That made Blaise grunt thoughtfully. "Too peaceful for our own good, were we? You wouldn't think such a thing could be so."
"I fear it is," Victor said in mournful tones.
Blaise grunted again. "Well, if my tribe had more warriors, and better warriors, I never would have crossed the sea. I'd still be back there, still talking my own language." He spoke several incomprehensible syllables full of longing.
"Your life might have been-would have been, I suppose- easier had you stayed in Africa. But I would have missed a friend." Victor set a hand on the Negro's shoulder.
"Too late to worry about it now," Blaise said. "You are a friend, but this is not my land. It never will be."
"The United States of Atlantis should be any free man's land," Victor said, more stiffly than he'd intended to.
"Should be, yes." Blaise used that gesture Victor had seen before from him, brushing two fingers of his right hand against the dark back of his left. "Easier to talk about should be than is."
"Mmm, maybe so. We do what we can-nothing more to do," Victor said. "We aren't perfect, nor shall we ever be. But we keep heading down the road, and we'll see how far we fare."
He got one more grunt from Blaise. "Heading down the road on the backs of blacks and copperskins."
"Not on the backs of freemen, regardless of their color," Victor said uncomfortably.
This time, Blaise didn't answer at all. That might have been just as well. The United States of Atlantis might be heading down the road towards a place where a man of one color was reckoned as good as a man of another. Victor wasn't sure the land was heading toward that place, but it might be. He was sure it hadn't come close to getting there.
All of which brought him not a hairsbreadth nearer to deciding what to do about New Marseille. Attacking those works looked like something only a man who craved death would try. Going back the way he'd come yielded Atlantis west of the mountains to England, and God only knew what it would do to the army's morale. Unfortunately, things being as they were, he couldn't simply stay where he was for very long, either.
He ordered his men to start digging works of their own. If the redcoats came after them, they had to be able to hold their ground if they could. As far as he could see, General Cornwallis would have to be a fool to attack him, but maybe Cornwallis was a fool, or at least would turn out to be one this time. Victor could hope so, anyhow. He realized he wasn't in the best of positions when hoping for a foe's mistake was the best he could do.
A couple of days went by. Not much came from the far side of the Green Ridge Mountains. The hunters shot less than he'd wished they would, too. Before long, the army would get hungry. It might get very hungry.
He began planning an attack. It wasn't one he wanted to make, but when all his choices looked bad he had to pick the one that wasn't worst. He'd thought about that not long before, and now it stared him in the face again. Still, if he could take New Marseille from the English, he'd redeem this campaign.
If he could…
And then, to his amazement, the redcoats abandoned the town. They did it with their usual competence, leaving fires burning in their outworks to fool his men into thinking they remained there through the night. When the sun rose, the last few Englishmen were rowing out to the Royal Navy ships. The warships' sails filled with wind, and they glided off to the south.
Victor's first thought was that smallpox or the yellow jack had broken out in Cornwallis' army. But the English commodore could scarcely have let soldiers onto his ships in that case. Knowing only his own ignorance, Victor rode into New Marseille.
If the locals were glad to see him, their faces didn't know it. They seemed more French-and more superciliously French- than most southern folk on the other side of the mountains. Englishmen? English-speaking Atlanteans? If they recognized the difference, they didn't let on.
And they seemed proud of themselves for their Frenchness. "Don't you know why this Cornwallis individual absconded?" one of them demanded.
"No," Victor replied, "and I wish I did."
"Well, it's all because of King Louis, of course," the local told him.
"Perhaps you would be good enough to explain that to me?" Victor said. The King of France hadn't done much lately, not that he knew about.
But he knew less than the local did. "Word came here that France has declared war against the rascally English," the fellow said. "And… oh, yes…"
"What?" Victor asked, now eagerly.
"And recognized your United States of Atlantis," the man told him.
Chapter 14
Habbakkuk Biddiscombe rode back to Victor Radcliff with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Radcliff eyed the cavalry officer a trifle apprehensively. Biddiscombe wore that smirk when things were going very well-and when they were going anything but Which would it be this time? Do I realty want to know? Victor wondered.
"I have news, General," Biddiscombe said portentously.
"I thought you might," Victor said. "Otherwise-I do hope- you would have stayed in your assigned position, with the men you lead." That failed to quash the bumptious cavalryman. Biddiscombe also failed to disgorge whatever he'd brought back. Sighing, Victor prompted him: "And that news is…?"
"Without question, General, my men have reached the east-em slope of the Green Ridge Mountains." From the pride in his voice, Habakkuk Biddiscombe had only a little less to do with that eastern slope than the Almighty Who'd created it in the first place.
"Well, I am glad to hear that." Victor meant it. His men wore lean and hungry looks, and did not wear them gladly. "We'll be much better able to subsist the soldiers once we return to civilization."
"Civilization?" Biddiscombe flared a nostril and curled his lip. "Nothing but Frenchies, and not a devil of a lot of them."
"Some English Atlanteans, too," Victor said mildly. "And don't be too quick to sneer at the French. We stand a much better chance to make the Proclamation of Liberty good with France fighting England at our side."
"England licked France the last time they quarreled," Biddiscombe said. "You ought to know about that, eh, sir? You helped England do it."
"England and English Atlantis together beat France and French Atlantis." Victor was stretching a point. He did tell the truth… for this part of the world. In Terranova, in India, on the Continent, England had done fine against France with no help from Atlantis. But France, shorn of much of her former empire, would be fighting a smaller war this time. Victor went on, "Add France's weight to ours and the pan swings down."
''Till the Frenchies jump out of it and run away. They can afford to do that. We can't." No, Habakkuk Biddiscombe wasn't convinced.
Victor tried a different tack: "News that France was in the war made Cornwallis pull out of New Marseille as fast as he could go. He must think it means something. So must his commodore."
"More likely, they're a couple of little old ladies." Biddiscombe didn't bother hiding his scorn.
"General Cornwallis isn't, I assure you. As you said a moment ago, I ought to know about that. And the Royal Navy isn't in the habit of giving little old ladies command of a flotilla." Victor wanted to shake sense into the younger man. The main thing holding him back was the near-certainty it would do no good. He did say, "Having a real navy on our side is bound to help. The French have worked hard to build up their fleet since the last war."
"They're still French, so how much good will all that work do?" Yes, Biddiscombe's opinions were strong-and fixed.