Harry Turtledove - Return engagement

"Anything else I can do for you?" Featherston didn't quite tell Partridge to get the hell out of there, but he didn't miss by much. The Vice President took the hint and left, which he wouldn't have if Jake had made it more subtle.

He's a damn fool, Featherston thought, but even damn fools have their uses. That's something I didn't understand when I was younger. One thing he understood now was that he couldn't afford to let the damnyankees kill him before he'd won the war. He tried to imagine Don Partridge as President of the Confederate States. When he did, he imagined victory flying out the window. Damn fools had their uses, but running things wasn't one of them.

Featherston looked at a clock on the wall, then at a map across from it. He'd got Partridge out early; his next appointment wasn't for another twenty minutes. It was with Nathan Bedford Forrest III. The general was no fool. Railing against the Whigs, Jake had cussed them for being the party of Juniors and IIIs and IVs, people who thought they ought to have a place on account of what their last name was. Say what you would about Forrest, but he wasn't like that.

He came bounding into the President's office. He didn't waste time with hellos. Instead, he pointed to the map. "Sir, we're going to have a problem, and we're going to have it pretty damn quick."

"The one we've seen coming for a while now?" Jake asked.

Nathan Bedford Forrest III nodded. "Yes, sir." His face was wider and fleshier than that of his famous ancestor, but you could spot the resemblance in his eyes and eyebrows… and the first Nathan Bedford Forrest had had some of the deadliest eyes anybody'd ever seen. His great-grandson (the name had skipped a generation) continued, "The damnyankees have seen what we did in Ohio. Looks like they're getting ready to try the same thing here. After all, it's not nearly as far from the border to Richmond as it is from the Ohio River up to Lake Erie."

"Like you say, we've been looking for it," Featherston replied. "We've been getting ready for it, too. How much blood do they want to spend to get where they aim to go? We'll give 'em a Great War fight, only more so. And by God, even if they do take Richmond, they haven't hurt us half as bad as what we did to them farther west."

"I aim to try to keep that from happening," Forrest said. "I think I can. I hope I can. And you're right about the other. What we've done to them will make it harder for them to do things to us. But we're going to have a hell of a fight on our hands, Mr. President. You need to know that. Life doesn't come with a guarantee."

"I haven't backed down from a fight yet," Jake said. "I don't aim to start now."

On the shelf. Abner Dowling hated it. Oh, they hadn't thrown him out of the Army altogether, as he'd feared they might. But he was back in the War Department in Philadelphia, doing what should have been about a lieutenant colonel's job. That was what he got for letting Ohio fall.

He'd been George Armstrong Custer's adjutant for what seemed like forever (of course, any time with Custer seemed like forever). He'd been a reasonably successful military governor in Utah and Kentucky. These days, Utah was in revolt and Kentucky belonged to the CSA, but none of that was his fault.

Then they'd finally given him a combat command-but not enough barrels or airplanes to go with it. He hadn't done a bang-up job with what he had. Looking back, he could see he'd made mistakes. But he was damned if he could see how anyone but an all-knowing superman could have avoided some of those mistakes. They'd seemed like good ideas at the time. Hindsight said they hadn't been, but who got hindsight ahead of time?

Dowling swore under his breath and tried to unsnarl a logistics problem. Right this minute, the war effort was nothing but logistics problems. That was the Confederacy's fault. Getting from east to west-or, more urgently at the moment, from west to east-was fouled up beyond all recognition. Everybody thought he deserved to go first, and nobody figured he ought to wait in line.

"I ought to give 'em a swat and make 'em go stand in the corner," Dowling muttered. If Army officers were going to act like a bunch of six-year-olds, they deserved to be treated the same way. Too bad his authority didn't reach so far.

Someone knocked on the frame to the open door of his office. A measure of how he'd fallen was that he didn't have a young lieutenant out there running interference for him. "General Dowling? May I have a few minutes of your time?"

"General MacArthur!" Dowling jumped to his feet and saluted. "Yes, sir, of course. Come right in. Have a seat."

"I thank you very much," Major General Daniel MacArthur said grandly. But then, Daniel MacArthur was made for the grand gesture. He was tall and lean and craggy. He wore a severely, almost monastically, plain uniform, and smoked cigarettes from a long, fancy holder. He was in his mid-fifties now. During the Great War, he'd been a boy wonder, the youngest man to command a division. He'd commanded it in Custer's First Army, too, which had made for some interesting times. Custer had never wanted anybody but himself to get publicity, while MacArthur was also an avid self-promoter.

"What can I do for you, sir?" Dowling asked.

"You may have heard I'm to head up the attack into Virginia." MacArthur thrust out his long, granitic chin. Like Custer, he was always ready-always eager-to strike a pose.

"No, sir, I hadn't heard," Dowling admitted. He wasn't hooked into the grapevine here. Quite simply, not many people wanted to talk to an officer down on his luck. He put the best face on it he could: "I imagine security is pretty tight."

"I suppose so." But Daniel MacArthur couldn't help looking and sounding disappointed. He was a man who lived to be observed. If people weren't watching him, if he wasn't at the center of the stage, he began to wonder if he existed.

"What can I do for you?" Dowling asked again.

MacArthur brightened, no doubt thinking of all the attention he would get once he became the hero of the hour. "You have more recent experience in fighting the Confederates than anyone else," he said.

"I guess I do-much of it painful," Dowling said.

"I hope to avoid that." By his tone, MacArthur was confident he would. Custer had had that arrogance, too. A good commander needed some of it. Too much, though, and you started thinking you were always right. Your soldiers commonly paid for that-in blood. MacArthur went on, "In any case, I was wondering if you would be kind enough to tell me some of the things I might do well to look out for."

Abner Dowling blinked. That was actually a reasonable request. He wondered if something was wrong with MacArthur. After some thought, he answered, "Well, sir, one thing they do very well is coordinate their infantry, armor, artillery, and aircraft, especially the damned barrels. They'd studied Colonel Morrell's tactics from the last war and improved them for the extra speed barrels have these days."

"Ah, yes. Colonel Morrell." MacArthur looked as if Dowling had broken wind in public. He didn't much like Morrell. The barrel officer had gained breakthroughs last time around where he hadn't. Morrell was not a publicity hound, which only made him more suspicious to MacArthur.

"Sir, he's still the best barrel commander we've got, far and away," Dowling said. "If you can get him for whatever you're going to do in Virginia, you should."

"Colonel Morrell is occupied with affairs farther west. I am perfectly satisfied with the officers I have serving under me."

"Is it true that the Confederates have recalled General Patton to Virginia?" Dowling asked.

"I have heard that that may be so." Daniel MacArthur shrugged. "I'm not afraid of him."

Dowling believed him. MacArthur had never lacked for courage. Neither had Custer, for that matter. He was as brave a man as Dowling had ever seen. When it came to common sense, on the other hand… When it came to common sense, both MacArthur and Custer had been standing in line for an extra helping of courage.