"We got in amongst the redcoats," a sergeant said, "but we couldn't get through 'em. Nobody could do anything much, not in this slop." His wave took in rain and mud and bedraggled men.
"Damnation!" Victor Radcliff shook his fist at the black clouds overhead. They took not the slightest notice of him.
The storm lasted almost a week. By the time it finally blew out to sea, half the English earthworks had collapsed. Entrenchments on both sides were more than half full of water. Since the redcoats had so much trouble using their field fortifications, the Atlanteans might have walked into Croydon. They might have, that is, had walking anywhere not involved sinking thigh-deep in clinging muck.
Victor thanked heaven his own quartermasters had managed to keep most of the army's grain dry. That meant the troops could go on eating till the roads dried enough to bring in more wheat and barley and rye. Even oats, Victor thought. No one in these parts would have any trouble finding plenty of water for stewing up oatmeal.
If Cornwallis chose this moment to try to drive the Atlanteans away from Croydon, Victor didn't know how he would be able to hold back the redcoats. But the Englishmen, while working feverishly to repair their lines, didn't try to come out of them. Before long, Victor realized he'd worried over nothing. Had the redcoats attacked, they would have bogged down the same way his own men did.
"Are such storms common in these parts?" de la Fayette inquired, his manner plainly saying Atlantis wasn't worth living in if they were.
But Victor shook his head. "Down in the south, hurricanes are known," he answered. "Rainstorms like this up here…" He shook his head again. "Bad luck-I know not what else to call this one."
"Bad indeed," the French noble said. "And are we to expect blizzards next?"
"God forbid!" Victor exclaimed, knowing too well that God was liable to do no such thing. But then, trying his best to look on the bright side of things, he added, "If we should have a hard freeze, the ground won't try to swallow us up, anyhow."
"Well, no." If that prospect pleased de la Fayette, he hid it very well. "But I find the climate in this country imperfectly equable. The southern regions suffer from excessive heat, while these parts seem to have a superabundance of both rain and snow. A more moderate regimen would be preferable-a regimen more like that of, exempli gratia, la belle France."
His reaching that particular conclusion amused Victor without much surprising him. The Atlantean general spread his hands. "I fear I cannot help it, your Grace. As I said a moment before, the weather is under the good Lord's command, not mine."
De la Fayette crossed himself. "You have reason, certainly. I shall pray that He might extend to your country the blessings He has generously granted mine."
If God hadn't changed Atlantis' climate at least since the days when Edward Radcliffe founded New Hastings-and probably not for centuries before that-he was unlikely to alter it at the marquis' request. De la Fayette had to know that as well as Victor did. All he meant was that he didn't care for the way things were. Victor didn't, either, not the way they were up here. He liked the weather around his farm much better. Which only proved he, like de la Fayette, liked what he was used to and disliked any departure from it. Blaise felt the same way, though his African norm was far different from either white man's.
"Leaving the power of prayer out of the question, we should discuss what we might best attempt now," Victor said.
"So we should." The marquis sighed. "Such a pretty plan we had before. We would assuredly have surprised the redcoats with it." He paused, considering. "I don't suppose we could simply try it again."
That made Victor pause to consider, too. His first response was to call the suggestion ridiculous. The redcoats would be waiting for it. Or would they? The more he thought, the less sure he grew. He started to laugh. "Our stupidity in repeating ourselves would surprise them, at the least."
"Just so. Just so!" De la Fayette seemed to catch fire at the idea. "However insolent they are themselves, they would never believe we have the insolence to make the second stroke the same as the first."
Victor thought out loud: "Perhaps we should make the previous stroke the feint, and the previous feint the stroke."
"No. But no. Certainly not." De la Fayette shook his head so vigorously, he had to grab his tricorn to keep from losing it. "That, they would anticipate. It is precisely the ploy an ordinary man, a man without imagination, might try, thinking himself clever beyond compare."
"I see," Victor muttered, his ears burning. Well, he'd never thought himself anything but an ordinary man. De la Fayette seemed to agree with him.
Unaware that he might have given offense, the Frenchman went on, "If we try something altogether different from our previous ploy, we may find success. If, contrariwise, we surprise them by our stupidity, we may also hope to triumph. The flaw lies in the middle way, as it commonly does."
And so it was decided.
Even after it was decided, Blaise had his doubts about it. "If the redcoats look for this, they will slaughter us."
"That they will," Victor agreed, which made the Negro blink. Victor went on, "But if we essay anything that they anticipate, they are likely to slaughter us."
"Hmm." He'd made Blaise stop and think, anyhow. Then the black man delivered his verdict: "If we are going to do this, we had better do it quickly, lest a deserter betray the plan to the English."
That made excellent sense. Victor ordered the feint to go in at dawn the next morning, and the true attack to follow as soon as the redcoats seemed to have taken the bait. He also strengthened the picket line between his army and Cornwallis'. He didn't know whether he could keep deserters from slipping away, but he intended to try.
Both columns formed up in the chilly predawn darkness. Baron von Steuben volunteered to lead the attackers, replacing the late Major Hall. "Any cannon ball that hits this hard head will bounce off," he declared in gutturally accented English.
"Try not to make the experiment," Victor said. The German soldier of fortune nodded. Victor added one more piece of advice: "Strike hard and strike fast."
"I do it. The Soldaten do it also. They fear me more than any piffling redcoats," von Steuben said. Chances were he knew what he was talking about, too. A good drillmaster was supposed to inspire that kind of respectful fear in his men.
To Victor's ears, the feinting and attacking columns both made too much noise as they moved out. But he didn't hear any shouts of alarm from the English lines. Very often, what seemed obvious to a worried man was anything but to the people around him. Even more often, his failure to realize that alerted those other people to the idea that something funny was going on. Don't give the game away ahead of time, Victor told himself.
He waited to hear what would happen next. The feint went in when he expected it to. He'd urged the men to fight especially hard so they'd make the redcoats believe they truly meant to bull their way through. He was sure they understood the reason behind the order. He wasn't sure they would follow it. If anything, he feared them less likely to do so precisely because they understood why he asked it of them. Most of his men were veterans by now. They knew that, the more fiercely and ferociously they attacked earthworks, the better their chances of stepping in front of a cannon ball or a bullet or of meeting one of those fearsome English bayonets.
If they were veterans, wouldn't they take such mischances in stride? Redcoats would have. So would troops from the Continent-Baron von Steuben had taken such soldiering for granted till he got here. The Marquis de la Fayette still did, and got it from his Frenchmen. But Atlanteans were a different breed. They expected-no, they demanded-a solid return on their investment, regardless of whether they risked their time or their money or their lives.