Ring of Fire IV

by Eric Flint

  The man looked at him, hesitated, but then laughed. “Damn obvious, huh?” Then he extended a hand. “Sergeant Don Clements. Nice to meet you.”

  Peter took the hand. “Peter Hagendorf,” he said, hesitated, and then added. “Sergeant been.” He pointed to Anna and Marie. “With family.”

  Suddenly the sound of the vehicle got louder, and Peter saw Marie flinch.

  Don’s eyes followed his. “Kein Angst!” he shouted.

  Without any of the men pulling the wagon began to move. The other Americans were at its tongue and guided it. Slowly the wagon moved up the slope. The wood creaked protesting, but then it had completely cleared the road.

  The men tied the tongue to some trees, this time using a normal hemp rope.

  “Wait for the whole column to pass,” Don told Peter, in a mixture of German, English and gestures. “Calm the oxen during the time, the APCs are rather loud. There’s another truck at the end, they will get your wagon down again. Understand?”

  “Understand,” Peter said.

  “Been a sergeant?” Don asked. “What made you quit?”

  Peter hesitated, but this man had an aura of friendliness around him.

  “Nachtmahre,” he said. Seeing Don’s puzzled face he dug again in his memory. “Nightmares.”

  Suddenly the American’s face showed sympathy and understanding. “I understand,” he said. “Are you going to visit Grantville?”

  Peter shrugged.

  “If you’ll get there,” Don said. “Ask for Denyse Clements, my wife. She’s a teacher at Blackshere Elementary School. She’ll show you around if you like.”

  “Thank you,” Peter said. “That’s very nice.”

  “You’re welcome. Take care of yourself,” Don Clements said. Then he looked at Anna and Marie and waved to them. “And your family. Godspeed!”

  They entered their vehicle again, and with a howling sound they disappeared.

  Peter turned to the women. “More vehicles will come. Louder ones. Help me calm the oxen.”

  Not only louder, but also bigger. Much bigger than the first one. They looked dangerous, like moving castles. Through slits in their iron walls, Peter could see men inside, and guns. Thomas, I hope you’ll survive this.

  III

  Grantville

  Spring 1633

  Don Clements was sitting on his front porch, enjoying the warm afternoon on his short leave from the troops.

  Peter Hagendorf left the house, two mugs of beer in his hand. He handed one to Don, and then sat next to him on the bench, overlooking Dawn Drive and Sunshine Road.

  “A nice corner of Grantville,” Peter said.

  “You say it,” Don answered. “We bought that home after we married in 1993, because it’s only a puddle jump from Blackshere Elementary. By now Downs is one of the quietest places in town. Most people want to live closer to downtown.”

  “I like it. It reminds me of my home village. Only the smell here is much better.” He grinned.

  Don laughed. “How’s your job?”

  “Ich liebe ihn,” Peter said fervently. “Being a mounted constable is not only a job, but a real Beruf. Riding along the town’s perimeter, protecting the people, even scaring off the occasional vagabonds. After five thousand miles on foot…” He stretched his legs. “Ahhh.”

  Don laughed again. “Tell me, how did you end here in Grantville after we met at the Franconian border?”

  Peter frowned. “I have to blame it on my women. They pressed me into this ‘day trip’ from our inn in Saalfeld.” He laughed. “And I’m happy they did. Even the lice comb and the bath Anna applied on me. And I think the new clothes Anna had hidden in her trunk contributed their part.

  “I could see how Denyse sniffed the air and then laughed when she smelled the soap, before she greeted us. It seems, she and Anna are—what do you call it?—‘on the same wavelength.’ Soap vibrations, perhaps.” Both men laughed.

  “Anyway, she invited us to stay in Grantville and to move into your house.” He shrugged. “With you away in the field, and after the Croat raid, having a man in the house seemed to calm her down. Marie loves your kids and vice versa.”

  Then they saw a group of girls coming along the street, chatting and giggling. One of them separated and waved the others good bye, making the international sign for “we phone later.”

  “Hi, Dad,” Marie said smiling, and kissed Peter on the cheek. “Hi, Mr. Clements.” Then she disappeared into the house.

  “Dad?” Don asked.

  Peter grinned. “She said, using the American terms for Anna and me, and reserving Mama and Papa for her dead parents seemed a good compromise for her. I’m happy that she started speaking at last. Even if she doesn’t speak about her past.”

  He straightened. “It seems she had a good education. She’s attending the middle school and her teachers are pleased.

  “I only hope the nightmares go away.” He shook his head.

  “Hers or yours?” Don asked.

  Peter hesitated. Then softly: “Both.”

  He sighed. “I’m seeing a psy-cho-the-ra-pist,” he pronounced carefully, “once a week. She told me to write down my experiences in detail. You know, I took notes all the years I was walking through Europe, and she said I should try to remember and visualize each day. The good ones and…” he shuddered “…the bad ones, too.”

  After a pause he sighed again. “But Marie is not—not yet I think—willing or capable to do the same. Dr. DeVries says that she’d need more time. At the moment Marie is re-pres-sing, she says.”

  Don lifted an eyebrow. “Doctor DeVries?”

  Peter laughed uncertainly. “I know, she’s no official Doktor, but I call her that. If she can heal my soul, she deserves that title.”

  Their heads darted around when they heard clopping. A handful of horsemen were approaching from the direction of downtown Grantville, cavalrymen by all appearances. Don rose and opened the holster at his belt.

  “That’s the Swedes.” Peter also rose. “No danger.”

  Don frowned and looked quizzical.

  “Half of Colonel Mackay’s men are on leave at the moment, and some Swedish companies have taken over their duties. They’ve just arrived yesterday.”

  The leading horseman obviously scanned the letterboxes of the houses they passed. Peter scrutinized him from the distance. The man’s motions seemed somehow familiar.

  “Thomas!” Peter shouted and waved. “Bist du das?”

  The man looked up, smiled, spurred his horse and jumped off in front of the Clements’ front yard. Peter jumped over the stairs leading down and ran to the fence gate.

  “Peter!” Thomas von Scharffenberg flinched when Peter hugged him.

  “What’s the matter?” Peter asked.

  “It’s a memory of Nuremberg.” Thomas smiled painfully, opened his coat and showed Peter a large scar on his left shoulder. “High speed bullet. Took me out two minutes after the start of the American attack.”

  He looked to Don Clements who was slowly approaching. “But I don’t blame them. Perhaps I would have been dead otherwise. My company had only a handful of survivors.

  “And now I’m on the other side anyway. Major Thomas von Scharffenberg, Swedish Yellow Regiment. Nice to meet you.”

  “Master Sergeant Don Clements, NUS Army. Good afternoon, Major.”

  “And while we’re at it,” Peter added smiling. “Sergeant Peter Hagendorf, NUS Mounted Police. That means: I’m the one who gets the beer for you two.”

  “Not now,” Thomas said grinning. “Unfortunately I have to organize our camp. I just wanted to check where you live now. But we can meet tomorrow at our regiment’s Lutheran field service. We don’t have to pretend to be Catholics any longer.” He grinned again. “You’re also invited for lunch with both your families. Is that—hmmm—okay for you?”

  “Of course, thank you,” Don said.

  “Natürlich, danke,” Peter said.

  “Sergeant Hanebuth!” Thomas then ca
lled one of his men.

  “Ja, Herr Major?” a handsome blond German in his thirties answered with a clear voice.

  Peter looked up and thought he had seen this long blond mane and heard this clear voice once before, but he couldn’t nail it down.

  “Send someone here tomorrow morning at nine. With a coach for…how many people, Master Sergeant?”

  “Seven, all in all. Two kids,” Don answered. “Denyse will be very pleased to finally attend a Lutheran service again.”

  “A coach for eight,” Thomas concluded.

  “Jawohl, Herr Major, verstanden,” Hanebuth confirmed.

  “We must hurry,” Thomas said and shook hands. “Say hello to Anna from me. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

  North of the Ring of Fire

  The next day

  “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott,” Peter sang along with some hundred cavalrymen and half as many civilians from Grantville. He looked to the sky, half to check that the weather would stay dry, half to internalize the first Lutheran service after—oh my—ten or more years.

  Anna had been eager to attend the service, even with her belly heavily rounded in the last month of her pregnancy.

  Suddenly he noticed Marie, who was standing between him and Anna, cling to Anna and start sobbing, flinching from time to time. He caught Anna’s gaze, saw her shrug and realized that she also had no idea what concerned Marie.

  Peter looked around, but saw nothing what could have been the reason of Marie’s being upset. He listened, again noticed the clear trained voice of Sergeant Hanebuth leading the chanting, but heard nothing that could have concerned Marie.

  * * *

  Until the service ended, Marie had more or less settled down but was not willing to tell what had hurt her.

  “Can we help?” Denyse asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Peter answered. “At the moment she’s like she was in the first weeks after we found her. She let nobody but Anna touch her, no man even near her. I hope it will pass.”

  “Let’s get some stew, perhaps its smell and taste will calm her down.”

  Half an hour later Thomas had joined the group. Peter and he were indulging in reminiscences, telling Don how the morale had been in Wallenstein’s camp after the Croat raid had so epically failed, while Don entertained them with a recap of the shootout in downtown Grantville.

  “Oh, by the way,” Peter said to Thomas. “Have you already met Julie Sims-Mackay? A nice young lady, I must say.”

  Denyse was chatting with Anna when suddenly a shriek tore through the murmuring of a thousand voices. “Where’s Marie?” Anna shouted in panic.

  “She’s gone to the horses,” Hailey, Don’s seven-year-old daughter said and pointed.

  Peter and Don looked at each other, and then started to run.

  When Marie returned her family’s mess kits to the field kitchen, she could hear neighing from the stables behind it. Without consciously thinking about it, she directed her step to the wooden sheds that the Scot cavalrymen had erected during the last two years to give shelter to their steeds.

  When she saw a newborn foal in a separate box with its dam, she kneeled down to absentmindedly caress and hug the tiny animal.

  “Still fond of horses,” she suddenly heard the sneering clear voice from her nightmares behind her.

  Marie’s head jerked around and she opened her mouth.

  But before she could even take a breath to cry, Jasper Hanebuth’s large hand was gagging her mouth. “Kein Mucks,” he said. “Not even a loud breath or you’ll be dead.”

  Marie’s eyes were wide open. Horror had caught her. A horror which brought her instantly back to that day one year ago. To the moment when one mercenary after the other forced his way into her body. When she had squinted her eyes and hoped it would only be a bad dream.

  When suddenly the same sneering clear voice said: “Leave her alive for me; I’ll take her later, and care for the old ones first.”

  When afterwards the clear, trained voice started to sing “Greif an das Werk mit Freuden,” and she heard the same sound she knew from her father slaughtering a pig, but the death rattle afterwards hadn’t been from a pig.

  And then solacing darkness had fallen around her, but this time it didn’t. And this time she kept her eyes open to never forget the face of the man who had slaughtered Papa and Mama.

  While Jasper dragged her into an empty box and pushed her deep into the straw covering the floor and stinging into her back through her Sunday’s blouse, she kept her eyes open and drunk in the long and dirty blond hair, the beautiful blue eyes with their lustful expression, the strong nose, obviously broken on several occasions, the wide grinning mouth with the yellow and black teeth and the stinking breath, the beautiful strong chin covered in a blond short shingled beard.

  * * *

  Jasper wondered that she didn’t show a single move of resistance, even lifted her butt to let him tear her skirt down, didn’t hinder him to rip up her blouse, but at the same time crossed her arms over her breasts. I love shy women.

  He laughed sneeringly. “I haven’t any interest in your baby-breasts, but…” and as it happened often in this situation a song came into his mind, one he had heard in Grantville. Yeah, that suits here. He started to sing. “Kiss me baby one more time.”

  He bent over her to do exactly this. She was still lying motionless below him and fascinated him with her nice brown eyes. He removed his hand from her mouth to get his tribute and approach her lips with his.

  * * *

  “Nein,” Marie said loudly, and forcefully cut his throat with the knife she had hidden in her bodice.

  Her father had already taught her to slaughter, before this man had killed him. And her father would have been proud for the exactness of this cut.

  She laughed, when she saw the astonishment in his beautiful blue eyes, while the blood from his veins flooded her face and her chest. Arteria carotis and vena jugularis externa, she memorized the names from her biology class.

  Now her laugh got more and more hysterical, when the situation registered in her mind. Louder and louder she laughed and cried and finally shrieked.

  * * *

  When Peter and Don ran into the stable, their hand guns ready, Marie was still lying under Hanebuth’s corpse. She hadn’t even tried to get free. She was crying and laughing.

  “Mama, I’ve done it. Papa, I’ve taken revenge for you.” Peter could understand, but then the cries started again.

  Her eyes were wandering up and down and right and left, obviously not seeing what happened.

  Peter and Don heaved the corpse from her body. No chance to take the knife out of Marie’s hand.

  Only seconds later Anna and Denyse arrived.

  Anna analyzed the situation with one look. “Raus mit euch,” she shouted. “Out, out. Let nobody come in.”

  Peter nodded.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Don said.

  “And take this piece of shit with you,” Anna added.

  Peter and Don each took an arm and dragged the corpse out of the box.

  Then Don closed the gate from the outside.

  Peter looked down at his bloody hands. Then he looked down at the bloody corpse. He saw the deep cut which extended literally from one ear to the other. His own blood started to rush along his ears.

  Another image blended over the dead body. The nearly identical memory of Marie’s father, his throat gaping wide open. Then the image of Franz blended in, the tiny hole in his chest, the astonished expression on his dead face.

  Peter didn’t notice that in the meantime he was kneeling next to the corpse. He didn’t notice that Thomas had arrived in the meantime, speaking with Don.

  For the first time another image blended in, the image of faceless people Peter had killed during the ambush at the Lech. The image of the dying soldiers on the dusty plain near Leipzig. The image of men, women and children he had seen die before he was shot down in Magdeburg.

  Peter didn’t notice the tear
s running from his face and dripping onto the dead man’s chest below him. Suddenly a hand touched his shoulder. He looked up with blurred sight, could just barely recognize Thomas standing next to him, looking down from his height.

  “That could be me,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “Everyone can die in this merciless war,” Thomas said flatly.

  “No, you don’t understand me.” Peter shook his head. “That could be me having killed Marie’s father and mother. That could be me having raped Marie. It’s more for the lack of opportunity than for the lack of willingness.

  “If I hadn’t found Anna, if she hadn’t stayed with me along this way…” He sighed deeply.

  Finale

  A stable north of Grantville

  The same day

  Suddenly the sobbing and murmur from the box changed its color. A groaning sound came through, but before the men at the outside could decide what to do, the gate opened and Denyse stuck her head out.

  Peter rose and wiped the tears from his face.

  “We need hot water, soap, and clean cloths, subito,” Denyse said.

  Peter’s jaw dropped. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Denyse said. “But your loving wife has kept the fact from you that her waters broke just during the service.”

  Peter froze. Broken waters? “What does that mean?”

  Denyse frowned. “Men! They always start the process without knowing how to bring it to an end. Your child is about to come.” She turned and closed the gate.

  Peter turned to Don. “What was that about water? Is that something bad?”

  Don grinned. “Tell me, you have no idea about childbirth. Is that your first one?”

  Peter shook his head. “We’ve lost three already. God may give them a happy resurrection. But I never attended a birth. I always came home from the daily chores and another one was there.”

  “Since Thomas has obviously sent a soldier off to get the things the women need,” Don said smiling. “Let me introduce you to the wonderful world of childbirth.”