Harry Turtledove - Drive to the East

One of these days, they might send another junior officer out to the front to take charge of things. But the Utah campaign got what other fronts didn’t want or need, and these days didn’t get a whole lot of that. Till some luckless and probably brainless lieutenant showed up, Armstrong had the job.

Yossel Reisen commanded the squad that had been his. “If this shit keeps up, we’ll be majors by the time we got out of here,” Armstrong said.

“I don’t even care if I’m a corporal when I get out of here,” Yossel answered. “As long as I get out, that’s all that matters.”

“Well, yeah. I’m not gonna tell you you’re wrong, on account of you’re not,” Armstrong said. “Wish to God the Mormons would pack it in and quit. They gotta know ain’t no way in hell they can win.”

“I don’t think they care. I think all they’ve got left is going down swinging.” Yossel paused to light a cigarette. He and Armstrong sprawled behind a stone wall that protected them from snipers. If Armstrong stuck his head up, he could see the rebuilt and rewrecked Mormon Temple ahead. He didn’t-if he were so foolish, a Mormon rifleman would put a round in his ear. After a drag, Yossel went on, “Jews were like that once upon a time. They rose up against the Romans whenever they saw the chance… and the Romans handed them their heads every damn time.”

Palestine, these days, was a sleepy Ottoman province. It had lots of Arabs, some Jews, and just enough Turks to garrison the towns and collect taxes. No matter how holy it was, nothing much ever happened there. Odds were nothing ever would.

Something erupted from behind the Mormon lines. “Screaming meemie!” Armstrong yelled.

The spigot-mortar bomb came down a few hundred yards away. Even that was close enough to shake him with the blast. “They really do love you,” Yossel Reisen said. “Ever since you had that Mormon strip, we’ve got more little presents like that than anybody else.”

“Oh, shut up,” Armstrong said, not because Reisen was wrong but because he was right. Armstrong wished he hadn’t given the Mormon a hard time, too. Fighting these maniacs was hard enough when you were just one enemy among many. When they were trying to kill you in particular… The most Armstrong could say was that they hadn’t done it yet.

U.S. artillery woke up about ten minutes later. Shells screamed into the area from which the screaming meemie had come. But then, the launcher was bound to be long gone.

“How far do you think it is to the Temple?” Armstrong asked. His voice sounded strange because he was talking through his gas mask. Some of the crap the Army threw at the Mormons was liable to blow back into the U.S. positions. And the Mormons still had gas of their own, which they fired from mortars whenever the artillery used it against them. Armstrong didn’t know whether they got it from the CSA or cooked it up in a basement in Ogden. He didn’t care, either. He did know it was a major pain in the rear.

Yossel Reisen also looked like a pig-snouted Martian monster in a bad serial. “Couple miles,” he answered, sounding almost as unearthly as he looked.

“Yeah, about what I figured,” Armstrong agreed. “How long you think we’ll need to get there? How hard will those Mormon fuckers fight to hang on to it?”

“Too long, and even harder than they’ve fought already,” Yossel said.

That wasn’t scientific, but it matched what Armstrong was thinking much too well. He said, “What do you think the odds are we’ll live through it?”

This time, Reisen didn’t answer right away. When he did, he said, “Well, we’re still here so far.”

Armstrong almost asked him what the odds of that were. The only reason he didn’t was, he already knew the answer. The odds were damn slim. He wouldn’t have been leading a squad if that people bomb hadn’t got Sergeant Stowe. He wouldn’t have had the platoon if that mine hadn’t nailed Lieutenant Streczyk. Either or both of those disasters could have happened to him just as easily. So could a thousand others. The same went for Yossel. But they were both still here, neither of them much more than scratched.

In the next few days, Armstrong really started wondering how long he would last. More and more barrels came forward. Most were the waddling monsters kept in storage since the Great War, but some more modern machines went into the mix. None, though, had the stouter turrets and bigger guns that marked the latest models. Every time one of those rolled off the assembly line, it headed straight for the closest Confederate concentration.

More artillery came in, too. And when the weather cleared enough for bombers and fighters to fly, there were more of them, and less antiquated machines, than usual. He knew the signs. The United States were gearing up for another big push.

All the support would help. When the balloon went up, though, it would still be man against man, rifle against rifle, machine gun against machine gun, land mine against dumb luck. Armstrong had a wholesome respect for the men he faced. Nobody who’d been in the line more than a few days had anything but respect for the men of what they called the Republic of Deseret.

Armstrong respected them so much, he wished he didn’t have to go after them one more time. Such wishes usually mattered not at all. This time, his fairy godmother must have been listening. The high command pulled his battered regiment out of the line and stuck in a fresh one that was at full strength.

“Breaks my heart,” Armstrong said as he trudged away from what was bound to be a bloody mess.

“Yeah, I can tell,” Yossel Reisen agreed. “I’m pretty goddamn disappointed myself, if anybody wants to know the truth.” They both laughed the giddy laughs of men who’d just got reprieves from the governor.

The rest of the soldiers heading back into reserve were every bit as relieved. They were dirty and skinny and unshaven. Their uniforms were faded and torn and spotted. A lot of them wore ordinary denim jackets and canvas topcoats liberated from the ruins instead of Army-issue warm clothing. Their eyes were far away.

By contrast, the men replacing them might have stepped out of a recruiting film. They were clean. Their uniforms were clean. Their greatcoats were the same green-gray as everything else. Armstrong was younger than most of the rookies, but felt twenty years older. These fellows hadn’t been through hell-yet.

“Does your mama know you’re here?” he called to a natty private moving up.

By the private’s expression, he wanted to say something about Armstrong’s mother, too. He didn’t have the nerve. It wasn’t just that Armstrong outranked him, either. The kid probably hadn’t seen action yet. Armstrong’s grubby clothes, his dirt, and his whiskers said he had. He’d earned the right to pop off. Before long, the youngster would enjoy it, too-if that was the word, and if he lived.

“Look at all these men.” Yossel nodded toward the troops marching past. “Remember when our regiment was this big?”

“Been a while.” Armstrong tried to work out just how long it had been. He needed some thought. “Shit, I think we’d taken enough casualties after the first time we ran into the Confederates in Ohio to be smaller than that outfit.”

“I think you’re right,” Yossel said. “And they never send enough replacements to get us back up to strength, either.”

“Nope.” Armstrong pulled out a pack of cigarettes, stuck one in his mouth, and offered them to Yossel. The other noncom took one. He lit it. Armstrong leaned close to get his started, then went on, “The ones we do get aren’t worth much, either.”

“If they live long enough, they mostly learn,” Yossel said. “Those first few days in the line, though…”