Excerpts of Armfelt

A Novel of the Great Northern War

Partial draft
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The late BENGT OCKLIND, at Ocke, in Jämtland, whose gift of a book inspired me to write this, and whose continuing interest returned me to it again and again.

Above all, I want to acknowledge Bengt's inspiration, patience, and the repeated gifts of source material over three decades. (During most of that period the project lay dormant. The research and writing were done during periods of opportunity during otherwise very busy years.)

My thanks also to Siv Ocklind, Bengt's wife and my hostess, for making me feel so welcome in their home, and hosting me during part of my 1992 travels to visit campaign and other story-related sites in Scandinavia.

And to my webmaster, and friend of 35 years, Carl Martin, who encouraged me and posted it file by file, through my revisions and confusions.

And to Ahrvid Engholm, my host in Stockholm, who familiarized me with the city, and arranged for me to be met at the ferry dock at Turku, in Finland.

In Finland to Ben Roimola, who met me at that dock, fed me breakfast, and got me successfully on the train to Helsinki. In Finland, in 1992, I had less success finding English speakers when I needed one, so I really appreciated Ben's help and his excellent English.

To Jan-Eric Nyström, in Helsinki, for his guidance. To navigate without knowing the language was awkward. Also he tracked down a biography, in Swedish, of General Karl Gustaf Armfelt. It proved to be a "biography" of his army, as well, and the story of Finland's defense and loss, with numerous insights into other prominent characters. Without it, I don't know how I'd have managed.

And to the librarians at the community library in rural Liljendal, in Finland, for their advice, the loan of the district history, and for identifying and photocopying a stack of extremely helpful source material for only the cost of the paper. And for encouraging this in-over-his-head American novelist in an unlikely project. It was one of them who first suggested that this novel would find an interested audience in Scandinavia.

(It was at Armfelt's farm at Liljendal that the general spent his final, more peaceful years. The farm, the site of a memorial, is just up the road a hundred yards or so from the library. I stood on the foundation of the farmhouse and looked out over a landscape not greatly changed, I suspect, over the intervening 260 years—a view he must have looked at innumerable times. What a marvelous and inspiring privilege.)

In Norway to an administrator in the Oslo library, whose name and exact professional position I have forgotten. We met and talked on the train from Stjørdal to Trondheim, and her interest and encouragement were very welcome. She too suggested, without prompting!, that this book would find a Scandinavian audience, readers interested in what an American author might do with this harrowing piece of Scandinavian history.

To the hostess-caretaker at the rustic timberline lodge at Nordaune. She spoke no English, and I almost no Norwegian, but she understood my clumsy halting Swedish, and spoke slowly and carefully herself, keeping it simple and repeating as necessary, so that I could follow her Norwegian. She also loaned me her personal copy of the local history, so I could read its chapter on the activities of Armfelt's army in that locale.

Also in the beautiful Norwegian backcountry, to the Tydalen librarian (located at the middle school). Her English was very good. I asked if she had a Norwegian novel that might expand my sense of the Armfelt campaign. Yes, she said, she did.

"You could, except our copier isn't working. Why don't I sign it out to you? You can get it copied in America and mail it back." Can you imagine? I accepted the offer eagerly, and of course I did mail the book back; I'd have fought to the death to protect it. She also asked me to send a copy of my novel. I hope it doesn't disappoint her.

And finally I want to acknowledge those who reviewed the manuscript at different stages....

In the late 1600s, the map of Europe was very different from today's. Germany was a center of political and religious ferment, and consisted of some three hundred (300!) independent states. Foreign relations centered on military power (including how many foreign mercenary regiments you could afford), and on constantly shifting political, military, and trade alliances. Rule was by monarchs. Diplomacy featured connivery, treachery, the trading of other people's territories, and the intermarriage of royal families. Wars were frequent, threats of war continuous, and wrongs clamoring to be redressed innumerable. Treaties often lasted just long enough for new armies to be trained or arranged for, and for new alliances to be secretly forged.

In fact, the road to hell was paved not with good intentions, but with broken pledges, which were much more abundant.

In the north, where our story takes place, Denmark had ruled Norway for more than three centuries—since 1397. Finland had become part of Sweden more or less gradually, beginning in the mid-1100s. A landmark date was 1216, when the pope confirmed the claim of the Swedish king at the expense of the Danish king, who had claimed Finland after establishing bases on the south coast. There had never been a Finnish state. Much of what is now Finland was wilderness thinly peopled by Lapp reindeer herders and Finnish traders, trappers and salmon fishers. What would eventually be known as Finland took shape over the following several centuries, through gradual settlement and by fighting that pitted Finns and Swedes against Russians and Karelians.

In 1618, the complex pattern of German dynastic rivalries and religious conflicts erupted into the Thirty Years War. Sweden's military intervention prevented the threatened collapse of Protestantism in central Europe, but in the process, Sweden and Finland, poor to begin with, were further impoverished. They also suffered a shocking loss of young men. But when the war was over, Sweden held much of the land along the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, land taken from Danish, German, and Russian rulers.

In 1697, the headstrong 15-year-old Karl XII became King of Sweden and Finland. (The English, of course, called him Charles XII.) To the neighboring royalty, this seemed a good time to strip Sweden of her eastern and southern Baltic possessions, plus that part of (now) southern Sweden that had been Danish until 1658. Thus a "secret" pact was made by neighboring monarchs, who had no reason to imagine that Sweden's teen-aged king would prove to be a military genius. In February 1700, Augustus, ruler of Saxony and Poland, marched an army into Swedish Livonia (mainly present-day Latvia). A month later, Frederick of Denmark attacked his southern neighbor, Holstein-Gottorp, an ally and client state of Sweden defended in part by a Swedish garrison. And that autumn, Russia's Peter the Great, newly freed of war with the Turks, attacked the Swedish-ruled, Finnish-speaking provinces of Karelia, Ingria, and Estonia.

The result was the 21-year Great Northern War. For several years the Swedish-Finnish army prevailed. At one point it occupied the pride of Saxony, its beautiful capital city Dresden.

Eventually the invading Swedish army got bogged down in the vastness of Russia (actually today's Belarus and Ukraine), and was virtually wiped out in the Battle of Poltava. The sorely wounded King Karl escaped with several hundred men into Moldavia, at the time part of the Turkish empire, eventually returning to Sweden, where he at once began to rearm.

Karl's original enemies had been joined in 1709 by Prussia, and in 1715 by Hanover. Both were more eager to share in the spoils than in the fighting, however, for if Sweden's power had been sorely weakened, her king's military genius was now abundantly well-recognized and feared. (Hanover's German monarch was also the newly crowned George I, King of Great Britain and Ireland, but in Britain he had a parliament to deal with, thus Britain's role in the conflict was small and selective.)

Meanwhile, in 1714, a Russian army had overrun Finland. The hard-bitten shards of the Finnish army, commanded by General Karl Gustaf Armfelt, had escaped west across the Torne River into northern Sweden.

This story is about that Finnish army, its general, and some unblooded units of Swedish conscripts, in the bitter, final land campaign of the Great Northern War.

It was a manor house in the Finnish style — of logs neatly squared and fitted; five rooms in a row, well furnished and well swept, each with a fireplace, a fur rug on the floor, and overhead a loft. In this remote northern land, it was a home fit for a general and aristocrat. Sitting on the brow of a low rise, it overlooked a broad bog and lake, with on the far side, dark forest of pine and spruce. A foot-path ran down to the water, where a skiff had been drawn onto the bank.

From one room of the house, a door opened onto a back stoop. There a tall, raw-boned elderly man with a scarred face — scarred not by blade but by frost — sat gazing across the lake, smoking his pipe and digesting his lunch. It was golden September — golden sunlight, golden birches and aspens — and the swarms of mosquitoes, gnats, deerflies and bullflies had frozen down.

His wife stepped onto the stoop. Her homespun linen dress and apron were of excellent quality, colorfully embroidered. "Herr General," she said. Said it in German, the gentry speech of their home province, Ingria, now swallowed by the Russians. A German flavored by the hired Ingrian peasant girls who'd tended them as children, and whose mother tongue was Finnish. "Hans-Petter is here from Pernå," she told him, "with a letter for you." She handed her husband an envelope. "When he has finished eating, I will send him out to you."

She left. After peering at the address and the waxed seal, the elderly general fished a penknife from a pocket, slit the envelope and removed the letter. Then, squinting at arm's length, he began to read.

To Herr General Baron Karl Gustav Armfelt, from Anders Henrik Ramsay, in 1718 your obedient pistol bearer, now a lieutenant in the Royal Swedish Regiment of the Army of His Majesty Louis XV of France.

You are no doubt surprised to hear from me. In a recent letter, my father told me of the latest, well-deserved honors conferred on you by His Majesty Frederick, and this has moved me to write. Few men have served king and country so honorably as you, or through such cruel times. I am proud to have served you.

You may have heard from my father that after our return to Finland, I volunteered in the Nylands-Tavastehus Regiment of Cavalry. However, because of the peace, and a consequent lack of opportunities for advancement, I did not attain the rank of corporal until age 18, or sergeant until age 24. But because of the recent troubles in Poland, in which His French Majesty is involved through his royal Polish father-in-law, there are opportunities here of which I have availed myself....

The old general read on to the end, alternately smiling and shaking his head. Then he lay the letter on his lap and sat looking back to the war years, something he did from time to time. Those years had scarred his soul more severely than his face. In 1718, Anders Henrik Ramsay had been eleven years old. A hardened eleven. Only seven when the Russians had driven them from Finland — the chewed-up shards of the Finnish army and its following of refugees, hungry, exhausted, and despairing, their homes and relatives in the hands of Russians, or worse, of Cossacks or Tartars.

It seemed to the general that his greatest accomplishment had been keeping his troops disciplined and effective. His troops.

The term "atmospheric inversion" was unknown in 1717, but reality did not quibble. The still air was pungent with smoke issuing reluctantly from the chimneys of Lund. It slid down the roofs — some tiled, some thatched — to form a mostly invisible layer in the streets and among the buildings.

It was March, and in Sweden's southernmost tip, winter had been much less cold than Lieutenant General Karl Gustaf Gustafsson Armfelt was used to. But yesterday, clear skies and iron frost had moved in from the northeast, and beneath his horse's hooves, the street was a chaos of frozen ruts. An improvement, he told himself, though hard on horses. February had been four weeks of rain and sleet storms, with little honest snow. Miserable weather for a miserable business: the court martial of General Georg Lybecker, to which he'd been called for his knowledge of relevant events. During their service in Finland, Armfelt had not thought well of Lybecker, though they'd gotten along well enough. He'd disliked the way the man had schemed, libeled and slandered his way into command, and disliked most of his decisions as well. But none of it qualified as cowardice, and as for malfeasance? Arrogance and incompetence were nearer the mark. Lybecker had deserved his disgrace and dismissal, but execution would be unjust.

Still, the man had abundantly earned his enemies, and could hardly complain if they wanted vengeance. Justice they called it, which was not quite the same thing.

The day before, at the end of the afternoon session, Armfelt had been given a note by an orderly: report to His Majesty's headquarters tomorrow morning at six. Karl XII was a notoriously early riser. In winter, regardless of the weather, he was in the saddle when the only light was starlight, and at his desk well before gray dawn. Today, with the equinox at hand, the sun had not quite risen, and what little traffic the general encountered was military. The sky was a clear morning blue, but when buildings did not intervene, he could see the Dog Star still shining brightly in the south, reluctant to disappear.

Shortly he turned onto Södergatan (South Street), and saw His Majesty's military headquarters close ahead, two-storied, of white-washed brick. Its guards, wearing the familiar blue and yellow, held muskets at "order arms," bayonets fixed. Pulling up before it, he swung from the saddle. His orderly, who'd ridden close behind him, took the general's reins and started for the stable with their horses. On the stoop, the guards came to a rigid "present arms" as the general approached. Though their buttons and bayonets gleamed with polishing, their woolen uniforms were threadbare, and their shoes coming apart.

Sweden's men were in the army, those not dead in Russia, Poland, the Ukraine, Livonia, Courland, Lithuania, Germany. Thus its women labored in the fields to stave off starvation, and had little time for their spinning wheels and looms. The peasants patched what they had, wore shoes of wood or moccasins of birchbark, and pulverized the dried inner bark of trees to stretch their flour and feed their children. Famine bread! The treasury was virtually bankrupt, so for uniforms, the King had turned to the lowest bidding foreign merchants, who provided cheap and shoddy goods.

Better, Armfelt reminded himself dryly, than being ruled by Russians and occupied by Cossacks, as Finland is.

Inside, the building smelled more strongly of smoke than the street had. Near Lund there was little forest; unusual for Sweden. Firewood was expensive — had to be hauled a long distance — thus coal was much used, when it could be had. And on mornings like this, the fireplaces drew poorly. He strode through the vestibule into the waiting room. There would be a wait, said the lieutenant in charge. The King was with someone else. Someone exceedingly important, Armfelt decided, judging from the young man's expression.

After some minutes, an extremely tall civilian came down the hall from the King's office, and left the building, his face grim. Their glances had met in passing, and Armfelt had been momentarily startled by the man's right eye, which seemed made of porcelain. It was the eye that affirmed for him who the man was — a German named von Görtz, the King's principal foreign adviser and negotiator.

The lieutenant went to the King's office and returned almost at once, to escort Armfelt to His Majesty. The general wondered which Karl awaited him. The intense King, who talked animatedly in his listener's face while his strong fingers twisted buttons off their jacket? The affable father figure, 16 years younger than himself? Or the disapproving monarch, cold and hard, with absolute power. Reputedly the latter was infrequent. Karl was a soldier's king.

The lieutenant held the door for the general, then closed it behind him, leaving Armfelt alone with His Majesty. Karl XII of Sweden got to his feet and shook hands, a favorable beginning. He stood nearly as tall as the tall general, who in his boots measured more than six feet. The king had never worn a periwig, and his receding blond hairline exposed a high domed forehead, browned like his face from years of riding hatless. His eyes were dark blue, almost violet, and beneath their cool dominance gleamed a quizzical shrewdness.

"Good morning, Herr General," he said before sitting again. "I suppose you have had your fill of the proceedings." He gestured in the direction of the nearby building where the court martial was being held. "But that is not why I called you here this morning. Tell me about your army."

The question surprised Armfelt. The King knew its history and received regular reports, which he no doubt read meticulously. "It is seriously shorthanded," he replied. "Short enough that I post them no farther north than Umeå. North of that, the armed peasants must suffice, and they don't. Björksten's are the best drilled and led. They know well their forests and swamps, and the uses of förhuggningar and ambush. And of course they have skis. But even so, they are limited and undependable.

"The Cossack raids are bad enough, with their burning and plundering and murder. But there are also great hardships, much hunger and death. Especially the old die. And the children; many will not live to become soldiers. Nor is it good to be a woman or girl when the Cossacks ride in.

The King did not nod, and his reply was slow, deliberate. "I am well aware that this war is hard on my people, general," he answered mildly. "But our cause is just, and those who die are with God. Meanwhile," he added pointedly, "it was your army I asked about."

"My apologies, Your Majesty. At two-thirds strength, the Österbotten Regiment is the strongest, 900 officers and men. It was the last formed, but its men fought like Lions at Storkyro. The Viborg Infantry Regiment musters only 100. It fought in every major action, from the beginning." His gaze intensified, became almost challenging. "My troops are the best fighting men in Europe." He paused, then added: "They grumble, of course. They have had not been paid for months, nor have most of my officers. But they are loyal to their King, they know how to fight, and they are willing. Fighting is all they have to live for now; that and the day the Russians leave Finland."

Karl seemed unperturbed at the criticism implied in the comment about pay. "What is your total strength?"

"Fifty-six hundred. Most are combat veterans; the rest are volunteers from among the refugees—boys grown to youth since we were driven from Finland. All of them are tough, well-disciplined, well-drilled, and used to hardships. I have posted them in forces as small as companies, from Umeå all the way south to Nyköping; 450 miles of coast. The Russians have the advantage of us. Their galley fleets can land raiders anywhere, and we must respond."

"Well," said the king, "we shall give the armed peasants more responsibilities, and muster your people together in one place. With the Jämtland and Hälsingland regiments as reinforcements."

He paused, eyes alert to the general's reaction, and found primarily a sharpened interest. Armfelt was wondering what the King had in mind. The Swedish army being trained by the king was already large, but he had other plans for it than protection of the east coast. For that he depended on the Finns, and the ongoing negotiations with the tsar.

Instead of elaborating, the king changed the subject. "Meanwhile you are worried about Finland, and how we will rid it of Russians. You know of course that the Tsar has an embassy on Åland, negotiating with von Görtz. Peter has troubles at home; there are conspiracies to overthrow him. And of course, he has always the Turkish problem. Now his rebellious son has disappeared, in league with conspirators. Presumably Alexis is sheltered by some foreign ruler who will throw in with the rebels when the time comes: Prussia's Frederick perhaps, or the Emperor in Vienna. It is difficult to know.

"At any rate, Peter would like peace with us." The King chuckled. "But we disagree on the price. I insist on the return of Finland, the Karelian Isthmus, Ingria and Estonia. And there are other considerations." He shrugged. "At present, Peter is reluctant. So we will capture Norway — free it from his Danish ally — and force Frederick to withdraw from the war, strengthening my bargaining position."

The king paused for a moment. "But to control Norway," he added, "we must capture more than Christiania. In early times, the country was ruled from Trondheim, which was also its long-time archbishopric, so we must capture it too. And in doing so, distract the Danes. They will have to keep an army in the north."

Abruptly he stood, and on a table unfolded a linen map. Then he beckoned the general to his side. "That will be your job, yours and your army's," he said, then elaborated, his finger moving about on the map. Armfelt knew little about Norwegian geography. Christiania, in the south, was the Danish administrative capital of Norway. Karl would capture it. Trondheim was a harbor well up the long Norwegian coast.

"To reach it," the king went on, "you must pass through mountains, a wild and difficult region. Your first task will be to reconnoiter, decide the best invasion route."

He discussed the problems as he knew them—supplies, transport, fortifications. "The route through Skalstugan seems most promising." The King pointed to a dot, with the name in tiniest letters. "There is also a road from Härjedalen to Röros. And a crossing from Dalarna, which seems less promising, but worth looking at."

He eyed the general intently. "Do you have any further questions? Any comments?"

"Very well then, Herr General, return to Gävle. Von Schwerin has no further need of you here. Begin your reconnaissance as soon as warm weather makes the country accessible, and keep me informed of your progress."

The general saluted. "As you order, Your Majesty. My troops will be glad to have the initiative again." Then he about-faced sharply and left the room.

As Armfelt rode back to his lodging, his mind reviewed. Take Trondheim because Norway was ruled from there in the time of Olaf? he thought, and was its long-time archbishopric? Not likely; not for those reasons alone. It would hold Norwegian units in the north, of course, but even so...

The settlement of Solslätte spread broad and open and green in the late May sun. Which had been up since half-past two (it hadn't been truly night since April). A perfect morning to cut hay, when the dew had dried. But it was Sunday; the hay would have to wait.

Solslätte was typical of Swedish byar, "villages"—not a pattern of streets and homes surrounded by countryside, but a neighborhood of farms and fields, interrupted and surrounded by forest of pine and spruce. Of cropland rich in stone piles, hay meadows, rail fences, and scattered steadings built mostly of logs.

A stream bisected it, with a gristmill and sawmill, and nearby a church. A large church, for every parishioner was expected to attend every Sunday. They didn't, of course—not every parishioner every Sunday—but truancy was the exception, for the truant might be visited by the constable. At any rate, piety was deeply ingrained into the country folk. As was attendance at church, even though some of Solslätte's parishioners had a five-mile walk to get there.

On this late-May Sunday, almost all of them wore the usual homespun woolens in the prescribed black. Though the black, in many cases, had developed a greenish tinge with age, and skirts and trouser legs were more or less paled by road dust. The priest, though, was dressed truly in black. Black linen. Both wool and flax were local products, the material cleaned and spun, woven and sewn and dyed, in Solslätte's farm cabins, by the farm wives and their daughters. Those same cabins had been built of local pines, cut and squared and set in place by local farmers, and roofed by them, using bundles of marsh hay, or shakes they'd split themselves (of course).

A land of small stony farms and self-contained economies. Along the coast, young men might go to sea, to harvest herring instead of hay, grain, and turnips...or sail with fuelwood, charcoal, barrels of pine tar and turpentine, to Germany, Spain, Britain. Might sail even to the Indies, for sugar, tobacco, and spices. But in the hinterlands, few ever left their province—some not even their parish—unless called to war.

There'd been a lot of calls to war these past eighteen years. The army had come early, and taken the district quota, leaving enough men behind to do the heavier farm work. Then had come again, and again. Now Pastor Sundberg looked from his pulpit at a congregation of women, old men, and children. And a few youths of eighteen or twenty years.

And of course Blind Peter and Ole Humpback, who'd been born afflicted. And Per Algotsson, who'd left an arm in Poland, but lived to come home. And Stor Axel, Big Axel, who'd stumped home from the Battle of Hälsingborg on crutches and a wooden leg. After half a year of forbearance, Pastor Sundberg had gone to admonish him for not attending church. The heavy-shouldered veteran had been drunk, and raged at the priest; had he been wearing his leg at the time, he might have sent the churchman fleeing down the road. Or killed him, had he gotten those big hands on him.

As it was, the pastor had ridden back to his rectory in grief for Big Axel. To lose a leg, and now be so near to losing salvation...He shuddered. Yet he could not bring himself to send the constable. Instead he'd included this ravaged lamb in private prayer at each day's end.

Now, standing in his pulpit, Sundberg felt like a goat tethered out to call the bear to the hunters. For in this time of great need for soldiers, recruiters might visit a parish without sending word in advance, and go from farm to farm, looking for youths who'd come of age since the last taking. Sometimes word arrived before the recruiters themselves, and some youths might disappear into the forest, returning home when it seemed safe. Because already, on most farms, only women, children, and grandfathers with bent backs ruined by a lifetime of heavy toil, were left to work the fields, and cut the great piles of firewood needed. A healthy sixteen-year-old son was a boon from God—for a few short years.

With so many men gone to war, even children were fewer, and some so hungry, they grew poorly, or died. Sometimes the army came for horses, too, leaving only the cows and bullocks. And a cow used to plow and haul was little good for milking.

But mainly they came for men and horses, both of which the war chewed up in great numbers, and spat out broken.

A goat, thought Pastor Sundberg. I'm a goat tethered out at summer pasture, as bait for the bear.

"Why?" he'd asked. "Why?" This time querying not God but the lieutenant, who'd lost the tips of all his fingers to the Russian winter; they'd turned black and fallen off. Sometimes he had to look to be sure, because gone or not, they hurt.

Their conversation had been the night before. The lieutenant had arrived when it was about as dark as it got in summer: twilight, with the sun riding a little below the horizon, marked by a smear of dusky red in the gray northern sky. Arrived without warning, because after a long hard day, the peasantry had been asleep. With his men, he'd ridden quietly into the rectory yard, dismounted, and walked alone to the door (walked limping; he'd lost toes, too, and a heel, to frost and the battalion barber-surgeon). There he'd rapped till a servant came, had been admitted, and the pastor brought.

"Why?" The lieutenant had echoed the pastor's question. "Why? Because the king needs soldiers, all he can get."

"I believe God himself is displeased with this war," the pastor had countered. "He has visited on us two poor crop years in a row, the last one the worst. The people eat famine bread, made with bark, heather buds, and chaff from the threshing. Some even acorns, which bind them so they can scarcely relieve their bowels. Who knows what He will inflict upon us next?"

The lieutenant answered without heat. "Who knows indeed? But this I know. If we do not defend ourselves, you will have Cossacks quartered among you, and it won't be your sons they'll carry off. Then you will truly understand what the Bible means by the 'wailing and gnashing of teeth.' Ask the Finns. Or better yet, don't ask them. When they think about it, they become dangerous. They are the king's staunchest men."

That had been the night before. Now, this morning, the lieutenant entered the church, attending the service. Entered during the opening hymn, when everyone else was in their place. And at the agreed-upon time, spoke briefly to the congregation, telling them plainly and matter-of-factly what was needed. He was no aristocrat or gentry, but the son of a small freeholder. Had earned his rank the usual way, the hard way, by outliving his officers, and by steadiness in combat. He understood these people—what to say, and how. And he understood war.

After the final hymn—"A Mighty Fortress"—the congregation filed out to the waiting soldiers, at the table they'd set up under the big spruce tree in front of the church. At Solslätte, for the sparse "Bold Swedish Lads," there would be no slipping off to the forest to hide.

The lieutenant, that Sunday, conscripted seven older youths as soldiers. They were to go to Strömstad, where the king was training an army to march into Norway and drive out the Danes: "to free Norway's people from more than three centuries of Danish rule." But the lieutenant also had his eye on the younger boys. He needed, he said, to take at least two of them as laborers; drovers to begin with. If none volunteered, he'd choose two. "Drovers are important," he said. "The soldiers must have meat. Otherwise they can't fight."

Fifteen-year-old Matts Karlsson i Stentorp wanted to go, but as a soldier, not a laborer. He wanted to wear a uniform, and carry a sword and musket. The lieutenant called Matts to stand in front of him, looked the boy over carefully, squeezed a skinny shoulder. Then after a moment's frowning, said that if Matts did well enough as a laborer—a herdboy and perhaps a baggage handler—the general would probably sign him as a soldier, with uniform and musket. The lieutenant couldn't promise that, officially, but considering how manly and obviously capable Matts already was, it seemed to him it would almost surely happen. He said.

Matts' mother wept, of course, but Matts insisted she could get along without him. "Mikkel is almost fourteen," he said, "and strong for his age, and grampa is still strong, even though he gets tired sooner than he used to."

So Matts Karlsson was one of the volunteers. Then Pål Eriksson said he would go, too. He'd always complained that his father was a slave driver, and didn't really need him anyway; the old man was still in his prime, strong and healthy, except for the occasional fit that caused him to fall to the ground and flail around, biting his tongue and cheeks bloody. And Pål had two brothers big enough to tend set lines and cut firewood, and grub out boulders if they weren't too big.

The next morning, the lieutenant and his small recruiting team climbed into their saddles, all but the wagon driver. His seven military conscripts got into the wagon bed, and started south, to join the king at Strömstad. The ride would take four or five days; Solslätte had been the end of the lieutenant's sweep. During the past month, he had sent nearly forty new recruits to Strömstad.

His two new cattle drovers would also take four days to reach their duty destination. But it wasn't Strömstad, and they would not ride there in a wagon. The lieutenant felt a small twinge of conscience at having misled them, but their services too were needed, and with any luck at all, the fighting would end without their being shot at. Besides, the experience would be good for them.

A brindle bullock, a yearling, tried to mount the cow in front of him, but she was bigger than he was. Turning, she threw him off balance, then swung her horned head at him. The bullock recovered himself, and dodging left the road. Matts Karlsson i Stentorp darted to cut him off, and rapped him sharply on the snout with his five-foot birch rod. The bullock stopped abruptly, almost squatting on his haunches before regaining himself. For a long moment he stood with front feet spread, swinging his head back and forth in pain. "Bla-a-a-a-a!" he bawled, "bla-a-a-a!", then turned and scrambled back into the flow of the herd.

Dumbskull, thought Matts, what good would that do you? At Blombacka, when the cattle had been gathered, there'd been some young bulls in the herd, and Ensign Hasselbeck had had them castrated. Bulls were a nuisance on a drive. But a few of the more mature hadn't yet outgrown the old impulses.

North of Filipstad, most of the traffic had been travelers on horseback; they'd encountered one or more almost daily. Often these were soldiers; messengers the sergeant said. They didn't stop to talk with the ensign. Usually they passed at a trot, a remount in tow. Matts wondered what sort of messages they carried. It seemed to him he'd like to be a messenger, riding on horseback, carrying messages that would help the king win the war.

When the herd was near a settlement, local travelers on foot often passed. These always looked either impressed or troubled at the sight of a large herd being driven through their district under the command of soldiers. Perhaps wondering whose cattle these had been, not so long ago, and whether they'd sold them willingly.

The herd wasn't moving rapidly—perhaps three miles per hour when actually on the road. That was all the speed it could maintain, given the terrain and the sparse forage. The herdboys' job was to keep them on the road and moving north, not allowing them to disperse into the forest, hunting for something to eat. And to return them to the road, after the occasional grazing break at some meadow along the way. They found the work easy enough. They were all Värmlander farmers' sons too young to serve as soldiers; Matts Karlsson had turned fifteen that spring. They were accustomed to physical work, and to the minds and vagaries of cattle, though not to handling some three hundred of them in a herd.

Totally new to them, and less agreeable, was setting up camp at day's end, breaking it down again in the morning, and doing the camp chores.

The soldiers who supervised them—Ensign Hasselbeck in command, Sergeant Björkebom, and three common soldiers—all were on horseback, of course. All but the ensign and sergeant had been invalided out of combat units. Another, Corporal Liljeryd, rode ahead. Corporal Lindskog, who'd lost most of an ear at Narva and the frozen toes of his right foot in Livonia, doled out rations, kept records, supervised the string of pack horses, and called on the herdboys to load and unload them. Loading pack horses was a skill. The load needed to be properly balanced and ride securely. If one came apart on the road, woe to the boy who'd packed it! Pål Eriksson had learned that the hard way, the very first day out of Blombacka. The rest had taken Pål's caning seriously.

Matts wished he could be on horseback. Best of all would be to ride ahead, alone, like Corporal Persson, scouting for meadows where the herd could graze and rest. But Matts enjoyed the actual herding, even if he was on foot. Sergeant Björkebom had posted him on the right flank near the front. That was an important place. The front boys had to keep the herd moving steadily, but not fast enough to wear it out. For the pace was controlled less by the hindmost pushing, than by the foremost, drawing the others after. Sergeant Björkebom let the lead boys know if they were going too fast or too slow; he'd herded army cattle before, in other lands, though Matts didn't know that. It was common for an army to take their meat supply with them on its own hooves.

Matts was rather tall for newly-turned fifteen, and still boy-slim, but sinewy. His tough young legs strode easily through the dwarf shrubs that grew beneath the roadside pines. Nor did he hesitate to trot or dart, when the situation called for it, as with the foolish bullock. Meanwhile he was alert, eyes spotting whatever there was to see, ears sorting sounds, identifying, evaluating.

So far he'd seen no sign of bear, but wolves were another matter. They often traveled on backwoods "roads" (mostly little more than trails), which tended to follow the easier terrain. Thus, positioned as he was on the flank near the front, Matts had several times seen wolf turds along the roadside. Had pointed one out to Sergeant Björkebom, who was riding close by at the time. The sergeant had merely grunted; he didn't expect trouble from wolves. Too much commotion; too many horns and hooves, and mounted men with guns. Wolves could smell guns a long way; everyone knew that.

Matts knew it too. But it would be exciting to see one. Or a bear! At night, he thought, with the cattle quietly grazing, or bedded down chewing their cuds. He hoped so.

To Matts and Pål, on that memorable recruitment Sunday not so long before, driving cows had sounded easy. For three years, in the spring, they'd helped drive milk cows from Solslätte up to the dairy camp high in the hills, and in autumn back to the valley again. Driving a herd of army cows wouldn't be hard.

A memorable Sunday, the end of their childhood. The next day, escorted by a taciturn thirtyish soldier, they'd begun a leg-wearying four-day hike to Blombacka, stopping to pick up youths who'd volunteered from other parishes. Behind the soldier's back, Pål had mimicked, mocked, his limp. The man had caught him at it, and knocked him down, bloodying his mouth.

Along the way they'd been fed by farmers, who were required to feed them when asked. Mostly it had been turnips and famine bread, though twice they'd gotten buttermilk as well. Being boys, they'd arrived hungry at the little settlement called Blombacka, where they'd been introduced to army food. The bread was real—dark pungent rye bread not extended with bark flour. It was also there they'd met Ensign Hasselbeck and Sergeant Björkebom. The sergeant showed them how big the herd was—some three hundred!—and told them how far they had to drive it: 460 miles! Neither Matts nor Pål could conceive of such a distance. Surely it must be in a foreign land! But the sergeant assured them it was in Sweden.

Having learned what the job entailed, Pål had murmured through split and swollen lips that he and Matts should sneak away. Not back to Solslätte—his father was still there—but somewhere else. Karlstad maybe. They could change their names and get jobs there.

"Yes, but I don't want to drive hundreds of cattle hundreds of miles. Think of it, how many days—months!—it will take."

"Not so long. We'll be there before the end of summer. Then they'll make us soldiers." He'd looked Pål over. "But you go to Karlstad if you want. I'll tell them I don't know where you went. Of course, they may find you anyway. After Solslätte, it's probably the first place they'd look. And you would be a deserter."

Matts stopped there. Everyone had heard of deserters being hung. It was even said that some had had their heads cut off. He'd go to heaven headless! How to explain that?

Then the army fed them supper, this time with meat, and porridge with peas, and rye bread and butter, and Pål had decided that driving cows might not be so bad after all. Even if they didn't get to wear a uniform till afterward.

That had been two weeks earlier. Matts knew, because two Sundays had passed, and they were most of the way to a third. It was easy to recognize Sundays, even without a church or church bell. On other days Ensign Hasselbeck would lead them in prayer before they broke camp in the morning, but on Sundays he also read to them from the Bible.

The last two days, the country had been almost all forest, and the road very rocky. There hadn't been much forage for the cattle. One of the differences between Matts and Pål was, Matts tended to look further ahead, beyond immediate consequences to the secondary effects. And side-effects. Thus he worried more about the army than about the cattle. If the cattle arrived too thin—or worse, if they starved to death along the way—what would the soldiers eat? Would the army be sent home then? If it was, he'd have a long way to go, back to Solslätte. He'd asked Sergeant Björkebom how far they still had to go. The sergeant said they weren't halfway yet.

It was 460 miles from Blombacka, where they'd started, to where the army was camped, at a fort called Duved. So it would be 460 miles back. And four days more to walk home from Blombacka.

If he had to walk home, what would he eat in this god-forsaken wilderness? Sometimes they went a whole day without seeing a farm. He'd have to set snares, catch hares. He'd often caught them at home—his grandfather had taught him how—but it would be a poor and uncertain way of feeding himself. Ensign Hasselbeck did the best he could to keep the herd on schedule. He'd said at the outset that time was short, given the distance. When they came to a meadow, they stopped for a while to let the herd graze. But meadows were few along the road, and mostly small. Corporal Persson, on horseback, was constantly looking for the next one, especially one where they might spend the night, the herd resting and feeding. A bog meadow, if he could find one near the road. Bog grass, mostly sedges, was coarse but abundant. Any day now the mosquitoes would be out; any pools were full of wigglers, almost grown. But maybe not too bad; the weather had been dry as hardtack since they'd left home.

The road took them into a shallow draw where a brook crossed it. There, Corporal Persson led the herd away from the road, upstream, the soldiers on their horses shouting, waving their tricorn hats, the herdboys ranging around on foot with their sharpened rods, prodding and whacking to get the herd moving in the right direction. A bullock tried to break past Matts, but he darted in its way, rapping its face with his prod. It reacted in the right direction. Inside a minute, all of them were on their way.

The breeze is from the wrong direction, Matts told himself. Otherwise they'd smell the meadow, and go without prodding. Now the lead cows realized what the diversion meant, and briefly trotted; he trotted along after them. Within two hundred yards they reached the lower end of a bog meadow, perhaps a hundred yards long and two-thirds as wide, spotted thickly with white heads of cottongrass. Enough for one night, he thought, and that's all that matters.

The herdboys had the chore of gathering branchwood for fires, setting up the tents, and digging the latrine. It was the soldiers, however, who pulled guard detail at night, watching and listening for bears and wolves. Matts had volunteered to pull guard duty—the guards carried muskets—but Sergeant Björkebom had called him "idiot," and told him only soldiers were allowed to use a gun. That had made no sense to Matts—he'd often used his father's fowling piece—but he didn't say so. The sergeant would only call him "idiot" again, and maybe cuff him. He'd cuffed Åron at least once, and Pål twice, though that had been for not paying attention to the cattle.

This evening he'd drawn wood detail, and when he was done, supper wasn't cooked yet, so he found a birch of suitable size. With his belt knife he cut two rectangles of bark, and began to peel them loose.

Usually Ensign Hasselbeck left it to the sergeant or corporal, or a private, to shout at the herdboys, but this time it was the ensign himself whose voice snapped Matts to attention. The officer strolled over.

"What are you doing?" he asked. His voice was compelling, but no longer particularly loud.

"That I can see. But why are you peeling birchbark? The fires are already lit. Have you no further duties?"

The ensign frowned. He was a town man from Lidköping, the son of a prosperous tanner and leather merchant, and had no idea what Matts was talking about. "What has that to do with peeling birchbark?"

Shoes. He knew, of course, that peasants sometimes wore birchbark moccasins. What he'd overlooked was that someone must first make those moccasins.

"Yessir." Matts raised a shod foot for the officer's inspection. "Mine are old; my father's, made of leather. He is dead now, in Russia, so my mother gave them to me. But the sewing is pulling out of the leather, so now I must make new ones."

The young officer peered a moment at the shoe, its leather rotting, pulling apart. "Have you ever worn birchbark shoes before?"

"Yessir." Matts pointed at his feet. "These are the only leather shoes I've ever had. When I was little, I wore shoes carved from wood. Grandfather made them. Of linden, because it carves easily, and I would soon outgrow them. Then, when I got bigger, he showed me how to make birchbark shoes."

"I'll cut them into strips and weave them, sir, and fasten them with spruce roots. Spruce roots are good for tying things."

"Umm...Very well, Stentorp. Continue." The young officer turned and walked thoughtfully away.

Later, while they ate, the ensign mentioned the boy to Sergeant Björkebom. "What do you think of him, sergeant?"

"Sir, he is the best of the lot. He acts without being told, and usually does the right thing." He grinned. "He also asks a hundred questions."

"Some of his questions are idiotic, sir. You expect it of these squatters' sons. When it comes to the world and the army, they're as ignorant as a block of wood. It's my duty to let them know that, and correct it, especially the better ones."

For a long moment the ensign considered the sergeant's reasoning. "Then teach him, Björkebom," he said at last. "He shows the makings of a good soldier." Again he cocked an eyebrow. "Maybe eventually a sergeant."

"As you say, sir." It might, Björkebom thought, be interesting. He had no sons, that he knew of, but if ever he did, this could be useful experience.

Matts Karlsson i Stentorp measured time by the sun: sun-up, sun-down, and some broad evaluation of in-betweeness. And by authority: get up, eat, go to work, stop work, go to bed...all ordered by someone else. Clocks were expensive and impractical to carry. Watches were more or less the size and shape of a doorknob, and seriously inaccurate. Not even most captains owned one.

Matts wasn't aware that watches existed. He simply slipped into the forest edge as soon as possible after the herd moved into the meadow for the night.

Soldiers were provided with thread and needles to repair their clothing. Herdboys weren't. So Sergeant Björkebom had given Matts some of his thread, because snares were better than deadfalls for catching hares. And rations were small, and hares numerous this year, their runways everywhere there was undergrowth. Matts would set out half a dozen carefully located snares, each baited with a small bit of turnip. Come morning, more often than not, he had a hare in one of them; sometimes in two. There'd have been more, if it weren't for owls, foxes and ferrets drawn by the struggles.

Matts would wake up as soon as the night-long dusk brightened enough to find his way in the shadowed forest, and slip off to his trapline as surely as if it were marked somewhere other than in his subconscious. So far as possible he'd retrieve his snare nooses, gut and skin any prey he found (which took him only a minute or so), then share his take with the sergeant. Each roasted his half (scorched was the better word) in the squad's morning cookfire. There wasn't time to roast them properly. Or to stretch and scrape and dry the skins, as he would have at home.

The soldiers and the other herdboys quickly knew what was going on. The ensign asked Björkebom about it, and of course the sergeant told him. It was irregular, but Hasselbeck knew of no regulation against it—perhaps because nothing like it had been foreseen—so he let it continue. Two or three other herdboys knew how to set snares, and took up the practice, but away from Matts' trapping ground, which had Sergeant Björkebom's implicit protection.

The sergeant further earned his half of the hares by assigning Matts those chores that allowed time for his trapline. But Hasselbeck's squad and drovers were a team, and Björkebom was too wise a sergeant to show favoritism and give fair cause for resentment. Thus he assigned Matts as Corporal Lindskog's primary assistant in the heavy and hurried work of loading the pack horses after breakfast. And after supper he scoured the cook pots for the soldiers and drovers, using sand, stream or bog water, and wads of feather moss.

But in the evening, the snares came first. Matts had no duties till twilight thickened.

He'd begun his trapping after the layover near Orsa Lake, where a lot of things had changed. Hasselbeck had arrived with his herd to find some five hundred other army cattle that had been grazing there for three days. The larger herd, he learned, had been driven up the Falun road from the fertile farmlands around Lake Hjälmaren, by drovers with neither a military escort nor military supervision.

The problem was that the herd had initially numbered some seven hundred; somewhere along the way, two hundred had been lost, or (much likelier) siphoned off. One of General Armfelt's adjutants was at Orsa, waiting; a Finn of course. He'd ridden there from Gävle with a squad of Finnish cavalry. Perhaps a rumor had reached Armfelt; the adjutant wasn't saying. He'd simply had the herd counted, then sent a courier hurrying the 150 miles east to Gävle, to report to the general. When Hasselbeck's herd arrived, the adjutant had it pastured in a different meadow, segregated from the plundered herd, in case the general wanted a recount.

Then a courier came galloping from Gävle, his horse lathered with sweat. He told the adjutant that the general was sending a cavalry platoon to escort the two herds the last 280 miles to Duved.

The Finnish troopers arrived late the next day—a short platoon of course, given the casualties in Finland and the shortage of replacements. On the day after that, the now combined herd of more than eight hundred started north again, under the command of Lieutenant Hjalmar Fågelsund. Rations had already been reduced; Corporal Lindskog's arithmetic had been faulty. Then the layover, plus the addition of twenty-three cavalrymen, put further strain on rations, and the lieutenant was unwilling to butcher a bullock. That surprised Björkebom. It didn't seem Finnish. Finns did what seemed needful, regulations or not. He wondered if the general had forbidden it.

The sergeant was glad, though, that the Finns would be part of the campaign. Everyone the Finns fought was afraid of them, had been for a hundred years. Since Gustaf Adolf was king, and had taken his army of Swedes and Finns to Germany, to fight the Catholics and save Lutheranism. The Swedes had earned a reputation for unbreakable discipline in attacking under heavy fire; no Catholic commander wanted to face them. But the Finns? The Finns fought with a cold relentlessness, on occasion breaking into unpredictable fury, grim and terrible, caring nothing for their lives or anyone else's. At times their officers couldn't get them to retreat. Everyone, even Matts, knew their reputation. In Germany it was rooted in the Thirty Years War, and would live on for centuries. In 1718 it remained fresh. Björkebom had witnessed and appreciated it; many Swedish veterans had.

A dozen days had passed since the combined herd had left the farms and meadows along Orsa Lake. A dozen days of forest and rough ground, mostly wild and with sparse forage. Herd losses now were to hunger and exhaustion, not theft, and the horses had forgotten what grain tasted like. Recognizing the problems, the Finnish lieutenant balanced predictable losses against the urgency for quick delivery, and allowed more time for the herd to rest and graze. Now several men rode out ahead to find the infrequent meadows, and at times the animals were driven half a mile or more from the road to use one.

On the twelfth evening north of Orsa they stopped at one of these, later than usual. Even in the open, dusk had begun to settle, the low-riding sun screened by ridges. Beneath the forest roof it was half dark, too dark for setting snares. As they entered the meadow, three moose lifted their broad flexible snouts from the cottongrass more than a quarter-mile ahead, and trotted westward into the forest. They were the first moose the party had seen for days.

The herdboys generally lay down to sleep as early as they could. They spent their days not in a saddle, but on foot, walking somewhat farther than the cattle, ranging up and down, often trotting or darting to keep wayward animals on the road. And their workdays didn't end when they reached the meadow. Wood had to be gathered and water carried. And latrines dug, though only a foot deep. They'd be filled and abandoned in the morning. And now, despite dry weather, mosquitoes flourished in the wet meadows, making sleep restless despite being hardened to them.

The soldiers, on the other hand, would sit up for a while at the forest edge—the Swedes around their fires, the Finns around theirs—smoking their pipes, quietly chatting and occasionally laughing. The smoke of resinous wood and strong tobacco discouraged the mosquitoes.

The sounds of the conversations were distinctive, the Finnish almost staccato, the Swedish lilting. Matts found Finnish intriguing to hear. On this evening his attention was drawn to the nearest squad, and he wondered if, from close up, he could understand them. Quietly, slowly, he slipped through darkening forest, circling around so the Finns wouldn't see or hear him. He crept the last twenty yards, senses tuned high, taking advantage of cover, feeeling his way, avoiding fallen twigs and the crisp foliage of occasional dwarf shrubs. At last he settled down about fifty feet from the fire, thinly screened by frail, knee-high spruce seedlings.

From there he could hear words, none of them familiar, but their sound held him. The westerly breeze was imperceptible beneath the trees. Mosquitoes hummed; he ignored them. Firelight flickered on strong tanned faces, some in repose, others more or less animated.

One of the Finns seemed to look at him, and for a moment the breath froze in Matts' lungs. But the glance barely paused before returning to the fire, and there'd been no break in the conversation. After a minute the lieutenant got to his feet—and now, clearly, his gaze was fixed on Matts.

It seemed unreal, dreamlike. Slowly Matts got to his feet—not really afraid, but ready to flee if necessary—and slowly walked toward the fire. The whole squad was grinning at him, as if they'd all known he was there. Matts wondered if they'd been talking about him. He stopped a dozen feet away.

"The sound. Hmm. Until you came, we'd been talking about the moose. Did you see them?"

"Yessir. My place is now at the front of the herd. They ran off west, to where the meadow ends."

"We were talking about shooting one. I have a rifled carbine I took from a Saxon officer. He didn't need it anymore. Do you know what rifled means?"

"It means I can kill things farther away than others can. Would you like to go with me? To kill a moose?"

"Ah. Heaven is full of men who died in Russia. All right." The lieutenant turned to the others. "Pekka," he said, still in Swedish, "let him use your carbine. And show him how to fire it; he's probably used to a wheel-lock."

Big-eyed and hesitant, Matts stepped forward and received the weapon from the trooper, who looked less than happy about letting him take it.

"I will get only one shot," the lieutenant told Matts, "and it is too dark for good shooting, so when he goes down, you will run hard toward him, and shoot him again so he can't get up. Shoot him in the head. If he gets away, my men will laugh at me, and I'll be angry. And Pekka will be angry with you for making his gun miss. It has never missed before, and he doesn't want it to get the habit. Do you understand?"

Matts nodded, excited, but also vaguely alarmed. The soldiers were chuckling. He wondered how this could be happening to him.

The lieutenant led off, his steps quick but quiet, despite the cavalry boots, the fronts of which reached above his knees. It took several minutes to reach the end of the meadow, where a well-used game trail entered it from the west. There the lieutenant knelt, peering first at the ground, then ahead into the gloom of pine forest. After a moment, the lieutenant moved slowly and quietly up the game trail, with Matts following. Once among the trees he seemed to guide more on the forest and terrain than on the ground itself, as if picking his way where the trail ought to be.

They hadn't gone three hundred feet before the Finn paused again, peering intently ahead. The boy wondered what the man saw, if anything. Heard him sniff, as if... Then Matts smelled it too. And now, perhaps another hundred feet ahead, he could see something tall. A moose? A troll perhaps! A chill rushed through him.

Carefully the lieutenant raised his carbine, then more quickly than Matts expected, fired, the boom loud, seemingly compressed by the forest.

The result shocked Matts—a bestial roar unlike any moose he could imagine. Bear! He knew without ever having heard one before. Every hair on the boy's neck stood rigid, and quickly he stepped past the lieutenant, Pekka's smooth-bore carbine half raised. Then realized the bear was charging! Raising the carbine's butt to his shoulder, Matts squeezed the trigger. The pan flashed; flame stabbed from the muzzle. He jumped to one side behind a pine, heard the beast hit the ground sliding—and peered again through the forest gloom. The furred bulk lay fifteen feet from him, unmoving.

He heard a chuckle, and the lieutenant stepped up beside him. "Boy," the Finn said, "you have made your reputation."

Matts simply stared, realizing now what he'd smelled: the smell of butchering; of guts and blood, and the fragrance of grass in the moose's opened rumen. The bear had followed the moose toward the meadow, and when the big beasts had left it, had waylaid one of them and begun to feed.

"Well, boy, get out your knife and open him up. There's nothing wrong with eating bear meat, and the pelt will be useful."

Matts looked at him, realizing for the first time that he was as tall as the Finn, or very nearly. "Yessir," he said, and drawing his knife, knelt by the bear.

Excerpts of Armfelt

A Novel of the Great Northern War

PART ONE PREPARING FOR INVASION

PART ONE

PREPARING FOR INVASION