"Too bad. Well, maybe you can liberate one."
"Maybe." Goodson Lord looked dubious. "I've seen fiddles and pianos and guitars in these pissant Confederate towns, but that's about it."
"Well, let the corpsmen know. Let the guys in front of us know," O'Doull said. "You'd be amazed at what they can come up with-besides the clap, I mean."
"If I want that, I'll get it myself," Lord said. O'Doull snorted.
Since the medic didn't seem to want to spread the word, O'Doull did it for him. Inside of three days, Eddie produced a horn. "Here you go," he said. "Merry Christmas."
"I'll be a son of a bitch," Goodson Lord said. He took the trombone and started to play. Notes smooth and mellow as butter filled the tent. They made the Army bugles O'Doull was used to seem like screeching blue jays by comparison.
"Wow!" Eddie said. "You really can play that so-and-so."
"You think I was lying?" Lord asked, lowering the trombone.
"No, not like that," Eddie answered. "But there's playing, and then there's playing, you know? You're really good!"
"Oh. Thanks." The corpsman's enthusiasm made the sergeant blink. He started to play some more.
He got about thirty seconds into a number from Oh, Sequoyah! before a corpsman brought in a man with a piece of shrapnel in his thigh. "You can blow that thing, man," the soldier said. "Can you keep playing while the doc works on me?"
"Sorry," Lord said after a quick look at the wound. "I think we're gonna have to knock you out."
"Aw, hell," the wounded man said. As far as Leonard O'Doull could remember, that was the first time he'd ever heard a man ask not to be anesthetized.
Sergeant Lord got the patient etherized on the table. O'Doull cut away the man's trouser leg and started cleaning out the wound and tying off bleeders. He could see the femoral artery pulsing in there, but it wasn't cut. If it had been, the man likely would have bled out before he got back to the aid station.
O'Doull sewed him up and injected him with penicillin and tetanus antitoxin. "These aren't so bad," he said. "He should heal up fine."
"You do like to work on 'em when they turn out that way," Lord agreed. "How many amputations have you done?"
"I couldn't even begin to count 'em. They're like burns: more than I ever wanted to, that's for damn sure," O'Doull said.
"Yeah, same here," Lord said. "They're easy to perform, they're fast, and the patient usually comes through 'em pretty well. But you know he'll never be the same afterwards, the poor bastard."
"Ain't it the truth?" O'Doull said sadly. "Most of the time when I do an amputation, I feel more like a butcher than a surgeon."
"That's about the size of it," Lord said.
O'Doull wished they hadn't been talking about it, because the very next man the corpsman carried in had a foot and lower leg smashed beyond the hope of saving. The doctor pulled out the bone saw and did what he had to do. As Sergeant Lord had said, the soldier would probably pull through. Whether he would be happy about it was a different question. O'Doull wasn't likely ever to learn his answer to it.
Fayetteville lay south and even a little west of Atlanta. A rail line ran through it. Once the U.S. Army got astride that line, it would pinch off one more Confederate artery into the beleaguered capital of Georgia. Lieutenant Michael Pound didn't think the enemy would be able to hold Atlanta much longer after that happened.
Being a platoon commander, Pound wore earphones more often than he wanted to. Instead of doing as he pleased, he had to keep track of what the other units in the regiment and the other barrels in his platoon were up to. He thought it cramped his style.
"Marquard's platoon has lost three barrels at square G-5," a voice from somewhere in back of the line intoned. "Need armor there to cover the infantry advance."
Pound checked the map. If his platoon was where he thought, they were right on the edge of G-5 themselves. "Pound here," he answered on the same frequency. "We can cover. Do you know why they lost them? Over."
He waited. He didn't have to wait long. "Roger your covering," the voice said. "Report is that the losses are due to enemy barrels. Over."
"What the hell's wrong with Marquard?" Pound asked, but not with the TRANSMIT key pressed. He happened to know that the other lieutenant had new-model machines. To his way of thinking, you had to be worse than careless to lose three in a hurry to C.S. barrels. You damn near had to be criminally negligent.
He wirelessed the news to the other four barrels in his platoon. By what their commanders said, they felt the same way. "We'll take care of it," one of the sergeants promised. "Those butternut bastards can kiss their butts good-bye."
"Damn straight!" Pound said. He led a bunch of hard-charging pirates, men who thought the same way he did. "Let's go get 'em. Follow me."
He led the platoon west and a little south, to come in where the luckless Marquard had got in trouble. He hadn't got far before realizing the trouble might not be what he thought. There sat a dead U.S. barrel in a field-not just dead but decapitated, for the turret lay upside down, about ten feet from the chassis.
"Fuck," Sergeant Scullard said. "Where'd they get a gun that could do that?"
"Good question," Pound said, which didn't answer the gunner. He got on the platoon circuit again: "Be careful, guys. Use all the cover you can. I think Featherston's fuckers just came up with something new."
For most of a year, the latest U.S. barrels had dominated the battlefield. If they couldn't do that any more…then everything got harder. Michael Pound approved of easy, not that the enemy cared.
He flipped up the lid to the cupola and stood up in the turret. He needed to be able to see; the periscopes built into the cupola just didn't do the job. There wasn't a lot of small-arms fire. If the C.S. gunners who nailed that U.S. barrel opened up on him with an automatic rifle or a machine gun…that was better than having them shoot at his barrel with whatever monster gun they had.
One of the other barrels in his platoon was about a hundred yards to his left. He saw a blast of flame burst from a thick stand of bushes, heard a thunderous roar, and a moment later watched the other U.S. barrel brew up. The men inside couldn't have had a chance-and that gun, whatever it was, would be aiming at him next.
"Front!" he bawled as he tumbled back into the turret.
"Identified," Scullard answered. "I'm going to give it AP. I think a hull's hiding in there."
"I don't know. I didn't see one." But Pound added, "If you got a better look, go with what you think."
Mouradian had already slammed the round into the breech. The gunner fired the piece. The cannon's bellow was slightly muffled inside the turret. Smoke and fire spurted from the heart of the bushes. Michael Pound whooped and thumped Sergeant Scullard on the back. "Gimme another round!" Scullard told the loader. He fired again. More flames burst from the bushes. Shame Moses isn't here, Pound thought.
"Sir, I think that son of a bitch is history," Scullard said.
"I think you're right," Pound said. "And if you weren't so quick-and if you weren't so sure about what was hiding there-we would be instead." He spoke into the intercom: "Move forward-carefully. I want to see what the hell we killed."
"Yes, sir," the driver answered.
By the time Pound's barrel drew near, the bushes were burning briskly. Through them, he got a pretty good look at a low hull, a turret as smoothly curved as a turtle's carapace, and a gun that looked as if it came off a destroyer.
"Fuck," Scullard said again. "Gonna be a ton of work killing these babies."
"We can do it. You did it," Pound said.
"I know," the gunner said. "But they can kill us, too, easy as you please. I hope the Confederates don't have a lot of 'em."
"Me, too," Pound admitted. "We can't go marching around like no gun can touch us any more-that's for sure." Sometimes U.S. new-model barrels, confident in their armor, would almost dare C.S. machines to shoot at them. If you did that against one of these barrels, they'd bury your ashes in a tobacco pouch.