Breakthroughs

to make his way north, that was all. As long as he was on the right side of the river, being captured never entered his mind.

The sentry who challenged him when he came up onto the land was a pure Yankee, from Maine or New Hampshire. He didn’t believe McSweeney’s explanation of who he was or why he was naked. Neither did his superior, nor that fellow’s superior, either.

Calm as could be, McSweeney kept explaining who he was, what he’d done, and how he’d done it. They gave him clothes. Eventually, they got hold of his service record. That made them argue less and gape more. Then they found out he wasn’t with the company where he was supposed to be, which made them begin to wonder if he might not be in front of them after all.

It was mid-morning before they brought Ben Carlton down to identify him. When Carlton did, they stared and stared. “Oak-leaf cluster,” they kept muttering. “Medal of Honor with an oak-leaf cluster. Who would dare write up the citation, though? Who would believe it?”

“Can you please send me back to my unit?” McSweeney asked. “I’ve had a long night, and I’m very tired.” Everyone kept right on staring at him.

Scipio wished he were anywhere but trapped in the swamps by the Congaree River. He’d wished that ever since Anne Colleton sent him here. He’d never wished it so intensely as now.

From out on the perimeter, the fighters of the Congaree Socialist Republic kept up a continuous crackle of fire. The Confederate militiamen were not nearly so good, man for man, as the Reds, but they had more men and, finally, what looked to be a determination to press the fight.

Cassius looked worried. Scipio had never before seen Cassius look worried, not even when the CSA put down the larger version of the Congaree Socialist Republic, the version that had tried to carry the Red revolution to a wide stretch of South Carolina.

“Damn that Cherry!” he burst out now. “She don’ listen to nobody but her ownself, an’ she weren’t as smart as she reckon she were. An’ now she ain’t here no more, an’ I feels like I’s missin’ my lef’ hand.”

“Maybe you is,” Scipio said, “but maybe you is just as well off without it, too. If she was your left hand, you was always watchin’ it to make sure it don’t stab you in the back.”

“Now I knows that ain’t a lie, but I misses she all de same,” Cassius answered. “What she do, she do for the sake o’the revolution. Anything gits in the way o’the revolution, she sure as hell push it off to de side.” He sighed. “She sure as hell try and push me off to de side, you right about dat. But even so, I misses she. She hate de ’pressors more’n anything in the whole wide world.”

Scipio remained not the least bit sorry he’d mailed that letter to Anne Colleton. “Kin hate too much,” he said.

“Mebbe.” Cassius shrugged. “Sure as hell wish she was shootin’ at de damn buckra, though.”

“Yeah, she do dat good,” Scipio allowed, as if making a great concession. “ ’Course, she shoot at anything that strike she fancy. She shoot at de buckra, or else she shoot at you or me or anything else.”

“She committed to de revolution,” Cassius repeated. “She shoot anybody, she reckon dey gets in de way o’ de revolution. She screw anybody, she reckon dat help de revolution. She screw Miss Anne’s gassed brother till he don’t know up from Tuesday.” He scowled at that. He might have recognized the revolutionary need for it while it was going on, but he hadn’t liked it then. He still didn’t.

“Marse Jacob, he dead,” Scipio said quietly, reminding the leader of the Congaree Socialist Republic. Off in the distance, the crackle of gunfire increased. “All o’ we gwine be dead, too, we don’t figure out what the devil we do ’bout they buckra pretty damn quick.”

Cassius didn’t even disagree with him, not directly. He said, “Even if we’s dead, de revolution go on widout we.”

Scipio would sooner have gone on without the revolution than the other way round. Saying as much struck him as highly inexpedient. Just then, a series of rending crashes off to the northwest made him peer in that direction. “The militia find some shells for they artillery again,” he said, and then, “Do Jesus! Ain’t we got a camp over yonder, ’bout where that stuff come down?”

“We does-or maybe we done did.” Cassius frowned. “I don’t reckon de buckra knowed about dat place. I don’t reckon nobody who don’t live in de swamps could know about dat place.”

Traitors. The word hung in the air as clearly as if the Red leader had spoken it aloud. Any talk of traitors inevitably became talk of Scipio, too. He knew it. For once, though, he was innocent. He had betrayed Cherry, but not the camp. But somebody was liable to jump to the wrong conclusion in this particular case, which would also put him in trouble.

Before Cassius could so much as turn his eyes toward Scipio in speculation, both men looked up at a noise in the sky. Scipio, for a wonder, spotted the aeroplane before Cassius did. It was, as far as aeroplanes went, an antique: an ungainly biplane with a pusher propeller, all struts and booms and wires. Against the swift, sleek fighting scouts the USA put in the air these days, the ugly machine wouldn’t have survived five minutes. But it was plenty good for spying on the men of the Congaree Socialist Republic.

Cassius figured that out as fast as Scipio did. “Ain’t fair!” he shouted furiously. “Shitfire, Kip, it ain’t fair. If the buckra looks down on the swamp like a man look through the cabin window when a pretty woman take off she dress, how we gwine stay hid?”

That was a good question. As far as Scipio could see, that was the good question. He shook his head. No, there was one other. He asked it: “You reckon that pilot got one o’ they wireless telegraph machines up there with he?”

“Don’t rightly know,” Cassius answered. “Do Jesus, though, I hope he don’t.”

That hope, like so many hopes of the Congaree Socialist Republic, was shortly to be dashed. The aeroplane flew back and forth, back and forth, over the encampment. A few of Cassius’ men fired rifles and machine guns at it. It was too high for any of that to damage or even alarm it. Back and forth, back and forth.

Cassius cursed horribly for the next couple of minutes. That did no good, either. He had no more than a couple of minutes to curse. After that, shells started falling on the encampment where he and Scipio had been talking.

The first few explosions were long, and off to Scipio’s right. The next couple were short, and off to his left. Sure as hell, the pilot must have had a wireless telegraph in his flying machine, and used it to correct the aim of the gunners firing at the encampment. The first correction had been excessive, but he’d seen where those shells fell, too. After that-

“Do Jesus!” Scipio screeched through the wail of falling shells. “These ones is comin’ down right on top o’we!”

Cassius must have said something by way of reply. Whatever it was, though, Scipio didn’t hear it. He’d been right and more than right-the shells were coming down on top of him and on top of the biggest encampment the men of the Congaree Socialist Republic had maintained in the swamps by the river that gave them their name.

Scipio threw himself flat. He had seen enough of war to have learned that lesson. Cassius sprawled on the ground a few feet away from him. Mud rained down on them as shell fragments chewed up the landscape all around. Through the explosions, men screamed like lost souls. More shell fragments and shrapnel balls hissed through the air. Something that was not mud fell almost harmlessly on Scipio’s back. Almost harmlessly-it was hot enough to burn. With an oath, he knocked away the hunk of brass.

Overhead, the aeroplane kept circling and circling. The pilot could spot exactly how much damage the artillerymen were doing, and let them know where to send the next few shells. The Confederate States had been doing that sort of thing against the United States since 1914. Now the men of the Congaree Socialist Republic were getting a taste of how effective it could be.

“Scatter!” Cassius shouted. “Git out o’de camp. Git under the trees an’ de bushes. Dat buckra pilot up dere cain’t see we, he cain’t tell de buckra at the guns where to put they shells. Scatter!”

Along with the rest of the Negroes in the encampment, Scipio fled into the forest. He paid no attention to which way he was running, so long as it was away from the unending thunder of the Confederate militia’s cannon. A man not twenty feet in front of him was blown to red rags when a shell exploded between his legs. There wasn’t enough left of him to scream. Scipio shuddered and kept running. If he’d run faster, that might have been him.

No one paid him any special attention as he blundered through the lush woods and the mud. For the first time