How Few Remain (95 page)

“There are so,” Alexandra declared. By then, Sam was getting into a pair of them. She gave him a dirty look.

He affected to ignore it, but from then on aimed his barbs at the administration rather than his wardrobe: “He shouldn’t have started the war in the first place. Once he’d botched it, he should have quit when Longstreet gave him the chance. That would have saved San Francisco, and saved us the torture of living with your brother.”

“You can’t blame the president for that,” Alexandra said.

“Who says I can’t? I just did.” Clemens warmed to his theme: “He dithered till he lost half of Maine, too. And now that the ultimatum’s landed on him, he still can’t make up his blasted mind. If he doesn’t give in before half past seven or so, we’re going to take
another
licking, and for what? For what, I ask you?”

His wife said, “Why don’t you finish dressing? I’ll go downstairs and make some coffee for you.” It was not a responsive answer, but Sam doubted James G. Blaine could have given him a better one.
And heaven only knows what sort of coffee Blaine makes
, he thought, rummaging in a drawer for a cravat.

Fortified with coffee, bread and butter, and a slab of ham left over from supper the night before, he headed east along Turk Street toward the
Morning Call
. Not all the houses in the neighborhood had yet been rebuilt; empty lots gave the street the aspect of a barroom brawler who led with his teeth instead of his left.

Every few paces, Clemens looked back over his shoulder. Hills hid the Pacific from his eyes. Whether he could see it or not, though, he knew it was there. Somewhere on it, probably somewhere not far from San Francisco, sailed a Royal Navy flotilla. He was sure of that. The Pacific Squadron of the U.S. Navy, or what was left of it, was out there, too, but he had no faith in its ability to halt the British warships, or even to slow them much. When a fast steamer from the Sandwich Islands gave them the word to move …

Since the British attack on San Francisco, Colonel Sherman had brought in many more guns to defend the coast. Clemens didn’t think they would do much good, either: they were small-caliber field pieces, which had the twin advantages of being common and mobile but were hardly a match for the huge cannon the ironclads of the Royal Navy mounted. Still, Sherman was making an effort, which put him ahead of most of the U.S. government.

Market Street was quiet as Sam turned onto it. Not only was Saturday a half day for most people, he was earlier than usual getting to the office. He walked in just before a quarter to seven. He wasn’t the first man there, either, not by a long chalk. Reporters clustered round the telegraph clicker like relatives round the bed of a sick man who was not expected to live.

“No news yet, eh?” Clemens asked.

“Not a word,” Clay Herndon answered, before anyone else could speak. “The only question left is whether the wire comes from Philadelphia or the Potomac. Will Blaine see sense, or will he throw away Washington City and Maryland to go along with Maine?”

“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 newfound 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.

He picked up the pen and poised it above the paper. No words came out. He was as silent and frustrated as a veteran actor—say, one of the Booth brothers, whose careers went back before the War of Secession, and whose tours had crisscrossed the USA and the CSA ever since—inexplicably stricken with stage fright in front of a packed house.

Clay Herndon trotted up to him, carrying a sheet full of words from edge to edge and top to bottom. Sam ground his teeth, even though he knew the words were Blaine’s and not Herndon’s. “Here’s the transcription of the statement,” Herndon said, waving it about. “I’ll give it to the typesetters. What are you going to say in your—?” Most of a sentence too late, his eye fell on the still-blank page in front of Clemens.

Sam’s eye fell on it, too … balefully. “Damned if I know,” he ground out.

“Even if it’s only ‘Mary had a little lamb,’ you’d better say it fast,” Herndon said. “You were right—we can’t be the only paper getting a new edition to press as fast as we can set the type.”

“I know, God damn it, but I’m dry,” Sam said. “I haven’t been this dry since the stagecoach ride through the desert from Salt Lake to Virginia City.”

“You’ve got to say
something,”
Herndon insisted.

“Yes, but what?” Clemens said. “What the devil can I say that Blaine didn’t already? The war’s done. We lost. Any fool can see that, and even a fool can see it now, or Blaine wouldn’t have given up. The thing is so obvious, it’s impossible to write about without sounding like an idiot.” Herndon didn’t say anything. Sam caught him not saying anything. “When has that ever stopped me before, eh?”

“You can’t prove that’s what I was thinking,” the reporter answered with a grin.

“And a damned lucky thing for you I can’t, too,” Sam said. “Go on, get that set. I’ll come up with something in the next few minutes, or else we just have to go on without me.” He didn’t like that. It was embarrassing. But getting the news out on the street
third would be a lot more embarrassing. Herndon dashed away to the typesetters.

It’s oven
Almost of its own will, Clemens’ pen set down two words. He stared at them. They came close to serving as an editorial by themselves. What else did he need to say? He thought about that for a few seconds, then wrote one more sentence:
Thank heaven!
He nodded, picked up the paper, and hurried after Clay Herndon.

This is a novel about the aftermath of a Confederate victory in the Civil War. It is not in any sense a sequel to my earlier novel about a Confederate victory in the Civil War,
The Guns of the South
. Here, the Confederacy is imagined to have won by natural causes, so to speak, rather than by intervention from time-travelers with an agenda of their own, and to have done so in 1862 rather than 1864.

The differences are crucial. The Civil War is, and deserves to be, perhaps the most intensely examined period of American history. For better and for worse, all that the United States is today (even that we say
The United States is
, not
The United States are)
, it is because of what happened in and immediately after the Civil War. Change anything there, and subsequent history changes drastically.