Having Cornelia go elsewhere was a relief. Tension in the front room went with her, as it did in a front-line bombproof when the barrage shifted to supply dumps farther back. Dowling found himself able to think about the war again. “Do you think we’ll be able to accomplish anything worthwhile this winter, sir?” he asked. Or will we keep on wasting men the way we have been doing?
“We may have to make the effort, Major,” Custer replied. “For the moment, though, however reluctantly, I am accumulating men and materiel to make sure we have reserves and adequate stocks on hand in case we do have to make any mass assaults in the next few months.”
Digging a finger in his ear to make sure he’d heard correctly would have been rude. Dowling was tempted, even so. One thing he’d seen over and over again was Custer ignoring reserves and logistics. His gaze slid to Libbie. Brief acquaintance had convinced him she was a hell of a lot smarter than her heroic husband. If she was smart enough to have convinced him of the need to prepare, Dowling was ready to call her a genius.
Custer said, “It’s the election, of course. If that snake Debs slithers into the White House, we shall have to go all out to force the CSA to make peace before TR leaves office in March. I want to be ready.”
“I-see,” Dowling said slowly. Maybe Libbie had put that bug in Custer’s ear, but maybe he’d thought of it all by himself. He did pay attention to politics. And maybe word had come down from Philadelphia, quietly recommending buildups all along the line in case the U.S. Army had to try to force the Rebs to yield in the four months between Debs’ election and his inauguration.
“Do you know, Major,” Custer said, “that back in ’84 there was some talk of procuring the presidential nomination for me? I was quite the man of the hour, after all. But I had chosen to make the United States Army my life’s labor, and I would not resign my commission under any circumstances. I sometimes wonder how things might have turned out had I decided otherwise.”
Dowling valiantly didn’t say anything. He was convinced commanding First Army was beyond Custer’s capacity. For the life of him, he didn’t see why the War Department kept the old warhorse in the saddle instead of putting him out to pasture. Things were going well enough on most fronts that the retirement of an aging lion shouldn’t produce any great outcry, no matter how much the public revered Custer’s name.
President Custer? There was an idea to make any man who didn’t believe things could have been worse for the United States think twice. Even though it hadn’t happened-and probably hadn’t been so close to happening as Custer asserted now, thirty-two years after the fact-contemplating it was enough to make Dowling…
“Are you well, Major?” Libbie Custer asked sharply. “You look dyspeptic. Maybe the general should send this wench Cornelia over to your quarters to cook for you and bring you back up to snuff.”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, dear,” Custer said. “Anyone can see that the good Major Dowling is not off his feed.” He chuckled.
Libbie Custer glared at him because he refused to remove the attractive housekeeper from his not very attractive house. Dowling glared at him because he’d called him fat. Dowling knew he was fat. He didn’t appreciate being reminded of it.
Oblivious to having angered both people with whom he was conversing, Custer went on, “Now we shall just have to wait until after the seventh. If God be kind, both Senator Debs and this ignorant, vicious Hamburger woman will get the drubbing they so richly deserve. And if the Lord should choose to inflict Debs on us because of our many sins, we shall still have four months in which to redeem ourselves.”
Dowling sighed. Agreeing with Custer on anything, even a matter of politics, tempted him to take another look to make sure he wasn’t wrong. He hadn’t dreamt anything might incline him toward Socialism, but if Custer loathed it, it had to have its good points.
Somebody knocked on the door of Socialist Party headquarters. “Another Western Union boy!” Herman Bruck shouted over the election-night din that filled the place.
Flora Hamburger happened to be standing close to the door. “I’ll get it,” she said. Opening the door for a moment would let a little of the tobacco smoke hazing the atmosphere escape. Her own father’s pipe was but one among a great many sources of that smoke, as he and the rest of the family had come down with her to learn whether she would be going to Philadelphia when the new Congress convened in January.
But it wasn’t another messenger with a fistful of telegrams standing out there in the hall. It was Max Fleischmann, the butcher from downstairs. He carried a tray covered with brown paper. “You people will be hungry,” he said. “I’ve brought up some salami, some bologna, some sausages…”
“You didn’t have to do that, Mr. Fleischmann. You didn’t have to do that at all. You’re a Democrat, for heaven’s sake.”
“You people-and especially you, Miss Hamburger-you don’t let politics get in the way of beings friends,” the butcher said. “This is the least I can do to show you I feel the same way.”
After that, Flora didn’t see what she could do but take the tray. “This is very kind of you,” she told the old man, “and if more people felt the way you do, the United States would be a better place to live.”
“Getting rid of those Soldiers’ Circle goons would be a good start,” Fleischmann said. “Well, I hope you win, even if you’re not from my party. What do you think of that?”
“I hope I win, too,” Flora blurted, which made the butcher smile. He bobbed his head to her and went back downstairs.
She put the tray on a desk near the door. People descended on it as if they hadn’t already demolished a spread of cold cuts and pickles and eggs and bread that would have done justice to the free-lunch counter at a fancy saloon. Everyone was eating as if there would be no tomorrow.
Someone else knocked on the door. This time, Maria Tresca got it. This time, it was a Western Union messenger. She took the sheaf of flimsy envelopes from him. “New returns!” she shouted. “I have new returns!” Something approaching silence fell.
She started opening envelopes. “Debs leading by seven thousand in Wyoming,” she said, and a cheer went up. “The Socialist there is going back to Congress, too, it looks like.” Another cheer. She opened a new telegram, and her face fell. “Roosevelt ahead by ten thousand in Dakota.”
Groans replaced the applause. Dakota had voted Socialist most of the time since being admitted to the United States. Herman Bruck let out a long sigh and said the thing most of the people in the room had been thinking for some time: “We aren’t going to elect a president this year. The people are too mystified to put aside the war.”
A few party workers called out protests, but most only nodded, as when a doctor delivers a diagnosis grim but expected. “We carried New York,” three people said at the same time, as if that were a consolation prize.
“We aren’t carrying any of the other big states, though,” Bruck said, looking at a map of the USA. “And, now that the returns from west of the Mississippi are coming in, it doesn’t look like we’re going to carry enough of the Midwest and the West to make up for that.”
“Foolishness,” Flora said. She’d been saying the same thing since the beginning of the war. For the life of her, she didn’t understand why more people didn’t feel the same way. “If you have a mine that doesn’t give you any gold, why spend more money on it?”
Along with everyone else in the room, her mother and father, both sisters, and the younger of her two brothers nodded at that. She wished David Hamburger had been there to nod, too. But he was down in Virginia now. That filled Flora with dread. Yossel Reisen had gone down to fight in Virginia, too, and never came back. His little son slept in Sophie’s arms.