1636:The Kremlin games

Chapter 55

On the Volga River

“God cursed piece of crap!” Shorty shouted as the pressure valve started screaming again.

Ivan couldn’t really blame his brother. Besides, it wasn’t really blasphemy, more a statement of fact. The new barge that they had received had a real pressure-relief valve. The pressure-relief valve blew a whistle when it let off excess steam. The whistle wasn’t removable. Whenever the steam got a little strong, the thing started screaming at them like some sort of demented banshee and didn’t stop till the steam pressure had dropped to what the builders in Murom thought was a good pressure. Which, they had told Ivan Mikhailovich, was about thirty pounds per square inch.

When they had gotten to Murom they had been informed that they weren’t going back to Moscow. They were instead taking supplies to “our gallant troops,” which meant they were going up the Volga almost all the way. Except, of course, the Volga wasn’t their river. Never mind. It didn’t matter. They had the most experience with steam barges. So they were given this brand new and improved steam barge with a donut boiler. Which wasn’t quite a tube boiler, but better than a pot boiler since the chimney for the fire box went through the boiler. It had better, more finely worked, cylinders and pistons and worked at higher pressure, so used less fuel and went faster. It had two propellers, one on either side. What a glory of Russian engineering!

Crap!

There had been four explosions of steam barges since Ivan and Pavel Mikhailovich had taken out the first one. Four out of the thirteen barges that had been launched. Each and every explosion had been blamed on the barge’s engineer over-pressuring the boiler. Maybe that was the cause. The engineers weren’t here to argue the point. The experts at the Dacha and Murom hadn’t actually said that a dumb peasant couldn’t be trusted to manage the steam pressure, but the brand new release valve didn’t have any sort of adjustment that the engineer on the barge could make.

They were going up an unfamiliar river in a brand new barge. So far this trip they had lost two seals on the right piston and run aground once.

“What is it this time, Shorty?” Ivan shouted. He had to shout. The god-cursed pressure valve was still screaming. The passengers had retreated to the front of the barge.

“What?” Shorty shouted back holding his hands over his ears. “I think the release valve is getting looser. If we had the sort of head of steam we should need for it to go off like that, we’d be going twice as fast.” Shorty banged the boiler with his wrench and it finally stopped screaming.

Ivan looked at the shore and at the water. This wasn’t their river, but it looked to him like Shorty might be right. He looked for something to toss over the side to get a clearer notion of the speed of the current. Mostly they were carrying food. Barrels of beans and rye, flour, beets and even some freeze-dried fruit.

Up front, there were four barrels of gunpowder, a box of one hundred chambers for the new AK3 rifles and another crate full of the rifles. There was also some lamp oil, but nothing that Ivan saw was trash that would float and tell him how fast the river was running. He watched the ripples off the bow and they didn’t seem to be going that fast. “I think you’re right, Shorty.”

The passengers were still at the front of the barge. Four boys, ensigns, and deti boyars off to win glory, who had decide that going to battle by steam barge would be a lark.

The ensigns had changed their minds about that when they first experienced the pressure valve screech. By now they had decided that it was unsuitable for them to arrive at Rzhev on a boat since they were cavalry. However, there were no horses for them to buy. By now Dmitri Borisovich was discussing the advisability of arriving in Rzhev on cows.

“Cows are useful animals and holy in India or someplace like that. Surely it wouldn’t diminish our dignity to much to arrive on milk cows,” said Dmitri Borisovich in a voice that was an artful mix of wistful and jesting. He was the youngest and the friendliest of them. The others had started out superior and by now were making threats of dire consequences if Ivan and Pavel didn’t magically get them to Rzhev.

“What is the problem with this scow?” Mikhail Ivanovich, the eldest of the four, asked.

Ivan gritted his teeth. They were boyar’s sons, and in at least one case that was probably literally so. Mikhail Ivanovich was probably the son of Ivan Corkiski, born on the wrong side of the blanket. So telling him to shut up and mind his own affairs while Ivan and Pavel saw to the boat wasn’t advisable.

It only made it worse that they were mostly justified complaints.

“It’s not their fault, Mikhail,” said Dmitri Borisovich. “They didn’t build the thing.”

“No, the Gorchakov clan built it. Holding the rights to everything to themselves, the Corkiski clan could have…” Mikhail stopped at the glare one of the others was giving him.

Alexsey Sergeyivich was a Gorchakov deti boyar, which was why the four had been in Murom when word of the invasion had arrived. He had promised his friends that he’d be able to get them the new AK3 rifles. Which he had, indeed, accomplished.

Dmitri interrupted the stand-off with the comment, “The barges are made by men. Men who are imperfect. Why should we expect that the barges would be perfect?” Then, looking toward the shore, he said, wistfully, “Still, there is that cow…”

After some more mutual glaring, the four passengers moved to the front of the barge, which was continuing its trip upriver. Albeit more slowly, it seemed.

“Ivan, see this?” Pavel said, pointing at a spring-loaded screw in the assemblage that led from the boiler to the pressure valve. “I think it’s gotten looser.”

“Well, tighten it, Shorty!”

“I’m not sure I should, Stinky. What if it breaks something?”

“Don’t call me Stinky. You may be right, it might break something. Or it might fix something. Look, here. See? There’s a lever that’s pushed on by that screw. I think it controls the pressure valve, but I’m just not sure.”

“So I tighten it, right?”

“Yes, but if we do we risk blowing up the boiler.”

“I’m going to watch it for now, to see if it loosens any more.”

They added more wood to the firebox and a few minutes later the pressure valve popped again and it started to scream.

Mikhail Ivanovich had had enough. This was ridiculous. He stood quickly and marched back to the back of the barge. “Give me that,” he shouted, grabbing the wrench. He swung at the screaming whistle, and hit it. It dented, but kept screaming. He swung again and the whistle went flying off into the river.

The bargeman looked stunned. “B-b-b-”

Mikhail cut him off. “There, that’s fixed.” He handed the peasant the wrench and marched back to the front of the barge.

What neither Mikhail nor Pavel knew, was that as the whistle bent before it broke, it had blocked the pressure valve from opening properly. Some steam still escaped, so it looked like the pressure valve was still working as it should.

After thinking about it for a minute, and examining the damage, the best Pavel could tell was that the damage wasn’t too severe, aside from the removing of the whistle. Pavel shrugged. At least they wouldn’t be hearing that damned whistle anymore.

He threw some more wood on the fire.

Things were going much better now. They were making much better time. The steam pressure valve was constantly open, but doing its job. So it seemed.

Pavel checked the screw and it was looser, he was almost sure. He was considering tightening it, when it happened. The pressure in the boiler had been building gradually for several hours and the iron was not as strong or as well welded as it should have been. The seam broke and ripped loose, happening faster than the eye could possibly follow.

Pavel was cut in half by the jet of steam before he knew anything had happened. And the shattering boiler sent burning wood from the firebox and shrapnel from the boiler flying everywhere. The rest of the water in the boiler flashed into steam in an instant.

Ivan, Stinky, took a piece of shrapnel in the belly and went down screaming. Mikhail Ivanovich, who had been bragging that it was he who was responsible for their increased speed, was only slightly wounded by a piece of boiler that struck him in the arm, but was shocked and confused by the noise. More importantly, the same piece of boiler that struck Mikhail’s arm bounced into a barrel of lamp oil, ripping it open and spilling the contents across the deck.

For fateful moments, as the lamp oil spread across the deck toward bits of burning wood, the survivors were held immobile in shock. Then, as the oil reached a burning shard, fire covered the front third of the barge. And that brought Dmitri and Alexsey out of their shock. Alexsey grabbed Mikhail Ivanovich from the deck and Dmitri went to try to rescue Ivan, who was still screaming.

Neither of the rescuers was in time, for the flames breached one of the gunpowder barrels. And the newest, fastest, most technologically advanced riverboat in Russia ceased to exist.