE Steel. I imagine something could be worked out."
That meeting set the pattern. It wasn't universal, but David was increasingly finding people who were willing to pay a premium to "get it now." And that allowed him to get good deals for goods to be picked up in Saxony to supplement what they were getting from the logistics train.
****
"How are you doing, Darlene?" Delia Higgins asked as Darlene tried to maneuver into a chair. It was getting close to her due date, and she was spending a lot of time shifting from one uncomfortable position to the next.
"Well, if the baby would quit playing kickball with my bladder, I would be a lot more comfortable," Darlene said. They were in the dining room of the Higgins Hotel, mostly because Darlene wasn't willing to just sit in her room. She had finally started her maternity leave because of how soon the baby was expected, but now she was going stir crazy. "It's all Johan's fault, and now he has run off to the army like a little kid running off to join the circus."
"Somehow, Johan doesn't strike me as the running-off sort."
"Maybe not. But I don't get how the down-timers react to us."
"How do you mean?" Delia asked.
Darlene hadn't known Delia Higgins up-time, hadn't met her till she had moved into the hotel with Johan, so Darlene wasn't sure just how to explain what she meant. Especially since David Bartley was Delia's grandson.
"'Young Master David.' Johan is a perfectly capable man. There is no reason in the world for him to follow your grandson around, cap in hand."
"Interesting you should put it that way," Delia said. "He arrived at our door, quite literally, cap in hand. And a pretty ragged cap it was too. There are as many ways of responding to up-timers as there are down-timers. You get the ones like Gretchen Richter, who are more up-timer than the up-timers about the equality of all men. Then you get the ones who think of up-timers as a sort of curious peasant with a few special skills. But the way Johan acts toward us isn't that unusual. He grew up in a world where the classes were a lot more distinct and a lot more fixed than ours are. And there was no way our arrival was going to throw that training out the window. Instead, he fit us into it. We became the nobility—the way nobility was supposed to be. The funny thing is . . . well, at least the thing I hadn't thought about, was that it doesn't blind him to our faults, not at all. He is perfectly aware that he is a better bargainer than I am, or even than David is, though he's spent the last four years giving David an advanced course in bargaining."
"Fine. He likes you. I can accept that. And he is fond of David, sort of like David is his son or nephew or something. But why the deference?"
"Because that's what he's comfortable with," Delia said, with some asperity. "Don't think I didn't try to get him to stop. Well, I gave up pretty fast and I never threatened to fire him or anything over it. He just is who he is and I've learned to respect that." She gave Darlene a hard look. "If your marriage is going to work, you're going to have to learn to respect it too."
Darlene wasn't the least bit pleased with the lecture. "Does that mean he has to follow David off into the army when I'm nine months pregnant?"
"I think that's as much about the USE as it is about David," Delia said thoughtfully. "Not every one who is dedicated to the new nation we are trying to build here is a firebrand. Johan spent most of his life as a soldier. He's doing his bit. Just like David is."
"You don't think he'd have gone if David hadn't?" Darlene asked.
"Maybe not. No, probably not. But that's not the same thing as him following David into the army. His deference to David—" Delia paused. "I think he uses David as sort of a moral check. As his guide into the morality of the twentieth century."
****
"You have a telegraph message, Sergeant," said the runner.
"From?" Johan asked. He received quite a few of them in the course of business.
"Grantville."
Johan took the folded sheet and signed the kid's book, then flipped it open
BORN 12:37 AM JULY 9 1635 A BOY
8 LBS, 6 OZ, 22 IN. HANS DAVID KIPPER
AND YOU MISSED IT
DARLENE
To be continued . . .
Ein Feste Burg, Episode 8
Written by Rainer Prem
Chapter 10: Season's opening
We, Johann Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Eisenach and Jülich-Kleve-Berg, Hereditary Governor of West Thuringia County, SoTF, USE, want to make known that the first official presentation of the Wartburg reconstruction project will be held in the opening meeting of this year's Spring Session of the Parliament of the County.
If weather allows, this will be on
May 15/5, 1634
Visitors may attend, but as the space in the assembly room of the Parliament in the Stadtschloss in Eisenach is limited, tickets will be given out on a first-come-first-served basis by the office of the County Government on written request.
Given Eisenach, Aprilis 15/5, Anno Domini 1634
Assembly Hall of the Parliament, Stadtschloss, Eisenach, Thuringia
May 15, 1634
Johannes Götzius, MPWT, was annoyed. Very annoyed. It seemed wrong that the duke, the "Hereditary Governor," announced the Wartburg project before consulting the General Superintendent of Eisenach. It was something of a relapse into the feudal habits of the Middle Ages. The reconstruction of the Wartburg, one of the major symbols of the Reformat
ion, should be significantly directed by the Lutheran church.
The duke had too many contacts with these Americans, showed many too many of their "democratic" and sectarian customs. The master carpenter for the project was a Catholic from Bavaria. The master mason a Calvinist from the Palatinate. That was not right. He should have given these positions to the Lutheran subjects of his own principality.
So the first thing for the Spring Session was to adopt a law to force the duke to use only Lutheran citizens of the duchy for leading posts. The other members of the Parliament—or MPWTs as they were called, "Mitglieder des Parlaments von West-Thüringen"—from the consistory would certainly support this. And Götzius could certainly get the craftsmen on his side, since they made up the biggest part of the untitled delegates. So the majority of votes should be safe.
****
Georg Burggraf von Kirchberg, Herr zu Farrenroda, MPWT, was annoyed. Very annoyed. It seemed wrong that the duke, the "Hereditary Governor," announced the Wartburg project before consulting the nobles in his realm and especially in the Parliament. It had something of a "forelapse" into the absolutistic habits of the eighteenth century the burgrave had read about. Not that this new model of sovereignty didn't seem appropriate for the future. But, at the moment, the nobles still had something to say in this duchy. Especially when it came to funding of large projects. Georg could already see a new tax hike on the horizon.
But that could still be avoided. And the new time and the new constitution gave the nobles an even better handle to do this within the Parliament.
So the first thing for the Spring Session was to adopt a law to force the duke into not raising a new tax for the project, so they could prevent him from issuing a proclamation. And afterward, the nobles could negotiate with him on how he could get that money, in exchange for increased privileges. If they could manage to get some of the commoners in the Parliament, especially the well-off craftsmen and burghers of Eisenach and Gotha on their side, all would go well. So the majority of votes should be safe.