Harry Turtledove (Editor) - Alternate Generals III

Charles Edward Stuart did not listen to Lord George Murray. He chose the worst possible stretch of ground for his battle with Cumberland, Culloden Moor near Inverness. His exhausted troops were massacred. The Bonnie Prince fled, becoming "the prince in the heather" of many a romantic tale, among them the story of Flora MacDonald disguising him in the clothes of her (nonexistent) maid Betty and conducting him over the sea from Uist to Skye.

William, Duke of Cumberland, earned his sobriquet of «Butcher» by enthusiastically pursuing an ethnic cleansing policy against the Scots. He returned to the Continental wars, but in 1757 was dismissed for making a deal with France which compromised Hanover. France was ultimately defeated, both in Europe and in North America, where after Wolfe's victory at Quebec it ceded Canada to Britain. Without the pressure of French colonies to the north and west, and with increased taxation to help pay for the war, the English colonies began to grow restive.

In the ensuing Revolution, Allan MacDonald and his sons fought for the Crown, just as Allan had done during 1745-46.

"Still snowin'?" A querulous voice rose high on the thin, alpine air from one of the many tents clinging to the flanks of the mountain.

The tent-flap shimmied in the piercing wind that had been blowing since before the ages when the gods first discovered how much fun it is to pull the wings off mortals. A sharp, brown nose peeked out only to be withdrawn again hastily into the comparative warmth of the tent.

"Gaaaah, stupid question," the proprietor of the aforementioned nose replied with little grace. "Yer an idjit fer askin'. An' I'm a bigger idjit than that for botherin' to check. " Course it's still snowin'! Been doin' bugger-all but snow since we left bloody Narbo!"

A third voice now joined the conversation. "I say, fellows, that's a bit of an exaggeration, what? Oh, we may be in for flurry or two, but it's not even winter yet. I say we should count ourselves fortunate, stiff upper lip, put on a happy face and all that. Our situation may be deuced uncomfortable, but we've soldiered through worse than this before. Crossing the Pyrenees wasn't a piece of cake, but we did it, and we fought our way across the Rhфne, elephants and all, and it'll take more than these dashed Alps to keep General Hannibal's boys out of Italia. Why, before we know it, we'll being giving those Roman chappies a spot of Carthaginian what-ho they won't soon forget. Now let's all give three rousing cheers for good old General Hannibal and then what say we go scare us up a bit of breakfast?"

This time when the tent-flap opened, it was to accommodate the violent, swift, airborne passage of a tall, gangly young man in the full uniform of one of Carthage's finest Canaanite auxiliaries. He landed on his nigh-fleshless buttocks in a snowbank and was soon thereafter joined by his bedding, his mess kit, and the Baal-in-a-Box portable altar that his mother had insisted on packing for him when he first enlisted.

"And don't come back, y' pansy!" came the united cry from those remaining within the tent.

"Oh, I say," the unfortunate young man remarked, picking himself up out of the snow and brushing himself off. He began to gather up his scattered gear, muttering morosely all the while. "Bad show. Won't do at all. I shall inform the authorities, see if I don't. Ought not to be allowed." He moved slowly, still sore from previous ejections from more than half a dozen other tents. When at last he'd recovered all his belongings, he trudged off in search of more convivial lodgings.

He was still searching when his snow-clotted footsteps brought him into that part of the Carthaginian camp where the officers dwelled. He could tell by the smell. A large military encampment was no bed of flowers, but at least this unspeakably cold weather did something to cut the stench. However, there was one smell peculiar to that part of Hannibal's camp housing the upper echelons that not even a glacier could mitigate.

"Argh! Phew! Ugh! Oh, drat those elephants!" the young soldier swore mightily. Then he recalled his dear Mamma back in Tyre and felt chastened for having used such language. Wistful thoughts of home blurred his vision as he plowed on, trudging through the piles of snow.

Had he not been so overpowered by teary nostalgia, he might have noticed that not every pile underfoot was snow.

His scream brought the whole complement of upper-echelon officers running to see what had happened.

"What in Tophet was that ?"

"Astarte's left tit, don't tell me another bally elephant's gone over the brink!"

"Are you mad, man? Since when does a full-grown war-elephant scream like a little girl?"

"What, d'you mean you didn't have your elephants fixed before you joined up?"

"Fixed?"

"You know." The speaker made snipping motions with his fingers, then thought better of it and made them with both arms.

"How d'you fix an elephant?" someone else wanted to know.

"I wouldn't know, old man. How do you break one in the first place?" The officers all burst into guffaws of comradely laughter.

They were still pounding one another on the back while the young soldier managed to extricate himself and his possessions from their malodorous nest and tried to sneak away unseen. He'd had more than his share of humiliation for the day, and it was still early morning. He might have saved himself the effort. Even the lowest local godling whose earthly purview was nothing more than one lone, lightning-stricken pine tree could have told him that any man who manages to fall into a pile of elephant poo should take it as a definite promise of how good the rest of his luck is going to be.

"Who goes there?" A mighty bellow rang out through the crisp, clear air. It started three small avalanches in the immediate neighborhood and gave a nearby family of chamois a collective heart attack. Tall (by Carthaginian standards), muscular (by any standards), and overbearing (by all standards save his own), Hannibal of Carthage bestrode the narrow world like a colossus, even though his wide stance and heroic swagger meant granting the keen mountain winds open access to his wedding tackle. (Not that it mattered: Ever since the Carthaginians had taken to mountaineering, the enlisted men had gotten into the habit of throwing "Welcome Back, Stranger" parties for their frost-shrunken short-arms each time they successfully answered Nature's call. All of the camp followers had quit in disgust early on in the great climb, when their clients refused to pay them a finder's fee as part of services rendered.).

The young man stopped in his tracks, cringing. Mamma had often told him how his dear, departed father, a soldier through and through, believed that the worst thing a fighting man could do was draw the attention of his superiors. Hugging his Baal-in-a-Box close to his chest, he closed his eyes and concentrated on becoming invisible.

It didn't work. A heavy hand fell onto his shoulder and spun him around. He stared into the blazing eyes of his supreme commander. "What's your name, boy?"

"Ma- Ma- Ma- Ma-" The young man's wholly inadequate chin bobbled like a blob of fat atop a seething stewpot.

"Stop bleating like a damn goat and answer the question!"

"Y- Yes, sir. Mago, sir."

"Mago, eh?" Hannibal rubbed his chin. "Got me a brother named Mago."

"Y- Yes, sir. Capital fellow, sir."

"Did I ask you?" Hannibal's wrath was terrible to behold, but at least it served one kindly purpose: Anyone caught in the full blast found himself about ten degrees warmer for it. Young Mago actually worked up a modest sweat just standing in the way of his commander's displeasure, though he knew he'd pay for it soon enough, and not just by having to chip icicles off his eyebrows.