Before the comparison could have occurred to him, the first ammunition wagon arrived, too late to suit him but still sooner than the runner had said. Forgetting his resentment of Potter, he took out on the wagon driver the older anger he still felt, cursing him up one side and down the other. The driver, a lowly private first class, had to sit there and take it.
Finally having ammunition in his hands, though, let Jake work out resentment with something more than words. In mere minutes, the four guns he had left were banging away at the Yankees. The range was too long to let him see individual U.S. soldiers, but he could make out the boil and stir as shells slammed down among them. A man dropping rocks on a nest of ants below his second-story window could not see any of the individual bugs, either, but he could watch the nest boil and stir.
Clarence Potter, who spent most of the war back at the Army of Northern Virginia headquarters, also looked on with benign approval. “Make them sting,” he told Jake. “The higher the price they pay, the likelier they are to let us have the sort of peace we can live with.”
“I don’t give a damn about a peace we can live with,” Featherston snarled, adjusting the elevation screw on his field gun. “Only thing I give a damn about is killing the sons of bitches.” He raised his voice to a shout: “Fire!” Michael Scott jerked the lanyard. The cannon roared. Out flew the shell casing. In went another shell.
A man dropping rocks on a nest of ants did not have to worry that the ants would try to drop rocks on him, too. The guns of Featherston’s battery enjoyed no such immunity. Before long, U.S. artillery began replying. Shells did not come in so often as he sent them out, but they came from bigger pieces-four- and six-inch guns-firing from a range he could not hope to match. Since he could not match it, he ignored the fire, and continued to pepper the closer U.S. infantry, whom he could hit.
“You’re cool about this business,” Major Potter said. For a man unused to coming under shellfire, he was pretty cool himself. He didn’t dive for cover at a couple of near misses till the crew of Jake’s gun did.
Featherston shrugged. “They can’t shoot for hell, sir.” That wasn’t true, and he knew it damn well. The Yankee artillerymen were no less skilled at their trade than their counterparts in butternut. Since the beginning of the war, they’d enjoyed an edge in heavy guns, too. Sometimes the numbers and quick firing of the Confederates’ three-inchers could make up for that. Sometimes, as when trying to cave in deep dugouts, they couldn’t.
In a lull, Potter said, “We have to hold them at Bull Run. If we can’t hold them here, Richmond itself is threatened.”
“Do my damnedest, sir,” Jake answered. He didn’t know if that would be enough. By the way Potter talked, he didn’t think it would. Jake shrugged again. Defeat wouldn’t be his fault. As far as he was concerned, the War Department and the niggers could split the blame.
Lucien Galtier had not been expecting a visit from Major Jedediah Quigley. He certainly had not been expecting a warm, cordial visit from Major Quigley. That was what he got, though. The U.S. officer even brought along a bottle of brandy far smoother and finer than the homemade applejack Galtier had grown used to drinking.
After Marie came in from the kitchen with glasses, Quigley splashed brandy into them with a generous hand. He raised his glass in salute. “To the union of our great peoples!” he declared in his elegant French.
As far as Lucien was concerned, the U.S. major was making too much of the impending marriage between Nicole and Dr. O’Doull, but the Quebecois farmer held his peace. Quigley’s job seemed to entail making too much of everything that came to his notice, for ill or for good. This, at least, was for good.
It was also a toast to which Galtier could drink, even if he found it a bit more than the occasion called for. And the brandy was good. He hardly felt it going down his throat, but it filled his belly with warmth that quickly spread outward. “Formidable!” he murmured, respect in his voice.
“Glad you like it,” Quigley said, and sloshed more into his glass. The American poured himself a fresh dollop, too. After sipping, he went on in thoughtful tones: “I will admit to you, M. Galtier, that I never expected to be paying a social call here. When we first came to Quebec, you seemed a man more in love with the past than with the future.”
What he meant was, You didn’t act like a collaborator. Lucien still didn’t feel like a collaborator, either. He said, “When young people come to know each other, one cannot always guess ahead of time how these things will turn out.”
“There you certainly have reason,” Major Quigley said. “Back in New Hampshire, where I come from, my daughter married a young fellow who makes concertinas.” He knocked back his brandy. For a moment, thinking about the choice his daughter had made, he looked not at all like an occupying official, but rather than an ordinary man, and a surprised ordinary man to boot.
Galtier found himself surprised, too: surprised Quigley could look and even act like an ordinary man. Politely, the farmer said, “I hope your son-in-law is safe in the war.”
“He is well so far, thanks,” Quigley answered. “He’s out in Sequoyah, where the fighting isn’t so heavy as it is east of the Mississippi-nor so heavy as north of the St. Lawrence or over in Ontario.”
“The United States have stubborn neighbors to the south of them,” Galtier said. “The United States have also stubborn neighbors to the north of them. I think that, before this war began, you Americans did not altogether understand how stubborn these northern neighbors of yours were.”
Some of that was the brandy talking. Here, for once, Quigley had come to his house for some reason other than doing him wrong, and now he was giving the American fresh reason to suspect him. Marie would have some sharp things to say about that. Galtier had some sharp things to say about it, too. He said them, silently but with great vigor, to himself.
But Quigley did not take the comment as he might have. Instead, he nodded soberly, or perhaps not so soberly: as he spoke, he reached for the bottle of brandy again. “Well, once more you have reason,” he said. “When we began the war, we thought it would soon be over. But, as you say, our neighbors were more stubborn than we thought, and also stronger than we thought. The fighting has proved harder than we ever imagined.”
He held out the bottle to Lucien, who let him pour. After three big glasses of brandy, the farmer would be slow-moving and achy in the morning, but the morning was a long way away. “I did not think an American would admit any such thing,” Galtier said.
Quigley tapped his long, thin nose. He had to shift his hand at the last minute to make it connect. “I admit I’ve got this here,” he said, “and the other is every bit as plain. But that doesn’t mean the United States aren’t going to win this war. It just means we’ve had to work much harder than we thought we would. We have done the work, M. Galtier, and we are at last beginning to see the results of it.”
“It could be so,” Lucien said. By everything he could learn, it was so, but he knew that what he could learn was limited. Both the United States and the new Republic of Quebec made sure of that.
“It is so.” The brandy was talking through Jedediah Quigley, too. Normally as smooth and polished as a new pair of shoes, he made a fist and thumped it against his thigh to emphasize his words.
He also spoke louder than usual. Marie stuck her head out of the kitchen to make sure no quarrel was brewing. When she’d reassured herself, she disappeared again. Galtier didn’t think Quigley saw her.
The farmer said, “I will be glad when the war is over.” He did not think anyone could disagree with that, or with the way he continued: “Everyone will be glad when the war is over.”