"It's passed the House. It's passed the Senate. Since President Semmes was the one who proposed the bill, he's not going to veto it," Major Potter said.
"You know what, sir?" Featherston said. "You mark my words, there's gonna be a nigger promoted to lieutenant before I get these here stripes off my sleeve. Is that fair? Is that right?"
Potter's lips twisted in what might have been a sympathetic grin or an expression of annoyance at Jake's unending complaints. The latter, it proved, for the major said, "Sergeant, if you think you're the only man unfairly treated in the Army of Northern Virginia, I assure you that you're mistaken." He squeezed his horse's sides with his knees. The animal trotted on.
"Ahh, you're just another bastard after all," Jake said. Thanks to the rain, Potter didn't hear him. Featherston turned back to the battery. "Come on. Let's get moving."
They bogged down again, less than half a mile in front of the bridge. This time, Jake had no trouble getting help, for a Negro labor gang was close by, and the white officer in charge of it proved reasonable. Featherston worked the black men unmercifully hard, but he and his comrades were working hard, too. The guns came free and rattled toward and then over the bridge.
The firing pits that waited for them on the south side of the Potomac were poorly dug in and poorly sited. "Everything's going to hell around here," Featherston growled, and went tramping around to see if he could find better positions no other guns would occupy.
He had little luck. If the artillery hadn't had to stay close to the river to defend the crossing, he wouldn't have wanted anything to do with the area. When the Yankees came down and got their guns in place, his crew was going to catch it.
He'd come down close by the Potomac when the engineers blew the bridge and sent it crashing into the water, as he'd predicted. Somebody near him cheered to see it fall. Featherston's scowl never wavered. How long would the wrecked bridge keep the Yankees out of Virginia? Not long enough, he feared.
19
Destroyers and a couple of armored cruisers screened the Dakota and the New York as the two battleships steamed southeast through the Pacific. On the deck of the Dakota, Sam Carsten said, "I won't be sorry to leave the Sandwich Islands, and that's a fact." As if to emphasize his words, he rubbed at the zinc-oxide ointment on his nose.
"You're gonna bake worse before you get better," Vic Crosetti said with a chuckle. He could afford to laugh; when he baked, he turned brown. "We're going over the equator, and it don't get any hotter than that. And besides, it's heading toward summer down in Chile."
"Oh, Jesus," Carsten said mournfully. "Sure as hell, I forgot all about that." He looked at his hands, which were as red as every other square inch of him exposed to the sun. "Why the devil didn't the Chileans get into trouble with Argentina six months ago?"
Crosetti poked him in the ribs. "Far as I'm concerned, all this means is, we're doing pretty well. If we can detach a squadron from the Sandwich Islands to give our allies a hand, we got to figure ain't no way for the limeys and the Japs to get Honolulu and Pearl away from us." He paused, then added, "Unless that John Liholiho item tells them exactly what we've got and where everything's at."
"You know, maybe we ought to send a letter back to the Sandwich Islands when we get to Chile," Sam said. "About him being a spy, I mean. They'll rake him over the coals, you bet they will."
"Yeah, maybe we should do that," Crosetti said. "Hell, let's."
"Reckon you're right about the other, too, dammit." Carsten scratched one of his sunburned ears. Did being happy for his country outweigh being miserable at the prospect of still more sunburn? That one was too close to call without doing some thinking.
"Right about what?" Hiram Kidde asked as he came up. Carsten and Crosetti explained. The veteran gunner's mate nodded. "Yeah, the brass has got to think the islands are ours to keep. We've got enough guns and enough soldiers on 'em now that taking 'em away would cost more than the limeys can afford."
"What about the Japs?" Sam said. "They showed better than I ever figured they could, there in the Battle of the Three Navies."
"Yeah, I suppose the Japs are a wild card," Kidde admitted. "But as long as we don't fall asleep there at Pearl, I expect we'll be able to take care of them all right." He studied Carsten. "You're looking a little down in the mouth. You find a gal in Honolulu you didn't feel like leaving?"
"Nah, it's nothing like that, 'Cap'n,'" Carsten answered. "I was hoping I'd get out of the damn sun for a while, but Vic here just reminded me the seasons do a flip-flop down there."
Kidde let out an undignified snort. "Old son, that ain't gonna matter a hill of beans. How long you think we're going to stay in Valparaiso? Not anywhere near long enough to get to know the senoritas, I bet. Once we refit and refuel there, we're gonna head south to join the Chilean fleet. I don't care whether it's summer or not, your poor, miserable hide won't burn in the Straits of Magellan."
Sam considered that. "Yeah, you're right," he said happily-so happily that Kidde snorted again.
"Listen, Sam," he said, "sunburn's not the only thing that can go wrong with you, you know. We get down there, you'll find out what kind of a sailor you are. The Dakota's a good sea boat, and she's gonna need to be. Down in the Straits, they've got waves that'll toss around a ship as big as this one like she was a wooden toy in a tin tub with a rambunctious five-year-old in it. I've made that passage a couple-three times, and you can keep it for all of me."
"'Cap'n,'if I start puking, I know it'll be over sooner or later, no matter how bad I feel while it's going on," Carsten said. Ever so gently, he touched his flaming face. "This here sunburn never stops."
"I'm gonna remember you said that," Vic Crosetti told him, "and if I ain't too sick myself, I'm gonna throw it in your face."
"And if you are that sick, you'll throw somethin' else in his face," Hiram Kidde said. "I've done my share of puking down in that part of the world, I'll tell you. You take a beating there, you and the ship both."
That made Sam think of something else: "How's our steering mechanism going to do if we take a pounding like that? The repairs were a pretty quick job."
Kidde grunted. "That's a good question." He laughed without humor. "And we get to find out what the good answer is. Hope we don't have to do it the hard way."
"Can't be any harder than the last time," Crosetti said. "No matter what Argentina's got, we ain't sailin' straight at the whole British and Japanese fleets-and a damn good thing we ain't, too, anybody wants to know."
"Amen," Sam said solemnly. Hiram Kidde nodded. After a moment's contemplation, Crosetti crossed himself.
"New York took the next biggest beating in the Battle of the Three Navies after us, now that I think about it," Kidde said. "Looks like they're sending what they can most afford to be rid of at the Sandwich Islands."
"That makes sense to me," Carsten said. "It probably means they don't think the Argentines are very good, either."
"Listen," Hiram Kidde said positively, "if we fought the goddamn Royal Navy to a standstill, we ain't gonna play against a tougher team anywhere in the whole damn world-and that includes the Kaiser's High Seas Fleet. The limeys are bastards, but they're tough bastards."