Chapter 3

The next morning, I woke up rested. I dressed and went to the square leaving my household still asleep. Upon arriving, the Under Elder on duty reported that all was quiet though there had been some additional volunteers who he had put to work.

Shortly, Janet arrived with Nan and Nor and food and drink for me. She left Nor with me to be used as a runner taking Nan and the rest of the food with them to the institute.

About an hour later, Robby rode up from the river. "We defeated the flanking maneuver and have stopped the river crossing for now. We will need more men and weapons to be successful in the long run."

"Well done, Robby. Did Mickey work out well?"

"Yes, I left with him in charge to try to continue to contain the Cincy's. That musket has really helped. Shot from it sinks rafts. The explosives that I took killed off those who had reached our side without us having to engage them except to mop up. We need more of both."

"Go to the institute and talk to Roger. I'm sure he needs help and your feedback will help him improve his products." He left.

I could see this would be a battle of technology against numbers. I knew no battle tactics so I left an Under Elder in charge along with Nor and went to the institute and met up with Nan who was at her computer. "Let's see what is in the computers about battle tactics and plans, Nan."

She set up some search parameters but very little resulted and none of it was helpful. "Okay, that didn't work. Let's look up middle ages weapons." She input that request and we received three pages of answers. We started going through them looking things that would help and that could be quickly made without taking Roger and his crew from the muskets and explosives. I saw pictures of a catapult. All wood and rope would do the trick and it could throw explosives a long way. I printed it out, thanked Nan and went looking for Robby. I showed him and Roger the print out I made and described it. They were both excited. Robby needed something that would hurl the explosives further and Roger could see that it could be made by simple woodworking. Robby thought he had some men who could take my design and have something working in just a few hours. Roger said he would continue working on muskets and explosives as well as ball shot.

While Robby and I were walking back to the square, I told him about a ballista which was a large bow mounted on its side on a rack. He said he had experimented with these at Sin Loos and he could work on it also. When we arrived at the square, he said he was going back to the river because that was where the men were who could build. He took two of the new messenger girls, found the location of axes, ropes, and other things he would need, and left for the river with them and the equipment.

My time during the day was spent trying not to oversee everything that was being done. It's tough to delegate! I talked with some of the Oaks older people, men and women, about where the Oaks wanted to go with their town. No one really was thinking further than trying to stop the Cincy's. After that was a vague continuation of the status quo, which they could not even quantify.

Finally, the day came to an end and Janet came by on her way to our house. I was very ready to leave because I wanted to do something and, other than usurping someone's work, there was nothing to do at the moment. As we walked back, Janet told me of her day and of the progress that Roger had made in manufacturing muskets and ball shot. He expected to have fifteen muskets by the end of tomorrow and plenty of ball shot and powder. His training was coming along and he would have enough people trained to handle the muskets and have helpers for each of them.

We could move tomorrow afternoon to the river and be ready to give battle in the morning the day after that. I felt that would be necessary and said as much. My thought was that the Cincy's had never experienced a real defeat and would not stop unless truly defeated. The attitude of Hollar had taught me that.

One of the messenger girls came in the next morning to tell that Robby and Mickey were holding the Cincy's right now but would need help. I told her we would be coming with more weapons and people that afternoon and to return to Robby and Mickey telling them that and to hold on. We were also teaching some more Oaks how to fight in an organized manner and how to make a river crossing which we might need to do. That group was coming along well. We were setting up groups to work with the musketeers to protect them while they reloaded and to continue the fight. My hope was to work three of these groups closely together in a cooperative manner. Not much in the way of tactics, but I hoped it would work.