Blood and iron

"Free-atom! Free-atom! Free-atom!'' The rhythmic cry started among the stalwarts in white and butternut. At first, it had to compete with the unorganized cheers and clapping and the scattered boos from the larger crowd behind them. But the stalwarts kept right on, as they'd been trained to do. And, little by little, the rest of the crowd took up the chant, till the very earth of Seaboard Park seemed to cry out: "Free-c/om! Free-atom! Free-c/om!"

The two-syllable beat thudded through A

She fought it down. The farmers and factory hands out there didn't try. They didn't even know they might try. They'd come to be stirred, to be roused. The ceremony had started that work. Jake Featherston would finish it.

He dropped his hands. Instantly, the Freedom Party faithful in white and butternut stopped chanting. The cries of "Freedom!'' went on for another few seconds. Then the people in the ordinary part-much the bigger part-of the crowd got the idea, too. A little raggedly, the chant ended.

Jake leaned forward, toward the microphone. A

"Columbia," Jake said. "I want you all to know, I'm glad-I'm proud-to set foot in the capital of the first state of the Confederacy." He talked in commonplaces. His voice was harsh, his accent none too pleasing. Somehow, none of that mattered. When he spoke, thousands upon thousands of people hung on his every word. A

Through cheers, he repeated, "Yes, sir, I'm proud to set foot in the capital of the first state of the Confederacy-because I know South Carolina is going to help me, going to help the Freedom Party, give the Confederate States back to the people who started this country in the first place, the honest, hard-working white men and women who make the CSA go and don't get a dime's worth of credit for it. Y'all remember dimes, right? That'd be a couple million dollars' worth of credit nowadays, I reckon."

The crowd laughed and cheered. "He's full of crap," Tom said. "The people who started this country were planters and lawyers, just about top to bottom. Everybody knows that."

"Everybody who's had a good education knows that," A

"Now I know the Whigs are ru

"He is good," Tom said grudgingly as the crowd exploded into more laughter. A

"Now, Hampton V means well, I don't doubt it for a minute," Jake said. "The Whigs meant well when Woodrow Wilson got us into the war, too, and they meant well when a War Department full of Thirds and Fourths and Fifths fought it for us, too. And you'd best believe they meant well when they stuck their heads in the sand instead of noticing the niggers were going to stab us in the back. If you like the way the war turned out, if you like paying ten million dollars for breakfast-this week; it'll be more next Wednesday-go right ahead and vote for Wade Hampton V You'll get six more years of what we've been having.

"Or if you want a real change, you can vote for Mr. Layne. The Radical Liberals'll give you change, all right. I'll be… switched if they won't. They'll take us back into United States, is what they'll do. Ainsworth Layne went to Harvard, folks-Harvard! Can you believe it? It's true, believe it or not. And the Rad Libs want him to be president of the CSA1 I'm sorry, friends, but I've seen enough damnyankees come down on us already. I don't need any homegrown ones, thank you kindly."

That drew more laughter and applause than his attack on Wade Hampton had done. The Radical Liberals, though neither very radical nor very liberal, had always been weak in hard-line South Carolina. Were Hampton not a native son, A

Featherston went on, "The Whigs and the Rad Libs both say we have to learn from the war, to take what the Yankees dish out on account of we're not strong enough to do anything else. What I say is, we have to learn from the war, all right. We have to learn that when we hit the United States, we have to hit 'em hard and we have to keep on hitting 'em till they fall down! They've stolen big chunks of what's ours. I give you my word, friends-one fine day, it's going to be ours again!"

The crowd exploded. A

"Free-do/w! Free-doml Free-t/om!" The stalwarts began the chant as Jake stepped back from the microphone. It swelled until the whole huge crowd bellowed the word as if it came from a single throat. A

XV

Roger Kimball whistled cheerfully as he tucked his white shirt into a pair of butternut trousers. A lot of Freedom Party leaders didn't care to join in the brawling that had marked the Party's rise. Kimball shrugged. He'd never backed away from a fight, and he'd gone toward a good many. And Ainsworth Layne was speaking in Charleston tonight, or thought he was.

"I need a tin hat," Kimball said, buttoning his fly. A helmet was useless aboard a submersible. It was a handy thing to have with clubs and rocks flying, though.

He picked up his own club and headed for the door. He was about to open it when somebody knocked. He threw it wide. There stood Clarence Potter. The former intelligence officer eyed him with distaste. "If you don't agree with what I have to say, you could simply tell me so," Potter remarked.

"I don't agree with what you have to say," Kimball snapped. "I don't have time to argue about it now, though. Can't be late."

Potter shook his head. "When we first got to know each other, I thought better of you. You were a man who wanted to build up his country, not a ruffian tearing down the fabric of the republic. We used to talk about riding Jake Featherston. Now he rides you-and you're proud of it."