American Empire_ Blood And Iron Part 23

Joe Gilbert pa.s.sed him another sh.e.l.l. He was bending to load it into the breech when a sh.e.l.l from the sh.o.r.e slammed into the sponson. That he was bending saved his life. Most of the sh.e.l.l's force was spent in penetrating the armor that protected the sponson, but a fragment gutted Willie Moore as if he were a muskie pulled from a Minnesota lake. Another one hissed over Sam's head and into Gilbert's neck. The sh.e.l.l-jerker fell without a sound, his head almost severed from his body. Moore screamed and screamed and screamed.

Sam could look out through the hole the sh.e.l.l had torn and see the ocean and, beyond it, burning Belfast. He wasted only a tiny fraction of a second on that. What to do when the sponson got hit had been drilled into him during more than ten years in the Navy. No fire-he checked that first. Inside the sponson, it was just bare metal, with no paint to burn. That didn't always help, but it had this time. The ammunition wouldn't go up.

Next, check the gun crew. Joe Gilbert was beyond help. Blood dripped from Sam's shoes when he picked up his feet. Calvin Wesley, the other sh.e.l.l-hauler, hadn't been scratched. He gaped at Gilbert's twitching corpse as if he'd never seen one before. He was a veteran-everybody aboard the Remembrance Remembrance was a veteran-so that was hard to imagine, but maybe it was so. was a veteran-so that was hard to imagine, but maybe it was so.

Willie Moore kept shrieking. One glance at what the sh.e.l.l had done told Sam all he needed to know. He opened the aid kit on the wall of the sponson; a sh.e.l.l fragment had scarred the thick metal right beside it. From the kit, he drew two syringes of morphine. One might have been enough, but he wanted to make sure.

He stooped beside Moore. "Here, Chief, I'll take care of you." He gave the gunner's mate all the morphine in both syringes. After a very little while, Moore fell silent.

"That's too much," Wesley said. "It'll kill him."

"That's the idea," Sam said. He watched Moore's chest. It stopped moving. Like a man waking up from a bad dream, Carsten shook himself. "Come on, G.o.d d.a.m.n it. We've got this gun to fight. You know how to load, right?"

"I better," Wesley answered. "I seen you guys do it often enough."

"All right, then. You load and fire, and I'll aim the d.a.m.n gun." Sam had seen that done often enough, too, and practiced it himself when he got the chance during drills. The hit had torn the left side of the sponson too badly for the gun to track all the way in that direction. Otherwise, though, he was still in business. "Fire!"

Calvin Wesley sent on its way the sh.e.l.l Sam had been loading when they were struck. He was setting the next round into the breech when someone out in the pa.s.sage pounded on the dogged hatch. A shout came through the thick steel: "Anybody alive in there?"

"Fire!" Sam said, and the gun roared. That should have answered the question, but the pounding went on. He nodded to Wesley. "Undog it."

"Aye aye." The sh.e.l.l-jerker obeyed.

Half a dozen men spilled into the sponson, Commander Grady among them. "Two dead, sir," Carsten said crisply, "but we can still use the gun."

"So I gather." Grady looked at the bodies. His rabbity features stayed expressionless; he'd seen his share of bodies before. After a moment's thought, he nodded briskly. "All right, Carsten, this is your gun for the time being. I'll get you sh.e.l.l-heavers. We'll clean up this mess and get on with the job."

Another sh.e.l.l from the sh.o.r.e splashed into the Irish Sea, close enough to the Remembrance Remembrance to send some water through the hole the hit had made in the sponson's armor. Sam said, "Sir, if we can use a couple of aeroplanes to shoot up that gun and its crew, our life will get easier." to send some water through the hole the hit had made in the sponson's armor. Sam said, "Sir, if we can use a couple of aeroplanes to shoot up that gun and its crew, our life will get easier."

Even as he spoke, one of the Wright fighting scouts buzzed off the deck of the aeroplane carrier, followed a moment later by another and then another. Commander Grady said, "You aren't the only one with that idea, you see."

"Never figured I would be," Sam answered, not altogether truthfully. All his time in the Navy had taught him that officers often had trouble seeing things that should have been obvious.

Grady pointed to two of the ratings with him. "Drinkwater, you and Jorgenson stay here and jerk sh.e.l.ls. Carsten, can Wesley cut the mustard as a loader?"

"Sir, if we fired with a two-man crew, we'll sure as h.e.l.l do a lot better with four," Sam answered. Calvin Wesley shot him a grateful glance. Loader would be a step up for Wesley, as crew chief was a step up for Sam. Sam wished he hadn't earned it like this, but, as was the Navy way, n.o.body paid any attention to what he wished.

Grady pointed to the dead meat that had been Willie Moore and Joe Gilbert. "Get these bodies out of here," he ordered the men he hadn't appointed to the gun crew. "We've already spent too much time here."

As the sailors dragged the corpses out of the sponson, Sam took what had been Willie Moore's spot. The chief of a gun crew had an advantage denied the rest of the men-he could see out whenever he chose: through the vision slit, through the rangefinder, and now through the hole that would, when time allowed, no doubt have a steel plate welded over it.

Sam peered southwest, toward the sh.o.r.e half a dozen miles away. The fighting scouts the Remembrance Remembrance had launched were buzzing around something. A flash told Carsten it was the gun that had fired on his s.h.i.+p. The sh.e.l.l fell astern of the aeroplane carrier. had launched were buzzing around something. A flash told Carsten it was the gun that had fired on his s.h.i.+p. The sh.e.l.l fell astern of the aeroplane carrier.

He twisted the calibration screw on the rangefinder and read out the exact distance to the target: 10,350 yards. Willie Moore had known without having to think how far to elevate the gun for a hit at that distance. Sam didn't. He glanced at a yellowing sheet of paper above the vision slit: a range table. Checking the elevation, he saw the gun was a little low, and adjusted it. Then he traversed it ever so slightly to the left.

"Fire!" he shouted. He'd given the order before, with only Calvin Wesley in the sponson with him, but it seemed more official now. If he fought the gun well, it might be his to keep.

Wesley let out a yelp as the sh.e.l.l casing just missed mas.h.i.+ng his instep. But when one of the new sh.e.l.l-heavers handed him the next round, he slammed it home in good style.

"You want to mind your feet," Sam said, traversing the gun a little farther on its track. "You can spend some time on crutches if you don't." He turned the screw another quarter of a revolution. "Fire!"

He spied another flash in the same instant as his own gun spoke. The sh.e.l.l the pro-British rebels launched was a near miss. At the range at which he was fighting, he could not tell whether he'd hit or missed. But the gun on the sh.o.r.e did not fire again. Either his sh.e.l.l had silenced it, one from a different five-incher had done the trick, or the aeroplanes from the Remembrance Remembrance had exterminated the crew. had exterminated the crew.

He didn't waste time worrying over which was so. As long as the Irish rebels couldn't hurt the Remembrance Remembrance any more, he was free to go back to what his gun had been doing before the s.h.i.+p came under fire: pounding Belfast to bits. Sooner or later, the rebels would figure out they couldn't win the war against their more numerous opponents-and against the might of Germany and the United States. If they needed help figuring that out, he would gladly lend a hand. any more, he was free to go back to what his gun had been doing before the s.h.i.+p came under fire: pounding Belfast to bits. Sooner or later, the rebels would figure out they couldn't win the war against their more numerous opponents-and against the might of Germany and the United States. If they needed help figuring that out, he would gladly lend a hand.

The sh.e.l.l-heavers were just hired muscle, big men with strong backs. Calvin Wesley did his new job well enough, though Sam knew he'd done it better himself. He shrugged. Willie Moore would have handled the gun better than he was doing it. Experience counted.

"Only one way to get it," he muttered, and set about the business of acquiring as much as he could.

Roger Kimball's heart thumped with antic.i.p.ation as he knocked on the hotel-room door. He'd met Anne Colleton this way whenever she'd let him. Once, she'd opened the door and greeted him naked as the day she was born. Her imagination knew no bounds. Neither did his own appet.i.tes.

With a slight squeak, the door opened. The figure in the doorway was not naked. It was not Anne Colleton, either. Kimball's heart kept pounding just the same. Vengeance was an appet.i.te, too, as Anne would have agreed in a flash. "Welcome to Charleston, Mr. Featherston," Kimball said.

"Thank you kindly, Commander Kimball," Jake Featherston answered. The words were polite enough, but he didn't sound kindly, not even a little bit. And he bore down on Kimball's t.i.tle in a way that was anything but admiring. But, after he stood aside to let Kimball come in, his tone warmed a little: "I hear tell I've got you to thank for whispering my name into Miss Colleton's ear. It's done the Party good, and I won't say anything different."

That was probably why he'd agreed to see Kimball. Did he recall the dismissive telegram he'd sent down to Charleston? He must have; he had the look of a man who remembered everything. Kimball didn't intend to bring it up if Featherston didn't. As for whispering Featherston's name into Anne Colleton's ear...well, mentioning it on the telephone was one thing, but when Anne let him get close enough to whisper in her ear, he had other things to say.

"Want a drink?" Featherston asked. When Kimball nodded, the leader of the Freedom Party pulled a bottle out of a cabinet and poured two medium-sized belts. After handing Kimball one gla.s.s, he raised the other high. "To revenge!"

"To revenge!" Kimball echoed. That was a toast to which he'd always drink. He took a long pull at the whiskey. Warmth spread from his middle. "Ahh! Thanks. That's fine stuff."

"Not bad, not bad." Jake Featherston pointed to a chair. "Set yourself down, Kimball, and tell me what's on your mind."

"I'll do that." Kimball sat, crossed his legs, and balanced the whiskey gla.s.s on his higher knee. Featherston seemed as direct in his private dealings as he was on the stump. Kimball approved; n.o.body diffident ever commanded a submersible. "I want to know how serious you are about going after the high muckymucks in the War Department."

"I've never been more serious about anything in my life." If Featherston was lying, he was d.a.m.n good at it. "They made a hash of the war, and they don't want to own up to it." Something else joined the anger that filled his narrow features, something Kimball needed a moment to recognize: calculation. "Besides, if the Freedom Party Congressmen keep asking for hearings and the Whigs and the Radical Liberals keep turning us down, who looks good and who looks bad?"

Slowly, Kimball nodded. "Isn't that pretty?" he said. "It keeps the Party's name in the papers, too, same as the pa.s.sbook bill did."

"That's right." The calculation left Featherston's face. The anger stayed. Kimball got the idea that the anger never left. "n.i.g.g.e.rs haven't gotten half of what they deserve, not yet they haven't. And even the n.i.g.g.e.r-loving Congressmen up in Richmond now won't stop us from giving it to 'em."

"Bully." Roger Kimball's voice was savage. "When the uprising started, they kept my boat, the Bonefish Bonefish, from going out on patrol against the d.a.m.nyankees. Instead, I had to sail up the Pee Dee and pretend I was a river gunboat so I could fight the stinking Reds."

"I knew they were going to rise up," Featherston said. "I knew they were going to try and kick the white race right in the b.a.l.l.s. And when I tried to warn people, what did I get? What did the G.o.dd.a.m.n War Department give me? A pat on the head, that's what. A pat on the head and a set of stripes on my sleeve they might as well have tattooed on my arm, on account of I wouldn't get 'em off till Judgment Day. That's what I got for being right."

His eyes blazed. Roger Kimball was impressed in spite of himself, more impressed than he'd thought he would be. He'd known how Featherston could sway crowds. He'd been swayed in a crowd himself. He'd expected the force of the Freedom Party leader's personality to be less in a personal meeting like this. If anything, though, it was greater. With all his heart, he wanted to believe everything Jake Featherston said.

Kimball had to gather himself before he could say, "You don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, though. The War Department could do the country some good, once the dead wood got cleared out."

"Yeah, likely tell," Featherston jeered. "Best thing that could happen to the War Department would be blowing it to h.e.l.l and gone. And anybody who says anything different is just as big a traitor as the lying dogs in there."

"That's s.h.i.+t," Kimball said without raising his voice. Featherston's eyes opened very wide. Kimball grinned; he got the idea n.o.body had spoken that way to Featherston in quite a while. Grinning still, he went on, "Without the War Department, for instance, how are we going to get decent barrels built? You'd best believe the d.a.m.nyankees are working to make theirs tougher, same as they are with aeroplanes. Don't you reckon we ought to do the same?"

"Barrels. Stinking barrels," Featherston muttered under his breath. He'd stopped jeering. Now he watched Kimball as a man might watch a rattlesnake in the shocked instant after its tail began to buzz. No, he hadn't had a supporter talk back to him for a while. It threw him off stride, left him startled and confused. But he rallied quickly. "Well, yes, Christ knows we'll need new barrels when we fight the USA again. But where the h.e.l.l are they? Are we working on them? Not that I've ever heard, and I've got ears in all sorts of funny places. We've got people-mercenaries-using some old ones down south of the border, but new ones? Forget it. Proves what I told you, doesn't it?-pack of d.a.m.n traitors in the War Department."

When we fight the USA again. Featherston's calm acceptance of the next war took Kimball's breath away, or rather made it come fast and hard, as if Anne Colleton had greeted him in the doorway naked. He wanted that next war, too. He hadn't wanted to give up on the last one, but he'd had no choice. Seeing how much Featherston longed for it made him forget their disagreement of a moment before. Featherston's calm acceptance of the next war took Kimball's breath away, or rather made it come fast and hard, as if Anne Colleton had greeted him in the doorway naked. He wanted that next war, too. He hadn't wanted to give up on the last one, but he'd had no choice. Seeing how much Featherston longed for it made him forget their disagreement of a moment before.

When he didn't answer back right away, the sparkle returned to Featherston's eye. The Freedom Party leader said, "Reckon you were just sticking up for the officers in Richmond, seeing as you were one yourself."

"Screw the officers in Richmond," Kimball said evenly. "Yes, I was an officer. I f.u.c.king earned being an officer when I won an appointment at the Naval Academy in Mobile off a lousy little Arkansas farm. I earned my way through the Academy, too, and I earned every promotion I got once the war started. And if you don't like that, Sarge"-he laced Featherston's chosen t.i.tle with scorn-"you can go to h.e.l.l."

He thought he'd have a fight on his hands then and there. He wasn't sure he could win it, either; Jake Featherston had the hard, rangy look of a man who'd cause more than his share of trouble in a brawl. But Featherston surprised him by throwing back his head and laughing. "All right, you were an officer, but you ain't one of those blue-blooded little G.o.dd.a.m.n pukes like Jeb Stuart III, that worthless sack of horse manure."

"Blue-blooded? Me? Not likely." Kimball laughed, too. "After my pa died, I walked behind the a.s.s end of a mule till I figured out I didn't want to do that for a living any more. I'll tell you something else, too: it didn't take me real long to figure that that out, either." out, either."

"Don't reckon it would have," Featherston said. "All right, Kimball, you were an officer, but you were my kind of officer. When I'm president, reckon I can find you a place up in Richmond, if you want it."

When I'm president. He said that as calmly as he'd said, He said that as calmly as he'd said, When we fight the USA again. When we fight the USA again. He said it as surely, too. His confidence made Kimball gasp again. A little hoa.r.s.ely, the ex-submersible skipper said, "So you are going to run next year?" He said it as surely, too. His confidence made Kimball gasp again. A little hoa.r.s.ely, the ex-submersible skipper said, "So you are going to run next year?"

"h.e.l.l, yes, I'll run," Featherston answered. "I won't win. The people here aren't ready yet to do the hard things that need doing. But when I run, when I tell 'em what we'll have to do, that'll help make 'em ready. You know what I'm saying, Kimball? The road needs building before I can run my motorcar down it."

"Yeah, I know what you're saying." Kimball knew he sounded abstracted. He couldn't help it. He'd thought about guiding Jake Featherston the way a rider guided a horse. After half an hour's conversation with Featherston, that seemed laughable, absurd, preposterous-he couldn't find a word strong enough. The leader of the Freedom Party knew where he wanted to go, knew with a certainty that made the hair stand up on the back of Kimball's neck. Whether he would get there was another question, but he knew where the road went.

Far more cautiously than he'd spoken before, Kimball said, "I'm not the only officer you could use, you know. You shouldn't be down on all of us. Take Clarence Potter, for instance. He-"

Featherston cut him off with a sharp chopping gesture. "You and him are pals. I remember that. But I haven't got any real use for him. There's no fire in the man; he thinks too d.a.m.n much. It's not the fellow who thinks like a professor who gets a pile of ordinary working folks all het up. It's somebody who thinks like them. It's somebody who talks like them. He'd just p.i.s.s and moan about that, on account of he can't do it himself."

Recalling Potter's Yale-flavored, Yankee-sounding accent and his relentless precision, Kimball found himself nodding. He said, "I bet you would have had more use for him, though, if he'd come over to the Party right away."

"h.e.l.l and blazes, of course I would," Featherston said. "But I can see him now, lookin' down his nose, peerin' over the tops of his spectacles"-he gave a viciously excellent impression of a man doing just that-"and reckoning I was nothing but a d.a.m.n fool. Maybe he knows better nowadays, but maybe it's too late."

Kimball didn't say anything at all. Featherston's judgment of Clarence Potter was close to his own. Clarence was a fine fellow-Kimball wouldn't have gone so far in denigrating him as Featherston had-but he did think too much for his own good.

"We're on the way up," Featherston said. "We're on the way up, and n.o.body's going to stop us. Now that I'm here, I'm d.a.m.n glad I came down to Charleston. I can use you, Kimball. You're a hungry b.a.s.t.a.r.d, just like me. There aren't enough of us, you know what I'm saying?"

"I sure do." Kimball stuck out his hand. Featherston clasped it. They clung to each other for a moment, locked in the alliance of the mutually useful. The president of the Confederate States, Kimball reflected, was eligible for only one six-year term. If Jake Featherston did win the job, who would take it after him? Roger Kimball hadn't known any such ambition before, but he did now.

Excitement built in Chester Martin as winter gave way to spring. Before long, spring would give way to summer. When summer came to Toledo, so would the Socialist Party national convention.

"Not Debs again!" he said to Albert Bauer. "He's run twice, and he's lost twice. We've got to pick somebody new this time, a fresh face. It's not like it was in 1916, or in 1912, either. We've got a real chance to win this year."

"In 1912 and 1916, you were a d.a.m.n Democrat," Bauer returned, stuffing an envelope. "What gives you the right to tell the Party what to do now?"

Martin's wave took in the local headquarters. "That I am am here now and wouldn't have been caught dead here then. Proves my point, doesn't it?" here now and wouldn't have been caught dead here then. Proves my point, doesn't it?"

His friend grunted. "Maybe you've got something," Bauer said grudgingly. After a moment, though, he brightened. "This must be how the real old-time Socialists felt when Lincoln brought so many Republicans into the Party after the Second Mexican War. It was nice having more than half a dozen people come to meetings and vote for you, but a lot of the new folks didn't know a h.e.l.l of a lot about what Socialism was supposed to mean."

"Are you saying I don't know much?" Martin asked, amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice.

"Tell me about the means of production," Albert Bauer said. "Explain why they don't belong in the hands of the capitalist cla.s.s."

"I don't have to sit still for examinations: I'm not in school any more, thank G.o.d," Martin said. "I don't know much about the means of production, and I don't give a d.a.m.n, either. What I do know is, the Democrats have jumped into bed with the fat cats. I want a party to jump into bed with me."

"You're voting your cla.s.s interest," Bauer said. "Well, that's a start. At least you know you have a cla.s.s interest, which is a devil of a lot more than too many people do. You wouldn't believe how much trouble we've had educating the proletariat to fulfill its proper social role."

"Yeah, and one of the reasons why is that you keep talking so fancy, n.o.body wants to pay any attention to you," Martin said. "You keep on doing that, the Socialists are going to lose this election, same as they've lost all the others. And G.o.d only knows when we'll ever have a better chance."

By the way Bauer winced and grimaced, he knew he'd struck a nerve, maybe even struck it harder than he'd intended. "What do you think?" Bauer asked, s.h.i.+fting the subject a little. "Will TR run for a third term?"

"n.o.body ever has before," Martin answered, but that wasn't the question Bauer had asked. At length, he said, "Yeah, I think he will. What's he going to do, dust off his hands and walk away? Go hunt lions and elephants in Africa? You ask me, he likes doing what he's doing. He'll try and keep doing it." He held up a forefinger. "Here's one for you, Al: if Teddy does does run again, will that make things easier or harder for us?" run again, will that make things easier or harder for us?"

"I'm d.a.m.ned if I know," Bauer replied, his voice troubled. "n.o.body knows. Maybe people will remember he fought the war and won it. If they do, they'll vote for him. Or maybe they'll remember how many men died and all the trouble we've had since. If they do that, they won't touch him with a ten-foot pole."

"The war will have been over for almost three and a half years by the time the election rolls around," Martin said.

"That's a fact." Albert Bauer sounded glad it was a fact, too. "People don't remember things very long. Of course"-he didn't seem to want to be glad about anything-"the Great War is a big thing to forget."

"Losing two elections in a row is a big thing to forget, too, and that's what Debs has done," Martin said. "If we do run him again, what'll our slogan be? 'Third time's the charm'? I don't think that'll work."

"He walks in and he knows all the answers." Bauer might have been talking to the ceiling; since he spoke of Martin in the third person, he wasn't-quite-talking to him. But then he was once more: "All right, all right, maybe not Debs. But if we don't run him, who do we run? He's the one fellow we've got who has a following across the whole d.a.m.n country."

"You pick somebody," Chester Martin said. "You're always going on about how you're the old-time Red, so you have to know all these people. I'm nothing but a d.a.m.n recruit. That's what you keep telling me, anyway."

"Go peddle your papers," Bauer said. A little less gruffly, he continued, "Go on, take the rest of the day off. It's Sunday, for Christ's sake. Don't you have anything better to do with your time?"

"Probably." Martin got up from the table where he and his friend had been preparing fliers for mailing. "But if too many people find better things to do with their time than work for the Party, the work won't get done. Where will we be then?"

"Up the same old creek," Bauer admitted. "But the Rebs won't capture Philadelphia if you have yourself a couple of beers or something."

"Twist my arm," Martin said, and Bauer did, not very hard. Martin groaned anyway. "Aii! There-you made me do it. See you later."

When he stepped outside, spring was in the air. While he'd fought in the Roanoke Valley, it had arrived sooner and more emphatically than it did here by the sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie. That was the one good thing he could say about Virginia. Against it, he set filth and stench and horror and fear and pain and mud and lice. They sent the scales cras.h.i.+ng down against the place.

How many veterans would weigh what they'd been through in the same fas.h.i.+on? Was what they'd done worth it? Could anything have been worth three years of h.e.l.l on earth? He didn't think so, especially not when he reckoned in the trouble he'd had after the war was over. Would the rest of the millions who'd worn green-gray-those of them left alive, anyhow-feel as he did? If so, Teddy Roosevelt faced more trouble than he guessed.

Red flags flew above the Socialists' building. Toledo cops still prowled past. Martin no longer carried a pistol in his pocket. Something like peace had returned to the labor scene. He wondered how long it would last. The answer supplied itself: till the day after the election. till the day after the election.

One of the policemen in bra.s.s-b.u.t.toned dark blue flashed Martin a thumbs-up. Martin was so surprised to get it, he tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and almost fell. During the great wave of strikes, that cop had undoubtedly broken workers' heads along with his goonish chums. Did he think he could turn into a good Socialist with one simple gesture? If he did, he was an even bigger fool than the usual run of cop.

Or maybe he was a straw, blowing in the wind of change. If a cop found it a good idea to show somebody coming out of the Socialist hall that he wasn't hostile, who held the power? Who was liable to hold it after March 4, 1921? Maybe the policeman was hedging his bets.

"Won't do you any good," Martin muttered under his breath. "We'll still remember you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. h.e.l.l, yes, we will."

He listened to himself. That was when he began to think the party that had wandered so long in the wilderness might have a chance to come home at last. The Democrats had ruled the roost for a long time. They wouldn't be happy about clearing out, not after all these years they wouldn't.

"Too d.a.m.n bad," Martin said.

Red Socialist posters were plastered on every wall and fence and telegraph pole. They shouted for freedom and justice in big black letters. For once, more of them were up than their red-white-and-blue Democratic counterparts. Those showed the U.S. eagle flying high over a burning Confederate flag, and bore a one-word message: VICTORY VICTORY!

As poster art went, the Democrats' handbills were pretty good. The only drawback Chester Martin found in them was that they bragged about old news. As Bauer had said, people forgot things in a hurry.

Martin walked over to the trolley stop and rode back to the apartment building where he and his parents and sister lived. They were playing hearts three-handed. "About time you got home," his father said. "This is a better game when the cards come out even when you deal 'em."