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Maybe rumors of disease in New Hastings gave the redcoats pause Maybe Howe would have gone after Bredestown any which way. The English commander seemed to like moving inland and then turning back toward the coast.
Word of the deployment toward Bredestown reached Isaac Fe
Fe
"I'm… not sure," Victor said slowly. "Even by trying to do so, I risk losing that town and New Hastings both."
"In what way?" Fe
Sighing, Victor answered, "That Royal Navy flotilla still lies offshore. If we march up the Brede toward Bredestown, the enemy is bound to learn of it. What save the fictitious fear of the yellow jack then prevents him from landing a force of bullocks and sailors and seizing New Hastings before we can return? If the seaside forts fall, as they may well from a landward assault, nothing hinders the English warships from adding their weight of metal to the small arms the marines and sailors will have to hand. Under these circumstances, I fear nihil obstat, to use the Popish phrase."
"If we were to save Bredestown from the redcoats…" Like a lot of men from the city up the Brede, Fe
Victor didn't. Instead of coming out and saying so, which would have affronted the speaker of the Atlantean Assembly, he replied, "We have no assurance of holding Bredestown even with all our forces collected in it. And I would rather not do that if I can find any alternative."
"Why not?" Fe
"Because it lies on the north bank of the Brede," Victor said. "I have never yet seen a manual of strategy advocating taking a position on a riverbank if there is danger of being pushed back, which would be the case there."
"What difference does it make?" Fe
"No doubt, sir. But if we have to try to cross them in a hasty retreat, under fire from the enemy's guns…" Victor's shudder was altogether unfeigned. "Meaning no disrespect, but I would prefer not to have to essay that."
"Would you prefer Bredestown to fall into the blood-dripping hands of King George's butchers, then?" Isaac Fe
That didn't impress Victor Radcliff. "I know who the enemy is," he said. "I surely fought alongside a good many of the redcoats now opposing us when we conquered French Atlantis. They are not fiends in human form-although I may have to qualify that opinion if they import certain copper-ski
"Do you suppose they would?" Fe
"If they use mercenaries at all, I think them more likely to bring in German troops: Braunschweigers and Hessians and the like. Germans are better disciplined and better armed." Victor paused. "On the other hand, copperskins cost less. That will matter to his Majesty's skinflint ministers, even if not so much to him."
"Confound it!" Fe
"Because the other choice was submitting to tyra
"It looks as though we must submit to them anyhow," Fe
"You gentlemen of the Atlantean Assembly determined to take arms against King George. You summoned me from a peaceful life as farmer and author to lead them," Victor said. "If now you repent of your determination or you would sooner have some other commander, you need but say the word. I assure you, I will return without complaint and without regret to the life that late I led."
"We entrusted you with command on the belief that you would lead our troops to victory against the redcoats," Fe
"Your Excellency, I will say two things in response to that" Victor Radcliff ticked them off on his fingers: "First, I strongly believe General Howe's victories to have been far more bloody than our defeats. He held the ground after both encounters, but paid a high price for it. And second, sir, mark this and mark it well-the only assured safety's in the grave. Anything this side of it is subject to time and chance"
The speaker of the Atlantean Assembly sniffed loudly. "If you made as good a general as you do a philosopher, Mr. Radcliff, I would face the coming struggle with the utmost confidence"
"I, on the other hand, knowing my limits as a philosopher, would face it with trepidation verging on terror," Victor replied.
"Your limits as a general are what concern me," Isaac Fe
"For the reasons I just outlined to you, your Excellency, holding it seems unlikely, and all the more so unless you intend to risk New Hastings," Victor said. "Or has the Assembly some clever stratagem in mind by which both towns may be preserved in our hands?"
"We hope and trust, sir, that you are the repository of such stratagems," Fe
"If you may not, sir, you chose the wrong general."
Fe
"Say on," Victor told him.
"If Bredestown must be lost, then it must." Fe
"Whatever our weaknesses may be, you do not care to advertise them to the world," Victor said slowly.
"That is the nub of it, yes." Isaac Fe
"I can try, sir," Radcliff answered.
"That is my home, you know. I shall rely upon you to make them pay a high price for it," Fe
"I'll do what I can, sir," Victor said. That satisfied Fe
Bredestown lay twenty miles up the river from New Hastings. Victor thought it was the second-oldest English settlement in Atlantis, but wasn't quite sure-Freetown might have been older. He knew some restless Radcliffe had founded it In those long-vanished days, twenty miles inland were plenty to get away from your neighbors. If only that were still true now!
Victor marched his field artillery, his riflemen, and a regiment's worth of musketeers up the Brede from New Hastings. He left the rest of his force behind to make the Royal Navy think twice about landing marines. The enemy admiral wouldn't be sure he hadn't left the whole army behind. The enemy general wouldn't be sure he hadn't brought everyone along. Neither of them would be able to talk to the other, not quickly or conveniently. And so, taking advantage of their uncertainty, Victor could do what Isaac Fe