A courier from Don Jose rode up to Roland when he and his men were once more nearing the border with French Atlantis. In accented French, the man cried, "His Excellency the governor demands to know why you have not performed the function he required of you, and why he has received reports that you are plundering the countryside."
"We are plundering the countryside because we have to eat, and he never arranged to feed us," Roland replied. "And we are now returning to the more important fight, the one against England."
"But the slaves still torment us!" the Spaniard cried.
"If you can't put them down by yourselves, then it could be that they deserve to be the masters," Roland said.
The courier's jaw dropped. He sputtered and fumed. Finally, after some effort, he got out, "This is intolerable!"
"If you do not care to tolerate it, you are welcome to attack my army," Roland said. "So is his Excellency. I do not promise you the most hospitable of receptions, however."
"You will pay for this-this insolence," the courier said.
"We've already paid for Spanish insolence," Kersauzon replied. "Without it, we would have been able to come to grips with the English settlers a long time ago. Instead, they got away. Should I thank you for that?"
"If you weren't already running away from our country, we would drive you out like the dogs you are," the Spaniard said.
Roland looked at him. "Consider, Monsieur: you are, perhaps, not in the best position to throw insults about."
How many muskets could point at a man on horseback at a shouted order, or even without one? The courier seemed to make the calculation, and not to like the answer he found. His hand slipped toward the dragoon pistol he wore on his right hip, then jerked away as if the pistol butt had become red-hot.
"You'll be sorry," he warned.
"I'm sorry already," Roland said: "sorry Don Jose doesn't know his own mind, sorry your slaves hate you so much-"
"What of yours?" the courier retorted.
"Not like that." I hope, Roland added, but only to himself. "Most of all, I'm sorry this has been a chase after a wild goose, a wild goose that has flown. Since I can't follow by sea, I must go by land as best I can. And so I say farewell to Spanish Atlantis, and you had better pray your own folk here do not do the same."
"God will punish you for this desertion," the Spaniard said.
"He has-He sent me you, did He not?" Roland replied. His men laughed. The Spaniard glowered. The French settlers began to march, and the courier had to move aside or get trampled into the mud. "Onward!" Roland cried.
XXIII
W hen Victor Radcliff strode down the Inflexible's gangplank and onto the quays at Freetown, the clever English lieutenant-colonel who'd sent the flotilla into southern waters stood waiting for him. Victor threw the Englishman the snappiest salute he knew how to give. "Much obliged to your Excellency," he said.
"I thought you might need a hand, or at least find one, er, handy, so I did what I could," the officer replied.
"Now that we're back here, what did you have in mind doing with us?" Victor wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his sleeve-he had no kerchief. It was high summer, and as hot here as it had been in Spanish Atlantis.
"Montcalm-Gozon presses us hard," the lieutenant-colonel said. "He has proved himself an able and aggressive soldier, and of course he has a solid body of French regulars. He has, however, few settlers or other irregulars with him, not until Roland Kersauzon catches him up. This being so…"
Radcliff saluted again. He also grinned. "This being so, you want us to drive him as crazy as a honker in mating season."
"Whilst I should not have put it quite that way-yes." The English officer smiled, too.
"Well, I expect we can do that. I expect the boys will look forward to it, as a matter of fact, if I can get them out of town fast enough," Victor said.
"I'm sorry?" The officer's smile melted away. "I don't follow that."
"If we stay here long, some of them will get drunk, some will get poxed, and the more enterprising lads will manage both," Victor Radcliff told him.
"Oh. I see." The smile returned. "Why, they might almost be regulars."
"They're men, your Excellency." Victor wondered how much experience with soldiers the Englishman had had before King George-or, more likely, King George's ministers-ordered him across the sea. Less than he might have had: Victor was pretty sure of that.
Blaise and the other sergeants lined the green-jacketed settlers up in neat ranks. No one would escape to the fleshpots of Freetown, such as those were, if the underofficers had anything to say about it-and they did. "We got here ahead of the buggers from French Atlantis," one of the sergeants rasped. "The Frenchies who are up here'll be sorry we did, too."
As Victor walked out in front of the assembled irregulars, he reflected that the tough, pockmarked man with three chevrons sewn to his left sleeve had just given his speech for him. "Philip is right," he said, and watched the underofficer's chest expand and his shoulders rise and straighten. "Now we make the French regulars as sorry as Kersauzon's men made General Braddock. We owe 'em that much, don't we?"
Agreement came, loud and profane. The settlers had got caught along with Braddock and his redcoats. They would have if the English general wanted to listen. And if honkers could fly…
"Forward-march!" Blaise shouted. Bugles blared. Drums thumped. The men paraded through Freetown. Tavern owners came out of their establishments and stared wistfully at the stream of men who wouldn't be customers. Sergeants and lieutenants made sure the men didn't sneak off to taverns or to bawdy houses. A couple of plump, extremely well-dressed women who looked as disappointed as the publicans probably presided over those establishments.
More settlers and the surviving redcoats who hadn't got captured and paroled held Freetown against Montcalm-Gozon and his men. The French commander wasn't carrying on a formal siege with saps and parallels, but his campaign wasn't far removed from it. He'd been pushing the English lieutenant-colonel's forces back on the town. Had he had more artillery, he could have made things even worse. They were bad enough as it was.
The French marquis didn't have enough men to surround the town and keep his lines tight at the same time. The English lieutenant-colonel said, "Well, Major Radcliff, from here on I leave you to your own no doubt fertile devices. They seem to have met all requirements in French and Spanish Atlantis."
"Thank you, sir," Victor said in glad surprise. "I don't know if I can handle that much responsibility."
For a moment, the Englishman was nonplused. Then he realized Radcliff might not be altogether serious. He smiled thinly. "I dare hope you'll manage."
"So do I." Victor realized he was liable to find himself in the middle of warm work. He shrugged. He'd done that before. One more time couldn't be too much worse…could it?
Of course it could, you stupid fool, a voice inside him screeched. If you stop a musket ball with your chest, or with your face, you'll see how much worse it could be, too. Would Meg want anything to do with him if he came home with a patch over one eye or missing half his jaw? If she did, would it be from love or from pity?
At the English lieutenant-colonel's orders, the redcoats started a brisk dusk skirmish with Marquis Montcalm-Gozon's Frenchmen. They stirred up enough trouble to draw French reinforcements-and to let Victor and a large band of settlers break out through a weakly held stretch not far away.