Marching Through Peachtree

“I like the figure,” Hesmucet said. “We southrons, we’ve had a big, strong body with a head full of rocks. But the north will never be anything but scrawny, no matter how fiery its head gets. And our head can get a little fire of its own.”

“Just so,” George agreed. “You and Marshal Bart have gone a long way towards proving that. You’ve whipped the Army of Franklin, and Bart’s got the Army of Southern Parthenia pe

“Only trouble here is, Bell doesn’t know he’s whipped, gods damn him,” Hesmucet said. “He keeps wanting to make trouble.”

“People who want to make trouble find themselves in it more often than not,” George observed. “I don’t think Bell will be different from any of the rest.”

“I intend to go after him,” Hesmucet said. “He thinks he can give us fits by cutting the glideway link from Rising Rock. I don’t think he can do it for long, but even if he does, what difference will it make? His gods-damned army’s living off the countryside now. Does he think we can’t do the same?”

“If he does, he’s a fool,” Doubting George said. “Of course, nothing much he’s done in this campaign would make me believe he’s not a fool.”

“I’m going ahead with things just as pla

“Sounds good to me, sir,” George said.

The only people to whom it didn’t sound good were the inhabitants of Marthasville. Their opinions mattered not at all to General Hesmucet. They cursed and reviled him as his provost guards routed them from their homes. “You may stay if you like,” he said cheerfully. “You’ll go up in smoke, but you may stay. I won’t stop you, but I sure as hells will burn you.”

They cursed him harder than ever after that, but not a one of them stayed to burn with the city. He’d expected nothing different.

The stink of smoke still lingered in the air from the time when Bell’s men had fired whatever they couldn’t bring with them. “I bet the traitors had a roaring good time burning things,” Hesmucet told one incendiary. “But we’ll have a better one, on account of this whole stinking town goes up now.”

Go up Marthasville did. Hesmucet’s soldiers spread cooking oil and whale oil all through the city before starting their blazes. That made the fires flare up even hotter and brighter when the men did set them. Hesmucet took off his hat and fa

Not far from him, a northern woman cried out in despair: “Traa! I’ve got to get back to Traa!”

“Oh, shut up, you stupid bitch,” said the handsome man with jug-handle ears next to her. “The southrons burned that place weeks ago.”

“You go to the hells, Thert the Butler!” the woman said furiously. “I’ll build it up again, you see if I don’t.”

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a-” Thert answered, and then howled, because she kicked him in the shin.

“Move along, both of you!” a provost guard shouted. “Move along right now.” He was a blond. Not only that, Hesmucet saw, he was a corporal. If the northern man noticed that, he wouldn’t like it at all. But he seemed more interested in quarreling with the woman than in arguing with the provost guard.

As the flames took hold and spread, the provost guards stopped having to order people to abandon the burning Marthasville. No one could stay in or close to those flames and hope to live. Hesmucet, no coward, had to retreat himself. He watched the fires from a distance of several hundred yards.

Not far from him, an artist sketched the scene. Hesmucet nodded approval. “You get it down just the way it looks,” he said. “I want people to remember this for the next hundred and fifty years.”

“That’s what I’m doing, sir,” the artist said. “Let people see what they get for rebelling against the rightful king.”

“Good,” Hesmucet said. “People should see such things. They should know what treason costs. If the gods be kind, we’ll never have to fight another war like this in all the history of the kingdom.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for, sir,” the artist said. “You’ve certainly set the scene for me, I will say that.”

“No, indeed.” Hesmucet shook his head. “The men who followed false King Geoffrey into betrayal set this scene for you. If not for them, Marthasville would still be a thriving northern town.”

“Yes, sir.” The artist nodded vigorously. “Instead, they’ve got-this.” He held up the sketch so Hesmucet could get a good look at it. The flames from the burning city gave the commanding general plenty of light.

“Good job,” he said. “Gods-damned good job. Let it be a warning to those who talk of treason and rebellion. We ought to be fighting out on the eastern steppes, driving back the blond savages who’ve caused us so much trouble over the years. That’s what we ought to be doing, not squabbling amongst ourselves. Geoffrey’s treason has cost us years-years, I tell you-in which we could have been bringing this whole great land under Detinan rule.”

“Can’t turn blonds into serfs any more,” the artist said, perhaps incautiously.

But General Hesmucet, in an expansive mood, shrugged instead of snarling. “Those savages wouldn’t make good serfs anyway,” he said. “They don’t bend, the way the blonds in the kingdoms of the northeast did hundreds of years ago. They break instead. They’re brave men; I don’t deny it-they might almost be Detinans, as far as that goes. But we will break them, and sweep them off the land, and use it for our own purposes.” He might almost have been talking of breaking so many untamed unicorns.

The artist nodded again and returned to his work. I’d better do the same, Hesmucet thought. He shouted for his unicorn. When he’d swung up onto the beast, he rode rapidly up toward the head of his army. Every few hundred yards, the marching men in gray tunics and pantaloons would raise a cheer. Each time they did, Hesmucet took off his hat and waved it. Every cheer made him feel as good as if he’d just had a strong slug of spirits.

“Are we going to lick these stinking northern sons of bitches?” he called to the men as he took his place at the fore.

“Yes, sir!” the soldiers shouted, and raised another cheer.

“Are we going to make them sorry they ever tried to pull out of Detina?”

“Yes, sir!” The yells came louder than ever.

“Are we going to make them wish gods-damned Geoffrey’s father had pulled out of his mother?”

“Yes, sir!” This time, bawdy laughter mixed with the soldiers’ replies.

“All right, then,” Hesmucet said. “We are the meanest, toughest bunch of soldiers the Kingdom of Detina has ever seen. We have licked the traitors, and we’re going to go right on licking them, and there isn’t one single gods-damned thing they can do about it. And what do you think of that?”

By their yells and whoops, the men liked the idea. Hesmucet liked it, too. But there was one thing the northerners might do, and he knew it. If they did cut the supply line back to Rising Rock and keep it cut, his life would get harder. Have to make sure they don’t keep it cut, then, he thought, and hoped he could manage that.

Horns blared, all through the camp of the Army of Franklin. “Forward!” Colonel Florizel shouted.

“Forward!” Captain Gremio echoed. Forward the men of his company, Florizel’s regiment, and the whole Army of Franklin went, west out of Dothan and back into Peachtree Province once more. Lieutenant General Bell had grit, if nothing else. And a few days to rest and recuperate, a few days away from the hells Marthasville had become, did wonders for the army. By the way they marched, the men once more believed they could lick any number of southrons on the face of the earth.