With a sigh, Abner Dowling sat back down and returned to the work MacArthur had interrupted. It wasn't a grand assault on Richmond-assuming the grand assault got that far-but it wasn't meaningless, either. He could tell himself it wasn't, anyhow.
He jumped when the telephone on his desk rang. He wondered if it was a wrong number; not many people had wanted to talk to him lately. He picked it up. "Dowling here."
"Yes, sir. This is John Abell. How are you today?"
"Oh, I'm fair, Colonel, I guess. And yourself?" Dowling couldn't imagine what the General Staff officer might want.
"I'll do, sir," Abell answered with what sounded like frosty amusement-the only kind with which he seemed familiar. "Did you just have a visit from the Great Stone Face?"
"The Great-?" Dowling snorted. He couldn't help himself. "Yes, Colonel, as a matter of fact I did."
"And?" Colonel Abell prompted.
"He's… very sure of himself," Dowling said carefully. "I hope he had reason to be. I haven't seen his plans, so I can't tell you about that. You'd know more about it than I would, I'm sure."
"Plans go only so far," John Abell said. "During the last war, we saw any number of splendid-sounding plans blown to hell and gone. Meaning no offense to you, our plans in the West at the start of this war didn't work as well as we wish they would have."
"It does help if the plans take into account all the enemy can throw at us," Dowling replied, acid in his voice.
"Yes, it does," Abell said, which startled him. "I told you I meant no offense."
"People tell me all kinds of things," Dowling said. "Some of them are true. Some of them help make flowers grow. I'm sure no one ever tells you anything but the truth, eh, Colonel?"
Unlike Daniel MacArthur, Colonel Abell had a working sarcasm detector. "You mean there are other things besides truth, sir?" he said in well-simulated amazement.
"Heh," Dowling said, which was about as much as he'd laughed at anything the past couple of months. Then he asked, "Is the General Staff concerned about Major General MacArthur's likely performance?"
Perhaps fifteen seconds of silence followed. Then Colonel Abell said, "I have no idea what you're talking about, General."
He said no more. Dowling realized that was all the answer he'd get. He also realized it was more responsive than it seemed at first. He said, "If you're that thrilled with him, why isn't somebody else in command there?"
After another thoughtful silence, Abell answered, "Military factors aren't the only ones that go into a war, sir. General MacArthur came… highly recommended by the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War."
"Did he?" Dowling kept his tone as neutral as he could make it.
"As a matter of fact, he did. His service in Houston before the plebiscite particularly drew the committee's notice, I believe." Abell sounded scrupulously dispassionate, too. "It was decided that, by giving a little here, we might gain advantages elsewhere."
It was decided. Dowling liked that. No one had actually had to decide anything, it said. The decision just sort of fell out of the sky. No one would be to blame for it, not the General Staff and certainly not the Joint Committee. If MacArthur got the command, the committee would leave the War Department alone about some other things. Dowling didn't know what those would be, but he could guess. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. "I hope it turns out all right," he said.
"Yes. So do I," Colonel Abell answered, and hung up.
The knock on Seneca Driver's door came in the middle of the night, long after evening curfew in the colored district in Covington. Cincinnatus' father and mother went on snoring. Neither of them heard very well these days, and a knock wouldn't have meant much to her anyhow. Nothing much meant anything to her any more.
But a knock like that meant something to Cincinnatus. It meant trouble. It didn't sound like the big, booming open-right-now-or-we'll-kick-it-in knock the police would have used. That didn't mean it wasn't trouble, though. Oh, no. Trouble came in all shapes and sizes and flavors. Cincinnatus knew that only too well.
When the knocking didn't stop, he got out of bed, found his cane, and went to the door. He had to step carefully. Darkness was absolute. Police enforced the blackout in this part of town by shooting into lighted windows. If they saw people, they shot to kill. They were very persuasive.
Of course, Luther Bliss didn't run the Kentucky State Police any more. He might come sneaking around to shut Cincinnatus up. That occurred to Cincinnatus just as he put his hand on the knob. He shrugged. He couldn't move fast enough to run away, so what difference did it make?
He opened the door. That wasn't Luther Bliss out there. It was another Negro. Cincinnatus could see that much-that much and no more. "What you want?" he asked softly. "You crazy, comin' round here this time o' night?"
"Lucullus got to see you right away," the stranger answered.
"During curfew? He nuts? You nuts? You reckon I'm nuts?"
"He reckon you come," the other man said calmly. "You want I should go back there, tell him he wrong?"
Cincinnatus considered. That was exactly what he wanted. Saying so, though, could have all sorts of unpleasant consequences. He muttered something vile under his breath before replying, "You wait there. Let me get out of my nightshirt."
"I ain't goin'nowhere," the other man said.
I wish I could tell you the same. Cincinnatus put on shoes and dungarees and the shirt he'd worn the day before. When he went to the door, he asked, "What do we do if the police see us?"
"Run," his escort said. Since Cincinnatus couldn't, that did him no good whatever.
They picked their way along the colored quarter's crumbling sidewalks. Cincinnatus used his cane to feel ahead of him like a blind man. In the blackout, he almost was a blind man. Starlight might have been beautiful, but it was no damn good for getting around.
His nose proved a better guide. Even in the darkness of the wee small hours, he had no trouble telling when he was getting close to Lucullus Wood's barbecue place. The man with him laughed softly. "Damn, but that there barbecue smell good," he said. "Make me hungry jus' to git a whiff." Cincinnatus couldn't argue, not when his own stomach was growling like an angry hound.
The other man opened the door. Cincinnatus pushed through the blackout curtains behind it. He blinked at the explosion of light inside. He wasn't much surprised to find the place busy regardless of the hour. Several white policemen in gray uniforms were drinking coffee and devouring enormous sandwiches. Cincinnatus would have bet they hadn't paid for them. When did cops ever pay for anything?
All the customers were out after curfew. The policemen didn't get excited about it. They didn't jump up and arrest Cincinnatus and his companion, either. They just went on feeding their faces. The sandwiches and coffee and whatever else Lucullus gave them looked like a good insurance policy.
The other black man took Cincinnatus to a cramped booth closer to the police than he wanted to be. The other man ordered pork ribs and a cup of coffee. Cincinnatus chose a barbecued beef sandwich. He passed on the coffee: he still nourished a hope of getting back to sleep that night. He knew the odds were against him, but he'd always been an optimist.
To his amazement, Lucullus Wood lumbered out and took a place in the booth. It had been cramped before; now it seemed full to overflowing. "What you want that won't keep till mornin'?" Cincinnatus asked, doing his best to keep his voice down.
Lucullus didn't bother. "What you know about trucks?" he asked in turn.
"Trucks?" Whatever Cincinnatus had expected, that wasn't it. "Well, I only drove 'em for thirty years, so I don't reckon I know much."
"Funny man." Lucullus scowled at him. "I ain't jokin', funny man."
"All right, you ain't jokin'." Cincinnatus paused, for the food arrived just then. After a big bite from his sandwich-as good as always-he went on, "Tell me what you want to know, and I'll give you the answer if I got it."