firing three-inch guns the Rebs have. Not a man at 'em: most of the gunners ran, and the gas got the rest.'
'That's first-rate,' Custer said. 'Positively first-rate. We have to keep throwing men at them till they crack. Pour it on, by God! Pour it on!'
'Have you got more chlorine ready, to make another breach in their lines after they manage to plug this gap?' Davis asked.
Dowling nodded. Again, the reporter had found the right question to ask. The right answer, unfortunately, was no. The USA didn't turn out-or hadn't turned out-chlorine in the quantity Germany, a chemical powerhouse, did. If the thought of not having more bothered Custer, he didn't let on. 'We won't need more,' he said grandly. 'Now that we've got them on the run, we'll make sure they keep running. I'll send in the cavalry to complete their demoralization. The stalemate on this front, Mr. Davis, is over, and you can quote me.'
Davis wrote the words down. He didn't ask any more questions. Maybe that meant Custer had convinced him. Maybe, on the other hand, it meant the reporter had seen enough war on his own to know the general commanding First Army was talking through his hat. Abner Dowling was glumly certain about which way he would have bet.
Retreat. It was an ugly word. Jake Featherston hated the sound of it. But he hated the sound of annihilation a lot more. If the First Richmond Howitzers hadn't pulled back from the Susquehanna when they did, they would have been in no position to do it later.
'I knew we were in trouble when we didn't make it to the Delaware,' he muttered as he trudged along a dirt road that coated him, the horses, the guns, and everything else nearby with a red-brown haze of dust.
He hadn't expected to be overheard, not through the clopping of the horses' hooves and the rattle and squeak of the gun carriage. But the new loader for the piece, a youngster named Michael Scott, said, 'Why's that, Sarge?'
Featherston scowled. He almost didn't answer. As far as he was concerned, Nero and Perseus had manned the gun better than the kind of replacements you got nowadays. What they'd learned when they were serving their time as conscripts, God only knew. Featherston wasn't convinced they'd learned anything. But he replied, as patiently as he could, 'When we didn't finish the big wheel to the Delaware, that let the damnyankees keep shipping supplies into Baltimore. And that let the bastards break out of Baltimore, too. If they cut us off, we're still liable to be in a lot of trouble.'
'Never happen,' Scott declared. 'Not in a million years. We'll whip 'em, same as we've done twice running.'
'I figured the same thing when the fighting started,' Featherston answered. 'It's already gone on a hell of a lot longer than I figured it would. The Yankees this time, feels like they mean business, same as us.'
They crossed Codorus Creek, the gun-carriage wheels rumbling over the planks of the bridge. On the south- western side of the creek, Negro labourers and Confederate infantry were digging in, aiming to hold back the advancing U.S. troops, at least for a while, and to hold on to the town of Hanover, a couple of miles to the west.
Featherston was glumly certain they wouldn't keep Hanover long. With the chunk of land they'd carved out of Yankee territory being nibbled away at the base, they'd have to keep moving back toward Washington, and smartly, or the U.S. soldiers would cut them off. But they couldn't just skedaddle, not unless they wanted endless grief from the damnyankees who'd halted them at the Susquehanna.
Scott Said, 'If things had gone the way they were supposed to, we'd have been in Philadelphia a long time ago.'
'Yeah, and if pigs had wings, we'd all carry umbrellas,' Featherston replied with a snort. 'When you've been through even a little more fighting, kid, you're going to see that things just don't go the way they're supposed to. The Yanks, they've got their own set of supposed-to's, and what we get is what's left over when ours bump up against theirs.'
The loader nodded respectfully. Not only was Featherston a sergeant, he was that even more exalted creature, a veteran. The combination gave his views an authority few mortals could claim.
More hoof beats: here came Pompey, mounted on one of Captain Stuart's fine horses. 'Captain's compliments, Sergeant,' he said in his syrupy voice, 'an' we gonna go into battery by that slate quarry over yonder.' He pointed off to the west of the road.
'All right,' Featherston said shortly. He still didn't care for the way Stuart used the Negro to relay orders, but however much authority he might seem to have to Michael Scott, to the battery commander he was just another non-com who did what he was told. Pompey rode on to give the rest of the guns in the battery the word.
Jake admitted to himself that Stuart had picked a good spot in which to deploy the howitzers. They were only a couple of miles back of Codorus Creek, in good position to pound the Yankees when they approached the line the Confederates were creating. Better yet, piles of spoil from the mine offered fine cover for the guns, and Negroes were already busy digging firing pits to protect them even better.
As Featherston supervised the emplacement of his own howitzer, Captain Stuart rode up himself. Featherston saluted. Stuart watched the black men in butternut tunics of simpler, baggier cut than soldiers wore. With a sly grin, he said, 'Got yourself a whole ready-made gun crew this time, in case the one the government issued you goes down.'
'Uh, yes, sir,' Jake said, a little nervously. He still wasn't happy about having used Nero and Perseus as fighting men. Nobody else was happy about it, either, except possibly the two Negroes-and their opinion didn't count. What the reaction of the brass amounted to was that Featherston had done what he'd had to do, and it was too damn bad he'd had to do it. That was pretty much how he felt about it himself.
Stuart swung down off the horse and tied the reins to a sapling. 'What really makes life difficult is that you put the niggers on the guns right after that Major Potter came sniffing around with all his crazy talk about every other nigger in the army being a damned Red. Would you believe it, he wanted to take Pompey away for questioning.'
'Is that a fact, sir?' Featherston said, in tones he devoutly hoped were un- revealing. He, after all, had been the one who'd suggested Pompey could do with some investigating.
'It is indeed.' Jeb Stuart III kicked at the ground to show his indignation. It wasn't aimed at Jake, from which he concluded Stuart didn't know who mistrusted his supercilious servant. 'I had to get hold of my father back in the War Department, and he had to do some pretty plain talking to the Army of Northern Virginia Intelligence before they turned Pompey loose. When those people question somebody, he's lucky if he comes out of it in one piece, especially if he's a nigger.'
Ever since the days of Robert E. Lee, Confederates had used those people, spoken in a particular tone of voice, as a euphemism for the enemy. Featherston had never heard it used that way to mean part of the Confederate Army, not till now. He hoped he didn't hear it used that way again for another fifty or sixty years.
So Jeb Stuart, Jr., had saved Pompey from the tender mercies of Army Intelligence, had he? If Pompey wasn't any more than an ordinary black servant stuck up beyond his station because of whom he served, that was fine. If Pompey was a snake in the grass, it was anything but fine. But how were you sup posed to know which if you didn't try to find out?
'Pompey's family has been with my family since my great-grandfather's day,' the captain said. 'He'd be loyal to the Stuarts before he'd join up with a pack of Red revolutionaries just because they have black skins.'
Featherston didn't answer. Arguing with your superior had no future in it. Arguing with your superior when he was also in the third generation of a leading Confederate military family had less than no future.
And, in any case, he had enough other things to do. Making sure the gun was sited as well as it could be, making sure the wheel brakes were set and the spade on the end of the trail dug into the ground, making sure there was a good, thick earthen rampart between the ammunition and the crew so a lucky shell hit wouldn't-or might not-blow them all to Jesus… all that took time and work.
As he readied the position, he kept peering over the creek, looking for the caterpillar ripples on the distant ground that marked advancing Yankee infantry. Sure enough, here they came. Larger dots punctuating the ripples were horses. Cavalry, Featherston thought, with a mixture of respect for their courage and scorn for their uselessness.
Then the dots peeled off. They know better than to get their precious horses — and their precious selves — too close to the machine guns, Jake thought. Poor dears might get hurt. Cavalry would charge, though, when ordered. After staring a moment, he recognized the pattern the horses were forming.
