1636： The Saxon Uprising ARC - By Eric Flint Page 0,153
not more than a mile from the trenches the Swedes had dug.
Jozef came to a decision. “Now,” he said. “We should sortie now.”
Krenz and Nagel looked at each other. “Are you sure?” asked Eric.
“No, of course I’m not sure. I wasn’t expecting a battle to start in the middle of a fucking storm. That must have been your general’s doing. He’s insane, by the way. But now that he’s gone and done it, we should take advantage of the opportunity.”
He leaned over the railing, pointing to the south—his arm angled downward. He was actually pointing at the enemy’s siege lines, which couldn’t be seen because of the snowfall.
“We should seize their own lines now, before they can retreat back into them.”
“If they retreat back into them,” said Friedrich, a bit dubiously. “I thought the idea was to wait until we knew they were coming back.”
“Yes, it was.” Jozef was suddenly sure of himself. “But they will, they will. If your blessed general was mad enough to attack them in the middle of a storm, he’s mad enough to drive them back into their lines. So let’s be there to deny it to them, shall we?”
Krenz and Friedrich looked at each other again.
“He’s got a point,” said Eric.
“He’s right about Mike Stearns, too,” said Gretchen. “I won’t tell you what to do. I’m not a soldier and don’t pretend to be one. But I think Wojtowicz is right.”
“Okay, then,” said Nagel. “Let’s be about the mad business.”
If nothing else, the noisy labors of Denise and Minnie had expanded the hiding place in the root cellar enough for all three of them to fit into it.
Barely.
There would have been room to spare, though—that racket had gone on for days—if a third of the space hadn’t been taken up with barrels.
“What…?”
Minnie pointed to the one Noelle’s arm was lying across. “That’s got food in it. The two you’re crammed against on the other side are water barrels. And these two”—she patted the two barrels stacked on her left—“and the two over there by Denise—”
Her friend brought up a…fuse?
“These are the gunpowder barrels,” Denise said cheerfully. “If those fucks find us and want some excitement in their lives, they’ll get it for sure. Pussy kaboom.”
Noelle made a face. “That is so gross.”
“Not as gross as the alternative,” Minnie said phlegmatically.
“Well. No.” She stuck out her hand. “But I keep the fuse. The two of you are too—too—too—”
The teenagers were grinning at her now.
“Too too-ish,” Noelle finished lamely.
Chapter 47
The Saxon plain, near Dresden
Jeff finally caught up with the volley gun company just after they fired their fourth volley. By now, so far as he could tell—which was not much—they were mostly shooting at shadows. Whatever enemy they’d been facing seemed to be on the run.
“Next time, wait,” he growled at Thorsten.
Engler gave him a cold smile. “Yes, sir. It’s difficult, though, as slowly as the infantry moves.”
“Very witty, Captain. My better half is amused. My other half, though—that’s the one in charge right now—is not. If I have to get official and make it an order, I’ll do it. Next. Time. Wait. How’s that?”
Engler nodded. “Not a problem, sir. Honestly, we had no intention of getting separated. By the time we realized it…”
Jeff waved his hand. “Yeah, I know. By then, you’d come upon the foe and, being volley gun maniacs, he was yours for the taking. Also for the official record, my congratulations. Whoever you were fighting, you obviously pounded them into dog food. Now let’s see about moving forward. Do you have any idea where the rest of the division is, by the way?”
Not until Jeff spoke the last sentence did it occur to him that he might fairly be accused of the same fault for which he’d just criticized Engler. Just as the volley gun battery had done with its regiment, so the Hangman had gotten separated from the other regiments and…
Done what, exactly? Where the hell were they? Ahead of the division? Behind it? Off to the side? If so, which side? They couldn’t very well be to the east of the division, because they’d been over by the left flank when the attack began.
He started chewing on his lip.
“If you’ll permit me the indiscretion, sir…”
Jeff gave Engler a sour look. “The formality’ll kill me, just from shock. Spit it out, Thorsten.”
“I really don’t think there’s much chance we’re anywhere except in front of the rest of the division, sir.”