Harry Turtledove - Drive to the East

“Er-yes, sir,” Captain Toricelli said. These days, Dowling didn’t bother hiding his scorn for his superior. MacArthur didn’t like him, either, and manifested it by withholding men and materiel from his corps. That was how things looked to Dowling’s jaundiced eye, anyhow.

“Draft the orders,” Dowling said. “Send them by runner, not by telegraph or telephone or wireless, not even in code. I don’t want the Confederates getting wind of what we’re up to and priming some men to lie like Ananias.” Maybe he had what the smart alienists these days were calling a persecution complex. He didn’t intend to worry about it. An Army officer who didn’t worry that the enemy was out to diddle him didn’t deserve his shoulder straps.

And Toricelli didn’t think his orders were anything out of the ordinary-or, if he did, he had the sense to keep his mouth shut about it. “I’ll have them on your desk in twenty minutes, sir,” he promised.

“That sounds good,” Dowling said.

As if further to disguise whatever they were up to, the Confederates in front of Dowling’s corps suddenly turned aggressive-not in any big way, but with lots of raids and artillery barrages and all the other things that made it look as if a major offensive might be brewing. Several regimental commanders sent panicky messages back to Culpeper.

One thing Dowling was good at was not getting excited at every little thing. Had he got excited at every little thing while serving under General Custer, he would have jumped out a window early in his career. He managed to calm down his subordinates, too. Had he been wrong, had the Confederates been planning a big push, he might have ended up with egg on his face for calming them down too well. But no big push came.

In due course, the interrogation reports did. Dowling’s eyebrows rose toward his retreating hairline when he read them. He looked up to Captain Toricelli, who’d given him the transcripts. “The questioners think this is reliable and accurate?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. I talked to one of them. They’re pretty certain,” Toricelli replied.

“All right. We’ll relay it to General MacArthur’s headquarters, and we’ll also relay it to the War Department,” Dowling said. “In code, mind you.”

“Oh, yes, sir,” his adjutant agreed. “This is too hot to go out in clear.” For once, he showed none of the quiet scorn with which adjutants often greeted their superiors’ ideas. I hope my notions aren’t as bad as a lot of Custer’s were, Dowling thought. And yet one of Custer’s ideas-as foolish at first sight and as stubbornly maintained as any of the others-had gone a long way toward winning the Great War. You never could tell.

A few hours later, Dowling’s telephone jangled. He picked it up. “First Corps Headquarters, Dowling speaking.”

“Hello, sir. This is John Abell.” The General Staff officer didn’t give his rank or affiliation. That was no doubt wise. A lot of telephone wire lay between Philadelphia and Culpeper. If the Confederates weren’t tapping it somewhere, Dowling would have been amazed. Abell went on, “You have confidence in the information you sent us?”

“Would I have sent it if I didn’t?” Dowling returned.

“You’d be amazed,” Abell said, and that was probably true. He continued, “We still have to confirm it at the other end.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Dowling said. “But I do know what I’ve seen, and I know-or I think I know-I wasn’t imagining it.”

“You weren’t, not if these reports are even close to accurate,” Abell said. “Have you heard anything from General MacArthur yet?”

“No, not a word,” Dowling said.

The General Staff officer sniffed disdainfully. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I’ve alerted him to the possibility. That’s all I can do,” Dowling said. That’s all I want to do, he added to himself. If I could have found any way to keep from doing even that much, I would have grabbed it like you wouldn’t believe.

“I hope something good comes of it.” Abell’s tone suggested he didn’t think that was likely. “So long, sir. Take care of yourself.” He hung up.

So did Dowling, muttering to himself. Daniel MacArthur didn’t want to talk to him any more than he wanted to talk to MacArthur. So he thought, anyhow. But when the telephone rang again and he picked it up, what he heard was an abrupt rasp: “This is MacArthur.”

“Yes, sir.” Dowling unconsciously came to attention in his chair. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“It’s really true that the Confederates are draining men away from this entire front?” MacArthur demanded.

“Sir, that’s the way it looks from here.” Dowling didn’t intend to commit himself any further than that. Assert that something was really true and it was only too likely to come back and haunt you.

What he did say seemed to satisfy MacArthur. “In that case, I’m going to take one of the divisions out of your corps and bring it east.”

“What?” The word burst from Dowling’s throat as a pained yelp. “What do you want to do that for?”

“We mounted an attack at Fredericksburg that could have succeeded-that should have succeeded, in fact,” MacArthur answered. “I intend to send more men in this time-send them in and have them break through.”

From everything Dowling had heard, the attack on Fredericksburg hadn’t come anywhere near as close to succeeding as MacArthur claimed. From everything Dowling had heard, U.S. forces hadn’t even got over the Rappahannock and into Fredericksburg itself. Would throwing in more men help? Dowling didn’t know. Custer had always liked to smother fires by burying them in bodies. He’d had his share of bloody fiascoes, but he’d also finally had his breakthrough. Maybe Daniel MacArthur would, too. Maybe.

One thing was certain: if MacArthur wanted one of Dowling’s divisions, he had the right to take it. Dowling did what he could, saying, “We’ll be spread thin here if you do shift it east.”

“So are the Confederates you’re facing. You found that out yourself. Since they are, why worry? It seems to me that you spend too much time carping and complaining and not enough figuring out how to strike the foe.”

It seemed to Dowling that MacArthur spent too much time figuring out stupid ways to strike the foe. He didn’t say so. What point to it? He’d just get MacArthur angry at him again. He wouldn’t change his superior’s mind. No one except MacArthur could do that, and he wasn’t in the habit of doing so.

Suppressing a sigh, Dowling said, “Sir, I’ll do my best with whatever men you leave me. You can rely on that.”

“There. You see?” Daniel MacArthur actually sounded pleased. “You can be cooperative when you set your mind to it.”

By be cooperative, he meant do exactly what I tell you without asking any inconvenient questions no matter what. Dowling knew that only too well. Again, though, what could he do about it? Not much, as he knew all too well. He tried his best to keep resignation out of his voice as he answered, “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” MacArthur said. Dowling wondered if it was. MacArthur went on, “You’ll have your orders soon. Thin their lines against me, will they? I am going to bury those Confederates-bury them, I tell you. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

“Yes, sir,” Dowling said. Maybe he would. But how many U.S. soldiers would they bury, too? No way to know, not till it happened. Dowling had long since abandoned optimism along with the other illusions of his youth. He had thought before that MacArthur had more in common with George Custer than either of the two generals would ever have admitted: a complete lack of doubt and a strong belief in their own brilliance running neck and neck.