Settling Accounts_ Drive To The East Part 46

Toricelli nodded. "Got you, sir. I like that."

"So do I," Dowling said. "Let's start drafting orders, then."

The orders went out. The U.S. Eleventh Army started concentrating on Clovis. U.S. air strength in New Mexico started concentrating on Clovis, too. The fighters would help keep the Confederates from breaking up the concentration with bombers when they noticed it. They didn't take long. Urgent signals started heading east from the C.S. Army of West Texas. Dowling's cryptographers couldn't make sense of all of them, but what they could read suggested the enemy was alarmed.

"If I were in West Texas, I'd be alarmed, too," Dowling told Angelo Toricelli. "I'd think the U.S. general on the other side of the border had gone clear around the bend. Why stir things up here?"

"Because the USA can fart and chew gum at the same time?" his adjutant suggested.

"That's what we're doing, all right." Dowling had to stop, because he was laughing too hard to go on. "If we had a real army here . . ." He shrugged. "But we don't, so we do the best we can with what we've got."

He was ready on the appointed day. He was less than an hour away from issuing the order to start the opening barrage when he got another phone call from John Abell. "Please hold up for three days, sir," Abell said. Please Please made the order more polite, but no less an order. made the order more polite, but no less an order.

"All right, General. I can still do that-just barely," Dowling said, and shouted for Major Toricelli to put the brakes on things. Toricelli swore, then started making calls of his own. Dowling asked Abell, "Can you tell me why?"

"Not on a line that isn't secure," the General Staff officer replied. Dowling found himself nodding. The Confederates had a couple of thousand miles of wire on which to be listening in. And, after a little thought, he had a pretty fair notion of the answer anyway.

November in the North Atlantic wasn't so bad as, say, January in the North Atlantic. n.o.body would ever have mistaken it for July off the Sandwich Islands, though. The Josephus Daniels Josephus Daniels climbed over swells, slid into troughs, bounced all the time, and generally behaved like a toy boat in a bathtub with a rambunctious four-year-old. climbed over swells, slid into troughs, bounced all the time, and generally behaved like a toy boat in a bathtub with a rambunctious four-year-old.

Sam Carsten took it all in stride. He'd rounded the Horn more than once, facing seas that made the North Atlantic at its worst seem tame by comparison. But he wasn't surprised when the destroyer escort's pa.s.sageways began to stink of vomit. A lot of men were seasick. He ordered cleaning parties increased. Smelling the result of other men's nausea helped make sailors sick. The reek diminished, but didn't go away. He hadn't expected anything different.

"You're a good sailor, sir," Pat Cooley said, watching Sam tear into a roast beef sandwich on the bridge. The exec hadn't been sick, not so far as Sam knew, but he did look a little green.

"Not too bad," Sam allowed, and took another bite. "I've had plenty of practice, that's for d.a.m.n sure." He looked up at the cloud-filled sky. "Weather's right for people like us, anyhow."

The fair, auburn-haired exec eyed the even fairer blond skipper. "Well, that's true," Cooley said. "But everything comes with a price, doesn't it?" Yes, he was was green. green.

"It does." Sam finished the sandwich and wiped crumbs off his hands. "When we're up and down so much, and when all this d.a.m.n spray's in the air, the Y-ranging set doesn't give us as much as it would in softer weather."

Cooley gulped. "I wasn't thinking of the Y-ranging set, sir." Sam thought he would have to leave the bridge in a hurry, but he fought down what might have been about to come up. Sam admired that. Carrying on in spite of what bothered you was a lot tougher than not being bothered, which he himself wasn't.

"I know, Pat," he said now, more gently than he was in the habit of speaking. "But it also means we have to patrol the hard way, and it means we can't see as far. I hope it doesn't mean something slips past us."

Along with several other destroyer escorts and destroyers, the Josephus Daniels Josephus Daniels sailed east of Newfoundland. Their goal was simple: to stop the British from sneaking men and arms into Canada to keep the rebellion there sizzling. As with most goals, setting it was easier than meeting it. sailed east of Newfoundland. Their goal was simple: to stop the British from sneaking men and arms into Canada to keep the rebellion there sizzling. As with most goals, setting it was easier than meeting it.

The U.S. Navy had bigger fish to fry, or it would have committed more ships to the job. Fortunately, the Royal Navy did, too. If it didn't keep the USA away from the convoys from South America and South Africa that fed the United Kingdom, Britain would start to starve. Losing that fight had made the U.K. throw in the sponge in the Great War. Under Churchill and Mosley, the limeys were doing their best to make sure it didn't happen again. They didn't treat supporting the Canuck rebels as job number one.

But the British had one big advantage: the North Atlantic was vast, and the ships in it relatively tiny. A lot of what they sent got through. And as for what didn't-well, if it didn't, what did they lose? A rusty freighter, some munitions, and a few sailors captured or killed. Cheap enough, for a country fighting a war.

Meanwhile, the United States had to pull ships away from attacking Britain's supply convoys for this thankless job. Carsten didn't love convoy-hunting; he'd done too much of it the last time around. But it seemed like a trip to Coney Island next to this.

Up to the crest of a wave. As the Josephus Daniels Josephus Daniels started to slide down into the trough, the Y-range operator stirred in his seat. "Something?" Sam asked. started to slide down into the trough, the Y-range operator stirred in his seat. "Something?" Sam asked.

"I'm-not sure, sir," the young officer answered. "I thought so for a second, but then we lost the target."

"What bearing?" Sam tried not to sound excited. He wanted wanted to go after something. to go after something.

"About 315, sir," said Lieutenant, J.G., Thad Walters.

"Mr. Cooley." Now Sam's voice was sharp and crisp. "Change course to 315. All ahead full. And sound general quarters, if you please."

"Changing course to 3-1-5: aye aye, sir," Cooley said. He called, "All ahead full," down to the engine room. His finger stabbed a b.u.t.ton near the wheel. Klaxons hooted. Sailors dashed to their battle stations.

Sam stared northwest. You b.a.s.t.a.r.d-you almost snuck past us, You b.a.s.t.a.r.d-you almost snuck past us, he thought. He knew he might be thinking unkind thoughts at a figment of the electronics' imagination. That was a chance he took. He spoke to the wireless operator on the bridge: "Signal the other ships in the patrol that we are changing course to pursue a possible enemy ship." he thought. He knew he might be thinking unkind thoughts at a figment of the electronics' imagination. That was a chance he took. He spoke to the wireless operator on the bridge: "Signal the other ships in the patrol that we are changing course to pursue a possible enemy ship."

"Aye aye, sir." The rating at the Morse key reached for the book to find the proper code groups.

Lieutenant Walters watched his set like a cat keeping an eye on a mousehole. He didn't say anything the first time the Josephus Daniels Josephus Daniels climbed to the top of a crest. The next time, though, he jerked as if he'd stuck his finger in a light socket. "It's there, sir!" he exclaimed. "Bearing 310, speed . . . eleven knots." climbed to the top of a crest. The next time, though, he jerked as if he'd stuck his finger in a light socket. "It's there, sir!" he exclaimed. "Bearing 310, speed . . . eleven knots."

"Change course to 310, Mr. Cooley," Sam said, and then, to the Y-range operator, "Mr. Walters, give me a range as soon as you can." Eleven knots. That sure sounded like a lumbering British freighter. He couldn't think of any other kind of ship likely to be in these waters right now.

After a couple of more climbs to the crest, Walters said, "Sir, range is about six miles."

"Thank you," Sam answered. In good weather, the target would have been easily visible. Of course, for the limeys to bet that the weather off Newfoundland in November would be lousy gave odds a h.e.l.l of a lot better than putting chips down on double-zero at the roulette table.

Before too long, the freighter did come into sight: a big, lumbering tub not much different from what Sam had expected. At his order, the wireless operator sent more code groups.

"Come up alongside, Mr. Cooley," Sam said. "I think we'll need to put a prize crew aboard."

The Josephus Daniels Josephus Daniels was a tub herself, but she seemed all sharklike grace alongside the freighter. Sam handled the blinker himself, signaling, was a tub herself, but she seemed all sharklike grace alongside the freighter. Sam handled the blinker himself, signaling, WHAT SHIP ARE YOU? HEAVE TO FOR BOARDING AND INSPECTION WHAT SHIP ARE YOU? HEAVE TO FOR BOARDING AND INSPECTION.

WE ARE THE KARLSKRONA KARLSKRONA. WE ARE SWEDISH. WE ARE NEUTRAL, came the reply.

"Fat chance," Sam said. He signaled, HEAVE TO FOR BOARDING AND CONTRABAND INSPECTION HEAVE TO FOR BOARDING AND CONTRABAND INSPECTION. He called to the forward gun turret: "Put one across her bow if she doesn't stop."

She didn't. The shot rang out. LAST WARNING LAST WARNING, Sam signaled. Sailors ran across the Karlskrona Karlskrona's deck. For a couple of seconds, Sam thought it was panic. Then, suddenly, he didn't: it was too well organized, too well drilled.

"Sink that ship!" he shouted at the same time as Pat Cooley yelled, "She's got guns!"

Ever since taking over the Josephus Daniels, Josephus Daniels, Sam had concentrated on gunnery. His men hadn't been the best then. They were now. He would have matched them against the gunners from any other destroyer escort in the Navy. Sam had concentrated on gunnery. His men hadn't been the best then. They were now. He would have matched them against the gunners from any other destroyer escort in the Navy.

And they needed to be. He and Pat Cooley both exclaimed in horror when the armed freighter opened fire. The size of the spout that miss kicked up . . . "She's got six-inchers!" Cooley yelped.

"Uh-huh," Sam said grimly. The enemy outgunned his ship, and they weren't far from point-blank range. A couple of hits could sink the Josephus Daniels. Josephus Daniels. "Flank speed and zigzag, Mr. Cooley. Let's not make it easy for them." "Flank speed and zigzag, Mr. Cooley. Let's not make it easy for them."

"Aye aye, sir." Cooley swung the wheel hard to port, then just as hard to starboard. Another great gout of water rose, this one closer to the destroyer escort. The limeys were getting the range.

But the Josephus Daniels Josephus Daniels' gunners already had it. Both turrets were firing, and the ship's violent maneuvers fazed them not a bit. "Hit!" Sam yelled, and then, "Hit!" again. He whooped after the second one-it was near the bow, where the freighter carried one of her guns. The destroyer escort's twin 40mms opened up, too-they were close enough for them to reach the foe. He felt as if he'd fallen back in time to the War of 1812, when ships went toe to toe at short range and slugged away at each other till one surrendered or sank.

One of those big sh.e.l.ls-the d.a.m.n freighter had a light cruiser's firepower-burst much too close to the Josephus Daniels Josephus Daniels' stern. Shrapnel howled through the air. That one would cause casualties even if it was a miss. If the burst was close enough, it might spring hull plates, too, and make the destroyer escort's seams leak. But it wouldn't hurt her badly.

And she was chewing up the freighter. Her four-inch guns threw sh.e.l.ls that weighed only a third as much as the enemy's, but she fired much faster and she fired much straighter. "She's on fire!" Pat Cooley yelled, and then, half a minute later, "She's struck her colors!"

Sure enough, the freighter's ensign came down, and a white flag of surrender went up to replace it. "Cease fire!" Sam ordered. The turrets stopped at once; the men at the antiaircraft guns needed a few seconds to get the word-or maybe they just didn't want to hear it. That went against the rules, but not against human nature. "Approach to pick up survivors, Mr. Cooley," Sam said. He told the men at the gun turrets what the destroyer escort was doing, and added, "If you see anybody going near her guns, open up again."

But the freighter-Sam didn't suppose she was really the Karlskrona Karlskrona-had no more fight in her. Her men were taking to the boats-which, in the North Atlantic, was no joke. Sam ordered nets lowered to let the British sailors come up the Josephus Daniels Josephus Daniels' side. His own crew, armed with a couple of submachine guns, rifles, pistols, axes, and even some big wrenches, looked like a nineteenth-century boarding party as they took charge of the prisoners. The pharmacist's mate had groaning wounded men to deal with.

Sam went down to the deck for a closer look at the vanquished enemy. The British skipper, a weary and bedraggled man with a horsy face and bad teeth, recognized him for the destroyer escort's captain at once. "Well fought, sir," the limey said, saluting. "Thought we might surprise you, but you maneuvered well-and those b.l.o.o.d.y guns! d.a.m.n me if I think you missed even once."

"You gave us a nasty start," Sam said. "You were loaded for bear, all right." That probably made him sound like Daniel Boone to the Englishman, but he didn't care. If the freighter's gunners were better . . . But the best gun crews were bound to be in the Royal Navy. Little jaunts like this would have to take whoever was left, and whoever was left hadn't been good enough.

"Kind of you to take us aboard, all things considered," his opposite number said.

"If you'd fired after the white flag went up, I'd've sunk you," Sam said matter-of-factly. "Short of that, though, I wouldn't leave a ship's cat in an open boat on the North Atlantic. I've been in the Navy better than thirty years. I've seen a few things I'd rather not see again, or think about, either."

"I believe you, sir. I'm grateful all the same," the Englishman said.

"Grat.i.tude is worth its weight in gold," Sam said, and the limey flinched. Sam went on, "You and your men are POWs now. We'll take you back to the USA. When the war's over, you can go home. For now . . ." For now, For now, he thought, he thought, you didn't blow me to h.e.l.l and gone. I'll take that. you didn't blow me to h.e.l.l and gone. I'll take that.

Irving Morrell looked up into the western sky. A snowflake hit him right between the eyes. "By G.o.d, the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds weren't lying," he breathed, and his breath smoked as if he had a cigarette in his mouth. Just this minute, he didn't, though a pack sat in his pocket.

For once, the weathermen had hit things right on the b.u.t.ton. They'd said this early snowstorm would get here now, and they were right. He'd gambled and held up his attack three days to wait for it, and his gamble looked as if it would pay off.

Meadville, Pennsylvania, lay in the foothills of the Alleghenies. Morrell stood on the grounds of Allegheny College. The Georgian and Greek Revival architecture told of timeless elegance and dedication to scholarship. But Confederate bombs and artillery had turned some of the buildings to ruins-not that the Greeks hadn't wrecked masterpieces in their own wars. And the barrels snorting on the yellowing lawn were not in perfect keeping with an academic atmosphere.

Only a few blocks away stood the world's biggest zipper factory. Morrell wondered if b.u.t.ton manufacturers cursed Meadville whenever they thought of it. That wasn't his worry, though. He aimed his curses at Jake Featherston, and before long he'd aim them through the barrel of a gun.

He scrambled up into the closest barrel, which was his to command. When the fighting started, he intended to lead from the front. Generals who stayed in back of the line soon lost track of what was really going on. Generals who didn't stay back of the line often got killed, but Morrell refused to worry about that.

"We just about ready, sir?" asked his gunner, a dark, and darkly clever, corporal named Al Bergeron. He was a good soldier and a good gunner; Morrell missed Michael Pound all the same, and hoped the veteran underofficer was safe. Wherever Pound was, he'd be acting as if he wore three stars, not three stripes.

But Morrell would have to worry about him later, too. "Just about, Frenchy," he answered. During the Great War, more than a few people with French names changed them to German-sounding ones so their neighbors wouldn't suspect them. That kind of hysteria hadn't come again. The Confederate States were the only enemies people flabbled hard about now.

Morrell put on his earphones. This barrel had a fancier wireless setup than any of the rest. He could link up not only to other barrels but also to artillery, infantry, and aviation circuits. He wondered whether being able to talk to so many people at once was part of the privilege of his rank or part of the price of it.

He connected to the artillery web. "Ready at 0730?" he asked. If he got a no, somebody's head would roll-H-hour was only fifteen minutes away.

But the answer came back at once: "Ready, sir." The officer who replied sounded young and excited. Morrell wondered if he'd seen action before. Whether he had or not, he would now.

Those fifteen minutes, like the last fifteen minutes before every attack, seemed to crawl by on their bellies. Corporal Bergeron said, "Almost seems a shame to do this to those d.a.m.n greasers."

"Almost-but not quite," Morrell said dryly. The gunner chuckled. Morrell's mouth stretched in a grin of savage antic.i.p.ation. No, he didn't think it was a shame, not even slightly. If Jake Featherston was stretched so thin that he needed to use second-grade troops from the Empire of Mexico to hold part of his line, he had only himself to blame if the USA tried to stomp the stuffing out of them.

No sooner had that thought crossed Morrell's mind than the artillery opened up. Even here inside the turret, the thunder was cataclysmic. He'd been h.o.a.rding guns as hard as he'd been h.o.a.rding barrels. The Mexicans would like things even less.

The barrage went on for a precise hour and a half. As soon as the guns let up, Morrell spoke into the intercom to the driver and then over the webs connecting him to the rest of the barrels and to the infantry. He said the same thing every time: "Let's go!"

Engine roaring, his barrel rumbled forward. Morrell stuck his head out of the cupola so he could see better. That was a splendid way to get shot. He knew as much. It was the chance he took. If he got another oak-leaf cl.u.s.ter for his Purple Heart, then he did, that was all. He needed to see what was going on, as much as he could. And if he stopped one with his face . . . Well, a general officer's pension would leave Agnes and Mildred without many worries about money.

Along with the rest of the barrels, his pushed southwest out of Meadville. Some foot soldiers loped along among the big, noisy machines. Others rode in trucks or in lightly armored carriers to keep up more easily. A few infantrymen clambered up onto barrels and let them do the work. That was highly unofficial. Doctrine handed down from on high-which is to say, from Philadelphia-frowned on it. Riding barrels left soldiers vulnerable to the fire they inevitably drew. But it also got them where they were going faster and fresher than marching would have done. No matter what doctrine the War Department laid down, Morrell liked that.

He knew just when they broke into the Mexicans' lines. The U.S. barrage had come down right on the b.u.t.ton. Only a few soldiers in that yellowish khaki were in any shape to fight. Scattered rifle fire and a handful of machine guns greeted the advancing U.S. forces, but that was all. Francisco Jose's soldiers didn't carry the automatic rifles that made C.S. infantrymen so formidable. They had bolt-action Tredegars, pieces much like U.S. Springfields.

They didn't have barrels. They didn't have much artillery. They didn't have armored personnel carriers. And they didn't have a chance. Morrell had loaded up with a rock in his fist. Now he swung it with all his might.

Here and there, the Mexicans fought bravely. Knots of them held up Morrell's forces wherever they could. Stubborn men who would die before they yielded a position were an a.s.set to any army, and the Empire of Mexico's had its share. But the Mexicans didn't have enough men like that, and the ones they did have couldn't do what they might have done with better equipment. More often than not, the U.S. advance flowed past those stubborn knots to either side. They could be cleaned up at leisure. Meanwhile, the push went on.

"Keep moving!" Whenever Morrell ducked down into the turret, he spread his gospel over the wireless. "Always keep moving. Once we get in among 'em, once we get behind 'em, they'll go to pieces. And then we'll be able to move even faster."

And he had the pleasure of watching his prophecy come true. Till the early afternoon, the enemy soldiers in front of his barrels and infantry did everything they could to stop them and even to throw them back. After that . . . After that, it was like watching ice melt when spring came to a northern river. Once the rot started, it spread fast. By that first nightfall, he was seeing the enemy's backs.

He didn't want to stop for the darkness. He kept going till his driver couldn't see any farther. He sent infantry ahead even after that. And he had the barrels moving again as soon as the first gray showed in the east.

The Mexicans kept trying to fight back early in the second day. But when they saw barrels coming at them out of the swirling snow, a lot of them lost their nerve. Morrell would have lost his nerve, too, trying to stand up against barrels with no more than rifles. Some of the men in the yellowish khaki ran away. Others dropped their rifles and raised their hands. A lot of them looked miserably cold. They didn't have greatcoats, and probably didn't have long johns, either. Down in the Empire of Mexico, they wouldn't have needed them. They were a long way from home.

By the end of that second day, Morrell's barrels had smashed through the crust of enemy resistance. Behind it lay . . . not much. Morrell had a gruesomely good time shooting up a Confederate truck convoy. The big b.u.t.ternut trucks rolled right up to his barrel, sure it had to be on their side even if it was the wrong color.

They found out how wrong they were in a hurry. At Morrell's orders, Frenchy Bergeron wrecked the first truck in the convoy with a well-aimed cannon sh.e.l.l. The second truck tried to go around it. Bergron blasted that one, too, effectively blocking the road. Then he and the bow gunner used their machine guns to shoot up the rest of the trucks. More U.S. barrels came up and joined the fun.

It wasn't much fun for the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds on the receiving end. Soldiers spilled out of some of the trucks and tried to find shelter from the storm of bullets wherever they could. Other trucks carried munitions, not men. When they burned, they sent tracers flying every which way. Standing up in the cupola again, Morrell whooped. Corporal Bergeron got the view through his gunsight. He pounded Morrell gently on the leg, which also amounted to a whoop.

Desperate to escape the trap, some of the trucks went off the road and into the fields on either side. Like their U.S. counterparts, they had four-wheel drive. That gave them some traction on the wet ground, but only some. Great gouts of mud flew from their tires as they struggled forward. While they did, the green-gray barrels went right on shooting at them, and they couldn't shoot back. Without antibarrel cannon, the only weapons foot soldiers had against armor were grenades through the hatches and Featherston Fizzes. They couldn't get close enough to use anything like that here.

Once he'd smashed the column of trucks, Morrell got on the wireless circuit to the barrels closest to his: "Let's get rolling again. We've got to keep moving." He popped up again and cast a wary eye at the sky. So far, the promised storm was still rolling through. When the weather got better, the Confederates were going to throw anything that could fly at his armored forces. From what he could see, air strikes had the best chance of slowing him down-if anything could. Now that he'd broken through the C.S. line, he saw nothing in the rear that had much chance of doing the job.

As his armored column pushed south and west from Meadville, another, slightly smaller, U.S. force was driving north from Parkersburg, West Virginia. If everything went according to plan, Morrell's men and the troops advancing from West Virginia would clasp hands somewhere in eastern Ohio. And if they did, the Confederate Army infesting Pittsburgh would find itself in a very embarra.s.sing position indeed.

Surrounded. Cut off from reinforcements, except perhaps by air. Cut off from resupply, with the same possible exception. Could Featherston's men fly in enough fuel and ammo to keep a modern army functioning? Morrell didn't know, but this whole two-p.r.o.nged attack was based on the a.s.sumption that it was d.a.m.ned unlikely. And even if the Confederates could at first, would they be able to build transports as fast as U.S. fighters shot them down? He didn't think so.

What would would he do if he were Jake Featherston? Try to pull out of Pittsburgh and save what he could? Try to break the ring around the city from the outside? Try to do both at once? Did the CSA have the men and machines to do both at once? With every mile his barrels advanced, Irving Morrell doubted that more and more. At the front, Confederate armies remained formidable, even fearsome. But they were like an alligator that went, "I've been sick," in an animated cartoon: all mouth, with no strength anywhere else. If you concentrated on the puny little legs and tail instead of the big end that chomped . . . "Well, let's see how Jake likes this," Morrell murmured, and he rolled on. he do if he were Jake Featherston? Try to pull out of Pittsburgh and save what he could? Try to break the ring around the city from the outside? Try to do both at once? Did the CSA have the men and machines to do both at once? With every mile his barrels advanced, Irving Morrell doubted that more and more. At the front, Confederate armies remained formidable, even fearsome. But they were like an alligator that went, "I've been sick," in an animated cartoon: all mouth, with no strength anywhere else. If you concentrated on the puny little legs and tail instead of the big end that chomped . . . "Well, let's see how Jake likes this," Morrell murmured, and he rolled on.

During the Great War, Chester Martin would never have imagined hitching a ride on a barrel. For one thing, there hadn't been so many of the lumbering monstrosities in the last fight. For another, a Great War barrel going flat out was faster than a man, but not by a whole h.e.l.l of a lot.

Here at the end of 1942, though, things had changed. Most of Chester's new platoon had attached itself to a platoon of barrels. They rumbled through Pennsylvania-or maybe they were in Ohio by now. One state didn't look a whole lot different from another, especially when you were crashing along at fifteen or twenty miles an hour.

Every once in a while, the platoon had to fight. Sometimes the men would drop down from the barrels and shoot at startled Confederates. Sometimes they wouldn't bother descending. A PFC from Chicago carried a captured Confederate submachine gun and sprayed bullets around from the back of a barrel. Chester kept thinking he should have been called Vito or something like that, but he was a big blond Pole named Joe Jakimiuk.

What really amazed Chester was the speed of the U.S. advance. "It wasn't like this in the Great War, I'll tell you," he said as he sat by a campfire the second night and ate something alleged to be beef stew out of a can. It bore as much resemblance to what Rita called beef stew as boiled inner tube in motor-oil gravy, but it filled him up. "Back then, even in a breakthrough we only made a few miles a day, and n.o.body figured out how to do even that much till 1917."

"Better barrels and better trucks now." That was Second Lieutenant Delbert Wheat, the platoon commander. He spoke with the flat vowels and harsh consonants of Kansas. Odds were he hadn't been born in 1917. Even so, he wasn't an obnoxious twerp like the other shavetails Chester had met since reenlisting. He actually seemed to have some idea of what he was doing-and when he wasn't sure, he didn't act as if asking questions would cost him a couple of inches off his c.o.c.k. If he lived and didn't get maimed, he wouldn't stay a second lieutenant long. Chester could see a big future ahead of him.

For now, Wheat paused and lit a cigarette. Chester's nostrils twitched at the fragrant smoke. "You lifted a pack off of one of Featherston's f.u.c.kers, sir," he said. "The smokes we get with our rations don't smell that good."

"Right the first time, Sergeant." Wheat grinned. His looks were as corn-fed as his accent: he was a husky blond guy, good-sized but not quite so big as Joe Jakimiuk, with a narrower face and sharper features than the PFC's. He held out the pack to Chester. "Want one?"

"Sure. Thanks a lot, sir," Chester answered. A lot of lieutenants would have gone right on smoking the good stuff themselves without a thought for their noncoms. Some officers acted as if they were a superior breed of man just because of their metal rank badges. Wheat didn't have that kind of arrogance-another sign he'd do well for himself if he stayed healthy.

"Sentries all around our position tonight," he told Chester. "No telling which way the Confederates will come at us. We're really and truly in their rear, so they could come from any direction at all."

"Yes, sir," Chester said. "I'll take care of it." In the enemy rear! He didn't think that had ever happened in the Great War: not to him, anyway. You could beat back the Confederates, but get behind them? Retreating troops had always been able to fall back faster than advancing troops could pursue them through the wreckage of war. Now . . . Now this armored thrust had pierced the zone of devastation and found nothing much behind it.

"You men will want to sleep while you can," Lieutenant Wheat told his soldiers. "I don't know how much we're going to get from here on out."