Moss developed a new appreciation for possum and squirrel and turtle. The Negroes called one kind of long-necked terrapin, chicken turtles, presumably because of how they tasted. Moss couldn't see the resemblance. He didn't spend much time bitching, though; any meat in his belly was better than none.
Looking down at what was left of himself one weary evening, he said, "Back before the war, I had a potbelly. One of these days, I'd like to get another one."
"Some of the shit we eat makes Army rations look good," Nick Cantarella agreed. "Don't know that I could say anything worse about it."
Amusement glinted in Spartacus' eyes as he looked from one white man to the other. "I's mighty sorry to inconvenience you gents-mighty sorry," he said. "If 'n you knows where we kin git us some ribs and beefsteaks, sing out."
"Steak! Jesus!" Cantarella started to laugh. "I even stopped thinking about steak. What the hell's the point?"
"How about Confederate rations?" Spartacus asked, the mockery gone from his voice.
Hearing the change in tone, Moss grew alert. "What do you have in mind, boss?" he asked.
Spartacus smiled; he liked hearing the white men in his band acknowledge that he outranked them. "They got that new depot over by Americus," he said.
"Think we can hit it?" Cantarella asked.
"Hope so, anyways," Spartacus answered. "I got me a pretty good notion where they keeps the ration tins, too. See, here's what I got in mind…"
He sketched on the muddy ground with a stick. He wouldn't have done so much explaining for the other Negroes, but he thought of the escaped U.S. soldiers as military professionals, and valued their opinion. With Nick Cantarella, that was justified. Moss knew it was a lot less so for him.
He listened to Spartacus and tried to look wise. Cantarella, sure as hell, had a couple of suggestions that made the guerrilla leader nod in admiration. "Yeah, we do dat," Spartacus said. "We sure 'nough do dat. Featherston's fuckers, dey don't know which way dey should oughta run."
"That's the idea," Cantarella said. "If they go in a bunch of wrong directions, the right one gets easier for us."
The guerrillas struck at night. They stayed under cover while the sun was in the sky. Doing anything else would have asked to get slaughtered. A Negro threw a grenade into the depot from the north, while another black banged away with a Tredegar-trying to stir up the anthill.
They did it, too. Whistles shrilled. Men shouted. Soldiers boiled out after the Negroes. Moss hoped the guerrillas had splendid hidey-holes or quick legs.
As soon as the Confederates were well and truly stirred, the guerrillas' machine gun opened up from the west. Nick Cantarella had finally persuaded the gunner to fire short bursts and not squeeze off a belt of ammo at a time. It made the weapon much more effective and much more accurate.
Somebody inside the supply dump yelled, "Let's get those coons, goddammit! They come around here, they give us the chance to wreck 'em. We better not waste it." Shouted orders followed. The officer-he plainly was one-knew what he was doing, and how to get his men to do what he wanted.
A scream said at least one machine-gun bullet struck home. The Confederates fired back. They also started moving against the machine gun. A few black riflemen posted near the guerrillas' heavy weapon discouraged that. They were more mobile than the machine-gun crew, and gave the C.S. attackers some unpleasant surprises.
But the big surprise the guerrillas had in mind came from the far side of the supply depot. As soon as the Confederates were well engaged to the west, Spartacus whistled to the rest of the band and said, "Let's go!"
As it always did when he went into action, Jonathan Moss' heart pounded. He clutched his Tredegar and loped forward. Cutters snipped through the strands of barbed wire around the depot. The supply dump was new and in a rear area. The Confederates hadn't had the time or energy to protect it the way they would have closer to the front.
"No shootin' here, remember-not unless you got to," Spartacus called quietly. "In an' out fast as you can, like you was screwin' with her pappy asleep right beside you." From the way some of the Negroes chuckled, they'd done things like that.
Most of them carried rifles or pistols or submachine guns. Three or four, though, pushed wheelbarrows instead. Moss couldn't imagine a homelier weapon of war. But a man with a wheelbarrow could move much more food than someone who had to carry a crate in his arms or on his back.
"What the hell?" a Confederate called-the Negroes weren't quiet enough to escape all notice.
"We're on patrol here," Moss said, doing his best to imitate a Southern accent. "Why the devil aren't you chasing those damn niggers?"
"Uh-on my way, sir."
Moss heard rapidly retreating footsteps. He knew he'd better not laugh out loud. In his own ears, he hadn't sounded much like a Confederate at all. But he had sounded like a white man, and the soldier never dreamt he'd run into a damnyankee here. To him, anybody who sounded like a white had to be on his side, and anybody who sounded like an authoritative white had to be entitled to order him around.
"How d'you like being a Confederate officer?" Nick Cantarella whispered.
"Fine, except the bastards don't pay me," Moss whispered back.
"Hell they don't," Spartacus said. "We's at the payoff now. In there, boys-grab an' git!"
The Negroes rushed into the tent that sheltered crates of rations from the elements. Soft thumps announced that several of those crates were going into the wheelbarrows. The guerrillas emerged, their grins the most visible thing about them.
Then a shot rang out. "Jesus God, we got chicken thieves!" a Confederate screamed.
One of the chicken thieves shot him an instant later. "Scram!" Spartacus said-surely the most succinct order Moss had ever heard. It was also just right for the circumstances.
Firing as they went, the guerrillas withdrew from the depot. Men with rifles and submachine guns covered the wheelbarrows' retreat. When a bullet struck home with a wet slapping sound, a hauler dropped. Nick Cantarella grabbed the wheelbarrow handles and got it moving again.
They made it out of the supply dump and back into the woods. Moss' greatest worry was that the Confederates would pursue hard, but they didn't. "Shit, they already did more than I figured they would," Cantarella said. "They're rear-echelon troops, clerks and stevedores in uniform. If they wanted to mix it up, they'd be at the front."
"I guess," Moss said. "I'm not complaining, believe me."
Cantarella gave him the ghost of a grin. "Didn't think you were. That was smart, what you did there to keep the one asshole off our ass."
"Thanks." Praise from the other Army officer always made Moss feel good. It made him feel like a real soldier, not a pilot stuck in the middle of a ground war he didn't understand-which he was.
Once the guerrillas got clear of the depot, Spartacus abandoned the wheelbarrows. His men grumbled, but he held firm. "Gotta do it," he said. "Otherwise, them wheels show the butternut bastards every place we been. Trail's a lot harder to get rid of than footprints."
Moss and Cantarella took their turns playing pack mule along with everybody else. White skin gave them no special privileges here. If they'd tried to claim any, they wouldn't have lasted long. Moss wondered whether Confederates caught in like circumstances would have been smart enough to figure that out. After some of the things he'd seen in Georgia, he wouldn't have bet on it.
His back grumbled at lugging-toting, they said down here-a heavy crate. He was the oldest man in the guerrilla band. Spartacus, who'd been a Confederate noncom in the Great War, was within a couple of years of him, but Spartacus was the CO. Nobody expected him to fetch and carry.
After what seemed like forever, the Negroes and the U.S. soldiers they'd taken in got back to the swampy hideout from which they'd started. And then…to the victors went the spoils. "Let's eat!" Spartacus said, and they did.