In Good Hope, all the U.S. machine guns opened fire at once. People fell, shrieking and writhing and kicking. They looked like civilians anywhere in the USA. One of the women who caught a bullet was a nice-looking blonde. Waste of a natural resource, Chester thought, and fired his rifle at a man with a big belly and a bald head with a white fringe of hair. Another round caught him at the same time as Chester's. He didn't seem to know which way to fall, but fall he did.
When the shooting started, some people came rushing out of houses and shops to see what was going on. People always reacted like that. It was the worst thing they could do, but a good many did. They paid the price for mistimed curiosity, too.
Lavochkin shot up the filling station. That got a good blaze going in nothing flat. He whooped as flames shot skyward from the pumps. 'See how you like it, you bastards!' he yelled. 'Hope your whole town burns in hell!'
As in High Shoals, a few determined people in Good Hope tried to fight back. Bullets came from upstairs windows and from behind fences. Overwhelming U.S. firepower soon silenced the locals' rifles and pistols. But one alert and determined man drove his auto sideways across the street to try to keep the green-gray vehicles from going any deeper into Georgia. He paid for his courage with his life. A fusillade of bullets not only killed him but flattened three of the tires on the motorcar.
And in the end he delayed the U.S. column only a few minutes. A halftrack rumbled forward and shoved the hulk out of the way. 'Good thing we didn't set the son of a bitch on fire,' Chester said. 'Then we would've had to look for a way around.'
'Screw it,' said the soldier sitting next to him. 'We would've found one. C'mon, Sarge. You think these sorry civilian assholes can stop us?'
'Doesn't look like it-that's for sure,' Chester answered.
East of Good Hope, the column bumped into a platoon of short, swarthy soldiers in uniforms of a khaki yellower than the usual Confederate butternut. Mexicans, Chester realized, probably out chasing Negro guerrillas.
Like the locals, the Mexican troops took a few fatal seconds too long to realize the approaching soldiers weren't on their side. Some of Francisco Josй's men waved and took a few steps toward the command cars and halftracks.
'Let 'em have it, boys!' Captain Rhodes sang out. Everybody who could get off a shot without endangering U.S. soldiers in front of him opened up. The Mexicans went down like wheat before the harvester. A few tried to run. A few tried to shoot back. They got off only a handful of rounds before they were mowed down, too. A U.S. corporal yowled and swore and clutched his shoulder. Chester thought he was the first U.S. casualty of the day.
Southeast of Good Hope lay Apalachee. Rhodes ordered the U.S. vehicles to stop about a mile outside of town. Lieutenant Lavochkin's broad features clouded over. 'You're not going to let this place off easy, are you, sir?' he demanded. 'That's not what we're here for.'
'I know what we're here for, Lieutenant. Keep your shirt on.' The company commander seemed to enjoy putting Lavochkin in his place. Chester Martin would have, too, but it wasn't always easy for a noncom. Rhodes went on, 'Mortar crews-out! Let's give them a few rounds from nowhere before we pay our respects. That should make them good and glad to see us when we roll into town.'
As the men with the light mortars set up and started lobbing bombs towards Apalachee, Lieutenant Lavochkin smiled a smile Chester wouldn't have wanted to see aimed at him. Lavochkin pointed it toward the enemy, where it belonged. He gave Rhodes the most respectful salute Martin had ever seen from him.
Apalachee might have been an ants' nest that somebody had kicked when Captain Rhodes' company came in. People were running every which way. Wounded men and women screamed. A few buildings had chunks bitten out of them.
A middle-aged man in a business suit ran toward the lead command car. The left arm of his jacket was pinned up: he had no arm to fill it. 'Thank God you're here!' he yelled. 'We got a call from Good Hope that there were Yankees loose, and then they went and mortared us.'
'How about that?' Boris Lavochkin took aim with the command car's machine gun.
'Uh-oh,' the Georgian said: the last phrase that ever passed his lips. He started to turn away, which did no good at all. Lavochkin's burst almost cut him in half.
People shrieked and fled. Bullets and grenades made sure they didn't get far. Wails filled the streets. Chester shot a man who was reaching into the waistband of his trousers. Did he have a pistol stashed there? Nobody except him would ever know now. The bullet from the Springfield blew off the top of his head.
'This hardly seems fair,' said the private next to Chester. 'Not like we're fighting soldiers or anything.'
'They're all the enemy,' Chester answered, working the bolt and chambering a new round. 'If they can't find enough soldiers to keep us from getting at civilians, what does that say?'
'I bet it says we're winning.' The private grinned. He had a captured C.S. automatic rifle, and lots of magazines for it. Unlike Chester, he hardly bothered aiming. He just sprayed bullets around. Some of them were bound to hit something.
'I bet you're right.' Chester Martin shot a man who drove his auto into range at exactly the wrong time. The fellow might not even have known U.S. soldiers were loose in Apalachee. He didn't get much of a chance to find out, either.
Lieutenant Lavochkin shot up another gas station-he seemed to enjoy that. This one rewarded him with a spectacular fireball. Had he been closer when he opened up, the flames might have swallowed his command car.
'Whoa!' shouted the kid next to Chester. 'Hot stuff!'
'Yeah,' Chester said. 'We're hot stuff, and the Confederates can't do much about it, doesn't look like. If we had enough gas, I bet we could make it damn near to the ocean.'
'That'd be something,' the private said.
But things stopped being so much fun not long after they got out of Apalachee. An enemy barrel blew a command car into twisted, burning sheet metal. U.S. soldiers leaped out of the vehicles that carried them and stalked the metal monster. It wasn't a new model, but it was plenty tough enough. It wrecked another couple of vehicles and shot several soldiers before somebody clambered up on top of it and threw grenades into the turret. That settled that: the barrel brewed up.
'Fools,' Boris Lavochkin said scornfully. 'They didn't have infantry along to protect it.'
'They probably didn't have any to spare,' Chester said. Lavochkin thought that over. Then he smiled again. Any soldier in butternut who saw that smile would have wanted to surrender on the spot.
F lora Blackford found a place to sit on the Socialists' side of the aisle. Congressional Hall was always crowded during a joint session. President La Follette hadn't called many. He seemed to think actions spoke louder than words. Oddly, that made his words resonate more when he did choose to use them.
The Speaker of the House introduced him: 'Ladies and gentlemen, I have the distinct honor and high privilege of presenting to you the President of the United States!'
Charlie La Follette took his place behind the lectern. The lights gleamed off his silver hair. Along with everybody else in the hall, Flora applauded till her hands were sore. La Follette was an accidental President, but he was turning out to be a pretty good one.
'Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you,' he said. 'I come before you today-I come before the people of the United States today-to help right a wrong that has continued in our country for too long.
'We do not have a large number of Negro citizens in the United States. Most Negroes in North America have always lived in the Confederacy. This is partly our own fault, as we have been slow to accept refugees from the oppression that has long existed there.
'Not caring for a man because of the color of his skin is one thing. Leaving him to die in a country that hates him is something else again. It is a mistake, a reprehensible mistake, and not one we will continue to make. Any human being, regardless of color, is entitled to live free. I will ask that legislation be introduced in Congress to make sure this comes true.
'And, I fear, we have committed another injustice. For too long, we have believed that Negro men lack the courage to fight for their country. We have never conscripted them into the Army or even let them volunteer. In the Navy, we let them cook food and tend engines, but no more. This is not right, not if they are men like any others, citizens like any others.
