Beneath Gray Skies

by Hugh Ashton

  “Well, he’s certainly not on our payroll any more. But on our side, Dowling? I think he most definitely is on our side and not on the side of our enemies. And you may thank God it’s not the other way round.”

  Chapter 14: Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America

  “Just remember, we’ll be real close to you. All the time.”

  Henrietta Justin was frightened. There was no other word for it. Three men, identifying themselves as special agents of the Confederate Bureau of Investigation—the feared national political police force of the Confederacy—had visited her the previous day, and asked her all sorts of questions about Christopher and about the tall soldier who called himself “Brian” who had visited them so mysteriously that night.

  They had also taken Betsy and Horace away for questioning, and the two had returned that same evening, claiming that they had not been maltreated, but looking harassed and browbeaten for all that. Though the CBI did not routinely conduct torture on privately owned slaves—that kind of treatment was reserved for “enemies of the Confederacy” and state-owned slaves—tales of harsh treatment, meted out to private slaves and poor whites alike, were common.

  Both Betsy and Horace had sworn to her that they had not said anything incriminating, but she was not sure of what exactly could be counted as evidence, particularly as she wasn’t sure what she was being suspected of, if anything.

  They had asked many questions about Brian; what he had looked like, the way he had spoken, what he had done. She’d told them a lot of the truth, but not all of it; that he’d appeared with a badly injured Christopher, had dressed Christopher’s wounds, and departed into the night. For some reason, she hadn’t mentioned the money, or the conversation regarding Lamar Fitchman and his friends.

  Next, she’d been questioned many times, with two of the agents shouting terrifyingly close to her face, covering her with spittle, asking her where Christopher had gone to.

  With perfect truth, she had told them that she had no idea. The piece of paper with Brian’s uncle’s address had been taken away by Christopher. All she could remember was that it was in Richmond, and she reckoned it was on Broad Street but couldn’t rightly swear to it. Nor, despite repeated questioning, had she been able to remember the name of the uncle. “Bertie” was the closest she could come to remembering the name.

  After the agents had finished with that subject, they had moved onto the matter of Christopher’s manumission. Where, they had wanted to know, had she obtained the money needed to free her slave?

  One of the agents had leaned with a careless arrogance against the dresser. “We know,” he remarked casually, picking up and examining a framed photograph of Miss Justin’s parents, “that the money was never in your bank. And you paid the Nigra off in cash, as well as paying the manumission fee in cash. Your attorney, Jolley, has told us that. Now, once again, where did the money come from?” He dropped the photograph to the floor. The glass smashed and the frame cracked. Miss Justin half-rose to her feet, but was restrained by one of the other agents.

  “It came from my nephew, the one who died. He won it at gambling, and gave it to me for safe-keeping.” She wasn’t quite sure why she continued with this story. On the one hand, the truth might have been simpler, but on the other, she had a feeling it might cause even more problems.

  “Ah yes, the nephew, Mr. Fitchman, who died the same evening when you set your darkie free. Did you know he was dead when you spent his money? I’m not saying you killed him, mind you. Not yet, anyways.” His attention had moved to a small china figurine, which he turned over in his hands.

  “No, I didn’t know.” This, at least, had been the truth.

  “Are you in the habit of spending other people’s money without their permission?” the dark-haired agent had asked from his position on the couch, where he was sitting sprawled with his boots resting on the highly polished side table.

  “No, of course not,” she had stammered. “I was … I was going to pay him back from my bank the next day.”

  “And why did you decide to set the Nigra free that evening?” asked the agent by the dresser.

  “I’d had it in my mind for some time. Having the money in my hand like that, it seemed like the right time.”

  “Lady, I think you’re lying to us,” said the second agent, starting to light a cigar without asking her permission.

  “Wilson, put that thing out in a lady’s home and take your feet down,” had snapped the third agent, speaking almost for the first time. “And you, Mulligan, I’ll trouble you to keep your hands off other folks’ things.” The cigar went back into Wilson’s pocket as he sat up straighter, removing his feet from the table, and the figurine returned to the dresser. “I’ll put it a little kinder than Wilson here just put it, ma’am. We don’t rightly believe your story. It’s true that your nephew won a lot of money at cards that evening. His friends told us that.”

  “And that money was nowhere to be found on his body after he fell from the train,” had added Wilson.

  “Of course, he could have been robbed on the train,” from the third agent, the one she’d started to see as the kindest of them all. “It wasn’t just his money, but his billfold was missing when they found him. And his friends told us that he had his billfold on him when they were gambling.”

  “Did your nephew tell you why he was taking that train?” Mulligan, from the dresser.

  She had pretended to recollect. “No,” she had said at length. “He never told me at all about why he was taking the train.” That was the honest truth, she reflected to herself.

  “Of course, you heard at the inquest that the man who brought your Nigra home was the same one as attacked your nephew and his friends?”

  “Of course.”

  “What are your thoughts on that?”

  “I can’t rightly say,” she had replied truthfully. “The man who brought Christopher home was a kind man. The man who attacked my nephew sounds like a madman. I can’t fit the two together in my mind.”

  “Ma’am,” had said the kinder agent. “Let me say right now, I have difficulty believing what you have been telling us.”

  “You can’t prove that I’m not telling the truth,” she had retorted.

  “Correct, ma’am. And you can’t prove that you are,” he had smiled without humor. “So the safest thing is, I reckon, if we keep an eye on you from this day on. We’ll be watching you, and your visitors and your mail. Just remember, we’ll be real close to you. All the time. Just call if you need us.” The same humorless smile had flashed once more, and the three agents had collected their hats and walked out.

  -o-

  That had been yesterday. Today, as she looked out of the front window, she could see a man standing idly beside the front yard gate, reading, or pretending to read, a newspaper. He, or one of his colleagues, had been standing there since about thirty minutes after the three agents had left her yesterday.

  As she watched, he turned and spat into her flower bed. She twitched the curtain shut angrily. She wanted to talk to Christopher. She wondered how he was faring, and where he was now.

  Chapter 15: The Willard Hotel, Washington DC, United States of America

  “Imagine, if you will, a Confederacy with its vast pool of currently idle cheap labor, together with German skills and expertise.”

  Christopher looked around the Willard’s dining room. Though there were one or two other black people eating there, he and Dowling were the only mixed party sitting at the same table.

  He’d noticed that the United States of America, although there was no slavery, was far from being a bastion of liberty as far as blacks were concerned. Very few blacks seemed to be on terms of equality with whites, and although there was no formal segregation in most places, whites and blacks seemed to keep very much to their own groups. He appreciated Dowling’s attitude, which sometimes treated him as ignorant of some things, but also as an intellectual equal capable of learning fast, and always as a social equa
l. Dowling might appear to be a snob in some matters, it was true, but he didn’t seem to look down on someone because of their race. He’d demonstrated that when they’d just arrived in America, and the white Customs officer had referred to Christopher as “your servant” when talking to Dowling. Dowling had haughtily and angrily corrected the man, telling the assembled crowd in the Customs shed in a loud upper-class English voice that Christopher was not a servant but a colleague. Christopher had relished the confusion on the white faces.

  Christopher also realized that, since going to London, he’d learned a new appreciation of clothes. Most of the well-off blacks he saw in Washington whom he’d previously have regarded as well-dressed in Cordele now looked somewhat gaudy. Come to that, so did many of the American whites.

  True to his word, Dowling had taken him to an expensive tailor’s in London, where he’d had some British-style suits made, at British government expense, he supposed, since he’d never been billed for them, and he’d started to become accustomed to the terrible British weather. Now, in Washington’s semi-tropical heat, he felt somewhat over-dressed. He wondered if he should suggest to Dowling that they invest in some more suitable clothing.

  Dowling noticed Christopher’s gaze around the room, and seemed to read his mind. “Good mix of people here, but not quite mixed enough, don’t you think?”

  “I quite agree, sir.”

  “How does it feel, being here?” asked Dowling, curiously.

  “It feels a bit too much like home in some ways, sir. But I have to say it feels good to be sitting here and being waited on, rather than doing the waiting. And it’s good to see the white folks and black folks in the same room together, even if they’re not sitting at the same tables.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, Pole. I know we British are pretty terrible sometimes in India, but it’s not something I agree with, personally, and we should either learn to treat the Indian chaps fairly or get out of there and leave it to them. Don’t tell C that I said that, by the way. This is good coffee, you know.” Christopher had already noticed the British habit of suddenly changing the subject to trivialities when anything serious was under discussion. “I know you Americans can’t make tea, but we could learn something from you about coffee. Anyway,” he continued, “back to business. We have an appointment at the State Department at 10 o’clock. We’ll meet in the lobby at half-past nine, and take a taxi.”

  This was a semi-official visit. According to the script, they were traveling as representatives of the British Foreign Office. C had approved this arrangement when Dowling had first suggested that the United States of America be brought into the picture. C had felt that Dowling was the one to meet with the Americans, given his experience of the German side of things. “And,” C had chuckled, “Pole can go along and stir things up a bit for you.”

  The meeting at Foggy Bottom would not be with the usual bureaucrats, but with Dowling’s counterparts in the State Department, people who moved freely between the State Department and War Department, paid by the former, but chiefly responsible to the latter. Dowling had explained to Christopher that the US intelligence operation was not as well-funded or as professional an organization as the British one.

  Dowling drained his coffee. “Right, Pole. Lobby at 9:30 sharp. He pulled out his watch and looked at it. Forty-five minutes’ time.” He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. “Damned hot, Pole. Don’t you feel hot in these clothes?”

  “Yes, sir. I was thinking that maybe we should be wearing something cooler.”

  “Well, let’s see about that after today’s meeting, shall we? We’ll know by then whether we’re going to be in this swampy plague-pit for very much longer. If we are, we may have to go native.”

  -o-

  At 10 o’clock, they were shown into a large sunny room with “Office of Special Operations” written on the door. Three people rose from their positions on the far side of the table, and moved to introduce themselves to Christopher and Dowling.

  The one on the left was John H. Summers, a lean athletic-looking man with a strong Yankee accent. The one in the middle was older, and definitely not on the athletic side. He gave his name as Vernon Gatt, and spoke with what sounded like a Southern accent—maybe he was a Washington native, thought Christopher. He was obviously the one captaining the American team, from the way the others deferred to him. The last was a surprise—an attractive blonde woman, seemingly about the same age, or a little older, than Christopher, who simply gave her name as “Virginia” and seemed to be there as the official note-taker. All of the Americans seemed surprised by Christopher’s appearance and accent, obviously having expected another upper-class British toff, thought Christopher to himself with some amusement. He opened his notebook, and looked across to see Virginia doing the same. Feeling his eyes on her, she looked up and smiled at him briefly.

  Gatt opened the meeting. “You were most mysterious in your letter, Mr. Dowling. You referred to a state of possible danger to the United States of America, involving our brethren to the south and the new government in Germany.”

  “Yes, sir. I felt it inadvisable to put everything in writing at this early stage. Briefly, sir, we are of the opinion that the Confederacy and the new National Socialist government in Germany are about to conclude a trade agreement, or may even have done so already.”

  “What implications do you see, there, Mr. Dowling?” asked Summers.

  “Our first thought is that the raw materials from the Confederacy will prove of immense value to Germany in building up her industry. We fear the rise of a strong Germany could once again threaten the peace of Europe.”

  “Come on, now,” replied Summers. “You can’t conquer the world on cotton and tobacco.”

  “No, sir, you cannot,” replied Dowling. “But you can make a fairly good stab at it when you have oil, wouldn’t you chaps agree? Pole, you have some details.” He turned to Christopher, who started reading from his papers.

  “ ‘Our considered opinion is that the oil fields in North Texas and Oklahoma are probably much bigger than those in, for example, California, and much more accessible to the Germans than those in the Caucasus, currently under occupation by the Bolshevik forces, to whose ideals the current German government is implacably opposed in any case. Current estimates put the easily extractable reserves from North Texas and Oklahoma at several thousand million barrels; providing a developed country of the size of the United States with sufficient oil for at least ten years at current rates of consumption.’ That’s from an estimate produced recently by His Majesty’s Government.” Christopher noticed puzzled looks around the table as he read the report in his Georgia accent. They were obviously trying to figure out exactly where he fitted in on all of this. He grinned to himself inwardly. Let them wonder.

  “So you see, gentlemen,” Dowling taking up the ball, “Germany has a potential supply of oil.”

  “And what makes you so sure that the Seceshers will play with the Germans?” asked Gatt. “Jeff Davis and his good old boys don’t exactly welcome foreigners, you know.”

  “There are two points that make me sure, sir,” replied Dowling. “First, I am sure you gentlemen—” he stopped short, feeling Virginia’s eyes on him, and coughed, embarrassedly. “I am sure you people,” starting again, “are well aware of the dismal state of the Confederate economy. We feel that the Davis administration is desperately in need of some valuable hard currency. Now, we all know that the United States of America forms the center of the world’s car and lorry industry—”

  “Automobiles and trucks, sir,” corrected Christopher, noticing the slightly puzzled looks on the others’ faces.

  “Thank you, Pole. Yes, automobiles and trucks are definitely the USA’s great contribution to the world. Just as airplanes are that of the French and armored tanks and the like are that of the British. But imagine, if you will, a Confederacy with its vast pool of currently idle cheap labor, together with German skills and expertise, and non-native ra
w materials such as iron ore or even finished steel, turning out large numbers of cheap high-quality weapons of the latest types, with half going to the Confederacy forces, and half to the new German army.”

  “Absolutely preposterous!” burst out Summers. Gatt held out a hand of protest.

  “Not so fast, Summers. I, for one, do not regard Mr. Dowling’s idea as totally ridiculous. Fanciful, but plausible. I think, John,” Gatt said to Summers, “that if you think about it a little more, it’s not that preposterous. The problems of moving the raw materials and the finished goods across the Atlantic may be great, but they’re not insurmountable.”

  “Excellent point, sir,” said Dowling. “In fact … Pole, would you pass the papers around, please? Thank you,” as Christopher got up and handed folders to the three Americans and then returned to his place. “These figures represent our best guesses as to the German and Confederate merchant shipping capacity over the next ten years, assuming a trade agreement of the type I have just outlined, and assuming an initial investment in shipping as one of the first priorities.”

  Gatt whistled through his teeth as he scanned the figures. “Where did these figures come from?”