Breakthroughs

by Harry Turtledove

  When he exhaled, he was amazed he didn’t breathe out fire and smoke. He took another pull. There was a roaring in his ears. After a moment, he realized the corn likker hadn’t caused it. It was real. It grew rapidly, and turned to a scream in the air. He’d heard that sound in the uprising the year before.

  He threw himself flat. He wasn’t the first one on the ground, either. Artillery shells rained down. Explosions picked him up and flung him about. Shell fragments and shrapnel balls tore up the landscape. Blast from a near miss yanked at his ears and his lungs. Someone was screaming like a damned soul—the man who’d blindfolded him, his belly laid open like a butchered hog’s.

  At last, the shelling ended. Scipio thanked the God he still trusted more than Marx that he was still in one piece. Also in one piece, Cassius took the bombardment in stride. “Miss Anne, she do have you followed,” he said, brushing mud from his shirt. “You want to go back to she now?” Numbly, Scipio shook his head. Cassius grinned. “Den we welcomes you to de Congaree Socialist Republic agin.”

  Not having wanted to join the uprising in the first place, Scipio wanted even less to join this sad ghost of it. What possible fate could he have but being hunted down and killed? After a moment, he realized Anne Colleton couldn’t have had anything else in mind. You are mine, she’d told him. Now it pleased her to amuse herself with her possession.

  As Major Abner Dowling was making his way from his tent to the farmhouse where General Custer and his wife were staying, an enormous Pierce-Arrow limousine came snarling up the road, raising an even more enormous cloud of dust. It pulled to a stop alongside of Major Dowling. “Excuse me, is this First Army headquarters?” the driver asked.

  Dowling was about to give him a sarcastic answer—what the devil else would this be?—when he saw who was riding in the back of the limousine. Gold-rimmed spectacles, graying roan mustache, a big grin that showed an alarming number of teeth…He was so busy staring at President Theodore Roosevelt, he almost forgot to answer the driver’s question.

  When Custer’s adjutant admitted the fellow had brought Roosevelt to the right place, the president said, “And you’re Dowling, aren’t you?” He got out of the motorcar and pointed at the portly soldier. “You come with me, Major. I’ll want to speak with you also.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.” Dowling could scarcely have said anything else when his commander-in-chief gave him a direct order. He did not like the way Roosevelt had shown up unannounced at Custer’s headquarters. The likeliest explanation he could think of for Roosevelt’s unannounced appearance was one that put Custer in hot water—and himself, as well.

  He moved his bulky frame as fast as he could, to get into the farmhouse ahead of the president. He hoped that would look as if he was escorting Roosevelt, not warning General Custer of his arrival.

  Custer and Libbie were in the parlor. Instead of studying matters military, they were diligently going over newspapers. Intent on that, neither of them had noticed the Pierce-Arrow outside. Dowling said, “General, President Roosevelt is here to consult with you.” That was the best face he could put on the president’s arrival.

  “Is he?” Custer said with a distinct sneer in his voice. Sure as hell, he and Roosevelt had loathed each other since the Second Mexican War, each convinced to the bottom of his stubborn soul that the other had nabbed more credit in that mostly sorry fight than he deserved.

  “Yes, General, I am here,” Roosevelt said, stepping into the farmhouse on Dowling’s heels. Awkward with age, Custer got to his feet and saluted his commander-in-chief. In Montana, he’d been a Regular Army brevet brigadier general and Teddy Roosevelt a cavalry colonel of Volunteers. Now their relative ranks were reversed. Dowling knew how much Custer detested that.

  “How good to see you, sir,” Custer said, looking and sounding like a man with a toothache.

  “A pleasure, as always.” Roosevelt was manifestly lying, too. He nodded to Libbie. “And a pleasure to see you, Mrs. Custer. I hope you will excuse me for taking your husband away, but I do have some business to discuss with him and with Major Dowling here.”

  “Of course.” Libbie shot him a look full of loathing. Dowling had never seen her so neatly outflanked. Without the tiniest doubt, she wanted to stay, not only to protect General Custer but also because she knew at least as much about what the First Army was doing as he did. But she could not stay, not after Roosevelt’s blithe dismissal. Long black skirt flapping about her ankles, she swept out of the parlor.

  “Cornelia!” Custer called. When the pretty Negro housekeeper came out of the kitchen, the general went on, “Coffee for me, coffee for Major Dowling—and coffee for the president of the United States.” He might not care for Roosevelt, but he was not above using his acquaintance with him to impress Cornelia.

  And he did impress her. Her eyes widened. She dropped Roosevelt a curtsy before dashing away for the coffee. The president, affable enough, dipped his head in reply. He sat down in the chair across from the sofa where Custer and his wife had been checking the papers, and waved Dowling to Libbie’s place beside the general commanding First Army. Again, Custer’s adjutant could only obey.

  Roosevelt did not wait for Cornelia to come with the coffee. “Let’s get right down to brass tacks,” he said—like Custer, he did not have patience as his long suit. “General, the War Department is of the opinion that you have not been entirely candid in the reports you have been submitting in recent weeks. I have asked Major Dowling here to discuss this with us today, as he has prepared many of these reports under your direction.”

  Cornelia did come in with the coffee then—Custer’s and Dowling’s as they liked it, Roosevelt’s black with cream and sugar on the side to let him fix it as he would. The brief respite while the president fiddled with the cup did nothing to ease Dowling’s mind. Christ, they’ve got me cold, he thought, and wondered if his Army career was about to end here because he’d been so foolish as to obey his superior. Only discipline learned at the poker table kept him from showing his dread.

  If Custer knew dread, he didn’t show it, either. “The War Department has all sorts of opinions,” he said, sneering as he had when Dowling announced that Roosevelt was there. “A few of them bear a discernible relation to the real world—but only a few, mind you.”

  “Have you, then, or have you not been less than candid in your description of how you are deploying the barrels under your command?” Roosevelt asked.

  There it was, the question without a good answer. Sweat broke out on Dowling’s forehead, though the parlor was cool verging on chilly. Now Custer would lie, and now Roosevelt would crucify him—and, as small change in the transaction, would crucify Dowling, too.

  Custer laughed. “Of course I’ve been less than candid, Mr. President,” he answered, his tone inviting Roosevelt to share a secret with him. “So has Major Dowling, at my direct order. The lads with the thick glasses in Philadelphia must have been more alert than usual, to notice.”

  “I hope you have some good explanation for your extraordinary statement, General,” Roosevelt said. Dowling devoutly hoped Custer had a good explanation, too. From long acquaintance with the general commanding First Army, though, he knew that hope was liable, even likely, to be disappointed.

  Not this time. Laughing again, Custer said, “I have reason to believe the Rebels are somehow getting their hands on the reports I forward to the War Department, and so I have been carefully feeding them false information for the past several weeks. I hope they are less astute than our own people, and fail to notice the deception.”

  Roosevelt rounded on Dowling. “Major, is what General Custer says true?”

  If he wanted to, Dowling could break Custer here. He could not only break him, he could break him and come out, in the short run, smelling like a rose as he did it. The old fool had served himself up with an apple in his mouth, and all Dowling had to do was carve. He’d dreamt of a chance like this for years—and, now that he had it, he discovered he couldn’t stick the knif
e in. That was what it would be: a stab in the back. He might escape Custer with it, but, afterwards, who in the Army would trust an officer who laid his superior low?

  “Answer me, Major,” Roosevelt said.

  “I’m sorry, your Excellency,” Dowling said. “General Custer did not tell me why he wanted the reports to appear as if they were disguising the concentration of barrels.” That was a lie, but no one could ever prove it was a lie. “I presume, though, that it was for reasons of security.”

  If Roosevelt felt like seeing for himself how the barrels were deployed, everything could still cave in, like a trench with a mine touched off below it. The president didn’t go charging off to do that, not right away, anyhow. Rubbing his chin, he asked, “Why, General, do you believe the Confederates may have been reading your dispatches to Philadelphia?”

  “Just by way of example, sir, how could General MacArthur’s attack over by Cotton Town have failed last fall if the Rebs had no advance warning of it?” Custer asked—reasonably. “Daniel MacArthur is as fine a brigadier general and division commander as the U.S. Army possesses, but he failed. The Rebs must have prepared in advance to withstand him.”

  MacArthur’s attack had failed, among other reasons, because Custer didn’t give his fine brigadier general the—admittedly extravagant—artillery support and number of barrels he’d requested. Custer didn’t want MacArthur gaining glory, any more than he’d wanted Roosevelt gaining glory in the Second Mexican War. Dowling had watched Custer outmaneuver MacArthur. Could he outmaneuver Roosevelt, too?

  Maybe he could. The president coughed. “Why have you not presented these suspicions to the War Department?” he asked, and Dowling realized he was witnessing something few men had ever seen: Theodore Roosevelt in retreat.

  Custer smiled. When he heard that question, he knew he had the game in hand. “Your Excellency, since I have not been able to determine how the Confederates are obtaining their information, I did not wish to run the risk of informing them that I knew they were doing so. Letting them have information that is not true struck me as being more profitable.”

  “More profitable, you say?” Roosevelt perked up. He set a finger by the side of his nose. “And you have a plan to make them pay, so you can reap the profit?”

  “Mr. President, I do,” Custer answered, telling the truth, as far as Dowling could see, for the first time in the interview.

  “Very well, General,” Roosevelt said. “Till the mare drops her foal, no one can tell what the creature will look like. I shall judge your plan—and whether you were wise to conceal it not only from the foe but also from your countrymen—by the result.” He got to his feet. “I thank you for your time, General. Major Dowling, thank you also for your part in explaining what has occurred here. Good morning, gentlemen.” Without waiting for a reply, Roosevelt walked out to the limousine.

  Dowling stared out the window, hardly daring to believe the Pierce-Arrow was really rolling away. When it was out of sight, he let out a long, heartfelt sigh of relief. “My God, sir, you got away with it.”

  Custer looked disgracefully smug. “Of course I did, Major.”

  “That was an inspired explanation you gave him.” Dowling was not used to admiring Custer’s wits. Doing so felt strange and wrong, as if he were dabbling in some unnatural vice.

  “So it was, if I do say so myself.” The vain, pompous old fool looked more smug still. Dowling fought down the urge to retch.

  Libbie Custer came downstairs in a rustle of skirts. “I saw him leave,” she said. “Did he swallow it, Autie?”

  “Every morsel, my dear.” Some of the smugness hissed out of Custer, as if he were an observation balloon with a leak. He turned back to Dowling. “Major, now that the president has gone…” Had it been a complete sentence, he would have finished it with something like, Get the hell out of here yourself.

  “Yes, sir.” Dowling left in a hurry. So Libbie was the one who came up with the second line of defense, he thought. Slowly, he nodded. He should have known Custer wouldn’t have the brains to do it on his own. He nodded again, his faith in his own sense of how the world worked in large measure restored.

  But Custer, even if he hadn’t planned the deception, had carried it off. If he could deceive the Confederates, too…He hadn’t had much luck doing that in any of the fighting up till now. But then, he hadn’t tried very hard, either. If he did, if he could…

  It made a man hope. In this war, too much hope was dangerous. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Abner Dowling said.

  Arthur McGregor rode the wagon toward Rosenfeld. Whenever U.S. trucks came up behind him, he delayed a little before moving off to the shoulder to let them roar past. It was a tiny bit of resistance, but all he could muster. He had to clench the reins tightly to keep from shouting abuse at the Americans. When the time came, he would try to take his revenge. Till then, he had to seem as conquered, as beaten down, as the rest of his countrymen.

  Outside Rosenfeld, the occupiers had a checkpoint. They were meticulous in searching the wagon, and even more meticulous in searching his person. They found nothing out of the ordinary. There was nothing out of the ordinary to find. “Pass on,” one of them said.

  “Thank you, sir,” McGregor answered, abject as a kicked dog. He scrambled back up into the seat, flicked the reins, and rolled on toward the little town where he bought what he couldn’t raise for himself.

  Rosenfeld, Manitoba, these days, was more nearly an American town than a Canadian one. Most of the men on the streets wore green-gray. Most of the talk McGregor heard was in sharp American accents, sour to his ears. Most of the money that changed hands was American money: boring green banknotes, coins full of eagles and stars and thunderbolts instead of bearing the images of George and Edward and Victoria. Most of the money in McGregor’s pocket was American money. He hated that, too.

  He had to tie up his wagon on a side street. American motorcars and trucks and wagons and even bicycles dominated Main Street. As he came round the corner, a green-gray Ford whizzed past him.

  He had to work hard to keep his face straight, to show none of what he was thinking. Major Hannebrink was at the wheel of that Ford. Unusually, he had none of his Springfield-carrying bully boys with him. Probably isn’t out to murder anyone this morning, McGregor thought. Maybe he waits till after lunch to do his murdering.

  The post office was only a few doors away. When McGregor went inside, the familiar spicy smell of Wilfred Rokeby’s hair oil greeted his nose. The postmaster used the aromatic stuff to keep his hair pasted down at either side of the precise part that ran back along the middle of his scalp.

  “Good day to you, Arthur,” Rokeby said, his voice as prim and precise as that ruler-drawn part. “How are you today?” He asked that question cautiously, as he was in the habit of doing since Alexander’s death.

  “I’ve been better, Wilf, and that’s the truth, but I’ve been worse, too,” McGregor answered. He sniffed in an exaggerated fashion. “Haven’t you run out of that damned grease of yours yet? Sure as hell, the plant that made it must be turning out poison gas these days.”

  Rokeby glared, then stared, and then chuckled quietly. “First time I’ve heard you make a joke in a while, Arthur, even if it is aimed at me. What can I do for you this morning?”

  “Let me have twenty-five of those stamps the Yanks are making us use,” McGregor said.

  “Here you are,” Rokeby said. “That’ll be a dollar even.” Letter rate remained two cents, as it had been before the war. But people in occupied Canada also paid a two-cent surcharge for every stamp, the extra money going into a fund for entertainers who amused U.S. soldiers.

  McGregor had complained about the surcharge ever since it was initiated. He kept quiet now, save for a low sigh as he set a silver dollar on the table. It was a U.S. coin, and had a bust of Liberty on one side, which struck him as ironic. The other side showed a fierce eagle and the word REMEMBRANCE.

  Rokeby quickly scooped the dollar into the cas
h box, as if afraid leaving it where McGregor could see it might inflame him. But McGregor seemed unable to rise to inflammation today. “Saw Hannebrink driving out of town when I was walking over here,” he remarked.

  “Did you?” At the mention of the security officer, Wilfred Rokeby grew wary again. Then his own expression changed—to, of all things, amusement. “Was he heading out by his lonesome, without any wolfhounds along?”

  “Matter of fact, he was,” McGregor said. He turned and looked out the window. “You see him as he went by?”

  Rokeby shook his head. “I did not,” he said, and his voice compelled belief. “But I have heard—don’t know for certain, mind you, but they do say it—I have heard, like I was tellin’ you, he’s got himself a cutie-pie somewheres outside of town.”

  “Hannebrink?” Arthur McGregor stared. Until this moment, the idea that any Canadian woman might be friendly—might be more than friendly—to the Yank who had murdered Alexander had never entered his mind. But for strumpets, for whom such matters were business arrangements, he hadn’t heard of any of his countrywomen showing friendship—or something more than friendship—toward the hated occupiers. That, of course, did not mean such things failed to happen. “You wouldn’t know who she is, would you?”

  Rokeby quickly shook his head. Silent curses echoed through McGregor’s mind. Had he been too obvious? Perhaps not, for the postmaster answered, “Not sure anybody here in town does. Whoever the gal is, don’t expect it’s something she’d want to brag on, you know what I mean?”

  “That I do, Wilf,” McGregor answered. Pretending he didn’t know what Rokeby was talking about would have been an obvious lie, and so more dangerous than agreeing with him. The farmer picked up the stamps, folded them over themselves, and put them into an overcoat pocket. “Obliged to you. See you again next time I come to town, I expect.”

  “Take care of yourself,” Rokeby said. “Take care of your family.” Was that an oblique warning, of the sort Maude made? McGregor didn’t know. He didn’t worry about it, either. With a nod to the postmaster, he left the post office, went back to the wagon for the kerosene tin, and strode down the street to the general store.