Featherston was glumly certain they wouldn't keep Hanover long. With the chunk of land they'd carved out of Yankee territory being nibbled away at the base, they'd have to keep moving back toward Washington, and smartly, or the U.S. soldiers would cut them off. But they couldn't just skedaddle, not unless they wanted endless grief from the damnyankees who'd halted them at the Susquehanna.
Scott Said, "If things had gone the way they were supposed to, we'd have been in Philadelphia a long time ago."
"Yeah, and if pigs had wings, we'd all carry umbrellas," Featherston replied with a snort. "When you've been through even a little more fighting, kid, you're going to see that things just don't go the way they're supposed to. The Yanks, they've got their own set of supposed-to's, and what we get is what's left over when ours bump up against theirs."
The loader nodded respectfully. Not only was Featherston a sergeant, he was that even more exalted creature, a veteran. The combination gave his views an authority few mortals could claim.
More hoof beats: here came Pompey, mounted on one of Captain Stuart's fine horses. "Captain's compliments, Sergeant," he said in his syrupy voice, "an' we gonna go into battery by that slate quarry over yonder." He pointed off to the west of the road.
"All right," Featherston said shortly. He still didn't care for the way Stuart used the Negro to relay orders, but however much authority he might seem to have to Michael Scott, to the battery commander he was just another non-com who did what he was told. Pompey rode on to give the rest of the guns in the battery the word.
Jake admitted to himself that Stuart had picked a good spot in which to deploy the howitzers. They were only a couple of miles back of Codorus Creek, in good position to pound the Yankees when they approached the line the Confederates were creating. Better yet, piles of spoil from the mine offered fine cover for the guns, and Negroes were already busy digging firing pits to protect them even better.
As Featherston supervised the emplacement of his own howitzer, Captain Stuart rode up himself. Featherston saluted. Stuart watched the black men in butternut tunics of simpler, baggier cut than soldiers wore. With a sly grin, he said, "Got yourself a whole ready-made gun crew this time, in case the one the government issued you goes down."
"Uh, yes, sir," Jake said, a little nervously. He still wasn't happy about having used Nero and Perseus as fighting men. Nobody else was happy about it, either, except possibly the two Negroes-and their opinion didn't count. What the reaction of the brass amounted to was that Featherston had done what he'd had to do, and it was too damn bad he'd had to do it. That was pretty much how he felt about it himself.
Stuart swung down off the horse and tied the reins to a sapling. "What really makes life difficult is that you put the niggers on the guns right after that Major Potter came sniffing around with all his crazy talk about every other nigger in the army being a damned Red. Would you believe it, he wanted to take Pompey away for questioning."
"Is that a fact, sir?" Featherston said, in tones he devoutly hoped were un- revealing. He, after all, had been the one who'd suggested Pompey could do with some investigating.
"It is indeed." Jeb Stuart III kicked at the ground to show his indignation. It wasn't aimed at Jake, from which he concluded Stuart didn't know who mistrusted his supercilious servant. "I had to get hold of my father back in the War Department, and he had to do some pretty plain talking to the Army of Northern Virginia Intelligence before they turned Pompey loose. When those people question somebody, he's lucky if he comes out of it in one piece, especially if he's a nigger."
Ever since the days of Robert E. Lee, Confederates had used those people, spoken in a particular tone of voice, as a euphemism for the enemy. Featherston had never heard it used that way to mean part of the Confederate Army, not till now. He hoped he didn't hear it used that way again for another fifty or sixty years.
So Jeb Stuart, Jr., had saved Pompey from the tender mercies of Army Intelligence, had he? If Pompey wasn't any more than an ordinary black servant stuck up beyond his station because of whom he served, that was fine. If Pompey was a snake in the grass, it was anything but fine. But how were you sup posed to know which if you didn't try to find out?
"Pompey's family has been with my family since my great-grandfather's day," the captain said. "He'd be loyal to the Stuarts before he'd join up with a pack of Red revolutionaries just because they have black skins."
Featherston didn't answer. Arguing with your superior had no future in it. Arguing with your superior when he was also in the third generation of a leading Confederate military family had less than no future.
And, in any case, he had enough other things to do. Making sure the gun was sited as well as it could be, making sure the wheel brakes were set and the spade on the end of the trail dug into the ground, making sure there was a good, thick earthen rampart between the ammunition and the crew so a lucky shell hit wouldn't-or might not-blow them all to Jesus… all that took time and work.
As he readied the position, he kept peering over the creek, looking for the caterpillar ripples on the distant ground that marked advancing Yankee infantry. Sure enough, here they came. Larger dots punctuating the ripples were horses. Cavalry, Featherston thought, with a mixture of respect for their courage and scorn for their uselessness.
Then the dots peeled off. They know better than to get their precious horses — and their precious selves — too close to the machine guns, Jake thought. Poor dears might get hurt. Cavalry would charge, though, when ordered. After staring a moment, he recognized the pattern the horses were forming.
"That's not cavalry!" he shouted. "That's field artillery."
Jeb Stuart III came trotting up beside him. He nodded as he stuck a brass telescope up to his eye. "Field artillery, sure as hell," he agreed. "I make the range about two and a half miles-say, four thousand yards for starters. Let's give them a hello, shall we?"
He started bawling for the whole battery. Featherston handled his gun. It was the second one of the battery to open up. The shell fell a couple of hundred yards short of the U.S. field gun. The next shell, a few seconds later, was long. After that, they started landing in the right general area. You put enough shells in the right general area, you did damage. The Yanks had probably figured they could get their battery into position and into action before the retreating Confederates were ready to reply. They'd made a mistake there, and they were going to pay for it.
The U.S. battery did get a few shots off, shells crashing down on the trench line behind Codorus Creek. But that kind of nuisance firing went on every day of the war. It was hardly worth noticing, even by the Negro labourers, who were more flighty than soldiers when it came to being on the receiving end of bullets. Since they couldn't shoot back, Jake found it hard to blame them for that.
He glanced over to Nero and Perseus. They stood by the horses, and were plainly ready to dive into the foxhole if the damnyankees started hurling shells at the battery. They'd shot back. Featherston hoped to high heaven they'd never have to do it again.
After a few minutes, the U.S. field guns couldn't stand the heat from deploying out in the open. They started moving again, this time against the tide of the advancing U.S. infantry. "So long!" Featherston shouted at them. "Tell your mama what it's like when you really have to work for a living." His gun crew yelled and waved their hats. At Captain Stuart's orders, they started pouring shells into the foot soldiers approaching the creek.
They worked a formidable slaughter among them, too, but a couple of hours later they had to abandon their position and pull back another mile or two: somewhere farther west, the Yankees had forced a crossing of the creek.