Harry Turtledove - Walk in Hell

No one bothered with witnesses for the defense, or for the prosecution, either. The three judges walked off a few feet and spoke in low voices. “Ain’t no reason to waste no time on he,” Agamemnon said. “He guilty, the old bastard.”

“We give he what he deserve,” Cherry said with venomous relish.

Scipio didn’t say anything. He’d been in several of these trials, and hadn’t said much at any of them. He’d never intended to be a revolutionary-it was either that, though, or die for knowing too much. He had no love for white folks, but he had no love for savagery, either.

His silence didn’t matter. Had he voted for acquittal, the other two would have outvoted him-and odds were he soon would have faced revolutionary justice himself after such an unreliable act. He’d survived so far by keeping quiet. He hoped he could keep right on surviving.

Agamemnon and Cherry turned back toward Cassius. They both nodded. So did Scipio, a moment later. Cassius said, “Jubal Marberry, you is guilty of the crime of ’pression ’gainst the proletariat of the Congaree Socialist Republic. De punishment is death.”

Marberry cursed at him and tried to kick one of the men who held him. They dragged the planter off behind some trees. A pistol shout sounded, and then a moment later another one. The two Negroes came out. Jubal Marberry didn’t.

With considerable satisfaction, Cassius nodded to the impromptu court. “You done fine,” he told them. Agamemnon and Cherry headed off, both of them obviously well-pleased with themselves. Scipio started to leave, too. One of these days, he was going to let his feelings show on his face despite the butler’s mask of imperturbability he cultivated. That would be the end of him. Even as he turned, though, Cassius said, “You wait, Kip.”

“What you want?” Scipio did his best to sound easy and relaxed. The Congaree Socialist Republic went after enemies of the revolution within its own ranks as aggressively as it pursued them among the whites who had for so long oppressed and battened on the Negro laborers of the area.

But Cassius said, “Gwine have we a parley wid de white folks officer. We trade de wounded white folks sojers we catches fo’de niggers dey gives we. You gwine talk wid de officer.” His long, weathered face stretched into lines of anticipatory glee.

Scipio didn’t need long to figure out why. With a deliberate effort of will, he abandoned the Congaree dialect: “I suppose you will expect me to speak in this fashion, thereby disconcerting them.”

Cassius laughed and slapped his knee. “Do Jesus, yes!” he exclaimed. “You set your mind to it, you talk fancier’n any o’ they white folks. An’ you don’ git angried up in a hurry, neither. We wants a cool head, an’ you got dat.”

“When we do dis parley?” Scipio asked.

“Right now. I take you up to de front.” Cassius reached into his pocket, pulled out a red bandanna, and tied it around Scipio’s left upper arm. “Dere. Now you o fficial.” No doubt because the Confederacy, if you looked at it from the right angle, was nothing but an elaborate hierarchy of ranks and privileges, the Congaree Socialist Republic acted as if such matters did not exist. The revolution was about equality.

The front was just that, a series of trenches and firing pits. Both the black soldiers of the Socialist Republic and their Confederate foes were in large measure amateurs, but both sides were doing their best to imitate what the professionals from the CSA and USA had been doing.

Cassius took Scipio to a tent where the white officer waited. “Ain’t gwine let you cross out of de country we holds,” he said. “Cain’t trust white folks not to keep you an’ give you a rope necktie.”

Considering what had just happened to Jubal Marberry and to many others, Scipio reckoned the barbarism equally distributed. Saying so, however, struck him as inexpedient. And he knew he should have been grateful that Cassius worried about his safety rather than planning to liquidate him.

The tent was butternut canvas, captured Confederate Army issue. Scipio pulled the flap open, ducked his head, and went inside. A man in Confederate uniform sat behind a folding table. He did not stand up for Scipio, as he would have on meeting a U.S. officer during a parley.

“Good day,” Scipio said, as if greeting a guest at Marshlands. “Shall we discuss this matter in a civilized fashion, as it involves the well-being of brave men from both sides?”

Sure enough, the Confederate major’s eyebrows rose. He wasn’t a gray-bearded relic like a lot of the men the CSA was using to try to suppress the revolution; Scipio judged he would have been fighting the Yankees if he hadn’t lost a hand. “Don’t you talk pretty?” he said, and then, as if making a great concession, “All right, I’m Jerome Hotchkiss. I can treat for Confederate forces along this front. You can do the same for your people?”

“That is correct, Major,” Scipio answered. “For the purposes of this meeting, you may address me as Spartacus.”

Hotchkiss let out a bark of laughter. “All you damn Red niggers use that for an alias. Best guess I can give about why is that maybe you reckon we won’t know who to hang once we’ve put you down. If that’s what you think, you’re dreaming.”

Scipio feared the major was right. Showing that fear, though, would put him in Cassius’ bad graces. Cassius being more immediately dangerous to him than were the forces of the CSA, he said, “I suggest, Major, that it is wise to kill your bear before you speak of skinning him.”

“You want to watch the way you talk to me,” Hotchkiss said, as if rebuking a Negro waiter at a restaurant.

“Major, you would be well advised to remember that you are in the sovereign territory of the Congaree Socialist Republic,” Scipio returned. Hotchkiss glared at him. He looked back steadily. The shoe was on the other foot now, and the white man didn’t care for the fit. Scipio understood that. He’d spent his whole life not caring for the fit. He said, “Shall we agree to put other matters aside for the time being, in the hopes of coming to terms on this one specific issue?”

“Fair enough,” Hotchkiss said, making a visible effort to control himself. “Some of our wounded who got left behind when we had to pull back…When we advanced again, we found ’em chopped to bits or burned alive or…Hell, I don’t need to go on. You know what I’m talking about.”

“I also know that your forces are seldom in the habit of taking prisoners of any kind, wounded or not,” Scipio answered. “How many Negroes have been hanged, these past days?”

Plainly, the thought in Hotchkiss’ mind was, Not enough . “Negroes caught in arms against the Confederate States of America-”

Scipio surprised him by interrupting: “Lackeys of the oppressors caught in arms resisting the proletarian revolution of the Congaree Socialist Republic…” The Marxist rhetoric he’d learned from Cassius came in handy here, no matter how low his opinion of it commonly was. He went on, “Our causes being as repugnant to each other as they are, is it not all the more important to observe the laws of war with especial care?”

“That’d mean admitting you have the right to rebel,” Hotchkiss said.

But Scipio shook his head. “The USA did not admit the CSA had that right in the War of Secession, yet treated Confederate prisoners humanely.”

He could see Hotchkiss thinking, White men on both sides . But the major didn’t say that. What he did say was, “Maybe.”

Taking that for assent, Scipio said, “Very well. We undertake to exchange under flag of truce men too badly wounded to go on fighting at a place and time you may choose, said men to have been treated as well as possible by the side capturing them. Is it agreed?”