Battle Hymn (42 page)

Old regiments were mobilizing, calling back their veteran reserves, and the first brigade of Roum troops had already been dispatched to reinforce the defensive line. Andrew could only hope that the sense of unity engendered by the rescue would endure in the months, perhaps years, of struggle to come.

"And would you look at this?" Pat exclaimed, pulling a copy of Gates's Illustrated Weekly out of his back pocket, unfolding it, and putting it on the table.

Emil reached across the table and held it up, looking at the portrait on the cover, and then over at Hans. He read the banner headline: "Our Hero Returns."

Hans, grumbling, took another long sip of vodka.

"I want you to speak before the joint session of Congress tomorrow," Kal told him. "Before I make the formal request for a declaration of war, I want you to tell them everything you saw, everything you experienced."

Hans nodded, and Andrew could see the pain lingering just below the surface.

"And Gregory?"

"He'll be interned with full honors immediately afterward," Andrew interjected softly. "Both Alexi and Gregory will receive the Congressional Medal, and Gregory's widow will always have the special pension supplement."

"Small comfort," Hans whispered.

Andrew nodded. He had met with Gregory's widow immediately after their return, and the anguish of it was almost too much to bear. Nearly four years of his being missing and presumed dead had softened her pain, but now the wound had been tom open again when she learned he had come so close to making it home.

"And Ketswana—I want him appointed a colonel on my staff," Hans said. "His men are to be kept together as well, as part of a headquarters company. Without him, I never would have made it."

"Zulus," Pat said admiringly. "Good fighters. I wish we could find out where they are and bring them in. They'd make a hell of a corps."

"Pull out whomever you want," Andrew said. "Most of these people you brought in will never have a chance to see their real homes again. It would be comforting for them to stay together."

"I wish I could have brought them all out," Hans replied, his gaze drifting as if he were looking off into some unknown land.

"You got out four hundred and twenty-eight," Kal said, "Eighty-three of them from that hellhole you were in. I consider that pretty damn good."

"We broke out with somewhere around three hundred," Hans replied. "We left behind at least three hundred more and thousands who will pay the price for what we did. We picked up at least a hundred on the way, but most of them died. Then there were the townspeople that we dragged into the fight.

There were nearly a thousand people at that settlement before we came."

Andrew leaned forward, fixing Hans with a penetrating gaze.

"You got out, my friend. You might very well have saved the Republic as well, with the information you brought. All of you were dead until the moment you stepped onto the Petersburg. How long would all the rest have lived? Another week, a month, a year or two? And then what? Try to convince yourself that they died for something. They were already dead, but by their sacrifice the Republic will live."

"Hard to say that to them now," Hans replied. "Hard to imagine telling them that when they face the slaughter pit for what I did."

"Then, damn it," Emil growled, "tell it to your wife and son. That's why you did it, and in my book it was worth it."

Andrew saw the concern in the doctor's eyes.

"He's consumed with guilt," Emil had told him on the train ride back home. "He admitted he was planning to sacrifice himself in the end, once he knew Tamira and the boy were safe, a sacrifice in atonement, but Gregory and Ketswana guessed what he was up to and stopped him. What makes it worse is that Gregory died so he could live."

Andrew now looked at Hans, who was staring absently into his drink.

"Hans," said Kal softly.

Hans looked up with a strained smile on his face and nodded.

"You came back to us. When all of us here heard you were alive, none of us would have hesitated a second to lay down his own life to save yours."

Hans started to growl a reply, but Kal slammed his open hand on the table.

"Listen to me, Hans."

Hans was quiet.

"And you would have done the same. You were going to do the same for Gregory, but the lad, Kesus grant him peace, knew you well enough to trick you. And I'll tell you this. If we could conjure the soul back into that body resting over in the Capitol building, he would say that he would do it again."

Then Kal continued, his voice dropping, "That is the paradox of war that will always hold me in wonder. It is the most horrible damned thing ever imagined by man or any other race. But it brings out something as well, a nobility of spirit and a love for comrades that nothing will ever break. You taught that to a very young officer named Andrew Lawrence Keane, and he has taught it to this world. And that is why, speaking now not as Kal but as the president, I committed this country to bringing you out, even though it ensured that there would be a war.

"Now I know you are feeling guilty."

Hans stirred and looked helplessly at Emil.

"I don't need the good doctor to tell me. Remember Hans, I survived the coming of the Tugars three times, twice as a terrified peasant. I saw the first girl I ever loved dragged into the pits to have her throat cut. I saw my parents go. I helped trigger the rebellion against the boyars and maneuvered to keep you and your comrades here, not for myself but for the love of my daughter Tanya. The same way I know that underneath it all, the real reason for what you did was out of love for that beautiful young woman you brought back and your precious son."

Hans nodded uncomfortably.

"I know what the guilt is, to survive when others die. I know what it is like to help start a war, knowing that tens of thousands might die, while I"—he paused for a moment, his face turning red—"while I know that I will live because I am the president. During the last war I looked into the eyes of thousands of young boys, knowing they would die. I had to trade jokes with them, reassure, inspire, and then leave. Throughout that war I would have given my soul to be able to stand on the volley line with them, rather than hide behind the lines."

"You did give an arm in the Tugar War," Emil said quietly.

"A convenient excuse to soothe my soul when I lie awake at night," Kal snapped. "But all I'm trying to say is that the only one who will ever blame you is yourself. Forgiveness has to come from within. I know. I've yet to forgive myself, and when I go before Congress tomorrow I know that I will be asking for the lives of tens of thousands more.

"This entire nation thanks Kesus that you are alive, Hans Schuder. All I am asking is that you now thank him that you are alive as well."

The room fell silent. All eyes followed Kal as he stood up and walked around the table and extended his hand.

"It's a long day tomorrow. I suspect your young lady is waiting for you upstairs. Let's get some sleep."

Hans, embarrassed by the overt display of emotion, accepted the traditional Rus embrace, which included a kiss on both cheeks.

Pat, blowing his nose loudly, tried to get up, then accepted Emil's hand.

"Come on, you. I don't understand why I bothered to sew your stomach back together again. You're just trying to drink another hole through it."

"You did it for the glory," Pat replied with a laugh. "And because you couldn't stand not to have me to share a drink with."

Pat came around to take Hans's hand.

"Welcome home, me bucko. And another war to share with you, by God."

Emil, looking into Hans's eyes, took his hand after Pat let go. "We'll talk some more later." And the two left, Pat starting into the latest joke he had heard about the legendary innkeeper's wife, the punch line lost as the door closed behind them.

"And we'll talk some more as well," Andrew said quietly.

Hans nodded, started to say something, and then lowered his head.

"Go on."

"You're all just as I remember," he finally said. "That thickheaded Irishman with the courage of a lion, Emil always worrying about his patients. Kal, maybe more presidential but still the shrewd, wise peasant. And you, Andrew, still carrying the burden of a world on your shoulders."

Hans picked up his glass and drained the last of the vodka.

"Oh, God, how I dreamed of all of you. It was my only hold on sanity at times. I'd imagine myself back with the lot of you, or before then, back on Earth when it was just you and me and the old Thirty-fifth Maine. We'd talk by the hour, remembering together, and saying, at times, the things I wish I'd said."

"Such as?"

Hans tried to force a smile and shook his head. "You know."

"So we'll never say them, then?"

"What can two comrades say? It goes beyond words, Andrew. Beyond words. You haven't changed, and I thank God for that."

"But you have. That's what you're telling me."

"I wonder if I'll ever get home." He sighed. "Not now. Not after all I've seen, all those I left behind."

"We'll go back, Hans. We'll go back and end it. If you hadn't come from hell to tell us all, maybe we never would have gone. That's what you brought back. That and what you've given back to us."

"But me? What of me now?"

"You said you didn't have a home now." Andrew chuckled softly. "But you do. It's upstairs waiting for you. In the end, that's all we fight for, what's waiting upstairs for you right now."

He put his hand on Hans's shoulder and they left the room.

As they reached the staircase Andrew stopped, again wanting to say so much, but realizing that indeed there were no words for it.

"Thank you, thank you for everything," Andrew said finally. "And thank you for coming back."

Hans forced a smile and reached into his pocket to pull out the shred of a tobacco plug. "Care for a chew?"

Andrew smiled and bit off a piece. Hans pocketed the rest.

"A little memento from an enemy and a friend," Hans said. "I think I'll save the rest."

"Good night, Hans."

"Son, I'm proud of you," Hans replied. The two embraced clumsily and Andrew left him, stepping out into the warm summer night and returning the salutes of the two sentries by the door.

"How is he?"

Startled, he saw Kathleen waiting for him.

"You should have come in."

"No, I think it was time for the boys to have a drink and a chat."

He put his arm around her waist and they started down the steps.

"The children?"

"Tanya and Vincent came over, so all the children are tumbled in together. They'll watch them. I thought it was time we took a moonlight stroll together. It's been a while."

They walked on in silence for several minutes, crossing the great square, passing the occasional reveler who was still out celebrating the holiday for Hans.

"He's wounded in the soul," Andrew said. "It will haunt him. Gregory, Alexi, all those people he left behind. God, what a choice to have to make."

"You would have done it."

"If there was you, the children—yes."

"You would have done it anyway. As long as one lives, as long as one remembers and can tell, the Horde will never win. That's why he had to come back."

Andrew nodded, looking up at the moon again, realizing how precious the moment was and how fleeting it all could be.

"I love you," he whispered. "Always have and always will."

He drew her around to kiss her, and she giggled.

"So now that Hans is back you've taken up chewing again."

Laughing, he hugged her tight and together they walked slowly back to their home.

He looked up at the moon riding high overhead, its companion just breaking the horizon to the east. Absently, he felt in his pocket and pulled out a plug and started to chew.

Something to remember you by, you old bastard, he thought. In the camp below he could hear a scream, a human voice, most likely a servant who had committed some minor offense. The way the scream was cut off told him that the servant would never make such a mistake again.

So now it will start, he thought. Earlier than I had planned, but there will be enough to win. I learned much from you, how your people think, how your Andrew must lead, good lessons to know. And most of all, I know how to beat you. A bit of crisis created by you, Hans. But one that played to my advantage, for all saw just how implacable you were. How fierce in war, how determined to humiliate and destroy us. A few more umen commanders are gone now, conveniently blamed for mistakes they never made, and all will soon thirst for vengeance and for a wiping away of the stain on our honor. For that is now part of the appeal. Before, it was the war of the Merki and Tugar. But now it is our honor, our ancestors who shake their heads and will taunt us, and there will be no stopping us when the blow comes.

He sat in silence, the darkness of the plains below broken by a plume of fire soaring up from the factory where new crews were already at work, laboring as if nothing had ever happened. It was, after all, but a few days' interruption, but now the iron will pour, the guns will be made, the ships and flyers launched, and there will be a grim purpose as well.

Urging his mount forward, Ha'ark Qar Qarth, the Redeemer, rode down into the valley.

As he slipped into the room he saw her asleep in the moonlight, the baby nestled against her naked breasts. He undressed and slipped in beside his family. She stirred, smiling, her hand brushing his cheek, and then she drifted back to sleep.

He drew the two of them close into his embrace.

"We're home," he whispered.

Hans Schuder drifted into a gentle sleep, dreaming of a distant field that looked down on a clear blue lake, and in his dream he finally smiled.