Even in late spring, the North Atlantic pitched and tossed. The USS Remembrance was a big ship, but the waves flung her about even so. Sam Carsten thanked heaven for his strong stomach and for the cloudy skies that kept his fair, fair skin from burning. Other than that, he had little for which to be thankful.
To put it mildly, things did not look good. The Remembrance and the cruisers and destroyers surrounding her were on full war alert. Everyone seemed sure it was coming. The only questions left were about when and where and how.
Maybe the clouds in the sky didn’t matter so much. Sam spent almost all of his time belowdecks, either at his battle station in damage control or in the officers’ mess or sacked out in his tiny cabin. On his schedule, a vampire would have had trouble getting a sunburn.
He might as well have been married to Lieutenant Commander Hiram Pottinger. He saw his superior nearly every waking moment. The two of them prowled through the bowels of the ship, looking for trouble they could eliminate before it got the chance to eliminate them. Every once in a while, they would find something and turn their sailors loose on it. Then they would pause and nod and sometimes shake hands. That was what they were supposed to do, and by now they were both damn good at the job.
Sam still remembered that he wanted to get in on the aviation side of things. He remembered, but nostalgically, as if thinking of a long-lost love. Years of doing the duty he was in had shaped him and scraped him till he wasn’t a square peg in a round hole any more. By now, he fit the slot in which the Navy had put him. That was how things worked.
He kept right on going up to the wireless shack whenever he found the chance. Maybe that proved he was a mustang; he still had a rating’s insatiable appetite for scuttlebutt. The yeomen who kept the Remembrance in touch with the wider world grinned whenever he poked his head in. They teased him about it, as much as they could tease a superior officer.
“Going to tell the limeys everything you know, sir?” one of them asked.
“Hell, no.” Sam shook his head. “I’m going to save it till we get over to the Pacific. Then I’ll tell it to the Japs.”
They all laughed. The only thing Sam wanted to tell the Japanese was where to head in. He would gladly have helped guide them on the way, too. They’d shelled a ship he was on once and torpedoed him twice. If they hadn’t sunk him, it sure as hell wasn’t for lack of effort.
Before any of the yeomen could say something else slyly rude, loud, mournful music started coming out of the wireless set. “Something’s up,” Sam said. “What station is that?”
“German Imperial Wireless, sir,” answered the man who’d been teasing him. The yeomen and Carsten looked at one another. Wilhelm II had been failing for a long time now. If he’d finally gone and failed …
A torrent of German poured from the speaker. “You picking that up, Gunther?” another yeoman asked.
“I will if you don’t jog my elbow,” Gunther answered. He was a big blond kid, not so fair as Sam but fair enough. Another Midwestern farm boy who’d decided to go to sea instead of spending the rest of his life walking behind a couple of horses’ asses. (These days, he’d probably ride a tractor. That still wasn’t Sam’s idea of fun.)
“Is it the Kaiser?” Sam asked.
“Yeah. Uh, yes, sir.” Gunther corrected himself. “It’s him, all right. Blood clot on the lung, the wireless says. Went into a coma last night, died this morning.” More music replaced the announcer’s voice. This time, Sam recognized the tune: Deutschland über Alles. When the German anthem ended, the announcer came back on the air. “He’s hailing the accession of Friedrich Wilhelm—King Friedrich Wilhelm V of Prussia and Kaiser Friedrich I of Germany,” Gunther reported.
“Kaiser Bill had a hell of a run: better than fifty years,” Sam said. His son and heir wouldn’t match that; Friedrich Wilhelm, who’d lived so long in his father’s shadow, was already close to sixty.
More German came out of the wireless. This was a different voice. Gunther said, “Uh-oh. This is the new Kaiser’s mouthpiece. He says Friedrich Wilhelm’s first act is to declare that he can’t possibly give up anything his father won.”
“Uh-oh is right,” Sam said. “That means trouble with France and England and probably Russia, too.” He whistled softly. “Big trouble, I think. I wonder what the hell we do now.”
“Well, sir, we’re already on battle alert,” Gunther said practically.
“Yeah,” Sam said: not the ideal reply, perhaps, for an officer and a gentleman, but one both accurate and concise.
Gunther got on the telephone to the bridge. Sam ambled out of the wireless shack, whistling tunelessly to himself. For the next little while, he would know something the skipper didn’t. Of course, knowing did him no good. He couldn’t bring the Remembrance, or even the damage-control parties, to a higher state of alert than they were already in.
British airplane carriers, he thought unhappily. British battleships, if they can get in close enough. British and French submersibles. French destroyers, too, I suppose. What a joy. Would Britain and France declare war on the USA, too, once they went to war with Germany, which they sure looked as if they’d do? The frogs might not. They were taking dead aim at their next-door neighbors.
The limeys? Carsten worried more about them. They owed the USA a kick in the teeth. The United States had booted them out of Canada, Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the Bahamas. Sam couldn’t see them mounting an invasion to take back Toronto. The islands out in the Atlantic? They were a different story. And to get to the islands, the British would have to get past the U.S. Navy.
With a spatter of static, the Remembrance’s intercom came to life. Sam blinked. The squawkboxes didn’t get used very often. “This is the captain speaking.” Sam blinked again. When the intercom did come on, Captain Stein hardly ever spoke himself. That was usually the exec’s job. But the skipper continued, “Men, you need to know that the German Empire has just announced that Kaiser Wilhelm II has passed away. His son, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, has just become the new German Kaiser.
“Friedrich Wilhelm has formally rejected the demands France has made for the return of territory lost in the Great War. The international situation will grow more dangerous as a result of this. For the moment, we are not at war with France or Britain or anyone else.” That could only mean the CSA. Sam shook his head. No, it could mean Japan and even Russia, too. Captain Stein went on, “However, we must not let ourselves be caught off guard by a sneak attack. Be more alert than ever. If in doubt about anything, let a superior know. You may save your ship. That is all.” With another spatter of static, the intercom went dead.
Later, after Sam had gone back on duty, Lieutenant Commander Pottinger said, “The French and the English won’t declare war on us, will they, Carsten?”
“Damned if I know, sir,” Sam answered. He wondered why the devil Pottinger was asking him. The other officer had two grades on him and wore an Annapolis ring to boot. If anybody knew the answers, Pottinger should have been the man. On the other hand, though, Sam had twenty years on his superior officer. Maybe Pottinger thought that counted for something.
“We’ll just have to lick ’em if they do,” Pottinger said. He hadn’t been old enough to see action in the Great War, but he’d seen his share in the Pacific War against the Japanese. He’d be all right.
Even though the Atlantic was rough, airplanes roared off the Remembrance’s flight deck. Having a combat air patrol up could save the ship if the British or French or Confederates decided to declare war by attacking, the way the Japs had.
No doubt the cruisers in the squadron were launching their seaplanes, too. Those would range farther afield. With luck, they would spot the enemy before he got close enough to launch an airborne strike force.
Unlike Pottinger, Carsten wasn’t usually the sort who borrowed trouble. Even so, he wished he hadn’t decided to contemplate the meaning of the phrase with luck. It reminded him too vividly of what could happen without luck.
Day followed day. An oiler came alongside to refuel the Remembrance. Sam remembered an oiler refueling the USS Dakota just before the USA attacked Pearl Harbor and took the Sandwich Islands away from Britain. Back then, most ships had been coal-fired. Even the Dakota had burned both oil and coal. Things had changed since. He didn’t think any front-line ships burned coal any more.
He was in the officers’ wardroom fueling up himself—on coffee—when Commander Cressy came in looking thoroughly grim. “Oh, boy,” said one of the other officers in there.
“Oh boy is about the size of it,” the exec agreed. “France has declared war on Germany and sent soldiers and barrels into Alsace and Lorraine. Britain has joined in the declaration. Her airplanes are bombing several cities in northern Germany. The Tsar has recalled his ambassadors from Berlin and Vienna and Constantinople. It can’t be more than a matter of days before Russia joins in.”
“Here we go again,” somebody said, which summed up exactly what Sam was thinking.
“That wasn’t all,” Cressy said. “Latest word is that Jake Featherston’s declared war on Germany.”
Several sharp exclamations rang out. “On Germany?” Sam said. “Not on us?”
“Not yet, anyhow,” Commander Cressy replied. “Declaring war on Germany sounds good and doesn’t cost him anything. It’s almost like the Ottoman Empire declaring war on the CSA. Even if they do it, so what? They can’t reach each other.”
“We’re still formally allied to Germany, and we’ve got a bunch of the same enemies,” Sam said. “If the Confederates declared war on the Kaiser, does that mean we have to declare war on them?”
“You do ask interesting questions, Carsten,” the exec said. “I don’t think we have to do anything. There was that stretch in the twenties when it looked like we might square off against Kaiser Bill, and the alliance pretty much lapsed. But then the old snakes stuck their heads up again, so we never duked it out with Germany. Anyway, though, my guess is that Al Smith will sprout wings and fly before he goes and declares war on his own hook.”
A lot of men with stripes on their sleeves nodded at that. Most officers were Democrats. That made sense: they defended the status quo, which was what the Democratic Party stood for.
Sam supposed he was a Democrat himself. But whether he defended the status quo or not, he feared it was going to get a hell of a kicking around.
Colonel Irving Morrell saluted. “Reporting as ordered, sir,” he said, and then, smiling, “Good to see you again, sir, too. It’s been too long.”
“It has, hasn’t it?” Brigadier General Abner Dowling replied.
The last time they’d been together, Morrell had outranked Dowling. He tried not to resent the fat officer’s promotions. They weren’t Dowling’s fault: how could anybody blame him for grabbing with both hands? Instead, they—and Morrell’s own long, long freeze in rank—spoke volumes about the War Department’s peacetime opinion of barrels.
“We’re going to be doing something different here,” Dowling remarked. “The other side’s got the ball, and they’ll try to run with it.”
“And we have to tackle them,” Morrell said.
“That’s about the size of it,” Dowling agreed.
Morrell whistled tunelessly between his teeth. “We’re not going to be able to keep them from crossing the river,” he said.
“Oh, good,” the fat brigadier general said. Morrell looked at him in some surprise. Dowling went on, “I’m glad somebody besides me can see that. Officially, my orders are to throw them back into Kentucky right away.”
“Sir, you’d bust me down to second lieutenant if I told you what I thought of the War Department,” Morrell said.
Abner Dowling surprised him again, this time by laughing till his jowls quivered like the gelatin on a cold ham. “Colonel, I spent more than ten years of my life listening to General George Armstrong Custer. If you think you can shock me, go ahead. Take your best shot. And good luck.”
That made Morrell laugh, too, but not for long. “If we were fighting the Confederate Army of 1914, we’d kick the crap out of it,” he said. “That’s a lot of what the big brains in Philadelphia have us ready to do.”
The laughter drained out of Dowling’s face, too. “Custer would have been louder about it, but I don’t know if he could have been much ruder. We’ve got plenty of men, we’ve got plenty of artillery; our air forces are about even, I think. Our special weapons—gas, I should say; call a spade a spade—will match theirs atrocity for atrocity. Have you met Captain Litvinoff?”
“Yes, sir.” When Morrell thought about Captain Litvinoff, he didn’t feel like laughing at all any more. “I get the feeling he’s very good at what he does.” He could say that and mean it. It was as much praise as he could give the skinny little officer with the hairline mustache.
It was June. It was already warm and muggy. It would only get worse. He didn’t like to think about being buttoned up in a barrel. He especially didn’t like to think about being buttoned up in a barrel while wearing a gas mask. When he thought about Litvinoff, he couldn’t help it.
Thinking about being buttoned up in a barrel made him think about barrels in general, something else he wasn’t eager to do. “Sir, if we are going to play defense, we don’t just need gas. We need more barrels than we’ve got.”
“I am aware of that, thank you,” Dowling replied. “Philadelphia may be in the process of becoming aware of it. On the other hand, Philadelphia may not, too. You never can tell with Philadelphia.”
“But if we’re going to stop them—” Morrell began.
His superior held up a hand. “If we’re going to stop them, we’ve got to have some notion of what they’ll try. We’d better, anyhow. What’s your best estimate of that, Colonel?”
“Have you got a map, sir?” Morrell asked. “Always easier to talk with a map.”
“Right here.” Dowling took one from his breast pocket and unfolded it. It was printed on silk, which could be folded or crumpled any number of times without coming to pieces and which didn’t turn to mush if it got wet. Morrell drew a line with his fingers. Dowling’s eyebrows leaped. “You think they’ll do that?”
“It’s what I’d do, if I were Jake Featherston,” Morrell answered. “Can you think of a better way to cripple us?”
“The War Department thinks they’ll strike in the East, the same as they did in the last war,” Dowling said. Morrell said nothing. Dowling studied the line he had drawn. “That could be … unpleasant.”
“Yes, sir,” Morrell said. “I don’t know that they have the men and the machines to bring it off. But I don’t know that they don’t, either.”
Dowling traced the same path with his finger. It seemed to exert a horrid fascination. “That could be very unpleasant. I’m going to get on the telephone to the War Department about it. If you’re right …”
“They won’t take you seriously,” Morrell predicted. “They’ll say, ‘All the way out there? Don’t be silly.’ ” He tried to sound like an effete, almost effeminate General Staff officer.
“I have to make the effort,” Dowling said. “Otherwise, it’s my fault, not theirs.”
Morrell could see the logic in that. He changed the subject, asking, “Have we got sabotage under control?”
“I hope so,” Dowling said, which wasn’t what he wanted to hear. The general went on, “Sabotage and espionage are a nightmare anyway. We aren’t like Germans and Russians. We all speak the same language. And downstate Ohio and Indiana were settled by people whose ancestors came up from what are the Confederate States now. Most of ’em—almost all, in fact—are loyal, but they still have some of the accent. That makes spies even harder to spot. My one consolation is, the Confederates have the same worry.”
“Happy day,” Morrell said.
His superior laughed. So did he, not that it was really funny. Not being sure who was on your side made any war more difficult. Neither the CSA nor the USA had done all they could with that truth in the Great War. Morrell had the feeling both would make up for it if and when they met again.
Abner Dowling asked, seemingly out of the blue, “Did you ever serve in Utah, Colonel?”
“No, sir,” Morrell answered. “Can’t say I ever had that pleasure. I helped draw up the plan that involved outflanking the rebels there, but I was never stationed there myself.”
“You know we still have colored friends down south of what’s the border now,” Dowling said—he seemed to be all over the conversational map.
“I don’t know that for a fact, or I didn’t till now, but it doesn’t surprise me,” Morrell said. “We’d be damned fools if we didn’t.”
“Hasn’t stopped us before,” Dowling observed. Morrell blinked. He hadn’t thought the older man had that kind of cynicism in him. Of course, he’d known Dowling when the latter served under Custer, whose own personality tended to overwhelm those of the people around him. Custer had even managed to keep Daniel MacArthur in check, which couldn’t possibly have been easy. While Morrell contemplated the rampant ego of his recent C.O., Dowling went on, “I don’t think the Confederates are damned fools, either. I wish they were; it would make our lives easier. They were sniffing around in Salt Lake City when I commanded there the same way we are with niggers in the CSA. Only edge we’ve got is that there are more niggers in the Confederate States than Mormons here, thank God.”
“Ah.” Morrell nodded. Brigadier General Dowling hadn’t been talking at random, then. He’d actually been going somewhere, and now Morrell could see where. “So you think the Mormons are going to try and stick a knife in our backs?”
“Colonel, they hate our guts,” Dowling said. “They’ve hated our guts for sixty years now. I won’t deny we’ve given them some reason to hate us.”
“Not like they haven’t given us reason to sit on them,” Morrell said.
“Oh, there’s plenty of injustice to go around,” Dowling agreed. “And if another war starts, there’ll be more. But I wish to high heaven President Smith hadn’t lifted military occupation.”
“Don’t you think he’s got people watching the Mormons?” Morrell asked.
“Oh, I’m sure he does,” Dowling replied. “But it’s not the same. If we see the Mormons gathering arms, say, it’s not so easy to send troops back into Utah to take away the rifles or whatever they’ve got. That might touch off the explosion we’re trying to stop.”
“The police—” Morrell began.
Dowling’s laugh might have burst from the throat of the proverbial jolly fat man—except he didn’t look jolly. “The police are Mormons, too, or most of them are. They’ll look the other way. Either that or they’ll be the ones with the weapons in the first place. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
“You are cheerful today, sir,” Morrell said. “Who will watch the watchmen?”
“I suppose Al Smith will, or his people. He means well. I’ve never said he doesn’t. He’s doing the best he can. I only wish he weren’t quite so trusting. He kept us out of war—till after the election. Me, I’d sooner have trusted a rattlesnake than Jake Featherston.”
“You mean there’s a difference?” Morrell asked. Dowling shook his head. His chins danced. But there was a difference, and Morrell knew it. Featherston was likely to prove more deadly than any rattler ever hatched.
An orderly poked his nose into Dowling’s office. He brightened when he spotted Morrell. “Sir, I’m supposed to tell you a new shipment of barrels just came in at the Columbus train station.”
Morrell bounced to his feet. The thigh where he’d been wounded in the opening days of the Great War twinged. It would remind him the rest of his life of what had happened down there in Sonora. No help for it, though, so he ignored it. The leg still worked. What else mattered? He saluted Brigadier General Dowling. “If you’ll excuse me, sir …”
“Of course,” Dowling said. “The sooner the barrels get off their flatcars and into units, the better off we’ll be.”
The orderly had a command car. It was no different from the one Morrell had used on the border between Houston and Texas. He didn’t mind sitting behind a machine gun at all. If the Confederates didn’t have saboteurs and assassins in Columbus, he would have been amazed.
When he got to the station, he discovered how eager the factory in Pontiac had been to ship those barrels. They were all bright metal; they hadn’t even been painted. He hoped his own men would have the time to slap green and brown paint on them before the shooting started. If they did, fine. If they didn’t … Well, if they didn’t, the barrels were still here, and not back at the factory in Michigan. He would throw them into the fight. He would lose more of them than if they were harder to see at a distance, but they would take out a good many Confederate barrels, too.
How many barrels did the Confederates have? How many could they afford to lose? Those were both interesting questions—the most interesting questions in the world for the U.S. officer in charge of armored operations along the central Ohio. And Morrell didn’t have good answers. The U.S. might have had plenty of saboteurs on the other side of the border. Spies who could count and report back? Evidently not.
Morrell looked south. I’ll find out. Soon, I think.
The U.S. ambassador to the Confederate States was a bright young Californian named Jerry Voorhis. He was, of course, a Socialist like Al Smith. As far as Jake Featherston was concerned, that made him a custardhead right from the start. He didn’t look or sound like a custardhead at the moment, though.
“No,” he said. He didn’t bother sitting down in the presidential office. He stood across the desk from Featherston, looking dapper and cool in a white linen suit despite the stifling blanket of June heat and humidity.
“No, what?” Jake rasped.
“No to all your demands,” Voorhis answered. “President Smith has made his position very clear. He does not intend to change it. The United States will not return any further territory ceded to us by the CSA. You agreed to abide by plebiscites and to make no more demands. You have broken your agreement. The president does not consider you trustworthy enough for more negotiations, and he will yield no more land. That is final.”
“Oh, it is, is it?” Jake said.
“Yes, it is.” The U.S. ambassador stuck out his chin and gave back a stony glare.
Featherston only shrugged. “Well, he’ll be sorry for that. As for you, Ambassador, I’m going to give you your walking papers. As of right now, you are what they call persona non grata here. You have twenty-four hours to get the hell out of my country, or I’ll throw you out on your ear.”
Voorhis started to say something, then checked himself. After a moment’s pause for thought, he resumed: “I was going to tell you you couldn’t do me a bigger favor than sending me back to the United States. But I’m afraid you’re doing no favors to millions of young men in your country and mine who may be shooting at each other very soon.”
“That’s not my fault,” Jake said in a flat, hard voice. “If President Smith was ready to be reasonable about what I want—”
“My ass,” Jerry Voorhis said, which was not the usual diplomatic language. Maybe he thought the rules changed for expelled ambassadors. Maybe he was right. His bluntness made Jake blink. And he went on, “If the president gave you everything you say you want, you’d just say you wanted something else. That’s how you are.” He didn’t bother hiding his bitterness.
And he was right. Featherston knew it perfectly well. Knowing it and admitting it were two different beasts. He pointed toward the door. “Get out.”
“My pleasure.” As Voorhis turned to go, he added, “You can start a war whenever you please. If you think you can end one whenever you please, you’re making a big mistake.”
Jake thought about saying something like, We’ll see about that. He didn’t. The damnyankee could have the last word here. Who got the last word once the balloon went up—that would be a different story.
An hour later, the telephone rang in his office. “Featherston,” he snapped.
“Mr. President, the ambassador to the USA is on the line,” his secretary said. “He sounds upset.”
“Put him through, Lulu.” Jake could guess what the ambassador was calling about.
The Confederate ambassador to the United States was a Georgian named Russell. Jake never remembered his Christian name. All he remembered was that the man was reasonably smart and a solid Freedom Party backer. When he heard Featherston’s voice on the line, he blurted, “Mr. President, the damnyankees are throwing me out of the country.”
“Don’t you worry about it,” Jake answered. “Don’t you worry about it one little bit, on account of I just heaved Jerry Voorhis out of Richmond.”
“Oh.” Russell sounded relieved, at least for one word. But then he said, “Holy Jesus, Mr. President, is there gonna be another war?”
“Not if we get what we want,” Featherston said. “Get what’s ours by rights, I ought to say.” As far as he was concerned, there was no difference between the one and the other.
“All right, then, Mr. President. I’ll see you back there soon,” Russell said. “I sure as hell hope everything goes the way you want it to.”
“It will.” Jake never had any doubts. Why should I? he thought. Everything’s always gone good up till now. It won’t change. He spent a few more minutes calming the ambassador down, then hung up the phone on him.
No sooner had he done that than Lulu poked her head into his office and said, “General Potter is here to see you, sir.”
“Is he?” Jake grinned. “Well, send him right on in.”
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Clarence Potter said, saluting. He carried a manila folder under his left arm. Tossing it onto Featherston’s desk, he went on, “Here are some of the latest photographs we’ve got.”
“Out-fucking-standing!” Jake said, which produced an audible sniff from Lulu in the outer office. “These are what I want to see, all right. If you have to, you’ll walk me through some of them.”
Some of the pictures that Potter brought him were aerial photos. Getting reconnaissance airplanes up over the USA wasn’t that hard. Every so often, Featherston wondered how many flying spies the United States had above his own country. Too many, probably. The photographs Potter brought him were neatly labeled, each one showing exactly where and when it had been taken.
“Doesn’t look like there’s a whole lot of change,” Jake remarked. “Everything still seems out in the open.”
“Yes, sir,” Potter answered.
Something in his tone made Jake’s head come up. He might have been a wolf taking a scent. “All right,” he said. “What’s different in the stuff they don’t want us to see?”
He almost laughed at the way Potter looked at him. The Intelligence officer didn’t want to respect him, but couldn’t help it. Yeah, sonny boy, I run this country for a reason, Jake thought. Potter said, “If you’ll look at some of these ground shots, Mr. President, you’ll see the Yankees are starting to move up into concealed forward positions. They should have done it sooner, but they are starting.”
“How did we get these ground photos back here so fast?” Featherston asked. “Some of ’em are from yesterday morning.”
“Sir, we’re still at peace with the USA,” Potter replied. “If a drummer or a tourist crosses back into Kentucky from Illinois or Indiana or Ohio, who’s to say what kind of prints are on his Brownie? They’re only just now starting to wake up to the idea that we might really mean this.” He couldn’t resist adding, “It might have been better if we’d left them even more in the dark.”
Nobody criticized Jake Featherston to his face and got away with it. “Listen, Potter,” he snapped, “the damnyankees’ll get more surprises from me than a fellow does from his doctor after he lays a fifty-cent whore.” The other man guffawed in surprise. Jake went on, “You don’t know all my business, so don’t go making like you do.”
He waited to see if Potter would get angry or get sniffy. The other man didn’t. Instead, he nodded. “All right. That makes sense. Does anybody know all your secrets? Besides you, I mean?”
“Hell, no,” Jake answered automatically. “There are things I could brag about—but I won’t.” If he hadn’t checked himself, he might have started boasting about what was going on down in Louisiana, for instance. But the whole point of knowing things other people didn’t was to be able to use what you knew against them and to keep them from using what they knew against you.
Clarence Potter, he saw, got that. Well, Potter was in Intelligence. If anybody could see the point of secrets, he was the man. And he nodded now. “When I first got to know you, you would have run your mouth,” he said. “There’s more to you than there used to be. That’s why I’m here, I expect.”
“Instead of still being a goddamn stubborn Whig and wanting to blow my head off, you mean?” Featherston asked.
Potter nodded. He smiled a crooked smile. “Yeah. Instead of that.” The smile got wider. Now he was waiting—waiting to find out if Jake would send him off to a camp for admitting it.
And Jake wanted to. But Potter, damn him, had made himself too useful to be jugged like a hare. And from now on he’d be too busy to worry about blowing the head off of anybody who wasn’t wearing a green-gray uniform. Jake jerked a thumb at the door. “All right. Get the hell out of here, and take all your pictures of naked women with you.”
“Yes, sir.” Chuckling, Potter scooped up the folder of reconnaissance photos and started out. He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Good luck,” he said. “You’ve done everything you could to get us ready, but we’ll still need it.”
“I’ll put in a fresh requisition with the Quartermaster Corps,” Jake said. Potter nodded and left. Jake shook his head in bemusement. He might have made stupid jokes like that with Ferd Koenig and a couple of other old-time Party buddies, but not with anybody else. So why make them with Potter?
But he didn’t need long to find the answer. He’d known Potter longer than he’d known Koenig or any of the other Party men. They’d both hung tough when the Army of Northern Virginia was falling to pieces all around them. If the president of the greatest country in North America—no, in the world!—couldn’t joke around with the one man who’d known him when he was just a sergeant, with whom could he joke? Nobody. Nobody at all.
If the Confederate States were going to become the greatest country in the world, they had to go through the United States first. Bastards beat us once, when the niggers stabbed us in the back, Jake thought. This time, I’ll sit on the niggers but good, right from the start. Let’s see those damnyankee fuckers do it again, especially when we’re ready—when I’m ready—and they aren’t quite. The photos Potter had shown him proved that.
Lulu made most of his telephone calls. He made this one himself, on a special line that didn’t pass through her desk. It went straight from his office to the War Department. Men checked twice a day to make sure the damnyankees didn’t tap it. It rang only once before the Chief of the General Staff picked it up. “Forrest speaking.”
“Featherston,” Jake said, and then, “Blackbeard.” He hung up.
There. It was done. The die was cast. Whatever was going to happen would happen … starting tomorrow morning, early tomorrow morning.
Summer had just come in. Jake worked through the rest of June 21. He ate supper, and then went right on working through the night. Lulu brought him cup after cup of coffee. After a while, yawning, she went home to bed. He worked on, behind blackout curtains that kept light from leaking out of the Gray House and showing where it was from the air.
June 21 passed into June 22. All that coffee made Jake’s heart thud and soured his stomach. He gulped a Bromo-Seltzer and went on. At a quarter past three, the drone of airplane engines and the thunder of distant artillery—not distant enough; damn those Yankee robbers!—made him whoop for sheer glee. He’d waited so long. Now his day was here.