Blood and iron

Off he went, for all the world as if he had a job to which he didn't want to be late. His landlady thought he did have a regular job. He'd made certain she thought that. If she thought anything different, the Yanks were liable to hear about it. That was the last thing he wanted.

Almost three years after the end of the Great War, Wi

HORNE'S HOUSE PAINTS, said a sign on Donald Street. 37 COLORS AVAILABLE. If Horne had been in business before 1914, if he wasn't a joh

McGregor scowled. To him, COLORS looked clipped, u

"Christ!" McGregor wiped his forehead on his sleeve. "That'd be all I need, stepping out in front of one of those damn things when I'm carrying…" He let his voice trail away. He did not intend to mention out loud what he might be carrying. He wouldn't have come so close had he not just come close to getting killed.

Had so many motorcars scurried through the streets of Wi

He didn't care. He would sooner have been poor under King George than rich under the Stars and Stripes. The Yanks had taken his country away from him. If they expected him to be happy about it, they were in for a disappointment.

As a matter of fact, if they expected him to be happy about it, they were in for a big disappointment. He chuckled grimly-so grimly that a fellow in a business suit edged away from him. He didn't notice. He wanted to make sure their disappointment was as big as possible.

He crossed the Donald Street bridge over the Assiniboine and strolled past a three-story building that had somehow come through the war intact. Soldiers in green-gray with pot-shaped helmets stood guard around the building in sandbagged machine-gun nests that gave it a formidable defensive perimeter. He didn't linger. The U.S. guards asked pointed-or sometimes blunt- questions of people naive enough to linger around General Custer's headquarters.

They would, without a doubt, ask even more pointed-or perhaps blunt-questions of anyone foolhardy enough to try to leave a wooden box anywhere in the neighborhood. McGregor had seen as much on his last trip to Wi

There was a park not far away. It didn't even boast children's swings. All it had were grass and a few benches. McGregor sat down on the grass and waited for noon. He'd done that a good many times by now, and come to know the park well. The earth here was not smooth, but full of round depressions of different sizes and depths. A narrow zigzag strip of low ground, partly obliterated by the depressions, ran across the park from east to west. The troops defending Wi

He wasn't the only one out on this fine, mild day. Boys and girls frolicked where shells had burst and men had bled. An unshaven man in a filthy Canadian Army greatcoat and tattered khaki trousers lifted a bottle to his lips. He set it down slowly and reluctantly, as if its opening were the mouth of his beloved. In a drunken way, that was bound to be so.

McGregor killed time till the bells of the St. Boniface Cathedral, across the Red River, chimed twelve. He got up and ambled back by Custer's headquarters. He'd timed it perfectly. He'd just gone past the building when a chauffeur-driven Packard-the motorcar that had almost run him down in Rosenfeld when Custer was on his way up to Wi

After a little while, he went up Ke

McGregor smiled to himself. Custer dined at Hy's every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He was reliable as clockwork. He ate his di

Luck had had very little to do with McGregor's discovering his weekday routine, or at least three-fifths of it. The embittered farmer had taken to tramping the streets of Wi

He couldn't have that, not when he was so close. He made his way back to the park, though he didn't go past Custer's headquarters this time. "Now they shouldn't see me at all," he said as he sat down on the grass once more. No one heard him. The children were gone. The ex-soldier had passed out. His bottle lay empty beside him.

A little past five, McGregor returned to the boardinghouse. He ate the landlady's frugal supper without complaint. Afterwards, he went up to his room and read Quentin Durward till he grew sleepy. Then he turned off the electric lamp and, so far as he knew, didn't stir till morning.

Since the next day was Thursday, Custer wouldn't be dining at Hy's. McGregor walked in, went over to the bar, and ordered himself a Moosehead. As he drank the beer, he studied the place. He couldn't very well plant the bomb among the seats; he had nowhere to conceal it there. But a lot of tables were close to the bar, and he'd packed a lot of dynamite and a lot of tenpe

He worried about that, too. He'd known from his earlier trip to Wi

"It will work," he whispered fiercely. "It has to work."

He got out of bed at two the next morning and sneaked out of the boardinghouse. He carried the bomb on his back with straps, as if it were a soldier's pack. In one pocket of his coat were caps, in the other a small electric torch and a pry bar.

Wi