Still, when the Crown officially offered fat rewards to anyone who actually saw and reported them, it had been clear someone took them seriously. Now Franchot was forced to do the same thing.
They went past him, moving with total disregard for wind or weather, and they had to be making at least ten knots, probably more. In fact, he was positive it was more than that; he just didn't know how much more, because he'd never seen anything move that fast. Nor had he ever seen any ship move without sails or oars or any other visible means of propulsion. He simply had no experience to apply to estimating how fast these ships were moving.
He'd thought at first that the two in the back must be on fire, judging from all the smoke they were emitting. Obviously, though, they weren't. The smoke was coming from what were clearly purpose-built chimneys, and even if it hadn't been, the ships were continuing blithely on their way, which they would scarcely have been doing if they'd been on fire!
He estimated their course carefully, then nodded to himself. Everyone knew this so-called League of Ostend had the Swedish emperor locked up in Luebeck. From everything Franchot had heard, that was rather like a herd of belligerent sheep getting together to besiege a large, particularly hungry wolf, but that hadn't been any of his concern. It still wasn't, but it was obvious even to a simple fishermen like him, that the warships keeping watch on Luebeck were about to get a truly nasty surprise.
He shook himself as the line of ships disappeared over the horizon.
"Get the net in, Emile!" he said sharply.
His brother-in-law gaped at him, and Franchot clouted him on the ear with one gnarly fist.
"Move, imbecile! That-" he waved an arm at the plumes of smoke still visible to the northeast "-is worth a month's worth of fish to the first ones to report it!"
Emile blinked at him for a moment longer, then nodded in sudden understanding and bent with Franchot to haul in the net.
The Lippe River, a few miles northeast of Soest
"Remember, there's no need to get into an actual battle," said Turenne. "All you need to do is create enough of a stir to make the enemy think we're planning an attack on Hesse-Kassel."
Jean de Gassion tugged his beard. "I have to engage in some combat, Marshal-or all we'll be doing is alerting the Hessians that we're in the area. If I retreat too quickly, they might come far enough north pursuing me to pose difficulties for you when you return."
As Turenne considered the problem, he watched his forces-three thousand cavalrymen, of the five thousand they'd brought on the raid-starting to ford the Lippe. He'd take those northeast to the Teutoburgerwald, while Jean de Gassion would take the remaining two thousand men to the southeast, in a feint at Kassel.
The Lippe was a small river. This far upstream, it was an easy crossing. They'd probably only lose a handful of horses, if they lost any at all. That was Turenne's main worry, at the moment, not the question de Gassion was raising. Given the imperative necessity for moving as quickly as possible, he hadn't brought very many extra horses on the expedition. He'd only allowed for losing one-fifth of the mounts they'd started with. That was a good enough ratio, normally, with experienced and capable cavalrymen. But they still had to get through the low mountains of the Teutoberg Forest. Even using the gap at Bielefeld, that sort of terrain would wear on the horses.
But that die was cast already, and there was no point fretting over it. Gassion needed an immediate answer.
"I'm just not too concerned about that, Jean. Remember that I'm taking all the Cardinals and you'll be armed with nothing except muskets and pistols. Don't get involved in anything beyond a minor skirmish or two. It's more important that you get out of it with your force intact, so you can come up in time to hold the bridge over the Weser. You actually have more distance to travel than I do."
He gave his eager subordinate a smile. Like most of Turenne's lieutenants, Gassion was also a young man-in his case, less than two years older than the marshal himself. They all tended to be a bit impetuous, and none more so than Gassion. Not surprisingly, of course, since he was a Gascon.
"Please, Jean! Restrain yourself, if you would. The one thing I do not want to face is racing back with the enemy on my heels and finding that I have to cross the Weser at a ford." He waved at the nearby Lippe. "This is barely a stream; the Weser's a real river."
"But-"
"Oh, stop worrying. The Hessians have most of their army to the south, facing the archbishop of Cologne, and the landgrave is with them himself. All they have left in the capital, according to our reports, is a garrison. They're not likely to march more than a regiment out of the city after you, and a regiment"-now he waved toward the Cardinal rifle in a saddle holster on his horse, standing a few feet away-"three thousand of us armed with these can drive off in a few minutes."
"If you have any ammunition left," said Gassion. Like most Gascons, he was stubborn as well as headstrong.
Turenne wasn't disturbed by that, however. The same traits also made Jean de Gassion a superb cavalry commander. So, Turenne just gave him a level gaze, saying nothing. After a few seconds, Gassion smiled and threw up his hands.
"Fine, fine! I shall be obedience personified, Marshal. And I'll be at the bridge, when you get there."
"All I ask. Godspeed, Jean, and good fortune."
Chapter 45
The Wardersee, near Segeberg thirty miles northwest of Luebeck
The march from Hamburg had been exhausting, so General Torstensson ordered a rest once the regiments reached the Wardersee. The lake north of the town of Segeberg provided all the water they needed and they'd brought their other supplies from Hamburg. Behind them, TacRail units were laying a line from Hamburg that would make resupply quite reliable, once it was finished.
By then, of course, the war might be over. Such, at least, was Eric Krenz's caustic opinion.
"And why couldn't we have billeted in Segeberg?" he groused, wrapping his blanket around him more tightly and sliding himself closer to the campfire the battery had made. This early in May, it was still chilly in the morning.
"All twenty thousand of us?" Thorsten Engler shook his head. "Don't be stupid, Eric. I was told by Mark-Lieutenant Reschly-that the emperor gave General Torstensson orders not to weigh too heavily on the local populace. Seeing as how he intends to make them his own citizens, soon enough."
Silently, he reminded himself that he needed to restore a certain formality in his references to Mark Reschly. Captain Witty had suffered a minor accident shortly after the march began from their camp below Hamburg. Nothing really serious, just one of the almost-routine casualties suffered by cavalrymen-a broken foot from his horse stepping on him. But it was a significant enough injury that he'd had to stay behind in Hamburg until the bones healed, which had made Reschly the new commander of their volley gun company. After the battle group had been dissolved and they rejoined the rest of their company in Hamburg, that put Reschly in command of six batteries instead of the two he was accustomed to. The young officer from the Moselle was a bit frantic, these days, trying to catch up on things. He didn't need Thorsten's private familiarity with him to undermine his authority, which was a bit shaky to begin with.
Eric's capacity for grousing, alas, had become something of a legend in the batteries. "Torstensson has a billet in the town."
"I said, don't be stupid. Of course he does-and in the town's biggest tavern, at that. Do you really want the commander of your own army to be making battle plans scratching in the mud?" He waved at the Wardersee, whose banks were only twenty yards away. "Maybe you, but not me, seeing as how I'm not an idiot Saxon."
That got a little laugh from the other men in the battery around the campfire. Most of them, like Engler himself, were from parts of the Germanies west of Saxony. Thuringians and Magdeburgers, mostly, although Engler himself was from the Oberpfalz and there were several men in the battery from Franconia.