1637 The Polish Maelstrom

by Eric Flint

  The reason he’d ordered the caracole, however, was that having two thousand cavalrymen seeming to threaten a barbican was a splendid way of distracting the relatively small number of defenders while someone else did the actual seizing.

  * * *

  Coming around another corner, Eric Krenz immediately saw the barbican, which was now less than fifty yards away. The silent curses he’d bestowed on the crooked street they’d been charging down—using the term “charging” very loosely; because of the narrow confines it had been more like a brisk walk—turned instantly into celebration. That same crooked and curving nature of the street which had slowed them down also meant that they hadn’t been spotted yet.

  From the din of gunfire he knew they’d had the additional benefit of von Mercy conducting the diversion Eric had asked for. Thankfully, von Mercy was one of those rather few down-time commanders who’d taken to radio quickly and easily.

  He saw no reason to dilly-dally. “Charge!” he shouted, racing forward while waving his quirt in a manner that would have intimidated a few draft horses and not one bull in creation.

  * * *

  “Sergeant Kozłowski!” shouted the sentry who’d been stationed to watch the city side of the barbican. He’d been given the assignment because he was the youngest and least experienced soldier in the unit.

  There seemed to be thousands of enemy soldiers rushing toward him. All of them wearing that monotonous gray uniform that rumor said they would, if they were from the United States of Europe. They might even be from the now famous—notorious, in Polish circles—Third Division.

  “Sergeant Kozłowski!”

  * * *

  Kozłowski hadn’t survived two decades of war by being an improvident fool. The use of a white flag to signal surrender had been common practice in Europe since the Middle Ages. He’d quietly made sure he had two stashed away on a shelf in the barbican once the rumors of an enemy advance had become more solid than the mist of which such rumors were usually made.

  By the time he got a white flag draped outside one of the narrow gun slits—archers’ slits, originally—the USE sappers had already blown the gate off its hinges and he could hear them storming into the barbican itself.

  “Quickly, Jerzy, quickly!” the sergeant said to the young sentry. Pointing to the closed door that led down to the base of the structure, he added: “Open it! But keep to the side!”

  Jerzy was frightened half out of his wits, but only half. He still had enough self-control to swing the door inward while keeping out of sight of anyone who might be charging up the stairs.

  The second white flag, like the one Sergeant Kozłowski had already spilled out of the gun slit, was really just a linen bed sheet—and grimy enough that it was only “white” by courtesy. There being no place to hang it in the narrow confines of the barbican’s staircase, he just draped it over the stairs themselves.

  Then, followed Jerzy into a corner of the guard chamber where they’d be spotted as soon as anyone entered—it would most likely be fatal to try hiding anywhere—but weren’t within sight of soldiers charging up the stairs. Those were likely to shoot first and figure out whether they’d needed to afterward. And not caring a lot either way.

  “Raise your hands,” he told Jerzy, doing the same himself. Spotting one of the other sergeants sticking his head into the chamber, shouted: “We’re surrendering! Just do it!”

  The sergeant disappeared. That was Nicolai, who came from somewhere east of Warsaw. A good fellow, not given to stupid nonsense. There was no way they could fend off what was coming at them. He’d see to it the rest of the unit guarding the barbican would behave sensibly. Like Kozłowski himself, Nicolai had volunteered to join the garrison because it was sleepy duty, and quite a bit safer than farming. No one had attacked Kraków in a long time.

  * * *

  The first man who came into the chamber was younger than Kozłowski would have expected, given the insignia on his gray uniform. If the sergeant remembered what he’d heard correctly—and assuming the rumors themselves were true—the gold oak leaves on the man’s shoulders indicated he was a major. And the insignia on his cap confirmed that he was an officer in the USE Army. It was a simplified version of the crossed bars on a red field.

  The officer glanced at him and Jerzy, just long enough to be satisfied they posed no danger. Then, looked at the open doorway that led up to the top level of the barbican.

  “Am I going to have to kill anybody?” he asked in German with a pronounced Saxon dialect. His tone of voice was quite pleasant, which made the words that much more menacing. So might a butcher inquire if his customer wanted the ham whole or sliced.

  Kozłowski knew German well enough to respond in the same language. Cluster of dialects, it might be better to say. He’d learned his version from Silesians. “No, sir! Everyone is surrendering.”

  He turned his head slightly and shouted in the same language: “Captain Gomółka! Your presence is required!” The captain knew enough German to understand the summons.

  The seconds went by, with Kozłowski getting more worried with each one. Surrendering in the middle of a battle was always a tense undertaking. He’d had to do it twice before in his military career. On one of those occasions he’d come very close to being summarily executed by his captors. Next to him, he could sense young Jerzy trembling, followed by the unmistakable smell of urine.

  “Haw! Look at that!” jeered one of the USE troops.

  “Shut up, Baurer,” said the young major. His tone now was not pleasant in the least. “He’s just a kid.”

  Kozłowski would have sighed in relief, except he was too intent on remaining expressionless. A man as young as this major who was both calm and given to kindness was not the sort who’d kill someone unless he had to—which he certainly didn’t here and now.

  Finally, someone came down the stairs. It was Nicolai, though, not the captain.

  “This is the unit’s senior sergeant, Nicolai Korczak,” Kozłowski explained. To Nicolai, he hissed in Polish: “Where’s Gomółka?”

  “In the toilet, drinking vodka and probably shitting his pants,” was the answer.

  Useless as always. Kozłowski cleared his throat and switched back to German. “Ah, the commanding officer is, ah, indisposed.” He wasn’t sure he was pronouncing “indisposed” properly, but from the immediate grin that appeared on the major’s face he’d apparently come close.

  “As officers so often are,” said the major. “Where is the best place to keep the lot of you in captivity?”

  “Ah… Well. Upstairs, I suppose. That’s where we mostly spend our time when we’re on duty.”

  “Upstairs it is, then.” The officer waved one of his men forward. Not the one who’d ridiculed Jerzy. “Go up there and take their surrender, Sergeant Seiler. Take three men with you. Collect all their weapons—everything including whatever knives you find—and bring them down here. The weapons, I mean. We can leave the prisoners up there for the time being.”

  His expression grew darker. The distant sound of gunfire was swelling quickly. Somewhere in the city, a battle had started. “I have to go. Baurer, find Lieutenant Unger and tell him I’m leaving his platoon in charge of the barbican and the prisoners. The rest of us will head for the market square.”

  The soldier started down the stairs. The major turned back to Kozłowski. “As long as you give us no trouble, no harm will come to you.”

  And off he went. Finally, Kozłowski breathed the sigh of relief he’d been holding in.

  * * *

  By the time the 20th Battalion reached the central square, the Polish garrison had had time to regroup. They had snipers positioned in many of the windows of the Cloth Hall, and had what looked like almost a full regiment—call it eight hundred men—assembled in formation in the square itself. They had artillery, too: three cannons lined up in front of the infantry. Four-pounders, they looked like. If the officers in charge were competent, they’d have them loaded with canister.


  Jeff did a quick estimate of the distances involved. The square as a whole was almost the size of ten football fields, but the distance from the place where his battalion had debouched out of the street they’d been following to the assembled enemy force wasn’t more than a hundred and fifty yards.

  He and his men could cross that, certainly, even in the face of canister fire. But they’d suffer terrible casualties. There would be no cover at all.

  “Screw that,” he said. He now glanced around at the nearby buildings fronting on the square. Most of them were three stories tall and had two windows on each floor. The windows were wide enough for two riflemen.

  “Skirmishing fire, that’s the ticket.” Quickly, he issued his orders and squads began racing off. To the rear, not into the square. They’d be able to break into the buildings from the back side, drive out the residents and take positions in the windows. All told, he’d have about fifty men able to fire at one time. That was far fewer than the soldiers who’d be firing back, but his men had breech-loading rifles which were accurate within several hundred yards and could fire ten to twelve rounds a minute. Even the main Polish army in the north didn’t have guns that good, and he was sure the garrison down here in Kraków was even less well armed.

  The H&K rifles would foul after a short while, since they were firing black powder. But while they were being cleaned and readied for use again, other men could have taken a place in the windows. He was sending three full companies into those buildings. They could maintain a continuous fire for at least an hour.

  Jeff doubted very much if men standing in formation out in the open would hold up for long under that kind of fire. And the cannon wouldn’t do them much good, even after they got them realigned to fire on the buildings. His men could take shelter when the enemy artillery cut loose, and four-pounders would take forever to reduce those buildings.

  Speaking of artillery…

  “Where the hell are our mortars?” he demanded. He waved at one of his couriers. “Go find them and tell them to get a move on. I want them here, dammit.” They couldn’t possibly be far enough away to require radio communication.

  The Polish troops in the square were starting to fire. Those were just nervous shots by individual soldiers, but it wouldn’t be long before the garrison’s officers ordered the cannon to open fire. At this distance, canister would wreak havoc on any men who’d come out into the square.

  “Pull back!” he shouted. “Now!”

  Within half a minute, the Polish artillery started firing, but by then Jeff had all of his men back into the street they’d come down and out of sight. The canister didn’t do anything more than chew holes in the adjoining buildings. Small holes. The kind you could still see in the up-time world he’d come from, pockmarking the walls of French villages which had the misfortune to be caught between German troops and the Allied invaders following D-Day. Jeff had seen photographs of them.

  A minute or so later, he could hear the sound of his own troops beginning to fire from the windows in the buildings fronting the square. Within another minute, the fire had become continuous.

  That had to be a slaughter out there. The Polish troops in the square were completely exposed and while the snipers in the Cloth Hall had shelter that wouldn’t do them much good if they tried to shoot anything. To do that, they’d have to get into their windows, and the USE’s snipers would have them completely outclassed.

  For a moment, he considered going into one of the buildings so he could see the action himself. But he stifled the urge. He had good company commanders and he needed to stay here where he had his radio operators.

  Two minutes later, the first mortar crews arrived.

  “About time,” he growled. Not loudly, though, because he knew he was being unfair. Even 3.5-inch mortars were hard to move when you had to carry them by hand. Each one weighed close to two hundred pounds, although they could be broken down into three parts: tube, bipod and base plate. The ammunition wasn’t what you’d call lightweight, either.

  The first two mortar crews set up in the nearest intersection to the square, well out of sight of the Polish troops in the city center.

  “Indirect fire, that’s the ticket,” Jeff murmured. More loudly, so the crews could hear him: “Set your range for two hundred yards and we’ll go from there.”

  One of the radio operators came up. “Sir, Captain Foerster wants to talk to you.”

  Jeff took the receiver. “What is it, Steffan?” Once again, he forget to say “over.”

  “They’ve broken, Colonel. All of them are trying to get into the Cloth Hall. They abandoned the cannons, too. Over.”

  “All right. Stay where you are for the moment. Provide us with suppressing fire.” He didn’t add while I figure out what to do next, since that would be unseemly. The DM always knew what came next.

  He did remember to say “Out,” though.

  * * *

  In the event, Jeff didn’t have to figure out anything. Less than thirty seconds later, gunfire started erupting from somewhere catty-corner in the square. Eric must have arrived with elements of the 19th Battalion, which meant they’d captured the other barbican and—

  Sure enough. He peeked around the corner and saw Bohemian cavalrymen pouring into the square. Within less than a minute, they’d started a caracole, firing at the Cloth Hall.

  Fortunately, the first mortar bombs landed far away from them. The crews had misjudged the range by at least a hundred yards and they were landing too far to the south.

  He’d have to put a stop to their fire, though. So long as von Mercy kept his men in the square, they would be at risk of being hit by friendly fire. He’d let the caracole go on for a while. As a straight-up tactic, it was pretty useless. But by now, Jeff’s guess was that the garrison was on the verge of surrendering anyway. Having the square filled with cavalrymen blasting away at the Cloth Hall was bound to have a discouraging effect on the enemy’s morale.

  * * *

  Sure enough. After another minute or so had gone by, the first white flags started spilling out of the windows in the Cloth Hall.

  “So Kraków is ours and fairly won!” he announced loudly. It was a catchy phrase. He saw no reason to explain that he’d swiped it from William Tecumseh Sherman.

  The DM was a fount of catchy phrases. Everyone knew that.

  Chapter 24

  Poznań

  Poznań Voivodeship

  Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

  By now, after hours of negotiations spread out over several weeks, Jozef had come to recognize Walenty Tarnowski’s little tics—“tells,” to use the American idiom. The young man might be a brilliant mechanical engineer, but he’d make a terrible poker player.

  “All right,” Walenty said, rubbing his jaw. That mannerism indicated that he’d come to a decision and the vigorous way he was doing it suggesting it was a big decision. Jozef hoped so. Tarnowski didn’t dither, exactly. He just insisted on taking days to ponder every issue they’d taken up. Negotiating with him was like being in a version of Hamlet where the prince of Denmark’s inability to make up his mind was not so much due to indecision as it was to the need to decide sloooooooowly.

  Thankfully, it was now at an end, as the next words made clear. “All right,” he said, “we’ll do it. But!”

  He held up a cautioning finger. “I want your assurance that you will do everything in your power to see to it that Jagiellonian University creates a department of advanced mechanics—with full accreditation, mind—and that I am put in charge of it.”

  Jozef nodded, trying his best to make the gesture sage rather than irritated. “Yes, we’ve already agreed to that.” About a dozen times. At least.

  Tarnowski had started by trying to get Jozef to guarantee such a department would be created and Tarnowski put in charge of it, but Jozef had flatly refused. “I don’t have that authority,” he’d told him. “And you must know it yourself. What I can guarantee is that I will push strenuously for it and my
opinion carries considerable weight with the people who will decide.”

  Tarnowski’s expression had been skeptical. “Meaning no offense, Jozef, but I doubt if any member of the university’s faculty has even heard of you.”

  “I’m quite sure they haven’t,” Jozef had said, smiling wolfishly. “So what? They won’t be able to resist the decision if the new secular authorities make it, which they will be very inclined toward anyway. Our cause will be outnumbered for quite some time. We need to gain a technological advantage and retain it.”

  Again, he smiled wolfishly. (So he hoped, at least—but he was an accomplished smiler, as you’d expect of a spy.) “And how better to do that than creating a center for advanced mechanics in our new capital—and in Poland’s premier university, to boot.”

  Now, Tarnowski got that mulish expression on his face that he did so well. “I will raise again the issue of who should be the driver—”

  “No,” said Jozef. He was echoed by Mark Ellis. Christin’s contribution was to roll her eyes—but the violation of diplomacy went unnoticed by its target because Tarnowski wasn’t looking at her.

  “No,” Jozef repeated.

  “Walenty, be reasonable,” said Mark. “You have no experience with either driving a motor vehicle or using a manual transmission. And this will be no time to learn on the job.”

  Tarnowski started to say something, but Ellis rode over him. “And please don’t tell us again how you’ve driven the truck on occasion. That was inside the city’s very constrained limits, and you never got it out of the low gears. Whereas we’ll be driving at the highest speed we can manage, much of it off-road. I’ll do the driving, thank you. As you know, I have quite a bit of experience driving multi-axle trucks.”

  Tarnowski glowered at him. For the first months of his captivity, Mark had pretended he knew nothing about automotive matters, being a civil engineer. Merely a civil engineer, he’d put it, playing into Walenty’s existing prejudices. Only after their relationship grew close had Mark explained to the Pole that in point of fact he knew a great deal about cars and trucks. His father had owned a garage in which he’d worked off and on since he was twelve years old. He’d also spent three summers driving a three-axle flatbed while putting himself through Fairmont State University.