"General Potter!" a soldier yelled. "You anywhere around, General Potter?" No doubt for his own ears alone, he added, "Where the fuck you at, General Potter?"

"Here I am!" Potter shouted back. Not a bit abashed, the runner dove into the trench with him. "Why are you looking for me?" Potter asked crisply.

"You're General Potter? Our General Potter?" The young soldier didn't seem convinced despite Potter's dirty butternut uniform and the wreathed stars on either side of his collar.

"Afraid I am, son." Potter knew why the runner was dubious, too. "Back before the Great War, I went to college up at Yale. I learned to talk like a damnyankee to fit in, and it stuck. Now quit dicking around. What's up?"

"Sir, General Patton's on the telephone, and he needs to talk to you bad," the kid replied.

"Oh, joy." Potter had no trouble containing his enthusiasm. No matter what George Patton imagined he needed, Potter knew he didn't need to talk to Patton. But Patton commanded an army, not just a division. He headed all the forces trying to keep the USA away from Atlanta. Potter knew damn well he had to render unto Caesar-not that Patton thought Julius Caesar, or anyone else, his equal. "All right. Field telephone still at the same old stand?"

"Uh, yes, sir."

"Then you stay here. No point getting both of us blasted just because General Patton's got the galloping fantods."

"Thank you, sir." The runner gaped at him.

Potter hardly noticed. He scrambled out of the trench, getting more tomato-soup mud on his uniform. Fall 1943 had been wet. A good thing, too, he thought. Without the rain and the mud, the damnyankees'd probably be at the Atlantic, not Atlanta. He knew he exaggerated. He also knew he didn't exaggerate by as much as he wished he did.