The Grapple

Had the engine caught fire, he would have had to abandon the truck and make for the woods to the right. He would also have had to pray Confederates didn’t infest them, too. For the moment, though, the truck wasn’t burning.

A couple of wounded drivers cried out in pain. Other men, like Cinci

Can they be that smart and that dumb at the same time? Cinci

Confederate soldiers probably would have reasoned the same way he did. The men in the woods turned out not to be soldiers. They were amateurs, bushwhackers, guerrillas. They cared about the trucks, yes, but they wanted to kill people, too. Once they’d peppered the trucks with bullets, set some on fire, and flattened a lot of tires, they loped forward to deal with the drivers.

They must have thought they’d killed and wounded more men than they had. That was the only thing Cinci

They never got that close. One of the drivers had a Springfield, not a.45. He fired from behind a tire, worked the bolt, and fired again. Two guerrillas fell. The others started spraying lead as if it were going out of style.

The drivers fired back. They didn’t want the bushwhackers to concentrate on the man with the best weapon. Cinci

Several bullets came too close to Cinci

In the films about fighting Indians on the Great Plains, the cavalry always charged over the hill in the last reel. It wasn’t the cavalry this time. It was an armored car and two command cars that carried.50-caliber machine guns. As soon as the U.S. soldiers in them got a look at what was going on, they hosed the irregulars down with gunfire. The men who fought for the Confederacy broke and flew toward the woods. Not many of them got there.

Even then, the bushwhackers didn’t give up. The machine gun hidden among the trees started shooting at the oncoming vehicles. The armored car didn’t need to worry about that, but the thin-ski

Somebody in one of the command cars or the armored car must have used the wireless, because four or five fighter-bombers roared in and dropped their presents on the stand of trees. Cinci

He didn’t want to get out from behind his tire even after the armored car took up a position between the woods and the shattered convoy. Nobody could call him a cowardly coon, either, not when the white drivers also stayed right where they were.

A soldier got out of one of the command cars for a closer look at a dead irregular. A bullet from the woods made him throw himself flat. The armored car and the command car lashed the trees with machine-gun rounds. Another defiant bullet clanged off the armored car’s turret.

Nobody went anywhere till more trucks brought soldiers forward, some to clear the woods and others, engineers, to get rid of the rest of the mines the bushwhackers had planted. After that, still more trucks had to come up to salvage what the Kentuckians hadn’t destroyed-and to pick up the drivers.

“I’m getting too old for this shit,” one of them said wearily as he climbed into the back of a deuce-and-a-half.

“I was too old for this shit a long time ago,” Cinci

“On account of you’re a damn fool,” the other driver said. Before Cinci

The front lay just north of Winchester. Cinci

He got a new truck that afternoon, and a new assignment. The kid lieutenant in the motor pool gave him a dubious look. “You sure you’re up for this, Gramps?” he said.

“It’s go

“That’s the idea, yeah,” the lieutenant answered.

“Then I’m up for it,” Cinci

After another pause, the lieutenant-he was younger than Cinci

“I do,” Cinci

“Fair enough. I can see why,” the lieutenant said. “Good luck.”

Cinci

He was also a long way from any place where bullets flew. His uniform was clean. It was even pressed. “Sorry to disoblige you, Sergeant,” Cinci

“You gotta lotta noive, talkin’ t’me that way,” the sergeant growled. “Who do you think you are?”

“I’m an uppity nigger tryin’ to kick Jake Featherston’s raggedy ass,” Cinci

The noncom’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. “You can’t talk to me like that. You can’t, you hear? Tell me your name. I’m go

“I’m Cinci

“You want to put him on report, put us all on report,” a white driver said. “He just told you what everybody was thinking. I’m Hal Williamson. Write it down.”

“Bruce Donovan,” another driver said. Everybody in the convoy gave the quartermaster sergeant his name. Somebody in the back of the crowd added, “You sad, sorry chickenshit asshole.”

“That does it! That fuckin’ does it!” the sergeant shouted. “Youse guys have had it.” He stormed off and returned a few minutes later with a captain in tow. “Listen to these wiseguys, sir!”

Cinci

After listening to them, the captain turned to his sergeant and said, “Take an even strain, Ca

“But, sir-” Sergeant Ca