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The Saxon Uprising(83)

By:Eric Flint


At a guess, Nichols thought Torstensson was going to ask him what else Colonel Erik Haakansson Hand had said to him.

If he had…

James wasn’t sure how he’d have responded. The colonel had asked him not to speak to anyone about the matter they’d discussed, on the grounds that he didn’t want to raise false hopes. A bit grudgingly, Nichols had agreed. He’d never had much use himself for that whole “let’s not raise false hopes” line of reasoning, which was rampant in the medical community. But he’d agreed to go along. He hadn’t thought much about it, to be honest.

Now, if he was interpreting Torstensson’s abrupt silence correctly, James began to wonder if Hand really had simply been reluctant to “raise false hopes.” What if…

What if what he’d really wanted was to keep Chancellor Oxenstierna from learning that Gustav Adolf appeared to be having flashes of coherence in his speech and his reactions to the people around him? One thing that Hand had made clear was that Oxenstierna only came to visit the stricken monarch on rare occasions now. For the past two months, understandably enough, the chancellor had been pre-occupied with political affairs.

Interesting.

For the moment, though, Nichols didn’t see where there was much he could do, one way or the other. So he decided to satisfy his own curiosity.

“If you don’t mind my asking, General Torstensson, I’m wondering what your own intentions are.” He waved his hand in a vague gesture. “About the overall political situation, I mean.”

Knyphausen issued another of those meaninglessly meaningful grunts. Brunswick-Lüneburg grinned like a Cheshire cat. Which was equally meaningless, coming from him.

Torstensson pursed his lips. “To be honest, Dr. Nichols, I am not prepared to give you an answer that would be at all…how to put it?”

“Expansive,” suggested Duke George.

“Yes, that’s it. Expansive.”

“I’ll settle for terse,” said Nichols.

Knyphausen grunted again.

“Not that terse, please.”

The three generals burst into laughter. “Ah, Dodo!” exclaimed the duke. “You see? As I’ve told you time and again, you could drive the Oracle at Delphi mad.”

Torstensson finished the wine in his glass and set it down. “Let me put it this way, Doctor. I believe—so do George and Dodo; and, yes, of course we’ve discussed the matter—that nothing would be improved at all if we allowed the main forces of the USE’s army to be dragged into the civil conflict. That, for any number of reasons, not the least of them being”—his own voice got stiff for a moment—“as I have now explained to the chancellor on several occasions—that it is by no means clear how the army itself would react if I did so. The enlisted men, I mean.”

Knyphausen grunted again—but, finally, put some words behind the sound. “In this instance, ‘enlisted men’ being a euphemism for ‘the fellows holding most of the guns.’ ”

“And know how to use them, too.” That came from George; this time, without a smile. “There is a sort of unspoken, tacit agreement between ourselves—the commanding officers, I mean—and the soldiers in our army here at Poznan. They agree to obey orders—here—and we agree that we will stay here and not try to use them to enforce any sort of settlement back in the USE proper.”

“That’s well put,” added Torstensson. “And about as much as we are prepared to say.”

Nichols nodded. The truth was, they’d said everything that was critical already. He’d tell Melissa when he got back to Magdeburg, as a man will say something to the woman who shares his life and his bed. Knowing full well that she’d pass it on to Rebecca immediately.

Torstensson had to know that as well. Which meant that the tacit agreement he had with his soldiers had just gotten extended to the Fourth of July Party and the Committees of Correspondence across the entire nation. You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone.

Oxenstierna would have a fit, if he knew. But James had a feeling that the chancellor was slowly but steadily losing his grip on the situation—first and foremost, his grip on his own people.

The tea was quite good, as you’d expect.

Nichols spent the next two days inspecting the sanitary and medical arrangements and facilities that the army had set up in their siege lines around Poznan. As he’d expected, they were well-designed and in good order. Torstensson and his staff officers had genuinely internalized the critical role that sanitation and proper medical procedures played in fending off the diseases that typically swept through armies at war, especially armies engaged in a siege.