Harry Turtledove - Return engagement

Cincinnatus' father was up waiting for him. "You did come home. Praise the Lord!" Seneca Driver said.

"Wasn't the police at the door, Pa," Cincinnatus answered. "Sorry you woke up while I was tendin' to it."

"Don't worry about that none," his father said. "Got us plenty o' more important things to worry about." Cincinnatus wished he could have told him he was wrong. And he could have, too-but only if he were willing to lie.

Tom Colleton felt proud of himself. He'd managed to wangle four days of leave. That wasn't long enough to go home to South Carolina, but it did let him get away from the front and down to Columbus. Not worrying about getting shelled or gassed for a little while seemed a good start on the road to the earthly paradise.

It also proved too good to be true. As he got on the train that would take him from Sandusky to Columbus, a military policeman said, "Oh, good, sir-you've got your sidearm."

"What about it?" Tom's hand fell to the pistol on his hip.

"Only that it's a good idea, sir," the MP answered, his white-painted helmet and white gloves making him stand out from the ordinary run of noncoms. "The damnyankees down there aren't real happy about the way things have gone."

"Unhappy enough so that a Confederate officer needs to pack a pistol?" Tom asked. The MP gave back a somber nod. Tom only shrugged. "Well, if U.S. soldiers couldn't kill me, I'm not going to lose too much sleep over U.S. civilians." That got a grin from the military policeman.

The train was an hour and a half late getting into Columbus. It had to wait on a siding while workmen repaired damage-sabotage-to the railway. Tom Colleton fumed. "Don't get yourself in an uproar, sir," advised a captain who'd evidently made the trip several times. "Could be a hell of a lot worse. Leastways we haven't had any fighters shooting us up this time around."

"Gurk," Tom said. No, he hadn't come far enough to escape the war-not even close.

And he was reminded of it when he got into Columbus. The city had been at the center of a Yankee pocket. The U.S. soldiers who'd held it had fought hard to keep the Confederates from taking it. They'd quit only when they ran too low on fuel and ammunition to go on fighting. That meant Columbus looked as if rats the size of automobiles had been taking big bites out of most of the buildings.

The porter who fetched suitcases from the baggage car for those who had them was a white man. He spoke with some kind of Eastern European accent. Tom stared at him. He'd rarely seen a white man doing nigger work, and in the CSA few jobs more perfectly defined nigger work than a porter's.

This fellow stared right back at him. That wasn't curiosity in his eyes. It was raw hatred. Measuring me for a coffin, Tom thought. He'd wondered if the MP had exaggerated. Now he saw the man hadn't. The weight of the.45 on his hip was suddenly very comforting.

Union Station was a few blocks north of the state Capitol, whose dome had taken a hit from a bomb. Fort Mahan, which had been the chief U.S. military depot in Ohio, was now where visiting Confederates stayed. It lay a few blocks east of the station, on Buckingham Street. Sentries checked Tom's papers with scrupulous care before admitting him. "You think I'm a Yankee spy?" he asked, amused.

"Sir, we've had us some trouble with that," one of the sentries answered, which brought him up short.

"Have you?" he said. All three sentries nodded. Two of them had examined his bona fides while the third covered them and Tom with his automatic rifle. Tom asked, "You have a lot of problems with people shooting at you, stuff like that?"

"Some," answered the corporal who'd spoken before. "We gave an order for the damnyankees to turn in their guns when we took this here place, same as we always do." He made a sour face. "Reckon you can guess how much good that done us."

"I expect I can," Tom said. If the United States had occupied Dallas and tried to enforce the same order, it wouldn't have done them any good, either. People in both the USA and the CSA had too many guns and too many hiding places-and the Yankees hated the Confederates just as much as the Confederates hated the Yankees, so nobody on either side wanted to do what anyone on the other side said.

The sentry added, "It's not shooting so much. We've hanged some of the bastards who tried that, and we've got hostages to try and make sure more of 'em don't. But there's sabotage all the time: slashed tires, busted windows, sugar in the gas tank, shit like that. We shot a baker for mixing ground glass in with the bread he gave us. They even say whores with the clap don't get it treated so as they can give it to more of us."

"Do they?" Tom murmured. He hadn't been with a woman since the war started. But Bertha was a long way away. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. He'd thought he might… Then again, if what this fellow said was true, he might not, too.

"I don't know that that's so, sir," the corporal said. "But they do say it." He gave Tom his papers again. "Pass on, and have yourself a good old time."

Don't eat the bread, Tom thought. Don't lay the women. Sounds like a hell of a way to have a good old time to me. At least he didn't say the bartenders were pissing in the whiskey.

He found the Bachelor Officers' Quarters without any trouble. Fort Mahan bristled with signs, some left over from when the USA ran the place, others put up by the Confederates. He got a room of his own, one of about the same quality as he would have had in the CSA. Two stars on each collar tab helped. Had he been a lieutenant or a captain, he probably would have ended up with a roommate or two.

Since the sentry hadn't warned that they were pissing in the booze, he headed for the officers' club once he'd dumped his valise in the room. He got another jolt when he walked in: the barkeep was as white as the railroad porter. Tom walked up to him and ordered a highball. The man in the boiled shirt and black bow tie didn't bat an eye. He made the drink and set it on the bar. "Here you go, sir," he said quietly. His accent declared him a Yankee.

Tom sipped the highball. It was fine. Even so… "How long have you been tending bar?" he asked.

"About… fifteen years, sir," the fellow said after a moment's pause for thought. "Why, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Just wondering. What do you think of the work?"

"It's all right. Money's not bad. I never did care for getting cooped up in a factory. I like talking with people and I listen pretty well, so it suits me."

"Doesn't it, oh, get you down, having to do what other folks tell you all the time? Serving them, you might say?"

He and the bartender both spoke English, but they didn't speak the same language. The man shrugged. "It's a job, that's all. Tell me about a job where you don't have to do what other people tell you. I'll be on that one like a shot."

Tom decided to get more direct: "Down in the Confederate States, we'd call a job like this nigger work."

"Oh." The barkeep suddenly found himself on familiar ground. "Now I see what you're driving at. Some other people have asked me about that. All I got to tell you, pal, is that you're not in the Confederate States any more."

"I noticed that." Shaking his head, Tom found an empty table and sat down. The man behind the bar plainly didn't feel degraded by his work. A white Confederate would have. You're not in the CSA any more is right, Tom thought. That was true.

A couple of other officers came in and ordered drinks. One of them nodded to Tom. "Haven't seen you before," he remarked. "Just get in?"

"That's right," Tom answered. "Nice, friendly little town, isn't it? I always did enjoy a place where I could relax and not have to look over my shoulder all the time."

The officer who'd spoken to him-a major-and his friend-a lieutenant-colonel like Tom-both laughed. After they'd got their whiskeys, the major said, "Mind if we join you?"