All David really needed was . . . well, for his boss to get out of his way.
Meanwhile, the troops had to be fed. And there was only one way David could think of to get that done. Sell, sell, sell.
So he did.
****
Soon David had a reputation and almost didn't need the goods. Just catalogs.
"You're that Bartley fellow?"
"Yes, Herr . . ."
"Baum. Adolph Baum. I have some cattle to sell."
Indeed he did, David saw. Herr Baum must be representing an entire village, because he had quite a few cattle. "You know, Herr Baum, you can get more money if you take the cattle a bit up the road, to the main supply tent."
Herr Baum laughed. "I can get more of what they call money, young fellow. No offense to the Prince of Germany, but I'd just as soon not have those worthless chits."
"They're not worthless, sir."
Baum smirked. "You take them then."
It was hard to turn down an invitation like that, so David didn't.
David sent Johan Kipper out to look over the goods and come up with an offering price. And aside from smiling politely, stayed out of it. Sergeant Beckman did the negations. Both Johan and the sergeant were much better negotiators than David was. Besides, many of the people they were dealing with would have been really uncomfortable negotiating with an up-timer. Way too much like negotiating with a cardinal or a baron or something. So David sat back and smiled benevolently . . . some would say condescendingly. But, damn it, they expected condescension, the next best thing to demanded it. David could at least make it kindly condescension, rather than sneering condescension.
Then David would pull out his catalogs, they would go over what the farmers or the merchants needed and what was available at what price. Here David would talk. He would make suggestions about who had the best products for the best price, ask questions about what they were going to use it for, and make suggestions about possible alternatives. Once they had everything worked out, David's secretary would write out the agreement, and David and the customer would sign it.
And more often than not the customer would leave muttering about how "the up-timer was a proper noble, kind and understanding, not like the sort we have around here."
Next David would walk over to the main supply tent, transfer to the goods to the Third Division and receive the government chit that the merchant or farmer didn't want. That the customer was right not to want, because, as it turns out, there is a real difference between some farmer off in Saxony sending in a chit and an army officer with his own lawyer turning in the selfsame chit. The difference isn't so much of a question of will it get paid at all, though there is some of that. Mostly it's a question of when it gets paid.
David had access to the military radio, he had a lawyer in Magdeburg and knew several people in the Treasury. From the supply tent he went to the radio room and sent the codes on the chits to Magdeburg and the funds were transferred from the government account to David's account. Then David sent off another radio message to his agent in Magdeburg, specifying the purchases to be made and where they were to be sent. It would arrive in a few weeks or a couple of months, depending on the waiting list for that product. There was always a waiting list and the customers were told that as well. Still, they were happy with the deal for the most part.
Since David had set this up on his own hook and using his own credit, primarily as a way of helping to make sure that the army had the supplies it needed, he didn't feel the least bit guilty about the profit he made.
After all, it wasn't like they could buy such goods with Saxon thalers. John George's paper thalers were supposed to be exchangeable for one ounce of silver on demand in Dresden. Demanding that silver was a threat to the duke's realm and a palpable insult to the duke, both of which were criminal acts in Saxony. "Here's your silver, you're under arrest for treason against the duke" is not the sort of response that makes one want to run down to the treasury for some hard currency. To date, no one had actually received any silver in exchange for a Saxon thaler with a picture of John George on the front and now no one ever would. On the Grantville currency market the Saxon thaler was valued at about two cents American money. Well, it had been. When the first of Gustav Adolph's troops crossed the border, it dropped off the exchange all together. But they still circulated in Saxony because they were, mostly, all there was. Any silver currency in Saxony had obeyed Gresham's law and retreated to under someone's mattress.
****
"Don't you Americans have a term for this? Profiteering, isn't it?" Colonel McAdam's sneer wasn't quite as confident as he apparently thought it was.
About the time they hit Dresden, Colonel McAdam noticed the profit David was making and was pissed. Both because he hadn't gotten in on it and because it wasn't anything the Third Division couldn't have been doing right along. David's initial proposal had been close enough to what he had ended up doing on his own that the evolution was obvious in hindsight. All of which made the colonel look and feel more than a little foolish.
"Sir, you gave me permission, and, no, I'm not profiteering. I also resent the suggestion that I am." It might be taking a bit of a chance, David thought, but he wasn't letting this blowhard start any rumors that might damage his reputation. If Colonel McAdam resented David's success, that was fine. Even so, David himself was out of reach because McAdam had specifically given David permission to do what he was doing.
"Humph. Your Sergeant Beckman, however . . ."
David glanced over at Beckman, then glared a furious glare at him. The sergeant wilted. "Sergeant Beckman was not authorized for that transaction, sir, as he will admit."
Sergeant Beckman's unauthorized trading of army supplies would probably have brought him up on much more serious charges if it had happened back up-time. Here in Saxony in the year of our Lord 1635, he might reasonably expect it to be ignored. Except, of course, that the colonel was pissed at his CO. He got busted to corporal.
The army's departure from Saxony was met with more regret than relief by the Saxon merchant class. Not only were all those solders leaving, taking with them their monthly pay, but Third Division took with it the best access to the new goods they'd had since, well, ever.
Near Zielona Gora
David listened as General Stearns asked him to develop a way to magically supply the Third Division with even less of a logistics train than they had had in Saxony. He stared at the table, not seeing it at all. Instead he was seeing a spread sheet of consumables that they didn't have and what his business contacts had told him might be bought in the area around Zielona Gora
"Pretty tricky, sir," he said after he'd gone over the charts in his head. "There's no chance of using TacRail like we did in the Luebeck campaign?"
The general shook his head. "We're not fighting French and Danes here, Lieutenant Bartley. Leaving aside his own cavalry, Koniecpolski's got several thousand Cossacks under his command. They're probably the best mounted raiders in Eurasia, except for possibly the Tatars. TacRail units would get eaten alive before they'd laid more than a few miles of track, unless we detailed half our battalions to guard them. Which we can't afford to do."