"That is always true for one side in a war," Victor answered. "The United States of Atlantis no more wish to be England's enemies than we wished to be her subjects. As equals in the comity of nations, one day we may become friends."
"I suppose we may," Captain Grimsley said. "I doubt, however, whether it will be any day soon." Having won the last word if not the last battle, he took the surrender terms back into Croydon.
Victor Radcliff wore the best of his three general's coats and the better of his two tricorns. Under the tricorn, he'd even donned a powdered, pigtailed periwig for the occasion. His general's sash stretched from one shoulder to the other hip. On his belt swung the Atlantean Assembly's gold-hilted sword.
His men were drawn up in neat ranks outside of Croydon. They looked as spruce and uniform as they could. After long service in the field, not all of them could boast clean breeches. Their green jackets were of many different shades. Most of them wore tricorns. A few, even in wintertime, had only farmers' straw hats. More than a few went bareheaded.
But they all had muskets, and most of them had bayonets. The long steel blades glittered in the cold sunlight. They might not be so elegant as their English counterparts, but they'd proved they could fight.
Across the way, the Marquis de la Fayette had assembled the soldiers he'd brought from France. They looked more nearly uniform than the Atlanteans did. They'd proved themselves in battle, too. Victor waved to de la Fayette. The Frenchman returned the gesture.
Inside Croydon, church bells began to ring the hour. Victor had a pocket watch, which ran fairly well when he remembered to wind it. At the moment, it was five minutes slow-or, possibly, Croydon's clocks were five minutes fast. One way or the other, it hardly mattered. General Cornwallis would have no doubt that noon had come.
And he didn't. The redcoats formed on the frozen meadow in front of the town hall. Then, flags flying and band playing-at first faint in the distance but soon louder and louder-they marched toward the assembled Atlanteans and Frenchmen.
"What tune are they playing?" Blaise asked in a low voice.
After cocking his head to one side and listening for a moment, Victor answered, "I think it's called The World Turned Upside Down.'"
"Is it?" The Negro grinned. "Well, good."
"Yes." Victor sometimes thought Blaise found white men's music as curious as anything else in Atlantis. The songs Blaise had brought from Africa had different rhythms-not less complex
(in fact, perhaps more so), but undoubtedly different.
Then again, that also mattered little. Here came the English army. As the redcoats left their works and came out into the open between the ranks of the Atlanteans and the French, the band finished "The World Turned Upside Down" and started a new tune. Not the most musical of men, Victor needed a moment to recognize "God Save the King."
Some Atlantean patriots had tried writing new words to the old music. Victor had heard several different versions, none of which he liked. Maybe one day someone would come up with new words that really described what the United States of Atlantis stood for, what they meant. (And maybe that wouldn't happen for a while, because who could really say right now what this untested country stood for?) Or maybe a musician would find or make another tune better suited to this new free land in the middle of the sea.
One more thing Victor could worry about later, if he worried about it at all. He caught the Marquis de la Fayette's eye again. At his nod, both commanders rode forward to meet General Cornwallis, who was also on horseback.
A bugle at the head of the English army blared out a call. A leather-lunged sergeant echoed it in words: "All-halt!" The redcoats did. Then the sergeant bawled another command, one that had no equivalent in horn calls: "Stack-arms!"
Half a dozen muskets went into each neat stack As the surrender terms had ordained, a bayonet topped each Brown Bess. A fair number of Atlantean soldiers still carried hunting guns that couldn't even take a bayonet. The longarms would definitely strengthen the new nation's arsenal.
As Victor and de la Fayette drew near, General Cornwallis saluted each of them in turn. The English commander was not far from Victor's age. He looked older, though, or perhaps only wearier.
"Good to see you again," Victor said.
"And you," Cornwallis replied. "You will, I trust, forgive me for saying I wish we were meeting once more under different circumstances."
"Of course." Victor nodded. "I do not believe you've made the acquaintance of the French commander." He turned to de la Fayette and switched languages: "Monsieur le Marquis, I have the honor of presenting to you the English general, Charles Cornwallis." Back to English: "General Cornwallis, here is the Marquis de la Fayette, who leads our ally's soldiers."
"A privilege to meet you, your Grace," Cornwallis said in accented but fluent French. "Your army played no small part in leading to… to the result we see here today." He didn't care to come right out and say something like in leading to our defeat. Well, he could be forgiven that. What man living didn't try to put the best face he could on misfortune?
"I thank you for your kind words, General," de la Fayette said in English. Sitting his horse along with the middle-aged Atlantean and English commanders, he seemed even more outrageously young than he really was. Returning to French, he went on, "I have never seen English soldiers fight less than bravely."
"Kind of you to say so, sir-very kind indeed," Cornwallis murmured. He turned back to Victor. "When you winkled us out of Hanover: that's when things commenced to unravel, dammit."
"Yes, I think so, too," Victor said. "Hanover is our windpipe, so to speak. After we got your hands off it, we could breathe freely once more."
"Just so." Cornwallis stared out to sea at the line of ships flying King Louis' fleurs-de-lys. "And who could have dreamt the Royal Navy would let us down? That I might lose on land is one thing. But the navy has turned back all corners since the damned devil Dutchmen back in the last century."
The pirates of Avalon had also given the Royal Navy all it wanted and a little more besides. Victor remembered Red Rodney Radcliffe far more fondly than his own clipped-e Radcliff greatgrandfather had ever thought of the pirate chieftain-he was sure of that. In days to come. Red Rodney might yet be reckoned a symbol, a harbinger, of Atlantean liberty. At the time, William Radcliff had considered his own unloved and unloving cousin nothing but a God-damned bandit. He'd been right, too. Symbols and harbingers were best viewed at a distance of a good many years.
Cornwallis' cough brought Victor back to the here-and-now. The English general reached for his sword. "If you want this-"
"No, no." Victor held up a hand. "As I said in the terms of surrender, you and your officers are welcome to your weapons. You certainly did nothing to disgrace them." But he couldn't help adding, "Except, perhaps, by seeking to harbor Habakkuk Biddiscombe and his band of cutthroat traitors."
"One side's villain is the other's hero," Cornwallis answered. "We were comrades in arms once, you and I, against the marquis' kingdom. Had things gone differently, you would be the man blamed for turning his coat, not Biddiscombe."
"Had things gone differently, Atlantis might be joined to the Terranovan mainland, or even to the European," Victor said. "In either of those cases, we would not be here discussing how things might have gone differently."
Cornwallis' smile was sad. "I find myself in a poor position to disagree with you." As he spoke, his men went on stacking their muskets. After surrendering them, the redcoats stepped back into line. Beneath their professional impassivity, Victor saw fear. Without weapons, they were at their enemies' mercy. He would have cared for that no more than they did. But that cup, at least, had passed from him.