Robert Wilson - Julian Comstock - A Story of 22-nd Century America

My mind, of course, is generally on Calyxa, and her troubles with the Dominion, and the other astonishing news contained in her letter. I am to be a father!— will be a father, assuming Calyxa carries the child to term, even if I’m killed in this desolate corner of Labrador. For even a dead man can be a father. That’s a small but real comfort to me, though I can’t hold back from worrying.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2174

The wind blows steadily from the west, and is very cold, though the sky remains clear. Dusk comes early. We burn few lamps, to conserve fuel. Tonight the Aurora Borealis does a chill and stately dance with the North Star. It’s not, unfortunately, a silent night, for the Dutch have brought up their heavy artillery, and shells fall into the town at irregular intervals. Half the buildings of Striver are already blown up or burned down, it seems. Chimney-stacks stand like upraised fingers along empty, shattered streets.

Julian is moody and strange without Sam to guide and advise him. He insists on compiling a list of goods—not food, but dry goods—contained in the dockside warehouses. Today I assisted at one such inventory, and brought the list to Julian at the mayor’s house.

The Dutch and their luxuries! The Stadhouders are not just gluttons; they insist on all the subtler fineries of life, it seems. Julian carefully perused the lengthy catalog of textiles, tortoise shells, pharmaceutical compounds, cattle horns, musical instruments, horseshoes, ginseng, plumbing supplies, et alia, ours by right of pillage. His expression as he examined the list was thoughtful, even calculating.

“You don’t itemize these bolts of silk,” he remarked.

“There was too much of them,” I told him. “The silk is all crated and stacked high—I expect it had only just arrived when we took the town. But you can’t eat silk, Julian.”

“I don’t propose to eat it. Inspect it again tomorrow, Adam, and report back about the quality of it, especially the closeness of the weave.”

“Surely my time could be better spent than by counting threads?”

“Think of it as following orders, ” Julian said sharply. Then he looked up from his lists, and his expression softened. “I’m sorry, Adam. Humor me in this. But keep quiet about it, please—I don’t want the troops thinking I’ve lost my mind.”

“I’ll knit you a Chinese robe, Julian, if you think it might help us survive the siege.”

“That’s exactly my plan—to survive, I mean—no knitting will be required—though a little sewing, perhaps.”

He wouldn’t discuss it further.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2174It occurs to me that Thanksgiving is coming. We have not given very much thought to that Universal Christian Holiday, perhaps because we can find so little to be thankful for in our current situation. We’re more likely to pity ourselves than to count our blessings.

But that is shortsighted, my mother would surely say. In fact I’m thankful for many things.

I’m thankful that I have Calyxa’s letter, however terse and brief, folded in my pocket next to my heart.

I’m thankful that I might be blessed with a child, the product of our possibly hasty but blessed and bountiful marriage.

I’m thankful that I’m still alive, and that Julian is still alive, though our condition is provisional and subject to change. (Of course no mortal creature “knows the hour or the day,” but we’re unusual in being surrounded by Dutch infantrymen eager to hasten the unwelcome terminal event.) I’m thankful that despite my absence life goes on much as it always has in Williams Ford and in every other such simple place within the broad borders of the American Union. I’m even grateful for the cynical Philosophers, grimy Tipmen, pale Aesthetes, corrupt Owners, and feckless Eupatridians who throng the streets of the great City of New York—or anyway grateful that I had the chance to see them at close proximity.

I’m thankful for my daily ration, though it shrinks from day to day.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2174

Today our troops overran a Mitteleuropan trench which had been dug too close to our lines. Five captives were taken, and in an act of Christian charity they were allowed to live, though it will diminish our own supplies to feed them. Julian hopes they might be traded for American prisoners already in Dutch hands—he has sent that suggestion by flag-of-truce to the Dutch commander, but as yet no reply has been received.

I went to see the captives as they were being interrogated, in part to satisfy my curiosity about the enemy, whom I know only as faceless combatants and as the authors of incomprehensible letters. Only one of the men spoke English; the other four were questioned by a Lieutenant who has some Dutch and German.

The enemy soldiers are gaunt, stubborn men. They offer little more than their own names, even under duress. The exception to this is the single English-speaker—a former British merchant sailor, conscripted out of a barroom in Brussels while he was insensible with drink. His loyalties are mixed, and he doesn’t mind giving estimates of the enemy’s strength and positions.

He said the Dutchmen were confident that they would prevail in the siege. They were cautious about initiating any attack, however, for rumors of the (unfortunately imaginary) Chinese weapon have reached them. The prisoner said there was no detailed information concerning this weapon, [Nor could there have been.]but speculation about its nature suggested something profoundly deadly and unusual.

I carried that news to Julian tonight.

He greeted it with grim amusement. “Just what I hoped the Dutch were thinking. Good! Maybe we can find a way to deepen their fears.”

Again, he wouldn’t explain what he had in mind. But he has sequestered one of the warehouses by the docks (out of range of enemy artillery), and is converting it into some sort of workshop. Men have been recruited and sworn to secrecy. He has requisitioned countless bolts of black silk; also sewing machines, hooks and eyes, strips of lathing from damaged houses, bottles of caustic soda, and other peculiar items.

“Maybe it’s good for the Dutch to believe in this imaginary weapon,” I said, “but unfortunately our own troops believe in it too. In fact they imagine you’re preparing to activate it.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“There is no Chinese weapon, and you know that as well as I do, Julian, unless hunger has driven you entirely mad.”

“Of course I know it. I’m a firm believer in its non-existence. All it means is that we’re forced back on our ingenuity.”

“You mean to build a weapon out of silk and fish-hooks?”

“Please keep that thought to yourself. The rest will become clear in time.”

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2174

The pace of activity in Julian’s sealed warehouse increases. The “secret weapon” is now so commonly spoken-of that I fear the men will be bitter or even vindictive in their disappointment, when the truth is finally revealed.

More shells fell today, causing heavy casualties among one particular regiment. I volunteered at the field hospital in the afternoon, assisting Dr. Linch in the chopping, paring, and stitching of shattered limbs. The work is almost unbearable for anyone of a sensitive nature (and I count myself among that number), but necessity knows no excuse.

Our gravest enemy, Dr. Linch says, is less shrapnel than dysentery. At least a quarter of our soldiers are down with it, and it spreads with the infectiousness of a fire in a kindling-yard.

Corn-cake and salt cod for dinner, in small servings.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2174