by Eric Flint
Driscol's battalion.
And where would that be, I wonder?
Ross had never met any of the men in Driscol's new battalion, but he'd seen a few of them when they'd accompanied the major on his visits to Tiana. One of them, in particular, had caught the general's eye. He was a black man, like all the rest except one young white soldier, but seemed to carry himself with an unusual degree of poise.
When he'd inquired, Driscol had told him that was Charles Ball, a veteran from the U.S. Navy. The man who'd been in charge of the American artillery at the Capitol.
A freedmen's battalion, it was, made up almost entirely of former slaves who were now mostly ironworkers. The lowest stock of all, other than outright slaves, who'd need time and experience to develop the self-confidence that such men would naturally lack from their life's experience.
Normally, Ross would have dismissed such a formation without a thought. A unit made up of men like that would usually break in an instant, without lengthy training, once the crush of battle fell upon them. But with men like Charles Ball to serve as a crystallizing core for the force...
And Patrick Driscol to lead them! Ross had seen him do it, from the receiving end. Driscol could impart confidence to common and uncertain men like no other sergeant in his experience.
Oh, that was another matter altogether. If they fought behind defensive lines, at least, where they wouldn't need the months of training in the intricate steps and practices needed to maneuver and fight on the open field of battle in a hail of destruction.
Ross closed his eyes.
Where are they going? Where is Jackson placing them?
It was possible, of course, that Jackson simply intended to fit them somewhere into the forces already in position at the Rodriguez Canal.
But Ross didn't think so. The fieldworks at the canal covered little more than half a mile of front, and by now Jackson had thousands of soldiers available. Not the fifteen thousand Keane had feared, no, but both Ross and Pakenham were sure that Jackson had amassed at least five thousand men on that line— and plenty of artillery with them.
Driscol's unit would just be an encumbrance there. His men, still poorly trained, were more likely to get in the way of other units than do much good.
So where else?
Fort St. John was a possibility. Quite a good one, actually. If Jackson had the usual American distrust of the capabilities of black men as combatants—unlike the British, who had many black units in uniform—he might very well decide the fort on Lake Pontchartrain was the best place to put them.
Except...
With anyone other than Driscol in command, Fort St. John probably was where Jackson would put them. But Driscol was in command. Jackson wouldn't have had the success he'd had as a general—not leading mostly militia forces, certainly—if he wasn't a good judge of an officer's caliber as a combat leader. By now, Ross would give very long odds that Jackson had sized up Driscol and come to the same conclusion that Ross had.
And I'd have put that man in charge of whatever unit might come under the fiercest blows, on any battlefield in my life.
He opened his eyes. The ceiling was a blank, cold, empty bitterness.
Jackson was moving Driscol and his freedmen battalion across the river. With their ordnance. Ross was well-nigh certain of it. Just as he was almost certain that Jackson would have made plans to reinforce them, if necessary. As had happened so many times before, the British had almost caught Jackson napping.
But not quite in time.
Robert Ross sighed. On a battlefield, "almost" was more deadly than grapeshot. Nine battles out of ten were won or lost because something almost happened—but didn't.
Ross rolled his head slightly so that he could peer out of the window. It faced toward the British army, where Pakenham would even now be crouching like a tiger, ready to pounce. He'd be launching the assault very soon, within a few days.
"Please, Edward," he whispered. "Oh, dear God. Please."
He knew exactly what thoughts—emotions, rather—would be filling Pakenham's breast. The same that would have been filling his own, had Ross still been in command. Doubts, hesitations, fears, second thoughts, quibbles, uncertainties—all those, Pakenham would be burning on the altar this very moment. Purging them from every corner of his soul, steeling himself for what was coming.
There was nothing harder for such a general to do, once he reached that needed state, than to call it all off and just walk away. He had once overheard an officer remark that Robert Ross on the edge of a battle was like a satyr on the edge of a seduction. Consequences be damned.
He'd chuckled, at the time, and taken no offense. He still didn't, because it was largely true.
"Please, Edward." Pakenham would most likely die himself, of course. So would Gibbs. Probably Keane. Not the least of the reasons that the British army was the most feared in the world was that the casualties of its top officers in a battle—won or lost, it mattered not—were usually worse than among the soldiery.
But it was Ross's soldiers that he cared about. If officers died in a battle, they did so with all the perquisites and honors of their class. Statues would be erected, here and there, honoring their memory. A moment of silence would be held in churches across the land, perhaps even in Parliament. Their names would be remembered for generations, sometimes centuries.
Soldiers simply died. Within a few years, no one remembered their names except perhaps a widow, or orphans, or parents grieving an old age without a child. Often enough, no one remembered at all. Their regiments would celebrate their example, true; but the name that went with the example would be forgotten, even in the regiments.
The hardest thing, for a leader of men, was to understand when a battle was lost, sometimes even before it began. That the only thing he could do that made any sense, as inglorious as it might be, was simply to retreat. Find another place, another ground, another time, where another battle might be won. Not to confuse a battle with a campaign, a campaign with a war, or to forget that even a war has an ending—and that the wars to come would begin with that ending as their opening ground.
Ross could only hope, now, that Pakenham would be able to find that rare, precious wisdom. ***
Several miles to the southeast, another man had come to the same conclusion. John Ross had hesitated for months, torn between two impulses. In many ways, every instinct he had was repelled by Houston's scheme. It was inglorious, unjust—and it amounted to giving up the battle before it was even fought. Before, really, more than a few minor skirmishes had taken place.
But... Reality was a stubborn thing. John could also see no point in starting a war that couldn't be won.
Having made his decision, he'd come to stand beside Major Ridge. Ridge was studying the British forces across the field from the vantage point of the fieldworks. Chalmette, that expanse was called, named after the plantation.
The place where the American fieldworks were located had once been called the Rodriguez Canal. But it was called the Jackson Line now, and for good reason. A modest and sleepy little waterway had been turned into a moat, with solid fortifications behind. To break that line and defeat the American soldiers who held it, the British would have to cross a ten-foot-wide waterway and clamber up the fieldworks it fronted.
They'd have to climb at least fourteen feet, twice the height of a man, from the bottom of the moat to the crest of the fortifications, with thousands of American soldiers pouring fire on them. They could do it only by hauling ladders and fascines across more than four hundred yards of open field, with eight American batteries manned by the best gunners in the world raking them with round shot and grape all the way. Canister, at the end—to match the musket fire of thousands of riflemen, which would pour out in a flood once the British got close enough.
Most of those riflemen were Tennesseans, too. Militiamen, technically, but they were the veterans of Old Hickory's campaign against the Creeks. They might not be quite as good as regulars—wouldn't be, c
ertainly, on an open field—but good enough for the purposes of this battleground. More than good enough.
If the British came across that field in a frontal assault, they would be slaughtered. John was as sure of it as every American on that line, and the knowledge gave them the confidence that would make them even more deadly when the fight came.
"We can't win," he said quietly to Major Ridge, "any more than the British can. Where we are now, the Cherokees are facing a Jackson Line just as hopeless as this one."
Ridge swiveled his head, to give John a calm gaze. Ross was relieved to see that there was no anger in those dark eyes.
He hadn't thought there would be. A very subtle but unmistakable change had come in the way Major Ridge looked at John Ross, after that night battle on the twenty-third. Prior to that time, Ridge had been friendly to John. Even praised him, now and then, for his shrewdness and acumen, while he dismissed with amusement the fact that Ross was obviously much better suited to be a diplomat than a warrior.
But not after that night. That night, John had finally entered the full darkness of the pit that warriors spoke of publicly as the glory of battle. And had come out of it, in the morning, with the knowledge that he now understood had been possessed by such men as Ridge for many years.
Battle was not glorious in the least. It was dark, bloody, terrifying, confusing, painful, and exhausting—to the soul even more than the body. The real glory—the only glory, to a man worthy of the name—was simply that he had survived it without disgracing himself.
The only moment in that night that John remembered with any real pride was the moment he'd hauled a highlander out of the water. He'd done his level best to kill the man first, and the man had probably died afterward, in any event. But in the darkest moment of his life, John Ross had not forgotten that he was a man and not a beast.
That was truly glorious, in its own way, he thought. A very quiet sort of glory, to be sure. But John was now certain that the only glory worthy of the name was the sort that took place silently, in the dark places of the soul, where there was no one to see the deed but the man who did it himself.
John hadn't mentioned the incident to anyone, except Major Ridge. And then, only to wonder if the highlander had died. But Ridge had seemed to understand; and, since then, he had made no jokes about diplomats and warriors. Not because he thought John was his equal as a warrior—very few Cherokees were— but simply because John was now a part of that brotherhood.
"You want my support," Ridge stated.
"Yes. It won't work without it. If I tried—which I would, whether you agreed or not, because I've made up my mind—I might succeed. But not without, most likely, tearing our nation in half."
Ridge nodded. "Probably. Give it a few years, with your talents, and I think you'll have more influence over our people than anyone. But I already have a lot, and I won't lose it."
The words were said with a stolid surety that matched Ridge's powerful frame. His gaze ranged up and down the Jackson Line. "I'm glad I agreed to come here," Ridge murmured. "If I hadn't..."
He snorted, softly. "Who knows what foolishness might have come into my head? A Jackson Line doesn't look like so much when you're facing it. See it from its own side, though, and you see the real thing."
When he turned back at John, he had a rare smile on his face. "Agreed, young John. You sweet-talk the stubborn folk, and I'll growl at them. Between us, we ought to get it done well enough. It'll take a few years, of course. By then, my son and nephew ought to be old enough to help, too."
That was true—and it would be a blessing. Ross had seen more than enough of John Ridge and Buck Watie in the course of their journey to Washington to know that they were as bright and capable as any youngsters the Cherokees had produced. Given their own abilities, and being the son and nephew of Major Ridge, they'd form the core of a generation that would have to carry on what was started here.
The clouds opened enough to let through a ray of sunlight. For a moment—not a long one—the dismal field at Chalmette shined brightly. The symbolism of the moment, coming when it did, finally broke the quiet melancholy that had engulfed John Ross for months. It allowed him, for the first time, to see the future as a prospect, instead of a bleak necessity.
Just like the Jackson Line, the future looked very different from that vantage point. The Cherokees would give up their beloved land, true. But they'd move to a new land as a nation, not the broken pieces of one. They'd move with a leadership that was united, not tearing at itself savagely and bitterly. They'd move with the resources and the material goods they needed—John Ross would squeeze the Americans for years before they left; every drop of blood he could get, out of that damn stone—to forge a new place for themselves quickly, not bleeding and battered and stripped to the skin. Give them a few decades to build from that start—John was sure they'd have that much time, even with American land hunger—and who was to say what they might not accomplish? And what pressures of the future they could then withstand? Or, at least, compromise with well enough to make "survival" more than a word applied to hungry refugees huddled in shacks and tents.
A Trojan retreat, indeed. He understood now what the cheerful youngster Sam Houston had been groping at—and the grim older troll Patrick Driscol had seen so clearly.
That was another thing. They'd have Houston as an ally, and Driscol, too. Each in his different way.
"We can win this," he said, surprised.
"Yes, we can," growled The Ridge, his expression fierce for an instant. "It'll take quite a few years, of course." His smile came back. "But years are our greatest resource, when you think about it. The Americans are too impatient to use them properly. Wars are fought with maneuvers over time, even more than territory. We can outmaneuver them. Watch and see if I'm not right. The Americans are too powerful. It makes them stupid."
Jackson appeared, on his horse, trotting down the line and shrilling orders. His whipcord body seemed to thrum like a sword.
"Of course, they are powerful," Ridge allowed. "So we'll just have to be a lot smarter."
Chapter 42
Charles Ball was waiting for Driscol in the salon, along with Tiana's brothers. All three of them were standing by the door that led into the corridor beyond.
Driscol nodded at them as he entered. Then, after hesitating a moment, he cleared his throat.
"I'd appreciate it if you'd wait outside for me. I'd like to speak to Miss Rogers alone."
John Rogers, his face expressionless, immediately opened the door and stepped through. His brother followed at once. There might have been a slight smile on James's face.
Ball's face seemed to undergo a brief spasm. Driscol realized the gunner was struggling mightily to keep from grinning.
"Not a problem, sir," Ball said, half gargling the words. "The battalion's still getting into formation. Won't actually be ready to move for maybe half an hour."
That said, he hurried after the brothers. The door closed behind him with a firm click.
Driscol stared at the door. Now that he had the moment he'd wanted, he wasn't quite sure...
Tiana moved past him. Her graceful, long-legged stride struck Driscol even more powerfully than usual. She opened the door and stuck her head out.
Ball and her brothers were standing a few feet away, in the corridor.
"Wait outside, please."
She closed the door and turned back to Driscol. The smile on her face was so wide it was almost a grin.
"I was hoping," she said. "But with you, I always wonder a little. And I'm tired of wondering, even a little. By now, it's just silly."
In the corridor, the Rogers brothers glanced at each other. Then, simultaneously, they looked at Ball.
"You'd best do as she says, Charles," said John.
He gazed back at them, frowning. "And what about you?"
James smiled. "Oh, we'll be along, soon enough."
"We just want to make sure everything's all right." John was also smiling. "W
e might not be able to hear anything, outside."
"Of course, we might not be able to hear much here, either," James added. "That door's pretty thick."
His suspicions now fully aroused, Ball looked back and forth from one brother to the other. His gaze did not fail to take in the war clubs belted to their waists.
"I think maybe I should stay—"
"Why?" James snorted. "You think John and I are going to smash down the door to defend our sister's virtue?" He gave his brother a shake of the head. "Poor fellow's been spending far too much time with white people, you ask me. It's starting to muddle his mind."
John was always less sarcastic than his brother. "We just want to make sure, Charles, that's all. Tiana told us months ago to find her a suitable husband. We think we did. But the next few minutes ought to prove it, one way or the other."