“We can take those bastards,” Rhodes said.
Chester Martin nodded. “Yes, sir. I think we can, too. Won’t be too easy, won’t be too cheap, but we can do it.”
The company commander turned and looked west. “We ought to be cleaning out the rest of Tennessee, too, so we don’t have such a narrow front here. We can sure as hell do that. Even now, the Confederates have a devil of a time getting men and materiel from east to west.”
“Yes, sir,” Chester said again. “That’s how Nashville fell-almost an afterthought, you might say.”
“Sure.” Rhodes grinned. “Goddamn big afterthought, wasn’t it? But you’re right, Sergeant. Once we pushed past to the east, once we got over the Cumberland, Nashville stopped mattering so much. The Confederates had bigger worries closer to home. So they pulled out and let us march in, and they tried to hold Chattanooga instead.”
Chester looked back over his shoulder toward the city Captain Rhodes had named. “And they couldn’t do that, either,” he said happily.
“Nope.” Rhodes sounded pretty happy, too. “They’re like a crab-they’ve got claws that pinch, and a hard shell to go with it. But once you crack ’em, there’s nothing but meat inside.”
“Sounds good to me-except the meat in our rations is better than the horrible tinned beef they use,” Martin said. “Even they call it Dead Donkey. But their smokes are still good.” He took a pack of Dukes out of his pocket and offered it to Rhodes. “Want some?”
“Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.” The company CO took one, lit it, and started to hand the pack back.
“Keep it,” Chester said. “I’ve got plenty. Lots of dead Confederates these days, and lots of POWs who don’t need cigarettes any more.”
“Thanks,” Rhodes repeated, and stuck the pack in his shirt pocket. He took a drag, blew it out, and then shook his head. “Hate to pay you back for your kindness this way, Chester, but I don’t know what I can do about it.”
“What’s going on?” Chester grew alert. It wasn’t the same sort of alertness he used around the enemy, but your own side could screw you, too.
“Well, I hear repple-depple’s coughed up a shiny new second looey for us, so I’m afraid you’re going to lose your platoon,” Rhodes said.
“Oh.” Martin weighed that. It stung, but not too much. “I’ll live. When they made me a first sergeant after I reupped, I figured they’d have me breaking in shavetails. I’ve had some practice by now. I think I’m halfway decent at it.”
“Fine.” Rhodes set a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got a good attitude. I’m glad you’re not getting pissy about it.”
“Life is too short.” On the battlefield, Chester had seen how literally true that was.
Second Lieutenant Boris Lavochkin turned out not to be what he expected. Oh, he was young. The only second lieutenants who weren’t young were men up from the ranks, and they didn’t need a graying first sergeant to ramrod them. Lavochkin was squat and fair and tough-looking, with the meanest, palest eyes Chester Martin had ever seen.
“You’re going to show me the ropes, are you?” the youngster asked.
“That’s the idea, sir.” Martin sounded more cautious than he’d thought he would.
“And you’ve done what to earn the right?” Lieutenant Lavochkin seemed serious.
“I lived through the Great War. I ran a company for a while. I’ve seen a good bit of action this time around, too…sir.”
Those icy eyes measured Chester like calipers. “Maybe.” Lavochkin took off his helmet to scratch his head. When he did, he showed Chester a long, straight scar above his left ear.
“You got hit, sir?” Chester said. That had to be why Lavochkin was coming out of the replacement depot.
He shrugged broad shoulders. “Only a crease. You’ve been wounded, too?”
“Once in the arm, once in the leg. You were lucky, getting away with that one.”
“If I was lucky, the shithead would have missed me.” Lavochkin peered south. “Give me the situation in front of us. I want to lead a raid, let the men see I’ll go where they go. They need to know I’m in charge now.”
A lot of shavetails wouldn’t have been, even with the rank to give orders. Lavochkin…Lavochkin was a leader, a fighter, a dangerous man. He’d go places-unless he stopped a bullet. But they all took that chance.
“Sir, maybe you’d better check with Captain Rhodes before we go raiding,” Chester said.
Lavochkin scowled. That made him look like an even rougher customer than he had before. In the end, though, he nodded. “I’ll do that,” he said.
Rhodes came up to Chester a couple of hours later, a small, bemused smile on his face. He glanced around to make sure the new lieutenant wasn’t anywhere close by before remarking, “Looks like we’ve got a tiger by the tail.”
“Yes, sir. I thought so, too,” Martin said. “You going to turn him loose?”
“I sure am,” the company commander answered. “He needs to find out what he can do, and so do we. And if things go wrong, well, you’ve got your platoon again, that’s all.”
“If I come back,” Chester said. “I’m not gonna let him take my guys out by himself. I’m going, too.”
Lieutenant Lavochkin didn’t like that. “I don’t need you to hold my hand, Sergeant.”
“I’m not doing it to hold your hand, sir,” Chester said evenly. “I’m doing it for my men.”
“In case I don’t cut it?”
“Yes, sir.” Martin didn’t beat around the bush.
Lavochkin gave him one of those singularly malignant stares. Chester just looked back. The young officer tossed his head. “Well, come on, then. We’ll see who learns something.”
The raid went in a little before midnight. Lavochkin knew enough to smear mud on his face to darken it. He carried a captured Confederate submachine gun along with the usual officer’s.45. He also had a Great War trench knife on his belt. Was he showing off, or had he been in some really nasty places before he got hurt? We’ll find out, Chester thought.
Lavochkin moved quietly. The Confederate machine-gun nest ahead sat on a small rise, but brush screened one approach most of the way up. Chester would have gone at it from that direction, too. Lavochkin slid forward as if he could see in the dark.
Suddenly, he stopped moving. “They’ve got wire, the bastards,” he said. He didn’t ask for a wire-cutter-he had one. A couple of soft twangs followed. “This way-stay low.” Chester flattened out like a toad under the wheels of a deuce-and-a-half. He got through.
Before long, he could hear the Confederates at the machine gun talking. He could smell their tobacco smoke, and see the glow of a cigarette coal. They had no idea U.S. soldiers were in the neighborhood.
“Everybody ready?” Lavochkin whispered. No one denied it. Chester was close enough to the lieutenant to see him nod. “All right, then,” he said. “At my signal, we take ’em. Remember, we want prisoners, but shoot first if you’re in trouble. Runnels, scoot over to the left like we planned.”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier said softly. He was little and skinny; Lavochkin had picked the right guy for quiet scooting. He’s a prick, but I think he knows what he’s doing, Chester thought.
Lavochkin’s signal was nothing if not dramatic. He pulled the pin from a grenade and tossed it about halfway between Runnels and the Confederate position. As soon as it burst, Runnels, who carried a captured automatic rifle, fired several quick rounds.
Naturally, the Confederates in the machine-gun nest started shooting at the noise and muzzle flashes. Chester saw the flame spurting from their weapons. He hoped Runnels was all right. He hoped he would be all right himself, too, because he was up and running for the enemy entrenchment as fast as he could go.
Runnels squeezed off another burst to keep Featherston’s men thinking about him and nobody else. He yelled like a wild man, too. The deception worked just the way Lieutenant Lavochkin hoped it would. The Confederates didn’t notice the footfalls of the onrushing U.S. soldiers till the men in green-gray were right on top of them. Martin heard a startled, “What the fuck?” as one of the machine gunners tried to swing his piece around.