more effective way to intimidate opponents than snarling or scowling at them. Oh, I’m going to have so much fun beating the crap out of you, punk.
“Rest easy, Herr Kresse. There are only a handful of Americans in the Third Division. Granted, the commander is one of them and the division’s toughest regiment is commanded by another. But I can assure you that neither I nor Colonel Higgins is much given to doubts and hesitations.”
“Ah…”
“If it makes you feel any better, people back home thought I was probably a monster.”
Kresse’s sidekick Kuefer started laughing, then. Not loudly, but these were real laughs, not chuckles.
“Poor Georg!” He slapped Kresse on the back. “He hates having his certain notions upset.”
Kresse gave him an irritated look. “Stop clowning around.” To Mike he said: “All right, General. We will assume you will make good on your promises.”
“I didn’t make any promises, Herr Kresse. No general with half a brain makes promises, when it comes to fighting a war. What I explained to you was my intentions.” He pointed a finger at one of the windows facing north. “I intend to drive Banér out of his siege lines around Dresden. I intend to defeat him in battle if he chooses to fight. I intend to prevent von Arnim from interfering in this little civil war we’re having. And I intend to do whatever has to be done to deal with Oxenstierna, if he comes out of Berlin.”
He paused, staring at Kresse. Not quite challenging him, but close. After a few seconds, he started speaking again.
“What would be helpful here would be a discussion of the various ways you might be able to assist the Third Division in carrying out these intentions.”
Kresse nodded abruptly. “Very well. We can certainly provide you with a lot of intelligence. Not as quickly as what you might sometimes get from the air force people, but probably in greater detail.”
“Much greater detail,” said the Slovene cavalry officer, speaking for the first time since the meeting began. “The pilots can’t really tell you much except raw numbers and movement. By now, we’ve gotten to know Banér’s army quite well. It’s like most mercenary armies. Some units are excellent, many are good, as many are mediocre, and some aren’t worth dog piss. Those are the sorts of details we can provide you.”
His German was fluent and idiomatic. He seemed to have a slight accent, but that might be Mike’s ear missing a cue rather than anything Bravnicar was saying. Mike’s own German was also fluent and idiomatic by now, and he didn’t have a particularly pronounced accent. Still, it wasn’t his native language. He couldn’t necessarily tell when something that sounded like an accent was just a different dialect or regional speech pattern. Seventeenth century German was very far from being a standardized and homogenized language.
“That would certainly help. What about cutting the Swedish supply lines, if Banér comes out of the trenches?”
The Slovene cavalryman waggled his hand back and forth. “Maybe yes, maybe no. It will depend on a lot of things. Which unit is guarding the lines and the weather, most of all. Still, at the very least we can make their lives a bit miserable and force the pig to detach units for guard duty.”
“The pig,” Mike had discovered, was the term that seemed to be universally used in Saxony to refer to Johan Banér. By anyone and everyone, from Kresse’s people to street urchins.
“We can also fight in battles,” said Kresse. “But only if you are willing to make accommodations. We do not have the training or the equipment of regular soldiers.” A bit stiffly, he added: “Nor, being honest, do most of our men probably have the temperament. They’re not cowards, but…”
Mike nodded. Being a soldier in this day and age, that historical period of gunpowder warfare when the weapons were very powerful but not very accurate, posed some particular challenges. Mental challenges, most of all. A man had to be willing and able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his mates on a battlefield, exchanging volleys with an enemy at what amounted to point blank range. It required not simply courage but a sort of almost surrealistic fatalism. Mike wondered sometimes if the rise of Calvinism had been at least partly conditioned by the warfare of the era. About the only mental armor a man could take with him onto such a battlefield was a belief in predestination—and the hope, at least, that God had selected you for His