Union Forever

by William R. Forstchen

  Whistles shrieked, frightened horses neighed with terror, men cursed and yelled as they manhandled guns up onto flatcars and lashed them in place. Gangs of laborers sweated in the cool morning air, carrying boxes of rations, musket and artillery rounds, fodder for horses, entrenching equipment, cased and padded boxes filled with smithing tools for the guns so they could be repaired in the field, and the hundreds of other items necessary for an army to function.

  Andrew saw John down by the station and cantered over to him. With a weary smile John looked up from the bulging sheaf of papers in his hands.

  "Long night John?" Andrew asked.

  "Haven't slept a wink in two days," John replied.

  "Well, once we get out of here, you're taking a couple of days off."

  "Like hell, sir," John replied evenly. "I'm going with you."

  "Now John, I need you here."

  "You need me in the field, sir. This is only half the job so far, and I'm not arguing with you over this the way Hans and O'Donald did. I know where my duty is, and I'll be on the last train out with or without orders."

  "All right, John," Andrew said, unable to argue with this man who had a far better grasp of all that was happening than he could ever hope to master. "Now how's the loading?"

  "A bit behind schedule, but I figured that would happen and planned some built-in extra time." He paused to look over at the large clock hanging in front of the station.

  "The first train still leaves in eighteen minutes. We'll have thirty-one trains leaving out of here at fifteen-minute intervals for the rest of the day. Six trains are already pulling out of Novrod, and the rest will be leaving from the other cities just about now. Everyone is to hold to twelve miles an hour—most of the engines will be working to the maximum even at that—and there'll be three-mile intervals between each train. Your train will be twentieth in line.

  "That still puts me over sixty miles back from the front," Andrew said uncomfortably, even though that issue had already been debated.

  "General Barry is already up at the railhead, and our last report indicates the Carthas have made no move in our direction. If anything had happened during the night we would have highballed you up the line already."

  This new form of warfare was something they had only talked about in plans and late-night debates. It had been decided then that a commander should be in the middle of the formation, in case a crisis developed at the rear of the column. Though he agreed with the concept it still made him feel uncomfortable. He had always led from the front before.

  "Excuse me, sir," John said. "You're train number three— your staff is already aboard. Now I've got other things to attend to. Also now that the parade's over, could you get the boys of the 35th out of the way? It's too crowded here already."

  Turning away, he stalked down the platform.

  "General Kindred," and his voice shot out high and clear, "Your 7th Regiment was late getting here. I can't tolerate that."

  Incredulous, Kindred looked down at the colonel.

  "Now listen here, John," Kindred ventured.

  "You might be a high and mighty general now, Tim, but you once were a sergeant in my old platoon. I want you to kick that colonel's ass. Now your other boys should know their tracks and engine numbers. Get 'em on board."

  Andrew looked over at the thoroughly discomforted general and smiled.

  "He's in command here more than I am," Andrew said, and turning, he looked around at the vast assembly.

  "Just where the hell is engine number three?" Andrew whispered, looking over at Hans.

  "Damned if I know. Just ride around a bit. The men will think you're inspecting them or something."

  Andrew nodded in reply, then leaned over and grasped Hans's hand.

  "This will be my first fight without you by my side," Andrew said.

  Hans smiled.

  "You're doing fine, son. Just remember, though, I still think there's something more behind all this than meets the eye. You're going to be way the hell out there on the end of nearly six hundred miles of track, so be careful."

  Hans grasped his hand sharply and then pulled back and saluted.

  "Give 'em hell, sir."

  Andrew saluted in return, and pulling Mercury around just a little too sharply, he started off across the track, squeezing his way between the tail end of a caboose and the engine of the train behind it.

  Starting down between two tracks, he immediately gave up trying to salute the endless line of men hanging out passenger-car windows, packed in boxcars, and hunkered down on the flatcars loaded with cannons and piles of boxes.

  "At ease, men, at ease," he chanted over and over again. He paused for a moment with one group, playing the old game, asking a man about his family, shaking the hand of another, pausing to chat for a moment with a soldier who proudly showed off the scar from a Tugar blade.

  Crossing over another set of tracks, he finally saw the military command car, still sporting the embarrassing tableau of him leading a charge. His staff stood alongside the track, looking around, taking in the sights. He was tempted to launch into a good chewing-out, but gave it up, realizing that all of this had too much of a grand holiday air to it, an experience unique to every last one of them.

  When he drew up before them the men came to attention, saluting as he climbed down off of Mercury. He patted his old friend, offering him a lump of honeyed sweet before an orderly led the horse away to a boxcar where five other horses, all old veterans of the Civil War on earth, waited.

  Andrew looked up and down the length of his train. The engine was the Malady, the new second model of locomotive which was now the standard pattern for the locomotives of the MFL&S Railroad. Twenty cars were strung behind it. The men of the 11th Suzdal were packed into the first ten passenger cars, then came the two cars for his staff, which was packed with maps, a complete telegraph station, old-fashioned Signal Corps equipment, and a complete operating station, which Emil was undoubtably fussing over.

  The car behind him contained the only large tents for the expedition, again for Kal's hospital. Next came two of the new armored cars, the heavy twelve-pounders pulled out and replaced with the lighter four-pounders of two batteries which could be moved forward. The last six cars were packed with yet more rations and ammunition, the roofs occupied by the men serving the guns in the armored cars.

  From the earthen wall that flanked the far side of the rail yard a field piece cut loose with a sharp staccato boom, and with a cold start Andrew looked up.

  "Here we go!" a young orderly shouted.

  The engine of the next train forward let down on its whistle with a high shriek, followed an instant later with a cacophony of shouted cheers, bells, and screaming whistles. White billowing clouds of woodsmoke rose up from the engine. A shudder passed through the cars, and then ever so slowly the engine started to inch forward. Andrew watched as the train commenced to gather speed. It reached the end of the siding, switching through to the main track and turning to head out the gate. The sharp snap of a musket volley rose up from the other side of the earthen wall as the honor guard of the 21st Suzdal fired a salute to the first train out.

  "All aboard, all aboard!"

  A fireman came running down the length of the train.

  Andrew, joining the others, scrambled aboard the car. Barely was the last man up when a lurch shuddered through the car. Andrew grabbed hold of the railing for support as he stepped up onto the small platform.

  The train inched forward, bell ringing, occupying the place of the previous train. Even as they rolled forward and stopped, a puffing plume of smoke marked the arrival of another engine coming in through the northern rail gate. Behind the train were half a dozen of the massive dormitory cars which had been run down only the night before from the end of the line in Roum territory.

  "Five of those cars will hold a regiment," Emil said, coming out onto the platform to watch the show.

  "Without them we'd be in a tough spot."

  "Those th
ings are filth-breeding dens of squalor," Emil said sharply.

  "No worst than quarters aboard a ship like the Ogunquit."

  "Whatever deviltry that Cromwell created, I'm certain he didn't think of proper sanitation," Emil sniffed, "but that's no excuse for us."

  "I'm certain he didn't," Andrew said, unable to contain a disparaging laugh. "I've heard those ironclads are hell in the summertime. Hundred-and-fifty-degree heat belowdecks in a fight."

  "Well, I hope they all fry in hell," Emil said. "A lot of good boys are going to be on my table in a couple of days."

  "Let's hope it doesn't come to a fight in the end," Andrew replied. "Though I've never seen it, I think a battle won without a fight must be a rare pleasure indeed."

  "Well, it'd give all these boys the five percent of pleasure that can be found in a war, the excitement and adventure, without the ninety-five percent of hell that makes up the rest of it."

  The train behind them came to a stop, and within seconds the twelve hundred men of two regiments who had been drawn up along the earthen wall swarmed forward, laughing and shouting, struggling to grab the best places on the cars and avoid being stuck on the roof.

  "You bring your microscope along?" Andrew asked, desiring a moment of light talk. Once the train got moving and his overexcited staff had calmed down a bit, the rest of the journey would be filled with long hard hours of work.

  "God hear my prayer," Emil intoned piously, looking to the heavens, "I don't want to see a single lad get hurt, but if they do, I want to make slides of the infections.

  "Now, you know I'm a firm believer in Semmelweiss," Emil continued, warming to his subject. "Studied under him in Vienna. He figured out how infection gets moved from one person to another. But he never went far enough. He understood the how, but never the why."

  "And you think that microscope you made is the answer."

  "I'm positive of it. There's a whole world of tiny creatures. I'm calling them sims after my old professor."

  "Do you think he'd be insulted?"

  "Good heavens, no. But as I was saying, it's these creatures I suspect, millions of them that grow in wounds and cause disease."

  "Oh, I believe you, doctor, it's just that it seems hard to imagine."

  "Believe it! Those damn fools with their miasmas and night vapors were a pack of butchering idiots."

  Andrew knew better than to debate with his old friend. After all, though Emil had taken off what was left of his arm after Gettysburg, the doctor had assuredly saved his life in the weeks afterward.

  "Now, we know boiling destroys them. I already proved that with boiling instruments and bandages. You remember how I killed off that typhoid outbreak in Novrod last fall."

  "It was certainly a miracle," one of Emil's young medical trainees said, coming up to look admiringly at his mentor.

  "It wasn't a miracle, it was plain common sense. People were getting sick. It turned out with a little questioning they were all drinking from the same well. When everyone started to boil the water, the outbreak died down."

  "But you can't boil a man's arm or leg to kill the infection," Andrew said.

  "That's the puzzle," Emil replied, his enthusiasm dropping somewhat. "I think it's the sims. If I could just find a way to kill them and leave all the cells of our body unharmed, I'd have the key to cutting our battle death rate to a fraction of what it is now."

  The sharp blast of a cannon startled Andrew again. The Malady came to life, smoke puffing out of its stack, its bells starting in with a harmonic tolling. Another cheer rose up from the rail yard as a shudder ran down the length of the train and ever so slowly they started to edge forward. From the cars alongside on the next track men leaned out, waving and shouting. The train started to pick up steam, the slow thumping clatter of the rails rising in tempo. Standing erect, he found that he was striking a pose, playing the necessary part in this drama, the commander riding out to war on his iron horse, bathed in smoke and steam.

  The car swayed as they reached the switch, clearing the head of the train alongside. For a brief moment he had a view back to the old walls of the city. Upon the battlement atop the stone-towered gate he saw two women dressed in blue. Kathleen and Tanya together. He raised his hand once, a sad restrained gesture, as if trying to convey not just to her but to the thousands of excited soldiers in the yard that after all this was not a joyful ride they were embarking upon.

  The car arced through its turn, and the boxcar behind him blocked off the view. The train crossed through the gate and over the drawbridge moat. Another volley snapped out as they rolled past the 21st.

  A waste of good powder, he thought sharply. For a brief moment he saw Hans looking up at him, his features grim, and then his old sergeant disappeared from view. The train crossed through the dead zone of entanglements and turning again started northeastward, running parallel to the outer wall of the city. The first switch shot past, the side track leading off to the east and the industrial works. The track was backed up with train after train waiting their turn to cut across the main line and into the city through the north gate for loading.

  "How John ever pulled this together in two days is a wonder," Andrew said with open admiration.

  "If it doesn't kill him in the end. That boy's heading for a serious bout of nervous debilitation. Don't use him up too quickly, Andrew."

  "I've got to, Emil," Andrew replied sadly. "The same way I've always used up men when I had to."

  The train, still gaining speed, clattered onto the trestle bridge across the Vina River, passing under the wooden aqueduct that came down from the dam. He looked at them appraisingly. Both the trestle bridge and the aqueduct were barely adequate temporary affairs. Trestles, Ferguson had explained to him, were easier for as yet unskilled laborers to build than a good arched wooden or iron bridge. The aqueduct was a crudely cobbled affair of upright wooden poles supporting a rough board trough, which lost nearly half its water before it reached town.

  Andrew looked over at Emil, who gazed at the viaduct as if it was a treasured grandchild, who though ugly to the rest of the world was in his eyes the perfection of creation.

  We're stretched to the limit, Andrew realized. The Suzdalians, used to the slavery under the boyars, now thought the schedule of six twelve-hour days a week was a luxury. But most of them still lived in the most primitive of conditions. Their old social system was shattered and they were still groping to find a new one, and thankfully were still imbued with a mad enthusiasm for their revolution. But the revolution was going to have to offer something back to them personally before much longer or the first faint cracks of strain might break wide open. He had been playing a conjuring game with them for too long already.

  Yet there was far too much to be done. This mad frenzy of preparation and building might be able to hold for only a brief while longer, driven at the moment out of a terrible fear that another visitation like the Tugars might arrive, and a compulsion to drive eastward, to seek out new allies and markets.

  Having crossed over the river, the train turned to the east, slowing significantly as it climbed the hills that rose up along the northern banks of the river. Andrew pushed the thoughts away and settled back to enjoy the countryside, bathed now in the full light of morning. A fold of hills blocked the factories to his right, marked now only by the columns of smoke rising up from the locomotives and the ironworks, which in spite of the emergency were still running with replacement crews. The puffing chugs of the engine swirled skyward, filing the air with a faint but not unpleasant scent of woodsmoke. The fields to his left, rising up to the yet higher hills north of town, were rich with the stillness of summer, the wheat stalks golden and full.

  A year and a half ago this area had been the camp of the Tugar horde, while the armies fought in the plains below. The forest had been cut back for several miles to feed their fires; stumps showed along the sides of the hills. A small farm village clung to the side of a knoll, the homes made up of yurts, their wheels gone, the heavy
felt tents clustered around the burned-over ruins of the villagers' former homes. The thought of people living in the yurts had bothered him at first, until he had spent an evening in one. Built for nine-foot-high Tugars, the yurts were commodious and to his surprise remarkably warm.

  Andrew noticed the tempo starting to pick up again. Going over to the side of the platform, he leaned out from the car, and behind him the wonderful panorama of Suzdal stood below. From a distance it still held a fairy-tale splendor, the southern half of the city which had survived the siege a splendid mix of onion domes and high wood-shingled buildings adorned with fantastic swirls of color, all of it dominated by the cathedral tower of stone, faced now with a proper clock. Looking farther north, he could barely make out the white church spires of the Methodist and Catholic congregations. From out of the gate another engine appeared, its smoke puffing high into the still air. Turning to look forward, he could see a smudge of smoke ahead hidden by low hills, the mark of the next train down the line.

  This was a wonder, what they had created, and in his imagination he could picture the long line of trains thundering by every fifteen minutes, hour after hour. If only I had Hank Petracci's balloon right now, he thought, I could climb into the heavens and see this long steam-driven caravan streaking eastward. He stepped back up onto the platform and leaned back, admonishing himself for his flight of fancy. There was still a war to plan.

  A flash of blue showed on his right, the broad upper reaches of the mill lake, its waters rippling with the first faint breeze of day.

  It reminded him of the lakes up in the Waterville area of Maine, a cluster of fir trees on the far bank reflected in near-perfection by the water. The train rolled along the lakeside for several minutes, its passage kicking up flights of waterfowl nesting along the banks. The happy shouts of the men forward rolled across the water like waves. The train started into a more northerly curve to skirt around a low series of hills. To the right a branch line of track arced out, continuing along the riverbank to the city of Novrod twenty miles away, and from there on to Mosva and Kev before rejoining the main line to Roum nearly a hundred miles farther up the line.