In At the Death sa-4

by Harry Turtledove

  "I leave these fellas with you?" Cassius asked.

  "Yeah, I'll take care of 'em from here on out," the guard replied. He carried a submachine gun, a heavy U.S. Thompson. It would do the job if it had to. "C'mon, you lugs," he told the Confederates. "This is the end of the line for you."

  "I don't mind," the corporal said. "Like I told this fella here"-he nodded toward Cassius-"I already been shot three different times. I'm still here. I'm still walkin'. One more, maybe my luck woulda run out."

  "Damn war's over with," one of the privates added. "We lost. Ain't much point to fighting any more."

  "You guys aren't so dumb," the U.S. soldier said. "Kick you in the teeth often enough and you get the idea." He led them off into captivity. They didn't seem the least bit sorry to go. They'd managed to give up without getting killed. And the chow inside the barbed wire was bound to be better than what they'd scrounged on their own. How much food the Yankees took for granted had already astonished Cassius. The men in butternut were scrawny enough to make him sure it would amaze them, too.

  Cassius went back on patrol. Unlike the POWs, he had to earn his victuals. And damned if another pair of Confederate soldiers didn't come into Madison an hour and a half later. They'd also made sure they weren't carrying weapons before they showed themselves.

  Seeing Cassius-and seeing his rifle-they wasted no time raising their hands. "We ain't people bombs or nothin', Rastus," one of them said. "Cross my heart we ain't." He lowered his right hand for a moment to make the gesture.

  "My name ain't Rastus," Cassius retorted. But, again, as long as they didn't wear camouflage or call him nigger or boy, he was willing if not precisely eager to let them give up.

  The same soldier in green-gray still stood at the entrance to the POW camp when Cassius brought in his next set of captives. "Son of a bitch!" the Yankee said. "You're turning into a one-man gang!"

  "They know they's licked," Cassius said. "Don't bother 'em to give up now, like maybe it did befo'."

  "That's about the size of it," one of the Confederates agreed. "What's the point to gettin' shot now? Sure ain't gonna change how things turn out."

  "You got that right, anyway," the U.S. soldier said. "Well, come on. We'll get you your rooms at our hotel, all right. You can have the caviar or the pheasant under glass. The barmaid'll be along with the champagne in a few minutes, but it costs extra if you want her to blow you."

  Both men in butternut stared. So did Cassius; the Yankee's deadpan delivery was mighty convincing. Then the Confederates started to laugh. One of them said, "Long as I don't get blown up, that's all I care about right now."

  "Amen!" said the other new POW, as if responding to a preacher in church.

  On that kind of simple level, Cassius had no trouble understanding and sympathizing with them. When he tried to fathom their cause, though…If they had their way, I'd be dead, same as the rest of my family. How can they want that so bad? I never done nothin' to them.

  They didn't care. They feared Negroes might do something to them, and so they got in the first lick. That was Jake Featherston all the way-hit first, and hit hard. But he hadn't hit the United States quite hard enough. He got in the first lick, but they were getting the last one. And I'm still here, too, Cassius thought. You may not like it, you ofay asshole, but I damn well am.

  S itting in the Humble jail was a humbling experience for Jeff Pinkard. Even if the Republic of Texas had seceded from the Confederate States, the guards at the jail were all U.S. military policemen. They wore green-gray uniforms, white gloves, and white helmets with MP on them in big letters. They reminded him of a lot of the men who'd guarded Camp Humble and the other camps he'd run: they were tough and brave and not especially smart.

  They wouldn't let his wife or stepsons in to see him. They wouldn't let him see his new baby. All he had for company was Vern Green; the guard chief moped in the cell across the hall.

  Three hulking U.S. MPs came for Jeff early in the morning. They all carried big, heavy U.S. submachine guns. "Come on, Pinkard," one of them-a sergeant-said, his voice cold as Russian Alaska.

  Jeff thought they were going to take him outside and shoot him. Who was there to stop them? Not a soul. He fought to keep a wobble out of his voice when he said, "I want to talk to a lawyer."

  "Yeah? So did all the coons you smoked. Come on, asshole," the MP said. One of his buddies unlocked the cell door. Jeff came. Fear made his legs light. All he could do was try not to show it. If you were going to die anyway, you wanted to die as well as you could.

  He squinted against the sun when they led him out of the jail. He hadn't seen so much sunshine since they locked him up. Looking back at the jail building, he saw the U.S. and Texas flags flying side by side above it. His mouth tightened. Both those flags reminded him of the Stars and Bars; both, now, were arrayed against it.

  Barbed wire and machine-gun nests and armored cars defended the jail and the buildings close to it. Seeing Jeff glance at the new fortifications, the MP sergeant said, "Nobody's gonna spring you from this place, so don't get your hopes up."

  "Way you've got it set up, you must reckon an awful lot of folks want to," Jeff replied. The noncom scowled at him but didn't answer. Jeff smiled to himself-that shot must have got home.

  What had been a bail bondsman's office down the street from the jail now had U.S. soldiers standing guard in front of it. The Lone Star flag might fly over the jail, but Pinkard didn't see any Texas Rangers. The damnyankees were running this show. He didn't think that was good news for him.

  One of the guards opened the door. "Go on in," the MP sergeant said.

  "What happens when I do?" Jeff asked suspiciously.

  "The bogeyman gets you," the MP snapped. When Jeff neither panicked nor asked for any more explanation, the Yankee gestured impatiently. "Just go on. You wanted a lawyer. They're gonna give you one. More than you deserve, if anybody wants to know what I think."

  Pinkard didn't give a rat's ass for what the MP thought. A lawyer was more than he'd thought he would get from the U.S. authorities. Of course, having one and having one who'd do any good were two different critters. He was playing by Yankee rules now, and he knew damn well they'd be stacked against him.

  In he went, before the snooty sergeant could tell him again. Sitting at what had been the bondsman's desk was a skinny fellow with curly red hair, a big nose, and a U.S. major's gold oak leaves. "You're Jefferson Pinkard?" the man asked.

  "That's right." Jeff nodded. "Who're you?"

  "My name is Isidore Goldstein," the major answered. I figured he was a hebe, Jeff thought. Well, chances are he's smart, anyway. Goldstein went on, "I'm part of the Judge-Advocate's staff. I'm an attorney specializing in military law. I will defend you to the best of my ability."

  "And how good are you?" Pinkard asked.

  "Damn good, matter of fact," Goldstein said. "Let's get something straight right now: I didn't want this job. They gave it to me. Well, that's how it goes sometimes. I don't like you. No-I despise you. If you've done one percent of what they say you've done, I'd stand in the firing squad and aim at your chest. And we both know you've done a hell of a lot more than that."

  "If you're my lawyer, why do they need some other asshole to prosecute me?" Jeff said.

  He surprised a laugh out of Goldstein. The Yankee lawyer-the Yankee Jew lawyer, almost a stock figure in Confederate movies about the depravities of life in the USA-said, "But you gotta understand something else, too. My job is defending people. Guilty people need lawyers. Guilty people especially need lawyers. Whatever they let me do, I'll do. If I can get you off the hook, I will. If I can keep 'em from killing you, I will. That's what I'm supposed to do, and I'll damn well do it. And like I say, I know what I'm doing, too."

  Pinkard believed him, not least because Goldstein plainly didn't care whether he believed him or not. "So what are my chances, then?"

  "Shitty," Goldstein answered matter-of-factly. "They've got the goods on you. They know what you did. The
y can prove it. You get rid of that many people, it's not like you can keep it a secret."

  "Everything I was doing, I was doing 'cause I got orders from Richmond to take care of it," Jeff said. "Far as the laws of my country went, it was all legal as could be. So what business of your country is it what I was doing inside of mine?"

  "Well, that's one of the arguments I aim to use," Isidore Goldstein said. "You're not so dumb after all, are you?"

  "Hope not," Jeff said. "How come you reckoned I was?"

  "One way to do what you did is just do it and never think about it at all," the U.S. attorney said. "I figured you might be like that, where you'd go, 'Yeah, sure,' and take care of things, like. But you've got too many brains for that-I can tell. So why did you do it?"

  "'Cause the niggers were screwing my country. Honest to God, they were. First time I went to combat in 1916, it wasn't against you Yankees. Oh, hell, no. I was fightin' the damn coons in Georgia after they rose up and stabbed us in the back."

  Goldstein pulled a notebook out of his left breast pocket and wrote something in it. "Maybe that will help some. I don't know, but maybe," he said. "The charge, though, is crimes against humanity, and that can mean whatever the people who make it want it to mean."

  "Sounds chickenshit to me," Jeff said. "They gonna make believe the niggers weren't up in arms against our government long before we went to war with the USA? They can do that-I sure can't stop 'em-but they're a pack of goddamn liars if they do."

  The military attorney did some more scrawling. "Maybe you want to forget the word nigger."

  "How come?" Pinkard asked, genuinely confused.

  "Because you hammer another nail into your coffin every time you say it," Goldstein answered. "In the United States, it's an insult, a fighting word." The idea that Negroes could fight whites without having the whole country land on them with both feet deeply offended Jeff. He was shrewd enough to see saying so wouldn't do him any good. He just nodded instead. So did Isidore Goldstein, who went on, "And they'll say things were so bad for the colored population in the Confederate States under Freedom Party rule that it had no choice but to rebel."

  "Well, they can can say any damn thing they want," Jeff replied. "Saying something doesn't make it so, though."

  "'I'm Jake Featherston, and I'm here to tell you the truth,'" Goldstein quoted with savage relish. "Yes, we've noticed that."

  "Oh, yeah. You damnyankees never once told a lie. And every one of you just loves coons, too. And I bet your shit don't stink, either."

  "All of which would be good points except for two minor details." The lawyer ticked them off on his fingers: "First one is, the United States are going to win and the Confederate States are going to lose. Second one is, you really are responsible for upwards of a million deaths."

  "So what?" Jeff said. That made even Goldstein blink. Angrily, Pinkard said it again: "So what, goddammit? Who gave the orders to drop those fucking superbombs on our cities? You think that asshole ain't a bigger criminal than me? You gonna hang him by the balls? Like hell you will! Chances are you'll pin a medal on the motherfucker instead."

  "Again, two minor details," Goldstein said. "First, you used the superbomb before we did-"

  "Yeah, and I wish we woulda started a year ago," Jeff broke in. "Then you'd be laughing out of the other side of your face."

  Goldstein continued as if he hadn't spoken: "And, again, we're winning and you're not. You might do well to sound sorry for what you've done and to blame it on Featherston and on Ferdinand Koenig. I'm afraid I don't think it will do you much good, but it may do you some."

  "You want me to turn traitor," Jeff said.

  "I'm trying to tell you how you have some small chance of staying alive," Isidore Goldstein said. "If you don't care, I can't do much for you. I'm very much afraid I can't do much for you anyhow."

  "I'll tell you what I'm sorry about. I'm sorry we lost," Pinkard said. "I'm sorry it comes down to me havin' to try and beg my life from a bunch of damnyankees. Seems like I got a choice between dyin' on my feet and maybe livin' on my knees. You had a choice like that, Mr. Smartass Lawyer, what would you do?"

  "I don't know. How can any man know for sure before he has to find out the hard way?" Goldstein said. "But I'm still Jewish. That says I likely have some stubborn ancestors up in the branches of my family tree."

  Jeff hadn't thought of it like that. He didn't exactly love Jews. But, like most Confederates, he aimed the greater portion of his scorn at Negroes and a big part of what was left at Mexicans. (He wondered what Hip Rodriguez would do in a mess like this. He didn't think Hip would crawl; greaser or not, Hip was a man. But why-why, dammit? — did he go and eat his gun?)

  "There you are, then," Jeff said.

  "Yeah, here I am. And here you are, and how the hell am I supposed to defend you?" Goldstein shook his head. "I'll give it my best shot. Better than you deserve, too. But then like I said, it's the guys who don't deserve a defense who deserve it most of all."

  What was that supposed to mean? Jeff was still chewing on it when the U.S. MPs took him back to jail. He looked around as he walked, hoping for a glimpse of Edith. No luck. Wherever she was, she wasn't close by. He wondered whether he'd ever see her again. If the Yankees hanged him, would they be cruel enough to keep her away even then? He never wondered what the Negroes on their way to his bathhouses thought of him.

  T hese days, the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War had less to do. Congress had set it up to hold the Army's feet to the fire-and the Navy's, too. With the war almost won, the Senators and Representatives didn't have much to criticize. Flora Blackford wished the superbomb had vaporized Jake Featherston-but so did the Army. Sooner or later, it would catch him. Either that, or he'd die fighting to escape capture. Flora didn't much care which, as long as the world was rid of him.

  A Senator was grilling a Navy captain about why the United States was having so much trouble matching the new German submersible designs. Those promised a revolution in submarine warfare once the USA got them right. That hadn't happened yet.

  "Isn't it a fact, Captain Rickover, that the German Navy has had these new models in service for almost a year?"

  "Yes, but we only got the plans a few months ago," Rickover answered. You tell him, Flora thought: the captain was a Jew, one of the few to rise so high. He had no give in him, continuing, "We'll get the boats built faster than the Kriegsmarine did, but we can't do it yesterday. I'm sorry. I would if I could."

  "I don't need you to be facetious, Captain."

  "Well, I don't need you to play Monday-morning coach, Senator, but the rules are set up to let you do that if you want to."

  "Mr. Chairman, this witness is being uncooperative," the Senator complained.

  "I am not," Rickover said before the chairman could rule on the dispute. "The distinguished gentleman from Dakota-a state famous for its seafaring tradition-wants the Navy Department to accomplish the impossible. The merely improbable, which we've done time and again, no longer satisfies him."

  The Senator from Dakota spluttered. The chairman plied his gavel with might and main. Before Flora found out how the exciting serial ended, a page hurried up to her and whispered, "Excuse me, Congresswoman, but you have a telegram."

  "Thank you." Flora stood and slipped out. Escaping this nonsense is a relief, nothing else but, she thought.

  Then she saw the kid in the Western Union uniform, darker and greener than the one soldiers wore. When a messenger boy waited for you, did you really want the wire he carried? Too often, it was like seeing the Angel of Death in front of you. Her hand shook a little as she reached out for the flimsy yellow envelope.

  "Much obliged, ma'am," he said when she gave him a quarter. He touched two fingers to the brim of his cap in a sort of salute, then hurried away.

  She had to make herself open the envelope. The blood ran cold in her veins-it almost didn't want to run at all-when she saw the telegram was from the War Department. The Secretary of War deeply regre
ts to inform you… Tears blurred the words; she had to blink several times before she could see to go on…that your son, Joshua Blackford, was wounded in action on the Arkansas front. The wound is not believed to be serious, and a full recovery is expected. The printed signature of a lieutenant colonel-an assistant adjutant general-followed.

  "How bad is it, ma'am?" the Congressional page asked.

  "Wounded," Flora answered automatically. "The wire says they think he'll get better."

  "I'm glad to hear it," the page said. If the war went on another year-which didn't seem likely-he might be in uniform himself. He probably had friends who already were. Did he have any who'd been unlucky? Flora didn't want to ask.

  She hurried over to the bank of telephones down the hall from the committee meeting room. Instead of calling Lieutenant Colonel Pfeil, whose signature probably went out on dozens of wires a day, she rang up Franklin Roosevelt. In one way, a wounded private was no concern of his. But when the wounded private was the son of a Congresswoman who was also a former First Lady and who was friends with the Assistant Secretary of War…Maybe Roosevelt would know more than he might if she were calling about Private Joe Doakes.

  She got through in a hurry. "Hello, Flora." Roosevelt didn't sound as ebullient as usual, so he probably knew something. "Yes, I had heard. I'm sorry," he said when she asked.

  "What happened?" she demanded.

  "Well, this is all unofficial, because I'm not supposed to keep track of such things, but I understand he's lost the middle finger on his left hand," Roosevelt said. "Bullet or a shell fragment-I don't know which, and I'm not sure anyone else does, either. Not a crippling wound…Um, he isn't left-handed, is he?"

  "No," Flora said. She didn't know whether to be relieved it wasn't worse or horrified that it had happened at all. She ended up being both at once, a stew that made her heart pound and her stomach churn.

  "That's good. If he isn't, I'd say it's what the men call a hometowner."

  "A hometowner." She'd heard the phrase, too. "Alevai," she said. "By the time he gets well, the war will be over, won't it?"