Harry Turtledove (Editor) - Alternate Generals II

"Never seen nothing like it," Colonel Crockett told the Emperor and the others, at the hastily-convened council that followed. "They bombarded that place steady, all night and all day and all the next night too. Must of throwed in every mortar shell in the Royal Navy. Then, the second morning they stopped shelling, and here come the marines out of the woods and rushed the fort. Didn't take long, there weren't no real defense left. Me and Sam watched the whole thing from across the river."

"Thank you for the report, Colonel." The Emperor's shoulders sagged. "This is terrible. The river is now open, almost all the way to the city. Latour, can we put in more batteries downstream?

"No time, my Emperor. Moving and emplacing guns in that terrain-" General Latour shook his head. "Besides, we have concentrated all our available artillery at English Turn, on your Majesty's orders. We would have to take away-"

"No, no, you are right. We must not weaken the defenses there. Well." The Emperor sighed. "At least now there is no doubt where they will come."

"Beg the Emperor's pardon, I'm not so sure." Crockett was looking thoughtful. "They're on the river, all right, but not all of them. Not nigh as many ships as we seen when they first showed up. And no telling where the others are, now they got Lafitte's boys bottled up in the Barataria."

"Holding back a reserve," Jackson said, snorting. "Any fool can see that, by the Almighty!"

"Maybe," Crockett said. "Guess we'll know the answers soon enough."

But the British were slow in coming. Not an easy business, of course, working their way against that current and negotiating the tricky channel; apparently there were several groundings. Still, it did seem they were taking their time.

Christmas came, and was duly celebrated by the French and Spanish Catholics of the city, though ignored or scorned by the Protestant Americans. The Emperor attended mass at the great church, as usual concealing his personal agnosticism beneath a cloak of public piety.

All other days, he rode down to the site of the defensive works at the great river bend called English Turn. There was a fairly good road along the levee, so he went by carriage; and, for unclear reasons, I was required to go along. There was nothing much to see but a lot of earthworks along the river, and black and white men laboring alike to reinforce them with sandbags, while others wrestled guns into position. I stood by and shivered in the chilly wind-it was a cold winter for New Orleans-while the Emperor bustled about, talking with officers and men, now and then personally supervising the placement of a cannon. The years seemed to drop from him at such times; he was in his element. For myself I was happier when we returned to the palace, where I could be in mine.

Thus it was that I was with the Emperor the day it all came down.

It was a dank and chilly morning, three days before year's end. A heavy gray fog had moved in off Lake Borgne during the previous evening, and now hung above the river and the eastern swamps, and the plantation fields between, as we rolled southward along the river road. Sitting up on the seat next to the driver, I wrapped a blanket about myself and cursed through my chattering teeth. What a ghastly day to go out, but the Emperor was quite insistent. Nelson's ships had been sighted on the river the previous afternoon, only a few miles south of English Turn; clearly the time was almost at hand.

Suddenly a horseman appeared through the fog up ahead, riding hard toward us. Seeing us, he took off his hat and began waving it frantically up and down.

The driver and I looked at each other. I shrugged and, after a moment, the driver pulled the horses to a stop.

Almost immediately a window opened beneath us and the Emperor's voice came up to us, demanding to know why we were stopping. But by that time the rider was upon us; a slender handsome young man, dressed, I saw now, in the bright uniform of an ensign in the Louisiana Hussars.

"Please," he gasped, "sir-uh, y'r Majesty-"

"Never mind," the Emperor said impatiently. "What do you want, lad?"

The boy-he really was not much more-took a deep breath and gathered himself visibly. "I have to report, your Majesty," he said with strained formality, "that the enemy are attacking our position in strength."

The Emperor's head appeared through the carriage window. "What?" he cried, and then paused, hearing, now that the horses' hooves were silent, the distant rattle and pop of musket fire from somewhere on down the river.

"But the guns," he said then, staring at the horseman. "I hear neither our artillery nor the ships' guns!"

The lad shook his head. "Not the ships, sir. They came in from the east-looks like they crossed Lake Borgne yesterday, in the fog, and moved up through the bayous, and then early this morning they came up out of the swamp and across the plantation fields-one of Colonel Crockett's scouts spotted them, but, uh, well, General Jackson didn't believe him at first-" He stopped, looking appalled at his own indiscretion. "Uh, that is to say-"

The Emperor said, "Name of God! They attacked from the landward side?"

"Yes, sir." The ensign nodded. "Where our defenses were weakest, and of course all the big guns are emplaced to cover the river-"

"The English," the Emperor said, "do they have artillery?"

"Don't know, your Majesty. Haven't brought them into play yet, if they do. Plenty of infantry, though. Must be a thousand, maybe two thousand, hard to tell in this fog. They just keep coming." The ensign's eyes were blinking rapidly. "General Jackson sent me to warn you-"

"Yes, yes." The carriage door opened; the Emperor began clambering down, not waiting for me to attend him. Before I could get down from the seat, he was already standing in the road, snapping his fingers at the young officer. "Your horse," he said. "Give me your horse."

"Sir? Your Majesty?" The ensign looked blank, but then he must have seen the Emperor's expression more clearly. "Yes, sir," he said hastily, and swung down. "Uh, shall I-"

"You shall get out of my way." The Emperor was already hauling himself into the saddle, clumsily and with obvious pain. "Driver, follow me. Let the ensign ride with you."

Swinging the horse about, digging his dress boot heels into its flanks, the Emperor disappeared at a gallop into the fog, toward the growing noise of battle. After a moment the driver raised his eyebrows and put the team in motion again, while the young ensign scrambled aboard and pulled himself up beside us.

Already we could see the flashes of gunfire through the mist ahead, and now louder explosions came rolling up the road to meet us: cannon getting into the action at last. I looked inquiringly at the young hussar, but he shook his head. "No idea," he said hoarsely. "No telling whose-"

Then there was a blast like all the thunder in the world, and another right on its heels, and his face went even paler. "Oh, my God," he whispered. "Warships firing broadsides. The bastards are hitting us from the river too."

It hardly required a formal military education to see the implications: the defenders caught between advancing British infantry in one direction and the fire of the ships' guns raking them from the other.

The ensign was climbing down now. "You better wait here," he called up to the driver.

The driver pulled the carriage to a stop, while the ensign dropped to the ground, just as the first soldiers appeared through the fog coming the other way. Infantry, wearing the blue uniforms of the Empire, and running very hard…

Perched up on top of the carriage, I had a fine view of the rout. They ran past us on either side, hardly a man even seeming to notice us except as an obstacle; their eyes were enormous in their smoke-blackened faces and their mouths mostly hung open. A few clutched at bloody wounds.