Harry Turtledove - Drive to the East

“Uh-huh,” Sam said grimly. The enemy outgunned his ship, and they weren’t far from point-blank range. A couple of hits could sink the Josephus Daniels. “Flank speed and zigzag, Mr. Cooley. Let’s not make it easy for them.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Cooley swung the wheel hard to port, then just as hard to starboard. Another great gout of water rose, this one closer to the destroyer escort. The limeys were getting the range.

But the Josephus Daniels ’ gunners already had it. Both turrets were firing, and the ship’s violent maneuvers fazed them not a bit. “Hit!” Sam yelled, and then, “Hit!” again. He whooped after the second one-it was near the bow, where the freighter carried one of her guns. The destroyer escort’s twin 40mms opened up, too-they were close enough for them to reach the foe. He felt as if he’d fallen back in time to the War of 1812, when ships went toe to toe at short range and slugged away at each other till one surrendered or sank.

One of those big shells-the damn freighter had a light cruiser’s firepower-burst much too close to the Josephus Daniels ’ stern. Shrapnel howled through the air. That one would cause casualties even if it was a miss. If the burst was close enough, it might spring hull plates, too, and make the destroyer escort’s seams leak. But it wouldn’t hurt her badly.

And she was chewing up the freighter. Her four-inch guns threw shells that weighed only a third as much as the enemy’s, but she fired much faster and she fired much straighter. “She’s on fire!” Pat Cooley yelled, and then, half a minute later, “She’s struck her colors!”

Sure enough, the freighter’s ensign came down, and a white flag of surrender went up to replace it. “Cease fire!” Sam ordered. The turrets stopped at once; the men at the antiaircraft guns needed a few seconds to get the word-or maybe they just didn’t want to hear it. That went against the rules, but not against human nature. “Approach to pick up survivors, Mr. Cooley,” Sam said. He told the men at the gun turrets what the destroyer escort was doing, and added, “If you see anybody going near her guns, open up again.”

But the freighter-Sam didn’t suppose she was really the Karlskrona -had no more fight in her. Her men were taking to the boats-which, in the North Atlantic, was no joke. Sam ordered nets lowered to let the British sailors come up the Josephus Daniels ’ side. His own crew, armed with a couple of submachine guns, rifles, pistols, axes, and even some big wrenches, looked like a nineteenth-century boarding party as they took charge of the prisoners. The pharmacist’s mate had groaning wounded men to deal with.

Sam went down to the deck for a closer look at the vanquished enemy. The British skipper, a weary and bedraggled man with a horsy face and bad teeth, recognized him for the destroyer escort’s captain at once. “Well fought, sir,” the limey said, saluting. “Thought we might surprise you, but you maneuvered well-and those bloody guns! Damn me if I think you missed even once.”

“You gave us a nasty start,” Sam said. “You were loaded for bear, all right.” That probably made him sound like Daniel Boone to the Englishman, but he didn’t care. If the freighter’s gunners were better… But the best gun crews were bound to be in the Royal Navy. Little jaunts like this would have to take whoever was left, and whoever was left hadn’t been good enough.

“Kind of you to take us aboard, all things considered,” his opposite number said.

“If you’d fired after the white flag went up, I’d’ve sunk you,” Sam said matter-of-factly. “Short of that, though, I wouldn’t leave a ship’s cat in an open boat on the North Atlantic. I’ve been in the Navy better than thirty years. I’ve seen a few things I’d rather not see again, or think about, either.”

“I believe you, sir. I’m grateful all the same,” the Englishman said.

“Gratitude is worth its weight in gold,” Sam said, and the limey flinched. Sam went on, “You and your men are POWs now. We’ll take you back to the USA. When the war’s over, you can go home. For now…” For now, he thought, you didn’t blow me to hell and gone. I’ll take that.

Irving Morrell looked up into the western sky. A snowflake hit him right between the eyes. “By God, the bastards weren’t lying,” he breathed, and his breath smoked as if he had a cigarette in his mouth. Just this minute, he didn’t, though a pack sat in his pocket.

For once, the weathermen had hit things right on the button. They’d said this early snowstorm would get here now, and they were right. He’d gambled and held up his attack three days to wait for it, and his gamble looked as if it would pay off.

Meadville, Pennsylvania, lay in the foothills of the Alleghenies. Morrell stood on the grounds of Allegheny College. The Georgian and Greek Revival architecture told of timeless elegance and dedication to scholarship. But Confederate bombs and artillery had turned some of the buildings to ruins-not that the Greeks hadn’t wrecked masterpieces in their own wars. And the barrels snorting on the yellowing lawn were not in perfect keeping with an academic atmosphere.

Only a few blocks away stood the world’s biggest zipper factory. Morrell wondered if button manufacturers cursed Meadville whenever they thought of it. That wasn’t his worry, though. He aimed his curses at Jake Featherston, and before long he’d aim them through the barrel of a gun.

He scrambled up into the closest barrel, which was his to command. When the fighting started, he intended to lead from the front. Generals who stayed in back of the line soon lost track of what was really going on. Generals who didn’t stay back of the line often got killed, but Morrell refused to worry about that.

“We just about ready, sir?” asked his gunner, a dark, and darkly clever, corporal named Al Bergeron. He was a good soldier and a good gunner; Morrell missed Michael Pound all the same, and hoped the veteran underofficer was safe. Wherever Pound was, he’d be acting as if he wore three stars, not three stripes.

But Morrell would have to worry about him later, too. “Just about, Frenchy,” he answered. During the Great War, more than a few people with French names changed them to German-sounding ones so their neighbors wouldn’t suspect them. That kind of hysteria hadn’t come again. The Confederate States were the only enemies people flabbled hard about now.

Morrell put on his earphones. This barrel had a fancier wireless setup than any of the rest. He could link up not only to other barrels but also to artillery, infantry, and aviation circuits. He wondered whether being able to talk to so many people at once was part of the privilege of his rank or part of the price of it.

He connected to the artillery web. “Ready at 0730?” he asked. If he got a no, somebody’s head would roll-H-hour was only fifteen minutes away.

But the answer came back at once: “Ready, sir.” The officer who replied sounded young and excited. Morrell wondered if he’d seen action before. Whether he had or not, he would now.

Those fifteen minutes, like the last fifteen minutes before every attack, seemed to crawl by on their bellies. Corporal Bergeron said, “Almost seems a shame to do this to those damn greasers.”

“Almost-but not quite,” Morrell said dryly. The gunner chuckled. Morrell’s mouth stretched in a grin of savage anticipation. No, he didn’t think it was a shame, not even slightly. If Jake Featherston was stretched so thin that he needed to use second-grade troops from the Empire of Mexico to hold part of his line, he had only himself to blame if the USA tried to stomp the stuffing out of them.