by John Jakes
He wandered past dark tennis courts and stopped a moment at the Oriental Annex, a large and brightly lit pavilion from which came dance music. Melodic and a trifle sad, the waltz reminded him of Julie. He left.
In his room he unpacked his clothes, the stereopticon card, and the paper flag. He propped the card against the mirror and laid the flag in front of it. To this little display he added the souvenir postcard of the hotel.
He undressed and tried to sleep. Even naked, it was difficult in the heat. Finally he drifted off but he awoke promptly at five minutes before six. It amused him to think that even a slumbering German seldom forgot punctuality.
When he knocked at Jimmy’s door, there was no response. He knocked again, harder. Still nothing. Considerably annoyed, he bought two cigars downstairs, left the hotel and caught a trolley across the Lafayette Street bridge. The morning was gray and steamy. In the daylight the town was even more dreary and primitive than it had seemed when they arrived. It was also far busier. Main streets were clogged with four-mule wagon traffic and menaced by mounted dispatch riders who traveled at the gallop regardless of pedestrians in their way.
Soldiers were abroad on the plank sidewalks. Most wore the standard uniform of heavy blue flannel. Some were Negroes, Paul was surprised to see. The black soldiers stayed together, noticeably apart from the whites.
In a small café decorated with American and Cuban flags, he ate a quick breakfast of mush and strong coffee. The counterman, a swarthy fellow with an accent, was loudly warning two customers that Spanish warships would bombard Tampa at the end of the week, after which enemy infantry would land and ravage the town. One of the listeners said, “Hell, Emilio, that’s only the ninth or tenth invasion rumor in the last two weeks. When I see some greaser coming after my missus with his pants down, then I’ll grab my gun.”
As Paul left, he noticed a little drift of sand inside the doorsill. Tampa, Florida, was indeed a strange new experience. It was heat, it was stickiness, it was tropical vegetation, but above all, it was sand. Still, he liked being here. It was exactly the kind of experience he’d dreamed of as a boy in Berlin.
He smoked a cigar as he walked. Almost every store window displayed one or more gaudy placards. BUY FROM TAMPANS WHO “REMEMBER THE MAINE!” FIFTH ARMY SOLDIERS WELCOME HERE! SPECIAL DISCOUNTS TO OUR BRAVE BOYS!
A reflection slid along the dusty rectangles of glass, moving at his exact pace. Mr. Dutch Crown. With cigar. He liked the image more and more.
He located the Plant System freight office in the depot at the corner of Polk and Tampa. The crate of film from Eastman was waiting. He signed for it and arranged delivery to the hotel. A half hour later, he found Jimmy enthroned in a rocker on the front veranda, looking like a carefree vacationer. To Jimmy’s left, at the main entrance, an Army sentry relaxing in a rocker casually saluted every second or third officer who entered the hotel. The sentry needed a shave and yawned a lot.
Jimmy had large dark circles under his eyes. When Paul asked what he’d done last night, Jimmy winked. “I don’t got to tell you ever’thing, do I, mister boss?” he said in a mock Negro accent.
They unpacked their equipment from the baggage room. By ten the film had arrived, and they set up the Luxograph camera on the lawn in front of the hotel. Paul paced back and forth, his straw hat shading his eyes as he planned his first shot—a long view of the veranda.
The camera drew a crowd, which included two military men. The taller had showy ribbons on his blouse, a tropical pith helmet, a swagger stick. He introduced himself as Captain Lee, Her Majesty’s military attaché from Washington. The other officer wore high boots, a plain khaki uniform, and a billed cap. On the front of the cap was a small white roundel with a red dot in the center. He was introduced as Colonel Yermoloff, “attaché from the Imperial Russian Embassy.”
Paul said, “My name is Dutch Crown and this is my associate, Mr. Daws.” Yermoloff clicked his boot heels and bowed. He had a tiny graying goatee and a cool, remote air. His thickly accented English consisted of “How do you do?”
Colonel Yermoloff tugged a small folding Kodak from the pocket of his blouse and wandered off to make snap-shots of several hotel peacocks parading their elegant tail fans on the lawn. Captain Lee asked questions about the camera, which Paul answered politely. Jimmy stood by, smoking cigarette after cigarette and ogling every woman in sight.
A man in a linen shirt and white flannel trousers came striding up the path from the tennis courts, racket in hand. The sleeves of a white sweater were tied around his neck. He stopped to greet the attaché. “Top of the morning, Arthur.” His clear, strong speech left no doubt that he was American.
“Hallo, Dickie. Have a good match?”
“Yes. I won.”
“Here’s one of these film chaps. Mr. Crown, have you another moment?”
“Certainly.” Paul was eager to meet people, and the captain’s deference said this man was important.
“We have any number of journalists gathering in Tampa, but here is certainly the most famous and distinguished.” The American laughed in a deprecating way. “Allow me to present Mr. Richard Harding Davis, currently representing Mr. William Randolph Hearst and his New York Journal. You’re familiar with Mr. Davis’s byline and his books, surely.”
“Indeed yes. I am honored, Mr. Davis. Soldiers of Fortune is a wonderful, exciting novel. I read it last year.”
Captain Lee smiled. “You and half the world. This young chap’s name is Dutch. The other gentleman is his associate, Mister—I’m very sorry, I didn’t—”
“Daws,” Jimmy growled.
A strikingly handsome man of about thirty-five, Davis was impeccably polite to Jimmy as well as to Paul. His handshake was hard and strong.
Affably, Davis said, “Are you picture fellows trying to put us poor pen-and-ink men out of work? Two of you in the hotel, and I hear at least two more are on the way.”
“You mean another company besides ours is already here?” Paul was alarmed.
“Right. Fellow named Bill Paley. Came in on a dispatch boat last week. Been filming at Key West for a while. Stout man—big as a barrel. You can’t miss him.”
“Nor his airs,” Captain Lee said with disdain. “Overbearing sod, Paley.”
“Now Arthur, don’t be too hard on him. He’s in poor health.” Davis said to Paul, “There’s a reason I know about your competition. My employer, Mr. Hearst, hired him personally. Paley and I have no formal relationship, but our pay comes from the same pocket. Paley usually makes films for the Eden Musée, that’s a dime museum on Twenty-third Street in Manhattan.”
“And you say there are two more companies due to arrive? Can you tell me who they are?”
“American Biograph’s one. I’m not familiar with the other. You can understand my general lack of interest, Dutch. I wrestle with nouns and adjectives all day and all night, but you fellows just turn that crank.”
Amused, Captain Lee stepped away to watch the antics of the Russian attaché. Yermoloff was running around in a crouch, chasing the agitated peacocks who wanted nothing to do with him or his camera.
Davis rested his racket on his shoulder. “German, are you? I mean originally.”
“Yes, I arrived at Ellis Island six years ago.”
“Your English is good. What’s the name of your company?”
“American National Luxograph of Chicago.”
“Going with us all the way to Cuba?”
“I hope so. It’s my intention to apply to the military staff for battlefield—ah—”
“Accreditation.”
“Thank you.” Paul liked this man. “Does anyone know where the Army will attack the Spanish?”
“General Shafter probably knows. Or General Miles, if he ever shows up. The general staff doesn’t bother to inform us working types about plans. We’re reduced to listening at keyholes and eavesdropping on bar conversations. One day I hear the objective will be Santiago, the next it’s Porto Rico.”
�
��Can they not decide?”
“Not yet, my boy,” said Captain Lee, who had returned a moment ago. “We are at the mercy of Admiral Cervera and the Spanish flotilla.”
“Our Navy’s out there chasing Cervera,” Davis explained. “But they can’t seem to find him, or his ships. Until they know where he is, no troops will sail from this port. I personally think—just a minute, there’s a gentleman I need to see.”
“Who’s that, Dickie?”
“Crane. Up there on the veranda. Excuse me, will you? Happy to meet you, Dutch. We’ll talk again.” He walked briskly toward the hotel.
Paul and Captain Lee watched the handsome journalist bound up the steps to greet a younger man in a straw boater and soiled white duster; a man who looked as raffish and lethargic as Davis was smart and energetic.
“They say Dickie’s pulling in three thousand per month from Hearst,” the captain mused in a vaguely envious way. “Plus expenses, of course. He gets additional fees for whatever he writes for Harper’s Monthly. He’s a lot richer than that rum chap he’s chatting with. A lot more civilized, too. Mr. Crane is a nonconformist. One might even say renegade.”
“I’m afraid I don’t recognize the gentleman.”
“Stephen Crane? Made quite a to-do with his Civil War novel.”
“That Mr. Crane! The Red Badge of Courage. It’s marvelous.”
“I wouldn’t know, I seldom read fiction. I never read any that’s obscene. His first book was some filth about prostitutes. And there are people who call him a genius! I find him abominably rude, arrogant, and desperately in need of a bath. Don’t waste your time, Mr. Crown. Good day.”
All this conversation bored Jimmy. He was lying on the grass now, lazily smoking a cigarette and studying the rows of guest-room windows.
“Jim, shall we get to work? The light’s good, I would like to start cranking.”
“Sure, okay.” Jimmy stood up and brushed himself off, but he took his time. Paul stepped to the camera. He noticed Jimmy running his eye along the rows of windows again.
In the next few days Paul and Jimmy dashed about with the Luxograph camera, photographing subjects Paul hoped would please Shadow and excite audiences. Standing ankle-deep in the surf at Old Tampa Bay, they filmed “The First Artillery Bathing Its Horses.” The colonel could add one or more exclamation marks, as he pleased.
On a dismal stretch of sand and low palmettos northeast of town, they filmed “Second Infantry Practices Entrenching Drill.” In pine woods, in pitiless heat, they filmed maneuvers of a thousand-man cavalry column—some squadrons galloping, some trotting, all kicking sand in the faces of the struggling camera operators. While the scorching sun flashed and winked from steel sabers, Jimmy once again threatened to quit. It was becoming a habit; Paul paid no attention:
“I have a different idea here, help me. Come on, damn it!”
Jimmy slogged after him, to a place where four sizable palmetto logs lay scattered about. They dragged the logs together and crisscrossed the ends, building a low breastwork. Paul crouched with the camera just behind this structure while a detachment of the cavalry gleefully charged straight at him, splitting in half only at the last moment. Jimmy knelt six feet to the rear of Paul, clenching his teeth in terror.
The riders streamed by on both sides, very close, but they were good horsemen and there was no mishap. Paul raised the camera and straightened the tripod. “If this footage develops without damage, it will be sensationell.”
Jimmy pulled a cigar from his shirt. “Well, you could’ve had a sensational funeral. This is getting pretty damn dangerous.”
“You had any spic stuff yet?” Jimmy asked that night in the rathskeller as they slumped over the bar with beer and a plate of cheeses.
“I don’t need girls”—a lie; the ache was becoming fierce—“I need alligators.”
“Alligators.? I wouldn’t go near one of those leather-hided fuckers. What’s got into you?”
“This telegraph message was on the bulletin board when we came in. The colonel wants pictures of Florida alligators. We must find one.”
Jimmy finished his beer. “You go on to bed and think about alligators, I got somebody waiting to smoke my cigar. See you tomorrow.”
Troop trains rolled into Tampa every day, bringing new detachments. Paul and Jimmy roamed the encampments, searching for likely subjects. The first camp had been set up on the Tampa Heights, vacant scrubland about a mile above the center of town, but that site had been filled very quickly. Now the Army was bivouacking new arrivals in DeSoto Park and Ybor City, Palmetto Beach and Port Tampa, nine miles away on the bay. Some units were stuck in Lakeland, thirty miles east. The newest camp was in a park on the west side of the hotel.
Civilians were pouring into the city too. The Plant line shifted its entire Sanford office staff—Paul and Jimmy photographed the arrival at the depot—and began hiring black day laborers from as far away as Ocala. There came also, inevitably, those who saw opportunity in supplying familiar wartime amenities. Tent saloons sprang up in the poorer sections, wherever there was a bit of space. Most had whores or gambling available. There was little interference; licensing laws in Tampa were loosely written and enforced. Paul didn’t think Iz Pflaum would show scenes of low life, so he wasted no film.
Lines of idled boxcars, many giving off the stench of spoiling food, stretched thirty miles north because the two railroads serving Tampa, Plant’s and the Florida Central & Peninsular, were the bitterest of competitors. The Plant System wouldn’t allow Florida Central freight on its right-of-way. Worse, Plant owned the single track from the city to the port on Old Tampa Bay. Jimmy thought they should film some of the boxcars, but Paul thought them ugly, and of little interest, and vetoed it.
Both railroads were promoting excursion fares throughout the state. Eight dollars bought a round trip ticket from Jacksonville. How could you not afford to go and admire America’s brave men drilling for war? On a single weekend the two lines brought in more than twenty thousand sightseers; Paul and Jimmy photographed some of them pouring off the bunting-covered cars.
Paul found tips on possible subjects and caught up on the latest news by whipping through the Tampa Times in his insufferably hot room after a day that typically lasted eighteen or nineteen hours. The paper told him that municipal facilities were grievously overtaxed; the water system had to be supplemented from wells owned by local companies. But Tampa residents were overlooking the crowds and the inconveniences because they were bathing in a river of new money. Retail business had never been so good. Newsboys made an unheard-of thirty dollars a week, lemonade and peanut vendors as much as fifty.
While officers were attending fancy balls at Plant’s hotel, civic groups entertained enlisted men at picnics. Every church had its gospel concert, ice cream social, and strawberry festival where soldiers could meet young women under proper supervision. Ladies’ prayer circles baked hundreds of cakes. So did the United Daughters of the Confederacy. High patriotism was in the air; America was coming together again in the crucible of this war.
There was no trouble between soldiers and the citizens of Tampa until the volunteers began arriving in large numbers. The Tampa Times observed that the experienced troops, the regulars, behaved well, but certain volunteers were intent on carousing and starting brawls, mostly in and around the new saloons, brothels, and gambling hells.
About ten days after Paul and Jimmy arrived, the famed evangelist Dwight L. Moody returned, having conducted a revival in Tampa only weeks before. He brought Ira Sankey, a celebrated organist. In a public park, Moody and Sankey and a third luminary, Oliver O. Howard, the general turned preacher, conducted day and evening services. The Luxograph team took the camera there one afternoon.
O. O. Howard was reading Scripture when they arrived. A prominent Civil War veteran, Howard had lost his right arm at a place called Fair Oaks, but had remained on active duty until the surrender. He’d been awarded the Medal of Honor, or so Paul was told by a magazine sketch a
rtist named Remington, a man with a burly frame and short, thick legs who seemed a likable, Falstaffian sort, at first.
Remington was sketching Howard from the back of the crowd, where Paul and Jimmy had set up the camera. Paul noticed that most of the crowd were soldiers, mainly Northern. While Jimmy cranked, Paul walked back to Remington, who had his foot on a stool and his sketch pad on his knee. Paul asked Remington why the local folk were boycotting the service.
“After the war, Howard ran the Freedmen’s Bureau. He started a college for the colored up in Washington. He can wave his Bible and preach about peace and brotherhood, but down here he’s still a damn Yankee nigger-lover.”
The service ended as the sun was dropping behind the palms. Mr. Remington closed his sketch pad and came over to examine the camera. He wasn’t impressed. He called the living pictures “a business for rag pickers and other New York kikes.”
Paul protested that Colonel Shadow wasn’t a Jew, nor was Mr. Edison, but what did it matter if they were? Remington looked affronted and left. Whenever Paul met him in the hotel after that, Remington merely nodded, without smiling.
Paul drank a lot of beer and wolfed a lot of wursts in the rathskeller, but seldom had time for a proper meal. By the end of his second week in Tampa he was losing weight. Sometimes he left his room before daybreak, forgetting to shave. It hardly mattered; smooth-cheeked or scrubby, the heavy humid air made him feel dirty either way. The hotel was bedlam, filled with high-ranking officers, their wives and children, and a growing number of journalists.
Paul continued to down a stein or two of beer in the rathskeller before tottering up to bed each night. He was now aware of a clear and rigid hierarchy among the journalists. Lowest were the camera operators like himself, Jimmy, and the porcine William Paley of the Eden Musée, whom Richard Harding Davis had mentioned. Paul had seen Paley from a distance on several occasions. He wanted to strike up an acquaintance with him but never seemed to find the opportunity.
Above the lowly representatives of an ill-defined and poorly regarded novelty medium were the newspaper reporters largely unknown outside their own editorial rooms. One step up were those with nationally recognized bylines. John Fox, Frederick Palmer, George Kennan. E. F. Knight of the London Times. The sketch artist for The Century and Harper’s, Frederic Remington, whom Paul disliked. At the apex of the pyramid were the two whose writings had made them internationally famous. Mr. Davis and Mr. Crane.