Free When the War Is Over by Stephen Becker Page B

warm.” The boy giggled. “Those loads of knit goods come in from old ladies and churches, and he sees to it I get first pick. This sweater.” He unbuttoned the blouse and Catto admired a heavy yellow cable-stitched pullover with a collar that unrolled to become a hood. “Fine and dandy, hey?”
    â€œPretty good,” Catto said. “Smartest thing you ever did was get yourself caught. Probably eat better than you did at home.”
    â€œThat’s a fact.” The boy smiled, and Catto saw again that innocence, that careless and uncomplicated acceptance of pain or joy. “More snow coming. Where’s Jacob?”
    â€œNo idea. Haven’t seen him for days.”
    â€œI’ll find him. Tell you what, Lieutenant.”
    â€œTell me.”
    â€œThe Fifth Indiana got a thousand bushels of apples. All piled up in the cold.”
    â€œThat right.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    They kept silence for a bit, Catto nodding and considering, the boy hunched forward almost between the mule’s ears, staring innocently at Catto with the dead pan of the true conspirator. “That’s interesting,” Catto said. “You don’t happen to smoke cigars?”
    â€œNope. But I know someone who does.”
    â€œHave one. Take care of yourself, boy.”
    â€œGoodbye, Lieutenant.”
    So with Haller and four men and a wagon, all very military, orders ringing out, colonels’ names invoked, “Work fast, move in, load up, move out, nobody talks but me,” Catto made away with fifty bushels of Albemarie pippins, forty-eight of which reached his men. “Very good,” Phelan said. “Anti-scorbutic, for one thing, and it beats spuds, onions and dried turnips.”
    â€œWhat’s a spud?”
    â€œA potato. You never heard that?”
    â€œNever.”
    They were munching Catto’s private stock in Phelan’s tepee, by the light of a couple of candles. Phelan’s blouse was off; he was lolling in a red wool shirt, unmilitary and unmedical. “How’s the shoulder?”
    â€œWhy? You got some hungry worms?”
    Phelan cackled. “Still offended, are you?”
    â€œIt made me feel like meat.”
    â€œYou are meat. Only the divine soul makes you different from a hog.”
    â€œThat again.”
    Phelan’s glance exiled him: it was the glance of a man who looked not at but beyond, and it expressed indifference, superiority, certainty, pity—all those at once. It was dissolved by a smile. “Yes. That again. Someday you’ll know. In fifty years the whole world will be Catholic again.”
    â€œAh yes.” Catto parried: “Have you heard the latest about the Ninetieth Illinois?”
    Phelan puckered in grief.
    â€œA certain Sergeant Houlihan,” Catto went on, “drilling his men, and at the end of his rope, he was, they were that awkward, and he says to them, he says, ‘Phwat a ragged line, bhoys! Come over here and take a look at yerselves!’”
    Phelan bellowed and jubilated. “I hate you for it,” he said at last, “but it’s a good one. And you do it well enough, you do. Somewhere back there was a Bridget or a Paddy.” He cackled a bit more.
    â€œOch aye,” said Catto drily.
    â€œOkay indeed,” Phelan said.
    Catto met Hooker after all, on an afternoon in January. The seeker after wisdom was lallygagging about with Silliman, losing thousands at head-to-head stud. “You cheat. You must cheat.”
    â€œNever.” Silliman popped a pastille past his avaricious grin, and sucked. “Just natural born lucky.”
    â€œWhat are those candies?”
    â€œCherry drops. M’mother sends them. Take some. One hundred dollars on the ace-king.”
    Catto pondered invective; at a thunderous tattoo both officers started like rabbits. “Come in,” Catto bawled.
    It was Godwinson. “Lieutenant.”
    â€œYeh. Hello.