Breakthroughs (19 page)

By the looks on their faces, neither did Sherrard nor Dowling. Under his breath, Dowling said, “That’ll be a fine plan—when they invent a bulletproof horse.”

“They did,” Morrell murmured, also
sotto voce
. “It’s called a barrel.”

“What’s that?” Custer said. “What’s that? Speak up, dammit. People around me are always mumbling.”

“Sorry, sir,” Morrell said. Custer wasn’t deaf as a post, but he didn’t hear all that well, either, so nothing sounded loud to him. Moreover, Morrell got the idea that people needed to mumble around Custer, to make horrified comments about the outrageous things he said.

Stubborn old fool,
Morrell thought. A man like that commonly found himself plowing ahead with bad ideas because, having got them, he was too pigheaded to give them up. Now, for once, Custer had got a good idea—one that fit in with the aggressive way he thought generally. He was too pigheaded to give that one up, too, but he also wanted to hang some of his bad ideas on it.

Major Dowling said, “Sir, of course we will have the cavalry in place, ready to take advantage of whatever opportunities arise for using it.”

“Of course we will,” Custer said. “Pity so many men these days carry the carbine instead of the saber. I put the saber to good use in the War of Secession. ‘Go in, Wolverines!’ ” he called reminiscently. “ ‘Give ’em hell!’ And we did.”

“But, sir, weren’t you carrying a carbine yourself during the Second Mexican War?” Dowling asked.

“Well, yes,” Custer admitted with a frown. “Even so, gleaming steel terrifies in a way that bullets can’t match.”

Morrell studied Dowling in open admiration. Custer’s adjutant was plainly very good at guiding the general commanding First Army away from courses that held no profit (to say nothing of guiding him out of the nineteenth century) and toward things that needed doing or needed doing in a particular way. Morrell commonly dealt with superior officers who proved difficult by ignoring them as much as he could. Learning other ways of handling the problem could be useful.

“When do we move, sir?” Morrell asked. He was aggressive, too, and wanted to lead the barrels into battle.

“Ground’s still damper than I’d like,” Colonel Sherrard said. “We’ll lose a lot fewer machines to bogging if we wait till the countryside dries out a bit more. That could matter.”

“We’ll have to move in more artillery support, too,” Dowling added. “That will also get easier as the roads dry out.”

“From what I’ve seen up in Philadelphia, the bombardments that go on for a week or so don’t do as much good as everyone thought they would when we started using them,” Morrell said. “The Rebs dig in like moles, and the shelling only shows right where we’re headed.”

“They’ve come up with something new,” Sherrard said. “It’s particularly good against enemy artillery. You give them an opening barrage of phosgene gas shells, make them put on their gas helmets. Hell of a lot of fun to try and serve a piece in a gas helmet, you know.”

“They’ve been harassing gunners like that as long as we’ve had gas shells,” Morrell said.

“I know,” Ned Sherrard said. “But they’ve got a new wrinkle on it. After that first round of phosgene, they saturate the area with puke-gas shells; the antigas cartridges that protect against phosgene don’t do a thing to stop it. Then, when the Reb gunners yank off their helmets so they can heave, they hit ’em with another phosgene barrage.”

Morrell considered. Having considered, he said, “That’s…devilish, sir. Whoever thought of it was probably the Marquis de Sade’s cousin.” He paused. “It’s also going to tie the Rebs into knots.”

“And, a day and a half later, it’ll give your artillery fits, because the Rebs will do it to us, too,” Abner Dowling said. “That’s the way this war has gone, right from the start.”

“I don’t think we’ll be able to move till next month,” Sherrard said. “When we do, we’d better hit hard.”

“That’s true,” Dowling agreed. “If we don’t break through this time, we’ll never get another chance. Everyone will be watching how we do. Teddy Roosevelt said as much. If we don’t measure up—” He pointed a thumb at the ground, a gesture straight from a Roman amphitheater.

“We’ll smash them.” Custer sounded sublimely confident. Had his performance matched his confidence, he would have been in front of Mobile, not Nashville. But confidence was never wasted. “On Remembrance Day, if the weather is good, we’ll smash them.”

“On Remembrance Day,” Morrell repeated. Major Dowling and Colonel Sherrard both nodded. Morrell said it again, softly: “On Remembrance Day.”

Nellie Semphroch had seldom felt more out of place than she did on dismounting from a hired carriage in front of St. John’s Church. Looking south across Lafayette Square, she could see the White House, still battered and sad-looking from the shell hits it had taken when the Confederate States captured the capital of the USA. Presidents worshiped at St. John’s; it was not normally for the likes of her. But these were not normal times.

She turned to Hal Jacobs, who sat beside her on the seat behind the driver. “Well, here we are,” she said.

“Let us make the best of it, then,” he answered. He looked like what he was: a dignified man without a great deal of wealth. His somber black suit, black derby, and wing collar with four-in-hand tie were correct enough for a wedding, but in no way stylish. Smiling at Nellie, he said, “You look lovely today—but then, I think that of you every day.”

“Foosh,” she said; his compliments never failed to make her nervous. She ran her hands down the pleated skirt of her peach silk dress.

“Edna was very kind to ask that I be the one to give her away,” Jacobs said. “I know it is only because she has no men who are close kin, but it was very kind.”

“So it was,” Nellie said, and hoped the subject would drop—with a thud. She knew why Edna had asked the favor of Hal Jacobs: her daughter was doing some heavy-handed matchmaking. She also knew Jacobs had accepted not least for the spying he could do among the Confederate officers who made up the bulk of the wedding party.

They stood around in front of the white-painted church, their dress butternut uniforms shining with gold braid, their kepis almost as fancy as those French officers would wear, many of them with ceremonial swords belted on their hips. As the driver handed Nellie down from the chariot, she listened to them chatting about the war. No doubt Hal Jacobs was listening, too—intently.

But, as he offered her his arm and she, despite misgivings, had to accept or be rude in public, she knew the chance to spy was not the only reason he’d so readily accepted Edna’s invitation. He was glad of her matchmaking; he wanted a match with Nellie.

No one seemed to care what Nellie herself thought. Nellie could not remember the last time anyone had cared what she thought.

As if to prove that, here came Lieutenant Nicholas H. Kincaid, his uniform as gaudy as a lieutenant’s could be, the creases sharp as razors. “Good morning, ma’am,” he said, beaming at her. “Isn’t it a lovely day?”

“It will do,” she answered. If he’d cared what she thought, he would have let her daughter alone. All he cared about, though, was stretching Edna out naked on a bed. He was a man. What point to expecting anything else of him?

He turned to Hal Jacobs. “Sir, when you give her away, you can be sure I’ll take her, and you can be sure I’ll take good care of her, too.”

“That is very good, Lieutenant,” Jacobs said. “That is as it should be.”

Kincaid pointed into the church. “They must have put Edna inside somewhere when she got here a couple of minutes ago. My pals hustled me off, though, so I don’t know for certain: bad luck to see the bride before the wedding, you know.”

“Yes,” Nellie said. Shabby Washingtonians—and, except for collaborators, there was no other kind of Washingtonians—walking by paused to stare at the wedding party. The Rebs could have public gaiety in the middle of the war. For anyone else, it was a distant memory.

“I hope everything goes as it should,” Jacobs said in his deliberate way. “I hope everything goes very well.”

“Yes.” Nellie sounded abstracted. One of those shabby Washingtonians on the other side of H Street…She lowered her voice to the next thing to a whisper: “Mr. Jacobs—Hal. Is that Bill Reach over there?”

“Why—” Jacobs raised his bushy eyebrows. “Why, I believe it is. What can he be doing here? I must go over and—”

Now Nellie took hold of his arm with great firmness. “You must do nothing of the sort. What you must do is come in with me and help me marry my fool of a daughter to this great Rebel oaf she’s chosen. If you do anything else”—she played what she devoutly hoped was a trump—“I’ll never speak to you again.”

“But, Nellie—” He also spoke in low tones, and in a voice full of anguish. “Our beloved country relies upon—”

“It does no such thing,” Nellie broke in. “That skunk hasn’t had anything to do with you for months, and our beloved country is doing just fine. The war’s going better than it has since it started. And if that Reach…person makes trouble,” she added, “I will kill him.”

Still feebly protesting, Jacobs let himself be led into the church. Edna, dressed and veiled in white (
white she doesn’t deserve,
Nellie thought, forgetting she’d worn white on her wedding day after a past far more maculate than her daughter’s), sat in a waiting room. Behind the veil, her expression was the one the Confederate General Staff would have worn had the Army of Northern Virginia captured Philadelphia.

Grudgingly, trying for peace with her daughter, Nellie said, “I do hope it turns out well, Edna.”

“Of course it will, Ma,” Edna said with the unselfconscious confidence of youth. “We’ll live happily ever after, just like in the fairy tales.”

Nellie burst out laughing. She was sorry the moment she did it, but by then it was too late. Edna glared at her in fury burning as vitriol. And then, bless him, Hal Jacobs started laughing, too. He said, “I beg your pardon, Miss Edna, truly I do, but it is not so simple. I wish it were. My own life would have been much easier, believe me.”

“We’ll do it,” Edna said. “You wait and see. We will.”

Jacobs did not argue with her. Neither did Nellie. What was the use? If Edna didn’t know a human being couldn’t go through life without sorrow and anger and fear and boredom and jealousy and bitterness—if she didn’t know that, she would find out.

“It’s gonna be fine, Ma,” Edna said. “Isn’t everybody gorgeous out there? What would Pa think if he could see it?”

He’d think you were marrying a damned Rebel.
But Nellie didn’t say that, either. Again, what point? The die was cast here. “He’d think it was quite a show, so he would,” she answered.

“I hope it is a show that goes well,” Hal Jacobs said. Nellie looked at him sharply. He knew something. She didn’t know what, but he knew something. Before she could find a way to ask him what it was, the organist began to play. The lower notes seemed to resound deep within her; she felt them in her bones rather than hearing them.

Edna got to her feet and smiled at Hal Jacobs. “Let’s go,” she said, and then turned to Nellie. “Is my veil on straight?” Without waiting for an answer, she adjusted it minutely.

The procession formed up in the back of the church. Like an army, the wedding had a defined order of march. Nicholas Kincaid’s eyes lit up when at last he was permitted to see his bride-to-be.
Animal,
Nellie thought, having seen too many men’s eyes light up in dingy rooms.
Nothing but a filthy animal.

Up at the altar, the minister waited, looking almost like a Catholic priest in his vestments. An usher—a lieutenant who was one of Kincaid’s friends—spoke in brisk, businesslike tones: “The bride and the gentleman who will be giving her away take the lead.”

With a smirk, Edna gave Hal Jacobs her arm. They started up the aisle together. But they had taken only a few steps when Bill Reach burst into the church, shouting, “People had better get the hell out of here, because—”

Nellie outshouted him: “Get this man—this robber, this thief—out of here this instant!” She shrieked straight at Reach: “Haven’t you done enough to ruin me, you son of a bitch?”

Words, even words no lady should ever have said, were nowhere near enough to satisfy her. The little handbag she carried did not have much room, but she’d made sure she’d included a stout hatpin, just in case any of the Confederate officers tried putting their hands anywhere they didn’t belong on her. She wished she’d brought a knife instead, but the pin would have to do. Snatching it out, she rushed at the man who’d done so much to wreck her life.

Ushers and guests—Confederate officers all—were rushing toward him, too. But they would throw him out, no more. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to kill him. “He’s mine!” she shouted furiously. “Mine, do you hear?”

They didn’t hear, or didn’t pay any attention. They had just seized him when the first big shell landed across the street in Lafayette Square. At the scream in the sky, at that ground-shaking roar, half the officers in the church—likely the half that had seen action, as opposed to the half made up of occupying authorities—threw themselves flat between the pews.

Another shell landed somewhere off to one side. Nicholas Kincaid ran down the aisle toward Edna, shouting, “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here!” More shells were falling. One crashed through the roof of St. John’s Church and exploded just behind the altar.

Blast picked Nellie up, flung her through the air, and slammed her down, hard. The hatpin bit into her own leg. She squealed. She couldn’t hear herself squeal. She wondered if she would ever hear anything again. She had trouble breathing. When she wiped at her nose, her hand came away bloody. The explosion had tried to tear her lungs out by the roots.

Her dress was rumpled and ripped. The handbag was gone, she had no idea where. She scrambled to her feet. One ankle didn’t want to bear her weight. She looked down. It wasn’t bleeding. She could move her foot, though that hurt, too. That must have meant it wasn’t broken, or so she hoped. She’d walk on it now and worry about it later.

The church looked as if a bomb had gone off inside it, which was true, or near enough. Edna and Hal Jacobs stumbled toward her, both of them bleeding, red smirching the white of the wedding dress. They stepped over a body in the aisle. The body’s head lay in the aisle, too, a few feet closer to Nellie. Lieutenant Nicholas H. Kincaid stared up at the ceiling that was starting to smolder. His eyes would never see anything again.