Dawn was breaking when they finally reached the aerodrome. No one seemed to be expecting Moss, which, after the time he’d had getting there, didn’t surprise him at all. “Well,” a sergeant said doubtfully, “I guess we’ll put you up in Tent 27. Basler!” A private appeared, as if by magic. “Take Captain Moss to Tent 27. He’ll fit in there, one way or another.” The noncom’s face bore a strange sort of smile.
Moss, who hadn’t managed to doze in the automobile, was too worn to care what a sergeant thought. The private led him to a green-gray tent distinguishable only by the number stenciled on its side. “Here you are, sir.”
“Thanks.” Moss went inside. Sure enough, there was a cot with no belongings nearby. The three officers in the tent, who were readying themselves for the day, looked him over. One of them, a tall, thin, good-looking fellow, exclaimed, “Jonathan!”
“Percy!” Moss said. “Percy Stone!” Then he burst out laughing. “Now I know why that billeting sergeant said I belonged here. Moss and Stone, like the old days.” He pumped Stone’s hand. “Jesus, it’s good to see you in one piece, chum.”
“It’s good to be in one piece again,” Stone said. He’d been Moss’ photographic observer when Moss was still flying two-seaters instead of fighting scouts, and a Canuck had badly wounded him. He pointed to the pilot’s insigne on his chest. “You see I’ve got both wings now.”
“Yeah,” Moss said enthusiastically. “Between us, we’re going to show the Canucks a thing or two.” Percy Stone nodded. They shook hands again.
XX
Every time Abner Dowling walked into the Tennessee farmhouse where General Custer was staying these days, he braced for trouble. Since the First Army had basically stopped moving forward these days, Custer’s accommodations hadn’t shifted lately, either. That meant Libbie Custer had come down from Kentucky to stay with her husband.
It also meant Custer had to stop paying such avid attention to the pretty, young mulatto housekeeper he’d hired before Libbie came down. The wench, whose name was Cornelia, kept right on cooking and cleaning. Dowling didn’t know whether she’d done anything more than that before. He was sure Custer had wanted her to do more, though, and had hoped to convince her to do more. Libbie was sure of that, too, which made the farmhouse into a sort of front of its own.
The illustrious general commanding First Army was in the kitchen eating lunch when Dowling arrived. The tubby major’s nostrils twitched appreciatively. Regardless of whether Cornelia was helping Custer forget his years, the wench could cook.
“Why, that damned, lying little slut!” Custer shouted.
Waiting out in the parlor, Dowling jumped in alarm. The worst thing he could think of would have been for Cornelia to go telling Libbie tales. Whether the tales were true or not didn’t matter. Libbie would believe them. Custer would deny everything. Libbie wouldn’t believe that. By the sound of things, the worst had just happened.
But then, to the adjutant’s astonishment, Libbie spoke in soothing tones. Dowling couldn’t make out what she said, but she wasn’t screaming. Dowling wondered why she wasn’t screaming. How many damned lying little sluts besides Cornelia did Custer know? Dowling was sure Custer would have liked to know a regiment’s worth, but what he would have liked wasn’t the same as what was so.
A few minutes later, Custer came out of the kitchen, a scowl on his face and a newspaper in his hand. When Dowling saw that, he relaxed. So someone had savaged Custer in the press. The general commanding First Army would rage like a hurricane when a story threatened to tarnish his refulgent image of himself, but that kind of bluster didn’t amount to a hill of beans in the long run.
In the short run, putting up with Custer’s bad temper was what the War Department paid Dowling to do. As far as he was concerned, Philadelphia didn’t pay him enough, but he would have said the same thing had he raked in a million in gold on the first of every month.
“Is something wrong, sir?” he asked now, as if he’d heard nothing from the kitchen and had just chanced to notice the general’s frown.
“Wrong?” Custer thundered. “You might possibly say so, Major. Yes, you just might.” He flung the paper into Dowling’s lap.
Predictably, he’d folded it so the story that had offended him was on top. That way, he could reannoy himself whenever he glanced at it, and stay in a fine hot temper the whole day through. He would have pointed it out to Dowling had his adjutant not spotted it at once.
“Oh, the Socialist candidate in one of those New York City districts giving you a hard time about the Cottontown attack,” he said. “Don’t take it to heart, sir. It’s only politics. Goes to show women can play the game as dirty as men, I suppose.”
“What’s her name?” Custer demanded. “Hamburger, was that it? I’d like to make hamburger out of her, by Godfrey! Didn’t I tell you we needed a victory here to put a muzzle on those miserable, bomb-throwing anarchists?”
“Yes, sir, you did.” Dowling spoke with some genuine sympathy, being a Democrat himself. “And I see that Senator Debs-”
But Custer, once he got rolling, would not let even agreement slow him down. “And you were there, weren’t you, Major, when General MacArthur came to me with that half-baked plan for attacking southeast before shifting the direction of his advance? I warned him he needed to have more resources than I could afford to commit if that attack had even a prayer for success, but he wheedled and pleaded till I didn’t see what I could do but give in. And this is the thanks we get for it.” He reached out and slapped the newspaper onto the floor.
Bending over to pick it up gave Dowling the chance to pull his face straight by the time Custer saw him again. The general commanding First Army often rewrote history so it turned out as he wished it would have, but this was a particularly egregious example.
“General MacArthur did request more resources than you were prepared to provide, yes, sir,” Dowling said cautiously.
“That’s what I told you,” Custer said. It didn’t sound that way to Dowling, but arguing about what had happened was a pointless exercise. Trying to keep similar disaster from happening later occasionally even succeeded.
Libbie Custer came out and nodded to Major Dowling. “Did you see the lies they were telling about Autie, Major?” she said, setting a hand on Custer’s shoulder. “They’re all a pack of shameless jackals, jealous of his fame and jealous of the victories he’s won for his country.”
George Armstrong Custer was a blowhard. He’d blow hot, and then five minutes later he’d blow cold. Elizabeth Bacon Custer, as far as Dowling had been able to tell, wavered not at all. When she got angry at someone, she stayed angry forever. Some of that anger she aimed at anyone presumptuous enough to criticize her husband in any way. And some of it she aimed at Custer himself. From some of the things she’d said to Dowling, she’d been furious at the famous general for better than forty years.
Long-handled feather duster in hand, Cornelia came out and started cleaning. “Excuse me, Major Dowling, suh,” she said when she dusted near him. He nodded and smiled at her. Every time he looked at her-and she was worth looking at-he wondered how the men of the Confederacy reconciled their claims of Negro inferiority and their own mingling of blood with the Negroes in the Confederate States.
He shrugged a tiny shrug his uniform hid. The Rebs didn’t need to reconcile anything. They were the masters down here. They could do what they wanted. No. They had been the masters. Despite hard times on the battlefield, the United States were changing things.
Custer, now, Custer looked at Cornelia in exactly the way one of those Rebels might have done. This is mine, his eyes seemed to say. If I want it, all I have to do is reach out and take it.
Libbie Custer’s eyes said something, too. If you do reach out, George, they warned, I’ll whack you on the wrist so hard, you’ll think you’re back in primary school again. Dowling didn’t think the general commanding First Army was going to get away with much, not here, not now.