Settling Accounts_ Drive To The East Part 53

"Well, the BBC says England won a big battle against the Germans in the North Sea," Hrolfson told him. "The Kaiser's English-language news station says Churchill's full of s.h.i.+t."

Sam sighed. "That figures, I guess. n.o.body who wasn't there will really know what's what-and the people who were there won't be sure, either. I still couldn't tell you who won the Battle of the Three Navies."

"You were there, sir?" said the other yeoman, whose name was Lopatinsky. "My uncle was there, too. He used to say the same thing. He was in the Dakota Dakota when the hits jammed her steering and she made that circle through the fleet." when the hits jammed her steering and she made that circle through the fleet."

"Son of a-gun!" Sam said. "I was in the Dakota, Dakota, too. What's your uncle's name?" too. What's your uncle's name?"

"Kruk, sir," Lopatinsky answered. "Jerzy Kruk-people call him Jerry most of the time."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" This time, Sam didn't sanitize it. "I knew him. Kind of a big gut, eyes green like a cat's, ears that stuck out, and a go-to-h.e.l.l grin. He fought one of the one-pounders topside, right?"

"That's him," Lopatinsky said. "His gut's even bigger nowadays, but he's still got that d.a.m.n grin."

"What's he doing these days?" Carsten asked.

"Coal miner. We're a family of miners, down in West Virginia," Lopatinsky said. "I went down below myself for a couple of years, but I figured there's got to be a better way to make a living."

"That's how I got off the farm," Sam said. "Take it all together and I expect I was right."

"I feel the same way, sir," the yeoman said. "Yeah, we get shot at, but so what? At least we can shoot back. The roof comes down or the mine floods, what can you do about it? Not much."

"Here's something, sir." Hrolfson had been listening intently to whatever was coming in through his earphones. "Our wireless says we've sent the Confederates in Pittsburgh a messenger under flag of truce. He's asking for their surrender."

"That is is good news," Sam said. "What are the Confederates doing?" good news," Sam said. "What are the Confederates doing?"

Hrolfson listened for a little while longer before shrugging. "They don't say anything about that, sir."

"Ha!" Lopatinsky said. "That means the Confederates told 'em to fold it till it was all corners." Carsten nodded. That was his guess, too. If you listened to the wireless much these days, you had to learn to sift through the c.r.a.p to get at the few nuggets of truth the broadcasters were, as likely as not, trying to hide.

"If they don't give up pretty soon, we'll kill all of them." Hrolfson sounded as if he looked forward to it.

So did Sam. Even so, he said, "Depends on how many of our guys they can take out before they go down. If they hurt us bad enough, then it's not a bad bargain for them even if they do buy a plot."

"Think they can do that, sir?" Lopatinsky asked anxiously.

"I hope not, and that's the best answer I can give you." Sam tapped the two broad gold stripes on his sleeve. He was proud he'd got them. He hadn't dreamt of coming so far when he scrambled up the hawse hole into officers' country. "I know a little something about what we do on the water. Land fighting-the only thing I know is, I'm glad I'm not in it. It's a nasty, b.l.o.o.d.y business. When we go into action here, it's usually over in a hurry, anyhow."

"Yes, sir," Lopatinsky said. "How long did we need to knock that limey out?"

"I didn't look at my watch, but it wasn't long." Sam let it go at that. If one of the Karlskrona Karlskrona's big sh.e.l.ls had hit the Josephus Daniels, Josephus Daniels, the fight might have been over even quicker, with the wrong side winning. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d carried big guns, even if she had no armor and only a freighter's engines. the fight might have been over even quicker, with the wrong side winning. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d carried big guns, even if she had no armor and only a freighter's engines.

"Could she have sunk us if she hit us?" Hrolfson asked, proving ignorance could be bliss.

"You bet your sweet a.s.s she could," Sam blurted. Hrolfson and Lopatinsky both stared at him. He laughed self-consciously. "You wanted a straight answer. You got one."

"You usually give 'em, Skipper. That's good," Lopatinsky said. Hrolfson nodded. They made Sam almost as proud as knocking out the Karlskrona Karlskrona had done. had done.

XX.

On the women's side again. In a way, Hipolito Rodriguez had to be more careful there than he did on the other side of Camp Determination. He knew in his gut that the black men were dangerous. With the women, he and the other men in gray could let down their guard. They could regret it if they did, too.

The women tried to make the men set over them let down their guard. They dressed provocatively, and acted provocative. And it wasn't just an act-a lot of them would deliver. They wanted more food, better food, better quarters. They wanted to stay out of the bathhouses. They hadn't needed long to realize those were news as bad as it got. The trucks, by contrast, n.o.body seemed to mind. The mallates mallates knew they would be leaving Camp Determination in them, so didn't worry about climbing aboard. That the trips had no destination, they hadn't figured out. knew they would be leaving Camp Determination in them, so didn't worry about climbing aboard. That the trips had no destination, they hadn't figured out.

"h.e.l.lo, Mistuh Sergeant, suh." The black woman who spoke to Rodriguez was falling out of her blouse. "You takes care o' me, I takes care o' you. I takes care o' you real good." She had only her body to get what she wanted. She used what she had, striking a pose that would have got her arrested on any street corner in the CSA.

Rodriguez just kept walking. He'd found that worked best. If you stopped to talk it over and argue with every colored woman who made advances, you'd never go anywhere and you'd never get anything done all day.

Sometimes nothing worked. "You lousy fairy!" the woman snarled at his back. He ignored her. If he turned around, he could get her into whatever kind of trouble he wanted, up to and including a trip to the bathhouse.

He kept walking anyhow. With or without his help, she'd get hers soon enough any which way. Even if she latched on to some other guard as a protector, she'd get hers before long. Either he'd get bored with her or he'd find somebody else or he'd be off duty when she got picked in a cleanout. He might even be sorry afterwards. She wouldn't be, not for long.

Another woman came up to him. "Mistuh Sergeant, suh?" None of them ever called him Troop Leader. Troop Leader. They knew about Army ranks. The ranks Freedom Party guards used might have been in some foreign language for them. Since Rodriguez felt the same way about those ranks, he couldn't blame the women-not for that, anyhow. They knew about Army ranks. The ranks Freedom Party guards used might have been in some foreign language for them. Since Rodriguez felt the same way about those ranks, he couldn't blame the women-not for that, anyhow.

"What you want?" he asked. Unlike most, this one wasn't trying to act like a s.l.u.t. The novelty intrigued him. Because it did, he answered her instead of pretending she wasn't there.

"Mistuh Sergeant, suh, my little boy, he powerful hungry. He only five year old. You got chilluns your ownself, suh?"

"I got children," Rodriguez said. "I'm sorry, but I can't do nothin'." Children died fast in the camp. Their mothers often died with them, from trying to share rations that weren't enough for one.

The Negro woman sighed. "You find him some extra food, Mistuh Sergeant, suh, I do anything you want. Reckon you know what I mean. I don't want nothin' for me. But he too little to die like dat. He ain't done nothin' to n.o.body."

"I don't want nothing like that. I got a wife, too." Rodriguez occasionally forgot about Magdalena-temptation would get the better of him. But he didn't forget more than occasionally.

"You sound like you is a Christian man." The colored woman sounded surprised.

Almost all mallates mallates were Protestants. To Rodriguez, that meant they hardly counted as Christians themselves. He didn't want to argue with the woman. The less he had to do with the prisoners, the less he had to think of them as people. The job went better when they were just-things-to him. So all he said was, "I try," and he started to go on with his rounds. were Protestants. To Rodriguez, that meant they hardly counted as Christians themselves. He didn't want to argue with the woman. The less he had to do with the prisoners, the less he had to think of them as people. The job went better when they were just-things-to him. So all he said was, "I try," and he started to go on with his rounds.

"If you is a Christian man, suh, an' if you loves Jesus Christ, what you doin' here?" the woman asked.

He knew what he was doing: reducing population. As far as he was concerned, that needed doing. If it weren't for the Negroes, the Confederate States wouldn't have had so many troubles. He'd got his first taste of combat not against the USA but stamping out a Negro Socialist Republic in Georgia. Were blacks any more loyal to the Stars and Bars than they had been a generation earlier? If they were, would the country need camps now?

"Reckon I ax somebody else, then," the woman said with another sigh. "You seemed like you was a decent fella, but I gots to do what I gots to do to keep my Septimius alive."

Another raggedy-a.s.s pickaninny with a ten-dollar name. Rodriguez almost asked the woman why she couldn't have called him Joe or Fred or Pete or something sensible. In the end, he held his tongue. That little kid had nothing left but his fancy name. Why not let him make the most of it for whatever small span of days he had here?

When Rodriguez walked on, the woman didn't try to stop him. He wondered what her chances of hooking up with some other guard were. She wasn't anything special to look at. With so many women throwing themselves at the men in gray, it was a buyers' market. The Freedom Party guards could pick and choose. Ordinary girls got left behind.

Off to the northwest, something that might have been distant thunder muttered. But it wasn't thunder, not on a day that was fine and bright if chilly. It was artillery. Rodriguez knew the sound-he knew it at much closer range than this. Just the other side of Lubbock, Confederate and d.a.m.nyankee gunners were doing their best to blow each other to h.e.l.l and gone.

If the men in green-gray broke through, if they started down the highway toward Snyder and toward Camp Determination . . . That wouldn't be so good. The guards had orders to get rid of as many Negroes as they could, and then to blow up the bathhouses and escape themselves.

More mutters in the distance. Would the prisoners know what those sounds meant? Some of the men would; Rodriguez was sure of that. Either they'd fought for the C.S. government or against it-maybe both. Any which way, they would know what artillery was. That could mean trouble.

Rodriguez glanced at the young men with submachine guns who accompanied him. They showed no signs of recognizing the far-off rumble. That only proved they'd never seen combat.

Why aren't you in the real Army? Rodriguez wondered. The answer wasn't hard to figure out-they'd pulled strings. This was bound to be a safer duty than facing soldiers in green-gray. The Rodriguez wondered. The answer wasn't hard to figure out-they'd pulled strings. This was bound to be a safer duty than facing soldiers in green-gray. The mallates mallates here might be troublesome, but they didn't shoot back. And they definitely didn't have artillery. here might be troublesome, but they didn't shoot back. And they definitely didn't have artillery.

An airplane buzzed over the camp. It was a Confederate Hound Dog; Rodriguez could make out the C.S. battle flags painted under the wings. U.S. warplanes had made appearances, too. If they wanted to bomb or strafe, they could. Camp Determination wasn't set up to defend against air attack; n.o.body had ever thought it would have to.

So far, the U.S. aircraft had left the place alone. Maybe the fliers didn't know what this place was. Or maybe they knew and didn't care. It wasn't as if people in the USA loved Negroes, either. They complained about what the Confederates were doing to them, but that struck Rodriguez as nothing but propaganda. If the United States really cared about Negroes, they would have opened their borders to them. They hadn't. They weren't about to, either.

Two women got into a catfight. They screeched and scratched and wrestled and swore. Rodriguez and his comrades hurried toward the squabble. The women were shrieking about somebody named Adrian. Was he a guard? Rodriguez couldn't think of any guards named Adrian, but he might have missed somebody. Was he a black man in the other half of the prison? Or was he somebody they'd known back where they came from?

Whoever he was, he wasn't worth disturbing the peace for. "Enough!" Rodriguez yelled. "Break it up!"

The women ignored him. They were too intent on maiming each other to care what a guard said. "You wh.o.r.e!" one of them shouted.

"I ain't no wh.o.r.e!" The second woman pulled the first one's hair, which produced a shrill scream. "You the wh.o.r.e!" the wh.o.r.e!"

"Break it up!" Rodriguez yelled again. "Punishment cell for both of you!"

Life at Camp Determination was hard anyway. It was harder in a punishment cell. They didn't give prisoners room to stand up or sit down. They had no stoves-you froze in the winter. In the summer, you baked, but everybody in the camp baked in the summer. You got starvation rations, even skimpier and nastier than the cooks doled out to anybody else.

But the two women really meant this brawl. They wouldn't stop no matter what a man in uniform said. That was unusual. Rodriguez nodded to the junior guards with him. "Take care of it," he said.

They did, using the b.u.t.t ends of their submachine guns. Some of the models that went up to the front were of all-metal construction, so cheap they'd fall to pieces if you dropped them on the sidewalk. But the guards got better-made weapons with real wooden stocks. One reason they did was for times like this. Even if you didn't want to shoot somebody, you sometimes had to knock sense into an empty head.

Now the women shrieked on a different note. Back when they first got half the camp to themselves, some of the guards were reluctant to clout them. No more. Familiarity had bred contempt.

"Didn't you hear the troop leader yell for you to break it up?" one of the guards panted. "He tells you to do something, you cut the c.r.a.p and you do it, you hear?"

If Rodriguez hadn't had three stripes on his sleeve, he likely would have been nothing but a d.a.m.n Mexican to the guard. Of course, even a d.a.m.n Mexican stood higher on the Confederate ladder than a n.i.g.g.e.r (unless you were a white Texan from down near the Rio Grande). And a troop leader stood infinitely higher than a prisoner in an extermination camp.

One of the women had an eye swollen shut. The other one had blood running down the side of her head. They pointed at each other. At exactly the same time, they both said, "She started it."

"n.o.body cares who start it," Rodriguez said. "You don't stop when I say to stop. I say twice, you still don't stop. Now you pay." He turned to the guards. "To the punishment cells. They start this s.h.i.+t again, you shoot. You hear?"

"Yes, Troop Leader!" they chorused, their timing almost as good as the women's.

Rodriguez wondered if the Negroes thought he was joking. If they did, it was the last mistake they'd ever make. n.o.body in the Confederate States-n.o.body who mattered, anyway-would care whether a couple of colored women died a little sooner than they would have otherwise. Far away in the distance, artillery rumbled again. As long as it didn't get much closer, everything was all right. Rodriguez hoped everything would go on being all right, too.

Willard Sloan was not a nice man. Scipio listened to him screaming on the telephone: "You call that lettuce? Holy Jesus, only thing it was good for was wiping my a.s.s! What do I mean? I'll tell you what I mean. It was limper than an old man's d.i.c.k, that's what, and it looked like the bugs ate as much as you sold me. n.o.body pulls that kind of s.h.i.+t on me twice, you hear?" Bang! Bang! Down went the receiver. Down went the receiver.

Sloan might have been nice before the Yankee bullet paralyzed him from the waist down. Or he might have been a son of a b.i.t.c.h from the start. If he'd ever heard the old saying about catching more flies with honey than with vinegar, he didn't believe it. Maybe he just didn't like flies.

Most restaurant managers worth their pay had some son of a b.i.t.c.h in them. Jerry Dover sure did. But the new man at the Huntsman's Lodge took it to extremes. When something made him unhappy, you heard about it, loudly and profanely. Sloan operated on the theory that the squeaky wheel got the grease. He didn't just squeak-he screeched.

He cussed Scipio out when the black man made mistakes. Scipio did make some-with all the things that went on in a busy restaurant, he couldn't help it. But he didn't make many, and Willard Sloan noticed. "Well, looks like Dover knew what he was talking about," he said one day. "You do know what the f.u.c.k you're doin'."

"I thanks you, suh," Scipio said. "You do somethin', you likes to do it good."

"Ha!" Sloan said. "Most people"-he didn't say most n.i.g.g.e.rs, most n.i.g.g.e.rs, for which Scipio gave him credit-"only want to do enough to get by. You show up every day, and you work like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d." for which Scipio gave him credit-"only want to do enough to get by. You show up every day, and you work like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"I does my job bes' way I knows how," Scipio said.

"Well, that's what you're supposed to do," the manager said. "Doesn't happen as often as it ought to, though. I can hire a hundred people who could wait tables kinda half-a.s.sed, you know what I mean? Good enough to get by, but not really good. One of you is worth all of them put together. You're the kind of waiter a place like this is supposed to have. You're the kind of waiter who makes the Huntsman's Lodge the kind of place it is."

"Thank you, suh. Don't reckon I hear many finer compliments." Scipio meant it. Willard Sloan didn't have to waste praise on him. If Sloan did it, he meant it. Maybe hearing that praise made Scipio rash, for he went on, "How much it matter, though, when they kin s.h.i.+p me off to a camp whenever they please?"

As soon as the words were gone, he wished he had them back. Whining to a white man never did a Negro any good. Willard Sloan didn't answer for a while. Then he said, "When I got shot, I was out in no-man's-land, between our lines and the d.a.m.nyankees'. A n.i.g.g.e.r soldier brought me back, or maybe I would've died out there."

"What happen to him afterwards?" Scipio asked.

Sloan sighed. "Xerxes, I don't know. I just don't know. I don't know where he's from. I don't know his name. I don't know if he got himself killed next day or next week or next month. I can't tell you, that's all. I wasn't an officer leading colored troops or anything-their sector was next to ours, that's all. I don't even know if he was out there already or if he came out to get me. I was in the hospital a h.e.l.l of a long time after that. I never had the chance to find out."

"All right, suh." Thus encouraged, Scipio felt bold enough to add, "If he still 'live now, reckon he either in a camp or worried about goin' in. Don't hardly seem fair."

Sloan sighed again. He spread his hands. "Ain't much I can do about it. Who pays attention to a guy in a wheelchair who runs a restaurant? Maybe I can help my own people some. I hear tell Dover did. Things are getting tougher all the time. I don't know if it'll still work. I aim to try, anyhow."

"Can't ask for no more'n dat," Scipio said. So a human being did lurk under that acid-tongued exterior. Worth knowing, maybe.

Human being or not, Sloan didn't put up with slackness, any more than Jerry Dover had. When a cook came in late three times in two weeks, he was gone. The Mexican who took his place spoke next to no English, but showed up early every day. He picked up the language in a hurry, especially the obscenities that laced the conversation of the rest of the kitchen staff.

How many Mexicans were in Augusta these days? How many Mexicans were in towns and fields all over the Confederacy, doing what had been n.i.g.g.e.r work till blacks started getting cordoned off by barbed wire and disappearing into camps? Not so many as the Negroes they replaced, surely. But enough to keep crops coming in, wheels turning, meals cooked and served, hair cut.

They can get along without us. The idea terrified Scipio. He hadn't thought the Freedom Party could strike at Negroes in any really important way. He hadn't thought the CSA could do without the hard, unglamorous labor colored men and women provided. He hadn't thought so, but maybe he was wrong. The idea terrified Scipio. He hadn't thought the Freedom Party could strike at Negroes in any really important way. He hadn't thought the CSA could do without the hard, unglamorous labor colored men and women provided. He hadn't thought so, but maybe he was wrong.

One good thing about a busy s.h.i.+ft: it left him no time to brood. He was always hopping, taking orders, bringing food out from the kitchen, barking at the busboys, trying to hear the gossip at his tables without letting the whites know he was listening.

Everybody talked about Pittsburgh. The more that people knew, the gloomier they sounded. Some of them sounded very gloomy indeed. "We're going to lose that whole army," a colonel home on leave told his banker friend. "We're going to lose a big piece of Ohio, too. It's just a mess-a mess, I tell you."

"What can we do?" the banker asked.

"Hold on tight everywhere else and hope we can ride it out," the officer answered. "Don't know what else there is to to do. Give up? Not while we've still got bullets in the gun. You reckon the last peace was bad? It'd be a walk in the park next to what we'd get from the d.a.m.nyankees this time around." do. Give up? Not while we've still got bullets in the gun. You reckon the last peace was bad? It'd be a walk in the park next to what we'd get from the d.a.m.nyankees this time around."

Scipio wished for the destruction of the Freedom Party with all his heart. He had mixed feelings about the Confederate States of America. Every man needed a country, and the Confederate States, for better and often for worse, were his. He'd had no trouble getting along before Jake Featherston took power. Things hadn't been perfect or even very good, but they hadn't been so bad, either. He'd known where he fit.

But Negroes didn't fit anywhere in Featherston's CSA. And enough whites agreed with Featherston to bring him and his followers into places where they could do something about their ideas. And so . . .

And so, when Scipio went home that night, he pa.s.sed the barbed-wire perimeter around the Terry. No street lights inside kept him from tripping. Power had been off for a long time. He stepped slowly and carefully. Falling would be bad, not just because he was an old man and getting brittle but because he might tear his trousers. That would be a real disaster.

He made it back to the apartment undamaged. It was chilly in there. No buildings in the Terry had heat anymore. The handful of people left here used makes.h.i.+ft wood-burning stoves for cooking and heating. One of these days, maybe, a fire would get loose. Scipio dreaded that, but didn't know what he could do about it.

Bathsheba stirred when he came to bed. "Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to bother you none."

" 'S all right," his wife answered sleepily. "Sunday tomorrow. We kin go to church."

"All right." Scipio didn't argue. He thought G.o.d had long since stopped listening to the Confederacy's Negroes, but Bathsheba still believed. Going along was easier than quarreling.

He thought so, anyway. In the morning, Ca.s.sius said, "I ain't goin'. I got to see some people about some business."

"What kind of business?" Scipio asked.

His son just looked at him-looked through him, really. Ca.s.sius didn't answer. Some kind of resistance business, then. Scipio sighed but didn't insist. Bathsheba tried to. It didn't work. Ca.s.sius was going to go his own way. Seeing what things were like these days, Scipio had a harder time thinking him wrong than he would have a couple of years earlier.