Conrad's Last Campaign (12 page)

Fortunately, rice was still considered a luxury food in Europe, worth importing from North Africa, so there were two shiploads of it on storage. That gave us about a thousand tons of rice, and there were plenty of spices to go on it. Nutmeg, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and salt were all luxury goods worth shipping. I noticed dried fruit, nuts, and other items on the inventories. We might get most of what we needed.

We ate while we worked when the staff brought in platters of roasted mystery meat, bread, and beer. The canned goods would have to be kept for the trip. By
noon, all of the lists were translated and we were through a hundred pages of inventory. We’d found most of the supplies we would need. We had found another ten thousand coats, enough blankets to make another ten or fifteen thousand ponchos, twenty tons of lumber, two thousand axes, five thousand shovels, and almost two thousand saws. We were still desperately short of food and clothes, but it was enough to survive on.

There were a thousand other things we’d like to have, everything from tent canvas to rope to cooking pots, but that could be left to the Sir Eikmann’s engineers and the Quartermaster Corps to pick out.

During lunch, we discussed strategy. We decided that anyone that we did not find a coat for would be issued two extra wool blankets and sewing supplies. The men could turn than into simple ponchos in a few minutes and then improve them with sleeves, buttons, and hoods during their down time. The spare wool from cutting the blankets down could be used for mittens or boot padding.

Sir Wladyclaw suggested that we find local talent to sew for the men. I agreed it was a good idea, but since the population was pretty much in hiding, I didn’t have much faith in the plan.

After lunch, we sent all of the assistants away. The quartermaster staff would set up a central office where they and the other staff could examine the thirty pages of inventory that we skipped, and where they could receive reports from the field.

Then we got down to the most important problem: how to move all the supplies. By this time, I know that I could handle almost anything. If we ran out of artillery, I’d build trebuchet out of tree logs and fire boulders at the enemy. No ammo, we’d build crossbows and puncture the enemy to death. We could handle almost anything, but the nearest place to get a pneumatic tire was a thousand miles west, and you can’t build a good shock absorber out of a tree trunk. We needed to move at least a hundred tons of stuff three thousand miles in thirty days.

Sir Wladyclaw, Captain Ivanov, and I looked expectantly at Sir Eikmann. He shuffled papers for a few moments. “We don’t have a final answer yet. We’re good, but we’ve had less than a day to work on it. First, we may have a partial solution.” Looking at me, he asked, “Lord, may I ask what is the
real
capacity of our carts is? Oh, I know that the manual says that they can handle twelve tons each, but I also know that every cart carries two complete spare wheels with tires underneath and that there’s two sets of spare harnesses in every cart.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I know that you personally designed the basic army cart and I’ve seen your other designs. You, lord, believe in reliability, strength, simplicity, and spare tires.

“That tells me there’s a big safety margin in the design. I believe we can safely load the carts to at least fourteen tons and maybe a little more.”

He was a smart little bastard, and I hate having other people analyze me, especially if they’re right. “There is a safety margin. I had them tested up to fifteen tons, but the carts tend to waddle and vibrate when they get over twelve tons, and they stress the track too much in rail mode.”

He had the good manners, or enough regard for his own safety, not to wear a knowing smile. “That’s about what I suspected. That’s our first resource. We have about six thousand standard carts with us. They were all loaded close to capacity when we set out, but we have been eating, drinking, and shooting for about three weeks. So, we’ve burned off part of the weight. With an extra two tons per wagon and filling in all of the space we’ve emptied, that will give us about fifteen thousand tons of capacity.

“After that, we have to look at local resources and the news is not as good there.

“Over by the north palisade, there is about a square mile of wagons. This is major caravan terminus with thousands of wagons and over a hundred repair businesses. Unfortunately most of them are totally useless for us.

“Your grace, you specified that we will be doing over a hundred miles a day, so we need wagons that can handle eight miles an hour over unprepared grasslands. That’s about four times the speed that most of these wagons were designed for.

“The most common are European wagons and they are totally useless. It’s just like the crap we had in
Poland twenty years ago. They don’t even have steerable front axles. They just use oxen to drag them around corners. All of the bearings are wood on wood splashed with lots of grease. When they do have suspension, it’s chains. We’d be better off carrying stuff on our backs.

“The second type might be useable. There are over a thousand two-wheeled wagons around. The locals and the merchants both use them for smaller loads. The wheels are larger than the four-wheeled wagons and they’re built stronger. They derive from farm wagons so they’re crude and heavy ox carts and some don’t have any suspension at all. Some have solid wooden wheels, but if we band them with iron, they’d probably hold up. Given a little time, we could reinforce the boxes, add tops, and make them useable. Problem is that they only hold about two or three tons and they’re going to ride rough. You don’t want to put the family china in one.

“I did see a couple of Byzantine wagons parked out there, and the boys are out looking for more. They are almost identical to the Roman wagons from a thousand years ago and a real find. They’re closed boxes with steerable front axles and a leather suspension. The axles and running gear are wood, but there are iron bearings on all the moving parts. I would estimate that they hold over five tons of cargo. I don’t know if they can handle the speed without some modifications, but they’re our best bet. It’s strange that a thousand-year old Roman design is the most modern thing around.

“We also saw a few hundred Chinese wagons. They seem to be similar in quality to the Byzantine design, but we haven’t had time to evaluate them yet.”

My patience was growing thin, “Sir Eikmann, time is the one thing we don’t have. You keep talking about modifying hundreds of wagons. That could take weeks and if we aren’t on the road in a few days, the road will end in our graves.”

He didn’t back down, “Your grace, if we can’t feed the troops, it will be a grave full of starving men, and I do have a plan to do the modifications quickly.”

He was, of course, right again. Over the next few months, Sir Eikmann and I would save each others lives more than once and I would promote and reward him generously - but you can understand why I would never like him.

He went on confidently, “I’ve got several teams of grunts out counting and listing wagons. We’re limiting ourselves to the types in the main yards, because we don’t have time to go from house to house looking for wagons.

“I’ve already got, as of an hour ago, five teams of engineers working over farm wagons and five working on Byzantine models. They are being helped by the owners of the ten repair shops we paid generously to help us.

“If we find enough of the Chinese models or any other promising types, we’ll start doing the same for them.

“I’m certain that by the end of the day we will have complete plans for at least the farm models and soon after the modifications on the Byzantines.

“Then, tomorrow, we find every wagon repairman in this caravan town and get them down to the wagon yards. We demonstrate the modifications and offer them triple the usual pay rate for each wagon they modify and deliver. We’ll pay them with that good Mongol gold we liberated and provide every shop with all of the extra craftsmen we can find in the Christian Army. Our boys are pretty handy bunch.

“There are over a hundred wagon repair shops in this town. With the incentive pay, the help, a simple upgrade plan, and clear instructions we could get as many as five hundred to a thousand carts ready every day.

“We could be ready to go in a week.”

Silently, I calculated Murphy’s Time Factor into that week and decided it the week would be at least ten days long, but it was the best plan we had.

“I’ll have an order prepared for the purser instructing him that you have unlimited use of any captured gold and a general order giving you the authority to co-opt any soldier not engaged in combat or scavenging for the quartermaster.

“Now, gentlemen, I think that we have made a good start. I will be available whenever you need me, and I expect to be kept informed of your progress, but now I have a long trip to prepare for.

“Unless there are other items we need to discuss, this meeting is adjourned.”

There were difficult to decisions that only I could make, and I lot of them I didn’t like.

We had several hundred Chinese prisoners. They weren’t a big problem. Most of them didn’t want to work for the Mongols and refused to fight as soon as they found out they could surrender. The ones not smart enough to hide out or run for the hills were housed in a couple of surviving barracks and lightly guarded.

We were burdened with twenty-two Mongol officers that had been captured before they had a chance to fight to the death, and my inexperienced troops had allowed over two hundred Mongol fighters to surrender – against my orders.

The officers were no problem. No one felt sorry for enemy officers. This afternoon I would declare them guilty of war crimes and have them executed.

The Mongol soldiers were a problem. Ordering an army like the Christian Army to carry out mass executions could hurt morale. Even Hitler had learned that the hard way. The Wehrmacht carried out his orders to execute every Jew they found for only a few months before morale dropped precipitously and they refused to do more executions. Noble soldiers see a difference between killing in combat and killing civilians and I had built a noble Christian army.

I decided to recruit the Chinese soldiers to carry out the executions of the Mongol soldiers because they would probably enjoy doing it as much as I would enjoy ordering it. After all, morality applies only to people and these were Mongols.

Before I returned to my temporary palace, I penned an order for all foreign merchants and all warehouse owners, or their representatives, to present themselves two hours after dawn each morning at the city hall for orders and questions.

I also sent out orders: all komanders were to identify Mandarin-speaking troops and send them to the city hall tomorrow morning for translation duties; detailed my adjutant for find whatever passed for a real estate agent in this town; and, find out what a fully equipped wagon repair shop was worth.

The last item was a personal note to Captain Ivanov reminding him to fill at least one of the wagons with wine for our staff meetings and rugs for the executive tent. I also needed a new tent and one or two wagons for it. If one couldn’t be found ready-made, we would have to scrounge material for it.

I ate what my men ate, went were they went, recited the oath every morning, and curried my own Big Person, but in this world a leader had to keep up appearances. My tent also functioned as a meeting hall and a sleeping quarters for my bodyguards. I also needed something to sleep on.

Of course, I didn’t go straight home. There’s no replacement for eyes on the environment. I visited one of the shops working on the farm wagons, gave personal greetings to some of the troopers, and stopped by to watch the cannon firing at the island forts. Then, I went home to a nice warm bed and a pair of warmer bodyguards.

My first job in the morning was to find our guides. We could hire professional merchant guides easily, and we would get a few, but they were business men who might bolt at the first sign of trouble.

I decided to recruit some of the Chinese troops who might want to go home. As our Chinese-speaking troopers straggled in, they were sent to the barracks to interview Chinese troops who claimed they knew the way and either spoke Polish or seemed smart enough to learn it.

Once a candidate pool was selected, they would be put though the usual procedures. We were short of Big People and I didn’t trust the Chinese in battle anyway, so they would be mounted on Big People who were pulling carts and had no current partners. If selected and passed by a Big Person, they would be uniformed, mounted, given the oath, taught how to care for their partners, and be sent to school.

Until we left, they would spend ten hours a day learning pigeon. A guide isn’t much good unless he can say, “Go past the river,” “Turn Left,” and “Look out for that damned big avalanche!”

Sir Eikmann was as good as his word. Before
noon, he had gathered all the wagon repairmen in the parking yard and shown them the conversion he wanted made on the two-wheeled wagons. He specified a heavy iron tire and iron crossbars be added to each wheel. Seen from the side, each wheel ended up looking like a tic-tac-toe pattern inside an iron circle.

Since most of the utility wagons had slat sides instead of boxes, he lined the box with two layers of canvas and made a quick and simple cover to weatherproof it. There was lots of canvas available. The first three hundred conversions would even have iron sleeves in place of wood bearings in the wheels since his staff had found that many sleeve sets in storage.