“Major,” Morrell said, “I think I know how we can secure a bridgehead on the far side of the Cumberland.”
“You have my attention, sir,” Dowling said. That was surely the problem Custer would face when he was done celebrating the victory he’d just achieved. “Tell me how you would go about it.” Dowling did not say he would give Morrell Custer’s ear if he liked the idea. A man full of so many ideas would be able to figure that out for himself.
And Morrell started to talk. He wasn’t a particularly fluent talker, but he was extraordinarily lucid. He had no bluster in him. After years at General Custer’s side, that in itself made listening to him a pleasure for Dowling. It was no wonder, the adjutant thought, that Custer and bluster rhymed.
Morrell also knew what he was talking about. Again, Dowling suppressed any invidious comparisons with the general commanding First Army. Morrell knew what resources First Army had, and what reinforcements it was likely to receive. He knew what part of those could be committed to his scheme, and he had as good a notion as a U.S. soldier could of what the CSA could bring to bear against them.
When he was through, Dowling paid him a high compliment: “This is no humbug.” He followed it with one he reckoned even higher: “Anyone would think you were still on the General Staff.”
But Morrell pursed his lips and shook his head. “I enjoy serving in the field too much to be happy in Philadelphia, Major.”
That he had in common with Custer, at least before Custer had got old and plump and fragile. Dowling had questioned a great many things about Custer, but never his courage. That courage was one of the things that led him to go after the enemy piledriver fashion. It had led Lieutenant Colonel Morrell in a different direction.
Abner Dowling glanced back toward Custer. His illustrious superior had begun to run out of bombast; some of the correspondents were drifting off to write up their stories and wire them to their newspapers or magazines. Dowling didn’t feel any great compunction about leading Morrell through the knot of men around Custer and saying, “Excuse me, General, but this officer would like your opinion on something.”
Custer looked miffed; he hadn’t been completely finished. But then he recognized the man at Dowling’s side. “Ah-Lieutenant Colonel Morrell, who so valiantly headed the column of barrels.” Again, he shared glory: no matter how brightly a lieutenant colonel might be burnished, he would never outshine a lieutenant general. Custer waved to the reporters. “Go on, boys. Business calls. Any time so gallant a soldier as this brave officer seeks my ear, you may rest assured I am pleased to give it to him.”
That made the gentlemen of the Fourth Estate pay more attention to Morrell than they would have otherwise. A photographer snapped his picture. A sketch artist worked on a likeness till Custer waved again, imperiously this time. The fellow closed the notebook and went off with Morrell only half immortalized.
“Now, then,” Custer said, “what can I do for you, Lieutenant Colonel? I trust it is a matter of some importance, or Major Dowling would not have interrupted me in the course of my remarks.” He gave his adjutant a veiled stare to let him know that was not forgotten.
Dowling had no trouble bearing up under Custer’s stares, veiled or not. Sometimes he did have trouble not laughing in Custer’s face, but that was a different story. Anyhow, veiled stare notwithstanding, he thought Custer would forget his pique this time. With a nod to Morrell, he said, “Go ahead, sir.”
Morrell went ahead. Even more precisely than he had for Dowling, he set forth his idea for Custer. Dowling intently watched the general commanding First Army, wondering how the old boy would take it-it wasn’t his usual cup of tea, nor anything close.
Custer didn’t show much while Morrell was talking. How many hours on garrison duty here and there in the West had he spent behind a pile of poker chips? Enough to learn to hold his face still, anyway.
When Morrell was done, Custer stroked his peroxided mustache. “I shall have to give this further consideration, Lieutenant Colonel, but I can say now that you have plainly done some hard thinking here. Some solid thinking, too, unless I am much mistaken.”
“Thank you, sir.” Morrell had the sense to stop there, not to push Custer for a greater commitment.
“Shall I begin converting this to a plan of operation, sir?” Dowling asked.
“Yes, why not?” Custer said, artfully careless.
TheGreatWar: Breakthroughs
“All the news is bad these days,” Arthur McGregor complained to his wife over a supper plate of fried chicken and fried potatoes.
“More Yankee lies, I expect,” Maude answered. “They don’t let any of the truth get loose. Remember how many times their papers have said Toronto has fallen, or Paris to the Germans?”
“I don’t think it’s like that this time,” McGregor said. “Those other stories, you could tell they were made up. What we hear now-that Nashville place getting knocked to bits, and the Americans pushing ahead on the border farther east…those are the kinds of things that really do happen in a war. They’re the kinds of things you have to believe when you read them.”
“But if you do believe them, it means we’re losing the war,” his daughter Julia said.
“It means our allies are in trouble, anyhow,” McGregor said gravely. He bit at the inside of his lower lip before going on, “I don’t think we’re doing any too well here in Canada, either. You can hardly hear the cannon fire up north toward Winnipeg these days.”
Ever since the Yanks had overrun his farm, McGregor had used the sound of the guns to gauge how the fighting was going. When they were far away, the Yankees were making progress. A deep rumble on the northern horizon meant an Anglo-Canadian counteroffensive. He wouldn’t have minded in the least had shells fallen on his land; that would have meant the Yanks were pushed most of the way back toward Dakota. But it hadn’t happened. He was beginning to wonder if it ever would.
Mary, his younger daughter, spoke with great certainty: “We can’t lose the war. We’re right. They invaded us. They had no business doing that.” She was only eight years old, and still confused the way things should have been with the way they were.
McGregor and Maude looked at each other. They both knew better. “They can, Mary,” her mother said. “We have to hope they don’t, that’s all.”
“No, they can’t,” Mary repeated. “They shot Alexander. If they win, that means-that means-” She cast about for the worst thing she could think of. “That means God doesn’t love us any more.”
“God does what He wants, Mary,” McGregor said. “He doesn’t always do what we want. If He did, your brother would still be here, and the Yanks would be down in the USA where they belong.”
“If they win, they’ll try to turn us into Americans,” Julia said angrily. “They’re already trying to turn us into Americans.”
With American coins in his pocket, with American stamps on his letters, with American lies in the schools-so many American lies, neither Julia nor Mary went any more-McGregor could hardly disagree with her. Instead, he said, “What we have to do is, we have to remember who we are and what we are, no matter what happens around us. That may be the best we can do.”
He felt Maude’s eyes on him again. He needed a moment to understand why. When he did, his mouth tightened. Though he’d spoken indirectly, he’d never come so close to admitting Canada and her allies were losing the war.
His wife looked as grim as he did. So did Julia, who now had nearly a woman’s years and had been thinking like an adult for a long time, anyhow. If Mary didn’t follow-maybe that was just as well. Of them all, McGregor thought she was the fiercest one, even including himself. No matter how old she got, he doubted she would ever slow down to count the cost before she acted. He had to. He hated himself for that, but he had to.