Harry Turtledove - Marching Through Peachtree

“I’m using my head, or trying to,” Joseph snapped. He felt as if he were using it to pound it against a stone wall. “If thinking be impiety, it’s no wonder you have a reputation as a pillar of the gods.”

Leonidas bowed and strode off, his scarlet vestments flapping around his ankles. I hope you trip and break your neck, Joseph the Gamecock thought. But his prayer went unanswered. Of course it goes unanswered. I’m impious. Leonidas just said so. That must make it true .

Lieutenant General Bell said, “Stay in Fat Mama, sir. If you want to see your army destroyed without the slightest chance of striking back, by all means stay.” And he hitched away, too.

“What can I do?” Joseph demanded of Roast-Beef William. “I think we can hold here. You think we can hold here.”

“But we can’t hold here if those two don’t think we can,” his remaining wing commander said, which was all too likely to be true. With a resigned shrug, Roast-Beef William went on, “Maybe they’ll like things better up at Whole Mackerel.”

“Not likely,” Joseph the Gamecock said. But he tasted defeat. “My own wing commanders have beaten me worse than the southrons ever managed. Let it be as you say, William. We’ll pack up shop and shift to Whole Mackerel. Maybe things will go better there.” He didn’t believe it, not for a moment.

And he hated drafting the orders that moved the Army of Franklin from as yet unchallenged works and sent it farther north yet. He hated even more watching the men in blue abandon those field fortifications. Some of them marched off to the north. Others boarded glideway carpets for the trip up to Whole Mackerel. Sorcerers had dreamt for ages of making carpets that would fly anywhere at the wave of a hand and a word of command. Glideways were as close as they’d come: carpets that would travel a few inches above the ground along very specific routes. They could carry men and goods as fast as a horse galloped, and they never tired.

Joseph wished he could say the same. He was very weary indeed as he rode out of Fat Mama for Whole Mackerel. It wasn’t so much a weariness of the body as a weariness of the spirit. He’d done everything he knew how to do to keep the southrons from turning or overrunning his position at Fat Mama, and everything he’d done had gone for nothing.

And King Geoffrey will hear of this latest retreat, and whom will he blame? Me, of course, Joseph thought gloomily. If there is ever any chance to blame me for anything, his Majesty is not the man to waste it .

He left behind a screen of unicorn-riders to destroy what the Army of Franklin couldn’t take away with it and to hold off the southrons till his abandonment of Fat Mama was complete. Brigadier Spinner, who commanded the unicorn-riders, was competent but uninspired. He was plenty good enough for the task Joseph had set him. Even so, his presence on the field left Joseph unhappy.

I wish Ned of theForest were here, instead of over by theGreatRiver, Joseph thought unhappily. I wish he were harrying Hesmucet’s supply line. A glideway Ned attacks isn’t any good to anyone for a long time to come .

One of the reasons Ned was in virtual exile, Joseph had heard, was that he’d all but challenged Thraxton the Braggart to a duel after the battle by the River of Death. A good many northern men had felt like killing Thraxton at one time or another. Few of them found the nerve to come right out and say so. Ned of the Forest might not be a gentleman, but he’d never lacked for nerve.

Joseph the Gamecock looked back over his shoulder. Sure enough, there was the buggy carrying Lieutenant General Bell. Joseph muttered something uncomplimentary. Bell had come with the same reputation for vigorous fighting as Ned, even if no one ever claimed he made much of a tactician. But he wouldn’t attack when Joseph really needed aggression from him. And he didn’t think the Army of Franklin could have held Fat Mama. What did that say about him?

He’s been wounded too many times, Joseph thought, as charitably as he could. He takes too much laudanum. It clouds his judgment . Of course, Leonidas the Priest hadn’t thought the northern army could hold at Fat Mama, either. But what did that prove? Joseph the Gamecock let out a bitter snort of laughter. Nothing much, and everyone knows it. If Leonidas thinks something can’t be done, that usually proves it can .

Too late now, though. Fat Mama lay behind the Army of Franklin, as did Caesar, as did Borders. Ahead, Whole Mackerel. After that, what? The Army of Franklin was tied to Marthasville, and Joseph knew it painfully well. Hesmucet could maneuver as he would. Joseph couldn’t. He had to shield the town from the southron host. Hesmucet had to know that as well as he did, too.

He had to, but could he? I don’t know . He was honest enough to admit as much to himself. However honest it was, the admission did nothing to reassure him. Did King Geoffrey send me here to watch me fail? he wondered. Did he send me here in hope of finding an excuse to put me back on the shelf for good? To the hells with him. Gods damn me if I intend to give him one .

General Hesmucet eyed the pass leading through the hills northwest to Whole Mackerel. The pass would have been a nasty place to try to force a crossing even if the traitors and their serfs hadn’t had weeks to fortify it. As things were… As things were, Hesmucet shook his head and spoke two words to his wing commanders: “No, thanks.”

“Can’t say I’m sorry, sir,” Doubting George said. “Tackling that position would be as bad as going head-on at the Vulture’s Nest and the Dog’s Path. We could use up a lot of soldiers without getting much.”

“Another flanking maneuver?” James the Bird’s Eye asked eagerly. Of course the young brigadier was eager: if Hesmucet did try a flanking maneuver, he hoped his men would again be the ones to make it.

Fighting Joseph coughed a significant cough. “My warriors,” he observed, “have not yet won their fair share of glory on this campaign.”

“Haven’t done their fair share of dying, do you mean?” George muttered. Hesmucet heard the gibe; he didn’t think Fighting Joseph did.

He said, “Yes, I intend to flank the northerners out of this position. But I intend to use the whole army to do it.” James the Bird’s Eye’s face fell. Hesmucet pretended not to notice. He went on, “Twenty years ago, when I was a subaltern, I rode from Karlsburg in Palmetto Province to Hiltonia here in Peachtree, and then on to Bellfoundry in the province of Dothan. As a young soldier is supposed to do, I noted the lay of the land hereabouts, and I think I still recollect it tolerably well. There is a place to the north of Whole Mackerel called Fort Worthless-”

“Cheerful name,” Brigadier James said with a grin.

“Believe me, the place deserves it,” Hesmucet answered. “They say the mosquitoes there spring from dragons on their mothers’ side, and that they’re big enough to carry off a man. I don’t know about the second, but, having been bitten by more than a few of them, I would say the first is surely true. Now, if we can take this place, we interpose ourselves between Joseph the Gamecock and Marthasville. That is what I’m going to try to do.”

“That’s what you’ve been trying to do all along,” Doubting George said.

“My own view is, we ought to just hammer the traitors,” Fighting Joseph said.

“Nothing would please me better,” Hesmucet said, “but Joseph the Gamecock declines to send his men out of their earthworks to be hammered. As long as he keeps his army intact and holds us away from Marthasville, he accomplishes his purpose. I don’t aim to let him.”