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

He stared at me. Then he took up the pencil and paper again.

YOUR CHILD?

“Of course my child!—what else would it be?”

He wrote, after another pause, GOOD NEWS CONGRATULATIONS WOULD SMILE IF I COULD OF COURSE YOU’LL GO HOME

“Thank you, Julian. You’ll come home with me, and we’ll see that baby born. You’ll be its uncle, in effect; and you can hold it on your knee and feed it mashy apples if you like.”

GODFATHER?

“Yes, if you’ll accept the nomination!”

CLOSE TO GOD AS I’LL GET, he wrote, and then laid back against the wooden slats that served him as a bed. His eyes closed, and his wounds seeped pinkish fluids.

The next day looked to be our last, despite the optimism I had tried to impress upon Julian. The shelling of Striver intensified. The Dutch barrages reached every part of the town, and I was often bathed in plaster shaken from the ceiling while I tended to Julian’s needs.

His adjutants and junior colonels had stopped begging him for orders—he was too badly hurt to lead, and anyway there were no useful orders to give. The Army of the Laurentians, Northern Division, had become a sort of automaton, firing reflexively whenever a target presented itself. That couldn’t continue—our last supplies of ammunition had been tapped.

It was a cold day, clear and windless. Julian slept fitfully whenever the cannonade permitted; and I slept, often enough, on the chair beside him.

I was awake, however, and Julian was asleep, when a freshly-promoted Lieutenant rushed into the room. “General Comstock!” the man exclaimed.

“Quiet, Lieutenant—the General’s napping, and he needs his rest—what’s the matter?”

“Sorry, Colonel Hazzard, but I was sent to report—that is, we’ve seen—”

“What? Some new Dutch outrage? If our defenses have collapsed there’s no need to trouble Julian Comstock about it. He’s in no position to help, though he would, if he could.”

“It’s not that, sir.

Sails !”

“I beg your pardon?”

“ Sails, sir! We’ve sighted sails, coming down Lake Melville from the east!”

“Dutch sails?”

“Sir, it’s hard to be sure, but the lookouts think not—in fact it looks like Admiral Fairfield’s fleet! The Navy has come for us at last, sir!”

I found I couldn’t speak. There is a species of release from fear that in its effect is as unmanning as fear itself. I covered my face with my hands to conceal my emotion.

“Sir?” the Lieutenant said. “Aren’t you going to tell the General?”

“As soon as it’s confirmed,” I managed to say. “I wouldn’t like to disappoint him.”

But I couldn’t wait for an adjutant’s word. I left Julian sleeping and climbed up to the top of the hospital.

The hospital, in better days, had been a Dutch shop, with apartments overhead, located at the shoreward end of Portage Street. It had lost its roof in the battle, and the second story had become an open platform, exposed to the elements. It afforded a good view of the harbor. I stood in the empty casing of a shattered window, gazing off across the lake.

The sails hove into view soon enough. Without a spyglass I couldn’t discern the colors they were flying, and I feared some new Mitteleuropan attack despite the Lieutenant’s encouraging words. Then the outline of the nearest vessel began to seem familiar to me, and my heart fluttered a little.

She was the Basilisk —the beloved Basilisk —Admiral Fairfield’s flagship.

I was grateful, and I addressed my prayerful thanks to the slate-gray sky and the surging clouds, or whatever lay beyond them.

Lake Melville was too salt to freeze entirely, but fringes of ice had formed at the edges of it, and the Navy couldn’t anchor as close to shore as they might have liked; but there were gaps of open water where her boats could freely move. An advance party quickly gauged the extremity of our situation, and communicated details to the Basilisk by signal-flags; and before long that ship, along with the others of the fleet, began to fire shells which flew above Striver and dropped into the Dutch lines with telling accuracy. The bombardment was continuous; it drove the Mitteleuropans back a mile or more from their forward entrenchments; and the sound of it was what finally woke Julian from his profound sleep.

He was afraid we were about to be assaulted by the enemy, and I soothed him by giving him the good news.

He was less cheered by it than I expected. He took up pencil and paper and wrote: ARE WE SAVED?

“Yes, Julian, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! The men are coming into the streets, cheering!”

USELESS THEN I MEAN OUR ATTEMPT TO BREAK THROUGH

“Well, but how could we have known—?”

HOW MANY DEAD FOR NO PURPOSE HUNDREDS THOUSANDS STILL ALIVE IF ONLY I HAD WAITED

“That’s not the way to think of it, Julian!”

BLOOD ON MY HANDS

“No—you were magnificent!”

He refused to be convinced.

An adjutant arrived with word that the Admiral wanted to see Julian, in order to begin to plan the evacuation of our troops from Striver.

TELL HIM I’M NOT IN, Julian wrote; but he didn’t mean it—it was only his injuries speaking.

The Admiral was promptly admitted.

It was so heartening to see the old naval officer again that I nearly wept. His uniform was so bright and bold, compared to our tattered rags, that he seemed to have descended from a distant Valhalla well-supplied with patriotic tailors. He looked at Julian with the knowledgeable sympathy of a man who had seen injured men, and worse, many times before. “Don’t rise,” he said, as Julian struggled to sit straight up and essay a salute. “And don’t try to speak, if your wounds make it difficult.”

I CAN WRITE, Julian hastily set down, and I read the message to Admiral Fairfield on his behalf.

“Well,” said Fairfield , “there is not much to say that can’t wait a short while. The important thing is that your men have been rescued—the siege is lifted.”

TOO LATE, wrote Julian, but I couldn’t communicate anything so pessimistic to the Admiral. “Julian thanks you,” I said, ignoring the looks he shot in my direction. The expression was all in his eyes, since Julian’s jaw was too badly hurt to move—even a frown would have wounded him.

“No thanks are called for. In fact I apologize for delaying as long as we have.”

DEKLAN MEANT FOR ME TO DIE HEREA WELL-LAID PLANWHAT CHANGED?

“Julian says he can hardly accept your apology. He does wonder what circumstances made this rescue possible.”

“Of course—I forget you’ve been cut off from all news,” the Admiral said. “The order that kept us out of Lake Melville was rescinded.”

DEKLAN MUST BE DEAD “Julian asks about the health of his uncle.”

“That’s the key to it,” Admiral Fairfield said, nodding. “The plain fact is, Deklan Conqueror has been deposed. In part it was because of the reports of the Goose Bay campaign you sent out when the Basilisk last saw these shores, Colonel Hazzard. The Spark published them in the ignorant belief that Deklan Conqueror would want Julian’s heroism widely publicized. But it was obvious enough, reading between the lines, that Julian had been betrayed by the Executive Branch. The Army of the Laurentians was already profoundly unhappy about Deklan’s misrule and arrogance—the balance was finally tipped.”

DID THEY KILL HIM?

“Was Deklan Conqueror’s abdication wholly voluntary?” I asked.

“It wasn’t voluntary at all. A brigade came down from the Laurentians and marched on the Presidential Palace. The Republican Guard chose not to resist—their opinion of Deklan Comstock is no higher than anyone else’s.”