“The hell it is!” Roosevelt shouted back. “And if your brother hadn’t got himself shot, he would have said the same thing.”
“Another lie!” Custer turned a dusky shade of purple that had to, surely had to, portend an apoplexy. “Tom and I were two sides of the same coin.”
“Both tails, or maybe blockheads,” Roosevelt said.
“Damn you, you know why I always wanted to lead in Canada. You’ve always known, and you’ve always ignored my requests for transfer. Is it any wonder I resent that?” Custer said.
Instead of answering, Roosevelt shrugged off his coat. Custer cocked his fist and glared a challenge. The two men, one nearing sixty, the other nearing eighty, looked ready to swing at each other. “Gentlemen, please,” Dowling said, reluctantly reminding them of his existence. Even more reluctantly, he stepped between them. “If the two of you quarrel, the only gainers live in Richmond.”
Roosevelt recovered his temper as fast as he lost it. He’d always been volcanic, but his eruptions quickly subsided. With a nod-almost a bow-to Dowling, he said, “You’re right, of course.” He also nodded to Custer. “General, I apologize for my hasty words.” As if to prove he meant it, he put the coat back on. “I also assure you that, as I said before, I accepted this cease-fire for reasons of state, ones that have nothing to do with personal animus against you, with the memory of your brother, or with disrespect for the sterling fighting qualities the men of First Army have displayed.”
“Slander. Nothing but slander,” Custer muttered under his breath. Unlike Roosevelt, he stayed angry a long time. But, when the president affected not to hear him, he muttered something else and then said, “I must accept the assurances of my commander-in-chief.” From him, that was an extraordinary concession.
It wasn’t what most interested his adjutant, though. For years, Dowling had heard whispers about the combat in Montana Territory that said what Roosevelt had said out loud. It did not strike him as improbable. Where sound military judgment required pushing straight ahead, Custer could be relied upon to exercise such judgment. Where sound military judgment required anything else, Custer could be relied upon to push straight ahead.
“General, we’ve won the damn war,” Roosevelt said. “As your adjutant so wisely put it, Richmond laughs if we disagree among ourselves. I do recognize what you have done here. To prove it, when I get back to Philadelphia I shall propose to Congress your elevation to the rank of full general, and I am confident Congress will confirm that promotion.”
Where minutes before Custer had been ready to punch the president, now he bowed as deeply as his years and his paunch permitted. “You honor me beyond my deserts, your Excellency,” he said. By his expression, though, he did not for a moment believe he was being too highly honored. Dowling was inclined to agree with the modest self-appraisal Custer gave to Roosevelt, but then wondered if
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.
