Homeland

by John Jakes

  “More ether,” the doctor shouted. He was sweating brutally.

  From the next room someone called, “That was the last. They can’t unload any more until the wind calms down and the surf drops. In the morning, maybe.”

  “Of all the God damned half-baked excuses for a hospital—”

  The other doctor reached out to steady him: “We’ve got to finish, ether or no ether.”

  Paul watched the shiny needle rise. The soldier screamed again.

  Paul’s head was clearing a little; drawing up memories. Jimmy. The chain around his neck. The bullet. And the land crabs. He could feel them. He shuddered, making a little noise. The doctors looked at him.

  He remembered dark faces seeming to float in the sky. One belonged to Ott Person …

  His mind drifted again. Sometime later, another doctor appeared. This one wore a cleaner smock. He was an older man, portly and losing his hair. He had a round face pink as a cutlet, and a self-important air. He carried a medical chart.

  “I am Dr. Winter, the surgeon in charge. How are you feeling, my lad?”

  The false bonhomie angered Paul. “Terrible. I have never suffered pain like this.”

  “Even so, you’re a very lucky fellow. The bullet pierced cleanly, and passed through. No organ damage. Two broken ribs, that’s the worst. But we’re puzzled by the abrasions around your throat. Was something wrapped there to choke you?”

  Paul propped himself on his elbows; excruciating. “My partner attacked me. Then he ran off. I don’t know what happened to him.”

  “Well, I certainly can’t tell you.”

  “What day is this?”

  “Saturday morning.” The doctor tucked the chart under his arm and brought out a gold watch. He tilted the dial toward the kerosene lights. “Just a little after 3 A.M. Lie down, please. Your wound is dressed, we’ve taped your ribs, but you’ll have to recuperate for at least a week.”

  “Impossible! I have to work,” Paul said, struggling up again. “I’m here to take moving pictures of the war.”

  “So we were told by the man who brought you in.” He poised a pencil over the chart. “There’s been a great deal of confusion. We never got your name. What is it?”

  “Paul Crown. American Luxograph Company.”

  “Just your name,” the doctor snapped. He wrote it down.

  “Where is this house, Doctor?”

  “Siboney.”

  “When I was hit, I was up in the hills.”

  “Yes, the soldier I referred to carried you all the way here on his back. Big buck nigger. I don’t know who he was, I can’t tell one of them from another. I insist you lie down and rest.”

  Dr. Winter walked away, once again allowing Paul to see the silvery flash of the needle, followed inevitably by the scream.

  Saturday morning a civilian with a familiar face came in. He peered around, spied Paul, and pulled up a stool. His natty jacket and houndstooth cap were unspeakably dirty. Paul smiled sleepily.

  “Billy.”

  “Hello, sport,” Bitzer said. “I heard you were laid up here. How’re you doing?”

  “I am going to make it.”

  “Well, I guess you’d better! Got a couple of important things to tell you. First, your camera’s okay. Some soldiers found it abandoned by that ranch house at Las Guásimas. They turned it over to me. I stored it with the V Corps provosts.”

  Panicky, Paul remembered the canvas bag left in the chaparral. Would it still be there? Would the heat and rain ruin the magazines? He struggled up. “I have to get out of here—”

  “Nah, no hurry,” Bitzer said, shaking a cigarette from a pack. He offered one to Paul. Paul shook his head. Bitzer struck a match. “Everything’s holding until they can move enough men and supplies to forward positions. That’ll take six or seven days, maybe more.”

  “Are you sure my camera’s all right?”

  “Absolutely, I checked it over. The lens is fine, so’s the crank mechanism. I don’t think a drop of rain fell on it, either. You were pretty damn lucky. I still wish I had that camera, it’s a honey.”

  “Decent of you to look after it,” Paul said. “We’re competitors.”

  Billy Bitzer’s grin managed to be tough and warm at the same time. “Yeah, but your name isn’t Paley. That’s the other news. Paley went home. He got too sick to work. Never shot a single frame of the action. He left for Key West yesterday. Nobody’s holding a wake.”

  He put on his cap and squeezed Paul’s shoulder. “Get well, friend.”

  “Thank you, Billy. For everything.”

  “Forget it. See you in the trenches.”

  Later that day Paul was dozing when someone shook him. He said, “No,” rolling his head from side to side without opening his eyes. He wanted to sleep.

  The hand jostled him again. “Come on, Heine, wake up. I only got a little while.” Groggily, Paul looked at the ugly face of Corporal Ott Person.

  Ott hunkered down and cast an eye over the room, now crowded with seven men lying on pallets. Flies buzzed. Roaches crawled on the walls.

  “This place ain’t fit for pigs. Can’t they get you cots in here?”

  “I guess not.” Paul struggled to prop up on his elbows. Under a thick pad of dressings, an invisible razor cut a long slice in his side. “They’re short on supplies, doctors—everything. They say you brought me back here, Ott.”

  “Down the trail. Owed it to you.”

  “How did you happen to find me?”

  “Wasn’t looking for you, that’s for certain. Didn’t even know you was up that way. They sent for two troops of the 10th to relieve Wood’s command. We double-timed up the trail an’ spread out to find Joe Wheeler. My squad happened to be the one that passed by the place where you was layin’, that’s all there is to it.”

  “I’ll think of some way to repay you when I’m out of here.”

  “Heine, stow that. Tol’ you before, I’m the one had the debt to square. You really want to do something for me, you stick around after this war’s over. Be an American.”

  Paul drew a deep, slow breath; even taking it carefully that way, the pain was ungodly. “Ott, I can’t do that. I have an opportunity in England and I’m going to take it. All my life I’ve wanted a home. Wanted to belong somewhere. You know what my home is? A furnished room. A hotel. A suitcase.”

  Ott tugged up his red bandanna and swabbed his cheeks. He seemed to be perspiring heavily. “Could be worse. My first one, it was a two-room shanty with a leaky roof an’ a red clay floor. I know how you feel ’cause of that gal you lost. But there ain’t no place on God’s earth won’t disappoint you sometimes, Heine. ’Merica may be a wagon with one bad wheel, but it carries a lot of folks farther than they ever thought they could go. Did that for me in the Army. Did it for you, too—learned you how to use that camera. So don’t turn your back. Please don’t.”

  Paul shook his head. Ott had to understand. It was over. The half of the stereopticon card stored in his valise in the cantina was just what he’d called it on the ship leaving Tampa. Another souvenir.

  Ott stood up, powerfully tall, casting a long shadow on the wall. They looked at each other.

  “Well, I spoke my piece. I’ll go now.” He untied the knot of his red bandanna and wiped the back of his neck, his face, and his throat. “Lord, it’s a reg’lar furnace in here.” Paul was puzzled. A stiff breeze was blowing from the sea, cooling the house and driving out the stale air. Yet Ott was covered with sweat.

  “Whew, mebbe I need a few minutes on that beach ’fore I go back to camp.” Ott stuck his bandanna in the back pocket of his pants, set his campaign hat on his head, snapped the strap under his chin. “So long, Heine. You look me up soon as you’re out of here. We’ll talk some more about you stayin’. I don’t give up easy.”

  Next morning, Sunday, Dr. Winter brought a young officer to see Paul. “This is First Lieutenant Criswell. He wants to ask some questions.”

  “Frank Criswell,” the officer said, le
aning down to shake hands.

  Paul used his elbows to prop up again, this time with a little less pain. Winter snapped his fingers and an orderly rushed a stool for Criswell, who sat as the doctor left.

  “Mr. Crown, I’m an aide to Major Groesbeck, acting judge advocate of the Fifth Army Corps. You are the chief camera operator with the film company known as American Luxograph?”

  Apprehensive, Paul said yes.

  “You had a partner, one James Daws?” Paul nodded. “Will you describe him? As to character, I mean. What sort of fellow was he?”

  Had? Was? What did that signify?

  “Sometimes Jimmy’s all right. He can be very agreeable if he feels like it. But he has—how should I say it? He has another side. He grew up poor and wants badly to be rich. I think he will often take the easy way over the right way. I try to work smoothly with him but I confess I’ve never liked him. Not the way you like a true friend.”

  “Did the two of you have trouble on the day of the fight at Las Guásimas?”

  Startled, Paul said, “Yes, we did.”

  “Please describe what happened.”

  Paul said he and Jimmy had followed Colonel Wood’s command that morning. “Up near the ranch house, I found Jimmy trying to pry gold teeth from the mouth of a dead soldier. He may have killed the soldier, I saw the soldier earlier and his only wound seemed to be a broken bone. When I tried to stop Jimmy’s mutilation of the body, he turned on me. He tried to—ersticken—suffocate me, is that the right word?”

  “It is if that’s what he did. Continue.”

  “I prevented it and he ran off. I chased and caught him and we fought. He tried to choke me with the chain of a religious medal.” Paul touched the scabby wounds on his throat. “I got the best of him but then a Spanish bullet hit me. He left me to the land crabs and the vultures and that’s all I know. Why are you asking?”

  Criswell reached into the pocket of his clean blue blouse for a small notebook; turned pages. “Daws showed up in Siboney that same afternoon. Approximately at dusk, he stepped onto one of the fishing boats docked at the village pier. A motorized vessel.” Paul recalled Jimmy’s studying the boats when they arrived.

  “Daws attempted to hire the boat to run him to Key West. He offered a good sum, so the captain was agreeable. We keep a sentry posted at the pier. The man on duty that night was a Corporal Bray. He overheard Daws hiring the captain and advised him that the fishing boats were temporarily under the control of Admiral Sampson and General Shafter, for military use only. Daws stepped on the boat and insisted he was going to Key West. Corporal Bray ordered him off the boat under penalty of arrest. Daws pulled a knife, stabbed Bray in the stomach, and threw him in the water. By now it was almost dark, no one saw the incident except the captain, or realized there was trouble until the sentry cried out.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Bray’s cries were heard by soldiers on the beach, who pulled him from under the pier where he’d hooked an arm on a piling to save himself from drowning. Amid all the confusion, Daws must have terrorized the captain because the fishing vessel put out for Key West. Corporal Bray related his story to the surgeons, but he expired before he could depose under oath. Therefore we have no legally admissible statement to use against Daws.”

  “And Jim escaped?”

  At last, Lieutenant Criswell smiled. “To the contrary. Shortly after he stabbed Bray and commandeered the boat, we alerted the Key West station. When the fishing boat docked on Saturday and Daws stepped ashore, he was arrested. Little attention was paid to the captain. He pulled away from the pier at full throttle and escaped to sea. He can’t be found. So I’m here to ask for a deposition from you, Mr. Crown. If we have a formal statement, made under oath, and your signature on a charge of attempted murder, we can arrange for James Daws to be tried by the courts in your home state. Your evidence represents our only hope of justice for Corporal Bray and his family.” Criswell paused. “Will you do it?”

  “Of course I will. Jim was a bad actor—isn’t that the American expression?”

  “Precisely.” Criswell stood up. “Pay us a visit as soon as you’re able. Anyone can direct you. And thank you.”

  “Certainly, Lieutenant. Goodbye.”

  Paul lay down again, strengthened by the knowledge that his testimony would put Jimmy Daws in prison. Sometimes there was a measure of justice in the world after all.

  On Sunday afternoon Dr. Winter escorted another visitor through the maze of wounded on the floor. Sourly, the physician said, “You’re a popular fellow, Crown. There he is, Mr. Radcliffe.”

  Michael snatched a stained white handkerchief from his breast pocket and waved it under his nose. “The smell in this place! Is it the reek of wounds, or medical ignorance?”

  He said it loudly, so the retreating Winter would hear. Winter slammed the connecting door normally kept open.

  “Indeed there you are,” Michael said, leaning on his walking stick. His face, normally porridge-pale, was red and peeling. A folded and yellowing newspaper stuck out of a side pocket. “Taken me forever to find you. I never thought to look here, I had an ominous feeling you’d been killed in that dirty little scrap on Friday. The doctor gave me a rough account of what happened to you. You’re a nervy chap, Paul, but you take too many risks. I wrote a perfectly satisfactory dispatch about Las Guásimas without leaving the cantina.”

  Michael looked considerably grubbier and tattier than he had last Thursday; a bit like the Rhukov of old. His white flannel suit bore streaks and smudges of dirt, and two sinister dark brown stains. The white canvas vamps of his fine black shoes were water-stained. Even his gold-wire spectacles hadn’t been spared; one earpiece was badly bent.

  And his beautiful straw boater was missing. Paul questioned him about it. Michael said, “Whores follow wars. The former can be as violent as the latter. Please don’t ask me to be more explicit.” Paul laughed.

  “Have you been forward at all, Michael?”

  “A mile or two up the main road, yesterday. Pretty damn dull it was. Here’s something more exciting. As promised, I sent off my message to London. Built you up splendidly. His Inkiness replied that he is indeed keen to organize a picture company. So, when you come to London, dear Papa Otto wants to interview you personally. Until then, stay away from aggressive men, white or brown, equipped with bullets.”

  Michael left soon after, saying the smells were intolerable reminders of his former life. Halfway to the door, he stopped. “Oh, here. Want this?” He waved the newspaper from his side pocket. “Mr. Hearst’s yellow rag from New York. Two weeks old.”

  “Is there anything in it besides this war?”

  “Just the usual collection of the sad, the sensational, and the nauseating. Two innocent children burned to death in a tenement because the fire escape was in disrepair. Another truculent pronouncement from Kaiser Bill. Some society bloke sent to his reward by the bit of fluff he was keeping on the side. Bedding sale at the R. H. Macy store—”

  “It’s hard to sit up, I don’t think I want to do it to read old news.”

  “Fine, I’ll chuck it. Cheerio.”

  Paul was elated by Otto Hartstein’s message. Despite the heat and the continual harrowing outcries of the wounded, he felt a good deal better, his own pain notwithstanding. First Criswell and then Michael—two stunning surprises since he awoke in the hospital house. Certainly there couldn’t be more.

  It wasn’t the first time he was wrong.

  108

  Julie

  THAT SAME SUNDAY AFTERNOON, on the terrace at Belle Mer, Julie confronted her mother across the green iron table.

  “You scandalized everyone when you refused to attend the funeral, Juliette.”

  “The scandal began before that, Mama. We couldn’t hush up what happened. That Bill was shot by a woman of low repute whom he kept in the city. Bill was my husband in name only. He abused me—hurt me physically—beginning with our wedding night.”

  “You never to
ld me this. Not a word.”

  “Would you have listened? Would you have believed me?”

  Nell sipped tea from a Spode cup. She looked embittered. And suddenly, fixing her eye on her daughter, she looked hostile.

  She had arrived from Chicago on a sparkling cool afternoon; temperate for late June. She was, as always, elegantly and correctly dressed in a conservative gown with heavy braid embroidery, a satin underbodice and satin belt. In the entrance hall she had taken off a smart felt hat draped with ostrich plumes, handing it to the maid along with her umbrella. Everything was black; gown, braid, plumes, umbrella—everything. Julie wore a stiff white linen yachting skirt and a shirtwaist of white foulard with navy polka dots; very summery and gay. Nell found it another subject for disapproval:

  “Let me also say I find your attire outrageous. Couldn’t you at least wear a black armband?”

  Looking quite composed, Julie gazed at her mother. Don’t let her see how it feels inside … “Mama, why should I? I don’t mourn Bill, he was a bad man.”

  “Surely you loved him a little—”

  “Not an iota. I love Paul. Mr. Crown’s nephew—the boy Papa drove off. I’ve never loved anyone but him.”

  Nell struck her cup down hard on the saucer. Julie heard the crack. Never mind, there was money for another. There was money for ten thousand saucers and cups. In his masculine smugness, his confidence in his own power and dominance, Elstree had never adjusted his will to take into account his wife’s growing and unconcealed antipathy. He might have done so if she’d borne him an heir, but it hadn’t happened. As a consequence, she inherited everything.

  Nell raised her voice. “I do not approve of your behavior.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Mama. I’m afraid you no longer have anything to say about it.”

  Nell sat all the way back in her iron chair, gripping the arms. Anxious, Julie watched her mother closely, waiting for the next assault.

  Unexpectedly, it took the form of tender entreaty. Nell rose and rounded the table. She was extremely frail; more than a little tottery. Her palm fell gently to Julie’s high-piled hair. Julie tilted her head away from the contact. Nell’s cheeks showed spots of pink suddenly. She touched Julie again, pitching her voice low.