Braddock raised his goblet, which held a fine Madeira that had crossed the ocean with him. "To the King, to victory, and to glory!" he said.
"To the King, to victory, and to glory!" the assembled officers chorused. Victor Radcliff drank the toast with everyone else. Nothing wrong with it as long as everything went smoothly. Even Victor thought the rugged foot soldiers from England ought to be able to bundle the French back over the border. A handsome victory here might let them assail Nouveau Redon. The French stronghold was said to be very strong. If the defenders were battered and demoralized, though…Well, who could say what might happen then?
By now, not having Blaise at his side felt odd. The Negro had made himself indispensable in a hurry. He was off eating and drinking with other officers' servants, and with the cooks who'd served up these succulent beefsteaks and rib roasts. Victor wouldn't have been surprised if the servants were eating better yet.
"Major Radcliff!" Braddock called.
"Yes, your Excellency?" Victor replied, surprised at being singled out.
"I looked to be dining on honkers and other native fowl," the Englishman said. "That would have been something out of the ordinary, at any rate-something I haven't done before. Instead, we have…beef. Nothing wrong with beef, mind you, but I did not cross the sea to eat of it."
"Sir, we've long since hunted the honkers out of these coastal districts," Victor said. "Here, we are nearly as settled as you are back on the home island, and our crops and livestock reflect it. We do, I believe, have more Terranovan turkeys here than you raise in England, and we make more use of maize as well. But honkers? Honkers, these days, are rare anywhere east of the Green Ridge Mountains, and less common west of the mountains than they were."
"How disappointing," Braddock said. "If I had to come here, I looked for a thoroughly exotic clime, to reward me with its novelty. But I find England has got here ahead of me."
"It has, sir," Victor agreed. "Perhaps, after the war is won, you might be interested in journeying into the interior with me. There, I promise, you will find things you would not within sight of St. Paul's."
"Perhaps I might indeed, Major, and I thank you for the generous offer," Braddock said. "One more good reason to clean things up as quickly as ever we may."
The march resumed at first light the next morning: one more sign Braddock wanted to get things over with in a hurry. Yawning and grumbling profanely, the redcoats from England made up the core of the army. Green-coated Atlanteans were good enough for scouts and vanguard and rear guard. If there was a battle, their place would be on the wings. Again, the English regulars would take center stage.
Farmers waved as the soldiers marched by. They had, however, universally taken the precaution of driving their horses and cattle and sheep and pigs and chickens-yes, and turkeys, too-away from the army's line of progress. Victor wondered how they knew soldiers plundered as naturally as they breathed. Eastern Atlantis had been peaceful for many, many years.
However they knew, they were right. Chattels whose owners were rash enough to leave them on display disappeared: a chicken here, a hatchet there. And the English regulars weren't the only ones who stole. The Atlanteans lifted things as if they'd been soldiering and plundering for years. Victor Radcliff didn't know whether they were admirable or awful.
"Some of them could have had farms along this road," he said. "Then they'd be hiding, not stealing."
"That's so, M'sieu," Blaise agreed. "But they don't, so they aren't."
"Right," Victor said. Sometimes Blaise's English was as compressed as a semaphore signal. Victor wasn't sure whether that was a defect or the sign of a profound mind.
Blaise didn't worry about it. As far as Victor Radcliff could tell, Blaise didn't worry about anything. Most of what that proved was how little Victor really knew the retainer who doubled as an underofficer. A man snatched from his native land and sold into slavery among strange-looking people who spoke not a word of his language…Such a man might find a thing or two to worry about. Or maybe even three.
A farmer on horseback came up from the south to report that the French army was moving again. Major General Braddock took that as good news. "We shan't have to storm their field fortifications, then," he said. "That might possibly have proved tricky. If we meet them in the open, though, God hath delivered them into our hands." He used the old-fashioned verb form to show his confidence.
"If they had fieldworks, your Excellency, why would they move out of them?" Victor asked.
"If they spent so long in one place, why would they not have built fieldworks?" Braddock returned, and the Atlantean had no good answer for him.
Radcliff asked the same question of Blaise a few minutes later. "Maybe we find out," the black man said. That struck Victor as much too likely.
"Positions! Positions!" Roland Kersauzon felt like a director putting on a play. Unlike a director, he had a cast of thousands. And, unlike a director in a crowded little theater, he would have an audience of thousands, too. He had to keep that audience interested and intrigued just long enough.
The English regulars and their settler allies were coming. They'd be here soon. His own cavalry was skirmishing with the enemy's Atlantean horse, holding the scouts away so they couldn't divine what was going on here. No one was trying to hold back the main English force. On the contrary.
"Dress your lines!" Roland shouted to the ranks of musketeers who took their places athwart the road. They would stand and volley against Braddock's fearsome regulars for a while. And they would pay for it, too. He stood with them. He lacked the gall to order others to do what he dared not do himself. He would have been safer if he'd had it. He also would have been a stranger to himself.
When he looked north, he saw a cloud of dust against the sky. The redcoats and the English settlers were getting close, then. Well, good. Roland didn't want to stand out here in the meadow under the hot sun all day. He would have been cooler as well as safer in the trees behind his horribly exposed soldiers, or in the woods to either side of the meadow.
He wondered why European generals insisted on fighting battles in the open. They could control their armies better if they could see everything that was going on, true. It hardly seemed reason enough. But if Braddock was looking for a stand-up fight, the French settlers would give him one…for a while.
Pistols banged, not very far in the distance. His horsemen were falling back against the English Atlanteans, as they had orders to do. He didn't want to stop the enemy advance: only to channel it a little. As long as they kept the other side's cavalry away from the woods, they were doing their job.
Horses trotted toward him across the meadow. Those were his riders. They waved to the musketeers as they approached and then rode past to either side. Some of the musketeers were incautious enough to wave back. Their sergeants screamed at them. They wouldn't make that mistake again.
A few horsemen reined in and looked at his force from well out of musket range, then wheeled their mounts and rode back to the north. Those were the English Atlanteans' scouts getting a look at his dispositions. Roland knew what he wanted to look like. But in war as in the theater, you could never be quite sure that what the audience saw was what you wanted it to see.
Well, he'd know soon.
Here came the redcoats, already deployed in line of battle, advancing to the bleat of the horn and the tap of the drum. They wore tall hats to make themselves seem bigger and more fearsome than they really were. As they drew close, though, Roland realized most of them were shorter and skinnier than the green-clad Atlanteans who flanked them.
As long as they were shooting, that wouldn't matter. Everybody who aimed a loaded musket was the same size. But it might count against the English in the bayonet charge. Or, on the other hand, it might not. The redcoats approached the field with the professional arrogance of men who knew exactly what they were doing and had done it plenty of times before. Their matter-of-factness was daunting.
"Can we beat them, Monsieur?" a
young lieutenant asked, so Roland wasn't the only one whose knees wanted to knock.
"They think we are going to play their game," the French commander said, more calmly than he felt. "If we do that, they…present certain difficulties." They'll slaughter us, he meant, and hoped the lieutenant didn't realize it. "This is the best arrangement for doing something else, n'est-ce pas?"
"Certainement," the youngster replied. He kept his eyes on the steadily advancing regulars. His thoughts were still on them, too, for he continued, "So long as they give us the chance to do something else…"
"Yes. So long as," Kersauzon agreed. "Nothing in war is certain. I would be the last to claim anything different. But I believe that fighting where we are, as we are, gives us the best chance of victory."
The redcoats marched right into musket range. Their sergeants went on dressing their lines even then. They could have started shooting. So could the French settlers. When the pause held, a heavyset, elderly Englishman-he was close enough to see clearly-rode out in front of his force and tipped his hat in the direction of Roland Kersauzon's army. Kersauzon gravely returned the courtesy. The Englishman rode off to one side of the line, so as not to get in the way of his side's musketry.
Bugle calls rang out: English and French. The front rank of soldiers in both armies dropped to one knee. The second rank stooped to shoot over their heads. The third rank stood straight to fire above the heads of the second.
"Now!" Roland Kersauzon shouted, at the same instant as his English opposite number yelled what had to be the same thing.
Fire rippled across both battle lines. Smoke clouded the air. Bullets flew. Oh, how they flew! One of them tugged at Roland's sleeve. Another knocked the hat off his head. He caught it before it fell. He needed a moment to be sure, but no, neither of those musket balls touched his tender flesh.
Not all his men were so lucky. Some fell and lay still. More staggered away in pain and disbelief. The stink of blood and that of shit from bowels pierced by bullets or loosened by fear filled the air along with gunpowder's choking reek.
Having fired, the first three ranks of Frenchmen retired to reload. The next three stepped forward to take their places. Their muskets were loaded and ready to fire. Roland knew succeeding volleys would by the nature of things grow more ragged than the first two.
That was certainly true for his half-trained troops. But the redcoats fired and reloaded, fired and reloaded, faster than mere mortals had any business doing. They got off three volleys for every two from the French settlers, sometimes two for one. If the settlers tried to hold their ground much longer, the Englishmen would either charge home with the bayonets that glittered at the ends of their guns or simply slaughter them with that deadly massed musketry.
"Retreat!" Roland shouted. "Retreat!" Enough buglers still stood to amplify the command. The Frenchmen streamed back in among the trees-those who still could.
"By Jove, we've got them now," Major General Braddock said in more than a little satisfaction. The crash of volley after volley made his horse skittish, but he himself stayed as calm as if he were in his drawing room. Almost in spite of himself, Victor Radcliff was impressed.
And he was impressed at what the redcoats were doing to the French settlers in front of them. The settlers were brave; if they weren't, they couldn't have stood the gaff as long as they had. But they were getting chewed to pieces. The training that made an English regular would have been reckoned cruel if inflicted on a hound. On a man…But, cruel or not, it worked. The regulars delivered their fire with a speed and volume Victor wouldn't have believed if he weren't seeing it with his own eyes.
Blaise saw the same thing. "These men ugly. These men bad. But these men, they fighters," he said.
Whoops and cheers from officers and sergeants announced the French debacle. "They're running, the cowardly dogs!" an underofficer shouted gleefully.
"Order the pursuit!" Braddock commanded in a great voice. Horns and human voices carried out his bidding.
"Hurrah!" the soldiers shouted as they tramped forward, still in neatly aligned ranks.
And all hell broke loose.
When volleys tore into the redcoats from both flanks, they left Victor confused for a moment. The enemy was in front of them. The enemy was broken, was fleeing… The enemy was, he realized, leading them straight into a trap. No. Had led them.
Smoke rose from the left. Smoke rose from the right. More musketry tore into the redcoats from either side. Cannon boomed, their roar deeper than that from the flintlocks. The roundshot, enfilading the English, tore great holes in their lines.
And the French settlers who'd volleyed with Braddock's regulars hadn't fled incontinently, as Victor thought they had. Once they reached the cover that trees and ferns gave, they turned around and started shooting again. Each man blazed away as he saw fit. It wasn't the deadly hail of bullets a good volley produced, which didn't mean it wasn't galling.
The French settlers also proved to have field guns hidden in the woods to the rear of their lines. They fired roundshot and canister. The range was long for canister, but not too long. Regulars fell in clusters when the showers of lead balls struck home.
"My God! We are undone!" Major General Edward Braddock sounded astonished, disbelieving. "They tricked us, the dirty scuts!" By the way he said it, the French settlers had no right to do any such wicked thing.
"Can we break them?" Victor asked, more from duty than from hope. The veriest child could see that the English regulars, under fire from the front and both flanks, were the ones being broken.
So could Braddock. "No, this day is not ours, I fear me. Best we withdraw to save what we can, while-" He stopped, wincing, and set a hand on his prominent belly.
"You're wounded, your Excellency!" Victor said. Sure enough, blood stained the gray vest Braddock wore under his long red coat.
He still had spirit. "Nothing serious, my dear boy, I assure you. I-" He winced again. This ball struck the right side of his chest. "I say! Blighters are using me for a pincushion today." He coughed and grimaced and flinched. Red foam burst from his nostrils. He would die, then. No surgeon could cure a wound like that, even if fever didn't take him after the bullet in the belly.
A musket ball gashed Victor's horse. The animal screamed and bucked. He fought it back under control. Another ball drew a bloody line across the back of his hand. The redcoats' lines, neat no more, were bloodied, too. They stolidly tried to fight back. In an impossible position, bedeviled by foes they couldn't see-foes who didn't fight the way they were used to-the undertaking was hopeless.
"Blow retreat!" Victor shouted to the buglers. He looked around for Blaise. The Negro hadn't fled. He hadn't got shot down. "Go to the other wing. Tell the buglers there to sound retreat, too. On my orders and General Braddock's."
"Sound retreat. On your orders. Yes, sir." If Blaise had any nerves, he kept them in a place where they didn't show. Off he rode.
"I'll get you out of here, your Excellency," Radcliff told the English general.
"Kind of you to say so, young fellow, but I fear me I'm done for." The red foam was on Braddock's lips now, too. "I know somewhat of wounds. I'll not go anywhere far, not with what I've caught."
"Your courage does you credit, sir." Victor could say that and mean it. Braddock faced death with as much equanimity as any man he'd ever seen.
He waved the praise away. "I've done good fighting in my day-and some not so good, I fear, here at the end. I've loved a lot of pretty women, too, and more than a few of them loved me back. I hoped to be shot at a more advanced age by an outraged husband, but no man gets everything he wants."
"Come away, please. Maybe the doctors can do you some good." Even as Victor spoke, he knew they couldn't.
So did Edward Braddock. "Quacks might kill me faster, you mean. But I die fast enough without them. Save yourself, Radcliff. Pay these backwoods Frenchmen back, if you see the chance. Go on. Your luck won't last if you stay here. Mine's already run dry." He sagged in
the saddle. He wouldn't be able to sit his horse much longer.
Tears stung Radcliff's eyes. "You'll be avenged, your Excellency. England will be avenged."
"Yes, yes," Braddock said impatiently. He coughed again. This time, a steady stream of blood came from his nose and dribbled out the corner of his mouth. His face was going gray.
Biting his lip, Victor turned his horse and rode back to the north. By ones and twos and in small groups, redcoats were stumbling out of the fight. Every so often, a man would turn and fire at what might have been pursuers. Most of the regulars wanted nothing more than to get away.
One of them nodded at Victor in a friendly enough fashion. "Cor, them Frenchies buggered us with a bleedin' pine cone this time, didn't they?"
"Well…" Victor admitted what he couldn't deny. "Yes."
"Did the general make it out?" the redcoat asked.
"Afraid not. He's got two wounds-bad ones. Belly and chest. I don't think he'll live much longer," Radcliff replied.
"Blimey!" the Englishman said. "So who's in charge, then? You?"
Victor looked around. He didn't see any officers who outranked him anywhere close by. "I think I may be, for now, anyhow."
"Well, Mr. Atlantean, sir, wot the 'ell do we do next?" the soldier said.
"Let's get away from the enemy first," Radcliff said. "Then we'll look around and see what we've got left. And after that, we'll try to decide how we can go on fighting. Or do you have a better idea? If you do, speak up. I'd love to hear it."
"If you want ideas from the likes of me, things are buggered up," the soldier said.
"Aren't they?" Victor asked, again in all seriousness.
The redcoat laughed. "They are indeed, sir, for fair. No, what you said sounds good enough-for starters, anyway."
"Yes. For starters," Victor agreed. "And that's about where we are now, isn't it? Starting from the beginning, I mean."
"Oh, no, sir," the Englishman said. "After wot 'appened to us, we'd better start before that, eh?"
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