Harry Turtledove - Drive to the East

He shivered, standing there under the warm spring sunshine. Things were much deadlier now than they had been a generation earlier. If that went on for another twenty-five years, wouldn’t wars end almost before they started? And if not, why not?

“Sir?”

Tom started. He wondered how long the sergeant standing beside him had been trying to get his attention. By the exaggerated patience on the man’s face, he’d done everything but wave wigwag flags. “What is it, Meyers?” Tom asked. “I’m here-I really am.”

“That’s good, sir,” Sergeant Meyers said. “I was going to ask you if you knew when the balloon was going up. Not officially, you understand, but if you knew. It’d help the men get ready.”

“I wish to God I did, Sergeant, but whatever we’re doing, nobody has bothered to tell me about it yet. You can take that for whatever you think it’s worth.” Tom’s laugh was half rueful, half furious. “One of the drivers for those new barrels had a pretty good notion, or reckoned he did. He had to pull out before he could tell me what it was. Damned impressive barrel, though.”

“Oh, yes, sir!” Meyers was not a man given to wild enthusiasms; few sergeants were. That sort of man was much more likely to be a private or a lieutenant. But the sergeant waxed enthusiastic now. “We have enough of those critters, we’ll make the damnyankees say uncle for sure.”

“I hope you’re right, Sergeant.” Tom meant it. After what the C.S. Army had been through the year before, though, and after what it had accomplished, he took nothing for granted. That any one weapon, no matter how wonderful, could knock the USA out of the war struck him as unlikely.

He kept his mouth shut. If Sergeant Meyers thought the Yankees would fall over dead as soon as the Confederates kicked them back one more hill, fine. That made him a more cheerful soldier, a better soldier, at least until the damnyankees did get pushed back past that last hill, if they ever did. If they got pushed back and didn’t fall over dead… Well, in that case Meyers and the other men like him would have some rethinking to do. He might not be such a terrific soldier for a while after that.

Wherever we’re going, we’re going east, Tom thought. Right into the heart of Yankeeland. We’d better make ’em say uncle, by God.

“Steady as she goes, Mr. Cooley,” Sam Carsten told his executive officer.

“Steady as she goes-aye aye, sir,” Pat Cooley replied, his freckled face intent on keeping the Josephus Daniels as steady as she could possibly go. The destroyer escort crept through the hot, muggy night towards a shoreline that was…

Carsten didn’t like to think about how very ready to receive them that Virginia shoreline probably was. Keeping anything secret in these crowded waters required a miracle beyond the power of any Navy Department functionary to provide. Sam wasn’t altogether certain the Holy Ghost could have given him one as big as he needed. Sneaking into Chesapeake Bay without getting either mined or torpedoed hadn’t been the smallest of miracles all by itself.

He spoke into the telephone that connected the bridge with the gun turrets: “Everything ready there? You have your targets?”

“Yes, sir!” the gun chiefs answered together.

“All right, then.” Sam smiled there in the darkness. Even as a rating, he’d been in charge of bigger pieces than these four-inch popguns. “At my order, and give it everything you’ve got… Fire! ”

Twin tongues of flame belched from the turrets, lighting up the night for a heartbeat with a hellish orange glow. Recoil made the ship shudder. Those tongues thrust out again, and then again and again, as each gun crew did its best to prove it was faster than the other. First the bow turret took the lead, then the stern. All told, judging a winner was next to impossible.

Splashes of fire inland told of shell hits. Sam knew where the target was, but not what it was. That evidently wasn’t necessary for the mission. He kept an eye on the luminous hands of his watch. When exactly five minutes had gone by, he said, “Cease firing,” into the telephone. An aching silence fell. He turned to the exec. “Mr. Cooley, I do believe we may have worn out our welcome. Get us out of here. All ahead full, course 010.”

“All ahead full, course 010.” Cooley rang the engine room. The Josephus Daniels put on as many revolutions and as much speed as she had. Sam was used to ships with a lot more dash. He felt nailed to the surface of the bay despite the phosphorescent wake streaming from the bow. Destroyer escorts were cheap and easy and fast to build. Considering their liabilities, they needed to be.

On the shore, the Confederates were waking up. First one field gun and then a whole battery started firing at where the Josephus Daniels had been. Those were 105s-guns of about the same caliber as the destroyer escort carried.

The bridge telephone rang. When Sam picked it up, one of the turret chiefs said, “Sir, permission to return enemy fire?”

“Permission denied,” Sam answered, in lieu of screaming, Are you out of your frigging mind? He went on, “We’ve done what we came to do here. Now our job is to get out in one piece so we can come back and do it again one day before long. Shooting back makes us much too visible, and they have more guns than we do. We just scoot. Got that?”

“Yes, sir,” the turret chief said sullenly. Carsten found it hard to fault a man who wanted to raise hell with the enemy, but you needed a sense of proportion. No, I need a sense of proportion. That’s why I’m the Old Man. There were times when he felt like a very old man indeed.

Pat Cooley eyed him from the wheel. Cooley was ten times the ship handler he would ever be. Sam hadn’t taken the wheel of any ship till he became the skipper here. “Your thoughts, Mr. Cooley?” Sam asked.

“Sir, I’d like to shoot back at those bastards,” the exec answered. Sam stiffened. But after a moment Cooley went on, “You’re right, though. Probably a good idea that we don’t. They’re missing us pretty bad-if I were in charge of that battery, I’d be reaming ’em out right now.”

But the man in charge of that C.S. battery-a sergeant or lieutenant tumbled from his blanket when the Josephus Daniels opened up-had a better idea. Two of his guns fired star shells that lit up the bay-and the destroyer escort-with a cold, clear, terrible light.

Men at the antiaircraft guns started shooting at the star shells. If they could wreck the parachutes that supported them in the air, the blazing shells would fall into the sea and sizzle out. The bow turret no longer bore on the Confederate battery. The stern turret opened up without orders. Sam only nodded to himself. With the Josephus Daniels out there in plain sight, a muzzle flash or three didn’t make a rat’s ass’ worth of difference.

And she was out there in plain sight. The Confederate guns on the coast wasted no time correcting their aim. Shells began bursting around and on the destroyer escort. Most of the ships on which Sam had served would have laughed at 105mm shells. But the Josephus Daniels, like any destroyer, was thin-skinned. She had no armor to protect her. Screams made Sam grind his teeth. Men serving the antiaircraft guns topside were vulnerable aboard any ship that floated. He knew that. Knowing it left it no easier to take.

“Smoke, Mr. Cooley,” he said. “We’ll see how much good it does.”

“Smoke. Aye aye, sir.”

More star shells lit up the night. Smoke blossomed around the Josephus Daniels. It helped less than it might have under other circumstances. Sam had feared as much. She was the only thing afloat in this part of Chesapeake Bay. If the smoke screen moved, she had to be at the front end of it. Knowing that, the Confederate gunners didn’t lose a whole lot of accuracy from not being able to see their target anymore.