1920: America's Great War

by Robert Conroy

  Like a lamb, Luke allowed himself to be led down a hallway to a door on the eighth floor. Kirsten took a key from her purse and unlocked it. It was not a hotel room. Instead, it was a suite and it had a stunning view of the city.

  “I believe in planning ahead, Luke. I hope you don’t mind. The suite belongs to Mr. Griffith and Elise borrowed it from him. He believes in helping our soldiers, while the Army, of course, helps him with his movies.”

  “How could I possibly mind?” he said. Was this really happening?

  “Help me undress.” Yes it was.

  He did as ordered and, when she was naked, she undressed him. They looked on each other for a second and then couldn’t contain themselves. They rushed into each others arms and barely made it to the bed. Their coupling was frantic and intense, a tangle of bare legs and arms and clawing hands.

  A short while later, their second time was a good deal more sensual and sedate as they took delicious moments to explore each other.

  Later, they sprawled in the overlarge tub in the ornate bathroom and sipped glasses of Beringer wine that Kirsten had arranged for. “You will marry me, won’t you dear Kirsten?”

  “Of course, dear Luke. I love you more than you can imagine. But I won’t marry you until this damned war is over. I have no urge to be a widow a second time. Maybe I could deal with losing a lover, but never another husband.”

  She ran her hands over his body, pausing at the many scars. “Just how many times have you been wounded?”

  “I’m not too sure. I suppose it depends on how you define the term.”

  “Well, stop it.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  She slid on her side, exposing a luscious pink nipple. He leaned over and kissed it and she giggled. “Now you tell me—do you plan on staying in the Army?”

  “No. I made that decision a while after I met you. I realized that I couldn’t expect you to be a wife of an officer who would never rise very far, regardless of his abilities.”

  “Well then, just how do you plan on supporting me?”

  “Southern California is rich and lush and people are dumping prime properties at pennies on the dollar, sometimes pennies on the ten dollar. The pessimists seem to think the Germans might win. I don’t, so I’ve been putting my savings into buying farms and,” he sipped his wine and grinned, “some wineries. I don’t know much about either, but I know I can learn.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. He was taking a chance with all his hard-earned money and his future in the military on her behalf. By leaving the Army, he was also throwing away a pension, however small.

  As to their investing in wineries, the Prohibition Amendment appeared truly dead. Only thirty states had ratified the amendment and it seemed to be losing what popularity it had. Wine-making was an intriguing thought and one she’d looked into for herself. There were more than two hundred vineyards in the Sonoma Valley alone.

  She smiled as she realized that she’d been idly stroking his manhood as she used to do with her husband, and it had responded magnificently. Dear, dear, she thought, it has been a while for the poor man. And for herself as well, she added.

  She straddled him carefully, so as to not splash water on the floor, and guided him into her. Like the first times, she gasped with pleasure and half closed her eyes as he filled her. He thought she looked like a cat ready to pounce on a mouse and he was the mouse.

  “Go slowly,” she purred, “Very, very slowly.”

  * * *

  George Catlett Marshall hated being called a genius. All he wanted to do was do his job in the best manner possible. Nature, however, was conspiring just now to make him look like a fool. He stood on the east bank of the Columbia River tributary and looked across the rapidly flowing water. His engineers were crawling all over the bridge destroyed by Klaus Wulfram, and had already determined that, yes, it could be rebuilt, but, no, it wouldn’t be anytime soon. It was all he had expected, but he was supposed to solve the problem. After all, he was a genius, wasn’t he?

  Therefore, he had to figure a way to get the mountains of equipment accumulating on the east side across the swollen and ice-choked river. And let’s not forget the tens of thousands of men freezing their tails off in tent cities all along the rail line.

  Worse, when he looked across the river he could see his compatriots on the other side. Sometimes they waved to each other. So near, yet so far.

  The first part of his plan was to build railheads at each side of the river and this had been done. The second part of the plan called for the westbound trains to halt at the river, unload, and have the men and material ferried across the river or, in case of soldiers, marched across via pontoon bridges. It would be slow and labor intensive, but it would work.

  But the river wouldn’t cooperate. Pontoon bridges were built and then swept away, killing several of the engineers, and Marshall put a halt to their construction. Too dangerous for the men involved, he’d said.

  Flat-bottom barges had been brought in by train with the idea that they could be pulled back and forth by a combination of ropes and pulleys. Again, it would have worked if the river had cooperated. After losing some equipment and nearly losing more men, this idea was abandoned. The pulley combinations simply didn’t generate enough strength to enable the barges to bull their way through the soft ice and maintain control in the current.

  Even adding newfangled Evinrude outboard motors had only helped a little. Material could be shuffled across the river but only in very small quantities and it was considered too dangerous to send soldiers, a fact greatly appreciated by the troops.

  He’d even sent key men and a tiny quantity of supplies by plane.

  Marshall was of the opinion that the problem might be an engineering one. Therefore he had brought west with him the world’s preeminent mining engineer, Herbert Hoover. If Marshall was considered dour, he was positively gregarious and loquacious in comparison with Hoover, a man who rarely spoke. It was hard to believe that such a silent man had been the driving force in providing food to the starving people of Belgium until the Germans decided they did have an obligation to feed their newly captive nation. Marshall could wait no longer, “Your thoughts, Mr. Hoover?”

  “How many pontoon bridges can you build and how quickly can you build them if the river cooperates?”

  Marshall blinked. The question was long enough to be an oration for Hoover. “If the river cooperates, I can get three or four across in eight hours. We could move men marching in two columns and trucks if we spaced them carefully. We could move an army in two weeks. Unfortunately, that army would still be at least a week away from San Francisco, which is why it is imperative that we move quickly.”

  Again the maddening silence from Hoover, who was obviously thinking deep thoughts. He kept turning his head left and right as he surveyed, literally, the situation.

  He turned to walk away, then paused and stared at Marshall. “Get ready.”

  * * *

  Joe Sullivan was gaunt and forever hungry. It had been this way since he’d been captured by the Germans when Los Angeles fell to them. There simply wasn’t enough food provided to fill the bellies of both the soldiers and the prisoners. Their numbers dwindled as many sickened and died. There was plenty of food, but little for the prisoners. The warehouses were filled with it and the POWs could only stare at it as they loaded crates of rations onto northbound trains.

  Their neglect was Roy Olson’s fault and they wanted to hang him from a tree after skinning him alive. Olson was the worst of all men in their opinion. He was a traitor, a collaborator. He was rich and getting richer on the sweat, blood, and lives of American prisoners of war. Hell, if the son of a bitch only bought and sold supplies or booze to Krauts, you could argue that he was simply making a living. But no, the prisoners had to work for Olson, slave for Olson, along with helping Olson suck up to his German masters.

  Joe had first thought that Martina Flores was nothing more than a cocksucking whore and a female version of
Olson. She was a lot prettier than he thought a whore should be and that bothered him. But then, his knowledge of whores came from lurid stories and cheap novels. He was nineteen and a sophomore at Southern California University in Los Angeles.

  She also looked haunted and that puzzled Joe. She was eating and had a good life with Olson, so why wasn’t she happy? He made eye contact through the barbed wire and she smiled sadly at him. He mentioned it to Captain Rice who was senior among the prisoners and was told, sure, go ahead and try to make further contact.

  One of Joe’s skills was Morse code. He’d been a radio operator during the fighting. He wrote out a message along with the code on a piece of paper with an innovation on his part. Left hand was dots, while right was dashes. The uncoded message was simple—Will you help us? He tied the paper to a rock and waited for her to come by. When she did, some of the guys started a mock fight and everyone rushed to see it, even some of the Mexican guards who were as bored as everyone else. Joe lobbed the rock over the fence and watched it bounce by her. She looked surprised and then stood over the rock, covering it with her long skirt.

  Lucky rock, Joe thought. What could it see if it had eyes? A moment later, she casually reached down and put it in her skirt pocket and departed.

  An hour later, she returned and smiled at him. With her left and right hands alternating, she spelled out her answer: Yes.

  * * *

  George Patton loved intrigue as much as the next man, but this was almost too much. His arrival in Seattle had been as secretive as possible. He’d ridden alone in a mail car with some people from the Secret Service. They declined to speak with him other than to confirm that they were indeed on their way to Seattle. What the hell, he thought angrily. He already knew that.

  Their arrival was timed for the dead of night. He was whisked away by car to a large warehouse that had its own rail spur. There was an office and a bunk in the corner. It was suggested that he try to get some sleep. He tried but sleep wouldn’t come. Nor could he get access to the rest of the warehouse. All doors were locked and the window was papered over. What the hell was he doing here? General Connor had just told him to go and pack some warm clothing.

  He was told he would meet someone and that all would become clear. He waited. About noon, a touring car arrived and a dapper, slightly plump, well-dressed man in his mid-forties got out. Patton thought he looked vaguely familiar but couldn’t place him.

  The man introduced himself, speaking with a slight stutter and an upper-class British accent. “My name is Winston Churchill and I am with the Admiralty.”

  Patton knew better. Churchill was far more important than the understated “with the Admiralty.” Winston Churchill was Second Sea Lord, and considered to be a first-class snob, which was fine by Patton who considered himself a first-class snob as well. But what the devil was Royal Navy’s Second Sea Lord doing meeting an American cavalry officer?

  “Your European cousins have brought you a present,” Churchill continued. “Come, come.”

  They went into the vastness of the warehouse. It was empty save for a strange-looking contraption in the corner. Several British soldiers who’d been lounging around snapped to attention and were waved away.

  The contraption was a vehicle, but it was on tracks instead of wheels, much like a farm tractor. Obviously armored and ready for war, it had a 20mm cannon in a turret.

  Churchill smiled grimly. “This is one of our most closely guarded secrets, the Mark D, which tells you this little wonder had predecessors from which it evolved. The crates they were first shipped in were labeled ‘water tanks’ to guard them from curious eyes, and we’ve taken to calling them by that name, tanks. The Mark D and its predecessors were designed over the last several years to crunch through trench lines and other fortifications. It was still a designer’s fantasy when we surrendered in 1915, but the military never lost track of its significance; thus, this beauty.”

  Patton’s mind was whirling as his mind tried to absorb the machine’s potential. “How fast will it go?”

  “Up to fifteen miles an hour. It has either a 20mm cannon in its turret or a pair of machine guns. The turret revolves. Earlier versions had a fixed turret, which makes this a vast improvement. It can go over rough terrain or down a road and has a crew of four. It weighs twenty tons and, as I said, can go fifteen miles an hour on flat terrain with a range of one hundred miles. We do not believe the Germans have anything to send against it.”

  Patton saw its potential with astonishing and sudden clarity. This was the future of cavalry. For all that he loved horses, he’d seen too many of them chewed to screaming pieces by machine guns and massed rifle fire. The day of the horse, already over, would become the day of the tank. Aristocrats like him would be replaced by mechanics and tinkerers. Damn. He would have to adapt.

  “Is this the only one?”

  “It’s one of fifty. The rest remain crated and hidden. This too will return to its box and all will be trundled down to San Francisco, again in secret. They must be a complete surprise to the Germans.”

  Patton could visualize scores of these metal monsters rumbling towards German soldiers who were either fleeing or being crushed under their treads. Yes, the secrecy must be maintained at all costs. He grinned devilishly. “A horrible surprise, I hope. Pity the poor Krauts. If I didn’t hate them so much, I could almost feel sorry for them.”

  A delighted Churchill almost clapped his hands in childish glee that someone appreciated his tanks, and it occurred to Patton that this Churchill creature wasn’t very mature. “I can see why Generals Liggett and Connor selected you to command these tanks. There was concern that you might be too tied to horse cavalry to see this kind of iron beast’s potential.”

  “Time passes and everything changes. If it works, and you wouldn’t have brought it all this way if it didn’t, the horse will be seen only in Fourth of July parades.”

  Churchill continued with a smile, “Tragic thing, the Fourth of July.” Both men laughed at his little joke. Churchill was half American and proud of it. “Regardless, the generals and I all see the same thing: Waves of infantry accompanied by dozens of tanks moving in tandem and overwhelming the German infantry, crushing them to bloody pulps. Isn’t that a beautiful picture?”

  Patton’s mind was racing so quickly he thought he might grow faint. “Actually, Mister Churchill, I believe I might have an even better idea how these weapons should be deployed.”

  * * *

  Luke always felt a little awkward standing in front of others and using a pointer for emphasis. It reminded him of the grade schools he’d attended during his shortened formal education. This time, the chart of emphasis was a reworking of the German table of organization. Crown Prince Wilhelm remained at the top, but the presence of what appeared to be an independent, or quasi-independent, command was the subject of discussion.

  Luke commenced. “The replacement of General von Seekt was not surprising. He was, and is, an excellent staff officer and we believe he was given a field command as a means of completing his military education. When the German Army broke off into two unequal parts, his was by far the smaller of the two and assigned responsibility for moving up the coast with the mountains to his right and the ocean to his left. While he was doing that, of course, the bulk of the German Army was and is moving up the Central Valley.”

  Liggett nodded. “And this von Seekt character screwed up and has been sent packing. Correct, Captain?”

  “To a point, sir. The Germans are always planning ahead and I don’t think they are terribly concerned that Seekt didn’t perform satisfactorily. I would not be surprised if he became Ludendorff’s chief of staff during an invasion of Bolshevik Russia and performs brilliantly.”

  “Curious reasoning,” muttered Liggett.

  “Not necessarily,” said Admiral Sims. “Kindly recall that one of the world’s great naval theoreticians, our Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, was absolutely miserable as a captain of a ship.”

  L
iggett smiled, “Point taken. Continue, Captain.”

  “Yes sir. The Germans replaced Seekt with General Oskar von Hutier, age sixty-three. He is actually older than Seekt, but is far more aggressive and has a reputation for being innovative. Thus, if the coastal command is a military backwater, then it is no place for a man of Hutier’s drive and skills. In short, sirs, they are up to something.”

  It was enough talking for a captain. General Nolan took over the pointer. “We believe that the main thrust of the Germans will be up the Central Valley. However, von Hutier has two—maybe three—divisions and an attack by his force at the other end of our lines could be very dangerous. We simply don’t have enough skilled men to be everywhere and the Germans know that.”

  Sims interrupted. “Thanks to the efforts of your General Marshall, we now have telegraph service between here and the rest of the United States. I have just been informed by the Office of Naval Intelligence, that two of the three divisions being held in reserve by the Germans at Haiphong are now en route to California. Might one or both be intended to reinforce this von Hutier?”

  Liggett was dismayed but not surprised. Two additional divisions? Just what he didn’t need. “How good is your information, Admiral?”

  “Very good. The ONI reports that the Germans are behaving in a beastly manner towards the occupied French and Indo-Chinese and those groups are happily giving us information. The two divisions have indeed sailed.”

  “And where will they land?” Liggett asked the room. “If not with Hutier, then where? Might they land to our north?”

  “Not likely,” said Sims. “The only possible spot north of San Francisco might be Point Reyes, but I think it’s too isolated and is surrounded by mountainous terrain. A landing there could easily be contained.”

  Sims sighed. “Gentlemen, it’s time to let you in on a major secret. Our ONI is reading much of the German’s mail and has compromised a number of their codes. I do not believe they will land north of San Francisco no matter how tempting that might look on a map. The terrain is too rugged for easy maneuver, and it would leave the German force out on a limb. The Germans do not have significant amphibious capabilities and there are no major ports for them to seize. Indeed, all the ports they need they already have. Gentlemen, I believe the two divisions will reinforce the existing army and I believe it’s likely that Hutier will get at least one of them.”