1920: America's Great War

by Robert Conroy

  The Seventh Cavalry Regiment was now part of the First Division and very few of the remaining soldiers still had horses. Patton was delighted to receive the fifty mounted Mexicans under Montoya and voiced thoughts about recruiting a Mexican brigade. Patton had come to the conclusion that many thousands of Mexicans were either refugees who hated the brutal Carranza government, or Americans of Mexican descent who hated the Carranza government as well. Either way, they were a source of eager manpower.

  Thus relieved of the obligation of protecting Montoya from wrathful Californians, Martel found himself in yet another biplane headed for San Francisco. Corporal Flower informed Luke he’d rather die than go up in one of those things and took a train.

  There were numerous changes to San Francisco since Luke had departed. It now had the appearance of a city under siege. The German warships had made several moves toward the city and bombarded her again. More buildings were damaged and many of the remainder were protected by piles of sandbags. Much of the civilian population had departed and the rest were packing for the inevitable day when the German Army arrived. However, refugees were streaming in from the south and had more than replaced the people who’d fled north.

  As promised by Admiral Sims, many of the twelve-inch guns from the sunk or damaged ships at Mare Island had been removed and now faced out towards the Pacific or covered the entrance to the Bay. A number of six-inch and four-inch guns had been mounted on Alcatraz Island, which covered the mouth of the entrance to the bay. That giant rock was now an unsinkable battleship.

  South and east of the city, work was progressing on trenches and fortifications that would both protect the city and extend into the mountains. As Harbord’s and Connor’s divisions slowly retreated, they did their best to nibble at the Germans and delay them. Every day they delayed the invaders meant more fortifications constructed and more recruits trained in the camps outside Sacramento.

  General Liggett and Admiral Sims had combined their headquarters and Luke found himself working alongside naval personnel who were as bemused with him as he was with them. The war was eliminating the historic rivalries between the two services.

  Luke had told Kirsten where he could be found and she said she would look him up when she finally made it to San Francisco. Thus, he was stunned and sickened when it was reported that the train she’d been traveling on had been attacked by German planes. The official report said more than fifty dead and a hundred injured, many of them badly. The injured were identified and Kirsten wasn’t among them, but the list of the dead was incomplete. He recognized her cousin Ella’s name, but many of the dead had been unidentifiable. He prayed that Kirsten wasn’t one of them, or, if she was, that her death had been painless. That is, he thought bitterly, if violent death could ever be painless.

  Even though they’d only known each other for a few days, Luke had felt a sense of kinship with her. His own relations with ladies, and not just women, had been limited at best, and the young widow had fascinated him. She was bright, pretty, intelligent, and self-reliant, not a vapid shadow like so many woman were, even in this relatively enlightened age. And now maybe she was dead.

  Most maddeningly, there was nothing he could do. If she was wandering her way up north, she’d arrive when she did. If she was dead, he’d never hear anything about it. Women should not be casualties in a war, he thought. But, of course, they had been since time immemorial.

  * * *

  Elise was furious as she stood at the foot of the hospital bed. “How dare you go and get yourself wounded again! Wasn’t once enough to satisfy you?”

  Ensign Josh Cornell lay back on the pillows and tried to grin, but the pain from his infected shoulder wouldn’t let him. By the time the Shark had gotten back to San Francisco, the splinters that he’d thought were so trivial had become infected. Doctors at the tent hospital on the grounds of the Presidio had worked to pull the tiny pieces of wood out of his flesh and clean the wounds with iodine and alcohol. They were of the opinion that his shoulder and arm would never fully recover and he wondered what impact that would have on a Navy career.

  Elise was not done scolding. “First you hurt your leg and now you hurt your arm. What is it going to be next, your thick empty skull?”

  She huffed and sat down beside his bed and Josh could see tears welling in her eyes. She was so lovely and her concern so real, he thought he would melt.

  “Elise, it’s not like I went looking to get shot up. It just happened. I’m in the Navy and I can’t just stand back when other people are out fighting the Krauts. My job is to fight them, too.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “This may seem very bold of me to tell you, but you are a special person in my life, and I didn’t want to lose you just when I’ve found you.”

  She laughed. “Close your mouth, Ensign, your jaw is dropping.”

  He grinned. “It’s just that I’m stunned, and very, very pleased. You are special to me too.”

  A nurse came and glared at Elise. Women were not supposed to be in the men’s ward, even though Josh was an officer and supposedly a gentleman. A word from Admiral Sims had gotten her entry but she would not abuse the privilege.

  “I have to go now,” she whispered and glared at the nurse, “one of the three witches from Macbeth has arrived and I must get back to work. When you feel better, we will talk and begin to see where this takes us.”

  He watched her slender figure as she departed. Like many young women she wore a skirt that came to mid calf, and what a lovely calf it was. He had no idea why some thought Elise was plain or skinny. He thought she was a lithe young goddess. And she liked him. He would concentrate on getting better.

  * * *

  General Nolan walked up to Luke’s desk. A mountain of paperwork was stacked on it, consisting of transcripts of interrogations of refugees and the rare prisoner. They stated the obvious and didn’t need an intelligence officer to analyze them.

  Nolan glanced at the unread documents and smiled wickedly. “Congratulations, you’ve been breveted to captain for your work down south and in particular, Los Angeles. Destroying those refineries was a stroke of genius. Now you can start destroying those papers.”

  He handed Luke a set of captain’s bars and Luke put them on. He thought he’d be eighty before he made captain. Funny what a war can do, even if it was only a temporary rank.

  “I have to give Montoya credit for destroying the refineries. He knew where they were and it was his idea.”

  “Montoya appears to be a good man and we’re glad he’s on our side, even if he is a Mexican. I’ve got to remember that we’ve got Germans, like Ike Eisenhower, working for us, and that a lot of Mexicans north of the border hate the ones south of the border. Still, it was you who agreed with Montoya and you who led the raid. And already the loss of oil is playing hell with the Krauts’ plans. In other words, Luke, we finally did something right. We’ve intercepted word that the Germans have told their warships to cut down on fuel usage, and that Admiral Hipper is requesting fuel tankers be sent from Germany or wherever the hell the Kaiser can find them. Admiral Sims and Liggett are discussing plans to do something about that as well.”

  Luke was too tactful to remind Nolan that Dwight Eisenhower, like millions of other Americans, was of German extraction, but not German born. Newly-promoted captains do not argue with newly-promoted generals.

  “And Luke, I’m genuinely sorry you haven’t heard anything about that woman you met down there. The fact that you haven’t heard anything could actually be good news.”

  Luke agreed but didn’t want to talk about it, which Nolan understood. He’d asked those in the intelligence division to keep an eye out for survivors of the train attack, so just about everyone knew something had gone wrong with his personal life. So much for privacy, he thought.

  Along with sharing working quarters, the Army and Navy shared support personnel. One of the more helpful staffers was a rather plainish young woman named Elise Thompson who, Luke understood, was seeing
a young ensign who was currently in the hospital after being shot up in a raid.

  She walked over, smiled slightly, handed him a folded piece of paper and winked. Nolan left and Luke read the note: Conference Room B, was all it said.

  Puzzled, he turned towards Elise who smiled, flushed and looked away. All right, it was not going to be an assignation with the ensign’s thin girlfriend. He got up and walked down the short hallway to Conference Room B. He knocked and entered and nearly fell over.

  “Kirsten?”

  Instinctively, he reached out his hands and she came into his arms. They hugged and he kissed her on the forehead. He wanted to do more, but she pulled back. She looked like hell. Her clothes, jeans, and blouse, were filthy and torn and her hair was a mess. The bruise on her face was receding but still multicolored, like summer storm clouds.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, meaning it.

  “And you’re blind, soldier,” she said, laughing. “Ah, you’ve been promoted. Wonderful.”

  “How did you get here?”

  They sat at the conference table and she told him that she and Maria had started walking the morning after burying Ella. The general idea was to head north since the Germans would, sooner or later, be coming from the south. After a day of that, they’d managed a ride on a truck that took them to Bakersfield where they’d jumped on a flatcar and ridden the train up to San Francisco. She said the flatcar was covered with refugees like her and there were many flatcars, all jammed with people.

  “At least the engineer kept the speed down. Otherwise people would have flown off as we went around turns. I got off as close to here as I could, but it was still across the bay and I had to take a ferry. Maria’s decided to stay with some relatives, so I’m now alone. My feet hurt, I’m filthy, and I need a bath. And after that, I’ll need a place to live. It’s just too cold and rainy to camp out in the park. I do have some money, so I’m not destitute.”

  Sleeping in the park was not a facetious comment. Many of the parks were filled with tents, and chaos was starting to take over. Liggett had said he was on the verge of declaring martial law, and the hell with what Sonny Jim Rolph, the mayor of San Francisco or what William Stevenson, governor of California, thought. The city was sliding towards anarchy and something had to be done. In the meantime, there were housing shortages along with concerns about food.

  “Would you settle for dinner while I figure this out?”

  There was a knock on the door and Elise entered. She saw they were holding hands and smiled. “Mrs. Biel, I couldn’t help but wonder if you’re looking for a place to live? If you are, I have an apartment available since my so-called roommates just left for the north. It’s not majestic or anything, but it does have two beds and a bath.”

  Kirsten smiled. “Do you read minds?”

  Elise laughed. “It was too obvious. Admiral Sims and General Liggett said I should take some time and get you settled. And you, Captain Martel, General Nolan says you should get back to work on that pile of papers.”

  * * *

  Roy Olson looked and saw yet another corpse swinging in the breeze. The Germans had stopped shooting people. It wasted ammunition. Hanging was much cheaper and leaving the body dangling was a very dramatic warning. This one was blackened by the sun and its face had been chewed to the bone by birds. It looked as if it had been there for several days. The dead man was one of the two remaining Dubbins boys. Olson’s deputies had caught him and the German, Steiner, had strung him up.

  Steiner came out of his office and greeted Olson outside. Olson was always amazed how German officers could keep their uniforms so immaculate. Olson was dusty from a hard ride in from his ranch. They walked to a large barbed-wire corral in which several hundred men, white men, sat and stared at them. Most of them wore civilian clothes and only a handful were dressed in any kind of uniform. Some were angry, exuding hate, and some looked blank and fearful.

  “Who the hell are these guys?” Olson asked.

  “Your workforce. These are prisoners taken in the Los Angeles campaign and you will use them to perform the menial duties that used to be done by the residents of the area until they all ran away. It has already been pointed out to the prisoners that they are fortunate to be alive since they were irregulars and could have been shot as terrorists.”

  Fortunate indeed, Olson thought. The swinging corpse was proof that the Germans played rough with anyone who opposed them. He noticed a number of Mexican guards around the prisoners. Steiner saw him looking and smiled. “And that is your security force. One hundred Mexicans along with the twenty ignorant barbarians you call your deputies ought to be enough to keep the prisoners in line. An early execution or two might be impressive as well.”

  Olson agreed. Once he might have been upset at killing Americans, but those days were long gone. He’d felt a tremor of panic when that young American officer momentarily convinced him that the U.S. Army was just over the horizon, but he quickly realized the man had tricked him. Steiner said he’d been played for a fool and Steiner was right. They’d dug in and waited several days for an American attack that never came. Now he knew that the Germans were definitely here to stay and he was damn glad to be on the right side, the winning side.

  Steiner smiled. “You’ve made a good life for yourself, Mr. Olson. You live in a large house, you’re making a lot of money and you have a lovely Mexican mistress who actually believes her husband stays alive because she lets you fuck her. He is alive, isn’t he?”

  “He died weeks ago.” Olson said. He felt no regret. The woman, Martina, was still better off with him than whoring about the countryside. When he closed his eyes, he could imagine she was Kirsten Biel. He wondered just where she’d gone to and whether she was fucking the young officer she’d rode off with. Probably, he thought.

  “When this is over,” Steiner continued, “you will be well rewarded in many ways. By the way, you’re not Jewish are you?”

  “Of course not,” he said angrily.

  “Good. Neither the kaiser nor his son nor anyone in a senior position can abide Jews. Of course they are a necessary evil and some will rise to a certain level of authority based on merit, especially in banking and finance, but no Jews will hold a truly senior position in the German government. Or, if I have my way, in the province of California.”

  Steiner laughed. “In Germany, there are some radical organizations suggesting that all the Christ-killers be deported to someplace like Africa, but that is impractical. A pleasant thought, but impractical. It is as unlikely as actually killing all of them.”

  Olson smiled and shrugged. He didn’t give a crap about Jews, Negroes, Chinese, Malays or anyone else. He just wanted to become an important man in the German Reich and make a lot of money. And when he got tired of little Martina—and she was starting to bore him—there would be others. Maybe someday he’d find out what happened to Kirsten Biel. Hell, she still owned property in the area, maybe she’d come back. Well, if she did, he had a big treat in store for her.

  * * *

  For most it began with a simple cough. Hell, everyone had a cold and everyone coughed and everyone coughed on everyone else. With so many bodies jammed so tightly in the barracks of Camp Dix, it was impossible not to.

  The winter weather was wet and clammy and the barracks were a disaster. With so many openings in the walls, the soldiers joked that the walls didn’t really exist, that they were just white paint on the sky. Staying warm and dry was impossible.

  Of course, the training took place outside in that same wet and clammy weather. Woolen uniforms got wet and soggy and clung to already cold and tired bodies. Overcoats hadn’t arrived yet. Soon, they were told, but soon might be July the way the Army ran things. Even Sergeant Smith was concerned by the whole unhealthy state of affairs, but of course, couldn’t show it.

  The sneezing and sniffling evolved into coughing and the coughing into great hacking coughs with gobs of phlegm hurled about. The coughs then became fevers and men began going
on sick call. Their numbers were few at first, because nobody wanted to go on sick call. That was for sissies. Real men would gut it out. After all, it was only a damn cold and colds went away after a few days, didn’t they? Even the really sick refused to seek medical help. They were there to train to fight and kill the enemy, and to hell with a cough. They didn’t want to be left behind.

  Drill sergeants like Sergeant Smith made a point of going through the barracks and ordering the truly ill to go to the infirmary. Reluctantly, they went, and soon the medical facilities at Camp Dix were overwhelmed. Worse, recruits had begun arriving already feeling sick and transfers from other bases were showing up in the same condition, sometimes even worse. One train from the Midwest arrived with several dead soldiers on it, shocking everyone.

  Tim couldn’t take it any longer. Wally was sick and there was no denying it. One moment he was well and a moment later he was sick. Now his face had a blue tint to it and he was having great difficulty breathing. Tim didn’t feel all that well himself. He felt weak and had begun coughing, too, which scared him. There was no way he could handle his brother and get him on sick call, so he got some of his buddies to help him take Wally to the hospital.

  The hospital was hell. Tim had heard that a large number of his fellow doughboys were sick, but never realized just how many were down. Every bed was taken and patients were lying on the floor, covered with a blanket and trying to sleep in their own filth. Harassed medical personnel were trying desperately to cope and some of them looked sick as well.