Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

Here and there, English Atlanteans had picked up guns and attacked the invading French forces. No doubt Montcalm-Gozon's men had hanged the irregulars they caught. Did that stop the English Atlanteans from harrying them? Victor Radcliff doubted it, but he didn't quarrel with the English officer. That worthy had tradition on his side, and didn't seem inclined to listen to anyone who disagreed.

Besides, what was wrong with hanging Frenchmen? After all the trouble they'd caused, Victor wouldn't have shed a tear to see the lot of them strung up. Neither would Blaise. "Ought to hang everyone who buys and sells slaves," he said.

That would touch off a revolt in French Atlantis. Victor was sure of it. The locals might understand and forgive the execution of guerrillas. Anyone who went off and did something like that took his chances. But the French Atlanteans-and the Spanish Atlanteans farther south-were convinced they had the right to own human chattels. And…

"Didn't Africans sell you to the white slave traders?" Victor asked.

Blaise nodded. "Hang them, too," he said. "They serve it." He made a face. "Deserve it." His English got better by the day. It still had a long way to go, though.

Before long, the direction in which Roland Kersauzon's men were retreating grew obvious. "He's going to stand siege in Nouveau Redon," Victor told the English lieutenant-colonel.

"Well, we'll just have to winkle him out of there, in that case." The English officer certainly didn't lack for aggressiveness.

Whether he lacked for brains might be a different question. "It's a formidable place," Victor warned. "It won't be easy to take."

"He's never come up against proper engineers, either," the lieutenant-colonel said.

"How much can engineers do against solid rock?" Victor asked.

The English lieutenant-colonel's smile was indulgent, almost sweet. "I believe you've got the question backwards, Major. You should ask, how much can solid rock do against engineers?"

Back where he started. Roland Kersauzon hadn't expected to return to Nouveau Redon except in triumph. He hadn't imagined the English Atlanteans stood a chance against brave French soldiers. He'd thought he could beat them with settlers. By God, he had beaten the redcoats with settlers! That should have decided things.

It should have, but it didn't. He failed to count on English tenacity. The enemy kept fighting. Their raiding band made Roland separate from Montcalm-Gozon-but he never did catch up with Victor Radcliff. He damned Don Jose all over again. He could deal with his enemies, but God protect him from people who claimed to be his friends.

And English tenacity also meant sending more redcoats across the ocean. No more French regulars came to Atlantis. Maybe the English wouldn't let them. But maybe King Louis and his ministers simply couldn't be bothered with sending reinforcements. Roland wouldn't have been surprised either way.

Ordinary people streamed out of Nouveau Redon. Roland wanted no one there who couldn't carry a musket. The fewer mouths he fed, the better. As long as he had soldiers on the walls and supplies in the storerooms, he was ready to defy the world-or, at least, those parts of it that spoke English.

One good thing sprang from the wreckage of his hopes: he worried a little less about disease than he had before. You couldn't catch smallpox or measles more than once. So the learned doctors promised him, and for once he was pretty sure they were right. The ones who could catch them already had, and had got better or died.

He posted a strong garrison of reliable soldiers around the storehouses. That didn't seem so important now, which was why he hastened to take care of it. If the garrison was in place before people started fretting about hunger, it would stand a better chance of stopping trouble-or making sure trouble didn't start-than if he put it in place after soldiers started tightening their belts. He hoped it would, anyhow.

For now, his men's fighting spirit was strong. "We'll whip those English cochons right out of their boots, won't we, sir?" said a youngster on the wall. He shook his fist at the north. "Just let them come!"

"But of course we'll beat them." Roland wouldn't have weakened such enthusiasm for the world. As for letting the English settlers and redcoats come…He and the force he had left couldn't very well stop them. He knew that too painfully well. If he could have, he would have.

He made a point of checking the artillery. "We will dismay them with our range," a grizzled gunnery sergeant said. "We're up much higher than they are, you comprehend. It gives us the advantage."

"Yes, I comprehend perfectly," Roland said. "They will be sorry that they have tried to rob us of the jewel in the crown of French Atlantis."

The gunner's face lit up. "That is well said, Monsieur!"

"I'm glad you think so." Roland Kersauzon had never particularly believed he had a knack for the telling phrase. If he came up with one now, it was bound to be as much by luck as for any other reason.

And how much would it matter one way or the other? If the enemy seized the rest of the crown, of course he would start prying at the jewel. Someone would have to come to its rescue. Someone would have to-but would anyone do it?

No one from French Atlantis was likely to come to his aid. Such force as these lands could provide, he had. Oh, there would still be armed men among the settlers, but there was no other army of settlers. And there would be none, not to relieve him. If any army formed, it would be to quell servile uprisings. He was bitterly sure of that. What would the enslaved Negroes and Terranovan natives here be doing now? What they'd done in Spanish Atlantis? It seemed much too likely.

What hope from across the sea, then? Would the mother country send another force of regulars to help its Atlantean settlements? Even if King Louis wanted to do just that-something of which Roland had no assurance-what connection lay between desire and ability?

King George had reinforced his redcoats. That argued England was winning the war at sea. So did Victor Radcliff's mortifying escape. The best will in the world might not let France ship soldiers across the Atlantic. If it didn't…

In that case, why am I still fighting? Why not surrender now? Roland wondered. He would save his own skin, and he would save the lives of so many settlers who had already suffered so much for French Atlantis and for France.

But he could not make himself yield while still able to fight. If they want me so much, let them come and get me, he thought. He didn't know what was going on in the wider world; he could only guess. And even if his guesses were right now, fortune might reverse itself while he held out.

He could hope so. And he was too damned stubborn to quit. "Here I stand," he murmured. If a German Protestant had said the same thing once upon a time…Roland knew little of Protestants, and even less of Germans.

"Oh," the English lieutenant-colonel said when he got his first good look at Nouveau Redon.

"Yes, sir," Victor Radcliff replied, in lieu of I told you so. "The nut won't be easy to crack, I'm afraid."

"So it would seem," the English officer said. After a moment, though, his chin came up. "The meat inside will be all the sweeter, then."

"Once we get at it, it will." Victor didn't want to say, If we can get at it. The lieutenant-colonel might think he lacked confidence. He also might think the same thing himself.

"First things first," the Englishman said. "We'll surround them, cut them off. We'll offer battle. If they come out to engage us, so much the better."

"Roland Kersauzon's not that foolish," Victor said. "I wish he were."

"Well, we can hope he will be," the lieutenant-colonel said. Radcliff only shrugged. You could always hope. But hoping for something and counting on it were very different. He hoped the Englishman understood that.