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“Beats me,” Cinci
“Shut up, both of you,” the major said. “Into the boat.” He pointed. It was a smallish motorboat with, at the moment, a Red Cross flag draped across what had to be a machine-gun mount up near the bow. Awkwardly, Cinci
The engine roared to life. The motorboat arrowed across the river to the Cinci
“Shut up! No talking!” The major had strong opinions and what seemed to be a one-track mind. He pointed to a waiting motorcar painted C.S. butternut. “Get in.”
Soldiers stood near the motorcar. The automatic rifles they carried made the submachine guns he’d seen before seem children’s toys by comparison. Their expressions said they would just as soon shoot him as look at him. He got into the auto. One of them got in beside him. “Don’t fuck with me, Sambo,” the Confederate said casually, “or you’ll never find out how the serial down at the Bijou turns out.”
“I ain’t done nothin’,” Cinci
Away went the motorcar. Cinci
“Can I look out the back window, suh, without you shootin’ me?” he asked the soldier.
After considering, the man nodded. “Hand me your stick first,” he said. “Move slow and careful. Don’t get cute, or you’ll be sorry-but not for long.”
Cinci
“Huh,” the Confederate soldier said, and then, “Looks like we’re here.”
Here was the Cinci
Most of the countryside looked normal, as if war had never touched it. Here and there, usually around towns, were patches of devastation. You could see where U.S. soldiers had stood and fought and where they’d been outflanked, outmaneuvered, and forced from their positions.
The little convoy passed through checkpoint after checkpoint. At one of them, a soldier put something on the wireless aerial to Cinci
A white flag flew from the other auto’s aerial. He supposed his motorcar carried the same flag of truce. But when he asked about it, the soldier stared through him and said, “Shut up.” He didn’t argue with an armed man.
Just before he had to ask for a stop-and just after they’d rolled through a small town called Oxford-the convoy halted on its own. “Where the hell are they?” the driver grumbled.
“They’ll be here,” said the other man in the front seat. “Ain’t like we never done this before.”
Sure enough, five minutes later another convoy of motorcars approached from the west. Those also had white flags on their wireless ante
Along with U.S. soldiers, five whites got out of the green-gray autos. Cinci
“Do Jesus!” Cinci
Sergeant Michael Pound had a new barrel. Considering what had happened to the old one, that was anything but a surprise. But this wasn’t a new barrel of the same old style. U.S. engineers had rapidly figured out they needed to do something about the fearsome new machine the Confederates had introduced. Their answer was… not everything it might have been, but a damn sight better than no change at all.
The chassis hadn’t changed much. The engine was of similar design to the old one, but put out an extra fifty horsepower. That was all to the good, because the new barrel was heavier, and needed the extra muscle to shove it around.
Almost all the weight gain came from the new turret. It was bigger than the old one. Its armor was thicker and better sloped. And it had been upgu
And the 60mm gun was absolutely the biggest one that would fit on the turret ring of the old chassis. A new, improved body took a lot longer to turn out than a reworked turret. The Confederates must have been pla
“Ugly beast,” Pound said, laying a hand on its armored flank. He didn’t see how anybody could argue with that. The new turret went with the old chassis about the way a rhino’s head went with a cow’s body. Everything on the Confederates’ new barrels fit together with everything else. They had a grim, functional beauty. The Mark 1.5 was just grim.
“Well, Sergeant, Featherston’s fuckers will think it’s ugly, too, especially after it bites them a few times.” That was Cecil Bergman, Pound’s new loader. He was a ski
“That’s a fact. The new gun will make them sit up and take notice. About time, too,” Pound said. “Maybe we have a chance of holding them out of Pittsburgh now. Maybe.” He sounded anything but convinced.
He sounded that way because he was unconvinced. The U.S. Army hadn’t been able to stop the latest Confederate push, any more than it had been able to stop the Confederate drive up through Ohio the summer before. If you couldn’t stop the enemy, how the devil were you supposed to win the war? Pound saw no way.
He could have elaborated on the many failings of the U.S. War Department, but Bergman hissed at him and jerked a thumb off to the left. “Here comes the lieutenant,” he warned.