Liberating Atlantis Read online

Bullets from all directions were flying around him now. He didn’t know which way to duck. He did notice that Consul Newton and even Colonel Sinapis (whose courage was irreproachable, whatever one might say about other aspects of his military persona) also ducked at near misses. A few people, maybe the ones born without nerves, lacked that reflex, but only a few.

  As Newton straightened, he touched the brim of his cap to Stafford. “Well, Jeremiah, I don’t suppose you expected things to end up this way. I’d be lying if I told you I expected them to.”

  “I daresay you’re happier about it than I am,” Stafford answered. “Here’s nigger equality, all right, and it will be the death of both of us.”

  “I don’t want to die. I have too many things I still want to do,” the other Consul said. “Trouble is, what I want doesn’t matter right this minute.”

  “I blame it on Victor Radcliff,” Stafford said. “Even diluted, his blood is better than the vinegar and horse piss in Sinapis’ veins.”

  “As far as I know, the insurrectionists’ number-one soldier, that Lorenzo, is pure copperskin,” Newton said. “Will you tell me his blood is better than Sinapis’, too?”

  “Damned right, I will,” Stafford answered. “My parrot could have done a better job leading this campaign than that stupid foreigner did—and I haven’t got a parrot.”

  “Heh,” Newton said—about as much laughter as the joke deserved.

  In front of them, the Atlantean soldiers milled like ants stirred by a stick. Every time they turned any one way, they got shot at from the flank and behind as well as from the front. They weren’t dying like ants, though. They were dying like flies.

  The Negroes and copperskins didn’t try to close with them. Why should they? They were doing fine carving up the white Atlanteans at a distance. Even as Stafford watched, the back of a militiaman’s head exploded, the way a melon might after a sledgehammer came down on it. The man’s rifle musket fell from fingers that could hold it no more. His knees buckled. He went down, and wouldn’t rise again till Judgment Day.

  Most of the militiamen owned slaves. How many of them would be left alive by the time this fight finished? Ironically, Stafford began to hope the insurrectionists made the massacre complete. That might horrify Atlantis into fighting the war seriously. If it did, the whites would win in the end. As Newton had pointed out, winning might entail making sure not a nigger or mudface remained aboveground and on his feet. That would play hob with the long-cherished social system south of the Stour.

  Jeremiah Stafford found he didn’t care. One way or another, the USA would sort things out. The Free Republic of Atlantis? That was an abomination, and had to be suppressed no matter what.

  If I’m going to die, I may as well die usefully, he thought. He couldn’t believe anything short of a massacre would galvanize the Senate and the people of Atlantis into giving the insurrectionists what they deserved. And, for the life of him—no, for the death of him—he couldn’t see how the Atlantean regulars and militiamen had any chance of stopping a massacre.

  Usefully, he thought again, and hoped it wouldn’t hurt . . . too much.

  “In the sack!” Lorenzo howled exultantly. “We’ve got the sons of bitches in the sack, and we just tied off the top. They can’t even run away now. They’re ours! Ours!—you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” Frederick Radcliff answered. “Looks to me like you’re right. This went better than I ever dreamt it could.” He’d wanted to surprise the white Atlanteans. He’d wanted to hurt them, too. To succeed beyond your wildest dreams . . . By the nature of things, you couldn’t possibly expect that.

  “All we’ve got to do is keep going now.” Lorenzo mimed aiming, shooting, and reloading. “Before too long, won’t be none of those white bastards left alive. Extra sweet blowing holes in the militiamen. The soldiers . . . They’re just here working, you know? I don’t have anything special against ’em.”

  “Except that they’re trying to kill us.” Frederick’s voice was dry.

  “Yeah. Except for that,” Lorenzo agreed seriously. Then he came back to his favorite theme: “The militiamen, they’re mostly out there on account of they wanted to get their property back. Turn us into slaves again, that means. Well, I got some news for them—it ain’t gonna happen.”

  “Sure won’t,” Frederick said. The militiamen seemed to be falling even faster than the Atlantean regulars.

  “Serves ’em right, too,” Lorenzo said. “I want to kill ’em all, is what I want to do. And I reckon maybe we can do it, too.”

  “So do I,” Frederick said. He never would have dreamt of that when the insurrection started, either. His dreams along those lines had been nightmares, almost without exception: nightmares of Atlantean regulars smashing through the rebels, shooting them, bayoneting them, hanging them, tormenting them in as many ways as his sleep-filled imagination could find. And it had proved ingenious in ways he never would have come up with awake. He hoped he wouldn’t have, anyway.

  “You know what’ll happen when word of what we done gets to New Hastings?” Lorenzo said. “White folks’ll shit, that’s what!”

  Frederick nodded gravely. “They sure will.” Then he found a question Lorenzo hadn’t yet: “And what happens once they get done shitting?”

  “Huh?” The copperskin didn’t even see that it was a question. “Who the devil cares what happens then?”

  “We’d better,” Frederick answered. What would the government of the United States of Atlantis do after a ragtag force of rebellious slaves slaughtered its professional soldiers and the white, mostly prosperous militiamen who fought beside those professionals?

  Maybe the government would throw its hands in the air and decide the Free Republic of Atlantis was too strong to be put down. Maybe it would realize that blacks and copperskins were just as entitled to freedom as white men were. Maybe the government was looking for any reasonable excuse to liberate the men and women who’d labored in bondage for generations.

  Maybe. But the more Frederick Radcliff thought about it, the less he believed it. The insurrectionists clearly could wipe this trapped force of white men off the face of the earth. Suppose they did. When word of the massacre got to New Hastings, wouldn’t it infuriate the Senate? Wouldn’t the Conscript Fathers decide the rebellion truly was dangerous? Wouldn’t all the whites in Atlantis decide the same thing, regardless of whether they lived in Gernika or Penzance?

  And if all the whites decided the insurrection was dangerous, what would happen next? Atlantis held many more whites than Negroes and copperskins. As much to the point, or maybe even more, those whites held far more wealth than their colored counterparts. If they decided they had to kill everyone in Atlantis who wasn’t white so they could feel safe in their own beds, would they be able to do it?

  No sooner asked than answered: of course they could. It might not be easy or quick or cheap, but they could do it. Frederick was sure of that. They might even feel bad about it afterwards, but afterwards would be too late to do anybody colored any good. Frederick was also sure of that.

  Which meant . . . what? That slaughtering this trapped army might be the worst thing the insurrectionists could do? So it seemed to Frederick. One other thing also seemed all too plain: not slaughtering this trapped army had to be the second worst thing the insurrectionists could do.

  “Lorenzo,” he said.

  “What d’you want?” the copperskin answered. “We’ve got these assholes. We’ve got ’em right where they belong.”

  Frederick explained what he wanted. He explained why he wanted it. Explaining made him more miserable, not happier. All the same, he finished, “We can’t kill ’em all. We don’t dare. Now that we’ve got ’em where we want ’em, we need to use that to get what we want. But we’ve got to call the cease-fire before they’re all down.”

  Lorenzo spat in the dirt where the insurrectionists had dug their trench. “Then you go down and take a white flag and talk to the white folks. You done great stuff, Fred, but I will s
ee you in hell before I do that here.”

  “All right. I will.” Frederick didn’t sound thrilled, but he nodded. Fair was fair.

  “And what happens when the white sons of bitches shoot you down like a hound even though you got that white flag?” No, Lorenzo didn’t bother hiding his scorn.

  “Get our men to stop shooting. I’ll go down there. If the buckra kill me, go ahead and do what you want to them,” Frederick answered. “You will anyway—and I won’t be around to stop you.”

  “Damned straight you won’t,” Lorenzo muttered. He aimed a forefinger at Frederick’s chest like a rifle musket. “You nigger bastard, you better be right. You fuck this up, nobody’ll ever forgive you.”

  “Now tell me something I didn’t know,” Frederick said.

  Slowly, the gunfire died away. Frederick scrambled up over the rampart and advanced on the whites armed with only a flag of truce. He wondered if one of his own people would shoot him in the back. That might almost be a relief.

  XIX

  When the firing from all around the white army slackened, sudden crazy hope flowered in Jeremiah Stafford. Maybe the insurrectionists were running out of ammunition! Maybe the whites could snatch victory from what had looked like sure disaster. Maybe . . .

  Maybe Stafford was building castles in the air. That seemed much more likely when a stocky, middle-aged Negro scrambled none too gracefully over the rampart with a big white flag. The man held it up as he came toward the surviving whites.

  “Boy, if he wants to parley, I’d talk till the cows come home,” a soldier not far from Stafford said. “They can murder every fuckin’ one of us, and they don’t got to sweat real hard to do it, neither.”

  That was an inelegant way of summing up the situation, which didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Now that the shooting had paused, the moans and howls and shrieks of the wounded took center stage. Stafford wished a man could close his ears to shut out dreadful noises, the way he could close his eyes so he didn’t have to see dreadful sights.

  Colonel Sinapis limped back to the two Consuls. A blood-soaked bandage was wrapped around his left calf; he carried a stick in his right hand in place of his sword. Dipping his head to Stafford and Newton in turn, he said, “If they wish to treat with us, your Excellencies, I must recommend that we do so. However much I regret to say so, we are in no position to resist them.”

  “That does seem to be the case, doesn’t it?” Leland Newton was doing his best to stay calm: an admirable sentiment, as far as it went.

  He and Sinapis both eyed Consul Stafford. “If Satan wanted to talk to me right now, I do believe I listen respectfully,” Stafford said. “That nigger there isn’t the Devil—not quite—but I’ll hear him out.”

  “Thank you, your Excellency.” Sinapis’ voice seldom showed much. But if he wasn’t relieved right this minute, Stafford had never heard anyone who was.

  All the soldiers seemed glad the insurrectionists weren’t shooting any more. The regulars and militiamen also ceased fire. Stafford saw a couple of them doff their hats to the Negro as he approached. Even without orders, some regulars formed an escort for him and led him back to the Consuls and Colonel Sinapis.

  Stafford fought down the impulse to salute the rebels’ spokesman. Yes, the Consul was glad to be alive—and even gladder he might stay that way a while longer. In lieu of the salute, he asked, “Who are you?”

  “My name is Frederick Radcliff.” The Negro didn’t sound like a university man, but neither did he sound as ignorant as many of his fellow slaves. Under dark, heavy brows, his eyes flashed. “And who are you, friend?”

  I am no friend of yours, Stafford thought, even as he gave his own name. He studied the black man’s face, searching for traces of his illustrious grandfather. He didn’t need long to find them, either. The nose, the line of the jaw, the shape of this Radcliff’s ears . . . Yes, he did have a white ancestor, and Stafford was willing to believe it was the man from whose line he claimed to spring.

  Consul Newton also introduced himself. Then he asked, “Well, Mr. Radcliff, what do you want from us?”

  The Negro eyed him with scant liking. “You ever call a black man ‘Mister’ before?” he asked.

  “Yes. There is legal equality in Croydon.” Newton hesitated, then added, “I haven’t done it very often, though.”

  Stafford wondered whether that would do more harm than good. Had someone admitted something like that to him, he wouldn’t have liked it much. But Frederick Radcliff only grunted thoughtfully. “Well, maybe you’ll talk straight to me,” he muttered, before rounding on Stafford again. “How about you?”

  “I doubt it,” Stafford answered. Had he thought Radcliff would believe a lie, he would have tried one. But if the black man had the faintest notion of who he was and where he came from, a lie would prove worse than useless. Better not to trot one out where that was so.

  Frederick Radcliff grunted again. “You don’t reckon I’m dumb enough to believe any old story, anyways. That’s somethin’.” He waved back to the rampart from which he’d come, then to the sloping sides of the valley, and last of all to the insurrectionists who’d been pouring bullets into the white Atlanteans from behind. “You know we’ve got you. You can’t hardly not know we’ve got you.”

  Both Stafford and Newton looked to Balthasar Sinapis. They weren’t about to admit they could recognize military defeat—no, military catastrophe. That was what a colonel was for. Sinapis made a steeple of his fingertips. “The present situation is difficult,” he allowed, which had to be the understatement of the year.

  “Difficult, nothing.” This time, Victor Radcliff’s grandson didn’t grunt—he snorted in fine derision. “If I wave my hand, you’re all dead.”

  “If you think you would live more than a heartbeat after you did that, you’re wrong,” Stafford said.

  “Oh, I know,” the Negro answered easily. “As long as I have some other choice, I won’t do it. If I don’t . . .” He shrugged.

  “If you think murdering all of us will help your cause, you may be making a mistake,” Stafford told him.

  “Yeah. I figured that out, too,” said the Tribune of the Free Republic of Atlantis. Stafford had long been convinced Negroes had less in the way of wits than white men did. Dealing with Frederick Radcliff made him wonder, however little he wanted to. The leader of the insurrection nodded back toward the rampart. “Lorenzo, he hasn’t worked it through yet. He trusts me, but he doesn’t see it for his own self. He wants you folks dead.”

  So you’d better deal with me. The Negro didn’t say it, but it hung in the air nonetheless. Yes, he was a man of parts, all right.

  Leland Newton said, “You wouldn’t have come out unless you had something in mind besides killing us all.”

  “Think so, do you?” Frederick Radcliff had a very unpleasant grin. “Better not give me a hard time, or you’re liable to find out you’re wrong.”

  Colonel Sinapis stirred. “You have the air of a man who is about to demand a surrender and ready to put forth the terms on which he will accept it.”

  “That is just what I am, Colonel,” the Negro said. “If you say yes, you get away with your lives. If you say no, we will wipe you out and then see what troubles jump up because we did. Up to you.”

  “Before we say yes or no, we had better find out what you are asking,” Consul Stafford said.

  Frederick Radcliff fixed him with a glare. “I am not asking one single, God-damned thing. I am telling you how it will be. If you don’t like it, it’s your funeral. Yes, sir, that’s exactly what it is.”

  “If your terms are completely unacceptable, we can go on with the fight,” Stafford said. Colonel Sinapis’ horrified expression warned him they could do no such thing. Stafford pretended not to see it as he continued, “You may kill us, but we’re liable to ruin your army while you’re doing it.”

  “In your dreams, Stafford,” Frederick Radcliff said. The Consul didn’t think he’d ever had a colored man fail to give him his
proper titles of respect before. He knew what he could do about it here: nothing. It rankled regardless.

  “The terms,” Consul Newton said.

  “Right.” The insurrectionists’ leader seemed to remind himself that was why he’d come forth to talk with his enemies. “Terms. You can have your lives, and that’s it. Give up all your rifle muskets and pistols. Give up all your artillery. Give up all your ammunition. Give up all your horses, too, except the ones you’ll need for the wagons that haul your wounded. Then march away to New Marseille, and don’t you ever come back again.”

  “That’s outrageous!” Stafford exclaimed. “Once you have all our weapons, what’s to stop you from starting the massacre again when we can’t fight back?”

  “Nothing,” Frederick Radcliff answered. “If you’d licked us, we would’ve had to take whatever mercy you felt like giving us—and there wouldn’t’ve been much, would there? Well, now the shoe’s on the other foot, so see how you like it.”

  Consul Stafford liked it not at all. He took Newton and Colonel Sinapis aside to see how they felt about it. “What choice have we?” Sinapis asked bleakly, the wails from the wounded underscoring his words. “They can go back to killing us whenever they please.”

  “I don’t believe they would violate the terms once made,” Newton added. “They don’t want to make themselves infamous in the eyes of Atlantis as a whole.”

  “You hope they don’t,” Stafford said.

  “Yes.” The other Consul nodded. “I hope.”

  They stopped talking. They didn’t seem to have much else to say. When they turned back to Frederick Radcliff, he asked, “Well? What’s it going to be?”—which made things no easier.

  Consuls and colonel all looked at one another. Nobody wanted to say the fateful words. But someone had to. After a long, painful moment, Colonel Sinapis took the duty on himself. “We agree,” he said, and then, sensing that that by itself wasn’t enough, “We surrender.”

  When Cornwallis’ troops surrendered to Victor Radcliff, their band played a tune called “The World Turned Upside Down.” No bands played here, but the idea stayed with Leland Newton all the same.