Harry Turtledove - Advance and Retreat

That last touched John the Lister’s honor, too. “By the Thunderer’s prick, sir, don’t they know you’re up here on the Franklin?” he asked angrily. “Don’t they know how many traitors we’ve killed, how many we’ve captured?”

“If they don’t, it’s not because I haven’t told them,” Doubting George replied. “But whether they want to listen is another question, gods damn it. You know how easy it is to be a genius when you’re running a campaign from a few hundred miles away from where the real fighting is, and how simple it is to blame the poor stupid sod who’s actually there for not being perfect.”

“Yes, sir.” Like any officer in the field, John knew that all too well.

“All I can say is, it’s a good thing Geoffrey has the same disease, or worse, or we’d be in a lot more trouble than we are.” George spat in disgust. “But… so it goes. And so you go. And may good fortune go with you. Considering the dribs and drabs that are left of the traitors’ armies, I expect it will.”

John expected that, too, and for the same reason. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “Thank you very much. And what will you be doing?”

“Well, I’m ordered to stay here with the rest of my army for now,” the commanding general replied. “You notice I’m not ordered to pursue Bell, even though they say they’re unhappy that I haven’t. What I figure will happen is, they’ll keep on detaching pieces from my army till I haven’t got much left. Then, maybe they’ll order me after what’s left of the Army of Franklin. And if I have trouble, they’ll blame me for it.” He shrugged. “Like I say, so it goes.”

“Army politics is a nasty business,” John said sympathetically. Doubting George’s glum prediction sounded all too likely to him.

With another shrug, George said, “It won’t change who wins the war, not now it won’t. I console myself with that. Of course, once we have won, they’ll probably ship me out to the steppe to fight the blond savages instead of letting me help hold down the traitors.”

“Urgh!” was all John the Lister said to that. Garrison duty at some dusty castle in the middle of nowhere? Command of a regiment at most, after leading an army tens of thousands strong? He looked down at his wrists. If he got orders like that with the rank among the regulars he now held, he’d think about slashing them. And George was a lieutenant general of regulars, not just a brigadier.

But the other officer surprised him, saying, “If that’s where they send me, I’ll go. Why the hells not? The blonds are honest enemies, not like some of the ones I’ve got in Georgetown.”

“Er-yes.” John thought George was being indiscreet. No, he didn’t just think so. He knew George was being indiscreet. If he let word get back to Georgetown about what the general commanding had said… well, what difference would it make? If George didn’t care whether they sent him to the trackless east, it would make no difference at all.

The power of indifference , John the Lister thought. Indifference was a power he’d never contemplated before, which made it no less real. Trust Doubting George to come up with a weapon like that .

“I have my orders,” George said, “and now you have yours. Go get your wing ready to travel, Brigadier. I know you’ll show Hesmucet he didn’t take all the good soldiers with him when he set out to march across Peachtree.”

“I’ll do that, sir,” John promised. “And I’m sorry things didn’t turn out better for you.”

“I doubt it,” Doubting George said. “What you wish is that Marshal Bart would’ve named you commanding general here instead of trying to ship Baron Logan the Black here from the west. Then you would’ve smashed Bell in front of Ramblerton, and you would’ve been the hero. Eh? Am I right or am I wrong?”

“You’re right,” John mumbled, embarrassed he had to admit it. “Why didn’t you do more to call me on it back then?” George had warned him, but hadn’t made it so plain he knew what was going on in his mind.

With one more massive shrug, the general commanding said, “We had to beat Bell first. Now we’ve done that, so whether we squabble among ourselves doesn’t matter so much.” His smile was strangely wistful. “To the victors go the spoils-and the squabbles over them.”

“Yes, sir.” John the Lister gave Doubting George a salute that had a lot of hail-and-farewell in it. “Believe me, sir, I’ll have the men in tiptop shape when we go west to join up with General Hesmucet.”

Now Doubting George looked and sounded as sharp and cynical as he usually did: “Oh, I do believe you, Brigadier. After all, if the soldiers perform well, you look good because of it.”

Nodding, John saluted again and beat a hasty retreat. He’d served alongside George before serving under him. He wouldn’t be sorry to get away, to serve under General Hesmucet again. Yes, Hesmucet could be difficult. But, from everything John the Lister had seen, any general worth his pantaloons was difficult. Hesmucet, though, had a simple driving energy John liked. Doubting George brooded and fretted before he struck. When he finally hit, he hit hard. That his army stood by the southern bank of the Franklin proved as much. Still, his long wait till all the pieces he wanted were in place had driven everyone around him to distraction.

Hesmucet, now, Hesmucet had blithely set out across Peachtree Province toward Veldt without even worrying about his supply line, let alone anything else. He’d taken a chance-taken it and got away with taking it. John tried to imagine Doubting George doing the like.

And then, just when he was about to dismiss his present but not future general commanding as an old foof, he remembered George had had the idea for tramping across Peachtree weeks before Hesmucet latched on to it and made it real. John scratched his head. What did that say? “To the hells with me if I know,” he muttered. The more you looked at people, the more complicated they got.

John had hardly returned to his own command before a major came running up to him and asked, “Sir, is it really true we’re going to Croatoan?”

“How the hells did you know that?” John stared. “Lieutenant General George just this minute gave me my orders.”

The major didn’t look the least bit abashed. “Oh, it’s all over camp by now, sir,” he said airily. “So it is true, eh?”

“Yes, it’s true.” John’s voice, by contrast, was heavy as granite. “Gods damn me if I know why we bother giving orders at all. Rumor could do the job twice as well in half the time.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised, sir.” Trying to be agreeable, the major accidentally turned insulting instead. He didn’t even notice. Saluting, he went on, “Well, the men will be ready. I promise you that.” He hurried away, intent on turning his promise into reality.

John the Lister gaped, then started to laugh. “Gods help the traitors,” he said to nobody in particular. Then, laughing still, he shook his head. “No, nothing can help them now.”

Officers set above Doubting George had given him plenty of reason to be disgusted all through the War Between the Provinces. There were times, and more than a few of them, when he’d worried more about his own superiors than about the fierce blue-clad warriors who followed false King Geoffrey. But this… this was about the hardest thing George had ever had to deal with.

He’d done everything King Avram and Marshal Bart wanted him to do. He’d kept Bell and the Army of Franklin from reaching the Highlow River. He’d kept them from getting into Cloviston at all. They’d hardly even touched the Cumbersome River, and they’d never come close to breaking into Ramblerton.