Hope Renewed (66 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Those are their final orders?” Jeffrey asked.

“
Oui.
Unionvil is to be held at all costs. No troops may be diverted; instead we are to commit our strategic reserve. Chairman Deschambre assures me that the political consequences of losing the capital would be ‘disastrous,’ quote unquote. Minister of Public Education and Security Lebars tells me that they shall not pass.”

“Quote unquote,” Jeffrey supplied. “What strategic reserve, by the way?”

“The one we pissed away with that misbegotten offensive towards the Eboreaux last year and have never been able to replace,” Gerard said.

Jeffrey nodded. His eyes felt sandy from lack of sleep, and his ears rang from too many cups of strong black coffee, the taste sour on his tongue. Outside the tent light flickered and stuttered along the horizon; it might have been thunder and heat lightning, but it wasn’t. It was heavy artillery, firing all along the buckling front south and east of Unionvil. The traffic on the road outside was heavy, troops and supply wagons moving up to the front, wounded men coming back—some in ambulances, more hobbling along supporting each other, their bandages glistening in the light of the portable floods outside the HQ tents. A convoy of trucks came through, flatbeds crowded with reinforcements whose faces seemed pathetically young under their helmets. At least the mud wasn’t too bad, despite spring rains heavier than usual. They’d had three years to improve the roads around here, three years with the front running through what had been the outermost satellite villages of Unionvil. That didn’t look like being true much longer.

“Baaaaaa.”

Gerard’s head came up, trying to find the man who’d bleated like a sheep. It was fifty yards to the road, and dark.

“
Baa. Baaaa. Baaaa.
” More and more of the wounded along the sides of the road were bleating at the reinforcements, mocking the lambs going to the slaughter. Gerard walked to the door of the big tent.

“Captain Labushange. This is to stop.”

Whistles blew and feet pounded; there was always a company of Assault Guards and another of military police attached to the regional headquarters.

“And now I must use the
Assaulteaux
against wounded men for telling the truth,” Gerard said. “By the way, my friend, Minister Lebars also assures me that it is better to die on your feet rather than live on your knees.”

“Does the woman always talk like that?”

“Invariably. It’s not just the speeches.” Gerard looked down at the map table. “Leave us,” he said to the other officers.

“So I have no choice,” he went on, touching a red plaque with a fingertip. It fell on its side, lying behind an arrowhead of black markers. “And how am I different from Libert, now?”

“Libert started it,” Jeffrey said, putting a hand on the other man’s shoulders. “You couldn’t be like him if you tried. We’ll do what’s necessary.”

“I will,” Gerard said. “Keep the Freedom Brigade troops in the line. This is a Union matter.”

Jeffrey nodded. “Don’t hesitate,” he warned.

It was probably wise to keep the Brigade troops out of Gerard’s coup, although they were just as rabid about the Committee of Public Safety as the native Union soldiers of the Loyalist army. Still, they were foreigners.

“Hesitate? My friend, I have been hesitating for six months. Now I will act.”

He strode out of the room, calling for aides and staff officers. Jeffrey remained, looking down at the map. Unionvil was a bulge set into the rebel line, a bulge joined to the rest of the Loyalist sector by a narrow bridge of secure territory.

“I hope you’re not acting too late,” he said, reaching for his greatcoat.

Heinrich Hosten was in charge on the other side, looking at the same map. Jeffrey knew Heinrich, and he also knew exactly what he’d do in Heinrich’s boots at this moment.

Jeffrey ducked out into the chilly night.

“Senator McRuther?”

The meeting was relatively informal. At least, John wasn’t being grilled in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee in full, in the House of Assembly, with a dozen reporters following every word. This oak-paneled meeting room was much quieter, redolent of polish and old cigars, not even a stenographer taking notes. Most of the faces across the mahogany table were formidable enough, age and power sitting on them like invisible cloaks.

Senator McRuther was nearing seventy, and he still wore the ruffled white shirts and black clawhammer jackets that had been modish when he was a young man. He represented the Pokips Provincial District in the western lowlands, and he’d done that since he was a young man, too.

“Mr. Hosten,” he said—turning the “s” sound almost into a “z” with malice aforethought, the Chosen pronunciation. “What exactly have you accomplished with your policy of ‘constructive engagement,’ except to get us into a war?”

John nodded. “You’re right, Senator. We
are
in a war, although not a declared one. However, I might point out that the Land of the Chosen has over forty thousand of its regular army troops in the Union del Est. They’re backing General Libert, and they’re
winning.
I suggest that this is not in the national interests of the Republic of the Santander.”

“Hear, hear,” Senator Beemody said.

A few others nodded or murmured agreement; not all of them were from the eastern highlands, either. John’s eyes took tally of them. Beemody’s eastern Progressive bloc; a number from the western seacoast cities, which were growing fat on new naval contracts. And a scattering from the rural districts of the western lowlands, some of them McRuther’s own Conservatives. The elderly senator hadn’t kept office for fifty years by being stupid, even if he was set in his ways.

“As you say, they’re winning. Never do an enemy a small injury; you’ve succeeded in antagonizing the Land without stopping them. If Libert and his Nationalists win we’ll have a close ally of the Land on our eastern frontier, a powerful garrison of Land troops keeping him loyal, and we’ll have to support this grossly inflated standing army
forever.
I realize that you and the rest of the highlander industrialists would love that, but
my
constituents pay the taxes to keep soldiers in idleness.”

“Senator,” John said quietly, “the Land is not antagonistic to Santander because we’ve backed the Loyalist side in the Union civil war. It’s antagonistic to us because we’re the only thing that keeps the Land from overrunning the whole of Visager. And I hope I don’t have to go into further detail about what rule by the Chosen means.”

More murmurs of agreement. John’s newspapers had been publicizing exactly what that meant for years. Refugees from the Empire, and now from the Union, had been driving home the same message. Militia had had to be called out to put down anti-Chosen rioting when the pictures of the Bassin du Sud massacre came out.

Senator Beemody coughed discreetly. “General Farr”—the high command had confirmed his promotion as soon as he’d stepped back on Santander soil—”I gather you do not recommend an immediate declaration of war.”

“No,” Jeffrey said. McRuther blinked in surprise, his eyes narrowing warily.

“We’re not ready,” the younger Farr went on.

Beside him in his rear admiral’s uniform, his father nodded. The family resemblance was much closer now that there was gray at Jeffrey’s temples and streaking his mustache. The lines scoring down from either side of his nose added to it as well.

“We’re much stronger now than we were four or five years ago,” Jeffrey went on. “Military production of all types is up sharply, and now we’ve got field-tested models. Our latest aircraft are as good as the Land models, and we’re gradually getting production organized. The Freedom Brigades’ve given us a
lot
of men with combat experience, including a lot of officers; besides that, they’re thirty-five thousand veterans as formed troops, and if the Union falls they’ll retreat over the border. So will a lot of the Loyalist Army. But we’re still not mobilized, a lot of the new Regular Army formations are weak, and the Provincial militias need to be better integrated. Admiral Farr can speak to the naval situation.”

Jeffrey’s father nodded.

“We have a tonnage advantage of three to two,” he said. “More in battleships. The Land Navy has more experience, particularly in cruiser and torpedo-boat operations in the Gut, which could be crucial. Still, I’m fairly confident we could dominate the Gut. The problem is that operating further north, in the Passage, we’d be sticking our . . . ah, necks into a potential meatgrinder, with strong Land bases on either side and a long way from our own. If we lose our fleet, we’d be a long way towards losing the war itself. Furthermore, nobody knows what aircraft will mean to naval war. The Chosen have more experience, but only with dirigibles. We need time to finish the aircraft carriers and to train the fleet in their use.”

“Senators,” Beemody said, “the Republic of the Santander cannot tolerate a Union which is satellite to the Land. Are we agreed?”

One by one the men on the other side of the table lifted their hands. McRuther sighed and followed suit, last and most reluctant.

“Then that is the sense of the Foreign Affairs Committee,” Beemody said. “On the other hand, we are not yet ready for full-scale conflict. I therefore suggest that we recommend to the Premier that in the event of the fall of the Loyalist government in the Union, the Republic should declare a naval blockade of all Union ports pending the removal of foreign forces from Union soil.”

“But that
means
war!” McRuther burst out.

“Not necessarily. As Admiral Farr has pointed out, we
do
have more heavy warships than the Land. The Gut is closer to our bases than theirs; we can blockade the Union and they’d be in no position to retaliate without risking their seaborne communications across the Passage. And while losing command of the sea
might
be disaster for us, it would
certainly
be a disaster for them. They can lose a war in an afternoon, in a fleet action. With the Union blockaded, they’d be forced to pull in their horns. They can’t afford to isolate the expeditionary force they’ve committed to the Union. It’s our hostage.”

McRuther pointed to the map on the easel at the end of the table. “They can supply through the Sierra—and the Sierra is neutral.”

Senator Beemody looked to the three men sitting across the table, in naval blue, army brown, and the diplomatic service’s formal black tailcoat.

“Sirs, there’s only a single track line from north to south through the Sierra,” Jeffrey said. “Besides that, it’s narrow gage, so you’d have to break bulk at both ends, the old Imperial net and the Union’s.”

“General?” Beemody prompted.

“Assuming that the Union was fully under Libert’s control, and that the Chosen went along with a naval blockade?” Beemody nodded. “Supplying their forces would be just possible. Daily demand would go down and they could supply more from Union resources. It would certainly take some time for a squeeze to be effective, in terms of logistics.”

“We
can
interdict the Gut,” Admiral Farr said. “That I can assure you gentlemen.”

“But the role of the Sierra will be crucial,” Beemody said. “Senators, I move that the Foreign Ministry be directed to dispatch a special envoy with sealed plenipotentiary powers to secure the assistance of the Sierra Democratica y Populara in a preemptive blockade of the Union to enforce the neutralization and removal of all foreign troops. It’s risky,” he said to their grave looks, “but I sincerely believe it’s our only chance. Otherwise in six months’ time we’ll be confronted with a choice between a war that might destroy us and accepting a Land protectorate on our border, which is intolerable. A show of hands, please, Senators.”

This time the vote was less than unanimous. McRuther kept his hand obstinately down, switching his pouched and hooded blue eyes between Beemody and the Farrs.

“Fifteen ayes. Five nays. The ayes have it. The recommendation will be made. I remind the honorable senators that this meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee is strictly confidential.”

“Agreed,” McRuther said sourly. “Its no time for a war of leaks.”

“Then if that’s all, Senators?”

The big room seemed larger and more shadowy when only Beemody, Farr, and his sons were left. The faces of past premiers looked down somberly from oil paintings on the walls; the old-fashioned small-paned windows were streaked with rain. Branches from the oaks around the building tapped against the glass like skeletal fingers. John Hosten had a sudden image of men—men not yet dead, the dead of the greater war to come—rising from their graves and traveling back to this moment,
tap-tap-tapping
at the windows, pleading for their lives. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions.

observe:

Center showed him a vision he’d seen times beyond number, since that year on the docks of Oathtaking. Visager from space, the globes of fire expanding over cities, rising in shells of cracked white until they flattened against the upper edge of the atmosphere and the whole globe turned dirty white with the clouds. . . .

His stepfather cleared his throat. “You don’t really think the Chosen will swallow a blockade of the Union?” he said to the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Beemody shook his head. “About as likely as a hyena giving up a bone,” he said frankly. “But it’s as good a
casus belli
as any, the Senate will swallow it because they’re desperate and desperate men believe what they want to, and the public will go along, too. Even McRuther will go along; he knows we can’t dodge this much longer. But we
do
need more time, and we
do
need the Sierrans to come in on our side. They should; if we fall, they’re next.”

“But it’s easier to see that when you don’t have someone ahead of you in the lineup to the abattoir,” Jeffrey said with brutal frankness. “Hope springs eternal—and the Sierrans aren’t just decentralized, they’ve got the political nervous system of an amoeba. Getting them to agree where the sun comes up is an accomplishment.”

“Perhaps,” John said slowly, “we could get the Chosen to do our arguing for us.”