American Front

"Christ!" Altogether involuntarily, Carsten turned away from his viewing slit. One shell from the salvo hadn't landed by a destroyer, but on it. The ship might suddenly have rammed headlong into a brick wall. In an instant, it went from a yappy little terrier leading the fleet into action to a pile of floating-or rather, rapidly sinking-wreckage.

"A lot of good men there," Hiram Kidde said, as if carving an epitaph on a headstone. So, in a way, he was.

The Dakota began to zigzag violently at what seemed like random intervals. Armored against such shells, it could take far more punishment than a thin-ski

"Wish you hadn't said that," Hoskins told him. The grin the gu

Sam Carsten made himself look some more. A few men in life jackets bobbed in the water near the stricken destroyer. He hoped they'd get picked up before the sharks found them.

He raised his gaze to Oahu ahead. Shells slammed down around the forts holding the coast-defense guns. Smoke and dust rose in great clouds. But the guns kept pounding back in answer. And more smoke rose from within the sheltered waters of Pearl Harbor, smoke that did not spring from shells. Carsten said, "I think they're go

"They're in a bad way," Kidde said, relishing the prospect. "They can't just sit there and take it, but if they come out, we're going to cross the T on 'em."

Sure enough, one of the Dakota's zigs to port became a full turn, so that she presented her whole ten-gun broadside to the emerging British warships, which could reply only with their forward-facing ca

"Hit!" everybody screamed at once as gouts of smoke spurted from a stricken British vessel, and then again, a moment later, "Hit!"

The ships of the Royal Navy were firing back; across blue water, orange flame and black smoke belched from the muzzles of their guns. And their gu

"Wish I could see what was happening on the port beam," Carsten said. "Have they bracketed us?"

"Sam, is that somethin' you really want to know?" Kidde asked him. After a moment, Carsten shook his head. If they put one salvo in front of you and one behind, the next one came down right on top of you.

"We in range for our piece yet, 'Cap'n'?" Hoskins asked.

"Not quite, but we're gettin' there," the gu

Now, though, all Carsten could do was stare out to sea and wait for his turn. It bothered him less than he'd thought it would. Out there were the transports with the soldiers and Marines. If they all landed safely, the Sandwich Islands would fly the Stars and Stripes. The odds looked good.

"Hell of a start," he muttered.

The dandy up from Charleston studied the painting with a curious and critical eye. His pose was so languid and exquisite, A

She brushed back a lock of pale gold hair that was tickling her cheek. "I can think of several," she said. Starting with, why are you here at Marshlands while both my brothers have gone to serve their country? But to say that out loud would have been impolite and, however often she flouted the code of a Confederate gentlewoman, she still adhered to some of it. And so, not a hint of worry showed in her voice as she went on, "Which ones cross your mind, Mr. Forbes?"

Alfred Forbes pointed to the canvas he had been examining. "First and foremost, hanging that sense-stretching cubist portrait and all these other pieces from Picasso and Duchamp and Gauguin and Braque and the other moderns here in this hall strikes me as making contrast enough all by itself." He examined the painting once more, then gri

"Quite sure," A

"No doubt, no doubt," Forbes said. Now his smile was somewhere between speculative and predatory. "But even should I have been so ungallant as to doubt, I could point out that yesterday's avant-garde is tomorrow's-" He checked himself.

"Yes?" A

"Tomorrow's treasured tradition, I was about to say," he replied. He'd probably been about to say something like tomorrow's crashing bore, but he'd managed to find something better. His blue eyes were so wide and i

She said, "Supposing that to be a contrast"-it was one that had amused her ever since she'd arranged to bring the sampler of the best of modern painting from Paris to the Confederacy-"what other odd juxtapositions do you find?"

"That you chose to hold the show here, among others," Alfred Forbes answered. "Worthy though St. Matthews is, it hardly ranks with Richmond or Charleston or New Orleans or even Columbia"-that, a Low Country man's dig at the decidedly Up Country capital of South Carolina-"as a center of cultural advancement."

"It does now," A

Forbes laughed out loud, showing off even white teeth. "Not likely! The next progressive Yankee I know of will be the first. When the USA ships in art from abroad, it's fat German singers in brass unmentionables bellowing about the Rhine while the orchestra does its level best to drown them out- presumably not in the said river."

A

"Which brings me to yet another contrast," Forbes said: "how long the exhibition was supposed to stay on these shores and how long it may actually be here. Wouldn't want these paintings sunk."

"No, though a Yankee ship captain would likely boast of having rid the world of them." A