1634: The Baltic War by David Weber, Eric Flint Read Free Book Online Page A

served in, as a junior officer, but had detested just as much as almost anyone in the military at the time.
    The seventeenth-century palanquins, in some vague way, had an oriental flavor to them. And not the Orient of Vietnam's peasants and poor town dwellers, which he had often found irritating—their consequences, rather—but had never despised. Poverty was simply what it was, no more to be sneered at than sneering at the winds or the tides. No, the palanquins somehow reminded him of South Vietnam's elite, a class of people he had come to loathe, as had most American officers. He had no desire whatever to infuse that spirit into the ranks of his new navy, even indirectly or purely symbolically. Real soldiers would have their teeth rattle when they rode in carriages, damnation.
    Fine, it was silly. So was war, if you looked at it from a certain perspective. But war was now John Simpson's business, and he took it seriously.
    "What happened, Lieutenant?" he asked Chomse. "Do we know any details yet?"
    "Almost all of them, sir. A large number of naval ratings and Marines were involved in dealing with the disaster at the coal gas plant. The prime minister happened to be nearby when the fire started, and he pretty much took charge of things, using sailors and Marines from the navy yard."
    Quickly and precisely—by now, the lieutenant had learned to give excellent briefings—Chomse explained what had happened.
    When he finished, Mary shook her head. "My God, is the man insane ? He's the prime minister of the United States of Europe! He's got no business risking his life like that!"
    Simpson looked out of the window. There was still nothing much to see, beyond an occasional street lamp in front of a tavern or one of the wealthier residences—and, then, only the old-fashioned oil lamps. None of the newer gas lights were working. As a result of the catastrophe, obviously.
    He felt his wife tugging on his elbow. "John, you must speak to Mike about the matter. He simply can't do things like this."
    Simpson thought about it for a moment. "No, Mary, I don't think I will. First, because Mike Stearns wouldn't pay any attention to me if I did. And second, because I don't really agree with you anyway."
    "How can you—"
    "Mary, leave off. The man is what he is. You might as well ask an iceberg to stop being chilly. Or—perhaps a better analogy—ask a general like George Patton to lead from the rear, the way a sensible general should."
    His wife shook her head. "People will think he's crazy."
    " Which people, Mary? That crowd we just left in the palace? Oh, yes, they will. Many of them, at least." He tilted his head toward the window. "But I can assure you that most of the city's residents won't have that reaction. This is a workingmen's city, dear, don't ever forget that. If the fire had spread, it would have been their modest and cramped apartments that went up in flames—along with what little they possess in the way of material goods, and quite possibly they themselves and their children."
    Mary stared at him. Simpson felt an old exasperation stir a little, and suppressed it. Being fair, it wasn't that his wife was callous in her attitudes toward people of the lower classes. In fact, she was quite popular with those of them she had contact with. She was invariably gracious and the graciousness wasn't simply a façade.
    Put any single person in front of Mary Simpson whom she had to deal with, and she had no difficulty at all seeing that person as an individual human being, regardless of what class they came from. And she was quite indifferent to matters of race. In fact, she was generally far more perceptive in her dealings with people than Simpson was himself.
    The problem lay elsewhere. It was simply that Mary didn't deal with such people all that often, and almost never at close range except for servants. Her world—both of those worlds—had always been that of the upper crust. Whereas Simpson himself, as the CEO of a major