American Empire_ Blood And Iron Part 22

"Bonjour," Lucien said. "My daughter and my grandson, I trust they are well?" Lucien said. "My daughter and my grandson, I trust they are well?"

"Yes," O'Doull said, and Marie nodded: she must have asked the same question. The American went on, "I have come, as I was beginning to tell your wife before you got here, to ask a favor of you."

"Vraiment?" Lucien said in some surprise. O'Doull was an independent fellow, and the favors he asked few and far between. Galtier waved his arms. "Well, if you came here to do that, you'd better get on with it, don't you think?" Lucien said in some surprise. O'Doull was an independent fellow, and the favors he asked few and far between. Galtier waved his arms. "Well, if you came here to do that, you'd better get on with it, don't you think?"

"Yes, certainly." But O'Doull hesitated again before finally continuing, "My mother and father have decided they would like to come up to Quebec to see their first grandson. You know our house, and know that it is not of the largest. Is it-would it be-possible that you might put them up here for a few days' visit? If it cannot be done, you must know I will understand, but it would be good if it could."

Before answering, Galtier glanced toward Marie. The farmhouse was her province. He knew there would be disruption, but she was the one to gauge how much. Only after she gave him a tiny nod did he answer in effusive tones: "But of course! They would be most welcome. When would they be traveling up to see you?"

"In a couple of weeks, if that's all right," O'Doull answered. "They're so looking forward to meeting Nicole and seeing little Lucien and to meeting all of you, for your doings have filled the pages of our letters."

"I hope we are not so bad as you will have made us out to be," Galtier said.

While Leonard O'Doull was still figuring out how to take that, Marie asked, "Is it that your mother and father speak French?"

"My father does, some," O'Doull replied. "He is a doctor himself, and studied French in college. My mother has been trying to learn since I decided to live here, but I do not know how much she has picked up."

"We will get along," Galtier said in his rusty English. Then he had to translate for his wife. Marie nodded, though she had almost no English of her own.

"I thank you very much," O'Doull said with a nod of his own that was almost a bow. "I will wire them and tell them it is arranged. Truly, they do want to meet you. I will also, naturally, let you know when I hear just when they will arrive in Riviere-du-Loup." With one more nod, he went back to his motorcar and then back to the hospital.

After the door closed behind him, Lucien and Marie looked at each other. They both raised eyebrows and then both started to laugh. Galtier said, "Well, this will be something out of the ordinary, at the very least."

"Out of the ordinary, yes," Marie agreed. "And the work we will have to do to be ready in time will be out of the ordinary, too." She drew herself up straight with pride. "But we will do it. We will not shame ourselves before Leonard's rich American parents."

Doctors weren't necessarily rich, but Lucien didn't bother contradicting his wife. Contradicting Marie rarely did any good. Besides, she was in essence right. Galtier too wanted to put on the best show he could for his son-in-law's parents.

Over the next couple of weeks, a tornado might have pa.s.sed through the house. Doing spring cleaning and the laundry that went with spring cleaning while snow lay on the ground wasn't easy, but Marie and her daughters managed, with help from Lucien and the two boys whenever they could be roped into it. Denise, who'd had the room she'd once shared with Nicole to herself since her sister's wedding, was bundled off to sleep with Susanne and Jeanne to give the guests a room of their own.

"Why have we no electricity?" Marie moaned. "Why have we no piped water?"

"Why does not matter for these things," Galtier said with a shrug. "We do not have them, and we cannot have them before the O'Doulls arrive. Save your worries for things we can help."

"They will think we are backwards," Marie said.

"They will think we live on a farm." Galtier looked around. "As best I can see, they will be right." She wrinkled her nose at him. Shrugging again, he added, "I have heard from our son-in-law that it is the same on farms in the United States as it is here."

That quieted Marie for the time being. She got nervous a dozen more times before Leonard O'Doull, having met his parents at the train station in Riviere-du-Loup, brought them and Nicole and little Lucien down to the farmhouse. By then, the suits Lucien and Charles and Georges wore had been aired long enough that they no longer smelled of mothb.a.l.l.s.

Harvey O'Doull looked like a shorter, older, more weathered version of his son. Rose, his wife, resembled nothing so much as a suet pudding, but her eyes, green like Leonard's, were kind. "I was pleased to meet your lovely daughter at last, and I am pleased to meet all of you," Harvey said, his accent about two-thirds American, one-third Parisian. "I am glad to have you in our family, and to be in yours."

"Moi aussi," his wife said. Her accent was considerably worse than his, but she made the effort to speak at least a little French. his wife said. Her accent was considerably worse than his, but she made the effort to speak at least a little French.

Because she did, Lucien answered in his own creaky English: "And I am glad also to meet you. Please to come inside, where it is more hot."

Harvey O'Doull's eyes had been flicking back and forth around the farm, as if they were a camera taking snapshots. His face showed a good deal of knowledge; how many farms had he seen in the course of his practice? A lot, probably. When he said, "This is a good place," he spoke with authority.

"This is precious!" Rose said in English when they did go inside. It wasn't quite the word Galtier would have used to describe the house where he lived, but it was meant as praise, and he accepted it in the spirit offered.

Leonard O'Doull carried in suitcases. His father opened one and rummaged through it. "I have here for the baby many toys," he said in his rather strange French, "and one also for you, M. Galtier." With the air of a man performing a conjuring trick, he held up a large bottle of whiskey.

"Since I cannot drink all that by myself-at least not right away-I will share it with anyone who would like some," Galtier said. "Denise, run into the kitchen and fetch gla.s.ses, would you?"

There was plenty of whiskey to go around. There would be enough to go around several times. "To Lucien O'Doull!" Harvey O'Doull said loudly. Everyone drank. It was, Lucien Galtier discovered, not only abundant whiskey but excellent whiskey as well.

Lucien O'Doull, without whom the gathering would not have taken place, drank no whiskey. He kept pulling himself up to a stand, letting go, and falling on his bottom. His cries were much more of indignation than of hurt. He knew he was supposed to get up there on his hind legs, but he didn't quite know how.

Dinner featured roast chicken and sausage and mashed potatoes and b.u.t.tered turnips and Marie's fresh-baked bread. Nothing was wrong with either senior O'Doull's appet.i.te, and they both praised the food in two languages. The first awkward moment came when Rose asked in careful French, "Ou est le W.C.?" "Ou est le W.C.?"

"Il n'y a pas de W.C.," Galtier answered, and then, in English, "No toilet." With resigned regret, he pointed outside. One small advantage of cold weather was that the outhouse was less ripe than it would have been in summer. Galtier answered, and then, in English, "No toilet." With resigned regret, he pointed outside. One small advantage of cold weather was that the outhouse was less ripe than it would have been in summer.

Rose O'Doull blinked, but wrapped herself in her thick wool coat and sallied forth. When she came back, she was, to Lucien's surprise, smiling. "I haven't been on a two-holer since Hector was a pup," she said in English. Lucien didn't know exactly what that meant, but he had a pretty fair notion.

Rose also insisted on going back and helping the Galtier women with the dishes. Harvey proved to have brought a box of cigars to go with the fine whiskey. After the menfolk were puffing happy clouds, he said, "I hope, M. Galtier, we do not put you to too much trouble."

"Not at all," Lucien said. "It is our pleasure."

"All except Denise's," the incorrigible Georges murmured.

Fortunately, Harvey O'Doull either did not hear or did not understand. He went on with his own train of thought: "I know how much work a farm is. I was a child on a farm. To have guests is not easy for a man with much work to do."

"When the guests are the other grandparents of my grandson, they are, in a way, of my own flesh and blood," Galtier replied.

Harvey O'Doull nodded. "You are very much as my son has written of you in his letters. He says you are the finest gentleman he ever met."

The key word was in English, but Galtier understood it. He glared at Leonard O'Doull and spoke fiercely: "See what lies you have been spreading about me!"

Harvey O'Doull started to explain himself, thinking Lucien had misunderstood and really was insulted. Leonard O'Doull, who knew his father-in-law better, wagged a forefinger at him, a thoroughly French gesture for an Irishman to use. "If I had not heard the words come from your lips, I would have thought Georges had spoken them."

"Tabernac!" Galtier exploded. "Now I Galtier exploded. "Now I am am insulted!" insulted!"

"So am I," Georges said. They all laughed. Lucien had not thought his meeting with these Americans would begin so well. But then, he reflected, he had not thought his meetings with any Americans would go so well as they had. Occasionally-but only occasionally, the stubborn peasant part of him insisted-surprises were good ones. the stubborn peasant part of him insisted-surprises were good ones.

Scipio stood in line outside the Augusta, Georgia, city hall with more worry in his heart than he let his face show. The queue of black people stretched for blocks. Every so often, a white pa.s.sing by would offer a jeer or a curse. Gray-clad policemen kept the whites from doing anything worse, if they'd intended to.

Bathsheba squeezed his hand. "Hope none o' them Freedom Party buckra come to raise a ruction."

He nodded. "Me, too." That was indeed one of the worries he was doing his best to conceal. As those worries went, though, it was only a small one.

Bathsheba cheerfully went on, "Pa.s.sbooks won't be so so bad. Did well enough with 'em before, an' I reckon we can again. Just a nuisance, is all." bad. Did well enough with 'em before, an' I reckon we can again. Just a nuisance, is all."

"I hopes you's right," Scipio said. He had his doubts. The Freedom Party men in Congress were the ones who'd introduced the law tightening up the pa.s.sbook system in the CSA, which had fallen to pieces during the Great War. He distrusted anything that had anything to do with the Freedom Party. But that worry wasn't at the top of his list, either.

The line slowly snaked forward, not toward the front entrance to the city hall-whites wouldn't have stood for blacks' impeding their progress that way-but toward a side door. Negroes newly issued pa.s.sbooks went out the back way. Some of them came around to talk with friends still in line.

"Look like a police station in there," one of them said. "They got wanted posters up for every n.i.g.g.e.r ever spit on the sidewalk."

A couple of blacks, hearing that, suddenly found other things to do than stand in line just then. Scipio felt like finding something else to do, too. But, from what he read in the papers, he was more likely to get in trouble without a pa.s.sbook later than he was to be recognized now. Maybe a poster with his name-his real name-on it would be hanging there with all the rest. n.o.body in Georgia wanted him except Bathsheba, and he was glad she had him. Everything he'd done for the Congaree Socialist Republic had been over in South Carolina. He was perfectly happy to have people beating the bushes for him there; he never intended to set foot in the state again.

Up the worn stone steps leading to the side door he and Bathsheba went. "Glad we ain't doin' this in the summertime," he said. "We melt jus' as fas' as the ice under the fish over at Erasmus' place."

"For true," Bathsheba agreed. When they got inside, she looked along the hallway. "That fellow weren't lyin'. Who would have thought there was so many bad n.i.g.g.e.rs in this here town?"

Scipio scanned the wanted posters. Sure as h.e.l.l, there was a faded one with his name on it. The poster, though, bore no picture. He'd been photographed only a couple of times in his life, and those images had gone up in smoke when Marshlands burned. He'd never had any brushes with the police, as had the men and women whose photos adorned most of the fliers. On the other hand, if caught for his political crimes, he'd face the gallows or a firing squad.

At last, he came before a sour-faced white clerk. "Name?" the fellow asked.

"Xerxes," Scipio answered, and then had to spell it for the clerk, who'd started it with a Z Z instead of an instead of an X X.

Being corrected by a black man made the clerk's face even more sour, but he made the change. "Residence address?" he said, and Scipio gave him the address of the roominghouse over in the Terry. The clerk didn't have any trouble getting that down on paper. Then he asked, "Birthplace?"

"I were borned on a plantation over in South Carolina." Scipio hoped his sudden tension didn't show. He hadn't expected that question.

But the clerk only nodded. "You talk like it," he said, and wrote SOUTH CAROLINA SOUTH CAROLINA on the pa.s.sbook and on the form that would record its new owner. He asked about Scipio's age (on general principles, Scipio lied five years off it), his employer, and his employer's address. After taking all that down, he said, "State the time and reason your previous pa.s.sbook was lost." on the pa.s.sbook and on the form that would record its new owner. He asked about Scipio's age (on general principles, Scipio lied five years off it), his employer, and his employer's address. After taking all that down, he said, "State the time and reason your previous pa.s.sbook was lost."

"Suh, it were 1916, I reckons," Scipio said, "an' I were gettin' the h.e.l.l out o' where I was at, on account of I didn't want to git kilt. Didn't take nothin' but de clothes on my back."

The clerk grunted. "Another patriotic n.i.g.g.e.r running away from the Reds," he said. "If I had a dime-a real silver dime, I mean-for every time I've heard that one the past couple days, I'd be a h.e.l.l of a rich man." But he was just blowing off steam in general; he didn't seem to disbelieve Scipio in particular. When Scipio didn't flinch, the clerk grunted again. "Raise your right hand."

Scipio obeyed.

"Do you solemnly swear that the information you have given me in regard to this book is true and complete, so help you G.o.d?" the white man droned.

"Yes, suh," Scipio said.

Still droning, the clerk went on, "The penalty for perjury in regard to this book may be fine or imprisonment or both, as a court of law may determine. Do you understand?" Scipio nodded. The clerk looked miffed, perhaps at finding a black man who didn't need the word perjury perjury explained to him. Thrusting the new pa.s.sbook at Scipio, he said, "Keep this book in your possession at all times. It must be shown or surrendered on demand of any competent official. If you move or change jobs in Augusta, you must notify city hall or a police station within five days. You must have the proper stamp in the book before you travel outside Richmond County. Penalty for violating those provisions is also fine or imprisonment or both. Do you understand all explained to him. Thrusting the new pa.s.sbook at Scipio, he said, "Keep this book in your possession at all times. It must be shown or surrendered on demand of any competent official. If you move or change jobs in Augusta, you must notify city hall or a police station within five days. You must have the proper stamp in the book before you travel outside Richmond County. Penalty for violating those provisions is also fine or imprisonment or both. Do you understand all that that?"

"Yes, suh," Scipio repeated.

"All right, then," the clerk said, as if was.h.i.+ng his hands of him. "Go down that hall and into one of the rooms on the left. Get yourself photographed. A copy of the photograph will be sent to you. It must go into your pa.s.sbook, on the blank page opposite your personal information. If you do not receive it within two weeks, come back here to be photographed again. Next!"

Bathsheba, who'd gone to the clerk next to the one who'd dealt with Scipio, was waiting when he finished. Together, they went to get their pictures taken. The photography room was full of flash-powder smoke, as if soldiers with old-fas.h.i.+oned weapons had fought a battle in there.

Foomp! A photographer set off more flash powder. Scipio's eyes watered at the blast of light. "Do Jesus!" he exclaimed. A blowing green-purple spot danced at the center of his vision before slowly fading. A photographer set off more flash powder. Scipio's eyes watered at the blast of light. "Do Jesus!" he exclaimed. A blowing green-purple spot danced at the center of his vision before slowly fading.

"That was just like lookin' into the sun," Bathsheba said as the two of them made their blinking way to the back door and out of the Augusta city hall.

"Sure enough was," Scipio said. He put the pa.s.sbook in the pocket of his dungarees. If he couldn't leave the county without getting the book stamped, Confederate authorities were tightening up with a vengeance. And yet, oddly, that bothered him only a little. Now he had an official doc.u.ment to prove he was Xerxes of Augusta, Georgia. That made it much harder for Anne Colleton-or anyone else, but he worried most about Miss Anne-to accuse him of ever having been Scipio the bloodthirsty Red.

He spotted Aurelius in the line of men and women waiting to get pa.s.sbooks, and waved to the waiter with whom he'd worked at John Oglethorpe's restaurant before the white man let him go. Aurelius waved back. "How you is?" Scipio called.

Aurelius waggled his hand back and forth. "Same as always." He looked from Scipio to Bathsheba and back again. "You look like you's doin' pretty good for yourself," he said with a smile.

"This here my intended," Scipio answered proudly. He introduced Bathsheba and Aurelius, then asked, "How Mistuh Oglethorpe doin'?"

"He don't change," Aurelius said. "Tough as rocks on the outside, sof' as b.u.t.ter underneath."

Scipio nodded. That described his former boss very well. He was about to say so when a shout from farther up Greene Street made him whip his head around. The shout was one he'd heard before: "Freedom!" It seemed to come from a great many throats.

All up and down the queue, Negroes looked at one another and up the street in alarm. No one with a dark skin thought of the Freedom Party with anything but dread. "Freedom!" That great shout was closer now. Scipio glanced at the policemen who'd been keeping the line orderly. He'd always seen the white police as a tool for keeping Negroes in their place. Now he hoped they could protect him and his people.

Past the line of Negroes came the Freedom Party marchers. Scipio stared at them in dismay: hundreds of men tramped along in disciplined ranks. They all wore white s.h.i.+rts and b.u.t.ternut pants. Many of them had steel helmets on their heads. The men in the first rank carried the Stars and Bars and Confederate battle flags. The men in the second rank bore white banners with FREEDOM FREEDOM printed on them in angry red letters, and others that might have been Confederate battle flags save that they featured a red St. Andrew's cross on blue, not blue on red. printed on them in angry red letters, and others that might have been Confederate battle flags save that they featured a red St. Andrew's cross on blue, not blue on red.

"Freedom!" the marchers roared again. Had they turned on the Negroes in line outside the city hall, the handful of policemen could not have hoped to stop them. But they just kept marching and shouting their one-word slogan. That showed discipline, too, and frightened Scipio almost as much as an attack would have done.

He looked from the marchers back to the police. Not only were the policemen outnumbered, they also seemed cowed by the Freedom Party's show of force. It was almost as if the marchers represented the Confederate government and the police were civilian spectators.

"Them b.a.s.t.a.r.ds is bad trouble," Aurelius said, speaking in a low voice to make sure he gave the white men no excuse to do anything but march.

"Every time the Freedom Party do somethin', mo' poor buckra join they than the time befo'," Scipio said. "That go on, they gwine end up runnin' this here country one fine day. What they do then?"

"Whatever they please," Bathsheba said. "They do whatever they please."

"Ain't nothin'we can do about it, anyways," Aurelius said.

Scipio suddenly felt the weight of the pa.s.sbook in his pocket. It might have been the weight of a ball and chain. For the very first time, he truly sympathized with the Red uprising in which he'd played an unwilling part. This march was what Ca.s.sius and Cherry and the other Reds had feared the most.

But their uprising had helped sp.a.w.n the Freedom Party-Scipio understood the dialectic and how it worked, even if he didn't think of it as revealed truth. And the black uprising had failed, as any black uprising was bound to do: too few blacks, too few weapons. What did that leave for Negroes in the CSA? Nothing he could see.

"We's trapped," he said, hoping Bathsheba or Aurelius would argue with him. Neither of them did, which worried him more than anything.

Sam Carsten slammed a sh.e.l.l into the breech of the five-inch gun he served aboard the USS Remembrance Remembrance. "Fire!" Willie Moore shouted. Carsten jerked the lanyard. The cannon roared. The sh.e.l.l casing fell to the deck with a clang of bra.s.s on steel. One of the sh.e.l.l-jerkers behind Sam handed him a fresh round. Coughing a little from the cordite fumes, he reloaded the gun.

Moore peered out through the sponson's vision slit. "I think we've got to bring it down a couple hundred yards to drop it just where we want it," he said, and fiddled with the elevation screw to achieve the result he wanted. When he was satisfied, he nodded to Sam. "Give 'em another one."

"Right, Chief." Sam yanked the lanyard again. The gun bellowed. Carsten said, "Christ, by the time we're through with Belfast, there won't be anything left of it."

"d.a.m.n stubborn crazy micks," Moore said. "The ones who want to stay part of England, I mean, not the ones who aim to put all of Ireland into one country. They're d.a.m.n stubborn crazy micks, too, but they're on our side."

Overhead, two aeroplanes roared off the deck of the Remembrance Remembrance, one on the other's heels. "They'll give the Belfasters something to think about," Sam said.

"That they will," the commander of the gun crew agreed. "No doubt about it." He peered through the slit again. "Sons of b.i.t.c.hes!" he burst out. "The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are shooting back. One just splashed into the water a few hundred yards short of us."

One of the sh.e.l.l-jerkers, Joe Gilbert-like most in his slot, a big, muscular fellow-said, "G.o.dd.a.m.n limeys must have smuggled in some more guns."

"Yeah," Carsten said. "And if we call 'em on it, they'll say they never did any such thing-their pet micks must've come up with the guns and the sh.e.l.ls under a flat rock somewhere, or else made 'em themselves."

Officially, Britain recognized Ireland's independence. She'd had to; the United States and the German Empire had forced the concession from her. The Royal Navy never ventured into the Irish Sea to challenge the Remembrance Remembrance or any other U.S., German, or Irish wars.h.i.+p. or any other U.S., German, or Irish wars.h.i.+p.

But hordes of small freighters and fis.h.i.+ng boats smuggled arms and ammunition and sometimes fighting men into the loyalist northeastern part of Ireland. The British Foreign Office blandly denied knowing anything about that. However many s.h.i.+ps stood between Ireland on the one hand and England and Scotland on the other, the gun runners always found gaps through which they could slip.

Willie Moore said, "The d.a.m.n micks-our d.a.m.n micks, I mean-had better start doing a better job of patrolling, that's all I've got to tell you. It's their G.o.dd.a.m.n country. If they can't hang on to it all by their lonesome, I can tell you we ain't gonna hang around forever to pull their chestnuts out of the fire." He adjusted the elevation screw again. "Let 'em have the next one now." d.a.m.n micks, I mean-had better start doing a better job of patrolling, that's all I've got to tell you. It's their G.o.dd.a.m.n country. If they can't hang on to it all by their lonesome, I can tell you we ain't gonna hang around forever to pull their chestnuts out of the fire." He adjusted the elevation screw again. "Let 'em have the next one now."

"Aye aye." Sam fired the five-inch gun again. He had to step smartly to keep the casing from landing on his toes.