1634: The Baltic War (34 page)

On the other hand, they'd kept Simpson from having to figure out how to design truly efficient propellers—something he was going to have to do by the time they started laying down the proposed screw-frigates. They were also far less vulnerable (and far more mechanically reliable) than the paddle wheels he'd used for the supporting steamers. And they were immensely more efficient at moving water . . . which, after all, was what any mechanical propulsion system had to do.

He stepped to the front of the open bridgework wrapped around the armored conning tower and looked ahead down the river. The pair of up-time power boats leading the ponderous line of gunboats downstream looked particularly anachronistic this morning. The fact that they were stuffed with Marines armed with flintlock rifles only added to their incongruity, but Simpson couldn't have cared less. Each of those boats, like each of his ironclads, mounted one of the precious up-time fishing fathometers and carried one of the experienced Elbe River barge pilots. Over the last several weeks, those boats and pilots had scoured the upper reaches of the Elbe, familiarizing themselves with its waters in order to pick practicable channels for Simpson's vessels.

The fact that the river was running springtime deep and that the ironclads' draft could be reduced to as little as five feet by pumping out their trim tanks had helped immeasurably with that task, but there were still a few problem areas waiting for them. Most of those had been addressed by building
staustufen,
or temporary holding dams
,
on the shallow bits. Like the more permanent
wehrleucken
, the
staustufen
's function was to raise the water level in a given section of river to something which would float the gunboats.
Unlike
the
wehrleucken
,
staustufen
were intended from the beginning to be temporary structures. Once the water had risen sufficiently, they were simply breached and the vessels upstream of them rode down with the released wave.
Wehrleucken
, on the other hand, were permanent dams with central spillways that were supposed to be broad enough for barges and other river traffic to pass through.

Unfortunately, none of the existing
wehrleucken
had been built to handle anything like the size of the USE's steamboats and gunboats. In the long run, a more formal and efficient system of locks was going to be necessary, and its construction was already underway. But for now, Simpson was stuck with what was already in place.

And what's already in place is stuck with
me,
too,
he thought with a certain grim satisfaction.
You should have listened to Matthias
,
Freiherr
.
He was trying to be
much
more reasonable than
I'm
going to be
.

One thing about Mike Stearns, the admiral reflected. The man had nerves of steel and an
intelligent
ruthlessness whose depth Simpson, for one, had been woefully slow to recognize. In his own way, Stearns was every bit as ruthless and willing to resort to bare knuckles at need as Gustav Adolf himself . . . and just as pragmatic.

The prefix for the ships themselves, in fact, was a reflection of that characteristic of the man. SSIM stood for
Schiff seiner imperialen Majestät
—"His Imperial Majesty's Ship," in English. The CoCs had raised a ruckus, wanting USES instead. But since there'd been no substance to the matter beyond pure symbolism, and the issue was raising the emperor's hackles—more because he saw the CoCs as challenging him than because he really cared himself—Stearns had squelched the CoCs and settled the issue to Gustav Adolf's preference. Figuring, Simpson had no doubt, that he'd save his bargaining leverage for issues that really mattered. When the time came to fish or cut bait, Prime Minister Stearns, unlike certain other up-time political leaders Simpson could have named, never waffled.

Careful, John
, he told himself.
You're actually starting to
like
the man!

"Are you
sure
about this, Darryl?" asked Melissa. Both she and Tom Simpson were practically squinting at McCarthy, with pretty much the same expression on their faces they might have had if Darryl McCarthy had just announced he was going to become a monk. Or, perhaps more to the point under these circumstances, he'd announced that he knew a batch of Las Vegas showgirls who'd decided to take holy vows.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Why is it so goddam hard to understand?"

"They're
Yeoman Warders,
Darryl," said Tom patiently. "You know. The Tower of London's Beefeaters—even if they won't be called that for another half century or so. Renowned for their unswerving loyalty to the king. That sort of thing."

"Oh, piss on that," snapped Darryl. He gave Melissa a wary eye. "Meaning no offense."

"Good thing for you there's no blackboard around," she said, half-smiling. "As I believe I've mentioned about twenty times since we got stuck in here. But Tom's question still stands, Darryl. I'll grant you that the Beefeater reputation got overlaid with a lot of sentiment by our time. But it's still true enough—and nothing we've seen since we got here has indicated otherwise. Yes, they've been very pleasant to deal with. Far more pleasant, God knows, than this bunch of thugs who've been running the Tower for the last few weeks. But I've never doubted for a moment that the Warders would do their best to stop us from trying to escape."

"I ain't talking about 'the Warders,' " Darryl pointed out, trying for the same patient and level tone of voice that his commander Captain Simpson always did so well. "I'm just talking about one family among them. More to the point, Stephen Hamilton's family. You think
you're
pissed about these new mercenaries who've been running roughshod over everybody in the Tower? You don't know what the word 'pissed' even means, to somebody like him. And it's a double whammy. Just being angry wouldn't have given Stephen Hamilton a way to do anything about it. But now, me being part of the family and him having figured out we're planning to escape . . . I think from his point of view, that settled the question."

Tom rubbed his heavy jaw. "I think Darryl's probably right, Melissa. All the Yeoman Warders are quietly furious about the situation, not just Hamilton and his kin. I haven't spent much time out and about in the Tower since the lid came down, because we all agreed we'd be wise to keep a low profile. Darryl and Nelly are the only ones who go out regularly any more, because they've both got legitimate excuses that not even that prick Windebank questions. A sweetheart in Darryl's case—betrothed, to boot—and simply shopping for food in Nelly's. But I've been out there a couple of times, for an hour or so, and all it takes is a few minutes to figure out how mad they are. If word came down from Whitehall that King Charles had tired of Windebank and the Warders could do with him as they chose, they'd have the arrogant bastard staked out naked on the Tower green and be laying bets on which ravens would pluck out his eyes."

When Melissa had visited the Tower of London as a tourist, back in the late twentieth century, she'd thought the ancient custom of having ravens as pets of a sort in the Tower was charming. Even then, she'd known the historical origins of the custom. But it had all seemed very far removed, as harmless as a medieval sword displayed in a museum case. Now that she'd been imprisoned in the Tower during its "operational period," so to speak, she'd developed a different attitude. The ravens were indeed there to pluck out eyes—the eyes of men beheaded on the orders of the English crown.

Tom was still rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "And Darryl's also right about Stephen Hamilton. You haven't met him, not really. I have. That is one scary human being. Not somebody I'd want mad at me, for damn sure."

Melissa grimaced. "Tom, I have to tell you that 'one scary human being' is not actually a recommendation on a resumé. Not for me, anyway."

Tom gave her a thin, rather cold, smile. "We're in different lines of work, so to speak. From my point of view—being the commander of a military force that you couldn't call a 'squad' without breaking into hysterical laughter—'scary human being' looks pretty damn good, unless we're dealing with an actual sociopath. Which I don't think is true of Hamilton."

Darryl frowned. "Hey, take it easy. He's really a pretty good guy, you know. Hell of a nice grandpa for all the kids. I know him a lot better than either of you. He's just . . . Well, he never talks about it—nobody does in the family—but I think he's been in some very bad places in his life. The one thing for sure is that he's nobody you want to cross unless you've got a really good reason. 'Really good reason' like in: 'I'll die if I don't, so I may as well, even though he'll probably kill me.' I could tell that the first day I met the guy. Even Harry would walk carefully around him."

He cleared his throat. "Which, uh, kinda brings us back to the point. Is it gonna be 'would' or 'will'?"

"A miracle," stated Melissa. "God, they seem to happen every other day in this time and place. Darryl McCarthy just made a clear and correct grammatical distinction."

Darryl looked vaguely alarmed, the way a righteous hillbilly will when his credentials are challenged. She might as well have suggested he liked Brie and crackers with dry white wine.

"Hey!"

"Oh, relax, Darryl," said Tom. "I'm sure it was just a momentary lapse. My lips are sealed." Then, to Melissa: "But, yeah, you're right. It is a clear grammatical distinction. So what's going to be our correct response?"

Now it was Melissa's turn to look vaguely alarmed. "Oh, dear. Tom, I'm really not good at this sort of thing. Gauging violent people, I mean. I thought my college boyfriend was really cute until he turned out to be a screwball, fiddling with explosives that he had no idea how to make and even less idea of where and why and how he'd use them. I think it just made him feel like a dangerous anarchist."

Darryl sneered. "Ain't the same thing, Melissa. Stephen Hamilton is the real deal. For that matter, so's Andrew and the other guys in the family, even if none of 'em are in the same great gray wolf league that Stephen is."

"Got to tell you I agree with him, Melissa," said Tom. "If Darryl's right and the veiled remarks Stephen and Andrew have made to him mean that they're offering to switch sides, we'd be crazy not to accept." The army captain twitched his head, using it to point across the Thames that ran below one set of the windows in their quarters. "I can tell you for sure and certain that Harry'll be tickled pink. Even as brash as he is, Harry's been scratching his head for weeks trying to figure out how to pull off Jailbreak, Version Two, Super-sized. Having half a dozen Warders to work with would make a huge difference."

He smiled wryly. " 'Course, he'll also have conniptions when we tell him he's got to plan for springing another couple of dozen people—all the way down to toddlers."

Melissa winced. So did Darryl. Harry's last remarks on the subject of jailbreakees who kept adding more jailbreakees to the list had started with sarcastic and gone downhill from there.

In the event, however, Harry Lefferts' reaction was quite otherwise.

"Hot diggedy damn!" he exclaimed, after switching off the walkie-talkie. "Guys, scrap plan—whatever number we're up to. Things are looking up. Way, way up."

He'd been using the walkie-talkie in the kitchen, instead of the room upstairs that they'd set up as their radio room. Over the weeks they'd now been in Southwark, once their initial plans for a quick jailbreak had gotten scrapped after the earl of Cork's coup d'etat, Harry had soon realized that the radio room was pointless for the walkie-talkies. Just a relic from old habits, when they'd had to rely on fancy communications equipment with tricky antennas and, even then, relaying everything through Amsterdam. The walkie-talkies worked just fine in the kitchen, and that way he didn't have to repeat everything to the rest of the team.

Felix didn't share his enthusiasm. "For Christ's sake, Harry, twenty or so more people? Three of them babies?"

"None of them babies," said Juliet, sniffing disdainfully. "You've got to understand the distinctions here. Good thing you have women with you."

She began counting off on her fingers. "If I've followed all this properly, we've got one infant, two toddlers, and five other children. I don't count the teenagers. They're not a problem."

Sherrilyn Maddox rolled her eyes. "I'd love to hear you say that to my mother."

Juliet sniffed again. "I doubt if your mother ever participated in a mass jailbreak. Not a problem, I say. Unless the two boys get too eager and we have to haul them away by the short hairs."

"They'll get too eager and we'll have to haul them away by their short hairs," predicted her husband calmly. "But, yes, not a problem." He opened a huge hand and closed it. "See? Easy."

That brought a little ripple of laughter around the table, from everyone except Felix. As usual, he was the self-designated Cassandra of the team. "Maybe not in the escape out of the Tower—but what
then
?"

It was his turn to start counting on his fingers. "Let's add it all up. Start with our own people in St. Thomas' Tower." He did a quick count. "Mailey, the Simpsons, Darryl, Gayle, and Friedrich and Nellie Bruch. That's seven." He started over again with a new finger count. "Cromwell. Wentworth. Add in Wentworth's wife and his three children. How old are they, by the way?"

"The son Will's the oldest," said Juliet. "He's almost eight, I think. The oldest daughter Nan is about six and a half years old. The youngest daughter Arabella is only four and a half."

Felix rolled his eyes. "Marvelous. More kids. Just what we need. But let's keep going. So far, we're up to thirteen, three of them children. No teenagers, either; we're speaking of real children. Then we add Laud to bring us up to fourteen."

He broke off the finger count and spread his hands wide, encompassing everyone in the kitchen. It was a large kitchen, but it was still very crowded. "And that's just the escapees. Since I assume our fearless leader wasn't planning to have us surrender ourselves into the king's custody, we've also got to plan for our own escape. And there are nine of us—eleven, counting Julie and Alex."

Mackay and his wife were in a corner, Alex perched on a stool and Julie perched on his lap. She shook her head. "I don't know if you should figure us in it. We gotta get out of London, sure—but then we're headed back to Scotland, where we left our daughter with my father-in-law."

"I imagine Cromwell will want to come with us, too," added her husband. "He's still got his own children hiding out in the Fens somewhere, don't forget. I doubt very much if he'd agree to leave England without them."

Seeing the gathering storm on Kasza's brow, Alex barked a laugh. "Oh, leave it be, Felix! You needn't plan a
second
escape. It'd have to be weeks or months later, anyway. Let us worry about it. Or Cromwell, if he decides to go on his own after he finds his kids. By all accounts, y'know, he's a full-grown man and quite capable of handling his own affairs. He
did
manage to become lord protector of England, in whatever other universe his duplicate self is in."

Harry coughed. "Ah . . . I think it's a little more complicated. I know Darryl is planning to stick with Cromwell—dunno about whether his squeeze Vicky will go with him, though—and I'm pretty sure Gayle is too."

Everyone stared at him. "You never said anything about that," complained Ohde.

"Yeah, Don, I know I didn't. Darryl asked me to keep it to myself, until we got closer to
Der Tag
. Seems he's gotten to be friends with Cromwell—you gotta know Darryl like I do to understand how completely weird
that
is, but I'll skip over it now—and he also thinks he's got to keep an eye on him."

The stares didn't waver. Harry sighed.

"Look, guys, this'll mean a little bit to Julie and Sherrilyn but it won't mean squat to the rest of you. Darryl's family are Irish, and they get real fruitcake on the subject. Give money to Noraid, the whole bit. For reasons I am
not
going into now, Oliver Cromwell ranks right up there with Satan's top demons, in their book—and here Darryl's gone and made friends with him. But I guess Darryl figures the guy's probably still a demon, even if he likes him, so he isn't letting him out of his sight."

Maczka shook his head. "Never mind. Politics in this century are bad enough. And Gayle? Is she one of these fruitcakes too?"

"Ah . . . no. Seems she's gotten interested in Cromwell. Personally, I mean. Which is a neat trick, seeing as she's never even met the guy. Just talks to him on the radio they snuck into his cell."

Kasza threw up his hands again. "This is sheer lunacy!"

Harry grinned. "It's like Melissa says. We're in an age of miracles. But you oughta keep going, Felix. I'm finding it actually helpful."

Felix scowled a little, but went back to the finger counting. "Fine. So we had
already
reached the preposterous figure of twenty-five people, for what we laughingly call a 'jailbreak.' " He gave Julie and Alex a sharp glance. "For the moment, we've got to include the two of you also. Regardless of how many parties wind up going in separate directions, we've got to get everybody in the Tower out of there and them and the rest of us out of London."

He looked at Harry from lowered brows. "And now, how many Warders are we talking about? Keeping in mind that if they're the berserk clansmen they sound like, they won't agree to leave without bringing every single one in the clan."

"I'm not sure, exactly. I'll have to get Darryl to give me an exact count. Somewhere around twenty is all I know, including all the women and kids."

By now, even George Sutherland was starting to look aghast. "Ah . . . Harry. You're talking about almost fifty people. Just exactly how many boats did you figure on using?"

Throughout, Harry had been standing up, leaning back against one of the kitchen walls. Now, he pushed himself off the wall with a little heave of his shoulders and came up to the table.