In At the Death sa-4

by Harry Turtledove

  "Yeah." Armstrong agreed unenthusiastically, but he agreed. "But if they hate us forever and shoot at us from behind bushes forever, how are we better off? It's like a sore that won't scab up."

  "Maybe if we kill enough of 'em, the rest'll figure keeping that shit up is more trouble than it's worth." Squidface had an odd kind of pragmatism, but Armstrong nodded-he thought the same way.

  Two days later, a sniper killed a U.S. soldier. When that happened these days, people in Hugo tried to get out of town before anybody could grab them as hostages. The occupying authorities discouraged that by shooting at them when they saw them sneaking off.

  Armstrong ended up leading a firing squad. The rifles issued to the men doing the shooting had one blank round per squad per victim. If you wanted to, you could think that maybe you hadn't really killed anybody. You could also think you could draw four to a king and end up with a royal flush. By the time you'd pulled the trigger twenty times, your odds of innocence were about that low.

  After the shootings, a U.S. officer spoke to the people left in Hugo: "Get it through your heads-we will punish you. If you know beforehand that somebody's going to shoot at us, you'd better let us know. If you don't, we'll keep shooting people till we run out of people to shoot."

  Armstrong got drunk that night. He wasn't the only one from the firing squad who did. He hated the duty. Shooting people who could shoot back was one thing. Shooting blindfolded people up against a wall? That was a different business, and a much nastier one.

  "No wonder those Confederate assholes invented all those fancy ways to kill niggers," he said, very far in his cups. "You shoot people day after day, you gotta start going bugfuck, don't you?"

  "Don't sweat it, Sarge," said Squidface, who'd also poured down a lot of bad whiskey. "You're already bugfuck."

  "You say the sweetest things." Armstrong made kissing noises.

  For some reason-no doubt because they were smashed-they both thought that was the funniest thing in the world. So did the other drinkers. Pretty soon everybody was pretending to kiss everybody else. Then somebody really did it, and got slapped. That was even funnier-if you were drunk enough.

  Nothing seemed funny to Armstrong the next morning. Strong coffee and lots of aspirins soothed his aching head and gave him a sour stomach instead. He got a different kind of headache when he went into Hugo to buy a ham sandwich for lunch instead of enduring rations.

  "I don't want your money," said the man who ran the local diner. "I don't want to serve you. I don't aim to serve any Yankee soldier from here on out, but especially not you."

  "What did I do?" Armstrong was still hung over enough to be extra grouchy. I don't need this shit, he thought unhappily.

  "You told those bastards to shoot my brother-in-law yesterday, that's what. Your damn captain made me watch you do it, too. I ought to feed you, by God, and put rat poison in your sandwich. I'd do it, too, if you bastards wouldn't murder more folks who never done you no harm."

  "You're gonna get your ass in a sling," Armstrong warned. All he wanted was a sandwich, not an argument.

  "I ain't hurting nobody," the local said. "I don't aim to hurt nobody, neither. But I don't want Yankee money any more. I don't reckon anybody in this here town wants Yankee money any more."

  If he hadn't said that last, Armstrong might have walked out in disgust. As things were, he growled, "Conspiracy, huh? You are gonna get your ass in a sling." He didn't just walk out; he stomped out.

  And he reported the conversation to the first officer he found. "A boycott, eh?" the captain said. "Well, we'll see about that, by God!"

  They did, in short order. By the end of the week, nobody in Hugo would sell U.S. soldiers anything. On Friday, an edict came down from the military governor in Birmingham. It banned "failure to cooperate with U.S. authorities." If you tried going on with the boycott, you'd go to jail instead.

  Naturally, the first question that went through Armstrong's mind was, "If a girl doesn't put out, can we arrest her for failure to cooperate?"

  "Sure, Grimes," said the major who was getting the troops up to speed on the new policy. "Then you can arrest yourself for fraternizing."

  "Ah, hell, sir," Armstrong said. "I knew there was a snatch-uh, a catch-to it."

  "Thank you, Karl Engels," the major said dryly. "Can we go on?" Armstrong nodded, grinning. Karl was his favorite Engels Brother. He'd even talked about growing a long blue beard and joining the comedy troupe himself.

  Maybe the people who joined the boycott figured they were safe because they weren't doing anything violent. The failure-to-cooperate order was announced over bullhorns and posted in notices nailed to every telegraph pole in the towns where boycotters were trying to show their displeasure.

  As soon as somebody said he wouldn't sell a soldier something after that, the offender disappeared. "Where you taking old Ernie?" a local asked Armstrong when he was one of the men who arrested the man who ran the Hugo diner.

  "To a camp," Armstrong answered.

  "A camp? Jesus God!" The local went pale.

  Armstrong laughed a nasty laugh. "What? You think we're gonna do to him like you did to your niggers? That'd be pretty goddamn funny, wouldn't it?"

  "No," the local said faintly.

  "Well, I don't think we'll waste his sorry ass-this time," Armstrong said. "But you bastards need to get something through your heads. You fuck with us, you lose. You hear me?" When the Alabaman didn't answer fast enough to suit him, he aimed his rifle at the man's face. "You hear me?"

  "Oh, yeah." The local nodded. He was old and wrinkled himself, but he was game. "I hear you real good."

  "You better, Charlie, 'cause I'm not bullshitting you." Armstrong lowered the weapon.

  And the boycott collapsed even faster than it had grown. Some of the men and women who got arrested came back to Hugo. Others stayed disappeared. Armstrong didn't know what happened to them. His best guess was that they were in prison camps somewhere. But he couldn't prove that the United States weren't killing them the way the Confederate States had killed Negroes. Neither could the locals. It made them uncommonly thoughtful.

  "See?" Squidface said. "This is how it's supposed to work. We keep these bastards on their toes, they can't do unto us."

  "I guess," Armstrong said.

  The next day, a land mine ten miles away blew a truck full of U.S. soldiers to kingdom come. U.S. authorities methodically took hostages, and shot them when the fellow who'd planted the mine didn't come forward. Rumor said that one of the soldiers who'd done firing-squad duty shot himself right afterwards.

  "Some guys just can't stand the gaff," was Squidface's verdict.

  "I guess," Armstrong said. "But I don't like firing-squad duty myself. I feel like a goose just walked over my grave."

  That was the wrong thing to say around Squidface, who goosed him. The wrestling match they got into was more serious-more ferocious, anyhow-than most soldierly horseplay. Squidface eyed a shiner in a steel mirror. "You really do have this shit on your mind," he said.

  Armstrong rubbed bruised ribs. "I fuckin' told you so. How come you don't listen when I tell you something?"

  "'Cause I'd have to waste too much time sifting through the horseshit," Squidface answered, which almost started another round.

  But Armstrong decided his ribs were sore enough already. "They let soldiers vote, who'd you vote for?" he asked.

  "Dewey," Squidface answered at once. "He's got a chickenshit mustache, but the Dems wouldn't've been asleep at the switch the way the Socialists were when Featherston jumped on our ass. How about you?"

  "Yeah, I guess," Armstrong agreed. "I bet the Socialists'd pull us out of here faster, though."

  "Just on account of you think like a short-timer doesn't make you one," Squidface said. Armstrong sighed and nodded. Wasn't that the truth?

  XVII

  "Hey, Chester!" Captain Hubert Rhodes called. "C'mere a minute."

  "What's up, sir?" Chester Martin asked.

 
"Got something from the War Department that might apply to you," the company commander answered. "You're over fifty, right?"

  "Yes, sir," Martin answered. "And some of the shit I've been through, I feel like I'm over ninety."

  "Well, I can understand that." Rhodes took a piece of paper out of his tunic pocket. He was in his early thirties, at the most-he didn't need to put on glasses before he read something. "Says here the Army is accepting discharge applications from noncoms over fifty who aren't career military. That's you, right?"

  "Yes, sir," Chester said again. "Jesus! Have I got that straight? They'll turn me loose if I ask 'em to?"

  "That's what it says. See for yourself." Rhodes held out the paper.

  Chester's current reading specs had cost him half a buck at a local drugstore. He'd lost track of how many pairs of reading glasses he'd broken since reupping. These weren't great, but they were better than nothing. He read the order, wading through the Army bureaucratese. It said what Captain Rhodes said it said, all right. "Where do I get this Form 565 it talks about?" he asked. "Or is the catch that they haven't printed any copies of it, so I'm screwed regardless?"

  Rhodes laughed, for all the world as if the Army would never pull a stunt like that. But then, like a magician with a top hat, he pulled out a rabbit-or rather, a Form 565. "Came with the bulletin. I wish I could talk you into sticking around, but I know I'd be wasting my breath."

  "'Fraid so, sir. I got shot once in each war. Nobody can say I didn't do my bit. I have a wife and a life back in L.A. I want to get back while I've still got some time left." Chester looked at the form. "I've got to get my immediate superior's signature, huh? Well, Lieutenant Lavochkin won't be sorry to see me go-I've cramped his style ever since he got here."

  "Good thing somebody did, at least a bit," Rhodes said. Both men laughed, more than a little uneasily. Chester didn't want to think about the massacre he'd been part of. Officially, Rhodes didn't know about that. But what he knew officially and what he knew were different beasts. He went on, "If Boris gives you any trouble, send him to me. I'll take care of it."

  "Thank you, sir. I appreciate it, believe me," Chester said. "I'm gonna hunt him up right now. Sooner I get everything squared away, happier I'll be."

  "All right." Rhodes stuck out his hand. "It's been a pleasure serving with you, and that's the God's truth."

  "Thanks," Chester repeated as they shook. "And back at you. The lieutenant…" He shrugged. No, he wouldn't be sorry to say good-bye to the lieutenant.

  He found Boris Lavochkin right where he thought he would: on the battered main street of Cheraw, South Carolina. Lavochkin carried a captured automatic Tredegar and looked extremely ready to use it. By the way he eyed Chester as the veteran noncom approached, he might not have minded using it on him. Lavochkin didn't like getting his style cramped.

  Chester pretended not to notice. "Talk to you a second, sir?"

  "You're doing it," Lavochkin answered, and lit a cigarette. He didn't offer Chester one, and Chester wasn't sure he would have taken it if Lavochkin had.

  "Right," Chester said tightly. He explained about the War Department ukase, and about Form 565. "So all I need is your signature, sir, and pretty soon I'll be out of your hair for good."

  "You're bugging out?" Boris Lavochkin didn't bother hiding his scorn.

  "Sir, I've put in more combat time than you have," Martin answered. "Like I told Captain Rhodes, I've got a life outside the Army, and I aim to live it. I've seen as much of this shit as I ever want to, by God."

  "Suppose I don't sign your stupid form?"

  "Well, sir, I've got three things to say about that. First one is, you better go talk to Captain Rhodes. Second one is, you damn well owe me one, on account of I kept you from killing all of us when we superbombed Charleston. And the third one is, you can bend over and kiss my ass."

  Lavochkin turned a dull red. Chester stood there waiting. He had a.45 on his belt; few U.S. soldiers ever went unarmed in the former CSA, peace or no peace. But the lieutenant could have shot him easily enough. Lavochkin didn't, even if the Tredegar's muzzle twitched. He was a bastard, but a calculating bastard. "Give me the damn thing. It'll be a pleasure to get rid of you," he snarled.

  "Believe me, sir, it's mutual."

  Leaning the automatic rifle against his leg, Lavochkin pulled a pen from his left breast pocket and scribbled something that might have been his name. He thrust Form 565 back at Chester. "There!"

  "Thank you, sir." Chester's voice was sweet-saccharine-sweet. Boris Lavochkin gave him a dirty look as he took the signed Form 565 back to Captain Rhodes.

  Rhodes signed, too, and without kicking up any fuss. "I'll send this back to regimental HQ, and they'll move it on to Division," he said. "And then, if all the stars align just right, they'll ship you home."

  "Thanks a million, Captain." When Chester spoke to Hubert Rhodes, he sounded as if he meant it, and he did.

  "You don't owe the country anything else, Chester," Rhodes said. "I'd like you to stick around, 'cause you're damn good at what you do, but I'm not gonna try and hold you where you don't want to be."

  "That's white of you." Martin listened to what came out of his mouth without thought. He shook his head. "There's an expression we have to lose."

  "Boy, you said it." Rhodes nodded. "Especially down here, where the whites aren't on our side and the Negroes are-what's left of 'em."

  "Yeah," Chester said grimly. Some Negroes had come out of hiding now that U.S. troops were on the ground here. Some more, skinny as pipe cleaners, had come back from the camps in Texas and Louisiana and Mississippi. Back before the Freedom Party got its massacre going, South Carolina had had more blacks than whites. It sure didn't any more-not even close.

  The ones who had lived through everything wandered around like lost souls. Chester couldn't blame them. How could they rebuild their shattered lives in towns and countrysides where whites had shown they hated them? Chester wouldn't have wanted to try it himself, and he was a middle-aged man with a decent education and a considerable sense of his own worth. What chance did an illiterate sharecropper or his barefoot, maybe pregnant wife have?

  While he was wondering about that, a white man in a snappy suit approached him and Hubert Rhodes and said, "Talk to you, Captain?"

  "You're doing it," Rhodes said. "What's on your mind?"

  "My name is Walker, Nigel R. Walker," the man said. "Up until the surrender, I was mayor of Cheraw. Now there's some foolish difficulty about letting me go back to my proper function in the community."

  Rhodes looked at him-looked through him, really. "You were a Party member, weren't you, Mr. Nigel R. Walker?"

  "Well, sure," Walker said. "Membership for officials was encouraged-strongly encouraged."

  "Then you're out." Rhodes' voice was hard and flat. "No Freedom Party members are going to run things down here any more, and you can take that to the bank. Those are my orders, and I'm going to follow them."

  "But you're being unreasonable," Walker protested. "I know of several towns in this state where men with much stronger Party ties than mine are very actively involved in affairs."

  Chester knew of towns like that, too. Some occupying officials wanted to put things back together as fast as they could. They grabbed the people who were most likely to be able to do the job. If some of those people had screamed, "Freedom!" for a while, they didn't care. They thought of themselves as efficiency experts. What Chester thought of them wasn't fit to repeat in polite company.

  "I know some U.S. officers are skirting those orders," said Captain Rhodes, who felt the same way he did. "And if they can do that with a clear conscience, then they can. I can't. I can't come close. As far as I'm concerned, you disqualified yourself when you joined that pack of murderous goons. Is that plain enough, Mr. Nigel R. Walker, sir, or shall I tell you what I really think of you?"

  "I'm going to take my objections to your superiors, Captain." Walker strutted off, his stiff back radiating anger.

 
Rhodes sighed. "He should have asked Lavochkin-Boris would have plugged him. You see, Chester? He is good for something."

  "Damned if you're not right," Martin said. "The nerve of this asshole, though!"

  "He was a big fish in a little pond," Rhodes said, and Chester nodded-nothing except possibly the Apocalypse would ever make Cheraw a big pond. Rhodes went on, "He thinks he has the right to go on being a big fish."

  "Ought to ship him to one of those camps. That'd teach him more about rights than he ever dreamt of, the fucker," Chester said savagely.

  "Yeah." The company commander sighed again. "He may even be a decent guy. For all I know, he is. Plenty of people did join the Party because it was a meal ticket. I've never heard any Negroes claim he was especially bad. But I've never heard 'em say he was especially good, either. To me, that means he's tarred with the Party brush. He might not have done anything much, but he didn't try to stop anything, either. So screw him."

  "No, thanks-too damn ugly," Chester said. Rhodes laughed. Chester started thinking of Rita. He'd been a good boy ever since he put the uniform back on, and he knew his right hand better than he'd ever wanted to.

  One day followed another. The weather started turning cool and nasty. That was what Chester thought at first, anyhow. Then he realized that, compared to what he would have had to put up with in Toledo, it was pretty damn good. He'd lived in Los Angeles long enough to get spoiled.

  He felt more alert now than he had since the very last days of the war. He didn't want to get hurt just when he was about to head home. Well, he didn't want to get hurt any old time, but he especially didn't want to get hurt now. And he knew too well that he could. Cheraw was no more reconciled to the Stars and Stripes than any other part of the dead but still writhing CSA. Locals probed every day to see how much they could get away with. U.S. authorities clamped down hard. That only gave the locals more reasons to hate damnyankees-as if they needed them.

  At last, his discharge orders came. So did a travel voucher that would send him up to Philadelphia and then across the country through U.S. territory. He couldn't have been happier: the sooner he left the Confederacy forever, the happier he'd be.