At the Midway

by J. Clayton Rogers

  And protected by the United States Marine Corps.

  When Commercial Pacific arrived on the island, the only human residents were a group of thirty Japanese fishermen. More Japanese were imported to work on the relay station that marked the halfway point of the submarine cable that stretched from San Francisco to Shanghai.

  The Japanese not only proved industrious workers, but busied themselves with slaughtering the wildlife on the island. The feathers of many of the birds were strikingly beautiful and drew good prices in the home country. Midway was already recognized as paradise for birds. Over the last hundred years, however, experience had shown such sanctuaries could quickly become abattoirs. The United States decided Midway would not become synonymous with extinction. In addition to the relay station, the marines were sent in to protect the rookeries. More to the point, the Japanese and Germans held most of the strategic 'line' atolls along the Pacific equator. Midway was a rare item: a strategic gem that was already owned by the Americans.

  Thus the marines landed.

  The original detachment contained twenty men under Second Lieutenant Clarence Owen. Because of the workers' unruly habit of getting drunk on saki and shooting up precious equipment, as well as feathered friends, the lieutenant's first act was to confiscate all the Japanese guns. Stop shooting birds and start pouring concrete, he commanded.

  Once the station and auxiliary buildings were completed, most of the construction workers were shipped back home. The dozen or so who'd become acclimated to the Americans' odd behavior remained behind as laborers and cooks.

  Over the years, it was realized that the extreme isolation of the Midway post produced behavioral oddities in the garrison that were noticeable even to the tolerant Japanese. This was rectified by relieving the men at two-year intervals. Still, two years of isolation, reinforced in many cases by a nearly complete ignorance of English, could make a man behave in some pretty strange ways.

  Out of boredom, the men in the shadow of the relay station now turned their attention to one of those strange manifestations. Private Lieber, stripped naked (there wasn't a woman within twelve hundred miles), was rowing back and forth across the lagoon in search of his favorite prey.

  1713 Hours

  One thing certain to raise Lieber's hackles was to be called 'Fritz.' As a consequence, everyone on the island called him 'Fritz.' Except the Japanese, who called him 'Flitz.'

  Heinrich Lieber was the son of Rudolf Lieber, tanner, pamphleteer, would-be anarchist. In 1897 Rudolf penned an imprudent letter to an acquaintance in Parma in which he discussed Wilhelm II's upcoming trip to Jerusalem. Rudolf listed the many excellent opportunities there would be to assassinate the Kaiser and mentioned Haifa as a particularly good spot. Rather than follow this advice, the Italian tried to kill his own despot, King Humbert, but he failed and Rudolf's letter was discovered in his apartment.

  News of the assassination attempt in Rome reached the Liebers before the police did. Rudolf fled with his family to Hamburg, thence to New York. Young Heinrich did not understand why the story of the escape had to be repeated to him again and again, seeing as he had lived it.

  He left home to escape poverty, only to find more of it on the streets. He worked as a garbage collector, a bill collector, and a dead horse collector. Meanwhile, his thoughts ranged across the injustices of the world.

  One could not grow up with an anarchist without some of it rubbing off. Assassination had been a worldwide vogue in his youth. Empress Elizabeth of Austria, wife of Franz Joseph, had been stabbed in the heart while walking down the Quai Mont Blanc in Geneva. Premier Canovas of Spain had been shot while on holiday at the spa in Santa Agueda. A bomb had killed five policemen in the Rue des Bons Enfants and the next year another was tossed directly into the Chambre des Deputes. Of course, the crown went to the six inches of steel thrust into the stomach of President Carnot of France in 1894.

  It seemed to Heinrich that injustice was the only justice for men without wealth or reputation. Knocking about New York, his daydreams ranged variously from murdering the mayor, the governor, a senator or two, and the president. The anarchist Leon Czolgosz beat him to the latter when he shot McKinley in 1901. But there was always someone else to assassinate, because there was always someone else who ruled.

  Meanwhile, he grew tired of collecting things and took a job as an actor at Coney Island. This entailed switching roles as much as twelve times a day as he raced back and forth through the concessions to the various stages and 'living exhibits.'

  By 1904 the amusement park at Coney Island was without doubt the largest of its kind in the world, spilling over onto Brighton and Manhattan Beaches. One of its central exhibits was The Boer War, in which skirmishes between British troops and rebels were re‑enacted. Instead of shooting real political figures, Lieber found himself firing blanks at South African insurgents. Charging blockhouses and revetments, he took a curious satisfaction in acting out the role. Some of the other actors thought he flourished his bayonet with too much enthusiasm. But surface cuts and powder burns aside, no one was harmed in the mock battles. It provided an emotional release for the young German. Not only that, it paid.

  It also opened doors to other jobs in the area. Over a period of two summers, he was a bit player in The Creation, The Great Galveston Flood, and The Trip to the Moon. He also spelled as a barker for the Coney Island Steeplechase, which provided him as much amusement as it did the public. Watching grown men rock on wooden horses as they raced opponents down the sloped track evoked roars of encouragement and laughter from the spectators. The manager correctly predicted that Lieber, barking the ride with Teutonic, barely comprehensible authority, could lure even the most staid passersby into feats of mock‑equine derring‑do. Professors vied with illiterate stevedores, matrons challenged seamstresses, all for a little pink slip of paper‑‑the First Place prize that entitled them to a free ride. Such scenes took place in Wilhelm's Germany only when the upper class grimly dared itself to mingle with the lower. The longer Lieber lived in America, the more he began to see the land of his birth as twisted, unnatural. Turn of the century German plays, opera and literature gushed with blood and sexual perversion. Taking Darwin to heart, they believed this represented reality. Still, in the land of blood and iron, everything had to fit in its proper place. So the baggy, grisly Unknowns were given a rigid home in the fine arts.

  But Americans! They looked cockeyed at you, told you the world was theirs for the taking, that everything that could be known would be known, given time and native know‑how‑‑and then institutionalized skewed perception in the freewheeling spirit of Coney Island. There was the Trip to the Moon, where lunar dwarfs escorted you around extinct volcanos; Hell Gate, which took you through manmade rapids into the infernal regions; 'Bumps,' where people were tossed about like popcorn on tin; the moving‑picture machines‑‑which cost a penny to view, but which drew large crowds nonetheless because of Anthony Comstock's protest that they seduced public morality.

  Lieber's personal favorite was the Foolish House, a huge maze of mirrors that left him gasping with the confusion mere reflections could cause. He would spot the exit‑‑only to have it resolve as a reflection of the exit. There was Lieber‑‑yet only a reflection of his reflection. Sometimes he would stand before a mirror and see nothing‑‑walking forward, though, he would hit clear glass. Strangers appeared alarmingly intimate‑‑yet whirling, Lieber would see only himself.

  This was America at its best. Taking common tricks of the cosmos, unmasking their rich complexity, then converting them into simple amusements. Not a denial, but an admission. By no means could one laugh at God. But one could sometimes enjoy the Joke with Him.

  None of Lieber's stage duties required much in the way of the spoken word. Unlike the steeplechase proprietor, the theatrical directors saw no charm in his accent. He was a sturdy lad who made a good‑looking prop. His career at Coney would have ended with the season had he not proved himself handy with tools‑‑a legacy from
his hated father, who did carpentry on the side. He spent the winter building new sets, repairing storm damage, helping redesign shopworn spectacles. The pay was meager but the life amusing, if not entirely fulfilling.

  Then came the day an entrepreneur approached management with a sensational plan for a new exhibit: The Fall of Port Arthur.

  While scholars and interested amateurs gleaned their history from books, visitors to Coney Island learned from vivid reenactments. Biblical and historical recreations were highly popular. Best attended were the battles. The Boer War played to packed open‑air houses. The Fall of Port Arthur promised the same.

  It was a wonderful undertaking. Models of Japanese warships five times as large as a man were made to seem even bigger using illusions of perspective and realistic backdrops. Smoke poured from their funnels as they stormed up the channel, firing broadside after broadside. All of which would have been impressive enough. What made The Fall truly awesome, however, was the cinematic screen hidden behind the backdrop. Explosions, soldiers landing and storming the heights, Russian volleys tearing through their ranks, were all projected from behind the screen. Used in conjunction with live sound effects, it was the most impressive display Lieber had ever seen. And he helped to build it. When finished, and summer came, it was mobbed by amazed spectators.

  Lieber returned to his role‑playing duties. Yet as he dashed from Dreamland to New Walk, across Neptune Avenue and down Coney Island Avenue, past the Scenic Railway or through Luna Park, scraping off greasepaint from one show and slapping on pancake for another, he nearly always found a way to pause by the Port Arthur panorama. It was not the ships so much as the martial air that captivated him. The old Prussian blood coming up. He had learned during his long ocean voyage between Hamburg and New York that he was not made for the sea. The health inspector at Ellis Island had kept him in isolation for a week, convinced he was contagious, when he was really only seasick.

  So if he could not join the Navy‑‑what?

  There was the East Side Army recruitment center, but it was closed much of the time. Even when open, the recruiters seemed so dull and dismal you'd have thought you were enlisting in Sing Sing.

  The great change in Lieber's life came when he ran into a group of marines at the Port Arthur Exhibit. He was startled to discover he could clearly understand what they were saying.

  Why... they were Germans!

  Thus, he waded into their conversation--and into the Corps.

  It was heaven on earth. Compensation for the rigors of Parris Island came in the form of his drill instructor; he was from Eschwege, a town on the Werra, practically dead center of the Fatherland. Teutonic in thought and action, he made Lieber feel as though the South Carolinians were the aliens, not the other way around. A multitude of nationalities, in addition to German, were scattered throughout the barracks. The Marine Corps seemed to be nothing less than a Foreign Legion smack in the American southland.

  Lieber earned high praise from the sergeant from Hesse, as well as from the Kommandant. He seemed destined for a great career in the Corps.

  Then came disaster.

  A month out of boot camp, he drew a unique historical assignment. Just over a hundred years earlier, Admiral John Paul Jones had gone to the great spinnaker in the sky. He was interred in the country where he died, France. It seemed a crime that America's first great naval hero should be entombed in a foreign land, so preparations were made to transfer the body to a crypt in a new chapel in Annapolis. This was a major public relations event for the Navy. Only the snappiest, handsomest sailors and marines were chosen for the honor guard.

  An atavistic thrill darted through Lieber when he joined the detail for the voyage to Paris. The nightmarish passage from Hamburg was forgotten. He suffered not a single moment of queasiness on the journey over, and decided his awful experience on the immigrant ship had been due to the overcrowded, despicable conditions in steerage. Sadly, he was only half right.

  As Jones' body was piped on board the Brooklyn, Lieber stood at port arms above the gangway. The ship was crowded with photographers, who had difficulty keeping their tripods steady as choppy water from the Channel disturbed the harbor. It was as if the ghosts of drowned British sailors were intent on one last broadside against their old foe.

  Suddenly, Lieber was overcome by nausea. He vomited roundly and loudly on the bier.

  As fast as he could clean himself off, he found himself in the Marine Barracks at the Portsmouth Navy Yard. This was sally port of the Atlantic Cruiser Squadron, which the Leathernecks had cruelly dubbed the 'Atlantic Harmless Squadron.' He made countless marches to York Beach and back--twenty miles in full pack--and every so often he pulled OD duty. This entailed handling and manhandling drunken sailors and marines as they staggered back from the bars in Kittery. He never had the heart to arrest anyone. The New Hampshire base was home to the Navy Prison, whose guards were notoriously sadistic.

  The Marine Corps counted ten thousand men and officers under its banner, most of whom were stationed either on ships, at embassies, or at any one of dozens of American outposts around the world. Portsmouth was considered a waystation, not a permanent assignment, for anyone who stopped there. While at the Yard, he barracked in a comfortable New England‑style building. An Irish girl came in from Kittery to cook for the marines. For all the forced marches and police duty, it was a life of relative luxury. To the German, it seemed someone was softening him up for a blow.

  He half-expected the orders he finally received:

  The Philippines.

  After Admiral Dewey defeated the Spanish at Manila Bay, the Filipinos' jubilation soured quickly when they discovered the Americans weren't liberators, but one more occupying army. Their reaction was swift and deadly. The Americans called it the Philippine Insurrection. A drawn‑out affair with a few pitched battles and innumerable ambuscades. In 1902 it was officially declared suppressed. But there were still skirmishes and back-alley ambushes.

  For all its remoteness, the village was world famous. During the Insurrection, C Company of the 9th Infantry had been ambushed there. Two‑thirds of the soldiers had been killed. Many of those men had tried to surrender. They'd been subjected to unspeakable tortures before being allowed to die.

  The marines were sent in. They had only one thing in mind, and they did it. At the ensuing court marshal it became known that the marine commander had ordered his men to kill every native over ten years of age.

  A war like that could not be forgotten or forgiven in the space of a few years. When Lieber arrived there were still isolated atrocities. The stray soldier or marine was occasionally murdered by disaffected tribesmen. But most of them had been won over, albeit grudgingly. Uncle Sam was investing millions of dollars in the Phillipines. Roads, railways, bridges and telegraph lines began to crisscross the islands. The far parts could suddenly hear and touch each other. Power stations, schools and sewage systems sprouted in the towns and villages. During his nine months on Samar, Lieber worked like a navvy. He cursed the day he'd heard of the Fall of Port Arthur, where he had met the marines who convinced him to enlist.

  While doing battle with a renegade tribe in the interior, he found himself shouldering arms alongside a Moro Muslim--one of the former, much-feared insurrectos. He suddenly realized the absurdity of his occupation. He was a German fighting for America, allied with a Moro also fighting for America, over a country that was not America's.

  Malaria ended his stint. Given massive doses of atrabine, his skin turned a rich yellow. As if to mock his condition, the Corps transferred him to Tientsin, where he remained for a year. The marines stationed there kept themselves busy by dodging battles between the various factions of Christian and non-Christian Chinese. When Lieber's company was withdrawn, he was sure he would finally return to his adopted homeland.

  He returned to America, all right.

  Midway was a territory of the United States.

  Neither the Corps nor the ghost of John Paul Jones could forgive him h
is moment of nausea in Marseilles. Lieber acquiesced silently. His father had come to America to escape Prussian hauteur and indifference. By entering the military Heinrich had, in a sense, returned to the fold. He was philosophical enough to accept the consequences of his action. One more stupid life-lesson to learn and put behind. Once his term of enlistment was up, he would kiss the Corps goodbye.

  There was a slight juggling at the stern.

  "Flitz! Ovuh there!"

  Ace was pointing toward one of the outcrops of coral in the lagoon. Lieber stared hard at the water between the skiff and islet, but saw nothing beyond some gooney birds bobbing aimlessly on the small waves.

  Ace shrugged. "I thought I saw one, Flitz."

  "And you a fisherman...."

  The Japanese drew a rueful countenance. He frequently accompanied Lieber on his shark hunts. He was as perplexed as the German by their sudden absence.

  "Where are they?" Lieber groused. They had not seen the tell-tale dorsal of a shark for well-nigh two days. Unusual. As long as he'd been on Midway, he'd never had to perform the arduous chore of chumming the water to lure sharks to the lagoon. If a deadly hammerhead was not lurking about, there would at least be a sand shark or two. But now... nothing.

  Without forethought, he jumped into the water.

  "Flitz!"

  "Verdammen Japanisch!" Leiber cursed, raising a wet fist. Only ten years as an American, and already his German was ungrammatical. Most immigrants remained clustered in ethnic communities. They handed down the language of the Fatherland to their children, while reinforcing it in themselves. But Lieber was not only isolated from these lingual islands, he was separated from consistent language of any sort. He'd been sent to lands where French, Spanish, Tagalog and Mandarin were spoken. The Corps itself was a polyglot. And the man in the boat above him was shouting in Japanese‑‑cussing up a dung heap, for all Lieber knew. His own speech had become a mishmash of half‑sentences and pig‑phrases. That his Low German would suffer drastic erosion in the ebb and tide of foreign tongues was only to be expected.