The Wilson Deception
Page 24
Cook leaned forward to speak across his son. “Joshua and I won’t forget that you folks stuck by us.”
The crowd roared as the top-hatted leaders emerged from the palace. Clemenceau’s white walrus mustache was unmistakable, as was his old-fashioned high collar. His step was steady. Behind him, Wilson looked tall and solid, his spectacles reflecting the gray overcast sky. The other dignitaries melted into a mass of formally dressed men in late middle age.
Eliza and Violet hopped on their toes to see over the crowd. With a heroic groan, Fraser lifted Eliza by the waist to afford her a better view.
Joshua gestured to Violet and she nodded eagerly. He lifted her. “Now I can see the president but you can’t,” she shouted.
Joshua grinned up at her. “Don’t you worry. I’ve seen him plenty.”
The crowd started to surge toward the statesmen. Voices shouted and some threw their hats in the air in jubilation. With a broad smile that showcased gleaming teeth, Wilson doffed his hat to the crowd, which began to jostle him. He looked to be on the verge of tumbling into one of Versailles’ majestic fountains when a company of soldiers pushed through the crowd, surrounded him, and escorted him to an open touring car.
When Fraser set Eliza back on the ground, he noticed Joshua holding Violet aloft. He thought to say something, but changed his mind. He looked back at the scene of powerful men climbing into fine cars.
“Look, Father,” Violet cried, “it’s Allen Dulles! Right there! Behind the president!” She looked down at her father. “He wasn’t so bad as you thought, was he, Daddy?”
“I’m not sure that bad and good apply to young Mr. Dulles. I will say”—Fraser looked over at Joshua and Speed—“he’s been a man of his word. I don’t ask for more of him.”
It was half an hour before the crowd’s energy began to subside. As people drifted from the palace courtyard, Fraser and Cook fell into step with each other. The young people walked ahead with Eliza.
“Made my shoulder throb,” Cook said, “just to see you and Joshua lifting those women up.”
“Mmm,” Fraser said.
Cook leaned closer and said in a lower voice, “I’ll speak to him about that.”
Fraser looked over, surprised. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Well, I did. Young people can be, well . . .” As Cook searched for the word he wanted, a short, sandy-haired man with a cane limped into view on their right.
“Colonel Lawrence!” Fraser called out. “I’m Major—”
“Yes, yes, I know you. Quite a day, eh? Not often one sees a catastrophe in the making. Those old men, they ruin everything they touch.”
Fraser called the others back to meet the hero. Lawrence barely acknowledged them, then began to edge away.
Fraser detained him with a hand on his shoulder. “Tell me, Colonel, did you end up with what you want?”
“Of course not. But there are no final decisions. We prolonged the game. We’ll play a few more innings and hope for the best. I suspect we have the Dulles lads to thank for the absence of a decision, though by the end of the process I probably won’t be feeling very thankful.” He turned and limped off.
“That’s one very strange duck,” Cook said.
The two men started after the others of their party, who had already set off toward the army car Fraser commandeered for the trip to Versailles.
“I can’t help but think about Wilson,” Fraser said. “By rights he should have been in bed most of the last three months. I wonder how long he can hold up.”
“Thanks to you, no one knows any of that.”
“Thanks not just to me. Just think how many people know how sick he is—the people on his staff—why, there must be dozens. Then there are the dozens of people he negotiated with. They all could tell.” Fraser shook his head. “It’s surprising how the world chooses not to know something that’s right there, clear as day.”
“Well,” Cook said, “if it was his sickness made him sign the order vacating Joshua’s sentence, I say merci beaucoup and bon chance.”
They were quiet for a few more strides.
“Jamie, are you feeling like telling anyone about all this?”
“Not a soul. How about you?”
Speed smiled. “Nah. Not this time.”
Author’s Note
Confronted with the prospect of writing a sequel to The Lincoln Deception, I could not resist the magnetic pull of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The decisions reached by the victorious Allies after months of negotiation determined the path of so much modern history: the rise of Nazism in Germany and World War II, the birth of the Chinese Communist Party, the mangled resolution of the Near East (perhaps unraveling right now as Iraq and Syria begin to dissolve). When historical fiction deals with real events, readers often want to know what really happened, so I offer some basic guidance.
The novel’s timeline for the conference is based on history. Two surprising events are entirely true. First, an anarchist really did shoot French Premier Georges Clemenceau during the conference, and Clemenceau finished the conference (and the last ten years of his life) with a bullet in his back. In addition, there was a crisis at the end of the peace conference when the German government balked at signing the treaty. The risk loomed, though it seemed preposterous, that the war could be resumed after seven months of peace. In an overnight maneuver in late June, the German Cabinet was largely replaced and the new Cabinet approved the treaty, as did the German legislative branch.
The novel’s cast of characters also is drawn from real life, beginning with the tragic central figure, Woodrow Wilson, and including Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Lawrence of Arabia. As I set out to wrestle this sprawling story into some sort of shape—and to insert the fictional Jamie Fraser and Speed Cook into it—I made the happy discovery of Secretary of State Robert Lansing and his two nephews, future Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and future CIA Director Allen Dulles. All three men were in Paris for the conference. Lansing was almost entirely shoved aside by Wilson, which made him a natural commentator from the sidelines. The Dulles boys were intimately involved in the conference. Allen, who had spied for the United States in Switzerland during the war, became an indispensable staff support for Wilson. Foster Dulles led the American effort on the treaty with Germany. Many of the secondary characters in the novel—Chaim Weizmann, Rabbi Stephen Wise, W.E.B. Du Bois, Winston Churchill, Mark Sykes—were really there in Paris, though I may have adjusted the dates when they were in town to meet the needs of my story.
Similarly, I have sketched the events and characters of these historical figures based on what history tells us. The influenza epidemic of 1918-19 killed millions, including key British diplomat Mark Sykes early in the conference. Wilson had two health breakdowns during the conference; he did like to sing hymns, recite limericks, and tell “darky” jokes. And the US Army treated its black soldiers abominably. Joshua Cook’s unit, which has become known in history as the Harlem Hellfight-ers, won a well-deserved reputation for discipline and courage, largely because it was assigned to the French Army, which treated them as men. All of these events, however, have been filtered through my unreliable imagination.
Those wishing to learn more about the peace conference might look at Margaret MacMillan’s Paris 1919, Harold Nicolson’s memoir Peacemaking 1919, and John Maynard Keynes’ The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Fine recent biographies of Woodrow Wilson include Wilson by Scott Berg and Woodrow Wilson: A Biography by John Milton Cooper, Jr. For a sense of the strange hero T.E. Lawrence, I turned to a work by his friend Robert Graves, Lawrence and the Arabs. With the centennial of World War I upon us, we can expect many more excellent treatments of the war and the peace.
Though the writer’s life is a solitary one, he never writes the book alone. I’m very grateful for the support and guidance of my editor, John Scognamiglio, and of Will Lippincott, my agent and friend. I was fortunate that two excellent readers, Gerry Hogan and my wife Nancy, cast their critical eyes
over the manuscript. It benefited greatly from their attention. My friend Rich Zweig helped me think about how a physician might respond to the extreme stress of caring for so many grievously injured and sick patients.
My greatest fortune is that Nancy’s still sticking with me. The least I can do is dedicate the book to her.
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Copyright © 2015 by David O. Stewart
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Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2015937825
ISBN-13: 978-0-7582-9069-4
ISBN-10: 0-7582-9069-1
First Kensington Hardcover Edition: October 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7582-9069-4
First Kensington Electronic Edition: October 2015