Ring of Fire II(208)

"It has to be them," Noelle repeated stubbornly. She swiveled in the saddle, the slight carefulness of the motion making it clear she wasn't feeling any too spry herself. "We should have gotten reinforcements by now. I guess Denise couldn't get anybody to take her seriously. Maybe I should have—"



"You weren't going to stay behind, since you can't resist the thrill of the chase. I couldn't stay behind, because somebody has to look after you. That left Denise—and we practically had to sit on her to get her to agree."



He wiped his face again. "And, yes, they probably didn't take her seriously. Given that she would have had to report to Captain Knefler, him now being the commander of the Grantville garrison, and Knefler is a jackass." He smiled. "Probably, after ten seconds or so, Denise started denouncing him. She's a real pip, that one."



Noelle eyed him suspiciously. "She's only sixteen years old. Not even that."



"All the more reason they wouldn't take her seriously."



"That's not what I was referring to. I was referring to the possibility of other men taking her too seriously."



"Don't be ridiculous."

The Saale Valley, near Hof



"Stop complaining," Janos said. He gave the wagon a cold, experienced eye. "The likelihood of having an axle break was very high, given the route we've taken and the speed we've made."



"And that's another thing," complained Billie Jean Mase. "You've been wearing everybody out."



Janos didn't bother replying to that accusation. In point of fact, while the pace he'd set had been hard by the standards of a commercial caravan, it was nothing compared to the pace Hungarian cavalrymen and their supply trains were accustomed to while on campaign. He was feeling perfectly well rested, himself. Granted, he'd been in a saddle, but Gage and Gardiner had been driving two of the three wagons and they were holding up well also.



Of the three drivers, the one in the worst shape was Mickey Simmons. He'd gotten the assignment because he'd boasted of the wagoneering skills he'd developed as a result of being the coordinator of training for the transportation department. Naturally, within less than four days he'd broken an axle.



"There's no time for this," Janos said curtly. He glanced up at the sun. "We'll camp here. We have perhaps three hours of daylight left to sort through the wagons, jettison whatever is least important, and repack the two surviving wagons."



Needless to say—he didn't think he'd ever met such self-indulgent people; they were even worse than Austrian noblemen—the Americans set up a round of protests and complaint. The gist of which was we need all of it.



He gave them no more than a minute before cutting the nonsense short.



"We have no means of repairing the axle. Nor can we seek the assistance of a wainwright in Hof, because there is a USE garrison there. By now, the alert will have reached them. Like most such garrisons, they will not exert themselves to search the surrounding countryside—but if we show up in the town itself, which is quite small, they will be almost certain to spot us."



He gave the assembled up-timers perhaps five seconds of a stony stare to see if any were stupid enough to argue those points.



None were, apparently. He revised his estimate of their common sense. Higher than carrots, after all.



"That leaves two options. The first is that we unload the contents of the broken wagon and pile them onto the two others."



"Yeah, that's what I was figuring," said Jay Barlow.



Sadly, the level of common sense did not attain that of rabbits.



Janos half-turned and pointed southeast toward a low range of mountains. "By tomorrow, we have to be well into the Fichtelgebirge. That terrain is considerably worse than we've been passing through, and the roads are worse yet. We are certain to break another axle, or a wheel, with overloaded wagons—and these are already dangerously burdened as it is. I leave aside the fact that we are now into late autumn. The weather has been good, so far, for which we can be thankful. But who knows when the weather might turn?"



The Americans squinted at the mountains. "We gotta go up there?" whined Peter Barclay's wife Marina. By now, Janos had come to recognize her as a champion whiner. She almost put his great-aunt Orsolya in the shade. Not quite.



"Why?" demanded her husband.



Janos shook his head. "This close to Bayreuth, we can't stay in the lowlands or we run the risk of being spotted by a cavalry troop. Even in the Fichtelgebirge, there may be an occasional patrol. Once we enter it, we can take only a few days—no more—to reach Cheb by following the Eger."