Alternate Generals II

"At 'em, boys," Smedley shouted, leaping to his feet and charging across the hillside. The remaining Turks broke, fleeing downhill. Men with Springfields dropped to cover and picked off any of the crowd who moved toward them.

Butler ordered the riflemen to fix their long bayonets to the Springfields and circle the truck. The Thompson gu

Butler turned to the sultan and spoke as Halim translated. "Your Majesty, I need you and your men to sit in the center of the truck. You will be safer." Mehmet nodded, and accepted help from two marines as he climbed aboard the truck, followed by his party. Halim climbed into the cab beside Cooper, who drove.

"All right, we go through the crowd to the bridge. Bayonets circle the truck, but stay close. Thompson gu

Butler jumped onto the ru

The crowd parted reluctantly before the line of bayonets and the threatening muzzles of the BAR and Thompsons. The truck moved as if it were a boat parting a sea of people. A shot slammed into the side of the truck, slashing splinters into a marine's face and spi

"On the roof."

A Springfield fired once and a figure fell from the crenellated brick tower at the end of the railroad terminal. The crowd pulled back as Butler's party passed the station. The plaza stretching to the Galata Bridge was empty, except for a dozen bodies. But the mob was thick in the streets feeding toward the bridge, like tributary rivers pouring toward the sea. The truck neared the bridge, blocking the marines ma

"Thompsons!" Butler shouted.

The bursts of gunfire shattered against the cobbles, sending shards of stone and bullets like a scythe into the mob, which shuddered and fell back. Rocks landed amongst the marines on the ground, and a man dropped, clutching his head. Butler handed his Thompson to Cooper and jumped to the ground. He grabbed the fallen Springfield as two marines hoisted the wounded man into the back of the truck.

Major Shaw ran up as the unwounded marines leapt from the truck. "Glad you made it, General. Where's the sultan?"

Butler nodded to the vehicle accelerating toward Galata. Rifle fire thunked into the bails of cargo and the crowd surged forward. "Charges ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"Pull back, Major."

The marines dropped back in groups, moving, covering their fellows, moving again. Butler stayed with the last team, thrusting his bayonet into an Ottoman policeman who climbed the barrier. Rounds fired from behind him dropped more of the mob, and Smedley was halfway across the wide bridge. Shots from the crowd smashed one of the elegant street lamps lining the bridge, sending fragments of its crescent moon knifing into a marine, who staggered on to safety.

As Smedley crossed the far end of the bridge, the heavy water-cooled Brownings swept death toward Stamboul. The crowd dissolved an instant before explosions slapped across the water, flame and smoke rising from the center of the bridge.

John Pershing stood on the deck of the cruiserGalveston, watching the sun set behind the city, turning the water of the Horn golden again. A small group of Turkish officers stood on the Galata dock, a Turkish flag flying from a car behind them. Pershing saluted. "Fire a twenty-one-gun salute for the new republic, Captain, and for Mustafa Kemal."

My thanks to Vince Kohler for suggesting the story and to Chris Bunch for kicking me until I finished it.

Southern Strategy

Michael F. Fly

The day is cruel hot, and the asphalt road shimmers in the distance, as if molten. The car has become an oven. Sweat beads and drips on forehead; clothing sags and clings. Stevenson has turned the wing window to blow air on his face as he drives, but it helps only a little, and brings with it the cloying scents of honeysuckle and marigold and rich, black loam. Telephone poles snap by. He swings around a flatbed piled high with cotton bales and pulled by a battered old John Deere. The driver is white and does not look especially happy.

Stevenson pulls a handkerchief from his pants pocket and mops his face. Cypress shrouded with Spanish moss crowds in on both sides, encroaching on the road, growing up even through the soft asphalt, so that he seems to be driving through an all-devouring jungle. Then the foliage opens out unexpectedly, revealing mean little farmsteads with tumbledown shanties and battered old trucks up on blocks. Some properties are overgrown with briars and brambles where darkie sharecroppers have been cleared off the year before. Good land, but the owner is terrified of selling and the neighbors even more terrified of squatting.

Later, Stevenson comes to a checkpoint, and the reason why the neighbors run scared. The land here has been cleared, too; but more expertly, to provide a killing field. Three cars wait while the soldier inspects their papers. Somewhere hidden from the road a machine gun nest guards the sentry. The soldier makes a tempting target and looks as if he knows it. The machine gun will do him little good if circumstances ever call upon it. Stevenson tries to put the lad at ease by smiling a little when it comes his turn, though perhaps it is the tired, middle-aged look that causes the young man to untense.

"Papieren," he says. Nobitte, but he is no more unfriendly than any Hun demanding an American's travel permit. By its very nature, the act constitutes an offense. Stevenson tries not to show it, but his eyes may narrow just a little. This is America, after all, even if only Alabama.

The sentry studies the travel papers, his lips moving slowly. Sweat pours from under his coal-scuttle helmet. He's probably thinking about the water cooler in the guard shack, or a beer later in the barracks. Stevenson glances in his rearview mirror and sees no cars behind him on the long, black road.

Finally the sentry makes a decision. Perhaps it is thirst. Perhaps it is, with no more cars to stop, a desire for a bit of diversion. He waves Stevenson over to a small apron tamped down in the earth beside the road. "Fahr hin!" And when Stevenson hesitates, adds more peremptorily, "Dort druben."

Stevenson sighs. There is no point pretending incomprehension. Everyone knowsgehen andkommen andpapieren. AndHalt, oder ich schie?e! And if you don't understand, the Germans don't care anyway. Things are not much better in the French zone; and some of the Triple Monarchy troops-the Serbs, especially-could be downright nasty. Even the English follow the German lead. Perhaps they still nurture resentment from the Great War, over American troops that never came.

Stevenson parks the car by the guardhouse and follows the sentry inside the small, wooden shelter. An officer sits at a desk there reading some papers. In a photograph on the wall behind him, young Frederick William poses with his new EnglishKaiserin, Elizabeth Wettin-Windsor, the niece of the British king, who bears the wistful look of all dynastic brides. The sentry raps on the doorjamb. "Wir Besuch haben, Herr Leutnant," he says with some humor. "Es gibt der Ma

The officer sits up and stares with cool eyes, but Stevenson senses curiosity or indifference rather than hostility. "Sit down, senator," the man says at last, indicating a rickety wooden chair. "This will take not long if you cooperate."