"Tom Purdom-Dragon Drill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Purdom Tom)

of most of the larger churches he had visited in his travels. No one had yet unraveled the secrets of the
mechanism that held birds aloft, but it was obvious there was no relationship between the size of the
creature's wings and the mass of its anatomy.
He was still living, after all, in a world in which every physical object was ruled by the majestic beauty
of Newton's mathematics. The Earth was pulling on that long, writhing body with the same force it
exerted on every creature that lived on its surface. If those wings could keep that mass aloft, then clearly
he was looking at something that was not subject to natural law...
To Costanze Adelaide, he was engaging in an act of blasphemy. If this creature is truly evil, she had
argued, if it really is a manifestation of some ancient and ungodly Presence -- then it is supposed
to be confronted with the power of virtue and unselfish sacrifice. If a thing like this exists, it must
have been spawned in some realm beyond the rule of Reason. How can you defeat it with weapons
based on the laws of Reason?
The dragon settled onto the hill about a hundred paces in front of his troops. It pointed its head at the
sky -- it could have looked down on every building in Berlin -- and a massive red flare rose toward the
clouds.
Sergeants repeated the order to stand fast. Two officers pointed their pistols at the backs of soldiers
who had indicated they might be responding to the thing's presence with normal human emotions.
The dragon lowered its head. It focused its huge eyes on the men massed in front of it and von
Wogenfer wondered if it was assessing the situation or merely pausing before its instincts told it what it
should do next. By now a mob of peasants and merchants would have reacted to its displays by turning
their backs and scattering like a flock of sparrows. Instead, it was faced with the same stolid ranks that
had stymied the armies of Austria, Russia, and France -- the armies of the Three Harpies, as the king had
dubbed Maria Theresa, the Czarina Elizabeth, and Louis XV's meddling mistress, Madame de
Pompadour. Was this the first time it had faced disciplined infantry?
The flare had been approximately a hundred paces long and eight paces wide. The creature would
probably have to come within seventy-five paces of the line if it wanted to achieve the maximum effect....
He realized his brain was working again and turned to the cannon on his left. The officer was watching
him expectantly.
Von Wogenfer lifted his hand and gave the artillery officer a wave that was as casual and offhand as he
could make it. If there was one dictum Fritz liked to repeat to the point of boredom, it was the idea that
the common soldier should fear his officers more than he feared the enemy. The soldier stood his ground
because he knew his lieutenant was standing behind him. The lieutenant stood because he knew his
captain and his colonel were standing behind him. And over it all, keeping them all in their places, loomed
the gallant, lighthearted, heroically unruffled figure of the General -- who stayed where he was because
the king would have him hanged if he didn't.
Screams jerked von Wogenfer's attention back to the front of the formation. The animal had lurched
forward and released another flare. Half a dozen blackened bodies were crumpling to the ground. A
soldier was falling out of line with his clothes flaming around him. The guttural orders of the sergeants
were rising once again. The soldiers on the right and left of the charred bodies were already repeating the
terrible ritual that was the infantry's traditional response to artillery fire. Knees high, feet stamping, eyes
fixed on their front, they were sidestepping to close the gap.
The gun on the left crashed. The artillery sergeant chanted the first orders of the reloading drill and the
rammer shoved his sponge into the barrel. Their officer eyed the fall of the shot.
The dragon turned its head toward the source of smoke and noise. Von Wogenfer pulled out his
pocket watch and noted the position of the second hand. Twenty-five seconds after the first shot, the gun
thundered for the second tune. The artillery captain had taken a few extra seconds and adjusted his aim.
The animal sank into a crouch. Its wings rose above its spine. It leaped, screaming, and hurled itself at
the gun. More German commands rang out. The platoons directly under the dragon's path dropped to
one knee with their musket butts braced against the ground and the muzzles pointed at the sky. Their
faces stared straight ahead, as if they were standing at attention on the parade ground. Officers barked