The fact that Jeff Higgins had taken it upon himself to pester the division's commanding general with a trivial issue he should have taken up with the quartermasters was making Mike even more irritated. Captain David Blodger, the up-time quartermaster who handled technical supplies and material, could have done Jeff a lot more good than Mike.
But since he was still feeling a little guilty over the way he'd handled Jeff at Zielona Góra, Mike did his best not to let his aggravation show. They were taking a brief halt in the march anyway, to let the units in the rear close up the column, so he didn't really have anything pressing at the moment. A "forced march" didn't actually mean soldiers were constantly marching, despite the term itself.
"I don't understand why you brought this problem to me, Colonel Higgins." Mike leaned over in his saddle and looked down at the object in Jeff's hand, a radio transmitter and receiver that had obviously seen better days. At a guess, a horse had stepped on it. "Captain Blodger can get your regiment a replacement radio, I'm sure."
Jeff shook his head. "I guess I didn't make myself clear, sir. This isn't one of the regiment's radios."
Mike was finding it harder and harder not to snarl at Higgins. What was he? A major general doubling as the division's lost and found department?
"Not that I see why you care, but if you're that concerned about it—again, see Blodger. He can find out which regiment lost the damn thing and get—"
"Sir! Excuse me, sir, I'm still not making myself clear. This radio doesn't belong to anybody in this division. Anybody in the whole USE Army, in fact."
Mike stared at the radio again. It looked like one of the division's radios.
Well . . . sort of. In a way. The same way any such radio looks about the same as its equivalent to someone who doesn't know much about radios and doesn't really care about the differences anyway so long as the thing works.
In short, someone like Mike Stearns.
"It's not?"
"No, sir. I didn't think I recognized it, but just to be sure I checked with Jimmy Andersen. He says this is a knock-off made in Hamburg of one of the models that the army uses. He says we've never used this brand because the manufacturer had fly-by-night financing and went bankrupt after making not more than a few dozen of them. Jimmy says the whole lot was bought at an auction in Hamburg by somebody in Amsterdam. Well, by an agent for somebody in Amsterdam who was probably serving as an agent for somebody else. You know how it is."
Mike felt his face stiffen. He was probably going pale, too. "Where did you find this?" he asked.
"I just spotted it this morning, by accident, when I was passing by one of the soldiers who had it stuck in his pack. When I asked him, he said he'd found it in an alley behind one of the houses in Zielona Góra. He figures a horse stepped on it and broke it. But he liked it as a war souvenir. It's different."
"Oh, Jesus," Mike whispered. "It's a Polish radio. It's got to be."
Jeff nodded. "That's what I'm thinking. And it's why I brought it to you. I got to thinking about it and it occurred to me I've never heard anyone mention anything about the Poles having radios."
"That's because we didn't know they did—and, like idiots, blithely assumed they couldn't. Being dumb Polacks, like they are."
Jeff chuckled. West Virginia had enough people with Polish ancestry to have a slew of Polack jokes. Nothing like Chicago or Milwaukee, of course.
"How many Polacks does it take to screw in a light bulb?" he said.
"It's not funny, Colonel. It really isn't."
Jeff stared at him. Then, his face got stiff too. "Oh, hell. You mean we really never considered that they might have radio communication?"
"No, Colonel, we didn't. It goes a long way toward explaining how and why Koniecpolski's been able to maneuver his forces so well, doesn't it?"
Mike dismounted. As they always did whenever a halt was called, Jimmy Andersen and his three assistants had quickly set up a little tent for the radio so he could get whatever might be the latest reports or instructions. Mike walked over, opened the flap of the tent and passed through.
Jeff dismounted and came after him, still carrying the radio. He didn't really have a good reason to do so, since the tent was so small there wouldn't be room for him anyway. He just liked to get off a horse any excuse he got.
A minute later, Mike came out.
As the march was about to resume, Jimmy Andersen came out of the tent and approached the division's commanding general. Behind him, his assistants began taking down the tent and packing away the radio equipment. Colonel Higgins had already left to rejoin his regiment.
Andersen looked up at Mike, back in his saddle. "Bad news, sir. I just got a weather report. It looks like there's another storm coming. It'll probably hit us around noon today."