"No, eh?" Victor growled. "Why the devil not?"
"Because they are King George's subjects, in the same way as his Majesty's other soldiers in and around Croydon."
"They're Atlanteans. They're traitors," Victor said. "Were General Cornwallis now besieging rather than conversely, you would all be reckoned traitors against the king," Captain Grimsley reminded him.
"Maybe so. And do you think he wouldn't single out redcoats who'd chosen to fight for the Atlantean Assembly?" Victor said. "We have a good many of them in our ranks, including some of our best drillmasters."
"I shouldn't wonder at that," Grimsley said. To the English eye, Atlantean soldiers still fell woefully short on spit and polish: nothing Victor didn't already know. Cornwallis' plenipotentiary went on, "My principal will not permit any English subjects to be unjustly mistreated."
"They are Atlanteans," Victor said again. "They have given aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States of Atlantis. They have tried to kill us. By God, sir, they have killed us, most recently at the start of this siege. How can you-how can your commander-reckon them anything but traitors?"
"They are not traitors to the king. Until this war began, all Atlanteans were, and saw themselves as, his Majesty's subjects. How can you condemn these men for holding to their prior allegiance?"
"Aha!" Victor Radcliff aimed a finger at him as if it were a sharpshooter's rifle. "I have you now! I might be prepared to accept your claim for men who fought against us from the beginning. But you will know as well as I, sir, that Habakkuk Biddiscombe served in the army of the United States of Atlantis until, dissatisfied with his prospects amongst us, he suddenly discovered an undying loyalty to King George. He turned his coat, in other words. If that does not make him a traitor, I am hard pressed to imagine what would. The same holds true for most of his followers."
"General Cornwallis sees the matter differently," Grimsley said. "In his view, these men were but rediscovering their original allegiance."
"That's pretty," Victor said. "It means nothing, but it's pretty.
You go tell him I want those men. If he should choose not to yield them, the siege will continue until we storm the breach. The cannonading from the ships offshore will also continue. How long before famine does our work for us?"
Grimsley bit his lip. He had no answer for that. Neither did Cornwallis, or he would not have asked for terms. At last, the English captain said, "May I beg a truce of twenty-four hours to take your words back to my superiors for their consideration?"
"Certainly," Victor said. "But unless their answer suits me, I fear the conflict must continue."
"I understand, sir. Please accept my assurances that I wish with all my heart circumstances were otherwise." With that, Captain Grimsley took his leave.
Naturally, the line the Atlanteans and Frenchmen held around Croydon ran from sea to sea. As naturally, some parts of it were held with greater force than others. The redcoats manned their line the same way. They concentrated most of their strength against the saps and parallels that brought their foes up close to their works. And Victor Radcliff likewise kept most of his troops in and near those precious trenches. Anything else would have invited disaster.
Later, he realized he should have wondered when the redcoat asked for a truce stretching through the night. But that was later. At the time, the request seemed reasonable enough. Grimsley had refused a condition Victor saw as essential. Cornwallis and his leading officers might well need some time to decide whether to yield up the men who'd fought so ferociously on their side.
For that matter, Victor felt he needed his own council of war. "If they insist on our keeping Biddiscombe and his men prisoners of war like any other, how shall we respond?" he asked his officers. "Shall we allow it for the sake of the victory, or shall we say we must have the villains' heads?"
"Let the pigdogs go," Baron von Steuben said at once, "The surrender wins the war. That is the point of the business."
"We can win the war even if the redcoats don't surrender," an Atlantean retorted. "The redcoats wouldn't ask for terms if they weren't at the end of their rope."
"That's where Biddiscombe and his buggers ought to be-at the end of a rope." Another Atlantean officer twisted his head to one side, stuck out his tongue, and did his best to make his eyes bulge: a gruesomely excellent imitation of a hanged man.
The laugh that rose in the tent held a fierce, baying undertone. Victor wasn't the only one there who wanted Habakkuk Biddiscombe dead. But did he want Biddiscombe dead badly enough to make it an issue that might disrupt Cornwallis' surrender? Most of his officers certainly seemed to.
As councils of war had a way of doing, this one produced more heat than light. Several men had to get between a captain who favored flaying Biddiscombe and sprinkling salt on his bleeding flesh before hanging him and a major who thought letting him be treated as an Englishman was a reasonable price to pay for a surrender.
Wearily, Victor dismissed his subordinates. "What will you do, General?" one of them asked.
"Make up my mind come morning," he answered.
"Then why did you call the council?" the man said.
"To learn whether I might be able to make up my mind tonight," Victor told him. "But, as both sides have strong arguments in their favor, I need more time to decide what best serves us at this crucial hour."
His officers had to be content with that. Muttering, they went off to their own tents. Victor turned to Blaise. "The man in me wants to see Biddiscombe at the end of a rope," he said. "The general says I should do as von Steuben suggests and let him go for the sake of victory."
"Chances are you get the victory anyway," Blaise answered.
"I know," Victor said. "But there's also the chance that something may go wrong if I delay. I know not how badly those French ships worsted the Royal Navy. If an English fleet should suddenly appear off Croydon, all our work would of necessity commence again."
"Not all of it," the Negro said. "We have got close to the redcoats' line now. When we break in, what can they do?"
Victor Radcliff smiled. "Yes, there is that. You know as much
of siege warfare these days as any Atlantean officer."
"More than a stupid nigger would, eh?" Blaise said, not without an edge to his voice.
"Do I maltreat you or reckon you less than a man because your skin is black?" Victor asked. He waited. At last, Blaise shook his head. "All right, then," Victor said. "Where, before you came to Atlantis, would you have learned of saps and parallels? It is not a matter of stupidity, my friend-only inexperience. Set me amongst your folk, and I should make the most useless of spearmen."
"Ah." Blaise considered that. "Yes, it could be. But you would be able to learn."
"I hope so. You have certainly learned a good deal here," Victor said.
"Not always things I want to learn," Blaise said.
"I shouldn't wonder." Victor followed the words with a yawn. He stepped out of the tent and looked over toward Croydon. Most windows in the town were dark or showed only the dim sunset glow of banked embers. Firelight did pour from two or three buildings. In one of those, Cornwallis and his officers were probably still hashing out what to do. Victor wished he could have been a fly on the wall at that conclave.
His breath smoked. His ears started to tingle. He would have been a chilly fly on the wall-he was glad to duck back under canvas. It wasn't warm inside the tent, but it was warmer.
"You'll sleep on it, then?" Blaise said.
"Yes, I'll sleep on it." Victor nodded. "Maybe I'll be wiser come morning. Or maybe I'll seem wiser, at any rate."