1634: The Baltic War Read Online Free PDF Page B

almost impossible to stop.
    One of the other firemen pulled out a knife and cut away the harness for one of the horses. The animal's back had been shattered by a big chunk of flying debris. The fire chief staggered to his feet and looked around. The first fireman ran over to him. "Sir, there are buildings on fire. We've got to put them out now!"
    Mike came to a quick decision. "Go," he said. "My men and I will take care of the plant."
    The fire chief nodded, and stumbled after the pump as his men led it away.
    Mike continued through the obstacle course, finally arriving at the upended vat, He looked beyond it to the damaged one. It was still standing, but was now starting to leak a thin liquid on the ground.
    "Make way!" Krenz yelled. He carried an empty barrel across the pitch to put it under the leak. "That won't stop it for long."
    "We've got to jack up that platform, or that won't matter," one of the sailors said.
    "Over there," Mike directed. "The platform for the destroyed vat. See if any of the wood can be salvaged." Several men started pulling lumber off the ground. Others pushed the grounded vat a few feet out of the way. They replaced parts of the damaged supports.
    "The vat's too badly damaged," Engler said. Mike could see that he was right. The leak was increasing. They had to move the tar before it ruptured entirely. As he watched, the first barrel filled up and overflowed. The liquid quickly overtook the thick pitch in its downhill flow. A couple of men rolled the barrel out of the way, and replaced it with a new barrel.
    "We can't keep this up. We don't have enough barrels." Mike glanced at the nearby steam crane and turned to Krenz. "You said you filled the vats. Can you put those barrels into other vats?"
    "Yes," he replied. "But it takes time to bring the boiler to steam. We don't have enough time."
    One of the Marines pointed to the burning coals scattered across the yard. "We can use that coal."
    "Do it," Mike said. He directed some of the newly arrived troops to use their shovels to fill the firebox of the crane. Others, he directed to help the fire brigade put out the nearby fires.
    Krenz sat down in the crane, then yelled, stood up, and batted a small lump of coal from the seat. Despite the tension of the moment, a burst of laughter went up from the men who saw. Krenz grinned himself, shaking his head ruefully, before he sat back down at the controls.
    The crane lifted its bucket, which Krenz sat down next to the first barrel. By this point, there were three filled barrels, and the last one was almost full. Several men tipped one of the barrels into the bucket, which was quickly raised and poured into a different vat.
    Mike looked at the barrels and the vat. "It's not going to be enough," he muttered. "It's just a finger in the dike." He called several of the men, both naval personnel and the CoC members who were starting to arrive.
    "It's not enough. We've got to keep it out of the sewers." He looked around. "Some of you, fill in the end of the sewer. The rest of you, we need to direct what gets out into the river. Start a trench here."
    Gunther Achterhof came running up with a number of his people. "This looks bad, Prime Minister. How can we help?"
    "Could your people relieve my troops helping the fire brigade? We've got to handle this leak before it gets in the sewers."
    "Yes, of course."
    Mike turned back, to see that the trench was beginning to take shape. But the leak was getting worse, and was clearly winning. He moved back to Krenz and the crane. "The leak is speeding up; soon it'll be more than we can stop. How can we redirect the benzoil?"
    "It would take too long to use the crane to dig a trench," Krenz said, "and this is the wrong scoop, anyway."
    "Okay, then. Can you use the crane to knock the vat so that it goes into the river?"
    Mike thought, briefly and little ruefully, of what environmentalists in the world they'd left behind would say to a thousand gallons or so of toxic organic