lowered his head to the cushion, closing his eyes. For all his good spirits, the commodore was obviously still very weak. "God help a nation which can produce such splendid junior officers—and such a sorry lot of generals."
Both Sam and Driscol cleared their throats simultaneously. Still without opening his eyes, Barney smiled. "Oh, please, gentlemen. You can be certain that I exempt Generals Jackson, Brown, and Scott from that blanket condemnation. But, alas, they are elsewhere. Here we are blessed with such as General William Winder—and that arrogant ass Armstrong. Perhaps the only secretary of war one can imagine who would neglect the defenses of his own capital city."
Sam wasn't sure if that was outright insubordination on the commodore's part. Normally, of course, for an officer to publicly ridicule his superior authorities would be considered so. But Barney was in the navy, and thus fell under the command of Secretary of the Navy William Jones, not Armstrong. And he hadn't said anything sarcastic about President Madison.
Not that Sam cared, anyway.
"Be that as it may, sir, we still propose to defend the Capitol, whatever it takes."
Barney's eyes opened, staring at the domed roof of the chamber far above. His gaze moved from one to another of the multitude of square plateglass sunlights.
"The roof's pinewood, but it's clad in sheet-iron. Not many people know that." His eyes moved to the semicircular interior walls of the chamber and the fluted Corinthian columns above them. "Those are decorative, but the outer walls are worthy of the pharaohs. You may not be such a lunatic as you think, Captain Houston."
The commodore closed his eyes again. "Lunatic or not, however, you have my blessing. I'll not have the enemy come into the capital without bleeding on the way. I believe I am the senior officer present?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well. I'm too badly injured to participate in the fight personally—nor could I do so in good conscience in any event, given the terms of my parole. But my wound gives me an honorable way to remain here, so long as I take up no arms myself. And, in the meantime"—here he spoke loudly enough to be heard by any of the several hundred soldiers and sailors who had crowded their way into the chamber—"you have my full confidence and authority, Captain Houston. Do the best you can."
Chapter 22
"Good God!" Rear Admiral George Cockburn exclaimed gaily, as he peered through his telescope. "Your captain was quite right. They do have a statue perched in one of the doorways. Great ugly thing, too." He lowered the telescope, chuckling. "One must grant this much to Cousin Jonathan—he certainly has a flair for the dramatic."
General Robert Ross wasn't going to let the matter slide so easily as all that. "And was Captain Wainwright also correct in his other observations?"
He already knew the answer to the question, since Ross possessed his own telescope. But the question served to remind Admiral Cockburn that the task which Cockburn had so breezily assured everyone would be as easy as a London promenade was proving more difficult by the moment—and, from Ross's viewpoint, it was bad enough already.
Since Cockburn's only response was a twist of the lips, Ross plowed on.
"It's all very well, Admiral Cockburn, to make sneering jests about Cousin Jonathan's capacity for headlong and panicky flight. But it wasn't your sailors who paid the butcher's bill at Bladensburg. It was my men—and the bill was 軽自動車 中古 disturbingly steep."
"We won handily, didn't we?"
Ross restrained his temper. "Oh, to be sure, all the historians will say so, when this is all over and done. A decisive victory, indeed. But historians don't pay butcher's bills either. Resounding victory or not, the fact remains that the American casualties at Bladensburg were light, and the casualties of my infantry brigades were anything but."
Cockburn avoided the general's hard gaze. Annoyed still more, Ross pressed home his point.
"It might be true that Cousin 中古車 Jonathan is prone to panic— though there's alwa 中古車査定 ys the hammering Riall took recently on the Niagara to prove that needn't be so. But American infantrymen are also liable to be remarkably good shots, for the few rounds they manage to fire before running away. And whatever the shortcomings of American infantry—do I need to tell an admiral this much?—we've been continually surprised since the