The Grapple

He didn’t have a full house in the auditorium, but he didn’t care. This speech was for the wireless and the newsreels, not for the people actually in the hall. When it was filmed, the place would look full whether it was or not. Saul Goldman didn’t hire cameramen who didn’t know what they were doing.

“I’m Jake Featherston, and I’m here to tell you the truth.” He’d been opening with that line ever since he discovered the wireless. That was twenty years ago now. He found it hard to believe, but it was true. When he said it, he believed it. His speeches wouldn’t have worked half as well if he didn’t.

“The truth is, we are going to win this war!” When he said that, the Party stalwarts and fat cats in the Memorial Auditorium started yelling as if it were going out of style. Maybe he inspired them. Maybe they were scared shitless and needed a pat on the fa

“We are going to win,” he repeated. “They can’t beat us, because we damn well won’t quit! We’ll never quit, not while we’ve got one free white man who can stand on his own two feet and aim a rifle at the enemy.” More applause came echoing back from the ceiling. The noise made Jake’s heart beat faster. Talking in a wireless studio was one thing. Talking in front of a living, breathing, sweating crowd was something else, something better, something hotter.

“Truth is, the Freedom Party’s had the right idea for twenty-five years now,” Jake went on. “And if an idea’s right to begin with, it will take up arms and struggle in this world. And once it does, nobody can beat it. Nobody, you hear? Every time someone persecutes it, that only makes it stronger!”

“Freedom!” somebody in the audience yelled. An instant later, everyone took up the cry. It washed over Jake Featherston. He scowled toward the north. If the damnyankees thought the Confederate States would fold up and die because things hadn’t gone perfectly in Pe

“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 mille

“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.”