Had they recalled him from his command, he would have gone home without a backwards glance. If they didn't care for the way he was carrying on the fight, they could go ahead without him.
But they didn't do that. Several of his officers were convinced they could command Atlantis' forces better than he. The Atlantean Assembly and he might snap at each other, but the Assembly wasn't minded to give any of those ambitious officers a chance to show what they could do.
A small force of foot soldiers skirmished with the Atlantean army after it crossed the Stour. Victor's men took a few prisoners as the enemy fell back. They brought them to the commanding general. "Shall we hang these traitor bastards from a branch, sir?" one of the guards growled.
The prisoners looked frightened. Except for wearing brown coats rather than green, they also looked just like their captors. "You can't do that! We fought fair!" one of them said. His accent was the same as that of the man who wanted to hang him. And well it might have been: they were both Atlanteans, probably from the same settlement.
Victor Radcliff glowered at him. "So you'll spill your blood for a king who won't lift a finger for you?" he said.
"He is my king. England is my country." The prisoner set his chin. "He's your king, too, by God, and England's your country."
"Atlantis is my country. I have no king," Victor said. His men cheered. Some of their captives looked defiant, others alarmed. Victor turned to his troops. "Did they fight like soldiers?"
"We are soldiers," another prisoner said. "Third company of King George's Atlantean Rangers, that's me."
"Shame!" one of Victor's men said. Several others hissed.
They might have started hanging the Atlantean Rangers then, but Victor held up a hand. "No, we shan't do that," he said, "not if they didn't play the savage against us. It's easier to start hanging people than to stop."
"They've got it coming!" one of his men said hotly. "Goddamned traitors!"
"Traitor yourself!" a captive yelled, and almost won himself a hempen cravat in spite of everything Victor could do.
He had to draw his fancy sword (which he supposed balanced out the letter of censure) to keep his Atlanteans from lynching the bold prisoner. "No!" he shouted. "What will they do if they take some of our men next time? Do you want a war like that?"
Some of his men nodded, which scared him. But more looked worried. A war like that could keep on poisoning Atlantis long after it ended. How many feuds, how many barn burnings and stock killings and murders from ambush for revenge, would spring from it? Too many. Victor might have had to point that out, but his soldiers could see it once he did. The men from King George's Atlantean Rangers remained prisoners of war.
After the excitement was over, Blaise said, "None of those scuts even thanked you. Not a single one."
"I didn't expect it of them," Victor answered.
"Why not?" the Negro exclaimed. "If not for you, they'd be dead." He laid his head on his shoulder and stuck out his tongue as if hanged. "If that isn't worth some thanks, what is?"
Patiently, Victor said, "If they thanked me, they would have to own to themselves that I'm not such a bad fellow. Then they might have to own that my cause isn't so bad. And then they might have to wonder about the one they chose. How many people care to do that? Here, not many. Is it different in Africa?"
"Everything here has more gears turning round. Everything." Blaise did not sound as if he were complimenting Atlantis.
Victor shrugged. "It is what we have. Changing from belonging to the king to belonging to ourselves is hard enough-the Rangers show as much. But if you want to change human nature at the same time…" He shook his head. "Good luck to you, that's all. I don't believe it can be done."
"And you expect men to live without a chief or a king or whatever you call him?" Blaise shook his head, too, laughing at the silly notion.
He was no political philosopher, but he had a keen feel for what was real. "No," Victor said, "only without a leader who can do as he pleases no matter what the laws say."
"Only?" Blaise threw his own words in his face: "Good luck to you, that's all."
Habakkuk Biddiscombe thought each of his schemes was finer than the one that had gone before it. "We can spirit Cornwallis out of Hanover and strike off the enemy's head!" he told Victor.
Did he mean that as a figure of speech or literally? However he meant it, Victor shook his head. "I don't think that's a good notion."
"Why not?" Biddiscombe swelled and turned purple. Victor wondered if he'd explode. No man was ever so enamored of his own schemes as the cavalry officer.
But Victor ticked off points on his fingers: "Item-chances of success strike me as slim. Item-any men captured whilst making such an attempt would assuredly wear a noose soon thereafter. And, item-even if your plan should be accomplished in every particular, so what?"
Habakkuk Biddiscombe gaped. "What d'you mean… uh, General? I told you what would happen then."
"Indeed. You did. But, I say again, so what? Someone might well capture me. If that unpleasantness came to pass, this army would continue the struggle under our second-in-command. We might do as well with him as we have with me. For all I know, we might do better, though I dare hope not. Why do you suppose the redcoats to be in a different situation?"
"Well…" Biddiscombe faltered. "Isn't the best man commonly placed in command?"
"Again, in our case, I dare hope so. Yes, that may be true. But it is also possible that the general commanding is but the most senior officer present. General Cornwallis is not elderly and is clever, but I doubt he will ever be spoken of in the same breath with Gustavus Adolphus or Turenne. Another man, thrust suddenly into his place, might well match his accomplishments."
"Only reason you don't want to try it is on account of I'm the one who came up with it." Anger clotted Biddiscombe's voice "If you or your nigger thought it up, you'd be all for it." He turned on his heel and stormed away.
Blaise appeared as if by magic. "Did I hear somebody call me nigger?" He could hear that word where he might miss others.
Well, who could blame him? What man with the faintest hope of being a gentleman wasn't sensitive to slights?
"He did. You did," Victor said wearily. "He meant nothing by it, though. He was in a temper at me, not at you."
"Huh," Blaise said: a wordless sound packed with disbelief. "Anybody says nigger, he means something by it, all right." He spoke like a man very sure of what he was talking about. Chances were he had every right to be.
Even so, Victor said, "I showed him how and why his harebrained scheme was harebrained, and he responded with all the gratitude you might expect."
"What scheme is this?" Blaise asked. Victor explained. The Negro grunted. "Well, you told him true. That scheme is harebrained from mouth to arsehole."
Victor would have said from top to bottom, which didn't mean he disagreed with the more pungent phrase. "Sometimes Habakkuk simply needs to get things out of his system," he said.
Blaise grunted again. "If he's costive, let him take one of those little pills. That'll shift him." He rolled his eyes. "Those little pills'll shift anything."
"No doubt." Victor knew the ones Blaise was talking about. They were made from antimony. If you had trouble moving your bowels, you would swallow one. A few hours later, you would think a barrel of black powder had gone off in your gut They weren't cheap, but they did the trick, all right. You could, if you were so inclined, rescue the little devil from the chamber pot, wash it off, and save it for the next time you needed it.