Beneath Gray Skies (2 page)

“I think we can safely assume that address was at least in part the fever talking.” Chase shrugged off Lincoln’s inaugural address as spontaneous delirium. Seward knew that this was not the case, having reviewed the closely argued speech, which resembled a legal brief more than a political address, and he had suggested many changes to Lincoln before its final delivery, but he held his peace, letting Chase dismiss Lincoln’s finely honed reasoning.

Chase continued, “If I may suggest my goal, which is, I assure you, not the product of an over-fevered mind, it is to eliminate slavery from the Union, with a plan of compensation to the owners.”

“That is an impractical idea, Mr. Chase. However,” holding up a warning finger, “it becomes more practical if the Union is composed of a different collection of states to the present arrangement.”

“Allow the erring sisters to depart in peace?” Chase had a habit of speaking in political clichés, Seward noted, but was quick to seize others’ meanings.

“As a temporary measure,” Seward amended. “Do you think that their economy could withstand an embargo? That they could survive as an independent nation for more than a year, if we closed the frontier and imposed a blockade?”

“And they would then be willing to rejoin the Union on our terms, which would include the abolition of slavery?”

“Especially if a war were to come between us and Canada, or better yet, Mexico,” Seward smiled.

Chase considered this. Seward had made a very convincing case for bending the South to the will of the Union, without fraternal bloodshed, and while satisfying the Abolitionists.

“So your recommendation for our immediate future actions, Mr. Seward, is in fact to take no action?”

“How can we do anything?” Seward gave an exaggerated shrug. “Our President is in bed with fever, the Cabinet is untried and largely inexperienced. Our untested Vice-President has no authority. Yes, Mr. Chase, we do nothing.”

“And in two years’ time, the Union is restored to a true unity, without the foul taint of slavery besmirching its fair name.”

“Or even less time, Mr. Chase, I promise you that.”

“Mr. Seward, I think you have found the solution we have all been looking for. What a tragedy for our country that the convention in Chicago went the way that it did and gave the nomination to Mr. Lincoln.”

“I’ll drink to that,” replied Seward, with a wry half-smile, and did so.

“
We thank You for the blessings You continue to shower on the Confederate States of America, the most favored of all Your nations.”

P
rivate David Slater looked along the barbed wire fence that stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction across the flat, almost featureless Kansas plains. His unruly blond hair, roughly trimmed in the standard haircut of the Army of the Confederacy, was full of the dust blown by the almost constant wind.

“Don’t reckon them Yankees is going to be bothering us much today,” he remarked to his companion, scratching his head, and took a swig of the whiskey that he carried in his back pocket. The other shook his head, indicating his dissent and refusing the whiskey with the same motion. David wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and stuffed the bottle back in the pocket of his threadbare uniform pants. And, he noted to himself, they were far too short. He’d shot up like a beanpole these last months, and there was now almost a two-inch gap between the bottom of his pants legs and the top of his boots. Good job he hadn’t filled out at the same rate, he thought, otherwise he’d be busting the buttons off of his pants. Mind you, no-one ever got fat on Army food.

“You never know with those Yankee bastards,” Tom replied. “You hear about last month?”

David nodded grimly. “A whole column of what they call motorized infantry with one of them airplanes came up out of nowhere and busted down that fort that our boys built down New Mexico way. Man, I know we lost that one, but I sure would have liked to be in on that. You know something?” He took another sip of the whiskey, more to impress the other with his maturity than because he liked the taste or effect of the moonshine which, truth be told, he’d diluted heavily with water before putting the bottle in his pocket this morning. “I only seen but three of them automobile things in my life.” This last was partly a reflection of David’s relative youth—he was only sixteen years old—and partly a reflection on the Confederate States of America, whose technology had advanced only slightly from the time the Southern states had split off from the United States of America a little more than 60 years earlier.

“Well, I’ve seen a fair number of them in Richmond. Some of my mother’s kin are from up that way, and quite a few of them rich folks in Richmond get themselves automobiles from the North. Even the President.”

“They ain’t meant to be doing that,” objected David. “They should be like the rest of us, buying their goods from good old Southern boys, or else from our friends in Europe.”

“Well, why don’t y’all go down to Richmond, and tell them that?”

“By heck, I might just do that if you’re telling me the truth about them in Richmond. I don’t care if President Davis is kin to the first Jeff Davis. He ought not to be doing that. He should be setting an example to the folks.”

“Reckon you may be right there, Davy, but I wouldn’t push your luck on that one. You wait till you get out of the army—it’s only another five years or even less for you. Then you can get back to Tallahassee and take life easy.”

Almost another five years of Army life away from home, and no time he could call his own seemed like an eternity to the young conscript. Although he’d only been drafted six months previously, with his folks unable to pay the money for a substitute, it seemed to him now that his whole life had been spent in his butternut gray uniform, constantly walking up and down barbed wire fences looking for dust clouds that might or might not be the hated and feared enemy from the North. “Reckon I could do just that. Sit on the porch and let the darkies do all my work for me.”

“You know, Davy, I figure you’ll be going to college some time soon,” Tom remarked. “All the other guys reckon you’re smart enough to get in there, you know.”

“Come off it, Tom. You and me, we know how them colleges is only for the rich folks. Folks like us, we don’t stand a chance of getting there.”

Tom nodded. “That’s true, I reckon. Anyways, what good is them colleges? All they do is give you a load of crap what contradicts what you and I know to be true from the Bible.” He stopped speaking, and strained his eyes to look south, away from the fence, towards the town hall clock. Neither boy wore a watch. Neither could afford one. “Coming up to prayer time, Davy,” he remarked. “Time to thank the Lord.” The Confederate Army was keen on public expressions of religion, and morning and evening prayer according to the beliefs of the Confederate Baptist Conference were compulsory for all, and “voluntary” prayers throughout the day were encouraged.

The two boys kneeled down in the hot sun, gripping their Parker-Hale rifles firmly in their right hands. “Almighty God,” they prayed together. “We thank You for the blessings You continue to shower on the Confederate States of America, the most favored of all Your nations. We pray for strength and courage to fight and defeat all those who would challenge the true Southern way of life. We pray for health and strength for President Davis, that he may continue to lead us in the paths of righteousness and truth, and for his Senate, that they may continue to provide wise and Godly counsel to him. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, who washes away our sins, and will receive us when we arrive at the gates of glory. Amen.”

Brushing the dust from their knees, the two stood up, and resumed scanning the fence in silence.

“
So you will send troops?”

J
efferson Davis III, third President of the Confederate States of America, regarded his visitor to the Southern Executive Mansion with some amusement. He crossed his manicured hands over his paunch, leaned back in his chair, and cocked a quizzical eyebrow.

“I admire your nerve, sir,” he consulted his notes, “If I understand your original letter to me rightly, you are offering an alliance between Germany and the Confederacy, but you are not even an elected member of your country’s Congress.” There was a pause while this was interpreted, and the slight, mustached German replied with a few words.

“Not yet,” replied the interpreter. The German spoke at more length, and the interpreter continued, “President Davis, I am very much in favor of the policies and the aims of the Confederate States of America, especially with regard to the racial problems you encounter. I myself advocate a similar policy for Germany.”

“But you have no Negroes in Germany, do you? I do not see how you can make slaves of free German citizens.”

“To be sure we have no Negroes,” replied the other. A faint almost-smile played beneath the dark mustache of the younger man as his words were interpreted. “We do, however, have Jews in Germany—several million of them, in fact. If I understand your country’s situation correctly, your views on Jews and mine are in almost complete accord.”

“Waall,” drawling the word, “we don’t make slaves of them like we do the Nigras. But you’re right—we don’t allow them to marry outside their own race, and we don’t allow them to own property.” He sipped at his iced tea.

“What I am asking, Mr. President, is the chance to make a union between Germany, with our powerful advanced industry—”

“—which was almost destroyed by the last war,” interrupted Davis, pertly.

“Indeed, almost destroyed, but we Germans, as you are no doubt aware, can work hard to rebuild what we lost in a matter of only a few years.”

Davis nodded, seeming to acknowledge the point. “Go on.” He noted the other’s rather shabby suit, patched and darned in a few places, which contrasted with his own dapper appearance.

“Our industry complements your almost limitless natural resources, which at the moment find it hard to command a market.” This last was painfully true, as Davis was all too well aware. The so-called “Allies” in the Great European War had claimed to be fighting a moral war, and as such had severed all commercial ties with the slave-holding Confederacy, at least for the duration of the conflict. The Triple Alliance powers had either possessed no merchant navy to speak of, or were blockaded so effectively by the British fleet that trade with them had been impossible. Japan, as a scarcely combatant member of the Allies, had proved the Confederacy’s only constant trade partner, albeit with a relatively low volume. And thanks to the Yankees’ control of the Panama Canal, all shipping between the Confederacy and Japan had either to sail round Cape Horn, or to take the long way round, easy prey for British commerce raiders.

“Take our industry, and put it with your resources, together with your surplus labor force. An alliance with Germany,” the German politician went on after a significant pause, “would greatly help you and us.”

“So what exactly do you want from me?” Davis leaned forward, and changed from his “statesman” role into what he liked to think of as his “canny politician” persona.

“I would like, President Davis, the loan of two or three regiments of your army, in order to assist us in our—” the interpreter struggled for an appropriate English word, but ended up using the original German “—
Putsch
against the weak-willed spineless Weimar government.”

Davis pushed his pince-nez further up his nose and laughed. “Sir, I am sorry to have to tell you the truth—a thing no politician ever likes to do. Our army is made up of untrained boys. We’re giving boys only fifteen or sixteen years old rifles twice their age and telling them to defend their country against an enemy which, truth to tell, seems to have largely lost interest in us.”

“The German army in the trenches was made up largely of boys. If it hadn’t been for the damned British Navy, and the Jews and the Communists stabbing us in the back, those boys would have won.” The German’s face was becoming flushed. He pushed his forelock out of his eyes, pulled a handkerchief out of his jacket sleeve, and wiped his face with it.

“I don’t doubt the courage of boys, be they good Dixie lads or good Germans. I simply doubt their ability. In any case, I can’t easily go sending our army off to foreign lands to interfere in another country’s internal politics.”

The other sighed, and looked disappointed. “I was afraid you would say something like that. There is, however, one more point I would like to make.”