The Grapple

A salvo of those newfangled rockets screamed in from the south. Morrell just had time to duck down into the turret and slam the cupola hatch shut before the rockets burst. Blast rocked the barrel. It could flip even one of these heavy machines right over. It could, but it didn’t this time. Fragments clanged off armor.

“Son of a bitch!” Frenchy Bergeron said. “Those fuckers are no fun at all.”

“Right the first time,” Morrell told the gu

Another salvo of rockets came down, this one a little farther away. “God help the poor infantry,” Bergeron remarked. Morrell nodded. For plastering a wide area with firepower, those rockets were world-beaters. Bergeron went on, “How many of them have they got, anyway?”

“Good question,” Morrell said. “Best answer I’ve got is, not enough to stop us.” He hoped he was telling the truth. Somewhere in Alabama or Texas or Georgia, the CSA had factories working overtime to turn out the rockets and their launchers, though the latter were simplicity itself: just iron tubing and sheet metal. But the more rockets the Confederates made, the less of something else they turned out. Bullets? Automatic rifles? Barrel tracks? Ca

Things had worked that way in the Great War, anyhow. The United States ought to have a bigger edge this time, because the Confederates were persecuting their Negroes instead of using them. But industrialized agriculture and factory efficiency were both a lot further along than they were a generation earlier. Farms and factories kept fewer men away from the field than they had.

The bow machine gun on Morrell’s barrel fired a quick burst. “Scratch one!” the gu

Cinci

One of the other truck drivers still in the hand dropped out. The last driver raised a dollar himself. Cinci

Now the other man-a white-eyed him. He tossed in one more dollar of his own. “Call,” he said.

“Three jacks.” Cinci

He’d just started to deal when artillery, a lot of artillery, roared not far away. All the men in the card game cocked their heads to one side, listening. “Ours,” one of them said. The rest nodded, Cinci

“Don’t sound like they’re dicking around,” said the fellow who’d held three eights. He was a wiry little guy named Izzy Saperstein. He had a beard so thick he shaved twice a day and the most hair in his nose and ears Cinci

“Put on a bigger barrage earlier,” another driver said. “Made the bastards in butternut keep their heads down and made sure they wouldn’t move soldiers west. Chances are this is more of the same.”

“Maybe.” Saperstein scratched his ear. With that tuft sprouting from it, he likely itched all the time. Cinci

They played for another couple of hours, while the guns boomed and bellowed. None of them got excited about that. They’d all heard plenty of gunfire before. As long as nothing was coming down on their heads, they didn’t flabble. Cinci

He was up about fifteen bucks when a U.S. captain stuck his head into the tent. “Go to your trucks now, men,” he said. “Head for the depot and load up. We’ve crossed the Ohio, and our boys’ll need everything we can bring ’em.”

“Crossed the Ohio? Here?” Izzy Saperstein sounded amazed.

Cinci

“Thanks, Driver, but no,” the captain answered. “We’re going to skirt the town, pen up the enemy garrison inside, and clean it out at our leisure. Now get moving.”

Only one possible answer to that. Cinci

A self-starter was so handy. A touch of a button and the motor came to life. He remembered cranking trucks in the Great War. That was even more fun in the rain-and if your hand slipped, the crank would spin backwards and maybe break your arm. He didn’t have to worry about that now. No-all he needed to worry about was getting shot or incinerated or blown sky-high. Happy day, he thought.

Soldiers with dollies filled the back of the truck with crates of God knew what. Ammunition, he guessed by the way the truck settled on its springs. “Go get ’em, Pop!” one of the young white men yelled to him. Cinci

The truck convoy rumbled south, toward the river. With so much weight in the rear, Cinci

Every so often, incoming shells burst. Think what you would about the men who followed Jake Featherston, but they had no quit in them. Wherever they could hit back, they did.

“This way! This way!” A sergeant with wigwag flags directed the trucks toward slab-sided boats plainly made to cross rivers no matter what the unpleasant people on the other bank had to say about it. Cinci

“All the way forward!” a sailor told him. “We hold two trucks, by God.” Cinci

Another truck followed his into the ungainly boat. It didn’t quite have to bump his machine to let the boat’s crew raise the ramp and dog it shut. “Do I leave my motor on?” Cinci