The Eastern Front(103)

"We're taking them with us. Their carriages are light enough that I think they'll be able to handle the terrain. It's not as if any of us are going to be marching very fast."

He looked directly at Jeff, now. "I'm also leaving the Hangman Regiment behind. They suffered the worst casualties when we took this city, and I think they need more time to recuperate. But, Colonel Higgins, please come see me after the meeting is over."



That happened less than a quarter of an hour later. Stearns was driving everyone to move as quickly as possible. He normally ran staff and command meetings in a relaxed manner, but not this one.

When Mike was alone except for Derfflinger, he motioned Jeff to come over.

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

"You know that Colonel Gärtner was badly wounded two days ago," Mike said.

Jeff's stomach felt queasy all of a sudden. "Uh, yes, sir."

"That leaves the Third Brigade's White Horse Regiment without a commanding officer. I can't promote his adjutant because Major Nussbaum was killed right about the same time."

Jeff had always wondered what free fall felt like. Now he knew.

"Uh, yes, sir."

Mike nodded toward the brigadier standing next to him. "Georg thinks you'd do just fine. So I'm putting you in charge of the White Horse."

He got a solemn, reassuring look on his face. "It's just temporary, Jeff. We'll have you back in command of the Hangman as soon as possible."

He made it sound as if being in command of a regiment specifically put together to execute people had been Jeff's lifelong ambition.

But all he said was, "Uh, yes, sir."





Chapter 33


West of Poznań

The Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel died in the middle of the night. Gustav Adolf got word over the radio as soon as it happened.

It came as no surprise. Wilhelm V had suffered terrible wounds in the battle at the Warta, the sort a man almost never survives. Still, the king of Sweden was distressed by the news. Hesse-Kassel was not exactly a friend, but he'd been a staunch supporter for years. He would be missed.

Gustav Adolf didn't spend much time dwelling on the landgrave's death, though. He had much worse problems on his hands, politically as well as on the military front. Hours earlier, the radio had brought news that his wife had been murdered in Stockholm by assailants whose identity was still unknown. The same assailants had also attacked the king's daughter and Prince Ulrik but, thankfully, they had survived. Untouched, in the case of Kristina. Ulrik had been injured, but apparently not too seriously.

Gustav Adolf had not been close to his wife for many years. In some ways, he'd never really been close. Theirs had been a marriage of political convenience, not of affection. The king of Sweden's romantic attachment since the age of sixteen had been to the noblewoman Ebba Brahe—and still was, although she was now married to Sweden's Lord High Constable, Jacob de la Gardie.

Nonetheless, Maria Eleonora had been his wife, and had borne him a child. Had she died of natural causes, he would have been slightly saddened but no more. Her being killed in such a fashion, however, had left him furious.

He'd already been close to a fury because of the weather. What had seemed a straightforward campaign against a redoubtable but still weaker foe was turning into a nightmare.

Hesse-Kassel was gone now, and his army with him, for all practical purposes. As soon as the landgravine heard the news, she'd undoubtedly recall at least half of her forces to Hesse-Kassel. And the ones she left would be the weakest units, and just enough of them to maintain the pretense that she was not withdrawing Hesse-Kassel's support to the emperor. Unfortunately, the laws of the USE gave the provincial heads a great deal of control over the disposition of provincial troops. Their armies were almost as independent of federal control as the private armies of Polish magnates.

Gustav Adolf had not yet sent her the news of the disaster on the Warta, but he couldn't stall for much longer. There were some disadvantages to radio as well as advantages. In the old days, he could have send a courier with the news and instructed him to have a lamed horse along the way. By the time Amalie Elizabeth found out her husband had been killed and a good portion of her army destroyed, Gustav Adolf would have had the rest of that army back at the front. And he could have kept forestalling the landgravine for weeks, or even months.

He'd come into Poland with fifty thousand men, against what he'd estimated were forty thousand at the disposal of Koniecpolski. He'd lost Hesse-Kassel's eight thousand, and another ten thousand troops under Heinrich Matthias von Thurn were stymied north of the swollen Warta. They'd be out of action for several days; possibly as long as a week, if this wretched weather kept up.