In at the Death Read Free

turret. Laughing, Pound wagged a forefinger at him. Scullard used a different finger a different way.
    Pound peered through the periscopes set into the cupola. Had he been standing up, he could have used field glasses for a better view. Another rattle of sharp steel against the barrel’s armored skin reminded him there were times to be bold and times to be smart, and this sure as hell looked like a time to be smart.
    And he could see enough, if not quite everything he wanted. “They’re coming, all right,” he said. “Infantry first—probably probing to find out where the mines are and whether we’ve got any weak spots. And when they find some, that’s where the barrels will try and get through.”
    “Let the goddamn barrels come,” Scullard said. “They’ll regret it.”
    In the first year and a half of the war, U.S. forces were sorry more often than not when they came up against C.S. barrels. Confederate machines had bigger guns, stronger engines, and thicker, better-sloped armor. But the newest U.S. models finally got it right. Their 3½-inch guns outclassed anything the enemy used, and their powerplants and protection also outdid the opposition. With problems elsewhere, the Confederates were slow to upgrade their barrels.
    Some of the machines advancing now weren’t barrels at all, but squat, ugly assault guns. Pound, a purist, looked down his nose at them. But throw enough of them into the fight and something would probably give. Quantity had a quality of its own.
    “What’s the range to those bastards?” he asked.
    Scullard checked the rangefinder. “More than a mile and a half, sir. Even a hit at that range isn’t a sure kill—they’ve got thick glacis plates.”
    “Take a shot at the lead machine anyway,” Pound said. “If you do kill it way the hell out there, the rest of them will know right away they’ve got a tough row to hoe.”
    “I’ll do it, sir,” the gunner answered. Then he spoke to the loader: “Armor-piercing!”
    “I thought you’d never ask,” Joe Mouradian said, and handed him a long, heavy cartridge with the nose painted black.
    Scullard traversed the turret a little to the left. He peered through the rangefinder again, raised the gun, peered once more, muttered, and brought the cannon up a hair farther. Pound wouldn’t have hesitated so much. He had uncommon confidence in himself. He wasn’t always right, but he was always sure. He was sure he ought to keep quiet now. Scullard’s style was different from his, but the gunner usually hit what he aimed at.
    If he didn’t hit here, Pound intended to say not a word. It
was
long range, even for a gun that fired on a fast, flat trajectory like the 3½-incher.
    Boom!
Inside the turret, the noise wasn’t too bad. Right outside, it would have seemed like the end of the world. Michael Pound looked through the periscopes, hoping he could see the shot fall if it missed.
    But it didn’t. The lead Confederate assault gun suddenly stopped. Greasy black smoke spurted from it. A hatch in the side opened. Somebody bailed out. More smoke belched from the hatch.
    “Good shot!
Good
shot!” Pound thumped Scullard on the back. “Now kill the next one. The others will think twice about coming on after that.”
    “I’ll try, sir,” the gunner said, and then, “AP again, Mouradian!”
    “Right.” The loader slammed another round into the breech.
    Scullard traversed the turret to the right. He fired again, then swore. That was a miss. Pound swore, too; he saw no puff of dust to mark where the shot came down. The wet weather complicated lives all kinds of ways.
    Scullard tried again. This time, the shot went home. The assault gun slewed sideways and stopped, a track knocked off its wheels. The enemy could probably fix it, but that would take a while. In the meantime, it was out of the fight, a sitting duck. Odds were somebody would blast it before it got fixed.
    Other U.S. barrels opened up. More C.S. assault guns and barrels got hit.