Dreadnought tcc-3 Page 8

  “How far away is that?” he inquired further.

  “Better part of thirty miles.”

  Larsen exclaimed, “We’re going to ride thirty miles in that?”

  And the first man answered, “No, you’re going to ride two miles in this, and then the rail will take you the rest of the way.”

  “We’re outside Cleveland? That’s what the captain said,” Mercy said, fishing for confirmation of anything at all.

  “That’s right.” The second Reb had hair so dark, it gleamed blue in the light of the lanterns. He gave her a wink and a nod that were meant to be friendly. “But come on, now. Everybody aboard.”

  The captain lingered by the Zephyr while the elderly couple settled in. The students climbed over the cart’s edge behind them. “I need to reach a telegraph. I’ll have to tell my dispatcher that the ship is down, and give them coordinates to retrieve it,” the captain said plaintively.

  But Mercy saw the artillery flashes and heard the earsplitting pops of gunfire through the trees, and she answered with a guess before anyone else could say it. “There won’t be anything left of her by morning.”

  “One bullet,” Gordon Rand said softly from his spot in the cart. “That’s all it’ll take, on her side, with her tanks exposed like that.”

  “Damn straight,” said the blond who’d first communicated through the windshield. “All the more reason to hit the road, sooner rather than later. We don’t want to be anywhere near her when she goes up in flames. She’ll take a quarter mile of forest and everything in it.”

  Ernie gave a yelp when he was hauled onboard, prompting the dark-haired private-Mercy thought he was a private, anyway-to ask if anyone else was hurt. “Does anyone need any help? Is this everybody?”

  “This is everybody,” the captain confirmed. “We weren’t traveling full. And the line wasn’t supposed to move this far south; they told me at Richmond that it hadn’t come this far,” he complained even as he climbed aboard to join the rest of his passengers and crew.

  The private reached for the reins and held on to them as he climbed up onto the steering seat. His companion leaped up to take a spot beside him, and with a crack of the reins, the cart was turning around to go back the way it had come. The private continued, raising his voice to make himself heard over the background roar of fighting, “We were holding ’em back real good, up until tonight. We’d cut ’em off from their cracker line, and the Chatty trains were keeping us in food and bullets, while they were running low on both.”

  Mercy didn’t see the blond soldier who’d been first on the scene-he had either stayed on the scene or gone in some other direction. The other blond had left the driving to the private, and was scanning the trees with a strange scope layered with special lenses, the nature of which Mercy could only guess.

  The captain asked, “Then what happened, man? What turned the tide so fast that the taps couldn’t catch up?”

  Over his shoulder, the driver said, “They brought in an engine. That thing tore right through our blockades like they were made of pie dough. Killed a score every half a mile. Eventually we just had to let them have it.”

  Mercy said, “An engine? Like a train engine? I don’t understand.”

  The blond lowered his scope and said, “The rail lines around here, they run crisscross, all over each other, every which-a-direction. We commandeered the switches and posted up our lads to keep the Yanks’ cracker line squeezed off shut. But then they brought-”

  The private interrupted him. “The Dreadnought. That’s what they call it.”

  “My CO said he thought the damn thing was back east, over in D.C., watching over the capital after our rally there last month. But no! Those bastards brought that unholy engine all the way out here, and it mowed us right down. They took back their line in under an hour, and now they’re pushing us back. They’re pushing us back good,” he emphasized, and drew the lenses back up to his face. “Veer us left, Mickey,” he said to the driver. “I don’t like the look of the smoke kicking up to the east.”

  “We’re going to run out of road.”

  “Better that than running into artillery, eh?”

  The Zephyr’s copilot was sour looking, squatting next to the captain. He asked, “How do you know it’s artillery? I can’t see a damn thing past the lanterns on the cart.”

  The navigator gave the copilot a look like he must be the stupidest man alive and waggled his scope, with its myriad jingling lenses. “They’re the latest thing. They ain’t perfect, but they do all right.” One more glance through the lenses, and he said, “But we gotta get rid of our lights or they’ll spot us over there. Mickey, the lanterns. Kill ’em. Kill all of ’em.”

  “Clinton, I swear to God-”

  “I’m not asking you a favor, you nitwit, I’m telling you-”

  “I’m working on it!” Mickey cut him off. “Who’s holding the other one?”

  “I am,” the captain said. “And I’m trimming the wick right now.”

  “Not enough,” insisted Clinton. “Turn it off. Damp the whole thing down.”

  Mickey’s lantern had already been snuffed, so when the captain reluctantly killed the light he held, the forest swallowed them whole. The horses slowed without being told, whinnying and neighing their displeasure and their nervousness. Mickey told them, “Hush up, you two.” Then, to the people in the back, he said, “Down, all of you. Get as low as you can go. Cover your heads.”

  The old man, who had been silent against his wife thus far, instead asked, in a voice far too loud for anyone’s comfort, “Why did it get so dark and quiet?”

  Gordon Rand slapped his hand firmly over the old man’s mouth and whispered, “Because none of us want to die. Now contain yourself, sir.”

  The old man did not so much contain himself as begin to giggle, but it was a quiet giggle, and no one chided him for it. All of them crouched down low, hunkering as deeply as possible against the floor of the cart as it rattled, jostled, and bounced them along the nearly invisible road between the trees . . . then off to the left where the road was less distinct, and rougher. It was also harder to bear for the folks whose knees, elbows, and ribs battered against the wood-slat bottom.

  Nearby, a tree exploded, casting splinters as large as arms and legs through the darkness. The old woman muffled her own scream, and everyone else flattened even lower, as if they could meld themselves with the floor of the cart.

  Mickey groaned. When Mercy looked up, she could see something dark and shiny all over his face and side, but he stayed upright and flipped the reins at the horses, yelling “Yah!”

  The elderly man, absent Gordon Rand’s hand over his mouth, exclaimed, “I thought we were supposed to be quiet!”

  But there was no being quiet anymore; it wouldn’t do any good at this point, and the horses and cart were barreling-kicking back to the main road where travel was faster, if more exposed. Another tree nearby was blown to bits with a sound like the whole world falling down. As the echo of it faded, Mercy’s ears were ringing, and there was a tickle in her nose, of sawdust or vibration, then a knock against her head as a rock in the road launched the cart higher, then dropped it to the ground again with a clap that fractured the back axle.

  “Oh, Jesus!” Mercy gasped, not that she thought He might be listening. Beneath her body, she could feel the sway and give and tug of the weakened wheels, and an added quiver to the cart’s retreat.

  “Mickey!” Clinton cried.

  Mercy looked up just in time to see him wobble back and forth to the rhythm of the fleeing horses, and begin to fall. Clinton grabbed him and jerked him back onto the seat, but couldn’t hold him steady; so the nurse leaped from her crouch and snagged the driver, pulling him back into the cart and right on top of herself, since there was no chance to maneuver him and no steady spot to put him down.

  Clinton seized the reins.

  With the help of Gordon Rand and the students, Mercy rolled Mickey over and patted him down in the darkness. She
could see almost nothing, but she could feel a copious, warm dampness. “Captain!” she said. “Bring that lantern over here!”

  “We’re supposed to keep it turned off!”

  “Turn it up, just a spark. I need to see. And I don’t think it matters now, nohow.” She took the lantern from his hand and twisted the knob just enough to bring it up to a pale glow, barely enough illumination to help. The light swung wildly back and forth from its wire handle, and the whole scene looked unreal, and hellish, and rattled. “He’s bleeding bad.”

  “Not that bad . . . ,” he slurred, and his eyes rolled up in his head.

  Black-haired Mickey had lost a chunk of that pretty mane, exposing a slab of meat that Mercy prayed didn’t show any bone, but couldn’t get a stable enough look to see if it went as deep as that. His left ear was gone, and a terrible slash along his jawline showed the white, wet underpinning of his gums.

  The Englishman said, “He must’ve gotten hit by a bit of that last tree.”

  “Must’ve,” Mercy said. She pulled Mickey’s head into her lap and daubed the wound until it was mostly clean.

  Ernie asked, “Can you help him?”

  “Not much,” she confessed. “Here, help me get him comfortable.” She adjusted his body so that his oozing head rested against the older woman’s thigh. “Sorry,” she told her. “But I’ve got to get inside my bag. Give me a second.”

  The woman might’ve given the nurse a second, but the line wouldn’t.

  A cannonball shot across the road in front of them, blasting a straight and charred zone through the woods, across the two wheel ruts, and into the trees on the other side, where something was big enough to stop it. A second followed the first, then a third.

  The horses screamed and reared, and Clinton wrestled with the reins, begging them with swears, threats, and promises to calm themselves and for God’s sake, keep pulling. One after another the horses found their feet and lunged, heaving the damaged cart forward again. But the axle was creaking dangerously, and Mickey wouldn’t stop bleeding, and in the empty spaces between the trees, gunfire was whizzing and plunking against trunks.

  “We’re too heavy,” the copilot said, and withdrew to the farthest corner, away from the damaged axle. “The cart isn’t going to make it!”

  “One more mile!” shouted Clinton. “We’re halfway to the rail lines; it only has to make it one more mile!”

  “But it’s not gonna,” Mercy cried.

  “Holy Jesus all fired in hell!” Clinton choked, just loudly enough for the nurse to hear him. She looked up to see where he was staring, and glimpsed something enormous moving alongside them, not quite keeping pace but ducking back and forth between the thick trunks of the trees that hid almost everything more than twenty yards away.

  “What was that?” she asked loudly, forgetting her manners and her peril long enough to exclaim.

  “They didn’t just bring the engine,” Clinton said to her, half over his shoulder while he tried to watch the road. “Those bastards brought a walker!”

  “What’s a-?”

  Another rock or a pothole sent the cart banging again, then the axle snapped, horrifying the horses and dragging the back end down to the ground, spilling out passengers and cargo alike. Mercy wrapped her torso around Mickey and her arm around the old woman who held him and stayed that way, clinging to a corner under the driver’s seat until the horses were persuaded to quit dragging the dead weight and let the thing haul to a stop.

  Half off the road and half on it, the cart was splayed on its side much like the Zephyr had wound up, only open and even more helpless looking.

  “Goddammit!” Clinton swore as he climbed down from the cart in a falling, scrambling motion. He then set to work unhitching the horses. A swift hail of bullets burst from the trees. One of the horses was struck in a flank, and when it howled, it sounded like some exotic thing-something from another planet. It flailed upward onto two legs again, injured, but not mortally.

  Mercy set to work directing the old couple, who had remained in what was left of the broken cart; and with a grunt she hefted Mickey up and slung him over her shoulder like a sack of feed. He was bigger than her by thirty pounds or more, but she was scared, and mad, and she wasn’t going to leave him. He sagged against her, nothing but weight, and blood soaked down the back of her cloak where his earless scalp bounced against her shoulder blade.

  She staggered beneath him and hoisted him out of the cart’s wreckage, where she found one of the students-Dennis-standing in shock, in the middle of the road. “Good God Almighty!” She shoved him with her shoulder. “Get out of the road! Get down, would you? Keep yourself low!”

  “I can’t,” he said as if his brain were a thousand miles away from the words. “I can’t find Larsen. I don’t see him. I . . . I have to find him. . . .”

  “Find him from the ditch,” she ordered, and shoved him into the trees.

  The captain was missing, too, and the copilot was helping with the horses, who were reaching shrieking heights of inconsolability. Robert was on point; he went to the elderly folks and took the woman’s hand to guide them both into some cover, and Ernie popped up from around the cart-looking more battered than even ten minutes previously, but in one piece, for the most part.

  Mercy said, “Ernie,” with a hint of a plea, and he joined her, helping to shoulder Mickey. Soon the private hung between them, one arm around each neck, his feet dragging fresh trails into the dirt as they took him off the road.

  “Where’s . . . ,” she started to ask, but she wasn’t even sure whom she was asking after. It was dark, and the lanterns were gone-God knew where-so a head count was virtually impossible.

  “Larsen!” Dennis hollered.

  Mercy snapped out with her free hand and took him by the shoulder. She said, “I’m going to hand Mickey over to you and Ernie right now, and you’re going to help carry him back into the woods. Where’s Mr. Clinton? Mr. Clinton?” she called, using her best and most authoritative patient-managing voice.

  “Over here . . .”

  He was, in fact, over there-still wrestling with the horses, guiding them off the road and doing his damnedest to assure them that things were all right, or that they were going to be all right, one of these days. “We can’t leave them,” he explained himself. “We can’t leave them here, and Bessie’s not hurt too bad-just winged. We can ride them. A couple of us, at least.”

  “Fine,” Mercy told him. She also approved of assisting the horses, but she had bigger problems at the moment. “Which direction is the rail line?”

  “West.” He pointed with a flap of his arm that meant barely more than nothing to Mercy.

  “All right, west. Do the horses know the way back to the rails?”

  “Do they . . . what now?”

  “Mr. Clinton!” she hollered at him. “Do the horses know the way back to the rails, or to the front? If I slap one on the ass and tell it to run, will it run toward safety or back to some barn in Nashville?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. To the rails, I suppose,” he said. “They’re draft horses, not cavalry. We rolled them in by train. If nothing else, they’ll run away from the line. They ain’t trained for this.”

  “Mr. Clinton, you and Dennis here-you sling Mickey over the most able-bodied horse and make a run for it. Mrs. . . . Ma’am”-she turned to the old woman-“I’m sorry to say it, but I never heard your name.”

  “Henderson.”

  “Mrs. Henderson. You and Mr. Henderson, then, on the other horse. You think she can carry them?” she asked Clinton.

  He nodded and swung the horses around, threading them through the trees and back toward Mercy. “They ain’t got no saddles, though. They were rigged for pulling, not for riding. Ma’am, you and your fellow here, can you ride ’em like this?”

  Mrs. Henderson arched an eyebrow and said, “I’ve ridden rougher. Gentlemen, if you could help us mount, I’d be most grateful.”

  “Where’s Larsen?” Dennis all but wai
led. “I’m supposed to look out for him! Larsen! Larsen, where’d you go?”

  Mercy turned around to see Dennis there, standing at the edge of the road like an enormous invitation. She walked up to him, grabbed him by the throat, and pulled him back into the trees and down to a seated position. “You’re going to get yourself killed, you dumb boy!”

  On the other side of the road, somewhere thirty or forty yards back, things were going from bad to worse. What had started as intermittent but terrifying artillery had grown louder and more consistent, and there was a bass-line undercurrent to it that promised something even worse. Something impossibly heavy was moving with slow, horrible footsteps, pacing along the lines on the other side. She spotted it here and there, for a moment-then no more.

  She forced herself to concentrate on the matters at hand.

  One problem at a time. She could fix only one problem at a time.

  Prioritize.

  “Dennis, you listen to me. Get on that horse with Mickey, and hold him steady. Ride west until you hit the rails, and get him to some safety. You can ride a horse, can’t you?”

  “But-”

  “No but.” She jammed a finger up to his nose, then turned to Clinton. “Clinton, you’re an able-bodied man and you can walk or run the rest of the way, same as me. Ernie, can you still walk all right?”

  “Yes ma’am. It’s just the hand, what’s all tore up.”

  “Good. You, me, Clinton, and . . . where’s Mr. Copilot-?”

  “His name is Richard Scott, but I don’t see where he’s gone,” Robert interjected.

  “Fine. Forget about him, if he’s gonna run off like that. Has anyone seen the captain?”

  “I think he fell out when the cart broke,” Ernie said.

  “Right. Then. We’re missing Larsen, the captain, and the copilot. The Hendersons are on Bessie.” She waved at Mrs. Henderson, who was tangling her hands in the horse’s mane and holding her husband in front of her. She could barely reach around him, but she nodded grimly. “The Hendersons are riding Bessie, and Dennis will be riding the other horse, with Mickey. Is that everyone?” She began her litany again, pointing at each one in turn. “That leaves me, Ernie, Robert, Mr. Rand, and Clinton to find our own way to the rails, but we can do that, can’t we, gentlemen?”