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.We came back to civilization rippling with new muscles,and the girls almost fought each other to get at us!When the ice broke up, we were back at East Gate, andsoon we were back on the water again, riding the Spirit of St.Joseph II.Peacetime riverboats had a crew of only twenty-two, andeven that many was because most of us were in training.Onlytwo people on board really knew what they were doing, the captain and the engineer.The rest of us were there mostly to learn how to run one of these things.In the course of 1242,1 worked every single job on the boat, from helmsman to fire-man, plus ticket salesman, sanitary engineer, radio operator,waiter, cargo master, mail sorter, painter, repairman, purser,steward, and cook.The boat's captain was not the same thing as an army cap-tain.That is to say, the first was a job position and the secondwas a military rank.Our current captain was in fact a knight-banner, while our boat captain during the war had been BaronTados.Our boat was a standard army riverboat, just like most of those we had seen the year before, although it wasn't a com-mand boat like the Muddling Through.We had two Halman Projectors, four peashooters, and mounts for six dozen swivelguns, although we carried only twelve of them on board.But despite our military capabilities, we were operatinglike a commercial common carrier.We had cargo space forsix standard cargo containers, which were the same size asour war carts had been, six yards long, two yards wide, and ayard and a half high.The main difference between a cart and a container wasthat the containers weren't armored, and they were builtmuch closer to the ground, being mounted on railroad trucks,rather than the huge, cross-country wheels we used on thecarts.A container could snugly hold twenty-seven standard bar-rels.Or it could hold exactly six dozen standard cases, whichwere each a half yard wide and high and a yard long.Those cases were just the right height to make a comfort-able seat for two, or, upended, they were the right height tomake a support for a workbench.Over the years, a lot of our cases ended up as furniture in peasant cottages, since the de-posit on them was only a penny each.We would take cargo that wasn't packed in our standardcontainers, cases, or barrels, but we charged a lot more todo it.The army was big on standardization.There were onlyeight diameters of nuts and bolts, for example, so that when something broke, it was easy to replace.Glass jars came inonly six sizes, each about twice as big as the next one smaller.Each kind of jar was sized so a certain number of themfitted into a standard case, with no wasted space, and whenyou bought a quart of milk in Sandomierz, it was exactly thesame size as a quart in Cracow.This was something new,since up to a few years ago, every city and town had its own sizes for everything.It once was necessary for a merchant to personally be onhand whenever he bought or sold anything.Now he could purchase a container of army-grade number-two wheat inPlock, and do it by mail or even by radio, if he was in a hurry.He could have it shipped to a purchaser in Gniezno, while allthe time he stayed in Cracow, secure in knowing exactly whathe had bought and sold.Many fortunes were made by those who were quick tolearn the new ways of doing things.Those of us who worked on the rivers often indulged in this sort of trade whenever we noticed that the price of a given commodity in one place was much different than it was someplace else.For years we more than doubled our salaries doing this, buteventually some merchants in Poznan set up a service wherethey systematically queried some two dozen cities on thelocal prices of three dozen commodities and made this infor-mation available, for a price, to other merchants.After that, only modest profits could be made, since no one but a foolwould pay much more than the Poznan price for anything.We carried passengers as well, with two dozen cabins onthe second deck, for those who could afford them, and seatson the fighting top, for those who couldn't.We would cruise up and down the Vistula, and every fivemiles or so there would be a depot with a dock.If they hadbusiness for us, they ran some flags up their pole or somelanterns at night and, by a system of codes, we would know ifthey had something that we had room for, which we usuallydid.We heard about really important passengers and cargoes by radio.Evenings aboard, we sold beer and wine to passengers inthe dining hall, earning a bit more money on the side, and I have always liked listening to travelers' tales, or hearing thesongs they sang, or the tunes they played on strange, new in-struments.To get into a competition, pitting our skills on therecorder, lute, or krummhorn against theirs, was always a joy.It was a pleasant enough existence on the whole, becausewe stopped at all of the big cities along the way and there wasalways something new to see.My main claim to fame came when, annoyed at doing thelaundry, I put the dirty clothes along with some soap in aleaky barrel that had all four bungs missing.I tied the barrelto the rear railing with a long rope and kicked it over the side.The barrel filled with water, then tossed and turned as itwas pulled along, washing the clothes.Eventually, the soapywater was washed out and replaced with clean river water,and the clothes were rinsed.Two hours later I pulled the barrel on board, and theclothes were clean! Soon, every boat on the river was doinglaundry that way, and they named the barrel after me.Now, whenever anybody on the river washes clothes, they get out their Josip Barrel.As the summer of 1242 came along, the army waspreparing for another war, this time with the Teutonic Knightsof St.Mary's Hospital at Jerusalem, better known as theKnights of the Cross, or just the Crossmen.It was to be a set-piece battle, with both sides agreeing on the time and place.Naturally, we wanted to get involved, but our pleas and petitions got us nowhere.Apparently, every outfit in the armywanted to go, and there were only ten thousand Crossmenwho needed killing.That wasn't much more than a single one of our battalions.Also, it soon became obvious that Lord Conrad was plan-ning to try out some new weapons on the Germans [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]