In an America that might have been, two war orphans from a divided nation, one in the north and one in the south, meet across a vast battlefield, striking out to forge a future together in the west. It's 1892, the fourth and bloodiest year of the Ci...
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Ex-private Fleetfoot Parnell, now Gunnery Sergeant Parnell for the Denver Sheriff's Department, and enjoying every minute of it, yelled at his crews just as he had endured the yelling under his ex-sergeant ten years before. When they had called out from the skill list during recruitment, he had heard "artillery" and he'd jumped up and yelled out "gunnery sergeant!" And who was to say different? Now he was in command of three, as best as he could guess, 6-pounders. Yes, of course, they were museum pieces, but they still worked. They had no caissons and were therefore, for all practical intents and purposes, immobile, but they were, as static field artillery pieces, still effective. Besides, he couldn't remember precisely how to limber and unlimber a caisson anyway.
As an officer, or whatever you were in the Sheriff's Department, he had signed on for the unheard of pay rate of $40 per week! If this job lasted only a month, he would have the money to go to Alaska or anywhere else he thought he might like to go. And being the officer for a change was fun!
Where they found the powder and balls for them he didn't know. They were fresh cast. No shells, no shot, just ball, which was good because he couldn't precisely remember how to fuse shells either! But he knew how to yell like he meant it, and he looked good, which made his bosses happy. He aimed the guns, since that was one of his jobs, by dead reckoning because they didn't have the appropriate artillery tables, which was fine by Parnell for reasons that should no longer need to be stated.
His first act was to take the crews out and drill them, because there was one thing he did actually remember and that was that you don't fool around with black powder – ever. It was with this one act alone, enforcing powder discipline and proper gun usage, that Sergeant Parnell almost certainly saved more lives, notably his own crew's, than he ever finally managed to take with his cannon.
***
"They could come by air, by train, or by horse. That's the gist of it," Lou said. "That's too many options. We need to narrow their choices."
"We could blow the tracks," Corrigan suggested.
"Do it, and keep them that way. Six men on horseback with a couple of cases of dynamite should do it. Make it as close to their side as possible." Turning to Lunney, "What about the aerodrome?"
"We plan to shell it if they try to land there."
"Not good enough," he frowned. "I want those airships too."
"Half of them have left, and the other half can't because they're missing parts or supplies."
"You let them go?" He stared at Lunney with unmasked fury. Lunney visibly wilted.
"They were gone before I could get there, and I went there that night. They must have heard rumors or seen the recruitment. Shooting those cannons probably didn't help either."
His people were getting to be too efficient. He was finding it difficult to find fault. There was just no place to vent.
"So we're back to reducing their options. Could we ruin the field somehow, block it?"
