“Percy!” Moss said. “Percy Stone!” Then he burst out laughing. “Now I know why that billeting sergeant said I belonged here. Moss and Stone, like the old days.” He pumped Stone’s hand. “Jesus, it’s good to see you in one piece, chum.”
“It’s good to be in one piece again,” Stone said. He’d been Moss’ photographic observer when Moss was still flying two-seaters instead of fighting scouts, and a Canuck had badly wounded him. He pointed to the pilot’s insigne on his chest. “You see I’ve got both wings now.”
“Yeah,” Moss said enthusiastically. “Between us, we’re going to show the Canucks a thing or two.” Percy Stone nodded. They shook hands again.
XX
Every time Abner Dowling walked into the Tennessee farmhouse where General Custer was staying these days, he braced for trouble. Since the First Army had basically stopped moving forward these days, Custer’s accommodations hadn’t shifted lately, either. That meant Libbie Custer had come down from Kentucky to stay with her husband.
It also meant Custer had to stop paying such avid attention to the pretty, young mulatto housekeeper he’d hired before Libbie came down. The wench, whose name was Cornelia, kept right on cooking and cleaning. Dowling didn’t know whether she’d done anything more than that before. He was sure Custer had wanted her to do more, though, and had hoped to convince her to do more. Libbie was sure of that, too, which made the farmhouse into a sort of front of its own.
The illustrious general commanding First Army was in the kitchen eating lunch when Dowling arrived. The tubby major’s nostrils twitched appreciatively. Regardless of whether Cornelia was helping Custer forget his years, the wench could cook.
“Why, that damned, lying little slut!” Custer shouted.
Waiting out in the parlor, Dowling jumped in alarm. The worst thing he could think of would have been for Cornelia to go telling Libbie tales. Whether the tales were true or not didn’t matter. Libbie would believe them. Custer would deny everything. Libbie wouldn’t believe that. By the sound of things, the worst had just happened.
But then, to the adjutant’s astonishment, Libbie spoke in soothing tones. Dowling couldn’t make out what she said, but she wasn’t screaming. Dowling wondered why she wasn’t screaming. How many damned lying little sluts besides Cornelia did Custer know? Dowling was sure Custer would have liked to know a regiment’s worth, but what he would have liked wasn’t the same as what was so.
A few minutes later, Custer came out of the kitchen, a scowl on his face and a newspaper in his hand. When Dowling saw that, he relaxed. So someone had savaged Custer in the press. The general commanding First Army would rage like a hurricane when a story threatened to tarnish his refulgent image of himself, but that kind of bluster didn’t amount to a hill of beans in the long run.
In the short run, putting up with Custer’s bad temper was what the War Department paid Dowling to do. As far as he was concerned, Philadelphia didn’t pay him enough, but he would have said the same thing had he raked in a million in gold on the first of every month.
“Is something wrong, sir?” he asked now, as if he’d heard nothing from the kitchen and had just chanced to notice the general’s frown.
“Wrong?” Custer thundered. “You might possibly say so, Major. Yes, you just might.” He flung the paper into Dowling’s lap.
Predictably, he’d folded it so the story that had offended him was on top. That way, he could reannoy himself whenever he glanced at it, and stay in a fine hot temper the whole day through. He would have pointed it out to Dowling had his adjutant not spotted it at once.
“Oh, the Socialist candidate in one of those New York City districts giving you a hard time about the Cottontown attack,” he said. “Don’t take it to heart, sir. It’s only politics. Goes to show women can play the game as dirty as men, I suppose.”
“What’s her name?” Custer demanded. “Hamburger, was that it? I’d like to make hamburger out of her, by Godfrey! Didn’t I tell you we needed a victory here to put a muzzle on those miserable, bomb-throwing anarchists?”
“Yes, sir, you did.” Dowling spoke with some genuine sympathy, being a Democrat himself. “And I see that Senator Debs-”
But Custer, once he got rolling, would not let even agreement slow him down. “And you were there, weren’t you, Major, when General MacArthur came to me with that half-baked plan for attacking southeast before shifting the direction of his advance? I warned him he needed to have more resources than I could afford to commit if that attack had even a prayer for success, but he wheedled and pleaded till I didn’t see what I could do but give in. And this is the thanks we get for it.” He reached out and slapped the newspaper onto the floor.
Bending over to pick it up gave Dowling the chance to pull his face straight by the time Custer saw him again. The general commanding First Army often rewrote history so it turned out as he wished it would have, but this was a particularly egregious example.
“General MacArthur did request more resources than you were prepared to provide, yes, sir,” Dowling said cautiously.
“That’s what I told you,” Custer said. It didn’t sound that way to Dowling, but arguing about what had happened was a pointless exercise. Trying to keep similar disaster from happening later occasionally even succeeded.
Libbie Custer came out and nodded to Major Dowling. “Did you see the lies they were telling about Autie, Major?” she said, setting a hand on Custer’s shoulder. “They’re all a pack of shameless jackals, jealous of his fame and jealous of the victories he’s won for his country.”
George Armstrong Custer was a blowhard. He’d blow hot, and then five minutes later he’d blow cold. Elizabeth Bacon Custer, as far as Dowling had been able to tell, wavered not at all. When she got angry at someone, she stayed angry forever. Some of that anger she aimed at anyone presumptuous enough to criticize her husband in any way. And some of it she aimed at Custer himself. From some of the things she’d said to Dowling, she’d been furious at the famous general for better than forty years.
Long-handled feather duster in hand, Cornelia came out and started cleaning. “Excuse me, Major Dowling, suh,” she said when she dusted near him. He nodded and smiled at her. Every time he looked at her-and she was worth looking at-he wondered how the men of the Confederacy reconciled their claims of Negro inferiority and their own mingling of blood with the Negroes in the Confederate States.
He shrugged a tiny shrug his uniform hid. The Rebs didn’t need to reconcile anything. They were the masters down here. They could do what they wanted. No. They had been the masters. Despite hard times on the battlefield, the United States were changing things.
Custer, now, Custer looked at Cornelia in exactly the way one of those Rebels might have done. This is mine, his eyes seemed to say. If I want it, all I have to do is reach out and take it.
Libbie Custer’s eyes said something, too. If you do reach out, George, they warned, I’ll whack you on the wrist so hard, you’ll think you’re back in primary school again. Dowling didn’t think the general commanding First Army was going to get away with much, not here, not now.
Having Cornelia go elsewhere was a relief. Tension in the front room went with her, as it did in a front-line bombproof when the barrage shifted to supply dumps farther back. Dowling found himself able to think about the war again. “Do you think we’ll be able to accomplish anything worthwhile this winter, sir?” he asked. Or will we keep on wasting men the way we have been doing?
“We may have to make the effort, Major,” Custer replied. “For the moment, though, however reluctantly, I am accumulating men and materiel to make sure we have reserves and adequate stocks on hand in case we do have to make any mass assaults in the next few months.”
Digging a finger in his ear to make sure he’d heard correctly would have been rude. Dowling was tempted, even so. One thing he’d seen over and over again was Custer ignoring reserves and logistics. His gaze slid to Libbie. Brief acquaintance had convinced him she was a hell of a
lot smarter than her heroic husband. If she was smart enough to have convinced him of the need to prepare, Dowling was ready to call her a genius.
Custer said, “It’s the election, of course. If that snake Debs slithers into the White House, we shall have to go all out to force the CSA to make peace before TR leaves office in March. I want to be ready.”
“I-see,” Dowling said slowly. Maybe Libbie had put that bug in Custer’s ear, but maybe he’d thought of it all by himself. He did pay attention to politics. And maybe word had come down from Philadelphia, quietly recommending buildups all along the line in case the U.S. Army had to try to force the Rebs to yield in the four months between Debs’ election and his inauguration.
“Do you know, Major,” Custer said, “that back in ’84 there was some talk of procuring the presidential nomination for me? I was quite the man of the hour, after all. But I had chosen to make the United States Army my life’s labor, and I would not resign my commission under any circumstances. I sometimes wonder how things might have turned out had I decided otherwise.”
Dowling valiantly didn’t say anything. He was convinced commanding First Army was beyond Custer’s capacity. For the life of him, he didn’t see why the War Department kept the old warhorse in the saddle instead of putting him out to pasture. Things were going well enough on most fronts that the retirement of an aging lion shouldn’t produce any great outcry, no matter how much the public revered Custer’s name.
President Custer? There was an idea to make any man who didn’t believe things could have been worse for the United States think twice. Even though it hadn’t happened-and probably hadn’t been so close to happening as Custer asserted now, thirty-two years after the fact-contemplating it was enough to make Dowling…
“Are you well, Major?” Libbie Custer asked sharply. “You look dyspeptic. Maybe the general should send this wench Cornelia over to your quarters to cook for you and bring you back up to snuff.”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, dear,” Custer said. “Anyone can see that the good Major Dowling is not off his feed.” He chuckled.
Libbie Custer glared at him because he refused to remove the attractive housekeeper from his not very attractive house. Dowling glared at him because he’d called him fat. Dowling knew he was fat. He didn’t appreciate being reminded of it.
Oblivious to having angered both people with whom he was conversing, Custer went on, “Now we shall just have to wait until after the seventh. If God be kind, both Senator Debs and this ignorant, vicious Hamburger woman will get the drubbing they so richly deserve. And if the Lord should choose to inflict Debs on us because of our many sins, we shall still have four months in which to redeem ourselves.”
Dowling sighed. Agreeing with Custer on anything, even a matter of politics, tempted him to take another look to make sure he wasn’t wrong. He hadn’t dreamt anything might incline him toward Socialism, but if Custer loathed it, it had to have its good points.
Somebody knocked on the door of Socialist Party headquarters. “Another Western Union boy!” Herman Bruck shouted over the election-night din that filled the place.
Flora Hamburger happened to be standing close to the door. “I’ll get it,” she said. Opening the door for a moment would let a little of the tobacco smoke hazing the atmosphere escape. Her own father’s pipe was but one among a great many sources of that smoke, as he and the rest of the family had come down with her to learn whether she would be going to Philadelphia when the new Congress convened in January.
But it wasn’t another messenger with a fistful of telegrams standing out there in the hall. It was Max Fleischmann, the butcher from downstairs. He carried a tray covered with brown paper. “You people will be hungry,” he said. “I’ve brought up some salami, some bologna, some sausages…”
“You didn’t have to do that, Mr. Fleischmann. You didn’t have to do that at all. You’re a Democrat, for heaven’s sake.”
“You people-and especially you, Miss Hamburger-you don’t let politics get in the way of beings friends,” the butcher said. “This is the least I can do to show you I feel the same way.”
After that, Flora didn’t see what she could do but take the tray. “This is very kind of you,” she told the old man, “and if more people felt the way you do, the United States would be a better place to live.”
“Getting rid of those Soldiers’ Circle goons would be a good start,” Fleischmann said. “Well, I hope you win, even if you’re not from my party. What do you think of that?”
“I hope I win, too,” Flora blurted, which made the butcher smile. He bobbed his head to her and went back downstairs.
She put the tray on a desk near the door. People descended on it as if they hadn’t already demolished a spread of cold cuts and pickles and eggs and bread that would have done justice to the free-lunch counter at a fancy saloon. Everyone was eating as if there would be no tomorrow.
Someone else knocked on the door. This time, Maria Tresca got it. This time, it was a Western Union messenger. She took the sheaf of flimsy envelopes from him. “New returns!” she shouted. “I have new returns!” Something approaching silence fell.
She started opening envelopes. “Debs leading by seven thousand in Wyoming,” she said, and a cheer went up. “The Socialist there is going back to Congress, too, it looks like.” Another cheer. She opened a new telegram, and her face fell. “Roosevelt ahead by ten thousand in Dakota.”
Groans replaced the applause. Dakota had voted Socialist most of the time since being admitted to the United States. Herman Bruck let out a long sigh and said the thing most of the people in the room had been thinking for some time: “We aren’t going to elect a president this year. The people are too mystified to put aside the war.”
A few party workers called out protests, but most only nodded, as when a doctor delivers a diagnosis grim but expected. “We carried New York,” three people said at the same time, as if that were a consolation prize.
“We aren’t carrying any of the other big states, though,” Bruck said, looking at a map of the USA. “And, now that the returns from west of the Mississippi are coming in, it doesn’t look like we’re going to carry enough of the Midwest and the West to make up for that.”
“Foolishness,” Flora said. She’d been saying the same thing since the beginning of the war. For the life of her, she didn’t understand why more people didn’t feel the same way. “If you have a mine that doesn’t give you any gold, why spend more money on it?”
Along with everyone else in the room, her mother and father, both sisters, and the younger of her two brothers nodded at that. She wished David Hamburger had been there to nod, too. But he was down in Virginia now. That filled Flora with dread. Yossel Reisen had gone down to fight in Virginia, too, and never came back. His little son slept in Sophie’s arms.
A telephone rang. Herman Bruck picked it up. He scribbled numbers on a piece of foolscap, then hung up. “New returns from City Hall,” he announced in a loud, important voice, cutting off Maria’s reading of results from farther away. “Latest returns for our district…Miller, 6,482; Hamburger, 7,912. That’s the biggest lead we’ve had tonight.”
Howls of glee filled the air. Benjamin Hamburger’s pipe sent up smoke signals. He looked over at Flora, smiling broadly around the pipe. “This is a fine country. Never doubt it for a minute. This is a fine country,” he said. “I came here with the clothes on my back and not a thing more, and now I have not a son but a daughter-a daughter, mind you! — in the Congress of the United States.” More cheers rose.
“Angelina would be proud of you,” Maria Tresca said quietly. She added, “And if the results hold, you can keep your brother out of any danger.”
“I can, can’t I?” Flora said in some surprise. The War Department would likely pay attention to the wishes of any member of Congress, even a young woman from the opposition. The War Department might even pay special attention to her wishes, in the hope that, by doing as she wanted, it could influenc
e her vote on matters pertaining to the war.
And, in making that calculation, the War Department might prove right. All at once, leading by fifteen hundred votes, Flora contemplated the differences between running for office and being in office. The Socialists down in Philadelphia often compromised on issues Party regulars back home would sooner have seen fought to a finish. They’d compromised on war credits back in the summer of 1914, and Flora was far from the only one who wished they hadn’t.
Now came her turn in the barrel. Would she have to make deals with the Democratic majority? Could the Socialists and the few surviving Republicans do anything to slow down Teddy Roosevelt’s juggernaut?
Then she asked herself another question: if she used her Congressional office to protect David, wasn’t she taking for herself one of the privileges of the elite that Socialists from Maine to California decried? But if she didn’t do what she could to keep her brother out of harm’s way and something (God forbid!) happened to him, how could she ever look at herself again? Was her ideology more important, or her family?
Asking the question gave her the answer. In a sudden burst of insight, it also gave her a clue to something that had puzzled her since the war began: why Socialists the world over, in Germany and Austria-Hungary and England and Canada and France and the USA, and even in unprogressive countries like Russia and the Confederate States, rushed to their nations’ colors when ideology should have made them stand together against the madness.
Blood is thicker than water. Was the cause of the nation, of kith and kin, more urgent than the rarefied summons of Socialist egalitarianism? It was a dismal notion, but made an alarming amount of sense.
A Western Union messenger brought her out of her reverie with a new batch of telegrams. When he saw who was taking them from him, he smiled and said, “I hope you get elected.”
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