He tried to imagine George Custer pounding on a typewriter. The man under whom he’d served as adjutant during the Great War and for some years afterwards would have counted himself progressive for using a steel pen instead of a quill. Dowling wondered how many letters he’d typed up for Custer over the years. A whole great pile of them, anyhow. The old Tartar had had a legible hand. Dowling, who could fault him for plenty of other things, couldn’t deny that.

Of course, Custer had spent more than sixty years in the Army. He was one of the longest-serving soldiers, if not the longest-serving, in the history of the United States. Back when his career started, you had to be able to write with tolerable neatness. If you couldn’t, no one would be able to make out what you were saying.

Dowling read through his draft, pen-corrected a typo that had escaped him while the paper was on the platen, and took it to Major Toricelli. “Get this off to Philadelphia as fast as you can,” he said.

“I’ll tend to it right away.” Toricelli had already taken the code book out of the small safe that accompanied Eleventh Army as it advanced-and, at need, as it fell back, too.

“Good. Thanks. Now I need to get a letter ready for those photos that’ll go to Flora Blackford.” Dowling had met her before, in that she’d questioned him when he testified before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. He hadn’t appreciated her prodding then. If he could get her to prod in a way that did him some good, though, that was a different story. He wagged a finger at Toricelli. “Make sure we get that other set of prints pronto, too.”

“Yes, sir.” Now his adjutant sounded resigned. Dowling knew he was guilty of nagging. How often had he sounded like that when Custer gave him the same order for the fourth time? At least he-sometimes-noticed when he repeated himself. He wrote the letter, signed it, and gave it to Major Toricelli. The younger officer, who was deep in five-letter code groups, nodded abstractedly.