Chapter 6

Osus took The Venus' Joy to pick up the additional rifles and pistols from Wolfton that we had contracted for. Again, they had produced more weapons than we had contracted for, but Osus agreed to take them. This time he had enough flints along to pay for the weapons, since I had expected this to happen. However, I had Osus tell the people at Wolfton that this was enough guns for now, we simply could not use any more for a while. The Wolftonians got mad at this, asking what were they to do to keep their people employed if we stopped buying guns. Osus said that he had no idea, that wasn't his problem. He then sailed away as soon as he could before trouble developed.

When he got back and told me what had happened, I knew that we were in for trouble. I had created a monster! I had started something without thinking of the ultimate result. I figured that it might be a year or two in coming, but we were in for a war with Wolfton, and guns would be used. Their only manufactured export in volume had to be firearms, and they had to have flints to make them work. At the moment, they had a large number of flints, enough for one war, but they were going to need to capture the "magic cigarette lighter" to have the endless supply of flints they would need, once they started selling guns to anybody who wanted them.

We needed manpower, and the only way to get that was through making friends and allies. There were enough people on the Italian peninsula south of us to make up a formidable army if I could recruit them and train them in time. I turned over the operation of Ruma to Alice (Aquaria/Venus) and the town elders and headed south on a recruiting mission. I took with me a man, his wife, and another woman from the militia who were all good shots with both the rifle and pistol. We traveled in the same wagon that Alice and I had used when we came to Ruma.

The first town we came to knew of us and, particularly, our cult of Venus. They were very interested in the cult, so we put on a demonstration for them of some of the more interesting rites of Venus worship. I think that all of the men and most of the women were ready to convert after the first demonstration. Indirectly, my tremendous stamina was a real selling point, as I was able to demonstrate to many women the joys of Venus worship. Of course, I had help from the 3 Rumans who had come with me, who were able to provide a lot of guidance, too.

That, plus the guns which we also demonstrated, won us a lot of friends. When I told them about the grain, olives, and wine we expected to have very soon, they could see a lot of advantages in becoming allies of Ruma. I warned them about the war I expected next year or the following year, and said that they could expect invaders armed with guns to show up at their town when they finished with Ruma. This scared a lot of people, and they wanted to know how they could get guns to defend themselves. I told them that the only way to be sure of getting guns was to join our militia. We would supply them with guns if they agreed to help us fight the invaders as soon as they showed up at Ruma. They said that they would get back to me on this.

This was the result I expected. I hoped to get 5-10% of the able bodied people to join our militia, and that looked possible. If I could have this much success at other towns, I could recruit an adequate army. We left the next day for the nearest town south of this one. We spent a month wending our way through southern Italy and had pretty good luck with our recruiting efforts, better for Venus than for our militia, but adequate for both. I had set a date for everybody who was willing to join our militia to show up at Ruma, so we finally returned home.

While we were gone, Alice had accelerated the production of gunpowder and bullets, so we were in a better position than our potential foes. They could make guns and we couldn't, but we had as many guns as they could make in two years for their own use. I was hoping that internal economic pressure would give them a lot of problems, so that they couldn't support as large an army as they might, otherwise.

We had enough guns for about 500 people, if we only issued one weapon to each person. My idea was to have advanced troops using pistols, and to have them backed up by troops using rifles. That should give me the maximum ability to concentrate fire. I planned to build several ballistas for long range capability and use hand grenades for close up work.

The majority of the population was needed for food production during the summer, so we weren't able to do much to advance our war making capability until late fall. However, once we had the manpower to devote to the effort, we worked hard to get ready for the upcoming war I feared. I had 12 ballistas built, as large as we could manage. They were able to throw a missile nearly 400 yards with acceptable accuracy. Ballista crews were trained, first with dummy rounds, and then with explosive rounds. The whole town came out to watch that practice, it was a real fireworks show when all 12 ballistas fired in volley!

We also trained 100 people to specialize in throwing hand grenades. This was the "stick" variety of grenade, since it was easier for these people to learn. Training was kind of lack luster when we practiced with the dummy grenades, but interest picked up when they started practicing with live grenades. Again, there was an audience—people the world over like big bang noise makers.

Finally, the day came for the infantry volunteers to show up from the Southern towns. We got the number I expected, more or less, so we started the training with the swim routine. Several people quit when faced with having to go into the water. We still had enough, so the training started. Most of the people who showed up were in good physical condition, so all they needed to do was to learn the swimming technique. Enough were able to learn in 3 weeks of continuous training that we quit at that point and went on to firearms.

I wanted everybody able to use both the pistol and the rifle, but we split up the volunteers into two groups and had them start in on one of the weapons. In some ways, the pistol was easier because the target was closer; we taught the two-handed stance. There was no need for quick-draw or dueling capability so those two things were never mentioned. We concentrated on pistol targets at 10-25 yards and shot up one hell of a lot of powder and bullets before I was satisfied with the results.

The rifle practice concentrated on the standing and kneeling positions. I had the rifles all equipped with slings which could be adjusted and used to steady the rifle during aiming. I was betting that the people at Wolfton would never think of a sling as a shooting aid—it makes a tremendous improvement in accuracy. The rifle shooters also went through a large quantity of powder and bullets, but I figured that they had reached a satisfactory level of accuracy and speed.

Once we had reasonable proficiency with the weapons, we went into training in small unit tactics. The militia officers and non-coms were well trained at this, and it fit well with the normal hunting style of the era, so it was easy to teach. By the time we were through with the initial training, it was early spring and time to go back to producing food.

Some of the people wanted to go back to their home towns, but I put a stop to that when I told them that they could go, but they had to leave their guns behind. Oops! They hadn't thought of that catch. Very nearly all of them stayed, or left only long enough to collect their mates, so Ruma had a sudden growth spurt in its permanent population.

It was the middle of the summer when "the livin' was easy," and nobody had to be anywhere quick, when word came that invaders were approaching from the north. This sounded like the invaders whom I had been expecting. We gathered our army and went out to meet the foe. I was still acting as the General and I had the minimum of a staff; Alice was my primary aide. We sent out 3 sets of scouts to try to get some solid intel on the invaders, and they reported back that the invaders were camped on the near bank of a small river about 10 miles north of our current location. This was a good setup for us, if we could work it right.