I expected we would be thrust into immediate battle, in order to punish the Dutch for their impudence. But a modern Army is a sedentary beast and slow to move. General Galligasken, who commanded the Army in total, was a notoriously cautious leader, reluctant to unleash his forces until every contingency had been accounted for and all preparations were fully in place. It was a tendency that frustrated the Executive Branch, Julian said, but it made Galligasken a popular figure with the troops, who were well-fed under his regime, and whose lives were not recklessly squandered. (The veterans among us had shared stories of the harsh rule of Galligasken’s predecessor, General Stratemeyer, a disciplinarian who squandered thousands of lives in futile and unproductive trench attacks. General Stratemeyer had been killed early last year, when he rode away from his camp to consult a cavalry commander but took a wrong turn, placing him athwart a line of Dutch skirmishers, who were pleased to employ him for target practice.)
For these reasons we did not march into battle at once, but sat in camp while scouts and pickets probed the opposing lines, and brought back captives who disgorged useful intelligence about the enemy’s capabilities and intentions. Sam, though still a mere private, worked his connections until he was well-educated about the current state of military affairs. A week after the attack on Montreal the three of us huddled in our tent against another interval of rain, and Sam told us about the Chinese Cannon, while a springtime zephyr whipped the canvas above our heads.
I asked him what made a cannon Chinese, and why it was to be particularly feared.
“The Chinese,” he said, “have been waging wars of their own for many years, and they’re cunning in the production of field artillery, especially long-bore cannonry. Some of these weapons they sell abroad, to help finance their own military expeditions. Chinese Cannons are formidable but very expensive. The Mitteleuropans must have bought one, or are using their own factories to mimic the design.”
“We have artillery pieces aplenty,” I protested, for I had seen them about the camp.
“Many, and well-made,” Sam agreed. “But the Chinese Cannon has a greater range than anything of ours. It can deliver shells and canister deep into an opponent’s territory. I suppose we could build a similar cannon along traditional lines, but it would be clumsy to transport. The genius of the Chinese Cannon is that it quickly breaks down into what are called ‘sub-assemblies,’ which can be moved by horse or rail as easily as a conventional artillery piece.”
“We need to capture or decommission this cannon,” I said firmly.
“Probably General Galligasken has thought of that,” said Julian, “though your reasoning, as far as it goes, is flawless, Adam.”
Sam ignored Julian’s sarcasm and said, “We will do so, or at least make the attempt, but it needs forethought and careful planning. I expect we’ll see action before the week is out. Curb your impatience, Adam—the Dutch are just as eager to get you in their sights as you are to punish them.”
I would punish them grandly, I declared, for it was cowardly of them to have attacked helpless civilians at Montreal (putting Calyxa, among others, at risk). “You’ll see worse things before the Army is done with us,” said Sam; and in that, as in most of his prophecies, he was entirely correct.
The next day the rain stopped, and a few days after that the roads had dried, and General Galligasken himself rode through camp, which we took to be the signal of an impending attack.
I caught a brief glimpse of the General. One wide dirt lane cut through the entirety of the Army encampment, connecting several parade grounds, and it was down this route that General Galligasken rode. Infantrymen pressed the margins of the road on all sides, waving their caps and shouting as the General passed by. I was determined not to miss such a spectacle, and by a determined use of my elbows I made my way to the front of the crowd, or close enough that by some well-timed jumping I could see the whole of the procession.
What surprised me was the General’s relative youth. He was not a young man, especially, but neither was he a grizzled veteran—last year’s campaigns had been a success for the Dutch, Sam had explained, and there were fewer grizzled veterans extant than there ought to have been. Many younger men had been catapulted up the ranks. General Bernard W. Galligasken was one of these, and he cut a sprightly figure in the saddle, smiling serenely at the lapping ocean of infantrymen that surrounded him. He was vain, some said, about his appearance, and certainly his uniform was tailored to within a fine inch, and bright in all its colors. The blue-and-yellow costume suited him, however, and his long hair brushed his stiff starched collar in a jaunty fashion. The alabaster handle of his Porter & Earle pistol glinted from the supple leather holster at his hip, and there was a great deal of stamped metal on his chest, to mark the battles he had endured and the bravery he had displayed in them. His hat was a broad-brimmed extravagance with a turkey feather attached.
(The Chinese Cannon spoke twice during this display, and one of the shells burst less than a quarter of a mile from our camp; but the Dutch did not exactly have our range, because of the great distance from which they aimed and their inability to spot the impacts. It was a haphazard affair, which we all ignored.)*
This procession of General Galligasken with his train of subordinates and standard-bearers was a little more “fuss and feathers” than would have been deemed proper back in Williams Ford; but the General was not in camp solely to make a show. He met with his battalion commanders that night in a Council of War. Final plans were laid, and we were instructed by our superiors to “sleep on our arms,” and be ready to move before dawn.
The next morning we marched to battle.
At first it was “route march,” in which we were not held to a strict formation; though our Regiment, aware of its unblooded status, kept up in dignified lines-of-four. Things went slowly in the darkness of the early morning, and the roads were still damp, so that mule trains and horse-drawn wagons struggled in the soft spots. As dawn pearled the horizon the sound of marching feet, creaking leather, rattling canteens and tinkling spurs was joined by an incongruously joyful chorus of bird song. It was spring, and the birds were nesting, unaware that their homes might be destroyed by cannonade or rifle fire before the day or the season was out.
The territory through which we passed had been overbuilt in the days of the Secular Ancients, but only a few traces of that exuberant time remained, and a whole forest had grown up since then, maple and birch and pine, its woody roots no doubt entwined with artifacts from the Efflorescence of Oil and with the bones of the artifacts’ owners. What is the modern world, Julian once asked, but a vast Cemetery, reclaimed by nature? Every step we took reverberated in the skulls of our ancestors, and I felt as if there were centuries rather than soil beneath my feet.
The skirmishing began as soon as the sun cleared the horizon, or perhaps it had begun sooner, since we were in the rear of the advance and the hilly terrain around us obscured the sounds of battle. In fact the battle announced itself like a coming storm, by a series of ominous signs: first, the pall of smoke over the hilly ground ahead of us; second, the low growl of artillery; third, the crackle of small-arms fire; fourth, the acrid smell of gunpowder. These tokens of conflict increased in volume and intensity as the sun rose, and then we began to see a sight that disheartens any soldier: wagonloads of casualties being carried to the rear. “It must be fierce fighting,” I said in a low voice, as a canvas-back Dominion wagon (as these makeshift ambulances were called) jounced past, its passengers concealed but their groans and screams all too audible on the morning air.
Then we topped another hill, and the battlefield was briefly laid out before us like a game board—much of it, however, masked by smoke. I thought I saw General Galligasken observing from this same ridge, and our longest-range cannons were here arrayed, banging and recoiling repetitively. Down below were the nearest of the enemy’s trenches.