"I work in Washington."
"Wouldn't wish that on a man I hated. Doing what?"
"Artillery procurement for the Ordnance Department. If you want a more accurate description, I spend most of my time dealing with fools."
"Inventors?"
"They're the least offensive." George drank. "Principally I mean the generals and the politicians."
Haupt laughed, then leaned forward. "What's your opinion of Stanton?"
"Don't deal with him much. He's inflexible politically — a zealot — and some of his methods are suspect. But I think he's more competent than most."
"He learned the lesson of Bull Run more quickly than a lot of them. When this war started, damn few understood that you can move troops faster and easier by rail than by water. Most of the generals are still living in the riverboat age, but old Stanton saw the significance when the rebs brought men from the valley by train and combined two armies to whip McDowell. They did it so fast, McDowell was dizzy."
"Celerity," George said, nodding.
"Beg your pardon?"
"Celerity — it's one of Dennis Mahan's pet ideas. More than ten years ago, he was saying that celerity and communication would win the next war. The railroad and the telegraph."
"If the generals don't lose it first. Have another drink."
"Thanks, no. I must try to find my younger brother. He's in the Battalion of Engineers."
He rose to leave. Haupt thrust out his hand. "Enjoyed our talk. Aren't many in this army as smart and forthright as you." That amused George. He had done little except sit and listen while Haupt expounded — but of course if you did that, a rapid-fire talker always thought you brilliant.
"I am forced to go to Washington occasionally," Haupt went on. "I'll look you up next time."
"Wish you would, General."
"Herman, Herman," he said as George went out.
George checked on the whereabouts of the engineers and early in the afternoon swung aboard an iron-pot coal car, part of the train bound for Falmouth. He tugged his hat down, leaning against the cold metal of the pot and speculating about Haupt. A year ago or so, after the administration had pushed through a bill establishing a military railroad system, Stanton had brought in Daniel McCallum, superintendent of the Erie, to run it. Why McCallum hadn't been satisfactory, George didn't know, but Haupt soon replaced him.
Haupt organized his department into two corps, one to handle operations, the other construction. It was in connection with the latter that Haupt's legend had spread. He was famous for laying track rapidly, building sturdy bridges virtually overnight — and losing his temper as he did it. At least the man accomplished something, which was more than George could say for Ripley. Or for himself.
After jumping off the slow-moving car at Brooks Station, he found Billy supervising construction of a stockade to strengthen the station against attack. They stayed at the work site and talked for an hour. George learned that his brother had just finished a week's leave at Belvedere. Both going home and returning, Billy had passed through Washington in the middle of the night — an inappropriate hour for calling in Georgetown, he explained.
George grinned. "I can understand your eagerness to see your wife but not your haste to get back to duty."
"I want to get this war over with. I'm sick of being separated from Brett. I'm sick of the whole damn thing."
That was the tenor of the reunion: little humor and a pervasive melancholy. George could do nothing to cheer his brother. He felt bad about that as he returned to the city.
To his surprise and delight, before a week went by, Herman Haupt stalked into the Winder Building hunting for him. They went to Willard's for lager and a huge afternoon meal. Haupt had his temper up; he had come from a meeting at the War Department. George asked what had gone wrong.
"Never mind. If I talk about it, I'll just blow up again."
"Well, I had another argument with Ripley this morning, so I don't feel a hell of a lot better. I keep telling my wife that I don't think I can stay here much longer."
Haupt chewed an unlit cigar. "If you decide you must get out, tell me. I'll put you to work building railroads."
"I can manufacture rails, Herman, but I don't know a blessed thing about laying or maintaining them."
"Twenty-four hours in the Construction Corps and you will. I guarantee it."
George smiled abruptly; a weight had vanished. "I appreciate the offer. I may take you up on it sooner than you imagine."
Raw winds, freezing temperatures, sudden snows continued to torment the armies waiting for spring. Everything, including camp life, was harder because of the weather. Charles managed to ride to Barclay's Farm for three overnight visits. The first time he brought two carbines and ammunition taken from dead Yankees, turning the lot over to Boz and Washington, an act that would have gotten him flogged in his home state. But he trusted the freedmen, and they had to be armed if the Yankees crossed the river in force when the weather warmed up.
The second visit almost cost him his life. He came straight from reporting after a two-day ride behind enemy lines with Ab. He was still clad in the uniform he wore for such missions — light blue trousers with broad yellow stripe, confiscated talma of Union blue, kepi with crossed sabers in tarnished metal. It was snowing when he approached the farm. Boz mistook him for the enemy and shot at him. The first round narrowly missed him. By the time Boz fired again, Charles and Sport had taken cover behind a red oak. The bullet hit the tree. Charles yelled to identify himself, and Boz apologized for almost ten minutes.
Charles couldn't get enough of the yellow-haired, blue-eyed widow. Not enough of talking to her, sleeping with her, touching her, or just watching her.
She wanted to know all about his life in the cavalry. Over savory beef soup, from which he plucked the ring bones and sucked the marrow, he told her about the boredom of the winter camps; Jeb Stuart's, south of Fredericksburg, had been nicknamed Camp No-Camp because of the monotony of life there.
Then he talked of Confederate cavalrymen gathering legends around their names. Of Turner Ashby, who had flashed like a comet for a year, displaying a suicidal recklessness when he rode his white charger. Some said he was wild to avenge his slain brother Richard. Ashby had been killed in the valley last summer. Of John Mosby, who had scouted for Stuart on the ride around McClellan, now commanding mounted irregulars in Loudoun, Fauquier, and Fairfax counties, an area rapidly becoming known as Mosby's Confederacy. "The Yanks want to hang him as an outlaw." Out in Kentucky, there was John Hunt Morgan, called the Thunderbolt of the Confederacy. And they were starting to hear fantastic tales of another horseman in the West, a barely literate planter by the name of Bedford Forrest.
"Does he have a nickname, too?"
"The Wizard of the Saddle."
"You've been left out, Charles."
"Oh, no. Ab and the rest of us, we're called the Iron Scouts."
"It sounds like a compliment."
He smiled. "I take it as one."
"If you're that special, the Yankees must consider you prime targets."
He glanced at her as he raised the soup bone to his mouth. There was no lightness in the remark or in her expression.
In the drowsiness after love-making, he liked to share his past with her. He described the way he had been tricked into having half his head shaved the day he arrived at West Point. He told her about the soldiers he had met and admired in the Second Cavalry, among them the Virginian George Thomas, now on the other side. He shared the story of his difficulties with the captain named Bent, who for some reason hated his whole family. And he created pictures of Texas as best he could with inadequate words: the vistas of grass, the blue northers, the pecan trees and post oaks glistening after a rain while larks sang.