Harry Turtledove: In At the Death

Do I have the courage of my convictions? Potter wondered. To his relief, he discovered he did. "You'd better relieve me, then, sir," he said. "I'm sorry for the men you'll throw away, but I won't be a party to it."

"You son of a bitch," Patton said. "You yellow son of a bitch."

"Fuck you…sir," Potter said. "Sorry, but you won't get to pin the blame for your mistakes-and the President's mistakes-on me."

"Brigadier General Russell will go forward to take your division," Patton said. "Don't wait for him. You are relieved, effective immediately. Come back here to central headquarters at once-at once, do you hear me? We'll see which shelf the War Department decides to put you on after that."

"On my way, sir," Potter answered, and hung up before Patton could say anything else. He shouted for a driver.

His yells attracted a captain on his staff before they got him a motorcar. "What's the commotion about, sir?" the officer asked.

"I've been relieved," Potter said bluntly. The captain's jaw dropped. Potter went on, "Brigadier General Russell will take over for me. He's going to send you northeast to try to cut off the damnyankees in Lawrenceville. I don't think you can do that, but give it your best shot. When I told General Patton I didn't think you could, he pulled the plug on me. Orders from the President are that you've got to try. I wish you luck." He meant that. This wasn't the first time he'd got caught between loving his country and looking down his nose at the man who ran it.

He had time for a handshake before a command car showed up. The driver didn't seem happy at being out and about with bombs falling. Potter wasn't happy, either. What could you do?

They made it. They took longer than they would have without all the air raids-but, again, what could you do? Atlanta had taken a nasty beating. One little diner had a jaunty message painted on the plywood that did duty for a front window: OPEN FOR BUSINESS WHILE EVERYTHING AROUND US GOES TO HELL.

"What did you do-walk?" Patton growled when Potter strode into headquarters, which were in an ugly building on Block Place, just west of the cratered remains of the railroad yard.

"Might have been faster if I did," Potter answered.

Patton muttered. Potter wasn't contrite enough to suit him. Most men, seeing their military career going up in smoke, would have flabbled more. "I spoke with the President," Patton said.

"Oh, boy," Potter said.

Patton muttered some more. Potter wasn't impressed enough to suit him, either. Of course, Potter had had more to say to-and about-Jake Featherston than Patton ever did. "There's an airplane waiting for you at the airport," Patton ground out. "You're ordered back to Richmond."

"So the damnyankees can shoot me down on the way?" Potter said. "Why didn't Featherston order me executed here?"

"I wondered if he would," Patton retorted. "Maybe he wants to do it personally. Any which way, get moving. You'll find out what he has in mind when you get there-if you do. I hope you sweat all the way. Now get out."

"Always a pleasure," Potter said, and flipped Patton a salute in lieu of the bird.

Atlanta's airport was at Hapeville, nine miles south of town. The airplane was a three-engined transport: an Alligator, so called because of its corrugated aluminum skin. U.S. transports were bigger and faster, but Alligators got the job done. The Confederate States had had to rebuild their military from scratch in the 1930s. Not everything got fully modernized: too much to do too fast. Most of the time, slow, obsolescent transports didn't matter too much.

If, however, a U.S. fighter got on your tail…

Cussing Patton under his breath, Potter did sweat till the Alligator, which also carried several other officers and a nondescript civilian who might have been a spy, got well away from Atlanta. The airplane wasn't out of the woods yet; he knew that. U.S. aircraft from Kentucky and Tennessee raided western North Carolina and Virginia. But his odds had improved.

He started sweating again when they neared Richmond, which vied with Paris as the most heavily bombed city in the world. They got down just before sunset. Two hard-faced men in Freedom Party Guard camouflage uniforms waited for Potter. "Come with us," one of them growled as soon as he got off. Having no choice, he did, and wondered if he was going for his last ride.

W ithout much modesty, false or otherwise, Lieutenant Michael Pound reckoned himself the best platoon commander for barrels in the U.S. Army. He also would have bet he was the oldest platoon commander for barrels in the Army. He'd been learning armored warfare ever since most of his counterparts were born.

Right now, things were pretty simple. The Confederates were pushing north and east out of their defenses in front of Atlanta. If they broke through, they would cut off and probably cut up a lot of good men.

Michael Pound didn't think they had a chance in church of breaking through. He stood up in the cupola of his green-gray barrel to get a better look around than the periscopes could give him. His shoulders barely fit through the opening; he was built like a brick. He needed-and hated-reading glasses these days, but he still saw fine at a distance.

His barrel sat under the pines near the edge of a wood. The crew had draped branches over the glacis plate to help hide the big, bulky machine. The other four in the platoon sat not far away, in the best cover their ingenious commanders could find. Soggy fields of red mud-which looked unnatural to someone from close to the Canadian border like Pound-lay to the south. If the Confederates wanted to try coming this way, they couldn't very well fool anybody.

Which didn't mean they couldn't get fooled. From behind, Pound could see trenches and foxholes and machine-gun nests. From in front, most of those would be camouflaged. He could see the signs marking the borders of minefields, too. The enemy wouldn't spot them till too late…unless the sappers who'd laid the mines wanted them seen, to channel C.S. attacks.

More U.S. infantry waited among the trees with the barrels-and Pound's platoon was far from the only armor on hand. If the bastards in butternut figured this was an exposed flank, they'd get rapped on the knuckles in a hurry.

And they did. They must have. Artillery started screaming down on the fields and on the pine woods. Michael Pound ducked into the turret and clanged the hatch shut. He felt sorry for the poor bloody foot soldiers. They'd get bloodier in short order. Air bursts were very bad news for troops caught under trees. Shells fused to burst as soon as they touched branches showered sharp fragments on the ground below.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than fragments clattered off the barrel. They sounded like hail on a tin roof, which only proved you couldn't go by sound.

"Lord help the infantry," said Sergeant Mel Scullard, the gunner. He managed to put up with having a longtime gunner set over him-at least, he hadn't tried to brain Pound with a wrench while the platoon commander slept.

"I was thinking the same thing," Pound replied. "It does even out some, though. Nobody fires antibarrel rockets or armor-piercing rounds at them."

"Goddamn stovepipe rockets," Scullard said. "If I caught a Confederate with one of those things, I'd shove the launcher up his ass and then light off a round. And that, by God, would be that."

"My, my. How the boys in the striped pants who put together the Geneva Convention would love you," Pound said.

The gunner's opinion of the Geneva Convention and its framers was blasphemous, scatological, and almost hot enough to ignite the ammunition stowed in the turret. Laughing, Pound wagged a forefinger at him. Scullard used a different finger a different way.

Pound peered through the periscopes set into the cupola. Had he been standing up, he could have used field glasses for a better view. Another rattle of sharp steel against the barrel's armored skin reminded him there were times to be bold and times to be smart, and this sure as hell looked like a time to be smart.