American Front

"He was generous enough to inform me"-Lucien rolled his eyes-"the Americans are taking some of our land for the purpose of building a hospital on it. It is a safe place to do so, Major Quigley says."

Marie stamped her foot. "If he wants to build it in a safe place, why does he not put it in Father Pascal's church? No one would bring war to holy ground, is it not so?"

"That is an excellent thought," Galtier said. "Even the pious father could not disagree with it, good and Christian man that he is." He shook his head. The war was making him more cynical than he'd ever dreamt of being before it began.

"But no," Marie went on. "It must be on our good cropland. Well, I have a hope for this hospital of theirs."

"I have the same hope, I think," Lucien said. His wife looked a question his way. "I hope it is very full of Americans," he told her. She nodded, satis fied. They'd been married a long time, and thought a lot alike.

Stephen Ramsay used a makeshift periscope to look up over the parapet at the Yankee lines between Nuyaka and Beggs. If he'd stuck his head up to have a look around, some damnyankee sniper would have blown off the top of it. The Creek regiment in which Ramsay was a captain had pushed U.S. troops a few miles back from Nuyaka, but then the lines had set like concrete.

He turned the periscope this way and that. What he saw remained pretty much the same, regardless of the angle: barbed wire, some shiny and new, some rusting; firing pits for Yankee scouts; and then another trench line just like his.

Lowering the periscope -a couple of little hand mirrors mounted at the proper angles on a board-he turned to Moty Tiger and said, "Far as I can see, those damnyankee sons of bitches are here to stay."

"That's not good, sir," the Creek sergeant answered seriously. "This is our land, Creek land. If we can, we have to throw them off here. You Confeder ates have the right to be here. You are our friends. You are our allies. But we have been enemies of the United States for many generations. The Yankees do not belong here."

"I'm not going to argue with you, Sergeant," Ramsay said. "All I'm going to do is give you this here periscope and let you take a look for yourself. If that looks like a position we can rush, you tell me straight out. Go on -take a look."

Moty Tiger looked. He looked carefully -or as carefully as he could, given the limitations of the instrument. As Ramsay had before him, he lowered it. His coppery face was glum. "Doesn't look easy, Captain," he admitted.

"I didn't think so, either," Ramsay said, with more than a little relief. He'd been afraid Moty Tiger would think like a Creek before he thought like a soldier, and would feel duty-bound to try to recover every scrap of Creek terri tory regardless of the cost. He outranked his sergeant, of course, but Moty Tiger was a Creek and he wasn't. In a contest for the hearts and minds of the soldiers in the Creek Nation Army, that counted more than rank did. For that matter, Moty Tiger didn't just influence the opinions of his fellow Indians: he also reflected those opinions.

There the matter rested till late that afternoon, when Colonel Lincoln came up to the front-line trench. When Ramsay saw the regimental C.O.'s face, his heart sank. Lincoln looked thoroughly grim. He didn't say anything. Ramsay got the idea that wasn't because he didn't know anything -more likely because he knew too much, and didn't like any of it.

When Lincoln stayed quiet for more than five minutes, Ramsay, who favored the direct approach, asked him, "What's gone wrong now, sir?"

Colonel Lincoln gestured for Ramsay to walk with him. Once they got out of earshot of the men, Lincoln said, "I'll tell you what's gone wrong. Charlie Fixico's up and decided he's a goddamn general, that's what."

"LIh-oh," Ramsay said, without any great eloquence but most sincerely. "What sort of stupid, impossible thing does he have in mind for us to do?" He still thought like a sergeant, not an officer: what were generals for but ordering troops to try to do stupid, impossible things?

Lincoln was a longtime officer, but he looked to feel the same way. Point ing northeast, he answered, "He wants us to break through that Yankee line and retake Beggs."

"Jesus," Ramsay said. He'd talked Moty Tiger out of that. Talking the chief of the Creek Nation out of it wasn't going to be easy. "Why does he want to do that? Isn't he grateful we saved Okmulgee for him?"

"Not any more, he's not. That was a while ago, and politicians aren't what you'd call good at remembering," Lincoln answered. "Why? Two reasons, far as I can make out. First one is, he wants to get back the oil fields around Beggs. Second one is, it's Creek territory, it's got damnyankees on it, and he wants 'em gone. That's about what it boils down to."

"Jesus," Ramsay said again. "Doesn't he know that if we try to take those Yankee positions, we're go

"If he doesn't, it's not because I didn't tell him till I was blue in the face," Lincoln answered. "He ordered the attack to go in anyhow."

"I hope you got the Confederate corps commander to overrule him, sir," Ramsay said. "It'd be suicide, like I said."

"I went to corps headquarters, yes," Lincoln said. "They told me that if Chief Fixico wants an attack, Chief Fixico gets an attack. Two reasons, again. One is, his own men -us-are in it, so he's not asking the CSA to do all his work for him. Two is, near as I can tell, they don't want to make the Indians angry, so they go along with any requests they get. Bombardment begins tomorrow morning at 0300-supposed to chew up the barbed wire between us and them and make reaching their trenches easier. We go over the top at 0600."

"Yes, sir," Ramsay said. He couldn't think of anything else to say. He knew what was liable to happen shortly after 0600. He wasn't afraid -or not very much afraid, at any rate. What he felt was more like numbness, as if he'd been told out of the blue he'd need a surgical operation.

He went up and down the trench line, letting the men know what they'd be doing at dawn tomorrow. Some of the Creeks, especially the younger ones and the replacements who hadn't seen much action, looked excited. A couple of them let out happy yowls: war cries. Moty Tiger just glanced up at Ramsay and nodded. What was going on behind those black eyes, that impassive face? Ramsay couldn't tell.

He made sure his rifle was clean and that he had plenty of ammunition, then wrapped himself in his blanket and tried to sleep. He didn't think he would, but he did. The begi

At 0600 on the dot, the bombardment ended. Colonel Lincoln blew a whistle. "Let's go!" he shouted.

Out of the trenches swarmed the Creek Nation Army, along with Confed erate troops proper to either side of them. They went forward as fast as they could, knowing their best hope for safety was getting to the enemy front line before U.S. troopers could recover from the barrage they'd taken and reach the firing steps -and the machine guns they surely had all along the line.

The shelling had knocked aside or wrecked some of the barbed wire, but not all, or even most. First one Creek, then another, then another, got hung up in it. "Don't try and cut 'em loose," Ramsay called. "Keep moving. That's the best thing we can do." It wasn't easy. The stuff grabbed and clung and bit, so you felt as if you were moving underwater with sharks nipping you, or through a nightmare, trying without much luck to run from a monster you dared not turn around and see.