Walk in Hell

howitzer, but it turned the blow without trouble.

And it replied with shells far heavier than those the field pieces threw. “Hit!” shouted the spotter from the crow’s nest. “That’s a hit, by God!” He whooped with glee. The guns fired several more salvos. The spotter kept yelling encouragement. What encouraged George more than anything else was that, after a while, no new fire came toward either the Punishment or the Clarksville bridges.

He got to his feet, ready to hose down the riverbank with machine-gun fire in case the Rebs, having lost their guns, chose to bring riflemen forward to make the engineers’ jobs harder-and perhaps to snipe at the men on the monitor’s deck, too. They often tried that after big, waterborne guns smashed their artillery.

Not this time, though. All was calm as the Punishment floated on the Cumberland. The engineers got back to work. The mine-sweeping boat ran right up to the wreckage to pick up a couple of wounded men. On the shore, pistol shots rang out. Soldiers were shooting wounded mules.

Just another day’s work, George thought. Noticing that thought brought him up sharply. It was the sort of thought a veteran might have. “Me?” he muttered. No one answered, naturally, but no one needed to, either.

VIII

Roger Kimball stood up on the conning tower of the Bonefish. He looked around. All he saw were the cool, gray waters of the North Atlantic. All he smelled was clean salt air-none of the rotting stinks of the South Carolina swamps. He sucked in a long, deep breath and let it out like a connoisseur savoring a fine wine.

His executive officer smiled. “Feels good to be back at sea, doesn’t it, sir?” Junior Lieutenant Brearley said.

“Feels better than good, Tom,” Kimball answered. “We’re doing our proper job again, and about time, too. If I’d wanted to be a policeman and wear a funny hat, I’d have joined the police in the first place.”

A wave crashed against the Bonefish’s bow. The conning tower and the hatch leading down into the submersible were protected by canvas shields-or so claimed the men who’d designed the shields. Kimball supposed they were better than nothing. They didn’t keep him and Brearley from getting seawater in the face. They didn’t keep more seawater from puddling under their feet or from dripping down the hatch.

Brearley used a sleeve to wipe himself more or less dry. His smile now was rueful. “Harder to keep the boat dry than it was on the river.”

“Price you pay for doing the proper job,” Kimball said airily. He could afford to be airy now, up here. When he went below, the diesel-oil and other stenches inside the Bonefish-all produced despite everything the crew could do-would easily surpass those of the swamps flanking the Pee Dee.

Since that couldn’t be helped, he put it out of his mind. Wiping the lenses of his field glasses with a pocket handkerchief, he raised the glasses to his eyes and scanned the horizon for a telltale plume of smoke that would mark a ship. The wind quickly whipped away the exhaust from the Bonefish’s diesel. Bigger vessels, though, burned coal or fuel oil, and left more prominent signatures in the air.

He spied nothing. The Bonefish might have been alone in the Atlantic. He didn’t like that. Letting the binoculars thump down against his chest on their leather strap, he pounded on the conning tower rail with his fist. “Damn it, Tom, they’re supposed to be out here.”

“Yes, sir,” the exec said. That was all he could say. Intelligence had reported the U.S. Navy was gathering for a push against the British and French warships protecting their home countries’ merchant vessels. Sending one or two of those Yankee ships to the bottom would make life easier for the Entente powers against the twin colossi of the USA and Germany.

As if picking the thought from his mind, Brearley said, “We have managed to keep the damnyankees and the Huns from joining hands.”

“We’d better go right on keeping ’em from doing that, too, sonny, or you can kiss this war good-bye,” Kimball answered dryly. “We’ve got to keep the trade route from Argentina to French West Africa open, too, or England starts starving even worse than she is already. And we’ve got to keep the route from England to Canada at least partway open, or else the USA sits on Canada like an elephant squashing a mouse. If we manage to do all of that, the soldiers can go on doing what they’re supposed to do.”

“Have we got enough ships?” Brearley asked. “Have all of us together-us and the British and the French and the Russians and whatever the Canadians have left-have we got enough ships to do everything we have to do?”

Kimball clapped him on the back. “We’ve done it so far-just barely. Reckon we can keep on doing it-just barely. And don’t forget the Japanese. They’re giving England and Canada quite a hand in the Pacific, by everything I hear.”

“Don’t know as how I really care for them fooling around in a white man’s war,” Brearley said, “but I suppose we have to grab the help now and be thankful for it, and then worry later about sorting out what it means.”

“That’s how it works,” Kimball agreed. As soon as he’d spoken, though, he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Brearley was all for cutting a deal with the Negroes, too, and then sorting out what that all meant later.

Had his exec set him up, so he would notice he was arguing one way on one of the questions and the other way on the other? He let his eyes slide toward Tom Brearley. Sure as hell, the young pup looked ever so slightly smug. But Brearley had too much sense to say anything, so Kimball couldn’t gig him for it. This round went to the junior lieutenant.

So Kimball wouldn’t have to admit as much, he raised the field glasses once more to scan the horizon. He did not do it expecting to spot anything: more to give him an excuse not to answer, and to change the subject when he did speak again. But there, off to the northeast, rose an unmistakable plume of smoke.

He stiffened and thrust out an index finger, as if he were a bird dog coming to the point. Tom Brearley didn’t have field glasses of his own. Before the war, most of them had been made in Germany, and they remained in short supply throughout the Entente powers. But, after a minute or so, Brearley nodded. “Yes, sir. I see it, too.”

Kimball called down to the petty officer at the wheel: “Change course to 045.”

“Oh-four-five, aye aye, sir,” Ben Coulter answered. His voice caught with excitement as he sent a question up the hatchway: “You spotted something, sir?”

“Something, yes,” Kimball answered: submersible officers and crew paid less attention to the minutiae of military formality than any other part of the C.S. Navy. “Don’t know what yet.”

He peered through the field glasses again. A swell lifted the Bonefish, extending the horizon for him. He got a glimpse of the hull producing the smoke. “That’s a Yankee destroyer, sure as hell it is. Now the fun begins.” His lips curled back from his teeth in what was more nearly snarl than smile.

He started calculating at a furious clip. A destroyer could run away from his submersible even when he was surfaced, or could attack him with bigger guns than he carried. Submerged, the Bonefish made only nine knots going flat out-a pace that would quickly exhaust her batteries and force her to the surface again. He couldn’t pursue the U.S. ship, then. He had to see if he could place the submarine in her path and lie in wait for her. If not, he’d have to let her escape. If so…

“Let’s go below, Tom,” Kimball said. His exec nodded and dove down the hatch. Kimball followed, dogging it shut after him. He bawled an order to the crew: “Prepare to dive-periscope depth!”

Klaxons hooted. Tanks made bubbling, popping noises as water flooded into them. The Bonefish slid under the water in-“Thirty-eight seconds, I make it,” Brearley said, an eye to his pocket watch. Kimball grunted. That was acceptable but something less than wonderful.

He raised the periscope. “Hope the damn thing isn’t too misted up to see through,” he muttered. The odds were about even. He grunted again, this time appreciatively. The view was, if not perfectly clear, clear enough.

He turned the periscope in the direction of the destroyer he’d spotted. The fellow hadn’t altered course, which Kimball devoutly hoped meant he hadn’t a clue the Bonefish was anywhere about. He was, unless Kimball had botched his solution, making about twenty knots, and about two miles away.

“Give me course 090,” Kimball told the helmsman, and then spoke to the rest of the crew: “Ready the