“Bombardier,” Tom suggested.
“Fucking moron,” was his wife’s countersuggestion. “What else can you call someone who tosses lit firebombs from a flimsy hot air balloon?”
“Dirigible,” said the Franchettis, sternly and simultaneously.
Rita shook her head. “Well, at least one historical question is now answered. Fucking geeks can be found in any time and place.”
Tom had learned long ago that when his wife started using Appalachian patois in every other sentence it was time to wrap up the discussion. Before the patois began appearing in every sentence. Then, every clause.
He clapped his hands. “All right, it’s settled. Mr. Franchetti”-that was directed at Filippo-“I figure your airship should lead the bombing run. So it’s probably best that Rita transfer now from the Pelican to the Albatross. She’s the best person to guide the run and serve as the lead bombardier. Bonnie and Heinrich can transfer into your ship also, since it’s your turn to make the refueling run to Regensburg. You can drop them off in the city.”
He turned to the young nephew, striving mightily to keep a straight face. “Stefano, that’ll leave you with Mary Barancek as your bombardier. I know she’s awfully young, but I think she can handle the job.”
Stefano beamed. “Oh, certainly!”
Tom was no slouch himself, when it came to racking up brownie points. He turned now to Bonnie and Bocler. “Any further questions?”
They looked at each other. After a moment, Bonnie shrugged. “Probably a thousand. But we’ll manage. We work pretty well together.”
She thought about that, most of the way to Regensburg.
It was quite true, actually. They did work together well. Got along well, too.
The rest of the way into Regensburg, she spent contemplating the fact that for the first time since Larry Wild died, she found herself interested in a man who didn’t remind her of Larry in the least, teeniest, itsiest, littlest bit.
That was probably mentally healthy, she figured, although she wasn’t sure.
She giggled, then. Bocler, who’d been standing next to her in the gondola throughout the trip, raised his eyebrows. “What has amused you?”
She put her hand over her mouth, to cover the grin. “Oh, nothing,” she mumbled. “Just a stray thought.”
It was funny, but there were too many up-time referents for her to be able to explain the humor clearly to Heinz. Had anyone told her, back in her West Virginia days, that the time would come when she’d wonder where she could find a shrink, she’d have told them they were crazy.
But it was true, nonetheless. Up-timers now even had a saying about it. The Ring of Fire changed us all.
Chapter 14
The third day went much like the first two. Two small armies moving slowly down the Danube, keeping the same steady distance. Hundreds of cavalrymen charging hither and yon across the landscape-everywhere except where the armies marched-plundering everything they could get their hands on.
Which wasn’t much. That landscape had been picked pretty clean. If a cavalry platoon caught a chicken, they deemed it a great prize and a cause for celebration. They would hold the celebration immediately, roasting the chicken on a spit while consuming a bottle of very bad wine they’d looted from a neighboring village. As ravening plunderers went, these fellows were definitely bottom feeders.
By then, although Colonel von Schnetter had said nothing openly to him, it was quite obvious to Captain von Haslang that the infantry commander had decided to let the Danube Regiment make its escape. He would follow them closely all the way to Regensburg, for the sake of appearances, but he would make no effort to bring the enemy to battle. He would not subject his own men to the casualties of a frontal assault on prepared artillery, with no cavalry support. If General von Lintelo broke into one of his tempers over the matter, let him place the blame where it rightly belonged-on the cavalry scoundrels and their own commander, Colonel von Troiberz.
Von Haslang had no objection. Neither to the substance of the issue, nor to the colonel’s tactical judgment. Insofar as the substance was concerned, he too saw no reason their own men should suffer because of a general’s carelessness and a cavalry officer’s dereliction.
As for the tactics…
If Colonel von Troiberz had been one of von Lintelo’s favorites, this would be a risky maneuver. The general would almost certainly then bring his wrath down on Colonel von Schnetter-and, the general being the sort of man he was, on von Schnetter’s staff as well. Happily, von Lintelo held Colonel von Troiberz in no high regard either. That was the reason he’d given him this assignment, almost as an afterthought, instead of including his unit in the more important mission to Amberg.
So, most likely, von Lintelo’s fury would come down on the cavalry, who richly deserved it. But it probably wouldn’t be that great a fury anyway, since it had also been obvious that von Lintelo didn’t view capturing the escaped fragments of the Danube Regiment as a particularly important matter.
He might come to regret that judgment. Captain von Haslang’s own assessment of the enemy commander had steadily grown over the past two and half days. Given that a siege of Regensburg now seemed inevitable, he’d be a lot happier if Major Simpson and his men weren’t part of the defending force.
But, like Colonel von Schnetter, he didn’t think it was worth the casualties to prevent that from happening. If a man sought perfection, he should find a different trade than that of a professional soldier.
To her great relief, Bonnie found that her new assignment was not as hard as she’d thought it would be. (For years thereafter, whenever confronted with a quandary, she would throw up her hands and exclaim “Oppenheimer!”) That was true for three reasons:
First, Heinz Bocler turned out to be far better in his General Groves persona than she was when she tried to imitate a world-class nuclear physicist like Oppenheimer. Within less than an hour after their arrival in Regensburg, he had the city’s officials and guild masters eating out of the palm of his plump little hand.
How he managed that was something of a mystery to Bonnie. It was certainly not due to his dazzling personality. Heinz was a pleasant enough fellow, but he possessed about as much in the way of social charm as you’d expect from a man raised by a parson, educated to be a clerk, and filled with the ambition to write a history book.
Her guess was that Heinz fit, to a T, every pompous city official and stuffed-shirt guildmaster’s notion of what the personal secretary of a provincial administrator should be like. So, oddly enough, it was his very lack of charisma that lent him great authority.
The second factor working in her favor was Brick Bozarth. Bonnie had completely forgotten-if she’d ever known at all, which she probably hadn’t-that the State of Thuringia-Franconia had sent Bozarth to Regensburg back in 1634. The man served as one of the SoTF’s semi-official trade representatives and consuls to the Oberpfalz.
Bozarth’s precise position in the SoTF’s bureaucracy was never clear to Bonnie. The middle-aged ex-miner had nothing more than a high school diploma, so far as his education was concerned. In his days as a coal miner, he’d operated a continuous mining machine-a skill that was about as useful, in the here and now, as knowing how to pilot a submarine. She suspected that his main qualification for his post was simply the fact that was a member of the United Mine Workers.
In the period after the Ring of Fire, Mike Stearns had leaned very heavily on the membership of his union local to provide him with a ready-made cadre. Those days were over now. Mike himself had left for Magdeburg and the man who succeeded him to serve as the province’s president, Ed Piazza, was not and had never been a coal miner.
By then, though, certain social customs had become rooted in the State of Thuringia-Franconia. The same customs didn’t hold much sway elsewhere in the United States of Europe. Being a UMWA member in Magdeburg province, for instance, was certainly respectable-even admirable-but gave a man no particular status in political terms.