1901

He slapped the horses on their rumps and started them clopping down the trail. With a little bit of luck, they’d be well away from the kill site before they were discovered. If so, he could use the area again. Perhaps the wagon with its grisly load would make it all the way to a German camp. Wouldn’t that spoil their sleep!

Johnny slipped back into the night and the trees. His stomach growled a little, reminding him he hadn’t eaten in a while. He pulled a piece of jerky from his pouch and commenced chewing with gums that had lost most of their teeth. He hummed a happy tune. The two corpses in the wagon made for a total of six kills. Not bad for the first day.

Ian Gordon was resplendent in his red tunic. He snapped a quick salute. “My heartiest congratulations, General. To think I knew you when you were nothing-a mere, total, and useless nobody.”

Patrick smiled warmly. “Thanks, Ian. I knew you’d help me keep things in perspective.” He rose and grasped the other man’s hand. “Now, what are you doing here? How can our leadership in Washington spare you?”

“As a matter of fact they can do so rather easily. I am now one of several British officers assigned as observers to General MacArthur. There are others from several nations watching this wonderful war unfold. If you would spend more time at headquarters you would see other Imperial types like me: garishly uniformed Frenchmen, even more garish Italians, and-are you ready for this?-little yellow men all the way from Japan. All of them are here to see how the mighty Imperial German Army wages war against your brave little army. None, save us, gives a fig who wins. They just want to see what might happen if they go up against Germany.”

Patrick caught on quickly, recalling Gordon’s background in military intelligence. “Certainly. And as an ‘observer’ from an ostensibly neutral nation, you would be in a position to pass on information that you might receive through your private channels, wouldn’t you?”

Gordon rolled his eyes in mock despair. “Patrick, that would be horrid. Unfair. How can you think so ill of me?”

“All right, have it your way. What brings you to my humble tent?”

“An overwhelming urge to see Mahan’s Bastard Brigade. My goodness, Germans and Negroes. Why haven’t they given you the Apaches as well?”

Patrick shuddered. “Little Mac can keep them. My God, have you heard some of the stories?”

“Yes. Wonderful, aren’t they? Still, the Apaches are not quite as clever as the Pathans or the Zulus when it comes to making death even more horrid than it usually is. Remind me to tell you how the Zulus impale live prisoners with a stake up their arse, and how long the Pathans take to skin a man alive.”

“No, thanks. Now, what’s your real reason for being here? And unless that’s some of your family’s ancient Scotch whiskey in that container, I may be forced to ask you to leave.”

Gordon laughed and pulled a bottle from the container. They opened it and poured generous amounts in the glasses Ian had also thought to bring. They toasted each other’s promotions, Patrick to general and Ian’s much more recent one to lieutenant colonel.

Gordon lolled back in a camp chair that came dangerously close to falling over. “Yes, as in your case, the powers that be decided that nobody pays any attention to mere majors, and they promoted me. I wish they’d had the foresight to make me a general instead.”

“Wait for your own war. You’re only an observer, remember?”

“Ah, and what a wonderful assignment. I get to gaze worshipfully at MacArthur if I wish, or talk to that lovable barbarian Wheeler, or even come slumming down here.”

Patrick refilled his glass. “Insults can be damned expensive. Did you get a chance to meet Longstreet? I haven’t yet.”

Gordon nodded. “Indeed. And almost made a proper fool of myself. That’s what happens when you meet a historical character who actually participated in ancient events of legend.” Gordon flushed slightly at the memory. For both professional and personal reasons, the American Civil War had been a source of great interest to him, and he’d wangled an introduction to Longstreet just after receiving his orders to go north as an observer. In dress red, he’d introduced himself to Longstreet in the other’s office at the War Department. Gordon had started to stammer like a schoolboy meeting the headmaster for the first time until the old general rose and put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. “Finally, we had a decent conversation. I asked him some things about your Civil War I’d always wanted to know, and I told him what my duties were going to be up here.”

“As an intelligence source?”