Nellie didn’t know what sort of answer she’d thought she would get, but that wasn’t it. “You seem a steady enough young fellow,” she said, an admission she hadn’t looked to make.
“I try to be,” Grimes said—steadily.
“Isn’t he the bulliest thing in the whole wide world, Ma?” Edna said.
She was thinking with her cunt, a phrase that hadn’t come to Nellie’s mind since her days in the demimonde. But Merle Grimes did look to be a much better bargain than Nellie had expected. “He may do,” she said. “He just may do.”
Engine roaring, the barrel bounded across the Kansas prairie north of Fort Leavenworth. Colonel Irving Morrell stood head and shoulders out of the turret, so he could take in as much of the battlefield as possible. The test model easily outran and out-maneuvered the Great War machines against which it was pitted.
Morrell ducked down into the turret and bawled a command to the driver in the forward compartment: “Halt!” And the driver halted, and it was not divine intervention. With the engine separated from the barrel’s crew by a steel bulkhead, a man could hear a shouted order. In a Great War barrel, one man could not hear another who was screaming into his ear.
At Morrell’s order, the gunner traversed the turret till the cannon bore on the barrel he had chosen. The old-style machines were trying to bring their guns to bear on him, too, but they had to point themselves in the right direction, a far slower and clumsier process than turning the turret.
“Fire!” Morrell yelled. The turret-mounted cannon roared. A shell casing leaped from the breech as flame spurted from the muzzle. It was only a training round, with no projectile, but it made almost as much noise as the real thing, and getting used to the hellish racket of the battlefield was not the least important part of training. The loader passed a new shell to the gunner, who slammed it home.
An umpire raised a red flag and ordered the barrel at which Morrell had fired out of the exercise. Morrell laughed. This was the fifth or sixth lumbering brute to which he’d put paid this afternoon. The Great War barrels hadn’t come close to hurting him. Had it been a prizefight, the referee would have stopped it.
But, in the ring or on the battlefield, he who stood still asked to get tagged. Morrell ducked down again and shouted, “Go! Go hard! Let’s see how many of them we can wreck before they make us call it a day.”
He laughed. This was as close to real combat as he could come. He might have enjoyed going up to Canada with a few companies of barrels, but he knew General Custer didn’t really need his services. The Canucks had been pretty quiet lately. The Confederate States were still licking their wounds, too. So he would pretend, as he’d pretended before the Great War, and have a dandy time doing it, too.
The barrel up ahead had the name PEACHES painted on its armored flanks. That made Morrell laugh, too. Since the earliest days of barrels, men had named them for girlfriends and wives and other pretty women. Peaches belonged to Lieutenant Jenkins; Morrell could see him standing up in the cupola. He saw Morrell, too, and sent him a gesture no junior officer should ever have aimed at his superior. Morrell laughed again.
Jenkins tried to keep him off by opening up with his rear and starboard machine guns. They fired blanks, too. Not only was that cheaper, but live ammunition would have torn through the thin steel of the test model’s superstructure. This time, Morrell’s chuckle had a predatory ring. It wouldn’t do Jenkins any good. This machine was assumed to be armored against such nuisances.
But an umpire raised a flag and pointed at Morrell. Morrell started to shout a hot protest—sometimes the umpires forgot they were supposed to pretend his barrel was properly armored. But then he realized the officer was pointing not at the barrel but at himself. He could not argue about that. His own body was vulnerable to machine-gun fire, even if that of the barrel was supposed not to be.
It was, in fact, a nice test of his crew. He bent down into the turret one last time. “I’m dead,” he said. “You’re on your own. I’ll try not to bleed on you.” He started to tell them to nail Jenkins’ barrel, but decided he’d used up enough “dying” words already.
The men made him proud. His gunner, a broad-shouldered sergeant named Michael Pound, said, “If you’re dead, sir, get the hell out of the way so I can see what I’m doing.” As soon as Morrell moved, Pound peered out of the turret and then started giving orders with authority a general might have envied. They were good orders, too, sensible orders. Maybe he couldn’t have commanded an entire brigade of barrels, but he sounded as if he could.
And he went straight after the barrel that had “killed” his commander. Morrell knew he couldn’t have done a better job himself. In short order, Pound shelled Jenkins’machine from the side: fire to which its main armament could not respond. An umpire soon had to raise a flag signaling the Great War barrel destroyed.
“Bully!” Morrell shouted, and smacked Pound on his broad back. “How did you learn to command so well?”
“Sir, I’ve been listening to you all along,” his gunner answered, “and keeping an eye on you, too. I copied what you’d do and what you’d say.”
“At least you didn’t copy my accent,” Morrell said. Pound laughed. His voice had a northern twang to it that made him sound almost like a Canadian. Morrell went on, “It’s still your barrel, Sergeant. What are you going to do next?”
Sergeant Pound went barrel hunting as ferociously as Morrell could have wanted. When the umpires finally whistled the exercise to a halt, one of them approached the test model. “Colonel, you were supposed to have been killed,” he said in the fussily precise tones that failed to endear umpires to ordinary soldiers.
“Captain, on my word of honor, I did and said nothing at all to fight this barrel after your colleague signaled that I’d been hit,” Morrell answered. He climbed out onto the top of the turret, then called down into it: “Sergeant Pound, stand up and take a bow.” Pound did stand up. When he saw the captain with the umpire’s armband, he came to attention and saluted.
As if doing him a favor he didn’t deserve, the captain returned the salute. Then he gave Morrell a fishy stare. “I have a great deal of trouble believing what you just told me, Colonel,” he said.
That was the wrong tack to take. “Captain, if you are suggesting that I would lie to you on my word of honor, I have a suggestion for you in return,” Morrell said quietly. “If you like, we can meet in some private place and discuss the matter man to man. I am, I assure you, at your service.”
U.S. Army officers hadn’t dueled since before the War of Secession. Morrell didn’t really have pistols at sunrise in mind. But he would have taken a good deal of pleasure in whaling the stuffing out of the officious captain. He let that show, too. As he’d expected, the captain wilted. “Sir, I think you may have misunderstood me,” he said, looking as if he wished he could sink into the churned-up prairie.
“I hope I did,” Morrell said. “I also hope Sergeant Pound’s outstanding achievement will be prominently featured in your reports of the action. He deserves that, and I want to see him get it.”
“He shall have it,” the umpire said. “You may examine the report as closely as you like.” He wasn’t altogether a fool, not if he realized Morrell would be reading that report to make sure he kept his promise. He still came too close to being a perfect fool to make Morrell happy.
Pound said, “Thank you very much, sir,” as Morrell climbed down into the turret once more.
“Don’t thank me,” Morrell said. “You’re the one who earned it. And now, let’s take this beast back to the barn. We keep showing them and showing them that we can run rings around every other barrel in the United States. If that won’t make them build more like this one, I don’t know what will.”
Odds were, nothing would make the Socialists build new, improved barrels. The political fight back in Philadelphia at the moment had to do with old-age pensions, not the War Department. Morrell was convinced he’d have a better chance of living to collect an old-a
ge pension if the Army got better barrels, but he had no friends in high places, not in President Sinclair’s administration.
After the barrel returned to the shed that sheltered it from the elements—and at whose expense the quartermasters had grumbled—Morrell climbed out and headed for the Bachelor Officer Quarters. Then he stopped, did a smart about-face, and went off in the other direction. As he went, he shook his head and laughed at himself. He’d been married only a little more than a month, and the habits he’d acquired over several years died hard.
The cottage toward which he did go resembled nothing so much as the company housing that went up around some factories. It was small and square and looked like the ones all around it. It was also the first time Irving Morrell had had more than a room to himself since joining the Army more than half a lifetime before.
Agnes Hill—no, Agnes Morrell; the habit of thinking of her by her former name died hard, too—opened the door when he was still coming up the walk. “How did it go today?” she asked.
He kissed her before waggling his hand and answering, “So-so. We blew a bunch of Great War barrels to smithereens, the way we always do, but I got shot in the middle of the exercise.”
To his surprise, Agnes looked stricken. She needed a few seconds to realize what he meant. Even when she did, her laugh came shaky. “An umpire decided you got shot,” she said, sounding as if she needed to reassure herself.
Morrell nodded. “That’s right. See? No blood.” He did a neat pirouette. When he faced Agnes again, she still wasn’t smiling. Now he had to pause to figure out why. When he did, he felt stupid, not a feeling he was used to. Her first husband had died in combat; was it any wonder she didn’t find cracks about getting shot very funny? Contritely, Morrell said, “I’m sorry, dear. I’m fine. I really am.”
“You’d better be.” Agnes’ voice was fierce. “And now come on. Supper’s just about ready. I’ve got a beef tongue in the pot, the way you like it—with potatoes and onions and carrots.”
“You can spend the rest of the night letting out my trousers, the way you feed me,” Morrell said. Agnes laughed at that with real amusement. However much Morrell ate—and he was a good trencherman—he remained skinny as a lath.
After supper, Morrell stayed in the kitchen while his wife washed dishes. He enjoyed her company. They chatted while she worked, and then while she read a novel and he waded through reports. And then they went to bed.
Though he’d hardly been a virgin before saying “I do,” Morrell’s occasional couplings with easy women had not prepared him for the pleasures of the marriage bed. Every time he and his wife made love, it was as if they were getting reacquainted, and at the same time learning things about each other they hadn’t known before and might have been a long time finding out any other way. “I love you,” he said afterwards, taking his weight on elbows and knees while they lay still joined.
“I love you, too,” Agnes answered, raising up a little to kiss him on the cheek. “And I love—this. And I would love you to get off me so I can get up and go to the bathroom, if that’s all right.”
“I think so,” he said. Agnes laughed and poked him in the ribs. When she came back to bed, he was nearly asleep. Agnes laughed again, on a different note. She put on her nightgown and lay down beside him. He heard her breathing slow toward the rhythms of sleep, too. Feeling vaguely triumphant at staying awake long enough to notice that, he drifted off.
Anne Colleton had always fancied that she had a bit of the artist in her. Back before the war, she’d designed and arranged the exhibition of modern art she’d put on at the Marshlands mansion. Everyone had praised the way the exhibit was laid out. Then the world went into the fire, and people stopped caring about modern art.
Now Anne was working with different materials. This Freedom Party rally in Columbia would be one of the biggest in South Carolina. She was bound and determined it would also be the best. She’d done her best to get permission to hold the rally on the grounds of the State House, but her best hadn’t been good enough. The governor was a staunch Whig, and not about to yield the seat of government even for a moment to Jake Featherston’s upstarts. She’d hoped for better without really expecting it.
Seaboard Park would do well enough. Neither the governor nor the mayor nor the chief of police could ban the rally altogether, though they would have loved to. But the Confederate Constitution guaranteed that citizens might peaceably assemble to petition for redress of grievances. The Freedom Party wasn’t always perfectly peaceable, but it came close enough to make refusal to issue a permit a political disaster.
Tom Colleton touched Anne’s arm. “Well, Sis, I’ve got to hand it to you. This is going to be one devil of a bash.”
“Nice of you to decide to come up from St. Matthews and watch it,” Anne replied coolly. “I didn’t expect you to bother.”
“It’s my country,” Tom said. “If you remember, I laid my life on the line for it. I want to see what you and that maniac Featherston have in mind for it.”
“He’s not a maniac.” Anne did her best to hold down the anger in her voice. “I don’t deal with maniacs—except the ones I’m related to.”
“Heh,” her brother said. But then he surprised her by nodding. “I suppose you’re right—Featherston’s not a maniac. He knows what he wants and he knows how to go after it. You ask me, though, that makes him more dangerous, not less.”
Anne wondered and worried about the same thing herself. Even so, she said, “When he does win, whether it’s this year or not, he’ll set the Confederate States to rights. And he’ll remember who helped him get to the top.” Tom started to say something. She shook her head. “Can’t talk now. The show’s about to start.”
Gasoline-powered generators came to life. Searchlights began to glow all around Seaboard Park. Their beams shot straight up into the air, making the park seem as if it were surrounded by colonnades of bright, pale light. Anne had come up with that effect herself. She was proud of it. Churches wished they made people feel the awe those glowing shafts inspired.
More electric lights came on inside the park. Tom caught his breath. They showed the whole place packed with people. Most of the crowd consisted of the ordinary working people of Columbia in their overalls and dungarees and cloth caps and straw hats, with a sprinkling of men in black jackets and cravats: doctors and lawyers and businessmen, come to hear what the new man in the land had to say.
At the front, though, near the stage a team of carpenters had spent the day running up, stood neat, military-looking ranks of young men in white shirts and butternut trousers. Many of them wore tin hats. If the Whigs and the Radical Liberals tried imitating Freedom Party tactics and assailing the rally, the protection squads would make them regret it.
The foremost rows of Party stalwarts carried flags—some Confederate banners, some C.S. battle flags with colors reversed, some white banners blazoned with the red word FREEDOM. The tall backdrop for the flag-draped stage was white, too, with FREEDOM spelled out on it in crimson letters twice as tall as a man.
“You don’t need to worry about investing money,” Tom said. “You could make billions designing sets for minstrel shows and vaudeville tours. Christ, you might make millions even if Confederate dollars were really worth anything.”
“Thank you, Tom,” Anne Colleton said. She wasn’t altogether sure whether he offered praise or blame, but took it for the former. “Look—here comes Featherston.” Her own vantage point was off to the right, beyond the edge of the crowd, so she could see farther into the left wing than any of the regular audience. She tensed. “If those spotlight men have fallen asleep on the job, God damn them, they’ll never work in this state again.”
But they hadn’t. As soon as Jake advanced far enough to be visible to the crowd, twin spotlight beams speared him. One of the Freedom Party bigwigs from Columbia rushed to the microphone and cried, “Let’s hear it for the next president of the Confederate States, Jaaake Featherston!”
“Fr
ee-dom! Free-dom! Free-dom!” The rhythmic cry started among the stalwarts in white and butternut. At first, it had to compete with the unorganized cheers and clapping and the scattered boos from the larger crowd behind them. But the stalwarts kept right on, as they’d been trained to do. And, little by little, the rest of the crowd took up the chant, till the very earth of Seaboard Park seemed to cry out: “Free-dom! Free-dom! Free-dom!”
The two-syllable beat thudded through Anne. She’d orchestrated this entire performance. Thanks to her, Jake Featherston stood behind the microphone, his hands raised, soaking up the adulation of the crowd. Knowing what she knew, she should have been immune to what stirred the thousands of fools out there. But, to her own amazement and rather to her dismay, she found she wasn’t. She wanted to join the chant, to lose herself in it. The excitement that built in her was hot and fierce, almost sexual.
She fought it down. The farmers and factory hands out there didn’t try. They didn’t even know they might try. They’d come to be stirred, to be roused. The ceremony had started that work. Jake Featherston would finish it.
He dropped his hands. Instantly, the Freedom Party faithful in white and butternut stopped chanting. The cries of “Freedom!” went on for another few seconds. Then the people in the ordinary part—much the bigger part—of the crowd got the idea, too. A little raggedly, the chant ended.
Jake leaned forward, toward the microphone. Anne discovered she too was leaning forward, toward him. Angrily, she straightened. “God damn him,” she muttered under her breath. Tom gave her a curious look. She didn’t explain. She didn’t want to admit even to herself, let alone to anyone else, that Jake Featherston could get her going like that.
“Columbia,” Jake said. “I want you all to know, I’m glad—I’m proud—to set foot in the capital of the first state of the Confederacy.” He talked in commonplaces. His voice was harsh, his accent none too pleasing. Somehow, none of that mattered. When he spoke, thousands upon thousands of people hung on his every word. Anne was one of them. She knew she was doing it, but couldn’t help herself. Featherston was formidable in a small setting. In front of a crowd, he was much more than merely formidable.
Blood and Iron Page 51
