1634: The Baltic War

Chapter 58

"The poltroon!" snarled Torstensson. He handed the eyeglass back to the same aide. "Yes, you're right. That's got to be d'Angouleme, unless someone stole his personal banners-and why would anyone do that?"

Frank took off his hat and scratched his head. "What the hell does he think he's doing? All that's back there is Luebeck-and by now, the emperor's probably led the garrison out."

Gustav was doing much better than that-or, rather, was ordering Axel Oxenstierna to do it for him.

The chancellor of Sweden had accompanied Admiral Gyllenhjelm and his fleet. So had ten thousand Swedish soldiers, packed on its many ships.

"Axel, once you get them formed up, take them up the Trave to meet Torstensson. Between the two of you, you'll have d'Angouleme's army in a vise."

The chancellor gave Gustav Adolf a skeptical look. Not because of any hesitation on his own part-Oxenstierna was quite an experienced military commander himself-but simply because it was so out of character for the king of Sweden.

Seeing the look, Gustav Adolf smiled a bit ruefully. "Yes, yes, it's a great temptation. But the truth is, Axel, I'd do far better to leave for Copenhagen with Karl and his warships rather than lead this expedition myself. Judging from the last radio report, by the time you get there it may all be over, anyway. Torstensson seems to be doing quite well. Whereas there's only so much Admiral Simpson can do on his own. Those wonderful ironclads are splendid for blowing things up, but I need to make a settlement with the Danish king. Not so good for that, once he's softened up the drunken bastard. I need to deal with that business myself."

Oxenstierna nodded. "Oh, I don't disagree, Your Majesty. Especially when I reflect that less than two years ago, in another universe, you got yourself killed at Lutzen leading a cavalry charge. It's amazing, really. You wouldn't think the difference between being thirty-eight and thirty-nine years old would produce such a drastic increase in wisdom. I'm fifty, myself, and I can't remember any such great transformation in my own life."

The emperor just responded with a grin. "It's yours, then!" He turned and clapped his half-brother Karl Gyllenhjelm on the shoulder. "Come, Admiral of Sweden! We don't want that upstart Simpson to get all the naval glory."

As they headed for the door leading out of Luebeck's Rathaus, Gyllenhjelm winced. "He really hasn't left us poor Swedes with much more than scraps, Gustav."

"All the more reason to grab the scraps! Before the greedy bastard takes them from us, too."

Torstensson was still snarling. "I'll be damned if he will! Thinks he can escape while leaving his army in the lurch, does he? Fuck that French shithead. Bryan, send a cavalry force after him."

Colonel Thorpe cleared his throat. "Ah, general. You've already thrown the cavalry we have against the French left. All that remains are two companies in reserve."

Torstensson frowned. "So I did. Well…"

He turned his head toward Jackson, smiling a little wickedly. "Let's see if you can make good on another boast, Frank. Now's your chance to prove those heavy weapons units can march as quickly as you claim, too."

Jackson returned the smile with one of his own, that was just as wicked. "A small wager, on the side?"

"Ha! Think me a fool? No, just see to it, please. Do the liaison with Colonel Straley personally, if you would. That'll be faster than sending a courier to try to explain it all."

As he'd been talking, Jackson had squatted down, so he could see the map spread over the ground better. It was held down by small rocks on each corner. Fortunately, there wasn't much wind. Somehow or other, the tent they'd planned to use for a command post had gotten lost along the way. It would probably turn up in a day or two-by which time, the way things were looking, they'd be comfortably set up in a nearby tavern anyway and wouldn't need it.

Such is war, as Frank remembered quite well from his days as a youngster in Vietnam. The plans of mice and men gang aft agleigh, and never more so than once the fighting started.

"I don't think there's any point in actually chasing after them, General." He pointed to a spot on the map and then shifted his finger. "The volley guns can move fast, but they can't move as fast as cavalry-and they'd lose more ground right at the start having to get around the French army. Better, I'm thinking, to figure out where Angouleme is going and cut him off at the pass. So to speak."

Torstensson squatted next to him, and studied the map for a moment. "Yes, I see your point. He can't go down to Luebeck, obviously, which means he's probably trying to reach the Trave somewhere around here." His own finger came down on the spot that marked the small town of Reinfeld, then slid along the line that marked the upper stretch of the Trave until his finger reached Segeberg.

"Somewhere between Reinfeld and Segeberg-but it would have to be much closer to Segeberg-he'll leave the Trave and make his way across to the headwaters of the Stor. Then follow it down the Elbe near Gluckstadt and try to cross there."

"That's what I'm figuring," agreed Jackson. "So I think we'd do better to take the volley guns back to the headwaters of the Trave right here"-he pointed to the west-"and just follow it down until we run into Angouleme coming the other way. Should be somewhere around… here, I'm think. This village called Nutschel, if I'm reading this damn script properly." An aggrieved tone came into his voice. "I thought we'd agreed to use Roman lettering in the army, instead of this Fraktur crap."

Torstensson rose from the map. "Germans, you know. Most stubborn people on the face of the earth. All right, General Jackson. Be off, and Godspeed. Bring me back the head of Charles de Valois. And I don't care if it's attached to the rest of his body or not."

"Again?" whined Krenz.

"I told you to pay attention to your horsemanship." Thorsten had no sympathy at all with Krenz on this subject. " 'Flying artillery,' remember? And now we'll really have to fly, if we're to catch up with that French general."

"Order an advance, all across the line," said Charles de la Porte. Before his lieutenants could start arguing the matter, he threw up his hands with exasperation. "Yes, I know! But what else can we do? If we continue to stand our ground, those fucking guns will just keep hammering us. Our own artillery is simply no match for them. And if we try to retreat-and where, exactly? Certainly not Luebeck!-we'll get cut to pieces without cavalry to screen us. We've got no other choice. We either win a straight-up battle or we surrender. That's it-and I don't want to hear any arguments."

At least the flight of Angouleme had left a decisive man in command of the French army. As they hurried off to prepare the advance, the lieutenants tried to take what confidence they could from that fact.

"His best option," said Torstensson, once he saw the enemy beginning its advance. "Not a good one-not with our artillery-but the best he's got. Who's in command over there, Bryan, do you think?"

His staff officer pondered the question, for a moment or two. "Hard to know, General. If I had to guess, I'd say either Charles de la Porte or Gaspard de Coligny. Either one of them is supposed to be competent. Coligny has seniority, but de la Porte has better family ties. He's one of Richelieu's cousins. Given d'Angouleme, I'd think he'd ignore seniority and select for family ties. If nothing else, it'll help spread the blame better."

"Why not de la Valette, then?" asked another of Torstensson's lieutenants, who'd spent some time in the French colors. "His mother was a Montmorency, his wife a royal bastard, and now that she's dead the rumor is that he's courting one of Richelieu's nieces."

Thorpe barked a sarcastic little laugh. "Better for us if he had! But I don't think d'Angouleme is downright stupid."

As it happened, Bernard de Nogaret de la Valette had accompanied Angouleme's cavalry force, although no one had actually invited him to do so. He knew perfectly well that the so-called "flanking maneuver" was the best-probably the only-way to get out of the trap the French army was in. There'd be hell to pay when they got back to France, but de la Valette would deal with that when the time came. He was considerably more proficient in that field of battle than he was in this much cruder one.

By the time they reached the Trave near Reinfeld, however, scouts reported that lead elements of a new army were advancing from Luebeck. As the duke of Angouleme had guessed, Gustav Adolf was already leading out the city's garrison. There was no time to waste!

Somewhere between Reinfeld and the town of Oldesloe, any pretense that the two thousand cavalrymen were engaged in a wide flanking maneuver crumbled. This was a simple retreat-and, as panic began spreading, it rapidly took on the features of a rout. With d'Angouleme himself setting the pace, the cavalrymen began running their mounts much faster than they should have been, given the great distance they still had to go before they'd reach the Elbe. Or even the headwaters of the Stor, for that matter.

De la Valette was relieved at first. That half-buried part of him that was an experienced horseman knew perfectly well that they couldn't maintain this pace for very long without winding the animals. But all he cared about at the moment was putting distance between himself and those two armies of the damned Swede.

Soon enough, though, his relief gave way to apprehension, and then fear. Let two thousand horsemen on a narrow country road lose control of themselves, and the sure result is what amounts to equestrian turbulence. It was like riding rapids on horseback instead of a boat.

About two miles past Oldesloe, another horseman jostled de la Valette's mount and forced the beast off the road. One of its hooves caught in something, the horse went down, breaking its own leg and one of de la Valette's in the bargain. Then, as it continued to thrash about hysterically with its rider unable to move away, broke the French nobleman's collarbone, cracked several of his ribs, and left lacerations and bruises over half his body. It only ended when a frantic de la Valette managed to extract one of his wheel-lock pistols and shoot the animal in the head.

At that point, he collapsed unconscious. When he came back to his senses, the sun was setting-and four very ruffianly-looking soldiers were grinning down at him. One of them had a dagger held to his throat.

The relief was immense. First, because he was alive, even if in great pain. Second, because his injuries along with his capture would help a great deal to alleviate suspicion once he got back to Paris. The awkward matter of the precise location where these unfortunate events occurred could probably be elided over.

Finally, he was relieved that he'd been captured by soldiers. Just two miles from Oldesloe, he could have easily been found by villagers instead. In which case, the knife now being held to his throat to ensure his cooperation would already have slit it. And then moved on to his evisceration and probable emasculation-except most likely not in that sequence.

De la Valette knew the magic phrase also, of course. "Je suis Bernard de Nogaret de la Valette, duc d' Epernon," he croaked. "There is a good ransom."

He said that last in German. Which, as it happened, not one of the soldiers understood, being Swedish country boys. But it didn't matter. They weren't such rural bumpkins that they didn't know that all four of them had just gotten rich, if they kept this fine fellow alive. Swedish troops, naturally, had no truck with that CoC foolishness about creating a common pool for widows and orphans-if they'd heard of it at all, which these new arrivals from Sweden hadn't. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, since they were soldiers of the king of Sweden, not the emperor of the United States of Europe.

"Fire!" shouted Colonel Straley. Lying in what amounted to an open ambush across the road alongside the Trave and in the edges of the woods beyond, the volley gun batteries could hear the colonel's voice perfectly well. They were already starting to fire when the bugles blew.

With dozens of volley guns concentrating their fire on such a narrow frontage, the first ranks of the French cavalry force were simply shredded. To make things worse, the piled up bodies of the horses made it impossible for them to advance further-and the panicked cavalrymen from the rear were still pressing forward, making it impossible to retreat. They were like animals trapped in a cage.

The batteries fired four more volleys before one of the French officers managed to jury-rig a flag of surrender. By then, they'd suffered casualties that were every bit as bad as those being suffered by the main army still fighting on the field.

On that field, a considerably more courageous young French commander had finally had enough. "Send a surrender signal," gasped Charles de la Porte. He was so exhausted he didn't even notice the minor wound he'd taken to the hip. "This is hopeless."

Torstensson had been waiting for the signal, since the outcome of the battle had been obvious from the moment the only French units who managed to reach the USE infantry had been driven back in less than a minute. Since then, this had just been carnage.

"Cease fire!" he commanded. As the buglers blew the signal, Torstensson turned to Colonel Bryan Thorpe with a cheerful smile. "Well, I admit I misgauged the time. But it's still as good as Breitenfeld. Better!-if we catch that bastard d'Angouleme. At Breitenfeld, Tilly got away from us."

One of the French officers in the trap along the Trave tried to escape on his own, racing his horse toward the woods. He might even have made it-at least two hundred did-except that he passed too close to Engler's batteries. Thorsten spotted him, and since he was still on horseback went in pursuit.

He probably wasn't as good a horseman as the fleeing French officer, who was almost certainly a nobleman who'd been riding since he was a boy. But Engler was good enough, given that his mount was fresh and that of his prey was badly winded.

He caught up with him in less than half a mile. The fleeing officer's horse had finally stumbled from exhaustion. By then, fortunately, the horse had been moving so slowly that its fall was more in the way of a slow roll than a sudden spill. So its rider had the time to get out of the saddle before the huge beast fell on top of him and crushed him.

He was still badly bruised, of course. Horsefalls are always a dangerous experience and never a pleasant one. But he didn't even have his wind knocked out, so when Thorsten brought his horse alongside and aimed his wheel-lock pistol at the man, he was able to speak.

"Je suis Charles de Valois, duc d'Angouleme. There is an excellent ransom."

As Colonel Nils Ekstrom worked his way through the various reports sent to Luebeck from Torstensson's adjutants, he spotted an oddity.

Coincidence, perhaps. Or a simple error.

Still, it was intriguing. He sent a courier to inquire.

The following day, the courier returned. No coincidence of names, and no error. The humble sergeant in Torstensson's volley gun units who had captured both the French cavalry commander Guebriant as well as the enemy's commander-in-chief d'Angouleme were, indeed, one and the same man. And, yes, he was the Thorsten Engler who was betrothed to an American woman in Magdeburg.

"Oh, splendid!" exclaimed Ekstrom. "That's one problem solved, at least."

Well… not quite. Imperial counts-at least, if they followed the Austrian model-didn't carry place names. And the princess was likely to be stubborn.

"Bring me a map," he commanded an aide. When the map was brought, Ekstrom studied it for a moment.

"Nutschel. That's about where the capture was made."

Frank Jackson happened to have come into the chamber of the Rathaus where Ekstrom was conducting his labors, while Ekstrom had been waiting for the map. "What's this about, Nils?"

Ekstrom explained, then said, "Silly name, anyway. We'll just inform the villagers that the emperor-their emperor, now-has decided to rename their village to honor the great victory."

"Rename it what?"

"Narnia, of course. That gives us a fallback position-that is the American term, yes?-in the not unlikely event the emperor capitulates to his daughter."

Frank stared at him. Then, at the map. "You've got to be kidding."

Ekstrom gave him a fish-eyed look. "You have met Princess Kristina, I believe."

Frank had grown a beard not long after the Ring of Fire, foreseeing the likely disappearance of safety razors, and long since had developed the common habit of tugging it. He did so now, wincing. "Good point. Yeah, I have met her."

He looked back at the map. "Narnia, huh? Well… as long as they don't spell it in Fraktur."