The French commander had worries of his own-or Radcliff devoutly hoped he did. He was harried from behind, as the distant racket of gunfire in Victor's ears proved. With any luck at all, he would have to turn around and face the troops pursuing him. If he did, he wouldn't be able to deal with Victor's men. That would be very good, which was putting it mildly.
Victor was thinking just how good it would be when a rider on a lathered horse galloped up from the south. "Major, the French settlers are attacking us down there," the man said, and pointed back over his shoulder.
"Damnation," Victor said, and then something more pungent in French, and then something still more pungent in Spanish. Another cannon ball thundered past them, but that was the least of his worries. "How hard are they pressing you?" he asked.
"As hard as they can," the courier replied.
"Damnation," Radcliff repeated. That wasn't what he wanted to hear. He didn't doubt it, though. If Roland Kersauzon's men had got this far north, they would try to bull through his blocking force. (If they'd got this far north this fast, they'd done some fancy marching, but that was a different story altogether.) "For God's sake, hold them back. We can't have them pitching into our rear right now, not when we've got warm work in front of us like this."
French cannon bellowed again. Victor knew he made a good target. He stayed out in the open, while most of his men had taken cover. The courier flinched a little as the ball flew by, but held his ground. He gave Victor a thin smile. "Really, Major? I never would have noticed."
"Heh." Victor touched the brim of his hat in a half-salute, acknowledging the man's coolness. "Go on. Get back out of range before they ventilate your kidneys. Let the men know they need to hang on no matter what the settlers do to them."
"I'll tell 'em." The horseman's grimace was as understated as his smile. "Don't know if they'll be glad to hear it." With a shrug, he wheeled his mount and rode back toward the south.
He hadn't been gone more than a couple of minutes before the French cannonading suddenly stopped. Montcalm-Gozon's lines re-formed in the sudden near-silence (the French nobleman was bound to have a rear guard of his own trying to hold off whatever trouble lay behind him). A horn call rang out over the field. The sun glittered off bayonets being fixed as all the French soldiers made the same motion at the same time. The horn rang out again-a different call this time. Those bayonets flashed fire once more as the Frenchmen lowered them. One more call, and, with a fierce shout, as much of Montcalm-Gozon's army as he could spare advanced against the English settlers.
It was glorious. It was grandiose. It was, frankly, terrifying. "Hold your fire till they're well within range!" Victor called. He knew a certain amount of pride that his voice didn't wobble. Here and there, riflemen opened up on the French. They could hit at ranges well beyond those a man with a smoothbore musket could use. A few blue-coated enemy soldiers stumbled and fell, but only a few. The rest stepped over them and came on.
A hundred yards away from Victor, the Frenchmen halted. The first rank of soldiers dropped to one knee. The second rank bent low above them. The third stood straight. They all fired together.
Bullets snapped past him. One hit his horse with a meaty thunk. The beast squealed and staggered. He jumped off before it foundered. He had his two pistols and a rapier. They didn't seem enough to repel the French.
"Get down, Major!" somebody behind him yelled. "Better shooting over you than through you."
That struck Victor as excellent advice. He flattened out as the Frenchmen dressed their lines. A moment later, with more cheers, they charged. His men greeted them with the best volley they could. This wasn't just fire to annoy the enemy and gall him. The charge staggered when it met that wall of flying lead. French soldiers clutched at themselves and screamed as they fell. But the ones who weren't hit came on.
Victor fired first one pistol, then the other. He thought he hit one enemy soldier. From one knee, he threw a pistol in a startled Frenchman's face. He might have broken the man's nose. Then he sprang up and skewered a bluecoat who was too slow to protect himself with his bayoneted musket.
And then he ran for his life, back toward the trees. No one spitted him from behind. No one shot him in the back. None of his own men shot him in the chest or belly, though musket balls whipped past him in both directions.
A dead settler with a fully loaded rifle lay behind the first pine he came to. The man looked absurdly surprised at catching a bullet just above the bridge of the nose. He must have been about to fire when he got hit. Victor snatched up the rifle. There came a man in a fancy uniform-plainly an officer. The Frenchman's sword had blood on it. Victor fired. The officer spun, then slowly crumpled.
"Holy God!" someone bawled in French. "The general's down!"
I got Montcalm-Gozon? Radcliff thought dazedly. "We take surrenders!" he shouted, also in French. The enemy soldiers started throwing down their muskets and throwing up their hands.
XXIV
T hey were breaking. Finally, after a running fight that had gone on all through the day, the English settlers in front of Roland Kersauzon's men had had as much as they could take. They'd managed to get across a creek running east to the ocean, and were still defending the fords, but Roland was sure his army could force a crossing.
He looked west, toward the Green Ridge Mountains. They were barely a smudge on the horizon, but, as usual, clouds piled high above them. The sun was setting in blood as it sank into those clouds. "Can we get over this miserable stream once night falls?" Roland asked his lieutenants.
They looked at one another. Nobody spoke right away. At last, one of the junior officers said, "I'm afraid I don't know where the shallow stretches are." Several other men nodded, as if he'd said what they were thinking.
"Nom d'un nom," Roland muttered. He dismissed the lieutenants and summoned sergeants and corporals. They made an older, more raffish group than the one he'd sent away. He put the same question to them.
"I can find a ford," a weathered sergeant said confidently. "I used to run traps up here. I know what's what."
He'd poached, in other words, since this was English territory. Roland grinned. "Good. That's what I wanted to hear. As soon as it's nice and dark, we'll get moving…"
But the English Atlanteans knew where the fords were, too. They started bonfires on their side of the creek at each one of them, to make sure Roland's men couldn't catch them unawares. Roland took the sergeant aside. "I know what you're going to ask me," the trapper said: "Did they miss any?"
"You're right-that's what I'm going to ask you," Roland agreed. "Did they?"
"No, damn them," the sergeant said. "Well, if you want to go five miles west, there's sort of a ford they may not have covered. I can't tell about that one from where we are now."
Reluctantly, Kersauzon shook his head. "We'd get scattered all over the landscape if we tried it. And there's no promise Radcliff's men don't have a fire burning at that ford, too, is there?"
"Monsieur, the only promise is, we're going to die sooner or later," the sergeant answered. "I want it to be later, in the arms of a beautiful woman. If her husband shoots me, even that's not so bad. But I know you don't always get what you want, not in this life you don't."
"Isn't that the sad and sorry truth? Her husband, eh?" Kersauzon shook his head. The sergeant grinned and winked and nudged him. In spite of himself, Roland laughed-for a moment. But the smile slid from his lips as he went on, "We'll have to pay more to cross that creek come morning."