The Eastern Front(19)

"Stop gloating," he said.





Chapter 7


A castle in the countryside, near Dessau

"Please have a seat, Michael." Lennart Torstensson waved at a side table against the far wall. "There is wine, but if you prefer I can have some coffee made for you."

The Swedish general who commanded the army of the USE had a sly smile on his face. Americans had a reputation among down-timers for being teetotalers—a reputation which any number of proper hillbillies had found quite disconcerting when they learned about it.

There was some truth to the reputation, though. The Americans came from a land where clean drinking water was taken for granted. Alcohol was generally considered something a person drank in the evening, not something you consumed the whole day long. But for people in the seventeenth century, as had been true for most of human history, alcoholic beverages were a lot safer than water, unless it had been recently boiled.

So, here it was, still before noon—and Torstensson was having himself a little fun. Poking the stiff and proper up-timer, to see how high he would jump.

Mike returned the smile with a frown, as he studied the bottles on the side table.

"No whiskey?" he asked mournfully.

Torstensson chuckled. "I should know better, by now." He gestured toward the other two men in the room, who were already seated. "You have met Dodo, I believe. The more substantial fellow over there is the duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg—and now also the prince of Calenberg."

The very plump nobleman gave Mike a cheerful smile. "Please! Call me George. Staff meetings are dreary enough without everyone stumbling over titles." He half-rose from his seat and extended his hand, which Mike shook.

The other officer in the room did not follow suit, but Mike knew that wasn't due to rudeness. It was just the nature of the man. Dodo Freiherr zu Innhausen und Knyphausen was a professional soldier from East Frisia and had been one all his life. He'd started his career as a teenager fighting for the Dutch, and risen to the rank of captain by the time he was twenty years old. He'd been fighting for the Swedes since 1630. Mike didn't know him very well, but his best friend Frank Jackson thought highly of him. "He ain't what you'd call the life of the party, but he's solid as a rock," had been his summary judgment.

After Mike took his seat, he looked around. He had to struggle a bit to keep from grinning. Talk about chateau generals! This staff meeting of the commander of the USE army and the major generals in charge of the army's three divisions was being held in an actual castle.

Well . . . what the Germans called a "schloss," at any rate. The word was usually translated in up-time dictionaries as "castle," but they didn't resemble the medieval stone fortresses that Americans thought of when they used that term. Most of them, including this one, had been built during or since the Renaissance and they reminded Mike of pocket palaces more than anything else.

The derisive term "chateau generals" came from World War I, and it really wasn't fair applied to these men. They might be meeting in a castle and enjoying for the moment its little luxuries. The chairs in this particular salon were very nicely upholstered, and the walls seemed to be plastered with portraits. But all of these men would soon enough be on a battlefield and placing themselves in harm's way.

That included Mike, he reminded himself, lest his amusement get out of hand.

The four chairs in the room were not positioned evenly. The chair that Torstensson sat in faced the three chairs of his subordinates, which were arranged in a shallow arc. Torstensson's chair seemed slightly more luxurious, too. A large, low table was positioned in the center. Americans would have called it a coffee table.

After he took his seat, Torstensson was silent for a moment. He was giving Mike a look that he couldn't interpret. Slightly embarrassed, perhaps, although that would be quite out of character for the man.

Brunswick-Lüneburg smiled again, even more cheerfully than before. "Poor Lennart! A rustic Swede, he does not really have the aptitude for Machiavellian maneuvers."

The duke transferred the smile onto Mike. "He wants to use you as bait for a trap. I'd urge you to refuse, except it really is quite a delightful scheme."

Torstensson gave him an exasperated look. "Stop clowning, would you? Michael, if we eliminate the buffoonery, what George says is true enough."

Mike spread his hands a little, inviting the Swedish general to continue. But before he could say anything, Knyphausen spoke up.

"The thing is, General Stearns, you are a neophyte and the Saxon commander von Arnim is certainly feeling desperate by now."

The professional soldier had a lean and very long-nosed face that naturally lent itself to lugubrious expressions. He had such an expression now. "Poor bastard, with John George for an employer."