Harry Turtledove - Marching Through Peachtree

In a tent just east of Viper River Gap, General Hesmucet looked daggers at Brigadier John the Bird’s Eye. “You had them,” Hesmucet growled. “Gods damn it, you had them, and you let them get away. The sort of chance a soldier only gets once in a lifetime. You could have strolled right into Caesar-”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” the younger man broke in, “but that isn’t true at all. I tried to break into Caesar, and I took some hundreds of men killed and wounded for my trouble, and I did not succeed.”

“One understrength brigade holding the town,” Hesmucet grumbled. “You outnumbered the traitors three or four to one. You could have had your way with them, could have seized Caesar, could have cut Joseph the Gamecock off from Marthasville, which is the one thing in all the world-the one and only thing, mind you-he knows must not happen to his army.”

“Sir,” James the Bird’s Eye said stiffly, “my orders were to attack the glideway line to see how it was defended, and then to dig in at the mouth of Viper River Gap and to have my men ready to pursue the northerners if they took flight. I followed them exactly as you gave them to me. If you blame me for that, sir…” He didn’t go on, not with words, but the tip of his curly black beard quivered in indignation.

And Hesmucet, contemplating the orders he had indeed given, let out a long, rueful sigh. “Very well, Brigadier. You have a point, and you made it well. I can still wish you might have done more, but you were perfectly justified in doing as you did on the basis of what I told you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Brigadier James replied, his tone still aggrieved.

I meant every word of what I told you, though , Hesmucet thought. You had the sort of chance you may never see again, and you didn’t take it. The northerners were strong enough to stop your first tap, and you didn’t tap twice. If you had, you’d be a hero today and probably an earl tomorrow .

“May I make an observation, sir?” Joseph the Bird’s Eye asked.

“Go ahead,” Hesmucet said, though most men would have quailed at speaking too frankly by the way he said it.

Young James had nerve, even if he hadn’t done everything Hesmucet would have wanted of him. He said, “Sir, if this was supposed to be your striking force and the one attacking the gaps farther south your holding force, you might have done better to let me assail the Vulture’s Nest and the Dog’s Path and to have sent Lieutenant General George up here with his much bigger army to strike at Caesar.”

Hesmucet pondered that. He was not a sweet-tempered man, but he was, on the whole, a just one. However much he wanted to scorch Brigadier James for his presumption, he discovered he couldn’t. “Well, gods damn it, you’re right,” he said.

James the Bird’s Eye blinked. “Sir?” Evidently, that wasn’t what he’d expected to hear from the general commanding.

“You’re right,” Hesmucet repeated. “I wish you weren’t, but you are. I sent a boy to do a man’s job, and I had a man ready to hand. That was a mistake. I hope I won’t make the same one again. A good general makes mistakes once. A bad general keeps doing the same stupid gods-damned thing over and over.”

“That’s… probably something worth remembering,” James said.

“So it is-for you and me both,” Hesmucet said. “All right, Brigadier-you may go. It would have been nice if we could have just swarmed into Caesar and ruined Joseph the Gamecock right at the start of this campaign, but if we can’t, we can’t. We’ll try something else, that’s all.”

Saluting, James the Bird’s Eye ducked his way out of the pavilion. Hesmucet paused, thinking how the war had changed since its early days. Doubting George had had it right. Back then, armies on both sides had largely marched where they would. When they happened to collide with an opposing army, they would fight. Now both Marshal Bart and Hesmucet himself had clear goals in mind: Bart to hammer the Army of Southern Parthenia till it could stand no more hammering, Hesmucet to do the same to the Army of Franklin. No one in the first two years of the war could even have imagined such efforts. These truly were campaigns, perhaps the first such that had ever been fought in the Kingdom of Detina.

“What that means is, I’d better not bungle this one any more,” Hesmucet muttered. He stepped out of the pavilion and called for a couple of runners. When the men came up, he said, “My compliments to Doubting George and Fighting Joseph, and ask them to attend me here at their earliest convenience.”

“Yes, sir,” the runners chorused. They put their heads together for a moment, no doubt deciding who would go to which general. Then they loped away.

Lieutenant General George got to Hesmucet’s tent first. The commanding general would have been surprised had it been the other way round. George might not love me, but he does love the kingdom , Hesmucet thought. Fighting Joseph loves Fighting Joseph, and nobody and nothing else .

“Your flanking move didn’t quite work, sir,” George remarked.

“No, not quite,” Hesmucet agreed. “I probably should have used James the Bird’s Eye to demonstrate against the two gaps farther south and sent your bigger army through Viper River Gap against Caesar.”

“I rather thought so at the time, sir, but I doubted whether I should press the point,” George said. “I know you’re keeping that kind of eye on me.”

“Well… yes.” Hesmucet wasn’t easily nonplused, but Doubting George had done the job. “We will manage to work together, though, one way or another, I think. And I’m still figuring out what I can do with all the soldiers I’ve got here. This is a large command. Next time, I’ll manage my moves better.”

“Fair enough, sir,” George said. “I don’t doubt that in the slightest.”

Fighting Joseph rode up just then, a procession of one. Hesmucet, an indifferent rider, had an indifferent unicorn. Doubting George, a good rider, had a fine unicorn. And Fighting Joseph, a splendid rider, had the most glorious unicorn Hesmucet had ever seen: whiter than snow, horn shod with polished silver rather than workaday iron, coat and mane and tail all combed to magnificent perfection.

Fighting Joseph looked moderately magnificent himself. He was a handsome, ruddy man whose hair had gone silver, not mere gray. He looked as if he ought to be a king, not so lowly a creature as a general. Many people-King Avram not least among them-believed he thought he ought to be king, too. Avram had given him command in the west anyhow the year before, willing to gamble victories against the chance of a usurpation after them.

He hadn’t got the victories. Duke Edward of Arlington not only beat but embarrassed Fighting Joseph at Viziersville. Now Joseph commanded a wing here in the distant east, not an army in the vital west. But he still thought well of himself.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said as he dismounted and tied his unicorn to a tree branch. He saluted with a certain reluctance, as if unhappy about acknowledging any man his superior, even if only in a formal sense. “Now that we didn’t break through here, what are we going to try next?”

“Breaking through again, obviously,” Hesmucet said. Fighting Joseph had nerve, throwing his failure in his face like that. But then, Fighting Joseph did have nerve and to spare. What he didn’t quite have was the soldierly talent to go with it.

“Just as you say, sir,” Fighting Joseph replied. “I did it on the slopes of Sentry Peak, and George here did it at Proselytizers’ Rise-with a little help from Thraxton the Braggart, of course.” He chuckled. “I expect we can manage something along those lines for you again.”