Harry Turtledove - Marching Through Peachtree

He brought his thoughts back to the essential business of winning the war. Standing outside his pavilion, he could see Marthasville. He could all but reach out and touch Marthasville. “We just have to stretch things out,” he murmured.

“Sir?” Colonel Andy said.

“Joseph the Gamecock hasn’t got enough men,” George said. “If we make him do too many things at once, he won’t be able to manage all of them.”

“May you finally be right, sir,” Andy said. “We’ve been saying since the start of the campaign that, if we did this, that, or the other thing, Joseph the Gamecock’s army would break to pieces like a pot made of clay. We’ve been saying it and saying it, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Well, well.” Lieutenant General George eyed his adjutant in surprise. “And here I’m the fellow with the reputation for doubting. I’ve earned it, too, I must say. Have you caught the disease from me, my dear Colonel?”

“In this cursed northern heat, a man can catch any disease under the sun,” Colonel Andy replied. “The healers mostly don’t know how to cure them, either. Why shouldn’t I catch doubt along with everything else?”

“I’ll tell you why,” George replied. “Because this time we really are going to lick the traitors right out of their boots, that’s why. One of the things that has made this campaign so hard is that Joseph the Gamecock has always had room to maneuver, room to retreat. He doesn’t any more, not if he wants to hold on to Marthasville. All the chances for maneuvering work for us now.”

“I told you, sir: may it work out as you say.” Colonel Andy still looked glum. “But what do you want to bet that something will keep us from making the move to the northeast that General Hesmucet has ordered from us?”

“I can’t imagine what that would be,” George said.

“I can’t imagine what it would be, either,” his adjutant said. “But we’ve already seen a lot of unimaginable things in this campaign. What are a few more?”

George would have been happier had he had a ready answer for that, but he didn’t, and he knew it.

Joseph the Gamecock eyed his wing commanders. “Gentlemen, the thing we need most in all the world right now, it seems to me, is room to maneuver.”

“Another fancy way to talk about retreat,” Lieutenant General Bell muttered. Joseph didn’t think he was supposed to hear, but he did.

Here, though, Bell wasn’t the only discontented officer he had. Roast-Beef William clucked and said, “Sir, I don’t see how we can get room to maneuver without moving away from Marthasville, and holding Marthasville is the point of the exercise.”

“We can hold Marthasville with Duke Brown’s militiamen,” Joseph said. “The satrap’s men are starting to come into the forts around the city.”

“Hesmucet has real soldiers with him,” Roast-Beef William said glumly. “They’ll go through raw militiamen quick as boiled asparagus.”

Feeling about ready to burst from frustration, Joseph rounded on his third and newest wing commander and demanded, “How say you, Brigadier Alexander?”

“I want to strike the enemy a blow, as we all do,” Old Straight replied, “but I don’t want to uncover Marthasville to do it. My opinion is, we would do best to fight close to the city.”

“But staying close to Marthasville with our whole force means the southrons can maneuver as they please, while we’re trapped here,” Joseph protested. “They can swing all the way around the city and surround us, by the gods.”

“And in doing so, they will weaken themselves, and we can attack,” Bell said.

“I am looking for the chance to attack,” Joseph the Gamecock said. “Holding the city with the militia will give us that chance.”

“What does King Geoffrey think of this plan?” William asked.

“It appalls him,” Lieutenant General Bell replied.

“How do you know that?” Joseph inquired. Instead of answering, Bell took a swig of laudanum. Joseph the Gamecock went on, “I still think we can bring it off, and I still think it would be good for our strategic position if we did. And so, gentlemen, I want you to be prepared to move north and west of Marthasville whenever I give the order.”

“It is another retreat!” Bell groaned. “I knew it. By the Thunderer’s prong, sir, you’re abandoning Marthasville to the tender mercies of Hesmucet and his stinking southrons. I don’t care to be a part of any such maneuver. I think it’s extremely ill-advised-and that’s the best thing I can say about it.”

“With all respect, sir,” Roast-Beef William told Joseph, “I must say that, in this instance, I agree with Lieutenant General Bell.”

He’d never said anything like that before. Hearing it from him infuriated Joseph. Eyes and voice deadly cold, he demanded, “Are you refusing my orders, Lieutenant General? I thought you of all people understood subordination.”

“I do, sir. I refuse you nothing,” Roast-Beef William said unhappily. “But I do not refuse you my opinion, either. And my opinion is and remains that we would do better to fight around Marthasville.”

“Very well,” Joseph the Gamecock said. It wasn’t very well; it was nowhere close to very well. But Roast-Beef William had indeed spoken respectfully, and it was indeed part of a subordinate’s duty to give his superior his unvarnished views. Fuming still, Joseph rounded on Alexander the Steward. “Will you follow me without carping, Brigadier?”

“Certainly, sir, if you require it,” Old Straight replied. “I would be lying, though, if I said I liked your plan.”

“Well, what else can we do?” Joseph the Gamecock asked, aiming the question as much at malicious fate as at his wing commanders. “If we stay here and let Hesmucet maneuver as he pleases, we are liable to lose not just Marthasville but the whole Army of Franklin.”

“We need to attack,” Bell insisted.

“You keep saying that, like a parrot trained to do it in the hope of getting a sunflower seed,” Joseph said. As Bell glared at him, he went on, “Well, Pretty Poll, I have news for you: when the enemy’s army is twice the size of your own, you had better have a gods-damned strong position before you go and bite him on the leg.”

“If you don’t attack, what point to having an army at all?” Bell asked.

“Have you ever heard of defending?” Joseph the Gamecock said.

“Indeed, sir.” Bell nodded. “You have defended Peachtree Province so well, the whole southern half of it no longer needs to be defended at all.”

“If you’d thrown the army away, as you always seem to want to do, we wouldn’t still hold Marthasville,” Joseph said.

“You always think we will lose if we attack,” Bell retorted. “If we attack and win, we hurl the southrons back and we go forward.”

“True-if,” Joseph the Gamecock agreed. “Long odds, though, when we’re so outnumbered. That’s what you keep refusing to see.”

“They’re only southrons,” Bell said contemptuously. “We can lick as many of them as we need to lick.”

“It isn’t so,” Roast-Beef William said. “I must tell you, Lieutenant General, that is not so. They are Detinans, too. We have the advantage over them, perhaps, but not to the degree you imply.”

“If it were so,” Joseph added, “we could have won this war a long time ago. It lacks a good deal of being won right now, or else I’ve been living a nightmare for the past three years and more.”

“If we have the advantage over them, why are we running away?” Bell asked.

“By the gods, you hardheaded jackass, we are not running away,” Joseph the Gamecock ground out. “We’re looking for room to maneuver.”