And so, reluctantly, Kersauzon called to a bugler and said, "Blow halt."
Obedient but puzzled-the French settlers had been pushing hard toward the northeast-the man obeyed. The soldiers weren't sorry to stop. Soldiers were never sorry to stop, from everything Roland had seen. Some went off to take a leak. Others lit up pipes or cigars.
Roland rode out in front of them. "My friends, I am sorry to have to tell you that we must reverse our course again," he said.
The men muttered among themselves. "Who spilled the chamber pot into the soup this time?" one of them asked.
In spite of his own fury, Roland smiled. "That sums it up only too well, mon vieux," he said. "I learn that the slaves in Spanish Atlantis have risen." He held up the letter to show how he'd learned it. "The governor wants our help against them-and, I suppose, against the English settlers who inspired the revolt. And if we would rather not see an uprising in our own settlements, we would do well to give him what help we can."
They weighed that with grave attention. Not many of them came from plantation families, but even ordinary farmers who were doing well for themselves had a couple of Negroes or copperskins to give them a hand. Like plantation owners, they had to worry about their property absconding with itself.
One by one, they started to nod. Somebody said, "It's a damned nuisance, but we'd better do it."
"Once we get down there again, we ought to kick that damned Spaniard around the block," another soldier added, which brought more nods.
"Damned slaves are jumping on the Spaniards when they're down," yet another man said. "We need to teach 'em they can't get away with that kind of crap with us." That too produced a growing chorus of agreement.
"You are gentlemen-and it hasn't turned you into blockheads, the way it has with the Spaniards," Roland said. His soldiers grinned and nudged one another-they liked that. Roland wasn't lying, either. He pointed back the way they'd come. "About-turn, mes amis. We have two jobs of work to do, and with luck we can do both of them at the same time."
Had Montcalm-Gozon or the French regulars watched the settlers reverse their course, they probably would have laughed. Kersauzon's army wasn't long on spit and polish. It didn't drill constantly, the way a European army did. But it could fight when it had to. It had already proved that. As far as Roland was concerned, an army that could fight didn't have to look pretty…and an army that looked pretty was worthless anyhow if it couldn't fight.
He rode past the marching men to take his place at the head of the army once more. The soldiers seemed profanely determined to punish the slaves, the English settlers, and the Spaniards for making them march and countermarch. Roland smiled to himself. If that wasn't the right attitude for an army to have, he couldn't imagine what would be.
Victor Radcliff knew less about copperskins than he wished he did. Far fewer had been brought to the English settlements in Atlantis than to those of the French and Spanish farther south. Meeting with the leaders of the slave revolt in Spanish Atlantis taught him how proud the copperskins were.
"Why shouldn't we kill all the whites?" one of them demanded. His Spanish name was Martin. He had another one, the one he'd used in the broader lands of Terranova, but Victor couldn't begin to pronounce it. Martin would have to do. Black eyes blazing, he went on, "They don't care if they kill us."
"He is right. Even if he is a Blackfoot, he is right," another copperskin said. Not all of them came from the same tribe. They were as different as Portuguese and Germans and Poles…if you were a Terranovan yourself. Europeans tended to lump them all together, just as the Terranovans spoke of whites without separating Spaniards from Frenchmen from Englishmen. The fellow who wasn't a Blackfoot went by the name of Ramon. He continued, "Give us weapons, and we will make the masters howl."
"We have not many weapons to spare." Victor's Spanish was imperfect. So was the Spanish the copperskins spoke-and they were imperfect in different ways. Everybody had to back and fill and try again every so often.
Martin scowled at him. "You don't want to give them to us, you mean," he growled. His right hand folded into a fist. "How are you any better than these Spanish putos?"
"?Como?" Victor returned his blandest smile. "Simple-we're on your side. What would happen if you asked the Spaniards for arms?"
Reluctantly, Martin nodded. He didn't like the point, but he saw it. But Ramon said, "We don't ask no Spaniards for nothing. What he want from the Spaniards, we take, por Dios."
"Bueno," Victor said. "But you make them all join together against you."
"Why do you care?" Martin's grammar was better than Ramon's. "Then they don't fight you so hard."
"They still fight us." Victor wondered what his superiors would want him to do here. His orders were to start no slave insurrections-not directly. And he hadn't-not directly. But the enemy of England's enemy…was a handy fellow to have around. "We can help you some-just not so much as you probably want."
"Anything is better than nothing," Martin said.
"But more are better-am better-than less," Ramon said.
"Well, the ones who do fight us don't fight you," Victor pointed out. "And, meaning you no disrespect, we are better fighters than you are."
"You think so, do you?" Martin was as affronted as Victor would have been if-no, as Victor had been when-General Braddock told him the redcoats made better soldiers than his settlers.
"I do think so." Victor Radcliff gave back the same kind of answer Braddock might have: "We have better discipline and more experience." He didn't talk about weapons, not when they were a sore spot.
And he didn't impress the copperskins. "We has something you will never has," Ramon said, again without much grammar but with great sincerity.
"What's that?" Radcliff stayed polite, almost disinterested.
"Hate." Ramon needed no grammar to get his point across.
"Hate sends you into battle," Victor agreed. "Hate without experience and discipline sends you into battle…and gets you killed."
That also didn't have the effect he wanted. "So what?" Martin said. "Do you know what we do, Senor? Do you know what they make us do? With what we do, dying in battle is a relief, an easier ending than most of us would find any other way."
It is if you lose, that's certain sure, Victor thought. Spanish vengeance was proverbial up and down Atlantis. Before he could say anything along those lines, Ramon added, "We may die, but we kill, too." He got things right there.
"Help us kill," Martin said urgently. "That's all we want."
"Let's see what we can do," Victor said.
He gave the slaves a few muskets. He gave them some bar lead and some bullet molds. He got his men to cough up some of the swords and bayonets and dirks they'd taken from Frenchmen and Spaniards. And he found that the copperskins were easily pleased. What didn't look like much help to him seemed a great deal more to them. They were so used to getting nothing, anything at all might have been a miracle.
"Now we make the Spaniards to pay," Ramon exulted, brandishing a rapier he plainly had no idea how to use.
Victor stepped away from him. "Have a care with that. You can hurt your friends with it, not just your foes."
Ramon's gaze was measuring. "And which is you?"
"I don't want to be your enemy," Victor answered evenly. "If you make me your enemy, you won't want that, either. Do you understand me?"
"Understand." The copperskin's voice was grudging, but he did nod. He might not like what he heard. Victor didn't care about that. But Ramon and Martin needed to see that they would be fools to antagonize the Englishmen who were their only friends in this sweltering land.