1862 by Robert Conroy Page A

said General Scott. He’d come up on Nathan quietly. Fromm was beside him and the former sergeant’s eyes were black with anger. It occurred to Nathan that Attila Flynn wasn’t the only person the comely young Bridget had been sleeping with.
    “How long have you known about this?” Nathan asked.
    “A bit,” Scott answered. “Obviously she’s telling that Flynn person everything she hears us say. Who knows, maybe she’s even reading our correspondence.”
    In which case, she would know that Rebecca Devon and he were having lunch this day, and would she care? Nathan made a quick decision.
    “Then don’t let on that we know,” Nathan said. “That will shift the advantage back to us. We’ll just be more circumspect in what we do, although we might think of planting some information that we want Flynn to have. Flynn’s just using Bridget and will drop her when she’s no longer of any use to him.” He noted a softening in Fromm’s expression. He’d just given the man some hope. “Besides,” Nathan grinned, “she’s a damned fine cook, and those are hard to find.”
    As he spoke, he felt the dream receding further into the background of his consciousness. Perhaps he had been inactive for too long. Captain John Knollys and former British consul at Charleston James Bunch were physically unalike and vastly different in temperament.
    Bunch was short, plump, in his mid-forties, and of great and unfeigned geniality. He had served England in Charleston for a number of years and considered himself an expert in matters regarding the American South and the new Confederacy. As a result of the time spent in the South, he was also an ardent supporter of the Confederate cause, and was delighted at the turn of events that had resulted in a de facto alliance between Great Britain and the Confederacy.
    Captain John Knollys, on the other hand, was a tall, slight, balding man in his mid-thirties who looked more like an underfed scholar than a professional soldier who had seen combat in the Crimea and in India. Quiet and thoughtful, he had the healthy skepticism of a man who had spent almost twenty years in the British army as a junior officer and who had very little hope of further advancement. His family, although ancient and honorable, was not wealthy, and his branch of it had little influence. It was frustrating. He’d seen utter fools promoted because they were going to grow up to be Lord Something or Other, while he languished as a captain.
    Despite their differences, Bunch and Knollys had formed a quick and easy friendship. That it was born of the reality that they could serve and help each other didn’t matter.
    Knollys, Lord Richard Lyons, and a couple of others of the ambassador’s staff had recently arrived in Richmond by British steamer after a tedious journey through the northern part of New York State, a crossing near Buffalo, and a subsequent train journey to Ottawa. Lyons had elected to come to Richmond as expeditiously as possible and without waiting for the rest of his official family.
    Bunch liked to joke that he was almost literally a man without a country. He had been Her Majesty’s representative to the United States at Charleston, but Charleston was no longer part of the United States. Until the Confederacy was officially recognized and Lord Lyons declared an ambassador instead of a representative, Bunch was a man without official posting or duties. He did, however, continue to be paid, which was a great relief since he, too, was not a wealthy man.
    As if money mattered for the moment. Neither Bunch’s nor Knollys’s cash was any good in Richmond, where the English were as popular as any mere mortals could be. Once again Knollys had taken to not wearing his uniform. This time it was not out of fear of being harmed, but out of fear of the overwhelming affections of the Southern people, who foisted food and drink on him whether he wanted it or not.
    As a result, the two men had taken to eating their