The History of Doppelwebel Herr Dieter Großhosen

I am sure that my father had expected me to follow him in his craft, but I had other ideas as I grew. I dreamed of being a great knight as all young boys not born of noble blood do, but I was also growing up surrounded by what could be the next best thing. I would play Christians and Turks with the other children and relieve the days of the great crusades against the infidel; I would play with wooden swords and pikes, as the fathers of my playmates would wield the real things. I watched as the fathers and brothers of my friends left for battle, the wounds they received and the tears of the wives of those who did not return. But I also heard the tales of greatness they told around the fires in the night. I heard and I knew that I wanted to one day go off to battle with them.

My father, God bless him, tried to apprentice me himself. I would not have it and incurred his wrath for neglecting my tasks to spend time with the Spießträger. I learned little from him and did little for him than to drive taps into beer barrels. We both knew that as I came of the age I would leave to go to battle. Perhaps he and my English mother thought that by changing our surroundings my heart would change, he left the fähnlein I had grown up in to travel with an other, but no, perhaps it was just the chance of more pay and more comfort.

Life was indeed easier, money greater and we traveled less. The fähnlein was attached to a regiment of the Emperor’s soldiers stationed on the Swiss border. My mother spoke of setting down more and more and I grew restless. I spent less and less time with my family and more and more time practicing drill on the field. It did not please my mother when I left one morning to go to battle as a Spießträger.

I remember it vividly. The smoke and haze of the gunpowder as the cannon and musket fired obscuring the field. The haze made my fear lessen somehow, if I could not see the enemy, then they could not see or attack me it seemed. I was still afraid but with the men who had taught and filled me with their heroic stories, I would not let my terror show nor sway me from rank or file. I, being tall was in the second rank of pikes as the knights erupted through the smoke in a thunder of hooves and steel. The command was shouted out over the roar of battle but our tersio was already beginning to drop their pikes ready for the impact. The cavalry smashed against the now ready pikes and horses screamed as they died in front of us. My own pike met with the chin of one of these noble born warriors, nearly removing his head from his body.

"A little high, aren’t we Dieter?" The landsknecht beside me laughed. I was silent for a moment, stunned by the comment. Should I apologize for my mishandling of the long spear? I could not hear if he had said more, but then the whole situation struck me funny as well. I laughed too, and then someone began a song. We sang as we marched over the bodies of the horses and knights, little knowing the attack had broken our enemy. The fighting was not yet over, but the decision had been made.

After that battle I watched as the kampfrau searched the bodies for rings and coins. I knew that while my father and mother would reap the benefits of this battle, I had no one to retrieve the spoils of my own victory. When it was proper to do so, I left we companions and found the fallen knights and their horses. I found my own foe amongst the bodies several women were already searching. He was yet untouched, but I knew little of taking the spoils of war, I took only his purse and sash, leaving his broken sword and armor too small for my stature. Looking back now, had I known to take the armor and make a sale of it, I would have had my own and fewer scars.

The rest of the night I sat closer to fire than I had ever been allowed before. The stories told now included me! The man who had stood beside me said, "I don’t know how he hit his neck, but Dieter took the bastard’s head clean off." It was not quite so but I was in no mood to argue. "I flew like it was carried by a bird!" I told no one of the fear that had consumed me, nor that it was only my slow reflexes that had my pike higher than we had been taught.

When the fähnlein left to fight the Turks, my parents decided to remain in Germany. They settled in Wittenburg and remain there today.

The fähnlein journeyed through Italy and took ship to Transylvania. We fought many hard campaigns. The katzbalger I had purchased with the few coins I had found in the purse of the fallen knight came to save me from meeting God many times. I made friends with several of my fellow landsknecht.

Soon, however, I found myself sorely lacking for want of wife or family. With no one to seek out the spoils of our victory, I was trying to subsist on my meager wage. I could not live like my fellows and the worries of my financial situation affected my performance on parade field and in battle. If I did not find a remedy I feared I would see the creator before my time.

While providence provided for me, it slighted my benefactor. One of the fähnlein’s doppelsoldners to whom I had become fast friends, received grievous wounds in a skirmish with the infidel. I stayed with him and his family for several nights as he lay on his deathbed. Juice of Oriental poppy helped dull the pain, but it was too much for his frail mortal flesh. Before he died he bequeathed me his zweihander and I took his place along the flanks of our tersio.

It was soon after this that I learned of other fähnleins fighting against the Turks as well. I paid little heed to these stories but as the fähnlein took more and more casualties, it began clear that we would not be able to remain as a cohesive fighting force. It was decided that we would merge with an other unit whom was suffering the same fate. Little did I expect that such circumstance would be a family reunion.

My sister, Anna, and her husband, Wolfgang, made a pleasant surprise and soon my cares were forgotten. With my doubled wage and the items Anna gathered from our victories, I was no longer burdened by financial woes.

Alas, it was not to last.

Even with the remnants of our two fähnleins, we knew we did not have the manpower to remain victorious against the ever-increasing Turks. Wolfgang had heard that a companion of old was in one of the nearby fähnleins. One night he left the camp and traveled to where he had heard this other unit camped. For three days he was absent.

On Wolfgang’s return, he told us of Die Kaiser Lichte Fußknecht von Niedersachen. There was a place for all of us and we were needed. After the last battle our combined fähnlein could see without fear of total destruction, the unit broke up. We traveled to the Lichte Fußknecht camp and presented ourselves. Wolfgang was almost immediately made Rottmeister under his friend Josef von Thaden while I joined the bodyguard of Leutnant Wofgang von Schwartzwald. None other than Niclaus von Frundesberg led us.

We had many successful campaigns and even became bodyguards to royalty. Then tragedy stuck us. While in service of a Dutch nobleman, our position was betrayed and a trap laid for us. Our noble employer wishing to deny us our due payment made a deal with our Spanish adversaries. The baggage train and camp followers were decimated while we faced off against a diversionary force. We broke off to come to their aid but too late. We all vowed to fight to the last, surrounded and out numbered we drove the treacherous Spanish off but at great cost.

Our Hauptmann was mortally wounded. In fact none but a handful of us would survive. Leutnant von Schwartzwald had to lead us to a French port were we would try to follow our betrayer to England. He became our Hauptmann and von Thaden our Leutnant . Miraculously, he secured us with Queen Elizabeth, and took who he could back to Germany to recruit and revive the fähnlein.

So here we remain. I know that our betrayer has come to England, perhaps as a messenger of the William of Orange. I am swore to the service of the English queen, but as long as I draw breath, I will hunt the traitor down a slay him.

I am Dieter Großhosen.

I will find him.