America Über Alles

by Jack Fernley

  Jefferson moved closer to the two men. Up close, it was even more shocking, the beatings they had endured.

  ‘My poor boys, what dogs did this to you? I shall seek vengeance for you.’ Close to Greene, he lifted his head, ‘Dear Nat, this is all nonsense, isn’t it?’

  Looking up at Jefferson, his eyes full of sadness, Greene whispered, ‘Tell Kitty, never forget me. I love her. And my babies – look after them. I beg of you, Thom. Protect them.’ And he let his head drop.

  Jefferson turned to von Steuben, furious. ‘What threats did you make to these two men’s families?’

  Von Steuben laughed: ‘What? None whatsoever. The only danger their families face is the danger created by their own treachery.’

  ‘You and your Stormtroopers or whatever you call them are criminals. I will not forget this.’ Jefferson turned to the members of Congress and said loudly, ‘I dispute these charges. I no more believe in these accusations than I do in the man in the moon. Those of you who fall for this, you are either fools, ready to betray those who have fought on your behalf, ready to believe whatever nonsense comes your way, because it is easier than facing the truth. Or you are truly evil.’ He looked towards the Adams cousins. ‘For if you are knowingly party to this charade, then you are beyond contempt and will be judged so by your Lord on the day of reckoning.’

  There was shouting from the members, paper flew in the air, threats and oaths thrown at Jefferson. Fearing anarchy, Hancock thumped his gavel several times and shouted, ‘Order! Order!’ until finally the room was quiet. ‘We shall have a debate and then we will vote to determine the guilt or innocence of these men.’

  There followed some small discussion from the floor, but all the speakers rallied against the treachery of the accused and against Jefferson’s insults to them. Within half an hour, everyone who wanted to had spoken. The debate exhausted, Congress voted on the charge of treason against Greene and Hamilton and by a vote of three abstentions, Jefferson and Sam Adams against and thirty-seven for, Greene and Hamilton were sentenced to death that day.

  FORTY-SIX

  The prisoners were taken away.

  Jefferson looked about him, fury in his eyes. He spotted an unusually quiet John Adams sitting stony-faced.

  Walking across to his old friend, he said, ‘You have been remarkably quiet over this plot, John Adams. You are the cleverest man in this chamber. You will have seen this pantomime for what it is.’

  ‘As a lawyer, Thom, the case seems clear to me. Guilt has been proven. They admitted it themselves and their peers have agreed. In my experience of the law, it is most problematic when one finds those one has previously admired to be guilty of a crime. It can throw one’s entire philosophy off balance.’

  ‘Balderdash! You’re throwing your lot in with these thugs and vandals to suit your own devices. Shame on you, John. Shame on you. I mistook you for a man of virtue. This is something I cannot comprehend. Our friendship ends this day. Goodbye.’

  Jefferson walked towards the doors of the chamber, his way blocked by Stormtroopers.

  ‘What, will you have me give you a false confession as well? Will you beat me senseless as well? Come on, have a go!’

  From across the room, von Steuben shouted, ‘Ihr Manner! Lassen sie ihn gehen!’ and the guards moved aside so Jefferson was able to walk out.

  Conze sidled up to von Steuben and whispered in his ear, ‘We should seize him. Treat him as we have that troublemaker Thomas Paine.’

  Von Steuben replied almost inaudibly: ‘Let him be for now. Should anything happen to Jefferson in the coming days and weeks, it will raise suspicion. We shall be magnanimous. He is likely to be a voice in the wilderness, listened to by no one. This is not a modern state, with political parties and an organised opposition, Werner. There is nowhere for him to go, no constituency who will want to hear his ramblings. Besides which, sometimes it is useful to have opponents by which others can measure you. Better for you to go and comfort Adams, he has sacrificed his friend to stick with us. Go to him.’

  Werner went over to John Adams. He remained rigid in his seat.

  ‘Mister Adams, condolences. At times like these, personal friendships may have to be sacrificed for the greater good.’

  ‘And you would know, young man, would you?’

  ‘More than you might imagine,’ Conze replied. ‘Over time there may well be a reconciliation.’

  ‘No, there will not be,’ sighed Adams. ‘I have chosen one road and Thom will remain on his. Those roads will never meet again.’

  ‘I call it Realpolitik.’

  ‘Realpolitik?’

  ‘A German word. A new word, for when we have to act according to the situation as it occurs, rather than on our preconceived morals or ethics. A pragmatic way of viewing the world, if you will.’

  ‘Pragmatic. Is that what you called it when you beat those false confessions out of those two men?’

  ‘False? They were not false, they were—’

  ‘Do not, Herr Conze, take me for a fool. I know the game. I understand the game. I do not like it, but I understand its necessity. Do not let us pretend it is anything but what it is. It has won us what we desired. But, let me make this clear to you and your baron: this is as far as it goes. There will be no more “plots” and conveniences of this kind, no more atrocities, murders or slaughtering of the innocent. Do we understand each other?’

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Jefferson hurried out of the State House. The crowds outside were getting still bigger, the open square outside the building was completely full, Chestnut Street blocked. As he pushed through the people, he felt nauseous. He turned off the main road and into a side street, held himself against a picket fence and retched. The horror of what had happened in the assembly room, the weakness of his fellow delegates, disgust at all that was occurring made his gorge rise again. He spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He needed a plan.

  Asking locals for help, he found his way to Carter’s Alley. Cromwell and Hand were inside the rickety smithy, leaping to their feet when the door opened, relaxing when they saw it was not Stormtroopers, but Jefferson.

  ‘Tyranny, murderous tyranny!’ screamed Jefferson.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Hand asked.

  ‘Where to begin? They have created a plot to secure their position, those damnable Hessians, and they have tied Congress up in it. Damn those fools!’

  ‘A plot?’

  ‘A plot. A plot of such simplicity that only a simpleton would believe in it. They have murdered John Sullivan, the French boy Lafayette, and will do the same to Alexander Hamilton and Nat Greene, who they have tortured close to death by the looks of things, securing from them confessions which claim that at the heart of the plot lies one George Washington.’

  ‘This is insane.’

  ‘It is indeed, Edward. That is the only word for it. Insanity. And Congress has gone with it. Washington has been toppled and they have placed von Steuben, or whoever he is, in his place. They have handed their army, our army, over to the Hessians. Insanity.’

  Hand slumped into a chair. ‘This is too horrible to imagine.’

  ‘I felt fortunate to have escaped with my own head intact. There were guards there who would have arrested me on the spot, no doubt to drag me off to make a confession of my imagined sins. I do not mind telling you I felt quite frightened for my safety.’

  Cromwell said softly, ‘They will destroy everything precious in this country.’

  Jefferson looked at him, ‘That they will, Mister Cromwell. The question is how we stop them. They have the army, they have the people.’

  ‘They have the people for now, Mister Jefferson,’ replied Cromwell. ‘But who are the people? The Negroes, the Jews, the Indian people, will they have them? Will they have anyone who looks different to them, thinks differently to them? Nah, they have some of the people, but they do not have all the people.’

  ‘And this is just one city – Boston, New York, the smaller towns to t
he north, even Charleston to the south, they may not fall for this so easily,’ Hand responded.

  ‘Maybe not, Ed, but they have Philadelphia for certain,’ replied Jefferson, his hands cradling his head. ‘There is a madness about this city, a frenzy for the Hessians and their damnable swastika. Gentlemen, we may not be safe here. We should think about departing for the north, swiftly.’

  ‘Where is George Washington?’ asked Hand.

  ‘A good question. I have no inkling. But they are after him, make no mistake, they . . . dear Lord. The scaffolding, of course!’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘In front of the State House this morning they were erecting a platform and on top of it what appeared to be a scaffold. They will look to hang Greene and Hamilton this afternoon and I suppose Washington with them. We have to stop them.’

  Cromwell spoke up. ‘The city is too dangerous for you both. They will tear Ed from limb to limb and you, Mister Thomas Jefferson, you may not be so lucky the next time. I will go. I may not be able to save your friends, but I will at least bear witness.’

  FORTY-EIGHT

  For the first day of September it was unseasonably hot, and even now with the sun long set, the heat was rising from the ground in shimmering waves. It seemed the whole of Philadelphia was in front of the State House, from society dames in their finest clothes to immigrants just off the boats in the rags they had travelled in, a vast throng of people pressed closely together, a hot, sweaty, sticky mass of bodies. Many had been standing there from mid-afternoon, determined not to lose their place. Several were carried away from exhaustion, but still more came and the others held their position. No one wanted to miss another momentous day in the history of their city and country.

  The stage was now lit by flaming torches. At the rear sat the delegates of Congress, dressed soberly, all of those who had been present at the morning’s debate with one exception: Thomas Jefferson. A band struck up a tune and then John Hancock made his way to a rickety lectern at the front of the stage to deliver the opening speech.

  Behind the stage, out of sight of the crowd, von Steuben, Conze and Reitsch huddled together. Conze had organised the event, decided on the running order, planned the speeches, even designed the set, stealing everything from those rallies he had attended at Nuremburg in a far-distant time and place. He had decided on the drama of a night-time rally, when passions could be roused from the darkness, inhibitions thrown aside, the crowd turned into a frenzied monster.

  He deliberately had Hancock start the meeting. He cared not that the President of Congress would make a long, aimless speech that would glorify the role Congress had played in the events before and after Elk. Better for the lead actor to be preceded by a self-aggrandising, mediocre bore. No one would remember anything Hancock would say. There was one main actor on this day.

  Finally, Hancock came to the substance of his address:

  ‘After long and torrid discussion, Congress concluded that a change of leadership was necessary to achieve a swift cessation of the present conflict. Consequently, General Washington has stepped aside and in his place Congress has elevated Baron von Steuben.’

  There was a sudden, remarkable outpouring of cheers and acclaim. From nowhere, flags and banners appeared in the crowd, all emblazoned with the swastika. Hancock barely had time to take in the scene before von Steuben marched across, invading the stage. ‘I’ll take it from here, I think,’ he said to Hancock, then walked to the edge of the platform to a further round of cheers and screams.

  Hancock, unsure of what to do at first, slunk off to the wings, while von Steuben stood, his arms outstretched, bathing in the approval of the huge crowd.

  There was no certainty that the noise would ever abate. For five minutes or more he wallowed in it, lowering his arms to wave at imagined familiar faces in the crowd, walking a little to the left to receive hoarse congratulations from that side, walking to the right to receive even more frenzied cheers from there. Finally, deciding that even he had had enough, von Steuben raised his arms up and down and ‘Shussed’ the crowd.

  Waiting a beat, he looked up and shouted firmly: ‘Friends, fellow fighters for freedom, Americans!’

  The last was met by a cheer even greater than those that had preceded it.

  ‘Yes, Americans! How wonderful does that sound? Americans! A new people for a new nation! We are so close to triumph, so close to throwing off tyranny, so close to forging something new and wonderful that will be a beacon to the whole world.

  ‘It has been less than a year since I first came among you, but I am overwhelmed by the way you have taken me to your bosom, so that I no longer see myself nor my men, as Hessians, as Germans, as Europeans. No, they and I are like you: Americans. Proud citizens not of a colony subjected to the whims and fancies of a foreign king, but proud citizens of a new nation.

  ‘Your Congress has this day bestowed upon me the greatest honour I could ever imagine. Never has a man been more humbled than I when I received this calling. My only sincere thought is that I may prove equal to the trust you the people have placed in me and I can lead you to a quick resolution of this conflict. That I may bring you victory, peace and freedom!’

  Uncertain that the mob was totally following him, he bellowed those words again – ‘Victory. Peace. Freedom! Victory. Peace. Freedom! Victory. Peace. Freedom!’ – until the crowd took it up as a chant and shouted it back to him several times: ‘Victory. Peace. Freedom!’

  Again, he raised his hand for quiet.

  ‘We shall win that, we shall make this country great. The best. The very best. I have a plan. A plan to win the war and then win the peace. To win the peace for you, the people. We don’t want a country like all the other countries of the world, do we?’

  ‘No!’ the crowd roared back at him as one.

  ‘No, we want the best. When I see all the other countries – and I have seen many countries in Europe – I see what they have become. They have become weak. They have forgotten the people who made them great in the first place. People like you!’

  Another roar from the crowd.

  ‘But they keep power for the few. They look after the rich. They let anyone into their countries. Bad people. Weak people. Jews. Followers of Muhammad. Your fathers and mothers carved this country out of the wilderness. They worked hard. Worked hard for you. We’re not going to hand that over to these other people are we? We look after our own and that’s what I will do. I promise you, I will look after you. We will built a country on the basis of National Socialism. Do you know what that is?’

  The crowd did not.

  ‘It is a new way of building a country, where the government rules for all the people, not just for the few. A strong country. A country that protects its borders. A country that protects its people. A good country. Do you want that country?’

  The mob roared that it did.

  ‘Then you will have it!’

  The horde wanted it.

  ‘But listen, even as we can almost taste the sweet fruits of victory, we have learned how close calamity and disaster sit beside us. Many of you were surprised when the army took the decision to leave Philadelphia undefended and make for the north—’

  Booing interrupted him.

  ‘Yes, you’re right. It was a bad, bad thing they did. But luckily, there were those of us who disagreed and stayed behind to protect you—’

  Roars of approval once more.

  ‘And we beat those British, didn’t we, we gave them one hell of a beating—’

  More and more cheers, screams of ‘A hell of a beating!’

  ‘Yes, we did. And we will do it again. We will do it until we have driven them off these shores, for ever!’

  The crowd to a man, woman and child was now in a state of hysteria. The flaming torches illuminated the rage and frenzy in their faces, the air shook with the howling, passionate din that could be heard for miles around.

  ‘Listen, listen. Please. Listen. We have uncovered a most terrible thing, a ver
y bad thing. We have discovered that there were those in the command who were secretly plotting to secure a peace, a victory even, for the British! Rats. They were traitors, to you, to all of you, traitors!’

  Screams of ‘Traitors’ ran around the throng and then, ‘Who are they?’ picked up until it became a chant.

  ‘Who are they? Those names that will live in infamy, who are they? You want to know? You want to know the names of those who would look to destroy you? You want to see those men, those traitors, who would have thought nothing of having your children stabbed to death as they slept? The rats who wanted this new country destroyed while it was still in its crib!’

  Roars of ‘Yes!’ and ‘Rats’, like enormous waves crashing on rocks, the hysteria growing larger with every yell.

  ‘First, I want to tell you about a hero, about a brave man, a very brave man. His name was General John Ewing and when he discovered the plot, he looked to uncover those men. In doing so, he was murdered by them. A very brave man. He will not be forgotten. We will name roads, no, cities after him, such a brave man. So too, John Cadwalader – he came to the aid of General Ewing and he was injured too. He lies, unconscious still, in the Philadelphia Hospital. He may never recover. A brave man. But General Ewing killed one of the plotters, a French boy called Lafayette. Forget him, he is gone, but two more traitors are alive. We have them. We have full confessions from them. Would you like to see them?’

  The largest shouts yet, cheers mixed with ferocious, bestial screams. Two guards dragged Greene and Hamilton on to the platform.