Ring of Fire III(33)

A sound from above distracted him. The enemy airship had returned and was again passing over the Bavarian column. It was no more than five hundred feet from the ground, but that was enough to put them out of range of infantry firearms. Effective fire, at any rate. It was conceivable that if a volley were fired at it, one or two bullets might strike the thing. But at that height, even if it struck the small boatlike appendage that held the passengers, it would hardly do much damage.

The contraption made a surprising racket. Von Haslang hadn’t expected that. From a distance, the dirigible’s flight seemed serene and effortless. But up close, the engines that drove the fans that propelled it forward were extraordinarily loud.

The distraction was brief. Captain von Haslang went back to his grim thoughts and prognostications, now made all the worse for the irritating noise yammering at his ears.





Chapter 12





That very moment, as it happened, Rita was looking down on Captain von Haslang—or rather, at the small group of mounted officers at the front of the Bavarian column, among whom he was riding. At that height, even with up-turned faces not hidden by hats, it was impossible to distinguish individual persons. And it wouldn’t have mattered if she could. She’d never met the captain, or, indeed, any of the Bavarian officers.

She’d never met Duke Maximilian either, for that matter. But she could probably have recognized him at close range, because she’d seen a good likeness of him in a portrait.

Not that she’d want to be in close range of the man. By all accounts she’d ever heard, Bavaria’s ruler was as cold and deadly as a viper.

The Pelican had just returned from its first refueling stop at Regensburg. That had gone quite smoothly, much more so than Rita had expected and certainly more smoothly than she’d feared. Not only had there been no quarrels, but the city’s authorities had already had barrels of fuel brought out to the airfield. It seemed that the administrator of the Oberpfalz and the president of the SoTF had both sent radio messages to Regensburg instructing the city’s officials to do everything possible to aid Major Simpson and his one-craft air force.

Even that might not have done the trick, by itself. German city officials could set the world standard for narrow-minded parochialism, in Rita’s experience. But General Schmidt had also gotten on the radio and explained that:

A. If Regensburg did not provide Major Simpson with sufficient aid and assistance—in a timely and efficient manner—then Major Simpson would almost certainly run into severe difficulties and setbacks in his attempt to save his regiment from the depredations of the Bavarians. Who set the world standard for wickedness, in the general’s professional military opinion.

B. That being so, General Schmidt himself—now already marching his National Guard division to come to the assistance of Regensburg—would have no choice but to divert his troops in order to rescue Major Simpson. Who, by then, would be engaged in a desperate last stand against that selfsame Bavarian wickedness.

C. In which case, Duke Maximilian, a man whose wickedness was only matched by his cunning, would immediately launch the most furious assaults upon Regensburg, intending to seize the city while it remained lightly defended. In which project he would almost certainly succeed, since the relieving force under General Schmidt was unfortunately preoccupied rescuing Major Simpson from the predicament he had been placed in by the slothful and selfish behavior of the authorities of the very same city about to fall into the hands of Bavarian wickedness.

D. Which wickedness, he reminded the officials listening to his radio message, had been demonstrated not five years earlier in the unspeakably barbaric sack of Magdeburg, carried out largely by troops on Maximilian’s payroll.

So there they were, three full barrels of gasoline, ready to be loaded as soon as the Pelican was tethered. With six more barrels, they were assured, already on their way to the airfield.

Rita didn’t wait for those next barrels. Stefano told her that they now had enough fuel for the burners and engines to stay in operation another day. So she ordered him to fly back to the location of the Danube Regiment.

That location had moved a few miles downstream, but only a few. Being married to a soldier, Rita had been abstractly aware that large military forces other than cavalry units—and those also, more often than not—simply could not and did not move quickly across a countryside. But seeing the phenomenon for herself at first hand drove home that reality in a way that listening to Tom talking with fellow officers never had.

The problem began with the very term that people used to refer to the process. They would say that an army “marched.”