American Front

That was the polite way of saying, Go get drunk and then sleep it off. The pilots gratefully took him up on it. Staring down into a glass of whiskey, Tom I

"Don't talk about who's going to go," Moss said, earnestly if a little blur- rily-the tip of his nose was getting numb, and so was his tongue. "Bad luck."

"Bad luck," I

Moss didn't answer that. He didn't want to think about it, not at all. To keep from thinking about it, he got as drunk as he could as fast as he could. He and I

He was lucky. He fell asleep-or passed out-before he could dwell on that one for long. When he woke up the next morning, the whiskey had taken its revenge, and he hurt too bad to dwell on anything.

But that afternoon, after gallons of coffee and the hair of the dog that bit him, he felt almost human, in an elderly, melancholy way. He was writing a letter to a cousin in Cleveland when the tent flap opened. Captain Pruitt led in a gawky young man with a green-gray duffel slung over his shoulder. "Gentle men," he said, "this is Zach Whitby. Lieutenant Whitby, we have here Dan Dudley, Tom I

Whitby threw the duffel down on the cot that had been Luther Carlsen's. He stuck out his hand. "Pleased to meet you all."

"You all?" Moss ran the words together. "Look out, boys, we've got a Reb flying with us." If you laughed, you didn't have to think about it… not so much, anyhow.

"Why, Major, why did you pick my farm?" Lucien Galtier demanded. As he knew perfectly well what the answer to that question was, he was not so much seeking information as plumbing the depths of Major Jedediah Quigley's hypocrisy.

"I have several excellent reasons, Monsieur Galtier," Quigley answered. As he spoke, he ticked them off on his fingers, which, with his elegant Parisian accent and his incisive logic, made him seem more a lawyer than a soldier to Galtier: an invidious comparison if ever there was one. "First, monsieur, your farm is sufficiently far back from the banks of the St. Lawrence as to be be yond artillery range even from the gunboats that try to harass our operations on the river and our crossings. This is an important matter in the placement of a hospital, as I am sure you must agree." Without waiting to learn whether Galtier agreed or not, he went on, "Second, the road is already paved to within a couple of miles of your farm. Extending it this much farther is a work of no great trouble."

"I would not put you to any trouble whatever," Galtier said, knowing he was righting a losing battle.

"As I say, it is a small matter," Quigley replied. "It will even work to your advantage: an all-weather road passing by your farm will enable you to sell your produce ever so much more readily than you do now."

"I shall have ever so much less produce to sell, however, as you are taking so much of my patrimony for the purpose of building this hospital," Lucien told him. "And you appear to be taking the best land I have, that given over to wheat."

"Only the most convenient," Major Quigley assured him. "And you will be compensated for the use."

"Compensated as I was for my produce last winter?" Galtier shot back. Quigley shrugged, a fine French gesture to go with his fine French tongue. Yes, his hypocrisy was deep indeed. He never once mentioned Lucien's refusal to give names to Father Pascal or to collaborate with the Americans in any other way. But the farmer was as sure as he was of his own name that, had he cho sen to collaborate, the hospital would have gone up on someone else's land.

Quigley said, "Do not think of this hospital as a permanent structure, Monsieur Galtier. It will serve its purpose for the time being and then pass away and be forgotten. As we establish and enlarge our foothold north of the St. Lawrence, no doubt it will become practical for us to build hospitals in se cure areas there."

"No doubt," Lucien agreed tonelessly. Thinking he ought to learn all he could about the American incursion on the far side of the river, he asked, "And how is the war faring for you there?"

Major Quigley spread his hands. Though not a real Frenchman, he played the role well enough to take it on the stage. "Not so well as we would like, not so poorly that the enemy will be able to throw us back into the river."

By the enemy, of course, he meant the forces of Galtier's rightful government and those of Great Britain, which was proving a loyal ally to France. Lu cien did not reply. What could he say? He was just an ordinary farmer. He supposed he should have been grateful that the American's revenge was no worse than this. From what he had heard, people who crossed the U.S. mili tary government sometimes disappeared off the face of the earth. He had a wife and half a dozen children who needed him. He could not afford to let his tongue run as free as he might have liked.

When he didn't say anything, Jedediah Quigley shrugged again. "There you are, Monsieur Galtier. We should start construction in the next few days.

If you have any objections to the plan as currently constituted, you can offer them to the occupation authorities in Riviere-du-Loup."

"Thank you so much, Major Quigley," Galtier said, so smoothly that the American did not notice he was being sardonic. Oh, yes, you could make a trip up to Riviere-du-Loup for the privilege of complaining to the authorities about what they were doing to you. But, since they'd already decided to do it, how much was that likely to accomplish? The short answer was, not much. The longer answer was that it might do harm, because daring to complain would get his name underlined on the list the occupation authorities surely kept of those they did not trust.

"Now that I have given you the news, Monsieur, I must return to town," Quigley said. He climbed onto an utterly prosaic bicycle and pedaled away.

Off to the north, across the river, artillery rumbled. Galtier wondered whether it belonged to the American invaders or to those who tried to defend Quebec against them. The defenders, he hoped. He glanced up to the sky. The weather was still fine and mild. How much longer it would remain fine and mild, with September heading toward October, remained to be seen. Long enough for him to finish getting in the harvest -that long, certainly, if God was merciful even to the least degree. But the day after the harvest was done…

"Let the snow come then," he said, half prayer, half threat. The Americans would not have an easy time keeping an army on the far side of the wide river supplied if the winter was harsh. The defenders would not have an easy time, either, but they would not be cut off from their heartland as the invaders would. How well did Americans, used to warm weather, deal with weather that was anything but? Before long, the world would find out.

Marie came out of the farmhouse and looked down the road toward Riviere-du-Loup. Major Quigley, a rapidly disappearing speck, was still visi ble. Lucien wished Quigley would disappear for good. His wife asked, "What did the Boche americain want of you?"