1635_ The Eastern Front - Eric Flint [71]
Belatedly, it dawned on Jeff that the bugle call had specified a divisional move. He couldn't see the other brigades from his position because there were just too many men and horses and artillery pieces and wagons in the way. But he could look behind him.
Sure enough, the divisional commander was coming himself, trotting forward with his staff officers.
That would be Major General Michael Stearns. The newbie. And, apparently, the glory hound. For sure and certain, the fucking idiot.
"General Stearns, this is unwise," said Colonel Long.
"I concur," said Anthony Leebrick. "There's no need—not this early in a battle—for you to come forward and place yourself in harm's way. Should the situation take a bad turn, of course—"
"Pappenheim behaved this way quite regularly. Probably still does. It's amazing the fucker isn't dead yet." That was Ulbrecht Duerr's contribution.
"Gentlemen, leave it alone," said Mike. "It probably is stupid. I'm not at all sure this whole maneuver isn't stupid. But what I know for sure is that there's no way I'm sending my men out there without going with them. I just can't do it."
Long and Leebrick fell silent. But their tight lips indicated their professional disapproval.
Duerr chuckled, on the other hand. "Pappenheim's soldiers adore the bastard, you know."
Lennart Torstensson watched from a distance as Stearns' Third Division moved obliquely forward. That was the entire right wing of his army, now detaching itself in what would appear to be a clumsy flanking maneuver.
"What is Stearns doing?" hissed one of his aides. The colonel pointed. "Look! He's going out himself!"
So he was. Lennart could see Stearns and his little group of staff officers trotting past the battalions as they moved slowly forward. Stearns had taken off his hat and was waving it about. Very cheerfully, it seemed. Lennart was quite sure Stearns was accompanying the hat-waving with equally cheerful remarks. The man might be a novice general, but he was a practiced and superb politician.
Even from the distance Torstensson could hear the Third Division cheering.
This had not been part of the plan. There was no reason for Stearns to do this. As soon as the trap was sprung Torstensson was going to throw everything he had at the enemy. That including the five APCs, although he suspected it would be the volley gun batteries who'd do most of the damage. Since Ahrensbök, Lennart had a lot of confidence in his flying artillery.
All Stearns' division had to do, once the enemy attacked, was simply hunker down and fend off the Saxons until the rest of the army came up and broke them. There was no place in all that and certainly no need for the division's commanding general to be gallivanting about on a horse near the front.
No, at the front. Stearns and his officers had now passed the lead battalion and were trotted slightly ahead of them.
"What is he doing?" repeated the aide.
But Torstensson knew. His monarch had predicted this would happen. The essence of it, at least, if not the specific details.
"I know that man," Gustav Adolf had told Lennart, some weeks ago. "He's a lot like me, you know, in some ways."
So it seemed. Lennart took off his hat and gave the general in the distance a little tip of recognition.
Chapter 17
"It might be a ploy, sir," said Colonel Carl Bose.
Hans Georg von Arnim continued to examine the peculiar maneuver being undertaken by the enemy's right wing. He'd lowered the eyeglass, though, after he'd confirmed that the commander was the newly-made general Michael Stearns.
"A trap, you mean?" Von Arnim had spent the past few minutes pondering the same problem. But now, he shook his head.
"I don't believe Torstensson would be so reckless. Stearns is a complete novice. If he loses his head—not even that; simply becomes confused and loses control—this could turn into a complete disaster for them."
He wasn't entirely certain of his conclusion, but . . . what choice did he