In At the Death sa-4

by Harry Turtledove

  To his relief, the Mexican didn't seem angry. "I'd rather cook," he said. "The suppliers, all they do is try to screw you. You want to take it, Seсor Dover, you welcome to it."

  Dover's grin was pure predator. "I don't take it, man. I give it." Luis blinked. Then he grinned, too.

  Before Dover could give it, he had to find out what was there. He checked the refrigerators and the produce bins. The menu had changed a little since he went into the Army. Part of that was because some things were unavailable. Part of it was because the damnyankees who made up such a big part of the clientele these days had different tastes from the regulars who'd filled the place before the war.

  A glance at the list of telephone numbers in the manager's office said a good many suppliers had changed, too. Some of the old bunch were probably dead. Some were more likely out of business. And some of the new ones had been giving Sloan kickbacks.

  "Damned if you don't sound like Jerry Dover," said a butcher Jerry'd known for a long time.

  "Yeah, it's me all right, Phil," Dover agreed. "So your days of fucking the Huntsman's Lodge are over, through, finished. Got it?"

  "I wouldn't do that!" Phil the butcher sounded painfully pure of heart.

  He gave Dover a pain, all right. "Yeah, and then you wake up," he said sweetly.

  He also enjoyed introducing himself to the new suppliers. If they gave him what they said they would and gave him decent prices, he didn't expect to have any trouble with them. If they tried to palm crap off on him…He chuckled in anticipation. They'd find out. Boy, would they ever!

  For tonight, the place would run on what Luis had laid in. From what Dover had seen, the boss cook hadn't done badly. If he didn't want the job-well, that made things easier all the way around.

  Most of the time, Jerry stayed behind the scenes. He would only come out and show himself to the customers if somebody wasn't happy and the waiters couldn't set things right by themselves. Tonight, though, he felt not just an urge but an obligation to look around and make sure things ran smoothly. He didn't want Charlemagne Broxton to regret hiring him back.

  Everything seemed all right. The Mexican waiters and busboys sounded different from the Negroes who'd been here before, but they knew what to do. He'd started hiring Mexicans during the war. He'd already seen that they weren't allergic to work.

  The customers seemed happy. Some of them were locals. One or two even recognized him, which left him surprised and pleased. More were U.S. officers. They didn't know him from a hole in the wall, which suited him fine. If the local women with them did know him, they didn't let on.

  Then, around ten o'clock, a woman waved to him. She wasn't local, which didn't mean he didn't know her. He wished he'd stayed in his office. Melanie Leigh waved again, imperiously this time. He didn't want to go over to the table she shared with a U.S. colonel, but he feared he had no choice.

  "Hello, Jerry," she said, as brightly as if she hadn't been his blackmailing mistress and a likely Yankee spy. "Don, this is Lieutenant-Colonel Jerry Dover. We've been friends a long time. Jerry, this is Don Gutteridge."

  "I'm very retired, Colonel Gutteridge," Dover said, hesitantly offering his hand.

  Gutteridge shook it. He was about fifty, in good hard shape for his age. "You were in the Quartermaster Corps, isn't that right?" he said.

  Dover nodded. "Uh-huh. How did you know?" He looked at Melanie. Her blue eyes might have been innocence itself…or they might not have. Knowing her, they probably weren't.

  "Let me buy you a drink, Dover, and I'll tell you about it," Gutteridge said. "War's over. We can talk about some things now that we couldn't before."

  At his wave, a waiter appeared. He ordered whiskey all around, asking Dover with his eyebrows if that was all right. Dover nodded. The waiter went away. Before the drinks came back, Dover asked, "Were you Melanie's…handler? Isn't that what the spies call it?"

  "Yeah, I was, and yeah, that's what we call it," Gutteridge answered easily. "You almost got her caught, you know."

  Jerry Dover shrugged, as impassively as he could. "I gave it my best shot. I could afford the money-and I got value received for it, too," he said. Melanie turned red; she was fair enough to make that obvious, even in the low light inside the Huntsman's Lodge. Dover went on, "I could afford that, yeah, but I didn't want to pass on any secrets. And so I talked to some of our own Intelligence boys, and…"

  "I didn't even wait for the answer to the letter I sent you," Melanie said. "Something didn't feel right, so I took a powder."

  The drinks arrived. Dover needed his. "How'd you land on me, anyway?" he said.

  "In the trade, it's called a honey trap," Gutteridge answered for his former lover. "We ran 'em all over the CSA, with people we might be able to squeeze if push ever came to shove again. It wasn't like your people didn't run 'em in the USA, either."

  "A honey trap. Oh, boy," Jerry Dover said in a hollow voice. He looked at Melanie. "I thought you meant it."

  "With you…I came a lot closer than I did with some others," Melanie said.

  "Great. Terrific." He finished the drink in a gulp. What did they say? A fool and his money are soon parted. He'd parted with money, and he'd been a fool. He'd needed a while to realize how big a fool he'd been, but here it was in all its glory. He got to his feet. "'Scuse me. I have to go back to work." Well, he wouldn't be that kind of fool again-he hoped. He hurried away from the table.

  Y ou know what Mobile is?" Sam Carsten said.

  "Tell me," Lon Menefee urged him.

  "Mobile is what New Orleans would've been if it was settled by people without a sense of humor," Sam said. New Orleans was supposed to be a town where you could go out and have yourself some fun. People in Mobile looked as if they didn't enjoy anything.

  "Boy, you've got something there," the exec said, laughing. "Even the good-time girls don't act like they're having a good time."

  "Yeah, I know." Sam had seen that for himself. He didn't like it. "Pretty crazy-that's all I've got to tell you. This was a Navy town, too. If a bunch of horny, drunk sailors won't liven you up, what will?"

  "Beats me," Menefee said.

  Sam pointed. "Crap, that's their Naval Academy, right over there." It and the whole town lay under the Josephus Daniels' guns. Several C.S. Navy ships and submersibles lay at the docks. U.S. caretaker crews were aboard them. Sam didn't know what would happen to them. People were still arguing about it. Some wanted to take the captured vessels into the U.S. Navy. Others figured the spares problem would be impossible, and wanted to scrap them instead.

  "Academy's out of business," Menefee said. Sam nodded. All the cadets had been sent home. They weren't happy about it. Some wanted to join the U.S. Navy instead. Some wanted to shoot every damnyankee ever born. They weren't quite old enough to have had their chance at that. The exec waved toward the Confederate warships. "What do you think we ought to do with those, sir?"

  "Razor blades," Sam said solemnly. "Millions and millions of goddamn razor blades."

  Menefee grinned. Anything large, metallic, and useless was only good for razor blades-if you listened to sailors, anyhow.

  Here on the Gulf coast, winter was soft. Sam had wintered in the Sandwich Islands, so he'd known softer, but this wasn't bad. Things stayed pretty green. It hadn't snowed at all-not yet, anyhow. "A couple of more days and it's 1945," he said. "Another year down."

  "A big one," Lon Menefee said. "Never been a bigger one."

  He wasn't old enough to remember much about 1917. Maybe that had seemed bigger in the USA. Nobody then had known how awful a war could be. A lot of people were inoculated against that ignorance now. And 1917 had shown the USA could beat the Confederate States and their allies. Up till then, the United States never had. Now…Maybe now the USA wouldn't have to go and do this all over again. Sam could hope so, anyhow.

  He didn't feel like arguing with the younger man, nor was he sure he should. "What with the superbomb and everything, I'd have a devil of a time saying you're wrong."
r />   "We've got it," the exec said. "Germany's got it. The Confederates had it, but they're out. The limeys had it, but-"

  "Maybe they're out," Sam put in. "You never can tell about England."

  "Yeah," Menefee said. "Japan and Russia and France all have the hots for it."

  "I would, too, if somebody else had it and I didn't," Sam said. "I remember how rotten I felt when Featherston got Philly. If he'd had a dozen more ready to roll, he might have whipped us in spite of everything."

  "Good thing he didn't," the exec said. "But how are you supposed to fight a war if everybody's got bombs that can blow up a city or a flotilla all at once?"

  "Nobody knows," Sam answered. "I mean nobody. The board that talked to me when we came in for refit right after the war ended asked if I had any bright ideas. Me!" He snorted at how strange that was. "I mean, if they're looking for help from a mustang with hairy ears, they're really up the creek."

  "Maybe the Kaiser will be able to keep England from building any more and France from getting started. Japan and Russia, though? Good luck stopping 'em!" Menefee said.

  "Uh-huh. That occurred to me, too. I don't like it any better than you do," Carsten said.

  "It's going to be trouble, any which way," Menefee predicted.

  "No kidding," Sam said. "Of course, you can say that any day of the year and be right about nine times out of ten. But just the same…Hell, if Germany and the USA were the only countries that could make superbombs, how could we stay friends? It'd be like we mopped the floor with everybody else, and we had to see who'd end up last man standing."

  "Hard to get a superbomb across the ocean," Menefee said. "We don't have a bomber that can lift one off an airplane carrier, and the Kaiser doesn't have any carriers at all."

  "We don't have a bomber that can do it now. Five years from now? It'll be different," Sam said. "They'll shrink the bombs and build better airplanes. Turbos, I guess. That's how those things always work. I remember the wood and wire and fabric two-decker we flew off the Dakota in 1914. We thought we were so modern!" He laughed at his younger self.

  Lon Menefee nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right, skipper. But the Germans still don't have carriers."

  "Maybe they'll build 'em. Maybe they'll decide they don't need 'em. Maybe they'll make extra-long-range bombers instead. If I were fighting the Russians, I'd sure want some of those. Or maybe they'll make rockets, the way the damn Confederates did. I bet we try that, too. How's anybody going to stop a rocket with a superbomb in its nose?"

  The exec gave him a peculiar look. "You know what, skipper? I can see why the board asked you for ideas. You just naturally come up with things."

  "Well, if I do, the pharmacist's mates have always been able to treat 'em," Sam answered. Praise-especially praise from a bright Annapolis grad-never failed to make him nervous.

  He got a grin from Menefee, but the younger man persisted: "If you'd gone to college, you'd be an admiral now."

  Sam had heard that before. He didn't believe it for a minute. "I didn't even finish high school. Didn't want to, either. All I wanted to do was get the hell off my old man's farm, and by God I did that. And if I was the kind of guy who went to college, chances are I wouldn't've been the kind of guy who wanted to join the Navy. Nope, I'm stuck with the school of hard knocks."

  "Maybe. But it's still a shame," the exec said.

  "Don't flabble about me, Lon. You're the one who'll make flag rank. I like where I'm at just fine." Sam wasn't kidding. Two and a half stripes! Lieutenant commander! Not bad for a man up through the hawse hole, not even a little bit. And his superiors still wanted him around. Maybe he could dream of making commander, at least when they finally retired him. He sure hadn't wasted any time sewing the thin gold stripe between the two thicker ones on each cuff.

  He'd flustered Menefee in turn. "Flag rank? Talk about counting your chickens! I just want to see what I can do with a ship of my own."

  "I understand that." Sam had waited a long, long time for the Josephus Daniels. But doors opened to young Annapolis grads that stayed closed for graying mustangs.

  Menefee pointed across the water. "Supply boat's coming up."

  Before Sam could say anything, the bosun's whistle shrilled. "Away boarding parties!" Sailors armed with tommy guns went down into a whaleboat at the archaic command. Others manned the destroyer escort's twin 40mms. After that bumboat attacked the Oregon, nobody took chances.

  If the boat didn't stop as ordered, the guns would stop it. But it did. The boarding party checked every inch of the hull before letting it approach. Sam hadn't had to say a word. He smiled to himself. This was the way things worked when you had a good crew.

  Sooner or later, conscripts would replace a lot of his veteran sailors. By now, he knew what he needed to know about whipping new men into shape. He didn't look forward to the job, but he could do it.

  Meat and fresh vegetables started coming aboard the destroyer escort. The chow was better than it had been when she spent weeks at a time at sea. Sam had never been one to cling to routine for its own sake. If he never tasted another bean as long as he lived, he wouldn't be sorry.

  "I'm going to my cabin for a spell, Lon," he said. "The paperwork gets worse and worse-and if something disappears now, we can't just write it off as lost in battle, the way we could before. Damn shame, if you ask me."

  "Sure did make the ship's accounts easier," Menefee agreed. "Have fun, skipper."

  "Fat chance," Sam said. "But it's got to be done."

  Dealing with the complicated paperwork of command might have been the toughest job for a mustang who'd never been trained to do it. You could end up in hock for tens of thousands of dollars if you didn't keep track of what was what, or if you absentmindedly signed the wrong form. Because he'd had to start from scratch, Sam was extra scrupulous about double-checking everything before his name went on it.

  He absently scratched the back of his left hand, which itched. Then he went back to making sure of his spare-parts inventory. Some of that stuff-the part that petty officers found useful-had a way of walking with Jesus.

  A few minutes later, he noticed his hand was bleeding. He swore and grabbed for a tissue. He must have knocked off a scab or something. When he looked, he didn't see one. The blood seemed to be coming from a mole instead. After a while, it stopped. Sam went back to work.

  Things on the Josephus Daniels were just about the way they were supposed to be. If he had to turn the ship over to a new CO tomorrow, he could without batting an eye. His accounts were up to date, and they were accurate-or, where they weren't, nobody could prove they weren't. People said there was a right way, a wrong way, and a Navy way. He'd used the Navy way to solve his problems about missing things.

  Sam grinned. Of course he'd used the Navy way. What other way did he know? He'd given the Navy his whole life. He hadn't known he would do that when he signed up, but he wasn't disappointed. He'd sure done more and seen more of the world that he would have if he'd stayed on the farm.

  The only way he'd leave now was if they threw him out or if he dropped dead on duty. He'd been scared they would turn him loose when the war ended, but what did they go and do? They promoted him instead.

  "Nope, only way I'm going out now is feet first," he murmured. "And even then, the bastards'll have to drag me."

  A U.S. warship under his command anchored in Mobile Bay? He'd never dreamt of that when he signed on the dotted line. He hadn't imagined he could become an officer, not then. And he hadn't imagined the USA would ever take the CSA right off the map. The way it looked to him then-the way it looked to everybody-both countries, and their rivalry, would stick around forever.

  Well, nothing lasted forever. He'd found that out. You went on and did as well as you could for as long as you could. When you got right down to it, what else was there?

  Miguel Rodriguez said…something. "What was that?" Jorge asked.

  His brother tried again. "Water," he managed at last.

  "I'll get you
some." Jorge hurried to the sink and turned the tap. When he was a little boy, he would have had to go to the well. This was so much easier.

  Bringing the water back to Miguel, seeing his brother again, was so much harder. Now he understood why the Yankees had kept Miguel so long. Miguel sat in a U.S.-issue military wheelchair. He would never walk again. So said the letter that came with him, and Jorge believed it. His body was twisted and ruined. So was his face. U.S. plastic surgeons had done what they could, but they couldn't work miracles.

  The shell that didn't quite kill him damaged his thinking, too-or maybe he was trapped inside his own mind, and his wounds wouldn't let him come out. The U.S. doctors had kept him alive, but Jorge wasn't even slightly convinced they'd done him any favors.

  He gave Miguel the cup. His brother needed to take it in both hands; he couldn't manage with one. Even then, Jorge kept one of his hands under the cup, in case Miguel dropped it. He didn't, not this time, but he did dribble water down what was left of his chin. Jorge wiped it dry with a little towel.

  How long could Miguel go on like this? Ten years? Twenty? Thirty? Fifty? Would you want to go on like this for fifty years? If somebody took care of you, though, what else would you do?

  Pedro came in and looked at Miguel, then quickly looked away. What had happened to his brother tore at him even worse than it did at Jorge. And what it did to their mother…Jorge tried not to think about that, but he couldn't help it. She'd be taking care of and mourning a cripple for as long as she or Miguel lived.

  "Those bastards," Pedro said savagely. "Damnyankee bastards!"

  "I think they did the best they could for him," Jorge said. "If they didn't, he'd be dead right now."

  Pedro looked at him as if he were an idiot. "Who do you think blew him up in the first place? Damnyankee pendejos, that's who."

  He was probably right-probably, but not certainly. Jorge had seen men wounded and killed by short rounds from their own side. He didn't try to tell his brother about that-Pedro was in no mood to listen. He just shrugged. "It's the war. We all took chances like that. What can you do about it now? What can anyone do?"