Conrad Starguard - Conrad's Quest for Rubber Part 17

Chapter Twenty-Three

From the Journal of Josip Sobieski WRITTEN JANUARY 17, 1250, CONCERNING JUNE 5, 1249.

IN THE morning, after ma.s.s and the recitation of our Army Oath, Maude and I breakfasted, and I armed myself. Since I felt there was no possibility of any fighting taking place, I left off my leg armor.

The combination of wearing infantry armor and riding in a saddle for two days had left parts of my posterior blistered where it wasn't bleeding.

Lord Conrad noticed my less-than-complete uniform and asked me why I was breaking general combat orders during what was st ill, officially, an alert. When I explained, he ordered that I see the battalion's armorers and get fitted for a set of the new cavalry armor.

I found the armorers with nothing much to do that day, except to sort out battered, b.l.o.o.d.y enemy armor and decide what should be sc.r.a.pped, what repaired, and what saved as souvenirs. Given the chance to do honest work, they all jumped at it, and soon I had a dozen of them working in my cause.

They never let me leave their camp for more than a few minutes, as they took a set of standard heavy stampings from their storage boxes and cut, filed, and fitted them to my body.

Three seamstresses were soon at work, taking the partially finished sections of a summer gambezon from storage. They were cut oversized, with only half the seams sewn. Soon they were tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and sewing them into a new garment for me, to suit the armor. Small pieces of chain mail were sewn on, covering the armpits, the insides of the elbows, and the backs of the knees, where the armor plates could not protect me.

I was surprised that I had no protection for my lower b.u.t.tocks and my privy members below the belt, but I was told that when mounted, the saddle would keep those parts protected.

I said that my Big Person had not come with a saddle with that high of a cantle. Their response was to issue me a chit that got me a new, Wolves-style saddle, with built-in holsters for two submachine guns and a rifle.

Nonetheless, I resolved that someday soon I would get myself an armored skirt to wear in case I had to fight on foot. If I had to, I'd pay for it myself!

Most helmets have one piece that protects the top, back, and sides of the head, and a separate visor to protect the face. My new helm was just the opposite. The front, top, and sides were of a piece, and the back hinged up to let you in.

By late afternoon, an astoundingly short period of time, I was gloriously arrayed in the latest style of personal protection. They even found time to polish the plates, giving them the mirror finish so prized by the old n.o.bility.

I lacked only the panache of gray plumes worn by the Wolves to look like one of their number, and I found myself wondering where I might possibly buy some plumes of some other color. Perhaps red.

I strutted proudly back to our tent, thinking that Maude might be impressed, but I was disappointed. She thought of wearing anything but one's own skin as being silly, smelly, and scratchy. Ah, well. You can't please everybody. I wasn't bothered. In all events, I thought that I looked beautiful.

One night I asked Maude how, just before the battle, she had managed to get from my lap to Silver's rump without my seeing her get there.

"I jumped."

I asked why I hadn't seen her move.

"I jumped quickly, when you blinked. It's how you move in combat. You wait until people blink, or look in another direction, then you move quickly."

I said that I was amazed.

"Would you like me to demonstrate it for you?"

I said that she could do it later. For now, it wasn't worth getting out of bed for.

Looking at Maude, admiring the lovely curve of her hip, and flank, and breast, I mumbled something to myself about the Lilies of the Field. She heard me, and asked what I was talking about.

I said, " 'And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say to you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.' " I told her that it was from Jesus Christ's Sermon on the Mount.

I'm not a Bible scholar, but that one has always stuck in my head. And how could any young man resist the chance to impress his love?

"Yes. That is exactly right. Christ would always know what is best. We should not care about our raiment," she said, and continued in her nudity.

Maude had a perfect memory, and after that she would quote those verses of Matthew whenever anyone objected to her lack of coverings. When I said that she had to look at these words in context, she wouldn't consider it. Christ had spoken, He could not possibly be mistaken, and that was that.

I began to understand the saying about how a little knowledge was a dangerous thing, and why the Church does not encourage laymen to read the Bible.

When I asked her to please not argue with the bishop about religion, she asked what a bishop was, and we were promptly into another long, one-sided conversation.

From the Diary of Conrad Stargard JUNE 5, 1249.

I spent the day preparing to invade a major part of the Holy Roman Empire. Ordering up six more battalions of infantry was the easy part. Harder was the fact that our infantry could not move efficiently without a railroad going where they wanted to go. You see, our equipment and tactics had all been designed with defending the country in mind. Until recently, very little work or thought had gone into offense.

Units like the Wolves could go anywhere fast, as much as four gross miles a day, but we only had a single company of them.

A platoon of men could pull their war cart six dozen miles a day when they were rolling on steel rails. With some men pulling and some men sleeping, they could go around the clock. Averaged out, they were much faster than the enemy's conventional cavalry.

Put the same platoon on a good conventional road, and the best they could do was about two dozen miles, since it took all of them, pulling hard, to move the heavy thing on a dirt surface. There was no possibility of rolling around the clock.

The existing roads from Lubusz to Brandenburg were not very good, and in some sections it was doubtful if a single platoon could make a war cart move at all!

We had to get our infantry into Brandenburg, and once there, we needed to give them some mobility.

Then, we not only had to take and to occupy Brandenburg-an area of about six thousand square miles-we had to bring it into our system, and fast!

If the conversion went quickly and smoothly, the bulk of the Slavic-speaking population would be eagerly on our side, and the former conquerors would be dispirited.

If we let the German-speaking minority have time to organize itself, we could see factional fighting and guerrilla warfare for many years.

Worse yet, in my old time line, Brandenburg had joined with Prussia to form the state that was the political basis of modern Germany and the cultural basis of the n.a.z.i party. These were the people with the strutting jackboots, and the firm belief that all other peoples were subhuman, untermensch. I wanted to make sure that the thing didn't happen in this time line.

Making Brandenburg a part of Poland meant bringing in our schools, with their general stores and their post offices. It meant bringing in our farming methods, our seeds, and our farm machinery. It meant bringing in our uniform measurement system, our monetary system, and our judicial system.

All of which involved a lot of travel and transport.

There was nothing for it but to build railroads. Lots of railroads. Quickly.

What I was planning was to be one of the fastest construction projects in army history. Everything else in the entire nation would be made subordinate to this single project. Every bit of materials and manpower, anything that could be of use, would be rushed to Lubusz. No matter what project had to be put on hold, no matter where else the materials were needed, no matter what the men would rather be doing, the new rail line to Brandenburg came first.

Our existing rail lines were placed defensively, on the east bank of the Odra. A pontoon bridge would be thrown across the river at Lubusz, which would stay in business until a real, masonry bridge could be finished, or until the thaw next spring took it out.

Surveyors were to be out in droves, preparing the way for hundreds of crews of construction workers. A forest of trees would be felled to clear the right-of-way, and were to be just as quickly ripsawed into railroad ties, bridge trusses, and siding platforms. Demolit ion teams would be blowing out tree stumps wholesale with gunpowder, followed by thousands of men who would be out with picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows, leveling the roadbed.

Every horse and wagon we had taken from the invaders would be in use, as well as every additional bit of equipment we could get our hands on.

While all this intensive work was going on, the Eagles would keep their planes high above us, searching for any hostile move, and the Wolves would be patrolling our borders, sniffing out any enemy action.

We figured to lay three miles of track in the first week, and ten more miles of it on the day after. Once we got rolling, we hoped to be in Brandenburg in ten days, and two months later we would have a perimeter defensive road around the entire province.

Experienced Polish farmers who wanted more land would be recruited to move into every town and large village in Brandenburg, mostly on land once owned by the soldiers who had just tried to invade us. We would equip them with the best seeds, the newest machinery, and the new fertilizers.

Once the locals" saw the kind of crops they brought in, they'd be lining up to get with our system.

A construction platoon would get to town, and in two days a schoolhouse would be completed. It would have a windmill that pumped water from a new tube well up to a cistern on the roof, indoor plumbing with hot water, and a septic system. This technology was far ahead of what the people in Brandenburg had ever seen, and it should impress them considerably.

Each of our schools had a general store that sold a wide variety of our products, at better prices than could be found locally, and a catalogue sales arrangement that could get you just about anything at half the price people were used to. Of course, everything was bought and sold with our own uniform currency, and in terms of our uniform measurement system.

Each school had a post office, something n.o.body in Germany ever saw before.

These commercial operations supported the school system, so much so that we sometimes had to work not to make a profit!

Since this would be army territory, taxes would be completely eliminated, except for those levied by the local government. The Christian Army supported itself by its own efforts, the schools were self-supporting, and the Church took care of itself.

Once we were completely set up, the only people the locals would have to deal with would be someone speaking something close to their own native language, and not in the foreign German tongue.

That was the program, anyway. We were pretty confident it would work. Especially since King Henryk had agreed to handle the political problems for us.

Six companies of infantry had left for Brandenburg the morning after the battle. They were marching with two weeks' worth of dried food on their backs, without their pikes or war carts, but they had been equipped with the new rifles, even if they weren't perfectly trained with them.

The king and I would head out in the morning with the Wolves. We figured to get to Brandenburg before noon.

Chapter Twenty-Four

From the Journal of Josip Sobieski WRITTEN JANUARY 18, 1250, CONCERNING SEPTEMBER 18, 1249.

I ARRIVED at the Explorer's School at the last possible minute before my leave was up, an hour later than the rest of them.

Sir Odon checked me in and said, "Someday, Josip, you are going to be late, and then I will have to be very rude to you."

I said in that event, he could wait to hear my news until after all of the rest of the men in our lance had told me the stories of what had happened to them during their vacations. I called him "Captain Odon," which certainly got his attention, and I swore not to talk until last. All of my friends were dying of curiosity, but I just grinned at them and said that they had to buy all of the beer, as well, in payment for my news.

Since it was almost quitting time, we walked to the local Pink Dragon Inn, where I again insisted on not breaking my vow of silence until I heard their news.

A bare-breasted waitress brought us a round of beers, was paid, and then was ignored. We all felt wonderful, being back with our friends.

Kiejstut eagerly started our informal debriefing. He had been grandly welcomed into his home village, and treated as a returning hero by all of his old friends and relatives. He had been feasted and feted for almost every day of the first two weeks, until he had to beg people to let him get some rest.

Everyone had to hear about every event in his long and ill.u.s.trious army career.

His entire village had been converted to Christ ianity during the eight years he was away, and they cheered when they heard that he, too, was a convert.

He had given the bride away at his niece's wedding, and had been the G.o.dfather at no less than five christenings.

All the girls he had known before were married, with too many children, but there was a whole new crop of fine young maidens, eager to welcome home the conquering hero!

"It was like having two months in Okoitz, but all the girls were even prettier and spoke Lithuanian!"

He ended by saying that when he came back, it was in the company of eleven good Lithuanian boys who had come to the Warrior's School to join the Christian Army.

We all cheered at this new addition to our ranks, for the army was growing again. The ma.s.sive construction projects of the last eight years had resulted in more than enough apartments, factories, and farms to provide homes and work for all of us. More growth meant, among other things, more promotions.

Taurus had a less happy story to tell, since a few months before he returned to the family farm near Kiev, his uncle had died. Two of his cousins still lived and were struggling to feed themselves and their families. They were working with worn-out tools and poor-quality seeds, and in an area that had still not fully recovered from the Mongol onslaught.

By their standards, Taurus was fabulously wealthy, and in truth, he was able to help them a lot. He bought seeds and fertilizers for them, and then he and Nadja, the Big Person, had helped them get all of their land plowed and planted. He bought them a new, modern steel plow, and a pair of good oxen to pull it with, along with dozens of new farm tools from the store at the new school in the next village.

He bought household goods that they badly needed- dishes, pots, and pans-and gave them to his only relatives. He bought their wives bolts of cloth to make clothing, bedding, and curtains with, and gave everyone, even the children, a new pair of boots. After that, he spent the rest of his vacation time helping them build a new barn, with materials that he paid for.

"But you know, somehow, everything I did, it just wasn't enough. I wish that I had never brought my full dress uniform along with all the gold on it. I told them that I couldn't possibly sell my decorations, but they thought I was holding out on them. They never believed that the Big Person I had ridden in on wasn't my property, that Nadja wasn't even a horse, but a person who could not be bought or sold. One night, one of their wives even suggested that I sell some of my weapons and give the money to them, since I was so rich!

"I tell you that I was glad to leave those people. I've never seen people that greedy, or that ungrateful, before. I don't think I will ever go back there again."

Sir Odon said that everyone at home was glad to see him, but then he saw his relatives every few months, normally, since they lived nearby, in Wroclaw. Mostly, he spent the time helping out in his father's carpentry shop until the invasion happened. Then he had been called up to operate a steamboat on the Odra.

Father John had a similar story. After reporting to his bishop, he went to Cracow, and spent the time at his father's new butcher shop until the invasion. Then he was sent to a snowflake fort on the Vistula. The priest there had gone with the men to Brandenburg, and he was to see to the women and children left behind.

After Taurus, Fritz, and I left them, Lezek and Zbigniew enjoyed themselves at home until they were called up, to work on an oil tanker on the Vistula. They were not overly pleased.

Fritz's story was almost identical to Kiejstut's, even though he came from Germany instead of Lithuania. He was treated like a hero by all and sundry, the local boy who went away and made good.

On top of that, the local n.o.bility treated him like an equal, inviting him to supper and taking him along on a stag hunt. The son of a baron had begun politely calling on Fritz's little sister, to her great delight.

A total of fourteen healthy German farm boys, three of them his cousins, came back with Fritz to join the Christian Army.

"Still and all, I'm glad that I was out of touch when Brandenburg invaded us. I would have followed orders, you understand, and fought them if it came to that, but, you know, I'm glad that it didn't come to that."

Since they had all now faithfully told their stories, they turned and looked expectantly at me.

Just to have some more fun with them, I said that these were all wonderful stories, and that they had wanned my heart, but that it was getting late and we had a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.

I got up from the table and made it halfway to the door before I was tackled and brought to the ground. They picked me up, carried me back to the table, and sat me back down. Then they took away my beer, as punishment, they said, for my attempted desertion.

So I told them the whole story, taking my time, starting with the night Fritz and I spent at the Pink Dragon. I spent some time describing each of the girls in detail.

Sir Odon said, "Hurry it up, or I will be forced to hurt you." I pa.s.sed lightly over my problems with my father, and soon had myself riding out to war at Lord Conrad's side, sitting astride one of Anna's children with the Battle Flag of Poland in my hand, and the most beautiful woman in the world sitting naked on my lap.

My friends gave me a loud whoop! Fritz gave me back my beer. Even Father John was laughing. At their urging, I continued with the story. I told them of the battle, of the execution of the margrave, and of King Henryk's amazing chastis.e.m.e.nt of Lord Conrad. I got to the point where we were about to invade Brandenburg when I finished my beer.