Chapter 1: The Battle of Alte Veste
Imperial Siege Lines outside Nürnberg
September 1632
“Battle is coming.”
A tall, broad-shouldered man in his late twenties stood atop one of the hills west of Nürnberg, watching the day dawn.
Those hills had been logged bare for firewood by Wallenstein’s massive army and now every reasonably flat area was covered with their tents. Wallenstein’s headquarters was on the next hilltop, by the remains of the old castle. His army had laid siege to the city weeks ago. Beyond the base of the hills lay the actual siege lines themselves. Facing them were the Swedish defensive lines surrounding Nürnberg. But in the last few days, there had been movement in the Swedish lines.
A second man, about the same age but shorter and decidedly scruffier, made his way out of a nearby tent. The two of them looked out over the siege lines for a few minutes.
“I am surprised to see you up early, Lukas.” The tall man never turned his head away from the siege lines.
“I could not sleep. Nothing decent to drink,” the scruffy man said. “Heard you get up, Neustatter.”
A couple more minutes passed. The tall man kept studying the Swedish lines.
“That is a lot of movement in the Swedish lines. More than I have seen before.”
“I heard people from the future are allied to the Swedes.”
“Could be, Lukas. In fact, that much is probably true—that the Swedes have a new ally.”
“A whole heap of Croats attacked their town. Less than half of them came back. Might really be from the future.”
“So I hear.” The way he said it gave no indication whether he was expressing confirmation or doubt.
A third man joined them.
“Stefan.”
The dark-haired man was a decade older than the other two and wore a perpetual frown. “People from the future. Who ever heard of such a thing?”
“They must be,” Lukas insisted. “I heard the Croats took the town by surprise and still lost.”
“So I hear,” the tall man repeated.
“You cannot believe every rumor,” Stefan said. “Why, I heard someone claim that Gustav Adolf personally rode to the town’s defense.”
“Well, maybe that one is not true.” Lukas pointed at the Swedish lines. “He is supposed to be somewhere over there, ja?”
After a few more minutes, Neustatter returned to the tent and shook another man awake. “Ditmar, wake up. Keep your voice down. Wake Hjalmar. Dress and then the two of you cook breakfast.”
Ditmar sat up right away, coming wide awake at Neustatter’s words. “What is happening?”
“I cannot put my finger on it, but something is different in the Swedish lines. I want us to be ready.”
Ditmar shook his cousin.
Neustatter was already waking another man. “Karl, I need you up.”
The big man stuck his head out from under his blanket. “What is it?”
“Something is not right in the Swedish lines. I need you to get Otto’s matchlock working.”
Karl stared at him for a moment, then threw off the blanket. “I am coming.”
Within minutes, Stefan and his buddy Wolfram had gone in search of wood and water. The two blond-haired Schaub cousins collected half a day’s rations from the others and began preparing breakfast in an iron pot.
A short distance away, Karl disassembled a matchlock musket on a blanket. The burly, well-muscled man was the biggest in their group. He fitted something back into place on the matchlock while the other man watched. The observer was of average height, average build, average brown hair, and looked just like half a million other German men.
“You can fix it?” He kept his voice down as Neustatter had instructed.
“Ja.” The big man’s voice was a quiet rumble. He pointed at a part. “This spring here—do not ever break it or even loosen it, Otto. I would need a blacksmith’s shop to fix it, and I do not have one.”
The average-looking man nodded solemnly. “Danke, Karl.”
Soon Stefan and Wolfram were back, Stefan carrying a few sticks, and Wolfram with a bucket of water. They quickly got a fire going.
Once Karl had reassembled Otto’s matchlock, he found Neustatter.
“Neustatter, the matchlocks and slow match are as ready as I can make them. They will all fire, at least several rounds.”
“Danke, Karl. I think we may need at least that many.”
Karl’s eyebrows raised, but he said nothing.
By the time breakfast was ready, the sky was brightening, and men were beginning to emerge from other tents.
“Eating a last meal?”
The callous remark boomed across that section of the line, shattering the quiet. The Schaub cousins looked up from the cookfire at the grizzled veteran who had uttered it. He homed in on the younger one.
“I asked you a question, boy.”
“I plan on surviving, Sergeant Wylich.” The young man stretched out a hand—to restrain his cousin who had risen to his feet in obvious anger. He was taller than the sergeant, but the older man appeared to outweigh him by a good forty pounds.
“Do not talk back to me, boy! I will—”
“Walk away.” Neustatter strode toward the cooking fire.
Sergeant Wylich whirled on him. “Did you just tell me what to do, Neustatter?”
“Nein. I told Ditmar to walk away. I would never tell you where to go . . . Sergeant.”
“You watch your tongue!”
Neustatter just stared him straight in the eyes.
“It is time I was done with you, Neustatter!” The sergeant glanced at the young man still tending breakfast. “But maybe I will have this one whipped instead, to teach you all a lesson.”
Neustatter kept staring him down.
“Your time is coming, Neustatter, but first I am going to take your men away, one by one,” the sergeant promised. He stalked off.
“Might not work out like you plan,” Neustatter muttered once he was out of earshot. He turned. Ditmar barely had himself under control. Neustatter waved the others close.
“Sergeant Wylich is ready to move against us,” Neustatter stated. “But he agrees with me—battle is coming. He cannot afford to injure his own men. Not until afterwards.”
“Now he is out to get all of us,” Stefan said.
“We are from the village. We stick together,” Neustatter said.
The others murmured “the village” in agreement.
“Finish breakfast. Then roll your blankets. Pack everything you have. Leave nothing behind but the tents.” Neustatter frowned. “We will have to leave the pot over the fire.”
“Neustatter?” Ditmar asked. “Are we planning on deserting? Or do you think we will be pursuing the Swedes?”
“That is an excellent question, Ditmar.” For a moment Neustatter looked uncertain. “I do not know. Check your weapons again.” As the group broke up, Neustatter caught Lukas by the arm. “Just in case the need arises—all your weapons.”
They mopped up the last of the broth with stale bread and packed everything they owned. Most of the regiment was still cooking breakfast when an ominous rumble began out beyond the bottom of the Burgstall—somewhere in the Swedish lines. Everyone’s heads came up at once.
“What is that?” Lukas asked.
“Nothing good,” the older Stefan predicted.
“Stefan might be right this time,” Karl rumbled.
“He might,” Neustatter agreed. “Do we have everything? Gut. We may as well fall in.”
The eight men from the village made the short walk to where their regiment assembled. From there, they could look down the hill to the siege lines. Men ran into position along the imperial lines, and blocks of men began forming up into tercios. Battalions were already in formation behind the Swedish lines, and Neustatter couldn’t see more than a token presence in the siege lines themselves.
“Looks like the Swedes are coming out,” Neustatter observed.
“Fall in! Fall in!” The shout was sudden, alarmed. It wasn’t even Sergeant Wylich, but Captain Trehar himself.
Men frantically gathered gear, swallowed what breakfast they could, and scurried around like ants in a hive. But there was order beneath the apparent chaos, and musketeers and pikemen began streaming into position. Neustatter and the other men from his village were already anchoring the front right corner, in two ranks of four, matchlocks at their sides.
Sergeant Wylich arrived and took position to Neustatter’s right and half a step back, then lowered his half-pike with an expression of sadistic glee.
“Dress ranks!” he ordered.
Neustatter, Lukas, Stefan, and Karl had to take an unnecessary step back, pushing against Wolfram, Otto, Hjalmar, and Ditmar. They in turn took a step back, producing grumbles from the third rank as the ranks of the tercio slowly rippled backward.
Captain Trehar strode up, more collected than he’d been a few minutes ago. “Is there a problem in the ranks?”
“These boys”—the sergeant pointed at Ditmar and Hjalmar—“don’t seem to be able to line up straight.”
“They need to be taught a lesson, Sergeant. See to it.”
Sergeant Wylich grinned maliciously. “You four, first rank. Neustatter, step back to second rank. There will be a flogging tonight. If any of you in the first rank survive.”
“Are you going to let them—!” Stefan’s hissed words ended in a gasp as Karl’s elbow found his ribs.
Neustatter simply stared straight ahead.
“You are going to watch,” Wylich promised over his shoulder. Anything else he might have added was cut off by a shout.
“What is that?”
“Quiet in the ranks!” Sergeant Wylich bellowed.
But the front ranks had seen the morning sunlight reflecting off of a . . . great metal box? It was already outside the Swedish lines.
“It is moving!”
“There is more than one!”
“Twelve in the column,” Neustatter told Sergeant Wylich a few moments later. “With men behind each one. They are all wearing mixed brown and green, and those ranks are steady.”
Sergeant Wylich looked concerned for a moment, but then sneered. “Every one of them is carrying a little matchlock! Our pikes will go right through them! No glory for you boys, though, Neustatter.”
A loud rattattattat erupted from the lead box. A brief pause, and the rattattattat sounded again. The third time, Neustatter actually saw men in one of the tercios at the bottom of the hill fall. A cloud of white smoke blossomed forth from that tercio’s matchlocks. But the volley seemed to have no effect on the box.
“It is some sort of arquebus!”
“Quiet, Neustatter!”
Captain Trehar looked over his left shoulder. “Nonsense! No arquebus can fire that quickly! Stop spreading panic!”
At the bottom of the Burgstall, imperial pikemen and arquebusiers scattered as the metal box with the arquebuses rolled right over the siege lines without stopping. The steady rattattattat rang out every few seconds, and as the box crossed the siege line, the trenches off to both sides exploded in flames. Neustatter heard mutters of “hellfire” as the flames continued to rage. He’d heard stories about something called Greek fire. One set of flames had fallen short and was guttering out in the dirt out beyond the imperial siege line. Someone had missed, and that meant it was man-made.
They had a bigger problem.
The green- and brown-clad enemy behind the first metal box fired a great echoing boom of a volley off to their left. Their target, a unit of Wallenstein’s arquebusiers, shattered. But other men in that tercio were falling at the sound of sharp cracks. If the men in green and brown had weapons that made booming noises, the cracking noises meant other arquebusiers were inside the metal boxes. As he watched, pikemen—dozens of them—attempted to charge the box. Neustatter saw whole handfuls go down at once.
“How many arquebuses do they have?” he exclaimed.
Sergeant Wylich whirled and pointed his half-pike at Neustatter. “Silence! I will not tell you again!”
The drums rolled again with the command to march forward. The tercio began to flow downhill.
The second metal box crossed the siege line and angled away from Neustatter’s tercio. He started to breathe a sigh of relief, but then he saw the third metal box was turning in their direction. It turned sharply, rolling along their side of the siege line. Neustatter studied the troops in those odd green and brown uniforms following along behind it. It looked like about a company, all arquebuses, no pikes.
With a shout, the enemy company broke ranks and charged the imperial siege line from behind, the booms of their weapons overlapping like a long roll of thunder. It went on and on, far longer than the hundred or so shots a company should be able to fire. They were firing more than one shot! Neustatter picked out one man and studied him. He saw the man fire, turn slightly, fire again.
The unit holding that part of the line disintegrated in seconds. Some were killed or wounded where they stood. Others must have surrendered, as only a fraction of the men who had been there scattered. Some of those were actually fleeing toward the Swedish lines, where they would be captured soon enough.
“Hauptmann, those men are not reloading between shots!” Neustatter shouted to Trehar. The captain was one rank forward and two men to the right.
“Silence!” Trehar rasped. “Wylich, if he speaks again, kill him.”
Neustatter realized the second and third metal boxes and their accompanying soldiers had widened the initial breach by a hundred paces in either direction by destroying the units Wallenstein stationed there. Unless their tercio and the others now flowing down the hills could plug that gap, the Swedes would funnel through. Only the metal boxes could move fast enough to carry out this maneuver and still shield the men behind them.
Neustatter heard thundering hooves, glanced right, and saw the cavalry attack sweeping down the Burgstall. That was the Fugger Regiment, and they charged for the first metal box.
Then the third metal box made another sharp turn—directly toward their tercio.
Neustatter stifled the warning he had been about to shout. Trehar and Wylich had made their decision. Instead, Neustatter’s left elbow jabbed Lukas Heidenfelder in the ribs.
Lukas looked at him. Neustatter nodded once, very deliberately.
The tercio and the metal box approached each other directly. At two hundred paces, the box swerved to its own left—the tercio’s right—and sharp cracks rang out as the arquebusiers firing through slits in the side peppered the tercio.
The lieutenant colonel guided his horse off to the side.
“Steady, men! Break and I will have you hanged!”
“Make ready!”
Neustatter grimaced at the range, but double-checked his matchlock anyway.
“Present!”
Neustatter spun to his right, bringing the heavy matchlock up to his shoulder. The soldiers who were accompanying this metal box were still too far away for a matchlock volley to be effective, so he pointed his weapon at the metal box.
“Give fire!”
The tercio’s matchlocks thundered. Neustatter heard rounds hit the metal box . . . and they did absolutely nothing to it. They weren’t going to stop it.
“Reload!”
Neustatter grabbed one of the apostles—the twelve wooden cylinders that hung from his bandolier, each with a charge of gunpowder inside. He poured a bit in the pan and closed it. As he set the buttplate on the ground and poured the rest of the gunpowder down the barrel, the fearsome rattattattat rang out over on the slopes of the Burgstall on their right. He dropped the ball down the barrel, extracted the ramrod with one fluid motion, flipped it around, and rammed the musket ball home. All the while the rattattattat on the Burgstall continued, and the men in green and brown were closing in.
“Make ready!” the lieutenant colonel screamed.
BOOMBOOMBOOM.
Neustatter saw the lieutenant colonel pitch from his horse, which immediately bolted.
Captain Trehar ordered, “If I see one man run, I will have him executed!”
Five more men fell while he was making that threat.
“Present!”
“Give—”
“Drop!” Neustatter bellowed.
The men from the village, and many of the other arquebusiers in the front right corner of the tercio, dove to the ground. Neustatter did not. He fired—a .75 caliber musket at a range of four inches—at the back of Captain Trehar’s head.
At Neustatter’s shout, Lukas Heidenfelder threw his matchlock aside and jumped on Sergeant Wylich’s back, sending them both crashing to the ground.
BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM.
The volley sounded like the roll of thunder.
Here and there men fired matchlocks. But most of the front ranks went down in a hail of gunfire. Then the whole tercio buckled and came apart. Some men were killed or wounded. More fled, some of them dropping their pikes or muskets. The metal box sped off to where the Fugger Regiment was closing in on the first metal box. Sharp cracks rang out as the men inside found targets of opportunity. Half the men in green and brown followed after the metal box.
Others approached the spot where the tercio had stood.
“Anyone alive over there, raise your hands in the air!” one of them barked.
“Do it!” Neustatter raised his own hands as he gave the order. Lying on the ground with both arms raised at the elbows, he couldn’t see much. Lukas was right in front of him, on top of Sergeant Wylich, who wasn’t moving. Neustatter turned his head to the left. He counted all seven of the other men from the village holding their hands awkwardly in the air.
“Who is in charge here?” the same soldier bellowed. He strode straight to the front right corner and located the captain’s body. “I have a hauptmann here!” he called to the others.
Neustatter watched him do a double-take.
The man gave a sharp whistle, and several other soldiers in green and brown hurried to his side.
“Musket ball to the back of the head,” he stated. “Where’s the sergeant?”
Neustatter saw Lukas’ hand point downward.
“You! Get off him!” The soldier shouted to his comrades, “Cover me!” Then he rolled Sergeant Wylich over.
Neustatter watched carefully and was impressed. The man’s eyes widened, and he blinked, but his voice was steady. “Carotid, jugular, and the windpipe? Okay, who is in charge?”
“I am now,” Neustatter called out.
“What is your name?”
“Edgar Neustatter.”
“Why did you frag your hauptmann and sergeant?”
“They were arschlöcher who were going to whip my men.” Neustatter pointed a finger in Ditmar and Hjalmar’s general direction. “For no reason other than their own amusement. And they were getting the tercio killed. It was obvious that we could not stop your metal boxes.”
“APCs.” The correction seemed to come automatically.
“Who are you people?” Neustatter asked.
The man laughed. “Sergeant Rudi Keller, New United States Army.” He raised his voice. “Good terms! Enlist in the New United States Army! Good pay! Good food! We will not loot you or touch your people!”
“Truly?” Neustatter asked. “Are you really from the future?”
“Nein. Just Grantville and its people are. I joined them a year ago, after they shattered our tercio at Badenburg,” he affirmed. “We broke the Spanish at Eisenach and the Wartburg last month.” He jerked a thumb at the last of the metal boxes as it rumbled past.
Neustatter studied the huge wheels and decided there probably were not horses on the inside. Later, he told himself. More importantly, he could see the loopholes in the sides. Nothing in Wallenstein’s army was going to stop it.
“May we go home to our village?” he asked.
The soldier laughed again. “Ja, if you want to. But we will take you to Grantville first.” He put more volume and an authoritative tone in his voice. “We are going to move you to our lines. Keep your hands in the air. Does anyone have a loaded weapon?”
“Ja,” Lukas answered. “Somewhere.”
“I got it,” Ditmar said calmly. It was lying on the ground within easy reach, not pointing at Sergeant Keller exactly, but not far off, either.
Keller took a couple prudent steps to one side. Neustatter watched him reason it out.
“Very convenient weapon drop.” Keller’s comment was as dry as dust. “I assume the blond one here is your best shot?”
“Of course,” Neustatter answered.
Keller nodded slowly. “All right. Everyone, slowly stand up. If you reach for a weapon, we will shoot you dead.”
“Stand,” Neustatter ordered. The men in his corner of the tercio struggled awkwardly to their feet.
“Over here!” Keller backed away a few steps, beckoning with one hand while keeping a firm grip on his weapon with the other.
Neustatter took a couple steps, then stopped. He gestured at Sergeant Wylich’s corpse.
“Do you mind?”
“What? Do you mean to loot him?”
Neustatter kicked the corpse in the back of the head. “Nein.”
No one from the tercio gave Sergeant Keller any trouble. They had all seen that this New United States Army—whatever that meant—could fire its weapons without reloading.
“Medics!” Keller ordered. “Go!”
Two-man teams raced forward. Each wore what appeared to be a heavy pack, and they carried a stretcher between them. They sorted through the fallen quickly.
“Neustatter.” Wolfram tipped his head toward where the medics were working. “They have done this before.”
The two of them watched as one stretcher-bearer felt for a man’s pulse and angled his head down near the fallen man’s face. Then he slid the man’s hat over his face and moved on to the next.
The medic slid off his pack, quickly opened it—Neustatter could not describe how he did that—and pulled out a handful of bandages.
“I need hands!” he shouted.
“You.” Keller pointed at an arquebusier. “Go help. Do what he says.” When the man hesitated, Keller roared, “Go!”
The man sped over to the medic.
“Hold this bandage here. Keep pressure on the wound.”
Wolfram looked over at Sergeant Keller. “How many wounded survive?”
“According to the up-timers, not enough. But a lot more than I expected.”
“I can help.”
“Go.”
“What are up-timers?” Hjalmar asked.
“That is what we call the people who came from the future with Grantville.”
Neustatter looked around. He could see a line across the Burgstall. Above it, dead horses and cavalrymen covered the ground. Below it, there were none at all. Wallenstein’s counterattack had been shattered halfway down the hill. The first metal box was atop the Burgstall now. Down below, a solid wave of advancing Swedes extended as far as he could see in either direction. There was a green banner in the forefront. He was just as happy the Swedish Green Brigade was way over there. It was in the thick of the fight and looked to be breaking through.
The battle was far from over, but Neustatter could already see how it would end. The siege lines would crumble as the New United States soldiers and their metal boxes rolled the breach wider in both directions. The Swedes would engage every unit still on the siege line, pinning them in place. The metal boxes would spread destruction wherever they chose to go. There would be no chance for Wallenstein’s army to rally.
It was time to go back home to the village.
Prisoner of war camp, inside New United States lines
Late that afternoon
Thousands of men from Wallenstein’s army had been herded into open fields. Neustatter and the other men from the village sat on the ground fairly close to a line of guards.
“You took a big chance with our lives,” Stefan grumbled at Neustatter.
“I had no choice. Wylich said plainly that he was going to come after us. But I could not do anything as long as the oberstleutnant, Hauptmann Trehar, or Sergeant Wylich were all still on their feet. Any of them would have ordered the rest of the tercio to kill us—and they would have. The oberstleutnant was too far away to be sure of hitting him, so I had to wait until the Swedes’ allies shot him.”
“You could have told us,” Stefan complained.
“Stefan, you hated Trehar and Wylich. If I had told you ahead of time, they would have read it on your face.”
Ditmar had been studying the other prisoners around them. “Neustatter, we are getting some looks.”
“I see them,” Neustatter agreed.
Over the next few minutes, a few nearby men got to their feet. The guards did not object. A few more minutes, and a couple of them began edging closer to Neustatter’s band.
Neustatter stood up and stretched. He watched the men freeze in place. More time passed, and they began edging toward him again. Both of them were about Karl’s size and outweighed Neustatter by a good margin.
“Klaus. Hans. You look like you have a question.”
“You killed Hauptmann Trehar, Neustatter.”
“The bastard was going have Wylich to whip my men.” Neustatter gave them a thin smile. “And he was about to get us all killed.”
Hans shrugged. “He has a point, Klaus.”
Klaus glowered at him. “We could have held, if it had not been for Neustatter!”
“Held? Are you wahnsinnig?” Hans demanded of his cohort. “Did you see the dead men on the other side of the tercio? Or in the other tercios?”
Klaus glared at Neustatter. “You killed our sergeant!”
“He whipped me once,” Neustatter reminded him. “I was not going to let whip any of my men.”
“You crippled one of his men,” Hans reminded him.
“Ja, I did,” Neustatter agreed. “He got men killed because he was a dummkopf. We were on the march, scattering any opposition, and he had to attack the one enemy band that was still intact.”
“Ja, that was stupid,” Hans agreed.
A corner of Neustatter’s mouth quirked. At least Hans was acknowledging points on both sides.
But Klaus was having none of it. He turned and waved to the rest of the prisoners. “Come on, men!”
“Fall in! Open order!” Ditmar barked. Suddenly Neustatter’s men were all on their feet. “Hjalmar, take the left!”
“Halt!” The authoritative shout came from one of the guards. “Hands in the air!”
Neustatter raised his hands and slowly pivoted in place. Every other guard was approaching them and had their weapons at the ready. The other half had backed up and were also at the ready.
“What is going—?”
“Very impressive,” Neustatter told the first guard to reach him. “The men who withdrew can cover you. They would fire, what? Four shots before any of us could reach them? Five?”
The guard gave him a hard look. “Ja.”
“You see, Klaus,” Neustatter continued, “this is why I had to shoot the hauptmann.”
“You shot your hauptmann?” the guard demanded. He leveled his weapon at Neustatter.
“Your Sergeant Rudi Keller was there. Send for him.” Neustatter’s voice was calm.
The guard was professional. “This rank of men with their hands up? Are they yours?”
“Ja.”
“You and your men, go over to that corner of the field.” His head and weapon turned toward Hans and Klaus. “You two, and your men, go down that way, past that next group of prisoners.”
Another of the New United States soldiers came striding toward them. “What is going on, Mildenstein?”
Mildenstein nodded toward Neustatter. “He fragged his hauptmann.” He nodded again at Klaus and Hans. “They object.”
“That is worth reporting,” the new arrival stated.
“Is that your coat of arms?” Neustatter asked. He pointed to the heraldic device of three superimposed peaks on the man’s sleeve.
The man barked a laugh. “That is my rank. Sergeant.”
“Are you in the same regiment as Sergeant Rudi Keller? He was there. He captured us.”
“Ja, I know Keller.” The sergeant jerked his head at his subordinate. “Mildenstein, go find Sergeant Keller.”
Mildenstein hurried off.
“This could take a while,” the sergeant told them. “So . . . as Corporal Mildenstein ordered, take your men to that corner, and the rest of you, get over that way.”
A few hours passed. Once a soldier in green and brown walked through, writing on a small board with an odd quill. He made everyone sit still while he counted them. Then a wagon pulled by four horses came to a stop at the edge of the field, and New United States soldiers began distributing rations.
“This is meat!” Stefan sounded surprised.
“I did not expect this,” Neustatter agreed. He studied the food for a moment. “Sergeant Keller did make that offer for men to join the New United States Army. Good terms. Good food.”
“You think it is a plot to convince us to join?” Stefan sounded suspicious.
Neustatter shrugged. He called out to the nearest guard. “I have a question!”
“Come here! Alone!”
Neustatter did so, carrying his food with him.
“What is your question?”
“What are your usual rations?”
“You are looking at them,” the guard told him. “You are eating the same thing we are. We captured so many of you today it is not practical to feed you anything else. Do not complain about it, because you will see a lot more of it.”
“Complain? Why would we complain about this? We thought it might be extra, to convince us to join your army.”
“Nein. It will be hard enough to keep all of you fed without giving you extra. Standard rations.” The guard sighed. “Look, the up-timers eat a lot of meat. Go sit down. Enjoy it.”
Neustatter ambled back to his men. “He says these are their regular rations, that it would be too much trouble to provide anything else. He said not to bother him with complaints. I think he is telling the truth.”
“It has to be a trick,” Stefan insisted. But he did not let that stop him from eating all of it.
Corporal Mildenstein returned with Sergeant Keller at dusk. They conferred with the other New United States sergeant, and then the two sergeants approached. Keller carried a lantern and another of the writing boards with the strange quill.
“What regiment was this?” Keller asked.
“Colloredo’s Regiment.”
Another soldier held the lantern high while Keller wrote that down.
“Do you men know how to write your names?”
Neustatter blinked. “Of course.”
Keller handed him the board. Neustatter saw that it had a metal clamp at the top that held pages of paper in place. The quill was metal.
“Dip it in the ink and try not to spill it everywhere.”
Neustatter wrote his name and passed the clipboard to Ditmar.
“It is . . . fortunate . . . that your army has these writing boards,” Neustatter observed. “You can keep track of all of us.”
Sergeant Rudi Keller smiled. “Oh, nothing fortunate about it. Sergeant Burroughs insisted on the clipboards. You see, we expected to capture a lot of prisoners. After Badenburg and Jena and the Wartburg, he and the other supply sergeants decided we were ‘finally going to do it right.’”
“You expected this?” Neustatter asked the question carefully.
“Ja. I was in the first tercio to face the up-timers. We outnumbered them three to two, and that includes the Badenburg garrison, which was just about worthless. So, three to one, really. We lasted less than five minutes. They let us join them a few days later. We were in their ranks at Jena, and that battle was over even faster. Last month, we crushed a Spanish army outside Eisenach and then burned them out of the Wartburg.”
“What do you mean by ‘crushed the Spanish’?”
“We drove off six tercios in the open field, routed their cavalry, followed them back to the Wartburg, and burned it down around them.”
Neustatter stared at him for a moment. “Camp rumors say that people from the future are allied to the Swede. To Gustav II Adolf.”
“Ja. One town. Grantville. They said it was the year of our Lord 2000, in West Virginia. It is in the Americas. Then they were in Thuringia, just a few days after the sack of Magdeburg.”
“One town? They gave you arquebuses.” Neustatter gestured toward Keller’s weapon. “That is not from around here.”
“That is true,” Sergeant Keller acknowledged. “But it is not just one town anymore. After they beat us, Badenburg joined them. Then Jena. Then more. Gustav II Adolph gave us the rest of Thuringia and all of Franconia. We will take you there. But a fair warning—their customs are different.”
“How so?”
“They have no adel. The New United States is a republic.”
That sounded . . . odd. Neustatter struggled to relate it to something he knew. After a minute, it came to him. “Like the Dutch?”
“Ja, but everyone votes.” Keller’s wave took in the rest of the guards. “We had lived there for more than three months, so when they held the election, we voted, too.”
Keller waited a moment. “So what is your story, Neustatter? Not just anybody can calmly frag a commanding officer under fire.”
Neustatter studied Sergeant Keller. Then he looked over his men. He made the decision to trust Keller.
“We are all from a village in Holstein-Gottorp. All of us were farmers, except for Karl. He was a blacksmith’s apprentice. The Danes entered the wars, and the Protestant armies were recruiting. Our herr volunteered most of the able-bodied men. We became part of a regiment in Mansfeld’s army. Camp rumor said that we were marching to take a bridge away from a new imperial general who had more money than experience. It was supposed to be easy. The new imperial general was Wallenstein, of course.”
Neustatter’s voice was flat. “Mansfeld ordered an attack on a fortified position. It failed. Then Wallenstein counterattacked and routed Mansfeld’s army. Our regiment was overrun. A number of men from our village were killed or wounded. Some of us were captured. The rest ran.” He gave a grim smile. “Some of them may have made it home.
“We never saw our herr again. I do not know if he survived or not. Fifteen of us were captured. They offered us a chance to join their army. I had ideas of escape, so it seemed like taking the job that came with weapons was the better choice.”
Ditmar interrupted. “Neustatter could have escaped any number of times. He refused to leave without all of us.”
Sergeant Keller stood there, listening attentively, even though it was dark.
“It is my fault we were captured,” Neustatter stated. “I tried to rally the men, to make a stand. We were overwhelmed. We lost Young Hans and Friedrich there. Peder died later. There were fifteen of us captured. We eight are those still alive six years later. Most of the rest died of disease—Old Hans and Niels the first year, Claus and Jan and Dirk the second year, Laurens the third. We did not lose anyone else until Krause decided to attack that intact enemy band earlier this year. They killed Town Hans.”
“Town Hans?”
“His grandparents lived in a town before they came to the village. So, he was Town Hans, to tell him apart from Old Hans and Young Hans and all the other Hanses.”
Keller nodded his understanding.
“We had never really gotten along with Sergeant Wylich, but after that battle, I gave Krause a good beating. The hauptmann had Wylich flog me and demoted me from chosen man. But that was not enough for them. They have been looking for ways to get to me and decided to go through Ditmar and Hjalmar to do it. They put them in the front line instead of me. Once I knew the battle was lost, it was time for them to go.”
“And he waited until you Swedes were firing at our tercio,” Stefan cut in. “We could have been killed.”
“There is always a chance of dying in battle,” Neustatter agreed. “But as long as the metal box—the APC—was pointed toward us, I knew the arquebusiers inside and behind could not see us.”
“But that musket that fired and fired and fired . . . ”
Neustatter cut Stefan off. “Only the first APC had the rapid-firing gun. The one that came at us did not.”
“You noticed they were the only one that had a machine gun?” Sergeant Keller sounded impressed.
“Ja. If that APC had a machine gun, I would have shot the hauptmann in our first volley. I waited for your men to shoot the oberstleutnant first.”
Keller shook his head. “And your hauptmann and sergeant stationed you behind them?” Another shake of the head. “Clearly enough, they died of stupidity.”
Three days later
They did not leave for Grantville right away, however. It took time to organize the columns. A detail was sent up on the hills to collect tents and cooking gear, which were redistributed to the prisoners in the many fields around Nürnberg. Neustatter and his men didn’t get the same tents they’d had before the battle, of course, but what they were given was adequate.
“Are you sure you do not want to join the New United States Army?” Rudi Keller asked Neustatter.
“Nein,” Neustatter told him. “We want to go home.”
“Suit yourself,” Keller told him. “But I have to put you in the column I am taking to Grantville. We will be marching for several days. Someone will figure out what to do with you on the other end.”
Neustatter shrugged. After all they’d heard, he and his men wanted to see Grantville, and it was more or less on the way to the village.
“You might have to work for a while in Grantville,” Keller continued. “But they will pay you.”
Neustatter shrugged again. They would need some money for the journey anyway. If they could get work in Grantville, so much the better.
Neustatter and his men found themselves part of a group of a few hundred men, marching north with a company of New United States troops loosely guarding them. One of the metal boxes that they now knew as APCs rumbled past.
The road was in fairly good shape. September was starting to cool, which made for good marching weather. Perhaps most importantly, the whole area around Nürnberg was crowded with tens of thousands of men. For the last few days, the prisoners of war had been ordered to stay put, simply to minimize congestion and disorder. Walking a few miles down a road was welcome.
As they walked, Neustatter started to relax. He was not letting down his guard, but neither was he hypervigilant every second, watching for who or what might threaten the men from the village next. Until he let some of it go, he hadn’t realized how much stress he’d been under.
By the time they took a break to eat, the column was getting spread out. Sergeant Keller approached, clipboard in hand.
“Neustatter! I see you have all your men still together.”
“Of course, Sergeant.”
“Congratulations. I am putting you in charge of twenty-five men. We do not need them in rank. Just . . . do not lose anyone.”
“Easy enough,” Neustatter agreed.
Keller removed a single sheet of paper from his clipboard. “Here are their names.”
Some of Neustatter’s vigilance came back as he glanced over the names. “Ditmar! You have Stefan and Lukas and the first six men on this list. Hjalmar! You have Karl, Otto, and the next six. Wolfram, you and I have the rest.”
It took a few minutes to locate the men they were now responsible for. Soon they were back on the road, moving in three loose groups totaling twenty-five men.
That evening, Stefan grumbled about how Neustatter had divided them up. “Why did you put the Schaub kids in charge?”
Neustatter chuckled. “Ditmar is the same age I am. If I wanted four pairs, you are right. It would be Ditmar and Hjalmar, you and Wolfram, and split up Karl, Otto, Lukas and I as you please. But I did not want two friends together. I want us paying attention to the rest of our group, the rest of the column, and the NUS soldiers.”
“But what about . . . ?”
“Putting you and Wolfram in charge of the teams?” Neustatter smiled. “Do you really want that?”
“J . . . ” Stefan stopped. “Nein.”
Neustatter gave him half a smile. “Why not?”
Stefan had an incredulous expression on his face. “Neustatter! Do you know how many things they do wrong?”
“Ja, as a matter of fact I do. Lukas spends his time and what money he has on women and drink. Karl would rather build or fix things. Few people pay attention to Otto, and he likes it that way. Wolfram wants to help everyone. You are looking for what could go wrong. Do you remember how Ditmar and Hjalmar used to lead the other boys in the village on adventures?
“Ja.”
“Now that Trehar and Wylich are dead, do you think Ditmar and Hjalmar might start doing the same thing again?”
Stefan thought about that. “Wolfram would say yes.”
Neustatter hid a grin at Stefan’s surly tone. The pessimist didn’t want to agree, so he’d attributed it to his buddy Wolfram, but Stefan’s brand of pessimism was fundamentally honest.
Neustatter was comfortable with this level of vigilance.
Ten days later
The column made ten miles a day. Vehicles called trucks resupplied their provisions. One of the drivers was obviously one of the people from the future, because he spoke of this as “only ten miles a day.” Neustatter and Keller exchanged glances. From the perspective of every other army in Europe, they were making excellent time. On the eighth day, they reached a road that had been leveled and graveled. They made even better time on that.
In the middle of the afternoon on the tenth day, Sergeant Keller halted the column and waited for everyone to catch up. Then he pointed at some cliffs in the distance.
“See those cliffs? That is the Ring Wall. This road goes down into the Ring. We will walk through Grantville, and I will point out some things. You will get to explore it soon enough. First, we are going to housing on the far side of the town. You will get baths, and your clothes will be washed.”
Some of the men grumbled, but Neustatter did not. Walk the length of the town? That sounded like an excellent idea. He moved his men close to Sergeant Keller.
The change at the Ring of Fire was abrupt. Hills just stopped, leaving a sheer vertical rock surface on the other side. Neustatter saw numerous other places where dirt had caved in, spilling into or out of the Ring of Fire. He’d never seen anything like it.
Inside the Ring, everything was different. The houses were not only huge, but also spread out along the road. Inside the Ring, the road wasn’t just graveled. It was flat, made of a smooth grey material, not quite rock, but not like anything else Neustatter had ever seen. There were poles upright in the ground alongside the road. They supported some sort of cables. They certainly were not ropes, but Neustatter couldn’t tell what they were.
Neustatter spotted a column of vehicles turning onto the road.
“Why are those APCs yellow?” he asked.
Rudi Keller blinked. “Those are not APCs. Those are school buses. They carry the kinder to and from school.” He pointed. “That is Grantville High School, where Captain Gars defeated the Croats.”
They had all heard it by now. The Croats hadn’t just lost; the Swedish emperor had personally led the attack that shattered them here.
Neustatter saw a whole field of the smooth gray material. It was not level, but sloped significantly down from the school toward the road.
Sergeant Keller resumed his narration. “Captain Gars and his men rode in this way, then went straight up that slope. The polizei arrived later on one of the buses. They had pistols and shotguns.”
Many of the prisoners winced, having seen up-time shotguns in action firsthand.
“We need to continue down this road,” Keller said.
The column of prisoners moved on. When Buffalo Creek came into view, Sergeant Keller said, “This is where the polizei on the bus caught the Croats retreating from downtown.”
Neustatter looked at the space between the road and Buffalo Creek. Cavalry caught in the open there by men with the quick-firing weapons would have been slaughtered. Over the last ten days, he had learned that those weapons really did need to be reloaded. Most held more than one cartridge at a time, but all of the cartridges could be reloaded very quickly.
Sergeant Keller pointed out the sights, but Neustatter marveled at the houses. Some were practically schlosses, others were run-down. Still others were new, built in the last year and a half.
A lot of people were in the streets. Most of them got out of their way rather quickly, giving the column of prisoners a wide berth.
“They hate us,” Stefan muttered.
“Nein,” Keller told him. “They only fear that you may carry disease. We are going to refugee housing, and you will be kept there a few days to make sure none of you are sick.”
“You said there were only a few thousand of them,” Neustatter reminded the sergeant. “This is a huge city!”
“Three thousand, five hundred up-timers,” Sergeant Keller stated. “Between refugees and those of us captured at Badenburg, the town more than doubled in the first two months. I do not know how many there are now. I heard more than ten thousand, but that was a while ago.”
“A normal town for its time, you said. There is so much glass.”
“Turn left here,” Sergeant Keller directed.
The buildings there were taller and closer together.
“This is as far as the rest of the Croats got.”
Neustatter winced again. They had heard about it on the march, of course. But that was different than seeing it. He had envisioned arquebusiers hiding here and there. Not riflemen pouring fire into the street from every floor of building after building. He could see bullets still lodged in the walls. A few windows were boarded up; a few others were now fitted with a series of small panes that did not match their huge neighbors, shot out in the battle. The Croat unit that had ridden into the center of Grantville must have been half-destroyed even before the polizei trapped them against the river.
“All right, let’s go,” Sergeant Keller ordered.
He marched them down Buffalo Street and eventually right out of Grantville. Neustatter wondered who or what a “buffalo” was. The road followed the curves in the river. Then it cut across one of the bends. Neustatter and the others saw newly built buildings there. Some of the men started toward them.
“Halt!” Keller called. “That is not the right place. We have a way to go yet.”
Another cluster of houses lay beyond the next bend, an afterthought compared to Grantville, but larger than their home village. They kept going until they reached a big red schloss, which Sergeant Keller claimed was a power plant—whatever that was. There was a whole village there, too.
The New United States soldiers split up the column, turning the women and girls among the camp followers over to a women’s religious order. At least, that’s what Neustatter assumed the armbands with red crosses meant. He’d never actually seen a nun, but this certainly wasn’t how he expected they’d dress.
The men and boys were run through the showers, given robes while their clothes were washed, and fed. They sat at long rows of tables that were nothing but planks nailed to a framework. Two more planks, attached halfway down on each side, served as chairs. The eight of them filled up one table. There were dozens of tables.
“Good food.” Wolfram noted that between bites. Even Stefan had nothing bad to say about it. There was plenty of meat, good bread, and vegetables.
After dinner, a man wearing a uniform stood up on one of the benches and called for their attention. Neustatter studied the uniform. Not the same as Sergeant Keller and his men, clearly enough. Perhaps a high-ranking officer?
“Attention!” Sergeant Keller boomed. “This is Chief Dan Frost. He is the chief of the Grantville Polizei, and he is the man who broke the cavalry charge in the middle of Grantville.”
They’d all heard that story and shut up at once.
“I’m Dan Frost,” the man said. “I’m going to go over the rules. . . . ”
Neustatter glanced away only long enough to confirm that all of the men from the village were paying attention.
The rules were simple. No killing, no raping, no stealing. “I haven’t got a copy for each you, so follow the Ten Commandments and clean up after yourselves, and we’ll get along fine,” Frost summarized.
When he was done, Neustatter sought out Sergeant Keller. “What about the first few? Does Grantville have churches?”
“Lots,” Keller told him. “Different kinds. Take your pick.”
“Lutheran?” At Keller’s nod, Neustatter asked, “So I do not have to annoy the Catholics by praying to St. Martin anymore?”
Sergeant Keller burst out laughing.
But later he quietly drew Neustatter away from the others, and they just happened to encounter Chief Frost.
Neustatter immediately recognized that this was no coincidence.
“Neustatter, eh?” Frost held out his hand.
He uses this “handshake” to study you, Neustatter realized. He did the same. He would have enjoyed seeing Trehar and Wylich meet Frost.
“Where are you from, Neustatter?”
Frost drew him out, talking about the village and Dessau Bridge and his time in Wallenstein’s army. Neustatter found himself saying more than he’d planned to.
“Ja, I do like not being in Wallenstein’s army anymore. I spend a lot less time looking over my shoulder.”
“I don’t approve of fragging,” Frost muttered when Neustatter had concluded his story. He snorted. “Another one out of my jurisdiction.”
The chief looked over at Keller. “Are you still planning movie nights?”
“I think so, Herr Chief. Movies that will introduce the new men to up-time ideas.”
“If you’ve got any Westerns in the mix, make sure this wild cowboy”—Frost jerked a thumb toward where Neustatter stood—“sees something with a strong moral code. Maybe John Wayne. Might not be a bad idea if there’s a ‘happily ever after,’ too.”
***
Another column of soldiers captured at the Battle of Alte Veste arrived at least every other day. Once a few days had passed, and a doctor determined they were not sick, the men were allowed to explore the town. New United States soldiers—old Grantville hands—accompanied them, to acclimate them to Grantville and to keep them out of trouble.
The eight men from the village made up about half of a group of men on one such tour. They spent a lot of time just walking down along streets and marveling at houses.
“Are you convinced yet? That it is not a trick?” Wolfram asked Stefan.
Stefan just shook his head. “What kind of people live here? These are the biggest houses I have ever seen.”
Corporal Bornkessel, who was in charge of their escort, answered. “The up-timers say they are just normal people and that Grantville was a poor town.”
Neustatter shook his head, not in disbelief but because he was having a hard time grasping that. “Poor? The schloss our herr lives in is not as big as any of these houses.” Then he pointed. “Well, it is as big as that one.”
“It is true,” Bornkessel said. “They have pictures of other places in their time. Huge cities, planted fields that go on for miles.
“What are they like?”
“We have arranged for you to talk to a few of them at the high school.”
“Gut.”
As they approached the high school, Neustatter noticed several other groups of fifteen or so prisoners moving in the same direction.
“Good planning,” he murmured to Ditmar. “How do you think they made sure everyone would arrive at once?”
The captured soldiers were led to a separate building, off to one side of the high school itself.
“This is the auditorium,” Corporal Bornkessel explained.
Neustatter looked at the rows of seats and then poked at them experimentally. They were made of a hard, painted metal, but the seat and the backrest were covered with a soft, fuzzy material.
“What is this?” Wolfram asked.
“I have no idea,” Neustatter told him. “Maybe it is something they have in palaces.”
“I wonder if there is more. I could buy some and take it home to Anna.”
Stefan laughed. “Whatever it is, we cannot afford it.”
“They are letting us sit in these seats,” Lukas said. “It cannot be that special.”
“Move to the middle!” Corporal Bornkessel called out. “Move to the middle!”
The eight men from the village did so. Other men took the seats on the ends of their row. The room filled up steadily.
“There must be half a regiment in here,” Neustatter said. He looked around and spotted a few men he recognized from Colloredo’s Regiment, as well as a few he’d seen at the refugee housing. Like any mercenary army, the men were a mix of nationalities. He heard scraps of conversation in a few dialects of German, English, Italian, what he thought was French, plus a couple languages he could not identify. There were even a couple Moors in the room, as well as a dark-complexioned man with pronounced cheekbones whom Neustatter couldn’t begin to identify.
The lights began to go out.
“Sit down!” Bornkessel ordered immediately.
Neustatter saw that many men were just beginning to surge to their feet. He did not. Turning off the lights was not a threat. No one was going to kill them in such a nice place, if only because they would have to clean it afterwards. Besides, he believed Dan Frost.
“Neustatter.” Ditmar’s tone was urgent, but under control.
One light snapped on before Neustatter could reply. Just one, and it perfectly illuminated a man standing on a raised platform at the front of the big room.
“Guten Tag. Ich heisse Dwight Thomas. Ich bin Lehrer. I am a schoolteacher.”
“Sure he is,” Stefan whispered. “That is a pistol in the pouch hanging from his belt.”
“That looks a great way to carry a pistol,” Neustatter agreed.
“That is not my point.” Stefan sounded annoyed. “Who ever heard of a schoolteacher carrying a weapon like that?”
Wolfram leaned forward. “Look at his shirt. His arm is bandaged underneath it.”
Neustatter studied the man. “Good eye, Wolfram.”
“I used to teach Driver’s Education,” the man said. He paused for another man to translate that into German. “That means I taught students how to drive cars. Since the Ring of Fire, we have had less use for that, so I have been teaching Introductory Civics.” Another pause. “That is, how our government here in the New United States works.”
Hjalmar leaned across Ditmar. “How is he making his voice so loud?”
“That metal thing in his hand,” Karl answered. “I do not know how, but that is what.”
Neustatter tried to pay attention to what the man was saying. Elected government, a president, and a congress. He paid less attention to the words themselves and more to how the man was saying them.
“He is serious,” Neustatter muttered. “He believes this, like the chaplains who preached in Wallenstein’s army. But he is not a fanatic. He is just saying how it works.”
He thought back to what Sergeant Keller had said about living in Grantville for three months and then being able to vote. He wanted to ask Corporal Bornkessel about that later.
At one point, Thomas took questions.
“How do we know the rulers will let us vote?” one man asked.
Dwight Thomas waited for the translation. “That is how it works,” he answered. “After ninety days’ residency, if you take the loyalty oath, you may vote. We take this very seriously.”
“How seriously?”
The other man stepped forward, coming far enough into the light to give Neustatter a good look at him. “I think you should know that Herr Thomas is very serious. When the Croats attacked the high school, the teachers moved as many students as would fit upstairs. They piled up furniture at the top of the stairs and fought from there. Herr Thomas was shot in the arm. The Croats never got up the stairs.”
Neustatter grimaced. “If that weapon fires more than once like their bigger ones do, a handful of men at the top of a staircase could hold for a very long time.”
A couple other speakers followed Herr Thomas. Neustatter learned a few useful details. But he thought Herr Thomas was the important one. What he said about the Grantville and New United States government was undoubtedly important, but the key fact was that the schoolteachers had stopped the Croats. He knew about Captain Gars’ charge, Julie Sims, and Herr Trout and Herr Higgins’ stand in the gymnasium. But the teachers had held. That was important.
Neustatter blinked as the lights came back on, and they were dismissed to make their way back to the refugee housing. On his way out the door, he heard men talking about a different refugee housing, this one on the hill behind the high school.
Corporal Bornkessel led his group back toward the refugee housing by the power plant. Neustatter studied the town carefully. This time he was not concerned with the glass, electricity, cars, and indoor markets. He was trying to figure out the people. What made them like this?
***
Neustatter and the men from the village found themselves on a work crew. They cleared land for more housing. Sometimes that was moving logs after men with up-time saws cut down trees. Sometimes it was shoveling, although much of that was done by things that seemed to be related to APCS, only smaller, with scoops and other clever devices for moving dirt. Sometimes they worked nearby in the village the Grantvillers called Murphyhausen. Other times they rode in the back of a truck to other places.
It was often hard work, but they got paid good wages—enough to eat well, buy the few things they needed, and save. And they stayed warm at night in the refugee housing. Neustatter and his men had never gotten rich from the war, but they were doing reasonably well from having been captured. Saving money meant they didn’t go out much. But that wasn’t much of a problem. The up-timers continue to provide classes about their ideals. That was often eye-opening, sometimes frustrating, and could eat up a man’s time. But other times they watched movies or TV.
Neustatter adored the up-time movies and television shows. The first movie he’d seen, one Chief Dan Frost had suggested, was She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Afterwards, he’d told the others, “I think we can understand the up-timers.”
A few movies later, that had become, “I will miss this place when we go back home to the village in the spring.”
Once snow started falling, their jobs changed. Sometimes Neustatter and his men were given heavy clothing and assigned to help carpenters finishing the insides of new buildings. Often enough, they were outside shoveling snow. On one of those days, Karl Recker lifted a snow shovel and examined it closely.
“Neustatter, I could make these,” he stated.
An old Grantville hand overheard him, and by the end of that day, an up-timer had come by and ascertained Karl was once a blacksmith’s apprentice.
“There’s blacksmith work if you want it,” he said. “Higher paying than this. What skills do the rest of you have?”
“The rest of us were farmers,” Neustatter answered. “Wolfram helped keep the sick and wounded alive.”
By the end of the week, Wolfram Kuntz had been assigned to the EMT program. Soon after that, Neustatter was made a foreman.
Foremen were armed, which meant Neustatter got sent to modern weapons training. That was mostly handled by the New United States Army, but Chief Frost did some of the instructing, too.
Some days later, there was a fight. Three or four different groups of men were working the same job, carrying construction materials into new rowhouses in Murphyhausen and assisting skilled workers who were finishing the insides. Most of that was “carry this,” “put that over there,” and “hold this for me.” But much of the work was indoors, which was not a minor consideration in the winter.
“We brought the boards inside! You go get more!” one man roared.
Another man got right up in his face. “We brought these in. Go get your own.”
Neustatter and Karl were holding a board in place for a carpenter. Neustatter’s head came up at the first thunk of a fist hitting flesh.
“Hey! Straighten that board!” the carpenter hollered.
Neustatter slid the board back into place. “Otto! Hjalmar! Hold this!”
Naturally, each man’s team began cheering on their champions, circling up around the combatants.
Otto and Hjalmar grabbed the board. Neustatter headed for the fray. His sense of vigilance, never entirely gone, snapped back into place.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded.
One of the spectators whirled and stepped in his way. “Shut up, you, or—”
Neustatter’s shove sent him sprawling. He stepped through the ring of men and grabbed one of the combatants.
The man swung wildly at him. Neustatter ducked and landed a couple hard blows to the body. The man grabbed Neustatter’s left arm with both hands and twisted.
Neustatter delivered a right cross to his chin. The man crumpled to the floor.
“Get back to work.” Neustatter didn’t bother to raise his voice.
One man started to object. “Suppose—”
His buddy nudged him, and the man shut up immediately.
Neustatter had no idea why, so he slowly turned in place, glaring at each man in succession. Men started to back up. Then Neustatter turned far enough that Karl and the other combatant came into view.
Karl was holding the man by the neck, arm outstretched. The smaller man was flailing at him wildly, occasionally managing to hit him in the bicep. Then Karl simply let go and dropped the man on the floor.
The crowd cleared as if by magic. Nobody was hustling away from the scene, but neither were they lingering.
A lot of the interior got finished that day, and at some point, the two teams involved reached a tacit if unspoken agreement to split the stack of supplies that had already been carried in.
When they were back at the refugee housing enjoying a well-earned dinner, Ditmar’s posture suddenly changed to one of alertness.
“Polizei.”
Neustatter kept eating.
“One heading to each of the other groups.” Ditmar’s words were calm, matter-of-fact. “They are taking the two men who fought out of here. They are not bound.”
“We will not see them again,” Stefan predicted.
But they were not even done eating yet when both men came back into the room. One of the polizei reentered as well and made his way to Neustatter.
“May Chief Frost have a few moments of your time, Neustatter?” he asked.
“Sure.” Neustatter pushed back from the table and made his way to the door. Once outside, the polizei officer directed him to the building next door. Neustatter pulled the door open and found Chief Frost and another officer seated at a table in some sort of office.
“Neustatter.”
“Herr Chief Frost.”
“Chief is fine. So’s ‘Dan.’ Pull up a chair.”
Neustatter sat down but he wasn’t about to call the chief by his first name.
“What happened today?”
“The fight? We had three teams working in the same place. Two men from different teams each claimed their team had moved a stack of supplies inside and came to blows.”
“What did you do?”
“Karl and I broke it up.”
“Why you? Why not their team leaders?”
Neustatter wondered if he had done something wrong according to the Grantvillers’ rules. “I do not remember seeing them just then. They may have been somewhere else. Or they may have been part of the crowd, cheering the men on.” He paused. “Sometimes it is best to let men fight. But brawls between different teams, different units . . . that can become dangerous. Other men can join in. It would not do to damage the new buildings, maybe not be able to work like that.”
“So you broke it up.”
“I took Karl with me. He can handle himself.”
Dan Frost snorted. “He can handle the other guy, too. The way I heard it, he had his guy by the neck, arm straight out.”
Neustatter shrugged. “Karl was going to be a blacksmith. He did not hurt the man. Bruises, of course, but he will be fine in a couple days.”
“And you dropped your man.”
Another shrug. “It seemed the easiest way to stop the fight.” Neustatter started feeling some tension.
“Relax, Neustatter. I got no problem with what you did.” Dan Frost sat back in his chair. “Might not have handled it that way. But then again, I might’ve. Your man Karl—what’s his last name?”
“Recker. He is not in any trouble, is he?”
“No—and I doubt anybody will want to give him any trouble after that. Don’t think anybody’s going to want to annoy Darth Recker.” Frost smiled. “That name even works.”
“I do not understand.”
“Later. I want you to watch some more John Wayne before I let Star Wars mess with your head. But, Neustatter, the important thing is not that there was a fight. So long as no one wants to press charges and it ends here. I don’t want bad blood between two work crews.”
“I do not think that will happen.”
“I don’t, either. The important thing is that you broke it up. Neustatter, you ought to consider expanding your leadership beyond just the eight of you.” Frost studied him. “Still determined to go back home to your village come spring?”
“Ja. We like not being in an army.”
“Well, if that’s what you want to do. You’re always welcome here in Grantville. Finding jobs is not hard, and I know the Reserves would be happy to have you.”
Neustatter gave him a solemn nod. “If we stayed in Grantville, I would have liked to become a cowboy.”
Dan Frost laughed. “I’m not surprised.”
“Or perhaps a detective.”
“On the force?” Chief Frost demanded.
“Nein. A P.I., like Sam Spade.”
Dan laughed again. “Well, if farming doesn’t work out, come back to Grantville, and we’ll see what we can do.”