Climbing a little helped, for it put ragged streamers of clouds between the aeroplanes and the men on the ground. But those ragged streamers also meant Moss couldn't see as much as he liked.
After playing hide and seek for a minute or so, he came back down into plain sight so he could do his own job as it needed doing.
By then, he, Baum, and McClintock were past the front line. The fire from the ground was lighter here, and he descended another few hundred feet. Men down there swelled from ants to beetles.
And here came what looked like a procession of toy trucks and wagons, bringing supplies up from the railhead to the front. Jonathan Moss let out a whoop the slipstream blew away. He waved to catch his wingmen's attention, and pointed first down to the supply column and then to the machine gun mounted in front of him. The limeys and Canucks—and even the Americans—had been taking potshots at them the whole flight long. Now they could get some of their own back.
He swooped down on the column like a red-tailed hawk on a pullet in a farmyard. Safely back of the lines, the wagons and trucks had no armed escort whatever. He squeezed the triggers to the machine gun and sprayed bullets up and down the length of it. As he pulled up and went around, he yelled with glee at the chaos he, Baum, and McClintock had created. Some horses were down. So were some drivers. Two trucks were burning. Two more had run into each other when their drivers jumped out and dove into a ditch rather than staying to be machine-gunned. A cloud of steam in the chilly air said one of them had a broken radiator.
The three pilots shot up the column twice more, starting fresh fires and knocking over more horses, and then, at Moss' wave, flew eastward again, back toward the aerodrome. When he neared the front line this time, Moss was not ashamed to use the cover of clouds to avert antiaircraft fire. Getting information was important, but so was bringing it back to the people who could use it.
The bottom of the cloud deck was only a few hundred feet off the ground when the three Curtiss Super Hudsons landed. Moss had breathed a long sigh of relief on spotting the aerodrome; he'd worried that the clouds would turn into fog and force his comrades and him to set down wherever they could.
When his biplane bounced to a stop, he jumped out of it, an enormous grin on his face. Baum, a little skinny guy with a black beard, and McClintock, who, for reasons known only to himself, affected the waxed mustache and spikily pointed imperial of a Balkans nobleman, were also all teeth and excitement. "Wasn't that bully!" they shouted. "Wasn't it grand?"
"Just like the ducks in a shooting gallery," Moss agreed, and then, quite suddenly, he sobered. Not long before, he'd been sick because he had to shoot down a Canadian aeroplane to save his own life. Now here he was celebrating the deaths of a whole raft of men who, unlike the aeroplane pilot and observer, hadn't even been able to shoot back.
He'd always been glad he wasn't an infantryman: if you were a mudfoot, war, and the death and maiming that went with war, were random and impersonal. What had he just been doing but dealing out random, impersonal death? He'd thought of himself as a knight in shining armor. What sorts of filthy things had knights done that never got into the pages of Malory and Ivanhoe? He didn't know. He didn't want to find out, not really.
He looked down at himself. His imaginary suit of armor seemed to have a patch or two of rust on it. No matter who you were or what you did, you couldn't stay immaculate, not in this war. "Close to quitting time," Jefferson Pinkard grunted as he and Bedford Cunningham secured a mold that would shape the steel just poured from the crucible into a metal pig a freight car could carry to whatever factory would turn it into weapons of war.
Before his friend could even begin to agree with him, that grand-daddy of a steam whistle proclaimed to the whole Sloss Foundry that he'd been right. "Lived through another Monday," Cunningham said, not altogether facetiously.
Accidents were way up since the start of the war. Everybody was working flat out, with no slack time from the start of a shift to the end. A lot of the men were new because so many had gone into the Army, and the new fellows made more mistakes than the old hands they replaced. And, what with working like dogs every minute of every shift, new hands and old got drunk more often to ease the strain, which didn't help—especially on Mondays.
No sooner had that thought crossed Pinkard's mind man a horrible shriek rang out on the casting floor. "Oh, Christ!" he said, breaking into a run. "That damn fool up there poured when they weren't paying attention—probably talking about going off shift, just like we was."
There by the mold next to his lay Sid Williamson. He wasn't quiet now, as he usually was. He writhed and shrieked. The stink of hot iron was everywhere. So was the stink of burnt meat. Jeff looked at him and turned away, doing his best not to be sick to his stomach. He'd been burned plenty of times himself, but never like this—oh, God, never like this.
He shook his fist up at the kid handling the crucible, who was staring white-faced at what he'd done. Such things happened even with experienced men in that place, but that didn't keep him from blaming the son of a bitch who'd made this one happen. It could've been me, he thought. Jesus God, it could've been me. "Burn ointment—" Bedford Cunningham began. Another steelworker was already slathering it on Williamson. It wouldn't do any good. Jeff knew damn well it wouldn't do any good. So did everybody else on the floor, including, no doubt, the burned man. A couple of his pals got a stretcher under him, which brought out fresh cries, and hustled him away. He might live—he was young and strong. Pinkard wouldn't have bet on it, though. He'd never be back at the foundry again. Jeff would have bet anything he owned on that.
He wiped his sweaty, grimy face with a sweaty, grimy forearm. It was chilly and wet outside, but not in here. In here, it was always somewhere between August and hell, not that, in Birmingham, there was a whole lot of difference between one and the other. Even so, some of the sweat on his face was cold.
Still shaking, he and Cunningham turned together to let the fellows on the evening shift take over the work, which had to get done no matter what, no matter who. They both stopped with the turns a little more than half made. Pinkard watched Cunningham's jaw drop. He felt his own doing the same thing. He needed a couple of tries before he could say, "Where's Henry? Where's Silas?"
The two Negroes in collarless shirts looked nervous. They were big, strong bucks—they looked plenty strong enough to be steel-workers. But that didn't have anything to do with anything, and they knew it. So did Pinkard and Cunningham. One of the Negroes said, "They's in the Army, suh. We is their replacements."
"And who the hell are you?" Bedford Cunningham set his hands on his hips. Both black men were bigger than he was, and younger, too, but that didn't have anything to do with anything, either. A black man who fought back against a white—his goose was cooked, anywhere in the CSA.
"I'm Lorenzo," said the Negro who had answered before.
"My name's Justinian," the other one said.
"I don't care if you're Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost," Jeff Pinkard exploded, which won him a startled chuckle from Cunningham. "What the hell they doin', puttin' Negroes on the evenin' shift? Nights was bad enough, but this here—"
"Suh, we been on nights since they let us," Lorenzo said, which was true; Pinkard had seen him around for a while. "When these white folks you was expectin', when they goed into the Army, the bosses, they look around, but they don't find no other whites kin do the job—no 'sperienced whites, I should oughta say. And so here we is."
"World's goin' to hell in a handbasket, Jeff, no two ways about it," Bed Cunningham said mournfully. "We seen it comin', an' we was right. Next thing you know, a couple of coons'll be doin' our jobs, too."
"Yeah, well, if that's so, it's on account of they put a rifle in my hands instead," Pinkard answered. "And I'll tell you somethin' else, too: when I get out o' the Army, I'm still gonna have that rifle in my hands. Any nigger who tries to keep my job when I want it back, he's gonna be sorry. And any boss who tries to help him keep i
t, he's gonna be sorrier yet."
"Amen," Cunningham said, as if he'd been preaching in the Baptist church of a Sunday morning. "We had ourselves two revolutions in this here country to make it like we want it. Reckon we can have us a third one to keep it that way." He spat on the floor. "Shit, how do we even know these boys can do the work? Maybe we better watch and find out." He folded his arms across his chest.
"Ought to find out if they've got the balls to do it, too," Jeff said. He pointed over to the other mold. "You boys know what happened to Sid just now?"
"Yes, suh," Lorenzo answered quietly. "We seen that before, workin' nights. Hope he come through all right."
It was a soft answer, not one Pinkard particularly wanted to hear just then. He was edgy, looking for trouble. Since he couldn't find any, he scowled and said, "All right, get on with it, then." If they couldn't do the job, complaining to the foreman and maybe to the foundry manager would be worthwhile. Pinkard stepped aside. "We're gonna watch you."
And, for the next half hour, he and Cunningham did nothing but watch. To his dismay, the Negroes had no troubles. They weren't so smooth together as the two white men they were replacing, but they hadn't worked together for years, either. They did know enough of what they were doing to do just about all of it right.
At last, Jeff stuck an elbow in Cunningham's ribs. "Let's go home," he said. "Wives'll be worryin', thinkin' we got hurt or somethin'." He shivered. "Wasn't us, but it might have been."
"Yeah," his friend said with a strange kind of sigh: not quite defeat, but a long way from acceptance. As one, they turned their backs on the Negroes and left the Sloss Foundry building.
Walking home felt strange. Because they'd stayed past shift changeover, they were almost alone. A few men coming in late for evening shift rushed past them, worried expressions on their faces. They'd catch hell from the foremen and they'd see their pay docked. Would they get fired? An hour earlier, Pinkard would have thought no—who'd replace them with so many white men in the Army? Now that question had a possible new answer, one he didn't like.
Sure enough, when they got back to their side-by-side yellow cottages—though they looked gray in the fast-fading evening twilight—Emily Pinkard and Fanny Cunningham were standing together on the grass of their front lawns, grass that was going brown from the cold December nights. "Where have you been?" the two women demanded as one.
"Stayed a little late at the foundry, is all," Jefferson Pinkard said.
Emily came up and stood close to him. After a moment, he realized she was smelling his breath to see if he'd been off somewhere drinking up some illegal whiskey. Fanny Cunningham was doing the same thing with Bedford. When Bedford figured out what was going on, he angrily shoved his wife away. Pinkard just shrugged. If he'd been Emily, he would have guessed the same thing.
"What were you doing at the foundry?" Emily asked, evidently satisfied he was telling the truth.
Then the tale came out, Jefferson and Bedford splitting it, their breath steaming as they spoke. Their wives exclaimed in indignation and fear, both because of what had happened to Sid Williamson and because of the news about the black men. Pinkard understood that plenty well. Henry and Silas had been replaced by Negroes after they went into the Army. Would Pinkard and Cunningham be replaced so they could go into the Army? Or would they be replaced for no better reason than that the foundry bosses could save some money?
"Come on inside," Bedford Cunningham said to his wife. "We got some things we better talk about, you an' me."
Pinkard had a pretty good notion what those things might be. Bedford had teased him when he'd let Emily go to work in the munitions factory, but all of a sudden he was pretty damn glad he had. Even if they did throw him out of work, he and Emily wouldn't go hungry. If his friend wasn't thinking about having Fanny look for some kind of work, he would have been surprised.
"I waited supper on you," Emily said. "I put that roast and the potatoes in the covered crock 'fore I left this mornin', and they'll still be fine now."
"All right." Pinkard let her lead him up the walk to their house. He hung his cap on the tree inside the door, right beside the flowered hat Emily had worn to her job today. Now that she was going out in public every day, she'd bought several new hats. Each one cost a day's pay for her, but she'd earned the money herself, so Pinkard didn't see how he had any business complaining.
In spite of her promises, the cottage wasn't so clean and tidy as it had been before Emily went to work. He'd said things once or twice, the first few weeks: after all, she had promised to keep up the housework. Before long, though, he'd stopped complaining. When you got right down to it, what difference did a little dust make? She was helping the CSA win the war. Didn't that count for more?
And supper, as she'd promised, was fine. She made a lot of meals like that these days: things she could fix up in a hurry, put over a low fire before she went out the door, and then just serve as soon as she and Jefferson were both home.
“That's mighty good," he said, patting his belly. "And since I
wasn't off gettin' lit up like you thought I was, why don't you get
me a bottle of beer?"
Even by the ruddy light of the kerosene lamp, he could see her face go red. "You knew, too?" she said over her shoulder as she went back into the kitchen. "You didn't let on like Bedford did."
"I think Fanny nags Bedford more'n you do me," he answered. "Makes him feel like he got to get his own back every so often. Ah, thanks." He took the illicit bottle she handed him, swigged, and made a sour face. "He's done a lot better'n that—tastes like he had a horse stand over the bottle." He swigged again. "A sick horse, you ask me."
Emily giggled, deliciously scandalized. She also drank. "It's not that bad," she said: faint praise. And, as usual, she was right. The beer was drinkable—or, if it wasn't, Jefferson's bottle emptied by magic.
He went into the kitchen with her and worked the pump at the sink while she washed the supper dishes. "How'd it go with you today?" he asked. He'd discovered, to his surprise, that he liked sharing work gossip with her. "You already heard my news for the day."
"Mine ain't much better," Emily said, scrubbing a greasy plate with harsh lye soap. "Clara Fuller, she hurt her hand on a drill press. They say she's liable to lose her little finger."
“That's no good," Pinkard said. "Accident like that, the whole shift is looking over its shoulder the next two days." Only after he'd said it did he realize how strange the idea of a woman at a machine would have struck him before the war started. About as strange as the idea of a Negro doing his job on the evening shift, as a matter of fact.
When the dishes were done and dried and put away, they went out to the living room and talked and read for a little while, till they were both yawning more than they were talking. After a few minutes of that, they gave up with sleepy laughs. They went out to the outhouse, first Emily, then Jeff. She was in bed by the time he came back to put on his pajamas. He slid under the cover and blew out the lamp.
Her back was to him. He reached over and closed a hand around her right breast. She didn't stir. She didn't say anything. She was already deep asleep. A moment later, so was he. Somewhere up ahead along the muddy, miserable road lay the town of Morton's Gap, Kentucky. Somewhere beyond and maybe a little north of Morton's Gap lay Madisonville. Somewhere beyond Madisonville—in a mythical land far, far away, as best as Paul Mantarakis could tell—lay the much-promised, seldom-seen glittering thing called Breakthrough.
Just at sunrise, Mantarakis walked slowly down the trench line. You couldn't walk any way but slowly; with every step you took, the mud grabbed your boot and made you fight to pull it out again. If you lay down in the mud, you were liable to drown. He'd heard of its happening, more than once, as the U.S. line congealed in the face of Confederate resistance and winter.
There stood Gordon McSweeney, his canvas shelter half wrapped around his shoulders as a cloak to hold the rain at bay, water dripping off the brim
of his green-gray—now green-gray-brown—forage cap. His long, angular face was muddy, too, and set in its usual disapproving lines. McSweeney disapproved of everything on general principles, and of Mantarakis not just on general principles but also—and particularly—because he wasn't Presbyterian.
And then, to Mantarakis' amazement, those gloomy features rearranged themselves into a smile so bright, it was almost sweet. "Merry Christmas, Paul," McSweeney said. "God bless you on the day."
"Christmas?" Mantarakis stared blankly before nodding and smiling back. "Merry Christmas to you, too, Gordon. Doesn't seem like much of a spot for doing anything about it, though, does it?"
"If Christ is in your heart, where your body rests does not matter," McSweeney said. When he talked like that, he usually sounded angry. Today, though, the words came out as if he meant them, no more. He really must have had the Christmas spirit deep in his heart.
"Merry Christmas," Mantarakis repeated. He kept walking. It was Christmas for McSweeney, it was Christmas for everybody in his unit—and for the Rebs in their wet trenches a couple-three hundred yards away—but it wasn't Christmas for him. It wouldn't be Christmas for him till January 6. The Orthodox Church had never cottoned to the Gregorian calendar. Maybe I should tell McSweeney it's Papist, Mantarakis thought with a wry smile. That would give the Bible-thumper something new to get in a sweat about, not that you could sweat in this miserable weather.
He shook his head. For one thing, having McSweeney act like a human being for a change was too good to fool with. And, for another, he was too used to having the whole world celebrate Christmas almost two weeks ahead of him to try and change anybody's mind about it now.
"Hey, Paul!" Sergeant Peterquist called from a little way down the trench. "We got us a sheep here—Ben brought it up with the regular supplies. Don't know where he came by it, but I'm not asking questions, neither. You wanna see what you can turn it into?"
"Sure will, Sarge," Mantarakis said. He wasn't officially company cook, but he was better at the job than Ben Carlton, who was supposed to have it, and everybody knew as much. And what a Greek couldn't do with mutton couldn't be done. He added, "Merry Christmas," as he came up to the sergeant.
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