“You’re right-a lot of the time, it’s more trouble than it’s worth,” Dowling agreed. “But somebody who can’t do what he needs to when the chips are down shouldn’t be face-to-face with the enemy. We damn well can transfer people like that out of here. As long as they’re in charge of the coast-defense batteries of Montana, they don’t do much harm.”
“The-” Major Toricelli broke off and sent him a reproachful stare. “Every so often, the devil inside you comes out, doesn’t he?”
“Who, me?” Dowling said, innocent as a mustachioed baby. His adjutant laughed out loud.
About ten minutes later, the Confederate shelling suddenly stopped. “Maybe some of our people had a rush of brains to the head,” Toricelli said.
“Here’s hoping.” Dowling’s devil must still have been loose, for he went on, “ ‘Hmm. They’re shooting at us. What should I do? Why, I’ll-I’ll shoot back!’ ” He snapped his fingers as if that were a brilliant idea arrived at after weeks or maybe months of research. In tones more like the ones he usually used, he went on, “If we need to send people to West Point or Harvard to figure that out, Lord help us.”
“No, sir,” Toricelli said. “If we sent people to West Point or Harvard and they can’t figure that out, Lord help us. And some of them can’t. That’s probably why we’ve got coast-defense batteries in Montana.”
“Wouldn’t be a bit surprised.” Dowling picked up the lantern and started up the stairs. “Let’s see if they’ve blown Sudan to hell and gone. I don’t suppose many people will miss it if they have.”
No shells had landed on the house. When Dowling went outside, he found the sentries just coming out of their holes in the ground. They saluted him and then went back to brushing themselves off.
An irate local shouted at him: “You damnyankee son of a bitch, you trying to get me killed?”
“I don’t know why you’re blaming me. I didn’t shoot at you. Jake Featherston’s men did,” Dowling answered.
“The hell you say!” The Texan wouldn’t believe a word of it. “We used to have to belong to the USA when y’all called this place Houston. Jake Featherston done gave us back our freedom.” The last word wasn’t quite the Party howl, but it came close.
“Watch how you talk to the general, buddy,” one of the sentries warned, swinging his Springfield toward the local.
“It’s all right, Hopkins,” Dowling said. By the look on the sentry’s face, it wasn’t even close to all right. Dowling turned back to the Texan. “Jake Featherston gave you this-all of it. If he was as tough and smart as he said he was, it never could have happened, right? Since it has happened, he’s not so tough and he’s not so smart, right?”
Somehow, that didn’t make the unhappy civilian any happier. Somehow, Abner Dowling hadn’t thought it would. And somehow, he couldn’t have cared less.
About one day in three, the skies above central Ohio cleared. Those were the days when Confederate dive bombers and fighters struck savagely at the U.S. soldiers in and around Lafayette. Chester Martin liked being strafed and bombed no better than anyone else in his right mind.
But the U.S. position was a lot stronger than it had been when troops moving southwest out of Pennsylvania joined hands with men coming up from West Virginia. Antiaircraft guns followed close on the heels of barrels and hard-driving soldiers. They weren’t much use against Hound Dogs; the C.S. fighters more often than not struck and then vanished. But Asskickers, slower and clumsier, paid a high price for screaming down on U.S. entrenchments.
And fighters with the U.S. eagle in front of crossed swords came overhead as often as their C.S. counterparts did. They were a match for Hound Dogs and more than a match for Asskickers. Confederate aircraft hurt the men in green-gray down on the ground, but the Confederates hurt themselves, too, and badly.
“How many airplanes can they throw away to soften us up?” Chester asked, scooping hash out of a ration can with a spoon. He sat by a campfire with several other men from the platoon. Banks of earth shielded the fire from any lurking C.S. snipers.
“That’s only part of the question.” Lieutenant Delbert Wheat lit a cigarette. It smelled good, which meant it was Confederate. After taking a drag, he went on, “The other part is, when do they counterattack on the ground? That’s got to be what they’re softening us up for.”
Chester nodded. He’d been thinking the same thing ever since the linkup here. “I would have looked for them to try it already, sir,” he said. “I wonder why they haven’t.”
“Only one answer I can think of,” Lieutenant Wheat said. “They aren’t strong enough to bring it off.”
“They’ll be sorry if they wait around much longer,” Chester said. “They may be getting stronger, but so are we.” Not far away from the fire lay the wreckage of a downed Asskicker, the crumpled tail pointing pathetically toward the sky.
Del Wheat’s smile made his mouth crooked. “And you’re sorry for this because…?”
Chester laughed. “Not me, sir. Not even a little bit. But this is the first time I’ve seen ’em where it doesn’t look like they know what they want to do. Makes me suspicious-know what I mean?” He’d seen in the last war that the Confederates could be beaten, that their plans didn’t always work. But to find them without any plans… That struck him as a more typical U.S. failing.
“They were taking a chance when they struck at Pittsburgh,” Wheat said. “Taking it away or even wrecking it hurts the USA. Maybe they’ve gone and wrecked themselves, too, though.”
“Here’s hoping,” Chester said.
Rain and a little sleet came in the next morning. That meant the Mules and the Asskickers would stay away till the weather got better. It didn’t mean the throb of airplane engines left the sky. Up above the clouds, Confederate transports were doing what they could to keep Jake Featherston’s surrounded army supplied.
The antiaircraft guns near Lafayette boomed, firing by what one gunner called earsight. It would take a lot of luck to knock down any airplanes that way. As long as the guns had plenty of ammo, though, why not put it in the air? Shoot off enough and you were bound to hit something sooner or later.
Besides, the ring around the Confederates trapped in Pittsburgh was getting thicker as the USA rushed more troops through the gaps the men and barrels in green-gray had torn in the C.S. flank defenses. These weren’t the only antiaircraft guns that would be shooting at the cargo planes on their way to Pennsylvania-far from it. If they didn’t go down in flames here, they might yet farther east.
And U.S. fighters also prowled above the clouds. Transports weren’t made to go fast and be nimble, any more than buses were. If fighters attacked them, their best hope lay in how much damage they could take before they fell out of the sky.
Sometimes the Confederate transports had Hound Dogs of their own to escort them to the target and drive off U.S. Wright fighters. Sometimes they didn’t. When they didn’t, they paid for it.
“Why don’t the Confederates send escorts along all the time?” Chester asked when a burning transport crashed less than half a mile from his foxhole.
“Well, I don’t know for sure, but I think I can make a pretty fair guess,” Lieutenant Wheat answered.
“Sir?” Chester said. He’d served under a couple of platoon commanders whose opinions he didn’t want, but who insisted on giving them anyhow. Del Wheat wasn’t like that. Some of the things he had to say were worth hearing, but he didn’t make a big deal out of them. Those other guys seemed to think they were the Pope speaking ex cathedra.
“Well, my guess is that the Confederate States don’t have enough airplanes-or maybe enough pilots-to be able to do all the things they’d like to do,” Wheat said. “Now they can do this, now they can do that-but it doesn’t look like they can do this and that at the same time.”
Chester thought about it. After a moment, he nodded. “That does make sense, yes, sir.” He paused again, then resumed: “Getting that cargo into Pittsburgh is pretty important for them right no
w. If they can’t take care of that because of everything else they’ve got going on, maybe they bit off more than they can chew.”
“That’s true. Sergeant. Maybe they did.” Lieutenant Wheat looked like a cat contemplating a saucer of cream.
Civilians came from C.S.-occupied territory farther west. They claimed the Confederates there were building up for an attack on the U.S. ring. Lieutenant Wheat listened to them and sent them on to Intelligence officers back at division HQ. “You’re not flabbling much about this,” Chester remarked.
“Nope, not me,” the platoon commander said. “If the enemy does try to come through here, we’ll do our damnedest to stop him. That’s all we can do. But what do you want to bet that some of those so-called civilians are really Confederate plants, and they’re trying to make us jump at shadows?”
“Ah,” Chester said. “Well, sir, since you put it that way, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”
“Neither would I,” Delbert Wheat said. “So I’ll worry when my superiors tell me to, but not till then.”
Chester did notice that some of the ammunition coming in for the antiaircraft guns had the black-painted tips of armor-piercing rounds. The Confederates used their antiaircraft guns against barrels with vicious effect. Imitation was the sincerest, and most deadly, kind of flattery.
Not long before Christmas, word came down from on high that the Confederates would be coming soon. The United States had taken advantage of the weather to break through in November. A new snowstorm might give the Confederates the same sort of extra concealment.
The C.S. bombardment had gas shells in it. They were less deadly in cold weather, and gas masks more nearly tolerable-unless your mask froze up. That didn’t mean Chester wanted to put on his mask. Want it or not, he did. He’d seen gas casualties in the Great War, and a few this time, too. Getting shot was bad enough. He knew just how bad it was from twofold experience. By everything he knew except that direct experience, getting gassed was worse.
As soon as the shelling let up, Lieutenant Wheat shouted, “Be ready!” Up and down the U.S. line, that same cry rang out. The troops in green-gray had the advantage of standing behind the Tuscarawas River. Chester hoped that would mean something. The Confederates had more practice crossing in the face of resistance than any Great War army had.
Where Chester’s platoon was stationed, the river, which ran mostly north and south, took an east-west bend. Instead of pressing down on that east-west length, the soldiers in butternut trundled past it to hit the next north-south stretch. “They’re giving us their flank!” Wheat exclaimed in amazement.
True, the Confederates did stay out of effective rifle range of the men on the south bank of the Tuscarawas. But several of their barrels trundled along only a few hundred yards from the antiaircraft guns that could also fire against ground targets. When the gunners got targets that artillerymen mostly only dreamt of, they made the most of them. Four or five barrels went up in flames in a few minutes’ time. U.S. machine guns and riflemen harried the crewmen bailing out of the machines. They were shooting at long range, but with enough bullets in the air some probably struck home.
Some barrels paused, presented their glacis plates to their tormentors, and fired back. Others scooted farther north, so the U.S. guns wouldn’t bear on them any more. Artillery fire fell around those antiaircraft guns. Sometimes it fell on them. Had the weather been better, Asskickers would have gone after them one by one. With clouds huddling low, though, dive bombers were liable to fly straight into the ground instead of pulling up in time.
When yet another Confederate barrel brewed up because it incautiously came too close to the U.S. antiaircraft guns, Chester yelled and pounded the dirt at the front of his foxhole. “Those butternut bastards aren’t buying anything cheap today!” he yelled.
But he could see only his little corner of the fight. Early in the afternoon, orders came to fall back to the east. “Why?” somebody said indignantly. “We’re pounding the crap out of ’em here!”
“Here, yes,” Lieutenant Wheat said. “But Featherston’s fuckers are over the Tuscarawas south of Coshocton-south and west of here. If we don’t give up some ground, they’ll hit us in the flank and enfilade us.”
Taking enfilading fire was like getting your T crossed in a naval battle: all the enemy’s firepower bore on you, but most of yours wouldn’t bear on him. It was, in other words, a damn good recipe for getting killed.
“Have we got positions farther east that face west instead of north?” Chester asked.
“Good question, Sergeant,” Del Wheat said. “We’ll both find out at the same time.” He paused. “I hope we do. We must have known this was coming. If we didn’t get ready for it, then we’ve got the same old muddle up at the top.”
When they came to zigzag trenches hastily dug and bulldozed out of fields, Chester felt like cheering. Somebody with stars on his shoulder straps could actually see a step or two ahead. That made Chester think things might go better than he’d expected.
The Confederates who came up against those trenches went to earth in a hurry when a fierce blast of fire met them. More than a few U.S. soldiers carried captured C.S. automatic rifles for extra firepower. They had to get ammunition from dead enemy soldiers, but there’d been a lot of them around.
Before long, Chester and his comrades needed to fall back again. Again, though, they fell back into prepared positions. In spite of retreating, he felt more confident. The Confederates could overrun any one position, but each one cost them. How many could they overrun before they started running out of men to do it?
* * *
Not far from Ellaville, Georgia, ran a stretch of highway locally called the Memorial Mile. Marble stelae stood by the side of the road. Brass plaques mounted on the marble commemorated Sumter County soldiers who’d served in the Great War. WIA by a name meant the soldier had been wounded in action; KIA by a name meant he’d been killed.
The Negro guerrillas who’d attached Jonathan Moss and Nick Cantarella to their number hated the Memorial Mile with a fierce and terrible passion. “How many names you reckon they be if they put up all the niggers from here they done killed?” asked their chief, who went by the name of Spartacus. Moss suspected that was a nom de guerre; it was, as far as he was concerned, a damn good one.
“If you’re gonna keep on playing this game, you’ll put some more crackers’ names on some kinda stones,” Nick Cantarella said. His clotted New York vowels and Spartacus’ lazy-sounding drawl hardly seemed to belong to the same language. Sometimes they had to pause so each could figure out what the other was saying. But they had something in common: they both wanted to cause the Confederates as much grief as they could.
A convoy of trucks rumbled along the road from Ellaville towards Americus. Command cars with machine guns shepherded the trucks along. Opening up on them would have invited massive retaliation. “One advantage you’ve got with these pine woods,” Moss said.
“What’s that?” Spartacus asked.
“They don’t lose their leaves this time of year,” Moss replied. “Easier to hide here than it would be in a forest full of bare-branched trees.”
“Not gonna be much snow on the ground, neither,” Cantarella said. “It’s really a bitch, tryin’ to cover your tracks in the snow.”
Spartacus pursed his lips, then slowly nodded. He was about forty-five, just going gray at the temples, with a scar that looked like a bullet crease on his right forearm. If he hadn’t been black, he would have put Moss in mind of a career noncom-he had that air of rough, no-nonsense competence about him. Suddenly, Moss asked, “Did you fight for the CSA the last time around?”
“Sure enough did,” Spartacus answered. “Got shot fo’ mah country-reckoned it was mah country in them days. Case you wonderin’, ain’t no niggers’ names on them goddamn memorials, neither. I even vote once-they let me do it in ’21, on account of they was afeared that Featherston fucker was gonna win then. But he los’, an’ I never seen the inside o�
�� no votin’ booth since. Ain’t seen nothin’ but trouble since the Freedom Party come in.”
A boxy, old-fashioned Birmingham with a white-haired white man at the wheel drove by. “You could nail somebody like him easy enough, make the Confederates try and go after you here, then hit somewhere else,” Cantarella said.
“Don’t want to shoot that there ofay,” Spartacus said. “That there’s Doc Thomason, an’ he been settin’ bones an’ deliverin’ babies for buckra and niggers for damn near fifty years. If you can only pay him a chicken, he take your chicken. If you can’t pay him nothin’, he set your arm anyways. Ain’t all white folks bad-jus’ too many of ’em.”
“All right. Fine. We don’t shoot the doc. He ain’t gonna be the only guy on the road, though,” Cantarella said. “Shoot somebody else. Maybe even hang around to shoot at the first fuckers who come to see what you went and did. Then when they’re all flabbling about that, kick ’em in the nuts some other place. Make them react to you.”
“We done some o’ that,” Spartacus said. “We done a couple of people bombs, too, over by Americus. Them Freedom Party assholes, they don’t like people bombs none.” He spoke with a certain grim satisfaction.
Moss looked at Cantarella. The Army captain was looking back at him. Moss didn’t need to be able to read minds to know what Cantarella was thinking. They didn’t like people bombs, either. But as weapons the weak could use against the strong, they were hard to match.
“How do you get people to volunteer to blow themselves up?” Moss asked carefully, not sure if the question would offend Spartacus.
But the guerrilla leader looked at him-looked through him, really-and answered, “Don’t gotta drug ’em none or get ’em drunk. Don’t gotta say we’s gonna kill their wives an’ chillun, neither. Dat’s what you mean, ain’t it?” Moss gave back an unhappy nod. Spartacus went on, “See-you is a white man, even if you comes from the US of A. You is happy most o’ the time, an’ you reckons everybody else happy most o’ the time. Ain’t like dat if you is a nigger in these here Confederate States. Somebody blow hisself up here, he a lucky man. Do Jesus! — he mighty lucky. He go out quick-it don’t hurt none. He make the ofays pay. And he don’t go to no goddamn camp where they let him in but he don’t come out no mo’. I got mo’ people wants to be people bombs’n I got ’splosives an’ chances to use ’em.”
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