The most serious damage was to the bottom, of course, and even that wasn't catastrophic. The volume between the cargo deck and the bottom was cut into dozens of watertight compartments, and only one of them was flooded. It would have been a different story had we been hit in the paddle wheel or the boiler. But there was no way to armor against two-ton rocks, so there was no point in worrying about it.
Except for the ones in the bow, the watertight compartments were all identical. The boat's dining room had three trestle tables that were just the right size to fit in the bottom of these. One of my better ideas. I got together a couple of crewmen and we lifted the floorboards, sank a table, and nailed it in place with all of us standing in the knee-deep water to hold down the table.
We put a portable pump down there and one man was left working it. It leaked some, but he could keep up with it. We stopped a moment to admire a job well done, when another rock came crashing through not four yards away, taking the comer off a war cart before it went through the bottom. Blood dripped through the ragged hole from the deck above.
"Do you remember what we did here," I said to the man next to me. He said he did.
"Well, do it again over there."
I went up to Tartar Control and discovered that we had a third killing ground going north of Czersk. Four boats were on it and the one near Brzesko now had six. All the rest were in transit to or from East Gate, to get more coal and ammunition.
The Mongols were completely inexperienced in dealing with us and our weapons, and paid heavily for the lessons they learned. Yet it was equally true that we were inexperienced with them. But with the radios, we could pass fighting tips around, while fighting in three separate groups; the Mongols had to go through each learning experience three times. And we charged full tuition to each and every one of them.
I got back on deck just in time to see the RB10 Not For Hire take a rock square on her paddle wheel. She was dead ahead of us and even as she slowed, Tadaos was getting a towing line ready. Using one of the Mongol grapnels as a monkey's fist, a line was tossed to her by one of the experienced boatmen in the crew just as we stopped alongside. Within a minute, Tadaos was calling for full-speed ahead and we resumed our way to East Gate. As we towed her home, I caught glimpses of the Hire's crew dismantling the wreckage, preparing to rebuild. We were taking casualties, but we weren't giving the bastards any trophies.
RB1 TO ALL RIVER UNITS. THE ENEMY RAS A CATA
PULT THAT LOOKS LIKE A TEETER-TOTTER MADE FOR
GIANTS. IT CAN THROW A HUGE ROCK FOUR GROSS
YARDS, WHICH CAN DAMAGE A BOAT. IF YOU SEE ONE,
DO NOT ATTACK UNTIL YOU HAVE TWO OTHER BOATS
TO BACK YOU UP. THEY NEED A LARGE NUMBER OF
MEN WORKING CLOSE TOGETHER TO OPERATE THEM,
SO THEY ARE EASILY SLAUGHTERED BY OUR SWIVEL
GUNS WHEN THEY ARE MOUNTED ON A HILL. THE
PROBLEM IS THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO REPLACE MEN
AS FAST AS WE BUTCHER THEM. IF THEY GET SMART
ENOUGH TO MOUNT THEM ON THE OTHER SIDE OF A
HILL, WE WILL BE ABLE TO REACH THEM ONLY WITH
HALMAN BOMBS AND RIFLE GRENADES. ANY OTHER
USE OF BOMBS IS NOW FORBIDDEN, TO SAVE AMMUNI
TION. IF THEY ARE HIDDEN BY A HILL, THEY MUST
HAVE SOMEONE ON TOP OF THE HILL TO AIM THE
CATAPULT. TARGET THIS MAN. CONRAD. OUT.
Of course, I wasn't the only one handing out advice, not by a long shot. Some ideas were brilliant, some were dumb. But a cumulative learning process was taking place,
Darkness fell as we passed Cracow, still safe on the west bank of the Vistula. Piotr's crew was radioing the boats, reminding them that we had now lost our air cover, and we would have to go back to patrolling until dawn. Fortunately, the Mongols seemed to have had enough for one day and were breaking contact. We couldn't follow them, so it was a quiet night.
There was only a platoon of boatwrights at East Gate, but they were our best boatwrights, and they had plenty of eager if unskilled help. Because we had called ahead, an entire paddlewheel assembly was waiting for the Hire, and a crane swung it into position even as the troops were running on more ammo, food, and coal.
The patches in the bottom of the Muddling Through were inspected and secured with lag bolts. Linen caulking was pounded in the cracks and we were pronounced good enough. They gave us some boards and nails, and we were told to patch the upper decks on our way back to the fighting. Just then the boatwrights had better things to do.
Our badly wounded and dead were taken to an improvised hospital and morgue in the boat factory. I should have had something better planned, but I hadn't expected such heavy losses. I'd thought that our boats would be invincible!
We were almost ready to leave when I saw a Big People come galloping in hauling a cart full of swivel gun ammo and four terrified troops. The carts were three yards tall and lacked brakes, springs, and a suspension system; they were never intended to move at the speeds that a Big Person was capable of. But she stopped it in time and gave me a "Hi there!" posture.
"Hi there, yourself!" I said. "Are you Anna?"
She said YES, so I gave her a big hug.
"You see? I told you they needed you! But I've got to run, love. See you in a few days. Don't scare these boys too badly!" I ran to my boat and went back to the war. I hoped she hadn't noticed my wounded eye.
I sent a message to Duke Henryk that night, telling him that we were holding the Mongols at the Vistula, but we could not do it forever. I begged him to advance now with whatever forces he had. He did not answer.
FROM THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR VLADIMIR CHARNETSKI
Count Conrad's instructions had been quite clear. Duke Henryk was at Legnica with his own men, including my father and brothers. Count Conrad had sent him a written apology for not being there, along with six crews of radio operators who worked out of those little sevenman Night-Fighter carts. Duke Henryk was not pleased with us.
Duke Boleslaw was a fifteen-year-old knight who had resolved to defend eastern Poland. He was not on good terms with our liege lord Henryk.
If we dropped back to Legnica, as Duke Henryk wanted, we would be abandoning all of our factories and forts to the enemy. Our women would have to try to save themselves without our help, and the Mongols had long experience taking cities that were defended by both men and women. With women alone, well, I had to side with Count Conrad.
Yet if we fought alone, we would be a third separate force defending Poland. It was necessary that we make contact with Duke Boleslaw and join forces with him. But it was also necessary that we do so in such a manner that he supported our efforts as well as we supported his.
A combined strategy was necessary, and the young fool had rebuffed our earlier attempts at diplomacy. He had heard too many stories about knightly prowess and heroic deeds, and he could see no advantage in saddling himself with a "band of peasant footmen," no matter how large.
Myself, I think Conrad a fool for not using Countess Francine as his emissary, at least on the second try. That woman could talk a hungry dog away from a dead pig. But a young husband is often a fool when it comes to his new wife.
As it was, I left Hell with the biggest Christian army in all of history at my command, and I didn't know where I was going. All I knew was that Duke Boleslaw was somewhere between Plock and Sandomierz, and that somehow I had to join forces with him and work out some sort of strategy.
I had over two dozen of Anna's daughters, and I put a dozen of them with good riders to search for Boleslaw, men who were scions of the old nobility, men who Duke Boleslaw would not dare scoff at.
The other Big People were needed to run messages along my sixteen-mile-long train, and to lightly screen our flanks. We went on without stopping, and normal horses could never have kept up with us. My old Witchfire, now long in the tooth, was safely in the barns at Three Walls, and my love Annastashia was with our children not far away from him.