1636： The Saxon Uprising ARC - By Eric Flint Page 0,123

obviously. Next to them stood a group of worried-looking civilians.

Very worried, apparently. They were up early. The sun was just above the horizon. Colonel Wood and Mike had taken off from the airfield at České Budějovice at the crack of dawn, as soon as there was enough light to fly.

“Since Jesse had come by for a visit, I figured I might as well fly up here ahead of the division.” Mike turned back to look up at Colonel Wood, who hadn’t gotten out of the cockpit of the Gustav. “You coming in?” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the engine, which the colonel hadn’t shut off.

Jesse shook his head. “No!” he shouted back. “I don’t know how long this clear weather will last!”

Mike waved a farewell and moved away from the plane, which began taxiing back onto the runway.

“Who’re the civilians?” he asked.

“Merchants and tradesmen. They’re fretting on account of the Hangman left town. Most of the regiment, anyway. They’re worried what’ll happen to business.”

“For a while, it’ll drop. No way around that. Afterwards, who knows?” Mike gave the quartermaster officer a grin. “We may all be dead. Well, except you and the detachment I leave behind.”

Bartley looked unhappy. “About that, sir…”

“No, David. N. O. Under no conditions, under no circumstances, am I taking you with me.” He clapped a friendly hand on the young man’s slender shoulder. “You’re ten times more valuable here than you’d be anywhere else. Unless your progress reports are a pack of lies, anyway.”

“Uh, no, sir. They’re not. But—”

“Which letter in ‘n-o’ is giving you the most trouble, Captain? You’re the best quartermaster in the army, hands down. And I’m about to launch a campaign in the middle of winter against one of the most capable and experienced generals in the world. One of the few things I’ve got on my side is that I’m damn sure I’m going to be better supplied and provisioned than Banér—so long as you’re handling the logistics. That means you stay here until we take Dresden. Assuming we get that far, of course.”

Again, he gave Bartley that somewhat savage grin. “But I suppose I don’t need to worry that my army will freeze to death before we get to Dresden, do I?”

David looked glum. “No, sir, you don’t. You won’t starve, either.” He nodded toward the town. “I’ve got enough winter outfits in the warehouses for the whole division, with a couple thousand suits to spare and at least that many extra pairs of boots. There are only enough skis and snowshoes for a couple of battalions, though.”

“That’ll be enough. I’d just be using them as scouts in really bad weather.”

“And enough food and water to keep you going for a month.”

“Wagons? Sleighs?”

“Plenty of both.” Bartley smiled. “The most worried-looking of those gents over there is the guy who made them. He just had the biggest boom of his life.”

“Well, then, I’d better go talk to them. A happy and secure base is always a big asset.”

Mike did a much better job of cheering up the merchants and tradesmen than David could have done. Bartley was handicapped by having the mind of a financier and quartermaster. Precise numbers, predictable outcomes, sure bets—those were his stock in trade. Watching one of the world’s best politicians at work was simultaneously dazzling and disturbing.

When it was over, David still couldn’t figure out how many lies Mike had told them. If he’d told them any at all. Politicians seemed to operate in an alternate universe where concepts like cause and effect, action and result, premise and conclusion, had at least eleven more dimensions than they did in the workaday world inhabited by normal human beings.

“That’s what they mean by ‘campaign promises,’ isn’t it? Uh, sir.”

“Yup.” The grin came back. “Think of it as a promise that you’ll campaign to make it happen. Now, show me these winter outfits. I’m dying to see the things, after hearing the reports.”

David was awfully proud of them, in point of fact. He was something of a military history buff. He’d designed the outfits himself—well, allowing for a whole lot of input from actual tailors—based on what he remembered of the telogreika, the padded winter jacket that the Soviet army had used in World War II. That had been one of the great advantages the Russians had had over the Nazis.

Most of the outfits were gray, but he’d had about two thousand done in white for camouflage. The Hangman Regiment had taken almost half