Harry Turtledove - Drive to the East

But a flag of truce was coming forward. The U.S. captain who carried it shouted to the men in the machine-gun nest: “I have a message for your leaders.” He had trouble being as loud as he wanted through his mask, but he managed.

“Come ahead.” The Mormon who answered was also yelling through a gas mask. “We won’t shoot as long as nobody in front of us tries moving forward.”

“Agreed,” the captain said. Waving the white flag so the rebels could see who he was, he picked his way through the wreckage, towards and then past the machine-gun nest. Other Mormons emerged from concealment that didn’t look big enough to hide a cat. One of them blindfolded the U.S. officer, which struck Armstrong as a sensible precaution. Then they led him north.

“Wonder what that’s all about,” Yossel Reisen said. “Are they flabbling so much about this one strongpoint? They wouldn’t call a truce just on account of it… would they?”

“Christ, I hope not,” Armstrong said. “Wish I had a cigarette.” No matter how much he wished he did, he didn’t take off his mask and light up. There was bound to be gas still floating in the air. If he saw somebody else smoking and getting away with it, he’d try. Till then, no. He went on, “Most of the damn Mormons don’t smoke. Makes ’em harder to spot.”

He didn’t stick his head up or expose himself unduly. The rebels were good about honoring cease-fires, but they weren’t perfect-and they’d said they would open up if anybody on the American side got frisky.

After the truce had stretched for a couple of hours, Americans got up and stretched and began to move around. The Mormons let them. When someone was dumb enough to start to go toward the machine-gun nest, the gunners fired a warning burst well over his head. He got the message and drew back in a hurry.

A little before sunset, the captain returned. This time, he waved the flag of truce so his own side wouldn’t shoot him. With him came a little old man in a somber black suit. He looked like a grandfather who was having a tough day. Nimble as a mountain goat, he followed the captain through the rubble of what had been Orem.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Armstrong asked. Neither Yossel Reisen nor anybody else had a good answer for him.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Senator Robert Taft demanded. He was a thoroughly reactionary Democrat who’d run against Al Smith in 1940. Flora Blackford didn’t think along with him very often when they met together with the rest of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. She didn’t very often, but she did now.

The chairman rapped loudly for order. “You were not recognized, Senator,” he said in tones of bureaucratic severity.

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Chairman.” Taft sounded anything but. “I must say that I have trouble recognizing what the present administration is up to.”

Bang! The chairman rapped again. “You are out of order, sir. Your remarks will be stricken from the record.” He pointed to Flora. “Congresswoman Blackford!”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” Flora said. George Norris smiled in relief. Like her, the Senator from Nebraska was a Socialist; he judged she was likely to go easy on President La Follette and his henchmen. Not today, though; she continued, “Mr. Chairman, I would also like to know what the hell is going on here.”

Several people exclaimed in surprise in the Philadelphia meeting room. “ Thank you, Mrs. Blackford!” Senator Taft said in glad surprise. Senator Norris looked as if he’d stepped on a land mine.

“I didn’t do it for you, Senator. I did it for me,” Flora replied. That made the chairman no happier. She’d hoped it would-Norris was an old man, and a Party warhorse-but hadn’t really expected it to. Turning to him, she went on, “What is the administration doing by negotiating with the Mormons? What have they done that makes them deserve negotiation?”

“I couldn’t have put that better myself,” Taft said.

“Congresswoman, I am not the right person to answer your question, as I trust you are aware,” the chairman said.

“Certainly,” Flora said. “That is why I move that we call the Secretary of the Interior to come before the committee and explain this extraordinary action.”

“Second!” Robert Taft wasn’t the only one to call out the word; it came from half a dozen throats. Some were Democrats, some Socialists; here, people were breaking party lines.

Seeing as much, Senator Norris looked even more pained than he had before. “With talks in progress, I am not sure the Secretary would respond to such a summons,” he replied. “I am not sure he should respond to such a summons.”

“There, Mr. Chairman, I must respectfully disagree,” Flora said. The language of Congress was marvelously polite. Anywhere else, she would have said something like, My God, you’re an idiot! Polite language or no, the message came through. Norris turned a dull red. Flora went on, “If the Secretary does not respond to an invitation to come before us, I will move that we subpoena him. We need to know why the administration thinks it can offer concessions to a group now rebelling against the U.S. government not for the first, not for the second, but for the third time.”

“You will not need to look far to find a second for that motion, either, Congresswoman,” Senator Taft said. Flora nodded back to him. He was only half the man his father had been; he was on the lean side, where William Howard Taft had been as round as the golf balls he’d loved to whack. William Howard Taft had also had the fat man’s gift of being, or at least seeming, good-natured most of the time. His son was far more acerbic-which had probably helped him lose the last election.

George Norris coughed. “You do realize that publicizing disagreements over policy may give aid and comfort to the Confederate States?”

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Flora said sharply. “I’m sorry, sir, but no one is going to get away with that. You can’t say I’m not a proper patriot if I don’t agree with everything this administration does. That’s Jake Featherston’s way of doing things, and he’s welcome to it. Why have we got a Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War if we can’t ask questions that have to do with the way we’re conducting the war?”

Several Senators and Representatives clapped their hands. The chairman licked his papery lips. He spoke carefully: “We are at war with the Confederate States, Congresswoman, and with the Empire of Mexico, and with Britain, France, Japan, and Russia. We are not at war with the state of Utah.”

Flora curtsied. “Thank you for informing me of that, Mr. Chairman. You might do better to inform the state of Utah, which seems unaware of the fact.” She got a laugh loud enough to make Norris ply his gavel with might and main. She continued, “By all precedent, it is a war. Congress established a Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War during the War of Secession, long before we had to recognize the CSA as an independent nation. Will you tell me I’m wrong, sir?”

By his expression, George Norris would have liked nothing better, but knew he couldn’t. “Call the question on the motion!” someone yelled. Looking even more unhappy, the chairman did. It passed with only a couple of dissenting votes.

When Flora walked into to her office, her secretary said, “Mr. Roosevelt called a little while ago, Congresswoman. He’d like you to call him back.”

“Thanks, Bertha. I’ll bet he would,” Flora said. How angry would the Assistant Secretary of War be? Only one way to find out. She went into the inner office and made the call.