“Okay,” he repeated. “I guess we’d better finish it.”
Blumroder began shouting orders. Within a minute, dozens of gunmakers, apprentices and Jaeger were out in the street, lining up in a remarkably good military formation.
Perhaps not that remarkable, really. One of the things Anse had learned in the twenty months since the Ring of Fire was that a lot of his preconceptions of “law-abiding, orderly Germans” were myths. Or, maybe not myths so much as transposing the reality of a much later Germany onto the seventeenth century.
The truth was that, in a lot of ways, Anse felt quite at home among Germans of this day and age. Germany-"the Germanies,” rather-was often a raucous and freewheeling sort of place. Just like good and proper West Virginians, most Germans who weren’t dirt poor owned guns and knew how to use them. Most towns and many villages had a militia, just as surely-and with just as much civic pride-as they had their own printing presses.
True, there were differences. Already, Germans had a devotion to bureaucratic regulations and legal fussiness that precious few up-time Americans ever did. Outside of Washington, D.C., at any rate. Still, Germans of the seventeenth century had a lot more in common with the frontiersmen of pre-Civil War America, in terms of their basic attitudes, than they did with the regimented populace of a much later Prussia. The Jaeger would have found the old Mountain Men sadly rootless, but other than that, they wouldn’t have had much trouble understanding them.
Anse led the way. Thankfully, nobody made any wisecracks about dead men lying in the snow being miraculously resurrected. After a while, he realized that very few of them had even noticed.
Rau had, of course.
“Very nice-what is that English word?-’dive,’ I think.”
“And what would you have done?” asked Anse crossly.
“Diven, of course. Only an idiot wouldn’t.”
“Dove,” Anse corrected. “Or maybe it’s ‘dived.’”
“Amazing that you aren’t all idiots. Speaking an idiot language the way you do.”
* * *
To Anse’s relief, no further battle was necessary. As they neared the compound-a wooden fortress, basically, much like the forts put up by the nineteenth century American army-he discovered that the routed garrison had already been intercepted by the city’s militia before they could reach the shelter of their compound.
What must have happened, clearly enough, was that after Noelle gave the city authorities copies of her documents and explained the situation, they’d called out the militia. The militia would have mustered behind the city hall and had managed to get between the fleeing mercenaries and the entrance to the garrison compound.
Just as clearly, the garrison hadn’t put up any resistance. After the bloodbath on the gunmakers’ street, all the fight had been knocked out of them. They’d simply submitted to arrest.
The militia officers were standing there with their men. Those would be the ones who hadn’t been in the gunmakers’ street, and Anse hadn’t already enrolled in his impromptu posse. Someone would have to sort that little problem out later, Anse thought. But, for the moment, the officers clearly had that look which proclaimed: awaiting further orders.
Lieutenant Ivarsson emerged from the compound’s gates. Smiling very cheerfully.
“Good day, Herr Hatfield. How delightful to see that the new garrison commander has come to pay a visit.”
Anse frowned at him. “Meaning no offense, but where have you been?”
Ivarsson jerked a thumb over his thick shoulder. “Inside, of course. Once von Dantz and Horton took out most of the garrison, that is. I thought it would be imprudent to make an appearance earlier.”
Anse looked up at the walls of the compound. A couple of very nervous-looking soldiers were stationed up there. Holding their weapons, but carefully not pointing them at the militia outside the gates.
“Where’s Felder? And what’s more important-where is Noelle Murphy?”
Ivarsson’s smile seemed as cheerful as ever. “The former commander of the garrison is sitting in his office. Waiting-eagerly, I assure you-to be relieved of his command. Fraulein Murphy is there with him. She is quite unharmed.”
There was something very suspicious about that smile.
“I wouldn’t think Felder-”
“Oh, certainly!” Ivarsson made an expansive gesture with his big hands. “At least, after I explained to him that he might-just barely-be able to persuade General Kagg that he simply couldn’t stifle the mutiny led by the dastardly Captain von Dantz. If I put in a word for him.”
Dastardly, no less. Ivarsson’s English was really quite good.
“I believe he was also helped in seeing his proper course of conduct by Fraulein Murphy’s presence. Although she is unharmed, she is rather furious, in her quiet sort of way. There were threats made, it seems, of a most lascivious variety. 0nce I removed the guards placed over her, I returned her pistol. She assures me that in the close quarters of Captain Felder’s office, she can’t possibly miss.”
Anse laughed. “This, I want to see. All right, Lt. Ivarsson, please lead me there.”
* * *
Noelle did, indeed, seem irate. At least, in her rather prim-and-proper manner of expressing most emotions. Her face was pale, and the pistol leveled at Felder didn’t seem to waver at all.
“You okay?” he asked.
Her face got pinched. “Well. Yes. I suppose. They were very insulting. Well. That’s not quite the right word, I guess. Filthy motherfuckers!”
The pistol did waver a bit, then. Quiver, rather, from the restrained fury of the slender hand that held it.
Felder’s face was at least as pale as hers. His eyes had never once left the barrel of the gun, not even when Anse and Ivarsson came into the room.
“Felder?” Anse asked.
“No, not him,” Noelle hissed. “Although he’s still responsible. Some of his men. The two he had guarding me.”
Anse turned to Rau, who was standing just beyond the door to the captain’s office. “Track ‘em down, Jochen.”
“Shoot them?”
“No, that’d be illegal. Just see to their discipline.”
Rau made something that might charitably be called a salute, and left. Anse turned back to Felder.
“You, asshole, are leaving here tonight. Under armed guard.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Corporal Rau’s guard, to be exact. I strongly recommend you behave yourself. I’ll have Ms. Murphy write a letter to General Kagg and President Stearns. If you’re lucky, you might keep your commission. I hope not, but I’m used to being disappointed in life.”
Now, he turned to Ivarsson. “The big problem-”
Ivarsson was shaking his head before Anse even started talking. “That will not work, Herr Hatfield. You will need Corporal Rau in Suhl, to serve as your adjutant while you assemble a new garrison. The existing garrison is now useless, here. I will lead them out-perhaps I should say, what is left of them-and take them to Grantville.”
He nodded toward Felder. “I will take him with me, also. Under armed guard, since that is your wish.”
He gave Felder that same cheerful smile. “I do not believe Captain Felder will object. That would disappoint me, and, alas, I do not share your stoical attitude toward disappointment.”
Ivarsson looked all of his size, that moment. Felder seemed to shrink still further in his chair.
Anse thought about it. With the entire garrison gone . . .