Drive to the East

by Harry Turtledove

  The orderly didn’t answer. He just ducked back out of sight. Rita walked into the room. “You idiot,” she told him, and burst into tears.

  Chester gaped at his wife. “What are you doing here?” he squeaked.

  She pulled a tiny linen handkerchief out of her purse and dabbed at her eyes. “When I found out you got wounded, I asked the War Department where you were,” she answered. “They told me, and so I got on a train—got on a bunch of trains, really—and here I am. Carl’s with Sue and Otis till I get back.”

  “All right,” Chester said dazedly. His sister and brother-in-law would do fine with his son. “Jesus, sweetie, it’s good to see you.”

  Rita gave him a look laced with vitriol. “If you like seeing me, why did you go put that stupid uniform on again? You could have stayed in L.A. and seen me every day.”

  He sighed. “It seemed like a good idea when I did it.” How many follies got perpetrated because they seemed a good idea at the time? Was there any way to count them? Chester didn’t think so.

  By the way Rita drummed her fingers against the painted iron of the bedstead, she didn’t, either. “They told me you weren’t hurt bad enough for them to discharge you from the Army,” she said. “That means the Confederates will have to shoot you at least one more time before I get you back, doesn’t it?”

  “I . . . hadn’t thought of it like that,” Chester said, which was true.

  “No? Maybe you should have.” Rita could be devastating when she felt like it. “How many pieces of you will be missing when you finally do come home?”

  “For all either one of us knows, I won’t get another scratch the rest of the way,” Chester said.

  She didn’t laugh in his face. She didn’t say anything at all. Her silence made his remark sound even more foolish than it would have anyway. He grimaced. He knew that as well as she did.

  At last, she unbent enough to ask, “How are you?”

  “I’m getting better,” he answered. “As soon as the leg is strong enough, they’ll send me back.”

  “Swell,” Rita said. “I thought I was going to die when I got the wire that said you’d been hurt.”

  “Chance I took,” Chester said. “It’s not that bad.” That was true. He would recover, as he had when he got hit in the arm during the Great War. He’d seen plenty of men crippled for life, plenty of others torn to pieces or blown to bits.

  Rita’s first husband hadn’t come out of the Great War alive, so she knew about that, too. “What will it be like the next time?” she demanded pointedly. “I love you. I couldn’t stand getting another ‘The War Department deeply regrets to inform you . . .’ telegram. I’d die.”

  No, I would. Chester swallowed the words long before they passed his lips. Rita wouldn’t find them funny. He did, but only in the blackly humorous way that didn’t make sense to anyone who hadn’t been through the things front-line soldiers had.

  Rita came over, bent down, and laid her head on his shoulder. She really started to bawl then. “I don’t want to lose you, Chester!”

  “Hey, babe.” Awkwardly, he put his arms around her. “Hey,” he repeated. “I’m not going anywhere.” He did laugh then, because that was literally true.

  Almost to Chester’s relief, the orderly came in then and said, “You’ve got to go, ma’am. Doctors don’t want him tired out.”

  The look she gave the man should have put him in a hospital bed. She kissed Chester. His eyes crossed; nobody’d done that since he reenlisted. Then, reluctantly, she let the orderly lead her away.

  When she’d left the ward, the guy in the next bed said, “Must be nice, getting a visit from your wife.” He wasn’t even half Chester’s age. By pure coincidence, the two of them had almost the same wound.

  “Yeah, it was,” Chester said, more or less truthfully. “She sure caught me by surprise, though.” That was also true.

  “Too bad you don’t have a private room.” The kid—his name was Gary—leered at him.

  “Yeah, well . . .” Chester didn’t know why he was embarrassed; the same thought had crossed his mind. He went on, “If I wasn’t just a noncom, if I was an officer like the snotnose whose hand I was holding, maybe I would have one. Life’s a bitch sometimes.”

  “Would we be here if it wasn’t?” Gary was a buck private. To him, a top sergeant was as exalted a personage as any officer, at least this side of a general.

  “You’ve got a point,” Chester said. Of course, instead of ending up in a military hospital, they could have ended up dead. Or they could have been maimed, not just wounded.

  Or we might not have got hurt at all, Chester thought resentfully. But he knew too well how unlikely that was. If you stayed in the meat grinder long enough, odds were you’d brush up against the blades.

  Gary was looking at him. “You’re not a lifer, are you?”

  “Me? Hell, no,” Chester said. “Do I look crazy?”

  “Never can tell.” Gary wouldn’t get in Dutch for sassing a sergeant here; the rules were relaxed for wounded men. “It’s like your wife said—if you’re so smart, how come you signed up for round two when you’d already been through round one?”

  “We licked those Confederate bastards once, but then we let ’em up, and look what we got,” Chester answered. “Millions of maniacs screaming, ‘Freedom!’ and out to take anything they can grab. If we don’t beat ’em again, they’ll damn well beat us, and then we have to start all over.”

  “Yeah, but why you?” Gary persisted. “You paid your dues the last time. You didn’t have to take a chance on getting your ass shot off twice.”

  “You’re too young to know what Remembrance Day was like before the last war,” Chester said slowly. “It really was a day of remembrance and a day of mourning. Things shut down tight except for the parades and the speeches. Nobody who saw it could ever forget the flag going by upside down. The Confederates and the limeys and the frogs beat us twice. We had to get tough. We had to build up if we were going to pay them back—and we did. I don’t ever want to see the country go through anything like that again.”

  “That talks about the country. That doesn’t talk about you,” Gary said. “Me, I’m here on account of I got conscripted. But they weren’t going to conscript you.” You old fart. He didn’t say it, but he might as well have. “So how come you volunteered to let ’em take another shot at you? You’re not Custer—you aren’t going to win the war all by yourself.”

  That would have been insulting if it hadn’t been true. “Yeah, I know,” Chester said with a sigh. “But if everybody sat on his hands, we’d lose. That’s the long and short of it. So I put the uniform back on.”

  “And look what it got you,” Gary said.

  “I think I did some good before I got hurt,” Chester said. “I commanded a company for a while the last time around, so—”

  “Wait a second,” Gary broke in. “You were an officer then?”

  Chester snorted. “Hell, no. Just an ordinary three-striper. But when everybody above me got killed or wounded, I filled the slot for a while. Did all right, if I say so myself. After a while, they found a lieutenant to run it. If I could do that then, I didn’t have any trouble helping a shavetail run a platoon this time. I’ll probably do the same thing somewhere else when they turn me loose here.”

  “You’re like a football coach,” Gary said.

  “Sort of, I guess. I never even thought about coaching football, though. I used to play it—not for money, but on a steel-mill team. We weren’t bad. We sure had some big guys—you better believe that.” Chester’s eye went to the clock on the wall. It was a few minutes before eleven. “Hey, Greek. you’ve got two good legs. Turn on the wireless, why don’t you? News coming up.”

  “Sure.” The guy called Greek had one arm in a cast, but nothing was wrong with the other.

  The knob clicked. The set started to hum. Everybody waited for the tubes to warm up. What came out of the wireless when the sound started reminded Chester of a polka played by
a set of drunken madmen. When it mercifully ended, the announcer said, “That was the Engels Brothers’ new recording, ‘Featherston’s Follies.’ ” Everyone snorted; the Engels Brothers were madmen. The announcer went on, “And now the news.”

  “Heavy fighting is reported in and around Cleveland,” a different announcer said. “The fierce U.S. defense is costing the Confederates dearly.” Chester knew what that meant—the United States were getting hammered. The newsman continued, “Occupation authorities have also declared that the situation in Canada is under control, despite enemy propaganda.” He went on to another story in a hurry. Chester didn’t think that sounded good, either.

  X

  TOO MANY things were happening all at once for Flora Blackford’s comfort. None of them seemed to be good things, either. The U.S. offensive in Virginia, on which so many hopes had been pinned, was heading nowhere. The new Confederate assault in Ohio, by contrast, was going much better than she wished it were. The Mormons still tied down far too many soldiers in Utah. And the Canadian uprising, from everything she could gather, was a lot more serious than the authorities were willing to admit in the papers or on the wireless.

  All in all, the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War had plenty to do. She would rather it didn’t.

  And there were other distractions. Her secretary stuck her head into the inner office and said, “Miss Clemens is here to speak with you, Congresswoman.”

  “Thank you.” Flora meant anything but. Some things couldn’t be helped, though. “Send her in.”

  In marched the reporter. Ophelia Clemens had to be fifteen years older than Flora, but still looked like someone who took no guff from anybody. There, at least, the two women had something in common. “Hello, Congresswoman. Mind if I smoke?” she said, and had a cigarette going before Flora could say yes or no. That done, she held out the pack. “Care for a coffin nail yourself?”

  “No, thanks. I never got the habit,” Flora said, and then, “That’s a Confederate brand, though, isn’t it?”

  “You betcha. If you’re gonna go, go first class,” Ophelia Clemens said. Flora didn’t know how to answer that, so she didn’t try. The reporter came straight to the point: “How many soldiers are we going to have to send up to Canada to help the Frenchies keep the lid on?”

  “I don’t have a number for that,” Flora said cautiously. “You might do better asking at the War Department.”

  “Yeah, and I might not,” Ophelia Clemens said with a scornful toss of the head. “Those people were born lying, and you know it as well as I do.”

  Since Flora did, she didn’t bother contradicting the correspondent. “I’m afraid I still don’t have the answer. Even if it’s just one, it’ll be more than we can afford.”

  Scritch, scritch. Clemens’ pencil raced across a notebook page. “That’s the truth—and it’s a good quote. How come the Confederates can advance whenever they want to, but we keep dropping the ball?”

  “If I knew that, I’d belong on the General Staff, not here,” Flora said. Ophelia Clemens laughed, though she hadn’t been joking. She continued, “The Joint Committee is doing its best to find out.”

  “Do you think keeping our generals on a red-hot grill will make them perform better?” the reporter asked.

  “I hope we don’t do that,” Flora said.

  “I hope you do,” Ophelia Clemens said. “They’d better be more afraid of us than they are of the enemy.” She waited to see if Flora would rise to the barb. When Flora didn’t, she tried another question: “Is our publicity making the Confederates treat their Negroes any different—any better, I should say?”

  That, Flora was ready to comment on. “Not one bit,” she said angrily. “They’re as disgraceful as ever, and as proud of it as ever, too.”

  The pencil flew over the page. “Too bad,” the correspondent said. “I’ve heard the same thing from other people, but it’s still too damn bad.”

  “Nice to know someone thinks so.” Flora held up a hand. “This is off the record.” She waited. Ophelia Clemens nodded. Flora went on, “Too many people on this side of the border just don’t care, or else they say, ‘The damn niggers have it coming to them.’ ”

  “Yes, I’ve seen that, too,” Clemens said. “All depends on whose ox is being gored. If the Freedom Party were going after Irishmen or Jews, they’d be squealing like a pig stuck in a fence.” She threw back her head and let out a sudden, startling noise. She knew what a stuck pig sounded like, all right. And then, raising an eyebrow, she added, “No offense.”

  Flora had wondered if the older woman remembered she was Jewish. That answered that. She said what she had to say: “None taken.”

  “Good. Some people can get stuffy about the strangest things. Where was I?” That last seemed aimed more at herself than at Flora. Flipping pages in the notebook, Ophelia Clemens found what she was looking for. “Oh, yeah. That.” She looked up at Flora. “Have you noticed there’s something funny in the budget?”

  “There’s always something funny in the budget,” Flora answered. “We’re in a war. That just makes it funnier than usual.”

  Ophelia Clemens sent her an impatient look. “This has to do with funny business in . . .” She checked her notes again. “In Washington, that’s where. Washington State, I mean. The government is spending money hand over fist out there, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out why.”

  “Oh. That.” With those two words, Flora realized she’d admitted to knowing what that was. She hadn’t wanted to, but didn’t see that she had much choice. Sighing, she said, “Miss Clemens, I don’t know all the details about that, but I have been persuaded that keeping it secret is in the best interests of the United States. The less said about it, especially in the newspapers, the better.”

  “You’ve been persuaded?” The correspondent raised a gingery eyebrow. “I thought you were hard to persuade about such things.”

  “I am. I hope I am, anyway,” Flora said. “This is one of those times, though. Have you spoken with Mr. Roosevelt about this business?”

  “No. Should I? Would he tell me anything?” Ophelia Clemens wasn’t writing now.

  Flora took that for an encouraging sign. “I don’t know whether he would or not. I’m inclined to doubt it,” she said. “But I think he might have more to say than I would about why you shouldn’t publish.”

  “Well, I’ll try him.” Clemens got to her feet. “I’ll try him right now, as a matter of fact.” She sent Flora a wry grin. “But you’ll be on the telephone before I can get over there, won’t you?”

  “Yes.” Flora didn’t waste time with denials. “He needs to know. I told you—I do think this is that important.”

  “All right. Fair enough, I suppose. Nice chatting with you—turned out more interesting than I figured it would.” With no more farewell than that, Ophelia Clemens swept out of the office.

  No sooner had the door closed behind her than Flora was on the telephone to the War Department. Before long, she had the Assistant Secretary of War on the line. “Hello, Flora. To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?” Franklin Roosevelt inquired, jaunty as usual.

  “Ophelia Clemens is on her way to see you,” Flora answered without preamble. “Somehow or other, she’s got wind of what’s going on in Washington.”

  “Oh, dear. That doesn’t sound so good,” Roosevelt said. “I wonder how it happened.”

  “I don’t know. I doubt she’d tell you,” Flora said. “But I thought you ought to know.”

  “Thank you. She’s a chip off the old block, all right,” Roosevelt said. Flora made a questioning noise. Roosevelt explained: “Her father was a reporter out in San Francisco for a million years. He had a nasty sense of humor—funny, but nasty—and he spent most of it on the Democrats. If I remember straight, he died not long before the Great War started. Stan Clemens, his name was, or maybe Sam. Stan, I think.”

  “You could ask Ophelia when she gets there,” Flora said. “She’s on her way now, and she’s not
the kind of person who wastes a lot of time.”

  Franklin Roosevelt laughed. “Well, I’m sure you’re right about that. I wonder what sort of cock-and-bull story I’ll have to tell her.”

  “She knows at least some of the truth,” Flora warned, remembering how little of the truth she really knew herself. “If what she hears from you doesn’t match what she already knows, that will be worse than if you didn’t tell her anything at all. Think of the headlines.”

  “ ‘Boondoggle to end all boondoggles!’ ” Roosevelt seemed to be quoting one. He also seemed to be enjoying himself while he did it. He went on, “Where did that word come from, anyway? It sounds like it ought to be something a Confederate would say.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Flora said. “I don’t know where it’s from, not for sure. I’ve certainly heard it. I don’t think you can live in Philadelphia without hearing it.”

  “That’s because so many boondoggles live here,” Roosevelt said cheerfully.

  “No doubt.” Flora didn’t sound cheerful, or anything close to it. “Is this project out in Washington another one?”

  “If it works, no one will ever say a word about what we spent on it,” the Assistant Secretary of War answered. “And if it doesn’t, nobody will ever stop investigating us. I can’t do anything about it either way except hope it works and do everything I can to help the people who know more about it than I do.”

  That sounded less encouraging than Flora wished it did, but was perhaps more honest than the usual glowing promises. She said, “I think you ought to tell Ophelia Clemens as much as you’ve told me”—however much that is—“and swear her to secrecy.”

  “If she’ll swear to instead of swearing at.” Roosevelt sounded dubious.

  “She may not like the administration. She may not even like the government, no matter who’s in charge,” Flora said. “But I’ll tell you one thing, Franklin: I promise she likes it better than she likes Jake Featherston.”

  “Mm, you’ve probably got something there,” Roosevelt admitted. “No—you’ve definitely got something there. I think I’m going to have to call the President before I talk to her, but that’s what I’ll put to him. Before I go, though, I’ve got a question for you.”