Harry Turtledove - Marching Through Peachtree

“Beats me,” Jim the Ball said.

“That’s what I said-they’ve beaten us,” Jim of the Crew told him. “They’ve beaten us like a gods-damned drum. I don’t care who’s king over us any more, as long as all these fornicating armies go straight to the seven hells and gone.”

Lieutenant General Bell almost shouted for his provost guards to arrest Jim of the Crew as a traitor to King Geoffrey. But then he shook his head. Sending the merchant and his chum across the lines to General Hesmucet struck him as a worse punishment. With any luck at all, the southrons would miss their flag of truce and fill them full of crossbow quarrels. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving pair, he thought maliciously.

Still, the idea of writing a formal letter of complaint to Hesmucet had an undeniable appeal. “Major Zibeon!” Bell called.

“Sir?” his aide-de-camp said. If he’d heard the scathing remarks from the two civilians, he didn’t show it.

“Fetch me pen and paper, if you please.”

“Yes, sir,” Zibeon replied. “Do you really think General Hesmucet will heed your request, sir?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Bell said. “But we’re no worse off for finding out, are we?”

“No, sir,” Major Zibeon admitted.

Even writing came hard for Bell. Most men wrote with one hand and steadied the paper with the other. Bell’s left arm was only a dead weight, his left hand useless and inert. He had to put a large stone at the top of the sheet Zibeon found for him. He gnawed at his luxuriant mustache as he groped for words.

Permit me to say, sir, he wrote, that the unprecedented measures you have taken against this city transcend, in studied and ingenious cruelty, all acts ever brought to my attention in the long and dark history of war. In the names of the gods of humanity, I protest, believing that you will find that you are depriving of their homes and firesides the wives and children of a brave people. This calculated cruelty can only redound to the disgrace of the sovereign whom you serve, and to your own. Give over, while yet you may. I am, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Bell, Lieutenant General .

He signed his name with a flourish and sanded the letter dry. Then he used wax and his signet to seal it. He thought of summoning Jim the Ball and Jim of the Crew to take it at once, but didn’t. After Jim of the Crew’s gibe, he almost hoped a firepot burst on the merchant’s roof.

Before the appointed day, Roast-Beef William came to see him. That left him imperfectly delighted with the world; he would almost rather have seen the two merchants again. But William was a wing commander, and so not easy to ignore. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant General?” Bell asked after the older man had made his bows.

“Well, sir, I was wondering what sort of plan you had for getting us out of the fix we’re in,” Roast-Beef William replied.

“I have sent forth Brigadier Spinner’s unicorn-riders, as you know, to strike against General Hesmucet’s supply line,” Bell said. That he was reduced to such small strokes galled him.

That even such small strokes hadn’t done all he wanted galled him even more. Roast-Beef William knew what Spinner had done, too-and, more important, what he hadn’t. “Supplies are still coming through to the enemy,” he remarked.

“I know that,” Bell said testily. His arm and his leg hurt more than usual; he longed for laudanum. “But what would you have me do? Do you suppose we can make another sally and drive the gods-damned southrons back from Marthasville?”

He leaned forward eagerly, awaiting William’s reply. If the wing commander thought another attack might succeed, he would order it. He hadn’t lost the desire to hit back at the southrons, only most of the means. If Roast-Beef William reckoned those available… But William shook his head. “No, sir. We haven’t really got the men to stand siege any more, let alone strike out. That was why I came to see you.”

“Say on,” Bell said ominously.

“You know as well as I do, sir, that the southrons are extending their lines north of the city towards the west,” William said. “If they keep moving, they’ll have us altogether surrounded before long. And then, unless we can break through their lines, they won’t just have Marthasville. They’ll have the Army of Franklin, too.”

That was all too likely to be true. Lieutenant General Bell liked it no better for its truth-liked it less, if anything. He scowled at William, who stared stolidly back. “And what would you recommend, then?” he asked in an icy voice.

“If we can’t hold the city, sir, don’t you think we’d better save the army?” the wing commander said. “We can get away, at need, before Hesmucet finishes his ring around Marthasville. Before, I say, but not afterwards.”

“I can’t abandon the city,” Bell said. “What would King Geoffrey do to me if I lost the city?”

“What would he do to you if you lost the city and the army, too?” Roast-Beef William asked in return.

“I can’t pull out yet,” Bell said. “I’m, uh, conferring with Hesmucet, trying to get him to keep from burning Marthasville with the civilians still in it.”

“ Are you?” William raised a bushy eyebrow. “I hadn’t supposed you cared much about the civilians hereabouts.”

Till Jim the Ball and Jim of the Crew came to him, Bell hadn’t cared much about the local civilians. But, with such indignation as he could muster, he said, “Of course I do. If it weren’t for civilians, King Geoffrey wouldn’t have a kingdom, now would he?”

“Of course not,” Roast-Beef William replied. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, sir, only that you surprised me. Do you think there’s any chance Hesmucet will listen to you?”

“I don’t know,” Bell said. “But he will look like the villain he is if he doesn’t, so there may be some hope for it.”

“Well, there may be something to that,” William said. “By the Lion God’s twitching tail tuft, I hope there is-for the folk of Marthasville, if for no other reason.”

Bell bristled. He knew what that had to mean. “You don’t believe we can hold this city,” he said in accusing tones.

“I wish we could,” the wing commander said. “Think so? No. In my view, as I told you, our choice is between losing the city and losing the city and the army-this in spite of anything Hesmucet may say or do in aid of your letter. It may buy us a few days’ time, which is all to the good, but it will do no more.”

“Joseph the Gamecock was dismissed from command of this army for voicing opinions less gloomy than those,” Bell growled.

“Joseph had less reason for pessimism, for he had more men with whom to work,” Roast-Beef William replied. He tipped his hat. “Good day, sir.” Only after the older man was gone did Bell realize he’d been given the glove. Cursing, he yanked out his bottle of laudanum and took a long swig. After a little while, he felt better.

General Hesmucet swung his head from Jim the Ball to Jim of the Crew and back again. Jim the Ball fascinated him; he didn’t think he’d ever seen a fatter man. The two merchants from Marthasville nervously looked back. “Yes, you can give me Bell’s letter,” he said. “I do respect a flag of truce, gentlemen-I won’t eat you.” And if I did decide to order the two of you butchered, Jim the Ball could subsist my whole army for a couple of weeks .

Jim of the Crew, as it happened, had the letter. He handed it to Hesmucet. “Here you are, sir.”

“Thank you kindly.” Hesmucet unsealed the letter and flattened it out in his hands. “Ah, good,” he said. “Lieutenant General Bell writes in a tolerably large script. I won’t have to fish out my spectacles to read this, no indeed. People seem to write smaller every gods-damned year, but not today.”