‘Chicken friers?’ Maddy looked at them both.
Wainwright nodded. ‘Thin armour plating and badly designed. Heat transferred from the engine through the whole vehicle makes it like sitting in an oven.’
‘But, also, the fuel tank is poorly positioned and exposed,’ added Devereau. ‘One could aim gunfire to damage the fuel tank knowing the fuel would flood downward into the vehicle … and …’
‘Indeed —’ Wainwright nodded — ‘not called the “frier” for nothing.’
As she watched, Becks and Jefferson finished securing the mounting. On the far side of the East River a swarm of men in blue and grey were already busy with sparking welding torches, working industriously on the makeshift raft that was going to float the old Mark IV tank across to them.
Colonel Devereau was busy overseeing the repairing of the abandoned trench system. Both he and Wainwright had agreed that to defend the far side of the river, the Confederate side, would be a pointless exercise as the defences were all aimed the wrong way: northwards towards the river. The British would be arriving from the south. So it was to be here on this side that both regiments were going to hold the ground together.
The abandoned trench works had a commanding position over the flattened ruins that sloped gently down to the river. If the British really were planning an amphibious assault, this was where it was going to land. A kill zone, if they could make proper use of the trenches.
Maddy had asked why they’d do that — an amphibious landing. Why didn’t they just parachute their men down behind their defence line from one of those big sky navy ships?
She got two blank stares.
‘Para-shoot?’ Devereau frowned. ‘What the devil is that?’
‘Never mind.’
He followed her gaze towards the sparks on the far side of the river. ‘’Tis a heartening sight, is it not? Our men working alongside each other.’
‘Yes. I just hope we have enough time.’
Devereau nodded. A warrant for his own arrest had arrived this morning, delivered by an officer wearing the dark blue, almost black, uniform of the Union Intelligence Division, accompanied by a foot patrol of Foreign Legionnaires. Word had inevitably found its way up his chain of command already.
He’d been hoping to hear news that the men of the 5th Maine up along the east end of the Sheridan-Saint Germain line were going to be the first to follow suit and join them. But so far he’d heard nothing.
He looked to his right, down along the sweeping curve of the river. Among the far-off jagged spikes of ruined buildings he imagined his fellow Northern officers must be curiously watching the flurry of activity over here, wondering how long ‘Devereau’s Foolish Mutiny’ was going to last.
It would last a great deal longer … if you had the spit to make a stand alongside us!
Matters were no better for Colonel Wainwright. A warrant had arrived from Richmond for his arrest on a charge of mutiny.
He and Wainwright had spoken briefly this morning on their temporary phone line. The news he’d been hoping for from that side of the river hadn’t materialized. Wainwright’s broadcast inviting the other Confederate regiments up the line to join them had either not been received, or, as he suspected, they had not the will or courage to join their fellows.
The last detachment of men from the 38th was due to cross the river later on today and join them in digging in on this side. Just under six hundred men and officers in all. Not much to withstand the might of the British army, and quite possibly a regiment or two of Elite French Foreign Legion too.
He suspected discreet meetings had already occurred between generals at the very top of both sides, agreements made to temporarily work together to crush this little mutiny quickly.
He looked at the lines of trench works being dug deeper and reinforced with sandbags and timber struts. They extended parallel to the river, from the support stump of the Williamsburg Bridge, towards the cracked and sooted ruins of the Bryson Glue factories as Brooklyn followed the East River up and merged into Queens. Men would be positioned in the factories with perfect enfilade-fire positions down on the shingle and the approach.
It was here, though, here in this open space, this five hundred yards of bombed-out rubble and craters, flat ground that sloped down to the river, it was here, where there was space for dozens of landing craft to drop their ramps simultaneously, that they were going to have to hit them the hardest.
And it was dangerously close to this precariously frail dome of bricks in which the supposed time machine was located.
Their first line of defence was ‘the borderline’, a long straight trench running from the bridge support to the glue factory. The second line of defence was ‘the horseshoe’, a hastily dug trench that followed the perimeter of the large bomb crater in which the brick mound nestled at the very bottom.
Finally, if and when the horseshoe was overrun, there was the ‘fort’. The entrance to the girls’ archway had been reinforced with a small nest of sandbags and support bars, and topped with a roof of more bags and shovelled dirt. It was a bunker in which three Gatling-gun teams would be stationed, firing out through gunnery slits.
Where we’ll make our last stand … if it comes to that.
He buried that thought beneath a reassuring smile. ‘We shall hold this ground long enough for you to activate your machine and write us a brand-new history, Miss Carter. I am quite certain of that. This is a good piece of ground to defend.’
CHAPTER 68. 2001, New Wellington
New Wellington’s streets were clogged with vehicles, motorized and horse drawn, refugees all attempting to head south to avoid the coming fight. Word was already spreading. Right now, along the port city’s main street, it was a motionless logjam, a deafening turmoil of raised angry voices, snorting unsettled horses and rattling combustion engines.
The pavements either side were filled with pedestrians laden with possessions on their shoulders and backs. Liam and the others found themselves standing beneath the porch of a hardware store, watching the tide of foot traffic traipsing past them.
‘It’s like everyone’s leaving!’ uttered Liam.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Sal. ‘Did McManus tell you?’ She spat his name out like bad-tasting phlegm.
‘There’s something going on in New York,’ said Liam. ‘He said something about a new offensive.’
‘More war, is it?’ grumbled Lincoln. ‘Has this corrupted world not had enough of it already?’
‘But if the fighting’s going to happen up in New York, why is everyone here running away? This is far enough from the fight, isn’t it?’
‘Not far enough,’ answered a gruff voice behind them.
They turned to see an old man in the store behind them. He’d opened his door without their hearing. ‘You not heard the rumours, then?’
‘Rumours?’ Liam shrugged. ‘Aye … it is the British are attacking.’
The old man wafted his hand like that was old news. ‘That much everyone knows about, lad … No, there’s talk this time they gonna be fightin’ with experimentals once again.’ He nodded at the people streaming past them. ‘News was in the morning papers. Some dock workers down at them landing bays caught sight of a bunch of new-type tube-breeds.’
Liam looked at Sal and the others, unsure whether the old man was referring to the hunter-seekers, or the huffaloes.
‘Stupid fools! They don’t give half a cent what-for about the things they unleash on us over here! Crazy-minded monsters bred to kill? It’s only America, right?’ He shook his head angrily. ‘Bad enough we got tube-breeds all over the country in every farm, every factory … but crazy ones been bred and trained just to kill? It’s no wonder it’s got everyone a-jitter now. They scared there’s gonna be another Preston’s Peak!’