Hans Schuder

Hans Schuder is a German-born Yankee who served in the 35th Maine during the American Civil War before travelling through the Tunnel of Light to Valdennia. Schuder is generally portrayed as the hard-bitten, tobacco-chewing sidekick and mentor to Andrew Keane, who despite having no ambitions to power or status, ends up taking on a key role in the Army of the Republic of Rus.

He is vividly described in the open pages of Rally Cry: 'The man's face was dark, like weathered canvas, and careworn and thin, wreathed in a beard flecked with streaks of gray. The lines about his eyes were deeply engraved from the years out on the prairie, watching across its shimmering heat and snow-covered vastness. The scar on his cheek from the Comanche arrow was a souvenir of twenty-one years' service in the army. It wasn't the only scar, and as the sergeant continued to walk by Andrew's side, a slight limp was noticeable, a gift from a reb sniper before Cold Harbor.' His presence was a stark contrast to Keane, being no taller than 5' 6" in height.

Despite his ferocity as a drill sergeant and commander, Schuder won the respect of the Rus. He is especially revered in Murom, whose regiments had been serving under him during the collapse of the Potomac Line in the early stages of the Merki War. Emil Weiss summed up his attitude towards his soldiers quite well, by referring to 'Mother Hans, clucking over his killer chicks'.

Early Life
Although Pat O'Donald was in the habit of calling him a 'Dutchman', Hans Schuder was born in Germany in the early years of the 19th century, and as a young adult joined the Prussian Army. However, he deserted the army due to the brutality he experienced there, and emigrated to the United States in 1844. From this experience he developed a life-long dislike of sailing.

Upon arriving in America, he immediately joined the US Army, and served for nearly two decades on the frontier. His unit saw action against the indigenous American tribes, and at one stage he was scarred on the cheek by a Comanche arrow. Schuder also fought against the Cheyenne around 1850, and at one stage volunteered to shoot a young trooper who had been shot in the gut with one of their arrows, an experience that haunted him.

Civil War
Schuder has been part of the 35th Maine since it was formed, holding the rank of sergeant major. He participated in the Peninsula Campaign in early 1862, and the first major engagement of the regiment was at the Battle of Antietam on 17 September 1862. Upon being attacked by the Confederate forces on three sides, and following the death of his company's captain, Schuder immediately took it upon himself to guide Lieutenant Andrew Keane into leading the company for the rest of the battle. Throughout the day, 'Hans had stood by him, just standing, watching, and occasionally offering advice'.

Keane's tutelage continued as he rose through the ranks, 'with a thousand anecdotes and tales, on how to be an officer who could lead'. Keane's brother Johnny died during the Battle of Gettysburg, but Schuder kept silent, suggesting that Keane needed to return to the fight and mourn later. After the battle, Schuder found Keane in the hospital, wounded and without his left arm, 'and the old soldier had burst into tears at the sight of him'.

During the Battle of Cold Habor in June 1864, Schuder was hit in the left leg by a rebel sniper, and henceforth tended to favour his right leg when walking.

Arrival in Rus
Upon the realisation that the passengers of the Ogunquit were no longer on Earth, Keane relied on Schuder to whip the panicking troops back into order.

Schuder led the detachment that accompanied Keane into Suzdal, during his first meeting with boyar Ivor Ivorovich, and had an encounter with the boyar's half-brother Mikhail Ivorovich, frightening the warrior by shooting a crow with his beloved Sharps carbine. He regarded this to be the 'prettiest shot I ever made'.

When the Tugar Namer of Time, Vulti, arrived in Suzdal ahead of the Tugar Horde, Hans became the focus of Vulti's anger after wounding his arm in defence of Keane. He quickly realised the power of the Tugars, and did not believe that the Yankees and Rus could defeat the horde, but had mixed feelings about leaving Rus.

Tugar War
Following the Peasant Revolt, Keane appointed Hans as a major general of the Army of Rus. Schuder strongly opposed this appointment, but took on the role of drilling the raw Rus recruits, and commanded three divisions of infantry and two battalions of artillery during the Tugar War. His rise to power grated against some of the Yankee officers, such as Pat O'Donald, but Keane suspected that they had settled their differences with a fist fight, appearing one day sporting black eyes and acting like good friends. From this point onwards, Schuder and O'Donald became firm friends.

During the Siege of Suzdal Schuder was based in the north-east bastion, which bore the brunt of Muzta's final assault on the city.

Merki War
While Schuder's native language is German, and learned good English upon his arrival in America, he became completely fluent in the Rus tongue during his time as commander of the Army of the Republic.

When Tobias Cromwell attacked Roum with a Cartha fleet and the Ogunquit, Keane left Schuder back in Suzdal with one division, taking the other five to relieve their new Roum allies. This proved to be a good move, when the bulk of the army was cut off in Roum, and the railway cut off by the Cartha raiders led by Jim Hinsen. When a telegram arrived in Suzdal, announcing the destruction of the relief army and the death of Keane, Schuder refused to believe the news, and the government worked on the assumption that in time the army would return.

Schuder ordered a regiment of soldiers and several thousand militia to deal with Hinsen's raiders, but was then forced to deal with the arrival of the Ogunquit and Cromwell's fleet on the Neiper River outside Suzdal. While Cromwell succeeded in landing a force outside the city, Schuder noted that this wasn't large enough to storm the city, and suspected that Mikhail Ivorovich was about to lead an uprising. He urged President Kalencka to declare martial law and arrest Mikhail and the boyars, but was rebuffed.

Following the Boyar Revolt and the news of the army's return by sea, Schuder complied with the President's order to abandon Suzdal and protect the factories with the forces at their disposal, recognising that they couldn't hold on to both long enough to be relieved by Keane's army and navy. However, with the victory of the Republic's navy at the Battle of Saint Gregory, and the imminent arrival of the Vushka Hush in Suzdal to support Mikhail's forces, he decided to storm the city. He led his forces in a frontal assault, which nearly ended in disaster when infiltrators led by O'Donald were delayed in their opening of the city gates.

While the gates were opened just in time, Schuder was met with O'Donald, who had been wounded in the stomach. O'Donald asked him to put him out of his misery. He refused and ordered O'Donald be sent to a rear hospital, which proved to be the right decision as Weiss managed to save Schuder's old friend. Advancing into the city, Schuder led a force into the Capitol building, where he and Bill Webster found and shot dead Mikhail.

In the following year, Schuder was involved in a fundamental disagreement with Keane about how to defend Rus against the full weight of the Merki horde. He openly expressed his general unease about the impending attack, and favoured a defence of the Neiper River rather than Keane's argument of defending the Potomac Line 100 miles west of Suzdal, along the Potomac River. Keane stuck with his original plan, and Schuder oversaw the construction of the 110 mile line of fortifications from the Inland Sea to the Great Forest. Schuder correctly guessed that Jubadi would commit his strength to flanking them by attacking through the forest, but was only provided with Tim Kindred's 3rd Corps to defend this part of the line.

Schuder attempted to consolidate his forces and slow down the Merki when the Vushka Hush completed their flanking maneuver and started rolling down the line. However, the line was broken further south, and Schuder headed further north to Bastion 100 to oversee the evacuation of two divisions. Keane arranged to have trains and a division of Roum troops sent from Suzdal overnight to Bastion 100, a rescue attempt that was joined by Pat O'Donald for fear of his dear friend. Schuder sent his remaining troops marching along the line, but upon the arrival of Merki units, he formed a defensive square two miles south of the forest with the survivors of fifteen different regiments. During the initial stages of the attack, the trains arrived within view but were unable to advance further because the line had already been broken. He attempted to move the square uphill towards the trains, under constant attack. However, the arrival of Merki artillery sealed their fate. The square collapsed and the trains were forced to leave, with O'Donald and everyone else convinced that Schuder had died in the final assault on the doomed men in the square.