Marching Through Peachtree

“I see your point, sir, but I have a question of my own,” George said. Hesmucet waved a hand, inviting him to ask it. He did: “If you go marching through Peachtree to the Western Ocean, what will the Army of Franklin do?”

“You mean, without our dogging its tracks?” Hesmucet said, and Doubting George nodded. The commanding general gave a splendid shrug. “Do you know what, Lieutenant General? Frankly, I don’t give a damn. I don’t think it can hurt King Avram’s cause enough to be worth worrying about.”

“Suppose it strikes down into Franklin,” George said. “Suppose it attacks Ramblerton or goes past the provincial capital down into Cloviston or even as far as the Highlow River.”

General Hesmucet shrugged again. “Bell’s welcome to try. My opinion-my strong opinion-is that he can’t pull it off.”

“What’s Bart’s opinion, sir? Or the king’s?”

“They aren’t so sure I can pull it off,” Hesmucet answered. “To the hells with me if I know why not, though. Lion God’s fangs, George, except for the Army of Franklin, what do the northerners have in the way of fighting men hereabouts? None to speak of, and you know it as well as I do. But Bart and King Avram aren’t out here in the field. They can’t see it for themselves, not with their mind’s eyes.”

He had a point. When Satrap Brown called out the Peachtree militia, he hadn’t been able to put very many men in false King Geoffrey’s service. Even so… “If you do head toward Veldt and the Western Ocean, you’re cutting yourself loose from your supply line. No glideway back to Rising Rock any more.”

“So what?” Hesmucet retorted. “I keep telling anyone who’ll listen, Bell’s already living off the countryside. Do you really think we’ll starve to death if we march to the Western Ocean?”

“Starve? No sir,” George answered. “I just think… I think I’d come up with a different plan, sir, is what I think.”

“You’re a more cautious man than I am,” Hesmucet observed. To George’s surprise and relief, it seemed only an observation, nothing more-not a slur on his courage, which it easily might have been. The commanding general continued, “Nobody can top you when it comes to making a stand and fighting on the defensive. I’ve seen that, and I’ve seen why they call you the Rock in the River of Death. You deserve all the praise you got there. But for going after the enemy and sticking your claws in him… There, Lieutenant General, I think I have the edge on you.”

“You’re probably right, sir,” George said in the same dispassionate tones Hesmucet had used. “Between the two of us, we make a pretty fair general, don’t we?”

Hesmucet laughed out loud. “Not too bad, by the gods. Not too bad.” He scratched his chin. His short, bristly beard rasped under his fingernails. “If I do get leave to strike out for the Western Ocean, I may leave you behind.”

Now Doubting George didn’t try to hold back his disappointment. “What have I done to deserve something like that?” he demanded.

“I told you: you’re a good defensive fighter,” Hesmucet replied. “If I go west, I may send you back into Franklin to make sure Bell doesn’t run wild down there.”

“That’s your privilege, of course, as the general commanding,” George said woodenly. “I will serve the kingdom as best I can wherever you place me.”

“I know you will,” Hesmucet said. “That’s why I’m thinking of doing it.”

“But, gods damn it, I want to be in at the death!” George burst out.

“I know. I know. I do understand that, believe me.” Hesmucet sounded sympathetic. But he also sounded unlikely to change his mind. “If I go west, I’ll need to leave someone behind I can rely on absolutely. From where I’m sitting now, that’s you. It is, if you look at it the right way, a compliment.”

“That’s what the priest of the Lion God told the courtesan after he shot his seed too soon,” Doubting George replied. “He may have thought so, but she surely didn’t.”

Chuckling, Hesmucet said, “You’ve always got a story, don’t you?”

“Every now and again, anyhow.” If he trotted out the wry jokes, George didn’t have to show how sorely he was hurt. He’d never been badly wounded; if he were, he suspected he would use his wit the same way. He wondered how much good it would do. It did less than he wanted here.

“This may all be moonshine, remember,” Hesmucet said. “Marshal Bart and the king are less happy about the notion than I am. They may just order me to keep after Bell with my whole army, no matter how useless that looks to me.”

“I told you, sir: I will do as you require,” George said. “I’m not Fighting Joseph, to stomp off in a huff because I don’t get my own way. He reminds me of a three-year-old throwing a fit because his mother took away his toy.”

“A lot of truth in that, by the gods.” Easy and friendly, Hesmucet came over and patted him on the shoulder. “You’re a good man, George. You’ve had some nasty jobs, and not the ones you would have taken if you’d had your druthers, and you’ve done fine with every gods-damned one of them. And now here’s one more, and I’m perfectly confident you’ll do fine with it, too.” He walked out of George’s pavilion, proud and cocky and in command.

Go ahead, George. Here’s some more garbage. You’re so good at cleaning it up, I know you’ll do fine cleaning up this lot, too. That was what Hesmucet meant, and he could say it and Doubting George had to take it, for he was a lordly, exalted general and George only a lowly lieutenant general.

Bart could have picked me to command this army. Knowing that gnawed at George. He could have, but he didn’t. And so Hesmucet gets to march to glory-if he doesn’t make a mess of things and let the traitors win glory instead. And what do I get? I get to stay behind and clean up another mess. If there is a mess. Maybe I get to stay behind at Ramblerton and twiddle my thumbs. Wouldn’t that be exciting?

He left the pavilion himself and stared south. Somewhere up ahead there, Bell was flitting ahead like a will o’ the wisp, drawing King Avram’s army after him, keeping it from doing what it should be doing. Hesmucet was right about that, sure as sure he was. But his being right took away none of the hurt. I want the glory. I want the people cheering me.

Over in King Geoffrey’s army, people called Roast-Beef William Old Reliable. He hadn’t got the job he wanted, either, not when Geoffrey fired Joseph the Gamecock. The Rock in the River of Death? It sounded fancier than Old Reliable, but what did it mean? The same gods-damned thing.

Colonel Andy came up to him. “Sir-” he began.

“What the hells d’you want?” Doubting George snarled, taking out his frustrations on his adjutant.

Andy stiffened. A very minor noble-a mere baronet-he had more than minor pride. “Pardon me for existing, sir,” he said icily.

“I’ll think about it.” George’s voice remained gruff. But then he relented: “I’m sorry, Colonel. I’m truly sorry. It had nothing to do with you.”

“It did not sound that way,” Andy observed.

“I know. I am sorry,” George said, and explained the visit he’d just had from Hesmucet.

“He goes off to have adventures and leaves you behind?” Andy said when he was done. “I don’t blame you a bit for being upset, sir.” His adjutant was fiercely loyal.

George knew he’d tried his best not to deserve such loyalty. “I do apologize,” he said again. “I had no business barking at you.”

“Never mind, sir. Never mind,” Colonel Andy replied. “Can you do anything to get him to change his mind?”

“I doubt it,” Doubting George said. “If I wore his boots, I daresay I’d do the same thing, and leave it up to some other sorry son of a bitch to handle whatever else needed handling. But I’m the sorry son of a bitch in question, and I suppose that’s why I barked.”

“Terrible. Just terrible.” Andy stroked his beard. “Did he tell you what forces you would have?”