The Polish force withdrew, but it was only temporary, as General Izmailov knew quite well.
* * *
“Gentlemen, our situation is untenable as it stands,” General Izmailov said. “We must take Rzhev and soon. Tim, I want you to coordinate with the unit commanders, start tightening the collar again. Get us salients as close to the to the walls of Rzhev as you can . . .”
The general described what he wanted and work began again. The plan was to get several points right up against the walls of Rzhev. That would still leave the problem of defending against a potential attack by the Polish relief force while using most of his force to breech the defenses of Rzhev. To attack effectively—and just as important, quickly—they would need overwhelming force against the troops occupying the town. To get that, they were going to have to virtually strip the outer golay golrod of fighting men. And like any fortification, no matter how temporary or permanent, the walking walls needed to be manned be effective.
Two weeks later they were in position and as ready as they were going to get. At the closest point the inner golay golrod was only twenty feet from the makeshift walls around Rzhev and there were five points where they were within fifty feet.
* * *
Nick gave a bit more steam to the right side engine to turn Testbed left. The winds were gusty. He had gotten word a week before that they would be making the attack on Rzhev today. His job was especially vital because to make it look real they had to know where the Polish forces were attacking long before it happened. He looked out and noted the position of a Polish cavalry unit.
Rrrrriiiipppppp!
Nick looked up and swore.
The gas bladders on Testbed were made of goldbeater skin. Those were made from the outer membranes of the intestines of large animals, usually though not always calves. Goldsmiths used them to beat out gold leaf. For goldbeater skin, the intestines were cut open and glued together a couple of layers thick. The sheets of goldbeater skin were mostly self-adhesive and formed into short, fat sausage shapes rather than round balloons. It had never occurred to anyone to wonder what would happen if you applied steam.
Granted, by the time the steam reached the steam bladder it had cooled quite a bit. On the other hand, the steam bladder on Testbed had by now been slow-cooking for several weeks. A little bit of extra steam pressure was all it took. Of course, it gave along the seams. As soon as the rip happened, the steam spread out still further and turned into mist, then started condensing onto the other gas bags in Testbed, where it did comparatively little harm. But the steam cell was gone; its lift was gone.
The gondola lurched. Nick swore again and reached for a lever to angle the thrust that remained to him.
The steam bladder, when filled and functioning properly, provided about five hundred pounds of lift to Testbed. The semi-rigid airship had just gone from neutral buoyancy to five hundred pounds negative buoyancy. Which didn’t mean it dropped like a five-hundred-pound lead weight. It was more like a five-hundred-pound feather. The steam bladder was located three-quarters of the way to the front of Testbed, just above the gondola, so naturally it nosed down. Which meant that the engines were pushing down as well. Airships dive like they do every other maneuver. Slowly. A similar disaster in an airplane would have given the pilot less than two minutes to fix the problem, as the plane nosed over and accelerated to over a hundred miles an hour straight down. Nick had a good five minutes before he would hit the ground.
First, reverse thrust on the steam engines. Nick shifted a couple of levers. Then, angling the thrust—he shifted more levers as he continued to lose altitude. Shift the trim weight. More work. He had to crank it back to the tail of Testbed. In doing these things, Nick lost about two thousand feet of altitude.
* * *
“It’s coming right at us!” one man screamed.
The big balloon looked to the Polish troops on the ground like it was making a slow-motion dive-bombing run—not that they had ever seen a dive-bombing run of any sort. The nose of Testbed was pointing straight at them and it was billowing white smoke. Steam, actually, but they didn’t know that.
“Fire, you bastards! Fire!”
Chaos reigned for minutes. Some of the men decided to be elsewhere, but a surprising number stood their ground and started shooting.
Testbed was still out of what could reasonably be considered effective range of a seventeenth-century musket. At that range a seventeenth-century musket couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. But Testbed was significantly bigger than the broad side of a barn. Even a big barn. Inevitably, it got hit several times. Bladders filled with hydrogen were struck by musket balls. And nothing much happened. To get hydrogen to explode takes three things, hydrogen, oxygen and a spark. The hydrogen and oxygen need to be mixed together fairly well to get any kind of significant flame. But the crucial issue here was the lack of a spark. The lead shot back from the muskets was indeed still quite hot, but not that hot. Besides, there was all that steam condensation on the bladders and the skin of Testbed.