FIFTEEN
“I would take you with me if I could,” Stewart said. The eastern sky was dove-grey; the sun would be up in a few minutes.
“Don't be silly.” Pauline snuffed back a tear, wiped the corner of her eye with the back of a slender hand. “I have no interest in seeing the upper Mississippi or Kentucky. And I'd only slow you down.”
“I know.” He wiped another tear with his finger, trying hard to be feather-light with his touch. The sweat drying was making him chilly, and he marveled that he could feel cold in this God-forsaken climate. “I would still rather have you with me. Being with you now makes me realize how lonely I'm going to be once I leave.”
Pauline smiled wickedly. “You certainly won't have much opportunity to do this up-river. The Cajuns are friendly people, but they're not that friendly.” Her hand snaked under the quilt he'd covered himself with. Stewart yelped.
“Show some dignity, Miss!” he said with exaggerated pomposity when she laughed at his response. Pauline grabbed his shoulders then, and pulled herself to him fiercely. For a moment they lay there, rocking slightly, holding on to one another. Pauline murmured something into his hair; Stewart couldn't make sense of it, but when he drew back and looked inquiringly at her, Pauline just shook her head. She still smiled, but there was a sadness around her eyes now.
“You might write me if you have the chance,” she said softly, “just to let me know how your mission turns out.” There was a hesitation in her voice that Stewart didn't understand, and he felt a curious sense of disconnection from the world at this failure to understand. Dreadful though the comparison was, there were similarities between women and battles, he decided: other men talked a lot about both but you never really knew anything about either until you'd experienced one for yourself.
“Of course I'll write,” he said. “But please say that I have your permission to come back to New Orleans when all this is done. For you.”
“You mustn't talk like that,” she said, her voice catching. “We don't know what the future holds. Remember: no plans.”
I don't understand, he thought. She should have wanted to hear me say that. Shouldn't she? Did I mean it? He thought for a moment, tried to guess at a future life in this city, with Pauline beside him, and was utterly unable to see beyond the war and his duty.
“I don't know the future, that's true,” he said after failing to wrestle his thoughts into any cohesive shape. “Given that, I should be free to ask for anything I want.”
“No, don't,” she said. “Not now. It would not be good for either of us.”
She wasn't making sense. This is not how lovers are supposed to part, he thought. “What do you want, then?”
“That's the point,” she said, laying a finger on his lips. “Right now what we want can't matter. You have something you have to do, and until you've done it we can neither of us allow our own desires any voice. I don't want you beholden to me, Charles, because of anything you might say right now. No, you finish what you've set out to do—” she smiled at his look of surprise. “Oh, I don't know everything about your business here,” she said, “but don't pretend you'd no other purpose, sir, than negotiating a treaty and bedding actresses. I'm in the business of lying, after a fashion, and I can tell when someone's not being fully truthful.”
She disengaged herself from him and sat up. The sheets fell away from her and she made no attempt to cover herself. “Do what you must, and if you still find yourself drawn back to New Orleans when your task is done—well, then we can talk more of the future, if that's how you'd rather we spend our time together.”
“You perplex me, Miss Martin,” Stewart said.
“A large part of my charm,” she replied. “As is my shocking frankness.” She reached for him. “Stay a little while longer, Charles.”
* * * *
Staying with Pauline through the night and into the morning had, Stewart realized, given Patton such a head start that he could, if he wished, tell all about Walker’s planned filibuster and still not seriously endanger Patton’s life. He said nothing about Walker or Patton, though, when he reported to General Magruder. Instead he told one last lie: he had not been able to find Captain Patton. The rest of his story was true—Walker had said that the more truth you told, the more likely a lie was to be believed—culminating in his assessment of what the Federals were likely to do in Kentucky.
He asked for, and was granted, permission to be the courier who delivered the information to General Davis. It wasn’t that he wanted, any longer, to leave New Orleans—though he was certainly happy to be leaving the treaty commission. But something of what Patton had said seemed to have reawakened in Stewart a desire to test himself again on the battlefield. There was nothing gentlemanly about wrestling with spies, or murdering the foul-smelling brutes Walker seemed to have enlisted under his flag. Putting on a clean uniform, and joining a regiment, would make him more deserving of Pauline’s affection.
The Canadians seemed to think that he’d played some role in saving the life of their governor-general, and so made no protest when he requested special permission to commandeer a Confederate steamboat for a dash up the river. Stewart had worried, when he handed to its captain the order seizing the boat, that the man would protest this interruption of his commerce. In fact, he had been pleased, almost irrationally so. It wasn’t until the boat, loaded down with wood to feed the boilers, had set out on its journey that Stewart learned, from the boat’s clerk, that few captains on the river would refuse an opportunity to test their craft against the calendar, in order for the chance to claim a record for the fastest trip.
* * * *
Sam Grant looked at the whiskey puddled on the bottom of the glass. This had been his second drink of the day, and there were still a good three hours of daylight left. I should go find Sherman, he thought. I need something to do.
Van Doncken had studiously avoided him in the two days that had followed the summons to Lord Byron. Bancroft had spoken to him just once, and then only to say that the cost of laundering his bed-clothes would be taken from Grant’s salary. It was all too easy to believe that a conspiracy had been hatched to keep him from doing any productive work—any work at all, in fact.
They hadn’t even let him move into Brown’s old office, though he could have used the extra space.
A gentle tapping on his door brought him back to attention. “Mr. Bancroft wants to see you,” the servant said. Grant nodded his thanks, and picked up his pencil. Then he put it back down. Why bother?
“I wanted you to know,” the ambassador said when Grant entered his office, “that the—uh, situation with the Canadians has been resolved. Not entirely without discomfort to our government, but I think that the damage will be minimal. At least this experience has given the British cause to think twice about granting recognition to the Confederacy. If that resulted in war with the United States, Great Britain would suffer more than she perhaps anticipated.”
“I don’t think the British government was ever that serious about recognizing the South,” Grant said. “Not until the Confederates have proved, on the battlefield, that they don’t need British help.”
“I don’t think that we require your expertise to work out what the British might or might not do,” Bancroft said. He hurriedly added, “though I appreciate your thoughts.”
This is wrong. Grant looked at Bancroft, who shifted away to look out the window. Wait for it, he thought.
“I also appreciate what you’ve done, the sacrifices you’ve made for your country,” Bancroft continued. “And I hope that I might ask for one more sacrifice.”
“You’ve decided to blame it all on me,” he said, understanding now why he’d been summoned. “Why are you telling me this? Where’s Colonel Van Doncken?”
“He is … out.”
“He doesn’t have the decency to face me, is what you mean.”
“Captain, you have to understand that this situation is more important than a single individual. The honor of the country is at stake.”
“On that point I am in complete agreement with you,” Grant said. He could tell that his mouth was curved upward, but it didn’t feel like a smile. “I would think, though, that if a sacrifice was needed, one of the men actually responsible for this mess might be prepared to offer himself up.”
“And what purpose would that serve? What good would it do?” Bancroft got up and walked around his desk. He drew himself up and squared his shoulders. “My position here is extremely important, Captain. At this point I am all that preserves us from war with Great Britain.” Grant was nearly unable to contain his laughter at this. “And Colonel Van Doncken has developed strong working relationships with the military authorities here. How would it aid our cause if he were to be recalled? What good would humiliating him do?”
“It might do a world of good,” Grant muttered.
“Whereas if you accept my suggestion,” Bancroft continued smoothly, as if he hadn’t heard Grant, “then we will all benefit. The country will gain by virtue of our continuing to serve in the Canadian capitals. We will gain by avoiding having our lives disrupted.
“And you, Captain, will gain by a return to active duty.”
Grant slowly straightened up, fixing Bancroft with a stare. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that Colonel Van Doncken is prepared to recommend you to one of the new Indiana regiments. That’s your home state, is it not?”
“Illinois,” Grant said. He should be excited by the offer—and perhaps would have been, had he believed it for even a second.
“Illinois, then. You would have to go in as a captain, of course. Possibly a major. But with your West Point education it would only be a matter of time before you gained your own regimental command, or even returned to—to the rank you previously held.”
“And you are, of course, prepared to put this offer in writing.”
Bancroft laughed, the light and casual laugh of a man of importance dismissing something beneath notice. “This is a gentleman’s agreement we’re discussing.”
“That’s too bad,” Grant said. “Where I come from, when a man sells himself he usually wants some sort of guarantee. But then, I’ve always had a predilection for putting things in writing.
“My own report on this incident, for example. It went to Washington in the courier package yesterday morning.”
Bancroft’s face suddenly lost its color, and his smile froze, shattered, vanished. “It did what?”
“I thought it important that Washington get the real story of what happened here,” he said. “Given how few secrets there are in this city, it was going to come out anyway. Especially if I know Tecumseh Sherman.” Grant clasped his hands behind him, knowing what was coming. “I don’t think the country can afford to have such events pass by unnoticed,” he said. “So I did my duty as a soldier.”
For a few seconds the only sound Grant could hear was Bancroft’s coarse, heavy breathing. Eventually the minister said, “Captain Grant, I find your behavior inexcusable. You may consider yourself confined to quarters from this point forth. When your superior returns I will discuss with him your removal from your position.” He hasn't understood a word I've said, Grant realized. He's so angry about the offense to his dignity and his career that he doesn't even realize what he and Van Doncken and Brown and Connell have done to us. Bancroft's chin and cheeks were wobbling in impotent anger, and Grant realized that what he despised in Bancroft applied to far too many of his countrymen: the deluded, almost hypocritical piety; the willingness to ignore hard facts and harder decisions in the search for simple solutions; the veneration of antiquarian trivia over true history; the desire above all else to fit in rather than do right.
Bancroft was, mentally and morally, a daguerreotype of President Weed: opposed to slavery but equally opposed to Negroes; vicious toward the South in petty and pointless ways only because it was politically expedient; and completely incapable of understanding either what this war was about or how it ought to be pursued. The Confederacy was morally reprehensible, but it could well win this war because it had a clear sense of purpose and a committed, competent leadership.
As opposed to this. Grant stood his ground, staring levelly at Bancroft for several seconds. Then he turned and walked away. “I haven’t dismissed you!” Bancroft shouted. Grant ignored him.
Well, I don’t need that drink anymore, Grant thought as he took the steps down to the ground floor. In his cubbyhole of an office he pulled out a blank sheet of paper, dipped the pen, and began to write.
A half-hour later he walked into the legation of the Holy Roman Empire, his whole life in the cheap cloth bag he held with his right hand.
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