by Jeff Shaara
Russo punched him on the shoulder. “You might even get to serve on a battleship! That’s what I’m hoping for.”
Goodman tried to defuse Russo’s enthusiasm. “Well, that’s possible, certainly. But there are a great many other ships, all types, all sizes, and all of them important.” He stood, held his hand out. “I’m happy to talk to you more, son. I’ll be here at this location for three more days. You need to bring me that birth certificate. Then I’ll take care of the rest.”
Biggs stood, took the man’s hand, a hearty shake. The smile was there again, and Biggs felt a wave of excitement, nothing like he had expected.
“I’ll do what I can to get back here tomorrow, sir.”
He led Russo down the steps toward the street, a congestion of traffic, a rush of people on the sidewalk. He remembered now all the reasons why he so rarely came into the heart of Jacksonville, could hear and smell it now. They moved toward the bus station, slow going, women in dresses, men in suits, all moving by, a mad rush to someplace Biggs never wanted to be. He pulled Russo out of the flow, a small square of green space, trees wrapped in colored lights.
“You’re really doing this, aren’t you?”
“Look at all this, Tommy. This is life in the city. Take away all the Christmas stuff and it flat out stinks, even more than it stinks at home. I can’t wait to get out on the ocean, smell something a whole lot different than this.”
PALATKA, FLORIDA—MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1940
“You’re doing what?”
Biggs tried to keep his back straight, felt himself wilting under that too-familiar scowl of his father. “I’m joining the navy.”
“Like hell you are. You know what the navy does? They fight wars. They’re fighting one right now, over in England. We’re helping out the damn Limeys against the Germans. Got no business doing any of that. None. That damn Roosevelt thinks he needs to jump in and help his buddy Churchill, and so Americans are off to a war that don’t involve us. None of us. Not one bit! We got enough problems right here without sticking our noses into somebody else’s mess!”
Biggs had heard the word “isolationist,” knew that his father shared the belief of an enormous number of Americans. To them, the war in Europe was Europe’s problem, and only Europe’s problem. He had heard it from his father many times. If Hitler comes marching down Route 17, then maybe there’s a fight worth having.
Biggs pushed against his father’s tide. “Ray’s signed up. His parents think it’s a great idea.”
“That damn Luigi?”
“His father’s name is Luca.”
“So what? One more Italian. I bet he pays a hell of a lot more attention to his buddy Mussolini than he does his country right here.”
“He was in the U.S. Navy in the Great War.”
“What? A spy? How do you know so much?”
The fury from his father was wearing him down, and Biggs looked toward his mother, sitting on the ragged couch, her head in her hands.
“Mom, this is a good thing. It’s a real job. I got nothing else here.”
She kept her gaze toward the floor, said, “I always hoped you might be a doctor. Make something of yourself, something we’d all be proud of. I always hoped there would be a way.”
“Mom, I didn’t have the grades for college. It’s a nice dream, but I know better. Some people are meant for a big life. Some just aren’t.” He looked at his father again, saw the familiar stare, as much disgust as anger.
The older man glanced toward his wife, said, “Foolishness! Been hearing that crap for years. Big dreams, big wishes.” He looked at Biggs again. “I know what your life is. The same as mine. You got no reason to think you’ll ever be better than me. You ain’t even got a damn job!”
“You don’t have to tell me any of that, Pop. I’ve put in for work at every store, every construction site, but there’s no more room for somebody who doesn’t have skills. I’ve looked for a chance every place I can around here. So, sure, you’re right. I got nothing. You gripe because I live under your roof, and you have to feed me. Well, that’ll change.”
“Bull. You could be helping us out, paying for our damn groceries. There are jobs aplenty. You just have to get your hands dirty.”
“Pop, I’m not gonna settle for a dead end. I’m not gonna gut fish for a living!”
His father seemed to stagger, the fury now driving him forward, the explosion coming, unavoidable, uncontrollable. Biggs tried to back away, the man’s fist catching him on the chin, Biggs’s head jerking hard to one side. He dropped, one knee, then back, sitting on the floor, bells in his ears. Now a new sound, the shrieking fury of his mother, rising up, full in his father’s face, more screaming from both of them. Biggs shuffled through the fog in his brain, put a hand on his chin, checked his teeth, none missing. He focused on his father now, his mother sobbing, both staring down at him. His father leaned low, seemed energized by his victory.
“You son of a bitch. You apologize to me, or you get the hell out of my house. I’m not letting you join any damned navy, either. Nobody in this family is going off to fight someone else’s war.”
Biggs steadied himself, stood slowly, dizzy still. “I’m sorry, Pop. I think you’re wrong.” He looked at his mother, said, “Mom, I can’t keep living in this place. I got no future here.” He looked again at his father, saw an odd weakness now, as though the man had used up all he had. “I need to do something for me, Pop. I can’t just sit and wait for something to happen, playing baseball with a bunch of guys who are no better off than me. Ray’s doing the right thing. His folks are proud of that, proud of him. You don’t wanna give me none of that…well that’s too bad. But it ain’t gonna change my mind. And I’m sorry, Pop, but I’m nineteen. You can’t stop me.”
His father seemed tired, the same look of defeat Biggs had seen so many times before.
“You gonna run off and leave your mother behind. That’s just swell. That make you a man?”
“Yes, Pop. It does. I can’t just stay in this house forever. A man needs to make his own way.”
“So, what you gonna do?” There was no hostility in the question, a surprise.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re gonna join the damn navy, what the hell you gonna do? You ain’t never been on salt water, you oughta be scared as hell. Ships sink, you know. It ain’t like swimming in the river. Out there, you go straight down, maybe a mile or more. Bet you never thought of that, did you?”
Biggs had his first flash of doubt, saw smugness on his father’s face. He struggled to respond, thought of the recruiter, Goodman, reassuring words, and Ray, his excitement at whatever was to come.
“Well, Pop, I gotta find out. I gotta try, and they’re gonna pay me to do it. And Ray says, if we’re damn lucky, maybe they’ll put us on a battleship.”
TWO
Hull
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.—SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1940
“The admiral is at it again. I talked to Stimson about it this morning. I may have to get Secretary Knox in here, Admiral Stark as well, lay all this out on the table. They’re probably as tired of hearing Admiral Richardson’s ‘ideas’ as I am. Sit down, you make me tired.”
Hull sat, said, “I admit I’m a little tired myself, Mr. President. What’s the unhappy admiral up to now?”
“You know, I wish you’d stop being so damn formal with me. We’ve been friends for too long, and unless there’s a herd of reporters writing down everything we say, you should really just call me…” He paused. “Mr. President, sir.”
Roosevelt laughed at his own joke, and Hull smiled. He’d heard that one before.
“How about you call me Cordell, and I call you Mr. President? That way neither of us slips up in front of some foreign dignitary. Take the respect where you can find it. Some of your least favorite congressmen are referring to you as
‘Old Three-Term.’ Among other, um…interesting names.”
Roosevelt nodded, hand on his chin. “I’ve heard some of those other names. Some of them quite colorful.” He paused. “I didn’t want three terms. I pushed you as hard as I could. You were the best man for the job, but you wouldn’t take the nomination, and God help us if some isolationist from either party had won the election. The British are already in a load of trouble—Churchill’s begging for our help. If we had elected somebody new, somebody who decided he’d rather listen to Charles Lindbergh’s nonsense, that would have been a pure catastrophe for this country. I’m so sick of those congressmen who think they’re representing their constituents by pretending that Hitler is only a problem over there. God knows what’s going to happen to the French people, the Belgians, the Norwegians, Dutch, Danes, and anybody else who’s already under Hitler’s boots. And who’s next? It scares the hell out of me, Cordell, that the British might cease to be a nation. All the while, big noisy voices in this country are telling the American people that it’s none of our affair. I wonder how those fools will feel when German U-boats show up in every river on our coastline.”
He paused again, seemed to catch his breath. “Sorry, I’m ranting a bit. But you’ve done a fair share of speechmaking on your own. There’s probably a few over in the Capitol who listen to you more than they do to me—you’re not quite as despised as I am. If you’d have accepted the nomination, I wouldn’t be sitting here now raising my blood pressure.”
“I’m older than you are. Best not talk to me about blood pressure.”
Roosevelt smiled. “Fair assessment.”
Hull debated saying anything else. He had endured enormous pressure from Roosevelt to run for president, so many in the Democratic Party believing that Hull was the best man available to carry on the policies they all saw as critical for the survival of the free world. But the isolationist sentiment was astounding, Congress split nearly fifty-fifty. Often, Hull had gone to Capitol Hill, speaking or lobbying for one of Roosevelt’s programs, which seemed to him so obviously positive for the country. But closed minds fought every effort. The opposition to Roosevelt’s policies came mostly from adversaries in the Republican Party. But even in his own party, there were those who insisted they spoke for the folks back home, insisting in their own public forums and local newspapers that as long as the world’s problems remained outside the borders of the United States, they had no effect on anyone within those borders. And all too often, those voices were being believed.
But the secretary of state was not necessarily immune to the hostility that so many had directed toward his president. Hull was well liked and well respected, even among some of the most difficult members of the opposition. If that would have resulted in President Hull, no one could say, and he would not speculate. Once Hull had adamantly refused Roosevelt’s push that he accept the party’s nomination, Roosevelt had made the decision to run himself, seeking an unprecedented third term in office. Despite the howls of protest about what some called Roosevelt’s blatant power grab, what the Republican opposition failed to understand, and certainly underestimated, was the positive sentiment toward Roosevelt among the American public. He won overwhelmingly.
There had been no doubt that Hull would continue as secretary of state. He was as much a confidant of Roosevelt’s as an influential member of the cabinet. With Roosevelt’s people preparing for his third inauguration on January 20, Hull couldn’t avoid speaking out to Roosevelt about a serious concern.
“Please forgive me, but I’ve been chewing on this for a while now. You know that I fully support just about every program you’ve proposed…”
“You wrote some of them.”
“Well, yes. Please, let me say this. I fully believe we need to support our allies and push back at our potential enemies. You sitting in that chair for another term was the best way to accomplish all of that.”
Roosevelt seemed impatient. “Yes, yes. So, I’m here. The people said, ‘Fine. Keep at it.’ That’s that.”
“My concern is what might happen in the future. By you winning a third term, you’ve established a precedent. Down the road, twenty years, fifty, a hundred, someone who has his own interests in mind more than the country’s, some demagogue…Well, you know what could happen.”
“Have faith in the future, Cordell. Faith in the people. That’s all we can do. I can’t look that far down the road. What we are facing right now could be the greatest crisis the world has ever known; you know that too. It’s one reason why the kind of bitching coming at me from people like Admiral Richardson just isn’t to be tolerated.”
“You were going to tell me what he’s done?”
“Right, yes. So, Admiral Richardson was here back in October. You know that, of course. He sat right there in that chair and told me that the military in this country had lost faith in their civilian leadership, in my leadership. Didn’t even couch it in friendly terms. Gave me all the same reasons I’ve heard before, why our naval base at Pearl Harbor is a gigantic mistake. He thinks that by having our fleet based out there, we’re provoking the Japanese. Why the hell would they want a war with us? I told him then, and I’ve been telling him since, that having our fleet in Hawaii is a cautionary symbol, reminding the Japanese that they simply can’t gallop all over the Pacific as they please.
“You know better than I do that the Australians are with us on this. Hell, the British want us to send ships to Singapore; the Free French are afraid they’re going to lose all of Indo-China. There are already Japanese troops around Hanoi, and we think they’re building airfields. The Chinese have their hands full trying to win a war on their own land. Yes, I said war. The Japanese still refer to their invasion as the Chinese problem, as though Chiang Kai-shek caused the whole thing. If we have the fleet in Hawaii, at least we’re showing that we care, for God’s sake. Can you imagine what kind of message it would send to every single one of our allies, as well as to the Japanese, if we suddenly sailed away, pulled everybody back to California? But that’s what Richardson insists we do. He beat me over the head with his so-called reasoning. The commander in chief of our entire Pacific fleet thinks the Japanese are too militant to be scared off by us having ships in Hawaii.
“I know something about the navy, Cordell. Big ships mean big power. So it seems to me that the more militant anyone is, including the Japanese, the more they’ll respect someone else’s military power. It should be simple, even to Admiral Richardson. If you’re stronger than the other guy, he’ll mind his manners. Bringing the Pacific fleet back from Hawaii will look like a show of weakness. I do not understand how an experienced admiral cannot grasp that.”
Hull said, “I’ve heard some of this. The secretary of war, the secretary of the navy, they’ve been harangued just like you were. When he was here in October, I ran into him at a dinner at the Willard. Admiral Richardson mentioned to me that he felt you were trying to bluff the Japanese, that we weren’t serious about using the navy if a crisis erupted.”
“Bluffs don’t work, Cordell. This isn’t about poker, it’s about protecting our interests. The British, French, the rest of them, their survival’s at stake. There is too much vulnerability in the South Pacific, and the Japanese seem entirely too interested in taking advantage of that. The only real naval presence south of the Philippines has been the British. But they can’t afford to stand tall against the Japanese while they stand tall against Hitler.”
Hull stretched his back. He was running out of fuel for the meeting, something he was becoming used to. “Mr. President, it has always been my policy when dealing with foreign ambassadors that we never issue any sort of threat unless we have the strength and the will to back it up. A threat without force behind it is a bluff, and as any card player knows, a bluff can be called with embarrassing results.” He paused. “Since Japan entered into their Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, they made their intentions clear. I
suspect Hitler has told the Japanese that whatever they choose to do in the eastern hemisphere is of no concern to the Germans. Hitler has already demonstrated that his goal is to subjugate as many peoples as he can, by brute force. I have no doubt that if the militant voices in the Japanese government were to believe that there would be no consequences from our side of the Pacific, they would begin the same kind of program in their half of the world. I assume Secretary Stimson agrees?”
“He wouldn’t be my secretary of war if he didn’t. You know better.” Roosevelt pointed a finger at him. “Which is why our fleet must be maintained in Hawaii. I tried to explain that to Admiral Richardson, and he offers me insults, as though a mere civilian cannot possibly grasp such weighty military matters. It sounds to me as though you grasp them pretty well. Stimson said this morning that by keeping our fleet in Hawaii, at the very least we are communicating to everyone, friend and potential foe, that we’re watching, we’re paying attention.”
Roosevelt paused, seemed to sag in his chair. “Richardson doesn’t understand. I find that astonishing. Even if we’re talking about our own territories, we’re vulnerable ourselves, from the Philippines to Wake, Guam, Midway, and every other damn place in between. He just doesn’t understand his role on this stage. The world, the entire world seems poised for some kind of explosion, and yet this man is hell bent on yanking our most valuable and powerful weapons out of Hawaii and hauling them back to California. And he’s damned profane about how he talks to me about it.”
“Mr. President, I heard much of this back in October. So, what stirred the pot now?”
“Right. Yes. This week, yet another damned letter from Hawaii, from Admiral Bloch, endorsed by Richardson. More of the same complaining, the same arguments, the same show of defiance.” Roosevelt stopped, seemed to fight for energy. Hull had seen this before, knew to let the president take his time. “You know, Richardson served under me when I was secretary of the navy. Even then, I tried my damnedest to like the man. Didn’t work. Now, I’ve given up liking him at all. Pretty certain he feels the same about me.”