But the lieutenant wasn't interested, or wasn't chiefly interested, in the strategic situation there. He was interested in Irving Morrell. Saluting, he said, "General Wood's compliments, sir, and he would like to see you at your earliest convenience."
"I'm coming," Morrell said; when the chief of the General Staff wanted you at your earliest convenience, he wanted you right now. The lieutenant nodded; he might have been even greener than his uniform, but he understood that bit of military formality.
Behind Morrell, Colonel Gilbert spoke to Captain Abelclass="underline" "Maybe the general is trying to figure out how we can get blown up on the Ontario front, too." Maybe he hadn't intended Morrell to hear that. Maybe. But when Abell snickered, Morrell knew he was supposed to have heard that. The young captain was too smooth to offer insult by accident.
Escape, then, became something of a relief. The lieutenant led him through the maze of General Staff headquarters without offering a word of conversation, and responded only in monosyllables when Morrell spoke. That made Morrell fear he did not stand in General Wood's good graces.
He clicked his tongue between his teeth. He thought he should still have had credit in his account with the head of the General Staff. Utah wasn't the only matter concerning which he'd come to Wood's notice. Along with a doctor back in Tucson, New Mexico, he'd suggested the steel helmets that by now had been issued to just about every U.S. front-line soldier. That should have counted for something against the troubles in Utah.
Wood's adjutant sat at a desk in an outer office, pounding away at a typewriter hard and fast enough to make the rattle of the keys sound almost like machine-gun fire. Idly, Morrell wondered if the adjutant had ever heard real machine-gun fire. They led sheltered lives here.
"Major Morrell," the adjutant said, rising politely enough. "I'll tell the general you're here." He went into Wood's private office. When he returned a moment later, he nodded. "Go on, sir. He's expecting you." The staccato typing resumed as Morrell walked past him.
Morrell came to stiff attention before General Leonard Wood. "Reporting as ordered, sir," he said, saluting.
"At ease, Major," Wood answered easily. "Smoke if you care to. It's not the firing squad for you, or the guillotine, either." One of his hands went to the back of his neck. "That's what a Frenchman comes up with when he thinks about efficiency. Let it be a lesson to you."
"Yes, sir." Morrell wouldn't have minded a cigar, but didn't light up in spite of Wood's invitation.
The general sighed and studied Morrell with that same sickroom expression he'd come to loathe. From the chief of the General Staff, the look came naturally: he'd earned an M.D. before joining the military. He sighed again. "It didn't quite work out, did it, Major?"
"I beg your pardon, sir?" Morrell replied, though he'd long since reached the same conclusion.
"It's too bad," Wood said. "I honestly don't know if this place is good for you, but you've certainly been good for it. We get insulated against the soldier in the field and what he needs. You're a breath of fresh air here."
"Too fresh, I'd say by what's happened lately." Morrell spoke without rancor.
"Major, it's not your fault we did not anticipate the Mormons' mining us," Wood said. "No blame for that will go into your record, I assure you. But Utah had turned into your baby, and when the baby turned out to have warts-"
"More than warts, I'd say, sir," Morrell answered. "They wrecked most of a division there, and we only had two in the front line."
"That is very much in people's minds right now," Wood agreed. "I think it's unfortunate, but it's true. As a result, your usefulness here has been compromised through what is, I repeat, no fault of your own."
"Sir, if my usefulness here is compromised, could you please return me to the field?" Morrell could hear the eagerness in his own voice. A chance to get out of Philadelphia, to get back to real action-
And General Wood was nodding. "I'm going to do exactly that, Major. As you know, I would have liked you to stay around longer, to learn some more tricks of the trade, so to speak. But situations have a way of changing, like it or not. My eye is still on you, Major. Now, though, I think it best to have it on you at a distance for a while. I assure you once more, no imputation of blame will appear in your personnel file."
Morrell barely heard that. It mattered little to him. What did matter was that he would be able to fight his way now, out in the open, face to face with the foe. He had learned a few things here, and was eager to try them out along with everything he'd known before he came.
"Where do you plan on sending me, sir?" he asked. "Someplace where things are busy, I hope."
"You've given the Rebels a hard time through the first year of the war," Wood said, which was true only if you neglected the months during which Morrell had been flat on his back. Being the chief of the General Staff, Wood was allowed to neglect details like that. He said, "You've shown a knack for mountain warfare. What would you say if they sent you up to the Canadian Rockies and helped us cut the Pacific Coast off from the rest of the Canucks?"
"What would I say? Sir, I'd say, 'Yes, sir!'" Morrell knew he was all but quivering as he stood there. The mountains in eastern Kentucky had been little gentle knobby things. The Canadian Rockies were mountains with a capital M, full of ice and snow and jagged rocks. Nobody would figure you could accomplish much on that kind of terrain at this time of year. All the more reason to go out and prove people wrong.
"I'll make the arrangements, then," Wood said. "Good luck, Major."
"Thank you very much, sir," Morrell said, much more for the promised arrangements than the polite wishes. The Canadian Rockies…The prospect sang in him. John Abell would think him a fool. He didn't care what John Abell thought.
After not too hard a day doing not too much-although anyone who heard him talking about it might conclude he'd been at slave labor since he tumbled out of his bunk-Sam Carsten lined up for evening chow call.
"We been out here a long time, wherever the devil 'here' is," he said. "I want to get back to Honolulu, spend some of the money I've earned. I can feel it burnin' a hole in my pocket while I'm standing here."
"Yeah, well, if it gets loose, it can come to me," Vic Crosetti said. "I got one pocket in every set of dungarees lined with asbestos, just for money like that."
Carsten snorted. So did everybody else who heard Crosetti. The sailor in front of him, a big, rangy fellow named Tilden Winters, said, "Wish my stomach had a pocket like that. The slop they've been giving us the past few days, I wouldn't feed it to a rat crawling up the hawser."
"You tried feedin' it to a rat crawling up the hawser, he'd crawl back down-rats aren't stupid," Carsten said. That got a laugh, too, but it was kidding on the square. The Dakota had indeed been out on patrol a long time, and gone through just about all the fresh food with which she'd left port. Sam went on, "Some of the things the cooks come up with-"
"And some of the things the purchasing officers bought, figuring we'd be stupid enough to eat 'em," Winters added. "That salt beef yesterday tasted like it had been in the cask since the Second Mexican War, or maybe since the War of Secession."
Again, loud, profane agreement came from everybody in earshot. There were several conversations farther back in the chow line that Carsten couldn't make out, but their tone suggested other people were also imperfectly delighted with the bill of fare they'd been enjoying-or rather, not enjoying-lately.
Vic Crosetti's long, fleshy nose twitched; his nostrils dilated. "Whatever that is they're gonna do to us, it ain't salt beef." He made the pronouncement in a way that brooked no disagreement.