Harry Turtledove (Editor) - Alternate Generals III

Croft removed his hat and brushed it with the cuff of his coat. "One could argue that… excreta… is a very private affair indeed, one of no consequence to the larger community. If-"

Did the man think Lee stupid? Did he think Lee a McClellan? Lee held up his hand. "No need to belabor it. I grasp your analogy." He paused. "But do you?"

"Eh?"

"Have you fully followed your own analogy-and this sewer-to its termination?" Lee gestured in the direction he assumed Barking to be. "The sewage will still eventually be dumped into the Thames. If not here, then at Barking. You've merely delayed its disposal…" His voice faltered and trailed off. Croft had led Lee by the nose as easily as Lee ever had led McClellan.

"Yes, General. Sooner or later, it must be disposed of. Your Confederacy is merely delaying that."

The carriage clattered across Westminster Bridge and turned north along the bank of the Thames opposite Westminster. Croft sat quiet, the fire in his eyes extinguished as if snuffed out by the chill air off the Thames.

Lee sat quiet, too, but his fires began to burn all the brighter. Even if doubts about the Cause were never really very far away, regardless of what Croft said or did, Lee's duty would always remain standing. Unbreachable. Unflankable.

Or would it? He had stood unbreachable, unflankable the very day those doubts had started: that day so long ago when General Scott offered him command of the Union Army. Lee, his duty clear, had turned Scott down and gone off to fight for Virginia. He wondered. Had Lincoln, his commander-in-chief, asked in person would Lee have still refused?

Yes, Lee admitted to himself. Virginia had called. She had beckoned to him, and he had followed her, rendered deaf, dumb, and blind by her call. He could not hear what Lincoln had so desperately tried to say to him, to Virginia, and to the rest of the South. Not until afterward, when he had read Lincoln's words in the cool, calm air of peace did he realize too late that Lincoln had truly sought to prevent the war. And the South had- Lee had! — made war rather than let their nation survive.

And the war came.

The carriage recrossed the Thames on Waterloo Bridge and headed down Fleet Street toward the Strand and Trafalgar Square. He could hear men and boys hawking newspapers, but couldn't understand their thick, impenetrable accent. He supposed it was the equivalent of the American cry of "Extra, extra!"

Croft pulled the cab's thick velvet curtains closed. "I thought it interesting your using that particular verse of scripture tonight with young Smedley."

Lee found himself almost amused at Croft's oblique approach. First sewers, now scriptures. Croft was not so much trying to flank Lee as to pin down the flanks before swinging hard against the center. That is what I wanted to do at Gettysburg before Longstreet showed me the better way. I would have lost my war, just as Croft will lose his tonight.

"I take it," Croft said, "that you are familiar with that particular chapter in St. John?"

"The healing of the blind man."

"The healing of the man blind from birth ."

Not oblique at all, but as clumsy as Joe Hooker. "Please spare me the lecture about how the Confederacy was born blind-"

" 'I must work the works of him that sent me, " Croft recited, " 'while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. " He looked at Lee. "Your Carpenter spoke those words to bring light. You, General, speak them to bring darkness."

Lee spoke not for several heartbeats. Then in a low, measured voice he said, " Never speak to me like that again, sir. Never ."

"Isn't it true?"

"The devil can quote scriptures for his own purposes, Mr. Croft. The Northern abolitionists did."

" 'Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. " Croft smiled at Lee's surprise. "Yes, General," Croft said, as if reading his mind. "I'm quite familiar with Mr. Lincoln's farewell address. Not too many people are, though, are they? Not surprising, considering he never delivered it. Of course, given your part in the affair, you know all about that."

Long and slow, like a teakettle, Lee's breath hissed out. "My… part, as you put it, Croft, was that of trying to prevent what happened."

"You failed."

What could Lee do but nod? After Gettysburg, after Baltimore, his army had marched into Washington. Mobs from Baltimore had reached it first. Before Lee could stop them, the mob dragged a bruised and bloody Lincoln out of the White House. Screaming that Lincoln would never preach to them ever again of Emancipation or of Union, they-

"Tell me, General," Croft asked. "When you saw what was happening, did you rein back your horse? Or did you spur it on so that you could join in?"

A curse escaped Lee's lips. Tears streamed down his cheeks; he tried covering his face with his trembling hands. "It wasn't like that, I tell you-"

"What was he to you?" Croft mocked. "Not any of your concern, surely- their governance of their own president."

Lee raised his face. "He was my president, too."

Croft didn't even need to smile. Too late, Lee tried to choke back the words already uttered.

"That he was," Croft said. "That he was."

The cab came to a sudden halt. "Trouble up ahead, guv'nor," the cabby called out.

Croft seated his top hat firmly on his head and opened the door. "Shall we get out?"

They had stopped just short of Trafalgar Square. The fog had nearly lifted. Lee could see Nelson's column flickering in torchlight. A mob had gathered at the entrance of Moreley's, the one that faced the square. They carried torches and placards. And something else, something horribly else.

Croft, however, casually ignored the growing mob and started to point out the four new statues at the base of Nelson's column. "Oh, do look," he said pleasantly, "Landseer's finally gotten his lions in place, although they do appear to be backwards."

Lee glared at him. "Are they yours?"

"The lions?"

"The mob. Is this just part of your game tonight like Smedley and the carriage ride?"

"Oh, that mob's real, all right-"

"You knew about it in advance, though didn't you?"

Croft only smiled. "Wonderful thing, the transatlantic cable. At times it can seem to bestow prescience, even omniscience. Once the news hit the papers tonight, it was obvious what would happen." He nodded at a new commotion in the crowd. "I say, isn't that effigy meant to be you?" Torches began to set the gray-coated figure ablaze. "It appears you've finally been recognized in London after all." He nodded to the driver who jumped down and opened the door. "Perhaps we'd better drive on. They may decide to burn a more realistic effigy."

"What is this all about?" Lee asked as he climbed back into the carriage.

Croft settled back in his seat. "I doubt it'd be safe to take you around the back of Moreley's-or any other hotel for that matter, my dear General. And my club is out of the question as well-Diogenes may well claim to be hanging out his lantern for an honest man, but I doubt very seriously my club is really in the mood tonight to receive one. Especially one in a Confederate uniform. No, we'd best skip Clubland and Pall Mall altogether. We must jump my rails tonight." Croft rapped the roof of the cab. "Northumberland and around," he called. To Lee he said, "We'll give Bobby Peel a chance to tidy things up. In the meantime I have a friend who lives nearby. We'll just pop in to see him while we wait."

The cab turned around. Lee pulled open the curtains. Torchlight threw shadows across his face. The shadows danced and deepened as the carriage slowly crept away from the mob.

"What is this all about?" Lee repeated.