For All Nails #89: The Yanks are Revolting

"The Second Day of July, 1776, will be the most
memorable Epocha, in the History of America.  I
am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by
succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary 
Festival.  It ought to be commemorated, as the Day
of Deliverance by Solemn Acts of Devotion to God
Almighty.  It ought to be solumnized with Pomp and 
Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, 
Bonfire and Illuminations from one End of this 
Continent to the other from this Time forward 
forever more."

   -- John Adams[1], letter to Abigail Adams, 1776

*****************

Near St-Georges-de-Beauce, Quebec [2]
2 July 1974

Jean-Baptiste Deschamps was a true Quebecois, in spite of appearances.
As a child in Hayti, he had always dreamed of a place where hard
work and honesty would be rewarded.  As a teenaged farm laborer in
Quebec he had found that place -- he worked hard, saved all he could,
went to weekly Mass, and thought of the future.  That future came to
pass when his parish priest recommended him for a loan from the local
_caisse populaire_, enough to open a vulcazine dispensary here on the
road from Ville de Quebec to Maine.  That had been four years ago -- now
the dispensary had been joined by a store where passing loke drivers
could stock up on beer, food, or snacks on their way to hunt in the Maine 
woods, shop in Empire Falls, or swim on Maine's beaches.  He, the former 
laborer, was even an employer himself now, stocking the shelves in the 
store between customers while the young Lafleur boy pumped the vulc outside. 

He also sold newspapers.  The waggon from Ville de Quebec had dropped
off today's La Presse [3] with its headline about a suspected atomic
explosion in Asia.  Trouble _there_ now, to go with the trouble in the
islands and in Europe.  Jean-Baptiste wanted to stay _out_ of trouble --
that was one factor that had brought him to this rural location.

But was trouble coming to him?  These three English, piling out of the 
sleazy Mexican loke outside.  Nats [4] or Yanks?  Long hair, but no
ponytails, and a Stars and Snake on the screen of the loke.  Yanks.
They were usually concerned only with driving their illegal potato liquor 
around -- foul stuff, Jean-Baptiste thought, only fit for the English.

He didn't want any trouble.  Five pounds a week to the Anges De L'Enfer [5]
was supposed to keep him out of trouble.  Did these boys know about that?
Better not take chances, he thought, starting toward the cashbox under
which he kept his gun.  The head Yank strode straight toward him.

"Well, lookie heah -- we got ahselves a Froggie Negro!"

Jean-Baptiste wasn't sure what all of that meant -- he could transact
basic business in English but this man's Maine accent was hard to penetrate.
He certainly looked like he meant trouble, though.  No point in fooling 
around, he thought, just get to the gun--

But another Yank had gotten around him, and he had a knife!  Quickly the
two thugs had him pinned, and he felt the blade of the knife against his
throat.  The leader left him to his companion and went to the cashbox. 

"Well, Monsewer Froggie, let's see what we got heah.  Open up!"

Could Guy run for help?  No, he saw through the window that the other
two Yanks had grabbed the boy as well.  No way to fight now, he couldn't
risk Guy's life even if the store were worth his own.

The leader quickly found the Seth Thomas rapid-action pistol and smoothly
checked its status.  With the gun on him instead of the knife, Jean-Baptiste
unlocked the register and the second Yank began scooping the money into a
bag.

"This is a wicked nice piece, Mr. Froggie Negro!  A good freedom-loving 
Mexican piece!  Now you just lie down on the floah theah, and you might
not get hurt.  Be it known that I am heahby requisitioning this weapon,
and these heah funds, and these heah supplies, in the name of the Great 
Jehover and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts [6]!"

*****************

Adam LaDuke was disappointed but not surprised that the Froggie seemed
not to recognize the words of Ethan Allen [6a].  Froggies didn't learn their
history, even though Allen had fought by the side of perhaps the greatest
man who had ever lived.  The man who had taken Ticonderoga and its precious
cannon along with Allen, who had led an army on this very road that had
nearly liberated all the Froggies at Quebec, who had built and commanded
the navy that stopped Burgoyne's first invasion, and who if not for the 
pusillanimous Horatio Gates would have beaten Burgoyne again at Saratoga
and driven the British out of America entirely.  Even the Tory history
books had to acknowledge that Benedict Arnold [7] was the leading general of
the Revolution, and Adam knew the whole story from the novels of Robert
Kenney [8] -- how Arnold had been checked at every turn by political 
generals and British treachery.

The General reminded him a bit of Arnold, he thought.  Like Arnold at
Ticonderoga, he had appeared out of nowhere with the military skills to
make a rabble function as an army.  Revolution took skill and training,
the skill and training the General had given them and that had allowed
his men to win this little skirmish.  How many times had Frankie practiced
grabbing and pinning a man from behind?  Enough.  Now the only problem 
was to get back to the camp, but that was no problem at all.  Even the 
General had nothing to teach them about driving a loke in this country, 
on macadam roads, dirt logging roads, or no roads at all.  Inside half an
hour they'd be in either Maine or Nova Scotia across one of the many
completely unmanned border crossings.  As for any millies [9], the town's 
SQ post had three lokes, all of which were parked right at home, two miles 
in the wrong direction to catch them.  The nearest Nova Scotia Lobsterbacks 
were in Millinocket, hours away even if they knew where to go.  That left 
the Maine Militia or possibly Territorials.  But once they'd locked these two
in the loo and cut their 'phone wires, they'd have plenty of head start to
get completely out of their reach in the deep woods.  He would trust Jemmy
and his Conk [9a] against any miserable Millie driver.  The General had 
figured it all out.

Wicked good luck they'd picked up the Froggie's pistol, anyway.  Adam
was glad the poor Negro had used his head and cooperated.  You had to 
feel some for a guy who was just trying to exercise his three-eleven
rights [10] -- it was only fair.  But peace was peace, and war was war, 
and now the Froggie's piece was their piece.  Wicked, he thought. 
   
************************

Falmouth, Maine, NC, CNA [11]
5 July 1974

Chief Deputy Superintendent Roger Gaffney, of the Confederation Bureau
of Investigation, was a man more than ready for his weekend.  If
he could get out the door _right now__, he should be able to make
the 6:45 ferry home to Peaks Island.  He'd be able to eat supper
with Barbara and the kids for once.  But now the Forster girl wanted
something--

"Chief, you got a second?"

"Not really, what is it?"

"It's these robberies up north - there's a definite pattern to them."

"Yeah, like they all stole stuff?"

"There were ten robberies on Tuesday by small gangs of Yanks -- three
in Maine, two in Nova Scotia, and five in Quebec."  She waved the 
reports at him, half of them in French.  Of course Detective-Serjeant 
Miss Clarissa Forster read French, Gaffney thought, and no doubt Spanish 
and Chinese as well.  She'd learned all that at Yale College, he supposed, 
or at her fancy prep school before that.  They'd never cared about 
teaching Gaffney a damn thing at his miserable state school back in 
Maryland.  Everything he knew had come from the streets of Baltimore, 
where he'd joined the city militia (before this silly girl had been born) 
and risen through the ranks until he applied for this job and risen through 
some more ranks.  But now _he_ was the CBI division head for organized crime
in the Province of Maine.  And Miss Forster had better not forget it.

"So what is this pattern, Detective-Serjeant?"

"It's much more of an organized thing than we've ever seen from the Yank
liquor rings, Chief.  All the robberies were within an hour of each other.
And don't forget it was the _Second of July_."

"Is that some sort of special date?"  More college-girl stuff, he thought.

"Exactly, Chief, it's the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
in the Rebellion, it's always been a special day for the Yanks.  I'm 
wondering if they're suddenly getting more _political_ -- they seem to have
been happy just to push their wares for the last few years.  But if this
is the start of some kind of insurrection, they've got a _lot_ of resources.
Lokes, hunting weapons, popular support--"

"Didn't we used to have somebody in place up there?"

"Yes, sir, in '71 Inspector-Captain Marlon Curtis infiltrated the liquor
rings up in Hazard County, trying to find out how they tied in to the Order
[12].  Funny thing, though, I can't find his file here, there's a note 
saying he got switched to report to Burgoyne, but I 'phoned the head 
office and they said _we_ should have it.  Did you know this Curtis?"

"No, but you know a lot of papers got mixed up in the transition."  An
understatement, Gaffney thought.  After all, they'd managed to lose 
track of Director Timothy Liddy himself, so how much else had they lost?  
There _was_ some explanation for that, Gaffney knew, but it had always 
been a rung or two above him on the ladder.  And he hadn't gotten where 
he was by sticking his nose where it wasn't wanted.

"So might I go up there and take a look around?"

He thought a moment.  There could be advantages to having Forster out of
his hair for a while.  He kind of liked having a cute girl to look at,
but Barbara had never been happy about it.

"All right, draft yourself a letter of mission and I'll look at it Monday
morning.  Write up letters of introduction to the SQ and NSPP too, no sense
stepping on any toes.  Probably nothing in this, but no harm in checking
it out."

"Thanks, Chief."  The shoulder-length dirty-blond hair kind of flipped
up as she turned around.  Cute girl, Gaffney thought.  Nice rump, too.
But maybe he could still make the ferry...

*********************

Notes:

[1] John Adams (1735-1778) was one of the seven Patriot leaders
    arrested, brought to trial in London, and executed after the
    failure of the North American Rebellion.  After their Braintree
    farm was burnt by an anti-Patriot mob, John's widow Abigail
    (1744-1813) and son John Quincy (1767-1847) took the Walk to
    Jefferson, fortunately choosing the successful second expedition
    rather than Arnold's (see below).  Abigail was responsible for 
    a clause in the Jefferson Charter of Rights guaranteeing certain 
    legal protections for women, though this clause did not survive in 
    the subsequent Mexican Constitution.  John Quincy became a diplomat 
    in the FANTL as well (though without his OTL boyhood experience of 
    accompanying his father to France in 1778, since this expedition
    was abandoned after Saratoga/Albany) and is mentioned by Sobel as 
    Secretary of State of the USM.  Late in life, he attempted in vain 
    to prevent the Rocky Mountain War.

[2] Same location as OTL's St. Georges, in OTL the home of 26,000 people 
    and seven Mounties tasked with border security.  Somewhat smaller and 
    sleepier in the FANTL.  The road up the Chaudiere River in Quebec
    and down the Kennebec in Maine is called the Arnold Trail in OTL,
    after Benedict Arnold's 1775 invasion route.

[3] The leading newspaper of Ville de Quebec (French of course), last
    seen being read in FAN #53a.  It reprints Andre-Philippe Maeterlinck's
    column from Le Devoir of Montreal.  The atomic explosion in Asia
    on 1 July 1974 did in fact happen, see FAN #88.

[4] The mohawk-and-ponytail wearing Nats are a youth movement allied 
    philosophically to the authoritarian, militaristic National Renewal 
    government of Britain (see FAN #75).  They tend to draw from the 
    higher-status, Doug Niedermeyer types.  The Yanks are romantic
    lower-status youths, dedicated to fast cars, recreational chemicals,
    and a sentimental attachment to Mexico and the American Rebellion.
    Any similarity to OTL youths sentimentally attached to the Confederacy
    may be attributed to accidental convergence of historical trends.

[5] As in OTL, motorcycle gangs are a large component of organized
    crime in Quebec.

[6] In OTL today's Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the direct successor
    of the colonial-era government.  In the FANTL the Patriot government
    was abolished in favor of military rule after the Tory victory in 
    1778, with popular government only gradually restored under the 
    leadership of Governor Daniel Shays (see FAN #62 footnote).  The 
    pre-Rebellion Commonwealth of course included the present-day Northern
    Confederation province of Maine as well as Massachusetts.  In OTL the
    split was delayed until the Missouri Compromise of 1820, but in the 
    FANTL it occurred by administrative order in 1782.
    
    By the way, this Maine is much smaller in land area than OTL's, though it 
    includes most of the same population centers.  The Associated Federal 
    Province of Nova Scotia includes the Penobscot Valley (with Sunbury 
    on the site of OTL Bangor) and everything east of it.  The border 
    between Quebec and Nova Scotia is also defined by watersheds, with 
    Quebec getting the St. Laurent valley and everything draining into 
    the Atlantic north of or via the Baie de Chaleur.  The potato-farming 
    upper St. John valley is thus in Nova Scotia, as is a small section
    of the highway from Quebec to Empire Falls (OTL Skowhegan) along
    which this vignette takes place.  (If you're keeping score at home, 
    this border definition supersedes the awarding of the Gaspesie to 
    Nova Scotia in FAN #15.)

[6a] Ethan Allen (1738-1784), Patriot hero of Ticonderoga, with his brother
    Ira leader of the independent Patriot "State of Vermont" crushed by
    the Royal Army after the rest of the Rebellion failed.  The Allens 
    escaped to lead a ragged resistance in the "Northwest Kingdom" of
    New Hampshire.  Sobel refers to the Green Mountain Boys as opposing
    the lawful government through most of the nineteenth century.  They
    did so (until largely wiped out by the CBI in the 1880's) but as more
    of a crime syndicate than an insurrectionary government.  The "State
    of Vermont" is now as imaginary as the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts".
    (In OTL Allen lived until 1789 and is considered the founding father of
    Vermont, which was briefly semi-independent and entered the Union in
    1791.  Recall that OTL Vermont is split in the FANTL between the NC
    provinces of New York and New Hampshire, along the line of the Green 
    Mountains.  Sobel refers on page 45 to "the part of New Hampshire known
    as Vermont", which refers to the GMB territory rather than all of OTL 
    Vermont).

[7] Benedict Arnold (1741-1779?) was among the most successful Patriot
    commanders of the doomed Rebellion, as LaDuke describes.  After
    Saratoga/Albany he was one of the leading promoters of the Walk,
    writing the tract _Toward a New Jerusalem_ mentioned in Sobel's
    bibliography.  (Posthumously reprinted in Jefferson, it became 
    something of a sacred text there.)  Arnold led the first Wilderness 
    Walk, into what is now the Vandalias, and presumably shared that 
    expedition's unknown but tragic fate.

[8] Robert Kenney is the FANTL analog of OTL's Kenneth Roberts (1885-1957),
    author of romantic novels about the American Revolution, passionate
    defender of the legacy of Benedict Arnold, and promoter of dowsing.
    Adam and the General have read Sobel's _For All Time_ (see FAN #9 and 
    #93) and approve of its Patriot-victory scenario though they have a rosier
    view than Sobel of how an Arnold victory would really have changed 
    history.  Kenney's executors are rumored to be considering a release
    of his foray into "imaginary history", which has Arnold leading the
    USA to control all of North America, only to be challenged by an evil
    empire founded in southern Africa by (get this) Tory refugees...

    By the way, _For All Time_ has been receiving attention in mainstream
    circles as well, most of it negative.  Professor Pez, writing in the
    _Philadelphia Examiner_, points out one of its siller touches.  
    "History records that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were hanged 
    within hours of each other in December 1778.  In _For All Time_
    they still die within hours of each other, but Sobel has it occur on
    the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence."  (For
    the entire review see FAN #93.)

[9] Basic law enforcement in the CNA and its associated entities is more
    tied to the military than in the OTL USA or Canada, given the FANTL's
    greater history of domestic insurrection.  Local police are called 
    "militia", leading to the generic slang term "millies" where we would
    say "cops".  Detective work in the CNA is done by province-wide or
    confederation-wide militia units (assisted by the national CBI).  
    The Surete de Quebec and Nova Scotia Provincial Police manage these
    functions in their own jurisdictions.  The NSPP have red uniforms like
    those of the Royal Manitoba Constabulary (FAN #5, #52) -- the name
    "Lobsterbacks", however, is strictly Yank slang harkening back to the
    Rebellion.

[9a] The "Conk" is a 1967 Conquistador, made in Mexico by the Arizona
    Motor Company.  Before the mid-sixties, red-blooded mechanically
    inclined young men in the CNA often enhanced the speed and performance
    of an economy World Loke Earnest, for example, by replacing its engine
    with that of a Dickinson luxury sedan.  Enterprising Mexicans then saw 
    and began to exploit a significant market for overpowered sports lokes.  
    The most skilled drivers in the CNA are mostly employed by distributors
    of illegally manufactured alcohol, particularly in the potato country
    of Nova Scotia and nearby in Maine.  (Compare with Tom Wolfe's _Esquire_ 
    essay "The Last American Hero is Junior Johnson.  Yes!", on the origins 
    of stock-car racing in the OTL rural south.)

[10] Section 11 of Article III of the USM Constitution explicitly 
    guarantees an _individual_ right to keep and bear arms.  (The
    interpretation of the OTL USA Constitution is out of scope here,
    of course.)  Naturally, citizens of the CNA, Quebec, and Nova 
    Scotia are guaranteed no such right by law, at least until Yank 
    sympathizers might become a majority party.
    
[11] The capital and largest city of the Province of Maine, centered on
    the OTL waterfront of Portland and including OTL Falmouth and South 
    Portland.  Peaks Island, as in OTL, is a pleasant residential suburb 
    a short ferry ride across the harbor.

[11a] The northwesternmost county of Maine was named in the FANTL after a 
    distant relative of OTL naval hero Oliver Hazard Perry, rather than
    after (I presume) Benjamin Franklin in OTL.  (See FAN #195 for more
    on Jeremiah Preble Hazard.)

[12] The Orange Order, transplanted FANTL cousin of the religously-based OTL
    organization of Ulster Protestants, is the largest organized criminal
    enterprise in the CNA, with a role comparable to the OTL Mafia.  (Some 
    of the CNA's many Italian-descended citizens no doubt participate in 
    organized crime, but the stereotypical CNA gangster is definitely an
    Orangeman.)  The OO have been experiencing something of a decline in 
    recent years, in part due to a vigorous and often extralegal campaign 
    against them by Liddy's CBI.  (Or at least it was Liddy's CBI until 
    February 1973, when Sir Benjamin Anthony took over and began cutting 
    back on the extralegal activities.)

Dave MB