Once it became really cold, having the cave was a godsend. It was pleasantly warm in there compared to what it was outside.
A cave stays the same temperature all year around. This temperature is the average of all the outside temperatures in the area over the past several years. At least, that's what our data showed once we'd collected it over a year.
In fact, recording the temperature, along with the weather and the time the sun rose and set, was about all we did for the last six months in camp. Cooking, eating, and sleeping were the only other things we had to do besides writing up what had happened the summer before.
I expanded my notes to cover my entire life up to then. That is to say, this is when I wrote most of the journal you now hold, although now that I've gotten this far, I think I might continue with it.
At the Winter Solstice, the opposite of the Midnight Sun happened. One day the sun never does come up. But you cannot celebrate something that doesn't happen, so we didn't.
We tried trapping fur-bearing animals, using traps we made according to one of the manuals we had with us. Either there weren't any animals to be trapped or we didn't know what we were doing, or both, but the project was not successful.
We did find a large bear, or rather, he found us. Apparently, the cave had been his winter home, and he vigorously objected to our possession of it. This was only fair, since we objected to his repossession of the premises with even greater vigor. The bear made it all the way through the doorway before dying with over a dozen bullets in him. Bear meat was a refreshing change from venison, and we made his pelt into a rug.
Kiejstut and I managed to catch Sir Odon with the old outhouse trick, but it just isn't as much fun when the shit is frozen solid.
Lezek and Kiejstut wrote quite a few songs that winter, and some of them have gotten popular around the Explorer's School. When next you hear "Under the Midnight Sun," or "The Baltic Challenger," or even "Ten Thousand to One, Against Us," also known as "The Mosquito Song," think of them, up there in the cold.
Mostly, we told a lot of long, tall stories, played a lot of games, and read every army manual we had with us at least twice. We loudly bemoaned the fact that we had neither beer nor fair ladies with us. We sang and played our horns, violins, guitars, drums, and recorders, and with so much time to practice, we became better with them. We lived, but I think that if we had not been such good friends in the first place, we might have killed each other just to have something interesting to do.
In fact, there was a killing in the lance to the southeast of us. Apparently, the man just went crazy from sitting around with nothing to do. He killed one of his teammates and injured two others before he was shot dead. Madness.
Sitting unloved and sober in the cold and dark, my lance made a few resolutions. We swore that on our next mission, we would bring a year's supply of strong drink with us, even if it had to be that powerful white lightning stuff that Lord Conrad liked. Also, our next mission would either have to be someplace where they had women, or we would smuggle in our own. And mainly, wherever it was, it had darned well better be warm!
WRITTEN JANUARY 12, 1250, CONCERNING JUNE 1249
Again I find time weighing heavily on me, as I sit alone in my cabin, steaming across the Atlantic Ocean, and far away from my one true love. I might as well bring this journal up to date.
Finally, the birds of the Arctic began to return, the ice on the Baltic started to break, and the long winter ended. We were told to leave everything behind, except for our journals, our weapons, and our personal equipment. All the rest would be of use to those who would follow us. We asked if that included the chest of money we had brought but hadn't found a use for, and they said yes, leave that, too.
We sealed up and buried the cave entrance as we had done once before, but only after Sir Odon counted the money twice and made us all sign a paper saying that we had left the money and everything else behind pursuant to orders. I'd never seen him quite so nervous before, but then I'd never seen anyone ordered to abandon a quarter of a million pence before, either.
Well, a quarter million pence less all of our back pay, up to the first of next month. We didn't want to be penniless on the trip back to the Explorer's School.
We were personally welcomed on board the Baltic Challenger by Baron Siemomysl and Baron Tados with a party, mostly because we had found the most valuable thing of any of the explorer lances. You see, our superiors would get a cut of the profits on the mine, just as we would.
We all smiled and shook hands, and they all smiled and shook hands, and everybody said uninteresting things, and nobody said anything original, since everything important had already been said months ago, over the radio. They fed us well, with fantastically delicious fresh egg omelets, crispy salads, and fresh green garden vegetables. And we drank, and drank well.
It was a wonderful thing that they had beer on the ship, and we had been too long sober. We were all astounded at the amount we could drink, several gallons per man, without even falling over. I think that our bodies were telling us that we needed it.
At Gdansk we got our new orders. We were to forward our journals and equipment to the Explorer's School. I sent them my journals, but shipped my big war chest home, since in his letters, my brother had asked about all the new weapons and equipment, and I wanted to show him.
We were further ordered to take three months off, with pay. This gave Fritz, Kiejstut, and Taurus time enough to visit home, something they had not been able to do in many years, since before the Mongol invasion.
Kiejstut stayed right on the ship, since it would be making one more round to pick up the last of the explorer lances, while putting off over a dozen mercantile support groups at the permanent stations that had been selected, and in doing so would be steaming right past Lithuania.
When I asked why our lance hadn't been sent to Lithuania, since we already had someone who spoke the language, the barons told me that at the time, they hadn't known exactly where Lithuania was, and anyway, they hadn't thought of it.
Then they asked me why I hadn't suggested it, and I had to say that I hadn't thought of it, either. When we got Kiejstut into the conversation, he said he had traveled to Poland by land. He had never thought of going home by water until now.
Fritz considered taking the ship around the Baltic to get to Szczecin, and going home from there, but a study of the new maps convinced him it would be just as fast to go home by way of Okoitz, where he could get a little sexual release first.
He said, "That way I will be less likely to rape and pillage and rape again, all my bloody way across the Holy Roman Empire!"
The seven of us took a leisurely riverboat trip in pleasant early summer weather up the Vistula, to Sionsk, where Father John left us. He had to report to the Archbishop at Gniezno, before visiting his family at Poznan.
Lezek's family and Zbigniew's foster family lived on army ranches near Sieciechow, and Fritz, Taurus, and I were persuaded to visit with them for a day or two before continuing on home.
Sir Odon declined the offer, so we left him aboard to continue his way south. It was his loss, for their families gave us a fine welcome, and we enjoyed our stay there immensely.
The workers at both of the ranches, one for aurochs and the other for young Big People, were members of the army just as we were. But it seemed to them that we were the ones out doing all the exciting things while they were stuck living humdrum, ordinary lives. It seemed to me that I had just spent the winter in a cave bereft of beer and female company, while they had spent the time pleasantly with their families.