The Great Martian War

by Scott Washburn

  “And how will the force get to the landing site?”

  “That will depend on where the landing site is in relation to the force or forces we dispatch, Mr. Secretary. If the distance is short, then the force will march on the site directly, sending its mounted and motorized elements ahead. If the distances are longer, we will make use of rail transport. All of our assembly areas are on rail lines and trains will be standing by at all of them.”

  “I see,” nodded Stimson.

  “Once our forces reach the site, we will attempt to rush the Martians before they can debouch from their cylinders. We have men trained to use explosives and will blow our way into the cylinders if necessary. If our first rush is repulsed, we will bring up our artillery and place the site under a constant bombardment until we assemble the forces needed for another assault.”

  “That’s excellent work, General!” exclaimed Roosevelt. “My compliments to you and your staff, and the Signal Corps, too!”

  “Thank you, Mr. President.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. President,” said General Ainsworth. “While I agree that General Greely of the Signal Corps has done an excellent job in this situation, I’m gravely concerned by the manner in which this was brought about.”

  “What do you mean, General?”

  “It is vital in any organization—especially any military organization—that the established chain of command be respected and followed. In this case, and in a number of other cases in recent months, the Chief of Staff and his subordinates have ignored the chain of command and issued orders directly to the bureau chiefs. Sir, this must stop or the results will be chaos!”

  There was a stir around the table and Harding nudged Andrew. “Oh boy, Ainsworth has stepped in it for sure!” he whispered. “TR won’t put up with hogwash like that!”

  From the expression on Roosevelt’s face, Andrew suspected that Harding was right. “Really, General?” he said. “I refreshed my memory on the details of the General Staff Act just this morning and it appears to me that the Chief of Staff has full authority to deal directly with anyone he wants to in the army.”

  “Sir, that is not how the Act has usually been interpreted! The bureau chiefs have always reported to the Adjutant General! If the Chief of Staff has requests, they should be directed through my office.”

  “Seems like an unnecessary extra step, General. The General Staff, which is responsible for making plans, decided they needed this warning system. They need the Signal Corps’ help to set it up. So they go to the Signal Corps and get what they need. The Adjutant General’s Office is, as I recall, concerned with personnel, promotions, pension records, things like that, not signals. The last thing we need right now is more red tape, General!”

  “But Mr. President…”

  Roosevelt waved away Ainsworth’s protests. “But speaking of the Bureaus, why don’t we go around the table and listen to their reports? Since we’re already talking about the Signal Corps, we’ll start with you, General Greely.”

  With only the slightest glance at Ainsworth, Greely made his report. From there it went down the table. The chief engineer talked about the construction of the new camps and the new fortifications which were being constructed in great numbers, and consequently, creating a general shortage of building materials—especially concrete. The quartermaster reported a number of problems concerning the equipping and supplying of all the new troops. In particular, the troops absolutely hated the changes which had been made to the uniforms in order to protect them from the deadly black dust the Martians had used in England. “They’re throwing away the leggings and the gloves almost as fast as we issue them, sir! Even the breathing masks! We are barely keeping up with the demands of the new formations; we cannot keep up with this sort of wastage!”

  “Hard to blame the men,” said the Inspector General. “I tried those things on, and in hot weather, they’re torture.”

  “Hot?” snorted Roosevelt. “You should have been in Cuba! Now that was hot! Still, soldiers will do what they can to stay comfortable. Surely they aren’t expected to wear those things all the time?”

  “No, sir, but as you say, the men try to ease their burdens and carrying unused items is a burden. If you follow a unit on its first long march, you’ll see the roads strewn with gloves, leggings, and masks. Right now the usual penalty is the same as it’s always been: dock the men the cost of the lost equipment from their pay. But most of ‘em don’t care.”

  “We may have to resort to harsher methods,” said the Army Provost. “It is a serious offense to render oneself unfit for duty and I suppose that getting yourself killed by not having the protective gear would fall under that category. Commanders should be instructed to punish the men who discard their gear.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps,” said Roosevelt. “But don’t punish them too hard. They’ll resent it. The spirit of the American fighting man is legendary! Appeal to their reason first. Explain how important the gear is, not just to them but to their comrades and their country. They’ll understand.”

  “Uh, yes, sir. We’ll try.”

  The reports went on and Andrew came to full attention when it was General Crozier’s turn to report on what the Ordnance Department was doing. Crozier had a brief summary of the various projects his department was overseeing; the tanks, several new artillery pieces, Tesla’s lighting machine, a few interesting ideas Thomas Edison was working on, and the Wrights’ flying machine. To Andrew’s horror, he was called upon to answer a few questions that the President had.

  “Captain, you say that Tesla’s device made a noise like a thunderbolt?”

  “Y-yes, sir. Like a very close lightning strike. Very loud and then it reverberated off into the distance.”

  “Ha!” cried Roosevelt, slapping the table. “Some of my neighbors up that way have been asking if the navy has been doing gunnery practice out on the Sound! So this is what it was!”

  Crozier finished up and then it was the turn of the navy. Andrew gladly retreated to his spot along the wall. Admiral Evans gave a concise listing of the navy’s ships and where they would be stationed, mostly guarding important coastal cities. Sadly, their newest and most powerful ships, the North Carolina and Michigan, which Andrew had seen under construction, would not be ready.

  “We are rushing them ahead as much as possible,” said Evans, “and we’ll have them launched next month, but I’m afraid they won’t be ready for action until next year.”

  “God willing, we won’t need them,” said Roosevelt.

  Evans also talked about the new classes of monitors now under construction and his hopes for an expanded Marine Corps. The President seemed noncommittal about that. To Andrew’s surprise, the admiral made no mention of the land ironclads that had been revealed at that fateful meeting the previous year. For that matter, General Crozier hadn’t asked him to produce the crude sketches of an army version which had been hastily put together. Were both services assuming that the war would be over before any such new devices could be constructed? A hopeful thought!

  Finally, everyone had had their say and the President thanked them for their efforts. It was at this point that Secretary Stimson spoke up.

  “This is all very impressive, gentlemen,” he said waving his hand at the maps. “But all of our defenses seemed to be concentrated in the east. What if they don’t land there? You have almost nothing west of Saint Louis.”

  General Bell got to his feet. “Sir, since we don’t know where the enemy will land, we must position our limited resources to protect our most vital locations. The cities of the east, with their large civilian populations and nearly all of our vital industries, must be given first priority.”

  “And we have no way to predict where the enemy will land?”

  “No sir. The astronomers have no means of locating objects as small as the Martian cylinders while they are in flight. We won’t know where they are going until they arrive.”

  “Root tells me that the British are in a quiet panic over the
idea that all two hundred of the things are going to land in England,” said Roosevelt. “They might be right, I suppose, since that’s where the first batch landed.”

  “So we might see a hundred cylinders landing in America or none at all?” persisted Stimson.

  “Yes, sir, that’s true.”

  “Let’s pray it’s none.”

  “Prayer won’t save us this time, Henry!” said Roosevelt. “Or we can’t assume that it will. Good old American steel and lead will have to do the job this time!” He slapped the pistol on his belt.

  With that, the meeting broke up. In the evening, Andrew dropped in at Colonel Hawthorne’s house to fill him in on what had happened. He was pleased that the colonel was recovering. He was even more pleased when Mrs. Hawthorne suggested he and Vickie take a stroll down by the Potomac after dinner. He was amazed that she let them go without a chaperone.

  They tried to go down to the river, but the mosquitoes were much too active and they retreated back up the hill to escape them. They strolled for a while along the paved paths of Fort Myer, and after a while he dared to take her hand.

  “Your father is looking much better,” he ventured.

  “He works too hard,” she replied. “So do you.”

  “There is so much to do, and we must be ready.”

  “You’re just like him.” He wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or a complaint, so he just nodded his head. The long evening was coming to an end and the first stars could be seen. “They’ll be here soon?”

  “A month or so, if the experts are right.”

  “I hope they are right. This waiting is unbearable.”

  “Don’t worry, Vickie; it will all be over soon.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I hope so.”

  The last days of August sped by. The final preparations were completed. Troops were put on alert; warships patrolled on their stations. The first of the new tank battalions was activated, although the crews still needed a lot of training. It was kept near Philadelphia, where it could quickly be moved north, south, or west by rail.

  By all reports, the Europeans were doing the same thing, and the American military men envied them their huge armies, much smaller territories, and their superb rail networks. England was a bristling armed camp, although most of the leaders there were more worried about how to defend their sprawling empire than the home islands. No one was quite sure what the Russians were up to. Still smarting from their humiliation by Japan and with a colossal amount of territory to defend, their shaken military had an impossible task. The Japanese issued careful statements that they were prepared for any eventuality. Most of the rest of the world: South and Central America, China, Southeast Asia, seemed to feel that all the fuss did not concern them at all.

  September arrived and millions of eyes scanned the skies; each person looking for the fiery streak of a descending cylinder. They watched and they waited.

  And waited.

  The days turned to weeks and still they waited. There were hundreds of alerts and everyone tensed, only to laugh or curse when it turned out to be another false alarm. The news from around the world was the same: nothing. The Russians had reached the site of the June explosion and while they had found an area of unprecedented devastation, with whole forests being flattened, there was no sign of Martians.

  September was nearly over and the question on every lip was the same:

  Are they coming?

  Chapter Three

  September 1908, New Mexico Territory

  The sparkling waters of Quemado Lake met Rebecca Harding’s eyes as her horse turned the bend in the narrow dirt road. She loved this time of year; the heat of mid-summer was giving way to the cooler days of autumn here in the mountains of western New Mexico. The aspen and cottonwood trees were a soothing rest to the eyes, covering the slopes of the surrounding hills with a green blanket. Purple Bull Thistles and yellow Sneezeweed dappled the fields with bright colors. She caught the sound of a wild turkey in the brush off to her left.

  Her horse, Ninny, snorted as they passed the Jensen place. Probably smelled some of his friends in the corral. She waved at Mrs. Jensen out in her vegetable garden, but the woman didn’t see her and it was just too nice a day to shout. So she kept on going, following the road as it went around the north side of the lake toward home.

  The Harding Ranch covered about 2,000 acres bordering the eastern end of Quemado Lake. Rebecca’s grandfather had laid claim to the land right after the war and made a real go of it. With the good water and grasslands, it was the perfect place for raising cattle and horses. Her father had been born here, as had she. Grandpa had died three years ago of a fever, but Grandma was still going strong. The ranch had prospered, and while she would never think of her family as being rich, they certainly weren’t poor, either.

  The ranch came into view now: the big house; old abode walls and new metal roof, added on to several times; the long, low barn, the house for the hired hands, the stables, the fenced in corrals, all so familiar. She steered Ninny into the closest stable and took off his saddle. She rubbed him down and made sure he had plenty of fodder at hand. He was her favorite, but she loved all the other horses, too. She looked over the others that were there, although there were a number of empty stalls since it was still a working day and most of the men were out watching over the herds.

  “Rebecca!”

  She sighed when she heard her mother calling. She briefly considered sneaking out the back door, but instead she answered: “In here, Ma!” Her mother appeared almost instantly.

  “There you are! Where have you been? I’ve been calling for half an hour!”

  “Out riding. But I’m back.” She refrained from adding that she’d been back for fifteen minutes and had not heard her mother calling at all.

  “And just in time! Did you forget the Andersens are coming for dinner tonight? Get out of those filthy clothes, wash the dust off your face, and put on something nice!”

  “Yes, Ma.” She gave Ninny a last hug and followed her mother back to the house and then got a pitcher of water before heading to her room. Cleaning up and dressing didn’t take long at all, but then Ma and Grandma decided that her hair needed a proper brushing and braiding and that took far longer. Only the arrival of the Andersens saved her from further fussing.

  “Grandma?” she said after her mother left the room.

  “What is it, dear?”

  “When you and Grandpa first settled here, you didn’t spend all this time botherin’ over dresses and hair and entertainin’ the neighbors did you?”

  “Heavens no!” laughed the woman. “First off, we didn’t have any neighbors, ‘cept for a few Indians. The nearest white folks were in Quemado, ten miles away. I had two dresses to my name and, for the first year, we lived in our wagon and an old army tent your Grandpa took with him when he mustered out.”

  “So why does Ma worry so much about stuff like this? About bein’ respectable?”

  “Well, dear, your ma grew up in Santa Fe. She’s used to a bit more… civilized society. I guess she’s just tryin’ to bring a little civility way out here. And that might be a good thing.”

  “Civility don’t shoe no horses or brand no cattle, Grandma.”

  “True enough. But we got hands to do that sorta thing now.”

  “Are you sayin’ civilized folk don’t do no work?”

  “Not sayin’ any such thing, girl. Just different sorts of work. But enough of this! Let’s go help with the dinner.”

  The Andersens were an older couple with grown children. They were nice and Rebecca liked them. The dinner, mostly prepared by the cook, Rosita, was very good and Mr. Andersen told several funny stories that had them all laughing. Afterward, her father and Mr. Andersen retired to one end of the big room to smoke cigars, while the ladies clustered in the other.

  “I understand you had a birthday last week, Becca,” said Mrs. Andersen. “Fifteen, are you?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Well, nex
t year, we’ll have to throw a special party when you turn sixteen, right, Katherine?”

  “Well, normally we would,” replied her mother, smiling. “But I’m afraid Rebecca won’t be here for that.”

  “What?” cried Rebecca. “Why?”

  “Heavens, where are you going, Becca?” asked Mrs. Andersen.

  “Rebecca will be going east—to school in Hartford, Connecticut.”

  “But Ma!” cried Rebecca in dismay.

  “We talked about this, dear…”

  “But just talked! We never decided anything!”

  “I received the acceptance letter last week. But don’t make such a face, dear! You won’t be leaving until next summer; nearly a year.”

  “But, Ma, I don’t want…”

  “Sounds like quite an adventure, Becca,” said Mrs. Andersen. “You should be excited.”

  “And grateful,” said Grandma. “Not many girls from around here get the chance to go to school.”

  “I go to school!”

  “A real school,” said her mother. “With proper teachers. And a chance to meet other proper young ladies.”

  “And some proper young men,” added Grandma with a smile.

  Rebecca looked from face to face and realized that there wasn’t a sympathetic soul among them. Well, Grandma, maybe, but she was siding with the others. She opened her mouth for further protests, but realized it would do no good. She looked to where her father was sitting and knew that if Ma had already made the arrangements, there was no way he was going to overrule her now.

  “Excuse me,” she said icily.

  She got up and went out the front door. She heard her Grandma say: “Don’t worry, she’ll get over it.”

  It was fully dark by now and she stalked off toward the corral. But I don’t want to go to school in the east! I don’t! I don’t! I don’t! Her mother had been talking about the possibility for years, but she never thought she would actually make it happen! And without even telling her! How could she do that?!