Twenty minutes after exiting the gates, they turned onto a gravel railroad access road that runs alongside the tracks.  Ten minutes after that they came upon the wrecked train.   The sun was lowering in the sky, leaving them maybe an hour of daylight.  Allistor practically flew from the truck and began to make his way past twisted metal and burned grass.

George led him to where he’d seen the overturned artillery.  The flatbed they’d been on had tilted nearly ninety degrees, dumping its load onto the gravel road.   Behind it, there were three cars that were more or less intact, just tilted on two wheels.  Allistor noted a couple dozen grave markers near the tree line.   George saw him looking.  “Yeah, we buried all the bodies we could find.”

Allistor focused on the downed cannons.  Sam informed him that they were 105mm Howitzers as he petted one and practically drooled on it.  They worked together to roll the nearest one onto its wheelbase.  Sam went over it quickly, pointed to something that Allistor didn’t recognize but was obviously bent, and then shook his head.  “Nope.  Can’t fix this.  There are probably parts in one of these cars, but we don’t have time to search for them.”

They moved on to the next one, which Sam pronounced in good condition.  Two more were badly damaged, the barrel of one having been partially sheared off by a train wheel.  The final one they inspected also met with Sam’s approval.

While Sam had been checking out the Howitzers, George had disappeared.  When Allistor went looking for him, calling his name, George shouted, “Over here!”  He ducked under some wreckage and turned back toward the tracks, following the sound.  He found George standing in a field on the other side of the train.   He was looking down the incline at another Humvee.   “If we can get that one on its feet, it might run.  Doesn’t look damaged.”

Allistor agreed.  This one didn’t have the gun mounted on the top, but otherwise, it was identical to the other.  It had clearly fallen off and rolled a few times, but the armor was only slightly dented.  It lay on its passenger side. Allistor shouted for Sam, and the two of them together managed to roll the vehicle back onto its tires.  It bounced a few times, the metal frame groaning in complaint.  But when George got in and pushed the starter, the engine coughed a few times, then started up.   The group cheered as he drove it around the wreck and back up the gravel road next to the pickup.

They spent another ten minutes hooking up the Howitzer trailers to the pickup and the Humvee.  Then they began exploring the train.   Sam pointed out that the big guns did them no good without ammunition.