Ring of Fire III

Chapter 7

Hearing the door open, General von Lintelo turned to see who was entering the chamber in Ingolstadt’s Rathaus that he’d seized for his headquarters. To his surprise, the officer coming in was Colonel Caspar von Schnetter. He hadn’t expected him back so soon.

“Simpson seems to have escaped, sir,” said von Schnetter. “His wife also. The cavalry unit I sent to investigate found all three of the men assigned to that task dead. All of them in or near the door, which had been smashed in. Somehow, the Americans must have gotten a warning.”

“By their radio?” asked one of the other cavalry officers in the room. That was Major Johann Adam Weyhel von Eckersdorfer, usually known simply as Weyhel.

Von Lintelo had to put a stop to that immediately. Even the Americans’ enemies-perhaps especially their enemies-had a bad habit of ascribing near-magical powers to the up-timers’ technology.

“Nonsense,” he said firmly. “The assassins simply bungled, that’s all. What happened to them afterward, Colonel? The American couple, I mean.”

Von Lintelo already knew the answer to that question. In light of the latest developments, it was quite obvious. But he was a firm believer in the tried and tested method of reminding subordinates of their flaws and shortcomings.

Von Schnetter hesitated. “Ah…I don’t really know, General. Perhaps…”

“Again, nonsense!” von Lintelo boomed. “It’s obvious that Simpson managed to rejoin his artillery unit-which would account, of course, for their success in driving off your attack on the barracks.”

The “your” was a collective pronoun, in this case. Von Schnetter hadn’t been personally in charge of that mission. In point of fact, none of the officers in the room had been assigned to the mission. But they were part of von Lintelo’s staff, the staff had clearly bungled, and since these were the officers present at the moment they would be the ones to receive his chastisement.

The general, a devout Catholic, did not share the Protestant superstitions about Biblical texts. But there was no denying the wisdom in the Proverbs, one of which was: He that spares his rod hates his son. That applied just as much to subordinate officers as it did to children.

Von Schnetter flushed a little. But, of course, made no protest. Timon von Lintelo was one of Bavaria’s most prestigious figures, and not just in the military. He was a member of Duke Maximilian’s privy council as well as holding the rank of major general. It was a measure of the duke’s trust that he had placed von Lintelo in charge of retaking Ingolstadt.

A charge which von Lintelo had not failed, even if his success had a few ragged edges.

Speaking of which…

“And where is the artillery unit now, Colonel?”

“Ah… They seem to have left the city, General.”

“Escaped you, in other words.”

Von Schnetter said nothing. After a moment, von Lintelo decided to relent a little. The colonel had not been directly in charge, after all.

“Never mind, Caspar. What’s done is done.”

“I could lead a pursuit, sir,” said Johann von Troiberz, one of the cavalry officers present.

The man’s tone was obsequious. Von Lintelo had no objection to that, but in von Troiberz’s case the fawning habits were tied to a man in whom the general had no great confidence. If he decided to launch a pursuit after the American officer and his artillery company, von Lintelo would give the assignment to Lorenz Munch von Steinach. Colonel Munch was as much of a sycophant as von Troiberz, but he was also a lot more competent.

But it was a bad idea, to begin with. “They made their escape through the eastern gate, I assume?” he said. The artillery barracks were located very near to it.

Von Schnetter nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“In that case”-he looked at von Troiberz-“I have better use for the cavalry. We need to send every cavalry unit available to the north, to Amberg. At first light.”

Seeing the expressions on the faces of several of his subordinates, von Lintelo sighed loudly with exasperation. “I don’t propose to seize the city, gentlemen. Not now, before we’ve taken Regensburg. But the heirs to the duchy are being held there. They need to be rescued.”

He nodded toward yet another cavalry officer in the room, Captain Heinrich Benno von Elsenhaim. “Von Elsenhaim has been preparing the mission. All of you cavalry commanders should discuss the details with him. Now, please, there’s no time to lose. Colonel Munch, I’m placing you in charge of the expedition.”

The cavalrymen began collecting around von Elsenhaim in a corner. The general turned back to von Schnetter. “Are there any other problems I need to be made aware of?”

“Ah…” Whenever he thought he might have bad news to report, von Schnetter seemed incapable of speaking without that annoying preliminary noise.

“What is it now, Colonel?” The general made no effort to disguise his irritation. He rarely did, when dealing with subordinates.

“Nothing specific, sir. But… We don’t have as much control of the troops as I’d like.”

Von Lintelo stared at him. Von Schnetter had been an officer long enough-more than long enough-to know the realities.

“Of course we don’t,” he snapped. “They’re in the middle of sacking a city-which, I remind you, I gave them express permission to do if they succeeded in taking Ingolstadt. The legitimate spoils of war.”

“Yes, I know. But…”

Another officer came into the chamber. Also an unexpected one-Captain Johann Heinrich von Haslang, whom von Lintelo had sent to find out what had happened with regard to the airship. That hadn’t been more than five minutes ago! He couldn’t possibly have any news this soon.

“I think you’d better see this for yourself, General,” said von Haslang. He pointed to one of the windows on the northern side of the room. “It’s quite visible from there.”

Von Lintelo went over to the window and looked down at the city. The chamber was on the third floor of the Rathaus, so he had a good view of the square below.

There was nothing to see, beyond some soldiers plundering a shop.

“Up in the sky, sir. You can see it clearly in the moonlight.” Captain von Haslang came next to him and pointed up and to the left.

The general saw the object immediately. Even at what was clearly a considerable distance, the airship seemed enormous. The moonlight glistened off one of its flanks, as if it were a leviathan that had just leapt from the sea.

Von Lintelo had seen diagrams of the things, but had never actually seen one in person. It was…impressive.

Also infuriating.

“What happened?” he demanded. “My orders were clear. I wanted that airship seized at once.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who was in charge?”

“Von der Felt, sir. As you instructed.”

Von Lintelo glared at him, and then glared at the airship. He had, in fact, specifically placed Captain Andreas von der Felt in charge. The former Catholic League officer was a reliable man. But he didn’t appreciate the near-insolence involved in being reminded of it by von Haslang.

So, he shifted the issue. “What happened?”

“I don’t kn-”

“Of course you don’t know! I specifically assigned you to find out what happened and here you are, back again almost immediately with no explanation. You won’t find out anything here, Captain. Attend to your duty.”

After von Haslang left, the general went back to glaring at the airship. There would be no way to capture it now, of course. Or even destroy it. The craft was already at least a thousand feet high, beyond the range of any gun except cannons-and no cannon was designed to fire almost straight up.

That was something that would have to be attended to, as soon as possible. Realistically, there was no way Bavaria would be able to match their enemy’s capabilities in the air in the foreseeable future. That would have been true even if they’d succeeded in taking the airship. Von Lintelo would urge the duke to devote resources to developing guns which could strike down aircraft instead. Such guns were quite possible, he’d been told.

The general’s foul mood didn’t last for long. Every campaign has its shortcomings. Taken as a whole, however, this campaign had succeeded splendidly. Ingolstadt was theirs again.

When Captain von Haslang finally found Captain Andreas von der Felt, he still had no answers. The captain’s body was cold-ice cold, as you’d expect in the middle of a clear night in January-and the first signs of rigor mortis were setting in. He’d been dead for hours. His body was half-sprawled against the wall of a shop that had been broken into. A general store, from the looks, which sold foodstuffs and other items. Von Haslang was pretty sure the captain had been dragged there from somewhere else, though, judging from the trail of blood leading out into the street. That was where he’d probably been struck down.

The cause of death needed no explanation. There was a big hole in his forehead and the back of his skull was missing. A gunshot had caused that, obviously. From the huge size of the entry wound, von Haslang would normally have assumed the captain had been struck by a canister ball. But that was most unlikely. Who would be firing a cannon in this vicinity? It was almost all the way across the city from the artillery barracks.

At a guess, the captain-damned idiot-had been breaking into the shop when someone inside fired on him with an antique arquebus, the type of huge gun designed to be fired from wagons or with a forkrest. They were often called by the French term arquebus a croc. The weapons weren’t much use on a modern battlefield but, passed down generation to generation, they’d serve a shopkeeper well enough.

Drawing his wheel-lock pistol, von Haslang climbed into the shop through the smashed window. The shop itself was dark, but there was a gleam of light coming from somewhere in the back. He headed that way.

Before he got more than ten feet, he tripped over something on the floor and barely managed to keep from falling. Squatting down and investigating in the darkness with his free hand, he discovered another dead body. He’d stumbled over one of the man’s legs.

After a few more seconds of groping, he found a big arquebus lying next to the man. That confirmed his guess as to what had happened. The captain-damned idiot-had led his men into a plundering expedition instead of attending to his duty; he’d been shot dead by the shop’s owner; his men had fired back and killed the owner. Then they’d dragged their commander’s body out of the street and placed him against the wall of the shop.

And then what?

He rose and resumed his slow progress toward the light. As he got near, he saw that the light was spilling from the floor above. What he’d seen from a distance was the crack in the door that led to the stairwell.

Slowly and carefully, making no sound, he opened the door enough to pass through. Then, waited for a few seconds, listening for any noise coming from above.

Nothing. That he could detect, anyway. There was quite a bit of noise filtering into the shop from the street outside. A city being sacked is anything but quiet. Whatever noise might be coming from above was drowned out.

But von Haslang didn’t think there was any. He had a sense for such things, from his years of war. Whatever had happened in this shop was over. The whole place had a dead feel to it.

He went up the stairs, still moving slowly and carefully. Once on the landing, he spent another few seconds listening.

Still nothing. He started moving from room to room. As was often the case with small shops, these were the personal living quarters of the shopkeeper and his family.

The family was all dead, too. A wife, at a guess; two sons of teenage years; a girl perhaps eight years old. The boys had been killed immediately, shot dead. The woman and her daughter would have died later, after much torment. They’d both had their throats cut.

Several empty bottles of liquor were lying about. Those would have been looted from the shop below. The few possessions of the family had also been ransacked, not that there would have been much to steal.

Despite the empty bottles, the killers hadn’t been completely drunk. Soldiers sacking a city didn’t usually murder the women they raped. Their men, yes, as a rule; but they’d keep the women for concubines. This had been done to eliminate witnesses.

Not witnesses to the atrocity itself. Duke Maximilian and General von Lintelo would be quite indifferent to that matter, and any of their soldiers would know it. But they wouldn’t be indifferent to gross dereliction of duty-and these men had been given an important mission. At which they’d failed completely, because of their own lust and greed.

For that, they’d hang-if they were found out.

But would they be? Did anyone besides Captain Andreas von der Felt know which soldiers he’d taken with him? Anyone, at least, whose word could be taken as good coin.

Probably…not. Von der Felt was well-known for committing atrocities, and such officers transmitted their attitudes to their men. Captain von Haslang strongly disapproved, and his reasons were military as well as moral. Units which behaved in that manner invariably became coarsened, and the coarseness spread over time into all areas of their conduct. Who in their right mind would take the word of a murderer, rapist, arsonist and torturer for anything?

Not he, for sure. Not even General von Lintelo would.

So, the guilty men would probably go undetected and unpunished. And an important mission had failed in the process.

The colonel sighed, slid the pistol back in his belt, and headed back down the stairs. He was beginning to get a bad feeling about this whole campaign-and he was a man who trusted his instincts.