Reggie stopped paying much attention to him about then. “And the moon is full of green cheese!” the heckler shouted, drawing a roar of laughter from the crowd.
Dresser sputtered and fumed, the thread of his speech, had it ever had one, now thoroughly lost. Reggie and Foster grinned at each other, enjoying his discomfiture. The speech surely would have been boring. This was anything but. “Not as easy to get up on the stump as the old boy thought, is it?” Foster said with a chuckle.
“You are all traitors to your country, for not listening to the plain and simple truth!” Dresser shouted furiously.
“And you’re a maniac, and they ought to lock you up in the asylum and lose the key!” It wasn’t the first heckler, but another man.
Dresser looked to be on the point of having a fit. Somebody reached up and tugged at his trousers. He leaned over, cupping a hand behind his ear. Then, with a fine scornful snort, he jumped down from his perch. “All right,” he said. “All right! You show them then, if you think you know so much. I can tell you what you will show them—you will show them you do not have any notion of what to say or how to say it.”
Up onto the platform scrambled a lean man somewhere in his thirties, in a day laborer’s collarless cotton shirt and a pair of uniform pants. He looked around for a moment, then said, “Tony’s right. A blind man should be able to see it, too. The government is full of traitors and fools.”
Dresser had been argumentative, querulous. The newcomer spoke with absolute conviction, so much so that before he caught himself Reginald Bartlett looked north toward Capitol Square, as if to spy the traitors in the act.
“Yeah? You can’t prove it, either, any more than the other jerk could,” a heckler yelled.
“You want proof? I’ll give you proof, by Jesus,” the lean man said. He didn’t talk as if he had any great education, but he didn’t seem to feel the lack, as did so many self-made men. “Look what happened when the Red niggers rose up, back at the end of ’15. They damn near overran the whole country. Now, why is that, do you reckon? It’s on account of nobody in the whole stinking government had the least notion they were plotting behind our backs. If that doesn’t make everybody from the president on down a damn fool, you tell me what in the hell it does do.”
“He’s got something, by God,” Foster said, staring at the new speaker.
“He’s got a lot of nerve, anyhow,” Reggie said.
“That’s why you ought to vote for Tony Dresser for Congress,” the lean man continued: “on account of he can see the plain truth and you can’t. Now the next thing you’re going to say is, well, they’re a pack of fools up there, all right, with their fancy motorcars and their whores, but they can’t be traitors because they fought as long as they could and the Yankees are pretty damn tough.
“Well, this here is what I’ve got to say about that.” The lean man let loose with a rich, ripe raspberry. “I know for a fact that people tried to warn the government the niggers were going to rise, on account of I was one of those people. Did anybody listen? Hell, no!” Contempt dripped from his voice like water from a leaky roof. “Some of those niggers were servants to rich men’s sons, important men’s sons. And the rich men in the Capitol and the important men in the War Department shoveled everything under the rug. If that doesn’t make ’em traitors, what the devil does?”
“He has got something,” Bill Foster said in an awed voice.
“He’s got a big mouth,” Bartlett said. “You throw charges like that around, you’d better be able to name names.”
Instead of naming names, the newcomer on the stump charged ahead: “And after that—after that, mind you, after the niggers rose up—what did the government go and do? Come on. You remember. You’re white men. You’re smart men. What did they go and do?” The lean man’s voice sank to a dramatic whisper: “They went and put rifles in those same niggers’hands, that’s what they did.” He whispered no more, but shouted furiously: “If that doesn’t make ’em traitors, what the devil does?”
Reggie remembered Rehoboam, the Negro prisoner of war who’d shared his U.S. hospital ward after losing a foot in Arkansas—and after being a Red rebel in Mississippi. Things weren’t so straightforward as this new Freedom Party speaker made them out to be. The older Reggie got, the more complicated the world looked. The lean man was older than he, but still saw things in harsh shades of black and white.
And he contrived to make his audience see them the same way. “You want to put Tony Dresser into Congress to give the real people of the Confederate States a voice,” he shouted, “the working men, the men who get their hands dirty, the men who went out and fought the war the fools and the traitors and the nigger-lovers got us into. Oh, you can throw your vote away for somebody with a diamond on his pinky”—with alarming effectiveness, he mimed a capitalist—“but who’s the fool if you do?”
“Why the hell ain’t you runnin’ for Congress instead of that long-winded son of a bitch?” somebody shouted.
“Tony’s the chairman of the Freedom Party,” the lean man answered easily. “You promote the commander of the unit, not a new recruit.” He took out his billfold and displayed something Bartlett could not make out. “Here’s my membership card—number seven, from back in September.”
“Where do we sign up?” Two men asked the question at the same time. One of them added, “You ain’t gonna stay a new recruit long, pal, not the way you talk. Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“My name’s Featherston—Jake Featherston,” the lean man answered. “Sergeant, Confederate States Artillery, retired.” He scowled. “The fools in the War Department retired damn near the whole Army.” With what looked like a deliberate effort of will, he made himself smile. “Party office is a couple blocks down Seventh, toward the Tredegar works. Come on by. Hope you do, anyways.”
“Damned if I’m not tempted to,” Bill Foster said as the little rally began to break up. “Damned if I’m not. That fellow Featherston, he’s got a good way of looking at things.”
“He’s got a good line, that’s for certain,” Reggie Bartlett said. “If he were selling can openers door to door, there wouldn’t be a closed can in Richmond this time tomorrow. But just because something sounds good doesn’t make it so. Come on, Bill. Do you think a stage magician really pulls a Stonewall out of your nose?”
“Wish somebody’d pull one out of somewhere,” Foster answered.
Reggie’s laugh was rueful, five-dollar goldpieces being in notably short supply in his pockets, too. He said, “The world’s not as simple as he makes it out to be.”
“Well, what if it isn’t?” his friend returned. “I wish it was that simple. Don’t reckon I’m the only one who does, either.”
“Reckon you’re not,” Bartlett agreed. “But most folks are the same as you and me: they know the difference between what they wish and what’s really out there.”
“Yeah?” Foster raised an eyebrow. “How come we just fought this damn war, then?” Reggie thought about that for a while, but found no good answer.
Guided by a pilot intimately familiar with the local minefields, the USS Dakota made a slow, cautious entrance into New York harbor. Sailors on tugs and freighters waved their caps at the battleship. Steam whistles bellowed and hooted. Fireboats shot streams of water high into the air.
Sam Carsten stood by the port rail, enjoying the show. The late-November day was bleak and gloomy and cold, but that didn’t bother the petty officer at all. Anything more clement than clouds and gloom bothered him: he was so blond and pink, he sunburned in less time than he needed to blink. After Brazil entered the war on the side of the USA and Germany and their allies, the Dakota had gone up into the tropical Atlantic after convoys bound for Britain from Argentina. He was only now recovering from what the cruel sun had done to him.
Off to the west, on Bedloe Island, stood the great statue of Remembrance, the sword of vengeance gleaming in her hand. Carsten turned to his bunkmate and said, “Seeing her gives you a whole
different feeling now that we’ve gone and won the war.”
“Sure as hell does.” Vic Crosetti nodded vigorously. He was as small and swarthy as Carsten was tall and fair. “Every time I seen that statue before, it was like she was saying, ‘What the hell you gapin’ at me for? Get out there and kick the damn Rebs in the belly.’ Now we gone and done it. Can’t you see the smile on that bronze broad’s kisser?”
Remembrance looked as cold and stern and forbidding as she had since she’d gone up not long after the Second Mexican War. Even so, Carsten said, “Yeah.” He and Crosetti grinned at each other. Victory tasted sweet.
“Carsten!” somebody said behind him.
He turned and stiffened to attention. “Sir!”
“As you were,” Commander Grady said, and Sam eased out of his brace. The commander of the Dakota’s starboard secondary armament was a pretty good fellow; Sam cranked shells into the forwardmost five-inch gun under his charge. Grady said, “Do you recall that matter we were discussing the day the limeys gave up the fight?”
For a moment, Carsten didn’t. Then he nodded. “About aeroplanes, you mean, sir?”
“That’s right.” Grady nodded, too. “Were you serious about what you meant about getting in on the ground floor there?”
“Yes, sir. I sure was, sir,” Sam answered. Aeroplanes were the coming thing. Anyone with an eye in his head could see that. Anyone with an eye in his head could also see the Navy wouldn’t stay as big as it had been during the war. Since Sam wanted to make sure he didn’t end up on the beach, getting involved with aeroplanes looked like a good insurance policy.
Commander Grady said, “All right, then. I have some orders cut for you. If you’d said no, you’d have stayed here. There wouldn’t have been any trouble about that. As things are, though, we both catch the train for Boston tomorrow morning. You’ll see why when we get there.” His smile made him look years younger.
“You’re leaving the Dakota?” Vic Crosetti demanded. When Sam nodded, Crosetti clapped a hand to his forehead. “Jesus Christ, who’m I gonna rag on now?”
“I figure you’ll find somebody,” Carsten said, his voice dry. Crosetti gave him a dirty look that melted into a chuckle, then slapped him on the back. Sam had a gift for getting in digs without making people angry at him.
“Only problem with this is the train ride,” Commander Grady said. “This Spanish influenza that’s going around is supposed to be pretty nasty. We might be better staying aboard the Dakota.”
“Sir, if the limeys couldn’t sink us and the Japs couldn’t sink us and whoever was flying that damn bombing aeroplane out from Argentina couldn’t sink us, I don’t figure we need to be afraid of any germs,” Sam said.
Grady laughed. “That’s the spirit! All right, Carsten. Pick up your new orders, get your paperwork taken care of, and we’ll go ashore tomorrow morning—if you can stand an officer for company, that is.”
“I’m a tough guy, sir,” Carsten answered. “I expect I’ll put up with it.” Grady laughed and mimed throwing a punch at him, then went on his way.
“What’s this about aeroplanes?” Crosetti asked.
“Don’t even know, exactly,” Sam said. “I joined the Navy five years before the war started, and here I am, buying a pig in a poke. Maybe I need my head examined, but maybe I’m smart, too. Smart, I mean, besides getting away from you. I hope I am, anyway.”
“Good luck. I think you’re crazy, but good luck.” Crosetti shook Sam’s hand, then walked off shaking his own head.
Getting orders was the easy part of getting off the Dakota. Carsten filled out endless separation forms. Only after the last of them was signed would the paymaster grudgingly give him greenbacks. With money in his billfold and a duffel bag on his shoulder, he walked down the gangplank from the Dakota to the pier with Commander Grady.
Even at the edge of the harbor, New York boiled with life. When Grady flagged a cab for the ride to the New York Central Railroad Depot, three different automobiles almost ran him and Sam down in the zeal for a fare. The drivers hopped out and screamed abuse at one another in both English and a language that seemed entirely compounded of gutturals.
Grady knew his way through the crowded old depot, which was fortunate, because Sam didn’t. He had to step smartly to keep from being separated from the officer; the only place where he’d felt more crowded was the triple-decked bunkroom of the Dakota. Everyone here was moving, intent on his own business. About every third man, woman, and child was sneezing or sniffling or coughing. Some of them were likely to have influenza. Carsten tried not to inhale. That didn’t work very well.
He and Grady got a couple of seats in a second-class car; the Navy saved money on train fares that way. They were the only Navy men there, though soldiers in green-gray occupied a fair number of seats. The civilians ranged from drummers in cheap, flashy suits to little old ladies who might still have been in Russia.
Once Grady and Carsten pulled into Boston, the officer paid for another cab ride, this one over the Charlestown Bridge to the Navy Yard on the north side of the Charles River. Seeing the battleships and cruisers and submersibles and tenders tied up there made Sam’s heart swell with pride. A few ships from the Western Squadron of Germany’s High Seas Fleet stood out from their American allies because of their less familiar lines and light gray paint jobs.
Sam followed Commander Grady, each of them with duffel bag bouncing on his back. Then, all at once, Sam stopped in his tracks and stared and stared. Grady walked on for a couple of steps before he noticed he didn’t have company any more. He turned and looked back, a grin on his rabbity features. “What’s the matter, Carsten?” he asked, sounding like a man trying hard not to laugh out loud.
“Sir,” Sam said plaintively, “I’ve seen every type of ship in the U.S. Navy, and I reckon damn near every type of ship in the High Seas Fleet, too.” He pointed ahead. “In all my born days, though, I’ve never seen anything that looked like that, and I hope to God I never do again. What the hell is it supposed to be?”
Now Grady did laugh out loud. “That’s the Remembrance, Carsten. That’s what you signed up for.”
“Jesus,” Sam said. “I must have been out of my goddamn mind.”
The Remembrance looked as if somebody had decided to build a battleship and then, about a third of the way through the job, got sick of it and decided to flatten out most of the deck to hurry things along. An aeroplane sat on the deck aft of the bridge: not a seaplane that would land in the water and be picked up by the ship’s crane but a Wright two-decker fighting scout—a U.S. copy of a German Albatros—with utterly ordinary landing gear and not a trace of a float anywhere. Sam shook his head in disbelief.
Laughing still, Commander Grady clapped him on the back. “Cheer up. It won’t be so bad. You’ll still mess forward and bunk aft. And a five-inch gun is a five-inch gun.” He pointed to the sponson under that unbelievably long, unbelievably level deck. “You’ll do your job, and the flyboys will do theirs, and everybody will be happy except the poor enemy bastards who bump into us.”
“Yes, sir,” Sam said dubiously. “What the devil did she start out to be, anyway? And why didn’t she turn out to be whatever that was?”
“They started to build her as a fast, light-armored battle cruiser, to slide in close to the Confederate coast, blast hell out of it, and then scoot before the Rebs could do anything about it—a monitor with legs, you might say,” Grady answered. “But that idea never went anywhere. Some bright boy got to thinking how handy it would be to take aeroplanes along wherever you needed them, and…there’s the Remembrance.”
“I thought of that myself, after the Dakota got bombed off Argentina,” Carsten said, “but I never imagined—this.” He wondered if he’d get into fights because sailors on ordinary, respectable vessels would call the Remembrance the ugliest ship in the Navy. Dammit, she was the ugliest ship in the Navy.
“Come on, let’s go aboard,” Grady said. “She won’t look anywhere near so strange f
rom the inside.”
Even that didn’t turn out to be true. The hangars that held nearly three dozen fighting scouts and the supply and maintenance areas that went with them took up an ungodly amount of space, leaving the bunkrooms cramped and feeling like afterthoughts. As a petty officer, Carsten did get a bottom bunk, but the middle one in the three-tier metal structure was only a few inches above him. He could stand it, but he didn’t love it.
The only place in which he did feel at home was the sponson. The five-inch gun was the same model he’d served on the Dakota, and the sponson itself might have been transferred bodily from the battleship. The chief gunner’s mate in charge of the crew, a burly veteran named Willie Moore, wore a splendid gray Kaiser Bill mustache. He wasn’t half brother to his counterpart from the Dakota, Hiram Kidde, but Sam couldn’t have proved it by the way he acted.
He turned out to know Kidde, which surprised Sam not at all. “If you served with the ‘Cap’n,’ reckon you’ll do for me,” he rumbled when Carsten mentioned the name of his former gun commander a couple of days after coming aboard.
“Thanks, Chief. Hope so,” Sam said, and punctuated that with a sneeze. “Damn. I’m coming down with a cold.”
He was off his feed at supper that evening, which surprised him: the Remembrance, however ugly she was, boasted a first-class galley. Everything was fresh, too—an advantage of sitting in port. But Sam didn’t realize how sick he was till the next morning, when he almost fell out of his bunk. He stood, swaying, in front of it.
“You all right?” asked George Moerlein, who slept just above him. Sam didn’t answer; he had trouble figuring out what the words meant. Moerlein peered at him, touched his forehead, and then jerked back his hand as if he’d tried picking up a live coal. “We better get this guy to sick bay,” he said. “I think he’s got the influenza.” Sam didn’t argue, either. He couldn’t. He let them lead him away.
Arthur McGregor took a certain somber satisfaction in listening to the wind howl around his farmhouse. That was just as well; the wind in Manitoba was going to howl through the winter whether he took any satisfaction in it or not.
Blood and Iron Page 3