Curious, she used a letter opener shaped like a miniature cavalry saber to slit the envelope. The letter inside was in the same firm, clear, unfamiliar hand as the outer address. Dear Anne, it read, / hope this finds you as well as I found you on the train to New Orleans and in the town. As you will see, I remain there no longer, that not being a primary center for one of my training — not enough beasts to hunt. I can't say that here, having shot at several big ones and hit a few. Well, there's hunting and there's hunting, as the saying goes. I find I enjoy both kinds, and hope to pursue the other if I am ever out your way. By contrast with the rest of the letter, the signature below was al most a scrawclass="underline" Roger Kimball.
Anne Colleton folded the letter again. The submariner had discretion; she gave him that much. No spy would be able to infer what he did from that let ter. She could see why New Orleans was not a chief submarine base: the Gulf of Mexico being a Confederate lake, enemy ships were probably few and far between. Not so at Guaymas; the USA had a much longer Pacific coastline than the CSA.
No spy would be sure they'd been lovers, either. She worried about that less than most women might have, but it remained in her mind. She wondered whether to answer the letter or pretend she'd never got it. The latter choice was surely safer, but Anne had not got where she was by always playing safe. Either way, she didn't have to decide right now.
And, in fact, she didn't want to decide now. "Scipio," she said, and the butler began to move, seemingly began to breathe, for the first time since she'd started going through her mail. "Scipio," she repeated, gathering her thoughts, and then, "Do you know of anything special that's driving so many niggers out of the fields and into the factories? Besides money, I mean-I know what money does."
"I had not really thought about it, past endeavoring to see that we always have enough hands to perform the required labor," Scipio replied after a momentary hesitation: perhaps for thought, perhaps not.
Could she believe that? She did some fast thinking of her own, and decided she could. Scipio's duties centered on the mansion, and on keeping it and its staff in smooth working order. The field hands weren't his main concern. "Let me ask that another way," she said. "Have you noticed unusual unrest among any of the hands? I'm especially concerned about the new ones, you under stand. I'm sure the bucks and wenches who've grown up on this plantation are contented with their lot: again, except possibly over money."
Scipio's dark, handsome features reflected nothing but meticulous attention to her words. So he had been trained, and no one could deny the training was a success. Not even Anne, who had caused that perfect mask to be made, could hope to lift up one edge, so to speak, and see what lay behind it. And his beautifully modulated voice revealed only a polite lack of curiosity as he replied, "Madam, I assure you I make every effort to weed out any undesir able influences before they find positions here. And, as you say, the loyalty of your long-time staff is of course unquestioning."
"Thank you, Scipio. You do relieve my mind," Anne said. With a gracious nod, she released him to pursue the rest of his duties. He'd told her exactly what she wanted to hear.
The Confederates had the U.S. soldiers exactly where they wanted them, or so they thought. Captain Irving Morrell wondered how — wondered if-he was going to prove them wrong. The war to which he'd returned two and a half months before bore only a faint resemblance to the one from which he'd been carried in Sonora back in August. For that matter, the heavily forested Kentucky hill country in which he was operating now wasn't anything like the dusty desert where he'd been wounded.
His leg throbbed. He ignored it, as he'd been ignoring it ever since he hiked out of Shelbiana. Somewhere ahead, a good many miles ahead, lay Jenkins right by the Virginia border. In between seemed to be nothing but mountains and valleys and tiny coal-mining towns and even tinier farming hamlets and enough Rebels with guns to make advancing slow, hard, pain ful work.
Atop the hill ahead and in the trenches at its base were enough Confederates not just to slow the U.S. advance but to bring it to a halt. With the lieutenants and sergeants under him, Morrell slipped from one tree to another, drawing as close to the Rebel line as he could.
The sergeants would have been doing that job anyhow, but both lieutenants — their names were Craddock and Buhl-looked notably unhappy. "See for yourself," Morrell said as they sheltered behind a gnarled oak. He spoke as if he were in the pulpit expounding on Holy Writ. "See for yourself. Without good reconnaissance, your force is only half as useful as it would be otherwise-sometimes less than half as useful."
They couldn't argue with him-he outranked them. But they didn't look convinced, either. It wasn't that they were cowards; he'd already seen them fighting with all the courage any superior officer could want from his men. What they lacked was imagination. The way the war was chewing up the offi cer corps, they'd make captain if they lived. He supposed they might even end up majors. He was damned, though, if he saw them going any further, not if the war lasted till they were ninety.
Bill Craddock pointed out to the cleared ground in front of the Confeder ate line. "How are we supposed to cross that, sir?" he said, clearly with the expectation that Morrell would have no answer. "Rebel machine guns'll chew us up like termites gnawing on an old house."
"We'll have to bring our own machine guns forward before we move," Morrell said. "We can bring them up within a hundred yards of their trenches, and concentrate our fire on the places where we want to break in. And… Lieutenant, have you ever gone down to the Empire of Mexico and watched a bullfight?"
"Uh — no, sir," Craddock answered. His broad, stolid face showed he hadn't the faintest idea what Morrell was driving at, either.
With a mental sigh, the captain explained: "The fellow in the bull ring has a sword. That doesn't sound like enough against an angry bull with sharp horns, does it? But he also has a cape. The cape can't hurt the bull, not in a million years. But it's bright and it's showy, and so the bull runs right at it- and the bullfighter sticks the sword in before the bull even notices."
Karl Buhl was marginally quicker than Craddock. "You want us to feint from one direction and hit them from the other, is that what you're saying, sir?"
Morrell glanced at his non-coms. They all understood what he was talking about without his having to draw them any pictures. Some of them were liable to end up with higher ranks than either of their present platoon commanders. But Buhl and Craddock were doing their best, so he answered, "That's right. "We'll try going around the right flank, and then, as soon as they're all hot and bothered, the main force will come straight at 'em, with the machine guns de livering suppressive fire. We can assemble back there"-he pointed-"on the little reverse slope they've been kind enough to leave us."
Had he been commanding the Confederate defenders, he would have moved his line east from the base of the hill to the top of that reverse slope, so he'd have had men covering the ground Rebel bullets could not now reach. If the Rebs were going to be generous enough to give him a present like that, though, he wouldn't turn it down.
"Flanking party will attack at 0530 tomorrow morning," he said. "Buhl, you'll lead that one. We'll give you a couple of extra machine guns, too. If things go well, you won't be only a feint: your attack will turn into the real McCoy. You understand what you're to do?"
"Yes, sir," the lieutenant answered crisply. As long as you dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's for him, he did well enough.
"I'll lead the main force myself, starting at 0545," Morrell said. That left Craddock with no job but support. Morrell didn't care. For that matter, sup port mattered here, and could easily turn into something more. Crossing the open space toward the Confederate trenches was liable to get expensive in a hurry, and Craddock, however imperfectly qualified for company command, was liable to have it thrust upon him.