Simpson held the salute for perhaps two heartbeats. Then the leather-lunged sergeant bellowed another order, and Simpson’s hand came down from his cap brim at the exact same instant the honor guard snapped from present arms to stand easy.
“Welcome to Magdeburg, sir,” Simpson said formally.
It has to be for the benefit of the troops, Mike told himself. Even if it does feel like I’ve just stepped through the looking glass.
“Thank you, Admiral,” he said after a moment, deliberately pitching his voice to carry. Then he gave himself a mental shake. “We have to talk,” he said much more quietly, and Simpson nodded curtly.
“It’s a five-minute walk to my office,” he said equally quietly.
Simpson’s office was another surprise. This was the first time Mike had been to Magdeburg since the meeting with Gustav and his staff to confer on matters of military production. He’d been too pressed at the time to take up Simpson’s offer to tour the “naval base.” He realized now that he’d been making some automatic—and erroneous—assumptions about exactly what Simpson had been up to. The office boasted a handsome desk and window glass, true. But aside from that, and an obviously locally manufactured filing cabinet in one corner, it was remarkably plebeian and utilitarian. Nothing at all like the “Douglas MacArthur Oriental Splendor” HQ which one of Mike’s great-uncles who’d fought in the Pacific Theater had once described to him, and which Mike had assumed Simpson would mimic.
Or, for that matter, the lavish CEO suite which Simpson’s son Tom had once described to him that had been Simpson’s before the Ring of Fire. Simpson’s wife Mary, according to Tom, had been quite a connoisseur of art and a mover and shaker in Pittsburgh’s upper-crust social circles. She’d had the executive suites in her husband’s petrochemical corporation decorated in good taste, and at great expense. Here, the only things on the walls were a calendar, what looked to be a series of production charts and a Table of Organization, and . . .
Mike tried to suppress a grin, but found it impossible. There was some art up on one wall, but it was hardly the kind of work that would have adorned the walls of Simpson’s CEO suite in up-time Pittsburgh. Three paintings, all told:
The first—more of a professional sketch than a painting—was a straightforward depiction of one of the ironclads. The sketch was precise, done in pencil, and had almost the look of a diagram or blueprint. Mike wasn’t certain, but he thought it had probably been done by Nat Davis, who he knew had a good hand for such things.
Next to it was the illustration which was the cause of Mike’s grin: a large, cheaply framed canvas which depicted the ironclads under construction once they’d gone into action. Guns blazing in full glory. From the vaguely ‘science-fictiony’ flavor of the painting, Mike suspected that Eddie Cantrell himself was the artist. He knew Eddie was something of an illustrator, and had had ambitions in that direction before the Ring of Fire.
Simpson came to stand next to him. When Mike glanced over, he saw that for once the stiff-faced admiral had something of a smile on his face.
“Eddie’s, right?”
Simpson nodded. “He’s actually got some talent for it, I think. So does my wife.”
“I’m surprised you let him put it up.”
“I almost didn’t. But I agreed, once Lieutenant Cantrell agreed to leave off the gorgeous young woman in skimpy armor and wielding a sword perched on the bow he’d had his heart set on. He claimed that was ‘the tradition.’ I told him I couldn’t imagine anything sillier in a naval battle, since she’d be mincemeat in five seconds.”
Still smiling, Mike moved over to the third painting. “Who did this? I’m no connoisseur of the arts, but . . .”
“The man’s name is Franz Knopf. Mary found him doing this painting on the wharf and took him under her wing.” The stiffness was back in his face. “My wife is a connoisseur of the arts and claims he’s got the genuine touch.”
Mike studied the painting. There was no question that the technical skill involved was far superior to that displayed in Eddie’s painting. Yet, in its own way, this third painting also had something of a futuristic quality. It depicted one of the still-unfinished ironclads in its full glory, with a cavalryman staring up at it. But the ironclad, as the 17th-century artist envisioned it, bore little resemblance to what the warship would actually look like. It vaguely reminded Mike of photographs he’d seen of pre-World War I era dreadnoughts.