Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

"Who, me?" The English officer gave back a look of exaggerated innocence. "Ah, if only we were on the same side!" They both laughed. Radcliff stuck out his hand. The lieutenant-colonel took it. What began as a clasp ended up a trial of strength. They were still laughing when they broke it off, neither sure who had won or if anybody had.

Whatever Roland Kersauzon had been expecting in a French general, Louis-Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm-Gozon, wasn't it. He had fair, curly hair, blue eyes, a cupid's-bow mouth, and the beginnings of a double chin. He also had an illustrious pedigree on both sides of his family. With shortcomings like those, Roland should have hated him on sight.

He should have, but he didn't. Despite the marquis' failings of appearance and birth, two things were plain. He was an honest man: if he weren't, he wouldn't have been a soldier, and he wouldn't have let himself get sent to Atlantis. And he was a soldier, all the way down to the tips of his elegantly manicured fingers.

"You did well to beat them once," he told Roland. "Pitting raw troops against regulars is a dangerous business, but you got by with it. Now there are regulars on your side as well. We should take advantage of it."

"Oui, Monsieur," was all Roland could manage, as if he were a raw recruit himself. A general from the mother country who actually wanted to fight! No, Roland hadn't expected that. Oh, Braddock had wanted to fight, but he'd made a hash of it. Kersauzon didn't think this much younger Frenchman would.

"We'd better win soon," Montcalm-Gozon added. "If we don't, I doubt we shall win later. The trouble we had getting men across the sea once…I doubt we'll try it again. If we do, I doubt we'll succeed. The English are alert now. They have more ships than we do, and better sailors. They can bring more soldiers to Atlantis any time they choose. We are not so lucky."

"They have more settlers, too," Roland said. "It seems strange, and most unfair. France is a larger country than England. But England has more ships and more folk who want to live here. Where is the justice in that, I ask you?"

"France is more sufficient unto herself than England," said the general from the mother country. "England needs to draw more things from the sea, and from across the sea. And her poor peasants come here or go to Terranova to find something better than they have at home. Try to convince a French peasant that there is anything better than what he has at home. He will laugh in your face for your trouble."

"It is a pity," Roland said.

"Many things are," Montcalm-Gozon agreed. "Now-I understand a fieldwork ahead troubles your line of advance. I should like to go forward with you and reconnoiter, if you don't mind."

"But of course, Monsieur." To say anything else would have left Kersauzon open to an imputation of cowardice. "May I offer one suggestion first?"

"I would be delighted to hear it."

"Put on the habiliments of a common soldier. Drawing attention to yourself without reason is the height of foolishness, and some of the riflemen in this fort can hit a target at a startling range."

The marquis frowned. "I mislike doing such a thing. After all, I am who I am. Do you intend to do the same?"

"I do. It is not lack of courage that provokes me, Monsieur. But I do not care to entrust the campaign to my second-in-command. If you feel otherwise…Well, in that case you will do as you please."

They approached the makeshift earthwork in ordinary clothes. Louis-Joseph proved a fine horseman. Roland might have known he would. The nobleman eyed the countryside with keen interest. "Such curious plants! My botanical friends in Paris would be most intrigued."

"I believe it, your Excellency," Roland replied. "I have heard that the natural productions of Terranova are more like Europe's than are those of Atlantis."

"I have heard the same," Montcalm-Gozon said. "I believed it before I came here. Now I am convinced of it."

"I wonder why it should be so. Terranova is farther from Europe than Atlantis is," Roland said.

The marquis shrugged. "You ask the wrong man. Perhaps the savants I mentioned might find an explanation for you. Me myself, however? No, I regret to say. I am but a simple soldier."

A soldier he was, indubitably. Simple? Roland Kersauzon smiled to himself. He'd heard men mock themselves before. He knew the peril of taking one of them seriously when he did.

Montcalm-Gozon would have ridden right up to the fort if a musketeer inside hadn't fired a warning shot in his direction. That was only a smoothbore piece, and didn't come particularly close. It did say the green-coated men inside would pay more attention if the French officers didn't desist.

"Well sited, well made," Montcalm-Gozon murmured, more than half to himself. "Yes, I can see that it would be an obstacle."

"How do we get around-or get through?" Roland asked.

"They seem light on artillery," the French general replied. "If we cannonade them, it could be that soldiers might break in under cover of the bombardment. It seems to me worth a try, in any case. My own artillery train is considerably more extensive than yours."

"Let's prepare, then." Roland Kersauzon was glad French regulars would share the butcher's bill with his men. It would be high if things went wrong. He caught motion from the corner of his eye. "A messenger! I wonder what he wants."

He didn't wonder long. The man delivered his news in a staccato burst: "The damned English have sent a raiding party-or maybe an army-over the border to the west. They are stealing and burning and committing God only knows what other outrages besides."

Roland swore. So did Montcalm-Gozon. Expecting the English to sit around waiting for trouble would not do. They wanted to go out and cause it instead. Now locals and regulars had to figure out what to do about that.

W ar was wicked and evil and woeful. So the Good Book insisted. War brought pain and misery and suffering. So anyone with an eye to see could tell. War ruined hopes and buried young men and sent years of patient toil up in smoke.

And when everything that went up in smoke belonged to the enemy, when he hurt and was miserable and suffered, war could be a devil of a lot of fun. So Victor Radcliff discovered as his band of brigands swooped down on one plantation after another.

No border guards tried to keep them out of the French settlements in Atlantis. Maybe there were guards farther east, but not where he broke in. It wasn't far from the place where he and Blaise and the two copperskins from Terranova had escaped the untender welcome of the French settlers. Victor wondered what had happened to the Frenchmen who'd been here then. They were probably with the army south of Freetown.

"Your old master anywhere around here?" he asked Blaise.

The Negro shook his head. "No, sir. Farther south."

"We're far enough south already. Too far, by God," a raider said, wiping sweat from his face with his sleeve. By his accent, he came from Croydon or one of the other towns north of Hanover. No, he wouldn't be used to weather like this, especially not in November. Ferns here sprouted from the sides of stone fences-sometimes from the sides of stone buildings. Barrel trees grew in abundant profusion. Lizards as long as a man's leg scurried through the undergrowth. Some of the snakes were big enough to eat men.

And Victor asked, "Are there crocodiles in the rivers down where you were?"

"Oh, yes." Blaise nodded matter-of-factly. "But crocodiles in Africa, too. Be careful, mostly no trouble."

"Mostly?" The man who came from somewhere near Croydon didn't sound reassured.

"Life is life," Blaise said with a shrug. "Mostly no trouble as good as it gets. The French now, they has mostly got trouble."