A colonel in his late thirties ambled up to Dover. 'Howdy. I'm Kirby Smith Telford,' he said, Texas in his voice and in his name. 'I'm the senior officer hereabouts. They caught me outside of Chattanooga late in '43.'
Jerry Dover introduced himself. 'They shot up my command car and got me in front of Huntsville,' he said. 'I was up near Chattanooga, too. Had to clear out my supply dump quick as I could when the damnyankees' paratroops came down.'
'Yeah, that screwed everything up, all right.' Telford watched him with a blue-eyed directness that looked friendly but, Dover realized, wasn't. 'You sound like you've been around. I reckon somebody in here'll be able to vouch for you.'
'Vouch for me?' Dover echoed. 'I'm a POW, for crying out loud. What the hell else am I gonna be?'
He didn't think the colonel would have an answer for him, but Kirby Smith Telford did: 'Maybe a Yankee plant. They try it every now and then, see what they can find out about us. Pretty soon you'll find out who you can talk in front of and who you've got to watch yourself with. I don't mean any offense, Colonel-don't get me wrong-but right now I don't know you from Adam, so I'll be careful what I say around you.'
'However you please. I don't mean any offense, either, but right now I don't know how much difference it's gonna make,' Dover said.
Telford's face clouded. 'That's defeatist talk,' he said stiffly.
'I've got news for you, Colonel. The damnyankees didn't capture me outside of Huntsville because we're winning.'
The senior officer turned away from him without another word. Dover contemplated winning friends. He'd just lost one. Even if somebody did vouch for him now, Telford wouldn't want much to do with him. Well, too goddamn bad, Dover thought. If he doesn't like the truth, he can read a novel.
He found cot 17. It was a better bed than the one he'd had in his own tent. It had a footlocker underneath. Dover didn't have much to stick in there, not after the soldiers who caught him relieved him of his chattels personal. They hadn't shot him, and they could have. Next to that, robbery was a detail.
He stretched out on the cot. He'd been sitting up ever since he got on the train somewhere near the Alabama-Georgia border. Two minutes later, he was snoring.
What might have been the voice of God-if God talked like a Yankee-blasted him awake: 'Supper call! Supper call!' The camp had a PA system! He was sure the Confederates had never thought of that.
Supper wasn't fancy, but it wasn't bad: fried chicken, green beans (overcooked, of course-the ex-restaurateur did notice that), and French fries. You could take seconds. The apple pie for dessert was actually pretty good. Dover turned to the captain sitting next to him and said, 'Hell of a note when the enemy feeds us better than our own side did.'
'Yeah.' The younger officer-except for some other obvious retreads, all the men in here were younger than Dover-looked surprised. 'Hadn't thought about it like that, but you're right.'
If I am, what does it mean? Dover didn't like any of the answers that occurred to him. The most obvious one was the one that was probably true. The United States were enough richer than the Confederacy that they didn't have to worry about pennies and dimes. They could afford to do little things like build sturdy POW camps and give enemy soldiers decent rations. The CSA couldn't. The Confederates had enough trouble taking care of their own men.
Nothing to do after supper but troop back to the barracks hall. A couple of card games got started. Two officers bent over a chess set. By the way they shot pieces back and forth as the game opened, they'd already played each other a great many times.
Dover played a fair game of checkers, but chess had never interested him. He figured he'd play poker or bridge one of these days, but he didn't feel like it now. He went up to Kirby Smith Telford, who was reading a news magazine and shaking his head every now and then. 'Can I get some paper and a pencil?' Dover asked. 'I'd like to let my family know I'm in one piece.'
'They'll have a Red Cross wire by now,' Telford said, which was likely true, but he handed Dover a sheet of cheap stationery imprinted CAMP LIBERTY! an envelope, and a pencil. 'Don't seal it when you're done,' he warned. 'Censors look over everything you write.'
'I reckoned they would,' Dover said. After more than ten years of Freedom Party rule in the CSA, he took censorship for granted. No reason the damnyankees wouldn't have it, too. 'Thanks,' he added, and went back to his own cot.
As he went, he felt Colonel Telford's eyes boring into his back. Did the other officer think he hadn't been respectful enough? Did they worry about that crap here? If they did, why, for God's sake? What difference did it make now? As for Dover, he'd cussed out generals. He was damned if he'd get all hot and bothered about somebody whose three stars didn't even have a wreath around them.
He wished he could have grabbed some table space. Writing at the cot was awkward, but he managed. Dear Sally, he wrote, I bet you will have heard by now that I'm a POW. I'm up here in the USA, in Indiana. I'm not hurt. They're treating me all right. I love you and the kids. I'll see you when the war is over, I guess. XOXOXOX- Jerry.
He looked at the letter. After a shrug, he nodded. It said everything he needed to say. He couldn't see anything the censor would flabble about. He folded the paper, put it in the envelope, and wrote his home address on the outside. No matter what Telford had said, he started to lick the glue on the flap, but caught himself in time. I'm a creature of habit, all right, he thought.
Somebody turned on the wireless. Women sang about war bonds in yapping Yankee accents. They wouldn't have made Dover want to buy. When the advertisement ended, an announcer said, 'And now the news.'
None of the news was good, not if you were a Confederate POW. Dover assumed U.S. broadcasts bent things the same way his side did. But you could bend them only so far before you started looking ridiculous. When the newsman said Birmingham was surrounded, it probably was. When he said U.S. soldiers had freed more starving political prisoners from rocket factories on the outskirts of Huntsville, they probably had. Using politicals for work like that sounded like something the Freedom Party would do. So did starving them.
And when the fellow said the Tsar was asking the Kaiser for an armistice, how could you doubt him? After Petrograd went up in smoke, Russia had hung on longer than Jerry Dover thought it could. But all good things came to an end. England and France would be in even more trouble now that Germany didn't have to fight on two fronts.
Two Confederate cities had already gone up in smoke. So had a big part of Philadelphia. The war on this side of the Atlantic sounded like a game of last man standing. Who could make superbombs faster? Who could get them where they needed to go? How long could the poor bastards on the other side stand getting pulverized?
Odds were the United States could make bombs faster. They made everything else faster. Odds were the USA could deliver the goods, too. How long could even Jake Featherston stay stubborn when death rained down on his country from the skies?
Camp Liberty! Dover winced. Odds were he'd get his liberty back when his country finished losing the war.
XI
J onathan Moss savored the feeling of being at a forward air base again. He was a little southwest of Atlanta-not too far from where he'd pounded the ground with Gracchus' guerrillas. Comparing what he could do now with what he'd done then was funny, in a macabre way. The new turbo fighter could take him as far in an hour as he could march in a month.
Every time he flew off towards Alabama, he hoped to pay the Confederates back for all the time away from his specialty they'd cost him. The pilot who'd shot him down might have killed him instead. So might the soldiers who'd taken him prisoner. He didn't dwell on that. Resenting them for turning him into a guerrilla helped keep and hone his fighting edge.
His biggest trouble these days was finding someone to fight. The Confederates didn't-couldn't-put up many fighters any more. He had a pretty good notion of what his Screaming Eagle could do, but he wanted to put it through its paces against the best opposition the enemy could throw at it.
