Harry Turtledove: Fort Pillow

He walked over to the twelve — pounder for which his company was responsible. The smoothbore gun threw an iron ball as big as his fist a mile, or hurled a round of shrapnel just as far. At close range, canister turned the piece into an enormous shotgun that could mow down everything in front of it.

Ben set a proud, affectionate hand on the smooth curve of the barrel, almost as if it were the smoothly curved flank of a woman he loved. He hadn't seen combat yet, but he'd practiced with the gun. He knew what it could do. He frowned. He knew what it could do if it got the chance.

Sergeant Joe Hennissey belonged to Company A. He had no more rank than Robinson, but he had white — very white — skin, red hair, and a beard the exact color of a new penny. He had a better chance of getting something done than Robinson did. The Negro waved to him. “Reckon we got us some trouble here, Sergeant,” he said.

“And why might that be?” The Old Sod still filled Hennissey's voice. To most whites, an Irishman was only a small step up from a Negro. To Ben Robinson, looking up at the whole staircase, the distinction between the Irish and other whites was invisible.

“When they made this here fort, they made the goddamn parapet too thick.” Robinson kicked at it: eight or ten feet of earthwork.

“Got to be thick enough to be after keeping out the Secesh cannonballs, now,” Hennissey said.

“Oh, yes, suh.” Ben knew he wasn't supposed to call the other sergeant sir, but he did it half the time without even thinking. Calling a white man sir was always safe. The redheaded sergeant certainly didn't seem to mind. “But look here, suh. Suppose them Rebels is comin' at us, an' suppose they gets down in the low ground under the bluff. We can't git the guns down low enough — “

“Depress 'em, you mean.”

“Depress 'em. Thank you kindly.” Robinson was always glad to

pick up a technical term. “We can't depress 'em enough to shoot at the Rebs when they is gettin' close to we. Almost like not havin' no guns at all, you know what I's sayin', suh?”

Hennissey scratched his beard. Once he started scratching, he seemed to have trouble stopping — he wasn't scratching for thought any more, but because he itched. Seeing him scratch made Ben want to scratch, too. He was lousy. Most of the men at the fort were.

“We can't be doin' much about where the guns are at,” the Irishman said at last. “But I wouldn't worry my head about it too much, Ben me boy. For one thing, we can hit the Secesh bastards while they're still a ways away, so they'll have the Devil's own time coming close at all, at all. Am I right or am I wrong?”

“Reckon you's right, suh,” Robinson said.

“Reckon I am, too,” Hennissey said smugly. “And even if them sons of bitches do come close, have we got the New Era down there

on the river, or have we not? Be after tellin' me, if you'd be so kind.”

“The gunboat, she there, suh,” Ben Robinson agreed. Hennissey clapped him on the back. “All right, then. You'll fret yourself no more about it, will you now?”

“Reckon I won't,” Robinson said.

“Good. That's good, then.” Hennissey walked away.

Was it good, then? Still not convinced, Robinson walked over to the edge of the bluff and looked down at the Mississippi. Sure enough, the gunboat floated there. Seen from more than four hundred feet above the river, the New Era seemed as small — and as flimsy — as a toy boat floating in a barrel of water. Could its presence make up for the problems with the field guns? Well, he could hope so, anyhow.

Major William Bradford was a lawyer before the war turned western Tennessee upside down and inside out. Since then, he'd stayed busy doing the same thing as a lot of other Tennesseans on both sides: paying back anybody with whom he had a score to settle.

He'd done a good job — better than most. Because of that, he and the troopers of the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry (U.S.) he led were marked men whenever they rode out of Fort Pillow. He didn't mind. If anything, it made him proud. They were marked men because they'd left their mark on their enemies. And when those enemies also happened to be enemies of the United States, well, so much the better.

He made himself nod to Lionel Booth when their paths crossed. “Good morning, Major,” he said, his voice as smooth as if he were in a courtroom.

“Morning, Major,” Booth replied. He spoke with a Missouri twang. He'd been a sergeant major in a Missouri regiment before winning officer's rank. He was shorter and squatter than Bradford — homelier, too, thought the Tennessean, who was vain of his looks. But Booth was also senior to him even if younger, and so commanded inside Fort Pillow. Bradford didn't like that, but couldn't do anything overt about it. “Can your niggers really fight?” he asked Booth.

“I expect they can,” the other man said. “And I expect they won't have to. All's quiet around these parts. It'll likely stay that way.”

“General Hurlbut doesn't think so, or he wouldn't have sent you up here,” Bradford said. Was that bitterness? He knew damn well it was. Fort Pillow had been his ever since the Thirteenth Tennessee came down from Paducah in January. Now it wasn't any more. The loss stung. Better not to show it, though. He couldn't get rid of Booth, however much he wished he could.

The senior officer shrugged. “When you build yourself a house, you're smart to dig a storm cellar down underneath. Maybe you won't need it. Chances are you won't, matter of fact. But if you ever do, you'll need it bad. So that's what we are — we're your storm cellar.”

Bradford's eyes flicked to the Negroes who'd come north a couple of weeks before. They were going about their business, much as any other soldiers would have. They paraded smartly enough. They probably marched better than the men from his own command, for whom spit and polish was a distinct afterthought. But marching in step didn't make their skins any less dusky or their hair any less frizzy. Bradford had just asked if they could fight. He didn't want to do it again, not in so many words. He tried a different question that amounted to the same thing: “If Bedford Forrest did show up here some kind of way, could we hold him off?”

To a Union man from west Tennessee, that was always the question. A preacher face — to — face with the Devil would have had the same worry. How could he help wondering, Am I strong enough? Fielding Hurst hadn't been, and Bradford was uneasily aware that the Sixth Tennessee was a bigger, tougher outfit than the one he led.

On the other hand, Forrest's men had caught Fielding Hurst out in the open. The garrison here had Fort Pillow to protect it. And Lionel Booth, maybe because he came from Missouri, didn't hold Forrest in the same fearful regard as local men did. “Major, if he showed up here, we would whip him back to wherever he came from,” Booth said, not the tiniest trace of doubt in his voice. “We can hold this fort against anybody in the world — in the world, mind you — for two days.”

“I like the sound of that,” Bradford said, which would do for an understatement till a bigger one came along.

“No reason you shouldn't. The truth always has a good sound to it.” Major Booth tipped his hat and went on his way. He sounded like a preacher who was ready to wrestle with the Devil, all right.

Despite his reassurances, Bradford hoped the Devil stayed far, far away. He was no coward, but he didn't care to borrow trouble, either. And Nathan Bedford Forrest was trouble with a capital T.

Bradford climbed up onto the earthworks enclosing the Federal garrison and peered east. His nerves sent him up there, not his common sense. He knew that. The drizzle — sometimes it was real rain — coming down drastically shortened his range of vision. He could barely make out the two rows of wooden barracks still left from the fort's earlier, larger incarnation, let alone the rifle pits beyond them. He knew those pits were there, and also knew soldiers in blue manned them. But they might have been a mile beyond the moon for all his eyes told him.