Lieutenant General Bell stared south toward Ramblerton. The stare was hungry and frustrated, the stare of a hound eyeing a big, juicy chunk of meat hung too high for it to reach.
Here and there, Bell could see gray-clad southrons marching along the works that defended the capital of Franklin. In the distance, the enemy soldiers might have been so many gray lice crawling along the back of some huge, hairless animal. Getting rid of lice in the field was never easy. Bell knew that all too well. He’d been lousy himself, a time or two. Getting rid of the southrons in Ramblerton looked harder yet.
He’d told Ned of the Forest he wouldn’t try to storm the place. He didn’t see how he could, not when Doubting George’s men outnumbered his and had the advantage of those redoubtable redoubts. (Such things hadn’t stopped him at Poor Richard, of course, but these were in a different class altogether.) He’d expected George to try to take advantage of southron numbers and attack him, but that hadn’t happened yet. Bell was beginning to wonder if it would. Waiting seemed an anticlimax, and a squalid one at that.
His right leg itched. He settled his crutch in his armpit and reached down to scratch. Only when his good hand met nothing but air did he remember he had no right leg, though itching was the least of what it did.
For once, though, apparent sensation from his missing member didn’t appall him, didn’t send him grabbing for the tiny bottle of laudanum. Given what he’d been thinking, he’d wondered if he was lousy again. Realizing he wasn’t came as no small relief.
A messenger saluted and waited to be noticed. When Bell nodded, the man said, “Sir, Brigadier Benjamin would like to speak to you.”
“Oh, he would, would he?” Bell considered. He didn’t care to be lectured or harangued, as wing and brigade commanders had been in the habit of doing since this campaign began. On the other hand, Benjamin the Heated Ham hadn’t bothered him so much as several other officers, most of them now dead. As if Bell were a god, he inclined his head in acquiescence. “He may come forward.”
Benjamin saluted with all due courtesy. He was politeness personified when he inquired, “Sir, may I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead,” Bell replied. “I don’t necessarily know that I’ll answer it.”
“Oh, I hope you do, sir,” Benjamin said earnestly. “You see, it’s important.” He paused for dramatic effect. He’d got his nickname for bad acting, and he still lived up to it. Bell half expected him to clasp his hands together in front of his chest. He didn’t, but he did send Bell an imploring look.
“Well, ask.” Bell knew he sounded gruff. He didn’t care. He had no patience for melodrama now.
Benjamin the Heated Ham at last came to the point: “All right, sir. What I want to know is, now that we’ve come this far, what are we going to do? What can we do, facing those works?” He pointed toward Ramblerton.
Ned of the Forest had wanted to know the same thing. Have they no confidence in me? Bell wondered. As he had to Ned, he said, “We’ll wait here for Doubting George to assail our lines. When he does, we’ll beat him back.”
“Sir, if what the spies and prisoners say is true, the southrons have a hells of a lot more men than we do,” Benjamin observed.
Bell glowered. He knew that, but didn’t care to be reminded of it. He said, “Everyone keeps telling me this army doesn’t care to fight away from the protection of entrenchments. Do you claim the men will not fight even when they enjoy that protection?”
“No, sir. I never said any such thing.” Benjamin the Heated Ham backtracked in a hurry.
“What precisely did you say, then?” Bell inquired with icy courtesy.
“Sir, this army will fight like a pack of mad bastards. The men will do what you tell them to do, or they’ll die trying. If Poor Richard didn’t teach you that, nothing ever will,” Benjamin said. Bell realized that wasn’t exactly praise for his ordering the army to fight at Poor Richard, but his wing commander hurried on before he could show his displeasure: “It all depends on what you order them to do. If too many gods-damned southrons come at them, they’re not going to win regardless of whether they’re in entrenchments or not.”
“Do you believe Doubting George has that many men, Brigadier?” Lieutenant General Bell said. “I, for one, do not.”
“I don’t know for certain, sir,” Benjamin answered. “All I know for certain is, like I said, he’s got a lot more than we do.”
“Regardless of which, I still maintain the southrons are a cowardly lot,” Bell said. Now Benjamin the Heated Ham stirred, but the commanding general overrode him: “Consider, Brigadier. The southrons have outnumbered us all along, yet we have advanced about two hundred miles against them, and they have yet to dare stand against us. Whenever we have faced them in the field, we have defeated them.” Benjamin stirred again. Again, Bell refused to notice. “We whipped them at Poor Richard. They yielded not only the battlefield but also prisoners and wounded. If that doesn’t prove them cowards, I don’t know what would.”
“Sir, you weren’t up at the front at Poor Richard,” Benjamin said. “No offense to you; with your wounds, you couldn’t be. But the southrons aren’t cowards. If you don’t believe me, ask Patrick the Cleaver or For Gods’ Sake John or John of Barsoom or Provincial Prerogative or Otho the Troll or-”
“How can I ask them? They are dead. Have you a crystal ball that will reach to Mount Panamgam, beyond the fields we know?” Bell asked.
“No, sir. That’s my point. They wouldn’t be dead if the southrons were cowards. Cowards don’t kill half a dozen brigadiers in one fight.”
“If that’s your point, it’s a feeble one,” Bell said. “It wasn’t the enemy’s courage that killed our officers. It was their own. They closed with the foe, and gloriously fell in service to their kingdom.”
“Have it however you like,” Benjamin the Heated Ham said. “But I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t warn you you’d be making a mistake by counting on the southrons to play the craven.”
“Thank you, Brigadier.” Bell sounded-and felt-anything but grateful. “You have passed on your warning. I shall bear it in mind. Now that you have performed this duty, you are dismissed.”
“Yes, sir.” Benjamin saluted and strode off, stiff-backed and proud.
Lieutenant General Bell muttered something pungent under his breath. He was sick to death of officers stalking away from him. He’d seen altogether too much of it on this campaign. Some of the brigadiers who’d neglected military courtesy had paid for their bad manners with their lives. But Ned of the Forest and Benjamin the Heated Ham were still very much around. Bell couldn’t even punish them for their insolence. After the fight at Poor Richard, the Army of Franklin had lost so many commanders, he couldn’t afford to sack any more. Things creaked bad enough as they were.
The general commanding remembered the losses. He conveniently forgot that his orders at Poor Richard had led to them. He also forgot that those orders might have had something to do with the surviving officers’ lack of confidence in him. As far as he was concerned, they had no business behaving any way but respectfully. King Geoffrey had put him in charge of the Army of Franklin, and he had every intention of leading it to glory… somehow.
He shifted his weight on his crutches. That proved a mistake-his ruined left shoulder and arm screamed at him. He took out the little bottle of laudanum, yanked the stopper with his teeth, and gulped down the drug that helped keep him going. Glory didn’t concern itself with ruined shoulders and missing legs. A man who stopped to think about the cost would never find the true magnificence of battle. Whether such a man might find victory was another question that never occurred to Bell.