Alternate Wars

by Gregory Benford

  “You’ve been helpful,” Kearny finished. “I daresay I can get more out of you after you’ve rested, and in any event you can point out things on our line of march. Captain, I want Lieutenant Payne reporting to me again in the morning, right after breakfast. Make all necessary arrangements for him and his men. Dismissed.” His glance went back to the maps.

  The two rose, saluted, left.

  Dusk was thickening into night. Stars glimmered through warm air and a haze of smoke. Lanterns glowered on poles, bobbed in hands. Banked fires smoldered ruddy. Some distance off, in a space left vacant, one still burned high. Payne couldn’t see it clearly, for men surrounded it—several hundred, maybe, and more in the lanes between tents. Amid and above them, upheld on a pole, a steel cross gave back the flickery light. A hymn began, deep voices, a swinging, tramping chant that sent ghost fingers up and down his backbone.

  In the blood the Lord did shed for us we take our cleansing bath,

  That His holy spirit lead us on the straight and thorny path

  Till the nations of unrighteousness have felt His mighty wrath.

  We march to victory.

  Glory, glory, hallelujah,

  Glory, glory, hallelujah,

  Glory, glory, hallelujah,

  We march to victory!

  Day squatted surly on the world. Clouds seemed only to cast more heat downward. Air lay waterlogged into silence, except for the whine of innumerable mosquitoes. Houston felt sorry when his inspection along the shore side was over. He breathed a little easier there and saw a huge river vista instead of walls everywhere around him.

  Of course, he’d also judged it necessary, or at least smart, to make the tour once again. Thus far the batteries, booms, and torpedoes he’d captured were interdicting enemy vessels. He had a growing notion, though, that a fleet was bound over the gulf to force a passage. It would account for the low level of French activity since they lost their big gun. Ordinarily a siege was not a matter of sitting still. Fights raged around the whole neighborhood, till they got into the city and then might well go on street by street, day after day. But if aid from the sea was expected, why not wait for it and meanwhile let hunger and eventually sickness do their sappers’ work?

  Or did the Imperials simply mean to starve the Americans out? That ought to spare much destruction and shouldn’t take awfully long. Since this was a keystone place, he had found both civil and military storehouses full. However, when their stock must be doled out to the population as well as the army, it went fast, no matter how meagerly. Houston had been tempted to expel the inhabitants. But that would be barbarous—and, he admitted, lose him their hostage value.

  Besides, he didn’t think the French enjoyed keeping so many troops staked here. They were needed elsewhere, to defend Florida and the upstream marches, in due course to join a counteroffensive. Yet they didn’t appear to be preparing to storm New Orleans. Therefore, he figured, they probably expected their navy units would be along soon.

  As he left the inner emplacement on the west side, several of his bodyguard went down the stairs first. The others came right behind him and promptly fanned out. They were a wild sight, those Shawnees, Cherokees, and Chickasaws, like a tomahawk thrown into a crystal bowl. He could have put them in uniform—most of their kind wore civilized clothes at home—but in skins, feathers, and paint they overawed the city and kept things peaceful. He didn’t want snipers potting at him, nor want to shoot people who got out of hand. You couldn’t really blame such folks, could you?

  He strode on along the wharf. A few men lounged on the decks of four idled ships. The rest must be ashore passing the time in sailor wise—no dearth of loose women, nor rum very scarce. Sentries faced to and fro, sunlight reflected harsh off bayonets. Fishing boats and oar-powered trawlers were out under the protection of the cannon, taking what they could to sell at fancy prices. Well, it helped. Otherwise the scene was almost deserted, eerily quiet.

  No, wait. A familiar small figure stood by an unused cleat, stoop-shouldered, hands behind back, staring across the water. Impulsively, Houston moved toward him and halted. “Howdy, sir,” he greeted. His Indians formed a semicircle and poised alert.

  The Frenchman blinked at him and said an automatic “Bon jour” before adding, with a parched laugh, “Pardon, please. I forgot w’ere I am. I was ’alf a century and an ocean away.”

  “Left your books for a while, eh?” Why not a few minutes’ conversation before the return to grimness?

  Lamoureux shrugged. “One feels need for some sky now and sen. Even old men do. Or per’aps especially old men. We ’ave not much time for it any more.” His look strayed again to the great slow current. “Also, ’ere is se sense of ’istory I search for and do not find in most philosophers.”

  “History? Isn’t all this country kind of new and rough?”

  “It is of Europe—as are you, my friend, w’esser you like it or not.” Lamoureux’s voice dropped so low that he became hard to make out. “But w’at I have in mind is more old and deep san sat—older san se Pyramids, and it will remain long after sey are crumbled to dust. Se flowing, se onwardness. Fate, if you wish to use sat word. Causality, se serene working out of nature’s law among us as among se planets—sat is w’at se river teaches.”

  “I see.”

  “Sere is comfort in knowing we are in se stream of time, a tiny part, nossing sat makes any difference, but still a part of se Oneness.”

  “You’ve said as much before.” Houston shook his head. “And I don’t buy it. We’ve got free will. We can and we do help decide how things will go. Why, blind accident does; and we can cope with it, too.”

  Lamoureux smiled. “Se ’istory of your nation predisposes you to believe sat, but—”

  “Sure. Shouldn’t it? King George thought he could keep our fathers under his heel. The whole world did. But they learned different, because free men chose to take arms.”

  “I sink we French ’ad somesing to do wis se outcome. And as I was about to say, you must agree sat once se Empire was victorious in Europe, se changes in your own society sat followed were inevitable.”

  “Well, required, some of them.”

  “And se rest, sey were logical corollaries.”

  “No, not really. When President Jackson called for a second Constitutional Convention, most of us delegates just meant to strengthen the government so we could defend ourselves better—”

  “But ’e made pressure and forced you to adopt more radical provisions.”

  “He had his reasons, whether or not men like me were happy with them.” The talk had gone down a trail Houston didn’t care for. He tried a diversion. “Besides, look, I spoke of sheer accident playin’ a role. If Jackson hadn’t died in office in his fourth term, his Uniform Military Service amendment would’ve passed, sure. But he did and it didn’t.”

  “It will, or somesing similar, unless se Empire reduces you to se status of Britain.”

  “Ah, ha! You say ‘unless.’ You mean it’s not fated.”

  “In ’indsight, ’istorians will see sat w’atever does ’appen was certain to ’appen, just as I see today sat we stand ’ere, you and I, because se French and Spanish fleets broke se British off Cape Trafalgar.”

  Houston had often heard that battle called one of the decisive ones—without mastery of the seas, England was doomed, long though it took to wear her down—but he was vague on details. Anyhow, he naturally felt that what happened on land was always more important. “They couldn’t have done it if they hadn’t spent years first, building up their naval strength,” he argued. “Somebody had to make that decision.”

  “True,” Lamoureux conceded. “Matters are less simple san I pretend. Many factors work togesser, and it is seldom clear to us ’ow sey do. My sense of inevitability is more intuitive san scientific, I grant you. Neverseless, ’ere on se bank of sis mighty river, I feel se current of time.”

  Still he looked outward. “In fact, before you came, my soughts, sey ’ad wandered
up sat stream, ’alf a century. For, do you see, I was reminded of la Manche—se English Channel, agleam on a winter day outside Boulogne.”

  “Not much like, I’d say.”

  Lamoureux shivered. His tone had gone remote; it was if he spoke to himself, foreign language or no. “Yes, it was a cold light. ’Ow cold. Our ships in se ’arbor, sey were many, many, masts and spars a leafless forest. We men, we sat or stood or paced in an upstairs room of ce hotel de vale, a warm room wis fire and candles, drapes and carpet, clear glass for us to see t’ rough from ’igh above, as if we were gods. Yet I ’ave never felt a sight was more forbidding san sose steely waters under sat leaden sky. I rejoiced in my ’eart w’en I learned we would not cross sem. And I was young sen, wis flame in me.” He sighed. “We were all young. Se Emperor ’imself, ’e was only—’e was not quite fifty years of age. Se ’ole world was young, for us.”

  “The Emperor?” asked Houston, startled. “The first Napoleon? You met him?”

  Lamoureux returned to heat and silence and tarry smells. “Oh, ’e was not Emperor sen. We ’ad still our name of a republic, and Bonaparte, ’e was not even First Consul so far. ’E ’ad se title of General of se Army of England, for an attack across se Channel was being prepared. But in se reality, after ’is victories, ’e was as powerful in France as any osser man. I stood in ’is awe—in awe of ’im. Everybody did.”

  “What were you doin’ there, if I may ask?”

  “I was merely a clerk, a… a secretary on se staff of se foreign minister, Prince Talleyrand-Périgord. ’E ’ad many assistants more important by far. But because I was nobody, and ’ad shown I could keep confidences, and sis matter must be discussed in deepest secrecy, it was me ’e chose to take to Boulogne to record for ’im. And so I was sere w’en ’e, and General Berthier, and Napoleon’s brosser Lucien, and Napoleon ’imself weighed se grand decision.”

  “And figured they’d better not try to invade England,” Houston knew.

  “Correct. Se fleet was not yet strong enough; se risk was too large. But if sis plan was canceled, somesing else must be done. Else sey would seem weak, and soon lose control.”

  Houston nodded. “Ridin’ a wild stallion, they were, hm?”

  “A tiger, Prince Talleyrand said. I sink, besides, ’e argued against attacking England because ’e ’ad friends sere, and interests. ’E was utterly corrupt—but intelligent—yes, I know well w’y at last se Emperor sent ’im to end ’is days on St. ’Elena. Sere in Boulogne, ’e ’ad proposed striking into Egypt, to cut se British off from India. And Napoleon, ’e took fire at sat idea. Audacious as Alexander marching east, fame immortal, oh, sis Sout’land sun does not so blaze so bright as sat little dark man in sose winter days! I could not stand before ’im; se splendor of se vision swept me away into itself. But of course I did not matter. I was less san se lowliest moustache in ’is army.

  “Lucien, ’owever, Lucien could resist ’s is brosser ’o ’e ’ad tumbled wis in sat poor ’ouse in Corsica. And Berthier ’ad talked Lucien over. ’E was a brave man, too, Berthier, none more valiant, but ’e ’ad a different idea, not so magical but more … systematic? ’E persuaded Lucien to ’elp ’im persuade Talleyrand and Napoleon.

  “To go to Egypt, sey said, would be to court disaster. If se English ’o were scouring se Mediterranean, if sey found our ships, we could lose everysing we sent on sat expedition. Let us for now stay in Europe. Les allemands—se Germans might be well subdued; but Italy was only newly conquered and restless. We should secure it beyond any possibility of revolt, Berthier said. And sen we should go into Spain and Portugal—Talleyrand could easily invent reasons—and over se straits to Tangier. So would we shut se Mediterranean to se English, reduce seir fleet sere in detail, and build more ships for ourselves at our leisure…. But you know sis, for it is w’at ’appened.

  “Me, I remember hours of dispute in sat room in Boulogne. Se short winter day drew to a close. Servants brought food sat se men barely bit at. And I, I ’ung in a corner, my writing board on my knees, t’rowing down quill after quill as I wore sem out, never seeing w’at sey scrawled, so lost was I in se spectacle—’ow ’o stood colossal at Campo Formio and decreed, ’e now stormed and shouted and, yes, sulked—sen suddenly se first fire went out, but ce new fire caught ’old, and ‘Oui’, said, oh, ’ow softly, ‘comme Charlemagne’—but sis time we do not wisdraw across Roncesvalles!”

  Lamoureux stopped short, gulped for air, hugged himself, old blood turned cold within the Louisiana heat. Someday, Houston thought, will I be like that, harkin’ back to when my Indians called me their Raven? Please, God, no.

  He started to lay a hand on the other man’s shoulder, though he wasn’t sure what to say. A sudden thud of gunfire afar saved him.

  Ahead, eastward, shone Lake Pontchartrain and the highest spires of New Orleans. On the left, Lake Maurepas snuggled close to the vast sheet of water; on the right ran the Mississippi. Between them reached some ten miles of mostly open ground, flat, boggy, intensely green with grasses, reeds, stands of cypress and gum, cottonwoods bordering the highway along the river. Aside from hunters, humans had made little use of it until, here and in the narrow strip between the lakes, the Imperials set their defenses against assault from outside.

  Payne shifted in the saddle, restless as his mount. “Sir, if you’ll just let me and my boys lead your horse… It wasn’t that he was stupid-eager, it was that he had come to feel he must show these stolid Northerners what Virginians were worth.

  “How fast d’you expect to charge over this mud?” Kearny snapped. “We’d come on the road and those drained shoulders, sir, hit their left and roll them up.”

  Kearny shook his head. “A Southern thing to do. The last of the Celtic war bands, your state militias. No.”

  “Sir—”

  “Shut up.” Kearny lifted telescope to eye.

  Without a hill beneath him he could see little, and most of it already lost in smoke. Artillery dueled, flash and roar down the opposing lines, blunt earth-quivers where round shot struck, fountains where canister burst to spray horseflesh and manflesh. Americans had stood off attack after attack while Kearny’s crews worked their guns into position. Now the infantry simply stood.

  A shell exploded nearby. Three men became red remnants. Others dragged wounded comrades and their own hurts back to the rear. A mule stayed behind, threshing in a tangle of guts. Its screams were hideously womanish.

  Kearny lowered the telescope. His face showed nothing beneath the weathered and grimed skin, but Payne thought the lips within the beard had whitened the least bit. “Poor lads,” he said low. “Well, ours can take this better than those spigs can.”

  I don’t see how any human beings can much longer, Payne thought.

  Not Hog Eye, for one. “I find my chief,” the Indian had said, appearing out of dawn-dusk to pluck the lieutenant’s sleeve; and with the same suddenness, he was gone. But it wasn’t fair to call him a coward. This just wasn’t his style of fighting. He’d make his secret way to the city and Houston.

  Anyhow, he’d taken enough foul words on the march south, whenever he came forth among whites; and he couldn’t have felt at home among the blacks, either. Some of his people kept slaves, too.

  For his part, Payne had mostly ridden near Kearny, and learned he’d damn well better have an instant and accurate answer to every question flung at him. This general didn’t tiptoe forward. His men double-timed the whole distance. Water, gumbo, skirmishers on their flanks hardly slowed them at all. And still they arrived ready for combat. Payne liked to believe his scraps of information had helped, ever so little.

  A new din grabbed at him. Incredibly, his mind had wandered. He stood in his stirrups to peer north. A moment’s breeze scattered sulfury smoke clouds and he saw, yes, a blue swarm—ants at their distance, but myrmidons, sparks where metal threw back sunlight, and—did he only imagine?—a gnat’s-wing dance of colors, American colors.

  He whooped. “They did it, sir! By God,
they did it!”

  “I expected they would,” Kearny answered.

  —expected that the fourth of his forces that he detached, foot alone, rifles and naked steel, would storm the earthworks and cannon and troops between the lakes, overwhelm them in an hour’s slaughter, pass through without heavy loss, and take the rest of the enemy from behind.

  Confusion crawled over the green and the wet yonder. The Imperials had seen what was bound for them and were trying wildly to regroup and meet it. Kearny spoke to the officer on his right, who saluted and cantered off. More came, received their orders, and departed.

  “Sir—” Payne begged.

  “Not yet,” the general denied him. “Wait a while. I don’t hold with sending men to useless death.” A brief grin. “It’s worse than a crime, it’s a blunder.”

  Bugles rang. Drums rolled. In rank upon rank, the Americans who had been waiting advanced.

  Fire darted among them. They fell and they fell. Each time, the one behind stepped up to take that place, and the jog trot never slackened. On horseback though he was, Payne felt the mass of them beat through the ground into his bones. When at last they had passed, the litter bearers followed, coolly gathering those wounded who lived. Payne’s mind flew ahead, into a soldier he never knew; a young fellow; a boy maybe, French, Spanish, Creole, Cajun, mestizo, whatever, who crouched against some turfs and watched the blue host move in on him. Roses by moonlight, a snatch of song, or his mother’s hands tucking him into his crib once… .

  The tide reached the barriers and burst over them. An Imperial standard toppled, white and gold down into the muck underfoot.

  Payne shuddered with horror and glory. “Sir, that, that’s magnificent!”

  “It’s proper training, discipline, supply, and leadership,” Kearny said. Almost wearily: “Very well, a cavalry charge may serve some useful purpose at this stage. Major Cleland’s been urging it himself. Report to him.”

  “Sir!” Payne was off.

  Of the hour that came after, he kept no clear memories. They whirled, they hewed, they bled, sometimes they shrieked. During that span he was cool enough, aware and in control, too busy for fear or fury. Men dropped, right, left, behind, shot as they rode or pitched from the saddle when their horses crumpled and toppled. There was no exact moment when they penetrated the foe, just more and more alien uniforms, saberwork, pressing at a crowd that split and then enclosed him, poor Traveler finally sinking with scarlet a-spurt from three different cuts, but Payne found his feet and lashed about, but the blade had gone so heavy, moved so slowly—and then, and then the new uproar, blue trampling gray aside, and somehow he was in Hog Eye’s arms… .