The Victorious opposition

"It has, hasn't it?" Brigadier General Abner Dowling replied.

The last time they'd been together, Morrell had outranked Dowling. He tried not to resent the fat officer's promotions. They weren't Dowling's fault: how could anybody blame him for grabbing with both hands? Instead, they- and Morrell's own long, long freeze in rank-spoke volumes about the War Department's peacetime opinion of barrels.

"We're going to be doing something different here," Dowling remarked. "The other side's got the ball, and they'll try to run with it."

"And we have to tackle them," Morrell said.

"That's about the size of it," Dowling agreed.

Morrell whistled tunelessly between his teeth. "We're not going to be able to keep them from crossing the river," he said.

"Oh, good," the fat brigadier general said. Morrell looked at him in some surprise. Dowling went on, "I'm glad somebody besides me can see that. Officially, my orders are to throw them back into Kentucky right away."

"Sir, you'd bust me down to second lieutenant if I told you what I thought of the War Department," Morrell said.

Abner Dowling surprised him again, this time by laughing till his jowls quivered like the gelatin on a cold ham. "Colonel, I spent more than ten years of my life listening to General George Armstrong Custer. If you think you can shock me, go ahead. Take your best shot. And good luck."

That made Morrell laugh, too, but not for long. "If we were fighting the Confederate Army of 1914, we'd kick the crap out of it," he said. "That's a lot of what the big brains in Philadelphia have us ready to do."

The laughter drained out of Dowling's face, too. "Custer would have been louder about it, but I don't know if he could have been much ruder. We've got plenty of men, we've got plenty of artillery; our air forces are about even, I think. Our special weapons-gas, I should say; call a spade a spade-will match theirs atrocity for atrocity. Have you met Captain Litvinoff?"

"Yes, sir." When Morrell thought about Captain Litvinoff, he didn't feel like laughing at all any more. "I get the feeling he's very good at what he does." He could say that and mean it. It was as much praise as he could give the ski

It was June. It was already warm and muggy. It would only get worse. He didn't like to think about being buttoned up in a barrel. He especially didn't like to think about being buttoned up in a barrel while wearing a gas mask. When he thought about Litvinoff, he couldn't help it.

Thinking about being buttoned up in a barrel made him think about barrels in general, something else he wasn't eager to do. "Sir, if we are going to play defense, we don't just need gas. We need more barrels than we've got."

"I am aware of that, thank you," Dowling replied. "Philadelphia may be in the process of becoming aware of it. On the other hand, Philadelphia may not, too. You never can tell with Philadelphia."

"But if we're going to stop them-" Morrell began.

His superior held up a hand. "If we're going to stop them, we've got to have some notion of what they'll try. We'd better, anyhow. What's your best estimate of that, Colonel?"

"Have you got a map, sir?" Morrell asked. "Always easier to talk with a map."

"Right here." Dowling took one from his breast pocket and unfolded it. It was printed on silk, which could be folded or crumpled any number of times without coming to pieces and which didn't turn to mush if it got wet. Morrell drew a line with his fingers. Dowling's eyebrows leaped. "You think they'll do that?"

"It's what I'd do, if I were Jake Featherston," Morrell answered. "Can you think of a better way to cripple us?"

"The War Department thinks they'll strike in the East, the same as they did in the last war," Dowling said. Morrell said nothing. Dowling studied the line he had drawn. "That could be… unpleasant."

"Yes, sir," Morrell said. "I don't know that they have the men and the machines to bring it off. But I don't know that they don't, either."

Dowling traced the same path with his finger. It seemed to exert a horrid fascination. "That could be very unpleasant. I'm going to get on the telephone to the War Department about it. If you're right…"

"They won't take you seriously," Morrell predicted. "They'll say, 'All the way out there? Don't be silly.' " He tried to sound like an effete, almost effeminate General Staff officer.

"I have to make the effort," Dowling said. "Otherwise, it's my fault, not theirs."

Morrell could see the logic in that. He changed the subject, asking, "Have we got sabotage under control?"

"I hope so," Dowling said, which wasn't what he wanted to hear. The general went on, "Sabotage and espionage are a nightmare anyway. We aren't like Germans and Russians. We all speak the same language. And downstate Ohio and Indiana were settled by people whose ancestors came up from what are the Confederate States now. Most of 'em-almost all, in fact-are loyal, but they still have some of the accent. That makes spies even harder to spot. My one consolation is, the Confederates have the same worry."

"Happy day," Morrell said.

His superior laughed. So did he, not that it was really fu

Abner Dowling asked, seemingly out of the blue, "Did you ever serve in Utah, Colonel?"

"No, sir," Morrell answered. "Can't say I ever had that pleasure. I helped draw up the plan that involved outflanking the rebels there, but I was never stationed there myself."

"You know we still have colored friends down south of what's the border now," Dowling said-he seemed to be all over the conversational map.

"I don't know that for a fact, or I didn't till now, but it doesn't surprise me," Morrell said. "We'd be damned fools if we didn't."

"Hasn't stopped us before," Dowling observed. Morrell blinked. He hadn't thought the older man had that kind of cynicism in him. Of course, he'd known Dowling when the latter served under Cluster, whose own personality tended to overwhelm those of the people around him. Custer had even managed to keep Daniel MacArthur in check, which couldn't possibly have been easy. While Morrell contemplated the rampant ego of his recent CO., Dowling went on, "I don't think the Confederates are damned fools, either. I wish they were; it would make our lives easier. They were sniffing around in Salt Lake City when I commanded there the same way we are with niggers in the CSA. Only edge we've got is that there are more niggers in the Confederate States than Mormons here, thank God."

"Ah." Morrell nodded. Brigadier General Dowling hadn't been talking at random, then. He'd actually been going somewhere, and now Morrell could see where. "So you think the Mormons are going to try and stick a knife in our backs?"

"Colonel, they hate our guts," Dowling said. "They've hated our guts for sixty years now. I won't deny we've given them some reason to hate us."

"Not like they haven't given us reason to sit on them," Morrell said.

"Oh, there's plenty of injustice to go around," Dowling agreed. "And if another war starts, there'll be more. But I wish to high heaven President Smith hadn't lifted military occupation."

"Don't you think he's got people watching the Mormons?" Morrell asked.

"Oh, I'm sure he does," Dowling replied. "But it's not the same. If we see the Mormons gathering arms, say, it's not so easy to send troops back into Utah to take away the rifles or whatever they've got. That might touch off the explosion we're trying to stop."

"The police-" Morrell began.

Dowling's laugh might have burst from the throat of the proverbial jolly fat man-except he didn't look jolly. "The police are Mormons, too, or most of them are. They'll look the other way. Either that or they'll be the ones with the weapons in the first place. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"