by Eric Flint
That was the way ambitious men conducted themselves in the United States also, he knew. Sheff couldn't think of a single man of any prominence in America who wasn't married, unless his wife had died.
So, he'd started turning his mind to that problem. No sooner had he done so than the figure of Imogene Johnson had come into very clear and sharp focus. Almost instantly, she'd gone from being a very attractive but too young girl to being something completely different.
The girl was important. A girl to aim for. Her father was a United States senator. She'd been raised in wealth and privilege, even if the privileges had been somewhat constrained by her skin color.
But the latter, from Sheff 's viewpoint, was what made the whole thing thinkable at all. John Ridge had married a white girl, and from what Sheff could determine the marriage seemed to be working out quite well. But Sheff couldn't even contemplate the idea, leaving aside whatever social barriers he might encounter. The idea of a white wife just made him nervous.
Imogene, on the other hand:
"Come on, Sheff." Cal jogged his elbow. "Let's mingle a bit."
Sheff made his decision. You couldn't be an officer unless you were bold, after all.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "But you go ahead if you want to."
With no further ado, he headed for Julia Chinn and her daughters, seated against one of the walls of the great hall. Behind him, he heard Cal mutter something. He wasn't sure, but he thought it had been "Damn hero! You'll get us both killed in action."
Sheff had to consciously restrain himself from adopting a quick march pace. It wasn't easy. By now, that had become his ingrained habit whenever there was something urgent and pressing to be done. He knew that Robert Ross was still critical of many features of the Arkansas Army, especially its small officer corps, but the one thing he would allow was that it was probably the best disciplined and best trained army in existence, when it came to a sergeant's basics. Certainly on this side of the Atlantic.
Imogene spotted him almost immediately. With a new feeling-plain warmth, instead of nervous excitement-Sheff realized that was because she'd been keeping an eye on him since the ball started. He didn't begin to understand why the girl was interested in him. But that she was, he was now quite certain.
In the uncanny way the two had, her twin's sudden interest registered on Adaline within a couple of seconds. Now she, too, was watching him come closer. Or, more likely-he thought he could hear Cal's footsteps behind him-his fellow officer.
After a moment, Adaline's gaze began sliding off and then back again, in the awkward way a thirteen-year-old girl tries to act demure in public.
Imogene didn't bother. Her eyes remained fixed on Sheff the whole time. So did the big smile on her face.
By the time Sheff was within twenty feet, their mother had spotted him also. The expression on her face made it clear that he was about as welcome as a tornado.
Fortitude, fortitude. He kept advancing fearlessly.
"The girls will not be dancing, Lieutenant Parker," Julia Chinn announced as soon as he came up. She stated the sentence with the same firmness a granite boulder might announce it was a real, no-fooling rock.
"Oh, certainly, Miz Julia. They're still a bit young for such carryings-on." He was quite proud of the smooth way he said that. Not a single stammer or waver anywhere in it, even with his hands properly clasped behind his back. "But it occurred to me you might need some refreshments by now, and-"
He nodded toward their chairs. "If you relinquish these seats, you'll never get them back, with this mob."
He said and did all that smoothly, too. With just the right smile: slight, sophisticated, relaxed, at ease. Fortunately, he'd had a better role model for such business over the past few months than he'd ever had in his life. Major General Robert Ross did everything with style, and he made it a point to correct his students' manners if they lapsed-which they often did-into the sergeants' ways of the older officers of the army.
He'd heard the Laird grumble once that Ross seemed determined to produce a pack of young officers who acted for all the world as if they were English gentry. Which he thought absurd, given that all but seven of them were black. But on this subject at least, Sheff was firmly in the British general's camp.
Julia Chinn was staring at him. The hostility was still there in full force-it didn't even lessen when Cal showed up alongside Sheff-but she now seemed a bit startled, also.
"I am thirsty, Mama," Imogene said.
"So am I. And you were just complaining about it yourself," her twin added.
Chinn glanced at the girls. Then, at the long table at the far end of the ballroom where the drinks were being served.
"Well:"
She rallied for an instant. "I'm not having these girls touching any liquor! Certainly not the blackstrap and applejack they're serving over there. No wine, neither."
"Of course not, ma'am." Cal unclasped his hands and motioned toward the table with his right. "But I believe there's some apple cider available, as well as tea. And I can probably rummage up some tea cakes, as well."
"I am a little hungry, Mama," Imogene immediately piped up.
The refrain from Adaline followed as smoothly as if they'd rehearsed it: "So am I. And you were just commenting yourself-"
"Enough!" Chinn nodded abruptly. "Very well, then. Some tea and cakes would be nice. And, ah, thank you, Lieutenant Parker. You as well, Lieutenant McParland."
Once the refreshments were brought to Julia Chinn and her daughters, Sheff didn't try to dawdle in their company for more than a reasonably gracious minute or two. Just an officer and a gentleman, doing his duty. If he'd learned nothing else from Robert Ross over the past few months, he'd learned the difference between a battle and a campaign, and a campaign and a war.
This was a campaign at the very least. He hoped he could avoid an outright war.
"You're still plotting, aren't you?" Cal grumbled after they left.
"Yes."
Sheff kept an eye on them throughout the next hour, maintaining proper position. Once he saw that Julia was finally taking the girls out of the ballroom, he moved to intercept them just outside the hotel. By now, Callender was no longer with him. He'd gotten distracted by the dancing, followed by a friendly argument with another artillery officer. The sort of argument that two young men get into, neither of them knowing much concerning the subject they were debating and both of them absolutely certain they were correct. A complete waste of time, so far as Sheff was concerned.
He emerged out of the shadows just as the Johnson women came off the veranda onto the street.
"Miz Julia. What a surprise. I was just leaving for the barracks myself. I need to be up early tomorrow to see to the arrangements for the march." He gave the twins a courteous nod. "Imogene. Adaline."
Chinn was looking at him suspiciously. So it seemed, at any rate. The light shed by the two lamps on the veranda was poor, and the streets beyond were completely dark except for an occasional lamp in front of a tavern.
Sheff had come prepared for that, of course. He didn't think he was the smartest young fellow around, not by a long shot. But he was possibly the most methodical and systematic.
He held up the oil lamp in his hand, which he hadn't lit yet. "I've a lamp handy. If you'll give me a moment to strike a light, perhaps I could escort you home."
Julia had given up her rooms at the hotel six weeks earlier, foreseeing the prospect of an immense influx of Choctaw refugees. She'd rented rooms in one of New Antrim's few good boardinghouses, just four blocks up the street. The lodgings weren't as spacious as they'd enjoyed at the Wolfe Tone, but the boardinghouse was considerably quieter than the hotel, and the food was better. The black family who owned and operated the boardinghouse and its adjacent tavern were freedmen from New York, who had experience in the trade.
She hesitated for a moment. Quite obviously, torn between the impulse to refuse and the practical reality that walking in the dark down New Antrim's street
s-the main street perhaps worst of all-was a chancy business without a lamp. Even in boots, much less good shoes.
"Well:I was thinking of hiring a carriage."
Sheff waited patiently, the very soul of politeness, while Julia worked out the arithmetic herself. True, New Antrim did have public carriages. Quite a few of them, in fact, since that was a trade that was open to black people in the United States. Mostly simple buckboards in the summer and booby huts in the winter-the ungainly sleighs that were sometimes called Boston boobies. An occasional shay or even a Dearborn here and there.
The problem was that the city also had, by now, a population as large as that of any in the United States outside of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore. And if the population was proportionately much poorer, that was mostly due to the absence of much in the way of a wealthy upper crust. The average resident of New Antrim wasn't probably any worse off than the average resident of New York or Philadelphia, certainly not the average immigrant. Most of them could afford a carriage, now and then, for special occasions.
Which tonight most definitely was. In a few days, Arkansas would be fighting for its very existence. The whole city was turning out to cheer on its army, whether they could get into the Wolfe Tone or not.
"Well:"
"Oh, Mama. " That was Adaline, not Imogene, expressing simple impatience. Imogene was-probably wisely-keeping her mouth shut.
A strange little smile came to Julia Chinn's face. It seemed so, at least, to Sheff. More sad than anything else. He wasn't sure, though. The lighting on the veranda really wasn't very good.
"Very well, Lieutenant. And thank you for the offer."
On the way to the boardinghouse, Julia began questioning Sheff. Pointed questions concerning his own prospects, to his surprise, rather than the general inquiries he'd expected regarding the upcoming campaign.
"But why the infantry, Lieutenant Parker? It's:Well, I can only go by what my-the senator says-but Dick tells me the infantry is the lowest-regarded of the service branches. At least in the United States Army."
"That's true, ma'am. Engineers are held in the highest esteem in the American army, followed by artillerymen, cavalrymen-and, sure 'nough, infantrymen at the very bottom."
He gave her a smile that he hoped looked confident. Assuming she could see it at all, in the light thrown off by a single lamp. "But the thing is, Miz Julia, the U.S. Army is mostly designed for peacetime. The main thing they do is build dams and the like. And since that sort of civil engineering requires advanced mathematics-the artillery also, to some extent-it draws the best educated men."
He shrugged. "Which I'm not. But the Laird doesn't look at it the same way, in any event. Neither does General Ball. Arkansas is mountain country, from a military point of view."
"Most of the people don't live up there," Adaline objected.
"Yes, I know, Miss Johnson. Most people in Arkansas live in New Antrim, the Fort of 98, or somewhere in the river valley. But that's not where any big war will be decided. Our enemies can probably take the Delta and the lower river valley, if they try hard enough. Maybe even New Antrim. They can't take the Ozarks and the Ouachitas. That's where Arkansas lives and dies-and that's infantry country."
They'd reached the boardinghouse. "Arkansas has the best infantry in the world. That's our opinion, anyway-and we aim to prove it, sometime in the next week or so."
Sheff held the lamp a little higher to allow the women a good view of the short staircase. "It's been a pleasure, ladies."
"Be careful, Sheff!" Imogene blurted out. "Please be careful!"
In the dim lighting, right then, she looked much older than she was. A young woman instead of a girl. Sheff thought his heart might have skipped a beat or two.
Or three. Lord, she was pretty.
"Please be careful," she repeated.
"Imogene, stop carrying on," her mother scolded her. But there wasn't much heat in it.
"Thank you for the courtesy, Lieutenant. We'll be going in now. Please take our best wishes with you. And:Well. Be careful."
A moment later, she was shooing the girls into the boardinghouse. Sheff waited until the door closed, and then went on his way.
As soon as they got into the house, Imogene raced over to the small window that gave a view of the street outside. Within a second she had her nose pressed to the pane.
"Imogene, stop carrying on!"
"He's gonna get hurt, Mama," the girl whispered. "I just know he is. Maybe even kilt."
"It's 'going' to get hurt, not 'gonna.' And if I hear you say 'kilt' again, you'll be the one kilt. And take your face out of the window!"
Imogene's nose didn't budge.
"Oh, Mama, please. I really like Sheff."
Julia sighed. She wasn't really up for this battle. The problem was:
She liked Sheffield Parker herself. Quite a bit, in fact. He seemed like a very levelheaded and reliable young man. Quite well suited to Imogene, actually, who was a bit too high-strung.
But it just wouldn't do. Richard would have conniptions at the idea. And while Julia didn't have the same emotional reaction, she didn't really disagree with him. A person had to be cold-blooded about these things. The best chance Imogene and Adaline would have in this world, with everything else they had against them, would be to marry white men. Not a negro boy whose skin was almost literally as black as coal. It didn't matter what else might be true about him. Not until the afterlife, at any rate.
"He's going to get hurt," Imogene said. "Oh, Mama, I just know it!"
Under the circumstances, Julia decided to settle for the grammatical victory.
1824: TheArkansasWar
CHAPTER 33
The Arkansas River
Three miles downstream from Arkansas Post
J ULY 22, 1825
Gloomily, Major General William Henry Harrison watched men from one of the batteries of the 1st Artillery struggling with a six-pounder whose carriage had gotten stuck in the mud by the riverbank. They were having to manhandle the thing up onto dry land-drier land, rather-because the footing was so bad that trying to use horses for the purpose would have been more trouble than it was worth.
"Wish we had some oxen." That came from Stephen Fleming, one of the young lieutenants who served as an aide to the general.
"And what good would that do?" Harrison almost snarled the words. He pointed a finger at the battery, whose three other guns and two howitzers had finally been dragged clear of the muck on the riverbank. "That's supposed to be field artillery, you-"
He bit off the rest. Then, after a moment to steady his temper, continued in a more even tone. "The whole point of light artillery, Lieutenant Fleming, is to be able to maneuver with it on a battlefield. Maneuver-with oxen! Do you know how fast a team of oxen can pull a cannon? Any cannon, whether it's a four-pounder or a siege gun?"
Abashed, the young lieutenant avoided his commanding general's gaze. "Uh. No, sir. I don't."
"One. Mile. An. Hour." Harrison shifted his glare from the hapless officer to the battery crew still struggling with the six-pounder. "Which is just about what we're managing as it is."
He looked up at the sun to gauge the time, rather than taking the trouble to pull out his watch. It was already at least an hour past noon. No way to begin the assault on Arkansas Post until the morrow, at the earliest. They'd lost another day.
The whole campaign, thus far, seemed to be nothing more than one lost day after another. Silently, Harrison spent the next few seconds cursing Thomas Jesup and the Arkansas Delta in about equal proportions.
That done, he spent considerably more time cursing militiamen in general and the Georgia militia in particular. Their slack habits, near-constant drunkenness, and indiscipline had cost him at least as much in the way of lost days as fouled-up logistics and soggy terrain.
He'd been warned about them by Andrew Jackson himself, when he'd paid the Tennessee senator a visit at the Hermitage in mid-April. Harrison had decided he could afford to take th
e time to do so, since his supplies were so badly snarled it would be at least two weeks before anything got moving again.
Jackson had been cordial, and the visit had gone smoothly. There was no love lost between the two men, to be sure-never had been-but Jackson was being careful. The running stream of caustic and excoriating comments he was having published in the nation's newspapers concerning "Clay's War" were always aimed entirely at Henry Clay and John Calhoun and the politicians around them. Toward the U.S. Army itself, Jackson's stance was friendly and supportive. In public, at least-and in private as well, if the tenor of Harrison's visit with him was any gauge.
"No militia's worth much, of course, unless you've got time to train them thoroughly-which you usually don't, because their terms of enlistment are so short. But the Georgians are the worst of all."
They'd been standing in the front yard of the Hermitage when Jackson made the comment. He pointed to an aged hound lying in the shade by the wall of the house. "Old Hussar, over there, is no lazier. The difference is, he don't drink, he don't gamble, he don't steal-well, not much; nothing compared to what a Georgian will-he don't rape all the womenfolk he can get his paws on, he don't sass you, he don't argue every blasted thing under the sun"-Jackson took time for a breath-"and he don't run off in a panic if a rooster crows or a cat hisses at him."
"That bad?"
Jackson nodded. "That bad. The worst of it is they're also the biggest braggarts in the country. If you didn't know better, just listening to 'em, you'd swear that their forefathers whupped Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, and their own martial accomplishments put those to shame."
Jackson barked a sarcastic laugh. "Southron valor, they call it. Bah. I wouldn't trade a whole company of Georgia militia for one Tennessean or two Kentuckians. Well. Three Kentuckians. You always got to subtract one Kentuckian on account of the whiskey consumption."