Cincinnatus shrugged. "Well, I can see that, 'cause it ain't what you're used to. Me, I grew up in the CSA, so it sounds right to me. And he's damn good at what he does, whether you like it or not."
"So is Jake Featherston," Williamson said, which was true but not exactly a compliment. Cincinnatus thought about rising to it and arguing for real, but why? When a whole Confederate army was surrendering, what point to a dumb little quarrel?
More and more soldiers in butternut and Freedom Party Guards in camouflage uniforms trudged out of Birmingham. The Party guards looked even sorrier about giving up than the Army men did. Had they seen any chance to fight on, they would have grabbed it. But they didn't-even they knew the jig was up.
Hall nudged Cincinnatus. "Look! That's Patton! That has to be Patton."
"Sure does," Cincinnatus said. Nobody else would have worn a chromed helmet with wreathed stars picked out in gold. Nobody else would have worn not one but two fancy six-shooters, either. Patton's look of loathing made everything from the other soldiers and the Freedom Party Guards seem downright benign by comparison.
Patton already had U.S. soldiers walking along watching him as if he were a lion in a zoo-a dangerous beast that couldn't hurt anybody any more. Cincinnatus and the rest of the drivers fell in with them.
The Confederate soldiers-now the Confederate POWs-stood in rough ranks in a battered, cratered field. U.S. troops, many armed with captured automatic weapons, guarded them. More U.S. soldiers rubbernecked like Cincinnatus. Engineers had set up a microphone in front of the prisoners. The U.S. commander was a long-faced, bald brigadier general named Ironhewer; he waited by the mike for Patton's approach.
Patton saluted him with immense dignity. General Ironhewer returned the military courtesy. Patton took off his pistols and handed them, still holstered, to Ironhewer. This time, the U.S. general saluted him first. He gave the ceremonial weapons to an aide, then went up to the microphone.
"Men of the Army of Kentucky," he said in Midwestern accents, "General Patton has asked leave to speak to you one last time. As this battle ends, as peace between our two countries draws near, I did not see how I could refuse him this privilege." He nodded to the C.S. commander. "General Patton."
Ironhewer stepped away from the microphone and Patton took his place. "Thank you, General, for the courtesy you have shown me and the kindness you are showing my men," he said, his voice thick with unshed tears. He needed a moment to gather himself before continuing. "Soldiers, by an agreement between General Ironhewer and me, the troops of the Army of Kentucky have surrendered. That we are beaten is a self-evident fact, and we cannot hope to resist the bomb that hangs over our head like the sword of Damocles. Richmond is fallen. The cause for which you have so long and manfully struggled, and for which you have braved dangers and made so many sacrifices, is today hopeless.
"Reason dictates and humanity demands that no more blood be shed here. It is your sad duty, and mine, to lay down our arms and to aid in restoring peace. As your commander, I sincerely hope that every officer and soldier will carry out in good faith all the terms of the surrender.
"War such as you have passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred, and revenge. But in captivity and when you return home a manly, straightforward course of conduct will secure the respect even of your enemies." Patton paused. He brushed a hand to his eyes, then went on. "In bidding you farewell, rest assured that you carry with you my best wishes for your future welfare and happiness. I have never sent you where I was unwilling to go myself, nor would I now advise you to a course I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers. Preserve your honor, and the government to which you have surrendered can afford to be and, I hope, will be magnanimous."
Still very erect, he saluted his men. Some of them cried out his name. Others let loose with what they still called the Rebel yell. Tears now streaming down his face, Patton waited for the tumult to die down a little. Then he stepped into the ragged ranks of the rest of the POWs.
Defeated Confederate soldiers shook his hand and embraced him. Cincinnatus watched them with a little sympathy-but not much. "We done licked 'em here," he said to Hal Williamson. "Now we got to finish it everywhere else."
XII
D id taking your own airplanes with you mean a flotilla could operate close to enemy-held land? It hadn't at the start of the war, as Sam Carsten remembered too well. Land-based C.S. airplanes badly damaged the Remembrance when her bombers struck at Charleston.
Well, all kinds of things had changed since then. Charleston was no more-one bomb from a (land-based) airplane had seen to that. And the fleet approaching Haiti had not one airplane carrier but half a dozen. Only one of those was a fleet carrier, newer and faster and able to carry more airplanes than the Remembrance had. The others were smaller, and three of them slower. Still, together they carried close to three hundred airplanes. If that thought wasn't enough to give the Confederate defenders on the western part of the island of Hispaniola nightmares, Sam didn't know what would be.
He had a few nightmares of his own. The Confederates still had airplanes on Haiti, in the Bahamas, and in Cuba. They had submersibles and torpedo boats. They had a sizable garrison to hold Haiti down and to keep the USA from using the Negro nation as a base against them in the Caribbean. They had…
"Sir, they have troubles, lots of them," Lon Menefee said when Sam flabbled out loud. "All those colored folks on these islands hate Jake Featherston like rat poison. Why, Cuba-"
"I know about Cuba," Sam broke in. "The Josephus Daniels ran guns in there a couple of years ago, to give the rebels a hand."
"Well, there you go, then." The new exec damn near dripped confidence. "Besides, they may have airplanes, but have they got fuel? We've been pounding their dumps and hitting the shipping from the mainland. We can do this. I honest to God think we can, sir."
"Hey, here's hoping you're right," Carsten said. It wasn't just that Menefee was a kid, because he was plenty old enough to have served through the whole war. But he wasn't the Old Man. The Josephus Daniels was Sam's responsibility. If anything went wrong, the blame landed squarely on him. Command made you the loneliest, most worried man in the world-or at least on your ship. The poor son of a bitch in charge of the destroyer half a mile away knew what you were going through, though. So did the sub skipper who was trying to send you to the bottom.
Bombers and covering fighters roared off the carriers' flight decks. Squadron after squadron buzzed off toward the southwest, toward Cap-Haпtien and Port-au-Prince. More fighters flew combat air patrol above the fleet.
Battleships' guns roared. The battlewagons didn't rule the fleet the way they had when Sam enlisted back before the Great War started. But their big guns still reached far enough and packed enough punch to make them great for shore bombardment.
Sam's gaze went forward, to one of the Josephus Daniels' pair of four-inch guns. His smile was fond but wry. That gun could shoot at enemy aircraft from longer range than the twin 40mms that had sprouted like mushrooms everywhere there was free space on the deck. For shore bombardment…Well, you'd better be hitting some place where the bad guys couldn't hit back.
Slow, squat, ungainly landing craft surged forward. The troops on them were going to take Haiti away from the Confederate States. If everything went right they were, anyhow. If the operation went south, every skipper in the fleet and every brass hat up to and including the Secretary of the Navy would testify under oath before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War.
"Anything?" Sam asked Thad Walters.