However much he wanted to, he couldn't say that to the war reporter walking through the ruined streets of Slaughters beside him. Custer's famous name was what had drawn Richard Harding Davis out to Kentucky to see the American troops in action.
Davis had seen a lot of wars, all around the world. His reports from Manila as the Japanese were entering the city were classics in their way. So were his reports on what they'd done to the Spanish prisoners they'd taken, though those hadn't been filed till he was safely out of the Philippines.
And now here he was with Custer's First Army- and with the chance, even if he hadn't known it when he got here, to write stories about something new in warfare on the North American continent.
"You're sure the general will let me go right up to the front?" the reporter asked Dowling for about the fourth time. Davis was fifty or so, ruggedly handsome (though his color wasn't all it could have been, and he panted a little as he walked along beside Dowling), and wore a green-gray jacket halfway between a military style and one a big-game hunter might have used. It had more pockets than you could shake a stick at. Dowling wished he owned one like it.
"Mr. Davis," he answered, "General Custer is going up to the front. He wants to see this for himself. He has already told me repeatedly, you are welcome to accompany him and me." Now that you're here, Mr. Davis, General Custer would strangle with his own liver-spotted hands anyone who had the gall to try to get between him and headlines, which is to say, between you and him.
Custer had billeted himself in one of the few houses in Slaughters only lightly damaged: a two-story Victorian structure whose windows had only jagged shards of glass in them but whose walls and roof remained intact. A couple of sentries stood outside the front door. They'd dug foxholes nearby, into which they could dive in case the Rebs started shelling the town again. They saluted Dowling and eyed Richard Harding Davis with respectful curiosity. He wasn't just a reporter, but had a name as a novelist and playwright as well.
"Go on in," one of them said, opening the door. "The general should be finishing up his breakfast about now, and I know he'll be glad to see you."
As the sentry had said, Custer sat at the kitchen table. The view through the bay window had probably been lovely, back before it turned into a prospect of charred rubble and shell holes. The general was attacking his plate with knife, fork, and great gusto.
He turned when Dowling and Davis came into the room. Pointing down at his breakfast, he exclaimed, "Raw onions!" Such was his delight that, had he been writing, he probably would have used capital letters and four exclamation points.
Dowling did not share that delight. He coughed and did his best not to inhale, but his eyes started watering to beat the band in spite of the improved ventilation the shattered bay window gave the kitchen. He'd known about Custer's love for onions- anyone who had anything to do with Custer found out about that- but why had the general chosen today of all days for them?
Richard Harding Davis did his best to take the potent vegetables in stride. "A warm-up for the rest of the day's show, eh?" he said, but could not help wiping his eyes with his sleeve.
"That's right, by jingo!" Custer said, shovelling another odorous forkful into his mouth. He went on till he was done. When he'd finished the whole plate, he spoke in meditative tones: "Those onions could have used some salt. Well, can't be helped. Shall we go disinfect some Rebels, gentlemen?"
Off they went. Custer's motorcar, despite having to veer off the road a couple of times to avoid craters, brought them past the artillery posts, where men without shirts stood waiting in the June sunshine for the order to rain death down on the Confederate lines. Custer talked gaily about Custer all the while. Davis scribbled an occasional note. Dowling wished the commanding general would shut up, not only because he'd heard all the stories before but also because, even with the wind streaming by in the open motorcar, Custer's breathe was still hideously vile.
Once they came to the rear of the trench system, the motorcar could advance no farther. Dowling wondered if Custer would make it to the front under his own power. The commanding general was a long way from being the spry, dashing soldier of thirty-odd years gone by, though obviously he was convinced that time's wrinkled hand hadn't touched him at all.
He was spry enough to reach the trenches without undue difficulty, though. Richard Harding Davis proved to be the one who had trouble there. "Wind isn't what it used to be," he said apologetically, letting a hand rest on his chest for a moment, as if his heart pained him. He lighted a cigarette and went gamely on.
Here and there along the way, pieces of crates stencilled BATTERY F and DISINFECTION were used as corduroying on the floor of the trench or as pieces of lean-tos and other shelters cut into the earth of the trench wall. Custer had just started talking about them when a Confederate aeroplane came buzzing overhead.
"Shoot him down!" the general shouted, his sagging features twisting in alarm. "If the Rebs see what we're up to, there'll be hell to pay!"
For once, Dowling agreed completely with his commander. Yelling in the middle of the trench line, though, didn't strike him as the best way to get the antiaircraft gunners to go to work. Fortunately, they didn't need Custer's encouragement. They opened up on the Confederate scout with everything they had. The air around his aeroplane filled with black puffs, as intense a barrage as Dowling had ever seen. The Reb must have felt the same way. He turned around and scooted for his own lines. The antiaircraft fire followed him till he was out of range.
Moving forward grew difficult then, because the trenches were packed with men in green-gray, their gauze masks making them all look alike, waiting to storm forward when the order was given. It wouldn't be long now. Dowling's bulk and the magic of Custer's name cleared the path enough that the general, his adjutant, and Davis were able to reach the very forward most trenches in good time.
Resting at the front of those trenches, spaced several yards apart, were metal cylinders about as long as a man, each one painted dark blue. Alongside each cylinder stood a masked man with a wrench, ready to open the fitting and let its contents spew forth into the air.
"What is the hour, Major?" Custer demanded.
He had a pocket watch of his own, but asking Dowling the question was easier than taking it out and looking at it. "Sir, it's 0625," Dowling said resignedly after checking his own watch.
"Splendid!" Custer said. "Capital! Couldn't be better. We're scheduled to begin at 0630, provided the wind holds." He licked a finger and stuck it up in the air. He stuck it up high enough, as a matter of fact, that he was lucky not to get shot in the hand. "Holding very nicely-straight out of the west, just as we want."
"When the Germans used chlorine gas against the French and the English at Ypres, they made gains, but not a breakthrough," Davis said. "How will you make sure we do better than our allies?"
That was a good question. Dowling wondered how Custer would answer it. Dowling wondered if Custer could answer it. The truth was that the USA, like everyone else in the war, seized eagerly on anything that might yield a small edge in the murderous struggle. Every U.S. army in Kentucky was trying chlorine gas today. Making gains without losing men by the tens of thousands looked very good, even to Custer, who normally used up soldiers as if they were so many pieces of blotting paper.
But instead of replying, Custer shouted, "Release the gas!" It was, by Dowling's watch, still a minute early, but Custer's watch might have run faster-not that he checked to find out.
The men at the closest chlorine cylinders gave counter clockwise twists with their wrenches. Puffs, as of pale green smoke, spurted from the cylinders. Custer had been right about one thing; the wind was out of the west. It blew the puffs of smoke into a single dirty green cloud and sent that cloud rolling and billowing toward the Confederate trenches.