He stopped and realized his words bouncing back at him from the far wall were doing so across a sombre, heavy … expectant silence.
My God, maybe I misjudged the mood of my men.
‘Who’s with me?’
The ground between the command bunker and trench suddenly erupted with a deafening roar of whooping, ragged voices he was sure must have been heard by Devereau’s men on the far side of the river.
He fired his sidearm into the sky, again and again, until the magazine was empty and its click was lost in the deafening cacophony. All the while as he grinned and cheered, he desperately hoped he could make good on his promise that the Alabama boys of the 11th at the north end of Manhattan and the 7th beyond were already signed up to the idea of this rebellion and ready to stand together with them.
Whether they were or not, though, he realized there was no turning back now.
Devereau nodded. Smiled. The men’s cheering voices reverberated through the ruins of the factory. He hadn’t been certain his men were ready to take such a drastic step as this … to extend a hand of kinship across the river to the Confederates. He had only suspected, perhaps even hoped, that they might feel the same way as him.
But looking at them now, jubilant faces, every man roaring a huzzah of support.
We could actually do this.
He turned to look at Maddy and Becks. Maddy was grinning and giving him a big thumbs-up.
Really … we could actually do this.
Perhaps this mutiny could achieve so much more than merely buying time for these two mysterious young time travellers to fix their machine. Devereau was still not entirely sure he could believe what they’d told him. Despite all the images and gadgets they’d shown him, it felt too unreal. Too much like a wish or a dream that would vanish the moment you reached out for it. Regardless … the wheel was turning. The die already cast. Time travel and alternative histories, whether that really existed or not, here was a very real chance for everything to be changed.
Perhaps this rebellion might really spread along the entire length of the front line like a virus: tens … hundreds of thousands of soldiers, North and South turning round and confronting their foreign puppet-masters. Even if Miss Carter’s assurance that she could rewrite this unhappy history was to come to nothing, the mutiny by itself might just bring this eternal war to an end.
Devereau found himself joining in. A cry roared from his throat in unison with his men. The noise filled his ears, made them ring. And what a wonderful deafening roaring noise it was; it sounded like the cascade of water, a dam crumbling beneath the weight of millions of tons, energy unleashed. A dreadnought train approaching … a storm front descending. It sounded like walls tumbling, liberty bells chiming, government buildings being stormed.
It sounded like a revolution.
It sounded like hope.
CHAPTER 62. 2001, New York
‘Ma’am, you are but a lady! My men are perfectly capable of attacking and taking that communications bunker.’
‘Negative,’ cut in Becks. ‘The communications bunker will contain sensitive equipment that could be damaged by a conventional assault. We cannot allow that risk. I suggest an alternative strategy.’
Wainwright was rather taken aback by the young lady’s somewhat forthright manner.
‘What, then?’
‘How many British troops garrison the structure?’ she asked.
Wainwright shrugged. ‘Usually it is two sections: twenty … thirty men, no more.’
Becks turned to Maddy. ‘That is acceptable.’
The pair of them had only just crossed the river on Devereau’s motor launch. Off the back of the boat a couple of Northern soldiers had been unspooling a big drum of insulated communications cable and, as they stood now just outside Wainwright’s command bunker, communications officers from each side were debating how best to feed the cable inside and wire it up to permit a direct line between both colonels. As Maddy had been quick to say, their uprising was going to live or die on the strength of how effectively the two colonels communicated.
‘You think you can take it on your own?’ asked Maddy.
‘Affirmative. I calculate a higher probability of success without significant equipment damage than —’ she cast a gaze at the half-strength company of soldiers Wainwright had assembled for the job — ‘than these —’
Maddy waved her silent before she blurted anything that might sound rude.
‘Becks is very special,’ said Maddy quickly. ‘She’s not just a pretty face.’
Wainwright frowned. ‘Ma’am, I appreciate you come from a very different time to ours, but the arithmetic of the situation is still the same: twenty-four armed and well-trained British soldiers in there, and you expect one young lady is going to —’
‘Becks is a combat unit.’
Wainwright looked at her, frowning, stroking his chin. ‘A what?’
‘She’s a genetically engineered human with a silicon-wafer processor brain. She’s extremely tough, extremely strong and extremely quick. In short, she’s something of a killing machine.’
The colonel eyed her up and down. ‘Are you telling me this young lady is not —’
‘Not human.’ Maddy shrugged. ‘Not really.’
His eyes suddenly widened. ‘My God!’ he gasped. ‘Do you mean to say she’s a … a eugenic?’
Maddy shook her head. ‘I’m not really sure what those are, but I guess the best way to think of her is as an organic robot.’
‘Robot? I have not heard that word. What do you mean, ma’am?’
‘Robot … like, say, like a machine.’
‘Machine!’ He looked at her again. ‘But she is not constructed of metal and wires!’
‘No … no, she isn’t —’ Maddy shrugged — ‘but she might as well be.’
Wainwright’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘You are not making sense, ma’am.’
‘Look … we’re wasting time here,’ said Maddy. ‘We need the communications hub, and we need it intact. Trust me,’ she smiled, ‘Becks can handle that.’
‘I will need guns,’ said Becks casually.
‘Of course you do,’ replied Maddy, patting her shoulder. ‘And I’m sure Colonel Wainwright here will give you all the guns you’ll need. Won’t you, Colonel?’
Wainwright looked at his men standing in several rows across the rubble-strewn assembly area. ‘You say … she … alone can do this?’
‘Yup. Look, if she can punch out a dinosaur, I think she can manage a few soldiers.’
Wainwright stared at her for a moment. ‘Excuse me? Ma’am. I must have misheard you. I thought you just said —’
‘Your men, Colonel,’ cut in Becks, ‘could provide useful back-up. A perimeter round the bunker should be established to ensure no additional British troops are able to reinforce the garrison. What occurs inside the perimeter and inside the bunker —’ she produced a cool smile — ‘is best left to me.’
Maddy nodded. ‘Trust me. She’s right!’
Wainwright studied them both, not quite sure what to make of them. For sure, they were from some other world — their manner, their dress, the words they used — but this one girl taking a bunker on her own?
‘You look unconvinced, Colonel,’ said Maddy.
He looked over her shoulder at his men waiting patiently just out of earshot. ‘My men, myself … we have signed our death warrants. As of this moment, we are all dead men walking, unless — my friend, Colonel William Devereau, assures me — you truly have this machine that can rewrite our world with a better one.’