1636 The Kremlin Games (33 page)

“They were well made, but by people who had no way to do more than guess about the stresses they would face. It’s steam powered and if they had steam powered dirigibles up-time, we haven’t heard about it. That’s why they built it—to see.”

“So why don’t we have an improved version or one of the airplanes that the up-timers have?” Izmailov sounded impatient and gruff.

“Engines, sir. Ours are both heavy and weak They wouldn’t get a heavier-than-air craft off the ground. There is one engine in Russia that might lift an airplane off the ground. That engine is in the car Bernie Zeppi brought to Russia.” This wasn’t entirely true, as Nick well knew. The engines they had built for the dirigible would get an airplane off the ground just fine. It was the added weight of the water, the boiler and the steam recovery that had so far made down-time-built steam-powered heavier-than-air craft impossible. Without the recovery system, a steam powered aircraft would work fine for a few minutes before the water was all used up. Water weighed a lot.

“So I will have the intelligence you can gather from your
Testbed
only when and if everything goes right? If nothing breaks on your toy and the weather is just right?” The general glared, then visibly shook himself. “All right, Captain. That’s all.”

*     *     *

The cavalry were equally unimpressed with the intelligence gathered by Nick. And more than a few of the cavalry were resentful. Scouting was a part of their function and, as far as they were concerned, the infantry was looking to take away the other part. They rode out almost gaily for the two days the dirigible was being repaired.

But, just like the dirigible, they found no traces of the enemy.

Chapter 53

July 1634

Sixty miles as the crow flies from Moscow, Nick was ready to try again. Mostly because they were launching from closer to Rzhev, but also because it was, luckily, a still, calm day. Nick made it to within five miles of Rzhev. At five thousand feet, he feathered the engines so he would have a stable platform, pulled out his telescope and started counting outhouses and camp fires.

*     *     *

“Three thousand men, General, more or less. They haven’t burned the town, but it’s not big enough to hold them all. They have built a camp next to it. No walls, not much in the way of defensive fortifications.”

“Did they see you?”

Nick shrugged. “I can’t say for sure.
Testbed
is big and quite visible, but I was five miles away and a mile in the air. It depends on where they were looking. No one took a shot at me and they didn’t seem disturbed when I looked at the town.”

“Three thousand? Is that all?” Colonel Ivan Khilkov said. “General, we’ve got almost that many cavalry. Send us ahead; we’ll ride them into the ground.” The colonel was not a fan of the new innovations in warfare provided either by Western Europe or the up-timers.

General Izmailov hesitated and Nick knew why. Ivan Khilkov was young, but from a very old family. A very well-connected family, since one of his relatives was Patriarch Filaret’s chamberlain. The general could deny him once or twice, but if he did it too many times, Izmailov would find himself relieved of command and his career ended. Nick prudently kept his mouth shut.

*     *     *

Four days later, General Izmailov could no longer say no. Colonel Khilkov had sent mounted scouts directly to Rzhev.

“They are fortifying the town, albeit slowly. By the time the full column reaches Rzhev, the town will be fully fortified,” Khilkov said. Then he sniffed. “Send us, General. We can get there quicker than this”—Khilkov waved an arm at the wagons—“torturous mess. The cavalry can get there in two days. By the time you can get all this there, we’ll have taken the town.”

“The
Streltzi
may not move as fast as cavalry, but they are equipped with the new rifles.” Then Colonel Petrov stopped and grimaced. Although the
Streltzi
were supposed to be the first to get the new rifles, Colonel Khilkov was wearing a fine leather bandolier with twenty loaded chambers across his chest. And it wasn’t just for show. Colonel Petrov knew that Colonel Khilkov had his own AK3, as did quite a number of his men. In fact, the AK3’s that had been sold on the black market were one reason it had taken so long before they were finally issued to the Moscow
Streltzi
.

Colonel Khilkov casually patted his bandolier. “I’m familiar with the AK3, and quite impressed by them. But it is the shock of cavalry that wins battles. Not footmen plinking from behind a wooden wall.”

There was no way to avoid it, Izmailov knew. Against his better judgment—and with a tiny bit of worry for his future—he agreed. He might very well be ruined either way. If Khilkov won, he’d look bad. If Khilkov lost, his angry relatives would blame Izmailov.

*     *     *

“Khilkov and his forces are about ten miles from Rzhev, sir,” Nick Ivanovich reported.

“Very well,” Izmailov said. “Do whatever it is you need to do with your . . .
Testbed
. If he’s that close, you should see the battle tomorrow.” The general paused. “Take Lieutenant Lebedev with you.” When Nikita started to object, General Izmailov held up his hand. “There’s no choice in this. He is from a good family. If things go well tomorrow, it won’t matter—but if they don’t, you and I will need his report.”

By this time, the main column was only about forty miles from Rzhev by air. Which, unfortunately, meant quite a few more miles on foot. Fortunately, it was short-hop range for
Testbed
. Nick spent the rest of the day doing maintenance and preparing for the overloaded trip to Rzhev. The general consensus was that tomorrow he would have a ringside seat for a glorious feat of victory by Russian cavalry. General Izmailov clearly wasn’t so sure, and Nick shared his doubt. There were probably a few others who were less than sanguine about the outcome. Sergeant Hampstead was one of them; his commanding officer, Captain Boyce, who had joined them on the march was another.

*     *     *

“I’m going with you.”

Nick Ivanovich looked over at the young lieutenant. “So General Izmailov told me. That’s why I’m pulling two of the four hydrogen tanks. We’ll also be taking less ballast water and less fuel.” Nick wasn’t happy with the situation but he rather liked Tim, one of the more innovative young officers in the Russian army. And young was the word. Tim might be seventeen, but he looked closer to fourteen. “Bernie Zeppi said once that the glamour of flying would get to almost anybody. But it’s
dangerous
up there. A dirigible is a balancing act. Look there . . .” He pointed. “Those are the lift bladders. They pull the dirigible up but not by a constant amount. There are several factors involved. At night, for instance, the hydrogen gets cooler and loses some buoyancy. Flying one of these things is more like horsemanship than you’d think.”

“A matter of feel and instinct, rather than science, you’re saying.”

“Right. If you gauge it wrong, you’re likely to crash. Fortunately, you’ll probably have more time to react than you would falling off a horse. On the other hand,
Testbed
here has as much surface area as a three-masted schooner has sails.”
Well, not really,
Nick admitted silently,
but it doesn’t have a hull in the water holding it in place either.
“So a sudden change in the wind and we can be a hundred yards away from where we want to be before I can even start to compensate. If we are facing into the wind, or close to it, the engines are enough to move us through the air. But if the wind is from the sides, the wind wins. If it rains on this thing, the weight of the water means even with all the ballast overboard and the bladders at capacity, we don’t have enough lift. We had to drop the radiator more than once in tests at the Dacha and the aerodrome where they are working on the big one. We haven’t had to drop the engines or the boiler yet but it’s rigged to be able to.”

Nick went on to explain about the various controls. The fifty-pound weight that didn’t seem like that much till you realized that it could be moved from the tip to the tail of the dirigible to adjust its balance and angle of attack. That not only the wings, but the engines at their ends rotated as much as thirty degrees, to provide last minute thrust up or down for takeoff and landing. Especially landing. The steam engines could reverse thrust with the turning of a lever, so
Testbed
didn’t need variable pitch propellers. It was all a bit intimidating.

Chapter 54

Rshev, on the Volga River

“It is a beautiful sight,” Tim said. “Banners flying . . .” He paused a moment, then sighed. “A beautiful sight, noble and glorious. But at the Kremlin in the war games they treated pike units as fortified. Not easy to overrun. Colonel Khilkov didn’t think much of the war games.” In a way, this was like one of those war games, an eagle’s eye view. Tim had played a lot of them, and suddenly, as he watched, he could see the little model units on the field below. He remembered one of the games—an unofficial game—when one of his fellow students had had a bit too much to drink and ordered cavalry to attack undispersed pike units. You were supposed to hit them with cannon first, to break up their formation. And he remembered those cavalry pieces being removed from the board. Ivan had stood, held up one arm, wobbled a bit, lifted the arm again and proclaimed “But, I died bravely!” They had all laughed. Suddenly it didn’t seem funny at all.

“Colonel Khilkov thinks the Poles will break when faced with a cavalry charge . . . and General Izmailov didn’t seem to agree.”

“You’re sounding a bit, ah, concerned there, Tim.” Nick peered though his telescope toward the Polish forces.

Tim nodded. “Colonel Khilkov is . . . a bit difficult.”

The Polish forces didn’t flee. Three thousand Russian cavalry faced a wall of about two thousand Polish infantry, armed with pikes and muskets, as well as the Polish cavalry. The infantry stood in ranks and waited. Then they lowered their pikes and the Russian cavalry charge ran headlong into a porcupine made of men. Then the Poles fired. It was unlikely that the volley killed many men, but it was enough to shatter the Russian formation.

Then it was the Polish cavalry’s turn. They were outnumbered but they were fighting a scattered unit. Colonel Khilkov tried to rally his men and almost managed it. But the Polish infantry had slowly—as infantry must—advanced while the Polish cavalry had been cutting its way through the Russians. Once their own cavalry was mostly clear, the Polish infantry opened fire again.

“It’s all over, mostly,” Nick said. There was, it seemed to Tim, a coldness in Nick’s voice he had not noticed before. “We’d better head back to General Izmailov and tell him.”

Tim nodded, tears blurring his sight. He kept seeing little cavalry units being picked up off a playing board while he looked at the clumps of bodies on the field. It was too far to distinguish individuals but he knew some of the cavalrymen whose bodies made up those clumps. “The general’s not going to be happy.”

The little boyars with their fine horses had left the field, those that still could. Routed by soldiers who worked for pay, not glory.

*     *     *

By the time they got back to the column, it was crossing the Volga at Staritsa and Tim had himself well under control. He made his report and the general discussed the way the battle had gone. Whoever had commanded the Poles had kept his Cossacks in reserve. Which was a bit of a surprise; since probably the greatest Russian weakness was in tactical mobility. Of course, a Russian army that was mostly cavalry was unusual, too.

“I am concerned about the loss of the cavalry,” General Izmailov echoed Tim’s thoughts. “The cavalry units were most of what tactical mobility we had. We can’t afford to be caught away from the Volga. We’ll need it for supply. It’s a hundred miles along the Volga from Tver to Rzhev. I am going to take the main force straight to Rzhev. But I am sending Captain Boyce and his people along the river to grab up every boat they can find.”

Tim said, “But the supplies are coming up by steam barge, aren’t they?”

“They’re supposed to be,” General Izmailov said. “But the latest steam barge is overdue. The steam barges don’t work that consistently yet. So I want regular boats to fill in the gaps. I also want to deny them to the Poles. So, you’re going with Captain Boyce and his troops, Tim. I don’t really think they’ll run again, but better safe than sorry.”

“Yes, sir. What do I do if they do run?”

“They won’t. That’s why you’re going. I’m sending a squad of
Streltzi
with you, but they are just to keep you safe. Captain Boyce knows that if his company fails in its mission, you’ll take the
Streltzi
and come tell me about it. Then he and his people won’t get paid.”

“Yes, sir,” Tim said. “I’m sure the steam barge will arrive soon.”

Chapter 55

On the Volga River

“God cursed piece of crap!” Shorty shouted as the pressure valve started screaming again.

Ivan couldn’t really blame his brother. Besides, it wasn’t really blasphemy, more a statement of fact. The new barge that they had received had a real pressure-relief valve. The pressure-relief valve blew a whistle when it let off excess steam. The whistle wasn’t removable. Whenever the steam got a little strong, the thing started screaming at them like some sort of demented banshee and didn’t stop till the steam pressure had dropped to what the builders in Murom thought was a good pressure. Which, they had told Ivan Mikhailovich, was about thirty pounds per square inch.

When they had gotten to Murom they had been informed that they weren’t going back to Moscow. They were instead taking supplies to “our gallant troops,” which meant they were going up the Volga almost all the way. Except, of course, the Volga wasn’t their river. Never mind. It didn’t matter. They had the most experience with steam barges. So they were given this brand new and improved steam barge with a donut boiler. Which wasn’t quite a tube boiler, but better than a pot boiler since the chimney for the fire box went through the boiler. It had better, more finely worked, cylinders and pistons and worked at higher pressure, so used less fuel and went faster. It had two propellers, one on either side. What a glory of Russian engineering!