The Devil's Advocate

by Taylor Caldwell

  Lincoln, completely desperate, blurted out: “Because we’ve been boss of this country for forty years, that’s why! Every President for forty years has made us his special pet, with subsidies, in the beginning, and then with conscripted labor! No President would dare col—collectivize us. Why, us loyal farmers—all we had to do was report other farmers that was subversive and stuck up their noses and voted for the old Republican Party, and we got their farms away from them without any trouble. The President knew who was—” He stopped, appalled at what he had said.

  Durant’s face was nothing but attentive and quiet, though he was thinking of the brave and independent men who had been murdered in order that rascals like this one might have their property. It was hard for a man of Durant’s nature to restrain fury and disgust, and not to betray his emotions. He succeeded, he decided, very well. At any rate, his voice was quiet and almost uninterested, as he said: “You’re wrong, Lincoln, and you know it. The Military is ‘Boss’ in The Democracy. We’ve been very good to you farmers, and now it is time for you to be good to us. Your gold: well, from this time on, the farmers in Section 7 receive paper money, just like the Military. And in Section 7, the Military will decide how much your crops are worth to the country.”

  Lincoln was struck dumb. He blinked over and over at Durant. His staring eyes pleaded with Grandon and Keiser, who only smiled grimly. Then Lincoln thought again: The Grange! He’d telephone the local chairman at once.

  “The Grange,” said Durant thoughtfully. “When you talk to them will you please tell them I’d like to see your chairman tomorrow morning, in my office in Philadelphia? I’ll give him a copy of the directive then.”

  Durant pretended to an outraged anger, and he struck the fence-rail with his left fist. “To think of the Military having to live in the city, eating what the farmers want to give them, sweltering in the summer, picking their way through the broken streets, having paper money, loitering in the ratty parks on their time off, breathing filthy air! And all this, out here, for millions and millions of acres, enjoyed by only a few! It’s terrible. It’s time something was done about it, and I’m making a start.”

  Lincoln was terrified at the rage on Durant’s face. But still his stubborn mind came back, again and again, to the Grange, and all its power. He stuttered: “Why, Major, the Military’s got the best hotels and such in the cities, and it gets good food, almost as good’s the farmers. We got gold for our crops; we won’t take paper money, no sir! Crops is gold. We’ve worked real close with the Military all the time; we’ve been loyal and patriotic. Nothing too good for the Military, in the cities.” He was gasping, now, and his forehead purpled. “Why, there’s a law about—about quartering the Military on the people—”

  Durant lifted himself to as stiff a height as possible, and glared savagely at Lincoln. “What!” he cried. “What’s this subversion? You’re quoting the old—the old Constitution!” He paused, to let this awful fact enter Lincoln’s floundering mind. “The Constitution! Lincoln, I could order your arrest right now, and within an hour you’d be in the military prison in Philadelphia, and within two days your farm would be confiscated, and given to a loyal man, and your wife and family would be in the war plants, working for the war effort. Don’t you realize that you’ve practically branded yourself as a traitor by quoting,” and here he let his face show horror at the obscenity, “the Constitution, a document which was abrogated years ago?”

  He shook his fist under Lincoln’s nose, which had become white and pinched. “This deserves a thorough investigation, my man. An investigation of all your activities. Perhaps we can show that you’re really a Minute Man, betraying your country in secret, and preparing for a revolution.”

  “Oh God, God!” groaned Lincoln, his knees bending. “Major, you oughtn’t to say that. I’m a good, loyal, patriotic American, Major. Why, way back when I was a young feller I never voted Republican. You can look at my records. Major, you don’t mean what you say.” His agonized eyes begged at Durant like a whipped dog’s. Mazie and Gracie, in the city, in war plants! His girls, starving like the rest of the damned city! His boys in labor camps. Himself, tortured and finally murdered. His farm, his land, given to someone else, with all the nice things in the house which he’d got from the city rats! He squeezed his eyelids together, involuntarily, and a few tears, like drops of blood, appeared on his cheeks.

  Durant contemplated him. Was this flabby and suddenly broken man a possible source of revolution? Would he resist? Under designed pressure, would he talk to his fellow farmers and incite them? No, he was too old, he was too greedy. There were his sons who were younger: could anything be done with them? It might be. The older men were hopeless.

  “The Constitution!” said Durant, with loathing. “You old fellows remember that dangerous paper, don’t you? You can’t forget, can you? I suppose you’ve taught your sons about it eh, Lincoln?”

  “No! No!” moaned the farmer. “I ain’t, honestly, Major. Look, Major, you can move in right away. I got a nice room—”

  Durant shook his head, smiling. “I want the best room, Lincoln. Yours and your wife’s. I need privacy and space. And then there’s Lieutenant Grandon, here. The next best room, and privacy. Sergeant Keiser will need a nice room. And there’s my captains. They’ll want very fine rooms, to themselves, of course. All rooms will use the bathrooms. On other thought, Lincoln, you’d better move your whole family downstairs, or in the attic. Your son, Bob, can move into the barracks. A good idea! He can keep his eye on the workers. You see, Lincoln, the Military needs absolute privacy. No one permitted on the second floor except for cleaning purposes.”

  The whole shining countryside revolved around Lincoln. Anguish and fear clutched at his heart, and he put a trembling hand on his big chest. “Why, Major,” he almost sobbed, cringing, there ain’t any bedrooms on the first floor, and only three attic bedrooms on the third.”

  Durant shrugged. “I’m afraid you and your wife and daughter will have to arrange something on the first floor for yourselves, or sleep in the attic. Bill and the other two servants can sleep in the barracks. Or perhaps you’d rather your family did?”

  “I think Gracie ought to have the best attic room,” said the lieutenant, with the utmost gravity. “I like to think of Gracie right near us.”

  Lincoln’s distended eyes swung wetly to Grandon, and then to Keiser. He moistened his lips. He saw the lewd and knowing expressions on the men’s faces. He gasped. “Gracie—she’ll sleep in the same room with me and my wife. I—I—” He could not speak and could only cling to the fence-rail.

  Durant said: “Make the arrangements at once, Lincoln. I’ve got to run into the city for a few hours. We’ll be back tonight, all five of us. Have things ready. If anything goes wrong,” he added menacingly, “I’ll remember what you’ve said here, Lincoln. But if you behave, I’ll forget.” He turned to his officers. “We’ll forget, won’t we, boys?”

  He turned to Lincoln again. “And here’s an order, to save time. Call the Grange offices in Philadelphia, at once, and let them know. That’s an order.”

  A soft voice said near them: “Anything wrong, Dad?” They all swung about and saw Bob Lincoln standing near them. There was a dangerously gentle smile on his face. Durant eyed him with what he hoped was an intimidating glower.

  “Nothing wrong,” he said darkly. “I’ve just given your father some orders, Bob. He’ll explain them to you.”

  “Orders?” repeated Bob mildly, raising his brows.

  “Military orders,” said Durant crisply. Openly, and with meaning, Grandon and Keiser put their hands on their guns. Bob saw the gesture. He smiled with contempt. Durant studied him. Yes, a good candidate for revolution. Durant went on: “Have you forgotten that the Military runs this country, Bob? When we give orders, they’re absolute ones, and you know it. After all, you farmers helped to give us our power, didn’t you? Well, then, obey.”

  “Don’t say anything, don’t say anything, Bob, in the name of
God!” cried Lincoln, in panic. He clutched his son’s arm, and then began to whimper. “Just don’t say anything, Bob.”

  His son surveyed him in amazement. He jerked his arm as if to throw off his father’s hand, then he stopped. Slowly he turned his head and stared piercingly at the officers. He thoughtfully bit his lip. He seemed very quiet, but his dark face became rigid.

  “Your father has just been quoting the Constitution to us,” said Durant, smilingly. “You haven’t heard about the Constitution, have you, Bob?”

  The young man’s hands clenched into great fists. Lines sprang out around his mouth. But he was silent.

  “That’s a capital offense, in itself,” Durant reminded him. “But I want to work peacefully with you farmers in my district. I’m not venegeful. Sometimes these old men forget—things—and remember what they learned in school. That can’t be helped. So we’re going to forget what your father said, provided none of you cause us any trouble.”

  Two big young men were now seen approaching them across the green field. Durant, after a glance at their faces, dismissed them with disappointment. It was easy to see that they were the other sons of Lincoln, but they had none of their younger brother’s dark ferocity or intelligence, nor his secret thoughts. Bland, coarse of feature, avaricious of small eye, loose of mouth, like their mother, it was unlikely that they could be stirred to revolution. But still, they were young, and there was Bob.

  Durant said: “I’d like you, Grandon, and you, Keiser, to go into the city with me for a few hours.”

  He glanced back over his shoulders, as he walked away. Lincoln was leaning in collapse against the fence. His two older sons were questioning him excitedly. But Bob stood apart, and he was looking after the new enemy. The sun struck full on the face, and it was the face of a murderer. Durant smiled.

  On the way to Philadelphia, Durant tried to infer something of importance in the conversation of his sergeant and lieutenant. But the young men were only clearly jubilant over Lincoln’s downfall. It was clear that they had contempt, envy and animosity for the farmers, and were delighted at the prospect of the military dictatorship subjugating the countrymen. They laughed and chuckled and shook their heads, and glanced admiringly and approvingly at Durant.

  His loneliness was on him with stifling weight. Philadelphia did nothing to reduce his burden. Broad Street was a wilderness of craters and holes and crumbling and deserted buildings. It was as if the city had been bombarded by enemy planes, just as all other American cities had this appearance. But not a single enemy bomb had fallen anywhere upon America, throughout all the ghastly wars, though Europe had had this opportunity. Only America had used the atomic and the hydrogen and the nitrogen bomb. This was supposed, exultantly, to be the result of superior American technology and the fear which the rest of the world felt for The Democracy. Not even shattered Russia or Germany or Britain or Scandinavia, or any other nation, or coalition of nations, had attempted to strike at American cities, nor had Asia or Africa. Durant doubted the given reasons, and thinking of them now he was more embittered than ever. He looked at the streets and the buildings of Philadelphia, and he saw the same degradation and ruin and despair and meekness of the people’s faces such as he had seen on the faces of the New York mobs. Even the mass bombings of American cities could not have produced more devastation than all this. He was a young man, and he had always been resolute. For the first time he was shaken and disheartened and without hope. He could only do what he was ordered to do. He had no real faith in the outcome. The people were lost.

  But, in the final hours of national fall, no one should have comforts and privileges, he thought, with hatred. The farmers, the MASTS, the pampered and the safe, would, with his help, go down with the rest of The Democracy. Let the utter wilderness come! There would not be one left to gloat over his gold or his stores of food or his position and safety. There was no longer in him any faith in the revolt of the outraged few. His experience with Lincoln had convinced him of that. No, he no longer had faith; he wanted only vengeance. Death would come to everybody, or starvation, or complete barbarism. The hell with the whole, goddamned stinking world! he said to himself.

  Soldiers, armed with guns and clubs, patrolled the almost silent streets. Over twelve years ago the Military had replaced the police, with directives or with violence. The police had resisted manfully for a time, for, in the main, they were simple and honest men, and had believed in what they had learned in their schools. However, “for reasons of security,” their piteous attempts at independence had been crushed. “For reasons of security,” reflected Durant. The jargon of the despots. The people had listened, and for some years they had had the strength and the power to revolt. They had not done so. The hell with them, thought Durant, and he looked at the passing multitudes with detestation and would not let himself try to discover if here and there there might be the face of a man.

  The car began to wind its way up some very handsome streets, well kept and secure and prosperous. Here, as in some streets in New York, lived the extremely wealthy and invulnerable, the MASTS and the bureaucrats. Their rosy children played under the supervision of nurses in the heliotrope spring twilight. Shining cars lined the curbs. Windows shone in the last red sun, and pretty women walked up and down the scrubbed steps. The military police were much in evidence, very brisk and very wary, stopping only to smile at the nursemaids or to keep a sharp eye on the shrieking and leaping children. The Government had never had any difficulty in persuading some men of enormous wealth and industrial power to join it in the oppression of the people. Washington, shrewdly utilizing the experience of Russia and other Communist nations, had not even had to threaten, stupidly, the lives or property of many of the affluent and secure. It had needed only chuckling words behind official doors.

  “Aren’t we going out of our way?” Durant asked.

  “Oh, we thought you might like to see some sections of the city,” replied Grandon blandly. His quick, mischievous eyes stared without guile at Durant. “They have it nice here, don’t they?”

  “Perhaps we could move in on them, as we’re going to do with the farmers,” suggested Durant, with a smile.

  Grandon shook his head, and laughed. “Can’t be done. Not with these fellows. They know too much, and—they help too much. We’ve got to be on their side, and they have to be on ours.”

  Durant studied him, but Grandon’s smile was boyish and amused. However, Keiser’s face was clearly visible for an instant in the rearview mirror of the car, and it was black and scowling. Durant was alerted. Then Keiser’s eyes, meeting his own in the mirror, became blank.

  “Well, Major,” said Grandon, “this city’s all yours. All the Military. Everybody. The big fellows in these streets will be inviting you to dinners and parties, and you’ll meet all their pretty wenches. You’ll have a good time, when you’re in town.”

  “I expect to have a very wonderful time,” said Durant grimly.

  The executive offices of the Military in Philadelphia were housed in the best hotel, and here, Durant was informed by Grandon, the major would have his own luxurious suite. He, Grandon, would call a doctor immediately to look over the broken arm, and tomorrow he would arrange for the best dentist in the city to take care of the teeth “injured in the accident.” Durant nodded. The three young men entered the fine lobby of the hotel, and lesser officers came to curious attention and saluted. They took Durant’s measure instantly, and decided that the “old Major’s” indulgence and tolerance were not in this “new feller.” He looked hard and bitter, even savage, and scarcely noticed the salutes. One of these strict military bastards, they decided among themselves with dismay and resentment.

  In silence, the three officers were taken up in the gilded elevator, to the tenth floor. Two military policemen came to attention as Durant and Grandon and Keiser came out. Grandon, obviously pleased by his position as guide, led Durant to an excellent suite, lavishly furnished. Durant hardly having fallen into a velvet chair near
the window and hardly having closed his eyes for an instant, was startled by Grandon’s sudden laugh. The lieutenant had been glancing over a pile of notes on the large walnut desk in the middle of the living room. “Well, action’s begun,” he grinned. “Walter Morrow, head of Section 7’s Grange, is already waiting for you, Major! Note here says it’s important. Shall I tell Morrow to come back some other time?”

  “No, said Durant, wincing at the pain in his arm when he sat up. “Send the—send him in. Might as well get started.”

  Highly delighted, Grandon went out and returned with two captains, who saluted Durant smartly. Durant scrutinized the new arrivals. Captains Bishop and Edwards were men in their thirties, with the rock-like and brutal faces of professional soldiers. If they had any intelligence at all, it was not visible. Durant sighed, spoke to them briefly. He did not notice, in his weariness, that Grandon was watching him. He told Bishop and Edwards that tomorrow they would join him in their new quarters on Lincoln’s farm. They displayed no surprise. They had been trained from boyhood to obey and to have no thoughts of their own. Durant dismissed them from his mind as he would dismiss unthinking animals.

  Then Walter Morrow of the Grange came in, a short portly man with bristling gray hair, restless brown eyes glittering with anger, and a violent mouth. He barely listened to Grandon’s introduction, but stood, braced and belligerent, in the corner of the room, his fists knotted.