1634: The Baltic War (assiti chards)

by Eric Flint

  Schaubach hid a smile behind a suddenly raised hand as Simpson quirked one eyebrow. The admiral simply gazed attentively at Bleckede, without once so much as glancing at the escorting cavalry and volley gun crews watching with interest as Simpson's Marine combat engineers placed the charges.

  Bleckede seemed to swell to even greater dimensions, and his face turned a remarkable shade of puce. For a moment, Schaubach entertained the hope that apoplexy was about to carry the man off-and leave the world a better place, afterward, the Magdeburger thought tartly. But he was disappointed. Instead, the baron drew a deep breath and clenched his jaw.

  "Of course I can't 'resort to force,' Admiral!" he said after a moment. "But that doesn't change the fact that-"

  "Freiherr," Simpson said, "Herr Schaubach has been attempting for months to negotiate a mutually satisfactory solution to our problem. You, unfortunately, have declined to cooperate with that effort. Well, we've run out of time, and we are going to move these ships down this river. Which, unfortunately, means that unless you wish to come with us, it's time for you to go ashore."

  "But… but…!"

  "I'm afraid this conversation is over, Freiherr," Simpson said coolly. "If you have any further points to make, I invite you to make them directly to Emperor Gustav. In the meantime, I have a schedule to keep. Lieutenant," he glanced at the uniformed, stonefaced Marine standing at Bleckede's elbow, "would you be kind enough to escort the baron ashore?"

  "Of course, sir!" the Marine replied crisply in a broad, lower-class Saxon accent. It would, perhaps, have been untactful to have dwelt upon the undeniable gleam of pleasure in the lieutenant's eyes as he turned and bowed with exquisite courtesy to Bleckede.

  "If you'll come this way, Freiherr," he invited. The baron glared at him, then started to turn back to Simpson, and the lieutenant, who was at least three inches taller than the dyspeptic, overweight, middle-aged aristocrat, took him politely but firmly-very firmly-by the elbow.

  "I'm afraid I'll have to insist, Freiherr."

  The Marine's tone was still polite, but just a bit more frigid than it had been a moment before, and Bleckede winced as the lieutenant's fingertips dug into the nerves of his elbow.

  "I have friends close to the emperor!" the baron said, rather less forcefully. "I assure you, you haven't heard the last of this, Admiral."

  "No doubt, Freiherr," Simpson agreed. "And now, good day."

  He nodded to the lieutenant, and Bleckede was escorted courteously across to the rowboat moored alongside Constitution. He climbed down into it, still spluttering like eggs frying in bacon grease, and the grinning navy sailors at the oars promptly cast off and began pulling strongly towards the shore.

  "Admiral," Schaubach said as the boat moved away, "did you enjoy that conversation as much as I did?"

  "Probably," Simpson said judiciously. "At any rate, I've been looking forward to it for quite some time."

  "As have I." Schaubach's profound satisfaction was evident, and Simpson chuckled.

  "I must confess," the ex-salt merchant continued after a moment, "that I expected him to… see reason in the end."

  "Some people are just too deeply committed to the way they think the world works to recognize the way it really does work," Simpson replied. In fact, as he was unhappily well aware, he had occasionally found himself in that particular group. "Usually, they discover their error rather… painfully," he added. And that, too, was something John Chandler Simpson knew about from personal experience.

  "Well, it may be petty of me, but I can't deny that I feel a certain satisfaction that the good baron's refusal to cooperate means he won't be compensated for his losses," Schaubach admitted, and this time Simpson's chuckle of agreement was harder and harsher.

  Freiherr von Bleckede was the owner of one of the wehrleucken. Unlike the majority of his counterparts, he had flatly refused to cooperate with the effort to get Simpson's squadron down the river. Work crews had labored through the wet and miserable winter to build temporary staustufen atop most of the existing wehrleucken. In some cases, where the owners had signed on enthusiastically to the original plan to improve navigation on the Elbe, the modifications were permanent, not temporary. In those instances, the wehrleucken themselves had been raised to the new, higher level, with much wider spillways-effectively, locks controlled by movable wooden cofferdams. Those wehrleucken were now large enough-and deep enough-to allow the gunboats passage, and their owners could anticipate substantial future revenues from the increasing trade moving up and down the river.

  Others, who had initially resisted, had capitulated when Schaubach mentioned that the emperor would be personally very grateful if they could only see their way to assisting his American allies and subjects at this particularly crucial moment. Since there had usually been at least a hundred or so of the emperor's Finnish cavalry standing rather prominently about and looking as disreputable as possible, even the most recalcitrant had generally found it within themselves to cooperate with their emperor in his time of need.

  Those individuals had watched as their wehrleucken were raised by additional staustufen. In most instances, breaking the staustufen to allow the gunboats to surf through on the resultant wave had resulted in fairly moderate, repairable damage to the wehrleucken involved. In some instances, unfortunately, the damage had been much more severe. But because their owners had cooperated, they could expect reasonable compensation for their losses. Of course, "reasonable" as defined by Gustav Adolf might not be precisely the same amount they had in mind, but it was certainly going to be better than nothing.

  And then there was that handful of individuals, like Freiherr von Bleckede, who had obstinately refused to see reason. There were no staustufen in their cases. Instead, they could anticipate visits from Simpson's demolition engineers.

  And, unfortunately, Gustav Adolf, who was a firm believer in the stick, as well as the carrot, was about to prove remarkably resistant to their demands for compensation.

  Too bad, John Chandler Simpson thought cheerfully as he turned and started up the steep ladder to Constitution's bridge once more while Captain Halberstat carefully maneuvered his command into position. He could see spectators lining the banks, and every crewman who could had come topside to watch the show, as well. Although Halberstat and the other gunboat skippers had already done it several times, shooting the gap in the dam through the flurry of rushing water and foam was going to be exciting, for both spectators and participants, and Simpson grinned at the thought. He wasn't about to admit it, but he found the experience just as exhilarating as his most junior seaman did.

  And this time, he reflected as the last of the engineers finished placing their charges and scampered for cover, it was going to be even more enjoyable than usual.

  The Oresund, near Helsingor

  "I'm none too happy with these things, Ulrik," said Baldur Norddahl. He was bestowing a very dubious look on the mine they were about to lower off the stern of the little ship into the Oresund. More precisely, a dubious look at the five flimsy-looking contact fuses that protruded from it, all of which were tied together by a thin cord. Once the mine's anchor was resting on the bottom somewhere between thirty and sixty feet below the surface, and the mine's depth was properly adjusted, Baldur would yank on the cord. That would remove the little pins that kept the fuses from being armed prematurely.

  In practice, Baldur had told the prince, the act of yanking the cord itself would set off the mine one time in six. That could produce a dangerous situation for the mine-laying ship, of course. But it was not nearly as dangerous as taking the risk of fuses that were too sensitive.

  "Don't blame you," said Ulrik. He would have added-for perhaps the thousandth time-my father and his damned enthusiasms, but in this instance that wouldn't have been fair. The king of Denmark had allowed his son to determine how to detonate the devices, since he wasn't very partial to them anyway. Ulrik had been the one to finally order this method, since it was the only one feasible in the time they
had.

  A pity, that. Ulrik had wanted to use the sort of manually controlled detonations by wire that Baldur had found in one of the copies of up-time texts. The Oresund was narrow enough here between Helsingor and Helsingborg-only three miles-that that had seemed feasible. But…

  There just hadn't been enough time. By now, Baldur's artisans understood the basic methods for generating electricity, well enough. Getting a good enough current to pass through a long wire immersed in salt water, however, had proven to be a lot more difficult than they'd anticipated.

  So, in the end, Ulrik had opted for the contact fuses. With the new percussion caps supplied to them by the French, those had been workable. Tricky-not to mention risky-but workable.

  The men handling the mine slid it into the water. Ulrik straightened up and looked across the sound at Helsingborg, on the Scandinavian mainland. The town and its fortress belonged to Denmark in this era, as it had for a very long time. At some point in the middle of this century, however, it was "scheduled" to be taken by Sweden. The prince's father was determined to see that wouldn't happen, but as time passed Ulrik himself was becoming increasingly gloomier. He wouldn't be surprised if the Swedes held it by the end of the year.

  Or the end of the summer. The young Danish prince knew that his father had been both foolish and reckless to throw his lot in with the League of Ostend. Richelieu and his assurances, bah!

  There was simply not enough time. At best, even at the relentless pace Baldur and his men had been working, they'd only have perhaps a third of this narrowest part of the Oresund protected by mines before the ironclads arrived.

  If they arrived at all, that is. Christian IV's courtiers were still assuring the king of Denmark that the foolhardy American admiral would come to ruin long before he could even reach the Skagerrak. That was possible, of course, but Ulrik had his doubts. He thought Simpson would come-but might very well avoid the mines altogether. The American admiral certainly had to be aware of the possible danger, and he'd also have figured out that the Oresund was the only one of the straits that his enemy could possibly have laid with mines. All he had to do was simply approach Copenhagen through the Great Belt. That would add many miles to his voyage, true enough-but what would that matter, if he could make the much longer voyage from the mouth of the Elbe through the North Sea, the Skagerrak and the Kattegat?

  At which point, of course, he might ignore Copenhagen altogether. At least initially. Once he exited the Great Belt, he would be closer to Luebeck than to the Danish capital. He'd probably go after the Danish fleet in the bay outside the besieged city before he came to threaten the Danish capital.

  But come he would, sooner or later; of that Ulrik had become almost certain. And if he came from the south, all the labor of planting these mines would have been useless. In the end, all they'd have would be the spar torpedoes.

  Ulrik saw that Baldur seemed satisfied with the placement of the mine. The Norwegian planted a foot on the gunwale and took a tighter grip on the arming cord.

  "Brace yourselves!" he hollered. "This is the joyous moment, boys."

  Seeing the Danish sailors around him flexing their knees-the "minelayer's stance," they called it-and grasping whatever supports stood nearby, Ulrik did the same.

  After glancing around to see that everyone was ready, Baldur gave the cord a heroic yank.

  The prince held his breath. There was…

  Nothing. Not a trace of the water column Baldur had warned him about, that could snap a ship caught by it right in half and break the legs of a man if he was standing stiffly. The fuses had been armed without being detonated.

  "And wasn't that fun?" said Baldur cheerily, coiling the lanyard as he reeled it out of the water.

  "We'd best return," said Ulrik. "My father insists that I attend the diving demonstration."

  "Another joyous occasion," said Baldur. "I wouldn't miss it for all the world."

  Ulrik could have said those sentences dripped sarcasm, but that would be inaccurate. They were saturated with sarcasm. Oozed it from every pore.

  "Yes," said Ulrik. "Not for all the world."

  He could have added my father and his enthusiasms, but there was no point. By now, as closely as they had worked together for the past few months, Ulrik and Baldur had exhausted all possible variations on that theme.

  The man being fitted into the diving suit had very pale skin to begin with, so it was hard to tell if his pallor was due in any part to fear. If that had been Eddie himself, he was sure he'd have been as white as a ghost.

  "You look very pale," Anne Cathrine said. "Are you ill again?"

  Damn the girl, Eddie would have thought, except he was long past the point where he could bring himself to curse this particular female, even to himself. How in the name of God had a sensible-well, within reason-twenty-year-old naval officer developed a crush on a fifteen-year-old? The worst crush he'd ever had in his life, to boot, even worse than the one he'd had when he was her age for Casey Stevenson, the head cheerleader at the high school.

  Maybe he just had an attraction for unobtainable women, he thought gloomily. Casey had been three years older than he, which, in the social context of a rural high school, made her no less out of his league than the princess standing next to him.

  Fine. "King's daughter." What was the difference, in this day and age? Even leaving aside the fact that she was the offspring of his sworn enemy?

  "Are you ill?" Anne Cathrine repeated, this time with more concern in her voice. "You are still weak, Eddie. And you are a bit frail to begin with."

  Oh, swell. Frail to begin with. Any moment now, Eddie, you'll be sweeping her off her feet.

  "No, I'm fine," he muttered.

  Actually, he was, relatively speaking. His stump didn't ache much anymore, he'd gotten fairly accustomed to the wooden pegleg, and he'd recovered from the illness he'd come down with for a week in February, whatever it had been. Eddie just labeled it "the medieval crud" and left it at that. If he were the king of Denmark, he'd be throwing every spare coin he had at the plumbing industry, not wasting it on a dozen grandiose military schemes-at least half of which had no serious application to warfare anyway. Not for a decade, at least.

  Like this one. Leaving aside the incredible risk to the men involved, what in God's name did Christian IV think he could do against Simpson's ironclads with a man in an old-fashioned diving suit?

  Scuba equipped divers, now, that might be a different story. Eddie knew that the French had somehow managed to get their hands on some of that equipment. The king had let that slip in one of his drunken confidences-along with his bitter resentment that the French refused to let him have any of it.

  Eddie and Ulrik had once teamed up to try to talk the king out of the diving suit nonsense. Eddie had felt a little guilty about that, since from a cold-blooded Agent 007 standpoint, he should probably have been encouraging Christian to continue with the foolish business. But…

  The problem there was that, over the months of his captivity, he'd come to be almost as fond of Ulrik as he was of the prince's half-sister Anne Cathrine. And, as bold as the prince was, Eddie was worried he might test the crazy diving suit himself.

  Damnation. He was reminded of a quip that he'd once read in a book, made by one of the great particle physicists up-time when they'd discovered a particle nobody had expected or predicted. He wasn't sure which one had made the wisecrack-Fermi, maybe, or Murray Gell-Mann-but he'd been charmed enough by the comment itself to remember it.

  Who ordered this?

  Exactly the plaint Eddie had been making silently for some time now. If Fate were to have him be captured by the enemy, what idiot ordered captors that he liked? Even had the hots for, in the case of one.

  Eddie half-glared down at the king. Eddie and Anne Cathrine were standing by the stone ledge that served as a safety barrier for the road running alongside the Oresund a few miles north of Copenhagen. Christian IV, besotted as always with mechanical contraptions, was standing below them
on the wharf right next to the pump, overseeing the whole process. Or driving the artisans nuts, take your pick.

  The truth was, Eddie even liked the Danish monarch. Except when he was drunk, at least, which was half the time. Even then, Christian was a friendly and jovial souse, not at all like the nasty bastard Eddie's father had been when he was pickled. But having grown up with an alcoholic parent, Eddie didn't drink much himself and had a low tolerance for drunkards.

  Anne Cathrine tugged on his sleeve. "You should be wearing a better coat, Eddie. It's still cold, in the beginning of April."

  He almost grit his teeth. The princess-fine, "king's daughter"-was wearing nothing more than her usual apparel. The same sort of garments she wore in the castle.

  She wasn't frail, of course. Oh, hell no. A cross between a Valkyrie and a Danish dairy maid. With the looks of the former and the constitution of the latter. All she needed was breast plates.

  Best not to think about that, though. They'd probably have to be whatever the Valkyrie equivalent of D-cups were-C-cups, for sure-and Eddie was trying to maintain his sanity and not do anything incredibly stupid and suicidal like-

  Really best not to think about that.

  Fortunately, he had a distraction. The diver was finally entering the water, carefully lowering himself into the Oresund with the help of two other men holding ropes. Even leaving aside the risk, Eddie didn't envy the poor man. That suit had to weigh a ton, and the water would be frigid. Hopefully, the first misery would offset the latter, at least to a degree.

  The man wasn't supposed to spend all that long underwater, at least. Even the king had allowed that it wouldn't make much of a test if the testee froze to death halfway through.

  "He's a brave man," Eddie said, shaking his head.

  Anne Cathrine shrugged. "Not so brave as all that. He was supposed to be executed next week. Tortured first, too, I think. Killed a man and his wife in a robbery. Our father promised him a pardon if he survived the test."

  The matter-of-fact way she said that reminded Eddie forcefully-it was easy to forget, often, around her and her half-brother-that he was not only a captive, but a captive in the miserable benighted seventeenth century, to boot. "The Early Modern Era," historians called it.