Grantville Gazette, Volume 67

by Bjorn Hasseler

  Magdeburg

  August, 1633

  "I do not understand why we are bothering," one of the lieutenants complained. "Worrying about the accuracy of matchlocks? They are like guessing where a raindrop will fall!"

  Colonel Marcus Ludendorf who was to take command of the CPE's Third Regiment merely shook his head. He had once been as young and stupid as the man talking. But eleven years of war had taught him better. If these new weapons, these SRG rifles, were as good as advertised, the young fool would wish he had kept his mouth shut. Of course, to paraphrase a comment one of the up-timers had made about a similar diatribe, “ignorance is skin deep, but plain stupid goes to the bone.”

  A young man in the blue of the NUS Army came out, marching half a dozen men. His stripes, which the NUS used to designate enlisted ranks, said he was a sergeant. He halted them facing down the field, then with a command turned them to face the targets. He stopped in front of the officers who would be commanding the regiment, turned to face them and snapped to attention, saluting. "Mein Herren, I am Sergeant Hartmann of the NUS Army. The men behind me were chosen from my trainees to demonstrate the weapons your men will be issued. Greif!" One of the men took a half step back and held out his weapon.

  "This is based on the P53 rifle used by the Army of England between 1853 and 1889. The only difference is these are modified to accept a flintlock mechanism rather than a percussion cap." He went over the specifics of the weapon, a five hundred and thirty-grain bullet driven by sixty-eight grains of powder, with a maximum range between nine hundred and one thousand two hundred and fifty yards. He handed it back to the junior sergeant.

  "Before we begin; anyone who has fired a rifle except for the twenty-two rifles I trained you with, raise your hands!" Only three came up counting Hartmann's. "Any who have fired this model of weapon, raise your hand!" He smiled when only two, his own and Greif's, came up. "Sergeant Greif is the one in charge of rifle training. The rest are trainees from his newest class. Sergeant, volley fire commands, range two hundred yards!"

  Greif turned, and step by step took the men through loading. There was a bellow of sound and smoke as six rifles went off together. Then Hartmann led the officers down to see the bullet holes in the targets.

  "Why bother?" The same lieutenant shrugged. "The fools would waste their powder; powder I would have to pay for!"

  "Lieutenant, you have been told a number of times that the weapons will be issued and powder supplied by the Emperor's supply officers," Ludendorf replied, his tone acid.

  "Still a waste."

  "When 'arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch, Don't call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch; She's human as you are—you treat her as sich, An' she'll fight for the young British soldier. Fight, fight, fight for the soldier," Hartmann intoned. At the glare from the lieutenant, Hartmann added, "in my experience with training almost anyone can learn to shoot."

  "Your experience." The lieutenant sneered. "As if you have had time to learn."

  Hartmann's face went cold. "My first battle, Sir, was at White Mountain when I was fourteen."

  "Which unit?" Ludendorf asked.

  "The Black Company of Pikes under Count Tilly."

  "So you have fought how many years?"

  "I served every year since under Count Tilly until the Battle of the Crapper near Badenburg two years ago when the up-timers broke the Red Hand."

  "As did I until Breitenfeld," Ludendorf commented, glancing at the noble-born young man, "between us, Lieutenant, we have been at war longer than you have been alive."

  The young man snorted but didn't speak again.

  As they mounted to ride to their units, Ludendorf motioned. "Your comment about weapons sounded as if you knew of what you speak, Sergeant."

  Hartmann took the book from his pocket. It was an up-time paperback. "A poet of the time when this weapon was used, Colonel." Ludendorf looked at it. He didn't read English that well, and the modern typeface made it harder. "If you leave your name with General Jackson, I will make sure you get a copy of it."

  Grantville

  October, 1633

  Richard Hartmann walked up to the shed, opening the door. On the table a terracotta pot had been turned upside down over a candle, and the room was nice and warm. Marta sat at the table, reading a letter. "Evening, love. Happy anniversary."

  She stood, kissing him, then waved the paper. "Wonderful news, Richard." At his expression, she pushed him into a chair, sitting on his lap.

  "Why are you so happy?"

  For a long moment, she said nothing. "When you put my name on the bank account, I spoke to OPM. I know how hard it is to get tobacco, so I invested about half of the money in stocks. The Higgins Sewing Machine Company, the IBM company that is making typewriters, and in getting tobacco shipped here. So this is my anniversary present to you." Then she showed him the paper.

  He looked at the numbers. If he was reading it correctly, she had increased their savings by at least one half. "We are worth how much?"

  "That is not the best." She showed him a package. A sergeant with a rifle in the blue uniform now standard for the NUS Army, with the logo Sergeant's Choice and the words Balkan Sobranie Tobacco beneath.

  "What is this?"

  "This is how the tobacco is going to be packaged. They are making thick paper that will be waterproofed, and when people go into the grocery stores, the drugstores, or the new tobacco shop, this is what they will see."

  He smiled, then opened his own pouch. The shawl was delicate, Angora wool. He draped it around her shoulders.

  Grantville

  Christmas, 1633

  Marta walked up to the Leahy Medical Center and notified the desk clerk that she had arrived. After some tests, she was ushered into a room. The table looked like a torture device, but she had put up with it before. The doctor, the Moor, examined her, then made some notes.

  "I don't need the blood tests, Marta," he commented, "you are definitely at least six weeks pregnant."

  Marta felt cold. If the doctor were correct, it would mean she had conceived around Richard's birthday. If she told him, he would be worried that whatever curse he was under would strike yet again.

  The doctor was busy with the medical file. "I am worried about your hips. You are not really in the best shape to have children," He looked up, seeing the worry in her eyes, "but if you have the child at a good hospital, here or Magdeburg, you should be all right."

  She sighed in relief. She straightened her clothes, thanked the doctor, and returned to their home. She hugged Koča, but her mood didn't improve. She could not tell him; he would worry, and she knew it would make it more dangerous for him.

  The door opened, and Richard came in, shaking the snow from his hat and greatcoat. "My love."

  She was alarmed. "What, Richard?"

  He sighed. She knew him too well. "General Jackson was asked to supply training sergeants for the CoC regiments. I have been assigned." He took her hand before she turned away, "My love, it is a billet that allows me to take you with me."

  She searched his face. "As the up-time Bible says, 'wither thou goest,' my love."

  "Good. I must leave right after New Year’s, but I wish you to be there in Magdeburg as soon as I can find a place for you to stay."

  "What of Koča?" on the floor the cat looked up from her litter of four kittens.

  "I have spoken with the landlady. She promised to feed her until we return."

  "Good."

  Grantville

  January, 1634

  Marta arrived at the Bowers facility. "Is Frau Sims in, Constance?"

  "Yeah, she is, Marta. Can I ask why?"

  "First, Richard is being sent to Magdeburg to help the CPE Army," she paused, "And I went to the medical center last month. I am pregnant."

  "Oh, wow!" The receptionist leaped up, came around the desk, and picked the smaller woman up in a bear hug. "I'll let Ruth Ann know."

  The meeting was short. Everyone would miss Marta, and she should
say her goodbyes while she had the time. Marta was worried about them. Five of the residents had died either late in the last year, or in the week since New Year’s. She was worried about Alexander McIntire. He had seemed to lose heart when John O'Malley had died two weeks before and had aged rapidly.

  He was working on something, and started to put it away, then seemed to change his mind. She looked at the object. It looked something like his pipe, but was a pristine white, and looked as if it needed work.

  "Alexander." She kissed him on the cheek. "What are you working on?"

  "I wanted to finish it last year after the wedding; then before Christmas, but you know how it is." He coughed. She was worried about it. Some of those who had died had caught what the up-timers called the flu, and it sounded as if Alexander had caught it. He held it out, and she took it.

  The bowl and stem were unfinished, but the front was. Her breath caught when she saw her own face, laughing in pleasure. "Alexander, it is beautiful."

  "Will be when I am done." He took it back.

  "Alexander, please." She touched his hand. "I am worried about your health."

  He sighed. "Like I told Bonnie the day we met. I'm going to die sooner or later. My ticket was punched the day I was born, with a death certificate attached." He took out his pipe, and she pushed him out onto the porch. "I am going to die sooner or later. These days sooner seems to be a better bet." He lit it, coughing, but gamely sucked smoke into his mouth.

  "Before we came here, I had seen the world change more than you can imagine. We went from airplanes not much behind what Jesse Wood designed to ones that could fly across the oceans between continents or flying into space. We went from guns with ranges not much better than what they have now to missiles that could kill you eight thousand miles away. Went from newspapers and radios like you know from us to communications where I could have spoken to someone in Russia or Japan by picking up my phone.

  "Now we're back in time, and a lot of what could keep me alive was left up there. But I would not have lived much longer anyway. So let go, Marta. Remember all we have had, and when you see this—" He held up the pipe he was carving. "—remember that I spent my last days and hours making sure your Richard had something to remember too."

  May 1, 1634

  Marta came down the stairs. One of the twin daughters of Frau Kaufmann ran over to help her down. Marta nodded to her in thanks, walking toward a table. The other daughter brought her a bowl of porridge with meat and spices. She ate it slowly, savoring the taste. Richard was off to wherever he had been sent, and she was worried about him, but her hand touched her abdomen. We will be here to greet him when he comes back.

  A messenger came in. "I am looking for Frau Karcher?"

  "Here."

  The man came over, setting a package perhaps five inches long by three wide. "From Grantville to you, Frau Karcher."

  She signed the receipt, then opened it.

  The pipe was in a box with a velvet-fitted frame, and she lifted it out. Her own face looked at her, and she smiled. Then she picked up the paper that had been in the box.

  "Marta, I am sad to say Alexander went into a coma the day he finished this for you and died three days later. Remember that as he had said, he did what he wished to do to the end.

  “Mary Sue."

  Marta cried. She remembered that gentle old man and could almost see him working so hard to deliver this to her. "Marta?" She looked up as Frau Margareta Kaufmann approached. She held up the note silently, and they cried together.

  Margareta wiped her eyes. "We must send it to him," she said.

  Marta caught her hand. "No, my friend. When our child breathes her or his first breath, when he has proof that God does love him, I wish to see his face." She looked at the pipe, then asked for a piece of paper. “So I will always be with you, my love, wherever you are.” She folded it and put it in the box. "When we meet, or your birthday," she whispered.

  ****

  The Monster Society: Snowbound by Eric S. Brown and A. G. Carpenter

  The snow twisted and writhed in the wind. Flakes continued to fall in a white, frozen swirl that made it difficult to see. John tugged his coat tighter about him. Even Red was shivering beneath her heavy cloak. Only Ray seemed comfortable with the weather. Between the bulk of his body fat and winter gear, John imagined he was far better off than any of the rest of them.

  "We need to hurry," Scully said. It was strange not to see Fox at her side but she had left the dog at home for once.

  John didn't know if she was speaking in character or as herself. The cold and the pain he was in were playing havoc with his ability to think.

  The plan for the afternoon had been to head up into these hills, where he had already prepared their adventure earlier in the morning, and deal with a group of aliens who were using the snow as a means to physically manifest on the earthly plane. The adventure was a throwback to Ray's epic Army of Scarecrows game which had directly inspired it. Of course, setting up the evil snowmen had been a far easier task than what Ray had gone through setting up his. John had been able to do it alone, leaving the others in the dark as to exactly how much fun lay ahead of them until the game had started. And once it had, John was quite proud of himself. All of them had an amazing time smashing the stick-fanged faces of the snowmen and defeating the evil from the stars that had threatened to overrun Grantville. But John hadn't counted on a new storm moving in or getting so carried away in the game that he had charged a group of snowmen, chanting spell after spell as he ran, only to trip and go rolling into them. The momentum of his bouncing body had carried him into the trio of snowmen he had been challenging. John had smashed into them like a human bowling ball. The snowmen had exploded in a shower of white even as John came to a stop with a sharp grunt of pain. When he had attempted to get to his feet, John's right ankle gave out beneath him and he had toppled back into the snow. Red and the others had raced to him to make sure he was okay. He wasn't.

  "You guys need to get home," John agreed with a frown. "The storm that's rolling in looks to be a bad one."

  "We aren't going to leave you here," Red protested.

  The grim expressions of determination that Scully and Ray wore told him that they were with Red. John sighed.

  "Look, I can't walk and if you all take the time to carry me, you'll never make it home before the storm gets here," John said from where he sat in the snow. He held his ankle as he talked, inwardly praying that it wasn't broken. "I'll be fine. Just go okay?"

  Scully was shaking her head. "What about that Yeti you kept talking about on the way up here? You sure made it sound like the yeti wasn't part of the game you had planned for today."

  "Actually, I called it a wudewasa," John corrected her with a grin, "But yeah, yeti does have a better ring to it."

  "She's right, John," Red said. "All of us who grew up around here have heard talk of that creature before. Weird footprints in the snow. If it's real and we leave you…"

  "It's not real," John almost screamed at them. "I was just having fun with you guys. Tell them, Ray."

  Ray blinked as John put him on the spot. "Uh, I've heard tales of the yeti in these parts, too, John. My father thought he saw it a couple years ago, coming back to the house late at night. There was a big shape in the woods off the side of the road. Tall and covered in fur. When he called out to it, thinking it was a traveler that had lost his way, it turned and crashed off into the darkness."

  John scowled. "That still doesn't mean there's a yeti out here."

  "Yeti or not, we aren't leaving you out here by yourself." Red propped one hand on her hip defiantly.

  John wanted to grab his own hair by the handfuls and yank it from his scalp in his frustration. "Stop wasting time we don't have. This arguing isn't helping any of us. I want you get on the trail back towards home and get moving. If you don't follow the tracks back to the main road…" He had deliberately picked a spot for their game he knew the others weren't familiar with, to help keep it a
surprise while he had been setting it up. But now they were a good mile from the road, and it was only a matter of time before the snow floating down out of the dark cloud overhead wiped out their tracks entirely.

  The three of them stepped away from him, huddling up in a group. John could hear them whispering but not well enough to overhear what was being said.

  When they turned to him again, it was Red who spoke.

  "Here's what we've decided to do, John," she told him firmly. "Ray and I will go get help and mark the trail as we go. Scully stays with you."

  "So we can freeze to death together? That's a fantastic plan, Red," John snarled.

  "No one is going to freeze, John," Scully argued. "We'll build a fire."

  "There's a cave back over there. Looks to be man-made." Ray pointed in the direction of a nearby rise in the midst of the winter-bare trees. "I think I remember my dad saying there were some folks who tried to mine something up here once but I don't remember what he said they were mining. Regardless, it'll keep you sheltered 'til we return."

  "In case you haven't noticed, I can't walk over there."

  Red crossed her arms on her chest with a scowl. "Scully and I can carry you that far. And it's better than sitting out here where you'll be in the midst of the storm."

  "Yetis live in caves," John pointed out, not because he really believed there was a yeti living in these parts, but show them just how dumb their plan sounded given their reasons for not wanting to leave him behind.

  Scully rolled her eyes. "And that's why we'll all be going to the cave as a group before Red and Ray head out, John." Her voice was calm and level, but left no room for further argument.

  "Fine." He held out his hand. "Help me up and let's take a look at this cave."

  Red and Scully pulled him upright and got one arm each draped over their shoulders. "Just lean on us," Red said.

  "Right." He nodded and tried to grin, but the effort of keeping his leg out of the snow so the injured ankle didn't drag was making him sweat. The girls each had one hand on his wrists to keep his arms from slipping off their shoulders, and the other hand crossed behind his back and holding his belt. He winced as he hopped along on his good leg, his trousers slowly working their way up his waist.