Hartmann chuckled, hefting the boy up into the air. "When you get older, perhaps" He poked the boy in the stomach causing him to giggle. "First, you need to get some more meat on your bones. A stiff wind would blow you away."
"Airplane!" The boy cried.
Hartmann looked to the gunsmith, who told him how to do it. So for five minutes, he held the cheerfully screaming boy by one arm and leg, spinning in a circle.
****
"I don't believe it." Cassie said, putting her arms around Bobby from the back as they watched Hartmann splitting wood and Bobby Hay grabbing the pieces to carry to the stacked cordwood. "Most of the time I think Bobby Hay just puts up with people. But you should have seen it—him in the middle of one of his tantrums, and Hartmann just knelt down, gave him that sergeant look, used that sergeant voice of his and the boy just shut up."
"No threats?"
"He didn't have to. After all, he was here for the sight and staying until just after Christmas, and that meant shooting. He just offered that if Bobby Hay behaved, he might get to take a shot. It seems he just treats a kid like a half-trained recruit and talks to them as if they were adults." She looked wistful. "It's a pity about his wife. He'd be a wonderful father."
"Well, we do have the Christmas party." Bobby looked down at her stiffened arms. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, my God. The presents!" She charged inside as Hartmann and the boy came up on the porch, setting down the last of the wood. Before Bobby could try to stop him, Hartmann was inside.
Cassie was digging frantically in the presents under the tree. She had grabbed out two, turned, and saw him watching her curiously. She looked at them, then dropped to her knees, crying silently.
"Cassandra? What is wrong?"
She looked at him, and if anything the waterworks went into overtime. The three men just looked at her. "Bobby Hay."
"Yes, Sergeant?"
"Get your mother a handkerchief."
The boy ran off, returning with the item.
"I'm sorry, Richard."
"About what?"
She held the gifts up helplessly. "I don't buy Christmas presents at the end of the year like a lot of people. I see something I think they will like and pick it up." She hiccuped, looking at him sadly. "I saw something m-Marta would have liked right after she left to join you, so I bought it. When I heard she was pregnant, I went over to the Bowers home, and Mary Sue knitted some things for…" She dropped the brightly wrapped packages and held her face in her hands as she cried.
Hartmann knelt, facing her. "And you thought I would be offended." He took out the pipe Marta had sent literally from the grave. "But she sent me a birthday present. Why should you doing this bother me?"
"But you don't keep poking at a wound!" She looked up as if seeing if he understood, then down again in her misery. "How can you heal from losing the woman you love, and the baby you never got to see if we won't let you?"
Hartmann lifted her chin. "She is with me now." He touched the bowl where Marta’s face still smiled at him. "She is part of me and will be, always."
Cassie threw her arms around his neck and cried for his loss.
****
The family decided to go to the annual Christmas party, and while he didn't feel in a holiday spirit, Hartmann went with them. The room was buzzing, and the most recent Santa was passing out presents. Unlike the second such event, the people understood better what the up-timers meant, so there were dolls, toy trucks carved out of wood, even large ones that looked like the APCs.
Cassie had spent several minutes huddled with some of the women. He shook his head. Would he have to put up with being the prize bull here as well?
Hartmann stood in the corner, watching the festivities as they cleared a space for dancing. The first song was something called the Tennessee Waltz.
Someone approached. One of the up-time women, he couldn't remember her name.
"Don't you dance, Sergeant?"
"Never learned how except for some folk dances when I was a child." He motioned toward the waltzing couples. "But nothing like that."
"And without a wife, you really have no partner." She grinned, taking his hand. "Come on, there's one dance that anyone can do. I will just do what she would have done if she were here."
Bemused, he allowed her to pull him into the dance floor. She set his hands on her waist, resting her hands on his shoulders. Then she began to move, and he followed. It didn't look like anything he had ever seen. "We call it elevator dancing."
"Ah, you do it only on the elevators like they have at the Higgins?"
She chuckled. "No, it's because you're moving, but not going anywhere." She paused, looking over her shoulder. "Damn."
"What?"
"Up-time when you want to dance with someone, but they are with a partner, you tap the one dancing to let them know you want to cut in." She glared at the woman, then stepped aside. The other woman moved in, setting Hartmann's hands on her more ample hips, and the dance continued.
This woman had barely gotten comfortable when she also flinched. Hartmann shook his head, eyes closed. "Ladies, if there is a slow dance, I will dance. But give each woman one dance unmolested, agreed?"
It seemed that the 'get the poor sergeant married again' bug had hit Grantville. All of the women he danced with had met him, and some had expressed attraction, but their actions were more to get him back in the habit of dealing with women. Except for fast songs (some of which he asked for once he found that they took requests) or when he went out to have a smoke or to join the men drinking, he spent the night dancing.
****
Christmas morning dawned over gently falling snow. Hartmann came down to find Bobby Hay waiting impatiently. "Why have you not attacked your objective?" he asked.
"We have rules for Christmas morning." Bobby Hay shook his head making the face that said they had rules for everything. "Mama and Papa like to sleep in when they can. So the first rule is I have to wait until an adult is here. The second rule—" As he said that, a sudden strident ringing interrupted. "Papa forgot the alarm again!"
There was a sudden silence, and Bobby Hollering came down in his pajamas and slippers as he pulled on his robe. He yawned and waved absently at them on his way toward the kitchen.
"Papa?"
Bobby looked back. "Thought you'd be up already." He glanced at Hartmann. "You didn't ask the sergeant for permission?"
"I was explaining the Christmas rules to him when the alarm went off." The boy marched over to the tree, picking up a box, which he brought to Hartmann. "The second rule, everyone gets to open one present before you open any more." Hartmann watched the obedient boy walk over and choose a present to hand to his father when he came out of the kitchen with a pot of tea and cups. He looked at the stairs plaintively, then went and got only one of his, which he attacked like a dieter faced with an unprotected cheesecake.
Hartmann opened his rather heavy one carefully and opened the box inside it. There was an up-time made powder flask with three narrow screw-on tubes, a box of primers, and a reloading kit.
"Made that up for you. The tubes—" He took the longest one, screwing it into the fitting on the flask, then with his thumb sealing it, flipped his wrist while pressing the spring valve at the bottom. He released it, turned it upright, and displayed the powder in the tube. "Automatically measures the right amount. Smallest one is for your pistol; largest for the load you're using now. Added the fifty grain one in case you want to try it at ninety or a hundred; just use the forty with the fifty, or a double fifty. Try it in action then decide." He pushed the valve, and the powder whispered back down into the flask.
The men sat quietly, talking. The boy hopped what looked like a Brillo doll around for the better part of an hour before Cassie came down. Before long the floor was covered in scattered paper, and as Cassie went to make breakfast, Bobby Hay obediently cleared away the mess.
Since he had orders, the next morning Hartmann packed the gifts, including the unopened
ones, hugged Cassie, shook the hands of both men, and walked into the still falling snow. Bobby Hay watched him until he was out of sight.
****
Magdeburg
Late December 1634
The snow was still falling when he arrived back in Magdeburg. Hartmann carried the bag and the rifle to his quarters, where he put down the weapon, took out the two presents, and walked to the graveyard. He poured libations, then carefully opened the one marked for the child. There was a knitted woolen blanket, a pair of booties, and a gown, all green. He smiled gently, then laid them on top of the grave. Then he opened Marta's gift.
He looked at the royal blue angora wool shawl, letting it flow through his hands before wrapping it around the stone. "Merry Christmas, my love."
He sat there for a long time, picturing a Christmas tree, Marta looking at her present, setting it around her shoulders then throwing herself into his arms. He missed her so much. Finally, he stood, walking back to the camp.
He spoke with the sentry for a moment, trading holiday greetings.
"Sergeant Hartmann!"
He glanced over at the heavyset woman walking toward him. For a moment, he wasn't sure; then he recognized Brigadier Dortmunder's wife. She came up and hand him an envelope. "My husband is having a party for the new year, just a few men he respects. You are invited to attend."
He wanted to groan. Not again! "Frau—"
"No excuses! You will be there!" She turned and bustled off.
Hartmann looked at the envelope, then at the sentry. "Do you know where the brigadier is?"
"Sergeant?"
"Just tell me." Once he knew, he walked toward the division headquarters. At the moment, he felt like a boy trying to get one parent to contradict the other.
The brigadier looked up."Sergeant?" Hartmann saluted, then held out the envelope.
Dortmunder looked at it, then sighed. "Sergeant, I spoke to my wife about you. She decided that such a brave man should have a better selection of eligible women than the merchants of this city can offer. So she arranged a brigade party for the new year, and you are one of the guests of honor." He grimaced in disgust. "As is every unmarried officer."
"Permission to speak freely, Sir?" The officer nodded. "I would rather not go to this party, Sir."
"You and I both. I did not meet your wife, but mine could teach the emperor lessons in stubbornness." The older man sighed. "We will have to survive the evening as we may."
Hartmann left the office in a deep depression. Would they never leave him alone? He heard someone calling him, and looked over his shoulder. Luftmann, who had taken Becker's place as wachtmeister was coming from the side.
"Sergeant! I was not sure you would be home in time. My family wanted to invite you to a new year's party to meet—" The man stopped talking when Hartmann raised his hand in a gesture for silence.
"If they wished to introduce me to an unmarried woman, I am no longer amused."
For a long moment, Luftmann merely looked at him. "Sergeant, my sister who is seven, wished to meet you. I have told her so much about you she almost considers you our older brother. She wished to meet you. I will tell them."
Hartmann looked at the man for a long moment as a sudden thought came to him. If he did this, perhaps the women would stop bothering him. "I will go to your family home tonight instead. I wish to talk to this girl and your parents about my problem."
****
Magdeburg
New Year’s Eve, 1634
So at eight in the evening, the party began. Every wife of the officers of the Wolverine, the Black Boar, and the newly-formed Gray Wolf Regiments had brought women they felt would be suitable as possible wives for Hartmann and the five unmarried officers.
Those other unfortunates had already arrived and were jostled into proximity when the majordomo announced in an amused tone, "Sergeant Richard Hartmann and Frau Gerta Luftmann!"
The brigadier's wife turned. The man no doubt had picked up some street beggar or harlot to make this a laughing stock. She spun, and her jaw dropped. Her husband began coughing to hide his urge to laugh.
Hartmann stood paused at the door to be introduced. Beside him stood a young girl, straight and tall, dressed in a nice middle-class dress, with her hand on the sergeant's arm. They walked in the sudden silence, and the girl was obviously both elated and terrified. But she walked with him.
Conversations began again, but Hartmann ignored the crowd as he led the girl through, pausing to introduce her to his officers. He reached Colonel Ludendorf, who was grinning. "Colonel, may I introduce Gerta Luftmann?"
"Ah, your new wachtmeister's younger sister no doubt."
The girl curtsied prettily.
"Yes. She wished to meet me, and since this was when her parents had invited me, I felt it was not fair to her to refuse."
Ludendorf introduced his wife and daughter to the young girl who acknowledged each just as gravely. "Aloyse, Veronica, perhaps you could escort the young miss to the punchbowl. I wish to talk with the sergeant for a moment."
The women took the girl in tow, leading her away.
"Now you have let the fox loose in the henhouse, Richard."
Hartmann shrugged. "Until I am over Marta's death, I see no need to look for another wife, Sir."
Ludendorf looked around at all of the women glaring daggers at his subordinate. "You know there is supposed to be dancing. How will you handle that?"
"I only know one dance, what the up-timers call an elevator dance. Anyone who wishes to dance with me will have to learn it," Hartmann said with a perfectly straight face.
"We will see how that works out. Some women will try to teach you."
****
Henrietta Friedlund stormed toward the buffet, snatching up a plate. She had seen the sergeant from a distance several times and had been attracted to him. But he had been hard to approach, and never seemed to wish to go anywhere she could encounter him more openly. Honestly, it was as if he had no use for women at all!
She had just accepted a glass of wine when she heard a voice saying, "I met his wife a few times before her death."
"You did? Please, tell us about her."
Henrietta turned slightly and saw the girl Hartmann had brought, seated with Ludendorf's wife and daughter. She was the center of half a dozen women, all of whom she knew had set their sights on the man. If being the focus of so many eyes bothered Gerta, you would not have been able to tell from her expression.
"My brother was one of the men of his unit who were always curious about the sergeant. They wondered why he lived in one of the inns rather than at the base. So they followed him one evening. They found that he had paid for the uniforms for the Wolverine camp followers out of his own pocket."
"On a sergeant's pay?"
"Oh he actually has quite a bit of money."
The women leaned forward.
"When he was living in Grantville, his wife bought pipe tobacco there, and they have been selling it for over a year now. Anyway, my brother was impressed. His wife was staying there." She sipped in the sudden awkward silence. "So Eric would go there. I asked, and he brought me, too. That was when I met Marta, but I did not meet the sergeant himself until yesterday." She started to stand to fill her cup, but a servant silently handed her a full one.
"I liked her. She was gentle and polite. She treated the men like family, and me like a sister. When they marched, I was afraid for my brother. She comforted me, even though I knew she feared for her Richard as much. She told me we were all in God's hands, and what must be would be.
"Then she died."
The girl looked down. Every woman in the now much-expanded silence could hear the tears in her voice as she continued without raising her head.
"Eric told me they were at Segeburg right before Ahrensbök when Richard was told. How something seemed to have died inside him. But he had his duty to his men. He could not come home until they did. So he stayed, and the brave charge?" She looked up. "It was a man wan
ting to die to join his love. When he charged, his men could not let him die alone. They loved him—they loved her that much.” She began to cry again. “He still loves her. He visits her grave every day to talk to her as if he were just a man coming home from work. Some people in Grantville had bought presents for her and the baby before her death, and he draped the shawl they had given her over the stone. And the baby clothes, the blanket…” Veronica hugged the girl as she cried.
Henrietta looked at the small plate, then set it down. She looked at the other women, all with varying looks of embarrassment. We are like carrion crows over a battlefield, dropping on one corpse and trying the eyeballs. She looked at the sergeant, so composed, dealing with the officers who had surrounded him almost like a palisade to protect him. He deserves the time to heal. And by God, I for one will make sure he does.
While she didn't know it, every one of those women had come to the same conclusion.
The dancing began, but Hartmann was left alone as he led her onto the floor. Other dancers gave them a wide berth so everyone could watch. She did dance that odd elevator dance with him, her eyes shining as if she were the guest of honor, and the chastened women watched the sad man doing his duty yet again.
Aloyse walked out as the first dance ended. "Richard, may I introduce Henrietta Friedlund of Quidlenburg? Henrietta, this is Richard Hartmann, the senior sergeant of the Wolverines." They bowed to each other.
Henrietta knelt. “May I have your partner for one dance, my dear?”
Gerta looked to Hartmann. “Yes. But he has promised to dance with me again.”
Aloyse led her back to her seat.
"You are from Bohemia?" Hartmann nodded. "Some of us have been taking lessons in up-time dances at the Imperial School of Ballet here in Magdeburg. One dance we learned is an Austrian dance called the Ländler."
“I do not know it.”
"Then with the permission of your partner, we will watch before we dance." They stood side by side. As with most things introduced by the up-timers, some of the people embraced the dances, especially the waltz. After watching them dance it twice, Hartmann allowed himself to be brought onto the floor as they began another. Slowly, with a lot of confusion on his part, they were able to go through the dance. At one point, his face grew sad. She moved closer over their crossed arms; hands pressed together. "I do not mind if you see your wife in my place. She cannot be here, so imagine it is her," she whispered.
Grantville Gazette, Volume 70 Page 8
