Return Engagement

by Harry Turtledove

  Almost.

  He'd been reminded his American past still stayed a part of him when war clouds darkened the border between the United States and the Confederate States. To most people in Rivière-du-Loup–even to his relatives by marriage–the growing strife between the USA and the CSA was like a quarrel between strangers who lived down the street: interesting, but nothing to get very excited about.

  Now that war had broken out, the locals still felt the same way. The Republic of Quebec was helping the USA with occupation duty in English-speaking Canada, but the Republic remained neutral, at peace with everyone even when most of the world split into warring camps.

  As Leonard O'Doull walked from his home to his office a few blocks away, he did not feel at peace with the rest of the world. Far from it. He was a tall, lean man, pale as his Irish name suggested, with a long, lantern-jawed face, green eyes that usually laughed but not today, and close-cropped sandy hair now grayer than it had been. He didn't feel fifty, but he was.

  People nodded to him as he walked by. Rivière-du-Loup wasn't such a big town that most folks didn't know most others. And O'Doull stood out on account of his inches and also on account of his looks. He didn't look French, and just about everybody else in town did. Most people were short and dark and Gallic, the way their ancestors who'd settled here in the seventeenth century had been.

  Oh, there were exceptions. Nicole's brother, Georges Galtier, was as tall as O'Doull, and twice as broad through the shoulders. But Georges looked like a Frenchman, too; he just looked like an oversized Frenchman.

  Here was the office. O'Doull used one key to open the lock, another to open the dead bolt. His was one of the few doors in Rivière-du-Loup to have a dead bolt. But he was a careful and reputable man. He kept morphine and other drugs in here, and felt an obligation to make them as hard to steal as he could.

  He got a pot of coffee going on a hot plate and waited for his receptionist to come in. Stephanie was solidly reliable once she got here, but she did like to sleep in every so often. While he waited for the coffee to perk and for her to show up, O'Doull started skimming medical journals. With vitamins and new drugs and new tests appearing seemingly by the day, this was an exciting time to be a doctor. He had a chance of curing diseases that would have killed only a few years before. Every journal trumpeted some new advance.

  The outer door opened. "That you, Stephanie?" O'Doull called.

  "No, I'm afraid not." It was a man's voice, not a woman's, and used a clear Parisian French whose like Leonard O'Doull hadn't heard for years. Then the man switched to another language with which O'Doull was out of touch: English. He said, "How are you today, Doctor?"

  "Pas pire, merci," O'Doull replied in Quebecois French. He had no trouble understanding English, and thanks to his journals read it all the time, but he didn't speak it automatically the way he once had. He needed a conscious effort to shift to it to ask, "Who are you?"

  "Jedediah Quigley, at your service," the stranger said. He paused in the doorway to the private office till O'Doull nodded for him to come in. He was trim and lean, still erect and probably still strong though he had to be past seventy, and he had the look of a man who'd spent a long time in the military. Sure enough, he went on, "Colonel, U.S. Army, retired. I've done a fair amount of liaison work between the U.S. and Quebecois governments in my time. I confess to taking it easier these days, though."

  "Jedediah Quigley." O'Doull said the name in musing tones. He'd heard it before, and needed to remember where. He snapped his fingers. "You're the fellow who took my father-in-law's land for the military hospital, and then ended up buying it from him after the war."

  "That's right." Quigley gave back a crisp nod. "He skinned me for every sou he could, too, and he enjoyed doing it. I was sad to hear he'd joined the majority."

  "So was I," O'Doull said. "He was quite a man. . . . But you didn't come here to talk about him, did you?"

  "No." The retired officer shook his head. "I came here to talk about you."

  "Me? Why do you want to talk about me?" O'Doull pulled open a couple of desk drawers to see if he could find a spare cup. He thought he remembered one, and he was right. He stuck it on his desk, filled it with coffee, and shoved it across to Quigley. Then he poured the usual mugful for himself. After a sip, he went on, "I'm just a doctor, doing my job as best I can."

  "That's why." Quigley sipped his own coffee. He chuckled as he set down the cup. "Some eye-opener, by God. Why you, Dr. O'Doull? Because you're not just a doctor. You're an American doctor. What I came to find out is, how much does that mean to you?"

  "Isn't that interesting?" O'Doull murmured. "I've been wondering the same thing myself, as a matter of fact. What have you got in mind?" Even as he asked the question, a possible answer occurred to him.

  When Jedediah Quigley said, "Your country needs doctors, especially doctors who've seen war wounds before," he knew he'd got it right. Quigley added, "Things aren't going as well as we wish they were. Casualties are high. If you still think of yourself as an American . . ."

  "Good question," Dr. O'Doull said. "Till this mess blew up, I really didn't. I was as much a Quebecois as anybody whose umpty-great-grandfather fought alongside Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham. But there's nothing like seeing the country where you were born in trouble to make you wonder what you really are."

  "If you think we're in trouble now, wait till you see what happens if those Confederate bastards make it all the way up to Lake Erie," Quigley said.

  "You think that's what they're up to?" O'Doull asked.

  "I do." Quigley spoke with a good officer's decisiveness. "If they can do that, they cut the country in half. All the rail lines that connect the raw materials in the West with the factories in the East run through Indiana and Ohio. If those go . . . Well, if those go, we have a serious problem on our hands."

  Leonard O'Doull hadn't thought of it in those terms. He'd never been a soldier. At most, he'd been a doctor in uniform. But a picture of the USA formed in his mind–a picture of the factories in eastern Ohio and Pennsylvania and New York and New England cut off from Michigan iron and from Great Plains wheat and from oil out of Sequoyah and California. He didn't like that picture–didn't like it one bit.

  "What do we do about it?" he asked.

  "We do our damnedest to stop them, that's what," Quigley answered. "If you cut me in half at the belly button, I won't do too well afterwards. The same applies to the United States. I can tell you one thing stopping the Confederates means, too: it means casualties, probably by the carload lot."

  "Well, I do understand why you're talking to me," O'Doull said.

  The retired colonel nodded. "I would be surprised if you didn't, Doctor. You're good at what you do. I don't think anybody in town would say anything different. And you've got plenty of experience with military medicine, too, as I said before."

  "More than I ever wanted," O'Doull said.

  Jedediah Quigley waved that aside. "And you're an American." He cocked his head to one side and waited expectantly. "Aren't you?"

  No matter how much O'Doull wanted to deny it, he couldn't, not when he'd been thinking the same thing on his way to the office. "Well, what if I am?" he asked, his voice rough with annoyance–at himself more than at Quigley.

  "What if you are?" Quigley echoed, sensing he had a fish on the hook. "If you are, and if you know you are, I'm going to offer you the chance of a lifetime." He sounded like a fast-talking used-motorcar salesman, or perhaps more like a sideshow barker at a carnival. Before going on, he made a small production of lighting up a stogie. The match hissed when struck, sending up a small gray cloud of sulfurous smoke. What came from the cheroot wasn't a whole lot more appetizing. Quigley didn't seem to care. After blowing a smoke ring, he said, "If you're an American, I'm going to offer you the chance to get close enough to the front to come under artillery fire, and probably machine-gun fire, too. You'll do emergency work, and you'll swear and cuss and fume on account of it isn't better. But yo
u'll save lives just the same, and we need them saved. What do you say?"

  "I say I'm a middle-aged man with a wife and a son," O'Doull answered. "I say that if you think I'm going to try to keep them going on a captain's pay, or even a major's, you're out of your mind."

  Quigley blew another smoke ring, even more impressive–and even smellier–than the first. He steepled his fingers and looked sly. "They aren't Americans, of course," he said. "They're citizens of the Republic of Quebec."

  "And so?" O'Doull asked.

  "And so the Republic, out of the goodness of its heart–and, just between you and me, because we're twisting its arm–will pay them a stipend equal to your average income the last three years, based on your tax records. That's over and above what we'll pay you as a major in the Medical Corps."

  You do want me, O'Doull thought. And the USA had set things up so the Republic of Quebec would pay most of the freight. That seemed very much like something the United States would do. O'Doull laughed. He said, "First time I ever wished I didn't have a good accountant."

  That made Jedediah Quigley laugh, too. "Have we got a bargain?"

  "If I can persuade Nicole," O'Doull answered. His wife was going to be furious. She was going to be appalled. He was more than a little appalled himself. But, for the first time since the war broke out, he also felt at peace with himself. At peace with Nicole was likely to be another matter.

  ****

  GEORGE ENOS, Jr., scanned the waters of the North Atlantic for more than other fishing boats, sea birds, and fish and dolphins. He'd heard how a Confederate commerce raider had captured his father's boat, and how a C.S. submersible had tried to sink her, only to be sunk by a U.S. sub lurking with the boat. He hardly remembered any of that himself. He'd been a little boy during the Great War. But his mother had talked about it plenty, then and afterwards.

  He bit his lip. His mother was dead, murdered by the one man she'd fallen for since his father. That Ernie had blown out his own brains right afterwards was no consolation at all.

  Inside of a day or two, the Sweet Sue would get to the Grand Bank off Newfoundland. Then George wouldn't have the luxury of leisure to stand around. He'd be baiting hooks with frozen squid, letting lines down into the cold, green waters of the Atlantic, or bringing tuna aboard–which always resembled a bout of all-in wrestling much more than anything ordinary people, landlubbers, thought of as fishing. He'd barely have time to eat or sleep then, let alone think. But the long run out gave him plenty of time to brood.

  Under his feet, the deck throbbed with the pounding of the diesel. The fishing boat was making ten knots, which was plenty to blow most of the exhaust astern of her. Every so often, though, a twist of wind would make George notice the pungent stink. The morning was bright and clear. The swells out of the north were gentle. The Atlantic was a different beast in the wintertime, and a much meaner one.

  George ducked into the galley for a cup of coffee. Davey Hatton, universally known as the Cookie, poured from the pot into a thick white china mug. "Thanks," George said, and added enough condensed milk and sugar to tame the snarling brew. He cradled the mug in his hands, savoring the warmth even now. Spin the calendar round half a year and it would be a lifesaver.

  Hatton had the wireless on. They were beyond daytime reach of ordinary AM stations in the USA or occupied Canada and Newfoundland, though they could still pull them in after the sun went down. Shortwave broadcasts were a different story. Those came in from the USA, the CSA, Britain, and Ireland, as well as from a host of countries where they didn't speak English.

  "What's the latest?" George asked.

  Before answering, the Cookie made a production of getting a pipe going. To George's way of thinking, it was wasted effort. The tobacco with which Hatton so carefully primed it smelled like burning long johns soaked in molasses. Old-timers groused that all the tobacco went to hell when the USA fought the CSA. George didn't see how anything could get much nastier than the blend the Cookie smoked now.

  Once he'd filled the galley with poison gas, Hatton answered, "The Confederates are pounding hell out of Columbus."

  "Screw 'em," George said, sipping the coffee. Even after he'd doctored it, it was strong enough to grow hair on a stripper's chest–a waste of a great natural resource, that would have been. "What are we doing?"

  "Wireless says we're bombing Richmond and Louisville and Nashville and even Atlanta," Hatton answered. He emitted more smoke signals. If George read them straight, they meant he didn't believe everything he heard on the wireless.

  "How about overseas?" George asked.

  "BBC says Cork and Waterford'll fall in the next couple of days, and that'll be the end of Ireland," the Cookie replied. "That Churchill is an A-number-one son of a bitch, but the man makes a hell of a speech. Him and Featherston both, matter of fact. Al Smith is a goddamn bore, you know that?"

  "I didn't vote for him," George said. "What about the rest of the war over there?"

  "Well, the BBC says the French are kicking Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm's ass. They say the Ukraine's falling apart and Poland's rebelling against Germany. But they tell a hell of a lot of lies, too, you know what I mean? If I could understand what's coming out of Berlin, you bet your butt the krauts would be singing a different tune. So who knows what's really going on?"

  At that moment, the Sweet Sue gave a sudden, violent lurch to starboard, and then another one, just as sharp, to port. "What the hell?" George exclaimed as coffee slopped out of the mug and burned his fingers.

  Then he heard a new noise through the chatter on the wireless and the diesel's deep, steady throb: a savage roar rising rapidly to a mechanical scream. It seemed to come from outside, but filled the galley, filled everything. George got a glimpse of an airplane zooming toward them–and of flames shooting from its wings as it opened up with machine guns.

  Bullets stitched their way across the fishing boat. One caught the Cookie in the chest. He let out a grunt–more a sound of surprise than one of pain–and crumpled, crimson spreading over the gray wool of his sweater. His feet kicked a few times, but he was plainly a dead man. A sudden sharp stench among the good smells of the galley said his bowels had let go.

  Screams on the deck told that the Cookie wasn't the only one who'd been hit. George saw right away that he couldn't do anything for Hatton. He hurried out of the galley. Chow'll be rotten the rest of the run went through his mind. Then he realized that was the least of his worries. Getting home alive and in one piece counted for a hell of a lot more.

  Chris Agganis was down on the deck clutching his leg. Blood spilled from it. George was used to gore, as anybody who made his living gutting tuna that could outweigh him had to be. But this blood spilled out of a person. He was amazed how much difference that made.

  "Hurts," Agganis moaned in accented English. "Hurts like hell." He said something else in syrupy Greek. This was his first time on the Sweet Sue. The skipper'd hired him at the last minute, when Johnny O'Shea didn't come aboard–was probably too drunk to remember to come aboard. Agganis knew what he was doing, he played a mean harmonica, and now he'd been rewarded for his hard work with a bullet in the calf.

  George knelt beside him. "Lemme see it, Chris." Agganis kept moaning. George had to pull the Greek's hands away so he could yank up his dungarees. The bullet had gone through the meat of his calf. As far as George could see, it hadn't hit the bone. He said, "It's not good, but it could be a hell of a lot worse." He stuffed his handkerchief into one hole and pulled another one out of Chris Agganis' pocket for the second, larger, wound.

  He was so desperately busy doing that–and fighting not to puke, for hot blood on his hands was ever so much worse than the cold stuff that came out of a fish–that he didn't notice how the shriek of the airplane engine overhead was swelling again till it was almost on top of the fishing boat.

  Machine-gun bullets dug into the planking of the deck. They chewed up the galley once more, and clanged through the metal of the smokestack. Then the fighter zoome
d away eastward. The roundels on its wings and flanks were red inside white inside blue: it came from a British ship.

  "Fucking bastard," Chris Agganis choked out.

  "Yeah," George agreed, hoping and praying the limey wouldn't come back. Once more and the fishing boat was liable to sink. For that matter, how many bullet holes did she have at the waterline? And how many rounds had gone through the engine? Was she going to catch fire and burn right here in the middle of the ocean?

  The engine was still running. The Sweet Sue wasn't dead in the water. That would do for a miracle till a bigger one came along.

  And she still steered. That meant the skipper hadn't taken a bullet. George got to his feet and went back into the galley. He knew where the first-aid kit was. Shattered crockery crunched under the soles of his shoes. The air was thick with the iron stink of blood, the smell of shit, and the nasty smoke from the cheap pipe tobacco the Cookie had lit a couple of minutes before he died.

  George took a bandage and a bottle of rubbing alcohol and, after a moment's hesitation, a morphine syringe out to Chris Agganis. The fisherman let out a bloodcurdling shriek when George splashed alcohol over his wound. "You don't want it to rot, do you?" George asked.

  Agganis' answer was spirited but incoherent. He hardly noticed when George stuck him with the syringe and injected the morphine. After a few minutes, though, he said, "Ahhh."

  "Is that better?" George asked. Agganis didn't answer, but he stopped thrashing. By the look on his face, Jesus had just come down from heaven and was patting him on the back. George stared at him, and at the syringe. He'd heard what morphine could do, but he'd never seen it in action till now. He hadn't imagined anybody with a bullet wound could look that happy.

  With Chris Agganis settled, George could look over the Sweet Sue. Chewed to hell but still going seemed to sum things up, as it had before. Captain Albert had swung her back toward the west. With one dead and at least one hurt man on board, with the boat probably taking on water, with the engine possibly damaged, what else could the skipper do? Nothing George could see.