1920: America's Great War

CHAPTER 6

Despite not being particularly tall, Major General John J. Pershing was a totally dominating person. Dressed in a uniform that looked like it had been painted on him and without a button or a crease out of place, he seemed to epitomize what a general should look like. He was sixty and looked at least a decade younger.

Pershing was also the only American general with significant experience in leading anything resembling a large body of men. Four years earlier, he’d taken an ad hoc division into Mexico in search of bandits who’d attacked towns and ranches in Texas. He’d fought several battles against the bandits and, later, against Mexican regulars when the Mexican government finally decided it didn’t like an American army marching around in their nation.

He was often referred to as “Black Jack” Pershing, because he’d commanded Negro troops against the Apaches and, later, in the attack on what became popularly known as San Juan Hill in the Spanish American War. There he’d met and impressed a young Theodore Roosevelt. Many Southern officers disparagingly referred to him as Nigger Jack instead of Black Jack.

Pershing was a widower. His wife and two of his three children had been killed in a fire. He was not the prude his stern appearance would seem to indicate. Indeed, after the loss of his wife, he had consoled himself by having several affairs, including one with the sister of one of his favorite young officers, George Patton.

General Payton March thought Pershing was a very good general and a very flawed man. He was also the best March had. Liggett was tied up in California and, in March’s mind, the only remaining choice to command the American Army was Pershing, who was still unpopular in some quarters after Roosevelt had promoted him to brigadier rank ahead of many, many others senior to him. Major General Leonard Wood, also sixty, was available, but Wood wanted desperately to be president, not just a general, and March was concerned that his political agenda might interfere with his military one.

March smiled and the two men sat down. “General Pershing, I have a very simple request to make. The Germans must be defeated. Can you do it?”

Pershing did not blink. “Of course. However, I will need the time and resources to develop an army that can win and not be slaughtered in the attempt. You know as well as I do that despite the fact that enlistments are pouring in, there are no training camps, no uniforms, no tents, no officers, no sergeants, no machine guns, and no artillery. Oh yes, don’t forget planes and armored vehicles. Once those problems are resolved, we can and will expel Germany from our country.”

“And how long will that take?” March asked, dreading the answer. The treatment of volunteers was a scandal. Many thousands were freezing in inadequate facilities in poorly designed camps.

“At least a year,” Pershing answered without hesitation. “And I will require approximately a million men.”

March blinked. Damn Woodrow Wilson and his naive belief that the United States could stay out of war by simply wishing it. Wilson could never accept the premise that some nations were predators. “Many are enlisting,” March said, “but nowhere near that number.”

“Then, odious as it may seem, there must be conscription.”

March leaned back in his chair. A conscription act was already working its way through Congress and would be law in about a week.

“But why so many men?” March asked. “The Germans don’t have anywhere near that many in California, and Texas appears to be a totally Mexican-run operation.”

Pershing smiled tightly. “You are quite correct. However, the Germans have made it plain that the declaration of war would result in attacks along the Atlantic coast. That will result in pressure on President Lansing to divert forces to garrison coastal cities against attacks that might or might not ever come. That and the fact that I would wish to outnumber the Germans when we do counterattack.”

“But a year? That seems excessive.”

“Let me be blunt, General March: it may take even longer. The only things we have in great numbers are Springfield rifles. Sadly, they require ammunition and trained personnel. We are like Washington at Valley Forge. We must create an army out of nothing, and an army a hundred times larger than Washington’s, and we don’t have a von Steuben to train them.”

March nodded. “We cannot afford to strip our existing units to train recruits. We will have to use retired military personnel.”

Pershing shook his head vigorously. “I do not want to use our own soldiers, or even experienced retired soldiers, to train recruits. However well intended they might be, the last war they might have fought in would have been against the Spanish in Cuba, or the Moros in the Philippines, or even the Apaches, and these are hardly examples of modern warfare. No, sir, if humanly possible, I would like the trainers to be British. They may have lost to the Germans, but they did confront the Germans and often hurt them badly. They would know their weapons and their tactics. And I would not want any French instructors. Their tactics were execrable.”

March was about to say it was impossible, but the germ of an idea crept in. “Perhaps,” he said with a small smile.

Pershing leaned forward. “Terrible things may happen in California and we will be unable to prevent them or strike back. The president will be under tremendous pressure to do something, anything, but to act prematurely would be disastrous.”

“Are you saying General Liggett must be abandoned to his fate?”

“Sadly, yes, and he is well aware of it. He knows the state of our military and how long it will take to create an army, and, for that matter, a navy.” It was a reminder that so many of the navy’s fine warships were seriously undermanned. “General Liggett is a fine general and he will do as well as anyone.” Pershing grinned uncharacteristically. “Perhaps the stress of combat will cause him to lose some of the incredible weight he carries.”

March smiled as well. Liggett’s prodigious weight was a joke and had been a source of friendly contention between the obese Liggett and the austere and trim Pershing. Liggett was sixty-three and looked older. Christ, he thought. Don’t we have any generals under sixty?

Belatedly, it annoyed March that Admiral Coontz had not been invited to this meeting, but it would have been a breach of Army-Navy protocol. It was understood that Josephus Daniels and Admiral Coontz were desperately trying to get the Navy’s ships manned and supplied. And damn protocol, he needed to get together with the Navy and coordinate their efforts.

“General Pershing, is there any good news you can give?”

“I think so. First, we can and will strike at the Mexicans in Texas. That should take pressure off the president and we should be able to expel them. Also, the German’s Achille’s heel is their supply line. We may be three thousand miles from San Francisco, but they are halfway around the world from Germany. The more we can interdict their supplies, the worse off they will be. We still hold the Panama Canal, do we not?”

“We do. The Colombians tried to take it back from us, but our small garrison and the Panamanian Army defeated the effort. There were no Germans involved in the attack, although I am sure there were advisors in the background. I have directed the local American commander to blow up the locks if capture seems imminent and to inform the Germans of our intent. If we can’t have the Canal, then nobody can.”

Pershing nodded. Lack of access to the Canal would force German supply ships to go the long way, or unload at Vera Cruz and ship overland. Either way, it created a monumental logistics problem for them.

The meeting ended and Pershing departed. March opened the connecting door to the adjacent office. President Lansing stepped in. He was clearly unhappy at what he had overheard.

“What Pershing said is deeply saddening,” Lansing said. “Unfortunately, it has the ring of truth, and I suppose that reality will be far more complex and daunting.”

“Mr. President, do you wish General Pershing to be the general commanding ground operations against the Germans and Mexicans?”

“Is there another choice?”

“Leonard Wood and Liggett himself are the only two others. Wood has too many political ambitions and has never led large numbers in battle, while Liggett’s presence is required in California. I propose we give General Wood command over the eastern coastal defenses and task Pershing with ultimately driving out the Germans, however long it takes. Is Pershing acceptable to you and do you agree that his first focus must be Texas?”

Lansing took a deep breath. He was in the position of Abraham Lincoln sixty-odd years earlier. Would he choose a McClellan or a Burnside or a Hooker who would lead them to disaster? Or would he be fortunate and select perhaps a Grant.

“Pershing it is.”

The sound of an approaching train woke Luke. He’d been dozing in a field in the outskirts of San Diego. Incredibly, the slow-moving Germans hadn’t yet taken it. The city itself was largely abandoned. Thousands of residents, now refugees, had departed on roads headed north, joining a growing mass of humanity heading out.

He’d arrived a couple of hours earlier, and again by plane. He was beginning to get used to the lunacy of being in the air with only canvas and wood keeping him up. He admitted to his extremely young pilot that it was exhilarating. The pilot had laughed and said that’s why he flew.

Patton nudged him. “Hammer-man, you expecting a train? If so, it’s coming from the east.”

Luke shook the cobwebs from his brain. “Christ, and that’s where the Germans are.”

Patton swore. “Of course it is, my friend.”

Patton now commanded half the 7th Cavalry, but his half of the regiment was down to fewer than two hundred effectives. Others had been siphoned off to other places to nibble at the German advance, while all too many others were dead or wounded. He had about two hundred men to hold San Diego.

The train came into sight. It consisted of one locomotive and maybe twenty freight and flat cars. They were filled with men.

“As I suspected,” Patton said, “German soldiers. And the country is so defenseless they just ride up like they were on a Sunday trip to Grandma’s. Damn them. At least we’re as prepared as we can be, and the German fleet hasn’t arrived yet.”

The consensus in San Francisco was that the Germans had shelled San Francisco just to show they could, and were on their way to San Diego, which they would use as a California port once their army had taken it.

“Open fire!” Patton yelled and two hundred soldiers emptied their bolt action Springfields at the crowded Germans. Although slowing, the train was still moving and the Germans were temporarily trapped. Finally, it slowed enough for them to jump off and begin to return fire. The clatter of a machine gun joined the din.

Patton cursed. “Of course they have machine guns. They always have machine guns.”

A second German machine gun opened up, then a third. Dirt from bullets kicked up uncomfortably near them. Someone screamed.

Luke grabbed Patton’s arm. “It’s not getting any better, George, there’s another train coming.”

Patton gave the order to pull back. His men gathered their wounded and their dead and piled them on horse-drawn carts. That was another thing, why didn’t the American Army have trucks?

The Germans at the rail line were content to consolidate their position and didn’t follow. The Americans began to head north, all the while keeping an eye out for German planes.

“Y’know Luke,” Patton said thoughtfully. “There are train lines all over the place and headed in all directions. If the Krauts could hop a train and ride into San Diego virtually unopposed, what’s to stop them from taking trains to Los Angeles, or, hell, San Francisco?”

“Nothing I can think of.”

“Okay, you find your little plane and pilot and get your ass back to Liggett and tell him I’m going to start destroying tracks and bridges as I pull back north. And then tell him that he’d be smart to do it anywhere else he can. If he doesn’t the Germans might just unexpectedly drop in at the Presidio for lunch.”

Elise Thompson sat primly, her notebook on her lap. Ensign Cornell sat along the wall across from her, a crutch beside him. He winked and she tried not to smile. Admiral Sims appeared not to notice, but she thought he had. General Liggett and Colonel Nolan completed the group in the conference room adjacent to Liggett’s office. The decision had been made to keep it small. Larger groups often resulted in too much posturing by people jockeying for promotion.

The admiral smiled and began. “Miss Thompson will keep notes. I will edit them later in case we say something too treasonous. General, with your permission I will begin.

“Like yourself, General, I have been promised little or nothing in the way of reinforcements. The squadron I have is bottled up in Puget Sound, where it is safe but accomplishing little except that it keeps a larger squadron of German ships occupied. However, I do believe that my small fleet can still be of use at this time.”

Cornell’s ears perked up. He’d heard that Sims held views that were radical, even heretical, in a navy that worshiped battleships.

Sims had made a name for himself by revolutionizing the way navy guns were aimed and fired. Many captains had come to the horrible conclusion that their ships couldn’t hit anything. The human mind couldn’t do the calculations necessary to enable the guns to aim at objects moving at speed and in different directions, and then hit what they thought they’d aimed at. Sims, along with an equally brilliant Royal Navy officer, had devised an electronic range finder that did the work. That and extensive gunnery practice, of course.

“First,” said Sims, “the Germans sank or badly damaged three older battleships at Mare Island. They were little more than floating targets when the Germans arrived because I had stripped them of their crews to enable the two newer ones to flee after the Arizona. In doing so I did the older ships and their crews a favor. Had they fought the Germans, they would have been destroyed. Had they fled, they would have been caught and sunk. The older ships had half the firepower of the German battleships that attacked them. However badly damaged they might be, those three old ships still have many of their guns. If given enough time, some of the damaged guns can be repaired. I propose that those guns that can be salvaged be removed, shipped from Mare Island to here, and mounted on either side of the Golden Gate and elsewhere to protect San Francisco.”

Liggett beamed. “That can be done?”

“Indeed. They were anchored in shallow water; thus, even the ship that sank, the Michigan, is resting with her superstructure above the surface.”

“Excellent,” Liggett said, “Anything I can do to help please ask.”

“General, I will require transportation. Some of the equipment can go by barges or trains, but others will require improvisation. May I call on your engineers?”

“Of course.”

“I do have a small number of other, smaller warships at Seattle, and these include a handful of cruisers and, more important, some torpedo boats and six submarines. I propose to utilize them as soon as I can to interdict German supply ships. I believe the only reason the Germans didn’t dally longer off San Francisco was that they are beginning to run low on fuel after a very long voyage. It isn’t yet a crisis for them, but it could be. Their fuel vulnerability is something to keep track of.”

It was Liggett’s turn to update the group and he informed the admiral that two more regiments of regular American Army infantry were on trains and crossing the mountains via the northern route and should be in San Francisco in a week. Monumental efforts were being made to keep the tracks open and clear of snow. He reported that the snow removal efforts had unearthed a couple of dead bodies along the northernmost route. It was presumed that these were some of the German saboteurs who had failed in their assignment.

Of more importance, the additional six thousand regular army soldiers would be useful but only a drop in the bucket when compared with the German Army now estimated at a quarter of a million.

“Where will you make your stand, General?”

Liggett winced. He was going to have to admit that most of California was indefensible. “Ultimately, San Francisco. My engineers are designing defenses that will surround San Francisco and lead east into the mountains. It is about five hundred miles from San Diego to San Francisco and I fervently hope we can delay the Germans long enough to complete our works.”

With little more to discuss, the meeting broke up. Josh Cornell thought it was interesting that both the admiral and the general appeared to be getting along. Perhaps a shared crisis makes people think more clearly and less parochially. Regardless, he had more pressing things on his mind.

He smiled at Elise, “Lunch?”

She smiled briefly in return and looked at her notes. “I think I should type these as soon as possible.”

“But you do have to eat. You must conserve your strength for your typing.”

She was about to retort sharply when Admiral Sims voice boomed from his office. “For God’s sake, Elise, go to lunch with him or you’ll never get anything done.”

Colonel Marcus Tovey of the Texas National Guard hoped he had prepared his defensive position well. He had his flanks covered and his men were dug in. He wished they had something more than just their rifles. The damned Mexicans had machine guns and artillery to go along with their excellent German rifles.

What he and his men wanted more than anything was to kill Mexicans. And if there were any Germans around they’d kill them as well.

Tovey and the rest of his men still seethed over the horror of the burning of Laredo. Granted, many of the fires had likely started during the vicious house-to-house fighting that had erupted when the citizens of that border city awoke to the fact that the Mexican Army had swarmed across the Rio Grande. Just about every man in town had grabbed his rifle or pistol and started shooting Mexicans. The battle quickly disintegrated into a chaotic brawl.

The results had left many dead, including hundreds of civilians, among them women and children. Atrocities had been committed on both sides in an orgy of violence that would take a long time to forgive. Tovey knew he would never forget the sight of several small children who’d been dismembered by an artillery shell, or a woman who’d been shot in the back of the head by Mexican soldiers as she’d tried to flee. There were rumors of rapes and the thought of Mexican soldiers assaulting white women made his blood boil.

Thus, what the Mexican command thought would take only an hour or two wound up taking three long bloody days. Buildings were destroyed and homes were burned as the fighting raged from house to house and room to room. The delay enabled Guard units like Tovey’s to gather and join the fight. They had been too few and too late, and the Mexicans ultimately prevailed, but only after paying a heavy price.

He recalled that American army officer who’d crawled out of the Rio Grande so long ago, and asking him just what the hell Germans were doing south of the Rio Grande? Now Tovey knew. Everyone knew. The sons of bitches had been planning a “stab in the back” attack on the United States. And they had burned Laredo. They would pay.

A Mexican officer they’d captured said that it had been bandits led by Pancho Villa who’d set most of the fires, and that the rest were a result of intense combat. That may have been true, but it didn’t matter. “Remember Laredo” was a rallying cry. Then they hanged the Mexican son of a bitch.

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.

“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.

Like everyone, Trotha’s eyes were focused on the British warships. Even though he hated them, he had to admire the stately and confident way they maneuvered around his ships and into the Sound. There was no sight of any American warships; the British were the only show in town.

Sharp eyes would have been needed to see that the British squadron was well inside the invisible boundary that separated the American portion of the Sound from the Canadian. Even on a very clear day, extremely sharp eyes would have been needed to even get a hint of the small gray shapes that were leaving the sound as the British entered, and moving so slowly that they scarcely made a ripple, much less a wave. The waves of the sound and then the ocean that surged over the small vessels made them even less visible then they normally were.

And nobody on the mighty German warships noticed those small gray shapes. Later, it would be agreed that the entire maneuver was extremely well planned and marvelously well choreographed.