Harry Turtledove - Sentry Peak

“Which is what I just said, only all boiled down to a proverb.” Bart set a hand on Horace’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go get yourself some shuteye, if you’re able?” He saw Horace hesitate. “Don’t fret about me, son. I’ll sleep when I’m ready, I promise you, but not until then.”

“Very well, sir.” Horace sounded grudging and grateful at the same time. After a last crisp salute-he seemed to do nothing that wasn’t crisp-he strode off, each of his strides almost twice as long as one of Bart’s would have been.

Bart looked this way and that, his head swiveling on his neck as an owl’s might have done. Am I really by myself at last? he wondered. Can I really get a quarter of an hour to hear myself think? People have been yelling at me the whole day long. How can I hear what’s inside my own head when I’m trying to take care of everybody else?

An owl hooted, somewhere off in the trees not far away. In the distance, he heard the moans of wounded men who hadn’t been brought in yet. They didn’t distract him; he’d heard them before, and was as used to them as any man not dead of soul could be.

He paced along: one lean, medium-sized man in charge of the destinies of more soldiers than anybody this side of the gods. That it should be so struck him as strange even now, but so it was. He’d rocked Thraxton during the day, but he hadn’t broken him. That meant those soldiers were going to have to do more work tomorrow, and he was the one, the only one, who could decide what sort of work it would be.

With a sigh, he murmured, “I’d better go see Doubting George, the way I told Colonel Horace I would.”

Seeing Doubting George wasn’t what he most wanted to do. He knew the lieutenant general couldn’t care for his friendship with Hesmucet. And now Hesmucet hadn’t done what he’d set out to do-and, almost worse, Fighting Joseph had -and Bart was going to rely on George in a way he hadn’t planned to do. If George wanted to throw all that in his face, how could he stop the man?

He couldn’t. He knew it too well. But he walked toward Doubting George’s pavilion anyway. The kingdom needed what they could do together, even if they weren’t any too fond of each other while they did it. An alert sentry called out, not too loud: “Halt! Who goes? Stand and name yourself.”

“I’m General Bart,” Bart said, also quietly. “Is Lieutenant General George awake?”

“Advance and be recognized, uh, sir,” the sentry said. When he did recognize Bart, he saluted almost as precisely as Colonel Horace had. “Sorry, sir.”

“Don’t be,” Bart said. “Just answer my question, if you please.”

“I’m awake,” Doubting George said before the sentry could reply. He stepped out through the tentflap. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“I was thinking about what my whole army ought to do tomorrow, Lieutenant General,” Bart said, “and I was also thinking it might help the cause if your men here were to make a grand demonstration against Proselytizers’ Rise, as if they really intended to storm the heights.”

“If that’s what you need, that’s what we’ll do,” George said at once.

“Do you think your men could carry the Rise?” Bart asked.

Again, George spoke without hesitation: “Sir, I don’t think there’s a chance in all the hells that they could. But if you give the order, they’ll try with everything they’ve got in ’em.”

“You’re an honest man, Lieutenant General,” Bart said. “Most officers would say, `Of course, sir. My men can do anything.’ “

“Maybe that’s true,” Doubting George replied. “And maybe, begging your pardon, that’s how we keep sticking our dicks in the meat grinder, too. Of course, the traitors have lieutenant generals and brigadiers who say the same thing, so I suppose it evens out.”

“I hope so,” Bart said. The image, when he briefly let himself think about it, made him want to clutch at himself. With a distinct effort of will, he put it out of his mind. “Now let’s get down to business, shall we? With any luck at all, we will be able to hang on to the trenches at the base of the Rise.”

“Maybe that’s true, but maybe it’s not,” George said. “We couldn’t in today’s fighting. The northerners up at the top of the Rise can shoot almost straight down at us when we’re in those trenches. Still and all, we’ll try at your command.”

When the sun rose the next morning, the spectacle Lieutenant General George’s soldiers made was as impressive as any man could have wanted. Four divisions formed in a line close to two miles wide. Flags fluttered in front of them. When horns called for them to advance, they did so in perfect step. “They’re well-drilled men,” Bart said. “Thraxton won’t dare pull any soldiers away to Funnel Hill with all that coming straight at him.”

“No, indeed, sir,” Doubting George agreed. “It’s an expensive way to use them, I’m afraid, but I don’t suppose it can be helped.”

“Look at ’em go,” Bart said. “They look as though they could roll over anything, like a great wave out on the Western Ocean.”

“They’re going to roll over those trenches, that’s certain sure,” George said. “They got into them yesterday, too, but they couldn’t stay.”

“They’re in them now,” Bart said. He scowled as the enemy atop Proselytizers’ Rise rolled stones and shot firepots and rained bolts down on the men. Then he ground out something startling and pungent, for he’d been shocked out of his usual impassivity. “Who in the seven hells ordered them to go up the Rise? They’ll be slaughtered!”

“It wasn’t me, sir,” George said, “though your orders before yesterday’s fight-”

“Never mind those,” Bart said. “As you must know, those were for use if the lightning struck, and it didn’t. I heard the commands you gave this morning, and they were just what I wanted. But if that charge fails-and what else can it do?- somebody’s going to catch it, by all the gods. Can we do anything to call them back?”

Doubting George shook his head. “Not a thing, sir, not now. It’s too late.” Bart was dreadfully afraid he was right.

Normally, night suited Count Thraxton. Fewer people were awake to demand things of him and otherwise arouse his irascibility. If only the rest of the world would leave me alone , he often thought, I would be the happiest man alive .

But he was not happy now, and the world had no intention of leaving him alone. The world, in fact, was demanding things of him, and demanding things in a loud, piercing voice. The world, or at least what seemed like all the southrons in it, had spent the whole day doing their best to destroy his army, and their best had proved alarmingly good. Sentry Peak was lost, and Thraxton had no idea how to get it back.

“We haven’t enough men,” he grumbled.

“We might have, if you hadn’t sent James of Broadpath away to hells and gone,” Cabell of Broken Ridge said, his tone sharpened by the flask of brandy in front of him on the table.

Thraxton glared at his wing commander. “I suppose you will tell me next that Wesleyton does not need retaking,” he said icily.

“I didn’t say that,” Cabell replied, and took another swig. “But if we lose here, what difference does it make whether Earl James takes Wesleyton or not? If we cannot hold our position, he won’t be able to hold his.”

“In that case, it is incumbent upon us not to lose here,” Thraxton said. “Or would you disagree with me? Would you care to comment on how the southrons drove the men of your wing from Sentry Peak?”

“I can give it to you in half a dozen words, your Grace,” Cabell of Broken Ridge snapped. “ We did not have enough men . Is that plain enough?” His voice rose to a shout.