As his eyes roamed across the landscape below, yet a fourth advantage to Tetschen came to his mind. There was enough flat land down there to build an airstrip. Nothing fancy, but it would be good enough for one of Jesse Wood's Belles or Gustavs. That might prove quite handy in the future.

"Yes," he murmured to himself. "Here."

He smiled, then, thinking of the reactions he'd get from his staff officers and the newest and youngest colonel in his division.

In the event, it was the experienced staff officers who raised the objections and the young new colonel who kept his mouth shut.

"But what's the point, sir?" asked Anthony Leebrick. His tone of voice was not quite peevish, but awfully close to it. "There's no chance at all that the Austrians will attack Bohemia from the north."

"I understand that," said Mike. "But Holk and his army are still out there somewhere. They've attacked Bohemia before, you know."

Leebrick almost choked. While he struggled to regain his composure, Colonel Christopher Long spoke up. "The most recent information we have places Holk's forces near Breslau, General Stearns. If he was going to invade Bohemia from there, he'd most likely strike through Trutnov rather than marching all the way back through Saxony to come down the Elbe."

Long used the German name for the city, Breslau, instead of the Polish name Wroclaw. That reflected no particular anti-Polish bias on his part, simply a linguistic preference. He was as fluent in German as he was in his native English, and had only a smattering of Polish.

"Leaving that aside," chimed in the third of Mike's staff officers, Colonel Ulbrecht Duerr, "I think the chance of Holk attacking Bohemia under the current circumstances is about as likely as a lady's lap dog deciding to attack a bear. The time he assaulted Prague was after Wallenstein had taken his army out to meet the Austrians and Holk thought the city was undefended." He barked a sarcastic laugh. "And then look what happened! The sorry bastard was driven off by fucking Jews and university students. Do you really think he's now going to challenge Wallenstein himself-not to mention our division?"