“All right, sir. I’ll tell him. Internal security. It’s a good phrase,” the Secretary of State said.
“He damn well better say yes,” Jake said. A small gasp came from the other end of the line. Hastily, he added, “It’ll be his hard luck if he doesn’t, not yours. I didn’t mean that.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. I’m glad you didn’t. And now I’d better get on with it.” When Jake didn’t say no, Walker hung up. Jake chuckled harshly. He could still make people afraid of him, an essential part of the business of ruling.
But the chuckle cut off as he looked from one situation map to the other. How was he supposed to make the damnyankees afraid of him? He’d hurt them badly. He’d stopped their first big counterattack. Now, though, they were running with the ball, and he was going to have a devil of a time tackling them.
Abner Dowling had spent too long either retreating before the Confederates or banging his head into a stone wall. Now, for the first time since gaining a command of his own, he was going forward-and he was enjoying it, too. So what if the force he had consisted mostly of what nobody else in the USA wanted? The force trying to stop him consisted mostly of what nobody else in the CSA wanted. By the way it had performed so far, it was even more raggedy than his own.
His new headquarters lay in the grand metropolis-say, a thousand people-of Sudan, Texas. He’d been disappointed when one of the locals told him it was named for the kind of grass that fed the local cattle, not for the place in Africa. He supposed the grass was named for the place in Africa, but it didn’t seem the same.
Sudan grass didn’t cover everything. Not far away, a brownish-yellow ridge line ran east and west. It was called, bluntly, the Sand Hills. People from the north side of the hills were supposed to vote differently from those to the south, and each group was supposed to have its own little social sets. Dowling lost not a moment’s sleep about that. People on both sides of the Sand Hills were Confederates, which was everything he needed to know about them.
His line stood about four miles farther down C.S. Highway 84, halfway between Sudan and Amherst, a town of about the same size. Another eight or ten miles down the road was Littlefield, which was the next size up. Lubbock lay thirty-five miles southeast of Littlefield, and Lubbock, with more than 20,000 people, was a real city. If he could take it, people as far away as Richmond would jump and shout and swear.
And if he couldn’t… “News from Pennsylvania and Ohio’s better than what we’ve heard before,” he said to Major Toricelli.
“Yes, sir,” his adjutant agreed. “Now we get to see how tough the enemy is when things don’t go his way.”
Dowling coughed. He wished the younger man hadn’t put it that way. He’d seen the Confederates in adversity during the last war, and they’d fought like sons of bitches. They were sons of bitches, as far as he was concerned, but that didn’t mean they weren’t brave and tough and stubborn.
“We’re playing some little part in what’s going on there, too,” he said. “I like that.”
“Yes, sir. Me, too,” Angelo Toricelli said. “Wherever they get reinforcements from, they won’t get ’em from here. We’re keeping ’em too busy for that.”
“We may even grab Lubbock,” Dowling said. “I didn’t think we could when we got started, but you know what?”
“The Confederates around here are even more screwed up than we are?” Toricelli suggested.
“That’s just exactly what I was going to say.” Dowling raised an eyebrow. “By now, you’ve signed my name with ‘by direction’ after it so many times, you really are starting to think like me. No offense, of course.”
“Did I say anything like that, sir?” Toricelli looked and sounded so innocent, Dowling wouldn’t have been surprised to see a halo suddenly start glowing above his head. The general commanding Eleventh Army chuckled under his breath. If his adjutant had started thinking like him, he could also start thinking like his adjutant. He’d been an adjutant for years, while Toricelli would have to wait for the next war against the Confederates for his turn as a CO.
The next war against the Confederates… The noises Dowling made under his breath when that thought crossed his mind weren’t nearly so amused. When the Great War ended, he’d hoped the USA would never have to worry about the CSA again. He’d been too optimistic once. He would be a fool to make the same mistake twice. Nothing kept a man from making a fool of himself now and again. Dowling did try not to make a fool of himself that way too often.
Half a dozen artillery rounds came down a few hundred yards short of Sudan. “They’re probably after you, sir,” Major Toricelli said.
“They’re a pack of idiots if they are,” Dowling replied. “This attack doesn’t need Julius Caesar or Napoleon at the top. As long as I keep the boys in butternut too busy to head east, I’m a hero.”
“A regular Robert E. Lee,” Toricelli said with malice aforethought. Dowling scowled, his severity more or less real. If his Confederate opposite number talked about officers to emulate, Lee’s name would likely be the first one in his mouth. Why not? Lee trounced every U.S. general he faced in the War of Secession.
When the War of Secession was new, just as Virginia was going from the USA to the CSA, Abe Lincoln offered Lee command of U.S. forces. Had Lee said yes, the USA might well be one country now. Lincoln might not share with James G. Blaine the dubious distinction of being the only Republican Presidents. They also shared the even more dubious distinction of starting wars-and losing them.
Dowling tried to remember. Wasn’t it during Blaine’s term that Lincoln had pulled out of the Republican Party and gone over to the Socialists? He thought so. The Republicans had never been the same since. Now Dowling, a thoroughgoing Democrat, had to hope the Socialists hadn’t started a war they were going to lose. He had to do whatever he could to help make sure they didn’t lose it, too.
More shells crashed down southeast of Sudan. These were closer. Dowling and Major Toricelli both raised eyebrows. Toricelli said, “Sir, I move we adjourn to the storm cellar. You may not think you’re important, but it looks like they do.”
“Damn nuisance,” Dowling grumbled, but he didn’t say no. An unlit kerosene lantern hung on the wall by the trap door to the cellar. Tornadoes tore across the West Texas prairie every now and again. Most houses in these parts-and on the U.S. side of the line in New Mexico, too-had shelters that could save lives… if you were lucky enough or quick enough to get into them fast enough.
Toricelli ceremoniously lifted the trap door. “After you, sir.” A couple of the wooden stairs creaked under Dowling’s weight, but they held. Toricelli followed him down and closed the door behind them. “I’ve got a match, sir,” he said, and lit one.
Dowling hadn’t checked to see if the lamp held fuel. “Just my luck if it’s dry,” he said. But it wasn’t. Buttery light pushed back shadows. It wasn’t very bright, but it would do. Four milking stools comprised the cellar’s furniture. He set the lamp on one and perched himself on another. It also creaked.
“We’ve done what we can do, sir,” Major Toricelli said. One more set of booms came in, some of them very loud and close. “I’m glad we did, too,” he added.
“Well, now that you mention it, so am I,” Dowling allowed. His adjutant smiled. Dowling didn’t think of himself as particularly brave. General Custer, now, had been as brave a man as any ever born, even up into his seventies and eighties. Dowling admired that without being convinced it made Custer a better commander. It might have made him a worse one: since he didn’t worry about his own safety, he also didn’t worry much about his men’s. Daniel MacArthur also had as much courage as any four ordinary people needed, which didn’t make him any less a vain blowhard or any more a commanding general in command of himself. If you weren’t a hopeless coward-more to the point, if the soldiers you led didn’t know you were a hopeless coward-you could function as a commanding officer.