Settling Accounts_ Drive To The East Part 28

Somewhere up ahead, a machine gun started chattering. Armstrong Grimes threw himself flat. Bullets cracked past overhead. Any time you could hear bullets cracking, they came too d.a.m.n close.

Armstrong shared a stretch of brick wall near the southern outskirts of Salt Lake City with Yossel Reisen. "Don't these Mormon maniacs ever give up?" he demanded-more of G.o.d, probably, than of the Congresswoman's nephew.

G.o.d had nothing to say. Yossel did: "Doesn't look like it. Long as they've got guns and people to shoot 'em, they're going to keep fighting."

"People." Armstrong made it into a swear word. Yossel was too right. Some of the Mormons who carried rifles, pistols, and grenades were women. Some of the Mormons who crewed mortars and machine guns were women, too. From everything Armstrong had seen, they fought just as hard and just as well as their male counterparts. He didn't know if that old saw about the female of the species' being more deadly than the male was true, but in Utah she sure wasn't any less less deadly. deadly.

Mormon women usually fought to the death whenever they could. They had their reasons, most of them good. U.S. soldiers who captured women in arms were inclined to take a very basic revenge. That went against regulations. Officers lectured about how naughty it was. It went on happening anyway. Armstrong didn't see how to stop it. If he caught some gal who was trying to kill him . . . It was more interesting than thinking about shooting a guy the size of a defensive tackle, that was for sure.

Down in the Confederate States, some of the black guerrillas were of the female persuasion. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in b.u.t.ternut who caught them served them the same way. U.S. propaganda said that only went to show what a bunch of cruel and miserable b.a.s.t.a.r.ds the Confederates were. Armstrong didn't doubt the Confederates were cruel and miserable b.a.s.t.a.r.ds; they'd come too close to killing him too many times for him to doubt it. But raping captives wasn't one of the reasons he didn't, not anymore. He understood the enemy in ways he hadn't before.

That sparked a new thought. He turned to Yossel Reisen and said, "You ever get the idea we're more like the a.s.sholes on the other side of the line who're trying to kill us than we are like the fancy-pants f.u.c.kers back in Philly who give us orders?"

He realized he could have picked somebody better than the Jew to ask. Yossel's aunt was one of those fancy-pants folks. If he'd wanted to, he almost certainly could have got out of being conscripted. That he hadn't either spoke well for him or said he was a little bit nuts, depending.

But he nodded now. "Oh, h.e.l.l, yes. I wonder how many guys in the War Department have ever had lice. Maybe a few in the last war, when they were lieutenants or something."

"Not many, I bet," Armstrong said. "People like that, they would've found cushy jobs back then, too."

"Wouldn't be surprised." Reisen took a pack of cigarettes out of a tunic pocket, stuck one in his mouth, and offered the pack to Armstrong. Once they were both smoking, he went on, "Did I ever tell you my Uncle David only has one leg?"

There weren't a whole lot of families in the USA that didn't have a wounded or mutilated male relative. Armstrong said, "Maybe you did. I think so, but I'm not sure."

"Aunt Flora could have kept him out of the Army if he'd wanted her to. Same with me," Yossel said, his voice matter-of-fact. "But you've got to do what you've got to do. Otherwise, how can you stand yourself?" After a moment, he added, "Did I ever tell you Uncle David's a fire-breathing Democrat?"

"Yeah, I think you did," Armstrong answered. Because Reisen seemed to expect him to, he asked, "How does your aunt like it?"

"She doesn't," Yossel said, as matter-of-factly as before. "They still get along with each other well enough, but they argue whenever they talk about politics."

Before Armstrong could say anything, a horrible screech filled the air. "Screaming meemies!" he yelled, and folded himself as small as he could, down there in the foxhole that was now suddenly, horribly, on the wrong side of the fence. Yossel Reisen did the same.

The spigot mortar burst with a roar like the end of the world. A lot of the rounds from the Mormons' weird makes.h.i.+ft artillery were duds. The ones that weren't packed a h.e.l.l of a wallop. The ground shook under Armstrong. For a horrid moment, he thought the foxhole would collapse and bury him alive.

What if it did? The headline would be FORMER FIRST LADY'S NEPHEW KILLED IN COMBAT! FORMER FIRST LADY'S NEPHEW KILLED IN COMBAT! Armstrong would make a one-sentence add-on to the story- Armstrong would make a one-sentence add-on to the story-Another soldier also died-if that.

When he could hear anything but the thunder of the explosion, he heard people screaming. There in the bottom of the hole, his eyes met Yossel Reisen's. He knew exactly what Yossel was thinking, because he was thinking the same thing himself. Oh, h.e.l.l, Oh, h.e.l.l, or words to that effect. or words to that effect.

He wanted to come out of the safety of the foxhole about as much as he wanted to dance naked in front of the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City wagging his p.e.c.k.e.r at the gilded statue of the Angel Moroni. That might get him shot faster than this. On the other hand, it might not.

But you had to pick up your buddies. That had been drilled into him since day one of his abbreviated basic training. He'd seen the sense of it in the field, too, which wasn't true of a lot of the c.r.a.p they'd fed him in basic. If you didn't help your buddies when they needed it most, they wouldn't help you if you did-and you were liable to.

"Come on, dammit." He and Yossel said the same thing at the same time, as if they were an old married couple. They'd both been around this particular block often enough, that was for d.a.m.n sure.

Up they went, keeping their bellies rattlesnake-low on the ground. Rex Stowe was out there, too. The sergeant made no bones about disliking several of the new men in his section. He came to help them anyway. They were part of his job-and, again, he expected them to do the same for him.

That d.a.m.ned Mormon machine gunner opened up again after the spigot-mortar round went off. He knew there'd be wounded-and that there'd be guys trying to do what they could for them. Spray enough bullets around and you'd get some more wounded, maybe even some dead.

Armstrong and Sergeant Stowe reached the closest injured man at about the same time. They looked at him and then looked at each other. Armstrong was pretty sure his face wore the same horrified expression as Stowe's. That a man could make so much noise when so little of him was left . . . War was full of nasty surprises, and it had just pulled another one on Armstrong Grimes.

"Cavendis.h.!.+ Hey, Cavendis.h.!.+" Stowe said. When he got a momentary lull in the screaming, he asked, "You want us to bring you in, or you want to get it over with right now? Your call."

Had that been Armstrong, he would have wanted it over and done with. He had no idea how Stowe knew the wounded man was Cavendish; there sure wasn't enough left of his face to tell by that, and one guy's shrieks sounded a lot like another's. But Cavendish seemed perfectly coherent when he said, "For the love of Mike, take me in." Then, hardly missing a beat, he went back to screaming again.

Stowe looked at Armstrong and shrugged. "He might live."

He didn't sound as if he believed it. Armstrong sure didn't. He looked at what was left of Cavendish. No, he wouldn't have wanted to go on if he looked like that. But if the other soldier did . . . "Gotta try, I guess."

They bandaged and tourniqueted Cavendish's wounds, stopping the worst of the bleeding. Stowe closed the one in the man's belly with a couple of safety pins. They weren't much, but they were better than nothing. Both Armstrong and Stowe gave him a shot of morphine. "Maybe he'll shut up," Armstrong said.

"Yeah, and if we gave him too much of the s.h.i.+t, maybe he'll shut up for good," Stowe said. "That's easier than going out the way he was." Armstrong grunted and nodded. His hands were all b.l.o.o.d.y. So were Stowe's. The sergeant asked, "You want to take him back, or shall I?"

No corpsmen were in sight. They did the best they could, but they couldn't be everywhere. Armstrong considered. Taking Cavendish back would get him out of the front line for a bit, but the Mormons might shoot him while he did it. He shrugged. "I'll take care of it if you want me to."

"Go on, then." Stowe could make the same calculation as Armstrong. "I'll get him on your back-you'll want to stay low."

"f.u.c.kin'-A I will," Armstrong said fervently. He'd stayed as near horizontal as he could while working on Cavendish. So had Rex Stowe. They'd both spent a lot of time-too much time, as far as Armstrong was concerned-up at the front. They'd learned what tricks there were to know about staying alive and not getting hurt. The only trouble was, sometimes all the tricks in the world didn't do you a d.a.m.n bit of good.

With what was left of Cavendish on top of him, Armstrong crawled away from the Mormon machine gun. At least the dreadfully wounded man wasn't wriggling so much. Maybe the morphine the two noncoms had given him was taking hold.

Even half a mile back of the line, they acted a lot more regulation. A soldier in a clean new uniform stared at Armstrong and said, "What are you doing bringing a body back here? Leave him for Graves Registration."

"f.u.c.k you, Jack," Armstrong said without heat. "For one thing, he ain't dead. For another thing, he's worth two of Graves Registration and four of you. Point me at the nearest aid station before I kick your worthless a.s.s."

Armstrong wasn't small, but the other man was bigger. Fury wouldn't have worried him. Armstrong's complete indifference to consequences did. Maybe he thought Armstrong would just as soon kill him as look at him-and maybe he was right. He said, "There's a tent behind that pile of bricks. It s.h.i.+elds 'em from small-arms fire."

"Thanks." Armstrong headed that way, carrying Cavendish now. The wounded man was a lot lighter than he had been before he got hurt. A corpsman came out before Armstrong got halfway there. "Hey!" he called. "Come give me a hand with this guy."

The corpsman trotted toward him. When he got close enough to take a good look at Cavendish, he stopped short, his boots kicking up dust. "Jesus!" he said.

"Tell me about it," Armstrong said. "You should've seen him before my sergeant and me patched him up. But he said he wanted to live if he could." He shrugged. "What are you gonna do when a guy says that?"

"Jesus." The corpsman looked green, and he'd seen some of the worst things war could do. "Well, I guess we've got to try. I'll help you get him to the tent."

"Thank you." Cavendish's voice was dreamy and far away. Armstrong had thought he'd long since pa.s.sed out. The corpsman looked as if he'd just heard a ghost.

The surgeon in the tent did a double take when he saw Cavendish. Armstrong got out of there before the doc went to work. Watching would have made him sick. That was crazy, but it was true. He went back up to the front line. There, at least, death and mutilation came at random. You didn't know about them ahead of time. That made them, if not tolerable, at least possible to bear.

Jefferson Pinkard wondered why the h.e.l.l the vice president of the Cyclone Chemical Company wasn't in the Army. Cullen Beauregard-"Call me C.B."-Slattery couldn't have been more than thirty. He was obviously healthy, and just as obviously sharp.

"Oh, yes, sir," he said. "Anything alive, this'll s.h.i.+ft. You don't need to worry about that at all."

"You make it for bugs, though."

"That's right." Slattery nodded.

"But it'll kill rats and mice," Jeff said. C.B. Slattery nodded again. Jeff went on, "And cats and dogs?" Another nod. "And people?"

"Yes, sir. It will absolutely kill people. That's why you've got to be careful when you use it," Slattery said. "Matter of fact, the chemical's the same one some Yankee states use to kill criminals."

"Really? Is that a fact?" Jeff said. One more nod from Slattery. He was one of the noddingest people Jeff had ever met. "If you wanted to, you could use it to kill a whole bunch of people, then?"

"Absolutely. You absolutely could." The chemical-company official didn't ask why Pinkard might want to use his product, made to get rid of roaches and other pests, to dispose of large numbers of people instead. What he did say was, "If you use large quant.i.ties, you'd be ent.i.tled to a bulk discount."

"That's nice. That's white of you, matter of fact," Jeff said. C.B. Slattery laughed uproariously. He didn't ask what color the people who might die were. Pretty plainly, he already knew.

Somewhere in Camp Determination, a work gang of Negroes chanted rhythmically as they carried or dug or did whatever the guards told them to do. Slattery smiled at that, too, the way he might have smiled at a bear playing with a medicine ball in a zoo.

The shape of his smile decided Jeff. This wasn't a man who would balk at what needed discussing here. "Let's get down to bra.s.s tacks, then," Jeff said. "Can your firm design us a facility, I guess you'd call it, that would let us reduce the camp population without leaving the n.i.g.g.e.rs still here any the wiser about what was going on inside?" He'd talked about killing people when it was in the abstract. When it got down to something he might actually do, his own words turned abstract. Reducing population didn't seem to mean so much.

"My firm? No, sir. Sorry, but that's not what we do. We make insecticide," Slattery answered. Pinkard muttered under his breath; he hadn't expected a flat refusal. But when the bright young man continued, he discovered he hadn't got one, either: "But I can put you in touch with some design outfits that will help you along those lines. Just as a guess, I'd say you'd want to call it a delousing station or a bath-house or something like that. Sound reasonable?"

"Sounds sensible. I was thinking along those lines myself, to tell you the truth," said Pinkard, who hadn't been. He picked up a pencil and wrote, Delousing? Baths? Delousing? Baths? on a sheet of foolscap. Maybe Slattery saw through him, maybe not. He went on, "Now, these outfits you're talking about-they in Arkansas like you? If I have my druthers, I want to work with somebody local, you know what I mean?" on a sheet of foolscap. Maybe Slattery saw through him, maybe not. He went on, "Now, these outfits you're talking about-they in Arkansas like you? If I have my druthers, I want to work with somebody local, you know what I mean?"

"I sure do, and I respect that," Slattery said quickly. Respecting it didn't mean agreeing with it, but did mean he'd go along if he wanted the Cyclone Chemical Company to get the business. When Jefferson Pinkard wanted his druthers these days, he d.a.m.n well got them. He remembered wis.h.i.+ng for them in the last war, wis.h.i.+ng and not getting. A lot of things about growing older were d.a.m.ned unpleasant (his last visit to the dentist leaped to mind). But if you were halfway decent at what you did, you got your druthers a lot more often than you had when you were younger. As if to underscore that, C.B. Slattery continued, "Naturally, we work with people from Little Rock a lot of the time. But I do believe a couple of these outfits have branches in Texas-Dallas or Houston, I'm not quite sure which."

"Well, you can wire me the details when you get home," Jeff said, and it was Slattery's turn to write himself a note. "I'll do some checking on my own, too." If Slattery thought he could set up some sweetheart deal, maybe rig kickbacks for Cyclone Chemical, he could d.a.m.n well think again.

He wasn't fool enough to let on that he'd had anything like that in mind. "You go right ahead, sir. I think you'll find out the firms I recommend are compet.i.tive in quality and in price." He paused to pull out a pack of cigarettes, offer one to Jeff, and then stick one in his own mouth. Once they both had lights, he remarked, "Something else occurs to me."

"What's that?"

"You might want to site this, ah, facility away from the main camp and take prisoners to it. You'd be less likely to spook the spooks that way, if you know what I mean." Slattery had a disarming grin.

He also had a point. Jeff scribbled some more on that sheet of foolscap. "Could be," he said. It applied the same principle as telling Negroes they were going to another camp when they got into the trucks from which they would never get out. "We could move 'em right on through, just like a . . . factory."

The word that first crossed his mind, that caused the pause, was slaughterhouse. slaughterhouse. He didn't want to say that, any more than he wanted to talk about killing Negroes rather than reducing population. It made him think too openly about what this camp was for. He didn't want to say that, any more than he wanted to talk about killing Negroes rather than reducing population. It made him think too openly about what this camp was for.

"You sure could." C.B. Slattery fairly radiated enthusiasm. "It'd be a privilege for my firm to be affiliated with such a patriotic enterprise. Freedom!"

"Freedom!" Jeff echoed automatically. "You'll be hearing from us. I expect some of those designers may, too, so get me that word quick as you can. Like I say, though, I'll check out some other outfits in these parts along with 'em."

"You know your business best." No, Slattery wasn't about to argue. No matter who built the places where the Negroes went in and didn't come out, the chemical that made sure they didn't come out would come from his company. He said, "Freedom!" one more time and hurried out of Pinkard's office. By the way he moved, his next appointment was just as urgent and just as important as this one. It wasn't likely to be, but treating it that way made him a good businessman.

Jeff got up and watched him leave the administrative center, then went back to his desk. He picked up the telephone and called Richmond. He wanted Ferdinand Koenig knowing what was going on every step of the way. The Attorney General heard him out-he did try to keep things short-and then said, "This all sounds pretty good. Only one thing bothers me a little."

"What's that?" Jeff asked. Whatever bothered Jake Featherston's right-hand man was guaranteed to be dead on arrival.

"This whole business of building the, uh, fumigator-whatever the h.e.l.l you want to call it-away from the camp. That means we're using trucks again. I thought one of the big points of building the fumigator in the first place was getting away from the G.o.dd.a.m.n trucks."

"Well, yes, sir," Jeff said reluctantly. "Only problem I see with building it here is, the n.i.g.g.e.rs won't take long to figure out this is the end of the line if we do. We'll have more trouble from 'em in that case. Camp's been pretty quiet so far, and I'd like to keep it that way."

"I understand that, but we've got to think about efficiency, too," Koenig said. "If we can give your trucks back to the Army-minus your exhaust hookup, of course"-he laughed, which meant Pinkard had to do the same-"that'll help the war effort a lot. We need all the transport we can get right now, what with the big push into Pennsylvania. And you've got a good solid perimeter around the camp, right? You've got guards who know what they're doing, right?"

"Well, yes, sir," Jeff repeated. He couldn't very well say the camp didn't have a solid perimeter, or that the guards didn't know what the h.e.l.l they were doing. If he said that, he wouldn't stay camp commandant for another five minutes, and he wouldn't deserve to, either.

"All right, then," the Attorney General said. "Any trouble comes up, I reckon you'll be able to handle it. A few bursts from the guards' submachine guns should settle most troubles pretty d.a.m.n quick. If they don't, well, the machine guns in the towers outside the barbed wire sure as h.e.l.l will."

"Yes, sir," Pinkard said one more time. Everything Ferd Koenig said was true. If the Negroes caused trouble, the guards ought to be able to smash it.

"Good." Koenig sounded pleased. "You keep at it, Pinkard. I'm sure everything will work out fine. Freedom!"

"Freedom!" Jeff said, but he was talking to a dead line.

He hung up, swearing under his breath. Everything Koenig said was true, yeah, but what he said was only part of the story. Jeff remembered how things had been back at Camp Dependable in Louisiana when his guards were reducing population by taking n.i.g.g.e.rs out to the swamps and shooting them. Not only had that put a strain on the white men, it had also made them stay on edge every minute of the day and night. The Negroes in the camp had known too well they had nothing to lose. If they tried to nail a guard, they'd get killed, sure. But if they didn't, they'd get killed anyhow. So why not try to take somebody with you when you went?

Camp Determination wasn't like that now. The blacks here believed this wasn't the last stop. They were wrong, but the belief itself mattered. It mattered a lot. Because they still believed they had a future, they were much more docile than they would have been otherwise.

Building the fumigator here would ruin all that. They'd figure out what was what. How could they help it? Everybody knew Negroes weren't as smart as white people, but they wouldn't have to be geniuses to figure this out. And guards would have to stay on their toes every second from then on.

But now Jeff had his orders. He wished he'd never called Richmond. He should have just gone ahead and built the fumigator where he wanted it and then told Ferd Koenig what he'd done. The Attorney General would have gone along with it. The way things worked out, Jeff was stuck.

He swore again, louder this time, sat down to look at a map of Camp Determination, and then swore some more. Pretty plainly, he'd have to build two fumigators, one for men, the other for women and pickaninnies. Otherwise, the s.e.xes would meet on the way to getting eliminated, and that would cause all kinds of trouble-to say nothing of making inmates' att.i.tudes even worse than they would be anyhow.

After another look at the map-and some more venting of his spleen-he decided how things would have to work. The fumigators could go at, or even next to, the present outer boundaries of the camp. That way, he could use the current perimeter to separate them from the areas where the Negroes lived. Maybe he could send people through on the pretext that they had to be deloused before going to a new camp. That would explain why they didn't come back.

How long could he keep them from learning that only bodies left Camp Determination? Not forever, he feared. But he could buy at least some time that way. The longer he didn't have to worry about uppity n.i.g.g.e.rs, the better he liked it. And he would be following orders.

Irving Morrell got his first look at one of the new Confederate barrels just outside of Salem, Ohio. The town, east of Canton, called itself "Ohio's City of Friends." It had been founded by Quakers, and many still lived there. What was happening around Salem now had nothing to do with those peaceable people or their ideals.

A U.S. 105 firing over open sights had knocked out the barrel in question. The young lieutenant who gravely explained that to Morrell didn't see anything funny about it. He didn't a.s.sociate it with Jake Featherston's ranting tract of the same name. Morrell wondered whether to explain why he was laughing. In the end, he didn't. Any joke you had to explain wasn't funny.

Neither was the new barrel. It stank of gasoline and cordite and burnt paint and rubber and burnt flesh. Morrell's nostrils tried to pinch in on themselves to hold out as much of that horrible smell as they could. His stomach lurched as soon as he recognized it. He'd smelled it too often before.

No barrel in the world could withstand a direct hit from a 105 at point-blank range. Getting Getting hits with an artillery piece even at point-blank range was a much bigger problem, though. The best antibarrel weapon was still another barrel. hits with an artillery piece even at point-blank range was a much bigger problem, though. The best antibarrel weapon was still another barrel.

When Morrell walked around the charred corpse of this one, he got the feeling that the machines he commanded were like boys trying to stop men. The long gun with the big bore, the sloped armor, the low profile . . . This was what the USA should have had at the start of the war.

He turned to the lieutenant. "Can the inch-and-a-half guns on our barrels hurt these monsters at all?"

"They can penetrate the side armor, sir," the youngster answered. "That frontal plate-I'm afraid not. Our barrels' armor-piercing rounds mostly just bounce off."

"Happy day," Morrell muttered, and then, "We've got got to upgun. That's all there is to it." to upgun. That's all there is to it."

"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said. "But the turret ring on our present model won't let us mount a three-incher like these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have. Two and a fraction, that's it-and even then we need a new turret to hold the larger weapon."

"We've got to do it," Morrell said, more to himself than to his guide. "Building a whole new machine from the ground up-well, we should have started a long time ago. Since we didn't, we've just got to squeeze the most out of what we have for a while longer."

"Can we?" the lieutenant asked-a question Morrell wished he didn't have to contemplate.

After a moment's thought, he answered, "Of course we can, son-because we've got to. Now where's the map that shows our armored dispositions?"

"It's back in town, sir," the young lieutenant said. Morrell wished it were farther forward: one of a lot of things he wished that he wasn't going to get. Back to Salem they went. Refugees from farther west clogged the road. Some of them tried to take shelter in Salem, even as the people who lived there cleared out.