Certainly the celestial fire was an excellent advertisement for Chinese workmanship. I had never seen such a display. Oh, we had had fireworks in Williams Ford—fine ones, and they had impressed me in my youth. But this event was altogether more spectacular. The warm summer air was alive with the smell of cordite, and the sky crackled with Occult Starbursts, Blue Fire, Whirling Salamanders, Keg-Breakers, and other such exotic devices. It was almost as noisy as an artillery duel, and I had to restrain myself from flinching when the bangs and stinks provoked unhappy memories of the War. But I reminded myself that this was Independence Day in Manhattan, not winter in Chicoutimi; and Calyxa put a soothing arm around me when she saw that I was shaking.
The spectacle concluded after a good half-hour with a Cross of Fire that hung over Lower Manhattan like the benediction of an incendiary Angel. The band played The Star-spangled Banner. The assembled Eupatridians applauded vigorously; and then it was time for Deklan Comstock to make the final speech of the evening.
The Executive Palace was fully electrified, powered by dynamos designed and operated by the Union’s most cunning engineers. A fierce artificial light drenched the stage that was set up for the President.* He stepped up on the makeshift wooden platform and braced his hands on both sides of the podium. Then he began to speak.
He began with homilies and platitudes appropriate to the occasion. He spoke about the Nation and how it was formed in an act of rebellion against the godless British Empire. He quoted the great Patriotic Philosopher of the nineteenth century, Mr. John C. Calhoun. He described how the original Nation had been debased by oil and atheism, until the Reconstruction that followed on the heels of the False Tribulation. He spoke of the two great Generals who had served as Presidents in times of national crisis, Washington and Otis, and flung about their names as if they were personal friends of his.
That eventually got him onto the subject of war. Here his voice became more animated, and his gestures bespoke a personal urgency.
“Perpetual peace is a dream,” he said, “as much as we may yearn for it—but war! War is an integral part of God’s ordering of the universe, without which the world would be swamped in selfishness and materialism. War is the very vessel of honor, and who of us could endure a world without the divine folly of honor? That faith is especially true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause he little understands, during a campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use.† On the field of battle, where a man lives or dies by the caprice of a bullet or the verdict of a bayonet, life is at its best and healthiest.”
“That’s a novel definition of health,” said Julian, but Sam hushed him.
“To date,” Deklan Conqueror declared, “we have had some notable successes in Labrador and some regrettable failures. Failure is inevitable in any war, I need not add. Not every campaign will be brought to a successful conclusion. But the number of failures in recent months points to a dismaying possibility. I mean the possibility that treason rather than fortune is at work in the Army of the Laurentians.” The President’s countenance became abruptly grim and judicial, and his audience cringed. “For that reason I have today taken bold steps to consolidate and improve our armed forces. Several Major Generals—I will not name them—have been taken into custody as I speak. They will undergo public trials, and be given every opportunity to acknowledge and recant their plotting with the Dutch.”
Sam groaned quietly, for the unnamed Major Generals probably included men he knew and respected.
“The places of these traitors,” Deklan Conqueror continued, “will be filled from the ranks of enlisted men who have distinguished themselves in battle. Because of this we can look forward to renewed success in our effort to establish control over this sacred continent as a whole and the strategically important waterway to the north of it.”
He paused to sip from a glass of water. Absent fireworks, the night seemed very dark.
“But not all the news is bad. Far from it! We have had our share of successes. I need only cite the example of the Saguenay Campaign and the rescue of the town of Chicoutimi from its Mitteleuropan occupiers. And let me repeat, acknowledging a certain familial pride, that a key role in that battle was played by my own nephew Julian.”
Here the President smiled once more, and paused in the way that invites applause, which the nervous Eupatridians hastened to give him.
“Come up here, Julian,” the President called out, “and stand beside me!”
This was the humiliation Deklan Comstock had been storing up all evening. Putting Calyxa on show as a singer was only the prelude to it. He would have the son of the man he had murdered stand beside him as an ornament, helpless to protest.
Julian at first didn’t move. It was as if the command had scarcely registered on his senses. It was Sam who urged him out of the bleachers. “Just do as he says,” Sam whispered in a mournful voice. “Swallow your pride, Julian, this once, and do as he says—go on, or he’ll have us all killed.”
Julian gave Sam a vacant look, but he stood up. His journey to the Presidential Podium was visibly reluctant. He mounted the steps to the stage as if he were mounting a scaffold to be hanged, which was perhaps not far from the truth.
“Dear Julian,” the President said, and embraced him just as if he were a true and loving uncle.
Julian didn’t return the embrace. He kept his hands stiffly at his sides. I could see that any physical contact with the fratricidal Chief Executive was nauseating to him.
“You’ve seen more of war than most of us, though you’re still a very young man. What was your impression of the Saguenay Campaign?”
Julian blinked at the question.
“It was a bloody business,” he mumbled.
But Deklan Comstock didn’t mean to give his nephew the freedom of the podium. “Bloody indeed,” the President said. “But we’re not a nation that flinches at blood, nor are we a people constrained by feminine delicacy. To us all is permitted—even cruelty, yes, even ruthlessness—for we’re the first in the world to raise the sword not in the name of enslaving and oppressing anyone, but in the name of freeing them from bondage. We must not be miserly with blood! Let there be blood, if blood alone can drown the old secular world. Let there be pain, and let there be death, if pain and death will save us from the twin tyrannies of Atheism and Europe.”
Some cheering erupted, though not from our part of the bleachers.
“Julian knows first-hand the price and preciousness of liberty. He has already risked his life anonymously as a soldier of the line. Sacrifice enough for any man, you might say, and in normal times I would agree. But these aren’t normal times. The enemy presses. Barbarous weapons are deployed against our soldiers. The Northeastern wilds swarm with foreign encampments, and the precincts of Newfoundland are once again in jeopardy. Therefore we are called upon to make sacrifices.” He paused at that ominous word. “We are all called upon to make sacrifices. I don’t exclude myself! I, as much as any citizen, have to forego my own happiness, if it contradicts the greater national purpose. And as pleased as I am to have my brother’s son back in the bosom of my family, a soldier with Julian’s skill can’t be spared at this critical hour. For that reason I have already relieved from duty Major General Griffin of the Northern Division of the Army of the Laurentians, and I intend to replace him with my own beloved nephew.”
The audience gasped at the boldness of the proclamation. It was a great benevolence on the part of the President, or so he wanted us to think. The Eupatridians burst into another round of applause. Encouraging shouts of “Julian! Julian Comstock!” went up into the gunpowder-scented night.
But Julian’s mother didn’t join in the bellowing. She seemed to grow weak, and put her head on Calyxa’s shoulder.