Captain Schneider sighed. "Sergeant, have you ever, even once in your life, considered the wisdom of tempering justice with mercy?"
"No, sir," McSweeney answered, honestly shocked.
"I believe you," Schneider said. "The one thing-the only thing-I'll give you is that you hold yourself to the same standards as everyone else. That time a couple of days ago when you reported yourself for not polishing the inside of your canteen cup-that was a first for me, I tell you. But what did I do about it?"
"Nothing, sir." McSweeney's voice reeked disapproval.
Captain Schneider either didn't notice or pretended not to. "That's right. That's what I'm going to keep on doing when you bother me with tiny things, too. Sergeant, I order you not to report trivial infractions to me until and unless they constitute a clear and obvious danger to the discipline or safety of your squad. Do you understand me?"
"No, sir," McSweeney said crisply.
"All right, then, Sergeant. I am going to leave you with two quotations from the Good Book, then. I want you to concentrate on the lessons in John 8:7 and Matthew 7:1." With an abrupt about-face, Schneider stalked off.
Gordon McSweeney knew the Scriptures well. But those were not verses he was in the habit of studying, so he had to go and look them up. He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her, he read in John. The verse in Matthew was even shorter and more to the point, saying, Judge not, that ye be not judged.
He stared out the door through which Captain Schneider had departed. The captain, as far as he was concerned, had the letter without the spirit. If God chose to urge mercy, that was His affair. Could a man not so urged by the Lord afford such a luxury? McSweeney didn't think so.
He was, in any case, by temperament more drawn to the Old Testament than to the New. The children of Israel, now, had been proper warriors. God had not urged them to mercy, but to glorify His name by smiting their foes. And their prophets and kings had obeyed, and had grown great by obeying. Against such a background, what did a couple of verses matter?
Jesus Christ hadn't always been meek and mild, either. Hadn't He driven the money-changers from the Temple? They hadn't been doing anything so very wrong. Trivial infractions, Captain Schneider would have called their business, and thought Jesus should have left it alone.
McSweeney flipped back a few pages in the Book of Matthew and grunted in satisfaction. "Chapter 5, verse 29," he murmured: And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
He looked at the men in his squad. None of them dared meet his eye. Would any have the nerve to shoot him under cover of battle? He shook his head. He didn't believe it, not for a moment. Would they leave him in the lurch when he attacked? Maybe they would. His glance flicked to the flamethrower. Anyone who carried one of those infernal devices was on his own anyhow.
"Justice," McSweeney said, and gave a sharp nod. Only the wicked feared justice, and with reason, for they deserved chastisement. Thus the United States would chastise their seceded brethren, and chastise as well the wicked foreigners who had made secession possible.
God wills it, McSweeney thought, for all the world like a Crusader before the walls of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem would fall. He would make it fall, and break anyone and anything standing in the way.
Achilles smiled at Cincinnatus, a smile that showed one new tooth in a wide, wet mouth. The baby said something wordless but joyful. Cincinnatus smiled back. To Elizabeth, he said, "He's in a happy mood this mornin', ain't he?"
His wife smiled back, wanly. "Why shouldn't he be happy? He can sleep as long as he wants, an' he can wake up whenever he please. An' he's still too little to know his ma can't do likewise."
"I heard him there in the middle of the night," Cincinnatus said, digging into the ham and eggs Elizabeth had made. "He sounded happy then, too."
"He was happy," she said, rolling her eyes, which were still streaked with red. "He was so happy, he wanted to play. He didn't want to go back to bed, not for nothin' he didn't. Did you?" She poked Achilles in the ribs. He thought that was the funniest thing in the world, and squealed laughter. When he did, his mother visibly melted. All the same, she said, "What I wanted to do was give him some laudanum, so he'd go back to sleep and I could, too." She yawned. Achilles squealed again-everything was funny this morning.
No sooner had Cincinnatus shoveled the last fluffy scrambled egg into his mouth than someone knocked on the door. He grabbed for his mug of coffee and gulped it down while hurrying to let in his mother. "How's my little grandbaby?" she asked.
Cincinnatus was still swallowing. From the kitchen, Elizabeth answered, "Mother Livia, he must be sleepin' while you got him, on account of he sure don't do none o' that in the nighttime."
"He jus' like his father, then," Cincinnatus' mother said. She turned to him. "You was the wakinest child I ever did hear tell of." Without taking a breath, she went on in a different tone of voice: "Looks like it's fixin' to storm out there, storm somethin' fierce."
"Does it?" Cincinnatus looked outside himself. His mother was right. Thick, dark clouds were boiling up in the northwest, over Ohio, and heading rapidly toward Covington. The air felt still and heavy and damp. He reached into the pocket of his dungarees and pulled out a nickel. "Gonna ride me the trolley down to the docks."
"Gettin' pretty la-de-da, ain't you?" his mother said. "Trolley here, trolley there, like you got all the money is to have. Pretty soon you gwine buy youself a motorcar, ain't that right?"
"Wish it was," Cincinnatus said, and gave her a kiss as he hurried out the door. When the CSA had ruled Covington, a motorcar for a black man would have been out of the question, unless he wanted to be branded as uppity-and, perhaps, literally branded as well. Under the USA…maybe such a thing would be possible, if he got the money together. Maybe it wouldn't, too.
The rain began just before he got to the trolley stop, which wasn't particularly close to his house. One stop served the entire Negro district near the Licking River. He remembered the complaints he'd heard about routing the track even so close to his part of town.
When the trolley car rattled up, he threw his nickel into the fare box and sat down in the back. The Yankees hadn't changed the rules about that sort of thing; they had rules of their own, not quite so strict as those of the Confederacy but not tempered by intimate acquaintance, either. He sighed. If your skin was dark, you had trouble finding a fair shake anywhere.
Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed. Rain started coming down in sheets. The trolley filled up in a hurry, as people who usually would have walked to work decided against it today. Whites started moving back into the Negro section. One by one, Cincinnatus and his fellow blacks gave up their seats and stood holding the overhead rail. None of them complained, not out loud. Men down from the USA ousted them as casually as did native Covingtonians.
Water sprayed up from the trolley's wheels as it slid to a stop near the wharves. Cincinnatus and several other Negro men leaped down and ran for their places. The others were all roustabouts; they'd be drenched by the time the day was through. Cincinnatus didn't expect to be much better off. For one thing, it was almost as wet inside the cab of a White truck as it was outside. For another, he'd be outside a good deal of the time, certainly while loading and unloading his snarling monster, and probably while fixing punctures as well.
"Morning, Cincinnatus," Lieutenant Straubing said when he splashed into the warehouse that served as headquarters for the transportation unit. "Wet enough out there to suit you?"