“Some more pie, Patrick?”
With sincere regrets he declined. “I suppose I should have stopped eating at some point to tell you how delicious everything was.”
She smiled, delighted. “I cooked it all myself.”
“Really?”
“Of course not. I did help and could cook if it were the only way to avert starvation, but Molly did most of it, and I bought the pie from a neighbor.”
“And I’ll bet you didn’t stomp the grapes for the wine, either,” he added, wiping what he hoped were the last crumbs from his chin.
“ ‘Fraid not.” They both smiled at the vision of the elegant and very patrician Katrina Schuyler jumping up and down in a grape-filled vat.
Cautiously, so as not to disturb his meal, he rose, and the two of them walked through the house and out to the yard. It was getting measurably darker as the days neared the start of fall, and, although it was still quite warm, there was the barest hint of the coming winter in the air. They sat side by side on a high-backed bench.
“Katrina, do you like baseball?”
She turned, her eyes wide. “Why Patrick, I do believe that’s the most romantic question anyone’s ever asked. Was it the meal or the wine?”
He chuckled. “Both. So, do you?”
“I’ve seen a few games. They’re rather slow but pleasant enough. Why?”
“Well, I read the papers every day and see the scores. It reminds me there’s a life going on without me. There’s a major-league team now in Detroit and I’ve never seen them. Frankly, and for no logical reason, it left me a little depressed.”
“I think I know the feeling.” Life, she sometimes thought, was passing her by as well.
“Do you like football? Basketball?”
She laughed. “I hate football. I’ve seen games at Princeton, but it’s just a bunch of thugs trying to push each other down a field. I have no opinion on basketball since I have only heard of it and never seen it played. I understand the purpose of it and that it can be quite rough.”
“It’s a new game meant to be played indoors. Teams of men try to put a large ball in a basket.”
“Sounds rather foolish.”
“So does any game when you try to analyze it, I guess.”
They were silent for a few moments, each taking in the presence of the other. Finally Trina broke the spell. “Patrick, Heinz will be coming home to us in a few days and I will again be forced to look at what war does. When will this end?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. I can tell you that my role in it has apparently changed. MacArthur has told me my brigade will not be going into the line.”
“Wonderful!”
“Hah! Beware of generals bearing gifts. We have been ordered to practice maneuvering on the attack. Apparently we will be used as assault troops if the Germans breach our lines.”
“You’re right. That’s awful.”
“So we’ve been out learning how to operate as a whole brigade. It hasn’t been easy. Even the 9th and 10th have rarely operated as whole entities. They’ve usually been broken up into small frontier garrisons. The men are willing and they’re learning quickly. I just have no idea how much good my little brigade will be if the German army comes through. I’ve also been working on different tactics to minimize the awful losses now possible thanks to repeating rifles and machine guns.”
Trina shuddered at the thought. Enough of war. “Patrick, I do like sports. I’ve golfed, played tennis, swum, hiked, and ridden. You should be well aware there are few opportunities for women to play anything. Men have concocted a fiction that we are frail little creatures, incapable of honest physical effort. Worse,” she sneered, “there are many foolish female creatures who like to live that way and they simperingly conform to the myth, thereby perpetuating it.”
Patrick put his arm around her shoulders and she moved slightly toward him. She was slender but hardly frail. “Patrick,” she continued, “when this is over, where do we go? You and I.”
It was a question he almost dreaded finding the answer to. “I don’t know. I’ve come to depend on you so much. I want the war to end, but not us.”
She moved a little closer. “Why, Patrick, that actually was almost romantic.”
He smiled. She hadn’t rejected him. “I mean it,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
She put her arm around his chest and squeezed. “I don’t want you to go away either.” She disengaged herself and sat up straight. “Brave general, can you get some time off, say about a week?”
“I think so. Why?”
“I forgot to mention, but my father is in Albany. We have a small house there.” Katrina smiled pleasantly. “Most people would call it a castle, but we rich folk call it a house. I would like to take you there to meet my father. We could eat like little pigs, and hike and swim off all the food. Father could watch.” If he hasn’t brought along a girlfriend, she thought. If he had, they both could watch. Oh dear. That was something she would never have thought before.
Patrick could see her eyes shining brightly in the clear night, and he made the easy decision. “I will inform MacArthur that he will have to continue the war without me. Give me a few days to arrange things and we can go.” He paused. “Uh, what about Heinz and Molly?”
“Molly can handle him. She already informed me of that and in no uncertain terms. If she does need any help, there are people around, like Annabelle Harris, and I’ll arrange for them to look in. Somehow I think they’ll revel in the privacy, broken arm or no broken arm.”
They leaned toward each other and kissed deeply. Both were aware that a new threshold in their relationship had been crossed. Patrick had never been to Albany, never wanted to go. Now he wanted more than anything to go there and be with Trina. And he knew she wanted him there as well.
20
T HE BRIDGE ACROSS the small stream was a fairly solid-looking stone structure that easily supported the weight of a wagon loaded with materiel or the marching feet of fifty or so armed men. Until recently, the bridge hadn’t even been necessary. Generations of Long Islanders had simply eased themselves down the gentle banks on each side and walked across the stream, sometimes barely getting their feet wet. Even in a flood, the stream was rarely more than a few feet deep, and today it was quite shallow.
But a bridge was meant to be crossed and that meant traffic took advantage of its existence all day long and sometimes into the night. Blake Morris sat comfortably in the shade of a shrub and watched the quaint little bridge, barely two hundred yards away. The three men with him were all of his little band that he’d allotted to this task. The rest were in the warehouse area of Brooklyn, or what was left of that lovely city, and had their own assignments. There had been some discussion as to the wisdom of dividing up their small force, but the men in charge of the Brooklyn operation were more than qualified. They would hurt the Germans in the area of materiel; he would hurt their souls. As the Apaches on the mainland made the Germans fear the night, he, Blake Morris, would make them fear the day and cause what had been familiar and friendly to suddenly seem sinister and hostile.
Which was why the bridge, so quaint and charming, gently spanning a stream whose name he didn’t know, was such an appropriate choice.
“What time is it?” Blake hissed, unnecessarily quiet. The response came that it was a little past two in the afternoon. Blake sighed and continued to wait. If all had gone well in Brooklyn, that event was already over. Perhaps he should have gone there with his men. No, he reminded himself, this would strike at the enemy’s soul, if the Germans had souls.
A tremble, a murmur, passed through the air. He looked and the others had heard it too. There was the soft exhalation of their own breath. The wondrously punctual Germans were arriving.
Shortly, the sounds took on definition. The bastards were actually singing! A few minutes later he could see them as they approached the bridge, his bridge. His cute little bridge. First came a lead group of ten, a squad. These were followed by a handful of mounted officers and then the remainder of the battalion, hundreds of men in columns of four. They were in step, he noticed. Despite the fact that they were in the country, their commander had evidently continued to insist they march in step rather than walk at a natural pace. What a fool! Did he think the creatures in the meadow were watching his parade? He must be loved by his troops.