Men of War (45 page)

It was a peaceful moment. A strange mix of feelings. On the one side an infinite sadness, knowing what was still to come, the sacrifice still to be made. On the other side, though, there was a tremendous swelling of pride. Win or lose, the people of Rus, of Roum had come together, mingled their blood, and out of that mingling a republic was born. And now, even if they should lose, they would not crawl basely into the night but would go with heads held high. The legend of it would then live on as well, and in the turning of years be remembered, be reborn, and finally triumph.

His thoughts drifted to Hans, wishing he was there to share the moment. As Hans had taught him, he had passed that strength and vision on to others. Everyone pointed to him, and yet actually it had been Hans all along who had shaped and guided him, and, in turn, he had created the Republic.

He heard renewed cheering outside, a wild tumultuous roaring that thundered up. Embarrassed, he stood up, gently releasing Kal’s hand. They were most likely cheering the news that he had accepted reappointment; he would have to go out and give yet another speech, something he did not want to do just now.

And then he saw Kathleen in the door, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“It’s over,” she gasped.

“What?”

“The war Andrew! It’s over.”

He couldn’t speak, and then he sensed something else.

“The telegraph line just went back up to the front. Pat reports a message from the Bantag side. They are withdrawing. The Chin have revolted.”

“Glory Hallelujah,” Andrew gasped.

“Andrew.”

And then he knew, even before she whispered the words and fell into his arms crying.

“Andrew, darling. Hans is dead.”

He couldn’t speak. He held her tight, trying not to break.

He saw Emil and Casmir in the doorway.

So strange, such joy, and yet such pain in their eyes.

“Emil, stay with Kal. Let him sleep; if he wakes up, tell him, but don’t say anything yet about Hans.”

“That dream—I think he already knew.” Emil sighed.

He tried to step past Emil. The doctor touched him on the shoulder.

“The year, this year was a gift, Andrew. He came back to lead us one last time. Now the job is finished.”

Andrew nodded, unable to speak.

He stepped out of the room, and Kathleen stopped him.

“Andrew.”

“Yes?”

She nodded to Casmir, who was holding a package.

“I brought this with me; I thought you might want it.”

Casmir opened the package. Inside was Andrew’s weather-stained uniform jacket, his Medal of Honor still pinned to the breast.

He nodded in agreement, and Casmir and Kathleen helped him remove his simple brown coat. The feel of the tight uniform somehow reassured him, and he wordlessly nodded his thanks.

Holding Kathleen’s hand, he walked down the corridor, passing the reception room where he and Hans had first stood before the Boyar Ivor, and at last gained the steps to the White House.

Out in the square there was wild rejoicing, and though he was filled with grief, he could feel their joy as well. They had made the decision to stand and fight, redeeming their souls at that moment, and now they had discovered that it was not just their souls that had been redeemed, but their lives as well.

At the sight of him the cheering redoubled into a thunderous tumult, so that it seemed as if the very heavens would be torn asunder.

He stood silent, and then gradually the wild celebration died away. As if sensing his thoughts and his pain, a new chant emerged, “Hans, Hans, Hans.”

There was no rejoicing in it, only a deep and reverent respect.

Alone he stood, eyes turned heavenward, imagining the ship Kal had dreamed of.

“Good-bye, Hans,” he whispered. “Good-bye and thank you, my comrade, my friend.”

“A
s he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free . .

The final refrain of the song echoed across the open steppes.

Colonel Andrew Lawrence Keane, commander of the Army of the Republic, stood stiffly at attention as the last chorus drifted away.

The ceremony was nearly done. All the dignitaries had spoken, as had he. Now there was only the final ritual.

A company of soldiers, cadets of the 35th Maine, came to attention, the first rank making a sharp half turn.

“Present … fire!”

The volley made him start. There was a momentary flash of memory, the first volley crashing into his line at Antietam.

“Present … fire!”

He lifted his gaze. The ruins of what was now simply called the Foundry were before him. In front of it was the cemetery, neat orderly rows with simple stone slabs, thousands of them. Some were for single bodies, most marked mass graves, the thousands upon thousands who had died in the final battle of the war.

“Present … fire!”

In the middle of the vast graveyard there was a lone cross. Some had wanted a towering monument, others a vast mausoleum, but his quiet insistence on what he knew his friend would have wanted had swept away all the grandiose proposals. Hans Schuder had tasted slavery, rose up, and cut free the chains, and then died coming back to liberate not just the people he called his comrades, but the world. To rest among those who had died with him that day was all the tribute he would want.

As the last volley died away, a lone bugler, concealed inside the ruins of the Foundry, blew the first notes of taps.

It was yet another ritual from the old world. It was a tune born of the Army of the Potomac, written by Dan Butterfield as nothing more than a signal for lights-out. Butterfield’s lullaby many had come to call it. Hans had once said he was partial to it, and Andrew now thought it would be a fitting gesture.

As the bugler hit the final high note, a shiver seemed to go through those assembled. He could hear President Kal choking back tears. The note echoed and died away.

“Stand, at ease!”

The order, given by a young Rus colonel who now commanded the 35th Maine, cut through the air. Andrew lowered his hand from the salute, the boys of the 35th slapping rifles from the present salute down to at ease.

Andrew swept the assembly with his gaze. They were all here, having made the journey by rail from Suzdal to Roum, where the delegation of Roum senators and congressmen joined them. Then by rail all the way to Nippon, where yet more newly elected senators and congressmen joined in, and then finally to Chin.

It had been a year to the day since the ending of the war, and at last he had come to visit his friend and say a final farewell.

They had passed through the Roum lands devastated by the wars, and he was pleased to see new homes going up, tangled vineyards being cleared and replanted.

They had passed through the battlefields around Junction City, Rocky Hill, and the Shennadoah, and already monuments were going up to honor the regiments that had fought and died there. He had seen as well the orderly cemeteries at each place of battle and had stopped at each of them to offer his salute and his prayers.

There would still be four more. Tomorrow they would complete the long train ride and go to Xi’an, and from there take a boat to Carnagan, to visit the battlefield that still haunted Vincent, and from there to where Hans had made a stand in the retreat to Tyre, and, finally, a last stop at Tyre.

But this was the place that had been central to his tour of the battlefields of the war and the dedication of the cemeteries. The week before the Chin had held their first election, and Kal had made it a point to come to this place to witness the swearing in of the new senators and congressmen and congresswomen. Politics was even returning to normal, he realized. Kal had been up for reelection, and somehow it seemed like the admission of Nippon and Chin into the Republic didn’t quite come until after the votes had been counted and the Republican Party had swept back in. Though the way feelings were at this moment in the first heady days of peace, Kal had nothing to fear; every last citizen, Chin, Roum, Rus, and Nippon would have voted for another term.

The amusing part of the admission of the Chin though was that they had indeed elected several women to office. It was an action which delighted him, though the election had scandalized some of the more straitlaced from Roum and Rus. He had pointed out that in the Constitution there was nothing that said a woman could not serve thus, and it was Kathleen who triggered even more of an uproar with a statement in Gates’s Illustrated Weekly that there should be an amendment to the Constitution granting women the right to vote, and she planned to organize a movement to see that it was done.

So much in a year, he thought. Only this month the last of the Horde had been released by the terms of the treaty with Jurak and escorted to the border. A report had just come in as well that the remnants of the old Tugar Horde were joining them. So far there had been an uneasy peace, but he would feel far better when the expedition dispatched to make contact with those living a thousand leagues to the east returned with a report that the depredations of the Horde had indeed stopped along that distant border as well. Of the last of the horde clans, those who rode south and east of the Bantag and passed through the region half a dozen years ago there was no news; apparently they had simply ridden on, ignoring the conflict to the north. He sensed that someday they might have to be dealt with, but that was years, maybe even decades, off.

He had come to trust Jurak, having met with him twice in the months after the war, but unfortunately Jurak was a lone individual moving to break thousands of years of tradition. All reports indicated, though, that at least for now the moon feasts were finished, the riders of the Horde turning instead to hunting of the bison and the wool-clad elephants of the steppes.

There had come other reports, these from the south, beyond the realm of the Cartha, who only now were beginning to make the first overtures of peace. A Cartha merchant reported that there was a vast ocean in the southern half of the world, a realm few humans had seen. Andrew wondered what was out there, but for the moment that could wait.

He suddenly realized that he had been daydreaming again. Kathleen jokingly said that he was already beginning to slip into the mode of being a professor, a career he still promised he would return to once the demands of running the army diminished and he finally felt comfortable with letting go.

He stepped forward, his gaze sweeping the dignitaries gathered on the dais, the indomitable Father Casmir, Kal, Emil, Pat, Vincent, the other corps commanders, senators, and congressmen. As far as he could see, completely encompassing the Foundry and the graveyard stood hundreds of thousands of Chin, all of them silent, filled with reverent respect for this ceremony dedicated to their departed ancestors and to the one they now considered to be their eternal guardian in the spirit world above.

He waited. There was one final touch, and it was running a bit late. Finally, he heard them. The crowd shifted, looking to the west.

A squadron of aerosteamers, half a dozen Eagles, followed by half a dozen Hornets winged straight in and a loud roaring cheer erupted, for these were the fulfillment of prophecy, the coming of the gods, the Yankee gods coming from the sky bringing redemption.

The aerosteamers soared overhead, and he caught a glimpse of Jack Petracci leaning out of the cab, snapping off a sharp salute. They continued on eastward.

Andrew returned the salute. The cheering was deafening, and there was no sense in announcing that the ceremony was ended. His voice would never carry. He simply saluted the crowd, the gesture causing the wild cheering to redouble.

The fireworks, which had been carefully saved until after the aerosteamers were well out of range, started soaring heavenward, and even though it was the middle of the day, the crowd still clapped and cheered. Andrew turned to salute Kal, who, grinning, lifted his stovepipe hat in reply.

Andrew looked over at Kathleen and nodded.

Smiling, she came forward and took his hand. Together they stepped off the dais and carefully walked out into the graveyard. The band picked up a patriotic air, the marching song of the army, “The Battle Cry of Freedom,” and the music cut into his soul.

So many times I heard that, he thought wistfully, on the parade ground in Maine, on the road to Antietam as we crossed South Mountain, again on the road to Gettysburg, in the camps around Petersburg, then through so many hard-fought victories on this world. And now yet again here.

“Mind if we join you?”

It was Pat, Vincent, and Emil trailing behind.

Andrew smiled.

Together they walked to the middle of the cemetery. They stopped together before his grave. Andrew looked down at the mounded earth, finding it hard to believe that here was the final resting place of his oldest friend. No, not here, he tried to reason, and he thought again of Kal’s dream. Kathleen let go of his hand, and he looked back and saw that Tamira, leading her son, was quietly approaching.

Kathleen put her arm around her shoulder. Andrew and the others respectfully drew back.

She knelt by the grave, placing a flower upon it, the boy doing the same.

“Papa here?” the boy lisped.

“No,” she replied softly, “Papa in heaven.”

The boy smiled and, as two-year-olds will, started to wander off.

Kathleen looked over at Andrew, eyes bright with tears, and again there was the deep unspoken understanding of love.

He nodded, and she turned, putting her arm around Tamira’s shoulder, and led her away.

“You old Dutchman. Damn how I miss you.” Pat sighed as he stepped forward, looked around awkwardly, wiping the tears from his eyes, and saluted. A bit self-consciously he reached into his pocket, pulled out a flask, raised it in salute, and took a drink. Recorking the flask, he laid it on the grave.

“Farewell, sir, and thank you.” Vincent stepped forward and saluted. Gone were the rakish kepi and the Sheridan whiskers. The boy was clean-shaven, wearing a standard-issue slouch cap. Andrew studied him carefully and smiled inwardly. Hans always liked the lad, and he sensed that in Vincent he saw the same things Hans once saw in him. The icy fury of war had been purged out of the boy. He had seasoned into a commander who could lead, earn respect, and show compassion. Vincent shyly laid a single flower on the grave.