“He will hear,” George murmured to himself. “We’ll make him hear, and I doubt it will take very long.”
Roast-Beef William was not a happy man. His wing had fought its heart out, trying to push the southrons back into Goober Creek. Then the weary men had marched all night before trying to dislodge Hesmucet’s left from the glideway line leading to Julia. They hadn’t quite managed either feat, but the number of dead and wounded they’d left on the field told how hard they’d tried.
It told Roast-Beef William, at any rate. He couldn’t see that the soldiers’ effort and suffering meant that much to Lieutenant General Bell, who was glaring at him like the angry lion he resembled. “I don’t care how hard they tried,” Bell said furiously. “I care that they failed.”
“Sir, if you set out to do the impossible, you shouldn’t be surprised when you fall short,” William said.
“Impossible? No such thing,” Bell declared. “If only your men had pressed their second attack, they would have rolled up the stinking southrons and thrown them back in disorder.”
“Sir…” Roast-Beef William resisted the impulse to pick up his chair and break it over the commanding general’s head. “Sir, we’d fought a battle the day before. We’d marched fifteen miles at night with bad guides to get to where we could deliver that second attack. And then, after the way we fought, you complain because we didn’t do enough? For shame, sir! For shame!”
“The plan was good. If the plan was good but didn’t succeed, that must be the fault of the men who went to carry it out,” Bell said.
Sighing, William said, “Sir, the plan was less good than you think. If you attack soldiers in entrenchments when yours are not, you had better have more men than they do, not fewer. They waited for us to get close, and then they shot us down like partridges. You cannot blame our defeats on the brave soldiers who serve us.”
“You’re wiser in hindsight than you were in foresight,” Bell said, “for you didn’t protest these orders when I gave them.”
That held some truth, more than Roast-Beef William cared to think about. He hadn’t opposed Bell’s first attack, the one that had failed to push the southrons back over Goober Creek. Casting about for some means to defend himself, he said, “I did warn you the men you sent to attack James the Bird’s Eye would be too weary to give their best.”
“Oh, what a hero you are!” Bell jeered. In defeat, he was proving as bad-tempered and sarcastic as Joseph the Gamecock or Thraxton the Braggart ever had. Criticizing, it seemed, had proved easier than commanding. Camp rumor said Joseph, before departing, had warned that that would be so. However prickly Joseph was, he’d always known a hawk from a handsaw. Bell… Roast-Beef William wasn’t so sure about Bell.
He wasn’t so sure about himself, either. Maybe I should have protested harder-protested at least some-whenBell sent us south just after he took command, he thought mournfully. No: certainly I should have protested. He knew why he hadn’t. Joseph the Gamecock had been sacked because he wouldn’t attack. Bell had been installed because he would. King Geoffrey had wanted attacks against the southrons. How could an officer mindful of that oppose them?
Well, the Army of Franklin, or what was left of it, had found the answer to that. Opposing attacks that failed, that might well have been foredoomed, looked like great wisdom in hindsight. With so many men lost, with the southrons not driven away despite those dreadful losses to the northern force, how were they going to hold on to Marthasville? Roast-Beef William had been a soldier and a teacher of soldiers for a long time. That notwithstanding, he had no idea.
Before he could find a way to put any of that into words, a runner came into the house Bell was using as army headquarters-the house Joseph had used before being sacked. “Sir-” he began, and then, catching sight of William along with the general commanding, fell silent.
“Say on,” Bell told him. “Say your say. Roast-Beef William may be a fool, but he is no traitor to the northern cause.”
“Sir…” That wasn’t the messenger; it was Roast-Beef William himself. But he shook his head. What point in quarreling further? When Bell called him a fool, what he meant was, He disagrees with me.
“Yes, sir,” the messenger said to Bell. “The news is that the gods-damned southrons are moving against the glideway line running north out of Marthasville, the line to Dicon and the rest of the north of this province. They’ve already overrun the line to Dothan. They’re marching on Jonestown, about fifteen miles north of the city, sir, moving on that line in a long loop from out of the east.”
“That’s the last line into Marthasville we still hold, sir,” Roast-Beef William said. “If the southrons seize it, we’re as near surrounded as makes no difference.”
“I know that.” Bell spoke in an abstracted voice, as if from far away. The pupils of his eyes were very small. William had seen that before, when heroic doses of laudanum had had their way with the commanding general.
Another runner dashed in. He stood on no ceremony whatever, saying, “Lieutenant General Bell, sir, the southrons are starting to fling firepots and stones into Marthasville, sir! What are we going to do?”
“They’ve moved their engines up close enough to reach the town, have they?” Roast-Beef William said. The second runner nodded.
“One thing at a time,” Bell said, more to himself than to anyone else. After a moment, he gathered himself and turned to William. “You go with your wing and massacre the southrons by Jonestown. If they’re bombarding Marthasville, they can’t have sent that many men north. Crush them, hold on to the glideway line leading north, and, as opportunity offers, push east toward the one to Dothan.”
“Yes, sir.” William saluted. The order struck him as reasonable-more than reasonable, in fact. Holding the glideway lines coming out of Marthasville was the main reason for holding the city itself. Of course, it would have done more good had the Army of Franklin still controlled the lines leading toward Julia and toward Nonesuch. But those were gone, cut by the southrons. No reinforcements or supplies would go to Parthenia along them.
Without the line to Dothan and the one to northern Peachtree Province, though, no reinforcements or-more vital-supplies would get into Marthasville. Hesmucet could sit down and starve the city into submission… if he didn’t prefer to knock it flat instead.
Bell had the same thought at the same time. “Hesmucet uses us barbarously, to throw stones and fire into a city still full of noncombatants,” he said.
“Sir, I would agree,” Roast-Beef William replied. “But if he will do it, it may work to his advantage, and I see no way for us to make him stop it.”
“Barbarous,” Bell repeated. “Shameless and barbarous.” His eyes hardly seemed to have any pupils at all. “I shall drive them away from Marthasville if I see even the smallest chance of doing so.”
“Yes, sir,” Roast-Beef William said, and then, because he couldn’t help himself, “Sir, please do be careful. We’ve already lost a lot of men. How many more can we afford to throw away?”
“If we triumph, the men are not thrown away.” No matter how much laudanum Bell had taken, he still sounded angry. “Joseph the Gamecock would not see that, which is why I command.”
“If we triumph, yes, sir,” William said. “We’ve hit the southrons two hard blows, and haven’t triumphed yet. We need to be able to defend ourselves, too, against the cursed numbers they enjoy.”