The Saxon Uprising(21)

“Interesting times,” he murmured, thinking of the Chinese curse Jeff had once mentioned to him.

“Is that a ‘yes’?” Tata asked.

Eric made a face. “I guess.”

He started moving around the tower, which was built like a large turret, with Tata trailing in his wake. When he got to the other side, he leaned over the railing and began studying the walls which protected Dresden on the south. Most of the city was on the southern bank of the Elbe.

“We’re not going to be able to protect all of it,” he said. “Have to let the northern part go. Even then, it’s going to be a lot of work to build up those walls.”

“And you said you didn’t know anything about sieges,” Tata said. She wasn’t arguing the point, just doing her usual best to squash any further protests on his part.

“Just common sense,” he grumbled. “I’m still not an engineer.”

She came close and slid an arm around his waist. “You’ll do,” she said.

That statement had a very expansive flavor to it. Eric felt full of good cheer again.

Eddie Junker studied the boulevard to the south. Then, swiveled and studied it to the north.

Boulevard, he told himself firmly. That sounded so much less suicidal.

An uncharitable soul might have called the thoroughfare a “street.” A particularly surly specimen might have added “crooked” to the bargain.

In truth, the thoroughfare wasn’t really crooked. It just…jiggled around a bit.

Standing next to him, Denise Beasley stretched out her hand and made a slow, swooping motion. “You oughta be able to pull it off, Eddie. It’s a pretty straight street. Ah, avenue.”

“The lack of straightness by itself isn’t the problem.” He stretched out his arms, pointing simultaneously to the buildings on either side of the street. “What would you say the width is?”

Denise looked back and forth. Her friend Minnie Hugelmair, always given to direct methods, walked over to the building on the left side of the street. Then she paced off the distance.

“Thirty-five feet,” she announced.

Eddie nodded. “About what I figured.” He gave Denise a fish-eyed look. “And what is the wingspan of the plane?”

Denise waggled her head. “I’m not sure. Twenty-five feet?”

“Ha. Thirty-two feet. Leaving me three feet of clearance in the street—the very-not-straight street—if I have to come down into it.”

“But you’re not planning to,” protested Denise. “Exactly.”

“ ‘Exactly,’ ” Eddie mimicked. “No, I would simply be following it toward the square while—not quite—coming below the surface of the roofs. That would—hopefully—allow me to come into the landing area with a lower altitude than if I had to hop over the big buildings surrounding it. But if anything goes wrong…”

He looked down and scuffed his boot across the surface of the road. “Then there’s this little problem. You did notice these are cobblestones?”

She looked down. “Um. Yeah.”

“And exactly how many cobblestoned airstrips have you ever seen?”

“Um. None.”

“There’s a reason for that.” He lifted his own, much thicker hand, and shook it up and down sharply. “Cobblestones are contraindicated for landing gear.”

The two CoC craftsmen standing next to them looked at each other. Their expressions were dubious.

“Hard to pull up all these cobblestones and lay new ones,” said the taller of the two.

“And then they wouldn’t be as solidly set,” added his companion.

Eddie had already figured that much out for himself. “How about paving it?”

The two craftsmen looked at each other again.

“We don’t have enough asphalt,” said the one on the left. His name was Wilbart Voss.

“Not nearly enough,” said his partner, Dolph Knebel.

Eddie shook his head. “I don’t really need a regular landing strip. The cobblestones would made a solid foundation if we could just fill it in with gravel to even out the surface. Then, level it with a roller.”

The craftsmen exchanged glances again. That seemed to be a necessary ritual before their brains engaged.

“How wide?” asked Voss.

Eddie started walking slowly toward the big square to the north. “I’d want a minimum of forty feet. I’d be a lot happier with sixty.”

Knebel made a face. “That’s…about three hundred tons of gravel.”

His partner was more sanguine, however. “Not so bad,” said Wilbart. “There’s plenty of gravel in the area and with everyone coming into the city for shelter from Banér we’ve got a lot of wagons and manpower. A strong wind might blow some of it away, though.”