time, I've got no idea. We'll find out.'
'Maybe there won't be a war.' Anne knew she was trying to talk herself into believing what she suddenly wanted with all her heart to believe, but she went on, 'Maybe the damnyankees will back down and give us what we're asking for.'
'Not a chance,' Tom said. 'I thought they were a pack of cowards last time. I know better now. They're as tough as we are. And even if they did, how much difference would it make?'
'What do you mean?'
'You know what I mean. If the damnyankees back down tomorrow, what'll Jake Featherston do the day after? Ask 'em for something else, that's what. And he'll keep right on doing it till they say no and have to fight. Because whether you want a war or I want a war, Featherston damn well does, and he's got the only vote that counts. You going to tell me I'm wrong?'
Part of Anne-most of Anne-wanted to, but she knew she couldn't. She shook her head. 'No, you're not wrong. But the time is ripe, too, and you know it. Things are going to blow up in Europe any day. The old Kaiser can't possibly last much longer, and his son's going to spit in France's eye. What'll happen then?'
'Boom,' Tom said solemnly. 'I'm surprised the French have waited as long as they have, but Action Franзaise doesn't seem to have one clear voice at the top, the way the Freedom Party does.'
'No, they don't,' Anne agreed. 'But if they and the British and the Russians can put Germany in her place and give us even a little help against the USA, we'll do all right. If you don't think so, why are you wearing the uniform again?'
'It's not for the Freedom Party. You can tell that to Jake Featherston's face next time you see him. I don't care,' Tom said. 'It's for the country. I'd fight for my country no matter who was in charge.'
Anne had no intention of telling the president any such thing, regardless of what Tom said. It wouldn't do her brother any good, and might do him a lot of harm. Tom didn't seem to understand how thoroughly politics had twined themselves around everything else in the CSA these days. If you said uncomplimentary things about the Freedom Party, you'd probably be thought disloyal to the Confederate States, too.
Anne wondered if she ought to warn him. The only thing that held her back was the near certainty he wouldn't listen to her. Maybe he'd learn better when he got back on active duty. Or maybe he wouldn't, and he'd run his mouth once too often, and get cashiered and sent home.
He was her kid brother. Having him safe back here in South Carolina wouldn't break her heart. Oh, no, not at all.
'Be careful,' was all she did tell him.
He nodded. 'You know what they say: old soldiers and bold soldiers, but no old bold soldiers. I'm going out there to do a job, Anne. I'm not going out there looking to get shot. I've got too much to come home to.'
'All right, Tom.' Was it? Anne wondered. She never liked it when somebody whose life she'd run for a long time slipped away from her control. She'd made more allowances for Tom than she did for most because they were flesh and blood. And now here he was, leaving not only her control but his wife's as well, heading off into the brutal, masculine world of war.
Clarence Potter was going the same way. He actively despised the regime. He was ready to put his life on the line for it just the same, and for the same reason: it was in charge of the country, and the country mattered to him.
'Be careful,' she said again, and reminded herself to say the same thing to Clarence as soon as she could.
'You, too,' Tom said then.
'Me?' She laughed. 'I won't be up at the front, and you probably will.' That probably was her hope against hope. She knew damn well he would. She took another sip of whiskey. However much she drank, though, the most she could do was blur that knowledge. She couldn't make it leave.
But her brother was serious, even if he'd taken on enough in the way of whiskey to speak with owlish intensity: 'How much difference do you think being at the front will make? Bombers have a long reach these days. In this war, everybody's going to catch hell, not just the poor bastards in uniform.'
That had an unpleasant feel of truth to it. Anne said, 'Bite your tongue.'
He took her literally. He stuck it out and clamped his teeth down on it so she could see. She laughed; she'd had enough that things like that were funny. But she couldn't help asking, 'You think they'll bomb civilians, then?'
'Look what they did to Richmond last time,' he said. 'And it's not like our hands are clean. They had more airplanes, that's all.'
Anne had been in Richmond for one of the U.S. air raids. She still remembered the helpless terror it had roused in her. 'Well, we'd better have more this time, that's all,' she said. 'Let them find out what they did to us.'
'I hope so,' Tom said. 'I expect so, as a matter of fact. But God help us if it turns out they give us another dose.'
He got to his feet. Anne stood up, too. They hugged. 'You be careful,' she said for a third time.
'I promise,' he answered. She didn't believe him for a minute. He would do what he would do. The only reason he hadn't got killed in the last war was dumb luck. She wished him more of that. It might serve where promises didn't.
Tom went out the door and off to the train station. Anne watched him from the window. He wobbled as he walked; she'd poured a lot of whiskey into him. That was all right. He'd sober up before he got to wherever he needed to go. She realized he hadn't said where that was. Military security had fallen between them like a blanket.
She muttered a curse against military security. She muttered another curse against war. That second one was halfhearted, and she knew it. She wanted all the horrors of war to come down on the damnyankees' heads. She just didn't want anything to happen to Tom or to Clarence or to the people of the Confederate States. That wasn't fair, of course. She couldn't have cared less.
Tom turned a corner and was gone. No. Anne shook her head. He wasn't gone. She just couldn't see him any more. There was a difference. 'Of course there's a difference,' she said aloud, as if someone had told her there wasn't.
Another drink didn't seem likely to let her know what the difference was. She fixed one for herself anyway. She'd thought Tom would have the sense to stay home with his wife and children. She'd thought so, but she'd been wrong. She hated being wrong.
And she even saw how she'd been wrong. Jake Featherston had spent years building up the passion for war in the Confederate States. He'd needed to, to get the revenge on the United States he wanted. Anne also wanted that revenge, and so she'd helped him. What could be more natural, then, than that the passion took someone who otherwise would have stayed home?
What indeed? Anne gulped the new drink in a hurry. Somehow, seeing where she'd been wrong didn't help a bit.
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.
