America Über Alles

by Jack Fernley

  ‘I might. She clearly has some sense of affection towards me or she wouldn’t have pulled me out of the water. Who’s to say we couldn’t become confidential, like.’

  Hand snorted. ‘Confidential? You’ve no chance of that happening, you fool. She’s far too sophisticated for a bogtrotter like Paddy O’Leary. Besides which, I would hazard she and Baron von Steuben have an arrangement of sorts.’

  O’Leary appeared crestfallen. ‘You think so? You can’t be sure of that. You can’t be. You’re just playing with me, fella, no mistake. Besides which, you know these sophisticated ladies, what they really want is some of that old Irish charm – and I’ve plenty of that!’

  A cheer from the far side of the bar drowned out their laughter. One of the Stormtroopers was taking all comers on at armwrestling – and winning all, much to everyone’s amusement. It could be no surprise, the blond Prussian seemed twice the size of every colonial in the room.

  ‘I have some news. I am restored to my former glory of Lieutenant Colonel.’

  ‘Hurrah!’ shouted Pat and Sarah in unison.

  ‘And I have agreed to bring the Riflemen in with von Steuben’s troops. They call themselves the Stormtroopers.’

  ‘I like that, Stormtroopers. That’s a good name. That’s the kind of name that’ll put fear into the enemy straight away, “Look ahead, boys, the Stormtroopers are coming for yer!” They’ll be shitting their pants and heading for their mamas before a shot is fired. Stormtroopers, that’s properly fearsome. The Riflemen doesn’t have the same ring to it.’

  ‘I sense there’s much we can learn from them. They are far more advanced than our farmhands and clerks from Boston. If we’re to make the most of this recent success, we need to become more disciplined, more thoughtful in our approach. Our militia have to become soldiery like them,’ Hand replied.

  ‘They also be easy on the eye. I don’t know what they feed them in that Prussia, but none of us ladies are complaining about the size of these boys. Or their teeth. Have you seen their teeth, Ed? You don’t get teeth that white and gleaming in America.’

  The door of the tavern opened and Werner Conze strode in, stopping at the door, to survey the scene.

  ‘See what I mean. Look at him,’ Sarah drooled.

  ‘That one’s called Werner Conze, speaks very good English.’

  Conze spotted Hand, gave a cheerful wave and walked towards the group before asking, ‘Colonel Hand, may I join you and your comrades?’

  ‘Werner Conze, may I introduce you to Sergeant Patrick O’Leary, the finest friend a man could have, not to mention the finest gunsmith in the Americas, and my sister, the dearest sister in the world, Miss Sarah Hand.’

  Conze reached out for Sarah’s hand, before elaborately bowing and kissing it. ‘Charmed to make your acquaintance, Miss Hand. Sergeant O’Leary, a pleasure to meet in person a gentleman of whom I have heard only praise from the esteemed Frau Hanna Reitsch.’

  ‘She talked of me?’

  ‘She has spoken of little else since her return from Trenton,’ replied Conze with a hint of good humour that the Hands noticed, but flew straight above the head of O’Leary.

  ‘Did she now? You see, you two, I told you there was something there. Would you share a drink with us, Mister Conze?’

  ‘Please, call me Werner, we must be less formal. We are friends, comrades on the same journey. Of course, I’ll have whatever you’re having.’

  ‘On a night as cold as this, it has to be rum, hot-peppered rum.’

  ‘Then hot and peppered rum it will be.’

  ‘This chair is free. Won’t you take it and join me here, Werner?’ said Sarah forwardly.

  ‘Ma’am, it will be a pleasure.’

  ‘Please, call me Sarah. I agree that allies should be less formal with each other.’

  Hand raised an eyebrow at O’Leary.

  Conze sat down as O’Leary left for the drink. There was another shout from the corner. Conze looked over.

  ‘Ah, I see Scharführer Lothar Kluggman is entertaining everyone in his usual polite manner.’

  Hand looked over. ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Oh, a prized fighter of the Reich. There are few people who can take on Kluggman. Well, I don’t think there is anyone alive who can. He is a phenomenon. If we had a hundred Kluggmans, we could win this war in days. I’m afraid he is lacking in English, or German for that matter. A man of very few words, but extraordinary action. A wonderful tool.’

  ‘Where do you come from, Werner? Are you Hessian?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Ah, I’m from Heidelberg originally, to the south, but I have been living for most of the last decade and more in Berlin, the capital of our Prussia.’

  O’Leary placed the drinks on the table and pulled up another stool. Conze picked up his toddy, raised it and announced: ‘To our new-found friendship and the coming victory. To America!’

  ‘To America!’ they all repeated, even Hand without a drink.

  Conze winced as the rough, flaming toddy went down his throat. ‘You say you’re a gunsmith, Sergeant O’Leary?’

  ‘Pat or Paddy, please. Yes, I have the unfortunate role of keeping Ed’s Riflemen armed in the field. Not the easiest thing in the world, believe me.’

  ‘I must introduce you to a friend of mine from Germany, Schmeisser. Schmeisser is a genius, his guns will change the world, believe me. He will soon make your muskets irrelevant.’

  ‘Is he with you in camp?’

  ‘No, he is travelling about New England with someone else we brought over with us, Alfried Krupp. He is equally revolutionary. They are studying the iron- and steelworks of Jersey, Boston and so on. We have plans you see. We have ideas that may bring you victory sooner than you might have imagined. This has already been a long and difficult war, has it not?’

  ‘Indeed, sir. This past year has been especially difficult; today was our first victory for some time,’ replied Hand.

  ‘And this year has been very hard for our Edward, he lost his wife and a bairn,’ said Sarah, stroking her brother’s head affectionately.

  ‘I cannot imagine such a loss,’ said Conze sympathetically.

  ‘I don’t wish to dwell on my losses tonight. I have had plenty of time to do that and will do so again. But not tonight, tonight we look to the future, with good cheer and grace.’

  ‘Indeed. Today is the turning point, the day from which in a thousand years people will look back and say, “The world changed then. On that day, man set forth on a new path.”’

  ‘Why have you come all this way from your family in Europe to fight our war for us?’

  ‘Your war? Sarah, this is not just your war, it is our war, a war for everyone who hopes for a better world. This war is not simply about making King George pay for taxing a people with no representation. This is a war that will shape the course of the human race for a thousand years. This America of yours is not yet half-formed, the lands to the west are yet to be civilised. When they are, when this America stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, you will have the greatest Lebensraum of any nation on earth. The land is rich in minerals, it stands ready and willing to make the most of technologies the likes of which you cannot imagine. The age of the machine is almost upon us. It is coming faster than you might think. Soon there will be iron horses that can transport men from city to city in hours rather than days or even weeks. There will be a time when we will launch machines that fly in the air. Imagine a time when you can fly like a bird from New York City to Spanish missions in Las Californias! That world will soon be in our grasp, within a century or two, for our children’s children.

  ‘How best to achieve that? How best to ensure the best possible world for those children not yet imagined, yet conceived? To ensure light over dark? We at this moment in time must lay the foundations for such a society, for an empire that will last a thousand years and propel mankind to fulfil all its potential. That, my dear friend, is why I am here. To ensure that the soon-to-be-born America is a wholly new world,
without the prejudices and follies of the past. To create a new world, for a new man!’

  ‘It’s like Tom Paine said in that pamphlet you gave me Ed,’ said Pat excitedly. ‘“The cause of America is the cause of all mankind.”’

  Hand looked stunned. He had no idea his friend had actually read the battered copy of Common Sense he had given him.

  ‘Indeed, Thomas Paine,’ snorted Conze. ‘I have issues with Mister Paine, but that is for another day. Another toast: To America!’

  Conze raised his glass once more, clinking with Sarah’s and Pat’s glasses. Hand looked upon them. There was something of a fury in Conze’s eye, madness perhaps, but in Sarah and Pat he saw the growing embers of something worse, a kind of worship, as children before a teacher.

  Then a fiddler started playing and a hornpipe began, pairs of men and women pushed back their tables and chairs to clear a space and began a raucous, chaotic dance, the music almost overwhelmed by the cheers and whoops of the dancers. The celebratory mood was intoxicating.

  Conze turned to Sarah, ‘Miss Hand, would you care to escort me to the dance floor.’ Then, checking himself, ‘If that is acceptable to your brother, natürlich.’

  ‘I long ago gave up looking after Sarah, or rather trying to. If she wishes to partner you, then so be it.’

  ‘Werner, it will be my pleasure. We are commonly lacking in gentlemen in these parts. It’s a rarity to be asked and not to be dragged to the floor.’

  ‘Then, please, take my arm,’ said Conze, and within moments they were part of the whirlwind that had so suddenly erupted around them.

  ‘It’s a rare old night this, Ed, what every Christmas should be, I’d say. Fair forgotten the storm outside,’ smiled the slightly drunk Pat O’Leary.

  SIXTEEN

  While his men caroused into the night, Washington was dealing with his own affray, mostly a torrent of abuse from Sullivan.

  ‘Sir, I am astounded by your lack of compunction about placing such trust in this Hessian. We know nothing of him. Well, we know he is a mercenary and a mercenary is motivated by one thing, that which can be weighed in a purse. How do we know that he will not betray our cause, as he has the British? What . . . what if this is all a British ruse, to place a viper in our bosom? What if we have a spy active at the heart of our enterprise?’

  For once, Washington responded with his own form of fury.

  ‘A British spy? A British spy who provides us with such intelligence as to give us our first victory in so many months? A British spy who holds back his troops, sees the death of a British general and then brings most of his force over to our side? The British are prepared to pay a heavy price if they sent him as a spy. No, if the baron is a British spy, I’ll congratulate him for the complicated web he has spun these last two days.

  ‘You above all others, John Sullivan, will remember the disarray, nay, the shame of Long Island. What was it, sixty British infantrymen we counted turning two of our brigades on their heels? That day we understood the chasm between the British army and our own forces. From that day, I understood our militia required the tactics, the training and the discipline that the British possessed. I believe that the baron and his two hundred and fifty Stormtroopers will swiftly give our boys the very essence we lack. Or would you prefer to be held captive once more by the British and sent to Congress as a mere messenger boy again?’

  Washington held Sullivan’s ferocious stare. The others in the room stood silent, surprised by the lack of control Washington had demonstrated, a lack of control at odds with his usual bearing.

  It had been just a few weeks since the British had returned Sullivan, captured amid the chaos of the Long Island debacle. Howe had agreed he could return to the American side only if he took a message to Congress offering to open negotiations for peace. Sullivan had been humiliated, John Adams calling him the ‘decoy duck’. Others pointedly asked if the British sent Sullivan because he would do more harm to the Colonists’ cause in the field rather than without. The general was more than aware of the whisperings against him in Philadelphia. Now he felt Washington turning against him.

  He replied in a quiet voice: ‘That, sir, is a low observation, unbecoming of you. I have served you loyally and well. After Trois-Rivières, I was content to oversee the retreat from Quebec, when others would have baulked at such a mission. Did I complain when you placed Putnam over me at Long Island? No, I did not. I have borne these and other humiliations with stoicism, always remaining loyal to the cause and yourself. And for what? For petty insults it would appear.’

  Now Washington paused. He had allowed his temper to get the better of him. He was tired, he wanted to rest, but he could not let Sullivan depart feeling bruised. He had enough enemies without creating another one. He deliberately softened his tone.

  ‘John, you and I have been through too much together to have things fall apart when we are at last seeing the fruits of our endeavours. This war cannot be about the vanity of any one of us, this cause is greater than that. If you damn me for taking whatever opportunities come our way to ensure success, well, then you must damn me, but know that I do so because I believe it will be to our benefit, our eventual success. You have proved yourself on so many occasions to be both able and loyal. I have dispatched to Congress news of our victory and I have placed your efforts at the head of those deserving the greatest appreciation from the delegates. My hope is that it will go some way to silencing those who stay by a warm hearth yet think nothing of directing calumny towards you.’

  The fury drained from Sullivan’s face. His reply echoed Washington’s tone.

  ‘I thank you, sir. I do not damn you; I would never consider such an abomination. But I say this: we know nothing of this gentleman, aside a vague understanding of his reputation in Europe. It is true, he helped us achieve a famous victory, but my concern is plain: a man has to earn the right of trust. He has betrayed the English, it would appear, for what? What gain does he perceive? Would he not equally betray those he barely knows if such a gain was to twofold?’

  And now Mercer joined in with his soft Scottish burr: ‘I too share some of John’s reticence on this issue, George. I urge caution before holding the baron too close. I would observe him for a period of time. You have made an excellent choice in having Hand join with these Hessians. He is a man we trust. I would encourage you to ask him for reports on the true nature of von Steuben and his ambitions. Then you will be able to determine his purposes and indeed his usefulness to our cause.’

  ‘Thank you, Hugh. I will act upon those reflections. Nat Greene, what do you say?’

  From the chaise longue came a languid reply, ‘I’d like to provide you with some honest reports on Frau Reitsch, sir. Now there’s a woman.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Von Steuben, or as he still preferred to consider himself, Robert Ritter von Greim, lay stretched out on a canvas bed in lodgings that had hastily been found for him. Hanna Reitsch sat on a small stool, untying her boots.

  ‘My dear, our victory seems to have been achieved with greater ease than I envisaged. If there were any champagne available in this backward country, I would order a magnum and drink it immediately.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re unlikely to taste champagne again, Robert, certainly not the kind of champagne you love so. Has it even been invented? Besides which, victory is still a long way off, you must know that. This is just the start.’

  ‘Ah, but look how easy it has proved to be. Conze’s analysis of Washington was correct. What did he tell us? “A simple man, used to prevarication, his position so weak at this moment, so frustrated with his generals, he will soon turn to a new ally.” Excellent. Excellent work. He is something, our professor.’

  ‘He is too much of an intellectual for my liking.’

  ‘No, you much prefer some animal brawn, my dear,’ said von Greim, stroking her hair from behind. ‘I know you adore me because I lack such finesse.’

  Laughing, she replied, ‘I adore you because you are twice the
man he will ever be. But there will come a time when Werner Conze will look to push himself at your expense.’

  ‘That may be true, but by then, I may be ready to retire to one of these southern plantations, serviced by young Negro women. Did not most of these “revolutionaries” father several children by slaves? I too could be the father of such a nation!’

  Reitsch smarted him with a soft punch, pushing him down on to the bed and undoing the buttons on his shirt. ‘And I thought you were a stickler for fassenschande? Perhaps we need to introduce our own Nuremberg Laws on racial purity sooner than I thought. By all means go find your self a few negresses, but none of them will be able to satisfy you like your dear Hanna.’

  ‘Now, that is true.’

  Moving down, she started to unbutton his trousers, pulling them off and revealing the scars from the flight to Berlin, scarlet and enflamed against the whiteness of his limbs. ‘How is your leg? I was always worried that such a long and primitive trip from Berlin would only open up the wound, but it seems to have healed almost perfectly.’

  ‘Ah, it is nothing. Little more than a dull ache now. I count it as just one addition to the growing list of small insults that old age brings. It certainly doesn’t stop me from performing my favourite form of exercise.’

  With that he rolled over, taking Reitsch with him, and furiously began to unbutton her white blouse.

  EIGHTEEN

  By the following morning, the storm had finally broken. As the camp slowly stirred, those awakening were met by a clear sky; the freezing winds replaced by a still cold. The ground was firm once more, which was just as well, because the Continental Army was on the move again: Washington had made the decision to recross the Delaware to establish a more permanent camp at Trenton, where they would be joined by Cadwalader’s and Ewing’s forces.

  While the Colonists packed up their camp and started their move, a different conference was taking place in the small lodging room in which von Greim and Reitsch had spent the night.