American Front Read Free

they’re glad to see the Rebels do it. They reckon a slaveocracy’s better’n no ocracy at all, isn’t that right?”
    “As I have just stated, sir, no, I do not believe that to be the case,” Lord Lyons replied stiffly.
    “Oh, yes, you said it. You just didn’t make me believe it, is all,” Lincoln told him. “Well, you Englishmen and the French on your coattails are guardian angels for the Rebels, are you? What with them and you together, you’re too strong for us. You’re right about that, I do admit.”
    “The ability to see what is, sir, is essential for the leader of a great nation,” the British minister said. He wanted to let Lincoln down easy if he could.
    “I see what is, all right. I surely do,” the president said. “I see that you European powers are taking advantage of this rebellion to meddle in America, the way you used to before the Monroe Doctrine warned you to keep your hands off. Napoleon props up a tin-pot emperor in Mexico, and now France and England are in cahoots”—another phrase that briefly baffled Lord Lyons—“to help the Rebels and pull us down. All right, sir.” He breathed heavily. “If that’s the way the game’s going to be played, we aren’t strong enough to prevent it now. But I warn you, Mr. Minister, we can play, too.”
    “You are indeed a free and independent nation. No one disputes that, nor will anyone,” Lord Lyons agreed. “You may pursue diplomacy to the full extent of your interests and abilities.”
    “Mighty generous of you,” Lincoln said with cutting irony. “And one fine day, I reckon, we’ll have friends in Europe, too, friends who’ll help us get back what’s rightfully ours and what you’ve taken away.”
    “A European power—to help you against England
and
France?” For the first time, Lord Lyons was undiplomatic enough to laugh. American bluster was bad enough most times, but this lunacy—“Good luck to you, Mr. President. Good luck.”

I
    1914
    George Enos was gutting haddock on the noisome deck of the steam trawler
Ripple
when Fred Butcher, the first mate, sang out, “Smoke off the starboard bow!” That gave George an excuse to pull the latest fish off the deck, gut it, toss it down into the icy, brine-smelling hold, and then straighten up and see what sort of ship was approaching.
    His back made little popping noises as he came out of this stoop.
I’m getting too old for this line of work
, he thought, though he was only twenty-eight. He rubbed at his brown mustache with a leather-gloved hand. A fish scale scratched his cheek. The sweat running down his face in the late June heat made the little cut sting.
    He followed Butcher’s pointing finger with his eyes. “A lot of smoke,” he said, whistling low. “That’s not just another Georges Bank fishing boat, or a tramp freighter, either.” His Boston accent swallowed the r’s in the final syllables of the last two words. “Liner, I’d guess, or maybe a warship.”
    “I think you’re right,” Butcher said. He was little and skinny and quick and clever, his face seamed by wind and sun and spray till he looked to have ten more years than the forty-five or so he really carried. His mustache was salt and pepper, about evenly mixed. Like Enos, he grew it thick and waxed the ends so they pointed toward his eyes. Half the men in the United States who wore mustaches modeled them after the one gracing Kaiser Wilhelm’s upper lip.
    Captain Patrick O’Donnell came out of the cabin and pressed a spyglass to his right eye. “Warship, sure enough,” he said, his Boston mixed with a trace of a brogue. “Four-stacker—German armored cruiser, unless I’m wrong.”
    “If you say it, Captain, we’ll take it to the bank,” Fred Butcher answered. That wasn’t apple-polishing. O’Donnell had spent years in the U.S. Navy, rising to chief petty officer, before he retired and went into business for himself. He’d seen German warships at a lot closer than spyglass range; he’d