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    “Just stay out of trouble,” Mike said, loud enough to be heard by all the occupants in the back of the truck. “Do us all a favor, will you? Stay out of trouble.”

 

    Gayle and Julie grinned. The other three girls smiled. Rita seemed to ignore the remark completely. She was peering through one of the firing slits.

 

    “ ’Stay out of trouble,’ ” she mimicked sarcastically. “Jeff’s just dropping Gretchen off. Now
there’s
the woman you oughta be worrying about.”

 

    She turned away, bestowing her brother with a glare. “Why is it,” she demanded, “that men shit their pants at the idea of a woman in a battle—but have no trouble at all sending Mata Hari into the lion’s den?”

 

    Mike laughed. “Mata Hari? Get real! Gretchen’s not going to be batting her eyes at any diplomats and generals.”

 

    His sister’s gaze was unwinking. “No. That’d be safe, compared to what you want her to do.”

 

    Mike looked away. To his relief, Gayle came to his rescue. “Give your poor brother a break, Rita,” she said, chuckling. “He backed us up, didn’t he, push come to shove?”

 

    His sister’s reply was inaudible. But Mike wouldn’t have heard it, anyway. He had caught sight of Gretchen, still kissing her new husband as she stood alongside Jeff’s motorcycle. He almost laughed again, seeing the shocked expressions on the faces of the German burghers and their women alongside the road.
In public! Outrageous!

 

    “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he whispered. “Notable men and women of Germany—
heeere’s
Gretchen
!”
Chapter 38

    Reluctantly, Jeff let her go. “Be careful,” he whispered, giving Gretchen’s waist another quick hug.
    “Me?” she demanded, frowning half-jocularly. “You are ze one goink in battle. Not me!”
    Jeff was not mollified. “Still—”
    Gretchen grabbed the back of his head and drew his face to hers. A quick, firm kiss followed. Then she stepped back, patting him on a plump cheek. “Go, husband. Come back to me. Safe.”
    Jeff sighed. When she wanted, his wife had a will of iron. He knew full well that this was one of those times. He still didn’t understand why Gretchen had been so quick—so eager—to accept Mike and Melissa’s proposal. But he hadn’t questioned her at the time, and he wasn’t about to do it now.
    So he satisfied himself with a quick glance at her bodice and vest. The garments had been designed slightly oversize. Between that, and Gretchen’s impressive bust, the 9mm automatic resting in the shoulder holster was quite unnoticeable.
    His wife laughed. “Not to stare at
mein
tits!” she exclaimed, shaking her head and wagging a finger. “Vat
skandal
!” Then, very softly: “Do not vorry, husband.
Go.
”
    A moment later, Jeff was roaring off. He made it a point to do a wheelie as he passed a small group of young men standing by the road. The local toughs, by their look.
    They were suitably impressed—not so much by the acrobatics of the machine as the ferocious scowl on the face of the very large man who rode it. That, and the odd but deadly looking weapon slung over his shoulder. Jeff would have been quite shocked—and utterly pleased—had he known the impression he made on those bravos. They saw nothing of a shy young man in his leather-jacketed form. Just a killer. The fact that he wore spectacles made him seem all the more dangerous.
The better to see his victims, no doubt.
    One of the young toughs was not as intimidated as the others. After the motorcycle’s roar faded, he cast an eye on the woman standing by the road staring after it.
    “Good-looking,” he mused. “Very.”
    “Forget it, Max,” hissed one of his friends.
    Max leered. “Why, Josef? Who knows? Her man might be dead before the day is over.”
    Max’s friends gathered around, crowding him close. “I said forget it,” repeated Josef, punching Max in the shoulder. The gesture was not playful in the least. “He might not, either. And even if he is, what of the others?”
    Max let it go. The woman had disappeared into the crowd, by now. And he didn’t like the way in which Josef was gripping his dirk. “Just joking,” he mumbled. But he made himself a silent promise to pursue the matter. Alone.

    An hour later, their bikes perched atop a small ridge, Jeff and Larry Wild spotted the oncoming mercenaries through their binoculars.

 

    Well—Jeff did. Larry was too busy admiring the scenery. “God, this is a pretty place,” he murmured admiringly. He pulled the binoculars away from his eyes for a moment, to get a panoramic view of the Saale valley. The Saale was a small river, originating in the hills of the Thuringen Forest. In its northward course, flowing down the valley to which it had given its name, the river passed through Jena on its way. The valley was flanked by red sandstone and chalk hills, half-covered with grapevines. This was wine country, and it was as pretty as such areas usually are.

 

    “Forget the
vino
,” muttered Jeff. “Trouble’s coming.”

 

    Startled, Larry’s eyes followed the direction of his friend’s binoculars. Even without the aid of his own, Larry could now see the cloud of dust.

 

    “How many?” he asked.

 

    Still holding the binoculars pressed to his eyes, Jeff shrugged. “Hard to say. That’s not an army, so much as it is a mob. If there’s any marching order at all, I can’t tell what it is.”

 

    By now, Larry had his own binoculars back in place. “Not too many cavalry,” he commented. “Mike’ll glad to hear that.”

 

    “I don’t think there’s any
cavalry
at all,” snorted Jeff. “Just maybe two dozen guys who managed to steal horses and ain’t real good at riding them yet. Call themselves ’officers,’ I bet. The Scots’ll go through ’em like a chainsaw.”

 

    After a few more seconds of observation, Larry chuckled. “I do believe you’re right, buddy of mine. I do believe you’re right.”

 

    Jeff lowered the glasses and reached for his radio. A moment later he was giving Frank Jackson directions to the ridge. He and Larry had already determined that it was the best position from which to command this portion of the valley. It was the only high ground in the area and, what was even better, the road into Jena passed by at the foot of the ridge. They were hoping that the veteran Frank would agree with them, with all the tender pride of youthful war-gamers putting abstract skills to concrete practice.

 

    Frank did. Heaped them with praise, in fact, insofar as Frank’s terse remarks could be called “heaping.” But Frank Jackson was one of those people who ladled with a teaspoon, and Jeff and Larry were more than satisfied.

 

    The next few minutes were taken up with preparing the American positions. Mike kept the APC and Mackay’s cavalry out of sight, hidden beyond a curve in the road. They would be used to pursue and capture the defeated enemy. He stationed Heinrich and the German contingents across the road itself. They would form the barrier to the oncoming mercenaries.

 

    The new German recruits constituted about half of Mike’s infantry force. They were still organized into their own units, under newly elected officers. Heinrich was in overall command.

 

    Mike had intended to integrate the army immediately, rather than keeping the Germans in separate contingents. But experience had taught him that the process was going to be protracted. The problem was not “social,” and involved no prejudice. The American and German soldiers were getting along quite nicely, as it happened—especially after a notable barroom brawl in which several American and German soldiers marched into the Club 250 and taught the resident rednecks who was who and what was what. Dan Frost and his deputies had tossed the lot of them into the town’s jury-rigged jail thereafter, but the event had crystallized the army’s growing sentiment of comradeship.

 

    No, the problem was purely military, and purely simple.

 

    Germans couldn’t
shoot.

 

    Blast away, yes. Stand their ground like lions, yes.

 

    Aim? Hit a target? Not a chance.

 

    
Squeeze
the trigger? You must be joking! An arquebus has no “trigger.” Just a heavy hand-lever closed with a jerk—
after
shutting your eyes to protect them from powder burns.

 

    Heinrich and his men were veterans, and their habits were deeply ingrained. With the exception of a handful of the youngsters, none of the Germans had been able to adjust to modern rifles. The attempt to train them had simply produced frustration on all sides.

 

    In the end, Mike had taken the practical course. “Screw it,” he told Frank. “Just arm them with shotguns loaded with lead slugs. We’ll use them for close action.”

 

    The Germans had been ecstatic. They took to shotguns like bears to honey. The shotguns were more accurate than arquebuses, even after the chokes were sawn off to produce cylinder bores which would handle solid slugs. But the Germans didn’t give a damn about accuracy, anyway. They had survived as long as they had because each and every one of them was a devotee of the First Principle of Smoothbore Battle:

 

    
Rate of fire.
That was Moses and the prophets, as far as the German soldiers were concerned.
Rate of fire.
Victory in battle went to the men who stood their ground and blasted away the most. Simple as that.

 

    The American invention of bayonets
was icing on the cake. None of them, any longer—arquebusier or pikeman—had to worry about the reliability of the other. All were now both in one.

 

    Pump-action shotguns, fitted with bayonets—those, if nothing else, sealed the allegiance of Heinrich and his men to the new order. Their love for the marvelous devices was so great that it even reconciled them to the grotesque eccentricities of the Americans. Such as—

 

    The German soldiers were careful not to ogle Gayle as she and two of the other women passed down the lines handing out extra ammunition pouches. Nor did they seem to pay any attention to Rita—unseemly attention, at any rate—when she took up her position as the unit’s radio operator. Heinrich and his men, for all their crudities, had long ago learned the First Principle of Mercenary Armies:
Don’t piss off the toughest guys around.
Which exalted status the Americans still had, in general—and one American in particular.

 

    Rita’s brother, of course, was their commander. But what was more important—much more—was that her husband stood in their own ranks. In the center, in the front line—as befitted a man who had gained the absolute confidence of his new comrades. And a man whom
none
of them—not the biggest and toughest veteran—would even think of challenging. Easy-going, he was—true, true. Not a friendlier man in the company!

 

    Good thing, too. Seeing as how he was as big as a walrus and could bench-press a horse. So, at least, thought the man’s German comrades. When the man himself had explained to them that he wasn’t
quite
up to the standards of “professional football,” he single-handedly killed—quite inadvertently—any chance that football would become a popular sport in the new society. In this new universe, it would be Tom Simpson, not Abner Doubleday, who caused the astounding popularity of baseball. A reasonable sport, baseball, playable by reasonable-sized men.

 

    But Tom Simpson now had other accomplishments to his credit. One, in particular: it had been he, in truth—far more than the shotguns—who truly welded the German soldiers into the American army.

 

    Tom Simpson, in the first months after the Ring of Fire, had been something of a lost sheep. His allegiance to Mike’s course of action had completed his estrangement from his own parents. Yet, there had seemed no real place for him among Mike’s crowd.

 

    Not that Mike didn’t make many offers. But Tom, stubbornly, turned them down. He had had enough nepotism and favoritism to last a lifetime. For a while, Tom thought of dabbling in business. But, in truth, he knew he had none of his father’s executive skills. Nor, perhaps because of his rich birth, did he have the hardscrabble instincts of a true entrepreneur—which were an absolute necessity in the raw and booming commercial world springing up in southern Thuringia.

 

    He had volunteered for the army, of course, as soon as Mike put out the call. But, there too, he had found no ready place. For all his size and incredible muscle, Tom was a rich kid from the city. Among his country-boy fellow soldiers, he quickly become famous as the worst marksman anyone had ever seen. The jests were never made in a nasty spirit—Tom was a popular figure—but they stung nonetheless.

 

    Finally, more out of desperation than anything else, he volunteered to join the new contingents of German troops being formed. And there, as much to his surprise as anyone’s, he found the home he was looking for.

 

    Tom, it developed, had a knack for learning foreign languages; in the field, at least, if not in a classroom. What was more important—much more—was that he discovered he had the right temperament for the work. He liked the German soldiers, and they liked him. He was easy-going, unflappable, friendly—and fearless.

 

    True, that fearlessness had yet to be tested in a gun battle. But there was not a man in Heinrich’s contingent who doubted the outcome. Fear, they knew, came from the mind, not the bullet or the pike. In the way such men have, many had tried to intimidate Tom in the first weeks.

 

    Size be damned! Size isn’t everything. Toughness is a thing of the
mind.
So, in the first few weeks after Tom joined their ranks, Heinrich’s toughest veterans tested his alpha-male mettle.

 

    Heh.

 

    Tom never had to raise a hand. He was accustomed to the ferocious intimidation on the football fields of the nation’s top universities. In the
line
. And he had been very good at it. His body wasn’t
quite
up to the standards of professional football, but his mind certainly would have been.

 

    By the time the battle of Jena began, the thing was settled. Tough Tom—