It took about 20 minutes to put the call through. I took it privately in the XO’s office. After a fair amount of crackling and hissing in the phone line—Confederate Bell, I thought—I heard Bill Kraft’s welcome voice come on. “Is this the vaunted Southern Field Marshal on my phone?” he asked.
“No, sir,” I replied. “This is one very junior captain calling to say he’s screwed the pooch and needs some help.”
“Well, well, the prodigal returns,” Kraft chuckled. Luckily I’d caught him in a good mood. “Fear not, we shall kill the fatted calf. What can I do for you?”
I explained the situation to the governor. “We have an embassy in Richmond, as you know,” he said. “Their estimation of the Confederate government tallies with that of your colonel there. I suspect he’s correct that when Atlanta erupts, they still won’t act.”
“So what do I do then?” I asked.
Kraft was silent for about thirty seconds. The way his mind worked—instantly or not at all—that was a long time. I was relieved when his voice came back up on the net. “Act for them,” he said. “Act in their name. Present them with a fait accompli, an action so bold they have to repudiate it or take credit for it. If it works, they’ll take the credit.”
“You have any thoughts on what that action might be?” I asked.
“It has to resolve the situation in Atlanta,” Kraft replied.
“How do I do that with one Ranger battalion?” I inquired. “They’ll go into Atlanta if I ask them to, and they’ll go down in a blaze of glory, but against a whole city, they’ll still go down.”
“You’ve got to use them to generate other forces,” Bill said. “Exactly how to do that I can’t say from up here. You’re the one at the front, so you’ll have to answer that question for yourself.”
I thanked the governor for his advice, which did help put the puzzle together. But the key piece was still missing.
I hung up the phone and turned to go back into McMoster’s office, where the Rangers were still waiting for a brilliant solution. Sergeant Danielov was standing in the doorway. “I took the liberty of listening in on the phone in the S-3’s office,” he said. “I’ve got an idea that might do the trick.”
“What is it?” I asked, hoping I’d been right that if I got myself into trouble, a sergeant would get me out of it.
“Why don’t we ask the Rangers to steal us a nuke?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“It took me a few seconds to make the mental connection. What does stealing a nuke have to do with – holy shit! My jaw dropped. “You mean nuke Atlanta?” I asked Dano, astounded.
“Why not?” he replied with the typical sergeant’s sang-froid.
Why not? The idea was mind-boggling. It was absurd. It was horrifying. The public would go crazy. The fallout. Possible retaliation. It was–it was the proposal of a madman.
Then, as the mental gears turned, an involuntary smile began spreading across my face. It was brilliant.
We needed to strike a single, decisive blow. A nuke would do that. We didn’t have much conventional strength. This would give us the multiplier for our single Ranger battalion. We needed an act so dramatic Richmond would have to respond. This filled that bill, too. The more I looked at the problem, the better Dano's solution sounded.
Could it be done? Our Ranger friends would have to answer that one. We needed a bomb, and they’d have to get it. We also needed a bomber.
A deed such as this would would be a mouthful even for old Hans Von Seekt. But the SAS motto also came to mind: Who dares, wins.
“Well, I don’t have a better idea,” I said to Dano. Together we walked back into Col. McMoster’s office. The Rangers looked up at us with expectant faces. “Well, we’ve got a solution to our problem,” I said. “What would you boys think about dropping an atomic bomb on Atlanta?”
“The body language told me they were going through the same reaction I did. And they ended up in the same place. After the initial shock, I saw grins spreading across the room. “Hot damn,” the S-3 said. “We could call it Operation Sherman!”
“I never did like that city,” chimed in a company commander.
“You can nuke Dallas too, as far as I’m concerned,” a first sergeant added. “We're all country boys here. We don’t like cities much.”
New South versus Old South, city versus country. Mao was right, I thought. Take the countryside and the city will fall.
Col. McMoster’s reaction was more thoughtful. “It would be a decisive action,” he said. “The question is, how would the public react? Use of a nuclear weapon on our own soil would be a tremendous shock. On the other hand, so was New Orleans.”
“What will Richmond do?” I asked.
“First, they’ll diddle,” McMoster replied. “Then they’ll go with public opinion. It all comes back to that. If the public reacts negatively, we’ll have won on the physical level, but the New South will have a moral victory. The moral level of war is far more powerful than the physical.”
“I see you’ve also read John Boyd’s stuff,” I said to the colonel.
He nodded. “Boyd was probably the best military thinker the United States ever produced,” he said. “His reward was to be retired as a colonel. I guess the old rule still holds: no prophet is honored in his own country.”
“Not when his country is without honor,” I replied.
After chewing for a while on his cigar, McMoster said, “Well, we’re not without honor. I’m sick of watching these New South neo-Marxists and their gang-banger trigger men terrorize the rest of us. Terror must be answered with terror. Atlanta has earned a fiery end, no less so than Sodom or Gomorrah. It’s risky, but I think the people of the Old South will go with us. We’ll do it.”
The Colonel’s decision was greeted with a round of rebel yells from his officers. I hoped they represented the people they came from. If they did, and if we could get the weapon we needed and get it to Atlanta, the South’s civil war might be over a lot sooner than I thought.
We turned immediately to the practical problems. “Getting a weapon is fairly easy,” McMasters said. “The South has put all its nuclear warheads in one place, right here near Savannah, on the site of the old reactor where the stuff for warheads used to be manufactured. It's guarded by a battalion of Air Police.”
We all smiled at that bit of information. I remembered the U.S. Air Force Police from my Marine Corps days. The warheads would be more secure guarded by a swarm of dachshunds.
“What about the danger of retaliation from the New South?” I asked.
“They’d have to get a warhead from the same place,” McMoster replied. “When Atlanta goes up, I’ll send a company to the storage site to provide some real security.”
“It's downtown Atlanta we need to vaporize,” the colonel continued. “We want to minimize damage to the suburbs. Most of the people there are really on our side. So we want something small, maybe five kilotons. We also need to minimize fallout. Ground detonation would stir up tons of radioactive dust and debris, so we need an air burst. That means a bomber aircraft, and where we get that I don’t know. The Confederate Air Force has a lot of New South types in it–the high tech boys stick together, you know. We can’t go to them for help.”
“I think I have a solution to that problem, sir,” Danielov said. “Captain Rumford sent me down here to hunt up some airplanes. There’s a former Marine aviator in town named Terry Daktile. He got out years ago and made heaps money in real estate. When Washington fell and everything was being looted, he used some of that money to secure the Arado 234 he had seen in the Air and Space Museum. He’s restored it to flying condition and takes it up on occasion. It would carry a weapon of the size we’re talking about.”
The Arado 234 was the world’s first jet bomber, built in the waning days of World War II for a desperate Luftwaffe. I remembered seeing the one in the Smithsonian. It was a small aircraft, but a five-kiloton bomb was a small warhead. And the Arado was a bomber.
/> “Do you think this guy Daktile will go along with us on nuking Atlanta?” I asked. “We’ll need him too, since nobody else will know how to fly the Arado.”
“I’m confident he will, sir,” Dano replied. “We talked politics a bit, and he’s from the Attila the Hun school.”
Well, Attila will get his skull pile out of this operation, I thought.
“OK, it's settled,” McMoster said. “We’ll have the weapon within 24 hours of Atlanta going up. Sergeant Danielov, I’ll rely on you to get Daktile and his Arado here on our airfield in the same time-frame. Operation Sherman is a go–if the radicals of Atlanta do their part.”
They did. Two days later, Dano got me out of bed at 3 AM to turn on CNN. The blacks had acted overnight, and parts of the city were burning. That morning at 07:00 the leadership of the Free Commune of Black Atlanta staged a news conference to announce “the beginning of the liberation of the Black Man from the White Devils.” Whites, Asians, and Hispanics were being slaughtered throughout the city. The New South Congress was besieged by its erstwhile allies in the Convention Center, where it issued repeated pleas for dialogue and understanding. The Commune's response was mortars and Katyusha rockets.
True Confederate President Yancey came on with his own announcement at nine that morning. He warned that “Richmond is prepared to take strong measures” to restore order in Atlanta, but also promised “to hear the grievances the people of Atlanta wished to present.” It was clear Richmond was dithering, as usual.
We did not dither. The next day at dawn’s early light, the Arado was on the Rangers’ airfield, fueled and ready. A five-kiloton warhead was on board, with the fuse set for detonation at 3000 feet. Terry Daktile more than filled his old Marine Corps flight suit, but his grin was that of an 18-year old kid.
The Arado was a two-seat aircraft, and while Daktile could do all that was necessary, I volunteered to fly with him. “I made the proposal for this attack, and if the public reacts badly, you can blame it on me,” I told Col. McMoster.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” the colonel replied. “This has to be an operation by the Confederate Armed Forces. Even if Richmond disavows it, it will show the New South that some of us can and will act. If Richmond decides to hang someone for it, it should be me they hang. You made a recommendation, as the General Staff should. But the decision to go through with Operation Sherman was mine.”
I couldn’t disagree with McMoster’s logic, so reluctantly I stood aside. I’ll confess that the little boy in me was disappointed. I'd miss the biggest light show anyone had seen since Nagasaki.
With the Texas Ranger battalion, Dano and myself standing attention on the airfield and holding the salute, the mission took off at precisely 10:00 hours. The Arado was a fast aircraft, and after it gained the necessary height, the flight would be a short one. We joined everyone who could cram into the ready room to watch CNN.
Justice occasionally does a strange little jig. By an extraordinary coincidence, CNN was devoting the morning of March 29, 2034, not to news but to a long-planned retrospective about its own early days. At ten o’clock, the network’s prime news anchor welcomed to its Atlanta studio none other than the ancient wife of its founder, Ms. Jane Fonda.
At 10:43 AM, while the near-centenarian Fonda was attempting to justify her anti-war activities during the Vietnam years with an eye toward history, she became history. The former Hollywood actress, the studio, and the headquarters of CNN, along with downtown Atlanta and the entire New South government, were at that precise moment vaporized by a nuclear detonation. All we saw was the screen go dark, but we knew what it meant. The rebel yells around me were deafening.
The celebrations grew into a full triumph when the Arado returned, zooming over the airfield in a victory pass before it glided in for a three-point landing. Daktile and the colonel were soaked in bourbon as they climbed out of the cockpit, then carried shoulder-high into the ready room amidst the loud hoo-ahs of the Rangers.
Once things quieted down a bit, Colonel McMoster reminded us of the facts of the situation. “I hope you saved some bourbon for the real victory–if we win one,” he said. “At this point, we don’t know whether what we’ve done will help us or destroy us. The real fight is for the minds of our countrymen. We don’t yet know how they will react. So let’s cool it.”
He was right. We had to wait for the news of Operation Sherman to reach the Southern people, then gauge their response. Dropping the bomb was the easy part. We now faced the real risk, public revulsion.
CNN was gone, but the other networks quickly picked up on the fact that something big had happened in Atlanta. With a bit of creative computer hacking, the Rangers got out a message from “Confederate Army units on the scene” stating that a nuclear weapon had been detonated over Atlanta. By 2 PM, the networks were reading that statement to their viewers, which by this point included almost everyone.
It took people a while to assimilate the news, get over the shock and react. By 5 PM, in Savannah and elsewhere, crowds of people were gathering in the streets.
Captain Armbruster had gone back up to Richmond to give us a direct report from the Confederate capital–now the only Confederate capital. He called in at 6:23. “Monument Avenue is packed with people,” he reported. “They are waving Confederate battle flags, singing Dixie, and cheering the government. The Methodist bishop was on the tube, saying that all the churches would hold thanksgiving services at eight o'clock for, as he put it, ‘delivering us from the Satan of the New South.’”
It was the same everywhere. People held torchlight parades to celebrate their liberation from New South cultural Marxism and black terror. Atlanta had been the symbol of everything they hated, and its destruction came as a great release. Finally, they thought, their leaders had acted like men.
Except, of course, they hadn’t. As of nine PM on the 29th, the Confederate government had still failed to issue a statement. The people were crowded up to the Confederate White House, pushing at the front door, calling for President Yancey. But he did not appear.
During our interview, with typical southern courtesy Mr. Yancey had given me his private cell number, saying that if I needed his assistance I should contact him directly. I didn’t need his assistance, but it was evident he needed mine. At 9:17, I texted the following message:
Mr. President: You must act, and you must act now. You can unite your people behind you by taking credit for Atlanta, or you can tear your nation apart by denying it was an act by your government. There is no other option. As Cavour said, you can do anything with bayonets except sit on them. Field Marshal Rumford.
Just after ten PM, President Yancey finally appeared on the front steps of his official residence. His statement was brief, but it sufficed. “Fellow citizens, today your government did what had to be done. We could tolerate this sedition no longer. We regret that it had to come to this, to the destruction of a Southern city. But the choice was made by the New South, which was determined to destroy our Southern culture and replace it with the weakness and decadence of the former United States. We did not escape from that enemy in order to become it. Confederate forces are now moving to restore the authority of this government throughout the South. From here forward, there is only one South, the Old South, the True Confederacy.”
Old Sam got shaken up a bit as the crowd carried him through the town, in adulation and in gratitude. But he smiled and bowed and waved his hat. No one would know that his greatness had been thrust upon him.
The Rangers wanted me to go up to Richmond myself, where the real story quickly became known within the inner circles. I could look forward to another round of tours, parties, and dinners. But my work was done, and my thoughts were turning homeward, toward the glories of a New England summer and the peace of a quiet farm. This time, the boys would be home before the leaves fell.
On April 6, 2034, Sergeant Danielov and I took ship at Charleston for Portland, Maine. The Rangers saw us off, after a dinner of she-crab soup, back coun
try ham, and pecan pie at one of Charleston’s better establishments. That was all the send-off we wanted.
Our voyage home again gave me time to think. I’d learned some things, including thinking an operation through to its conclusion before setting it in motion. I’d done what I was sent down there to do, and gotten pleasantly fat in the process, which was payment enough. The Confederacy still had weak leadership, especially in the military department. Laclede was hailed as the “new Jackson” after he publicly took credit for our operation.
But when I compared the South’s wealth and inherent power to that of the Northern Confederation, I wasn’t sure I wanted it any different.
On the way back home to Hartland, I stopped in Augusta and gave Bill Kraft the full story of what we’d done, and why. On the way out of his office, I pulled my Confederate Field Marshal’s insignia from my pocket and put them on his desk. “You’ll have more use than I will for these, I reckon,” I said.
“The day may come when that isn’t true,” he replied. “You’ve got what it takes to run a campaign, or a war, in terms of your potential. And you’re still learning, which is the most important thing. Yes, that day may come.”
Then he reached out, picked up the crossed batons and put them in his desk. “But it’s not here yet.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I’d missed the big Atlanta light show, but as if to compensate, in the Fall of 2034 the forests put on a brilliant exhibition of their own. Nature was New England’s noblest artist, and she blazed the hills in orange, gold, and scarlet that year. We old-timers remember it as one of the half-dozen best vintages of our lifetimes.
I wanted to drink my fill, so after checking in at the Old Place, where my cousins had gotten my crops in, stored and sold, I headed out. The Texas Rangers had given me a surprise going away present of ten drums of gasoline, so I got the truck down off its blocks, tuned it up and drove over to New Hampshire’s White Mountains to do some hiking. The White’s are like an endless gallery of Winslow Homers. With the rest of the leaf-peepers long gone, I could enjoy them in the solitude art demands.