FORT PILLOW

Robinson nodded. The loader's grin showed a lot of white teeth – one missing in front – in his black face. “The gun go off the first time, I aIm os' quit this world altogedder.”

“Gun go off the first time, I almos' go off myself,” Robinson said.

Charlie Key laughed. His grin got wider.

“Bring it down again, about a gnat's hair,” Captain Carron said.

“A gnat's hair. Yes, suh.” Robinson gave the altitude screw half a turn. That was about as small a change as would mean anything at all. Then, grunting with effort, he helped shove the twelve-pounder back up to the parapet.

“Fire!” the white officer yelled. The white sergeant pulled the lanyard. The gun boomed and rolled back. The Negroes who crewed the piece reloaded it and muscled it into position again.

They worked a lot harder than the whites set over them. Ben Robinson had worked harder than the whites above him his whole life long. He knew that wasn't always so. On small farms where the landowner could barely scrape up the cash for a Negro or two, everybody worked like a mule. On plantations like the one where he'd grown up, though, blacks worked hard so whites didn't have to. Whites made no bones about it, either.

Things were different here. Captain Carron and Sergeant Clark knew more about the business of serving a gun than did the men they commanded. And that wasn't the only difference. As Robinson told Charlie Key, he could finally do what he'd wanted to do ever since he was a pickaninny: he could hit back at the whites who'd treated him like a beast of burden almost his whole life long.

The rest of the guns brought into Fort Pillow were banging away, too. Shrapnel rounds and solid shot hissed through the air. “We gots the range you wants, Mistuh Captain, suh?” Robinson asked as the twelve – pounder got ready to fire again.

“What? Oh. Yes.” Captain Carron checked himself. “Yes, Sergeant, thank you.”

Ben Robinson preened. A lot of whites on both sides of the battle line thought military courtesy a waste of time. Like most colored soldiers, he saw things differently. To him, military courtesy meant treating everybody the way his rank said he should be treated – his rank, not his color. And Robinson had earned enough rank to be treated with respect even by a captain.

Tiny in the distance, a gray – clad soldier threw up his arms and reeled away when the next round of shrapnel from the twelvepounder burst near him. “You see dat?” Charlie Key whooped. “You see dat, Ben? Uh, Sergeant Ben?”

“I seen it,” Robinson said. “Dat one dead Secesh!” They both capered and danced in glee. If their company commander and gun chief watched with wry amusement as they carried on… If they did, Ben neither noticed nor cared. He wished he could kill all the Confederates from the Mississippi to the Atlantic as easily as he'd slain that one trooper.

With only half a dozen cannon, not all the colored soldiers inside Fort Pillow had one to serve. Most of them fought as infantry, going through the foot soldier's practiced motions with their Springfields (Load in nine times!… Load! The drill sergeant had taught them by the numbers, and the training stuck.) and firing at Bedford Forrest's men along with the dismounted troopers from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry.

Bullets came back at them, too. Mini? balls – minnies to most of the men – whined through the air when they weren't close. When they were, they cracked as viciously as an overseer's whip. Ben found himself ducking whenever he heard one of those cracks. He tried not to, but couldn't help himself.

Shame filled him. The last thing in the world he wanted was to play the coward in front of the whites who'd given him the chance to shoot back at the Confederates. Then he saw that Captain Carron and Sergeant Clark were ducking, too, as were the other Negroes in the gun crew. He realized people couldn't help it when bullets flew by. That made him feel better.

“How's it going here?” Major Booth came up to the gun and peered down the long iron tube at the advancing Confederates. “You fellas giving the Rebs hell?”

“Yes, suh!” Robinson said. His voice was the first and loudest among those of the Negroes serving the gun, but everybody sang out.

“A white crew couldn't do any better, sir,” Sergeant Clark said. Hearing that, Ben wanted to burst his buttons with pride. A white sergeant, an experienced artilleryman, said he and his comrades were doing well! If he couldn't feel good about such praise, what could he feel good about?

Major Booth took their good performance for granted, which made Ben Robinson even prouder. “I didn't expect anything different,” Booth said. “Not one thing, you hear? Only thing that matters is how well trained a gunner is. The only thing – you hear me, Sergeant? The gun doesn't care if the men serving it are black or white or green. It'll shoot the same way for anybody – as long as he knows what he's doing. “