The Baltic War(213)
Still, it was none of the Ritsenbuttelers' concern. Certainly not compared to the sudden boom in business, ranging all the way from the taverns and the inns packed to the gills with paying guests—and wasn't that a wonder, being as they were all soldiers?—to every craftsman and artisan in town being commissioned to help with the repairs of the Achates and expanding the piers to handle the new business the prince of Germany assured them would soon be arriving.
Even the town's large number of fishermen were happy. Mike sent them off to catch fish to feed the regiment—and while they were at it, keep an eye out for nefarious evildoers who might be creeping up on Ritsenbuttel across the waters of the Wadden Sea or through the island channels.
Within a day, the printing press was up and running, and Mike began flooding the town with impromptu propaganda. Then he hired whatever stray lads he could find with a horse or a donkey who could spread the good word to all the farming villages in the area.
The propaganda was simple and to the point. Three points, actually.
Point One was that Hamburg and all its environs had been incorporated into the United States of Europe. Legally, legally—indeed, the Hamburg city council had been most enthusiastic, and you could always come into Ritsenbuttel to chat with the council's representatives yourself if you had any doubts.
Point Two was more or less a series of ferocious snarls aimed at The Dastardly Enemy—not too precisely defined—and boasting triumphantly of the overwhelming military might of the USE. Happily, among the printers brought from Hamburg had been an engraver who could work rapidly. By the third day, the broadsides had very nice if overlarge illustrations of the ironclads and the SRG rifle on every other page.
Point Three was an announcement that a parade, picnic and political rally would be held on Sunday, in Ritsenbuttel, following church services. With music! And, of course, the food and drink to be paid for by the new authorities.
Church services tended to be brief, that day.
So, not long after Mike arrived in Ritsenbuttel, the Achates was ready to go again. And it would be reasonable to say that the whole area had become a hotbed of USE sympathizers and enthusiasts for the new emperor.
Mike transmitted the gist of all that to Gustav Adolf. This time, using far more formal language.
The reply didn't particularly surprise him. For a Swede—and a king, to boot—Gustav was quite adept at American idiom himself.
Just stay put. Simpson should be arriving in Luebeck Bay any time. Expect all hell to break loose when he does. More to follow.
Chapter 48
The Bay of Kiel
"What the devil is that imbecile shouting about?" Captain Jean-Marie Grosclaud, commanding His Most Christian Majesty's thirty-two-gun ship Railleuse, demanded impatiently.
He stood on Railleuse's tall, narrow poop deck, glaring down at the Danish fishing boat that had emerged from the morning's slightly misty visibility. The French warship had almost run down the miserable little craft, and now the boat's master (Grosclaud refused to apply the term "captain" to a Danish fisherman whose so-called vessel was scarcely larger than his own ship's second launch) was standing beside the boat's tiller shouting about something.
"I can't quite make it out, sir," his sailing master admitted. The master was the senior professional seaman in Railleuse's company. He also had the best command of their allies' language . . . which said truly appalling things about everyone else's Danish, Grosclaud supposed.
"Well, tell him to stand clear," the captain said, even more impatiently. "The fool is probably saying we've ruined one of his nets or something of the sort."
He snorted, eyeing the Dane with a mixture of disdain and irritation. The fishing boat master's fellow countrymen had been nothing but one enormous pain in the arse, as far as Grosclaud was concerned. In his fairer-minded moments, which he entertained no more frequently than necessary, Grosclaud was forced to admit that however ambitious their king might be, the majority of Danes weren't really particularly interested in helping Cardinal Richelieu's "League of Ostend" assail their fellow Protestants and never had been. Under the circumstances, he could scarcely blame them for that. If he'd been Danish, he certainly wouldn't have been madly enthusiastic over the notion, after all. Still, now that they were (supposedly, at least) committed, they could have been at least a little more efficient about doing it.
The sailing master was shouting down at the fishing boat. Even Grosclaud, whose comprehension of Danish was nonexistent, could tell that the sailing master was speaking slowly and awkwardly, with frequent pauses as he searched for the right word. He was only part way through the delivery of Grosclaud's order when the fisherman started shaking his head, waving both hands, and expostulating more loudly than ever.