The diminutive Joe Wheeler cackled. “Well, we sure ain’t celebrating your arrival as our savior. For two months you been Roosevelt ’s suck-ass toady and now you’re supposed to get a command! Gawd, there ain’t no justice! What do you want? Miles’s old job?”
Patrick simply smiled. He knew Wheeler’s comments were without malice. “Gentlemen,” he said, raising his glass, “to old Civil War generals.”
“Call it right, goddamnit,” snapped Wheeler. “Where I come from it’s called the War of Northern Aggression.”
“Aw, shit,” groaned Smith. “Can’t you people ever realize you lost the goddamn war?”
“Never.” Lee smiled and shifted his hefty body. Unlike Wheeler, he had allowed himself to gain a great deal of weight and no longer resembled a cavalry leader. “And when will you realize why so many top positions are going to ex-Confederates?”
Patrick took another sip of the whiskey and let the warmth permeate his tired body. Yesterday he had been in Washington. Today, only thirty hours later, he was in Hartford, having bypassed all German activity.
The three old comrades facing Patrick were engaged in a bout of wet reminiscing. Smith had commanded a Union corps at Petersburg at the end of the Civil War; Wheeler and Lee had commanded divisions for the Confederate cause. Thirty-five years later they had found themselves on the same side against a new enemy, Spain. Three years after that they were at it again against Germany.
“To Longstreet,” Patrick said cautiously and raised his glass. The three generals also drank. So much for the appointment being controversial to his new subordinates, he thought. “And why is James Longstreet called ‘Old Pete’?”
Wheeler shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me. He doesn’t have a middle name that I know of. Maybe it was the name of an old horse or a favorite hound.”
The evening continued with the older generals talking and Patrick usually listening. It was a fascinating slice of history, and he desperately wanted to remember it all. They relived battles fought forty years prior and discussed a dozen times since. There had been tragedies as well as triumphs. The man with the biggest burden to bear seemed to be Baldy Smith, who remembered the day in 1864 when he and his corps had stood before a virtually empty Petersburg and balked. He had halted, waiting for reinforcements he didn’t need, and let slip the opportunity to take Petersburg and Richmond. His mistake caused the war to drag on for another bloody year, and it saddened him every time he thought of it.
Finally the effects of Patrick’s trip and the liquor started to take their toll and he became afraid he would fall asleep. He rose and excused himself. The old men bade him good night. They still had several more campaigns to refight.
“Don’t worry, Patrick,” said Smith. “Longstreet will do all right and so will we. We’ll talk about your command tomorrow. If you like challenges, you’ll love this one.”
Wheeler jabbed the air with his hand. “We’re getting Longstreet and a million men.” He dropped his hand and looked confused. “What the hell will we do with a million men?”
Instead of going directly to bed, Patrick walked a bit to clear his head. If he was to report more formally to Smith the next day, he would prefer to not be suffering from an agonizing hangover, although he might be the only senior officer without one.
After a while and feeling more sober, he went to his tent, stripped to his underclothes, and washed up out of a basin as well as he could. Then he lay down on an uncomfortable cot and looked at the stark top of the tent. It was, he decided, a damned hard way to make a living. Here he was, nearing forty and sleeping on a cot in a tent in the middle of an otherwise civilized and respectable city. Of course the war made certain there were no rooms available, and he might have gotten Smith or Wheeler to find him a place, but that would have been imposing. Worse, some poor soul might have gotten bumped, and he didn’t consider that quite fair. What the hell, at least he’d pulled rank and gotten someone to put up the tent.
How long had he been in the army? Counting time at the academy, twenty years. That was enough, he decided. Twenty years and two wars and how many skirmishes against Indians? Was he eligible for a pension? Did it matter? It was time to leave.
He knew he had found his real calling when writing his German report at West Point and lecturing on it. The contacts he’d been making over the years would pay off with a teaching position at one of several universities if returning to West Point was not feasible. More and more he was starting to think that West Point was not the proper place. That left his other two major possibilities: the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and the University of Detroit, in the center of the city of that name. There was logic to this, since the area was his home and he and his family knew so many people. It also meant he wouldn’t have to sleep on any more cots. Ever.
Yet what sort of life would he have? He was not poor, so there would be no trouble with money, but he was still single. With whom could he share his life? How would he meet a proper companion at his age?
He ran down the list of women he had known and found it depressingly short. Certainly he’d socialized with women, both before the academy and afterward, and enjoyed it. His nomadic military life had made such acquaintances brief, but some had been intense. There had been a particularly splendid relationship with a major’s daughter during a two-week idyll in Southern California. He had considered proposing, but she had dumped him a few weeks later, leaving him with only memories of naked bodies frolicking in the moonlit surf.
But that was more than ten years ago. The woman was now married to some banker and had two children. Probably got fat too. The thought depressed him.
The only woman he knew at all now was Katrina Schuyler, and despite what he had told her, she did frighten him. No, not because of her mind or her opinions, but because she was so rich and sophisticated that she must think him a barbarian bumpkin. Yes, she was attractive, interesting, and polite, and perhaps they really were friends, but how could it ever go farther than that?
He willed himself not to fantasize about life on a college campus with Katrina. She could likely buy her own college if she so wished.
Well, at least Heinz and Molly had hit it off. A short note from Trina had informed him, with equal degrees of shock and amusement, that the two young people had fallen in love. Her words also implied that they were sleeping together.
That, of course, partially explained why his young aide was not in Hartford and why he, as a brigadier general, had to sleep in a tent. Patrick vowed insincerely to teach the young pup a lesson when he finally did show up. What the hell, let them have their joy while they can. Only God knew what might happen to them tomorrow.
Patrick sat up in the cot. Of course. What the hell was he being such a fool for? If such an unlikely pair as Heinz and Molly could find themselves, why couldn’t he and Katrina? The worst that could happen was that she would reject him, and he would be no worse off than he was right now.
Did he love her? He didn’t know. He knew that he enjoyed her company and liked to see her smile, and loved to hear her talk. And hadn’t she kissed him and urged him to return? Once again he could see her face and feel her slender body against his, even if it had been for only the briefest of moments. What had Admiral Nelson said about a good commander being able to do no wrong if he laid his ship alongside that of an enemy? He laughed. Katrina Schuyler was not his enemy, but he certainly wouldn’t mind lying alongside her.
He lay back down and prepared for sleep. Tomorrow would be a long day, what with finding out about the type of unit he would be commanding, but he would try to make arrangements to see Katrina.