"No wonder the Yanks are givin' us such a hard time," Jake muttered.
Captain Jeb Stuart III trotted up to Featherston's gun. "Get the team hitched to your piece," the battery commander called. "We're moving forward, maybe a mile." He pointed northeast. "The damnyankees are holed up in a couple of stone farmhouses out that way, and they've got a whole regiment stalled on its track—haven't been able to clear 'em out with rifles and machine guns, so they want us to knock the houses down."
"You hear that, Nero, Perseus?" Featherston called as Stuart went off to give the order to the rest of the battery. The two Negroes nodded and brought the horses over. Hitching the animals to the gun trail was a matter of a few minutes, for they were already in harness. Hitching the other team to the supply wagon that followed the gun was also quickly done. Then, swearing and sweating, Nero and Perseus lifted the crates of shells they'd just unloaded from one wagon up onto another.
"Move 'em out!" Captain Stuart was shouting, and waving his cap in his hand to urge the men on. Pompey brought him a glass of something cool to drink. He upended it, gave it back to the servant, and went on shouting to the gun crew and to the laborers without whom they wouldn't have been nearly so efficient.
It hadn't rained for several days, so the road—or rather, track— to the new position wasn't muddy. When a howitzer bogged down hub-deep in muck, everybody, blacks and whites together, put shoulders to it to keep it moving. Leaves on some of the trees were beginning to go from green to gold and red. They wouldn't have started turning this early in September back in the CS A.
Since the dirt track was dry, they got dust instead of mud. By the time they reached the new position, everyone was the same shade of grayish brown, Featherston no less than Nero. The artillery sergeant peered through the field glasses at the farmhouses Captain Stuart wanted the battery to destroy.
"Range about thirty-five hundred yards, I'd make it," he said, and worked the* elevation screw to lower the field gun's barrel to accommodate the shorter range. Stuart had been right; the Confederates had advanced past the farmhouses to either side, but were halted in front of them. Even through field glasses, corpses were tiny at two miles, but Featherston saw a lot of them.
He studied the gunsight again, then traversed the barrel slightly to the left. "Load it and we'll fire for effect," he said.
Jethro Bixler set a shell in the breech, then closed it with a scrape of metal against metal. He bowed to Featherston as if they were a couple of fancy gentlemen—say, Jeb Stuart III and one of the Sloss brothers—at an inaugural ball in Richmond. "Would you care to do the honors?"
"Hell yes," Jake said with a laugh, and pulled the lanyard. The field gun barked. He got the field glasses up to his eyes just as the shell hit three or four seconds later. "Miss," he said, and clucked to himself in annoyance. "Long and still off to the right."
He lowered the barrel a little more and brought it over another few minutes of arc to the left. The second round fired for effect was straight, but still long. The third fell a few yards short. By then, the other guns in the battery had gone into action, too, so he had to hesitate before he could be sure the round he had seen really came from his gun. He turned the elevation screw counterclockwise, about a quarter of a revolution, waited a couple of seconds for a fresh load, and fired again at the farmhouse.
"Hit!" The whole gun crew shouted it together. Smoke and dust shot up from the building; through the field glasses, Featherston saw a hole in the roof.
"Now we give it to 'em!" he said, and shell after shell rained down on and around the farmhouse. Its stone walls might have been thick enough to keep out small-arms fire, but they weren't proof against artillery. The building fell to pieces even faster than it would have under assault from a steam crane and wrecking ball.
He swung his field glasses to the other farmhouse. Half the guns in the battery had chosen that one, and it was in no better shape than the one his howitzer crew had helped to destroy. Confederate troops swarmed up out of the shallow trenches they'd dug to protect themselves from the fire coming out of those two buildings and rushed toward them. To his dismay and anger, he saw the barrage, though it had wrecked the farmhouses, hadn't killed or driven off all the enemy soldiers in them. Men in butternut fell, not quite in the horrific numbers Featherston had seen in some assaults, but far too many all the same.
"We gotta keep hitting 'em!" he shouted to the gun crew. More shells went out, fast as the artillerymen could serve the howitzer.
Featherston kept watching the assault on the farmhouses. The Confederate infantrymen surged toward them, still taking casualties but advancing now. Featherston held fire when they reached the buildings, not wanting to hit the soldiers on his own side. When he saw tiny figures in butternut waving their comrades forward past the farmhouses, he knew the position had been carried.
"Good job, boys," he said. It wasn't every day you could actually see what your firing had accomplished. A lot of the time, your shells were just part of a massive bombardment aimed at targets too far away for you to tell whether you'd done any good against them or not.
Perseus pointed up into the sky. "Lookit that—it's one o' them aeroplane contraptions," the Negro shouted. "Wonder whose side it's on."
"Reckon it's a Yankee machine," Featherston said, also looking up. "If it was one of ours, it wouldn't be hangin' up there over our lines—it'd be spyin' on the enemy instead."
What he wished was that he had a gun able to knock that snooping U.S. aeroplane right out of the sky. Wishing, though, didn't magically provide him with one. As the machine passed nearly overhead, something fell out of it and sped toward the ground. For a moment, Jake hoped that meant the pilot had gone overboard, or whatever the aeronautical equivalent was.
He realized the shape was wrong. He also realized two or three somethings were falling, not just one. And, with that, he realized what the somethings were. "He's dropping bombs on us!" he shouted indignantly.
Boom! Boom! Boom! There were three of them. They fell a couple of hundred yards behind the battery of field guns. The noise from the explosions smote Featherston like a thunderclap. Clouds of smoke and dust rose, but the bombs didn't seem to have done any damage.
Jethro Bixler looked back at where they'd blown up, then shook his fist at the aeroplane, which was now flying away toward the Yankee lines. But then he grinned and shrugged. "That wasn't so much of a much," he said. "By the sound of those things, they weren't a whole lot bigger'n what our three-inchers throw. An' we can put 'em just where we want 'em, and put a whole bunch of 'em there, 'stead o' droppin' a couple an' runnin' for home."
"They can put 'em back of our lines farther than artillery can reach," Featherston said, giving such credit as he could: the Confederacy had bombing aeroplanes of its own, after all, and he didn't want to think they were useless. But he also took pride in what he did: "Reckon you're right, though. Set alongside these here guns, I
don't figure aerial bombs'll ever amount to much."
* * *
As George Enos came into his house, his wife Sylvia greeted him with bad news: 'They're going to cut the coal ration this month, and it looks like it's going to stay cut."
“That's not good," he said, an understatement if ever there was one. He took off his cap and set it on the head of four-year-old George, Jr. Naturally, it fell down over his son's eyes. The boy squealed with glee. The fisherman went on, "Hard enough cooking if they cut the ration any further. But winter's coming, and this is Boston. How will we keep warm if we can't get as much coal as we need?"
"Mr. Peterson at the Coal Board office, he didn't say anything about that, and you can bet there were a lot of people asking him, too." Sylvia Enos' thin face was angry and tired and frustrated. She often looked that way when she got home from a couple of hours of fighting Coal Board paperwork, but more so today than usual. "All he said was, the factories have to have coal if they're going to make all the things we need to fight the war, and everybody else gets what'
s left over. The surtax is going up another penny a hundredweight, too."
"I already knew that much," George Enos said. "Some company bigwig was grousing about it when we coaled up Ripple before we went out last Monday."
"Well, sit down and rest a bit," Sylvia told him. "I haven't seen you since then, you know, and little George and Mary Jane haven't, either. It's hard for them, their father gone days at a time. Supper'11 be about twenty minutes more."
"All right," Enos said. The pleasant smells of clam chowder and potatoes fried in lard wafted into the living room from the kitchen.
Sylvia started to head back into the kitchen, then turned with hands on her hips. "I swear to goodness, the forms they give you to fill out before you can even get a speck of coal now are worse than they ever used to be."
"Maybe we should burn all the forms," Enos said. "Then we wouldn't need so much coal."
"You think you're making a joke," Sylvia said. "It's not funny. When Mrs. Coneval's mother came over yesterday, she was complaining about them, too. She remembers back before the Second Mexican War, and she says there didn't hardly used to be any forms like there are now."
"That was a long time ago," George answered, which got him a dirty look from Sylvia. After a moment, he realized he'd pretty much called her friend's mother an old woman. Defensively, he went on, "Well, it was. From what people say, things haven't been the same since."
His wife nodded sadly. "Always the war scares. I don't know how many from then till now, but a lot of them. And all the factories busy all the time, making guns and shells and ships and I don't know what all else to use if the war came. And now it's come. But we'd have had so much more for ourselves if we hadn't been worrying about the war all the time."
"But we'd probably have lost it, too, because the Rebs have been building every bit as hard as we have," he said. "Harder, maybe; if they use their niggers in their factories, they don't have to pay 'em anything to speak of. Same with the Canadians, except they don't have niggers."
Talking about niggers made him think of Charlie White. But the Cookie was somebody he worked with, a friend, who just happened to have dark brown skin and hair that grew in tight curls. It wasn't the same, though he couldn't have put his finger on why it wasn't.
Sylvia said, "The Canadians, they have Frenchies instead of niggers." She sniffed loudly, but not on account of French Canadians. "I have to turn those potatoes, or they'll burn. And I'll start frying the fish with them in a couple of minutes, too."
"All right." George Enos sat down and lighted a cigar. He wondered how long he'd be able to keep doing that. Most tobacco came from the Confederate States, and they weren't going to be shipping any up north, not while they and the United States were shooting at each other.
George, Jr., came over and hugged one of his legs. Seeing that, Mary Jane toddled up and hugged the other one. She tried to imitate everything her older brother did, which often made her the most absurd creature George had ever seen. "Dadadada!" she said enthusiastically. She was a year and a half old now, and sometimes said "Daddy," but when she got excited—as she always did when her father first came home from the sea—she went back to baby talk.
Fresh sizzling noises from the kitchen said the fish had gone into the frying pan. The Enoses, like any other fisherfolk, ate a lot of fish: nobody begrudged George's bringing home enough to feed his family. He didn't have to fill out any forms to get it, either. Through the sizzle, Sylvia called, "When do you think you'll be going out again?"
"Don't know exactly," he answered. "Soon as Captain O'Donnell or somebody from the company can lay hold of more coal, I expect. Business is good, prices are up, and so they're sending us out as often as they can. Might be the day after tomorrow, might be—"
Somebody knocked on the front door, hard.
"Might be tomorrow morning," Enos said, heaving himself up out of his chair. In the kitchen, Sylvia groaned, but softly. He understood what she was feeling, because he was feeling all the same things himself. Getting to see his family once in a while mattered a lot. But he'd brought home a lot of money in the weeks since the war started. Prices were up, too, but as long as he stayed busy, he stayed ahead of them.
He opened the door. Sure enough, there stood Fred Butcher. "Hate to do this to you, George," the mate said, "but we've swung a deal for some fuel. We sail at half past five tomorrow morning."
"I'll be there," Enos said—what else could he say?
Butcher nodded. "I know you will. You and Cookie, we can always count on the two of you. Some of the others, I'm going to have to pry 'em out of the saloons and sober 'em up—if I can find 'em." He touched a finger to the bill of his cap. "See you on the wharf. Tell your missus I'm sorry." He hurried off, a busy man with more work ahead of him.
George Enos shut the door. "Supper's on the table," Sylvia called at the same moment. As he walked into the kitchen, she went on, "I can guess what that was all about. Nice I get to give you one meal before Charlie White gets his hands on you again. You eat more of his cooking than you do of mine, seems like."
"Maybe I do," Enos said, "but I like yours better." That made Sylvia smile; for a moment, she didn't look so tired. George wasn't sure he'd told her the truth, but he'd made her happy, which counted, too.
Sylvia cut up bits of fish and potato for the children. George, Jr., handled his fork pretty well; one day soon, he'd start using a knife. With Mary Jane, Sylvia had to make sure she ate more than she threw from the high chair onto the floor. It was about an even-money bet.
"Have to get them to bed early tonight," George remarked. "If we can."
"I don't want to go to bed early," his son declared indignantly. Mary Jane wasn't old enough yet to know what he was talking about.
"You'll do as you're told, though," Enos said.
George, Jr., knew that tone brooked little argument. He changed his tack, asking, "Why do I have to go to bed early? Mama? Daddy? Why?"
"Just because you do," Sylvia answered, glancing at her husband with an expression half amused, half harassed. When you had only occasional nights together, you needed to make the most of them.
And there were reasons sailors coming home from the sea had a salty reputation. "Again, George?" Sylvia whispered in the darkness of their bedroom, feeling him rise against her flank for the fourth time. "You might as well be a bridegroom. Shouldn't you sleep instead?"
"I can sleep on the Ripple," he said as he climbed back on top of her. "I can't do this." She laughed and clasped her arms around his sweaty back.
When the alarm clock jangled at four in the morning, he wished he'd slept more and done other things less. He made the clock shut up, then found a match, scratched it, and used the flame to find and light the gas lamp. Staggering around like a half-dead thing, he fumbled his way into his clothes.
By the time he was dressed, Sylvia, who'd thrown a quilted robe over her white cotton nightdress, pressed a cup of coffee into his hands. He gulped it down, hot and sweet and strong. "You should go back to bed," he told her. She shook her head, as she did whenever he said that in the small hours of the morning. She puckered her lips. He set down the cup and kissed her good-bye.
Some of the streets on the way down to T Wharf had gaslights, some new, brighter electric lamps. The lamps weren't bright enough to keep him from seeing stars in the sky. The air was crisp and cool. Fall wasn't just coming—fall was here. They might get a couple of weeks of Indian summer, and then again they might not.
T Wharf didn't care about day or night; it was busy all the time. And sure enough, there ahead of him strode Charlie White, a knitted wool cap on his head. "Hey, Cookie!" George called. The Negro turned and waved.
For a wonder, the whole crew got to the Ripple on time. "Wouldn't even expect that in the Navy," Patrick O'Donnell said: his highest praise. A few minutes later, coal smoke spurted from the steam trawler's stack. Along with Lucas Phelps, George cast off the mooring lines. The Ripple chugged out toward Georges Bank.
The day dawned bright and clear. Gulls screeched overhead. They knew fishing boats were a good place to cadge a meal, but they weren't smart enough to tell outbound boats from inbound. Off in the distance floated a plume of smoke from a warship outbound ahead of the Ripple. Enos liked seeing that; it made trouble from Confederate cruisers and submarines less likely. The warship, intent on its own concerns, soon left the Ripple behind; the smoke vanished over the eastern horizon.
Though the Ripple was a trawler, everyone fished with long lines on the way out to Georges Bank: no point wasting travel time. The cod and mackerel they caught went into the hold. So did a couple of tilefish. "Shallower water'n you'll usually see 'em in," Lucas Phelps remarked, pulling in a flopping three-foot fish. "More of 'em now than there have been, too, since they almost disappeared thirty years back."
"My pa used to talk about that," George Enos said. "Cold currents shifting almost killed 'em off, or something like that." He headed up to the galley for yet another mug of coffee.
When they reached the Georges Bank that night, the trawl splashed into the sea. The Ripple crawled along, dragging it over the ocean bottom. To keep from drawing raiders, Captain O'Don-nell left the running lights off; he posted a double watch to listen for approaching vessels and avoid collisions.
But they might have been alone on the ocean. Another clear dawn followed, with water around them stretching, as far as the eye could tell, all the way to the end of the world. No smoke told of other fishing boats or warships anywhere nearby.
Enos was gutting fish when the captain spotted a smoke plume approaching from the east. "Freighter heading in toward Boston," he judged after a spyglass examination. He looked some more. "Carrying something under tarps on the bow, something else at the stern."
American Front Page 15
