Breakthroughs

That got him the first smile he’d seen from Sherrard. “As a matter of fact, it is, when the damn things feel like running and when the Rebs don’t have a cannon handy and don’t chuck a grenade or a whiskey bottle full of burning gasoline through one of your hatches.”

“If you knew beforehand who’d win, you wouldn’t have to fight the war,” Morrell replied with a shrug. “Since you don’t, you take your chances.”

That got him another smile, a wider one. “You’ll have studied barrels some, then, I take it, even if you haven’t served in them?” Sherrard said. After Morrell nodded, the older officer asked, “What’s your opinion of our current doctrine on barrel deployment?”

“Spreading them out widely along the line, do you mean, sir?” Morrell said. Now he waited for Sherrard to nod. When the colonel did, Morrell went on, “Sir, I don’t like it for beans. The barrels give us a big stick. As long as we’ve got it, we ought to shellack the Rebels with it.”

Ned Sherrard set down his cup and folded his arms across his chest. “Lieutenant Colonel, I will have you know that I was one of the people involved in designing barrels, and that I am also one of the people responsible for formulating the doctrine in use for most of the past year. If I ask you that question again, will you give me a different answer?”

“No, sir,” Morrell said with a small sigh. “You asked my opinion, and I gave it to you. If you want to transfer me out of this unit, though…well, I won’t be happy, but I’ll certainly understand.” Sometimes he wished he didn’t have the habit of saying just what he thought.

Sherrard kept his arms folded, as if he’d forgotten they were. “Isn’t that interesting?” he said, more to himself than to Morrell. “Maybe I was wrong.”

“Sir?” Morrell said.

“Never mind,” Colonel Sherrard told him. “If you don’t get it, you don’t need to know; if you do get it, you already know and you’re sandbagging.”

“Sir?” Morrell said again. Now, though, he didn’t really expect to get an answer. He had a notion of what he’d stumbled over: an argument among the brass about how best to use barrels. But doctrine was doctrine, and the Army clung to it as tightly as the Catholic Church did.

Sherrard, though, turned out to be more forthcoming than Morrell had thought he would. “You may be interested to learn that you and General Custer have similar views about how barrels should be employed.”

“Really, sir?” That was interesting. Custer was…Morrell didn’t know how old he was, but he had to be older than God. Surprising he had any ideas of his own. Off what Morrell had seen in Philadelphia of his performance, he didn’t have many. He just went straight at the Rebs and slugged till someone eventually had to take a step back.

“I’ll tell you something else you may find funny,” Sherrard said. Morrell raised a questioning eyebrow. In a half-shamefaced way, the colonel who’d served on the General Staff went on, “God damn me to hell if I haven’t started thinking he’s right, too. Which also means I think you may be right, Lieutenant Colonel. As you put it, if we’ve got a big stick, we ought to clout the bastards with it.”

“Really, sir?” Morrell knew he was repeating himself again, but couldn’t help it. That eyebrow-both eyebrows-went up again, this time in astonishment. “Have you let the War Department know you’ve changed your mind?”

“I’ve sent them more memoranda than you can shake a stick at.” Sherrard sighed. “Have you ever dropped a small stone off a tall cliff and waited for the sound it makes when it hits the ground to come back to your ears?”

“Yes, sir,” Morrell replied. “The sound never comes back, not if it’s small enough and the cliff is high enough.” He paused. “Dealing with the War Department can be a lot like that.”

“Ain’t it the truth?” The colloquialism from Sherrard surprised Morrell yet again. “That’s one of the reasons I’ve stayed in the field since I shepherded the first barrels down to this front. The cliff isn’t so tall here in the field. There’s less space between me and the enemy, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, yes, sir, I know exactly what you mean,” Morrell answered. “Sometimes I think our boys in the field have worse enemies in Philadelphia than they do in Richmond.”

Again, he wished he hadn’t been so forthright. Again, it was too late. He waited to see how Colonel Sherrard would respond. Sherrard didn’t show much; he got the distinct impression Sherrard seldom showed much. After a thoughtful pause, the colonel said, “Well, you were crazy enough to want to serve in barrels, Lieutenant Colonel. Now that you’re here, don’t you think you ought to go for a ride in one so you can see how big a mistake you made?”

“Yes, sir!” Morrell said enthusiastically. “I hear it’s quite something.”

“So it is. A kick in the teeth is quite something, too.” Sherrard’s voice was dry. “General Custer calls it the biggest sock-dologer in the history of the world. My father, God rest his soul, used to use that word. I think it fits here. Come on. You will, too.”

They left the tent and squelched through the mud to a barrel Sherrard happened to know was in running order. Along the way, the colonel commandeered a driver and a couple of engineers. “In case it doesn’t feel like staying in running order,” Sherrard explained. “In a real fight, we’d have two men on each machine gun-they’re from the infantry-and two artillerymen at the cannon.”

With the barrel commander, that made a crew of eighteen, from three different branches of the Army. “Not efficient,” Morrell remarked.

“I know that, too-now,” Sherrard said. “Here we are.” He stopped in front of a barrel done up in camouflage paint except for a fierce eagle’s head on the side and the name or motto Remembrance above it. One of the hatches was open. “Climb on up into the cupola,” Sherrard told Morrell. “You will be the commander. Drive around a square and come back here.”

Morrell scrambled up into the small metal box atop the barrel. He took the seat forward and to the right, the one unencumbered by controls. The driver sat in the other one. When the engineers shouted that they were ready, the driver stabbed the red button of the electric starter. The engines grumbled, then came to roaring life. The driver yelled something to Morrell. He had no idea what.

The din was terrific, incredible. If the engines had mufflers, they didn’t work. Exhaust fumes promptly filled the barrel. Morrell coughed. His eyes smarted. What combat would be like in here, with the machine guns and cannon blazing away, adding their racket and the stink of burnt smokeless powder, he didn’t want to think. Hell seemed a reasonable first approximation.

After checking to make sure both reverse levers behind his seat were in the forward position, the driver got the barrel moving by stepping on the clutches to both engines, putting the beast in gear, and opening the throttle on the steering wheel. He knew the course he was supposed to steer. If he hadn’t, hand signals would have been the only way to give it to him; he couldn’t have heard shouted orders. The barrel rode as if its springs-if it had any-were made out of rocks. Morrell bit his tongue twice and his lower lip once. With the window slits open, he could see a little. With them closed, he could see next to nothing.

A cough. A groan. A wheeze. Silence. Into it, the driver said, “We’re back, sir. What do you think?”

Get me the devil out of here sprang to mind. Morrell suppressed it. He had, after all, volunteered for this. He said, “We need better controls and signals in the barrel.” The driver nodded agreement. Only a maniac would have disagreed. On the other hand, only a maniac would have wanted to climb into a barrel in the first place.

For the first time since the summer of 1914, the Army of Northern Virginia was fighting in northern Virginia, not in Pennsylvania or Maryland. These days, instead of threatening Philadelphia, the fighting force whose ferocious onslaught had brought the Confederacy more glory than any other was reduced to defending the state for which it was named against the endless grinding pressure of the U.S. Army.

Sergeant Jake Featherston had his battery of the First Richmond Howitzers well positioned just in front of the little town of Round Hill, about fifteen miles south of the Potomac. The hill on which Round Hill sat had looked out on prosperous farming country all around. Prosperous farming country still lay to the south. To the north lay the infernal landscape of war: shell holes and trenches and barbed wire in great thick rusting belts and shattered trees.

A scrawny, fiercely intent man, Featherston stalked from one of the half-dozen quick-firing three-inch guns- copies of the famous French 75s-he commanded. Every other battery commander in the regiment was a lieutenant