by Alex Scarrow
The factory echoed with the men’s response, clamouring voices that beat around the empty pockmarked walls of the building.
‘I …’ His voice was lost in the noise. ‘I do not believe …’ He stopped. The men weren’t going to hear him.
‘SILENCE FOR THE COLONEL!’ bellowed Sergeant Freeman.
The effect was almost instantaneous if not complete. Freeman glared at the few men still muttering to each other. They hushed quickly under his withering gaze.
Devereau tried again. ‘I do not believe we should fight in this war any more!’
Now the factory was silent.
‘No … I do not believe in it any more.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I do not have faith in our generals and I no longer have faith in our government of the Union of Northern American States.’
A lone voice towards the back of the factory whooped.
‘Ya say it, Colonel!’ shouted another.
‘Our home towns … our cities … our states … our nation, is a nation under foreign occupation. Make no mistake, men, we are already a conquered people. Conquered not by the Anglo-Confederacy but by France and their allies: Austria, Prussia, Switzerland … and a dozen other nations that I’m sure many of you have never even heard of!’
He laughed. A hollow laugh. ‘We weren’t beaten on some battlefield. We didn’t fight the good fight and lose … no. We did far worse, we invited our conquerors in!’
The factory echoed with angry raised voices. Devereau hushed them again by raising his hands.
‘This is the time, men … I believe this is the real fight. Not brother against brother. Not American against American. But men of America against the British and …’ Devereau paused. There was going to be no un-saying this. He glanced at Maddy, standing back and to one side of him, giving him the space on the small podium of ammo crates. She nodded slightly. She knew what he was going to say. ‘… and men of America against the French.’
The men stirred uneasily. Whispered.
‘We once shared a nation with those lads on the other side of the river. We could fight for that nation again …’
CHAPTER 61
2001, New York
Wainwright nodded. ‘That’s what I said, gentlemen! A joining of forces! An uprising! Goddammit!’ He balled his fist and punched his own thigh angrily. ‘I’ll call this exactly what it damn well is! … A mutiny!’
The word hung heavy in the open air; it bounced off the far wall of a collapsed building, ricocheting like a gunshot.
‘Mutiny!’ he said again. ‘And it starts here with the 38th Virginia.’
The men roared support for that.
‘More than that, boys … more than that, we’re not going to stand alone. We shall be joined by others! The 11th Alabama to the north of us will join us … and next to them the 7th Maryland … and every other regiment along the Sheridan!’
The men roared jubilantly. Several forage caps catapulted into the air out of the huddled mass of shabby grey uniforms.
Wainwright smiled triumphantly, punching the air with his men. Of course only he knew that was a lie. He’d made no contact with their fellow regiments up the line. Not yet, at least. He was counting on their support. Banking on it, in fact. Surely they were going to follow the example set by the 38th?
‘But hear this, men!’ He raised his gun again to fire, to quieten them down, but they hushed anyway. ‘Hear this, men! We will be supported by regiments on the far side of the East River … by Federal troops from the Union of Northern American States!’
A mixed response from the men. Perhaps that announcement was a step too far for some of them to take. After all, for every man standing in front of him, the men across the river — the North — had always been The Enemy.
Wainwright realized he was committed now. He had to rally these lads, make them see they needed each other, needed those lads of the 54th Massachusetts.
‘They’re men no different to you or I. Americans … no different to us. You know, we shared a dream once! A language! A heritage! A belief … in a land of the free!’
He saw some heads nodding. He heard voices raised in ones and twos.
‘Once … a hundred and forty years back, we foolishly chose separate destinies. But now, do you see? Do you see? We can share a common goal once more! We can have one American nation again … be masters of our own destiny!’
He stopped and realized his words bouncing back at him from the far wall were doing so across a sombre, heavy … expectant silence.
My God, maybe I misjudged the mood of my men.
‘Who’s with me?’
The ground between the command bunker and trench suddenly erupted with a deafening roar of whooping, ragged voices he was sure must have been heard by Devereau’s men on the far side of the river.
He fired his sidearm into the sky, again and again, until the magazine was empty and its click was lost in the deafening cacophony. All the while as he grinned and cheered, he desperately hoped he could make good on his promise that the Alabama boys of the 11th at the north end of Manhattan and the 7th beyond were already signed up to the idea of this rebellion and ready to stand together with them.
Whether they were or not, though, he realized there was no turning back now.
Devereau nodded. Smiled. The men’s cheering voices reverberated through the ruins of the factory. He hadn’t been certain his men were ready to take such a drastic step as this … to extend a hand of kinship across the river to the Confederates. He had only suspected, perhaps even hoped, that they might feel the same way as him.
But looking at them now, jubilant faces, every man roaring a huzzah of support.
We could actually do this.
He turned to look at Maddy and Becks. Maddy was grinning and giving him a big thumbs-up.
Really … we could actually do this.
Perhaps this mutiny could achieve so much more than merely buying time for these two mysterious young time travellers to fix their machine. Devereau was still not entirely sure he could believe what they’d told him. Despite all the images and gadgets they’d shown him, it felt too unreal. Too much like a wish or a dream that would vanish the moment you reached out for it. Regardless … the wheel was turning. The die already cast. Time travel and alternative histories, whether that really existed or not, here was a very real chance for everything to be changed.
Perhaps this rebellion might really spread along the entire length of the front line like a virus: tens … hundreds of thousands of soldiers, North and South turning round and confronting their foreign puppet-masters. Even if Miss Carter’s assurance that she could rewrite this unhappy history was to come to nothing, the mutiny by itself might just bring this eternal war to an end.
Devereau found himself joining in. A cry roared from his throat in unison with his men. The noise filled his ears, made them ring. And what a wonderful deafening roaring noise it was; it sounded like the cascade of water, a dam crumbling beneath the weight of millions of tons, energy unleashed. A dreadnought train approaching … a storm front descending. It sounded like walls tumbling, liberty bells chiming, government buildings being stormed.
It sounded like a revolution.
It sounded like hope.
CHAPTER 62
2001, New York
‘Ma’am, you are but a lady! My men are perfectly capable of attacking and taking that communications bunker.’
‘Negative,’ cut in Becks. ‘The communications bunker will contain sensitive equipment that could be damaged by a conventional assault. We cannot allow that risk. I suggest an alternative strategy.’
Wainwright was rather taken aback by the young lady’s somewhat forthright manner.
‘What, then?’
‘How many British troops garrison the structure?’ she asked.
Wainwright shrugged. ‘Usually it is two sections: twenty … thirty men, no more.’
Becks turned to Maddy. ‘That is acceptable.’
The pair of them had
only just crossed the river on Devereau’s motor launch. Off the back of the boat a couple of Northern soldiers had been unspooling a big drum of insulated communications cable and, as they stood now just outside Wainwright’s command bunker, communications officers from each side were debating how best to feed the cable inside and wire it up to permit a direct line between both colonels. As Maddy had been quick to say, their uprising was going to live or die on the strength of how effectively the two colonels communicated.
‘You think you can take it on your own?’ asked Maddy.
‘Affirmative. I calculate a higher probability of success without significant equipment damage than — ’ she cast a gaze at the half-strength company of soldiers Wainwright had assembled for the job — ‘than these — ’
Maddy waved her silent before she blurted anything that might sound rude.
‘Becks is very special,’ said Maddy quickly. ‘She’s not just a pretty face.’
Wainwright frowned. ‘Ma’am, I appreciate you come from a very different time to ours, but the arithmetic of the situation is still the same: twenty-four armed and well-trained British soldiers in there, and you expect one young lady is going to — ’
‘Becks is a combat unit.’
Wainwright looked at her, frowning, stroking his chin. ‘A what?’
‘She’s a genetically engineered human with a silicon-wafer processor brain. She’s extremely tough, extremely strong and extremely quick. In short, she’s something of a killing machine.’
The colonel eyed her up and down. ‘Are you telling me this young lady is not — ’
‘Not human.’ Maddy shrugged. ‘Not really.’
His eyes suddenly widened. ‘My God!’ he gasped. ‘Do you mean to say she’s a … a eugenic?’
Maddy shook her head. ‘I’m not really sure what those are, but I guess the best way to think of her is as an organic robot.’
‘Robot? I have not heard that word. What do you mean, ma’am?’
‘Robot … like, say, like a machine.’
‘Machine!’ He looked at her again. ‘But she is not constructed of metal and wires!’
‘No … no, she isn’t — ’ Maddy shrugged — ‘but she might as well be.’
Wainwright’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘You are not making sense, ma’am.’
‘Look … we’re wasting time here,’ said Maddy. ‘We need the communications hub, and we need it intact. Trust me,’ she smiled, ‘Becks can handle that.’
‘I will need guns,’ said Becks casually.
‘Of course you do,’ replied Maddy, patting her shoulder. ‘And I’m sure Colonel Wainwright here will give you all the guns you’ll need. Won’t you, Colonel?’
Wainwright looked at his men standing in several rows across the rubble-strewn assembly area. ‘You say … she … alone can do this?’
‘Yup. Look, if she can punch out a dinosaur, I think she can manage a few soldiers.’
Wainwright stared at her for a moment. ‘Excuse me? Ma’am. I must have misheard you. I thought you just said — ’
‘Your men, Colonel,’ cut in Becks, ‘could provide useful back-up. A perimeter round the bunker should be established to ensure no additional British troops are able to reinforce the garrison. What occurs inside the perimeter and inside the bunker — ’ she produced a cool smile — ‘is best left to me.’
Maddy nodded. ‘Trust me. She’s right!’
Wainwright studied them both, not quite sure what to make of them. For sure, they were from some other world — their manner, their dress, the words they used — but this one girl taking a bunker on her own?
‘You look unconvinced, Colonel,’ said Maddy.
He looked over her shoulder at his men waiting patiently just out of earshot. ‘My men, myself … we have signed our death warrants. As of this moment, we are all dead men walking, unless — my friend, Colonel William Devereau, assures me — you truly have this machine that can rewrite our world with a better one.’
He cocked a thick eyebrow. ‘This is something I have to take on trust, since I have not seen this device. Nor for that matter has Colonel Devereau witnessed it working.’
‘It works,’ said Maddy, ‘otherwise Becks and I wouldn’t be standing here.’
He shrugged. ‘My point, ma’am, is that I have entrusted the lives of my men to the truth of your story. And now you ask that I trust that this young woman can make a successful assault on a defended position, entirely on her own?’
‘Affirmative,’ said Becks.
‘Look,’ said Maddy, ‘we don’t want to trash this place, right? So an extended gunfight is probably not a good thing. Becks is the alternative; you have to trust me. And look, if she fails — ’ Maddy shucked a shoulder casually — ‘then you send your boys in. How about that?’
Wainwright turned to Becks. ‘You believe you can do this on your own?’
Becks trained her cool grey eyes on the Confederate colonel. ‘We should proceed directly. We are wasting valuable time.’
CHAPTER 63
2001, New York
Private Sutter stared across the rubble from his guard position: a short section of trench leading down four steps to the entrance to Defence Structure 76 — the official name for the communications bunker. He and the other lads on garrison duty were not meant to officially know it was a radio-signals hub for this section of the front line. Which was stupid, seeing as how the dish and antennae array were quite visible far above them, perched on the partially caved-in roof of the tall building beside the bunker. A twisted trunk of wires snaked down the open front of the building, from exposed floor to exposed floor, all the way down to the ground and into the bunker.
No, they weren’t meant to know what this place was, and it was drilled into them to refer to it only as Defence Structure 76. Should he ever be captured and interrogated by the enemy for intelligence, Defence Structure 76 could mean anything: a turret, a machine-gun emplacement, an artillery station.
Sutter shook his head. Not that those useless peasants in blue across the river were ever going to do much more than quiver in their boots and hunker down in their entrenched positions like cockroaches hiding in a dirty kitchen.
And perhaps they were right to quiver, Private Sutter mused. He’d heard from Lance-Corporal Davies, who’d heard whispers from someone working in regimental equipment procurement, that ‘something big’ was most certainly afoot. An offensive of some kind? Had to be.
All sorts of rumours were beginning to surface and the men in his platoon were itching for a scrap to get themselves stuck into. Playing at being security guards for a small concrete box that did little more than broadcast propaganda messages across this part of the line … well, that wasn’t the kind of soldiering Sutter had signed up for.
He leaned against the sandbags, bored, gazing down a track of cleared rubble. A track just about wide enough for a single vehicle and flanked on either side by banks of brick and debris and dust.
It had been an important road once. On the corner of the building beside him, he could make out a faded sign spotted with rust.
7TH AVENUE
Used to be one of New York’s main streets, he recalled someone telling him.
Doesn’t look like much now.
Through the open door to the bunker he could hear the muted clank of a kettle going on the stove, the click and clatter of dominoes being dealt, the dirty laugh of someone telling a joke they’d probably all heard a dozen times or more.
He sighed. Bored witless and missing afternoon tea as well. Marvellous. He was halfway through wondering whether one of the lads might actually think to bring him a mug of tea when he saw someone walking down the cleared track ahead.
A lone figure, it seemed. Yes. Just one … and, a little closer now, he could see it was a woman.
A woman? Private Sutter hadn’t seen a woman since he and the lads had replaced the last poor bunch of bored-witless guards three months ago. She was walking quite purposefully towards him.
<
br /> Sutter grinned … A little female company. That’d be rather nice for a change.
He picked his white helmet up and put it on, tightened the strap beneath his chin and then took a step up the ladder and out of the trench so that he could be seen more clearly.
‘Halt!’ he called out to the woman, his carbine in his hands but aimed at the ground. She was hardly a threat, after all.
The woman kept walking purposefully towards him, oblivious to his challenge. Closer now, he could see she was wearing a Confederate-grey officer’s cape. More than that … he could see she was quite beautiful — the face of an angel, pale and smooth, long dark hair cascading down her shoulders.
‘Miss!’ he called out again, then almost apologetically: ‘I’m going to have to ask you to stop where you are!’
Her stride remained unbroken and now she was off the track and clambering up the bank of rubble towards him.
‘Miss! Please!’ He found himself reluctantly raising his carbine. ‘I need you to stop right where you are, love!’
Closer now, just a dozen yards, climbing steadily up skittering rubble towards him. She was smiling.
Sutter wondered whether this was a wind-up. Or perhaps a test. He knew this area of the line was being inspected for battle-readiness. If so, he’d already let this young lady get far too close. He was going to get a sharp rebuke if this was a test.
‘Halt or I shall fire!’ he challenged, angry with himself.
This time she did finally stop. Another six yards uphill, four or five more strides, and she’d have been right beside him.
‘Identify yourself!’ Sutter barked.
Her smile widened. ‘My name is Becks.’
Her cape flapped. He thought a breeze had caught it, lifted it. It was only as something glinted in the air between them that he understood it was the movement of her arms that had stirred the cape.
Sutter felt a punch in his throat that left him winded, gasping for air. He dropped the carbine, his hands reaching up to work out why his open mouth didn’t seem to be letting in a breath. Then he felt something odd sticking out. He looked down to see the hilt of a bayonet protruding from beneath his chin.