“We’re in this for the long haul!” he shouted. “This isn’t any ordinary war, and everybody needs to remember it. This is the kind of fight that will shape the new millennium. A war like this doesn’t come along every day. It shakes the world once in a thousand years. We’re on a crusade here, a crusade for-”
“Freedom!” The roar was louder this time.
Featherston nodded. “That’s right, friends. We can’t quit now. We won’t quit now, either. If the Confederate people give up, they won’t deserve anything better than what they get. If they give up, I won’t be sorry for them if God lets them down.” He paused to let that sink in, then softly asked, “But we won’t give up, will we? We’ll never give up, will we?”
“No!” No hesitation, no backsliding. If they were there, he would hear them. As always, the Confederate States were going where he took them. And he knew where that was.
“We’ll buckle down, then,” he said. “We’ll work hard at home. We’ll whip the damnyankees yet. For every ton of bombs they drop on us, we’ll drop ten tons on their heads, same as we’ve been doing all along. And we’ll never get stabbed in the back again, on account of we’re putting our own house in order, by God!”
That drew more frantic applause. Most of Nashville’s Negroes were already in camps. Lots of Negroes went into camps in Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and Texas. They went in, but they didn’t come out. That suited most of the whites in the CSA just fine. And if the Confederate States of America weren’t a white man’s country, then there was no such thing, not anywhere in the world.
Since the war started, wireless broadcasting was a tricky business. The USA and the CSA jammed each other’s stations as hard as they could. As often as not, snarls of static strangled and distorted music and comedies as well as news.
But that wasn’t the only reason the tune coming out of the wireless set in Flora Blackford’s office sounded strange to her. Satchmo and the Rhythm Aces weren’t an ordinary U.S. combo. They were colored men who’d escaped to the USA after being sent north into Ohio to entertain Confederate troops. Nobody in the United States played music like “New Orleans Jump.” If the Negroes weren’t minor heroes because of their daring getaway, they never would have got airtime for anything with such peculiar syncopations. As things were, they had a minor hit on their hands.
Congresswoman Blackford was happy for them. She’d met Satchmo and his less memorable bandmates. They were talented men. To her, they were a symbol of everything the Confederate States were wasting with their constant war against the Negro.
She clucked unhappily. To her countrymen, Satchmo and the Rhythm Aces were a curiosity, nothing more. Most people in the USA didn’t want to hear about Negroes, didn’t want anything to do with them, and didn’t want to be told what the Confederates were doing to them. She’d tried her best to make her countrymen pay attention. Her best wasn’t good enough.
“New Orleans Jump” struck her as fitting background music for what she was reading: the transcript of Jake Featherston’s recent speech in Nashville. She’d got it from the War Department. The captain who gave it to her seemed angry that he had to.
Flora wondered what that was all about. She didn’t think the young officer had any reason to be angry at her personally. She’d never set eyes on him before. She wasn’t trying to cut off funding-who would, these days? You gave the Army and the Navy what they said they needed, and you hoped they found ways to shoot all the money at the enemy.
So why was the captain steaming, then? She picked up the telephone and called the Assistant Secretary of War, who was somewhere between a conspirator and a friend. “Hello, Flora,” Franklin Roosevelt said genially. “What can I do for you today?”
“A captain just brought me a copy of Featherston’s latest speech,” Flora said.
“Jake’s a son of a bitch, isn’t he?” Roosevelt said. “Pardon my French.”
“There’s certainly no give in him-as if we didn’t know that,” Flora said. “But that isn’t why I’m calling, or not exactly, anyhow. This captain seemed to be doing a slow burn, and I wondered why. It’s not like I ever met him before.”
“Oh. I think I can tell you that on the telephone,” Roosevelt said. “It’s not as if the Confederates don’t already know it. Dear Jake gave that speech in Nashville, right?”
“Yes.” Flora found herself nodding, though of course Franklin Roosevelt couldn’t see her. He had a gift for inspiring intimacy. If infantile paralysis hadn’t left him in a wheelchair, he might have tried to follow his cousin Theodore into the White House. And he was a solid Socialist, too, unlike Theodore the Democrat. “What about it?” Flora went on.
“This about it: we knew Featherston was going to Nashville. We hoped we’d arranged things so he wouldn’t get there.” Roosevelt sighed. “Obviously, we didn’t. He’s a suspicious so-and-so, and he dodged the bullet. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why your captain was steaming. I’m steaming, too, to tell you the truth.”
“Oh.” Flora nodded again. “Well, now that I know, so am I. If we could bump him off…”
“Wouldn’t it be lovely?” Franklin Roosevelt said.
“It sure would.” Flora was sure she and the Assistant Secretary of War shared the same beatific vision: the Confederate States of America thrashing around like a headless snake if Jake Featherston got it in the neck. She had no idea who would or could replace Featherston if he got it in the neck. She doubted the Confederates had any more idea than she did. Jake Featherston made the CSA tick. If he wasn’t there, wouldn’t the country stop ticking?
“The other bad thing about it is, now they know we’ve broken some of their codes,” Roosevelt said. “They’ll change them, and that will complicate our lives for a while.”
Till we break them again, he had to mean. “Too bad,” Flora said. “Too bad all the way around, in fact. Thanks for letting me know. That does make me pretty sure the captain wasn’t mad at me personally, anyhow.”
“Always a relief,” Roosevelt agreed. “The last thing anybody wants or needs is a secret unadmirer.”
“Er-yes.” Flora tasted the phrase. “But it’s a shame Featherston’s unadmirers here didn’t stay secret enough.”
“Well, so it is,” the Assistant Secretary of War said. “The Confederates didn’t break off the flight because they’re reading our codes. I think they put a decoy on it because one of their security people got jumpy. The good ones do, from everything I’ve heard, and Lord knows Featherston needs good ones.”
“Plenty of people on both sides of the border who want to kill him, all right,” Flora said. “Did you notice inflation is coming back to the Confederate States?”
“No.” Roosevelt was suddenly and sharply interested. After the Great War, the Confederate dollar collapsed; when things were at their worst, enjoying a beer took billions. “What do you mean? It would be wonderful if their economy went down the drain again.”
But Flora didn’t mean that, however much she wished she did. “Not what I was thinking,” she said sadly. “When the war was new, though, Featherston promised to drop three tons of bombs on our heads for every ton we landed on the CSA. Now he’s up to ten tons.”
“Oh.” Franklin Roosevelt laughed. “I’d call that deflation myself-as his spirits go down, his threats go up. He was lying then, and he’s still lying now. The Confederates weren’t that far ahead at the start of things, and they’re behind us now. We’re landing more on them than they are on us-quite a bit more, as a matter of fact.”
“Good,” Flora said, wondering how he knew. If she asked him, he’d probably tell her it was a very precise statistic he’d just made up. Odds were neither side knew exactly how much it was getting and receiving. She asked a different question instead: “How are things out West?”
“They’re doing quite well.” Roosevelt sounded enthusiastic, as he often did. “It really does look like General Dowling will take Lubbock away from the Confederates. If he does, we may proclaim the state of Houston again. That will give the people in west Texas something to flabble about-something to fight among themselves about.”