up, but that's what they say they need me for, so that's what I'll do.'
'If they ordered you to do something else, you'd do that, too,' Agnes said. 'And you'd do a bang-up job at it, too, whatever it happened to be.'
'Thanks, sweetie.' Morrell would have been happy to stay there and listen to his wife say nice things about him. Instead, he left.
Snow had fallen the week before, but it was gone now. He couldn't ski to the office. Sentries came to attention and saluted as he went past. He returned the salutes with careful courtesy.
When he got in, his adjutant said, 'Sir, you have a despatch from the War Department in Philadelphia-from the General Staff, no less.'
'You're kidding,' Morrell said. Captain Horwitz shook his head. So did Irving Morrell, in bemusement. 'What the devil do they want with me? I thought they'd long since forgotten I even existed. I hoped they had, to tell you the truth.'
'I just put it on your desk, sir,' Horwitz replied. 'It got here about fifteen minutes ago. If you like, you can probably catch up with the courier and ask him questions.'
'Let's see what the order is first,' Morrell said. 'One way or another, it'll probably tell me everything I need to know.'
He went into his office. As an afterthought, he closed the door behind him. That might miff his adjutant. If it did, too bad. He'd find a way to make amends later. Meanwhile, he wanted privacy. If the General Staff-specifically, if Lieutenant Colonel John Abell-was taking some more vengeance, he wanted to be able to pull himself together before he faced the world.
There lay the envelope, as Horwitz had said. Morrell approached it like a sapper approaching an unexploded bomb. It wouldn't blow up if he opened it. He had to remind himself of that, though, before he could make himself take the folded paper out of the envelope and read the typewritten order.
The more he read, the wider his eyes got. He sank down into his seat. The swivel chair creaked under his weight. When he'd neither come out nor said anything for several minutes, Captain Horwitz cautiously called, 'Are you all right, sir?'
'Nine years,' Morrell answered.
Horwitz opened the door. 'Sir?'
'Nine years,' Morrell repeated. He looked down at the order again. 'Nine miserable, stinking years thrown away. Wasted. Wiped off the map. Gone.'
He could have gone on cranking out synonyms for a long time, but his adjutant broke in: 'I don't understand, sir.'
Morrell blinked. It was all perfectly clear in his mind. He realized Horwitz hadn't read the order. Feeling foolish, he said, 'They're sending me back to Fort Leavenworth, Captain.'
'Oh?' For a second, that didn't register with Horwitz. But only for a moment-he was sharp as the business end of a bayonet. Then he leaned forward, like a hunting dog taking the scent. 'To work on barrels, sir?'
'That's right. To work on barrels.' Morrell didn't even try to hide his bitterness. 'The very same project they took me off of-the very same project they closed down-almost nine years ago.'
'Well…' His adjutant put the best face on it he could: 'It's a good thing they are starting up again, wouldn't you say?'
That was true. Morrell couldn't begin to deny it. But he also couldn't help asking, 'Where would we be if we hadn't stopped?'
Nine years before, they'd had a prototype of what a barrel should be. It was a machine much more agile, much less cumbersome, than the lumbering armored behemoths of the Great War. It carried its cannon in a turret that rotated 360 degrees, not in a mount with limited traverse at the front of the vehicle. It had a machine gun in the turret, too, and one at the bow, not half a dozen of them all around the machine. It took a crew of half a dozen, not a dozen and a half. It ran and shot rings around the old models.
But the prototype was powered by one truck engine. It could be, because it was made of thin mild steel, not armor plate. No one had wanted to spend the money to go any further with it. Manufacturing real barrels would undoubtedly reveal a host of flaws the prototype hadn't. For that matter, Morrell didn't even know if the prototype still existed. The way things were during the 1920s, it might have been cut up and sold for scrap metal. He wouldn't have been surprised.
Had the USA gone on building and developing barrels instead of letting them languish, it would have had the best machines in the world nowadays. As things were, the Confederates' Mexican stooges had built barrels at least as good as the prototype during the long civil war between Maximilian III and the U.S.-backed republican rebels. They hadn't only made prototypes, either. They'd had real fighting machines.
What they'd had, the CSA either had already or could have in short order. Morrell knew the same thing wasn't true-wasn't even close to true-in his own country. 'Well,' he said, 'I've got a lot of work to do, don't I?'
'Yes, sir,' Captain Horwitz said. 'Congratulations, sir.'
'Thanks, Ike.' Morrell laughed, though it wasn't really funny. 'I bet I know what finally got the Socialists off the dime.'
'What's that, sir?' his adjutant asked.
'The Japs bombing Los Angeles-what else? And the sad part is, no matter what I do with barrels, even if I get it all done day after tomorrow, it won't matter much. How could it? Where are we going to use barrels fighting the Japanese?'
'Beats me, sir.'
'Beats me, too.' Morrell tapped the order with his fingernail. 'I've got to let the base commandant know I've been transferred. And I've got to let my wife know.'
'What will she think?' Horwitz asked.
'I hope she'll be pleased,' Morrell answered. 'We met in Leavenworth, Agnes and I. She was living in town, and I was stationed at the fort. I wonder how much it's changed since we left.'
Captain Horwitz looked sly. 'One thing, sir-you can leave your skis behind. No mountains in Kansas.'
'Well, no,' Irving Morrell agreed. 'But I think I'll take 'em-they do get enough snow for cross-country skiing.' He got to his feet, tucking the order into the breast pocket of his tunic. 'And now I'd better tell Brigadier General Peterson he's going to have to live without me.'
Brigadier General Lemuel Peterson was a lean, lantern-jawed New Englander. He said, 'Congratulations, Colonel. I was wondering if you'd end up in command here when they sent me somewhere else. But you're the one who gets to go away instead, and you're actually going to do something useful.'
'I hope so, anyhow,' Morrell said. 'If they give me twenty-nine cents for a budget and expect me to put barrels together out of railroad iron and paper clips, though…'
'You never can tell with those cheapskates in the War Department,' Peterson said. If Morrell reported that to the powers that be, he might blight his superior's career. He intended no such thing-he agreed with Brigadier General Peterson. The commandant at Kamloops went on, 'Maybe we'll see a little sense from now on, because it looks like the Democrats are going to win this election.'
'Yes, sir.' Colonel Morrell nodded. 'Here's hoping, sir.'
Lemuel Peterson could have used that against him-except few officers would have quarreled with the sentiments he expressed. 'Why don't you go on home for the rest of the day?' Peterson said. 'You're ordered out of here within a week-you'll be as busy as a one-armed paper hanger with hives. You should let your family know. What will your wife have to say?' As he had with his adjutant, Morrell explained how he'd met Agnes in Kansas. Peterson nodded. 'That's a point for you. Go on, then. Do you have a wireless set?'
'Yes, sir,' Morrell answered. 'One more thing to pack.'
'True, but that's not what I was thinking of,' Brigadier General Peterson said. 'You can listen to election returns tonight.'
'Oh.' Morrell nodded. 'Yes, sir. We will do that, I expect.'
Agnes exclaimed in surprise when he showed up at the front door. She exclaimed in delight when he told her about the order. 'I don't care about Kansas one way or the other,' she said, 'but this is wonderful. You'll be doing something important again, not just makework.'
'I know.' He kissed her. 'That's what I'm really looking forward to.' He kissed her again. 'And I knew you'd understand.'
