He thought. "Give it back and the Army will carry on with Shiloh. They'll take it apart and study it. Then make their own."
"Seems like that shouldn't bother you."
It shouldn't… but it did. But he only said, "I'm letting you decide. But you're right. I don't think I want the Confederacy to have it either."
"We got to do something with it. Can't leave it sitting here." She stroked Johnny's face. "And we got to think, the three of us, what we going to do, where we goin' to go."
He chewed at his fingers. If they didn't want the Railroad to have it — and they didn't want the Confederacy to have it —
Couldn't give it back to the Yankees; that was impossible. They'd have to drive the truck all the way back, then up to Fort Monroe — either that or bypass Richmond, and drive on up to the old federal capital, now a divided city, and try to crash the Wall. No, he'd been right the first time: It was impossible.
But there was another idea, or at least he had the suspicion one was lurking around back in his mind. What was it? He drummed his fingers on the truck's hood.
"What time is it?" she asked him.
"I don't know… three-thirty."
"Any ideas?"
"Just give me a little more time to think."
Then he had it. He turned the idea around, looking at it from every angle. It looked good.
"Vy?"
"Yeah?"
"Why don't we set it off here?"
"What?"
"We've got the fuze. I think I know enough about ordnance that I can arm it. Look. Say it goes off out here. The Railroad can't use it; the Army can't use it. And most of all the Kuklos League can't use it. It won't hurt anyone; there aren't any houses for miles around."
"How about us?" said Vyry.
Now that he had the key to it it all seemed simple. "You and Turner take the car. Go back to Norfolk. The deputy at the roadblock knows that car now, and he's not blocking the way south; just keep the brights on as you go by and all he'll do is salute. Oh — can you drive?"
"You'd be surprised, Major, how many of us know things we ain't supposed to. But what are we goin' to do back there? They'll be looking for us, you know."
"Drive to Sharon — I mean, back to where you left the boat. Turner can run a boat, and that FPB will outrun anything that floats. You can take it North."
"North," she repeated.
"That's right. Tell them what happened. And why."
"Wait a minute now. What about you? Aren't you coming with us?"
"I'll come after. When I get it armed I'll follow you."
"We'll wait," she said.
"You can't. I don't know how long it'll take, and Turner…"
She looked down at him. He was breathing regularly, lying on the ground.
"Here." He stepped away from the truck, something in him touched by the sight of the big man lying there so helplessly. "Let's get him into the car."
Completely relaxed, he was too heavy to lift; Quidley compromised by dragging him, arms-first, around the corner of the truck. Vyry lifted his legs into the passenger's side of the Triumph. Quidley moved his trunk into position and propped his head carefully against the window. Then closed the door on him and turned to Vyry. They faced each other in the dark.
"Vy?"
"Here, Major."
"Look — if I don't come—"
"But you said you will."
He pondered her silhouette in the night. "Look," he said at last, "I know you don't love me. But could you — in case we don't get together again—"
She didn't answer; not in words. But suddenly he felt her arms around him and her lips hot on his, searching, open. Only after long minutes did she turn his head and murmur into his shoulder.
"What?" he said gently.
"I said — maybe it isn't too late to change my mind."
His lips found her neck and then her mouth again, and this time she moaned hungrily. "Major… the door."
For a moment he didn't grasp what she meant; then he did, and reached up to swing open the back of the truck. There, beside the dark convexity he laid her down on a nest of blankets. He was clumsy and she laughed and her hands moved and then things dropped away, and she was his.
There was no haste this time for either of them. And everything seemed different. Before she'd been practiced and perfunctory. Now — in the bed of the truck, in the shadow of destruction and the end of everything — she was his lover. And at the end when he cried out she pulled him into her and through his own joy he felt her shudder beneath him.
They lay together, and listened to the insects and the rustling of the leaves outside and the distant drone of motors in the sky.
"Major… I still love Johnny."
"I know."
"But I love you, too."
"Thank you," he said, leaning to kiss her one more time.
"We got to go now." She sat up and pulled her clothes together briskly and he had to smile at the abrupt return of her old businesslike manner. "Dawn'll be here in a couple of hours, Major."
"Aubrey," he said.
"Say what?"
"Aubrey's my name."
She laughed. "That so? You never told me. Aubrey. I like it. But look, you've got to hurry. You sure you don't want me to wait for you?"
"No. You get going. I'll catch up."
She hugged him quick, tight, then jumped down. She peered into the car. "He's still out. I whacked him pretty good. Johnny's tough, though — he'll be comin' 'round later."
"Sure he will. Maybe they'll be able to help him, up North."
"Maybe." They faced each other again.
"Well, so long," said Quidley.
"Major — I mean, Aubrey—"
"Yes?"
"One more kiss, just in case—"
This one was long and deep and he held it till he felt his eyes burning and the wetness on her cheeks against his own. He turned his head. "Go on now, Vyry. Get in the car and go."
He leaned against the truck and closed his eyes. He didn't want to see her leave. He heard the quick scuff of her steps and then the door closing. The engine ground, and he saw the lights come on red through his closed eyelids. He raised his hand in farewell.
When it was dark again and the hum of the motor had dwindled down the road to nothing, merging imperceptibly into the insect sounds of the forest night, he breathed a few times, deep, and then opened his eyes.
She was gone.
Now it was time for the shell. He breathed a few more times, till the knot in his throat relaxed, then climbed up in the cab. He clicked the dome light on and examined the fuze.
He remembered how it screwed into the base of the thing now resting, waiting, behind him. He turned it over in his hands and remembered the course they'd given them on enemy ordnance. It had been a few years back, when he was still in artillery, but fuzing itself was relatively simple and not easily forgotten.
In a conventional heavy shell, whether nose- or base-detonated, the burst was triggered by the abrupt deceleration as the falling shell hit land or water or target. But there had to be safeties, mechanisms to prevent accidental detonation during transport, storage, and firing. These safeties were in the fuze itself; it was far easier to maintain control of them, and to change their characteristics if battle conditions required, than it would if they were located in the body of the shell.
In the weapons he was familiar with, two factors were involved in the shell's safeties: setback and rotation. First came setback. When the projectile was fired, the terrific acceleration within the barrel caused a movable element in the fuze to slide backward, against the resistance of a spring. A catch then locked it back out of the way of the exploder, which up till then it had blocked from operating.
But a sharp blow or shock, such as an accidental fall from a loader sling, could also trip the setback element. A second safety was built in as two or more small spring-set pins, locking the exploder in place radially. When the shell was fired, rifling in the gun-bore started it spinning. The centrifugal force of the spin moved the pins outward, disengaging them from the exploder.