Andrew could see that being cut out of the action was still wearing on Vincent but on the other side his exposure to all the administrative work as chief of staff was seasoning Hawthorne, training him for a day when, if they survived, he would take the mantle of control.
“You should go into the factories,” Vincent said. “I’m in there damn near every day now, trying to keep production up. They’re hellholes, old men, women, children as young as eight working twelve-hour shifts six days a week. Emil is pitching a fit, about conditions. Tuberculosis is up, and a lot of the women working in the factory making percussion caps are getting this strange sickness; Emil says it has something to do with mercury, the same as with hatters.
“There’s shortages of everything, especially since we’re feeding nearly a million Roum refugees who lost their land. A lot of folks are getting by on gruel and watery soup with a hint of meat dipped into it. The prosperity we saw building two years ago is completely out of balance now. A few folks, mostly old boyars and merchants are getting filthy rich on the war industries, but the ordinary workers are slipping behind.”
“So get Webster in, have them figure out some new kind of tax. Hell, he’s the financial wizard who figured it all out in the first place,” Andrew said, always at a loss when it came to the finances of running a war.
“He’s trying, Andrew, but these same people have the ears of Congress and block any changes in the taxes. We cobbled together an industrial war society. The Union could take it back home; we had two generations of change to get used to it. The Confederacy didn’t, and remember how they were falling apart. Well, it’s the same here. We’re producing the goods but barely hanging on, in fact it’s slipping apart. Rebuilding the railroads after last winter’s campaign, and the buildup for this last offensive meant too many other things were not done. Webster said it’s like pouring all the oil we have on only half the machine. Well, the other half, the installations, morale, political support, they’re all seizing up and falling apart.”
Andrew did not know how to reply. During the early spring, after his recovery from the wound, he had tried to understand just how complex it had all become, attending meetings with Webster that would go half the night. He’d demand more ironclads, locomotives, better breechloaders and flyers, and ammunition, always more ammunition, and Webster would repeat endlessly that it meant scrimping on something else equally important if they were to keep the machine of war running.
“You want to understand disenchantment with this war, go into the factories at two in the morning and you’ll see. There have even been rumors about strikes to protest the war and conditions.”
“It’s that or the slaughter pit,” Hans growled, cutting another piece of fruit and this time tossing it to Vincent.
“It’s been what, more than six years since this city was the front line,” Andrew said wearily. “We’ve taken well over a hundred thousand more casualties in this war. I can understand people back here grasping at any straw that’s offered.”
“In fact even the good news from the western front seems to be hurting us,” Vincent said.
“What’s that?”
“Sorry, I guess you didn’t hear. We got reliable intelligence that Tamuka was kicked out by what was left of the Merki Horde following him.”
“That bastard,” Hans growled. “I hope they made him a eunuch or better yet killed the scum.”
It was rare that Andrew heard a truly murderous tone in Hans’s voice, but it flared out now. It was Tamuka who first held Hans prisoner. He could see his friend actually trembling with pent-up rage at the mere mention of the name.
“What happened?” Andrew asked.
“You know that the skirmishing has died off on the western frontier. So much so that I’m recommending relieving a division posted out there and shifting it over to the eastern front. A couple of weeks back a small band of people came into our lines, refugees from what apparently are folks descended from Byzantine Greeks living to the southwest. They said that a umen of the Merki came to their town, killed most of them, but the survivors witnessed a big blowup, the bastards were killing each other and a one-handed Merki who was the leader was driven out of the band.”
“That’s got to be him,” Hans snarled. “Even his own kind hated him. And he wouldn’t have the guts to die with some honor rather than run.”
“The rest of them took off, riding west; the one hand, with maybe a score of followers, rode east.”
“I wonder where to?” Andrew mused.
“Straight to hell I hope,” Hans inteijected.
“Word got back here, and Bugarin said it shows that we will now have more than enough troops to defend ourselves.”
There was a long moment of silence, and yet again he was troubled by all the changes he and his men had created here. Industrialization was the only hope for survival in their war against the hordes, to stay ahead of them in technology and use that to offset their skill and numbers. But ever since the arrival of Ha’ark and Jurak, their hope for that edge was disappearing, and in many ways had clearly been lost in front of Capua. Though on his old world, America had embraced technology and what industrialization could provide, he knew there was a dark side to it, the teeming noisome hellholes around the factories, children laboring in smoky gloom, the mind-numbing dullness of a life of labor. He could balm his conscience with what the alternative was, but for most peasants what had happened in their lives?
Ten years ago they waited in dread for the arrival of the Tugars but resigned themselves to that fate, knowing that but one in ten went to the slaughter and then the Horde rode on and the cycle of life continued the dread of the return twenty years-a lifetime, away. Though he could not truly comprehend it, he could indeed see where some might say the old ways were preferable to what they had now.
Through the high window he could hear a stirring outside, distant shouting, and he froze for an instant, wondering if indeed there was already rioting in the streets over the defeat at Capua. He stared off, unsure of what to do next.
“Andrew, we have to end this war,” Vincent announced.
“You talking surrender, too, boy?” Hans asked, his voice icy.
“No, hell no,” Vincent replied. “But it’s my job to tell Andrew and you what is going on at the capital. Hell, I’d rather be at the front than here. I know what you two saw at Capua. The difference here is that since this campaign started no one in Rus, except for the soldiers, has seen a Bantag, except for those raiders around Kev. All they know is the hardship and shortages without seeing the enemy face-to-face. Those damn Chin ambassadors are talking sweet words, and some are listening, and then the rumors get spread out.”
“My people, are they working on the ambassadors?”
Andrew found it interesting how Hans referred to the three hundred Chin whom he had led out of captivity from Xi’an as “my people.” In a way they had become his own personal guard. There was even a Chin brigade now, made up of those who had escaped during the winter breakthrough into Ha’ark’s rear lines, and shortly they would go to the front. In a way they were Hans’s personal bodyguard, his status with them as liberator raising him to a godlike position in their eyes. It was his idea to make sure they were put in contact with the human ambassadors representing the Horde.
“I have their reports waiting for you,” Vincent said. “Sure, they admit that if they fail to return with a peace agreement their entire families will be sent to the slaughter pits. Some have even whispered it’s all a crock what they’re saying but none will do so publicly out of fear that word will get back to Jurak. But this Jurak is shrewd, damn shrewd. His last messenger said they would offer to stop the slaughter pits, the same as the Tugars did.”
“Damnable lie,” Hans cried. “I was there; I saw what they did.”
“The Tugars stopped,” Andrew said.