Victor Radcliff only grunted in response to that. Atlantis' mortars, improvised and otherwise, had done yeoman duty in breaking the English lines outside of Hanover. But, as the lieutenant said, they would have done even more had the gunners been better able to control when the shells detonated. Artillerymen all over the world wrestled with the problem, none with much success.
The field guns thundered. Victor watched roundshot speed toward him. Then he watched the cannon balls fall short, smashing through the undergrowth atop Redwood Hill till they came to rest. He hoped they smashed through some redcoats, too.
One of the gunners harangued his comrades. They limbered up; their teams started hauling the guns up the path toward the crest. "Oh, no, they don't!" the lieutenant of riflemen exclaimed. "We'll murder the lot of them if they get much closer." He sketched another salute and hurried off to instruct his sharpshooters.
Even before the riflemen opened up on the English fieldpieces, that Atlantean four-pounder started throwing roundshot at them. An iron ball smashed the wheel of a field gun's carriage. That one wouldn't move up any farther.
Then the riflemen did go to work. They couldn't fire nearly so fast as musketeers. But, unlike musketeers, they had some hope of hitting what they aimed at out to three or four hundred yards. Several English gunners went down, one after another. Their friends dove into the bushes to keep from meeting the same fate. None of the field guns got close enough to pound the crest of Redwood Hill.
As the sun sank behind his troopers, Cornwallis gave up the assault. He sent a man to Victor under flag of truce, asking leave to gather his wounded and withdraw. Victor gave it. Glumly, the Englishman went back down the hill. He could see as well as Victor that the Atlanteans would hold on to Hanover.
Chapter 17
Denis was a small coastal town south of Cosquer, in what had been French Atlantis. Cosquer was an important place, and had been for three hundred years. St. Denis wasn't, and never had been. A few fishing boats went in and out. Every once in a while, a merchantman would put in at its rickety quays-as often as not, a badly navigated merchantman that had been bound for somewhere else.
Victor didn't know what made some towns thrive and others falter. Down in Spanish Atlantis, farther south yet, Gernika flourished… as much as any town in lackadaisical Spanish Atlantis flourished, anyhow. Not far away, tiny St. Augustine, also on the coast, drowsed under the semitropical sun. Yes, Gernika was older, but so what? New Hastings was older than Hanover, too, but Hanover had been the biggest, most bustling town in English Atlantis-in all of Atlantis-for a long time.
Now St. Denis was about to reappear in the history books, or at least in the footnotes. Victor looked down at the note on his desk (well, Erasmus Radcliff's desk, but Victor was using it these days).
That note still said the same thing it had when he first opened it a few minutes earlier. He read it again, just to make sure. French men-of-war and transports had evaded the Royal Navy and disgorged an army at St. Denis. He'd hoped that army would come to
Hanover. It was in Atlantis, but____________________
It was now moving north up the Atlantean coast. Its commander hoped to effect a meeting with the Atlanteans in the not too indefinite future.
"I will be damned," Victor murmured, reading the missive from St. Denis yet again. It still hadn't changed-not a single word of it.
The last time French troops landed in Atlantis, Victor and Cornwallis (then major and lieutenant-colonel, respectively, neither having yet acquired the exalted rank of general) beat them in a series of alarmingly close battles and forced the surrender of those who survived. Now Radcliff would be working with the French commander, whatever sort of officer this Marquis de la Fayette turned out to be, against the man who'd been his friend and ally in the last war.
Which proved… what, exactly? Only that life could turn bloody peculiar sometimes.
"Oh, yes," Victor muttered. "As if I didn't already know that."
He got to his feet and stretched. Something in his back made a noise like the cork exploding from a bottle of sparkling wine. He blinked, then slowly smiled; whatever'd happened in there, he felt better because of it.
He walked over and picked up the big honker skull William Radcliff had acquired back in the last century. "Alas, poor Yor-ick…" he began, holding it in the palm of his left hand.
Blaise came in. Confronted with the spectacle of the commander of the Atlantean army spouting Shakespeare at the cranium of a long-defunct bird, the Negro could hardly have been blamed for beating a hasty retreat. But Blaise was a tough fellow. Giving the honker skull no more than a raised eyebrow, he addressed Victor as if the latter had never heard of Hamlet. "Are the Frenchmen really and truly throwing in with us?"
"They are," Victor answered automatically. Only then did he set down the skull and send Blaise a startled stare. "How did you know about that, by God? The letter telling me of it only came just now." He pointed to the paper still sitting on the desk.
"No doubt." Blaise might have been innocence personified, if innocence came with slightly bloodshot eyes. He explained them, and himself: "But you see. General, I've been drinking with the lads who brought it to you, and they blabbed somewhat-or maybe a bit more than somewhat."
"Oh."
"Victor could see what would spring from that. "You're telling me all of Hanover will know of it by this o'clock tomorrow, and Cornwallis will know of it by this o'clock day after tomorrow."
"Not me." Blaise shook his head. "I don't need to tell you any such thing, since you already know it as well as I do."
Victor sighed. He wanted to start talking to the honker skull again. There was at least some hope it wouldn't turn around and repeat gossip as fast as it got it. Instead, he looked up toward the heavens and the God he hopefully believed in. "Dear Lord, will we ever be able to do anything or even plan anything without letting our foes learn of it almost before we do?"
"If ever you want to get ahead of the English," Blaise said, "go tell all and sundry you're about to do this, make as if you're about to do this, but then at the last moment, without telling anyone but the few who needs must know, turn about and do that instead. It will be their ruination. Ruination." He smiled as he repeated the word. "I do fancy the sound of it."
"Ruination." Victor also savored the word. And he savored the conception that had led up to it. "Maybe I should give you my epaulets. Or maybe I should just remember never to let the fox guard the chicken coop."
"You mean people need to remember things like that?" Blaise said.
"Well, remembering them is better than forgetting them, wouldn't you say?" Victor replied.
"It might be," Blaise allowed. "Yes, as a matter of fact it just might be."
The French army's rapid progress up the coast stopped just north of Cosquer. Cornwallis' regulars in Freetown-and the depressingly large number of loyalist troops the redcoats recruited in those parts-skirmished with the Frenchmen, fell back a mile or so, and then skirmished again.
They do not fight as regulars properly should fight, the brash young nobleman commanding the French force complained in his next
letter to Victor. It is to be expected that regular troops should form line of battle in open country and volley at one another until one side establishes its superiority, which the bayonet charge will then enforce. But the enemy forces shoot from behind trees and stones and fences, as if they were so many cowardly savages.
"Oh, dear," Victor said on reading that: a comment which worked on several levels. The redcoats had learned too much from fighting his Atlanteans, and they and their loyalists were now giving the previously uninstructed French some unpleasant lessons. And France, by all appearances, had learned very little. She'd sent another brave young seigneur across the Atlantic to lead her army during the last war. Marquis Montcalm-Gozon ended up dead despite his dash and courage. Victor had to hope the same wouldn't happen to this fellow.
He also had to flog his faltering French to respond in w
riting. As well wish for the moon as expect a French nobleman to read English. His pen scratched across the sheet of rather coarse paper: coarse, yes, but made in Atlantis. My dear Marquis de la Fayette: I regret that the redcoats' tactics have disconcerted you. Perhaps the arrival of an Atlantean officer of suitable rank to instruct your soldiers might improve the situation. Yours faithfully-Victor Radcliff, general commanding.
Off his response went, by the fastest fishing schooner then in Hanover harbor. He wished he could send it by semaphore or heliograph tower. Unfortunately, the enemy controlled most of the territory that lay between himself and the French. He had to entrust the communication to wind and wave.
In due course, and not a great deal later than he'd hoped, he got his reply. It was, if nothing else, short and to the point My dear General Radcliff, de la Fayette wrote, I look forward to your joining us at your earliest convenience. Your most obedient servant…
Staring, Victor said, "Where the devil did he get that notion?"
"What is the trouble now?" Blaise asked.
"I told the French general some officer of-I think I said something like 'the right rank'-would come and show his regulars how to fight in Atlantis," Victor answered. "And he thinks I meant I'd go myself!" He laughed at the absurdity.
To his surprise, Blaise didn't. "Maybe you should. If the French know the man they fight beside, it could be that they will fight better because of it. I mean truly know, you understand."
"But-" Victor found himself spluttering. "But-" He finally managed to put his main objection into words: "What if Cornwallis tries to take Hanover away from us again?"
"Not likely, not after he turned away when we beat him at Redwood Hill," Blaise answered calmly. "And even if he does, do you think the army can fight only if it has you to tell it how to go about things?"
Part of Victor thought exactly that. He knew better than to admit it, though. If the cause of liberty had an indispensable man, was liberty what the Atlantean Assembly was really fighting for? Or would the settlements-now styled states-merely be exchanging one master for another?
Slowly, Victor said, "When you put it that way…"
"I do," Blaise said. "Besides, don't you want to see with your own eyes what these French are like, what they can do?"
"I saw too much of that in the last war. This time, at least, whatever they can do, they won't be trying to do it to me."
"Victor wagged a finger at Blaise. "I think you're telling me I should go because you want to get down that way yourself."
"Who? Me?" Butter would have stayed solid forever in the Negro's mouth. "I don't know what you're talking about, General."
"Like fun you don't," Victor said. "But all right. Well see what we can do to get this de la Fayette's soldiers moving again, you and I."
"Good" Blaise said equably. Victor hoped it would be.
A brisk breeze from the north wafted the Rosebud out of Hanover harbor, bound for Cosquer or somewhere not far north. The schooner had been a big fishing boat before war came to Atlantis. Now she mounted a dozen eight-pounders: plenty for taking unarmed merchantmen, but not nearly enough to stand against even a small English frigate.
Victor Radcliff knew he came from a line that had gone to sea for generation after generation. He himself, however, made a most indifferent sailor. But he outdid Blaise. He'd seen before that the Negro was unhappy aboard ship. Setting a hand on Blaise's shoulder, he said, "Cheer up, friend. You won't end up on the auction block after we disembark."
Blaise gave back a sheepish smile. "You pinned it down, General; that you did. I know here that this is no slaver." He tapped his forehead. But then, touching his belly and his crotch in turn, he added, "Here and here, though, I'm not so sure. I doubt that that'd make sense to someone who's never lain in chains, but there it is."
"No, I've never done that," Victor admitted. He said nothing about the profit various offshoots of the Radcliff and Radcliffe clans had made from the slave trade. Blaise was bound to know already; still, casting it in his face would be rude. Instead, Victor said, "Maybe I can imagine a little of what you went through."
"Maybe." By the way Blaise said it, he thought Victor was talking through his hat. Since he had the experience and Victor didn't, he might well have been right.
Instead of arguing with him, Victor waited upon the Rosebud's skipper, a potbellied Hanover man named Randolph Welles. "What do we do if the Royal Navy calls on us to stop and be boarded?"
"Well, now, General, that depends." Welles' pipe sent upsmoke signals. "If we can run, why, run we shall-I promise you that. But if the choice is between letting them board and getting blown out of the water… All things considered, I'd sooner go on living." He spread his hands, as if to say there was no accounting for taste.
"I see," Victor said. "And who decides whether we shall run or yield?"
*I do," Randolph Welles snapped. Till that moment, Victor had thought him mild-mannered. Now he discovered he'd labored under a misapprehension. Welles went on, "On land you may do as you please, sir-that is your province. But I am captain of the Rosebud, General, no one else-she assuredly is my province. Let there be no misunderstandings on that score. They could cause unpleasantness: perhaps even worse."
"All right." Victor wasn't sure it was. If Welles wanted to surrender when that didn't look like a good idea to him… But what could he do about it? If the Rosebud's sailors seemed inclined to obey their skipper, precious little. Victor's best hope then might be diving over the rail and hoping he could swim to shore. He wasn't much of a swimmer. He could barely see the shore. If he didn't want the English to hang him, though, what other choice had he?
Generals borrowed a lot of trouble. Any commander worth having needed to worry about how he'd respond if the enemy did this, that, or the other thing. Many of the things a general could come up with were wildly unlikely. Most of the things a general could come up with never happened. But the day he didn't worry about them would be the day one came true.
So it proved aboard the Rosebud. Victor worried about what might happen if Royal Navy vessels came after the schooner. She saw never a one as she sailed south past New Hastings and Freetown. She did see a few fishing boats, all of them smaller and slower than she was. She had favorable winds and a mild sea. A day sooner than Victor expected her to, she slid into the harbor at Cosquer.
Even Blaise said, "Well, that wasn't too bad." Knowing how he felt about ships, Victor didn't think he could come out with higher praise than that. From his lips, even so much seemed extravagant
Cosquer had started as a specifically Breton town. You could still hear Breton in these parts if you knew which fishermen's taverns, which sailmakers' shops, which salt-sellers' establishments, to visit. You could also hear English; that had been true long before France lost its Atlantean possessions. But you were most likely to hear French.
And so Victor was not surprised to find himself hailed in that language: "Monsieur le General?"
"I am General Radcliff, yes," he replied, also in French.
"Excellent," said the tall, lean man standing on the pier. "I have the honor to be Captain Luc Froissart, aide-de-camp to the Marquis de la Fayette. Horses await you and your own aide, who would be…?"
Victor gestured. "Here is Sergeant Blaise Black, who has been my man of affairs since long before this war began."
Captain Froissart had bushy eyebrows. They jumped when he got a good look at Blaise's dark, impassive face. "How most extremely interesting!" he said. "I am sure the marquis will be delighted to acquaint himself with both of you. Is it that the sergeant speaks and comprehends French?"
"Me? Not a word of your language do I speak or comprehend," Blaise replied-in French.
Froissart blinked, then threw back his head and laughed. uEh bum, Sergeant, it seems you are one on whom we shall have to keep an eye."
"You white people have been saying that for as long as I was able to understand your speech," Blaise said. "Nevertheless, saying is easier than doing, or
I should never have escaped from slavery." He eyed Froissart with a raised eyebrow. "The fellow who bought me when I first came to Atlantis was a Frenchman."
Victor waited to see how Froissart would take that "This fellow, he was not me," the French officer said. "He was not the marquis, either, or any of the soldiers who have come to Atlantis from la belle France. Please bear it in mind, Sergeant"
It was Blaise's turn to measure, to consider. "Well, I can probably do that," he said at last.
He might have angered or affronted Froissart if not for his earlier gibe. As things were, de la Fayette's aide-de-camp nodded judiciously. "Good enough. And can you also ride a horse?"
"How much you demand of me." Blaise sounded as petulant as a seventeen-year-old girl dreamt of being.
"You?" Victor exclaimed in mock dudgeon. "He doesn't even ask if I can ride."
Captain Froissart made a small production of charging his pipe and flicking at a flint-and-steel lighter till it gave forth with enough sparks to ignite the pipeweed in the bowl. After puffing a couple of times and ensuring that the pipe would stay lit, the Frenchman spoke in philosophical tones: "They warned me Atlanteans were… different. I see they knew what they were talking about."
Who were they? Victor almost asked. In the end, though, he decided he'd rather not know. All that mattered was that the French were on Atlantean soil, and on Atlantis' side. As long as he kept that firmly in mind, he could worry about everything else later.
When camped, French regulars pitched their tents with geometrical exactitude. The perfect rows of canvas might have been part of a formal garden: the effect was pleasing and formidable at the same time.
The effect the Marquis de la Fayette had on Victor Radcliff was almost the same. De la Fayette was both younger and better trained than Victor had expected. He also manifested far more enthusiasm for the Atlantean cause than Victor had looked for.
"It is not just a matter of giving England a finger in the eye, pleasant though that may be," de la Fayette declared. "But the Proclamation of Liberty? Oh, my dear sir!" He bunched the fingertips of his right hand together and kissed them-he was a Frenchman, all right. "This document… How shall I say it? This document shall live on as a milestone in the history of the world."
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