Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

"If you want ideas from the likes of me, things are buggered up," the soldier said.

"Aren't they?" Victor asked, again in all seriousness.

The redcoat laughed. "They are indeed, sir, for fair. No, what you said sounds good enough-for starters, anyway."

"Yes. For starters," Victor agreed. "And that's about where we are now, isn't it? Starting from the beginning, I mean."

"Oh, no, sir," the Englishman said. "After wot 'appened to us, we'd better start before that, eh?"

Victor only wished he could say the man was wrong.

Ravens and vultures spiraled down out of the sky to feast on the dead. The ravens didn't mind pecking at the dying, either, though the vultures shunned anything that still moved. Roland Kersauzon had seen plenty of dead and dying men before, but never so many all in one place. Quantity, he discovered, had a quality all its own.

Then a red-crested eagle struck at one of his men walking over the battlefield and badly wounded him. Roland had thought the enormous birds of prey were gone from eastern Atlantis, but evidently not. He wondered what they ate with honkers hunted nearly to extinction hereabouts. This one, plainly, wanted to eat man's flesh. It fought with wings and beak and talons and furious screeches when his soldiers tried to drive it from its screaming victim. One of them finally knocked it over the head.

Stretcher bearers carried the injured man back to the surgeons. His shrieks would go unnoticed there among so many others. Roland had to make himself go watch the medicos at work and comfort men as they endured bullet probings and amputations with nothing to dull the pain but a leather strap to bite on or, if they were lucky, a slug of rum.

"Why did you come at all, Monsieur?" one of the surgeons asked. The man's leather apron was all bloody. So were his arms, to the elbows. He sounded genuinely puzzled as he continued, "The rest of us are here because we have no choice."

"Yes, I understand." Roland fought not to wrinkle his nose against the butcher's reek of blood. His wave took in the charnel house and the rest of the field. "But all this is my responsibility. I'm glad to accept the victory, but how can I without seeing what it costs?"

"Believe me, Monsieur, most commanders have no trouble whatever," the surgeon said. Along with two burly aides, he went on to the next wounded man. "Hold him tight, boys," he told them. "Can't let him run away while we ply our trade, eh?"

The soldier screamed. How could he help it, when an iron probe penetrated his pierced flesh? Roland turned away, working hard to control his face and his stomach.

He was relieved when a junior officer came up to him. That gave him something to think about besides suffering. "Excuse me, sir," the lieutenant said, "but the English prisoners wish to know what is to be done with them."

"I will talk to them," Kersauzon said. "My English is not of the best, but it will serve. And some of them, it may be, will know a little French."

"Yes, that is so," the lieutenant replied. He took Roland to the prisoners, who looked as apprehensive as the French commander would have in their boots. Since those boots were finer than the ones a lot of his soldiers had, the redcoats probably counted themselves lucky to be wearing them still. Some of the Englishmen stood in their stocking feet, so they'd already met plunderers.

"You are safe," Roland told them in his rusty English. "Your lives are safe. You will not be armed…uh, harmed."

"Will you parole us, sir?" asked a man whose chevrons proclaimed him a sergeant.

"You will agree not to fight again until exchanged?" Kersauzon asked, first in his language and then in theirs. Sure enough, a few English soldiers did speak French. They translated for the others. Inside of half a minute, all the prisoners were nodding eagerly.

"We will, sir," the sergeant said, "and thank you for the handsome offer."

Roland wondered whether he ought to hold some of them as hostages, to make sure the rest kept their word. He decided that would give the redcoats ideas they didn't need. They were professionals; they had honor.

"You will give your paroles to my men in charge of receiving them." Roland resolved to appoint such men as soon as he left the prisoners. "Then you may go north, if that is what you desire." He knew his English was stilted, but it served.

"Can we get back what your men stole from us when we surrendered?" That sergeant, like any good underofficer, was always looking to turn an inch into a mile.

But Kersauzon shook his head. "Be joyous-uh, be thankful-they did not hit you on the head. Did you never plunder a foe?"

"Who, me, your Excellency? Oh, I might have done that a time or two." The sergeant didn't waste breath denying it. Roland Kersauzon would have called him a liar if he had. With a grin, the saucy fellow went on, "Couldn't hurt to ask."

"Nor help." Roland turned away.

Before long, the redcoats were giving their names to the French settlers Roland chose to take them. The military clerks wrote the names on paper borrowed from the bookkeeper over his protests. The few Englishmen who could write signed their names beside the transcriptions. The rest made their marks. Then, still showing the formidable discipline they'd displayed in battle, they marched away, heads high, backs straight. By their pride, they might have won.

"What will you do now, Monsieur?" one of the clerks asked. "Will you go into Freetown? With their army shattered, the English can hardly stand against us."

Part of Roland thought he ought to do exactly that. The enemy would be dismayed and disorganized. But he was dismayed and disorganized himself. The sight of a real battlefield would do that to anyone. And his own force, if not dismayed, was also disorganized. The men who'd volleyed with the redcoats had fallen in windrows. The English might be good at only one kind of warfare, but they were monstrously good at that.

And so Roland temporized. "First we shall bury the dead-ours and theirs. When that is done, I shall decide where to go next."

"Oui, Monsieur." The clerk didn't argue. He even explained why: "You beat them. You showed you know what you are doing."

Bodies thudded into long trenches, some for the French settlers, others for the redcoats and English settlers. Priests read prayers above them. Maybe even the enemy heretics, or some of them, would reach purgatory and not burn forever in hell. Kersauzon hoped so, anyhow.

He ordered Major General Braddock buried in a grave of his own, and had a wooden marker with Braddock's name set over it. Even when caught in a trap, the English commander had fought gallantly. His wounds were at the front, as befit a brave man.

After that…After that, Roland ordered the army to camp for rest and recuperation. He still stood in English-settled territory. His own settlers had smashed English professionals. He was satisfied for the time being.

One of his lieutenants was not. "Monsieur, do you know what Hannibal's aide told him when he did not march on Rome as soon as he beat the legions at Cannae?"

"No," Roland replied, "but I suspect you are about to tell me."

Ignoring the sarcasm, the junior officer nodded. "He said, 'You know how to win a victory, but not what to do with it.'"

Roland only laughed. "I will take the chance. And I will say to you that Freetown is hardly Rome. We do not win the war by taking it, and we do not lose the war if we leave it in English hands for a while."

"We cannot go farther while the English hold it," the lieutenant said stubbornly. "New Hastings, Hanover…"

"They are far away. One thing at a time," Roland said. The lieutenant sighed, but he didn't argue any more.

Victor Radcliff found having the paroled redcoats back in Hanover caused more trouble than it solved. They knew they wouldn't be fighting any more for a while, and jeered at their comrades who'd escaped without getting captured. Several fistfights followed in short order.