"Those are two things we can do, certainly, sir," Radcliff replied. "I can think of others that might serve us better."
"Can you indeed?" The English officer raised an elegant eyebrow. He'd have a title of nobility one day, if he didn't already. "Would you be so good as to expatiate on them?"
As to what? Victor wondered. He was damned if he'd inquire, though. And he thought he knew what the Englishman had to mean. "We could send a raiding party into French territory by land through the backwoods," he said. "That way, we'd make the enemy dance to our tune instead of dancing to theirs."
"And who would command such a party?" the lieutenant-colonel asked. "You?"
"If you like, sir," Victor said. "I have done a lot of exploring in the interior. I know I could find plenty of men who wouldn't starve in the woods."
"Very well. That's one thing," the Englishman said. "You told me there were others, so I presume you have at least one more in mind."
"I do, sir," Victor Radcliff agreed. "We could take boats and land down the coast in French territory, do our raiding, and then either come back the way we went or go into the interior, depending on which seemed best."
The English officer studied him. "Again, I presume you would command this mission?"
"I'm suited for it. I don't know anyone who has a better chance of making it work," Victor said.
"Which would you do if you had the choice?"
"I believe I'd go in by land, sir," Victor said. "That way, we start giving the enemy a hard time all the sooner."
"You wouldn't take so large a party as to hurt our chances of defending against the French here?"
"Oh, heavens, no, sir! We couldn't victual that kind of party, anyhow," Victor said. "A relative handful of men, moving swiftly and raising havoc-that's what I've got in mind."
"I see." The lieutenant-colonel nodded. "Well, why don't you recruit such a party and set it in motion? I think you will do the French some harm with it, and I also suspect you won't be sorry to have me out of your hair." He gave the Atlantean a crooked grin.
Victor Radcliff grinned back. "That cuts both ways, unless I'm sadly mistaken. You won't be sorry I'm not nagging you any more."
"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."