Accident of Birth

A short story inspired by an idea of a German victory in WW1

Washington 1940. (Somewhere past the horizon)

He would let the man speak. Anything else would be wrong. It would be petty.

It would detract from the solemnity of the moment. Even at Weddings the Priest allowed for dissent
How did the Vice president say it? ``The Buck stopped here''

For a moment The President felt a smithereens of sympathy for his guest.

The Viscount Halifax. A tall spry Man. Born into a Big House. With a crippled hand.

In another walk of life. That would have made Halifax a pauper.

Yet an accident of Halifax birth. His name written on a baptismal certificate in some English country Parish. Made him a man of means

The president found his memory leading him down the lanes again.

Halifax and him, were alike. It was an accident of birth that had been his salvation too

He had been spared, when all else where
killed. He had survived. He remembered the city of his birth, full of ragged
people off the ships from the old country, hungry and desperate
He realised now he had been the first of them. The first into exile. He would never see his Grandmothers cottage again It had almost been too much.

Left alone with his Nerves, had been to know purgatory in this life. Yet purgatory is not Hell. In its cleansing fires. One feels the presence of the Almighty
one night, he had heard a voice Perhaps it was God. Or one of the Saints.

Lord knows he had never mentioned it to a Priest.

It had been hard enough for trawling for votes in Alabama.
The voice had told him that he had been spared for a reason. That God had a plan
for him. He had been a soldier. He was a Soldier A soldier with destiny
So he had spoken out. Against the War. Against all wars. He had spoken for the
Small farmer. He had spoken for the Church. He had opposed the Industrialists, the Bankers and the Bluebloods. The economic Royalists

He stood shoulder to shoulder, with Protestants, Jews Negros and even Chinamen.

For God, and the Republic. He had remade himself.
The American people had heard him. The American people had done more. They had
elected him.
The Englishman had finished speaking.

``Well Mr President? ‘’The Viscount began....

`` We will not open our ports''

Those were the final words on the matter of Eamon DeValera.

New Yorker, and sometime Irish rebel. President of the
United States of America......