Harry Turtledove - Marching Through Peachtree

He drank more laudanum to help him sleep. Even so, he woke up in the middle of the night. At first, he thought the noise he heard was rain pounding on the roof. He wouldn’t have minded that; it would have made moving harder for Hesmucet and the southrons. But what he heard wasn’t the patter of rain. It was the patter of feet: Roast-Beef William’s men tramping past by moonlight, to take their positions for the morning’s attack against James the Bird’s Eye and the southrons’ left.

Good old William , Bell thought drowsily. He may not think I’m right-he doesn’t think I’m right-but he’ll follow orders anyway, and follow them as well as he knows how. I wish all my officers were so reliable . He fell back to sleep with a smile on his face.

Even before sunrise, the distant racket of battle woke him: bowstrings snapping, firepots bursting, men screaming and cursing for all they were worth. That racket was the sweetest music Bell knew. When he cursed, it was in frustration because his wounds no longer let him take the field. He’d never felt more like a man than when risking his life and taking those of his foes. His injuries had robbed him of that forever.

Those injuries clamored for his notice, too. He reached out with his good hand and grabbed the laudanum bottle, which sat on a table next to his bed. Yanking the cork with his teeth, he swigged. Before long, the fire in his shoulder and in his stump would ease.

Even before it did, though, someone pounded on the farmhouse door. “Just a minute,” Bell shouted. Getting out of bed wasn’t easy. He had to position his crutches and then lever himself upright. He didn’t bother putting on his one boot, but hitched across the dirt floor on the crutches and his bare foot. He unlatched the door and eyed the runner waiting there. “Well?” he demanded.

“We’re driving ’em, sir,” the runner told him. “We’re driving ’em like hells, pushing ’em back like nobody’s business.”

“Ah,” Bell said. That felt as good as the laudanum now beginning to glide through his veins. “Give me the details.”

“Haven’t got a whole lot of ’em, sir,” the soldier answered. “I expect you’ll hear more later on. But I know for a fact there’s places where we’re shooting at the gods-damned southrons from the front and the back at the same time.”

“That’s good,” Bell said, which would do for an understatement till a bigger one came along. “That’s very good. If we can drive them to destruction, the entire campaign looks different.”

“Hope so, sir,” the runner said. “Plenty of good fighting-I’ll tell you that.” He saluted and hurried away.

Bell wished he were at the head of the wing attacking the southrons, not Roast-Beef William. Nothing made him feel more truly alive than roaring like a lion and flinging himself at the enemy. When his sword bit… Feeling steel pierce foe’s flesh had a satisfaction even feeling his own lance pierce a woman’s flesh couldn’t match. He muttered a curse under his breath. With all the laudanum he drank, his lance didn’t stand and charge the way it had before he got hurt, either.

That made him remember that attackers as well as defenders could get hurt. He forgot that whenever he could. Attacks went in. If they went in properly, they carried everything before them. So he’d made himself believe. It had always-well, almost always-worked for Duke Edward of Arlington and the Army of Southern Parthenia. It had worked for Earl James of Broadpath here in the east at the River of Death. It had worked there even if that fight cost Bell his leg.

That it had worked in those places and for those commanders because the said generals picked their spots and timing with care never entered Bell’s mind. To him, such things were of scant importance. Coming to grips with the southrons and hammering them-that was what really mattered.

His hand fell to the hilt of his sword. He cursed again. For him nowadays, it was-it had to be-a purely ceremonial weapon. He still wanted to kill southrons, but anything that moved faster than a tortoise was safe from him. He couldn’t even duel if his honor was affronted. Who would fight a cripple?

Another messenger galloped up on unicornback. The man dismounted and hurried to the farmhouse. “We’re still pushing ’em hard, sir,” he said when Bell opened the door for him. “Gods-damned sons of bitches are digging like moles, though. Every time we drive ’em another furlong or two, bastards run up another set of earthworks and make us charge ’em. They’re usually good for a couple volleys before we reach ’em and clear ’em out, too. Makes the job expensive, but we’re doing it.”

“Of course we are,” Bell said heartily. “We’ll lick them right out of their boots. Once we do that, we can count the cost.”

Joseph the Gamecock, that old cheeseparer, had counted the cost before he tried to buy his battles, and so he’d never spent the men winning them would have taken. Bell didn’t care if he bankrupted himself winning the first. Everything after that would just have to take care of itself.

“Keep hitting them,” he told the messenger. “That’s the order. We’ve got to keep hitting them, no matter what.”

“Yes, sir,” the fellow said, and went back to his unicorn at the run. Clods of rust-colored dirt flew up from under the white beast’s hooves as it galloped away.

All Lieutenant General Bell could do was wait for messengers to bring him news of what was happening to the northwest. If Roast-Beef William didn’t throw the southrons back from the glideway leading to Julia… Bell shook his head. He wouldn’t think about that. He refused to think about that.

As morning wore away and afternoon came on, the news the messengers brought was less and less anything Bell wanted to hear. The southrons had stiffened. “We’re hitting ’em with everything we got, sir,” one man said, “but we ain’t got enough. Maybe if we wasn’t so worn from marching all night to get to where we needed to be at so as we could hit ’em at all… But there’s a lot of them bastards, and they don’t want to move.”

“But they have to!” Bell exclaimed, as if he could push the southrons off the glideway with his one good arm.

With a mournful shrug, the messenger went his way. Bell stared off to the northwest. Men marching and countermarching had raised a great cloud of dust, by which he could tell where the fighting was taking place, but not, try as he would, how it was going. He drummed the fingers of his good hand against his crutch and waited for another messenger to bring more news.

Before long, one did. Even as he rode up, he shouted in excitement: “Lieutenant General Bell! Lieutenant General Bell!”

“What is it?” Bell barked. “What’s the word?”

“We’ve killed James the Bird’s Eye, sir,” the messenger exclaimed. “The southrons’ wing commander’s dead as shoe leather, gods damn the son of a bitch to the seven hells!”

“What?” General Hesmucet stared at the messenger in dismay. “James the Bird’s Eye dead? I don’t believe it!”

“I’m afraid it’s true, sir,” the southron unicorn-rider said. “Gods damn those traitor sons of bitches to the seven hells, but they shot him right off his unicorn while he was riding toward the thick of the fighting.”

“That sounds like him. That sounds just like him, in fact.” Hesmucet shook his head in dull wonder. “But dead? That’s dreadful! He can’t even be thirty-five. He’s… he was… strong and brave and handsome, and everybody likes-liked-him. He was a noble man, and I’m sure King Avram would have made him a nobleman had he lived. What are the gods thinking of, to let him die so young?”