1920: America's Great War Page 12

  Tovey’s men were below the crest of a low hill maybe twenty miles north of Laredo and on the way to San Antonio. Rumor had it that San Antonio and the recapture of the Alamo were the goals of the Mexicans. Rumor also had it that the Federal government in Washington was powerless to help stop the invasion. More rumors even said that Texas Governor William P. Hobby, Democrat, had rejected assistance from Washington. Rumors and more God-damned rumors. Rumor had it that pigs could fly. All he knew was that he was on a hill and the Mexican Army was coming north and nobody was going to help out.

  That was okay by him, he thought and spat on the ground for emphasis. Texans didn’t need help from anybody, especially to deal with a bunch of fucking greasers.

  A smattering of gunfire erupted to his left. Damn Mexicans were trying to get around his flank. He could see a couple of score of them and that his men had the situation in hand. The Mexicans left a few on the ground and pulled back, joining the several thousand forming up behind the low hill in front of him.

  This organized fighting was new to him. As a Texas Ranger he’d fought the Apache and the Comanche, and even some Mexican bandits, but this was nothing he’d ever experienced. One of the older guys in the unit had ridden with the Rough Riders in 1898, but even he said this was a whole lot different.

  “Here they come.”

  Tovey grinned. Let’s see how they liked his little surprise. Waves of Mexican infantry emerged from behind their own low hill, marching slowly and keeping rough formation while American rifle fire slashed through them. Flags flew above the Mexicans and music was playing. Tovey grudgingly admitted that the Mexicans were brave enough, but they still had to be killed.

  The Mexicans returned fire and a number of Texans fell. Tovey wished he’d told the men to dig in deeper. Something else to learn, he realized reluctantly.

  At a little more than a hundred yards away, the Mexican advance halted, the men milled in puzzlement. Tovey noticed his own men’s fire slackening.

  “Keep shooting, God damn it!” he yelled and the firing picked up. The massed and confused Mexicans were easy targets and the battle became a slaughter. After a couple of moments, the Mexicans pulled back, leaving heaps of dead and wounded on the ground.

  Tovey grinned. Two strands of barbed wire was all it took. Two strands and the surprised dumb-ass Mexicans didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t go around it or over it and couldn’t cut it, and didn’t think to crawl under it. He wondered if anyone else understood the potential of barbed wire.

  He heard the sound of artillery. Seconds later, shells landed in front of him. “Damn it to hell!” he yelled.

  Mexican cannon had been an unpleasant surprise in Laredo. At first he thought it impossible that ignorant greasers could shoot cannon, but that thought had been dispelled. He only wished the Texas Army’s own artillery wasn’t from the Spanish-American war or older. What few pieces they’d managed to find were old 75mm cannon from warehouses in Bliss and Sam Houston or from lawns in front of town halls. They were inaccurate, slow, and, oh yeah, there wasn’t much ammunition.

  Before he could finish his mental laments, orders came from Governor Hobby, who’d assumed command in the field, for him to pull his men back to a new defensive position. Tovey looked at the stacked-up dead Mexicans and wondered just what the hell was wrong with his current position. He wondered if the governor knew his ass from a hole in the ground about military tactics. Damnation, he thought. He gave the orders for his men to pull back. He also ordered men out to recover the barbed wire.

  * * *

  Elise and Josh had a sandwich at a little place on California Street, a block away from the boundary of the Presidio complex. It was about as far as Josh could walk with the single crutch he was now using. He planned on graduating to a cane soon, which he thought would be more dashing.

  Despite agreeing to go out with him, Elise did feel pressed to finish typing up the notes and informed him that lunch would not be extended. The typing should have been easy as the admiral’s office possessed several fairly new Remington typewriters. The hard part was that she was a long ways from being the world’s most accurate typist and she made mistakes that had to be corrected on both the original and the carbon copies.

  She found herself enjoying Josh’s company and, after learning that he was a transplanted Midwesterner too, found they had a lot to talk about.

  They avoided the war and his experiences on the Fox. She’d read the report he’d written about the destruction of the destroyer, and understood he’d seen horrible things. It was easy to tell that, despite his cheerful facade, he was haunted by the fact that so many of his comrades were dead. Instead, they concentrated on more pleasant matters. He asked her if she knew any real movie stars and she admitted that she did. She said that the Gish sisters were very nice, but that Mary Pickford was a little stuck up. She said that Charlie Chaplin wasn’t very funny in person, which Josh found hilarious.

  Elise wanted to know all about Annapolis. She’d never been farther east than Chicago and he told her about life at the naval academy, and what it was like to visit nearby Washington and other cities that had played a major role in America’s history. As they started to walk back to Sims’ headquarters, now also located in the Presidio, she slipped her arm in his. Even though it was cold and damp outside, Josh felt comfortable indeed.

  As they turned a corner, they saw and heard a commotion up ahead. Several dozen men and women were milling and shouting outside a small store. A sign above a smashed window said it was Schultz’s Bakery. Two middle-aged people, obviously the Schultz’s had been dragged out onto the street. Stones and trash were being thrown at them while rough looking men and even rougher looking women kicked and punched them, oblivious to the fact that some of the stones were hitting them as well. Two of the women grabbed Mrs. Schultz’s blouse and ripped it apart, exposing her large and pendulous breasts. She shrieked and tried to both defend herself and cover herself while her attackers roared with laughter. Cries of “fucking Krauts” and “kill the Germans” came from the mob.

  Josh was aghast. “I have to stop this.”

  “Don’t even think of it,” Elise said firmly and stopped him as he started to move forward. “You’re only one person, you’re unarmed, and you’re using a crutch. You are not going to scare anybody away.”

  “There must be something I can do! This is so wrong. This is like when the Fox was attacked and I couldn’t do a thing about it. What the devil did a poor baker do to deserve this?”

  “They were born Germans, Josh,” she said bitterly. “The world is going crazy. Things like this have happened elsewhere, and not just San Francisco.”

  Whistles filled the air. The police were arriving and the mob quickly disintegrated, its members running off in all directions. Men ran out of the bakery and, a second later, a young girl about twelve emerged. She was naked and shrieking with pain and shame. There was blood on her inner thighs.

  One looter ran by, laughing. Elise grabbed Josh’s crutch, swung it and hit him in the mouth. He staggered and spat out blood and teeth, but continued on, his eyes now wide with fear.

  “Great shot,” Josh said admiringly.

  “I had to do something when I saw that poor girl.”

  Sobbing bitterly, the Schultzes allowed themselves to be helped back into their ruined store by police and a handful of sympathetic neighbors. They’d been bloodied, shamed, hurt, and humiliated. Loaves of bread and cakes were strewn about and all were covered with broken glass. It would be a while before the bakery opened again. if ever.

  “That was insanity,” Josh said. He was proud of her for acting so decisively. Now he could see her calmly cranking the movie camera while German planes flew overhead.

  Elise continued to hold his arm tightly as she steered him back to the Presidio. “Almost as insane as your thinking you could do something about it. Don’t ever even think of doing anything like that again. I don’t want you getting hurt. I used to play baseball with my brothers
and I used your crutch like a bat, while you need it to stand up. It’s bad enough you’re in the Navy, but you don’t have to go looking for trouble.”

  Josh brightened. She didn’t want him getting hurt. Wonderful. “Okay, I’ll be more discreet.”

  She smiled warmly. “And tomorrow, my brave cavalier, you can take me to lunch someplace where it’s not quite so dramatic.”

  * * *

  Roy Olson’s knees were shaking. This couldn’t really be happening, could it? The man tied to the post in front of the brick wall seemed to feel the same way. His name was John Dubbins and he was a local boy. His face was swollen and bloody from where he’d been beaten with fists and kicked with German boots, but he seemed to be laughing as if this was some joke, like it wasn’t really happening. Maybe the fool was still too drunk to comprehend.

  “What did he do?” Olson managed to ask.

  “Sabotage,” Captain Steiner replied quickly. “He was caught cutting a telegraph line. The penalty for sabotage is death.”

  “Captain, the man was drunk. Even when sober, which isn’t very often, he’s an idiot. I’d bet you that some of his no good friends or one of his brothers dared him to do it and he was too stupid to realize the seriousness of what he was doing.”

  “A shame,” Steiner snapped. He was a short, thin man in his late thirties, and he wore the insignia of the German Army’s quartermaster corps. “However, I will guarantee you that we will also punish his so-called friends and family if we find them.”

  A crowd of nearly a hundred, mostly men, had gathered. Olson was virtually certain he knew who the “friends” were. A cluster of four men were staring incredulously at the scene as if finally realizing what terrible trouble they’d gotten their buddy into. Two were Dubbins’ brothers.

  A squad of six German soldiers marched out the administration building. Their Mauser rifles were slung ominously over their shoulders. They stopped in front of Dubbins who stared blankly at them. It suddenly dawned on him what was going to happen and he began to scream and cry. His body shook and his bladder and bowels released.

  “Coward,” muttered Steiner.

  “Captain,” said Olson, “you’ve more than made your point. Can’t you show a little mercy? Throw him in jail for a while, flog him, kick the shit out of him some more, but don’t shoot him for being a drunken fool.”

  Steiner shook his head. “This is the way we do things, Olson. And this is the side you’ve chosen. You see those four fellows back in the crowd? I’ll bet you they were in on it with this Dubbins creature. You will find out for me.”

  “And if I can’t?”

  Steiner glared at him. “I wasn’t offering the comment for discussion. I gave you an order. And as to mercy, I showed it by not executing nine others for his actions. Remember that and explain it to your people. They are now under German control, not American, and they had better adapt. Quite literally, their lives depend on it.”

  The firing squad raised their rifles and aimed at Dubbins who, mercifully, had passed out. A sergeant gave the order and the volley crashed. Dubbins’ scrawny body shook from the bullet’s impact and the crowd groaned. Several women screamed and cried out. One of Dubbins’ four buddies was doubled over, vomiting. Olson thought it might have been a brother. The others saw Olson staring at them and they returned it with a look of utter animal hatred. They turned and walked away, mounted their horses and rode off rapidly.

  Olson took a deep breath. Those men were now his enemies. So be it. He had his own guards and would track them down. They were free for the moment, but that was all. He’d give them a chance to run and, hopefully, they’d be far away before he organized a posse. Olson didn’t think Steiner really cared if the boys were caught or not. He just wanted stability and obedience.

  Steiner was right, however. Everyone was part of Germany now and the sooner resistance ceased, the sooner the world could get to a new state of normality.

  * * *

  Tim and Wally Randall had been as outraged as all Americans on hearing of the treacherous German attacks on Texas and California, and, since they were young and strong, they decided they had the means to do something about it. They enlisted.

  Or they tried to. The army recruiting office in Camden, New Jersey, was flooded with people. Long lines of young men stretched down the street, which made it difficult to believe the rumors that enlistments alone wouldn’t be enough to fill the military’s needs. Even a few Negroes tried to join the line, but they were promptly told their services weren’t needed.

  Inside, two enlisted men Wally and Tim thought were corporals handed out forms to everyone they could and then told the remaining multitude that they were out of the necessary documents. Wally and Tim shrugged and went home.

  They were not discouraged. They came back a couple of days later and found the corporals a lot less hassled and, yes, they now did have the sacred forms to fill out. Tim and Wally handled the forms with ease, which caused the recruiters eyebrows to rise. When asked, they said they had graduated from high school several years earlier, and were taking evening college courses. They both had plans to be engineers, however long it took. Tim was twenty-five and Wally was a year younger, and both were stocky and powerfully built.

  The corporals were elated. Most young men in the area had not graduated from high school and fewer still had gone on to college, particularly in a workingman’s town like Camden. Only rich kids went to college, and Wally and Tim were clearly not rich. Not too many people in southern New Jersey were.

  The brothers raised their right hands and took an oath to defend their country, which was why they’d enlisted, and were told to go home. Why, they’d asked?

  Corporal Scanlon gave them the bad news. “Boys, there aren’t any training camps, aren’t any uniforms, no weapons, no ammunition, and nobody to train you even if everything else fell into place. So you lucky devils get to go home and wait to be called. Hopefully it won’t be too long. At least you’ll get to kiss your girlfriends goodby a second time.”

  The boys did not admit that you first had to have a girlfriend in order to get one to kiss you. Tim had been dating a young woman named Kathy Fenton, but it wasn’t serious, at least not to him. Scanlon then gave them a piece of interesting news.

  “You’ve been recommended to be trained as noncommissioned officers. Your education and your intelligence qualify you for that high honor.”

  Tim and Wally stifled grins. Scanlon was an NCO and seemed far from educated or intelligent. Were they being damned with faint praise?

  Scanlon continued. “Of course, it’s unlikely you’ll be selected as real commissioned officers. Rumor has it that officer commissions are being held for actual college graduates and Ivy League graduates in particular. The nabobs in Washington seem to feel that only Ivy Leaguers have the proper leadership skills to lead us peasants. It’s all bullshit if you ask me. You lads may be smarter than any of them pansy boys from Yale and Harvard who spend all day either talking philosophy or buggering each other, but it ain’t gonna matter. They’ll be officers and you won’t.”

  “We don’t much care,” Tim said. “We enlisted to fight and we don’t give a hoot just what rank we are. We’d just as soon be privates for all we care.”

  Scanlon shook his head. “Yes, you will care. As an NCO you’ll be able to pass out orders and use what’s between your ears. And I ain’t as dumb as you think. I read your minds when I said what I did about NCOs being intelligent. I may look stupid, but I’m not. By the way, as I understand it, since you’re going to become NCO material whether you like it or not, you’ll likely get called up first. That way, when you’re trained, you can help train the enlisted recruits. A helluva lot of the men signing up can’t read or write, or are right off the boat and can barely speak English. They’re real good with Polish or Italian, but not English. You’re gonna have lots of fun.”

  Tim and Wally thought that was great news. “Corporal Scanlon, may I ask a favor of you?” Tim asked.

&n
bsp; “Go ahead?”

  “Would you join us for a beer?”

  Scanlon beamed. “Lads, I thought you’d never ask.”

  * * *

  Rain and wind lashed the waters of the entrance to Puget Sound. Only the bravest, hardiest, and most foolish were outside on the shore to watch the approach of the British squadron. Two modern battleships, the Lion and the Queen Elizabeth, led a covey of cruisers and destroyers. The battleships ignored the stormy seas, bulling through them with quiet dignity while their smaller sisters rolled and shook like wet dogs.

  The British, with typical arrogance, simply ignored the German squadron that was trying to blockade the sound. Britannia rules the waves and all that and, even though they’d lost the last war, the Royal Navy was not to be trifled with. The only naval blockades the Royal Navy would respect would be her own, and the Royal Navy certainly had the right to make a courtesy call on her Canadian cousins. And the Royal Navy most certainly had the obligation to ensure that the aggravating German squadron stayed well away from Canadian waters.

  On board the battleship Bayern, the fifty-two year old Admiral Adolf von Trotha seethed as he watched the British ships steam past. He commanded Hipper’s Northern Squadron of five battleships and he was supremely confident that he could blow the arrogant British back to London.

  However and unfortunately, Germany and England were no longer at war. Along with his other brother officers, he felt disappointment that the war of 1914 had ended before the German High Seas Fleet could have sunk the British Home Fleet. They routinely hoisted beer steins to that pleasant but remote possibility.

  Trotha was ambitious and confrontational. Not only was he frustrated by the state of peace that existed between England and Germany, but he’d been astonished by the just received report from his engineers telling him not to waste oil. The fleet had used more than anticipated crossing from Indo-China to California and would have to husband its resources until oil could be shipped from southern California, and that could be a while. Thus, unless he wanted his magnificent ships to become little more than large and aimlessly floating children’s toys, he’d watch his Ps and Qs, that is, pints and quarts of oil.