Harry Turtledove - Drive to the East

“No, suh,” Cincinnatus answered.

“All right. We’ll send you a letter, then,” the sergeant said. “Probably be ten days, two weeks, something like that. We’ll see what General Straubing has to say about you.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” Cincinnatus did it right this time. “When he was in Covington, he always treated the colored fellows who drove for him like they was men. Reckon he was the first white man I ever knew who did.”

Cincinnatus went home, not so happy as he’d hoped but not so disappointed as he might have been. He felt as if he were cluttering up the apartment. That was another reason he’d visited the recruiting station. But his urge to get even with the Confederates counted for more.

“Don’t want to jus’ sit here playin’ with my grandbabies,” he told Elizabeth. “I love my grandbabies, but I got some doin’ in me yet.”

“I didn’t say nothin’, dear,” his wife answered.

“I love you, too,” Cincinnatus said, mostly because she hadn’t said anything. They’d been married a long time. Despite the separations they’d gone through, she knew him better than anybody.

The letter from the recruiting station came eight days later. That was sooner than the sergeant had said. Cincinnatus didn’t know whether the quick answer meant good news or bad. He opened the letter-and still didn’t know. It just told him to come back to the station two days hence.

“Why couldn’t that blamed man say one way or the other?” he asked when he took it upstairs.

“You find out then, that’s all,” Elizabeth said. She was calmer than he was-and she wasn’t trying to find out what she’d be doing for the rest of the war.

Cincinnatus took a trolley to the recruiting station bright and early on the appointed day. He got there before it opened, and went across the street to a diner to get out of the cold. The guy behind the counter who served him a cup of coffee gave him a fishy look, but took his five cents without saying anything.

The one-handed sergeant got to the station when Cincinnatus was about halfway through the cup. He left it on the counter and limped over to find out what was what. The sergeant was getting his own pot of coffee going on a hot plate. He looked up without much surprise when the bell above the door jingled.

“Good morning, Mr. Driver,” he said. “You didn’t waste any time, did you?”

“No, suh-uh, no, Sergeant,” Cincinnatus said, and the noncom smiled at the self-correction. Cincinnatus wished he’d got it right the first time. He went on, “You gonna let me drive a truck, or shall I see what I can do in a war plant? Gotta do my bit some kind o’ way.”

Reaching into the top desk drawer, the recruiting sergeant pulled a sheet of Army stationery. “Here’s what Brigadier General Straubing has to say about you, Mr. Driver.” He set a pair of reading glasses on his nose. “ ‘I remember Cincinnatus well. He was a solid driver, clever and brave and resourceful. I have no doubts as to his loyalty or devotion to the United States.’ How’s that?”

“That’s-mighty fine, Sergeant. Mighty fine,” Cincinnatus said. “So you let me drive again?”

“We’ll let you drive,” the sergeant answered. “You said it yourself-if you go behind the wheel, a younger man gets to pick up a Springfield.”

“Ain’t quite what I said.” Cincinnatus knew he ought to leave it there, but he couldn’t. “What I said was, a white man gets to pick up a Springfield. I still don’t reckon that’s fair. Do Jesus, in the last war the Confederates let some o’ their colored men carry guns.”

“Yeah, and they’ve been regretting it ever since,” the sergeant said dryly. He held up his hook. “You can say it wouldn’t be like that here. You can say it, and I wouldn’t give you any grief about it, Mr. Driver, ’cause I think you’re likely right. But I don’t make the rules, and neither do you. The War Department says we’ll play the game like this, so we will. Do you want to do it, or don’t you? If you do, you’ve got about a million forms to fill out. If you don’t, well, thanks for stopping by.”

He had no give in him. He didn’t need to; the government backed him straight down the line. Cincinnatus sighed. “Let me have the damn forms. You ain’t what you oughta be, but you’re a damn sight better’n Jake Featherston.”

The sergeant had to go back to a filing cabinet to get the papers. “You’re a sensible man, Mr. Driver. The difference between bad and worse is a lot bigger than the difference between good and better.”

Cincinnatus started to answer, then stopped before he said anything. That would give him something to think about when he had the time. Now… paperwork. The recruiting sergeant had exaggerated, but not by much. Cincinnatus filled out forms till he got writer’s cramp-not an ailment he worried about very often.

Officially, he wasn’t joining the Army. Officially, he was becoming a civilian employee of the U.S. government. The undersigned agrees, acknowledges, and accepts that his duties may require him to enter areas not definitively known to be safe. He wasn’t sure what definitively meant, but he signed anyway. He knew he wasn’t going to be driving from Idaho to Minnesota.

For purposes of self-protection, employees hired for the aforementioned duty may be permitted to carry firearms, another form told him. He looked at the recruiting sergeant. “The Confederates catch me with a gun, they gonna shoot my ass,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it,” the sergeant answered. “If they catch you without a gun, they’ll shoot your ass anyway.” Since Cincinnatus couldn’t very well argue with that, he signed again.

At last, only one sheet of paper was left: a loyalty oath. Cincinnatus signed that, too, then set down the pen and shook his hand back and forth to work out the kinks. “Lot o’ paper to go through,” he said. “What do I do next?”

“Go home,” the sergeant told him, which caught him by surprise. “Bring a suitcase-a small suitcase-with you Monday morning. You report to the State Capitol, room… 378. After that, you do what they tell you.”

“All right. Thank you kindly, Sergeant,” Cincinnatus said.

“Thank you, Mr. Driver. You said it-you’re doing your bit.” The sergeant looked down at his hook for a moment, then up at Cincinnatus again. “And if you have to use a gun, make it count.”

“I do that, Sergeant,” Cincinnatus promised. “Yes, suh. I do that.”

Aclear predawn morning in mid-January. When Irving Morrell looked west, he saw red flares in the sky-Confederate recognition signals. When he looked east, he saw more red flares. The Confederates to the east and west could probably see each other’s flares, too. Only twenty or thirty miles separated them, twenty or thirty miles and the force Morrell commanded.

So far, the C.S. rescue force pushing east hadn’t been able to reach the men trapped in and around Pittsburgh. Morrell didn’t intend that they should, either. He turned to his wireless man. “Send ‘Rosebud’ to Philadelphia, Jenkins,” he said.

“ ‘Rosebud.’ Yes, sir.” The wireless operator didn’t know what the code phrase meant. He sent it anyway. A moment later, he nodded to Morrell. “Received, sir.”

“Good,” Morrell said. “Now we see how they like that.”

“Yes, sir,” Jenkins repeated. “Uh, what’s it all about, sir?”

Morrell didn’t think the wireless man could be a Confederate plant. He didn’t think so, but he didn’t take any chances, either. “It means Featherston’s fuckers are going to have some tough sledding, that’s what,” he said. That seemed safe enough-the younger man still didn’t know where or how.