“Jesus, and you a full lieutenant!” Clements shook his head. “I see I’d better take you in hand and teach you what’s what Navy-style before Admiral Simpson has to do it.”
Colonel Holtzmüller tried not to hover anxiously as Lieutenant Cantrell and Lieutenant Clements oversaw a rowdy gang of dockside workers. In Clements’ case, it was apparent that he actually understood what he was doing. Lieutenant Cantrell’s expertise was less obvious, but his German was far better than Clements’. No doubt that had made him particularly valuable to the American Admiral Simpson in Magdeburg, and it certainly stood him in good stead now, as well.
“Achtung!” he shouted as Clements made a frantic hand-sawing gesture. “Ease up on the left line!” he added, and Clements heaved an unmistakable sigh of relief as the thirty-three-foot boat slid stern-first into the waters of Wismar Harbor.
Holtzmüller heaved a deep breath of relief of his own. Personally, he had his doubts about this entire project. His king’s orders had stripped his garrison to the bone—at the moment, he had fewer than three hundred troopers from his own regiment, whereas manning the extended fortifications the Swedes had erected around Wismar’s original walls required a minimum of almost four thousand. Even at that, there would be precious little in the way of any central reserve.
He could make up some of the shortfall by impressing civilians from the city itself, plus the crews of any Swedish merchant ships which found themselves trapped in the port when the inevitable Danish blockaders arrived. Even at best, however, that wasn’t going to give him the number of live bodies he needed. Worse, Wismar’s civilians lacked much of the motivation Protestant cities in other parts of Germany might have had. After all, the Danes were also Protestants—fellow Lutherans, in fact. It hadn’t been so very long ago that Christian IV had been the anointed champion of Protestantism. True, he hadn’t been very good at it, but he was unlikely—to put it mildly—to indulge his troops in any massacres or introduce a religiously repressive regime if he should take the city. Which meant that any of the local civilians were more likely to be thinking about the consequences to their families’ health and their own property rather than fighting defiantly to the death if the siege proved long and arduous.
“All right,” Lieutenant Cantrell announced. “Let’s get the Century into the water, and we can all take a break.”
His labor gang headed for the third of the large speedboats obediently. One or two of its members seemed less than fully enthusiastic, although they were scarcely likely to object with a half-dozen of Holtzmüller’s rifle-armed dragoons standing around. The fact that four of Krak’s Shooters were also keeping an eye on things didn’t hurt, either. But most of the dock workers seemed as fascinated as Holtzmüller himself by the huge, sleek up-time craft floating majestically in the harbor.
Like so many of the Americans’ mechanical marvels, the speedboats radiated a refined grace, a fusion of line and form. There was something indefinably “right” about them. Holtzmüller didn’t pretend to understand the mechanical principles upon which they operated. Like most of the rest of Gustavus Adolphus’ subjects, he was prepared simply to take the Americans’ word that they would perform as promised. Yet, just as he could recognize the grace and power of a well-conformed horse, he could recognize those same qualities in these sharply carved, alien watercraft.
The one the Americans called the “Outlaw” was half as large as most of the seagoing merchant vessels anchored in the harbor, and it seemed still larger. Perhaps that was because he’d seen its size and arrogantly shaped hull before its gleaming propellers disappeared into the water.
“That’s right!” Lieutenant Cantrell encouraged as Lieutenant Clements said something into his ear and his straining laborers swung the bow of the “Century” around so that they could ease it into the water stern-first. “Keep that stern rope tight, Gunther!” Cantrell admonished a moment later, then scurried over to lend his own weight to the line.
The big boat moved with ponderous grace, simultaneously urged into motion and restrained by the ropes and hands of its attendants. It slid slowly and carefully into the water, and Holtzmüller watched Lieutenant Clements drop down into the open cockpit while mooring lines made it fast to the wharf.