Lee knew they had started calling Longstreet that. Lee had spent his trip across the Atlantic wondering, was he being sent by Longstreet to shield Lee from the coming storm? Or by Rhett to get rid of a troublesome marble man. No matter. By now, anyway, the Louisiana crisis should have all blown over. Southern politics seemed to be the art of overreacting. "My personal views don't matter. My government's views do."
"We differ on that, too, but let it pass for now. What 'government views' would you have Whitehall know?"
"That the matter is our business, not yours."
Croft's smile was gone. "You repeat yourself," he said, his voice rising.
"Only because you won't listen the first time." Lee's voice also rose. "I cannot state the Confederacy's position strongly enough."
"The truth of an opinion doesn't depend on how strongly it is stated."
"I suggest, sir, that you then apply that maxim to yourself, because you, sir, are shouting." And so was Lee. He took a deep, calming breath.
The carriage pulled to a stop along the banks of the Thames.
Croft grunted. "Tempers run hot. Perhaps some cool night air? I've something of interest to show you at any rate, General."
Lee had of course heard of the great Victoria Embankment project. To actually see it, even dimly through a thinning fog, was something else again.
Croft insisted they step out of the cab. He led Lee to a good vantage point on Westminster Bridge.
What game is Croft playing now? Lee imagined he'd soon find out. He was beginning to understand how McClellan must have felt.
Croft pointed out the seawall (a mile and a half long, Croft said, but Lee could see only a small length of it in the light fog) that held back the Thames five hundred feet from its natural riverbank. The exposed riverbed had then been gouged out and a strong foundation laid. Scaffolding and the beginnings of masonry walls sketched out the substructure's eventual shape. Lee could even see the track bed where the underground railroad would run.
Underground railroad, frowned Lee. Was there ever any escaping the stain of slavery?
Croft was waiting for Lee to say something. Very well. Honey words over something as innocent as this cost little. "Most impressive," Lee nodded. "I understand that when this is finished, a great boulevard will be built over this excavation. Shortly after my arrival I saw your city's other great project, Queen Victoria Street. I must say, though, that carving a street through a city is far less impressive than carving one from a mighty river."
Lee expected Croft to nod or speak or do something, but Croft still just stood there waiting.
"There is some purpose," Lee asked, "in your showing this to me?"
"Some small purpose, yes." Croft nodded. Lee did not like that smile Croft wore. "Tell me, do you know the primary purpose of this whole project? Not the street. Not the underground railroad. But the real reason for the Embankment?"
Lee shook his head.
"Sewage, General Lee. Simple, plain foul sewage. The Embankment is nothing more than a great covered sewer designed to carry waste ten miles east to Barking. As things stand now, it's all just dumped into the Thames here at this very spot. Right in Westminster. Right in the heart of Empire."
Croft removed his hat and brushed it with the cuff of his coat. "One could argue that… excreta… is a very private affair indeed, one of no consequence to the larger community. If-"
Did the man think Lee stupid? Did he think Lee a McClellan? Lee held up his hand. "No need to belabor it. I grasp your analogy." He paused. "But do you?"
"Eh?"
"Have you fully followed your own analogy-and this sewer-to its termination?" Lee gestured in the direction he assumed Barking to be. "The sewage will still eventually be dumped into the Thames. If not here, then at Barking. You've merely delayed its disposal…" His voice faltered and trailed off. Croft had led Lee by the nose as easily as Lee ever had led McClellan.
"Yes, General. Sooner or later, it must be disposed of. Your Confederacy is merely delaying that."
The carriage clattered across Westminster Bridge and turned north along the bank of the Thames opposite Westminster. Croft sat quiet, the fire in his eyes extinguished as if snuffed out by the chill air off the Thames.
Lee sat quiet, too, but his fires began to burn all the brighter. Even if doubts about the Cause were never really very far away, regardless of what Croft said or did, Lee's duty would always remain standing. Unbreachable. Unflankable.
Or would it? He had stood unbreachable, unflankable the very day those doubts had started: that day so long ago when General Scott offered him command of the Union Army. Lee, his duty clear, had turned Scott down and gone off to fight for Virginia. He wondered. Had Lincoln, his commander-in-chief, asked in person would Lee have still refused?
Yes, Lee admitted to himself. Virginia had called. She had beckoned to him, and he had followed her, rendered deaf, dumb, and blind by her call. He could not hear what Lincoln had so desperately tried to say to him, to Virginia, and to the rest of the South. Not until afterward, when he had read Lincoln's words in the cool, calm air of peace did he realize too late that Lincoln had truly sought to prevent the war. And the South had-Lee had! — made war rather than let their nation survive.
And the war came.
The carriage recrossed the Thames on Waterloo Bridge and headed down Fleet Street toward the Strand and Trafalgar Square. He could hear men and boys hawking newspapers, but couldn't understand their thick, impenetrable accent. He supposed it was the equivalent of the American cry of "Extra, extra!"
Croft pulled the cab's thick velvet curtains closed. "I thought it interesting your using that particular verse of scripture tonight with young Smedley."
Lee found himself almost amused at Croft's oblique approach. First sewers, now scriptures. Croft was not so much trying to flank Lee as to pin down the flanks before swinging hard against the center. That is what I wanted to do at Gettysburg before Longstreet showed me the better way. I would have lost my war, just as Croft will lose his tonight.
"I take it," Croft said, "that you are familiar with that particular chapter in St. John?"
"The healing of the blind man."
"The healing of the man blind from birth."
Not oblique at all, but as clumsy as Joe Hooker. "Please spare me the lecture about how the Confederacy was born blind-"
" 'I must work the works of him that sent me, " Croft recited, " 'while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. " He looked at Lee. "Your Carpenter spoke those words to bring light. You, General, speak them to bring darkness."
Lee spoke not for several heartbeats. Then in a low, measured voice he said, "Never speak to me like that again, sir. Never."
"Isn't it true?"
"The devil can quote scriptures for his own purposes, Mr. Croft. The Northern abolitionists did."
" 'Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. " Croft smiled at Lee's surprise. "Yes, General," Croft said, as if reading his mind. "I'm quite familiar with Mr. Lincoln's farewell address. Not too many people are, though, are they? Not surprising, considering he never delivered it. Of course, given your part in the affair, you know all about that."
Long and slow, like a teakettle, Lee's breath hissed out. "My… part, as you put it, Croft, was that of trying to prevent what happened."