“You can’t refuse the mission,” the exec said.

He was right again. That would mean a court-martial, probably, or else just an ignominious retirement. “I’m not refusing it,” Carsten said hastily. “I’m worrying about it. That’s a different kettle of fish.”

“Yes, sir.” The way Zwilling said it, it meant, No, sir.

You’re not helping, Sam thought. An exec was supposed to be a sounding board, someone with whom he could speak his mind. He wasn’t going to get that from Myron Zwilling. He didn’t need to be an Annapolis grad to see as much.

“We’ll give it our best shot, that’s all.” Sam thought about George Enos, Jr. “And we’ll make damn sure all the antiaircraft guns and ashcan launchers are fully manned.”

“Of course, sir,” Myron Zwilling said.

Georgia. Chester Martin looked south and east. He was really and truly in Georgia, if only in the northwesternmost corner of the state. When he looked across it, though, he knew what he saw on the other side.

The end of the war.

Damned if I don’t, he thought. If the U.S. Army could grind across Georgia, it would cut the Confederate States in half. It would take Atlanta, or else make the city worthless to the CSA. How could the enemy go on fighting after that? Oh, both halves of a worm wiggled for a while if you sliced it in two…but not for long.

And the Confederates had to know that as well as he did. Their artillery stayed busy all the time. They staged night raids with everything from big bombers down to little puddle-jumping biplanes that flew along at treetop height and peeked right into your foxhole.

No matter what they did at night, the USA ruled the daytime skies. Two-engine and four-engine bombers pounded Confederate positions. So did U.S. fighter-bombers. After they dropped their bombs, they climbed to go after the outnumbered C.S. Hound Dogs that still rose to challenge the U.S. air armada. And fewer Hound Dogs rose each week than had the week before. Little by little, the Confederate States were getting ground down.

U.S. artillery on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge sent volleys as far into Confederate territory as they would reach, announcing that the high ground had a new owner. Some of the guns up there had belonged to the Confederacy. Unlike small arms, their artillery shared several calibers with its U.S. equivalents. They must have thought they would capture U.S. guns, not the reverse. But those streams of paratroopers floating down from the sky caught them by surprise.

Captain Rhodes came forward and cautiously looked at the fields and pine woods ahead. He didn’t use field glasses-they were a dead giveaway that an officer was up there snooping, and an invitation to a sniper to draw a bead on him. He looked from one end of a trench, walked fifty feet with his head down, then popped up for another peek.

Some of the fields out there were minefields. The Confederates had marked some of them with signs that said MINES! or warned people away with skulls and crossbones. Some of the signs were genuine. Others, by what Chester had seen before, were bluffs. And real minefields sometimes went unmarked, too. Advancing U.S. soldiers and barrels would find them the hard way-and probably come under machine-gun fire once slowed down in them.

“We can take those bastards,” Rhodes said.

Chester Martin nodded. “Yes, sir. I think we can, too. Won’t be too easy, won’t be too cheap, but we can do it.”

The company commander turned and looked west. “We ought to be cleaning out the rest of Tennessee, too, so we don’t have such a narrow front here. We can sure as hell do that. Even now, the Confederates have a devil of a time getting men and materiel from east to west.”

“Yes, sir,” Chester said again. “That’s how Nashville fell-almost an afterthought, you might say.”

“Sure.” Rhodes grinned. “Goddamn big afterthought, wasn’t it? But you’re right, Sergeant. Once we pushed past to the east, once we got over the Cumberland, Nashville stopped mattering so much. The Confederates had bigger worries closer to home. So they pulled out and let us march in, and they tried to hold Chattanooga instead.”

Chester looked back over his shoulder toward the city Captain Rhodes had named. “And they couldn’t do that, either,” he said happily.

“Nope.” Rhodes sounded pretty happy, too. “They’re like a crab-they’ve got claws that pinch, and a hard shell to go with it. But once you crack ’em, there’s nothing but meat inside.”

“Sounds good to me-except the meat in our rations is better than the horrible tinned beef they use,” Martin said. “Even they call it Dead Donkey. But their smokes are still good.” He took a pack of Dukes out of his pocket and offered it to Rhodes. “Want some?”

“Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.” The company CO took one, lit it, and started to hand the pack back.

“Keep it,” Chester said. “I’ve got plenty. Lots of dead Confederates these days, and lots of POWs who don’t need cigarettes any more.”

“Thanks,” Rhodes repeated, and stuck the pack in his shirt pocket. He took a drag, blew it out, and then shook his head. “Hate to pay you back for your kindness this way, Chester, but I don’t know what I can do about it.”

“What’s going on?” Chester grew alert. It wasn’t the same sort of alertness he used around the enemy, but your own side could screw you, too.

“Well, I hear repple-depple’s coughed up a shiny new second looey for us, so I’m afraid you’re going to lose your platoon,” Rhodes said.

“Oh.” Martin weighed that. It stung, but not too much. “I’ll live. When they made me a first sergeant after I reupped, I figured they’d have me breaking in shavetails. I’ve had some practice by now. I think I’m halfway decent at it.”

“Fine.” Rhodes set a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got a good attitude. I’m glad you’re not getting pissy about it.”

“Life is too short.” On the battlefield, Chester had seen how literally true that was.

Second Lieutenant Boris Lavochkin turned out not to be what he expected. Oh, he was young. The only second lieutenants who weren’t young were men up from the ranks, and they didn’t need a graying first sergeant to ramrod them. Lavochkin was squat and fair and tough-looking, with the meanest, palest eyes Chester Martin had ever seen.

“You’re going to show me the ropes, are you?” the youngster asked.

“That’s the idea, sir.” Martin sounded more cautious than he’d thought he would.

“And you’ve done what to earn the right?” Lieutenant Lavochkin seemed serious.

“I lived through the Great War. I ran a company for a while. I’ve seen a good bit of action this time around, too…sir.”

Those icy eyes measured Chester like calipers. “Maybe.” Lavochkin took off his helmet to scratch his head. When he did, he showed Chester a long, straight scar above his left ear.

“You got hit, sir?” Chester said. That had to be why Lavochkin was coming out of the replacement depot.

He shrugged broad shoulders. “Only a crease. You’ve been wounded, too?”

“Once in the arm, once in the leg. You were lucky, getting away with that one.”

“If I was lucky, the shithead would have missed me.” Lavochkin peered south. “Give me the situation in front of us. I want to lead a raid, let the men see I’ll go where they go. They need to know I’m in charge now.”

A lot of shavetails wouldn’t have been, even with the rank to give orders. Lavochkin…Lavochkin was a leader, a fighter, a dangerous man. He’d go places-unless he stopped a bullet. But they all took that chance.

“Sir, maybe you’d better check with Captain Rhodes before we go raiding,” Chester said.

Lavochkin scowled. That made him look like an even rougher customer than he had before. In the end, though, he nodded. “I’ll do that,” he said.