Down in The Bottomlands

by Harry Turtledove

  They took him away. The guards kept Park and Noggle until a message from the acting Bretwald said to let them go.

  * * *

  "By the brazen gates of Hell!" cried Park. "Is that all?"

  "Yep," said the new Secretary of War. "Douglas was a Brahtz man; hence he saw to it that the army was made as harmless as possible before he skipped out."

  Park laughed grimly. "The Secretary of War sabotages—"

  "He does what?"

  "Never mind. He raises hell with, if you want a more familiar expression. Raises hell with the army for the benefit of his party, with the Dakotians about to come whooping in. I suppose it oughtn't to surprise me, though. How many can we raise?"

  "About twenty thousand in the burgish area, but we can arm only half of them rickly. Most of our quick-fire pipes and warwains have been hurt so it'll take a month to fix them."

  "How about a force of Skrellings?"

  The Secretary shrugged. "We can raise 'em, but we can't arm them."

  "Go ahead and raise 'em anyway."

  "All right, if you say so. But hadn't you better have a rank? It would look better."

  "All right. You make me your assistant."

  "Don't you want a commission?"

  "Not on your life! Your generals would go on strike, and even if they didn't I'd be subject to military law."

  * * *

  The army was not an impressive one, even when its various contingents had all collected at what would have been Pittsburgh if its name hadn't been the lovely one of Guggenvik. The regulars were few and unimpressive; the militia were more numerous but even less prepossessing; the Skrelling levy was the most unmilitary of all. They stood around with silly grins on their flat brown faces, and chattered and scratched. Park thought disgustedly, so these are the descendants of the noble red man and the heroic viking! Fifty years of peace had been a blessing to Vinland, but not an altogether unmitigated one.

  The transport consisted of a vast fleet of private folkwains and goodwains (busses and trucks to you). It had been possible to put only six warwains in the field. These were a kind of steam-driven armored car carrying a compressor and a couple of pneumatic machine guns. There was one portable liquid-air plant for charging shells and air bombs.

  The backwardness of Vinland chemistry compared to its physics caused a curious situation. The only practical military explosives were a rather low-grade black powder, and a carbon-liquid-oxygen mixture. Since the former was less satisfactory as a propellant, considering smoke, flash, and barrel-fouling, than compressed air, and was less effective as a detonant than the liquid air explosive; its military use was largely confined to land mines. Liquid oxygen, however, while as powerful as trinitrotoluol, had to be manufactured on the spot, as there was no way of preventing its evaporation. Hence it was a very awkward thing to use in mobile warfare.

  Park walked into the intelligence tent, and asked the Secretary of War: "What do you think our chances are?"

  The Secretary looked at him. "Against the squires, about even. Against the Dakotians, one to five. Against both, none." He held out a handful of dispatches. These told of the success of the Sons of the Vikings in extending their hold in the southwest, not surprising considering that the only division of regulars in that area were natives of the region and had gone over to the rebels. More dispatches described in brief fragments the attack of a powerful and fast-moving Dakotian army west of Lake Yanktonai (Michigan). The last of these was dated 6 P.M., June 26th, the preceding day.

  "What's happened since then?" asked Park.

  "Don't know," said the Secretary. Just then a message came in from the First Division. It told little, but the dateline told much. It had been sent from the city of Edgar, at the south end of Lake Yanktonai.

  Park looked at his map, and whistled. "But an army can't retreat fifty miles in one day!"

  "The staff can," said the Secretary. "They ride."

  Further speculation about the fate of the First Division seemed unnecessary. The one-eyed Colonel Montrose was dictating an announcement for the press to the effect that: "Our army has driven off severe Dakotian attacks in the Edgar area, with heavy losses to the foe. Nine Dakotian warwains were destroyed and five were captured. Other military booty included twenty-six machine-pipes. Two foeish airwains were shot down. . . ."

  Park thought, this Montrose has a good imagination, which quality seems sadly lacking in most of the officers. Maybe we can do something with him—if we're still here long enough. . . .

  The Secretary pulled Park outside. "Looks as though they had us. We haven't anything to fick with. Not even brains. General Higgins is just an easygoing parade-ground soldier who never expected to have to shoot at anybody in his life. For that matter neither did I. Got any ideas?"

  "Still thinking, brother," said Park, studying his map. "I'm nay soldier either, you know; just a thingman. If I could give you any help it would be political."

  "Well, if we can't win by fickting, politics would seem to be the only way left."

  "Maybe." Park was still looking at the map. "I begin to have a thock. Let's see Higgins."

  * * *

  Fortunately for Park's idea, General Higgins was not merely easygoing; he was positively comatose. He sat in his tent with his blouse unbuttoned and a bottle of beer in front of him, serene in the midst of worry and confusion.

  "Come in, thanes, come in," he said. "Have some beer. Piff. Got any ideas? Blessed if I know where to turn next. Nay artillery, nay airwains to speak of, nay real soldiers. Piff. Do you guess if we started fortifying New Belfast now, it'd be strong enough to hold when we were pushed back there? Nobody knows anything, piff. I'm supposed to have a staff, but half of 'em have got lost or sneaked off to join the rebels. Blessed if I know what to do next."

  Park thought General Higgins would make a splendid Salvation Army general. But there was no time for personalities. He sprang his plan.

  "Goodness gracious!" said Higgins. "It sounds very risky—get Colonel Callahan."

  The Sachem filled the tent opening when he arrived, weaving slightly. "Somebody want me?" Belatedly he remembered to salute.

  Higgins barked at him: "Colonel Callahan, do you ken you have your blouse on backwards?"

  Callahan looked down. "So I have, ha-ha. Sir."

  "That's a very weighty matter. Very weighty. No, don't change it here. You're drunk, too."

  "So are—" Callahan suppressed an appalling violation of discipline just in time. "Maybe I had a little, sir."

  "That's very weighty, very weighty. Just think of it. I ought to have you shot."

  Callahan grinned. "What would my regiment do then?"

  "I don't know. What would they do?"

  "Give you three guesses, sir. Hic."

  "Run away, I suppose."

  "Right the first time, sir. Congratulations."

  "Don't congratulate me, you fool! The Secretary has a plan."

  "A plan, really? Haw, Thane Park; I didn't see you. How do you like our army?"

  Park said: "I think it's the goddamndest thing I ever saw in my life. It's a galloping nightmare."

  "Oh, come now," said Higgins. "Some of the brave boys are a little green, but it's not as bad as all that."

  A very young captain entered, gave a heel-click that would have echoed if there had been anything for it to echo against, and said: "Sir, the service company, twentieth regiment, third division, has gone on strike."

  "What?" said the general. "Why?"

  "No food, sir. The goodwains arrived empty."

  "Have them all shot. No, shoot one out of ten. No, wait a minute. Arrived empty, you say? Somebody stole the food to sell at the local grocers. Take a platoon and clean out all the goods shops in Guggenvik. Pay them in thingly I.O.U.'s."

  The Secretary interjected: "The Althing will never pay those off, you know."

  "I know they won't, ha-ha. Now let's get down to that plan of yours."

  * * ** * *

  The names were all different;
Allister Park gave up trying to remember those of the dozens of small towns through which they rolled. But the gently rolling stretches of southern Indiana were much the same, cut up into a checkerboard of fields with woodlots here and there, and an occasional snaky line of cottonwoods marking the course of a stream. The Vinlanders had not discovered the beauties of billboard advertising, which, to Park's mind, was something. Not having a businessman's point of view, he had no intention of introducing this charming feature of his own civilization into Vinland. The Vinlanders did have their diabolical habit of covering the landscape with smoke from faulty burners in their wains, and that was bad enough.

  A rising whistle and a shattering bang from the rear made Park jump around in the seat of his wain. A mushroom of smoke and dust was rising from a hillside. The airwain that had dropped the bomb was banking slowly to turn away. The pneumatics clattered all along the column, but without visible effect. A couple of their own machines purred over and chased the bomber off.

  Those steam-turbine planes were disconcertingly quiet things. On the other hand the weight of their power plants precluded them from carrying either a heavy bomb load or a lot of fuel, so they were far from a decisive arm. They rustled across the sky with the dignity of dowagers, seldom getting much over 150 miles an hour, and their battles had the deliberation of a duel between sailing ships-of-the-line.

  They wound down to the sunny Ohio (they called it the Okeeyo, both derived from the same Iroquois word) in the region where the airwains had reported the rebel army. A rebel airwain—a converted transport ship—came to look them over, and was shot down. From across the river came faintly the rebel yells and the clatter of pneumatics, firing at targets far out of range. Park guessed that discipline in Brahtz's outfit was little if any better than in his own.

  Now, if they wanted to, the stage was set for an interminable campaign of inaction. Either side could try to sneak its men across the river without being caught in the act by the other. Or it could adopt a defensive program, contenting itself with guarding all the likely crossings. That sort of warfare would have suited General Higgins fine, minimizing as it did the chance that most of his musical-comedy army would do a lightning advance to the rear as soon as they came under fire.

  It would in fact have been sound tactics, if they could have counted on the rebels' remaining on the south bank of the Okeeyo in that region, instead of marching east toward Guggenvik, and if the Dakotians were not likely to descend on their rear at any moment.

  The Secretary of War had gone back to New Belfast, leaving Park the highest-ranking civilian with Higgins' army. He had the good sense to keep out of sight as much as possible, taking into account the soldier's traditional dislike of the interfering politician.

  * * *

  General Etheling, commanding the rebel army, got a message asking if he would hold a parley with a civilian envoy of General Higgins' army. General Etheling, wearing a military blouse over a farmer's overalls and boots, pulled his long mustache and said no, if Higgins wants to parley with me he can come himself. Back came the answer: This is a very high-ranking civilian; in fact he outranks Higgins himself. Would that island in the middle of the Okeeyo do? Etheling pulled his mustache some more and decided it would do.

  So, next morning General Etheling, wearing the purely ornamental battle-ax that formed part of the Vinland officer's dress uniform, presented himself off the island. As he climbed out of his rowboat, he saw his opposite number's boat pull away from the far side of the little island. He advanced a way among the cottonwoods and yelled, "Haw!"

  "Haw." A stocky blond man appeared.

  "You all alone, Thane?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, I'll be jiggered! You boys kin go along back; I'll holler when I need you. Now, Thane, who be you?"

  "I'm Bishop Ib Scoglund, General."

  "What? But ain't you the wick who started the whole rumpus with all that silly talk about ricks for the Skrellings?"

  The bishop sighed. "I did what I believed right in the sight of the Lord. But now a greater danger threatens us. The Dakotians are sweeping across our fair land like the hosts of Midian of old! Surely it were wise to sink our little bickerings in the face of this peril?"

  "You say the lousy redskins is doing an invasion? Well, now, that's the first I heered of that. What proof you got?"

  Park produced an assortment of papers: dispatches, a copy of the Edgar Daily Tidings, et cetera.

  The general was at last convinced. He said: "Well, I'll be tarnally damned. Begging your pardon, Hallow; I forgot as how you were a preacher."

  "That's all rick, my son. There are times when, even in a cleric like me, the baser passions rise, and it is all I can do to refrain from saying `damn' myself."

  "Well, now, that's rick handsome of you. But what does old Cottonhead Higgins want me to do? I got my orders, you know."

  "I know, my son. But don't you see the Divine Will in these events? When we His children fall out and desecrate the soil of Vinland with our brothers' blood, He chastises us with the scourge of invasion. Let us unite to hurl back the heathen before it is too late! General Higgins has a plan for joint doing all worked out. If you take it up, he will prove his good faith by letting you cross the Okeeyo unopposed."

  "What kind of plan is it? I never knew Cottonhead had enough brains to plan a barn dance, not to mention a campaign."

  "I couldn't give you all the details; they're in this paper. But I know they call for your army to put itself in the path of the invaders, and when you are engaged with them for our army to attack their left flank. If we lose, our brotherly quarrel will be one with Sodom and Gomorrah. If we win, it will be surely possible to settle our strife without further bloodshed. You will be a great man in the sight of the people and a good one in the sight of Heaven, General."

  "Well, I guess maybe as how you're right. Give me the rest of the day to study these here plans. . . ."

  They shook hands; the general made a fumbling salute, and went over to his side of the island to call his boat. Thus, he did not see the bishop hastily don his mustache and spectacles.

  When General Etheling's rebels crossed the river next morning, they found no trace of Higgins' force except for the usual camp litter. Following directions, they set out for Edgar.

  * * *

  General Higgins, goaded to hurry by Allister Park, sent his army rolling northward. People in dust-colored work clothes came out to hang over fences and stare at them.

  Park asked one of these, a strapping youth with some Skrelling blood, if he had heard of the invasion.

  "Sure," said the man. "Reckon they won't git this fur, though. So we ain't worrying." The young man laughed loudly at the suggestion of volunteering. "Me go off and git shot up so some other wick can sit on his rump and get rich? Not me, Thane! If the folks in Edgar gets scalped, it serves 'em right for not paying us mair for our stuff."

  As the army moved farther and farther toward Edgar, the expressions of the civilians grew more anxious. As they approached the Piankishaw (Wabash) River, they passed wains parked by the roads, piled with household goods. However, when the army had passed, many of these reversed their direction and followed the army back north toward their homes. Park was tempted to tell some of these people what idiots they were, but that would hardly have been politic. The army had little enough self-confidence as it was.

  Higgins' army spread out along the south bank of the Piankishaw. All those in the front line had, by order, stained their hands and faces brown. The genuine Skrellings were kept well back.

  Park took an observation post overlooking the main crossing of the river. He had just settled himself when there was a tremendous purring hum from the other side of the bridge. An enemy warwain appeared. Its ten tires screeched in unison as it stopped at the barrier on the road. Pneumatics began to pop on all sides. The forward turret swung back and forth, its gun clattering. Then a tremendous bang sent earth, bridge, and wain into the air. The wain settled into the water on
its side, half out. Some men crawled out and swam for the far shore, bullets kicking up little splashes around their bobbing heads.

  Up the river, Park could see a pontoon boat putting out from the north shore. It moved slowly by poling; passed out of sight. In a few minutes it reappeared, drifting downstream. It came slowly past Park and stopped against a ruined bridge abutment. Water gradually leaked through the bullet holes in the canvas, until only one corner was above water. A few arms and faces bobbed lazily just below the surface.

  The firing gradually died down. Park could imagine the Dakotians scanning the position with their field glasses and planning their next move. If their reputation was not exaggerated, it would be something devastating.

  He climbed down from his perch and trotted back to headquarters, where he found Rufus Callahan, sober for once.

  Ten minutes later the two, preceded by an army piper, exposed themselves at the east end of the bridge. Park carried a white flag, and the piper squealed "parley" on his instrument. Nobody shot at them, so they picked their way across the bridge, climbing along the twisted girders. Callahan got stuck.

  "I'm scared of high places," he said through his teeth, clinging to the ironwork.

  Park took out his air pistol. "You'll be worse scared of me," he growled. The huge man was finally gotten under way again.

  At the far end, a Skrelling soldier jumped out of the bushes, rifle ready. He crackled something at them in Dakotian. Callahan answered in the same language, and the man took them in tow.

  As the road curved out of sight of the river, Park began to see dozens of warwains pulled up to the side of the road. Some had their turrets open, and red men sat in them, smoking or eating sandwiches. There were other vehicles, service cars of various kinds, and horse cavalry with lances and short rifles. They stopped by one warwain. Their escort snapped to a salute that must have jarred his bones. An officer climbed out. He wore the usual mustard-colored Dakotian uniform, topped off with the feathered war bonnet of the Sioux Indian. After more chattering, Park and Callahan were motioned in.