Blood and Iron (70 page)

“You do have the makings of an officer,” Grady said thoughtfully. “You see what’s essential, and you don’t worry about anything else.”

“Long as we are tied up here, sir, I’ve been trying to hit the books a little harder, as a matter of fact.” Sam scratched his nose. His fingertips came away white and sticky from zinc-oxide ointment. A wry grin twisted up one corner of his mouth. “Besides, the more I stay belowdecks, the less chance I get to sunburn.”

“Nobody can say you’re not a white man,” Grady agreed gravely. “With that stuff smeared all over your face, you’re about the whitest man around.”

“I only wish it did more good,” Sam said. “I put it on just like the pharmacist’s mate says, or even thicker, but I still toast. Hell, most of the time I look more like a pink man than a white one. I even burned over in Ireland.”

“I remember that. It wasn’t easy,” Grady said. “They should have given you some kind of decoration for it.”

“I guess they figured me turning red was decoration enough, even if I didn’t think it was real pretty,” Carsten said, which wrung a strangled snort from Commander Grady. Sam went on, “Sir, do you think we’d have more to do and more to do it with if Lieutenant Sandes hadn’t flown his aeroplane into the stern when we were coming back across the Atlantic?”

“Nope,” Grady answered. “We’d had accidents and battle damage before then. This business of flying aeroplanes off ships may be important, but it sure as hell isn’t easy. The
Remembrance
doesn’t carry as much armor as a battleship, either.”

Remembering the shell that had struck his gun position, Sam nodded. “All right,” he said. “I did wonder.”

“I think we could have come through without any damage or accidents and still wound up right here,” Grady said. “The problem isn’t how we fought, because we fought well. The problem is politics.” He made it a swearword.

“Yes, sir,” Carsten said resignedly. He raised one of his pale eyebrows. “Can you think of any troubles that aren’t politics, when you get down to it?”

Commander Grady rocked back on his heels and laughed. “No, by God, or not many, anyhow.” He slapped Sam on the back, then pulled out a pad and a fountain pen and wrote rapidly. He pulled the top sheet off the pad and handed it to Carsten. “And here’s a present for you: twenty-four hours’ liberty. Go on across the river into Boston and have yourself a hell of a time.”

“Thank you very much, sir!” Sam exclaimed.

He wanted to charge off the
Remembrance
then and there, but Grady held up a hand. “Just don’t come back aboard Sunday afternoon with a dose of the clap, that’s all. You do and I’ll tear your stupid shortarm off and beat you over the head with it.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Sam said. “I promise.” There were ways to make that unlikely to happen even if he didn’t put on a rubber, though not all the girls in any house cared to use their mouths instead of doing what they usually did. If he had to pay a little extra for his fun, he would, that was all. He usually preferred a straight screw himself, but he hadn’t expected to get this liberty and sure didn’t want to end up in trouble on account of it. And the other was a hell of a lot of fun, too.

Several houses operated on the narrow streets across the Charles from the Navy Yard.
Go where the customers are
was a rule as old as the oldest profession. Sam got what he wanted—got it twice in quick succession, in fact, from an Italian woman about his own age who was as swarthy as he was fair. “Thanks, Isabella,” he said, lazy and happy after the second time. He ran his hand through her hair. “And here’s an extra dollar you don’t have to tell anybody about.”

“I thank you,” she said as she got to her feet. “My little girl needs shoes. It will help.” He hadn’t thought about whores having children, but supposed it was one of the hazards of the trade.

A lot of the businesses near the south bank of the Charles that weren’t brothels were saloons. Sam had himself a couple of schooners of beer. He thought about getting drunk—Commander Grady hadn’t told him not to do that. But, after he’d emptied that second glass, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and walked out of the dingy dive where he’d been drinking. He’d had his ashes hauled, he’d drunk enough to feel it, and nothing in the whole wide world seemed urgent, not even getting lit up. If he felt like doing it later, he would. If he didn’t…well, he still had most of a day left without anyone to tell him what to do. For a Navy man, that was a pearl of great price.

He sauntered through the streets of Boston, thumbs in the pockets of his bell-bottomed trousers. He wasn’t used to sauntering. When he went somewhere aboard the
Remembrance
, he always went with a purpose in mind, and he almost always had to hurry. Taking it easy was liberty of a sort he rarely got.

Half by accident, half by design, he came out onto the Boston Common: acres and acres of grass intended for nothing but taking it easy. If he wanted to, he could lie down there, put his cap over his eyes, and nap in the sun.

“No, thanks,” he said aloud at that thought. If he napped in the sun, he’d roast, sure as pork would in the galley ovens of the
Remembrance
. But there were trees here and there on the Common. Napping in the shade might not be so bad.

He headed for a good-sized oak with plenty of drooping, leafy branches to hold the sun at bay. Also heading for it from a different direction were a girl of nine or so, a boy who looked like her older brother, and, behind them, a woman with a picnic basket. Seeing Sam, the girl started to run. When she got to the shade under the oaks, she said, “This is our tree. You can’t have it.”

“Mary Jane, there’s plenty of room for us all,” the woman said sternly. “And don’t you dare be rude to a sailor. Remember, your father was a sailor.”

“Ma’am, if it’s any trouble, I’ll find another tree,” Sam said.

The woman shook her head. “It’s no trouble at all—or it won’t be, unless you make some. But if you made a lot of trouble, you wouldn’t have said you’d go someplace else like that.”

“I’m peaceable,” Sam agreed. If he hadn’t paid a call on the house where Isabella worked, he might have felt like making some trouble: she was a pretty woman, even if she looked tired. And she’d said the girl’s—Mary Jane’s—father
was
a sailor, which probably made her a widow. Sometimes widows missed what their husbands weren’t there to give them any more. As things were, though, Sam just sat down on the grass near the tree trunk, in the deepest part of the shade.

In a rustle of wool, the woman sat down, too, and took a blanket from the basket and spread it out on the grass. She started putting bowls of food on the blanket. While she was doing that, her son asked Sam, “Sir, did you know anybody who sailed aboard the USS
Ericsson
?”

“Can’t say that I did,” Carsten answered. Then his eyes narrowed as he remembered where he’d heard the name. “
That
ship! Was your father on her, sonny?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said. “And the stinking Rebs sank her after the war was over. That’s not right.”

“It sure as…the dickens isn’t,” Sam said, inhibited in his choice of language by the presence of the woman and little girl. “I’m awfully sorry to hear that. My ship got torpedoed once, by the Japs out in the Pacific. We didn’t sink, but I know we were just lucky.”

“And the Confederate skipper who sank the
Ericsson
is still walking around free as a bird down in South Carolina,” the woman said. “He murdered my husband and more than a hundred other men, and no one cares. Even the president doesn’t care.”

“If Teddy Roosevelt had won his third term, he’d have done something about it,” Carsten said. “If the Rebs didn’t hand that…fellow over, TR would have walloped the Confederate States till they did.”

“I think so, too,” the woman said. “If women had the vote in Massachusetts, I would have voted for Sinclair when he got elected. I’ve changed my mind since I found out about the
Ericsson
, though.”

“I bet you have,” Sam said. “One thing you have to give Teddy—he never took any guff from anybody.”

“No.” The woman pointed to the food. “Would you like some fried chicken and ham and potato salad? I made more than we can eat, even if these two”—she pointed at her children—“do put it away like there’s no tomorrow.”

“Are you sure, ma’am?” Carsten asked. If she was a widow, things were liable to be as tough for her as for the whore who’d gone down on her knees in front of him—tougher, maybe. But she nodded so emphatically, turning her down would have been rude.

He ate a ham sandwich and a drumstick and homemade potato salad and pickled tomatoes, and washed them down with lemonade that made him pucker and smile at the same time. Even though her children did eat like starving Armenians, the woman tried to press more on him.

“Couldn’t touch another bite,” he said, which wasn’t quite true, and, “Everything was terrific,” which was. “Haven’t sat down to a spread like that since I was a kid.” That was true, too.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she said, and seemed happy for a moment. She took a pack of cigarettes from her handbag. He got out a box of matches and lit the smoke for her. But as she drew on it, she frowned. “
He’s
probably walking around down there in Charleston, puffing a big fat cigar.
Damn
him.”

Sam had heard women swear before, but never with that quiet intensity. He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. He watched the children play for a while, then got to his feet. “Obliged, ma’am—much obliged,” he said. “Good luck to you.” She nodded, but didn’t speak. He went on his way. Only after he’d crossed half the Common did he realize he hadn’t learned her name.

Arthur McGregor stared down at the copy of the
Rosenfeld Register
he’d just set on the kitchen table. The headline stared back at him:
RETIRING GENERAL CUSTER TO VISIT ROSENFELD NEXT WEEK.

His wife eyed the newspaper, too: eyed it as she might have eyed a rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike. “Please let it go, Arthur,” she said. “Please let him go. The debts are paid, and more than paid. Let it go.”

“I’ll do what I have to do.” McGregor didn’t feel like quarreling, but he knew what that would be.

So did Maude. “Let it go,” she said again. “If you won’t do it for my sake, do it for the sake of the children you have left.”

That hurt. McGregor had to mask his feelings against his wife now, as he’d had to mask them so often against the outside world. When he answered, his voice was steady: “Ted Culligan will take care of Julia, I expect. Shall we ask Mary whether she wants to see George Custer go on breathing?”

Maude bit her lip. Like her husband, her younger daughter had never come close to reconciling herself to what the Americans had done to Canada or to Alexander. But Maude replied, “Shall we ask Mary whether she wants to see you go on breathing?”

“I’ll be fine,” McGregor answered easily.

His wife glared at him, her hands on her hips. “I don’t see how.”

“Well, I will,” he said. He even meant it. The bomb he intended for Custer had been sitting under the old wagon wheel in the barn since not long after he’d learned the U.S. commander in Canada would make a last gloating tour of the country he’d held down. With any kind of luck, McGregor thought he could make Custer pay and get away clean.

Instead of arguing any more, McGregor went out into the farmyard. He’d set a large, empty wooden keg in the middle of the yard, not far from the chopping block where hens spent their last unhappy moments on earth. A few feet away from the barrel lay a gray rock. He picked it up and hefted it. It weighed the same as the bomb he’d made, within an ounce or two. He’d checked them both on Maude’s kitchen scale, one night after she went to bed.

He paced off fifteen feet from the keg, tossing the rock up and down as he walked. If he stood at the back of the crowd watching General Custer, that was about how far away he’d be. He’d have no trouble seeing the general in his motorcar; he had several inches on most people. Custer’s automobile wouldn’t be moving very fast. The U.S. commander wouldn’t hold a parade if he didn’t want people gaping at him.

McGregor threw the rock. It thudded down into the keg. He strode over, bent down to pick it up, then paced off fifteen feet again. His next throw thudded home, too. He’d been practicing for weeks, and had got to the point where he could drop it in about eight times out of ten. If he could do that with a small-mouthed keg, he’d have no trouble landing a bomb in Custer’s motorcar.

He kept practicing for about twenty minutes, making sure each toss was slow and relaxed. He wouldn’t need to hurry. He didn’t want to hurry. When he finally threw the bomb, time would seem to stretch out, as if he had forever. He didn’t want to do anything foolish like heaving too hard. He’d get only one chance.
Do it right,
he told himself.
You’ve got to do it right.

And then, as quietly and inconspicuously as he could, he’d slip away. When the bomb went off, people wouldn’t pay attention to him. They’d pay attention to Custer’s funeral pyre. With a little luck, nobody would notice he’d flung the nail-encased sticks of dynamite.

Maude watched him from the kitchen window. Her face was pale and set. He’d never said a word about why he kept throwing a rock into a keg. She’d never asked him, either; that wasn’t her way. But they’d been married a long time. Maude knew him well. She’d understand. He knew her well, too. She was no fool.

Her lips shaped a word the kitchen-window glass made silent. He could read her lips anyhow: “Please,” she was saying. He pretended he didn’t see her, and turned away. When he looked toward the farmhouse again, she wasn’t standing at the window any more.

What if he didn’t slip away? What if the Yanks caught him? They’d shoot him or hang him. He could figure that out for himself. But Julia, married to Ted Culligan, would be all right. Maude had grit and to spare. She’d get by. And Mary? She was his youngest, his chick, so of course he worried about her. But she was also his firebrand. She’d grieve for him. He wanted her to grieve for him. But she would understand why he had to do this. She would understand it better than Maude seemed able to do.

“Alexander,” McGregor said. Were his son at his side, he might have accepted Yankee rule. Not now. Never again. “Not as long as I live,” he said.

He went to the barn and did some chores—even though he’d been contemplating his own death, life had to go on in the meanwhile. After a bit, he’d done everything that needed doing. He stayed out anyhow; if he went back to the farmhouse, he’d have another row with Maude. He knew he’d be having rows with Maude till Custer, like imperial Caesar, made his triumphal procession through Rosenfeld. After that, one way or another, they’d end. He looked forward to saying,
I told you so.

When he finally went back inside, his wife wasn’t in the kitchen, but the wonderful smell of baking bread filled it. McGregor smiled before he knew what he was doing. Life still held pleasure for him. He didn’t want to throw it away. But he was ready, if that turned out to be what he had to do.

In the parlor, he found Mary reading the copy of the
Register
he’d brought back from Rosenfeld. She looked up at him, her eyes enormous. “He’s coming here,” she said. “He really is.”

McGregor didn’t have to ask who
he
was. He nodded. “He sure is,” he answered.

“He shouldn’t,” Mary said. “He’s got no business doing that. Even if they won the war, do they have to go and brag about it?”

“That’s how Yanks are,” McGregor said. “They like to boast and show off.” So it seemed by his self-effacing Canadian standards, anyhow.

“They shouldn’t,” Mary said, as if stating a law of nature. “And
he
shouldn’t have a parade through the middle of our town.” Something sharp and brittle as broken glass glinted in her pale eyes. “Something ought to happen to him if he does.”

She’s my daughter,
McGregor thought.
Flesh of my flesh, soul of my soul.
He almost told her something just might happen to the famous Yank general, George Armstrong Custer. But no. Proud of her though he was, he kept his plans to himself. Custer might be a showy American. McGregor was no American, and glad not to be one. He held his secrets close.

“Something ought to happen to him,” Mary repeated, looking straight at McGregor. She knew what he’d done over the years. She had to know even if he’d said far less to her and to Julia than to Maude. So she knew what she was saying now. She wanted Custer blown sky high.

“Your mother thinks there’s nothing more to be done,” McGregor said, to see how Mary would take that.

His daughter hissed like an angry cat. She said, “Till we’re free again, there’s always more to be done.”

“Well, maybe so,” McGregor answered, and said no more. He wondered if Mary knew how risky throwing a bomb at Custer’s motorcar was. He couldn’t ask her. He couldn’t tell her, either. But he’d been right when he told Maude that Mary loved Custer as much as he did. Maybe he’d get to say
I told you so
twice.

Thoughtfully, Mary asked, “What would Alexander do now?”

“Why, he’d—” McGregor broke off. He realized he didn’t know what his son would do. Alexander had always denied to the American authorities that he’d had anything to do with the kids who were sabotaging the railroad track. If that was so, the Yanks had shot him for nothing—but he might agree with Maude when she said,
Enough is enough.
If, on the other hand, he’d been lying, he’d be all for trying to blow up Custer now—but the Americans would have had some reason for standing him against the wall. The more McGregor thought about it, the more confused he got.

Mary wasn’t confused; she had the clear, bright certainty of youth. “He’d want us to be free, too,” she said, and her father nodded. That, no doubt, was true.

Day inexorably followed day. When McGregor took care to note time passing, it seemed to crawl on hands and knees. When he didn’t note it, when he busied himself with farm chores as he had to do, it sped by. Faster than he’d looked for it came the day when Custer would parade through Rosenfeld.

At breakfast that morning, Maude said, “Maybe we could all go into town and watch the show.” Her smile pasted gaiety over stark fear.

McGregor paused with a bite of home-cured bacon halfway to his mouth. Tonelessly, he said, “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Why not?” Maude said, determined to force the issue. “It would be jolly.” She waited for Mary to clamor to be allowed to go into town, as she usually did. But Mary just sat, toying with her breakfast. She looked from her mother to her father and said not a word.

Into the silence, McGregor repeated, “I don’t think that would be a good idea.” He ate a couple more forkfuls of bacon and eggs, emptying his plate, then got to his feet. “I’m going out to the barn and hitch up the wagon. I don’t want to be late, not today.”

Mary nodded at that, not looking up at McGregor, still not saying a word. Before McGregor could get out the door, Maude ran to him and took him in her arms. “Come home,” she whispered fiercely.

“I intend to,” McGregor answered, which was true. He disentangled himself from his wife and went to the door.

The day was mild, not too warm, so the coat with big pockets he wore wouldn’t particularly stand out. His one worry was that the U.S. Army might have set up security checkpoints around Rosenfeld, as the Yanks had done during the Great War. He’d built a false bottom to his seat to leave a space in which he could conceal the bomb, but he didn’t want to have to rely on it, and it would make life more difficult even if it worked. But the Americans seemed sure all their Canadian subjects were cowed. He had no trouble getting into Rosenfeld.

He hitched the wagon on a side street well away from the post office and general store; he didn’t want Wilf Rokeby or Henry Gibbon spotting him, not today. Then he casually took a place from which he’d be able to see the parade. Before long, people started filling the space in front of him. He didn’t mind. He could still see well enough.

Custer’s train pulled into Rosenfeld right on time and started disgorging all the trappings of the U.S. commandant’s triumphal procession: soldiers, a marching band, and the Packard limousine McGregor had seen up in Winnipeg.

And here came the band, blaring out “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Some people were shameless enough to cheer. McGregor’s hand went into his pocket. He took out the bomb and held it by his side. No one noticed. He pulled out a match, too, and palmed it.

Here came the limousine behind the band, a gaudily uniformed Custer standing in it to receive the plaudits of the crowd. Nearer, nearer…Custer’s eyes went wide—he recognized McGregor. McGregor smiled back at him. He hadn’t expected this, but it only made things sweeter. He scraped the match on the sole of his shoe and touched it to the bomb’s fuse. Smiling still, McGregor threw the bomb. All that practice paid off. The throw, straight for Custer, was perfect.

Down the track toward Rosenfeld rattled the train. In his fancy Pullman car, General George Armstrong Custer whipped a long-barreled Colt revolver out of his holster and pointed it not quite far enough away from Lieutenant Colonel Abner Dowling.

“Sir, will you please put that…thing away?” his adjutant asked. Dowling commended himself for not modifying
thing
with a pungent adjective, or perhaps even a participle. The pistol, he knew, was loaded. Fortunately, the retiring U.S. commandant in Canada wasn’t.

With a grunt, Custer did set the revolver back in the holster, only to yank it out again a moment later. This time, he did point it at Dowling. His adjutant yelped. “Don’t you turn into an old woman on me,” Custer said peevishly. “You never know when an assassin may strike.”

Dowling couldn’t even tell him that was nonsense, not after the bomb in Winnipeg the summer before, and especially not after Wade Hampton V had been gunned down only a couple of months earlier. Custer’s adjutant did say, “I think you’ll be safe enough in a sleepy little town like Rosenfeld, sir.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” Custer sneered. “Have you forgotten that blackguard Arthur McGregor makes his home just outside this sleepy little town?”

As a matter of fact, Dowling had forgotten that till Custer reminded him of it. “Sir,” Dowling answered, taking a firm grip on his patience, “there really is no evidence this McGregor is a blackguard, or anything but a farmer. The experts are all convinced he’s an innocent man.”

“Experts?” Custer rolled his rheumy eyes. “The experts were all convinced we should use barrels by dribs and drabs, too. What the devil do experts know, except how to impress other experts?” He holstered the revolver again, then took out the report the experts had compiled on Arthur McGregor and flipped through it till he found a photograph of the man. “Here!” He thrust it at Dowling. “If this isn’t the face of a villain, what is it?”