TimeRiders: The Eternal War

CHAPTER 60. 2001, New York

Colonel Wainwright regarded his men gathered together in the rough ground between their main command bunker and the trench facing out across the East River. Just short of three hundred men left in his regiment. The last time the 38th Virginia had been at a full strength of six hundred was many decades ago, long before his time.

It seemed the Southern command was adopting the Northern habit of letting regiments run down and then completely disbanding them when their troop’s number hit a critical minimum. He shook his head. Foolish … a regiment’s fighting spirit lay in its history. The 38th had been raised back in 1861, had been commanded by General Lee, had fought under Pickett and charged the Union troops at Gettysburg. They’d taken Cemetery Ridge and sent Meade’s men packing. That kind of a legacy bonded men, made them commit that little bit more to the esprit de corps.

They stood watching him now. Uncertain faces. He knew rumours were already spreading among the men. They knew something serious had happened in the command bunker earlier today. They knew a dozen British soldiers had been arrested, disarmed and locked up. Tongues were wagging with the increasingly persistent rumours that something big was imminent. The news the British officer had brought that a new offensive was about to be launched was hardly a big surprise to Wainwright. He, along with every Joe Huckabee in the trenches, knew the British had been pulling in units from all over the empire. Talk of that and other half-truths, Chinese-whispered rumours, had managed to filter their way along the entire length of the Sheridan line.

That young officer had merely confirmed the truth of it.

‘The British are massing their resources for an offensive, men. And the spearhead of that offensive will be none other than this very sector.’

The men stirred; a wave of unease rippled across them.

‘The 38th Virginia will be in the first wave.’ The men shook their heads incredulously. They all knew what that meant. Appalling losses. As the landing boats spilled them out on the shingle on the far side, the enemy would be pouring a withering wall of gunfire on them from their entrenched positions. Enfilade fire on the right from the shattered end of the Williamsburg Bridge, on the left from the ruins of the factory. It would be a massacre.

He could see they were all making the same silent assessment. Wholesale slaughter.

But that isn’t the worst of it … boys.

‘The second wave …’ said Wainwright. He paused, waiting for the men’s murmuring to die down. They needed to hear this, hear this clearly.

‘The second wave … will include eugenics.’

His voice was drowned out by the roar of the men. Nearly three hundred voices raised in alarm, disbelief, anger and mostly … fear. He raised his arms to hush them. Despite the fact that these men trusted, obeyed and respected their colonel, the noise continued unabated.

He pulled his sidearm out of its holster and fired a shot for the second time in as many days.

The men’s voices quietened until all that could be heard was the uneasy shuffling of feet on gravel.

‘I believe …’ he began. Make this good, James … make this very good. ‘For a long time … for many years now, I have believed that we are no longer fighting for a Confederate cause. That we have become no more than cannon-fodder — meat for the grinder — in service of British interests.’

This time the men did roar in unison. A roar of support for someone who had dared to say what every man privately thought. Dared to say a thing that would guarantee an undignified traitor’s execution against a brick wall.

‘There!’ Wainwright stroked his chin. ‘It is said … and for that I am now a dead man!’

Across the river, Devereau’s men filled the bottom floor of the factory, and half filled the bomb-damaged floor above, rows of booted legs dangling over the rough edge where the floor had collapsed long ago.

‘… they will not allow us to retreat,’ he continued. He and the men gathered here knew exactly what that meant. Directly behind the front line, units of the French Foreign Legion patrolled. Federal troops falling back without approval from High Command would be considered deserters and shot on the spot.

Still, many of them must be considering that option … he mused. Far better to run and hope to evade the execution squads than stay and face those eugenic monsters from the South.

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 …’