“Keep moving!” Blaise called to the Atlanteans near him as they marched along. “Every step you take, you have less excuse for tripping over your own big, clumsy feet.”
When they got to Ulysses Grigsby’s chosen battlefield, a lot of the men murmured appreciatively. As Baron von Steuben had noticed, one difference between Atlanteans and Englishmen was that Atlanteans liked thinking for themselves instead of letting somebody else do it for them. Most of Victor’s troopers imagined themselves captains if not generals. They could see—or believed they could see—what would happen if the redcoats came up that road through the meadow.
As Victor made his dispositions, his soldiers’ dispositions grew cheerier by the minute. “Might even’ve been worth booting us out of bed so bloody early,” a rifleman called to Radcliff.
“So glad you approve,” Victor said.
“You won’t get higher praise than that,” Grigsby remarked.
Victor nodded. “Don’t I know it!”
Spatters of musketry started up, off to the east. Victor had sent reinforcements to his pickets during the night. He wanted his men to harass the redcoats if they chose the wrong roads and to leave them alone if they came along the ones he wanted. This was the tricky part. If the Atlanteans guided too openly, Howe would wonder why . . . wouldn’t he?
Little by little, the gunfire faded away. Ulysses Grigsby sketched a salute. “Damn me if I don’t believe you’ve brung it off.”
“Well, we can hope so,” Victor answered. He had his men and fieldpieces deployed the way he wanted them. He needed to make General Howe think he was ready to fight here, but not that he was excessively eager about it.
For that matter, he needed to make himself feel the same way. The spot Ulysses Grigsby had suggested looked good, but he wouldn’t know it was till the fighting ended. And, if Grigsby had somehow contrived to play him false, it would prove to be not so good as it seemed. In that case, the English Atlantean’s fate would prove less pleasant than Grigsby wished.
“Skirmishers forward!” Victor commanded. He had to look as if he’d just stumbled upon this position and chosen to fight here more or less on a whim. Soldiers sniping at the redcoats and trying to slow down and disrupt their advance would add a convincing touch.
Cavalrymen rode back through the advancing skirmishers. “They’re coming!” the riders shouted, and some added obscene embellishments on the theme.
Victor Radcliff surveyed the field. “I do believe we’re ready to greet them properly,” he said, and then, to Ulysses Grigsby’s guards, “Take the gentleman back and keep him out of the way till we see how things develop. After that, we’ll know whether he stabbed us in the back or we should pat him on his.”
“Come along, you,” growled the sergeant in charge of the guards.
“You’re an endearing chap, aren’t you?” Grigsby said.
The sergeant looked at him as if flies buzzed around him in an open field. “No. Come on, I said.”
“You certainly did.” Grigsby came.
Victor eyed his men behind a stone wall. They shouldn’t disconcert the redcoats. General Howe knew the Atlanteans liked to fight from cover when they could. Sometimes, they’d made English troops sorry. Others, the redcoats had managed to storm their positions in spite of everything. When the redcoats came to close quarters, their skill—and viciousness—with the bayonet gave them the edge.
More gunfire erupted up ahead. That had to be the skirmishers fighting a delaying action against the English. Yes, here they came, firing and falling back. The musketeers, who could shoot more quickly, helped keep the redcoats off the riflemen, who could hit from longer range.
“Come on! Come on!” Victor Radcliff waved his hat. “You can do it! The line’s just ahead now!”
Most of the skirmishers took their place behind the stone fence. Some went off to the surgeon, either under their own power or helped by their friends. Brave banners from the Atlantean regiments fluttered in the morning sun.
And more brave banners appeared from out of the sun. It didn’t seem that an English squad could march into battle without drums thumping and flags flying, much less a company or a regiment. Had trees sprouted flags in place of leaves, Victor would have thought Birnam Wood was out looking for Dunsinane.
When General Howe and his officers spotted the flags marking the Atlantean position, they paused well out of rifle range and methodically dressed their lines. Very faint in the distance, sergeants’ angry shouts reached Victor’s ears. He smiled. Underofficers seemed much the same regardless of army or uniform.
With his spyglass, he found General Howe. A slightly less gorgeously clad officer was talking to the English commander. The lower-ranking man pointed to the woods ahead and to either side of the stone fence the Atlanteans defended. Victor idly wondered if that was Richard Cornwallis or some other English officer who’d fought the French Atlanteans the last time around.
Whoever the Englishman was, General Howe didn’t want to listen to him. Howe pointed to the Atlantean banners, then waved his hand. The spyglass didn’t let Victor recognize expressions, but he had no doubt what that dismissive gesture meant. The English commander did it so well, he might have used it on the stage.
The other officer tried once more. This time, Howe’s gesture seemed more imperious than dismissive. Stop bothering me and carry out your orders—that was what he had to mean. The junior officer saluted and rode away. Whatever he was thinking, he perforce kept it to himself.
Howe’s field artillery deployed. The men performed their evolutions with admirable speed and precision. Victor would have found them even more admirable if they weren’t aimed at his men.
One after another, the English cannon boomed. A roundshot roared over the Atlanteans. Another smacked the fence they sheltered behind. Flying chunks of stone wounded several men.
Atlantean cannon posted by the fence thundered a reply. A lucky shot from one of them knocked a wheel off an English gun carriage. The enemy fieldpiece pointed at an odd angle, as if trying to stand up straight while drunk. Artillerymen rushed to repair the wounded cannon.
Another Atlantean roundshot plowed through several ranks of redcoats before finally losing its momentum. Victor heard those distant soldiers shriek. Their comrades dragged badly hurt men off to the surgeons and took their places without any fuss. The slaughter machine that was an English army tramped forward to the beat of the drum and the wail of the fife.
“Don’t shoot too soon, you damnfool musketeers!” That had to be an Atlantean sergeant: no officer would have shown common soldiers so much scorn. The man went on, “You just waste powder and lead if you do! We can get more lead out of your thick skulls, but we really are low on powder.”
A cannon tore another furrow in the English ranks. The redcoats closed up and kept coming. Riflemen opened fire on them. Those men could have won the war single-handed if only they reloaded faster. Since they didn’t . . .
“Musketeers—be ready!” Victor shouted. That command wasn’t in the manual of arms. The men knew what it meant all the same. Victor hoped they did, anyhow. He’d yelled himself hoarse instructing them as they marched from their encampment to this position. Now . . . had they listened? Would soldiers pay attention when you tried to get them to do something they weren’t used to doing?
“Musketeers—fire!” That wasn’t Victor: several sergeants and officers yelled the same thing at the same time.
The muskets roared. Darts of flame spat toward the oncoming redcoats. A young fogbank of fireworks-smelling smoke rose above the stone fence in back of which the Atlanteans sheltered.
Surprisingly few Englishmen fell. The ones who didn’t let out a cheer full of as much relief as ferocity. The fifes and drums picked up their rhythm. The redcoats double-timed toward the fence. At a shouted command, their bayoneted muskets lowered in a glittering wave of sharp steel.
Victor tensed. If things went wrong now, it would be embarrassing. Fatally embarrassing, most likely. And things
went wrong all the time in war. Anyone who’d done any fighting knew that.
Why didn’t the rest of the Atlanteans . . . ? And then, all of a sudden, they did. He’d posted men and field guns in the trees in front of and to either side of the stone fence. All the banners stayed in plain view behind the fence. A well-disciplined Englishman like Howe might conclude from that that all the Atlanteans also stood behind the fence.
Such a conclusion was reasonable. It was logical. Unfortunately for the redcoats, it was also wrong. Dead wrong.
Musketry and canister tore into the English soldiers from both flanks. The soldiers in back of the wall abruptly stopped shooting high on purpose. Muskets weren’t very accurate under any circumstances, but they could hit more often than they had been.
How the redcoats howled! Victor whooped and flung his hat in the air and danced an ungainly dance—his side of it, at least—with Blaise. “They haven’t learned one damned thing since General Braddock’s day!” he shouted to anyone who’d listen. “Not one damned thing!”
“How do they ever win battles, let alone wars?” Blaise asked.
“Because they’re brave,” Victor answered. “Because other people are just as stupid as they are. But not today, by God!”
“No, not today,” Blaise agreed. “They can’t get through, and they can’t get away, either.”
The redcoats tried charging the stone fence. If they could smash the Atlanteans there, they would fight on their own terms once more, not on Victor Radcliff’s. Several scorching volleys showed them they couldn’t. Dead and wounded men lay drifted in front of the fence. And the galling fire from right and left kept costing them more casualties, and they were altogether unable to answer it.
“General Howe’s down!” somebody shouted. The news blazed up and down the Atlantean line, fast as a quick-burning fuse.
“It is like Braddock’s battle!” Blaise exclaimed. Marching blithely into a trap, General Braddock had nearly killed English hopes in Atlantis along with most of his own soldiers. Victor and the English Atlanteans he led were the ones who’d got the redcoats’ remnants away from the French Atlanteans. Who would extricate this batch of redcoats? Anyone at all?
“Punish them, boys!” Victor shouted. “Make them pay for all they’ve done to us!”
Whooping with delight, the greencoats did. They’d won skirmishes over the winter, but never before a pitched battle against the English. Considering all the close fights they’d lost the year before, they had a lot to pay back. They did their best to settle the debt all at once.
English trumpets blared. The foot soldiers stopped trying to force their way over the stone fence. That was plainly impossible, which hadn’t kept them from going on with the attack. Only the trumpeted order to pull back ended the self-inflicted torment. Victor admired the redcoats’ discipline more than their common sense.
They sullenly re-formed their ranks and began to march away. “Do we pursue, sir?” Habakkuk Biddiscombe asked.
Victor’s first impulse was to say no. He didn’t want to throw away the fine victory his men had already gained. But the English soldiers had to be more rattled than they seemed . . . didn’t they? If he pushed them, they’d go to pieces . . . wouldn’t they?
He decided he had to find out. The only thing better than a fine victory was a great victory. If you were going to get one, you had to take a chance now and then. “Yes, by God, we do pursue!” he exclaimed.
“Thank you, sir!” the cavalry officer exclaimed, a broad grin spreading across his face. “I was afraid I’d have to . . . do something insubordinate to get that order out of you.”
To thwack you with a big stick, was what he had to mean. Victor grinned back. “Well, you’ve got it. Now make the most of it.”
“We’ll do that very thing, General.” Biddiscombe started shouting orders of his own. Victor Radcliff realized he knew exactly what he intended to do. How long had he been working that out? Since the moment he first saw this position, chances were. Well, good. Officers needed to think ahead.
And that reminded Victor of something. He called for a runner. When the young man appeared before him, he said, “My compliments to Mr. Grigsby’s guards, James, and they may release him. It seems plain enough that he didn’t purpose betraying us to General Howe.”
“Right you are, sir.” James sketched a salute and darted away. Victor wished for that much energy himself.
Horsemen and field guns went after the retreating redcoats. So did the foot soldiers who’d pummeled them from the trees. And—Victor watched in amazed delight—damned if the redcoats didn’t fall to pieces right before his eyes. In the space of a few minutes, an army turned into a panic-stricken mob. Men threw away packs and muskets to flee the faster.
“Will you look at that?” Victor said to Blaise. “Will you look at that? We’ve whipped them! They’ve never been beaten like this, not in Atlantis. I don’t know when they last got beaten like this back in Europe.”
“What do we do now?” Blaise asked.
“I’ll tell you what,” Victor answered. “Custis Cawthorne must be in France by this time. We make sure he knows about it. And we make sure he lets the French hear about it. If they help us, our chances go up. France’s navy has got better, a lot better, since the last time she fought England.”
Blaise was more immediately practical. “No, no. I mean, what do we do with all the prisoners we are taking? What do we do with all the muskets and things the redcoats throw out?”
“Oh.” Victor felt foolish. Yes, what he’d talked about also needed doing. But what Blaise talked about needed doing right away. “We especially need to round up bayonets. With a little luck, we’ll never run short of them again. And we need to see if we’ve captured any supply wagons. The ones they make in England are better than any we have here.”
“I will give those orders.” Blaise hurried away.
Victor whistled softly. The whole war had just changed. He hadn’t yet proved that, generalship being equal, Atlanteans could match Englishmen in the open field. But, if the Atlanteans had even slightly better generalship, they could not only match the redcoats but beat them.
“I told you so.”
For a moment, Victor thought the words came straight from his own spirit. Then he realized Ulysses Grigsby had come up beside him. He nodded. “Yes, Mr. Grigsby, as a matter of fact, you did.”
That took the wind out of Grigsby’s sails. With a wry chuckle, he said, “How am I supposed to stay sore at you when you go and admit something like that?”
“Plenty of people would think it was easy,” Victor assured him.
“I hope I know what gratitude’s worth.” Ulysses Grigsby hesitated, then plunged: “And speaking of which, your Excellency, any chance you might reward me in specie instead of paper? You didn’t get something small from me, you know.”
“I do indeed, and I would be glad to give you specie if only I had any to give.” That wasn’t the full truth, but Victor didn’t think the other man needed to know everything about how the Atlanteans financed their war. He went on, “I will put the question to the Atlantean Assembly. If the Conscript Fathers choose to reward you in the fashion you request, no man will be happier than I.”
“Oh, one man will, I reckon.” Grigsby jabbed a thumb at his own chest. “Gold and silver, they last. Who knows what Atlantean paper will be worth ten years from now? Meaning no disrespect, General, but who knows if it’ll be worth anything ten years from now?”
“Our best chance to have it at par with specie is to win this war against England,” Victor said. “Thanks to you, Mr. Grigsby, we’re far closer to that goal than we were at this hour yesterday.”
“Damn right we are. That’s why I want specie.” Grigsby had the simple rapacity of a red-crested eagle. Victor didn’t care why the other man had warned the Atlantean army. As long as he had, nothing else mattered.
The sun was going down in crimson glory over the Green Ridge Mountains when several grinning Atlanteans led
an English subaltern carrying a flag of truce into Victor Radcliff’s presence. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant . . . ?” Victor asked, though he supposed he already knew the answer.
“My name is Fleming, General—John Fleming,” the young Englishman said. “I have the honor to convey General Cornwallis’ compliments to you, and to ask if your side, having prevailed today, would be gracious enough to return General Howe’s body for proper interment.”
“Do you suppose we would bury him improperly?” Victor asked with some asperity. “We are not barbarians, sir—unlike the Terranovan savages England loosed against our western settlements.”
“Please excuse me. That is not what I meant. It is not what General Cornwallis meant, either,” Lieutenant Fleming said quickly.
“Well, I am pleased to have General Cornwallis’ compliments. In days gone by, as you may know, we fought on the same side,” Victor said. “So perhaps you will be so kind as to explain to me what he did mean.”
“Certainly, sir,” Fleming said. “If a fight went badly for you, would you not sooner be buried by your friends than by your foes?”
“I would sooner not have to make such an unhappy choice, but I do see what you mean,” Victor answered. “We have captured more than a few of your wagons in the pursuit. I shall return one of them to you with General Howe’s body—which, I assure you, has not been badly plundered.”
“What does that mean?” Lieutenant Fleming could also sound sharp.
“He is fully accoutered,” Victor said. “When I first saw his body, his purse was empty. Whether he went into the battle with it empty, I fear I cannot say.” He spread his hands. “War is what it is.”
“True enough.” The English officer sighed, but he nodded. “I accept your assurances on that score.”
“If you would like to take back as many other bodies as the wagon will carry, you may do so.” Having won, Victor could afford to be generous about trifles. He did believe the redcoats would have returned the favor had things gone the other way.
The United States of Atlantis Page 19
