Opening Atlantis a-1

by Harry Turtledove

  Another bullet snapped past Roland's head. He ducked without even thinking. People did when someone shot at them. You couldn't help it, no matter how much you wished you could. Only a handful of men seemed immune to the reflex.

  Darkness came down at last. The French settlers had pushed the enemy back several miles. Roland was pleased with himself. All the French settlers seemed pleased with themselves-all but the wounded. Surgeons worked on them by firelight. Their cries split the night.

  But those heartbreaking shrieks weren't what killed Roland Kersauzon's pleasure. He suddenly wondered how and why so many English settlers stood between him and Montcalm-Gozon's army. How had Victor Radcliff got past or got through the French regulars? Whatever he'd done, it couldn't be good news for the Frenchmen from across the sea.

  Which immediately brought up the next question: what to do about it? His first impulse was to order his men forward right away. Regulars barely even thought about night advances. Too many things could go wrong with carefully dressed lines. Roland's men, though, could play bushwhacker as well as their foes.

  In the end, he waited for dawn. As he rolled himself in his blanket, he wondered whether he'd regret it later.

  Victor Radcliff wished for artillery. He might as well have wished for the moon while he was at it. His men couldn't very well have carried cannon as they sneaked through the French lines.

  But now Montcalm-Gozon's men were trying to blast his force out of the way. The Frenchmen had plenty of fieldpieces. And, listening to the roar of guns from behind them, so did the redcoats who'd pushed them out of their lines and were driving them south.

  If the English settlers could hold, the French regulars were trapped. If Victor's men had to retreat…well, he didn't want to do that, not with the French settlers coming up from the south. One of these days, historians would understand exactly how this campaign worked. They would walk the fields and forests. They would read accounts from survivors on both sides and in all four groups of combatants. They would issue learned, dispassionate judgments. For anyone actually going through the fight, confusion and fear reigned.

  Regulars without guns of their own could never have withstood the cannonading the French were giving to Victor's men. Regulars would have stood out in the open in neat ranks and let themselves get butchered. Victor had watched it happen to the redcoats.

  His own men knew better-or fought differently, anyhow. They sprawled on the ground and hid in back of whatever cover they could find. Some of them had even dug scrapes with bayonets and belt knives, piling up dirt in front of the shallow holes to stop or deflect bullets. Here and there, cannon balls killed. More often than not, they harmlessly shot past Victor's settlers, who weren't packed together anywhere near so tightly as regulars would have been.

  As long as the Frenchmen kept cannonading his soldiers, he couldn't do much to reply. They stayed out of musket range. Even his few riflemen had trouble reaching them. He shouted encouragement to the English settlers. As long as they didn't break, they made Montcalm-Gozon sweat.

  The French commander had worries of his own-or Radcliff devoutly hoped he did. He was harried from behind, as the distant racket of gunfire in Victor's ears proved. With any luck at all, he would have to turn around and face the troops pursuing him. If he did, he wouldn't be able to deal with Victor's men. That would be very good, which was putting it mildly.

  Victor was thinking just how good it would be when a rider on a lathered horse galloped up from the south. "Major, the French settlers are attacking us down there," the man said, and pointed back over his shoulder.

  "Damnation," Victor said, and then something more pungent in French, and then something still more pungent in Spanish. Another cannon ball thundered past them, but that was the least of his worries. "How hard are they pressing you?" he asked.

  "As hard as they can," the courier replied.

  "Damnation," Radcliff repeated. That wasn't what he wanted to hear. He didn't doubt it, though. If Roland Kersauzon's men had got this far north, they would try to bull through his blocking force. (If they'd got this far north this fast, they'd done some fancy marching, but that was a different story altogether.) "For God's sake, hold them back. We can't have them pitching into our rear right now, not when we've got warm work in front of us like this."

  French cannon bellowed again. Victor knew he made a good target. He stayed out in the open, while most of his men had taken cover. The courier flinched a little as the ball flew by, but held his ground. He gave Victor a thin smile. "Really, Major? I never would have noticed."

  "Heh." Victor touched the brim of his hat in a half-salute, acknowledging the man's coolness. "Go on. Get back out of range before they ventilate your kidneys. Let the men know they need to hang on no matter what the settlers do to them."

  "I'll tell 'em." The horseman's grimace was as understated as his smile. "Don't know if they'll be glad to hear it." With a shrug, he wheeled his mount and rode back toward the south.

  He hadn't been gone more than a couple of minutes before the French cannonading suddenly stopped. Montcalm-Gozon's lines re-formed in the sudden near-silence (the French nobleman was bound to have a rear guard of his own trying to hold off whatever trouble lay behind him). A horn call rang out over the field. The sun glittered off bayonets being fixed as all the French soldiers made the same motion at the same time. The horn rang out again-a different call this time. Those bayonets flashed fire once more as the Frenchmen lowered them. One more call, and, with a fierce shout, as much of Montcalm-Gozon's army as he could spare advanced against the English settlers.

  It was glorious. It was grandiose. It was, frankly, terrifying. "Hold your fire till they're well within range!" Victor called. He knew a certain amount of pride that his voice didn't wobble. Here and there, riflemen opened up on the French. They could hit at ranges well beyond those a man with a smoothbore musket could use. A few blue-coated enemy soldiers stumbled and fell, but only a few. The rest stepped over them and came on.

  A hundred yards away from Victor, the Frenchmen halted. The first rank of soldiers dropped to one knee. The second rank bent low above them. The third stood straight. They all fired together.

  Bullets snapped past him. One hit his horse with a meaty thunk. The beast squealed and staggered. He jumped off before it foundered. He had his two pistols and a rapier. They didn't seem enough to repel the French.

  "Get down, Major!" somebody behind him yelled. "Better shooting over you than through you."

  That struck Victor as excellent advice. He flattened out as the Frenchmen dressed their lines. A moment later, with more cheers, they charged. His men greeted them with the best volley they could. This wasn't just fire to annoy the enemy and gall him. The charge staggered when it met that wall of flying lead. French soldiers clutched at themselves and screamed as they fell. But the ones who weren't hit came on.

  Victor fired first one pistol, then the other. He thought he hit one enemy soldier. From one knee, he threw a pistol in a startled Frenchman's face. He might have broken the man's nose. Then he sprang up and skewered a bluecoat who was too slow to protect himself with his bayoneted musket.

  And then he ran for his life, back toward the trees. No one spitted him from behind. No one shot him in the back. None of his own men shot him in the chest or belly, though musket balls whipped past him in both directions.

  A dead settler with a fully loaded rifle lay behind the first pine he came to. The man looked absurdly surprised at catching a bullet just above the bridge of the nose. He must have been about to fire when he got hit. Victor snatched up the rifle. There came a man in a fancy uniform-plainly an officer. The Frenchman's sword had blood on it. Victor fired. The officer spun, then slowly crumpled.

  "Holy God!" someone bawled in French. "The general's down!"

  I got Montcalm-Gozon? Radcliff thought dazedly. "We take surrenders!" he shouted, also in French. The enemy soldiers started throwing down their muskets and throwing up their hands.

  XX
IV

  T hey were breaking. Finally, after a running fight that had gone on all through the day, the English settlers in front of Roland Kersauzon's men had had as much as they could take. They'd managed to get across a creek running east to the ocean, and were still defending the fords, but Roland was sure his army could force a crossing.

  He looked west, toward the Green Ridge Mountains. They were barely a smudge on the horizon, but, as usual, clouds piled high above them. The sun was setting in blood as it sank into those clouds. "Can we get over this miserable stream once night falls?" Roland asked his lieutenants.

  They looked at one another. Nobody spoke right away. At last, one of the junior officers said, "I'm afraid I don't know where the shallow stretches are." Several other men nodded, as if he'd said what they were thinking.

  "Nom d'un nom," Roland muttered. He dismissed the lieutenants and summoned sergeants and corporals. They made an older, more raffish group than the one he'd sent away. He put the same question to them.

  "I can find a ford," a weathered sergeant said confidently. "I used to run traps up here. I know what's what."

  He'd poached, in other words, since this was English territory. Roland grinned. "Good. That's what I wanted to hear. As soon as it's nice and dark, we'll get moving…"

  But the English Atlanteans knew where the fords were, too. They started bonfires on their side of the creek at each one of them, to make sure Roland's men couldn't catch them unawares. Roland took the sergeant aside. "I know what you're going to ask me," the trapper said: "Did they miss any?"

  "You're right-that's what I'm going to ask you," Roland agreed. "Did they?"

  "No, damn them," the sergeant said. "Well, if you want to go five miles west, there's sort of a ford they may not have covered. I can't tell about that one from where we are now."

  Reluctantly, Kersauzon shook his head. "We'd get scattered all over the landscape if we tried it. And there's no promise Radcliff's men don't have a fire burning at that ford, too, is there?"

  "Monsieur, the only promise is, we're going to die sooner or later," the sergeant answered. "I want it to be later, in the arms of a beautiful woman. If her husband shoots me, even that's not so bad. But I know you don't always get what you want, not in this life you don't."

  "Isn't that the sad and sorry truth? Her husband, eh?" Kersauzon shook his head. The sergeant grinned and winked and nudged him. In spite of himself, Roland laughed-for a moment. But the smile slid from his lips as he went on, "We'll have to pay more to cross that creek come morning."

  The uncouth, backwoodsy French Atlantean shrugged a shrug a Paris boulevardier might have envied. "Every business has its costs," he said. "Since we aren't going to go tonight, shouldn't we grab what rest we can?"

  "An excellent idea," Roland said briskly.

  Even when he wrapped himself in his blanket, sleep didn't want to come. He knew he was keyed up. That accounted for some of his trouble-some, but not all. The English Atlanteans on the north side of the stream were godawful noisy. Raucous snatches of marching songs floated through the air. So did the sounds of tramping feet, as if large numbers of soldiers were on the march.

  For a little while, Roland worried, there under that ratty, tattered blanket. Then he chuckled. Trying to bluff him, were they? Did they think he would believe they'd been reinforced, and hold off on account of that? If they did, they were making a bad mistake. Some of them were making their very last mistake. Chuckling once more, he slid headlong into sleep.

  That veteran sergeant shook him awake. The earliest traces of morning twilight grayed the eastern horizon. "Time for the dance already?" Roland asked around a yawn.

  "I think so." The sergeant jerked a thumb toward the north, across the creek. "But those noisy baboons keep tripping over their own clodhoppers."

  "They want us to think every Englishman in Atlantis is hiding among those trees," Kersauzon said scornfully. "Well, I don't care what they want. I am not a four-year-old, to be fooled by such tricks. We'll get our men fed, we'll get them across the stream, and we'll get back together with Marquis Montcalm-Gozon."

  Breakfast was less than he wished it were: stale hardtack and gamy sausage. But a little ballast in the belly was better than none. He took no more than any of his soldiers. As soon as the men were fed, he formed them in long columns, one in front of each ford. The troops at the head of each column would suffer. Not all of them would fall, though, as they charged through the waist-deep water. And they would drive the English Atlanteans before them once they got across.

  Ferns rustled and quivered in the woods on the far side of the creek. Drums began to pound. Hearing those drums made the hair at the nape of Roland's neck quiver. "No," he whispered hoarsely. "It's not possible."

  But it was. It was not only possible, it was true. Greencoats emerged from the greenery and formed up opposite his own men. There were more of them than he would have expected to find in a rear-guard detachment. That made one nasty surprise. Things got worse. As the drums continued to bray, redcoats broke cover and took their places beside the English Atlanteans. Their sergeants bellowed and swore till their alignment was perfect.

  "What are those salauds doing here?" a soldier said. Maybe the question was meant for Roland, maybe for an uncaring God.

  Roland feared he knew the answer. Only one seemed likely: somehow, Montcalm-Gozon's French regulars had come to grief. The English had broken the siege of Freetown, and now they intended to break the French settlers, too.

  "Monsieur, should we not withdraw?" a lieutenant asked urgently. "There are a devil of a lot of Englishmen on the other side of the stream."

  "Yes, there are." Roland heard the bleakness in his own voice. "And they know where the fords are as well as we do. If we pull back, what will they do next, eh?"

  The junior officer's mouth twisted. He didn't have to be Elijah the prophet to foretell the future here. "They'll come after us."

  "Too right they will." Kersauzon couldn't even tell his men to give the foe a volley. Oh, he could, but it wouldn't do much good. In his infinite wisdom, he'd ordered his force into an assault formation. Only the few soldiers at the head of each column could open fire. Whereas the English…

  No sooner had Roland realized the English could open fire when and as they pleased than they did. The green-coated settlers simply started shooting as they saw fit. The English regulars delivered a volley under the direction of their officers and sergeants, then methodically reloaded for another one.

  And Roland's men lurched back. Not only could they not reply effectively, but they were so bunched up that not even smoothbore muskets could miss. Some of them fell. Others-the ones who could-reeled away from the southern bank of the stream.

  Crash! That second volley tore through the French settlers. They broke, running for any cover they could find. Roland was surprised to find himself still imperforate. He yelled himself hoarse, trying to stem the rout. He might as well have saved his breath, because none of that yelling did any good at all.

  Victor Radcliff rode across Stamford Creek. Bodies lay on the far bank. Other French settlers, wounded but not dead, stretched imploring hands out toward him. He went on past them. Somebody on his side would take care of them sooner or later. He wasn't sure just how-maybe drag them off to the surgeons, maybe knock them over the head. If none of the wounded enemies pulled a pistol or tried anything else foolish, odds were most of them would survive.

  The English lieutenant-colonel rode beside him. The young officer's face radiated enthusiasm. "By God, Major, I do believe we've really done it this time! We've broken them!" He waved happily. "And it's mostly because your men held the French regulars in place until we could come down on them from behind. Well done!"

  "Much obliged, sir," Victor replied. "And much obliged to you for coming down on them when you did. We couldn't have held much longer. They would have broken through us in another hour."

  "It was a bit of a near-run thing, wasn't it?" the lieutenant-colonel said. "No on
e knew who'd be the heroes and who the goats till it all played out, eh?" Just for a moment, his grin slipped. "Pity about Brigadier Endicott, though."

  "Yes, sir," Victor agreed politely. Brigadier Daniel Endicott had commanded the English regulars who'd landed in Freetown and given the force there strength enough to break the French siege. He'd had the bad luck-certainly for him-to put his face in front of a musket ball a few days earlier. Not ten minutes afterwards, his second-in-command got shot in the leg. That left the young lieutenant-colonel the senior English officer able to serve in the field.

  None of which broke Victor's heart. Endicott had looked to be even more of a book soldier than the late Major General Braddock, and Colonel Harcourt was no improvement. The lieutenant-colonel, by contrast, had begun to understand that war in Atlantis wasn't the same as war on the manicured fields of Europe. Coming right out and saying so seemed the opposite of useful.

  Musketeers fired from the woods ahead. Sudden puffs of smoke marked their positions-or where they'd fired from, anyhow. Anybody with a grain of sense would go somewhere else to reload and shoot again.

  Not far from Victor, an English Atlantean swore, clutched his calf, and sat down in the dirt. He drew a knife and cut at his hose to get cloth for a bandage. "I'm out of the fight for a while," he said matter-of-factly.

  "You'll do fine. The surgeons will fix you up in nothing flat." Victor wondered how big a liar he was.

  The English lieutenant-colonel shouted orders. Redcoats advanced on the wood. A few more shots came from it. One or two English regulars fell. The rest went on in among the trees. No doubt some French Atlanteans escaped from the southern edge of the forest. But when the redcoats emerged, several of them held up their bayonets to show the blood on them.

  "Good show," the lieutenant-colonel said. "We've dealt with the one bunch-now all we have to do is finish rounding up the other, and the war here is as good as over. Then we see where it all ends up at the peace table."