Лео Франковски - Conrad's Last Campaign

Boleslaw was left hanging onto the wall of the air chamber – from the outside, feet dangling over death below. I will have to make penance some day for the delay. Fear glued my feet to the catwalk for far too long. It took every bit of courage I had to clamber around that tilted chasm and pull Boleslaw over the edge.

We sat down on the catwalk for several minutes, holding onto our safety lines and waiting for another disaster. The ship continued to rise slowly and finally settled down about ten degrees starboard.

Finally, the speaker barked, “All hands stand down from general quarters except for damage crews.”

We stayed over the battlefield for the rest of the day. I suppose the captain was doing his best to be an observation platform for the men below, but the reality was that we weren’t able to go very far anyway. I want back to preparing tea and sandwiches for the bridge crew and rehearsing the heroic lies I would someday tell my grandkids.

The next day, we were all pressed into service repairing the damaged canvas and shoring up the wing. Much of the work on the envelope had to be done from the outside, standing on the top of a wing that was five thousand feet above the ground. The new canvas had to be glued and sown at the leading edge and then unrolled back over the spars and glued as it went down. The job needed men all around the edges. The curved shape of the wing made footing uncertain, so I was constantly looking for a place to clip my safety belt or a way to work on the canvas with my feet stuck inside the envelope. Like all sailors, I got not one bit of fear of heights, but I was relieved to get back inside when that job was done.

We were level by then, but our airfoil shape was wrecked and the captain was afraid the repaired wing wouldn’t handle the stress of high speed flight.

Fortunately, we did have engines. There were the two rather weak diesel engines near the end each wing. They were only backup engines and normally only used for fine direction control, but if the winds were on our side, they would take us back to Poland .

It took a week, but the captain nursed us back to dock. After the repairs, we were mostly used for diplomatic missions to China and the new world. White Dragon became vital tool to impress people who didn’t have to ride her. We only fought one more small battle during my service.

And that, my children is the story of your father’s illustrious battle career.

The Final Interlude in Uncle Tom’s Control Room

Uncle Tom hit the control button again.

“Well, aren’t we going to keep watching him?”

“No. His part in history is over. He’ll live for a long time if he doesn’t get in the way of any arrows or bullets, but one time at the golden table is all any man gets.

“He’s rebuilt a civilization and improved an entire time-line beyond belief, but he’s done his part and retired

“Remember that in most time-lines, he ended up as the town blacksmith. This is the best he will ever be.

“However, we do have that chemist fellow that we dropped into Bronze Age England. He’s making quite a name for himself as a wizard.

“If you’ll push that yellow button, we can look in on him. ”