passing George ammo. He fed the twin 40mms' breeches like a man possessed. Casings leaped from the guns and clattered on the deck. Bursts-puffs of black smoke-appeared all around the attacking airplane.
But it kept coming. The bomb under its belly dropped. The Asskicker zoomed past, hardly higher than the tops of the battleship's masts. The bomb burst on the ocean, less than fifty yards from the Oregon.
Water hit George like a fist in the face. Next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, partly on the deck, partly on Ditto Thomas, who'd stood right behind him. 'Get-glub! — offa me, goddammit!' Thomas spluttered, spitting out what looked like about half of the ocean.
'Yeah.' George scrambled to his feet and gave Ditto a hand to haul him up, too. Ditto rubbed at his eyes. George's also stung from seawater. The other men from the gun crew were picking themselves up. Wally Fodor had a cut on his ear that bloodied the shoulder of his tunic. Could you get a Purple Heart for something like that? George wouldn't lose any sleep over it, and he didn't think Wally would, either.
At that, the number three mount got off lucky. Guys were down at the next 40mm mount, too, only they weren't getting up again. A fragment of bomb casing had taken off one sailor's head like a guillotine blade. Another man was gutted as neatly as a fat cod on a fishing trawler. But cod didn't scream and try to put themselves back together. And you couldn't gaff a sailor and put him on ice in the hold, though it might have been a mercy.
Stretcher-bearers carried him below. The Oregon boasted not one but two real doctors, not just a pharmacist's mate like the Josephus Daniels. Could they do anything for a guy with his insides torn out? Doctors were getting smarter all the time, and the fancy new drugs meant fever didn't always kill you. Even so…
George didn't get the chance to brood about it. 'Come on!' Fodor yelled. Did the CPO even know he was wounded? 'Back to the gun! We may get another shot at the sonsabitches!'
Suddenly, though, the sky seemed bare of Confederate aircraft. One limped off toward the north, toward land, trailing smoke as it went. The rest-weren't there any more. A rubber raft bobbed on the surface of the Atlantic: somebody'd got out of one of them, anyhow.
The Oregon's main armament boomed out another thunderous broadside. Half a minute later, the Maine also sent a dozen enormous shells landward. The air attack had made them miss a beat, but no more.
'Jesus!' George said, his ears ringing. 'Is that the best those sorry suckers can do?'
'Sure looks like it.' Chief Fodor sounded surprised, too. He noticed the blood on his shoulder, and did a professional-quality double take. 'What the fuck happened here?'
'Maybe a splinter nicked you, or maybe you got hurt when the water knocked you down,' George answered.
'I be damned,' Fodor said. 'I always heard about guys getting hurt without even knowing it, but I figured it was bullshit. Then it goes and happens to me. I be damned.'
A U.S. destroyer steamed toward the downed Confederate flier. Somebody on the destroyer's deck threw the man a line. He didn't climb it. After a minute or so, a sailor went down into the raft with him and rigged a sling. The men on deck hauled the Confederate up-he must have been wounded. He was probably lucky not to be strawberry jam. Then they lowered the line to their buddy. Up he swarmed, agile as a monkey.
The big guns on both battlewagons bellowed again. If that was all the Confederates could do to stop them…If that was all, the Confederacy really was coming apart at the seams.
P aperwork. Jefferson Pinkard hated paperwork. He'd never got used to it. He didn't like being a paper- shuffler and a pen-pusher. He could manage it, but he didn't like it. Working in a steel mill for all those years left him with the driving urge to go out there and do things, dammit.
To soothe himself, he kept the wireless going. If he listened with half an ear to one of the Houston stations playing music, he didn't have to pay so much attention to all the nitpicking detail Richmond wanted from him. Muttering, he shook his head. No, not Richmond. Richmond was gone, lost, captured. Jake Featherston and what was left of the Confederate government were somewhere down in North Carolina now, still screaming defiance at the damnyankees and at the world.
Camp Humble went right on reducing population. Trains still rolled in from Louisiana and Mississippi and Arkansas and east Texas. Ships brought Negroes from Cuba to the Texas ports. He aimed to go right on doing his job till somebody set over him told him to stop.
Without warning, the song he was listening to broke off. An announcer came on the air: 'We interrupt this program for a special proclamation from the Governor of the great state of Texas, the Honorable Wright Patman. Governor Patman!'
'What the-?' Jeff said. Something had hit the fan, that was for damn sure.
'Citizens of Texas!' Governor Patman said. 'A hundred years ago, this state was an independent republic, owing allegiance to no nation but itself. We joined first the USA and then the CSA, but we have never forgotten our own proud tradition of…freedom.' That was the Party slogan, yeah, but he didn't use it the way a good Party man would.
Jeff muttered, 'Uh-oh.' No, he didn't like the way Patman used it at all.
Sure as the devil, the Governor of Texas went on, 'The Confederate government has brought us nothing but ruin and a losing war. The United States have already stolen part of our territory and revived the so-called state of Houston that blighted the map after the last war. They have killed our soldiers, bombed our cities, and ruined our trade. The Confederate government is powerless to stop them or even slow them down.'
'Uh-oh,' Pinkard said, and then, for good measure, 'Aw, shit.'
'Since the Confederate government cannot protect us, it is no longer a fit government for the great people of Texas,' Governor Patman said. 'Accordingly, by my order, the state of Texas is from this day forward no longer part of the so-called Confederate States of America. I hereby restore the Republic of Texas as a free and independent nation, on an equal footing with the Confederate States, the United States, the Empire of Mexico, and all the other free and independent nations of the world.
'As my first act as provisional President of the Republic of Texas, I have asked the government of the United States for an armistice. They have recognized my administration-'
'Jesus! I fuckin' bet they have!' Jeff exclaimed. What a mess! And he was, literally, in the middle of it.
'— and agreed to a cease-fire. All Texas soldiers are ordered to no longer obey the so-called Confederate authorities. All other Confederate troops within the borders of the Republic of Texas may hold in place and be disarmed by Texas authorities, or may withdraw to territory still under the rule of the so-called Confederate States. The United States have agreed that the forces of the Republic of Texas are not obliged to hinder this retreat, nor will we-so long as it remains peaceful and orderly. U.S. forces reserve the right to attack retreating C.S. forces, however, and neither will we interfere with them on the ground, in the air, or at sea.
'At this point in time, that is all. As peace returns at last after the madness of the Featherston administration, I call on God Almighty to bless the great Lone Star Republic of Texas. Thank you, and good afternoon.'
'That was Governor-uh, excuse me, President-Wright Patman of the, uh, Republic of Texas.' The wireless announcer sounded as flummoxed as everybody else had to be. He went on, 'President Patman has brought peace to Texas, and what could be a more precious gift?'
'He's bugged out on the war, that's what he's done, the goddamn traitor son of a bitch!' Jeff Pinkard shouted, as if Patman and the announcer were there to hear him.
He remembered what Mayor Doggett had told him to do if the damnyankees got close: take his family and get the hell out in a civilian auto and civilian clothes. The advice looked a lot better now than it had then. But Raymond was tiny, and Edith still wasn't over birthing him, and…
The telephone rang. If that was Edith, and she'd listened to the wireless…'Pinkard here.'
It wasn't Edith. It was Vern Green, and he'd listened to the wireless. 'Fuck a duck!' the guard chief cried. 'What the hell are we gonna do, sir? Can we get outa here? The damnyankees'll crucify us if they catch us.'
'They're still way the hell over on the other side of the state,' Jeff said uneasily.
'All the better reason to get out now, while we still can,' Green said. 'That asshole Patman, he's surrendering to them, near as makes no difference. There'll be U.S. soldiers all over Texas fast as they can move.'
Part of Jeff said Vern Green was flabbling over nothing. There wouldn't be U.S. soldiers all over Texas no matter what-the state was too damn big for that. But there might be U.S. soldiers here at Camp Humble in the next day or two. The Yankees wanted this place closed down, and they wanted that bad.
He'd never dreamt he would have to worry about something like this. 'Anybody who wants to disappear, I
