"What you want for it to be is summer again," Baron von Steuben said. "And soon enough it will be."
"It will be, yes, but not soon enough," Victor said.
"For fighting? Maybe not. For anything else… Summer comes sooner every year," the German said. "So does winter."
He wasn't much older than Victor was himself, which didn't mean he didn't have a point. Victor had noticed the same thing himself. Years used to stretch out deliciously ahead of him. Now each one seemed shorter than its predecessor. Before he had time to get to know it, it disappeared. And once time was gone, could even God call it back again?
Before long, Louise's light brown baby would be born. Before long, the boy-or would it be a girl?-would be sold. Marcel Freycinet would pocket considerably more than thirty pieces of silver. Everyone would be happy… except Victor, and probably the little child who was flesh of his flesh.
Baron von Steuben said something. Whatever it was, Victor missed it. "Crave pardon?" he murmured.
The German pointed out to sea. "Here come more English ships," he repeated. "May the woodworms eat them all below the waterline."
"That would be splendid," Victor agreed. "Devil take me if those be not first-rate ships of the line, too. From close in to shore, their guns may even reach the spot where we hope to breach Cornwallis' lines. A ball from a long twenty-four-pounder can do horrid things to a man."
"So can a ball from a musket," von Steuben said, which was true but had scant flavor to it. His hard, weathered features folded into a frown. "It does not seem as if they hope to tie up."
"So it doesn't," Victor replied. "I wonder why not."
"They have to be more stupid than you would expect, even from an Englishman," von Steuben said. Victor Radcliff wondered what kind of opinion General Cornwallis' held about the German soldiers of fortune from Hesse and Brunswick and other petty states who took King George's silver and fought for England. Similarly low? He wouldn't have been surprised.
He watched the men-of-war working their way toward Croydon against mostly contrary breezes. When all of them presented their broadsides to the town at the same time, a sudden mad hope caromed through him. He ducked back into his tent for the spyglass. Aiming the long brass tube out into the Atlantic, he drew out the slimmer part to bring the warships into focus. And when he saw them clear…
When he saw them clear, he began to caper like a fool, or like a man possessed. "They're French ships!" he shouted. "French, I tell you! French!"
"Wassagen Sie?" von Steuben demanded, though Victor didn't know how he could have made himself any clearer. A moment later, all the ships fired together. Tons of hot flying iron crashed down on Croydon.
Chapter 23
It had snowed again, blanketing the ground with white. While the flakes flew, the French ships refrained from bombarding Croydon. Maybe they didn't want to shoot at what they couldn't see Victor Radcliff didn't know how much difference it made They'd already gone a long way toward smashing the town, and started several fires.
And they'd captured three English merchantmen that tried to sneak into Croydon under cover of the snowfall. It hadn't screened them well enough. The French ships of the line might not have wanted to fire at Croydon through the swirling snow, but they weren't shy about shooting at the blockade-runners. All the merchantmen struck their colors in short order.
Somehow, the French warships must have won a battle against the Royal Navy out on the open sea. Victor could imagine nothing else that accounted for their presence here That wasn't quite a miracle from On High, but it came closer than anything else he'd seen lately.
"General! General!" Several excited men shouted outside his tent. One outdid the rest: "An Englishman's coming out with a white flag!"
"God bless my soul!" Victor murmured. He hurried out to see for himself, Blaise at his heels.
The Atlanteans out there all pointed at once. Victor needed none of those outthrust index fingers. The enemy soldier's flag of truce might be scarcely visible against the snow on the ground, but his scarlet uniform tunic stood out like spilled blood.
Too much blood spilled already, Victor thought. "Bring him to me at once," he ordered aloud. "Show him every courtesy. Unless I should be very much mistaken, this war is about to end here." That was plenty to send his own soldiers dashing off toward the parallel closest to the enemy's works.
By the time they got there, men already in the parallel had taken charge of the redcoat. They offered him no abuse; they too could see he had but one likely reason for coming forth. By the time he'd made his way back through the trenches to Victor's tent, he had close to a company's worth of Atlanteans and Frenchmen escorting him.
"You are General Radcliff, sir?" he asked formally, after lowering the flag of truce and delivering a precise salute.
"None other," Victor said. "And you would be…?"
"Captain Horace Grimsley, sir," the English officer replied. "General Cornwallis' compliments, and he has sent me to ask of you the terms you require for the cessation of hostilities between our two armies. Under the present unfortunate circumstances"- he couldn't help looking out to sea, where the French warships bobbed in the waves with their recent prizes-"he feels we have no reasonable expectation of successfully resisting the forces in arms against us."
"My compliments back to the general, Captain, and to yourself as well," Victor said. "By all means tell him that I am pleased to treat with you, and that the forces under his command have fought bravely and well."
"Thank you. He told me you would show yourself to be a gentleman." By the way Grimsley spoke, he hadn't believed a word of it. "And your terms would be…?"
Victor had been thinking about them since the moment the French men-of-war appeared off Croydon. "Your men will stack their arms and surrender. Officers may keep their swords, in token of your brave resistance."
"A gentleman indeed," Captain Grimsley said under his breath.
"No surrendered soldier or officer will take up arms against the United States of Atlantis until he shall have been properly exchanged," Victor continued.
"Agreed," Grimsley said.
"Weapons excepted, men may keep one knapsack's worth of personal effects apiece," Victor said. "Property above that amount shall be reckoned spoils of war, and will be divided amongst Atlanteans and Frenchmen in a manner we shall determine. We shall undertake to preserve your men's lives and the aforesaid personal effects unharmed, so long as you continue to comply with the terms of the surrender."
"Agreed," Grimsley repeated. But then he asked, "By 'weapons,' sir, do you mean to include common eating knives, dirks, daggers, and bayonets?"
"Upon surrender, your men will no longer need their bayonets, which will prove a useful accession to our own stocks." Victor paused a moment to think. "They may retain knives with blades shorter than, hmm, twelve inches. Is that satisfactory to you?"
After his own brief consideration, Captain Grimsley nodded. "It will do."
"Very well." Victor Radcliff's tone hardened. "One thing more: our promise of safety and property does not apply to the individuals enrolled in what is commonly termed Biddiscombe's Horsed Legion. Those men are traitors against the United States of Atlantis, and shall be used accordingly."
"Oh, dear. General Cornwallis feared you would say something to that effect, sir," Grimsley replied. "He instructed me to tell you that singling them out for oppressive treatment is in no way acceptable to him."