"That is the wild card," Abell admitted. "Those black units will be riddled with Reds, so we can dare hope they won't fight hard. And, after all, they are only Negroes."

"The French have had pretty good luck with their colored soldiers," Morrell said. "Guderian was telling me the Germans don't like facing them for beans. When they attack, they put everything they've got into it, and they don't want to be bothered with prisoners, either."

"Yes, I've heard that, too," Abell said. "But I've also heard they've got no staying power to speak of. That's what the Rebs will need, being on the defensive as they are. They're in no position to attack us. Even if the Canucks stay in the fight, the initiative is in our hands."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Morrell said. "If the Rebs stand on the defensive, they'll lose. We'll hammer them to death-and the voters just gave Teddy Roosevelt four more years-well, two, anyhow, till the next Congressional elections-to do exactly that. If the Confederates want to stop us, they'll have to do some striking of their own."

"Perhaps you're right, Lieutenant Colonel." By the way Abell said it, he thought Morrell was out of his mind but, inexplicably being of two grades' superior rank, had to be humored. "The maps make it difficult to see where they could hope to do so, however."

"Maps are wonderful," Morrell said. "I love maps. They let you see things you could never hope to spot without 'em. But they aren't a be-all and end-all. If you don't factor morale into your strategic thinking, you're going to get surprised in ways you don't like."

"Perhaps," Abell said again. Again, he sounded anything but convinced. Since he had few emotions of his own, he didn't seem to think anyone else had them, either. Maybe that accounted for his still being a captain.

"Never mind," Morrell said, a little sadly. "But I'll tell you this, Captain: anybody who's looking defeat in the face isn't going to fight a rational war once he figures he's got nothing left to lose."

"Yes, sir," Abell said. It didn't get through to the General Staff captain. Morrell could see as much. He wondered when Abell had last fired a Springfield. He wondered if Abell had ever had to command a platoon on maneuvers. He had his doubts. Had Abell ever done anything like that, he wouldn't have retained such an abiding faith in rationality.

"What will you do when the war's over?" Morrell asked.

Abell didn't hesitate. "Help the country prepare itself for the next one, of course," he replied. "And you?"

"The same." For the life of him, Morrell couldn't think of anything he'd rather do. "I think, if I get the chance, I'm going to go into barrels. That's where we'll see a lot of effort focused once the fighting's done this time."

Abell shook his head. "They've been a disappointment, if you ask me. Like gas, they promise more than they deliver. Now that the enemy has seen them a few times, we don't get the panic effect we once did, and enemy barrels are starting to neutralize ours. They may have occasional uses, I grant you, but I think they'll go down in the history of this war as curiosities, nothing more."

"I don't agree," Morrell said. "They need more work; they'd be much more useful if they could move faster than a soldier can walk. And I'm not sure our doctrine for employing them is the best it could be, either."

"How else would you use them, sir, other than all along the line?" Abell asked. "They are, as you pointed out, an adjunct to infantry. This matter has been discussed here at considerable length, both before your arrival and during your absence."

Had Abell been wearing gloves, he might have slapped Morrell in the face with one of them. His remarks really meant, Who do you think you are, you Johnny-come-lately, to question the gathered wisdom of the War Department and the General Staff?

"All I know is what I read in the reports that come back from the field, and what I've seen in the field for myself," Morrell answered, which didn't make Captain Abell look any happier. "They've done some good, and I think they could do more."

"I suggest, then, sir, that you put your proposals in the form of a memorandum for evaluation by the appropriate committee," Abell said.

"Maybe I will," Morrell said, which startled John Abell. One more memorandum no one will ever read, Morrell thought. Just what the war effort needs now. Aloud, he went on, "Yes, maybe I'll do that. And maybe I'll do something else, too." The gaze Abell gave him held more suspicion than any the smooth young captain had ever aimed at the Confederates and their plans.

Roger Kimball said, "You're all volunteers here, and I'm proud of every one of you for coming along on this ride. I knew the Bonefish had the finest damn crew in the C.S. Navy, and you've gone and proved it again."

"Sir," Tom Brearley said, "we wouldn't have missed it for the world."

Brearley was the executive officer, and was supposed to think like that. Kimball wanted to get a feel for how the ordinary sailors felt. Yes, they'd all volunteered, but had they really understood what they were getting into?

Then Ben Coulter said, "If we can give the damnyankees'nuts a good twist, Skipper, reckon it'll turn out to be worth it." The rest of the crew, some in greasy dungarees, some in black leather that was every bit as greasy but didn't show it so much, rumbled their agreement with the veteran petty officer. A lot of them had quit shaving after they sailed out of Charleston, which made them look even more piratical than they would have otherwise.

"All right," Kimball said, heartened. "You understand what we're doing here. If it goes wrong, we ain't gonna be like my old chum Ralph Briggs. Calls himself a submariner, and the Yankees have captured him twice." He spat to show what he thought of that. "If it goes wrong, we're sunk." His eyes gleamed. "But if it goes right, there's gonna be a lot of unhappy Yankees in New York harbor."

That wolfish growl rose from the crew again. Rationally, Kim-ball knew the odds were he'd said his last good-byes to everybody except the crew of the Bonefish, and he'd probably never get the chance to say good-bye to them. But the risk was worth the candle, as far as he was concerned.

Bookish and thoughtful where Kimball was fierce and emotional, Tom Brearley said, "We've loaded this boat with so many extra batteries, we only need to fill our buoyancy tanks half full to go straight down to the bottom." That was an exaggeration, but not a big one. Brearley went on, "We've got chemicals aboard to take some of the carbon dioxide out of the air while we're submerged, too. What all that means is, we can submerge farther out from New York City than the Yankees think, sneak up on them, do our worst, and then get away again."

"That's what we can do, all right," Kimball said. "That's what we're going to do."

He went up the ladder to the conning tower and looked all around. The Stars and Bars flapped where the Confederate naval ensign would normally have flown. As it had been in the Chesapeake Bay, that was part of the deception scheme he'd laid on. A passing ship or aeroplane would see red, white, and blue and-he hoped-assume the boat belonged to the U.S. Navy. What made it especially delicious was that it didn't even slightly contravene international law.

The Bonefish was only a couple of hundred miles southeast of New York harbor now, and ship traffic was heavy. As he'd counted on, none of the merchantmen paid any attention to a surfaced submersible sailing along on what were obviously its own lawful occasions.

An aeroplane with the U.S. eagle-and-swords emblem flew past, at first taking the Bonefish for granted but then sweeping back for a closer look. Cursing under his breath-if that aeroplane carried wireless and identified him as a hostile, all his preparations were wasted-Kimball took off his cap and waved it at the Yankee flying machine.