Homeland

by John Jakes

  The leader, Captain Christiaan Botha, was a rangy man with sun-browned skin, a long beard, and a broad-brimmed hat with a feather in the band. His uniform was like no other Paul had seen, consisting of sand-colored boots and shirt and trousers of muted dark green, the color of leaves in a forest without rain. A huge sheath knife dangled from the captain’s belt. A Mauser rifle and two leather bandoliers, full, lay on his cot.

  Captain Botha shared his best food with the visitors and talked easily, if rather smugly, afterward:

  “By spring we expect Her Majesty will have nearly five hundred thousand of her best in this little country. We have perhaps eighty thousand males in total, and no more than forty in the field at any one time. How is it that a small number of farmers dare to challenge the world’s mightiest empire? I will tell you. One, we are fighting for our homeland. Two, we are born and brought up on horseback. Able to move like flowing water over this terrain, which we know well. All that the queen’s regulars can do is march in textbook formation and execute tactics memorized at their war college. We have beaten them all winter, everywhere. We shall continue—rather like the American chaps who turned back a redcoat army stupid enough to march in formation up Bunker Hill, against the muskets of rebels afire with their cause. Now, a proposal. How would you like to visit a Zulu kraal?”

  Captain Christiaan Botha led them, on horseback, with only one subaltern accompanying. Paul and Ollie were more than a little terrified by their first sight of the tall, muscular Zulu warriors coming to meet them with spears and shields.

  Botha took the two of them to the chief’s hut. It was four o’clock, and in the hut, which did not have a pleasant smell, the elderly chief proudly gestured to a sparkling silver tea service on a polished tea cart. “Holy God in heaven,” Ollie whispered to Paul. “Am I mad?”

  The chief of course didn’t understand. Christiaan Botha assured Ollie he was completely sane. In an attempt to civilize the Zulu tribe, the British had arranged for sons of certain chiefs to receive schooling at Oxford. Many had returned to Africa with English wardrobes, English books, and possessions bought in English stores, although the civilizing process as such failed. The chief’s son was one of those who had been a college man for a time.

  The visitors sat cross-legged on the ground, drinking their tea. The chief wore a silk top hat suitable for an opera house, and proved an agreeable fellow. On request, he ordered some of his young warriors to dance for the camera, beating their shields. Paul cranked. If it came out, the footage would be wonderful.

  The siege of Mafeking was lifted by relief forces early in May of 1900. Michael was already infamous throughout the British high command and War Office for hostile dispatches he’d managed to sneak out of the besieged town. The moment the siege was lifted, he was expelled from the country. He went to Paris because his father-in-law advised that he might be jailed if he returned to London too soon. While Ollie sailed for America with the now-battered camera and gear, Paul took a different ship, bound for Marseilles, to visit his friend.

  Europe was in turmoil. It was a year of violent strikes. Steelworkers in Vienna. Glassworkers in Belgium. Field labor in Bohemia. German and Belgian coal miners. Paul had the eerie feeling that a hundred ghosts of Benno Strauss were haunting the continent, fomenting class warfare.

  In Paris he watched three separate showings of Cinderella, the newest story film by Georges Méliès, a former conjurer and associate of the great illusionist Robert Houdin. Now Méliès was creating illusions for the screen. His newest picture was four hundred feet; six thousand four hundred frames. Probably the longest story film so far.

  Paul and Michael were once again reunited at a great fair, the Paris Exhibition, for which the city had been beautified and the Metro underground constructed. Two of the largest and most popular exhibits were those of armament companies. Schneider-Creusot showed long-range cannon, Vicker-Maxim an array of rapid-fire machine guns.

  Once again the two friends visited a magnificent Russian Pavilion, and there rode in a finely detailed replica of a Trans-Siberian Railway carriage. Outside, paintings depicting sunlit grain fields and pretty peasant huts unrolled on a continuous canvas.

  Michael, as usual, held forth. When an attendant put his head in to snarl that they must make room for others waiting, Michael simply waved and spoke curtly in Russian—“Press. Shut the damn door.”—and kept on talking about Mafeking.

  Mafeking sums it all up (Michael said)—the failure of men, and the failure of organizations and governments. Mafeking’s a bloody hole. Tin roofs, dirt streets, damnable heat, dogs and chickens running amok. We were imprisoned in that place two hundred and seventeen days, can you imagine? When the shelling slacked off after a few weeks, the Boer cordon shrank from five thousand to about fifteen hundred. The noble commandant, however, kept inflating the number in his reports. It was something like fifteen, sixteen thousand by the time we got out. Do you wonder Baden-Powell’s the darling hero of the Empire?

  Early on, he called the journalists together for a lecture on procedures and expectations. He personally would review and censor all copy. Nothing critical of the conduct of the siege, or his officers, would be transmitted, or tolerated. During the siege the telegraph was never cut, I can’t explain why except that the Boers are fairly civilized.

  It was a strange kind of imprisonment. The Boer artillery wasn’t that plentiful, or that good. One large siege gun, Big Ben, plus some old brass cannon sufficient to poop in a few rounds at intervals, to remind us we were pinned down.

  All the while, Baden-Powell sent out the cheeriest of reports. “Everything fine. Four hours of bombardment. One dog killed.” He was determined to be a stalwart, and keep morale high. Whilst the siege was going on, we enjoyed cricket matches on Sunday—blasphemous to the Boers, they’re religious people. Baden-Powell also organized billiards tournaments, concerts at the Masonic Hall, amateur theatricals. Acted in several of those himself. Oh, he kept up with his strategical duties, too. Bleeding Jesus, didn’t he! He took a megaphone and paraded about the town perimeter shouting false orders about false attacks by nonexistent forces. The Boers at Mafeking could have run us over at any time, and I don’t know why they didn’t.

  The word “siege” conjures up privation, but actually the officers ate well in their messes. We civilians ate well. There were all those foodstuffs piled up at the rail junction, a mountain of them. However, the poor wretched niggers had nothing. Were given nothing. They starved.

  Baden-Powell put in a system of rationing for ’em. Sold ’em horsemeat soup for three pence per bowl. They scavenged in army garbage. Well before Mafeking was relieved, five or six hundred perished from hunger.

  I’ve painted a queer picture, but it wasn’t entirely bloodless. Now and then some of the Tommies did have a real skirmish with the enemy. A bit of slaughter to pep things up. I personally watched a group of our plucky lads dash out and overcome a sector of the Boer trenches. With victory in hand, our lads used their bayonets and swords to stab and decapitate every last Boer, dead or alive. I threw up.

  To the end, Baden-Powell approved, or disapproved, every word we sent out. Suggested little improvements. You were smiled upon if you filled your dispatches with references to “our indomitable soldiers” and “the sterling qualities that created the Empire” and “fighting for glory or the grave.” Absolute shit! And the journalists went along. Never dared suggest the real reason for the fighting—the defense of the interests of British mine owners, speculator combines, London investment banks heavily into mine finance. The usual secret oligarchy of old boys who send young boys to die. No one wrote about that. My profession disgraced itself utterly.

  Out of profound revulsion spiced with boredom, in late February I began to alter my method of work. Each time I took up my pen I wrote two dispatches, one for Baden-Powell and another to be sneaked out by a Kaffir boy I could trust. I asked my father-in-law to print only the second set. He bravely did so because he opposed the war, he and my Cecil
y were members of the Stop-the-War Committee, along with Lloyd George and a mixed lot of others. I sneaked out a total of four unfavorable dispatches. Because they were published, I was promptly shown the border when Mafeking was relieved.

  Unnecessary, really. No one believed the bad stuff because the government propaganda was too massive, too effective. Music hall picture programs included films of a Red Cross tent being ripped apart by Boer fire while valiant nurses, doctors, and orderlies were treating wounded. Actors. It was all a sham, the pictures were made on Hampstead Heath. You’ve told me they commit the same fraud in America.

  In this life I have developed a vast Dickensian distrust of every sort of bureaucratic structure—armies, corporations, governments. I have a constant and unshakable faith in the essential venality and cupidity of those who own or control such bodies. The South African war validated all my beliefs again.

  Ah, Paul—why do we go on? Why do we deceive ourselves, proclaim that we’re uplifting our brothers and our sisters with the scientific marvels of the new age? Uplift is a fiction we created to hide the truth. We love the slime. The human animal is a cowardly and vicious beast. And think how much worse it will be when he has his hands on quantities of rapid-fire guns, cannon that can hurl a shell twenty miles, airships capable of dropping explosives on civilian populations …

  A dark time, the next century. The beast is already prowling. He smells blood coming down the wind. Armageddon.

  Nothing to do, I suppose, but have a drink, have a woman, try to survive for one more day.

  Paul returned to America to find Bryan and Debs running for President in November, and his friend Crane dead at age twenty-eight. Crane had died of tuberculosis in June, at the Kurpark in Badenweiler, Germany. Paul knew the spa by reputation; it was famous for treating respiratory disorders. But not successfully in this case.

  Shadow was jubilant about the South African pictures. “The yellow dogs at Edison hired two hundred derelicts and did the Spion Kop battle at West Orange, New Jersey. A cannon fired too early and a couple of the fake soldiers got hurt. Serves them fucking right for trying to deceive the American public.”

  Shadow gave him a bonus, and considered new assignments.

  The Philippines were a possibility. An exotic locale. Jungle fighting. General Arthur MacArthur, United States military governor of the islands, was trying to subdue insurgents dedicated to ridding the country of foreign rule—first Spain, now the United States, which had been given the Philippines as part of the peace settlement of ’ninety-eight. But Shadow hadn’t yet found men to train for a second camera crew, and he was reluctant to have Paul and Ollie out of the country for another extended period.

  On Saturday, September 8, the elements provided an epic subject in the state of Texas. Galveston Island, southeast of Houston, was nearly destroyed by the winds and storm tides of a monster hurricane. Thousands of lives were lost, more than half the island destroyed. Paul and Ollie connived to get aboard a special relief train sponsored by the Chicago American of W. R. Hearst.

  The train arrived in Texas City on Thursday, September 13. The storm had broken the bridges to Galveston like matchwood. Paul and Ollie stared in horror as their crowded scow bore them to a pier still standing at Twelfth Street.

  They filmed on ghostly streets where an upright section of brick wall or a smashed piece of furniture was all that remained of human habitation. They saw Miss Barton and other Red Cross women cooking in a soup tent.

  On the beach, black banners of smoke marked sites where bodies were being burned in kerosene-soaked pyres of alternating layers of lumber and flesh. At first bodies had been taken into the Gulf on scows and dumped, but hundreds of them floated back to the shore.

  The smell of the fires was appalling, and so was the smell of the silt that lay two and three inches deep everywhere. In two days, they accumulated scenes that stunned audiences to silence.

  And so it went, the hours and days rolling into weeks and months, sweeping Paul from one side of the globe to the other, one remarkable sight or experience to the next, exactly as he’d dreamed in the little windowless room in Berlin. Unbelievably, the dream had come true.

  But his home life was always close to a shambles because of it. Tomorrow, New Year’s Day, he and Ollie had railway tickets to New York. A new Ellis Island had opened on December 17, rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1897 destroyed the original wooden buildings. Millions of immigrants were pouring into the country, including a great many Jews from Eastern Europe. Ellis Island was a topic of the moment. Shadow wanted an “actuality.”

  The train would leave at half past ten in the morning. Tonight, however, was all his, and Julie’s. Tonight there was Uncle Joe’s party, to celebrate the new century, and Paul’s intent to become a citizen.

  The party was held at the city’s newest German restaurant, Zum Rothen Stern, the Red Star Inn, on North Clark Street at Germania Place. The owner had created a near-perfect replica of a Bavarian public house, using dark wood paneling, leaded glass windows inset with Teutonic crests, wrought iron lanterns, tables and chairs of white ash, stuffed moose and elk and boar heads, elaborately painted beer steins, a long menu of German specialties, and a staff of good-humored but mercilessly efficient waiters in short black jackets and long white aprons. Most of the waiters were middle-aged, and fat.

  The owner, a forty-year-old immigrant from Cologne, greeted them at the door. “Guten Abend, Herr General,” he said, bowing.

  “Good evening, Herr Gallauer.” Uncle Joe looked around. “Happy to see such a large crowd. Your restaurant has enjoyed great success in a short time.” Gallauer stroked his little Vandyke, pleased. “Is the private room ready?”

  “But of course. The Cottage Room. Follow me.”

  Every table in the main dining room was full, and the noise level was high. Their private room opened onto the main section at the rear, and Uncle Joe, who seemed in a festive mood, suggested they leave the double doors rolled back. This pleased everyone, making them feel a part of the spirit of celebration pervading the restaurant.

  The banquet Uncle Joe had arranged was huge, and altogether German. To begin, steaming china tureens of soup, a choice of oxtail or creamy asparagus-based Rahmsuppe. Next the waiters brought bowls of a house specialty, Leber-klösse; eating a Red Star liver dumpling or two was supposed to settle the stomach in preparation for the main courses—tonight, platters of roast pork, roast veal, mutton, rabbit, venison, and potted ox joints. Sauerbraten was served, with vegetables and fresh hot loaves of light and dark bread. Desserts would be a selection of traditional puddings and stewed fruits. All of this was liberally supplemented with spirits. Not only Crown lager and Heimat, but Mumm’s champagne and Frankish wine in stubby oval bottles of green glass. “Trocken! Your driest and best,” Uncle Joe demanded.

  The table was U-shaped, with places assigned by little cards Aunt Ilsa had lettered. In the main section of the restaurant, the strolling accordionist was playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever” while people clapped and stamped to the beat. The march was a favorite of Paul’s, and he heard it everywhere—parlors, concert halls, saloons, street corners—as if Sousa’s melody summed up America’s mood of strength, optimism, growing importance in global affairs.

  The accordionist came into the private room and asked what they wished to hear. A familiar German folk song, perhaps? Carl said, “Play ‘Ragtime Rose.’ ” Mary Beezer and Willis applauded. Though not fond of that sort of music, Uncle Joe was soon tapping his foot. At the end, he tipped the accordionist lavishly.

  “Two dollars?” Aunt Ilsa gasped, palms against her cheeks.

  “Once in a century, why not?” Uncle Joe leaned over to kiss her cheek. Paul thought that an excellent idea. He kissed Julie on the cheek. She pressed the back of his neck with her hand and whispered an endearment.

  Paul lit a cigar. He called for the pitcher of Crown lager, which Carl passed. He poured his third tall glass. In the public section of the restaurant, people were lau
ghing, singing, even shouting. It was still only half past nine.

  The party grew louder and more convivial. The guests left their seats between courses. Julie spoke earnestly to Aunt Ilsa, telling her she really should meet Mr. Carnegie someday, because he shared Ilsa’s passion for world peace.

  Shadow dashed out into the smoky main room to fetch back the accordionist. “I want a Cakewalk,” he said, tipsily rearranging chairs to create space. The Cakewalk was the most popular dance in America, and Shadow insisted on demonstrating his familiarity. “I didn’t wear that fu—uh, that rotten minstrel blackface for nothing. Here we go, Mary.”

  Colonel Shadow and Mary did a Cakewalk, receiving enthusiastic applause.

  Wex cornered Paul and quizzed him about his travels. Paul in turn wanted reassurance that Wex was doing well; wasn’t squandering his profits on Kentucky horse racing.

  “Are you serious, my boy? Look at my dear wife over there. She has a fine head for figures. She keeps the books, controls our funds, and gives me a small betting allowance every month. When it’s gone, there isn’t any more. I tried to filch a little extra one month right after we moved to Lexington. Lucille caught me and threw me on the floor. Then she sat on me and lectured. She’s as sweet as they make ’em, but she has an iron will, and the constitution of a wrestler. It doesn’t pay to argue with Lucille, God bless her. She’s what I’ve needed for years. She tamed my worst demons. No, there’s a better way to put it. She ordered them to move out.”

  A bit later, Paul overheard Miss Fishburne talking spiritedly with his aunt. Miss Fishburne had imbibed heavily of champagne and was looking better for it, he thought. She’d been rather glum and tired when she arrived the night before. Julie had discovered the reason; her aunt was recovering from a failed romance with a handsome young Portuguese named Fernando, captain of a charter yacht berthed in Monte Carlo.