Herman Bruck made his way out of the crowd. Flora wondered how and why he'd been lucky enough to stay in gabardine and worsted and tweed and out of the green-gray serge most men his age wore. Her brother David was in green-gray, and, from his latest letter, about to be shipped off to one of the fighting fronts. If the war went on long enough, the same thing would happen to Isaac, who was two years younger.
So how had Herman escaped? It wasn't as if he had a job in an essential industry. On the contrary-a lot of Socialist activists had been conscripted in spite of employment in industries related to the war. Asking him would have been rude, but she almost asked anyhow. Before she could, he said, "That was a fine speech. Hearing you out in the crowd instead of being up on the platform with you, I see how you came to be our candidate. I think you'll win."
She knew he had an ulterior motive-several ulterior motives, some personal, some political-for speaking as he did. But she was no more immune to flattery than any other human being ever born. "Thank you," she said. "I think I will, too. The bad news in the war does nothing but help us. It reminds the people that we opposed the fighting from the start, and that we were right when we did."
Bruck's mouth twisted down. Her record on opposing the war was sounder than his. But then a sly glint came into his eye. "When they do elect you, you'll have the salary of a capitalist-$7,500 a year. What will you do with all that money?"
Any notion of asking him why he wasn't in the Army flew out of her head. She'd thought about winning the election and about taking her seat in the House of Representatives. Up till that moment, she hadn't thought about getting paid for her services. Herman Bruck was right-$7,500 was a lot of money. "I'll be able to make sure my family doesn't want for anything," she said at last.
He nodded. "That's a good answer. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all the families here"-his wave encompassed the entire district-"didn't want for anything? Nu, that's why you're running." The sly look returned to his face. "And now you'll have another reason to say no when I ask you out: what would a rich and important lady see in a tailor's son?"
Flora snorted. "One thing I see in a tailor's son is someone who nags like a grandmother."
"If I ask you out, maybe you'll say no, but maybe also you'll say yes," Herman answered. "If I don't ask you out, how can you possibly say yes?"
She had to laugh. As she did so, she was more tempted to let him persuade her than she had been for a long time. This didn't seem to be the right place, though, not with the crowd drifting away after the rally. And here came a couple of policemen, looking like old-time U.S. soldiers in their blue uniforms and forage caps. "All right, Miss Hamburger, you've had your speech," one of them said in brisk tones. "No one gave you a bit of trouble during it or before it, and I'll thank your people not to give me trouble now."
"No trouble because of what?" she asked warily.
The cop didn't answer. A couple of his friends came down Chrystie Street, one of them twirling a nightstick on the end of its leather strap. And then a shiny new White truck, the same sort the Army used, pulled to a stop in front of the Croton Brewery. Instead of being green-gray, it was painted red, white, and blue. DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF NEW YORK CITY, said the banner stretched across the canvas canopy. Another, smaller, banner below it read, Daniel Miller for Congress.
Out of the back of the truck jumped half a dozen men in overalls. A couple of others handed them big buckets of paste, long-handled brushes, and stacks of freshly printed posters. On the front of every one was Miller's smiling face, half again as big as life, and the slogan, HELP TR WIN THE WAR. VOTE MILLER-VOTE DEMOCRATIC.
Into the buckets went the brushes. Matter-of-factly, the work crew went about the business of smearing fresh paste over Flora's posters that had gone up only the day before. She stared in mute outrage that did not stay mute long. "They can't do that!" she snarled at the policeman.
"Oh, but they can, Miss Hamburger," he answered, respectful enough but not giving an inch. "They will. It's a free country, and we let you have your posters and your speech and all. But now it's our turn."
Up went Daniel Miller's posters, one after another. "Free country?" Flora said bitterly. Some of the last of the crowd she'd drawn were hanging about, watching with anything but delight as her message was effaced. If she shouted to them, they'd resist these paperhangers. New York City had seen political brawls and to spare since the rise of the Socialists. But, after Remembrance Day the year before, could she contemplate another round of riots, another round of repression?
"Don't even let it cross your mind," the cop said. He had no trouble thinking along with her. "We'll land on the lot of you like a ton of bricks, and hell will freeze over before you get yourself another peaceable rally, I promise you."
"Do you mean we, the police, or we, the Democratic Party?" she demanded. The policeman just stared at her, as if the two were too closely entwined to be worth separating. In fact, that wasn't as if. Coppers could harass the Socialists, and so could Democratic agitators and hooligans. Her party could return the favor, but only on a smaller scale.
She glanced at Herman Bruck. If he was ready to raise hell to keep the Democrats from silencing her posters, neither his face nor his body showed it. Maybe he'd avoided the Army by the simple expedient of being afraid to fight. Or maybe, she admitted to herself, he'd simply done a good job of figuring out how likely-or how unlikely-they were to succeed here.
"Democrats are free," she told the policeman. "Socialists and Republicans and other riffraff are as free as the Democrats let them be." He stared steadily back at her, a big, stolid man doing his job and doing it well and not worrying about the consequences of it, maybe in honest truth not even seeing that those consequences were bad.
Inside half an hour's time, Daniel Miller's posters had covered every one of hers.
Flying was beginning to feel like work again. Jonathan Moss' eyes went back and forth, up and down, flicking to the rearview mirror mounted on the side of the cockpit. He looked back over his shoulder, too, again and again. It was the one you didn't see who'd get you, sure as hell.
He still felt out of place, flying to the right of Dud Dudley. That was Tom Innis' slot in the flight, no one else's. Or it had been. But Tom was pushing up a lily now, with a rookie pilot named Orville Thornley sleeping on the cot that had been his. Thornley got endless ribbing because of his first name, but he didn't seem to be the worst flier who'd ever come down the pike.
"A good thing, too," Moss said, his eyes still on the move. The limeys had managed to sneak a few Sopwith Pups across the Atlantic, and, if you were unlucky enough to run up against one of them in a Martin one-decker, odds were the War Department would be sending your next of kin a telegram in short order. A Pup was faster, more maneuverable, and climbed better than the bus he was riding, and the British had finally figured out how to do a proper job with an interrupter gear.
Just thinking about the Pup was plenty to make him grimace. "Good thing they don't have very many of 'em here," he said. "It'd be a damn sight better if they didn't have any at all. Damn Navy, asleep at the switch again."
That was not fair. He knew it wasn't fair. He didn't care. The Atlantic Fleet had been built to close the gate between Britain and Canada, and to help the High Seas Fleet open the gate between Germany and the USA. It hadn't managed to do either of those things. Among them, the British, the French, and the Confederates made sure none of the Atlantic was safe for anyone at any time, and the Germans remained bottled up in the North Sea. Too bad, Moss thought. Too damn bad.