Men of War (12 page)

His voice trailed off. Still hard to believe that Marcus was dead. Yet another part of the political equation he had not anticipated.

“And your own actions?” Bugarin asked. “Did you personally try to rally the men?”

Hans bristled yet again; there was a certain tone to the statement, an implication. Andrew did not respond for a moment, never dreaming that someone might actually question his own behavior under fire.

Kal was the first to react. With an angry gesture he cut Bugarin off.

“This is an inquiry,” Kal snapped, “not an inquisition.” There was a flicker of eye contact, and Andrew felt at least a small sense of relief. Some of the old Kal was still there and was not comfortable with the way things were going.

“I’m willing to answer,” Andrew said, breaking the silence. He looked past Kal, staring at the ceiling.

“I’ll admit here that going under fire again left me nervous, though it did not affect my judgment. I crossed to the east shore and stayed there until it was evident that the north flank had completely caved in.”

“Why didn’t you call up reinforcements?” Bugarin asked. “Always reinforce victory, never reinforce defeat,” Andrew shot back.

“Wasn’t the defeat perhaps in your own mind?”

“I think that after more than a decade of campaigning I know the difference,” Andrew replied sharply. “Any unit, even First Corps, would have broken under the pounding inflicted on the left and center. As to a counterstrike, I have to ask with what?

“Three corps went into that assault. I have a total of three left to cover all the rest of that front from the tangles of the Northern Forest down into the mountains of the south. That was our total offensive striking power. If that was blunted, there was nothing left.”

“In other words, as an offensive force in this war, the Army of the Republic is finished,” Bugarin replied sharply, staring straight at Kal.

Andrew inwardly cursed. It was exactly what he did not want to admit to but had now been maneuvered into saying.

“And if the Bantag now launch a counterattack?” Bugarin pressed. “Can you stop it?”

“We have to stop it.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“There is no alternative,” Andrew snapped.

“Perhaps there is.”

“There is no alternative,” Andrew repeated, his voice sharp with anger. “We cannot make a deal with the Bantag; that will divide us and in the end kill all of us. We must fight if need be to the bitter end.”

Bugarin stood up and leaned over the table, staring directly at Andrew.

“You have been nothing but a disaster to us, Keane. We have fought three wars, hundreds of thousands have died, and now we are trapped in a war that we are losing. Beyond that we are trapped in an alliance with an alien people who can’t even defend their own land. As chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, I hereby summon you to give a full accounting of this disaster.”

With barely a nod of acknowledgment to Kal, the senator stalked out of the room. Casmir, rising from his chair, motioned for Kal to stay and hurried out after Bugarin.

Andrew sat back down, realizing that Kal was staring at him coldly.

“Now you see what I am dealing with here,” Kal announced. “You’d better prepare yourself for what you’ll have to face over the next couple of days.”

Andrew nodded. “Kal, you at least know the boys out there tried their damnedest to win.”

“I know that, Andrew, but it doesn’t change the fact that nearly twenty thousand more families lost a son, or father, or husband. How much longer do you think we as a people can take this?”

“Until we win,” Hans replied coolly.

“Define victory to me when we are all dead,” Kal whispered. “Andrew, we have to find a way out of this war.”

“Kal, there’s only one way,” Hans inteijected.

“You, old friend, are a soldier, and that is the path you must see to victory,” Kal replied, his voice filled with infinite weariness. “I, as president, am forced to consider alternate means. I might not like them, I might not even trust them, but I do have to consider them, especially when Bugarin has rallied a majority of senators.”

Andrew looked over at Vincent, who nodded. That bit of news was a shock. If Bugarin held the majority, the Senate could force the issue to a vote at any time.

“Kal, we can’t surrender. Nor can we allow the Republic to split. Jurak is obviously outproducing us. Any agreement, even a temporary cease-fire, will play to his hand.”

“I hear that from you, Andrew. From Bugarin I hear threats of breaking the Republic apart if need be to end the war. From the Roum representatives I hear complaints about our supposed suspicions regarding them. From Webster I hear that the economy is tottering into collapse. Tonight, as the casualty lists come in, I will sit and write letters until dawn, sending my regrets to old friends who’ve lost a loved one.”

His voice seemed near to breaking.

He lowered his head, put on his stovepipe hat, and slowly walked out the room, moving as if the entire weight of the world was upon him.

Andrew, Hans, and Vincent stood respectfully as he left. Andrew sighed, settling back in his chair and looking over at Vincent, who smiled weakly.

“Hawthorne, just what the hell is going on back here?” Hans asked, going around to the side table and taking the pot of tea from which Casmir had poured earlier and refilling his own cup. Taking a fruit vaguely resembling an apple but closer in size to a grapefruit, he settled into the chair Kal had occupied, pulled a paring knife from his haversack, and began to peel off the thick skin from the fruit.

“It’s madness here,” Vincent began. “Kal is losing control of Congress, which is fracturing between representatives of Rus and Roum. The Roum bloc is claiming the war is not being pressed hard enough to expel the invader from their soil. Beyond that there are some who are claiming it is deliberate in order to cut down the population and thus establish an equal balance in the House.”

“That’s insane.” Andrew sighed. “Damn all, who the hell could even think that?”

“And the—Rus side?” Hans asked.

“Well, you heard it straight from Bugarin. The Roum can’t fight and the burden is resting on the old army of Rus. We lost tens of thousands pulling their chestnuts out of the fire last winter and now, in this last battle, they panic again.”

“Never should have named them the Ninth and Eleventh Corps,” Hans said. “It was unlucky with the Army of the Potomac, and the same here.”

“Funny, even that legend is spreading around,” Vincent said, “some of the Roum claiming it’s a jinx we deliberately set on them.”

Andrew could only shake his head in disbelief.

“So the bottom line?” Andrew asked.

“Word is the Senate will vote a resolution today asking for your removal from command.”

There was a quick exchange of looks between Andrew and Hans as the sergeant cut off a piece of peeled fruit and passed it over to Andrew.

“It won’t happen of course. You’ll stay, and there’ll be a staged show of support for you, but the mere fact that it happens will weaken your position.”

“Figured that, but what’s the real game?”

“Far worse. With Crassus dead, and no vice president, the Roum representatives are increasingly nervous. Speaker Flavius is next in line but remember he isn’t of the old aristocracy of Roum. He was once a servant in the house of Marcus who rose through the ranks, was disabled after Hispania, and found himself in Congress.”

Andrew nodded. He had tremendous admiration for Flavius. A true natural soldier. If he had not been so severely wounded, he undoubtedly would have risen to command a division, or even a corps. His selection as Speaker had been something of a surprise, but then the House was dominated by old veterans, both Roum and Rus from the lower classes. But he didn’t have the blind support and instant obedience Marcus could command. Marcus could merely snap his fingers, and all would listen. Flavius lacked that, and though he was now but a heartbeat away from the presidency, Andrew knew he could not stem the growing friction between the two states of the Republic.

“Bugarin will hold hearings about the battle at Capua. He’ll declare the war lost and push for a cease-fire.”

“An agreement with the Bantag?” Hans asked. “Damn all to hell I keep telling you, Andrew, we should be shooting those Chin envoys they keep sending through.”

“I can’t. Congress specifically ordered that we receive them and pass them along.”

“And they’re nothing but damned spies.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Andrew snapped hotly.

Hans settled back in his chair, saying nothing at the tone of rebuke and frustration.

“Are there the votes for a cease-fire?” Andrew asked.

“No, not yet, but the real maneuver is to break the Republic. Reestablish an independent state of Rus, cut Roum off, and pull the army out.”

“And after the Bantag crush Roum they’ll be at our gates.”

“You know that, I know that,” Hawthorne replied, “but for a lot of folks here, any offer of peace, even if but for six months or a year, with the boys back home, and the crushing work in the factories eased off … well that seems all right with them.

“Bugarin’s already floating around a plan to build a fortified line at Kev, claiming that even if the Bantag did betray the agreement, without having to worry about Roum or holding Tyre, we’d have more than enough to stop them.”

“They’re fools,” Hans cried, his anger ready to explode as he glared at Vincent.

“Yes, but remember I’ve been stuck back here since last year being your liaison, so don’t blame me for the bad news.”

Andrew could see that being cut out of the action was still wearing on Vincent but on the other side his exposure to all the administrative work as chief of staff was seasoning Hawthorne, training him for a day when, if they survived, he would take the mantle of control.

“You should go into the factories,” Vincent said. “I’m in there damn near every day now, trying to keep production up. They’re hellholes, old men, women, children as young as eight working twelve-hour shifts six days a week. Emil is pitching a fit, about conditions. Tuberculosis is up, and a lot of the women working in the factory making percussion caps are getting this strange sickness; Emil says it has something to do with mercury, the same as with hatters.

“There’s shortages of everything, especially since we’re feeding nearly a million Roum refugees who lost their land. A lot of folks are getting by on gruel and watery soup with a hint of meat dipped into it. The prosperity we saw building two years ago is completely out of balance now. A few folks, mostly old boyars and merchants are getting filthy rich on the war industries, but the ordinary workers are slipping behind.”

“So get Webster in, have them figure out some new kind of tax. Hell, he’s the financial wizard who figured it all out in the first place,” Andrew said, always at a loss when it came to the finances of running a war.

“He’s trying, Andrew, but these same people have the ears of Congress and block any changes in the taxes. We cobbled together an industrial war society. The Union could take it back home; we had two generations of change to get used to it. The Confederacy didn’t, and remember how they were falling apart. Well, it’s the same here. We’re producing the goods but barely hanging on, in fact it’s slipping apart. Rebuilding the railroads after last winter’s campaign, and the buildup for this last offensive meant too many other things were not done. Webster said it’s like pouring all the oil we have on only half the machine. Well, the other half, the installations, morale, political support, they’re all seizing up and falling apart.”

Andrew did not know how to reply. During the early spring, after his recovery from the wound, he had tried to understand just how complex it had all become, attending meetings with Webster that would go half the night. He’d demand more ironclads, locomotives, better breechloaders and flyers, and ammunition, always more ammunition, and Webster would repeat endlessly that it meant scrimping on something else equally important if they were to keep the machine of war running.

“You want to understand disenchantment with this war, go into the factories at two in the morning and you’ll see. There have even been rumors about strikes to protest the war and conditions.”

“It’s that or the slaughter pit,” Hans growled, cutting another piece of fruit and this time tossing it to Vincent.

“It’s been what, more than six years since this city was the front line,” Andrew said wearily. “We’ve taken well over a hundred thousand more casualties in this war. I can understand people back here grasping at any straw that’s offered.”

“In fact even the good news from the western front seems to be hurting us,” Vincent said.

“What’s that?”

“Sorry, I guess you didn’t hear. We got reliable intelligence that Tamuka was kicked out by what was left of the Merki Horde following him.”

“That bastard,” Hans growled. “I hope they made him a eunuch or better yet killed the scum.”

It was rare that Andrew heard a truly murderous tone in Hans’s voice, but it flared out now. It was Tamuka who first held Hans prisoner. He could see his friend actually trembling with pent-up rage at the mere mention of the name.

“What happened?” Andrew asked.

“You know that the skirmishing has died off on the western frontier. So much so that I’m recommending relieving a division posted out there and shifting it over to the eastern front. A couple of weeks back a small band of people came into our lines, refugees from what apparently are folks descended from Byzantine Greeks living to the southwest. They said that a umen of the Merki came to their town, killed most of them, but the survivors witnessed a big blowup, the bastards were killing each other and a one-handed Merki who was the leader was driven out of the band.”

“That’s got to be him,” Hans snarled. “Even his own kind hated him. And he wouldn’t have the guts to die with some honor rather than run.”

“The rest of them took off, riding west; the one hand, with maybe a score of followers, rode east.”

“I wonder where to?” Andrew mused.

“Straight to hell I hope,” Hans inteijected.