“I see…”
“Of course he is keeping tabs on things. The poor wireless operators are working in shifts.” Ted shook his head. “It’s just a damn shame Funston didn’t attack a day sooner.”
Andrew snorted. “It seemed like half the battles we read about at the Point were decided because this guy didn’t move fast enough or that guy overslept or so-and-so took the wrong road and arrived late. Funston seemed like a real fire-eater when I met him. I’m sure he felt he needed the extra equipment or ammunition that caused the delay.”
“True. It’s always easy to criticize from a thousand miles away. Still…”
“Andrew? Oh there you are!” He turned and saw his wife coming up the ladder he had used earlier. She was wearing a white dress with blue trim and a broad white hat held on against the wind with a wide blue ribbon that went under her chin. She looked absolutely beautiful. “I couldn’t find you and I got worried,” she said taking his arm.
“Well, I could hardly have gone far. It’s not that big a ship.”
“You might have fallen overboard!” She looked past him and said: “Good morning, Captain Roosevelt.”
Ted came to attention and bowed. “Good morning, Mrs. Comstock. I trust you’re well this morning.”
Victoria blushed and giggled the way she still did when anyone called her Mrs. Comstock. “Oh yes! Much better today, thank you! The ocean is so smooth!”
“Yes, we’ve left the rough seas behind, I think. At least for a while.”
“Going to be a hot day, though,” said Andrew.
“Well, we’ll have shade,” said Ted, pointing to where crewmen were rigging awnings for that very purpose. “Ah, father’s up.” Indeed, the senior Roosevelt emerged through a door out onto the deck. He immediately spotted them and came over wearing his trademark grin.
“Morning! Morning!” he boomed. He was dressed all in white like the rest of them with a straw boater clapped on his head with one hand. “How is everyone this fine day?” The trio all responded with assurances of good health. Roosevelt nodded and looked past them out to sea, putting his other broad hand on the railing.
“So! We leave the Gulf behind and head into the Caribbean. The captain tells me we passed two French cruisers during the night.”
“Heading for Veracruz, sir?” asked Andrew.
“I imagine so. Wish we could swing by and see how they are doing there. But it would add over a thousand miles to the trip and we haven’t the time.”
“They’ve really landed an army in Mexico?” asked Victoria.
“So they say. But the trick isn’t landing the army. The trick will be keeping it there.”
“Do you think the Martians will mass their forces and try to throw them out?” asked Andrew.
“I certainly would if I were them, but we haven’t figured out how they think yet, so who knows? If I’d commanded the force that beat back Funston, I would have pursued our army to destruction. But instead they just let us go. As bad as it was, we mostly lost materiel rather than people. So there’s no telling how they’ll react to the French in Veracruz or to the Germans in Caracas. They might just ignore them.”
“Oh! What are all those little boats over there?” asked Victoria, pointing off to west. Andrew looked and saw that the dawn was reflecting off dozens of sails in the distance. All four of them walked over to the other rail. “Heavens! There are more of them! Look there!” Indeed, there appeared to be a hundred or more sails visible now with specks at their sides which might also be boats. An armada of the things.
“The fleet Agamemnon sent against Troy must have looked like this,” said the President.
“But what are they all doing?” asked Victoria. “They surely aren’t all fishermen are they?”
Roosevelt looked from the boats to Victoria and actually seemed uncomfortable—the first time Andrew had ever seen an expression like that on the man’s face. “I… I expect they are people trying to get away from the Martians, my dear.”
Victoria’s face went very serious. “Oh… oh dear. Those poor people. The Martians are over that way? Really?” She pointed west.
“Yes, Yucatan is just sixty miles over the horizon. Cuba’s only about forty miles to the east. People in Mexico are fleeing to the coast and finding boats to cross over.”
“Are we doing anything to help them?”
“Well, as you know, we are running things in Cuba again—at their request. We’ve been setting up camps in the west of the island to take in the refugees.”
“Oh, good!”
“Still, a hundred and fifty miles of open ocean in little boats like that can’t be easy,” said Ted.
“Er, no,” said the President, still looking anxiously at Victoria. “But breakfast must be nearly ready. Why don’t we go below and see what the cooks have prepared?”
“Are you hungry, dear?” asked Andrew.
“Yes, I am. I hadn’t felt like eating much the last few days with the sea so rough. But now that we have this lovely calm I think… Oh! Oh my God!” She gasped and went white as a sheet and stepped away from the rail.
Confused, Andrew looked at the sea and then saw it. A body in the water, drifting past the ship. It was small, a child perhaps. Victoria was frozen like a statue and Andrew went and gathered her in so she couldn’t see it anymore. She was trembling.
“Perhaps you should take your wife back to your cabin,” suggested the President.
He did as directed and soon had Victoria lying on the bed, propped up with pillows. “I’m sorry, love,” he said. “Are you going to be all right?”
Her expression of shock had given way to one of disgust, even anger. “Yes, yes, I’ll be fine. I shouldn’t have acted that way! I’m the daughter of a soldier and a soldier’s wife for heaven’s sake! It was just so… so unexpected.”
“I wasn’t expecting it, either. I… saw worse in New Mexico, but there I was expecting it. This had seemed like… like…”
“Like some honeymoon cruise? Yes. But we were both wrong, weren’t we? This is a military expedition into a war zone, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I guess it is.”
“And we will both be prepared from now on, won’t we?” She raised her chin, looked into his eyes and didn’t blink.
He smiled. “Yes, I guess we will.”
“Good! Now you go back to the President. I will be along in a few minutes and we’ll have breakfast!”
He found the two Roosevelts where he’d left them. The President looked grim. “Sorry about that, Comstock. Is she all right?”
“Yes. She’s almost completely recovered. In fact, she’ll be joining us for breakfast in a few minutes.”
“Bully!” cried the President, brightening. “Stout lass you’ve got there!”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Still, I should have thought of this. We’ve been getting some very sad reports about the refugees. They’ve been grabbing anything that will float to escape and tragically, some of the things they’re grabbing won’t float very far. But I’ve sent word to the admiral to give us a closer escort and if they spot anything too awful we’ll change course to avoid it.”
Andrew glanced out to sea and indeed, two of the cruisers were closing in on the Mayflower. He noticed lookouts were climbing the masts to the crow’s nests. “Thank you, sir, I appreciate that.”
“Ah! Here’s your lady now!”
Victoria was on deck again and only looking a little pale. They followed the President down to the dining salon and had a nice breakfast. Victoria didn’t eat much, but the President made up for it. Andrew had never seen such an appetite. He ate enough for any two men and while he was a bit fat when compared to the famous photos of him as a Rough Rider, he was still very fit. Andrew had seen him racing Ted up the shrouds to the crow’s nest on their first day out.
And despite him shoveling down ham, eggs, bacon, melons, a chicken leg left over from last night’s dinner, and cup after cup of coffee, he also talked enough for any two
men. And such a talker! Andrew was amazed at the range of his conversation. From Thucydides, to Shakespeare, to Bacon, to a half dozen historians and writers Andrew had never heard of, the President had quotations and facts enough for an encyclopedia. And there was no doubt where he got all of those facts: the man was always reading. He usually carried a book with him and any time he wasn’t involved in something else, he had his nose pressed in it. He was talkative at every meal, but this morning he steered the conversation away from any further mention of the war, no doubt for Victoria’s sake. Instead he spoke of the avian and botanical wonders waiting for them in Panama. The President was a noted wildlife expert with several books on the subject to his credit - he wrote books, too! - and he talked about the birds he had seen on his first visit to Panama in ’06.
After breakfast, Victoria took a nap and the President went to the wireless room to answer messages. Andrew found himself at the rail with the younger Roosevelt again. He was only two years older than Ted and Andrew decided that he liked him quite a lot. They watched in silence as the ships passed through flotillas of small boats, all crammed with refugees. The people cried and screamed as they passed, but there was nothing they could do to help.
“Not an easy thing seeing a dead man for the first time,” Ted observed.
“No.”
“I suppose you saw quite a few in New Mexico.”
“Some. The heat rays don’t leave much if they hit a man directly. But sometimes they just graze them. What about you? Seen many?”
“Uh, aside from funerals, which don’t really count, just one. An hour ago.”
“Oh. Sorry, didn’t know.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s something I need to get used to, too. When I finally get a real posting I expect I’ll see a lot more.”
Andrew looked at Ted in surprise. “A real posting? You won’t be staying on as your father’s aide?”
“No, I’m supposed to be assigned to the 26th Infantry once we get back from this trip.”
“Well, that’s wonderful, congratulations. I had just thought that your father would want to keep you with him.”
Ted was silent for a long while, staring out at the blue waters, before he answered. “I suppose most parents would, but you need to understand my father. For him, combat is the ultimate test a man can face. He’s never been able to forget that his own father was a pacifist and stayed out of the Civil War. And as proud as he might be of being President, it’s nothing compared to how he feels about his service in Cuba. That ‘crowded hour’, as he puts it, is the thing he’s most proud of. The stories he used to tell us! And the games we’d play. My God, we must have captured San Juan Hill a thousand times there in Oyster Bay!” He was silent again for a while and then added: “So you see he’d never stand in the way of my experiencing the same thing.”
“And is that what you want?”
Ted laughed. “Of course! I’m Teddy Roosevelt’s son! My brother Kermit is already with an artillery unit. Archie is terrified the war will be over before he finishes at Groton and gets a chance to fight. Quentin is much too young, but even he’s hoping to get into it. He keeps reminding father of all the drummer boys they had in the Civil War and he even got hold of a drum to practice. Yes, I’m afraid that all the Roosevelt boys have war fever.”
Andrew wasn’t quite sure if Ted was joking, but finally decided he wasn’t. They parted company and he went to be with Victoria.
The next day there were fewer small boats to be seen as the coastline swung westward creating the Bay of Honduras. But on the following morning they sighted land a little off to the right. It was the so-called Mosquito Coast where Honduras bordered with Nicaragua. The squadron would follow the coastline from this point on down to Panama, looking for signs of the Martians.
Andrew left the looking to others and instead began studying what they had come down here to see: the transoceanic canal at Panama. Of course, he’d read a great deal about it. The newspapers had been full of the stories when the United States had bought out the failed French attempt and then not-so-secretly backed the Panamanian independence movement which split their province off from Columbia. And now that the canal was well under way there were more stories about the vast size of the endeavor. The largest construction project in the history of the world! Enough rock and earth excavated to build a thousand Great Pyramids! And when you counted the concrete for the great locks, enough to build a few dozen more! The raw numbers were staggering.
But as he looked over the drawings he became even more impressed. The design itself was true genius. An artificial lake filled by rainwater would cross half the isthmus and then locks on the Atlantic and Pacific side would complete the canal, raising ships up to the lake and then back down to the oceans. The water in the locks would come from the lake and always flow downhill. Just open or shut the right valves and gravity would do the rest. No pumps needed! The only motors would be the electric ones opening and closing the great lock gates or running the locomotives which would guide the ships through the locks. And the electricity was generated by a hydro-electric plant at the dam forming the lake. It was very nearly a perpetual motion machine. Just add rain water - which Panama had in abundance.
Of course, Andrew wasn’t here to inspect the canal, he was here to inspect the fortifications being built to defend the canal. Before the Martian threat arose, the fortifications planned were to defend the canal from attack from the sea - by humans. Several powerful batteries of guns at each end were all that was thought necessary. But now the canal needed to be defended against attack from the land. This would require a vastly greater system of forts stretching completely across the isthmus - and looking in both directions.
Compared with the engineering drawings for the canal, the plans for the defenses still seemed a bit sketchy. Part of that was because there was still some uncertainty about where the final shoreline of the artificial lake would run, but mostly it was because the experts were unsure of the best sort of defenses to build against the Martians. There were to be several meetings when they arrived to discuss that very topic. Andrew didn’t know if his opinion would be asked for, but he wanted to be ready if it was.
The next few days saw intermittent showers. It was still the rainy season in this part of the world and they could see huge banks of clouds building up over the land and then moving out to sea. The rains rarely lasted long, but they were incredibly intense when they came - so hard Andrew had never seen anything like it. It pounded the canvas awnings with a roar like drums - or artillery - and ran off into the sea in rivers. And then it would be over and the sun would come out and the humidity would leave the people dripping like they’d been standing in the downpour.
There were still swarms of boats sailing west - and still bodies in the water - but now they were also seeing a few direct signs of the Martians. The east coast of Central America did not boast any big cities - those were all located on the more temperate western coast - but there were many small villages. Some of them had been burned to the ground, while others had not been touched. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to the destruction. But at every village - even the destroyed ones - there were people. People packing into boats, people building them, and people just waiting for another boat to show up. When they saw the squadron they waved and shouted. Some pushed off on rafts or even swam out into the surf, even though the ships were a mile or more off shore. They couldn’t stop, of course.
One morning they saw a thick cloud of smoke ahead on the shoreline. When they reached the spot - a place called Tuapi on the charts—they found fires still burning, but no visible Martians. No visible people, either.
As they proceeded south, the destroyed villages grew fewer and then stopped altogether. The one major town they saw, Limon in Costa Rica, was unharmed, and its fine harbor was choked with boats and the waterfront crowded with people. But now they saw that the boats were no longer heading east, out into the Caribbean, they were sailing southeast along the coast. “Where
are they going?” asked Victoria.
“Panama,” answered the President.
The next day they reached their destination. The Atlantic end of the canal, which everyone automatically called the ‘eastern’ end was, due to the odd way the isthmus was shaped, actually the western end; but whatever you called it, it was packed like New York Harbor. Dozens of large ships were there unloading cargo and hundreds of smaller boats were milling around, trying to unload people. Navy torpedo boat destroyers were dashing around like sheep dogs keeping the small boats out of the way of the big ships. Farther out to sea was the main naval squadron, there to guard the canal. The battleships which had accompanied them on their voyage veered off to join them.
Navy ships cleared a path for the Mayflower to tie up to a long pier that projected from the waterfront of the city of Colon, which was situated just to the east of the canal terminus. An escort of U.S. Marines with a brass band, along with a crowd of dignitaries, was there to greet the President. The leader of the delegation was Colonel George Washington Goethals, the chief engineer of the canal. Goethals was tall and thin, his hair and mustache almost completely white despite being barely fifty. He wore a civilian suit instead of a uniform and welcomed Roosevelt without much warmth, Andrew thought.
The ceremony was cut short by another one of those incredible downpours and Andrew, Victoria, the two Roosevelts, and Goethals were all bundled into a carriage which carried them through the town to the rail station. A train whisked them past scenes of astonishing construction work too quickly to take in and then on to the famed Culebra Cut where Goethals’ residence was located. There was a reception that evening where they met most of the high-ranking men working on the canal project. Victoria was tickled that people kept thinking she was Roosevelt’s daughter Alice. Andrew repeatedly assured her that she was far prettier. And she was. That night it felt a little odd to sleep in a bed that wasn’t moving. Several times they were awakened by loud rumbles that shook the whole house. They didn’t seem like thunder…
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