Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

The men pondered that, but not for long. They grinned and nudged one another. They'd foraged to keep themselves fed. Now they had official leave-or what amounted to it-to forage to keep themselves clothed. Roland suspected the Spanish settlers would soon regret that. He also suspected Don Jose would soon bawl like a branded calf. He suspected he himself would grow remarkably deaf to the governor's protestations.

"Where are the Englishmen?" asked a Spanish cavalry officer, encountering the French settlers tramping north. "What have you done with them?" He spoke French with a trilling Spanish accent.

"Why, they are in our rucksacks, of course," Roland replied. "We will keep them there until we quit Spanish Atlantis. And I promise you by God and all the saints that they will trouble you no more."

"In your rucksacks?" The Spaniard frowned. Since his eyebrows grew together above the top of his nose, he looked fearsome-but since he had only a handful of men behind him, not nearly fearsome enough to intimidate Roland. "If I ride south and find them marauding-"

"If you do, you may track me down and do as you please to me," Roland broke in. "But for now, Monsieur, you may get out of our way, for we are on the march." He raised his voice: "Forward!"

His men rolled down on the Spaniards. The luckless officer and his squadron could get out of the way or get trampled. The Spaniards got out of the way. The road was muddy. The meadows to either side were muddier. The horses had to keep moving lest they start to sink. The officer looked daggers at Roland, who wondered if the fellow would draw his pistol and start a fight even if he was supposed to be an ally and even if he was hopelessly outnumbered. He seemed angry enough not to care.

But, no matter what he thought, he didn't do anything. Once the French settlers passed him by, would he get back on the road? Would he ride south and discover that the English really had vanished from Spanish Atlantis? And would he conclude from that that Kersauzon really did have them in their rucksacks?

When you were dealing with Spaniards, you never could tell.

When you were dealing with Englishmen, you never could tell, either. The French were the only sensible people in the world: Roland was convinced of it. And even among the French there were unfortunate gradations. Marquis Montcalm-Gozon, for example, though surely a good fellow, did not seem nearly so sensible as a man from French Atlantis. They're going to seed over there in Europe, Roland thought sadly.

The sound of gunfire ahead snapped him out of his musing. "Scouts forward!" he called. "We'll find out what that is. Then we'll put a stop to it one way or another. Fix bayonets and load your muskets!"

Before long, the scouts came back. It was a brawl-almost a battle-between slaves and Spanish settlers in what was no doubt usually a sleepy little town: about what Kersauzon had expected.

"Let's go!" he said. "If the blacks and copperskins run from us, well and good. If not, it's their funeral."

They ran. He'd thought they would. They were brave enough, but had little in the way of organization. They could fight settlers who also didn't know what they were doing. Real soldiers advancing in neat ranks with bayonets gleaming under the subtropical sun? No. The slaves melted into the woods.

Cheers from the Spaniards failed to warm the cockles of the French settlers' hearts. The town was big enough for two cobbler's shops. The French settlers looted both of them. They cleaned out the taverns, too. Some unfortunate things probably happened to a few of the local women. Roland thought that was too bad, but he didn't intend to do anything about it as long as the soldiers followed orders when it came time to leave.

They did. Fewer cheers came to them when they left than when they'd arrived. Somebody fired an old fowling piece at them as they marched away. None of the junk in the gun barrel hit anybody. If some had, the French settlers probably would have turned around and done a proper job of wrecking the town. As things were, they just kept going.

"You know, Monsieur, the copperskins and blacks will come back as soon as we've gone a couple of miles," a sergeant said.

"But of course," Kersauzon replied. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Well, sir, the Spaniards said we could come in if we helped them with the slave uprising," the underofficer pointed out.

Roland told him what the Spaniards could do about it. In the telling, he violated as many commandments as he could without having either a sculptor's tools or someone else's wife handy. The sergeant, a man as accustomed to harsh language as anyone of his rank, stared in goggle-eyed admiration. Having slowed down a little, Roland said, "I came down here to fight the damned English settlers. If I can't do that here, I'll go where I can do it, by God. Any questions?"

"Mais non. Certainement pas," the sergeant said hastily, and went off to find somewhere to bathe his bleeding ears.

If the slaves got in the French settlers' way, Roland's men went through them. If the slaves didn't, the settlers ignored them. They took what they needed from the surrounding countryside, as if in hostile country. The locals took to running from them, and occasionally, as in that one village, shooting at them. The French made them sorry when they tried it.

A courier from Don Jose rode up to Roland when he and his men were once more nearing the border with French Atlantis. In accented French, the man cried, "His Excellency the governor demands to know why you have not performed the function he required of you, and why he has received reports that you are plundering the countryside."

"We are plundering the countryside because we have to eat, and he never arranged to feed us," Roland replied. "And we are now returning to the more important fight, the one against England."

"But the slaves still torment us!" the Spaniard cried.

"If you can't put them down by yourselves, then it could be that they deserve to be the masters," Roland said.

The courier's jaw dropped. He sputtered and fumed. Finally, after some effort, he got out, "This is intolerable!"

"If you do not care to tolerate it, you are welcome to attack my army," Roland said. "So is his Excellency. I do not promise you the most hospitable of receptions, however."

"You will pay for this-this insolence," the courier said.

"We've already paid for Spanish insolence," Kersauzon replied. "Without it, we would have been able to come to grips with the English settlers a long time ago. Instead, they got away. Should I thank you for that?"

"If you weren't already running away from our country, we would drive you out like the dogs you are," the Spaniard said.

Roland looked at him. "Consider, Monsieur: you are, perhaps, not in the best position to throw insults about."

How many muskets could point at a man on horseback at a shouted order, or even without one? The courier seemed to make the calculation, and not to like the answer he found. His hand slipped toward the dragoon pistol he wore on his right hip, then jerked away as if the pistol butt had become red-hot.

"You'll be sorry," he warned.

"I'm sorry already," Roland said: "sorry Don Jose doesn't know his own mind, sorry your slaves hate you so much-"

"What of yours?" the courier retorted.

"Not like that." I hope, Roland added, but only to himself. "Most of all, I'm sorry this has been a chase after a wild goose, a wild goose that has flown. Since I can't follow by sea, I must go by land as best I can. And so I say farewell to Spanish Atlantis, and you had better pray your own folk here do not do the same."

"God will punish you for this desertion," the Spaniard said.

"He has-He sent me you, did He not?" Roland replied. His men laughed. The Spaniard glowered. The French settlers began to march, and the courier had to move aside or get trampled into the mud. "Onward!" Roland cried.