“We licked those Confederate bastards once, but then we let ’em up, and look what we got,” Chester answered. “Millions of maniacs screaming, ‘Freedom!’ and out to take anything they can grab. If we don’t beat ’em again, they’ll damn well beat us, and then we have to start all over.”

“Yeah, but why you?” Gary persisted. “You paid your dues the last time. You didn’t have to take a chance on getting your ass shot off twice.”

“You’re too young to know what Remembrance Day was like before the last war,” Chester said slowly. “It really was a day of remembrance and a day of mourning. Things shut down tight except for the parades and the speeches. Nobody who saw it could ever forget the flag going by upside down. The Confederates and the limeys and the frogs beat us twice. We had to get tough. We had to build up if we were going to pay them back-and we did. I don’t ever want to see the country go through anything like that again.”

“That talks about the country. That doesn’t talk about you,” Gary said. “Me, I’m here on account of I got conscripted. But they weren’t going to conscript you.” You old fart. He didn’t say it, but he might as well have. “So how come you volunteered to let ’em take another shot at you? You’re not Custer-you aren’t going to win the war all by yourself.”

That would have been insulting if it hadn’t been true. “Yeah, I know,” Chester said with a sigh. “But if everybody sat on his hands, we’d lose. That’s the long and short of it. So I put the uniform back on.”

“And look what it got you,” Gary said.

“I think I did some good before I got hurt,” Chester said. “I commanded a company for a while the last time around, so-”

“Wait a second,” Gary broke in. “You were an officer then?”

Chester snorted. “Hell, no. Just an ordinary three-striper. But when everybody above me got killed or wounded, I filled the slot for a while. Did all right, if I say so myself. After a while, they found a lieutenant to run it. If I could do that then, I didn’t have any trouble helping a shavetail run a platoon this time. I’ll probably do the same thing somewhere else when they turn me loose here.”

“You’re like a football coach,” Gary said.

“Sort of, I guess. I never even thought about coaching football, though. I used to play it-not for money, but on a steel-mill team. We weren’t bad. We sure had some big guys-you better believe that.” Chester’s eye went to the clock on the wall. It was a few minutes before eleven. “Hey, Greek. you’ve got two good legs. Turn on the wireless, why don’t you? News coming up.”

“Sure.” The guy called Greek had one arm in a cast, but nothing was wrong with the other.

The knob clicked. The set started to hum. Everybody waited for the tubes to warm up. What came out of the wireless when the sound started reminded Chester of a polka played by a set of drunken madmen. When it mercifully ended, the announcer said, “That was the Engels Brothers’ new recording, ‘Featherston’s Follies.’ ” Everyone snorted; the Engels Brothers were madmen. The announcer went on, “And now the news.”

">“Heavy fighting is reported in and around Cleveland,” a different announcer said. “The fierce U.S. defense is costing the Confederates dearly.” Chester knew what that meant-the United States were getting hammered. The newsman continued, “Occupation authorities have also declared that the situation in Canada is under control, despite enemy propaganda.” He went on to another story in a hurry. Chester didn’t think that sounded good, either.

Too many things were happening all at once for Flora Blackford’s comfort. None of them seemed to be good things, either. The U.S. offensive in Virginia, on which so many hopes had been pinned, was heading nowhere. The new Confederate assault in Ohio, by contrast, was going much better than she wished it were. The Mormons still tied down far too many soldiers in Utah. And the Canadian uprising, from everything she could gather, was a lot more serious than the authorities were willing to admit in the papers or on the wireless.

All in all, the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War had plenty to do. She would rather it didn’t.

And there were other distractions. Her secretary stuck her head into the inner office and said, “Miss Clemens is here to speak with you, Congresswoman.”

“Thank you.” Flora meant anything but. Some things couldn’t be helped, though. “Send her in.”

In marched the reporter. Ophelia Clemens had to be fifteen years older than Flora, but still looked like someone who took no guff from anybody. There, at least, the two women had something in common. “Hello, Congresswoman. Mind if I smoke?” she said, and had a cigarette going before Flora could say yes or no. That done, she held out the pack. “Care for a coffin nail yourself?”

“No, thanks. I never got the habit,” Flora said, and then, “That’s a Confederate brand, though, isn’t it?”

“You betcha. If you’re gonna go, go first class,” Ophelia Clemens said. Flora didn’t know how to answer that, so she didn’t try. The reporter came straight to the point: “How many soldiers are we going to have to send up to Canada to help the Frenchies keep the lid on?”

“I don’t have a number for that,” Flora said cautiously. “You might do better asking at the War Department.”

“Yeah, and I might not,” Ophelia Clemens said with a scornful toss of the head. “Those people were born lying, and you know it as well as I do.”

Since Flora did, she didn’t bother contradicting the correspondent. “I’m afraid I still don’t have the answer. Even if it’s just one, it’ll be more than we can afford.”

Scritch, scritch. Clemens’ pencil raced across a notebook page. “That’s the truth-and it’s a good quote. How come the Confederates can advance whenever they want to, but we keep dropping the ball?”

“If I knew that, I’d belong on the General Staff, not here,” Flora said. Ophelia Clemens laughed, though she hadn’t been joking. She continued, “The Joint Committee is doing its best to find out.”

“Do you think keeping our generals on a red-hot grill will make them perform better?” the reporter asked.

“I hope we don’t do that,” Flora said.

“I hope you do,” Ophelia Clemens said. “They’d better be more afraid of us than they are of the enemy.” She waited to see if Flora would rise to the barb. When Flora didn’t, she tried another question: “Is our publicity making the Confederates treat their Negroes any different-any better, I should say?”

That, Flora was ready to comment on. “Not one bit,” she said angrily. “They’re as disgraceful as ever, and as proud of it as ever, too.”

The pencil flew over the page. “Too bad,” the correspondent said. “I’ve heard the same thing from other people, but it’s still too damn bad.”

“Nice to know someone thinks so.” Flora held up a hand. “This is off the record.” She waited. Ophelia Clemens nodded. Flora went on, “Too many people on this side of the border just don’t care, or else they say, ‘The damn niggers have it coming to them.’ ”

“Yes, I’ve seen that, too,” Clemens said. “All depends on whose ox is being gored. If the Freedom Party were going after Irishmen or Jews, they’d be squealing like a pig stuck in a fence.” She threw back her head and let out a sudden, startling noise. She knew what a stuck pig sounded like, all right. And then, raising an eyebrow, she added, “No offense.”

Flora had wondered if the older woman remembered she was Jewish. That answered that. She said what she had to say: “None taken.”

“Good. Some people can get stuffy about the strangest things. Where was I?” That last seemed aimed more at herself than at Flora. Flipping pages in the notebook, Ophelia Clemens found what she was looking for. “Oh, yeah. That.” She looked up at Flora. “Have you noticed there’s something funny in the budget?”