043: Matchsticks & Kindling

Paterson

Matchsticks and kindling floating downstream.  Bodies too, if you look hard enough.  Damn fools thought they were getting a big easy catch.  I wonder what they thought that shape was on the bow before the tank fired.  Between the cannon, mortars, and heavy machine guns they didn't have long to think much.  Maybe I should ask?

I ordered Leo to bring three of the swimmers aboard.  We finished the rest.  They're talking now, trying to buy themselves time or a life.  Won't help them any.  Whatever they tell us, now that's a help.

"Kapitan."

"Yes, Leo?"

"We're done.  They claim thirty boats.  Twenty-four now."  I can hear the pleasure in his voice at a job well done.  "They're hazy on details.  Two or three 82 mortars, 3 KPVs, and an AGS for heavy weapons.  Some of the other boats have 60 mortars.  The rest... small arms."

"And the big boat?"  We know, from Captain Rataj, there's an old coastal patrol boat.  It took down the Rzeka  Ksiezna on his first attempt down river.


"Da, the Wislakrew, the flagship of Admiral Jerzy.  She's a torpedo cutter.  No torps, they say, but I know they mount 23mm cannons front and back.  You can expect MGs down the sides for raking fire, but mostly cannons."

"Not much danger to the tank, but plenty for any shipping.  The cutter has top priority in any engagement.  Pass the word to Gunny to prioritize the 120 for it.  The 82's can be tasked for the small fry."

"Da, Kapitan."

"Now, this admiral.  Who dies and makes him god of the river?"

"Why, the lord of Warsaw, Baron Czarny.  Kapitan Paterson, we're not dealing with pirates here.  We're dealing with the warlord's handpicked men."

There's a name we've heard before.  Back in Krakow, when we took Old Man Rataj's money, I went to a local arms manufacturer, Wojo, to get mortar shells.  He had a screaming fit at us, thought we were Czarny's agent come again looking for chemicals.  Blood and blister agents, something we've seen too much of and something Wojo wasn't going to fork over to some marauder king who'd just turn it against the city.

"Rataj's kin are in more danger than we thought.  Get anything on the land forces?"

"Some, men in 'large numbers'.  Trouble between Czarny and communities in the rubble.  He wants control of them all.  Some fall in.  Other fight hard.  Rubble favors the defender; no sight lines. no vehicle support, is hard to wriggle infantry out."

"The prisoners Leo, do we have everything we can get out of them?"

He gives it some thought, "Yes.  Yes, we do.  They eager to cooperate and buy life or freedom."

"Well, they haven't.  Let's take care of them." 

Leo and I head back, loosening the pistols in our holsters.

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Admiral Jerzy Waitrowski (two hours later)

Damn them, damn them all to rot in hell.  

His scouts on the shore have spied the "big boat" his missing vessels engaged.  It is true, they have a tank riding on the deck.  Must make those fucks feel confident.  Biggest gun on the river.  Let them think that.

He looks out from the bridge at the patched deck below.  The forward 23mm is long gone, victim to an engagement in the Baltic many years before, in its place crouches the long barrel of a 125mm Rapira-3 anti-tank gun.  Yes, more than enough gun for a tank.

"Take us downstream pilot.  We'll anchor in the Swider just before it opens into the Wistula.  The bluffs will screen us from them until it is too late.  We'll get the first shots in as they clear the headland."