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"If we can't, we lose," Blaise said.
Radcliff nodded. "I know. I figured that out, too. Quite a few people in the Atlantean Assembly haven't yet."
"But they are supposed to be the smartest men in Atlantis," Blaise said.
"So they are," Victor agreed. "And if that isn't a judgment on all of us, I don't know what would be. One more thing, too." He waited till the Negro made a questioning noise, then went on, "In their infinite wisdom, they're the ones who chose me for chief general. Makes you wonder, eh?"
Blaise said not a word.
The courier rode into the encampment outside of New Hastings five minutes after Victor Radcliff had sat down to half a fat roasted capon with starberry sauce spooned over it. The green sauce, tart and sweet at the same time, came from one of Atlantis' few native berries, a product of the thinly settled southwest.
It went well with chicken, and even better with greasier fowl like duck and goose.
A sentry let the courier into Victor's tent, making him pause with a bite halfway to his mouth. "Yes?" he said.
"Sir, the English are coming," the courier said, and then, "Could I have a bite of that? I'm powerful hungry."
Victor liked white meat better than dark. He tore off the drumstick and handed it to the newcomer. As the fellow started to eat, Victor demanded," Where are the English coming?" The courier had interrupted his supper; he saw no reason not to return the disfavor.
" Wumbumpf," the courier said with his mouth full-that was what it sounded like, anyhow.
"Would you care to try that again?" Victor asked.
The man swallowed heroically. "Weymouth," he managed, and took another bite, this one even bigger than the last
"Ah," Victor said. That did make sense-an unpleasant amount of sense, in fact. Weymouth was a small coastal town that lay between New Hastings and Hanover, closer to the latter. Victor would have said the English were welcome to the place-if ever a town had a fine future behind it, Weymouth was the one-if only it didn't have a sizable arsenal. He couldn't afford-Atlantis couldn't afford-to lose the tons of powder and lead bars stored there.
As things were, he wasn't sure how much he could do about it. If the enemy started out closer to Weymouth and moved first… Maybe he should just send as many wagons as he could, and hope to salvage at least part of the military supplies.
"When did they march?" he asked. "How fast are they going? Is anyone trying to hold them back?"
"Powerful thirsty, too," the courier said. At Victor's shouted order, he got a mug of beer. He drained it at one long blissful pull, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed.
Then he told Victor what he knew. General Howe wasn't moving south very fast. He didn't think he needed to, even though loyalists had told him about the armory. He didn't believe the Atlanteans had an army that could fight his. He also didn't believe they would even if they could.
Militiamen and enthusiastic volunteers between Hanover and Weymouth were doing their best to make him think twice. They were shooting at his men from behind fences and from the woods. They were blocking the roads with barricades of rocks and fallen trees. One enterprising group had dammed a roadside stream and turned the roadbed to water and mud. No, the redcoats weren't making good time.
Which meant it behooved the Atlanteans to hurry if they wanted to hold Weymouth. Victor set them in motion the morning after he got the news the English were advancing on the town. He wanted to leave New Hastings at the crack of dawn. In fact, the army started marching more than two hours later.
The column straggled much more than it should have, too. Men fell out whenever they grew tired or got sore feet. At every stream and pond, militiamen splashed water on their faces. When sergeants and officers screamed at them to keep going, the soldiers yelled back. As far as they could see, they were in this because they felt like it, or for a lark. That the war and what came from it might be important didn't seem to have entered their heads.
They might have advanced ten miles by the time they halted for the evening. A properly trained army would have gone twice as far. Seeing that, Victor was almost ready to despair.
"If they get there before us-" he groaned.
"Then we don't stop them," Blaise finished for him. The Negro grunted with relief as he took off his boots. "I've got sore feet myself. I'm more used to riding than to marching."
"Good for you!" Victor said, snapping his fingers. "You've reminded me of something, anyhow."
"What's that?" Blaise examined his heels and the balls of his feet and the bottoms of his toes.
"I can send horsemen ahead of the main body. Maybe they'll keep the redcoats out of Weymouth till the rest of us get there." Victor scowled blackly. "Or maybe they'll stop at every tavern along the way, drink rum, pinch the barmaids, and never get there at all. Christ, maybe they'll ride off toward the Green Ridge Mountains after butterflies! Nobody knows till I try it-I'm sure the dragoons don't."
"I don't… think… they'll go chasing butterflies, General." Blaise spoke with exaggerated care, as if humoring a lunatic
Victor Radcliff felt fairly lunatic just then. "Well, maybe not," he allowed. Though he had no enormous confidence they would do what he wanted, he summoned the leaders of the mounted infantry and gave them their orders.
"You're sending us off as a forlorn hope, then," said a bright young captain named Habakkuk Biddiscombe.
"Forlorn hope" was what people called the advance parties who tore up the abatis in front of enemy earthworks. Those parties got the name because not many of the men in them usually lived through the attempt. Radcliff shook his head. "No, Captain. I want you to delay the redcoats, yes. But I don't want you to throw away your men's lives or your own doing it."
"You want us to fire and fall back, then," another officer said.
"Yes!" Victor nodded gratefully. "That is exactly what I want of you."
"The only way we can fire and fall back is to get well north of Weymouth before we meet the enemy," Habakkuk Biddiscombe said. "We'd best commence straightaway if we are to have any hope of gaining so much ground."
"Bless my soul," Victor murmured. Someone grasped the essence of the situation, then. Radcliff made himself nod. "I couldn't have put it better myself, Habakkuk."
"In that case, let's get moving." Captain Biddiscombe herded the other officers of dragoons out of Victor's tent. A few minutes later, some loud and profane swearing came from the mounted infantrymen. A few minutes after that, aided by a waxing gibbous moon, they rode out of the camp, heading north.
"Can they get there soon enough to do any good?" Blaise asked.
"I don't know," Victor answered. "I do know they have a better chance setting out now than they would if they left tomorrow morning. And I think-I don't know yet, but I think-Captain Biddiscombe will get everything they have to give from them, and maybe a little more besides. An officer like that is worth his weight in gold."
"And maybe a little more besides?" Blaise's voice was sly. "Yes, by God!" Victor nodded. "Every once in a while, maybe a lot more besides."
Victor ordered the buglers to wake the army before sunrise, so the men could start marching at first light. By the groans and oaths that greeted the horn calls, the buglers won no friends doing it. In an army that elected most of its officers and underofficers, friendship was important. Victor didn't care. As far as he was concerned, getting to Weymouth was important. Everything else could wait.
Militiamen gnawed hard bread and gulped tea or coffee or beer. The army drove some unhappy beeves with it, too. The cooks knocked a few of them over the head, just enough to leave everybody dissatisfied with the portion he got.