“Quite possibly,” Wolsey said with a sly smile.

“Excellent,” said Napier.

“Wait for the other shoe to drop,” said Wolsey.

“What did we promise now?” muttered Napier while Knollys kept prudent silence.

“Weapons and ammunition for one thing. We will be stripping British armories for Enfields and cannon to send over. What we have been sending will not be enough to prepare for a battle.”

“Acceptable,” said Napier, “and not at all surprising.”

“We will also send troops. One full corps of two divisions of infantry and two regiments of cavalry.”

“Good grief,” said Knollys. “Where shall we find them?”

“From the garrisons in Great Britain. Recruiting has been stepped up and there have been some successes. A number of regiments are now at or near full strength. These will arrive along with selected colonial forces from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. All whites, of course. The white population of New Zealand is quite small, but more than a million free whites live in Australia. They ought to be able to provide a regiment or two. The same with South Africa.”

Napier was not entirely pleased, although he couldn't put his finger on why. Then it dawned on him. “Good lord, those are the troops that were going to reinforce Canada!”

“They are indeed, sir,” said Wolsey. “Palmerston has decided that Canada, which is virtually lost anyhow, shall be hung out to dry. It is essential that the Confederacy succeed and, thanks to Disraeli's muck-up with his fellow Hebrew, Benjamin, we are required to commit to an active support of Robert E. Lee's invasion northward.”

“When?” asked Knollys.

“Don't worry, John,” teased Wolsey, “you shan't miss it.

Seriously, it will take place when all the pieces are in order, We have already sent for the troops from Canada, and General Lee has begun to assemble an army from his widely distributed forces,”

“An invasion,” said Napier, Then, he added hopefully, “Who will command?”

“Lee, But you will be appointed to command the British contingent, General Napier, I can only hope that you will permit both John and me to serve with you,”

“Wouldn't have it any other way,” Napier said expansively, It wasn't what he totally wanted, but whoever got that? “And Canada? Is it truly abandoned?”

Wolsey shrugged. “If Montreal and Ottawa fall, which they might anyway, then they fall, With a British army in Canada and a Confederate one at Richmond, we run the risk of being defeated in detail. With our forces combined, we should be able to defeat the Union and whomever they put in command, However, if we win with Lee, then the loss of Canada will become moot, We will get back at the negotiating table what we lose on the field of battle.”

Billy Harwell had just turned eighteen and got a couple of presents from Captain Melcher. That everyone else in the regiment had gotten a new rifle, too, didn't dampen his enthusiasm one bit. Billy, however, had gotten two of the things,

The first was a Henry repeater. He had heard of them before but had never seen one, They had been developed two years prior, but none had yet found their way to the army. Now there were close to four hundred of them being issued to his regiment. The Henry was a fifteen-shot repeater that kept its extra bullets in a tube under the rifle's barrel, You fired, worked a lever that pushed in the next bullet, and fired again. It had several other advantages that made it a truly superior weapon. A specially designed firing pin virtually eliminated the possibility of a misfire, and it used metal cartridges that were premade to a uniform size.

Since a rifleman didn't have to reload very often, it meant that a soldier could fire from a prone or kneeling position, while someone shooting a muzzle-loader usually had to stand to reload, As a sniper, Billy knew that someone who was prone was far less likely to get themselves shot, The Henry, Captain Melcher said, could revolutionize warfare,

In short, it was a killer weapon, So why wasn't everyone getting one?

Captain Melcher laughed. Damned Harwell always had questions, “Rumor has it, Harwell, that the War Department thinks they cost too much and use up ammunition at too fast a pace,” He didn't add that he felt there were fossils in the War Department who didn't want to see any improvements in weapons, and who might be perfectly happy if the army went back to using the crossbow.

“Well ain't using up ammunition the idea, Captain?” Billy asked. “The more you shoot and the faster you shoot, the faster the rebs get sent to hell where they belong.”

“Can't argue,” said Melcher. “Word also has it that we've gotten them since we're supposed to be part of the group guarding the capital if the rebs attack and break through the defenses. Mr. Lincoln has seen the Henry and has ordered that the army get as many as it can as soon as possible.” He didn't add that, if anybody could get the War Department off its ass, it would be the president.

Billy snorted and almost spit out his chaw, He'd picked up on chewing tobacco a few weeks ago and hadn't quite gotten the hang of it, He did, however, know that the normally genial and helpful captain would be mightily pissed if he choked and hawked a gob onto his boots.

“Hell, sir, the rebs gotta come north and attack before they can breakthrough, don't they? Haven't seen much sign of that.”

Melcher agreed that the area had been mercifully quiet. Aside from some patrols and light skirmishing, there had been no action at all. What battles were taking place were doing so in Canada or elsewhere. It was a strange way to fight a war, what with the rebel capital less than a hundred miles away. If this Grant fellow were in command of the Army of the Potomac, things might be a lot different,

The second rifle given to Billy was a British Whitworth and the sight of it took his breath away, “Where'd you get it, sir?”

“Off a dead Britisher outside Toronto, Friend of mine found it and sent it back to me, The redcoats had smashed just about everything else they had before they surrendered, so this was a real lucky find, I had written him about your abilities as a shooter and he thought you might put it to good use,”

The Whitworth was the weapon of choice for snipers in both the Confederate and British armies, It had been designed in the mid-1850s by a British engineer and was based on the Enfield model. It fired a 45-caliber slug detonated by a percussion cap and was fairly primitive in its operation. Still, it was extraordinarily accurate, with a killing range of up to eighteen hundred yards. It had been fitted with a long thin telescope, which made it even more accurate in the right hands, and Melcher was certain that Billy Harwell's were among the best in the army,

“My friend said it fouls fairly quickly and needs to be cleaned every dozen or so shots” Melcher said.

Harwell caressed it lovingly. If the Henry was a sturdy and reliable workhorse, the Whitworth was a sleek Arabian racer. So what if she was a little fragile and temperamental. She would only be used for special occasions. “That won't be a problem, Captain. Can't see me taking more than a handful of shots at a crack, Sharpshooting involves real selective firing.”

No, thought Melcher with a twinge of sadness. Billy wouldn't fire very often at all with the Whitworth. And he wouldn't miss very often either. Hell he rarely missed with an average weapon. How would he fare with a great one like the Whitworth?

Melcher shuddered. Billy's targets would all be officers just like him. God help them. And God help Billy Harwell. What, he wondered, are we doing to boys like him?

Attila Flynn was intrigued and perplexed by what he saw in Canada. Like most people living in the United States, he'd never been there and had rarely even thought about it. From what little he did know, it was a land to the north that was, for the most part, cold and barren and filled with wolves and bears, and occupied by Brits, crazy Frenchies, and the occasional Eskimo. Thus, he found it surprising that the part of Canada that bordered the United States was prosperous and downright civilized.