George Washington's Ghost

“Washington?” The Governor of New England thought aloud. “Why does that name have such a familiar ring to it?”

His Chief of Staff looked up, meaningfully, at the portrait on the way.

Philip De L’Isle groaned anew.

“Oh… Yes, he was that rascal the Howe brothers finally cornered on Long Island, wasn’t he? What was it that bounder Isaac Fielding wrote about him?  With the death of George Washington, the Revolution’s last best hope of survival died! Or something like that, what!”

His old friend chortled.

“Oh dear,” he rumbled, “we’ve been over here too long, Philip!”

“I’ll drink to that,” the Governor of New England smiled.

Not everything was lost; nobody was exhorting him to pack up his chattels and flee from Philadelphia. Unlike poor old John Murray, he still had a passable hand to play in this game. So, all things considered, he was not about to be run out of Government House like a whipped dog. Not quite yet, anyway.

The first time Philip De L’Isle had been briefed about the existence of Project Poseidon – by Cuthbert Collingwood on his appointment to Government House some three years ago – he had known that when news of the scandalous disregard for the Submarine Treaty finally broke that there would be repercussions for whoever had the misfortune to be in residence in Downing Street at the time.

Back in London, the Prime Minister, Sir Hector Hamilton had submitted his immediate resignation to the King on their return from Germany.

Poor old Hector had been the man in possession; axiomatically, he had had to fall on his sword. De L’Isle hoped, without much cause for optimism, that the cull would end there but doubted it. The Government would almost certainly fall; there would be a General Election and probably, sometime in the next few weeks, he would be reporting to a new Foreign and Colonial Secretary.

Given that he was one of only half-a-dozen men, the others were nearly all senior naval officers, ‘in on the great secret’, it seemed more likely that his days in Philadelphia were numbered.

I ought to feel a little more upset about that than I actually do…

However, the fact was that all things considered, right now, the idea of spending his declining years pottering around the De L’Isle family seat, Penshurst Place in Kent, bouncing his grandchildren on his knee, was positively seductive!

He shook his head.

“Washington,” he breathed wryly, “George Washington, indeed.” He snapped out of his reverie, coming to an abrupt and by any rational criteria, very nearly reckless decision of the type he had studiously avoided taking during his military and diplomatic career. “Right, if that nincompoop Forsyth doesn’t turn up again in the next forty-eight hours, we’ll tell London we want Washington put in charge down in Texas.”

Something like alarm flickered in Sir Henry Rawlinson’s rheumy eyes.

His whiskey glass might easily have fallen out of the numb fingers of his hand at that particular juncture.

“Is that wise, Philip?”

“I’m not sure wise comes into it. Dammit, Henry,” the Governor of the Commonwealth of New England sighed, “this isn’t India. We don’t have a ready-made British Officer corps in situ who have lived among and understand the people. It is high time we trusted a New Englander. I sometimes despair of London. Don’t they know their history? It was New Englanders like that fellow Sherman, you know the one, the chap with the funny Indian name, and Roger Lee’s great-great-great grandfather – I can never work out whether he was three or four times removed, not that it matters – who finally made the difference in France in the Great War. If we had learned the lessons of the last couple of wars with the Mexicans, which our military people have singularly failed to do, we wouldn’t be in this position now!”

The Governor’s friend had recovered his sangfroid, and nodded sagely but elected not to offer any comment.

The Governor of New England drained his glass.