Walk in Hell

"Who says we didn't lick the CSA?" Apicius asked quietly. "The U.S. soldiers, they down in Te

"The Yankees can put soldiers on every railroad track and streetcorner in this state. That doesn't mean they can run it." Ke

"It don't matter nohow," Apicius said. "In the long run, Mister Tom, it don't matter a-tall. The revolution go

"If the Yankees weren't holding us both down-" Ke

He wondered if Apicius really knew what he was talking about. If the united workers of the world were so strong-"If the workers are so strong," he said, more thinking aloud than intending to criticize, "why didn't they all say two years ago they didn't want to go out and kill each other, instead of lining up and cheering and waving their flags?"

But disagreeing with both of them at the same time, he did the same thing the U.S. invasion of Kentucky had done: he got Apicius and Tom Ke

Apicius shook his head. "They fight on account of they is mystified into thinking country and race count for more than class. The capitalists got them fooled, is why they go off cheerin'."

"Nothing counts for more than country and race," Ke

Although Cinci

As if to cleanse himself of agreeing with a white man against a black (and if that wasn't race in action, what was it?), Cinci

Ke

Apicius smiled a nasty smile. "Maybe that don't matter none. Maybe the Yankees, they only think about who wants to do things for them, and about who they reckon they can't noway trust. Maybe when the war is over, maybe only the black folks in Kentucky gets to vote. How you go

Ke

Cinci

"What are you doing here, then?" Ke

"Because I saved your neck, Mr. Ke

Lucien Galtier led his family into the biggest church in Riviere-du-Loup for Sunday morning mass. More often than not, he and they worshiped in St.-Modeste or St.-Antonin, both of which were closer to his farm and both of which had priests less inclined to fawn on the American occupiers than was Father Pascal.

"Every so often, it is interesting to hear what the good father has to say," he remarked to his wife as they and their children filed into a pew and took their seats. "He speaks very well, it is not to be doubted."

"You have reason," Marie agreed in fulsome tones. No informer could have taken their words in any way amiss. That was fortunate, since they were surely under suspicion for having failed to collaborate with Father Pascal and the Americans as fully as they might have done.

Even in the midst of war, peace filled the church-or did its best to do so. The buzzing roar of aeroplane motors pierced the roof. The aeroplanes were flying north, across the St. Lawrence, to drop bombs or shoot at the soldiers defending unconquered Quebec from the invaders. Lucien had neither seen nor heard aeroplanes flying south since the ones that had shot up the American troop train. More from that than from the improbabilities the newspapers published these days, he concluded that the defenders of the province were having a hard time.

You could not tell as much from Father Pascal's demeanor. Here he came up the aisle toward the altar, flanked by altar boys in robes of gleaming white. The procession was not so perfectly formal as it might have been, for the priest stopped every few rows to greet someone with a smile or a handshake. He beamed at Lucien and his family. "Good to see you here today, my friends," he said before passing on.

Lucien nodded back, not so coldly as he would have liked. Part of that was simple caution, part his reaction, however involuntary, to Father Pascal's genuine charm. He scowled down at his hands once the priest's back was to him. He would have respected Father Pascal as a foe more easily had the man not pretended an amity that had to be false.

The mass, however, was the mass, no matter who celebrated it. The sonorous Latin that Lucien understood only in small snatches bound him, understood or not, with worshipers all over the world and extending back in time to the days of Christ Himself. Even in Father Pascal's mouth, it made the farmer feel a part of something larger and older and grander than himself.

Once the prayers were over, Father Pascal returned to French to address the congregation. "My children," he said, adding with a roguish smile, "for you are the only children I shall ever have: my children, I know that many among you are upset and disturbed in your hearts at the travail France is suffering in this great war that covers the whole of the earth. I do not blame you for this feeling. On the contrary-I share it with you."

He set both plump, pink, well-manicured hands over his heart for a moment. The woman in the pew in front of Lucien sighed at the gesture. Galtier suppressed the urge to clout her in the head. It wouldn't knock sense into her, and would get him talked about.

Father Pascal went on, "But although France is the mother from which we have all sprung, I must remind you, painful duty though it is, that the France of today, the France of the Third Republic, has cut herself off from the ways and traditions we proudly maintain. You must understand, then, that her punishment is surely the will of God."

"He's right," that woman whispered loudly to her husband. "Every word he says is true, and you ca