Harry Turtledove - Marching Through Peachtree

Calm flowed through him. He no longer wanted to do anything dreadful to Joseph the Gamecock. He recognized that that would not be a good idea: if without leave he assailed the general commanding, had he any hope of afterwards ascending to the command? No. Surely it would go to a plodder like Roast-Beef William. Best to wait, then, and let his letters work… if they would.

As the laudanum took its soft, sure grip on his soul, he floated away from some, at least, of the pain tormenting him. And as the pain receded, so did some of his anger at Joseph the Gamecock. With enough laudanum in him, Bell could look at things more disinterestedly. James was assuredly loyal to the kingdom if not to the king. He was doing what he thought best, what he thought right.

“That doesn’t mean it is right, though,” Bell rumbled. Laudanum might ease his mind, but didn’t change it.

He grabbed his crutches, heaved himself upright, and went out into the hot, muggy, firefly-punctuated night. “Good evening, sir,” Major Zibeon said smoothly, materializing at his side.

“And what, by the gods, is so good about it?” Bell demanded. “Did you see one chance, one single, solitary chance, where we might have struck the enemy today?”

“No, sir,” his aide-de-camp answered. “And I was looking for such a chance, too.”

“So was I,” Bell said. “I didn’t see one, either. If I had, I would have hurled my men against the gods-damned southrons in the open field, and to the seven hells with what Joseph the Gamecock had to say about it.”

“I have no doubt you would have, sir.” Zibeon did not sound approving.

“We’ve got to hit the southrons a blow,” Bell insisted, as he’d been insisting since before the campaign began. “How far north will we go before we dare turn and face them again? All the way to Marthasville?”

“Not so far as that, sir,” Major Zibeon said, sounding as much like a good servant as a soldier. “From what I hear, the general commanding intends to halt at the fieldworks outside Fat Mama.”

“Hells of a name for a town,” Bell muttered; that one penetrated even laudanum. Then, more slowly than he would have done before he was maimed and had to drug himself to hold anguish at bay, he called up a map in his mind. “Fat Mama? That’s bad enough-it’s halfway to Marthasville, by the Lion God’s fangs.”

“Not quite, sir,” his aide-de-camp replied. “And the position is quite strong. With any luck at all, we should be able to hold them there for some time.”

“I doubt it,” Bell said, unconsciously imitating Lieutenant General George. “Joseph will decide we’re too fornicating outnumbered, and he’ll find an excuse to skedaddle again.”

“As Hesmucet comes farther up into Peachtree Province, the glideway path on which he depends for food and crossbow bolts and firepots and such grows longer and longer,” Zibeon said. “He needs more and more men to guard it, which leaves him with fewer and fewer men to put in in the field against us.”

Bell fixed him with a stare so cold and fierce, it might indeed have come from the Lion God. Campfirelight only gave his eyes a cold glitter that made his aide-de-camp involuntarily give back a step. “So what?” Bell said. “Joseph won’t care. You mark my words. He doesn’t want to fight, is what’s wrong with him.”

“I think you’re mistaken in that, sir,” Major Zibeon said, gathering himself. “And Joseph is looking for ways to get Ned of the Forest to attack Hesmucet’s supply line. When Ned strikes a glideway track, you may be sure it is properly struck. Ned plays the game for keeps.”

“It is not a game,” Bell insisted. “It is a war for the safety of our kingdom, one we must not lose. But if such as Joseph remain in charge over us, the war will be lost before it is well begun, for we shall do no fighting in it.”

“Joseph believes the war is already lost, if it be a matter of man against man, for the southrons have too many more men than we do,” Major Zibeon said. “To him, our best hope is to make the southrons weary of spending their lives to subdue us.”

“I have heard Joseph upon this subject more times than I care to. He would, I am certain, make a most excellent bookkeeper,” Bell said, acid in his voice. “Up until this time, I was unaware that casting accounts had become a cardinal military virtue.”

Zibeon was an imperturbable sort of man, but he winced. “Your outspokenness may land you in difficulty, sir,” he remarked.

“So what?” Bell said with a laugh. “What can my friends do to me that my foes haven’t done already?” He made certain the crutch under his right armpit was secure before gesturing at his ruined body.

Did Major Zibeon flush? In the firelight, Bell couldn’t be sure. His aide-de-camp said, “If you offend those set above you badly enough, they can remove you from your command.”

“Only Joseph the Gamecock is set above me in all the Army of Franklin,” Bell said. “Should he dare to have the nerve to seek my removal, you may rest assured I would appeal to the king.”

“Would Geoffrey hearken to such an appeal?”

He’d better , Bell thought. But not even Major Zibeon knew of the letters he was writing to the king in Nonesuch. And so Bell stuck to what everyone in the northern provinces-and probably half the southrons, too-knew: “King Geoffrey and Count Joseph have been known to disagree in the past. Anyone who disagrees with Joseph may have Geoffrey on his side.”

“ May , I believe, is the critical word,” Zibeon said. “Remember, sir, that we left Detina over the question of who was and who should be at the top of the hierarchy. Geoffrey’s natural instinct is to support those who are higher against those who are lower. That means Joseph, not you.”

“ My natural instinct is to go out and smash the enemy,” Bell retorted, “and Joseph the Gamecock has done a good, thorough job of stifling it. I am no bookkeeper on the battlefield, regardless of what he may be.”

“When we get to Fat Mama-”

“No.” Bell cut off his aide-de-camp with a toss of the head. “I told you once, and I tell you again, he’ll find some excuse to run away from there, too. You mark my words and wait and see.”

“Yes, sir,” Major Zibeon said tonelessly. “If you will excuse me, sir…” He strode off into the night.

Lieutenant General Bell grunted. He didn’t think he’d convinced Zibeon. On the other hand, he didn’t worry about it very much. His aide-de-camp had gone on and on about hierarchies. In the hierarchy of the northern army, Bell ranked far above Zibeon. He didn’t have to worry about what the major thought unless he chose to do so.

Unfortunately, the same did not apply to Joseph the Gamecock’s opinions. Joseph could do as he pleased here-could and would, unless King Geoffrey reined him in. “Fat Mama,” Bell said contemptuously. He turned around and stumped back into his pavilion.

When he lay down, he couldn’t sleep. He took another slug of laudanum. The doses he poured down would have felled a man not used to the drug: would have knocked him out and might have stopped his heart. But the laudanum didn’t even make Bell sleepy. If anything, it energized him, so that he lay on his cot with thoughts whirling like comets through his brain. Not all of them would be the best thoughts; he knew that. He would have to look at them in the morning, or whenever he turned out to be less drugged.

When I’m drugged all the time, though, how do I choose between the good ideas and those that aren’t so good? he wondered. He shrugged, then wished he hadn’t; even with the unicorn-stunning dose of laudanum in him, pain shot through his ruined left shoulder.