Harry Turtledove - Marching Through Peachtree

Griff studied him. Now that his bruises had had time to appear, he looked ghastly. I suppose I do, too, Rollant thought. Griff said, “If you fall down again, you’ll be very sorry. Do you understand me?”

“I’m already sorry, sir,” Gleb mumbled.

“You’ll be even sorrier. So will anyone else who tries falling down that particular way.” Lieutenant Griff was growing up. He made the threat sound much more convincing than he could have when he first took over the company.

Rollant paid his ritual respects to the company standard and took the flagpole from the ground. Leaning the pole against his shoulder meant leaning it against a bruise. Gods damn you, Gleb, he thought as the regiment started after the Army of Franklin.

“What do you think of this whole business, Corporal?” Griff asked him.

“Me, sir?” Rollant said. “I think it’d be a good thing if we took the real path the traitors are using, instead of letting their mages trick us again.”

“I think so, too, but that isn’t what I was talking about,” the company commander said. “Don’t toy with me. I won’t stand for it.”

“Sorry, sir,” said Rollant, who was anything but sorry. Reluctantly, he went on, “I wish it hadn’t happened, that’s all. I hope it won’t happen again.”

“Not likely, not the way Gleb looks,” Griff said.

Rollant was moderately-more than moderately-grateful that Lieutenant Griff said nothing about the way he looked himself. He said, “Sir, the only way I would’ve lost that fight was if he killed me. I couldn’t afford to.”

Griff nodded. “I understand how you might feel that way.”

Did he? Rollant had as many doubts as Doubting George. Griff was a Detinan. How could he knew how desperate a blond might get in a kingdom where everything was stacked against him? Simple-he couldn’t. If he thought he could, he was imagining things.

“Still and all, though, Corporal, if you have cases of insubordination, you should bring them before me, just as I would bring them before Colonel Nahath,” Griff said.

“Yes, sir,” Rollant said resignedly. No, the lieutenant didn’t understand. Gleb hadn’t been insubordinate because he didn’t want to obey a corporal. He’d been insubordinate because he didn’t want to obey a blond, which wasn’t the same thing at all. The man inside the uniform had been more important than the stripes on the tunic’s sleeve. A corporal could appeal to the army’s disciplinary mechanism without losing face. A blond… Rollant shook his head. He’d had to fight that battle by himself. Now that he’d fought and won it, maybe he wouldn’t have to do it again. He’d proved his point, or so he hoped.

Shouts rose from up ahead. Rollant peered through the dust the men in front of him had kicked up, but he could not see much. “What’s going on?” Griff called, along with a good many other officers back in the middle of the army.

The answer took a while to reach Griff. At last, somebody said, “Our unicorn-riders are skirmishing with the traitors up at the front of the force. It’s nothing, really.”

It couldn’t have been anything much, or they would have got orders to deploy from column into line of battle. Rollant was as well pleased to keep marching, even if it was through land where he’d fought earlier in the summer. “Sir,” he asked, “what happens if the northerners do wreck our glideway line?”

“Not much,” Griff answered. “For one thing, this country is a forager’s dream. And, for another, we’ve got awfully good at repairing whatever damage they can do, and almost as fast as they can do it. So don’t worry your head about that.”

“All right, sir-I won’t,” Rollant said. Maybe Griff was patronizing him, saying that, as a blond, he was too ignorant-or perhaps just too stupid-to understand grand strategy. At another time, a time when his bruises didn’t hurt so much, he might have been offended. Now he just shrugged. Offended or not, quarreling with his company commander didn’t pay.

Before long, horn calls did summon the army to form line of battle. Rollant waved the company standard overhead so his comrades could go into line behind him. One more chance for the traitors to shoot me, he thought. But he wore a corporal’s stripes and drew a corporal’s pay precisely because he gave them that chance whenever his regiment went into action.

Then the horns rang out again, returning the force to column for marching. “That’s good,” Smitty said. “That’s very good. Somebody up there’s really clever.”

“Could you do better?” Rollant asked.

Brash as any Detinan, Smitty answered, “I couldn’t do a hells of a lot worse, could I?” Detinans always thought they could handle anything. Sometimes they were right, sometimes-more often, from everything Rollant had seen-wrong. But they never lacked for confidence.

“I wonder what happened up ahead,” Rollant said.

“What do you want to bet they ran away from us?” Smitty said.

“I wouldn’t touch that,” Rollant said. “I’ve got better things to do with my silver than giving it to you.”

“Since when?” Smitty said. “Name two. It’s not even like you sit around throwing dice all night long or spend it on loose women.”

“I’ve got a wife,” Rollant said stiffly, as he had to Griff in Marthasville.

“Hasn’t stopped a lot of people I know of, from General Guildenstern on down.” Smitty chuckled fondly. “He’d screw anything that moved, he would.”

“All I want to do is go home again and be with the woman I belong with,” Rollant said. In fact, that wasn’t quite true. What he wanted to do… But I haven’t done it , he thought, and then, Gods, I hope this war ends soon .

Roast-Beef William saluted Lieutenant General Bell. “Reporting as ordered, sir,” he said.

Bell returned the salute. His right arm still worked. It was one of the few pieces of him that did. Including his brain, William thought sourly. But King Geoffrey had named Bell to command the Army of Franklin, and so William-who prided himself on being known as Old Reliable-was duty-bound to obey him. No matter how much I want to do something-anything-else . Bell said. “I am going to use your wing as our rear guard, to hold off the gods-damned southrons as we move south.”

“Yes, sir,” Roast-Beef William said resignedly. “I hope you bear in mind the pounding we took at Jonestown.”

“I do,” Bell said. “All parts of the army suffered heavily around Marthasville, as I’m sure you know.”

And whose fault is that? William wondered. He thought of Joseph the Gamecock, who’d gone into retirement up in Dicon. What was Joseph saying about Geoffrey and Bell and about the way the army had been handled since his own departure? Nothing good-William was sure of that. Of course, considering everything that had happened since, nothing good deserved to be said.

“You will, I presume, perform the duties required of you?” Bell asked, an edge to his voice.

“Yes, sir,” William said. “Of course I will, sir. I hope we don’t need to do a whole lot of fighting, though.”

Bell sneered. “Haven’t got the stomach for it?”

“Haven’t got the men for it,” Roast-Beef William said. “Sir.” He turned on his heel and strode out of the farmhouse Bell was using for his headquarters. By the gods, he thought, for a couple of coppers I’d… He shook his head. Such thoughts about a superior officer would only land him in trouble. I’ve got to get away from this army. Enough is enough. Too much, in fact .

He shook his head again, trying to clear it. As if I’m not in trouble already. As if the whole army isn’t in trouble already. To the hells with me if I know whatBell’s doing. Rear guard? Where are we going? What will we do when we get there? He had no real answers. He didn’t think Bell had real answers, either, except letting Hesmucet chase after him for as long as the southron commander would.