1635_ The Eastern Front - Eric Flint [136]
In that event, the situation changed. Units which developed a sense of themselves as being special, an elite, the ones who could always be counted on in a crisis—such units would remain dangerous even after suffering heavy casualties.
But was Stearns such a commander? As inexperienced as he was?
Koniecpolski didn't think so. From what he could see—all of it, admittedly, at a distance and filtered through the reports of others—the American general had simply blundered his way to success. A courageous commander, yes; by now that was quite evident. But such a commander would wear out his own men, soon enough.
So. Those were the parameters of the grand hetman's calculations. He'd effectively destroyed the Hessians and he'd stymied the Swedes. One of the USE's three divisions had to be worn out by now. If he could shatter a second division, he'd have created the best possible conditions Poland and Lithuania could have hoped for. The war that followed would be the sort of protracted affair that a people defending their own lands would fight tenaciously, and the invaders would grow weary of soon enough. The great danger had always been that Gustav Adolf could successfully wage a rapid campaign.
He might well have been able to do so, had God not intervened and blessed Poland with such a tremendous storm.
But even this storm would not last for more than another day, possibly two. It was not the Deluge, after all. As slowly as his cavalry was moving, by the time Koniecpolski reached the USE First Division and could grapple with it in battle, it would have regrouped itself. Knyphausen was a competent general.
Koniecpolski had no intention of attacking a USE infantry division with hussars alone, unless it was spread out. Which it would no longer be—and to make things still worse, the weather would probably have cleared by then.
He had only two options left. Retreat back to Poznań—or try to find Gustav Adolf himself. His forces were more than a match for the Swedish units his opponent had at his immediate disposal. If he could fight a battle before the weather cleared . . .
One of his adjutants came into the command tent. "We just got a radio report. Scouts have spotted the Swede. The king himself, that is. He's marching south and his units have gotten spread out a little."
"How far away is he?" the grand hetman asked sharply.
"Ten miles, maybe twelve."
For the first time that day, Koniecpolski smiled. "Mobilize the men. Immediately. We're going to meet the bastard."
After the aide left, Koniecpolski made a mental note to himself. As soon as the war was over, he'd see to it that his nephew was legitimized. No one had done as much to aid the cause of Poland as Jozef Wojtowicz. In addition to his weather reports that had guided the grand hetman's tactics, he'd been the one who obtained the radios for Koniecpolski's army, that had proven so invaluable in the campaign.
Koniecpolski was unusual among hetman for the importance he attached to building an extensive espionage network. An army without such was half-blind, in his opinion. Once again, he'd been proven right.
Wismar, Germany, on the Baltic coast
"All good things come to an end," murmured Jozef Wojtowicz. He turned away from the window and quickly gave the room a final inspection to see if he was leaving anything incriminating behind. It was time to go.
As he'd always done before meeting the American radio operator in the tavern, he'd arrived in the area two hours early and gone to the hotel room he'd rented for the purpose of observing the tavern before he entered. The room was on the third floor and its windows opened onto the same street where the tavern was located, a short distance away.
He had no fear of arousing suspicion. Wismar now had a lot of transient traffic, which had inevitably produced the sort of hotel whose managers asked no questions—didn't even think of the questions, in fact—so long as the room was paid for. Since the Danish fleet had been repelled here two years earlier, Wismar had become a much larger town than