Breakthroughs

XVIII

Chester Martin was no longer in command of B Company, 91st Regiment, and did his best to feel resigned about it. Out of some replacement depot had come Second Lieutenant Joshua Childress, who might possibly have been nineteen years old, but might well not have, too.

“We hit the Rebels one more good lick tomorrow morning,” he declared to the weary veterans in the hastily dug trench north of Stafford, Virginia. “That will take us all the way down to the Rappahannock. Won’t it be bully?” His voice broke with excitement at the prospect.

Corporal Bob Reinholdt chuckled softly. “Somebody better oil the lieutenant, Sarge,” he whispered to Martin. “He squeaks.”

“Yeah,” Martin whispered back. “We’ve got to keep an eye on him. He’ll get some good men killed if we don’t.”

“Ain’t that the sad and sorry truth?” Reinholdt said with a nod. If he still resented Chester for taking over his section-and for coldcocking him-he didn’t show it. Too much water, to say nothing of blood, had gone under the bridge since.

“We must finish the punishment we have given the Confederate States since 1914,” Childress was saying. “We are all heroes in this fight, and we must not fear martyrdom in our country’s cause.”

Reinholdt and Martin both rolled their eyes. This couldn’t be anything but Childress’ first combat duty. Firing had been light in the couple of days since he’d come down to the front. People who’d served longer were apt to be less enthusiastic about the prospect of martyrdom when the war was visibly won. People who, like Martin, had won Purple Hearts were apt to be least enthusiastic of all.

“Be bold,” Childress said. “Be resolute. Be fearless. Now when the enemy totters is the time to strike the fiercest blows.”

“Christ,” Reinholdt muttered. “Wish you was still in charge of us, Sarge. That stupid prick is going to have us charging machine-gun nests with our bare hands.” He got out a tobacco pouch and began to roll a cigarette. “Well, one thing-he ain’t likely to last long. Then it’s your turn again.”

“Yeah,” Martin said. “If he doesn’t get me shot, too. Thank God for barrels, is all I can say. Without ’em, most of us’d be dead about five times over.”

“God knows that’s true.” Reinholdt’s big head bobbed up and down. “If I stay in the Army after the Rebs quit, I figure I’m going to try and get into barrels myself. That way, I’ll have some iron between me and the fuckers we’re fighting.”

Martin considered. “Only trouble I can see with that is, the other guys go after barrels with everything they’ve got. You’ll get in the way of a lot more cannon shells than you would if you stayed out in the open.”

“Well, yeah,” Reinholdt allowed. “The thing of it is, though, you get in the way of even one shell when you’re out in the open and it ain’t what you call your lucky day.” He stuck the handmade cigarette in his mouth and brought it to life with a lighter made from a Springfield cartridge case.

In the background, Lieutenant Childress droned on and on. Some of the men in B Company-replacements, mostly-hung on every word he said. The soldiers who’d been in the trenches for a while either took no notice of him or quietly made fun of him the way Martin and Reinholdt did. They didn’t need him to tell them how to fight; had he been willing to listen instead of banging his gums, he might have learned a good deal.

The Army of Northern Virginia had taken a hell of a beating, but it hadn’t quit. The Rebs interrupted Childress’ disquisition with a mortar barrage. Martin hated mortars; they dropped bombs right down into the trenches, which regular artillery had a lot more trouble doing. He was damned if he could figure out where the valor lay in cowering and hoping a spinning fragment wouldn’t turn him from a man into an anatomy lesson.

When the barrage eased, Childress picked up where he’d left off without seeming to miss a word. As Chester Martin got to his feet and tried to brush damp earth from the front of his uniform, he hoped that meant the new company commander had some guts. The other choice was that Childress was so full of himself, he hardly noticed what went on around him. Remembering how he’d been at nineteen or so, Martin knew that was possible.

U.S. artillery didn’t let the Confederates mortar the forward trenches without paying them back. The USA had more guns and bigger guns than the CSA did; the bombardment went on long into the night. That puzzled Martin, who’d grown used to sharp, short barrages. In the middle of the din, Lieutenant Childress exulted: “See how we thrash the stubborn foe!”

“He makes more noise’n the guns do,” Bob Reinholdt said disgustedly.

That gave Martin the answer, or he thought it did. He snapped his fingers. “Bet they’re making a racket to keep the Rebs from hearing the barrels coming forward.”

“Huh,” Reinholdt said, a noise that could have meant anything. After a bit, he went on, “Maybe I never should have given you no trouble, Sarge. Sure as hell, you’re smarter’n I am. That’s got to be it.”

“Nothing’s got to be anything.” Martin spoke with the deep conviction of a man who had seen almost everything. “It’s a pretty fair bet, though.”

“Yeah.” It was too dark for Martin to watch Reinholdt nod, but the pause before the corporal spoke again was about right. “Last time, they kept the machine guns banging all night long. You don’t want to do the same thing twice in a row, or the Rebs’ll get wise to you.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re right.” Martin swatted at a mosquito. He didn’t think he got it. Scratching, he continued, “Maybe I’m the dummy.” If Reinholdt finally was getting used to having him in charge, he wanted to help that along as much as he could. Ignoring occasional shells from overmatched Confederate batteries trying to reply to the U.S. barrage, he rolled himself in his blanket and went to sleep.

To Lieutenant Childress’ credit, he went through the trenches an hour before the attack was set to begin, making sure everybody in the company was awake and alert. When he recognized Martin in the predawn gloom, he said, “Remember, Sergeant, we are to form behind the barrels and follow them toward the enemy’s position.”

“Yes, sir.” Martin hid a smile. “I’ve done this before, sir.” The last big attack, he’d done it as a company commander. He let out a silent sigh.

Lieutenant Childress might as well not have heard him. “We have to stay close to the barrels, to take full advantage of what they can do for us.” He could have been reciting something he’d learned by rote. He didn’t understand what it meant, not really, but at least he had it right.

As he was speaking, U.S. artillery came to life again, making the Confederates stay under cover in the key minutes just before the attack went in. Through the booming of the guns and of their shells, Martin caught the sound he was listening for: the rumble of truck engines and the rattle and clank of iron tracks. Sure enough, the barrels were moving up to their jumping-off places.

Darkness slowly yielded to morning twilight. Martin got a glimpse of a couple of barrels not far away, the big boxy steel shapes putting him in mind of prehistoric monsters looming out of the mist. But these monsters were friendly to him and his. Only the Confederates would find them horrid.

And then the note of the engines grew harsher, louder. The barrels waddled forward at their best speed, somewhere between a fast walk and a slow trot, toward the men of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lieutenant Childress’ almost beardless cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk’s as he blew and blew the whistle that ordered his company forward. He was first out of the trench himself: he would do what he could by personal example.

“Come on, you lazy bastards!” Chester Martin shouted. “If the Rebs shoot you, your family picks up a nice check from Uncle Sam. So you’ve got nothing to worry about, right?” He suspected that wouldn’t hold up if anybody took a long, logical look at it. But so what? It got the men moving, which was what he’d had in mind.

Machine guns winked balefully from the Confederate positions ahead. No, the Army of Northern Virginia hadn’t quit, however much Martin wished it would. U.S. machine gunners did their best to make their C.S. counterparts keep their heads down. The barrels began firing on the Confederate machine-gun nests, too. They also began smashing down the wire in front of the Confederate trenches, though those belts weren’t nearly so thick as some Martin had seen.

“Forward!” Lieutenant Childress shouted. “Stay close to the barrels!” He trotted on, doing his best to make sure he was applying what he’d learned in school.

It did him no good. One thing his training hadn’t taught him was how to keep from catching three or four machine-gun bullets with his chest. He let out a brief, bubbling wail and crumpled. Martin was only a few feet behind the company commander. He threw himself flat and crawled up to him. Childress’ eyes were wide and staring. Blood poured from his wounds and from his mouth and nose. He was still twitching a little and still trying to breathe, but he was a dead man.

That meant B Company belonged to Martin again. He scrambled to his feet. “Come on!” he shouted again. “We can take ’em! Let ’em try and stop us, hard as they want. We can still take ’em.”

Talk like that on the Roanoke front in 1915 would have got him laughed at. Taking such talk seriously back then would have got him-and whoever listened to him-killed. Now…Now he was right. The Army of Northern Virginia lacked the men and the guns and, most of all, the barrels to halt the vengeful forces of the United States. Each barrel the CSA did get into the fight had to fight off two or three or four U.S. machines.

Also, at last, even the white Confederate soldiers seemed to have despaired of the fight. Instead of battling in the trenches with bayonet and sharpened spade, more and more of them threw down their rifles and threw up their hands and went into captivity pleased with themselves for having outlasted the war. Here and there, in the trenches and behind them, diehards still fought till they were killed in place, but the tide of war flowed past them and over them and washed them away.

Now, finally, everything was going as the generals and politicians had predicted it would go back in 1914. Martin passed through the little town of Stafford-a few homes and shops clustered around a brick courthouse-hardly noticing it till it was behind him. U.S. artillery had reduced most of the buildings to rubble. The Confederates no longer defended every hamlet as if it were land on which Jesus had walked.

“Come on!” he shouted to the men who advanced with him. “Eight miles to the Rappahannock! If we push these bastards, we’ll be there by sundown.” And if, on the Roanoke front in 1915, he’d heard himself say anything like that, he’d have known he was either shellshocked or just plain crazy.

But only a few Rebs contested the way south of Stafford. Save for those rear guards, most of the Confederates seemed intent on getting to the southern bank of the river, perhaps to make a stand there, perhaps simply to escape. A couple of miles north of the Rappahannock, shells from the far side of the river began landing uncomfortably close to Martin and his men.

Then the shells stopped falling. The rifle and machine-gun fire from the few men in butternut still north of the Rappahannock died away. A Confederate soldier-an officer-came out from behind a ruined building. He was carrying a white flag. “Hold your fire!” Chester Martin shouted to his men. The hair at the back of his neck and on his arms tried to stand on end.

“It’s over,” the Confederate officer shouted. “It’s done. You sons of bitches licked us.” Standing there defeated before the soldiers of the United States, he burst into tears.

Jake Featherston had the surviving guns of his battery in the best position he’d found for them since the war began. Back of Fredericksburg, Virginia, up in Marye’s Heights, a stone wall protected a sunken road. If the Yankees swung down along the curve of the Rappahannock and tried to force a crossing at Fredericksburg, he could look down on them and slaughter them for as long as his ammunition held out. They would be able to hit him only by luck-by luck or by aeroplane. He kept a wary eye turned toward the sky.

At the moment, he had the guns turned toward the north rather than the east, though-the U.S. soldiers seemed to be heading straight for Falmouth instead of Fredericksburg. That was what he gathered from the beaten men in butternut streaming past, anyhow. He’d given up shooting at Confederate soldiers fleeing the enemy. He couldn’t kill them all. He couldn’t even make them stop their retreat. And the more rounds he wasted on them, the fewer he’d be able to shoot at the damnyankees.

He climbed up on top of the stone wall and peered north through field glasses. Sure as hell, here came the U.S. soldiers, trailing the barrels that smashed flat or blasted out of existence any strongpoints in their path. U.S. fighting scouts swooped low over the front, further harrying the men of the Army of Northern Virginia.

“Come on, boys,” Jake said. “They’re inside seven thousand yards. Let’s remind ’em they have to pay for their tickets to get in. God damn me to hell and fry me for bacon if anybody else is going to do the job. Infantrymen? Christ on His cross, all the good infantry we used to have’s been dead the last two years.”

The four guns that remained of his battery of the First Richmond Howitzers desperately needed new barrels. They’d sent too many rounds through these; the rifling grooves were worn away to next to nothing. Featherston knew the guns weren’t going to get what they needed. Fat cats in Richmond get what they need, he thought. All I’m doing is defending my country. Does that count? Not likely. What do fellows like me get? Hind tit, that’s what.

When the guns began to roar, though, he whooped to see the shells falling among the leading damnyankees. He’d spent the whole war doing his best to hurt them. Even if the guns weren’t so accurate as they should have been, he could still do that. He could still enjoy it, too.

An improbably young lieutenant in an improbably clean uniform came up to him and demanded, “Who commands this battery, Sergeant?”

Jake drew himself up with touchy pride, and took pleasure in noting that he was a couple of inches taller than this baby officer. “I do,” he growled, “sir.”

“Oh.” The lieutenant looked as if he were tasting milk that had gone sour. “Very well, Sergeant. I am to inform you that, as of five o’clock P.M., which is to say, about an hour from now, an armistice will go into effect along our entire fighting front with the United States.”

Jake had been braced for the news, or thought he had, for the past couple of weeks. Getting it was like a boot in the belly just the same. “We’ve lost, then,” he said slowly. “We’re giving up.”

“We’re whipped,” the officer said. Featherston looked at the men who served the guns. Perhaps for the first time, he let himself see how worn they were. Their heads bobbed agreement with the shavetail’s words-they were whipped. The lieutenant went on, “We’ve done everything we could do. It wasn’t enough.”

“What the hell did you do?” Jake asked. The lieutenant stared at him, disbelieving his ears-how could an enlisted man presume to question him? Jake shook his own head. Strangling the pipsqueak would be fun, but what was the use? The CSA grew his sort in carload lots. Ask a question with an answer worth knowing, then: “What are we supposed to do with the guns after five o’clock?”

“Leave them,” the young lieutenant said, as if they were unimportant. They were-to him. He went on, “The Yankees will take them as spoils of war, I reckon.” That didn’t seem important to him, either. Off he went, to give the word to the next battery he found.

“Spoils of war?” Featherston muttered. “Hell they will.” He looked at his watch. “We got most of an hour, boys, till the war’s over. Let’s make those shitheels wish it never got started.”

Plainly, his soldiers would just as soon have let the fighting peter out. He didn’t shame them into keeping on-he frightened them into it. That he could still frighten them with everything they’d known crashing into ruin around them said a lot about the sort of man he was.

At five o’clock, he himself pulled the lanyard to his field gun one last time. Then he undid the breech block, carried it over to Hazel Run-a couple of hundred yards-and threw it in the water. He did the same with the breech blocks from all the other guns. “Now the damnyankees are welcome to ’em,” he said. “Fat lot of good they’ll get from ’em, though.”

His words seemed to echo and reecho. As the armistice took hold, silence flowed over the countryside. It seemed unnatural, like machine-gun fire on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of Richmond. When the gun crew talked, they talked too loud. For one thing, they were used to shouting over the roar of the three-inchers. For another, they were all a little deaf. Jake suspected he was more than a little deaf. He’d been at the guns longer than any of his men.

Before the sun set, Major Clarence Potter made his way to the battery. Featherston nodded to him as to an old friend; in the Army, Potter was about as close to an old friend as he had. The intelligence officer looked at the field guns, then at Jake. “You’re not going to let them have anything they can use, eh?” he said.

Jake spent some little while describing in great detail the uses the damnyankees could make of his guns. Major Potter listened, appreciating his imagination. Finally, Featherston said, “Goddammit, sir, sure as hell we’re going to fight those bastards another round one of these days before too long. Why give ’em anything they can take advantage of?”

“Oh, you get no arguments from me, Sergeant,” Potter said. “I wish more men were busy wrecking more weapons we’ll have to turn over to the USA.” He wore a flask on his hip. He took it in hand, yanked the cork, swigged, and passed it to Featherston. “Here’s to the two of us. We were right when the people over us were wrong, and much good it did us.”

The whiskey burned its way down to Jake’s belly. He wanted to gulp the flask dry, but made himself stop after one long pull and hand it back to Major Potter. “Thank you, sir,” he said, for once sincere in showing an officer gratitude. Then he asked the question undoubtedly echoing throughout the beaten Army of Northern Virginia, throughout the beaten Confederate States: “What the devil happens next? We never lost a war before.”

“What happens next is up to the Yankees.” Potter drank again. “Unless I read them wrong-and I don’t think I do-they’ll take us down just as far as they can without provoking us into starting up the war.” He thrust the flask at Featherston once more. “Here. Finish it.”

“Yes, sir.” Jake was glad to obey that order. Once the reinforcements had landed and spread warmth along his legs and up on his cheeks and nose, he found another question, closely related to the first: “What’ll they make us do?”

“I’m not Teddy Roosevelt, thank God, but I can make some guesses,” Potter said. “First one is, the United States are going to keep whatever they’ve grabbed in the war. Kentucky’s gone, Sequoyah’s gone, that chunk of Texas they’re calling Houston is gone, the chunk they bit out of Sonora is gone, too.”

“Yeah.” Jake pointed out north. “Probably hold on to Virginia down to the Rappahannock, too.”

“Probably,” the intelligence officer agreed. “When the next war comes, that will keep us from shelling Washington the way we have the last couple of times-keep us from doing it for a little while, anyhow.”

“The next war,” Jake repeated. He assumed there would be a next one, all right. “How soon do you reckon it’ll come?”

“That depends on a lot of things,” Major Potter answered. “How much the damnyankees make us cut our Army and Navy, for one: how many men and barrels and aeroplanes and submersibles they let us keep.”

“Oh, yeah.” Featherston nodded. “And on how many we’ll have stashed away without them being any the wiser.”

“And on that,” Potter agreed. “The other side of the coin is, how soon do the thieves fall out?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Jake said with a frown.

“Who won the war?” Major Potter asked patiently. “The USA and Germany, that’s who. Oh, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, too, but they hardly count. Roosevelt and the Kaiser are pals now, but how long will that last? When they start squabbling among themselves, that may give us the chance to get some of our own back.”

“Ah.” Featherston thought that over, then raised an admiring eyebrow. “You come up with all kinds of things, don’t you, Major?” That was genuine, ungrudging praise, and drew a smile from Potter. Featherston went on, “I’ll tell you who lost the war for us, though.”

“I’ve heard this song before, Sergeant,” Potter said.

Jake went on as if he hadn’t spoken: “The white-bearded fools in the War Department and the niggers, that’s who. Anybody wants to know, we ought to take ’em all out and shoot ’em. Whole lot of good they did us during the war.”

“Take all who out and shoot them?” Major Potter asked interestedly. “The white-bearded fools in the War Department or the niggers?”

“Hell, yes.” Without his quite noticing it, the whiskey had mounted to Jake’s head. “Country’d be better off without ’em, you mark my words.”

“Duly marked, Sergeant.” But Potter sounded amused, not convinced. “Nice to know someone has all the answers. I’ll tell you one thing: a lot of people in Richmond will be looking for answers, and heads will roll on account of it.”

“Some, maybe.” Savage scorn filled Featherston’s voice. “But not enough. You mark my words on that, too. The high muckymucks’ll find ways to cover for their brothers and cousins and in-laws and pals, and nothing much’ll come out of this. And as for the niggers-hellfire, Major, some of those damn coons’ll be voting now. Voting! After they stabbed us in the back, voting! Can you imagine it?”

“You are an embittered man,” the intelligence officer told Jake. He studied him for a long moment, then slowly shook his head. “If you turned to good use the energy you waste in bitterness, who knows what you might be able to do with it?”

“Waste?” Jake shook his head, too. “I’m not wasting it, Major. I’m going to get even. I’m going to get even with everybody who screwed me and my country.”

“Forgive me, Sergeant, but I’ll believe it when I see it,” Potter said.

“You will,” Jake said. “Damned if I know how, but you will.”

Major Cherney was laying things out for the fliers in his squadron: “All right, boys, this is the last act. The Confederate States are out of the war. It’s us against England and Canada now, and we’re going to lick them. That’s all there is to it. Toronto is going to fall. With the Rebs quitting, we can bring up another million men and another thousand aeroplanes and squash ’em flat.”

Jonathan Moss stuck up his hand. When Cherney pointed to him, he said, “Sir, I don’t know about you, but I want to finish licking the Canucks before all the reinforcements come up from the south. If they do it for us, it’s like saying we couldn’t handle the job ourselves.”

He looked around the tent at the Orangeville aerodrome. Most of the pilots who nodded with him were men who’d been flying against the Canadians and Englishmen for a long time. Percy Stone agreed with him, for instance. Pete Bradley, like a lot of the newer men, didn’t seem to care one way or the other. As long as Canada goes under, his shrug might have said, who cares how?

But Charley Sprague, among the newest of the new, spoke in support of Moss: “That’s right. They’ll take all the credit, and what will they leave us? Not a confounded thing, that’s what. After the war is over, everybody will try to pretend we didn’t do anything, anything at all. Is that how we want to go down in history?”

“I agree with both of you,” Cherney said. “We’ve been through too much to let those other bastards grab our glory. That means we have to grab it ourselves. Let’s go out and do it.”

After almost three years of war, Moss hadn’t thought a speech could fire him up for combat in the air. But he went out to his Wright two-decker with a grim smile on his face and a spring in his step. He felt ready to whip the whole British Empire singlehanded.

Perhaps seeing that, Percy Stone set a hand on his arm as he was about to climb up into his flying scout. “Steady, there,” he said. “When you try to do more than you really can, that’s when you get into trouble.”

Moss paused with his foot in the mounting stirrup on the side of the fuselage. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll remember. Thanks.”

“My pleasure,” Stone answered. “You brought me home so they could patch me up again. I want you to get home, too.” He paused, then looked west. “Or over toward Arthur, if you’d rather do that when the war is over.”

Ears burning under his flying helmet, Moss scrambled into the cockpit. Percy Stone went over to his own bus and took his place inside. Moss shook his head. His friend knew how sweet he’d got on Laura Secord, and if doing that wasn’t foolish, he didn’t know what was. For one thing, she despised Americans. For another, she had a husband. Except for those minor details, she would have made a perfect match.

But he couldn’t get her out of his mind. He knew he should, but he couldn’t. A groundcrew man spun the fighting scout’s prop. Moss checked his instruments. He had plenty of fuel, plenty of oil, and his oil pressure was good. Flying relieved the symptoms of what ailed him. He didn’t have time-well, he didn’t have much time-to think about it.

He looked to the other pilots. Stone, Bradley, and Sprague waved in turn: they were ready to go. He nodded to the groundcrew man, who pulled the chocks away from his wheels. The two-decker bumped along over the rutted grass of the landing strip till, after one bump, it didn’t come down.

The smoke that marked Toronto’s funeral pyre guided him south and east. His flightmates followed. He kept trying to look every which way at once, and wished for eyes on stalks like a snail’s to make that easier.

For two or three miles inland from the shore of Lake Ontario, the land that made up the city of Toronto rose smoothly from the water. Then it became steeper, even hilly. British and Canadian artillery used the hills to advantage, posting batteries on them and looking down on the flat country through which U.S. forces were slowly and expensively fighting their way.

Antiaircraft guns protected the pieces that were shelling the Americans. Black puffs of smoke burst around Moss’ aeroplane as he dove on an enemy battery. The Wright two-decker bucked in the turbulence from the explosions like a restive horse. A piece of shrapnel tore some fabric from the bus’s right upper wing. Moss knew it could as easily have torn through the engine, or through him.

His thumb found the firing button on top of the stick. Below, the gunners swelled from dots to toys to bare-chested men in khaki trousers. Englishmen or Canadians? He didn’t know. He didn’t see that it made a difference one way or the other. He stabbed at the button with all his strength.

“See how you like that!” he shouted as tracers lanced toward the artillerymen. They scattered. Some of them fell.

Early in the war, when he’d thought the principal function of fliers was observation, he’d felt bad about shooting at the foe. It didn’t bother him any more. It hadn’t bothered him for a long time. The limeys and Canucks weren’t shy about shooting at him. They would have cheered their heads off if he’d crashed in flames. His twin machine guns kept things even.

He zoomed back toward the front at just above treetop height, his flightmates on his tail. Every time he spotted a concentration of men in khaki, he gave them a burst and sent them flying like ninepins. They shot back, too; rifle bullets hissed past him, some uncomfortably close. An infantryman had to be amazingly lucky to shoot down an aeroplane. If enough infantrymen fired enough rounds, though…He’d never liked that thought.

He brought up the Wright’s nose to gain altitude for another swoop on the enemy’s guns. That let him look down on Toronto once more. U.S. forces had crossed the Etobicoke and the Mimico; there was heavy fighting in a park-High Park: he remembered the name from maps he’d studied-just east of the latter stream. Farther east still, what had been the Parliament building in Queen’s Park was now a burnt-out ruin, wrecked by bombs and artillery.

As always, he checked the air around him for enemy machines. Spying none, he began his second dive on the enemy’s guns. Something was different this time. The altimeter wound off a thousand feet before he realized what it was: the antiaircraft guns weren’t firing any more. He wondered if artillery hits had put them out of action. “Hope so,” he said. With luck, the slipstream would blow his words to God’s ear.

Down on the ground, the enemy artillerymen were milling around their guns. His thumb found the firing button again. The men were looking up at him and waving scraps of cloth…scraps of white cloth.

Behind his goggles, his eyes widened. He took his thumb away from the firing button and pulled out of the dive a little higher than he would have if he’d been shooting up the gunners in khaki. Instead of grabbing rifles to take potshots at him, they kept flying those makeshift white flags. Some of them waved their hands, too, as if he were a comrade and not a hated foe. Tears that had nothing to do with the slipstream blurred his vision.

“It’s over,” he said, almost in disbelief. “Can it really be over?”

It could. It was. As Moss once more led his flight back toward the American lines, none of the British and Canadian soldiers on the ground fired at their machines. Like the artillerymen, they waved whatever bits of white cloth they could find. U.S. soldiers in green-gray were beginning to come out of their trenches and approach the enemy line. No one shot at them, either.

Jonathan Moss wished the racket from his aeroplane’s motor didn’t drown out everything else. He would cheerfully have given a month’s pay to hear the silence on the ground where only minutes before rifles and machine guns and exploding shells had created hell on earth.

He wanted to find a landing strip and put down, just to be able to savor that silence. He needed all the discipline in him to fly away from the front where the fighting had finally ceased and back toward the Orangeville aerodrome. If he’d suffered a sudden case of fortuitous engine trouble, he had no doubt Stone’s aeroplane-and Bradley’s and Sprague’s as well-would have come down with similar miseries.

When he finally did land at the aerodrome, the groundcrew men knew far more about what was going on than he did. “Yeah, we got word of the armistice about half an hour after you took off,” a mechanic said. “We could have called you back if you’d had a wireless telegraph in your bus.”

“Canucks kept fighting up till the last minute, then,” Moss said. “They did their best to blow us out of the sky the first time we strafed their artillery.”

Charley Sprague asked, “Has England given up the fight, then?”

The groundcrew man shook his head. “Wish the limeys had, but they haven’t. The armistice is for land forces in Canada. The Royal Navy’s still fighting us and the Germans both.”

“They can’t win that fight-not a prayer,” Sprague said. Had his flightmate not beaten him to it, Moss would have said the same thing.

“Well, you know that, sir, and I know that, but the limeys haven’t figured it out yet,” the mechanic answered. “Been a hell of a long time since they lost a war; I guess they don’t hardly know how to go about it.”

“We’ve had practice,” Moss said. “How many Remembrance Day parades have you watched?” That was a rhetorical question; everybody in the USA had seen his share and then some. Moss went on, “About time they threw in the sponge. Quebec-the city, I mean-is gone, Winnipeg’s gone, Toronto’s going, Montreal’s blasted to hell, and we’ve finally broken out of that box between the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa and the Ridea where they’d penned us up since the start of the war. Another few months and they wouldn’t have had much left to surrender.”

“Now we’ve conquered them,” Percy Stone said. “What the devil are we supposed to do with them?”

“Sit on ’em,” Pete Bradley said. “If they give us a hard time, we’ll shoot some of ’em. That’ll give the rest the idea.”

“Oderint dum metuant,” Sprague said. Moss, who’d had Latin, nodded. The groundcrew men stared in blank incomprehension. Sprague condescended to translate: “Let them hate, so long as they fear.”

Moss thought of Laura Secord. She hated. He didn’t think anything could make her fear. He wondered whether her husband had come through the war in one piece. If he had, he had; that was all there was to that. If he hadn’t…Moss did intend to make a trip back to Arthur, so he could find out one way or the other. He suddenly smiled. With the fighting done, that trip looked a lot easier to arrange than it had when he took off earlier in the day.

Rosenfeld, Manitoba, blazed with light as the U.S. soldiers occupying the town celebrated their victory over the forces of the British Empire in Canada. Every so often, somebody would fire a Springfield into the air. Every shot set off a fresh round of raucous cheers.

Arthur McGregor crouched behind a bush in the darkness just outside of town. If a patrol caught him here, he was in a lot of trouble. He shook his head. If a patrol caught him here, he was a dead man. He didn’t usually take chances like this. But he wouldn’t get another chance like this, either. If ever he could catch the Yanks with their guard down, now was the time.

He stiffened. Someone was coming his way along the dirt road that led out from Rosenfeld. A moment later, hearing how erratic the footsteps were, McGregor relaxed. The drunken U.S. soldier, a little gamecock of a man, staggered past him and out into the deeper darkness where night still ruled absolutely.

After ten or fifteen minutes, another couple of soldiers meandered by. McGregor stayed concealed. One of the drunks paused not far away to throw up by the side of the road. Then he stumbled after his friend, who hadn’t stopped.

Fifteen or twenty minutes more passed. Out of Rosenfeld came another soldier looking for fresh air, or perhaps only for a quiet place to heave. He was a big, broad-shouldered fellow for whose lurching strides the roadway did not seem wide enough.

As the U.S. soldier passed the bush, McGregor got to his feet. He carried an axe handle, a good, solid chunk of wood. Since he’d had not a drop to drink, his movements were swift and sure. The soldier, his face a mask of surprise, was just starting to turn when the axe handle slammed into the side of his head. He dropped as if shot-but a shot would have made noise, and McGregor could not chance that.

He dragged the soldier back to his hiding place. Once there, he finished the job of smashing the fellow’s skull: he might have been recognized, after all. Then he stripped the dead man of tunic and trousers, puttees and boots. He took off his own clothes and put on the American’s. They weren’t a perfect fit: the tunic was loose, the trousers and boots tight. But they would do. For what he had in mind, they would do. He opened a wooden box he’d carried from the farm and set the alarm clock inside to ring in two hours’ time. Then, carefully, he replaced the lid and used the axe handle to drive in four brads to keep it closed.

That done, he stepped out into the roadway. The dead soldier’s brimless service cap lay there, knocked off his head when McGregor hit him. The farmer picked it up and put it on. A lot of soldiers in town would probably not be wearing theirs, but he wanted to look as much like one of them as he could.

Into Rosenfeld he went. He didn’t stand out on account of his age: the Yanks had conscripted men who looked older than he did. Plenty of them were carrying this or that. One was giving a piggyback ride to a laughing woman waving a whiskey bottle. McGregor knew Rosenfeld’s two or three whores by sight. She wasn’t any of them; the Americans must have brought her in from some other town.

“Hey, pal, whatcha got in the box there?” a soldier asked.

McGregor had known he might get that question, so he had an answer ready: “Beer for Colonel Alexander.” The colonel named for his son was fictitious, but the soldier wouldn’t know that.

“Reckon he could spare a bottle or two?” the fellow said.

McGregor shook his head. “He’d skin me alive.” The U.S. soldier grimaced, but went off instead of trying any more wheedling. The Americans were more submissive to their officers than McGregor remembered being from his own days in uniform. Comes of having Germans for teachers, he thought.

He found a spot opposite the sheriff’s station Major Hannebrink was using as his headquarters. Lights were on inside; the Yanks arrested their own men as well as Canadians, and were probably hauling in lots of them tonight.

That thought had hardly crossed his mind before Hannebrink came out to stand on the porch and look around, hands on hips in indignation at the chaos victory was creating. He saw McGregor, but didn’t recognize him. After a couple of minutes, he shook his head and went back indoors.

“Now,” McGregor muttered to himself. If he couldn’t do it now, he’d never do it. He staggered across the street toward the sheriff’s station, suddenly acting much drunker than he had before. He got down on hands and knees by the wooden steps leading up to the porch where Hannebrink had stood, as if about to lose whatever he had in his stomach. He knew he wasn’t the only man in uniform doing that. When he thought-he hoped-no one was paying him any special notice, he shoved the box under the steps.

He got to his feet. Nobody shouted, What are you doing? or, What’s in that box? or even, Wait a second, buddy-you forgot something. After that, he had no trouble walking as if he were drunk. He was drunk, drunk with relief.

He got out of Rosenfeld and made his way back to the bushes where he’d hidden. Once there, he put the dead American’s clothes back on him-an awkward job-and got into his own shirt and overalls and shoes. He took the man’s billfold and stuck it in his pocket. With luck, the Yanks would think one of their soldiers had robbed and murdered another.

He was tying his shoes when another American wobbled up the road past him. Several of them-he didn’t know how many-were farther from Rosenfeld than he was. If any of them saw him, he might be in trouble. Instead of getting up and starting along the road, he crawled away over grass and dirt, then got to his feet and made his way north and west across a field: whatever he did, he was not going to leave a trail that led straight back toward his farm.

When he came to a little rill, he threw the American’s wallet into it after taking out the banknotes. He stuck those in his pocket and splashed along in the rill for a couple of hundred yards. If they set dogs on his trail, he wouldn’t give the beasts an easy time.

Not long after he came out, he kicked a stone. He lifted it and stuck the dead American’s paper money under it. With luck, the money would never be found. If the empty wallet was, it would make robbery look more likely.

“Thank you, sweet Jesus,” he whispered when he found a road. The wheeling stars gave him the direction he needed to head home. On the hard-packed dirt, he’d make good time. He wouldn’t leave much in the way of tracks, either.

He’d been walking almost an hour and a half when a bang louder than any of the sporadic rifle shots came from the direction of Rosenfeld. He made a fist and thumped it against his thigh. He had no way of knowing whether Major Hannebrink was still at his post when the bomb went off. Sooner or later, he’d find out. Even if the major had gone, he’d still hurt the Americans. He could console himself with that-but he didn’t care about consolation. He wanted vengeance.

Going down back roads and sneaking across the well-traveled highway east of his fields after a line of trucks rattled past, he got back to the farmhouse as twilight was beginning to stain the eastern horizon. He still had a full day’s chores ahead. By the time he finished them, he’d wish he were dead. Right now, he hoped someone else was.

Maude was making coffee in the kitchen when he came inside. “Well?” she asked. It was as close to a direct question about what he did when he went out at night as she’d ever given him.

He came close to giving a direct answer, too: “It worked. I wasn’t there, though, so I don’t know how well.”

“All right.” His wife looked him over. “Go change your clothes and bring the ones you have on downstairs. I’ll wash them. Set your shoes by the stove first.”

He bent down and felt of them. They were still damp. “Good idea,” he said. He sighed as he pulled off the shoes. “Feet are tired.”

“I’ll bet they are,” Maude said. “Go on, now. I’ll have coffee and eggs waiting when you come down again.”

By the time he’d changed and splashed water from the pitcher on the chest of drawers onto his face, Mary and Julia were up, too. Julia sliced bread for him, to go with the fried eggs Maude set out. “You look tired, Pa,” she said, which was not a question at all but at the same time was.

“Everything’s all right,” he replied, an answer that said nothing and at the same time quite a lot.

Mary’s face glowed. “Does that mean you-?” she began, and then abruptly stopped, as if she did not want to hear what it meant. Arthur McGregor only shrugged. With food and coffee in front of him, he didn’t want to think for a while.

He went out to work in the fields. When he looked back toward the farmhouse, he saw the overalls and shirt and socks and drawers he’d worn the night before out flapping on the line. The breeze was strong. They would dry quickly.

In the middle of the afternoon, a green-gray Ford parked between the farmhouse and the barn. McGregor didn’t notice it till the soldiers who got out fired a couple of shots in the air. That brought him in at a shambling trot that told him just how worn he was.

Three privates in green-gray surrounded a tall, skinny U.S. captain McGregor had never seen before. Without preamble, the officer snapped, “Where were you last night?”

“Here at home in bed,” he answered. He felt drunk with joy now, and had to work hard to make sure it didn’t show on his face. If he’d failed, Major Hannebrink would have been the one to bark questions at him. But sending sullen looks toward the occupiers wasn’t hard, not even a little. “Why? What are you going to try and blame on me this time?”

“Somebody set off a bomb in Rosenfeld,” the captain said. “A lot of good men died. Somebody’s set off a lot of bombs in this part of the country since your son received military justice. A fair number of hostages have died on account of them, too.”

“You Yanks have murdered a lot of people in this part of the country besides my son-including those hostages,” McGregor returned. “I don’t love you, but I haven’t bombed you. Major Hannebrink turned this place upside down trying to show different, but he couldn’t show what wasn’t there.”

“Major Hannebrink is dead,” the U.S. captain told him.

“I’ll not shed a tear,” McGregor said. Again, he had to remind himself not to exult. “I wish I had settled him, but I didn’t.” That lie came easy. He’d had lots of practice using it. His conscience, which had once sickened at any untruth, troubled him not at all.

“Shall we search the house and barn again, Captain Fielding?” one of the privates asked.

McGregor waited for the tall officer to say yes. If the Yanks found what he’d hidden under the old wagon wheel, he could die content now. But Fielding shook his head. “No evidence,” he said. “Nothing but Hannebrink’s suspicions, and I can’t see that he had anything more than suspicions to go on. You keep your nose clean, McGregor, and you can help us put this country back together again.”

He gestured to his men. They and he got into the Ford and drove away. McGregor stared after them. He’d won his battle, and cherished that: the man who’d ordered his son executed was dead himself. But the Americans had won the war, and still aimed to reshape Canada to suit themselves. If he was going to keep on resisting, he had to get ready for the long haul. Grimly, he resolved to do just that.

Nellie Semphroch came downstairs to start another day at the coffeehouse. She smiled at the plate-glass windows replacing the boards that had fronted on the street. Once word got around that President Roosevelt had given her and Edna medals, people started going out of their way to do them favors, as people had gone out of their way to cut them when they’d thought them collaborators.

Across the street, Hal Jacobs’ cobbler’s shop still presented boards to the world. Nellie didn’t think that was fair. Jacobs had done much more than she had to hurt the Rebels inside Washington. If Roosevelt had given him a medal, Nellie didn’t know about it. Maybe he was naturally modest. Maybe being self-effacing went into making a good spy. Whatever the reason, Jacobs had let no one know he’d done anything out of the ordinary during the war.

Nellie unlocked the door and turned the sign in the window so it read OPEN. As she was doing that, Jacobs opened his own door and came out onto the sidewalk. Seeing Nellie through the window, he waved to her.

A little reluctantly, she waved back. She knew how much she owed him. The coffeehouse never would have made a go of it, let alone flourished, without his help. But, very likely, she never would have had to set eyes on Bill Reach again if not for his dealings with Hal Jacobs. As far as she was concerned, that went a long way toward canceling her debt.

Edna came downstairs. “Morning, Ma,” she called as she started making the day’s first coffee.

“Morning,” Nellie answered. Edna had been subdued since Roosevelt put the medal she did not deserve around her neck. Maybe that was because she realized she didn’t deserve it, and appreciated the contribution her mother had made toward a U.S. victory. More likely, Nellie judged, Edna missed the handsome young Confederate officers who’d filled the coffeehouse for most of three years. That might not have been charitable, but Nellie reckoned it close to the mark.

A U.S. officer came in. He was neither handsome nor young. When he ordered a fried-egg sandwich and a mug of coffee, though, Nellie looked on him with benevolent eyes. When he left a quarter for a tip on top of his tab, she reckoned him a paragon among men.

Another officer came in a few minutes later. All he wanted was coffee. Nellie served him with the best smile she could muster. Business was better than it had been when people shunned Edna and her, but not what it had been when the Confederates held Washington. She didn’t suppose it would ever be that good again, and was glad she’d managed to save some of what she made.

Hal Jacobs walked into the coffeehouse as that second officer was leaving; they did a little dance in the doorway to keep from bumping into each other. Jacobs asked for a cup of coffee, too. When he set a nickel on the table, Nellie shoved it back at him. “Your money’s no good here, Hal,” she said. “You ought to know that by now.”

“This is foolishness,” Jacobs said. “You can use this no matter where it comes from.”

“Like you can’t?” Nellie answered. “I know how many people go in and out of your place every day. It’s a wonder you’ve got any money to spend at all, if you ask me. But even if you had plenty, I wouldn’t take it from you.”

“You are more generous than I deserve,” the shoemaker said. “I was happy to help you and help our country at the same time.”

“Well, you did, and now I’m going to help you, too,” Nellie said. From behind the counter, Edna gave her a look that meant, We can use every nickel we get. She ignored her daughter, as Edna was in the habit of ignoring her.

Jacobs said, “I know how you can help me, Nellie.”

“How’s that?” Nellie asked cautiously. She thought she knew what kind of thing the shoemaker would say. Sooner or later, every man in the world said that kind of thing. Edna leaned forward so as not to miss a word. By the leer on her face, she thought she knew what kind of thing the shoemaker would say, too. And, by that leer, she wouldn’t let her mother forget it after he said it, either.

Then, to Nellie’s surprise, Hal Jacobs slipped out of the chair in which he was sitting. To her even greater surprise, he went down on one knee before her and took her hands in his before she could pull away. “Nellie, will you please marry me and make me a happy man for all the rest of my days?” he asked.

Nellie’s face heated. She was sure her cheeks had to be red as raw meat. She glanced over at Edna, whose jaw had fallen and whose eyes were wide and staring. Whatever else her daughter might do, Edna wouldn’t be able to tease her about getting a lewd proposition.

She’d been ready to deal with-to deal forcefully with-a proposition. A proposal was something else again. A man who wanted her enough to ask to marry her without even trying to sample the merchandise first? She’d never known-indeed, never imagined-such a thing. Her experience had always been that men were a lot longer on sampling than on proposing.

And so, after a silence that stretched longer than it should have, she could only stammer, “Mr. Jacobs, I–I don’t know what to say. This is so sudden.”

“Not when we have worked side by side for so long,” Jacobs said, still on his knees. “I know what I would like. I can only hope and pray you would like it, too.”

Before Nellie could find any way to respond to that, Edna hissed, “Say yes, Ma! Where are you going to do better?”

Unlike a good many from her daughter, that was a good question. Nellie looked down at Hal Jacobs. He wasn’t too young and he wasn’t too handsome, but she knew he had a good heart. She’d never tried living with a man with a good heart. Maybe it would make a difference.

And maybe, on their wedding night, he would show his heart wasn’t so good after all. She had seen how men who outwardly were pillars of respectability could turn into animals, brutes, when they found themselves alone with a woman. If she said yes and Jacobs turned out to be that kind of man, what would she do? What could she do then? Maybe one fine morning he would wake up dead, in as inconspicuous a manner as she could arrange.

Even if he wasn’t an animal, did she want him in her bed? No man had been to bed with her in a lot of years, and she hadn’t felt that to be a lack: on the contrary, if anything. But, when he’d kissed her the year before back in his shop, she’d been glad to have the kiss-and astonished that she was glad. What, exactly, did that mean? Did she want to take a chance and find out?

If she didn’t, what would she do? Stay the way she was and try to keep an eye on Edna till her daughter found another young man and moved away? Knowing Edna, that might happen in a matter of weeks, maybe even days. What then? Spend the rest of her life alone and getting more sour by the day? That didn’t sound like such a good bargain, either.

She looked down at Hal Jacobs again. She wished he’d never asked her. By asking her, he was making her think about things she would sooner have ignored. No matter what she did now, no matter what she said now, it would irrevocably change her life. She hated having to make choices that big, and hated having to do it on the spur of the moment even more.

Or perhaps it wasn’t exactly on the spur of the moment. Edna said, “Come on, Ma-you’ve got to tell the poor man something.”

With a sigh, Nellie realized her daughter was right. With another sigh, a longer and deeper one, she said, “I’ll marry you, Hal. Thank you for asking me.” She wondered how much she would regret that. More or less than saying no? One way or the other, she’d find out.

Edna let out a cheer that sounded almost like the yells with which Confederate soldiers went into battle. An enormous smile spread over Hal Jacobs’ face. He squeezed her hands and said, “Oh, Nellie, thank you so much. You have made me the happiest man in the world.”

“Don’t be silly,” Edna said. She came out to the front of the coffeehouse as Jacobs was getting to his feet. Kissing him on the cheek, she went on, “Teddy Roosevelt’s got to be the happiest man in the world now that the Rebs have quit. But if you want to say you’re running second, that’s all right.”

Jacobs laughed. Edna laughed. After a moment, Nellie laughed, too. She felt giddy and foolish, as if she’d been drinking whiskey, not coffee. Was that happiness? Or was it just surprise at what she’d gone and done? For the life of her, she couldn’t tell.

A customer came in then, distracting her. He wasn’t a military man, and he wasn’t one of the locals Nellie knew, either. He wore a black suit, a black cravat, and a black homburg, and carried a black leather briefcase. “Ham and eggs and coffee,” he said, like a Confederate plantation owner giving orders to his house niggers. “Eggs over medium, not too hard.”

“Yes, sir,” Nellie said; some of the Rebel officers who’d frequented the coffeehouse had been that peremptory, too. “Would you like your coffee now, or with the ham and eggs? And would you like toast to go with that? Like the menu says, an extra ten cents.”

“Coffee now. No toast. Had I wanted it, I should have requested it.” The newcomer looked around. “This is one of the few places I’ve seen since coming here that we won’t have to tear down and start over from the ground up.”

A light went on in Nellie’s head. “You’re from-” she began.

“Philadelphia?” the newcomer broke in. “Of course. You wouldn’t think I’d live in Washington, would you?”

“We manage,” Nellie said. The Philadelphia-lawyer? — sniffed. People from the de facto capital of the United States were in the habit of sneering at those from the legal capital. Nellie got him his coffee as Edna started the ham and eggs. His money would spend as well as anyone else’s.

“I am going back to my work, dear Nellie,” Jacobs said. “Thank you again. We will talk more of these arrangements as soon as we can.” He blew her a kiss as he went out the door.

Over the pleasant hiss and crackle of frying food, Edna spoke to the man from Philadelphia: “Mr. Jacobs there just asked my ma to marry him, and she said yes.”

“How nice,” the fellow said. “Given the way the tax laws are, it will likely prove an advantageous move for both of them.”

Nellie had worried about a lot of things before saying yes. Taxes weren’t one of them. Maybe she didn’t need the cold-blooded Philadelphian’s money so badly after all. Maybe, on the other hand, he was trying-coldbloodedly-to do her a favor.

Edna gave her the plate of ham and eggs, and she set it in front of the man who was helping decide how to restore, or whether to restore, Washington. She didn’t know a whole lot about taxes and how they worked. Maybe she should ask him for more good advice. About one thing she needed no advice whatever. Hal Jacobs, she resolved, would never, ever learn how Bill Reach had died.

Lieutenant Crowder was lecturing the crew of the depth-charge projector, which meant he was also lecturing George Enos, who, standing nearby at the one-pounder, could hardly escape the officer’s words. “We must maintain our vigilance,” Crowder declared, as if someone had suggested that the whole crew of the USS Ericsson should lie down and go to sleep. “The Confederate States may be out of the fight, but the Royal Navy is still in it.”

Carl Sturtevant’s sigh was visible but not audible. Out of the side of his mouth, he muttered, “Good thing he gives us the news, ain’t it, Enos?” George’s nod was half amused, half annoyed.

Crowder didn’t notice. When he was talking, he didn’t notice anything but the sound of his own voice. “And we must remain alert against submersibles from the C.S. Navy even now,” he said. “Some of them may have defective wireless gear, and so be ignorant that their government has at last given up its hopeless fight. And others may claim ignorance and seek to strike one last blow against the United States in spite of the armistice now in force.”

It was Enos’turn to roll his eyes. Sturtevant’s answering snort was almost as quiet as his sigh had been. As far as George was concerned, the lieutenant hadn’t a clue about how to keep the men wary. Talking about the Royal Navy was a decent idea, because England was still in the war. Talking about imaginary Confederates who wouldn’t surrender, though, made no sense at all. And, if the sailors decided Crowder didn’t make sense about one thing, they were apt to decide he didn’t make sense about anything, and so not keep an eye peeled for the limeys.

On second thought, George decided it didn’t matter so much. Most of the depth-charge projector crew, from everything he could see, had already concluded Lieutenant Crowder didn’t make sense about anything. They’d keep an eye on the Atlantic anyhow, for the sake of their own skins.

After a while, the all-clear sounded. Crowder hurried away from the depth-charge projector as if he had a beautiful blonde waiting under the covers back in his cabin. Thinking about a beautiful blonde made George think about Sylvia. “Christ, I want to go home,” he said.

Hearing the longing in this voice, Carl Sturtevant burst out laughing. “You want to kick your wife’s feet out from under her, is what you want.”

“What the devil’s wrong with that?” Enos said. “It’s been a hell of a long time.”

“Some ships, you could cornhole some pretty sailor if you really felt the lack,” Sturtevant said. “The Ericsson’s pretty good about that, though-pretty careful to make sure it doesn’t happen, I mean.”

“I should hope so,” George said. “I don’t want a pretty sailor. Hell, I don’t think there is such a thing as a pretty sailor. I want to go to bed with my wife.”

“I wouldn’t mind-” The petty officer stopped abruptly. He’d probably been about to say something like, I wouldn’t mind going to bed with your wife, either. He was smart not to have said that. Giving a sailor of higher rank a fat lip would have got George in a lot of trouble, but he would have done it without hesitation. After a couple of seconds, Sturtevant tried again. “I wouldn’t mind going to bed with anything female. Like you said, it’s been a hell of a long time.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.” Enos remembered that day along the Cumberland when he’d been about to go to bed with a colored whore for no better reason than that he was half drunk and more than half bored. As he’d been going from the ramshackle saloon to the even more ramshackle crib next to it, the Confederates had blown his river monitor out of the water. If he’d been aboard the Punishment, odds were he wouldn’t be breathing now.

He drew a mop and bucket and started swabbing a stretch of deck. By now, he understood perfectly the pace he had to use to keep passing petty officers happy. Once, when he fell below that pace, one of those worthies barked at him. Even then, he had an answer ready: “Sorry, Chief. I guess I was paying too much attention to the ocean out there.”

“Yeah, well, pay attention to what you’re supposed to be doing,” the veteran sailor growled.

“Aye aye,” George said. But he noted that, as the petty officer paraded down the deck, he made a point of peering out into the Atlantic every few paces. What was he doing, if not trying to spot a periscope? The limeys were still struggling to get freighters from Argentina across the ocean, and their submersibles still prowled: Lieutenant Crowder had been dead right about that. They’d have to quit sooner or later, but they hadn’t done it yet.

That evening, attacking corned beef and sauerkraut, the sailors hashed over what they’d do when the war ended. They’d done that a good many times before, but the talk had a different feel to it now. In the midst of the grapple with the enemy, they’d just been blue-skying it, and they’d known as much. Now, when the war would end in days-weeks at the most-life after it seemed much more real, and planning for it much more urgent.

George was one of the lucky ones: he had no doubts. “As soon as they let me out of the Navy, I find me a fishing boat and go back to sea,” he said. “Only thing I’ll have to worry about is hitting a drifting mine. Otherwise, things’ll be just like they were before the war for me.”

“Before the war,” somebody down the table echoed. “Jesus, I can’t hardly remember there ever was such a time.”

“Christ, what a load of horse manure, Dave,” somebody else said. “You were here on the Ericsson, same as me.”

Dave was unabashed. “Give me a break, Smitty. All we were doing here before the war was getting ready to fight the damn thing. Wasn’t hardly different than what we’re doing now, except nobody was trying to kill us back then.”

“Nobody but the chiefs, anyways,” Smitty said, which got a laugh. He went on, “We stay in the Navy, what the hell you think we’ll be doing? Getting ready to fight the next war, that’s what.”

“Well, what’s a Navy for?” Dave returned. “You better be ready to fight if you get into a war. Otherwise, you lose. Our dads and grandpas had their noses rubbed in that one.”

“Look at the clever fellow,” Smitty said. “He learned about Remembrance Day in school. Give him a hand, boys. Ain’t he smart?”

“Ahh, shut up,” Dave said. Since he was half again as big as Smitty, the other sailor did.

Changing the subject looked like a good idea. George said, “Wonder how long it’ll be till the next war.”

“Depends.” Dave, it seemed, had opinions about everything. “If we forget what we have an Army and Navy for, probably won’t be long at all. That’s what we did after the War of Secession, and Jesus, did we pay for it.”

“We do that, half of us’ll be on the beach,” Smitty said, which turned things back toward what the sailors would do after the war.

Then somebody said, “No Democrat would ever be that stupid. We’d have to elect Debs or whoever the Socialists put up three years from now.” That touched off a political argument, the Socialist minority loudly insisting they were Americans as good as any others.

“And better than a lot of people I can think of,” one of them added. “The first thing some of you want to do after the war ends is put the workers and farmers into another one.”

George asked his question again: “All right, Louie, how long do you think we’ve got till the next one?”

“If we keep electing Democrats, fifteen years-twenty years, tops,” the Socialist answered. “We finally get wise and put in some people who understand what the class structure and international solidarity really mean, maybe it won’t happen at all. Maybe this’ll be the last war there ever was.”

“Yeah, and maybe the Pope’s gonna run off with my sister, too,” Dave said. “I tell you, Louie, I ain’t holding my breath on either one.” He got a bigger laugh than Smitty had a couple of minutes before, and preened on account of it.

Fifteen years. Twenty years, tops. Nobody said peace could last longer than that. Well, Louie had, but even he didn’t sound as if he believed it. No Socialist had ever even come very close to getting elected president. George didn’t see any reason for that to change soon. If war came when people thought it would, his son would get dragged into it. He didn’t like that for beans. Hell, if war came again in fifteen or twenty years, he might get dragged into it, too. He wouldn’t be an old man. He liked that even less. Wasn’t once enough?

He didn’t have any duty after supper, so he wrote a letter to Sylvia. If the Ericsson went into port before a supply ship met her, he was liable to get into Boston before the letter did, but that would have to mean England was quitting right away, which didn’t look likely. I sure will be glad to sleep in a bed that doesn’t have one on top of it and another one underneath, he wrote. If they packed us in oil we might be sardines.

Some of that was exaggeration for dramatic effect. Arrangements aboard a fishing boat were just as cramped, and those aboard the river monitor on which he’d served had been even more crowded. However…I sure will be glad to sleep in a bed that has you in it.

One of the officers would have to censor the letter before it could leave the destroyer. Most times, George didn’t worry about that. Now he wondered if the fellow, whoever he was, would start breathing a little faster if he read something like that. After a moment, George laughed at himself. The Ericsson had a war complement of better than 130 men. If the censor hadn’t seen anything hotter than what he’d just written, he didn’t know anything about horny sailors’ imaginations.

He finished the letter, then read it over. He didn’t know about the censor, but he was breathing faster by the time he finished. To wake up in a soft bed with his wife beside him…he couldn’t think of anything better than that. He addressed an envelope and put the letter inside, but didn’t seal the flap. The censor would take care of that. George carried the letter to a collection box and put it in.

“Hey, Enos, you want to get into a card game?” the Socialist-Louie-called.

George shook his head. “Go suck in some single guy. I got a wife and two kids at home. Gotta save my money.”

“You might win,” Louie said.

“Yeah, I might,” Enos allowed, “but I usually don’t, and that’s why I don’t get into card games much any more.”

He went back to the bunkroom. He didn’t usually hit the sack till lights-out, but tonight he stripped to his skivvies and lay down. A fan was doing its best to keep the warm, muggy air moving. Its best wasn’t very good; George always woke covered in sweat. But the stuffiness helped him fall asleep fast. He yawned a couple of times and dozed off, smiling as he thought of waking up in bed with Sylvia.