"Charles L. Harness-Quarks at Appomatox" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

South, neither would possess the industrial and manpower resources to make a difference in the war of
nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen. Germany would have won. The German emperor-- the Kaiser--
would have stayed in power, and there would have been no need for the war of nineteen thirty-nine to
forty-five. Stalingrad... Lend Lease... our Führer committing suicide in a bunker in Berlin... all moot... will
never happen."
"You are telling me, sir," mused the general, "if the South wins now, in eighteen sixty-five, Germany
wins in nineteen eighteen."
"Exactly." The visitor smiled crookedly. "And more than that. The world wins. For twenty million
people are scheduled to die in the war of nineteen thirty-nine to forty-five. They would live. And that's
not all. America develops a bomb capable of destroying all humanity all over the globe. If the South wins
in eighteen sixty-five, that bomb would not be available in nineteen forty-five."
"Interesting. And very curious. I can see that science is due to make immense strides in the decades
ahead. But tell me-- this present weapon-- this strange rifle-- what do you call it?"
"Dis. Short for disintegrator."
"Was it-- perhaps I should say will it-- be used in one of your future wars?"
"No, General. Happily-- or unhappily-- the radiation is readily nullified by insulating the metal with a
certain coating."
"Suppose the North discovers this defensive coating?"
"They won't. It requires an alloy that won't be available for a hundred and fifty years." He looked at
the general expectantly. "Well, sir?"
Lee seemed lost in thought. Finally he said, "No, I can't accept the weapon."
Von Mainz was astonished. "But why?"
"Colonel, I can say a thing to you, a total stranger, that I cannot say to Mr. Davis, or to any of my own
officers, or even to my wife."
"Sir?"
Lee's voice dropped. He said quietly, "I believe that the Almighty wills that the South shall lose."
The man from the future stared at him.
Lee said, almost sadly, "I am convinced at last that God has been trying to give me a message these
past four years. I could have won at Sharpsburg in '62, except that one of my officers used my battle
plan as a cigar wrapper, and it fell into McClellan's hands. And I would have won at Gettysburg if
Stonewall Jackson had been there. But he had been shot at Chancellorsville by his own picket-- another
freak accident. And last year, in the battle of The Wilderness, victory was within our grasp. Longstreet
was reaching out to take it-- when he was shot by his own men. Another ghastly and impossible mistake.
And that's not the end of it. Last year in his march to Richmond, Grant split his army to cross the North
Anna River-- Warren on the right, Hancock on the left. I moved in between them, and I could have
smashed first one and then the other, except that I fell ill. If we had won on any of these occasions--
Sharpsburg or Gettysburg or The Wilderness or on the North Anna-- Britain and France would have
recognized the South as a new nation. The North would have had to lift the blockade. Money, arms,
food, everything would have poured in. We could have negotiated an easy peace with Washington, and
we would have remained in permanent fact the Confederate States of America. But Providence
intervened. Always at the critical place, the critical hour. I believe it to be the will of the Almighty."
"The will of the Almighty?" Von Mainz's jaw dropped. "Is childish superstition to decide this great
struggle? Gott in Himmel! Is the strain finally too much?" He peered in hard suspicion at the man on the
cot. "Let us face the realities, Herr General. Look at the facts! Lincoln has already carved your beloved
state in two. The western section he calls West Virginia. The federals hold your plantation at Arlington.
Your wife is an invalid in Richmond, and the city is burning. Are these calamities the will of God? Your
son Fitzhugh rots in a federal prison. The war has already killed his wife and two children. And your own
daughter Annie. Do you see in this a divine plan, General? Your army is starving. No rations in two days.
You are finished. When this is over, General, the best that life can offer you is presidency of a tiny
southern college with an enrollment of forty-five students."