by Eric Flint
"I'm not very confident in Morgan, Sam, to be honest—although I'll ask you to keep that in confidence. I still don't think there'll be a problem, but it can't hurt to be ready. Make quiet preparations that would enable you to ferry your forces across the river in a hurry, if need be."
Sam nodded. "Does that include Major Driscol's new unit, sir?"
Jackson thought about it for a moment. "Yes—but let's move them over right away. With their inexperience and with guns to haul, they'd probably get underfoot if we had to move them quickly. Whereas if we add them now to the battery over there, they'll have the advantage of getting some live training."
"Yes, sir. I'll let him know."
"Well, it's about time," Driscol grumbled.
"You're always such a ray of sunshine, Patrick. Have I ever told you that?" Sam smiled as brightly as he could—which was very brightly indeed. "I knew you'd be happy to be able to give your recruits some live training."
"It's not that. I meant it's about time the general realized that he's got a potential disaster waiting for him across the river."
Sam frowned. "That seems a little excessive. I admit the British could make a foray in force over there, but so what? They can't reach the city from that side."
Driscol shook his head. "Why does it take a low-minded sergeant to see the obvious? Colonel Houston, if the British brush Morgan aside—which is about as hard to do as brushing aside cobwebs, if you ask me—then they could quite possibly seize the battery. And if they do that, what's to stop them from shifting the guns upriver and bringing them to bear on our lines? Twenty-four pounders firing enfilade down the whole length of the Jackson Line could very possibly weaken our defenses enough to make an otherwise suicidal frontal assault from their main forces over there carry the day."
Houston's eyes widened. "But surely Morgan—"
"Surely Morgan what?" demanded Driscol. In a low, rasping voice: "Hold off a British assault long enough to allow the battery to extract the guns from danger? Sam, the man is a coward. He's craven, not just incompetent. He'll break the instant the British come at him. And while I don't question the courage of his men, they're just a poorly trained militia. I've never seen a militia yet that would stand its ground against disciplined regulars, unless it had officers like Jackson or Coffee in command. Neither have you."
They were standing in the corridor of the Trémoulet House just outside the door that led to the suite of rooms occupied by the Rogers family—and, now, General Ross. Sam's eyes ranged down the corridor, noting but not really paying any attention to the richness of the trappings.
He was seeing something else in his mind. The vivid image of the carnage twenty-four pounders could wreak on the American soldiers behind the Jackson Line—all of whose fieldworks were designed and built to protect the men from fire coming from the front. Not from across the river.
To be sure, the river was so wide that it would take the British artillerymen a bit of time to find the range. But those were the same veteran gunners who'd found the range to the Carolina in less than a minute.
"We could fall back to the Line Dupre," he protested. "Or the Line Montreuil."
Jackson—very wisely, in Driscol's opinion—had prepared two lines of fallback defense in the event the Jackson Line was overrun. But the major wasn't assuaged.
"So? The British—if they command the opposite bank— could shift the battery more quickly than we could shift an entire army. They'd just do the same to the Lines Dupre and Montreuil that they did to the Jackson."
He gave Houston a little shove. "Best you get about the general's orders then, eh? I have a feeling the day will come—and soon—when my life and those of my men will depend on how quickly you can get across the river."
Houston stared at him. "You won't break, I know. But will your men?"
"They'll stand until you arrive," Driscol rasped. "They won't dare do otherwise."
Even in daylight, the plush corridor was a rather gloomy place, despite all the fancy decorations. With such lighting and with that expression on his face, Driscol looked more like a troll than ever.
"A ray of sunshine," Sam muttered.
"The world has enough sunshine. I provide it with the needed thunderclouds.
"Go, lad." Again, Driscol gave Sam a shove, not so little this time. "I'll stand. You get there in a hurry. 'Tis really no more complicated than that."
Chapter 41
January 4, 1815
Robert Ross's fever broke two days after he was moved into the Trémoulet House. By the next day, although he was still somewhat feeble, he felt better than he had in many weeks.
Disease was a peculiar thing. He'd thought he was far more likely to be dead by now. In truth, the main reason Ross had insisted on being handed over to the Americans was because he knew he'd simply have been a burden to the British forces if he'd remained behind, either in the camp or on the ships.
Ross had always been blessed with a rugged constitution. But—perhaps it was mere fancy—he preferred to ascribe his astonishing recovery to the salutary effects upon a man of having such a beautiful young woman attending to him.
Very stately young woman, too, for all that her apparel was often a bit bizarre. It wasn't that Cherokee costume was significantly less modest than that worn by white women. Indeed, it was considerably less risqué than the clothing he'd seen on some Creole women in the street below, on the two occasions Tiana had allowed him to walk about the room a bit.
But if she generally wore Cherokee costume, it was never a complete ensemble. This or that would clearly be of American design and make. Just the day before, for whatever reason, Tiana had chosen to wear an entirely American costume. No simple settler woman's garment, either, but a rather fancy dress he was certain she'd purchased very recently, right here in New Orleans.
She wore it easily and splendidly, to boot.
Then there was her father. The sire was like a mirror image of the daughter, with the proportions reversed. Captain John Rogers normally wore American clothing, but never without Cherokee accoutrements here and there. He was just as likely to wear a turban as a hat, for instance, and Ross was almost certain that the man wound it about his head himself, requiring no one's assistance.
Ross hadn't seen enough of the two sons to get more than a vague sense of their preferences in costuming and dress. James and John Rogers seemed to be largely inseparable from Major Driscol, and Driscol was almost never around. Ross had seen him only twice since he'd been brought into New Orleans, and on only one of those occasions had Driscol taken the time to speak to him, albeit briefly.
That wasn't rudeness, of course. Patrick Driscol was an officer in an army fighting off a siege, and had plenty to keep him busy.
Hybrids, then. Ross wondered what would come of it all, in the end.
Though not a gardener himself, he'd grown up in gardening country. Hybrids were unpredictable. On the one hand, always dangerous. A hybrid could ruin a line, or an entire garden, or simply prove too feeble to survive. On the other hand, always an opportunity. More than one hybrid had grown into a flourishing new line, which brought strengths to the world hitherto unknown.
Everywhere he looked, Ross could see those hybrid shoots growing in the United States. Here in its southern regions more than in the northern ones, he thought. That was because of slavery, banned in the North but flourishing in the South. There was a grotesque irony there. To a considerable degree, it was their common trafficking in black people that gave white and Indian people a ground on which to intermingle. Tiana and her brothers had been sent by their family—which was itself half white and half Cherokee—to study in American schools. But they'd been able to pay for it, in large part, only because of the money generated by their slaves.
Patrick Driscol entered the room.
"Good afternoon, General. Miss Rogers tells me you're doing much better. I'm very glad to hear it."
Ross rolled his head on the pillow to examine the American major. Out of Ulster, by
way of France and the emperor's armies. Another hybrid, this one made by grafting old stock onto new.
"I never thought about it much until I came here," Ross said abruptly, "but I've had plenty of time since, recuperating from my wounds. I've come to the conclusion that I disapprove of the institution of slavery. Wilberforce and his people are right. I'm not sure about Buxton and his outright abolitionists."
Driscol's blocky face was creased, for a moment, by a smile. That was always a bit peculiar to see, on that visage, as if a stone head suddenly moved.
"I detest slavery. Wilberforce and his followers are craven weaklings. Buxton...A good enough fellow, I think. Better than the rest of that puling lot in the Anti-Slavery League, certainly."
Ross rolled his head back, staring at the ceiling. "The day after the night battle—I was told about this, I didn't see it myself—a black slave came into our lines. He'd run away from his master and was seeking refuge among us. He had a sort of horrid torture device clamped about his neck. We removed it, of course. Ghastly thing. It was shown to me afterward."
Driscol nodded, and moved to the window. There, with a finger, he shifted the curtains aside and gazed down at the city. "Yes, I know. I've seen them myself. The plantation owners around here are partial to the things. A collar lined with spikes, facing inward, which barely prick the skin. So long as the man stands and works, the pain is minimal. But if he lays down his head, it becomes agonizing—it could even kill him. They'll leave it on the slave for days, until by sheer exhaustion he no longer cares if he lives or dies."
Ross studied the back of the major's head. "And yet you—a United Irishmen, no less—choose to serve such people."
Driscol shrugged. "And who else would I serve? The British?" He swiveled his head, giving Ross a view of his profile. From the side, Driscol's face looked even more like a stone crag than ever.
"Don't play the innocent, General Ross. Your British army has been distributing handbills all over this area since you arrived. Assuring the slave masters that their property will be respected by England, in the event of victory. Good of you, of course, to remove that collar from the man. But I wonder how much he'll thank you when you hand him back to his master and he gets another—along with a savage whipping for running away. It would hardly be the first time Britain has betrayed the Negroes, when you found it convenient."
Ross couldn't help but wince. He'd seen the handbills himself, and...
Being honest, had approved of them. Undermining political support for Jackson was simply a logical move in a war.
Driscol turned away from the window.
"There are precious few innocents here, General, just as there are precious few anywhere in the world. But the one thing that is different here—to a degree, at least—is that this nation is undermining the distinctions of class. Often, without even realizing it. And that's the key."
In a now-familiar gesture, Driscol lowered his head a bit. The way a bull will, considering a charge. "Class, General Ross. That's always the key ingredient when it comes to injustice. Two breeds of men may dislike each other as much as they wish. They may well spill blood and commit outrages because of it. But it's only when one of those breeds become a class, elevated over the other, that injustice and brutality become locked into place. As they have been in Ireland for centuries now. Even though, you know as well as I do, the real differences between breeds of Irishmen—or Irishmen and Englishmen, for that matter—are tiny compared to the differences among breeds of men here in America."
Ross thought about it. Driscol's words were certainly true, insofar as they bore on Ireland. What differences really existed, between the boy Robert Ross had been and many of his playmates? Nothing, in terms of blood—or precious little. Centuries after the English conquest of Ireland, any man who claimed he knew how much Anglo-Saxon blood ran in his veins, instead of Celtic, was either a fool or a posturing ass. Usually both.
Ross chuckled. "You've such a cold way of looking at the world, Patrick. But I'll grant you there's a great deal of truth in it. Put a Calvinist and Catholic and a proper Church of England man in the same pasture and they'll quarrel, right enough. But it's only when the Anglican becomes the owner of the land that the Calvinist and the Catholic will make regular visits to the gaol or the whipping post. Mind you, the same would happen if you made the Calvinist—or the Catholic—the landlord and master."
"Oh, aye." Driscol shrugged. "A man doesn't become a superior being simply because he's exploited or oppressed. Often enough, if he reverses the situation, he'll do the same himself. Or worse. It'll only end when a nation arises that can finally abandon the barbaric business of class rule altogether. Not by becoming angels—no chance of that, in this world—but simply because they agree to change the rules."
Ross looked out the window. It was a gray and cloudy day, as was common for this time of year in New Orleans. "Do you really think your Americans can manage that?"
"Not easily, no. Certainly not quickly—and there's no chance at all it'll happen without bloody conflict. There will be at least one civil war waged on this continent before it's done. Of that much I'm certain. And I suppose, in a way, it'll never be entirely done. I suspect class arises naturally, like weeds in a field. The key is to develop a society that knows how to pull up weeds before they take over the garden. That's what Thomas Jefferson meant, I think, when he once said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
Ross chuckled again. "So you see yourself here as a knight leveling his lance against the inequities of class, do you? Forgive me, Patrick, but I'm afraid that reminds me more than anything else of Cervantes's man from La Mancha. He was the Spanish knight who tilted at windmills, if you've never read Don Quixote."
"Please!" Driscol snorted. "I'm no knight of any sort. Certainly not a snooty Spaniard one. I'm a sergeant, General. So I'll go about it the way a proper sergeant would."
Ross examined him for a moment. "You've come up with a campaign plan, then?"
"I wouldn't dignify it with the name of 'campaign plan.' Generals design those fancy things, and—I told you—I'm a sergeant."
Driscol was still standing next to the window. He turned and gazed through it, out over the city.
"I'll build a redoubt, here in New Orleans. A fortress of sorts, you might call it, although it won't exactly be a military one. I don't have the wherewithal to plan and lead a campaign. Someone else will have to do that. Maybe Sam Houston, as he ages and matures. He's got the mind and the will and the heart for it, if he chooses to. Or someone else. But whoever it is, Patrick Driscol will see to it that his general has a bastion upon which he can anchor his forces. If I can manage that, before I die, I reckon I'll have lived a good enough life to be allowed into whatever paradise God has set aside for sergeants."
Ross laughed. "Lord in heaven, Patrick! What I'd have given to have had you as my master sergeant, in any force I've ever led!"
Still looking out the window, Driscol smiled. It was an unusually gentle smile, on such a face.
"Well, I'm afraid that's not likely to happen. But when the war is over, in the years ahead...If you've the time and the inclination, Robert, do come visit me, would you?"
It was the first time Driscol had ever addressed the British general by his given name. Perhaps the oddest thing of all that had happened to Robert Ross since he came to the New World was the sudden, deep warmth that gave him.
"You tried to kill me!" he protested.
"Oh, aye. Did my level best. And I'd do it again, in an instant, if I saw you coming at me with a sword in your hand, leading men in redcoat uniforms. Don't take it personally, Robert. I'd do the same for any bloody officer coming at me and mine with class in his heart, and damn the color of the uniforms."
Tiana came into the room, then. "Sergeant Ball is here, Patrick. He says the battalion is ready to—"
She broke off, flashing Ross an apologetic smile. "Go where you're supposed to go," she finished.
"Good lass," Driscol murmure
d. He lowered his head again, giving Ross a very stern look. "Never impart information in front of a Sassenach officer. Injuries, illness, death's door—all that be damned. The treacherous fellow is likely to be feigning it. Ready in an instant to leap from his bed, cut whatever throats he must, and race back to his own lines with the news."
Ross grinned. "Pay no attention to him, Tiana. Just another sullen Irishman. I'm too weak to cut the throat of a mouse, and if I tried to leap out of this bed I'd be lucky to roll off on the floor. Still, I'll not pry. Not even after the brute is gone."
Tiana grinned herself.
Driscol didn't, but he gave Ross a friendly nod before he and Tiana left the room.
* * *
After they were gone, Ross went back to staring at the ceiling. All traces of good humor faded away quickly, as he pondered the matter.
The battalion is ready to go where it's supposed to go.