"Give them credit. They're doing more than we can."

Metcalf nodded slowly. "Yes, we can't take that away from them."

Sandecker came out of his chair and pointed. "Look there, on the steamboat where the wind has blown the smoke off to the side."

"What is it?"

"Isn't that a pair of cannons?"

Metcalf came alert. "By God, you're right. They look like old monuments from a town park."

At two hundred yards Laroche raised his sword and yelled, "Batteries one and two, train and prime your guns."

"Battery one primed and aimed," shouted back a man in antique wire spectacles.

"Battery two ready, Major."

"Then fire!" The lanyards were jerked and the two antique cannon belched their loads of ballbearing grapeshot from their muzzles in earsplitting claps. The first shot actually penetrated the side of the towboat, crashing into the galley and mangling the ovens. The second soared into the pilothouse, taking off Captain Pujon's head and carrying away the wheel. Dazed by the unexpected barrage, Lee Tong's men slackened their fire for several seconds, recovered and opened up with renewed ferocity, concentrating on the narrow slits between the cotton bales where the cannon barrels protruded.

Now the smoothbores were run back while the artillery men quickly rammed home the sponges and began reloading. Bullets whined over their heads and shoulders, and one man was struck in the neck. But in less than a minute the old Napoleons were ready to blast again.

"Aim for the cables!" Pitt shouted. "Cut the barge away!"

Laroche nodded and relayed Pitts orders. The guns were run out and the next broadside swept the towboat's bow, causing an explosion of coiled rope and cable, but the tenacious grip on the barge remained unbroken.

Coldly, almost contemptuous of the deadly blitz that swept the Stonewall Jackson, the make-believe soldiers lined up the sights on their single-shot muskets and waited for the command to fire.

Only two hundred yards separated the vessels when Laroche raised his sword again. "Firing ranktake aim. Okay, boys, give 'em hell.

Fire!" The front of the steamboat exploded in a tremendous torrent of fire and smoke. The towboat was raked with a seemingly Solid wall of mime' bullets. The effect was devastating. Glass dissolved in every port and window, paint chips flew off the bulkheads and bodies began falling, deluging the decks with blood.

Before Lee Tong's gunners could recover, Pitt stitched the towboat from bow to stern with a steady stream of fire from the Thompson.

Giordino hunched against the cotton barricade, waiting for the range to close to fire the revolver, watching in rapt interest as the second and third ranks ran through the dozen cumbersome procedures of rearming a muzzle-loading musket.