Harry Turtledove: How Few Remain

" Blaine will let the war go on." Edgar Leary spoke with great assurances. His whole manner had changed since his stories on corruption in the rebuilding of San Francisco ran in the Morning Call. Now he seemed to reckon himself a man among men, a pup no longer. He had reason for that new-found confidence, too; thanks to those stories, several prominent men were presently occupying small rooms with poor accommodations and unpleasant views. He went on, "He's dragged his heels all the way through this mess. Why would he change now?"

No one argued with him. Clocks in the office and outside struck seven. "Less than half an hour to go," Herndon muttered. "Big story coming, one way or the other."

"Bastards," somebody said softly. Clemens wondered whether the fellow meant the enemies of the United States or the Blaine administration. After a moment, he realized the curse could be inclusive.

At nineteen minutes past seven, the telegraph receiver began to click. "It's early," Edgar Leary noted. "Have the Rebs jumped the gun, or has Blaine thrown in the sponge? My bet's on the Rebs."

But the telegram came out of Philadelphia. Clay Herndon, who happened to be closest to the machine, read the Morse characters emerging word by word on the tape as readily as if they were set in fourteen-point Garamond. "President Blaine accedes to Confederate ultimatum," he said, and then, through a burst of startled exclamations and cheers, "President Blaine's complete statement follows."

"Read it out, Clay," Sam said. "Read it on out. Let's see how he puts it in the best light he can."

He promptly regretted that, for Blaine went on at greater length than he'd expected. But neither he nor anyone else in the offices of the Morning Call interrupted the reporter as he gave voice to the words flowing from the clicking receiver:

"Finding no hope for the successful employment of our arms against the enemies who ring us round and who have unjustly combined against us, I am compelled at this hour to yield to the demands imposed upon the United States by the Confederate States, Great Britain, and France. I do this with the heaviest of hearts, and only in the certain knowledge that all other courses are worse.

"This surrender offers a fitting occasion to present ourselves in humiliation and prayer before that God Who has ordained that it be so. We had hoped that the year just past would close upon a scene of victory for our righteous cause, but it has pleased the Supreme Disposer of events to order it otherwise. We are not permitted to furnish an exception to the rule of Divine government, which has prescribed affliction as the rule of nations as well as of individuals. Our faith and perseverance must be tested, and the chastening which seems grievous will, if rightly received, bring forth its appropriate fruit.

"It is meet, therefore, that we should repair to the only Giver of all victory, and, humbling ourselves before Him, should pray that He may strengthen our confidence in His mighty power and righteous judgment. Then we may surely trust in Him that He will perform His promise and encompass us as with a shield.

"In this trust and to this end, I, James G. Blaine, president of the United States, do hereby set apart today, Saturday, the twenty-second day of April, as a day of fasting, humiliation, prayer, and remembrance, and I do hereby invite the reverend clergy and people of the United States to repair to their respective places of worship and to humble themselves before almighty God, and pray for His protection and favor to our beloved country, and that we may be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us.

"And I do further urge and direct the citizens of the United States to observe the twenty-second day of April in each succeeding year as a day of humiliation and remembrance, so that the infamous defeat we have suffered on this date shall never be lost from the minds of the said citizens until such time as it may, by the grace of God, be avenged a hundredfold."

The clicker fell silent. Several men sighed. Sam realized he wasn't the only one who'd been holding his breath toward the end. Clay Herndon said, "Well, well, who would have thought it? Even James G. Blaine can read the writing on the wall, provided only that you make the letters big enough."

"The writing on the wall, eh?" Sam said. "That must be why he blamed God for our losing, or one reason for it, anyhow. The other two that spring to mind are that God doesn't vote, and He hardly ever stands up on His hind legs and calls someone a damned liar."

Outside, church bells began to ring out. Noise on the street swiftly swelled: shouts and cheers and snatches of song. Here and there, gunshots rang out. One of them sounded as if it came from right outside the offices. Somebody yelled, "That's the boy, Reuben! Shoot 'em all off-we ain't gonna need 'em no more." Another shot shattered the morning, presumably from Reuben's gun.

"We aren't the only ones with the news," Herndon observed. "That one would have gone to a whole raft of telegraph instruments."

"Everybody who has it likes it, too," Edgar Leary said.

Samuel Clemens made himself stop thinking like an American delighted the war had indeed ended-regardless of the terms on which it had ended-and start thinking like a newspaperman again. "Half the people who've got the word print papers of their own," he growled. "Out of that bunch, we're going to be the ones who put the news on the street first, or I'll know the reason why."

That blunt announcement sent people flying away from the telegraph clicker as if it had suddenly become red-hot. One of the typesetters yelled, "We'll need a transcript of what Blaine had to say. If somebody writes it out, it'll be a hell of a lot faster to set than if we've got to do it from the Morse."

"Clay, you take care of that," Sam said. "You've already read it through once, so you've got a head start on everybody else. Headline above it will be 'War Ends'-screamer type, of course."

"You want seventy-two point?" the typesetter asked.

"No, ninety-six, Charlie," Clemens answered. "Hell, 108 if you've got it. That's not a headline we get to use every day. If only we could write Blaine Tarred, Feathered, and Ridden Out of Philadelphia on a Rail underneath it, everything would be perfect." He hesitated. "Well, almost perfect: we'd have to drop the type size a good deal to fit that on one line."

"Boss, you'll give us an editorial to run alongside of Blaine 's statement?" Leary said.

"What?" Sam frowned. "Oh. Yes, I suppose I'd better, hadn't I?"

He went back to his desk, swept a snowdrift of papers out of the way so he'd have room to write, and set a fresh sheet down in the middle of the space he'd cleared. After he'd inked a pen, he stared at the blank paper. For a man who wrote for a living, getting started was always the hardest part of the job.

Words did not want to come. He'd set everybody else on the Morning Call running like a dog with a tin can tied to its tail, and the words did not want to come. He glared at the paper. He glared at the pen. The fault was not in them. He knew where the fault was. He did not have a mirror at his desk, so he could not glare at himself.

He took out a cigar, scraped a match afire, and lighted the malodorous stogie. Neither the harsh smoke he held in his mouth nor the stinking fogbank with which he surrounded himself helped concentrate his mind on the business at hand, as they often did. He smoked the cigar down to a dank, soggy butt with quick, angry puffs, then lighted another. Nothing even vaguely resembling inspiration struck.

Setting the second cigar in the grimy brass ashtray that held the corpse of the first, he opened a desk drawer. If inspiration wasn't lurking in tobacco today, maybe it was hiding somewhere else. He pulled the cork from the bottle with his teeth and took a long swig. Whiskey ran molten down his throat. His eyes opened very wide. He took another drink. It exploded in his stomach like a ten-inch shell from a British ironclad. He felt ready to whip his weight in wildcats.