Harry Turtledove (Editor) - Alternate Generals III

Smedley blanched. Lee smiled as he stepped toward the hallway. "In the future young Smedley," he called over his shoulder, "perhaps a better approach might be, oh, to quote into the empty air the Gospel According to St. John, chapter nine, verse four."

"S-sir-?" Smedley asked, trying to swallow the word almost as soon as he'd blurted it out.

"Slipping already are we?" Lee smiled. He turned completely around. "The verse-or at least the latter portion-reads: 'The night cometh, when no man can work. " He nodded toward the lamps. "Applicable, wouldn't you say?" He turned, took a step, halted, then turned around again. "As applicable to you as the verse's first part is to me: 'I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day. »

Lee's face hardened. The work of him that sent me. "I shall return again tomorrow," he added, not daring to show even a junior clerk his own doubts about the Cause. "And the next day and the next if needs must." Lee's doubts were his own; his duty belonged to his countrymen.

The side door latch clacked. The door opened a few inches, and again Lee could see the shadowy form of the red-haired man behind it. The man crooked a finger at Smedley. Smedley gulped and went as white as the foolscap paper he'd been writing on.

"Do not, I pray you sir, blame this boy for his slight misstep in speaking to me," Lee said. "Given his youth, he discharged his duty admirably."

The man only beckoned again at Smedley. Smedley quickly darted into the door, only to return a few minutes later, even more pale, if possible. He carried a large iron ring with a single rusted key. "Y-you are to follow me, sir," he said. "Mind you watch your step."

The Foreign Office after dark proved itself indeed to be a right rabbits' warren. Smedley led Lee through one twisting hallway after another. Eventually they came to a great door latched and locked. It was obvious Smedley's key fit the ancient lock, but the boy made no move to unlock it.

"We are to wait here, sir," was all he'd say.

They waited.

Eventually Big Ben struck the half-hour. "Right, then," Smedley said. He fit the key into the lock and turned. The latch proved harder, but eventually he heaved it back. The great door swung open to the night air and London's impenetrable fog. "Please to step outside, sir."

Lee did so.

Smedley immediately swung the door closed behind him. "Sorry, sir," Smedley whispered just before the door slammed shut. "I was just doing what I was told."

Lee heard the lock click and the latch slid back into place, leaving him alone in the fog.

Even in the fog, Lee knew where he was. Downing Street. Across the narrow cul-de-sac sat the numbered doors that housed the British cabinet. Had he represented any other nation on the face of the earth, he could but walk up and knock on the doors and present his credentials. But since he did not, he made no move to cross the street.

Instead he waited. Whatever games the British were playing, Lee had no choice but to wait.

The wait was not long. A sulfur match sizzled and burned, lighting a hooded lantern. The soft light through the fog revealed a waiting hansom cab that stood hidden in the fog and shadows. The door of the cab opened. Inside sat the red-headed man from Smedley's office. Lee had expected as much.

Lee crossed the street. He stepped carefully over the cobblestones slick with fog damp. The cab's driver jumped down to help Lee into the cab. Lee sat himself across from the red-haired man.

Aside from being younger than Lee had first thought, the red-haired man looked nothing out of the ordinary. Heavy wool coat lined with fur at the collar, smart trousers, leather ankle boots, silk top hat, gloves-the man dressed like any of a thousand captains of industry in the City. Lee knew better. He had spent his life in the army, where he'd learnt to look past identical uniforms to judge the abilities of the men beneath.

"I believe you've taken rooms at Moreley's?" the man said to Lee. A statement rather than a question. Before Lee could answer, the man tapped the roof of the cab with his gold-handled cane. The cab started at once. It turned around in the cul-de-sac and pulled slowly past the numbered doors.

The man watched Lee's eyes as they passed the doorways and smiled. A diffident smile at best, Lee thought. As meaningful as a smile on a dog. No. A dog's smile at least had energy. This man, his voice, his whole bearing was one of… he searched for the word. Languor? Torpidity? No. Perhaps only simple boredom.

Do we bore you, sir? Is the Confederacy but a tedious, disagreeable chore, best done as quickly as possible, thence forgotten? Lee closed his eyes and saw again the dead of Sharpsburg. He forced his eyes open before worse memories came. You've no idea what our Cause has cost me, or what sums I'll pay for it still.

On reaching the mouth of Downing Street, the cab turned right on Whitehall instead of left toward Trafalgar Square and Moreley's-hardly a mistake even a tourist would make in a fog. The man quickly smiled at Lee's puzzled look. "Quite correct, General," he nodded. "We've turned the wrong way. I thought a prolonged chat might be agreeable to you."

"A meeting in your office, sir-one several hours if not days earlier-would have been far more 'agreeable. Far more convenient, too."

Still smiling, the man shook his head. "Ah, but not for me, I'm afraid. Those weren't my offices; I have none, you see."

A corner of Lee's mouth turned up. "I suppose this is the part in your little drama where I ask who you are."

"Will you?"

Lee shook his head. He'd played these games during the War. "No, sir. I see no point to it." The man underestimated Lee, but then he was used that; being underestimated had served him well in the past. "I suspect your answer would be… suspect at best."

The man nodded with obvious satisfaction. "Quite so. In fact, had you asked, I should have been very much disappointed in you."

The man slumped forward. He rested his ample chins on the gold handle of his cane as he seemed to think over his next words. "But in as much as you have not asked my identity, I believe that I shall answer your unasked question as fully as it is in my power to do so."

He pursed his lips. "I am not connected in any way to Her Majesty's Government, you understand. I do not represent the Crown, I hold no office, no portfolio. In short, sir, I do not exist."

"I hardly think so, sir. After spending a few days in your charming city as a man who doesn't exist, you can be sure I know the difference."

"Well played." The man smiled. "Your president was quite right, you know, in sending you. I cannot think of another of your countrymen with whom I'd even bother. Most diplomats, frankly, are hardly worth the effort. Crashing bores." The man's face brightened. "But you, sir? 'The Napoleon of our age, the soldier who won his county's independence through sheer force of will? No, you interest me, dear General."

" My interest, sir, is in the successful discharge of my duties."

"Something you find difficult to do speaking to a man without a name, I imagine." The man leaned back. "I cannot give you my surname, of course. Nor my Christian name-too singular by half. And, 'Michael, a more common form for my poor name, strikes me too much of Milton's fallen orator. 'Which way I flie is Hell; my self am Hell. " He smiled. "No, while the snake may have the best lines, I do not think, given what we must talk about this evening, that using that particular name would prove the best course."

He thought for a moment. "Ah. Perhaps a more agreeable compromise might be 'Croft. " He smiled. "Yes. What a pleasant solution. Yes, you may call me Croft." Somehow he actually found the energy to chuckle. " 'A small portable filing cabinet' is just the name for me."