America Über Alles

by Jack Fernley

  Their lovemaking was always fast and passionate. Occasionally, he would slap her across the face and she would return the same, harder, and again. He enjoyed it. He enjoyed her dominating him in this way and she enjoyed dominating him. Sometimes she would tie him up, sometimes he her, and there were bruises when the play became too rigorous. But not tonight. This evening, there was tenderness brought by two weeks of separation. There was kissing and then slow penetration. Astride him, Hanna held him deep inside her, their eyes holding each other, a deep well of desire. And a tear slipped from her.

  ‘I love you, Rob – damn – Friedrich! With all my heart.’ She laughed.

  He took in her wide, happy smile and replied gently, ‘And you are the great love of my life, Hanna. I could not be here, living here, in this place, among all this shit, if I didn’t have you alongside me. My love.’

  Rolling over, he gently put her down on the bed, held her arms above her, stretched her out, pushed his hips flat to hers and thrusted himself deep into her. Soon she released herself, her orgasm exciting von Steuben, until he too climaxed, the moans of ecstasy so loud that a few tents away a group of Stormtroopers playing cards and drinking brandy started laughing. ‘Hanna is giving the boss another good seeing to!’

  Exhausted, they lay in each other’s arms, real affection from both to each other, the coarseness of the bedclothes, the softness of the mattress, unfelt among the warmth of their love.

  ‘I have some news about your protégée, Sarah Hand,’ he said.

  ‘Let me guess, she is pregnant by Conze.’

  ‘Not yet, no, but they are to be married.’

  ‘He’s so bourgeois that one. Despite everything, all he wants to do is settle down with a lady and raise his dynasty of Conzes. Honestly, he has no imagination.’

  ‘We need some little Conzes, we need lots of little Conzes if we are to secure the future. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To win the future for our children.’

  ‘Those of us who can bear children,’ she said.

  He regretted instantly his choice of words. ‘They will all be our children when we are finished, Hanna. Future generations will cherish you and me more greatly than any blood relative. They will forget the names of their great-grandmothers, but they will not forget the name of Hanna Reitsch.’ He stroked her hair, kissed her cheek.

  ‘What of her brother?’

  ‘Ah, I’m afraid he is no longer with us. Conze’s patience with him ended on their scouting trip. First, there was some unpleasantness with a Jewish village.’

  ‘A Jewish village? I thought there were no Jewish settlements here.’

  ‘None that we would recognise, but there are a few scattered settlements here and there, the first pustules of a greater contagion. Conze came upon this village by chance and did what we would expect of him. Colonel Hand attempted to stop that and then later attempted to save an Indian village that had sent out a war party against our men. Apparently he stood in front of them to protect the women and children and in doing so was shot with them all.’

  ‘By Werner?’

  ‘Actually, by a firing squad Conze had lined up, of both Stormtroopers and Pennsylvanian Riflemen. Colonel Hand rather overestimated the loyalty of his men to him. None of them batted an eyelid, including his former friend O’Leary.’

  ‘You have to hand it to Werner, he has done a splendid job on those men.’

  ‘He has indeed. They are quite the junior Stormtroopers now. The sister is being informed this afternoon that her brave brother was killed by wild savages.’

  ‘Her loyalty passed from brother to lover a while back, I think. She is doing the most marvellous job with the League of American Girls. I am very pleased with her. There may be hope for these people yet.’

  PART 4

  PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

  5 August 1777

  THIRTY-ONE

  Congress had wanted Washington and his senior generals to come to Philadelphia for a briefing on the conduct of the war. The spring had given way to summer, but aside from minor skirmishes, the expected showdown with the British had not happened. The politicians and bureaucrats in Philadelphia were irritated at the cost of inactive armies, not just Washington’s main army at Lowantica, but also the Northern Army under Schuyler. They wanted – simply put – to see something for their money.

  The commander-in-chief had delayed responding to their request for some time, but now there was a pressing issue.

  On 24 July, Washington had learned that Howe, along with Cornwallis and most of his key forces, had left New York in a flotilla of almost three hundred ships. The estimates for the numbers of troops aboard ranged from 11,000 to 18,000 men. Washington’s instinct had been that Howe was going to sail up the Hudson River and join forces with Burgoyne to launch an attack on the Colonists’ Northern Army. Von Steuben argued that this would not be the case. In his words, Howe would be looking to, ‘Fix upon those objects that will appear the most splendid. He will make for Philadelphia.’

  In this, the baron was in a minority and Washington agreed with the rest of his generals that they should bolster Schuyler. Consequently, Washington’s army left camp and marched to Ramapo in New York. While making camp there, he received news on 30 July that the fleet had been sighted off the Delaware Capes, which led to an about-turn south. It was possible, after all, that Howe was planning to attack the capital of the rebellion. Accepting the inevitable, Washington rode off ahead of his army to meet with Congress.

  He invited von Steuben and Reitsch to escort him, along with Nathanael Greene and Alexander Hamilton. It was not entirely Washington’s idea. John Adams had suggested as much in a letter to him; Congress was much fascinated about von Steuben and the remarkable woman who had become the quartermaster for the Continental Army. It would please Congress for them to attend. Washington, for once undiplomatic, told the pair not to expect too much: ‘Chimney corner patriots abound: venality, corruption, prostitution of office for selfish ends, abuse of trust, perversions of funds from a national to a private use, and speculations upon the necessities of the times, pervade all interests. That, I am afraid, is Congress.’

  Von Steuben and Reitsch soon found Washington’s assessment to be correct. The members of Congress were a dreary collection of bookkeepers, small businessmen and nosy ideologues. Von Steuben had met their type before. They had come flooding into the Nazi party when there was the smallest whiff of possible power. The same kind of men, he reflected, happy to sit in on judgement of those who were physically and morally braver than themselves, happy to carp from the sidelines when things went badly, happy to swivel their faces the other way when success came.

  Both Reitsch and the baron were pleasantly surprised that none of the members of Congress was openly opposed to the idea that a woman, and a foreign woman at that, should be in charge of the army’s supply strategy. True, from their patronising tone, it was evident that Congress regarded Reitsch as something of a freak of nature, but there was no outright hostility. However, the questions put to both them and Washington on the conduct of the war and organisation of the Continental Army were banal, and betrayed Congress’s lack of real understanding.

  There were two outstanding men, however, who stood shoulders above the rest in their general comportment as much as intelligence: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. And it was noticeable how they both allowed the other members to fill most of the formal hours, while they reserved the appropriate questions for the moments when they were alone with Washington or, more frequently in the case of Adams, with von Steuben and Reitsch.

  That the Germans were the toast of Philadelphia was clear from the rounds of soirées and dinners they found themselves invited to. For a city full of Quakers ambivalent about war, there were a lot of parties to celebrate the warriors.

  The central object of fascination, however, was Reitsch. No one in Philadelphia had come across a character like her before: a woman who clearly saw herself as the equal of any man, one determined to set
her own path. Whenever she left the State House or their lodgings at the City Tavern, Reitsch would be immediately surrounded, especially by young women, many of whom had taken to dressing in what was described as the ‘Reitsch mode’ – the grey jacket with jodhpurs she wore. Tailors had taken to copying the design throughout the colonies and teenage girls, often to the disquiet of their parents, had taken to wearing them. In Philly, most well-to-do girls had cast off their formal dresses to don the Reitsch style. As one young girl told her: ‘You inspire us all, madame, to see a future for ourselves where we can be judged not as females, but as people equal to the men who surround us. You have freed us from bondage!’ In return, Hanna promised she would send Sarah Hand to the city to establish a branch of the League of American Girls.

  It was the last day of the visit. The next morning they would return to Morris Town and Lowantica Brook, but there was one final formal dinner to sit through, this one hosted by the Sons of Liberty. As they sat down to dinner, there was a notable new addition to what had become a familiar group. Sat to Reitsch’s right, across the table from Washington, was a handsome nineteen-year-old man who spoke English with a heavy French accent.

  Rather stiffly, he introduced himself to Reitsch, ‘Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. I have come travelling to ze Americas to give support to zis most juste de causes.’

  So this is him, she thought to herself. You grow to become one of the most celebrated men of the age. This spotty young man becomes a confidant of all the great Americans of the age, Washington, Jefferson, Adams; is wounded at the battle of Brandywine; and grows to be one of the great heroes of the American Revolution. He will be the chief cause of the alliance between France and the colonies that turns the conflict into a global war and wins independence for the Americas. He will then become one of the key players of the French Revolution, stand up to Napoleon and help create a further revolution in 1830, and turn down the offer to become dictator of France. How astonishing to think of all this happening to this thin, acne-faced young man.

  Or rather, she mused, how history may change now. How whether the name Lafayette comes to mean anything at all in the future depends on what she and her lover determine. A lover betraying just the smallest amount of jealousy, she thought, as she talked to the young Frenchman.

  The dinner was interrupted by a message brought to Alexander Hamilton by an exhausted, dust-covered rider.

  ‘What is it, Hamilton?’ asked Adams. ‘The news cannot be good, your face alone tells all the room this.’

  ‘Sir, ah, it is news of General Howe. It is not that the news is necessarily bad, it is that the news is perplexing. He appears to have left the Delaware Capes and headed south.’

  ‘Charleston,’ uttered Washington. ‘He is going to attack Charleston. This was but a feint.’

  ‘Then we must head south, to defend the city,’ said Lafayette.

  ‘No, there is no point,’ replied Hamilton. ‘The defences of the city are such that it cannot easily be defended. And our supply lines and forces would be intolerably stretched. Take our forces to the south and we would seriously weaken the entire north and east. We have long agreed in our war councils that should such a event occur, we would have to leave Charleston.’

  ‘Then we must turn about our forces and take advantage of the situation,’ said Jefferson. ‘New York lies open to us. Let us take her.’

  ‘Or we should consider breaking his Northern Army under Burgoyne. With Howe and Cornwallis south, that army sits alone. I would counter we destroy the British army in the north for good,’ argued Adams.

  There was a further to and fro of debate before tacit agreement that Washington would take his forces and march north. There was a hubbub of cheering and then one dissenting voice raised itself above the din. The voice of Baron von Steuben.

  ‘Gentlemen, I have listened to your debate in the spirit of one who has not been among you for long. With a heavy heart, I must tell you, you are wrong. There will be no attack on Charleston. This, my Lord Washington, is the feint. This is the tactic of a general. As soon as you have started the march north, mark my words, Howe will turn north again and head up Chesapeake Bay. He has eyes for only one city, and that city is Philadelphia.’

  ‘My dear baron, what is your evidence for this?’

  ‘My evidence is a lifetime’s experience of studying warfare, preparing for warfare, of studying men and their ambitions. Charleston makes little sense. Frankly, attacking Philadelphia makes little sense in the grander strategy of a war to win back the colonies, but it makes a lot of sense if you are Sir William Howe. He wants a notable scalp to boast about in London. You’re fighting a war for your freedom. He is fighting a war to enrich himself and his brother, to grow his reputation at the court of King George. If he can take Philadelphia, if he can rout the rebels in the heart of their country, well, imagine how that will be heard at court. Those are my reasons.’

  ‘Baron, while I appreciate your understanding of the human condition, I prefer to concentrate – as I’m sure George does – on the hard evidence. And the evidence is that Howe is moving south,’ Jefferson replied.

  ‘Charleston makes little military sense, Mister Jefferson. I do not believe for one moment that General Howe is the kind of dummkopf who would go there.’

  ‘But a dumpkoft who would attack Philadelphia?’ the young Frenchman Lafayette had found his voice. ‘Zere es no reason fer Howe to attack Philadelphia. Zere ez no strategic reason, but zere ez with Charleston, ez zere not? Charleston ez the key to the south, ez et not?’

  ‘Charleston is no Philadelphia. It will carry little weight back in London. Howe is playing to the gallery in London, he is not thinking about how the war will end here in America. This I know from my experience of warfare and the men who wage it. One could not expect you, young man, to have such an understanding.’

  ‘You must excuse my English, ez poor,’ replied Lafayette. ‘It ez true. I am much younger than you, Baron. Much younger and I may not carry ze experience nor prejudices of age, but I have experience from my family. Ze Lafayettes are one of ze oldest, most chivalrous and courageous families in France. My ancestor Gilbert de Lafayette served under Joan of Arc, we served on the crusades, the British at the battle of Minden killed my father. At the age of thirteen, I was commissioned as a musketeer in the service of King Louis, at fifteen a lieutenant in the Noailles Dragoons. I have enjoyed ze finest tutelage at ze Académie de Versailles. So warfare runs through my blood and my education. I have a distinct understanding. And I say, with ze greatest respect, Baron von Steuben, what you say ez nonsense.’

  There was something of a general intake of breath at this. It was rare among Washington’s staff to have officers directly attacking the views of the others. And what made this rarer was the arrogance of Lafayette, the young Frenchman, who had only just joined the camp with a letter of recommendation from Ben Franklin, in attacking the hero of the hour.

  Von Steuben held himself back. He was looking to give the young man just enough rope to hang himself.

  ‘Your confidence, from one so young, is admirable. Your arrogance, ah, the young are always arrogant. Which of us around this room has not felt the power of such youthful arrogance? And then only to look back later at our rashness with regret. As you will. I’ll wager you, young man, wager you a thousand dollars, that Howe makes landfall along the Elk River and attacks Philadelphia.’

  ‘The Elk? Why would he run a course up that river, when the Delaware is much deeper and gives instant access to Philadelphia?’ asked Adams.

  ‘I am sure he would prefer to carry up the Delaware, but he will find that impossible. Once he scouts the river, he will find not only Fort Mercer with its excellent artillery, but that we have sunk ranges of iron spikes in the bed of the river which make the upper channel difficult if not impossible to pass. Thus he will look to the Elk.’

  ‘I will gladly take your wager,’ said the cocksure Lafayette.

  ‘Gentlemen, as much as we are enjoying
your jesting, there are serious matters to hand,’ said Washington. ‘Baron, I have enjoyed your contribution, but I am afraid I must disagree. We will prepare the army to march north. Our aim will be to squeeze Burgoyne’s forces and secure the north-east, retake New York. If Howe wants to parade around Charleston, let him. This will enable us to secure the north. Monsieur Lafayette, I would have you join me.’

  ‘I am obliged, sir.’

  ‘General Washington, may I plead with you?’ asked von Steuben.

  ‘Baron.’

  ‘Although you disagree with my analysis, you would surely agree that Philadelphia is a city without any defence. If you are right and Howe intends to sail to Charleston, there will come a time when he will set towards the north. There may then be a decisive battle that will determine the outcome of the war. Regardless, we need to give the people of Philadelphia comfort that this city is well defended. May I request that you allow my Stormtroopers and the Pennsylvanian Riflemen to make camp hereabouts and oversee the construction of such defences?’

  ‘It would be a reduction of the capabilities of our forces to not have you and your troops with us in the north,’ Washington responded.

  ‘I thank you for the compliment. However, you will be travelling with over ten thousand men. Schuyler has five thousand or so, while Burgoyne has no more than, what, eight thousand. And you can call on the New York colony militia, twenty thousand men, not to mention the New England militia, which I believe is up to thirty thousand armed. You will have numerical superiority without us.’

  Washington reflected. He wanted von Steuben with him, he understood how the rest of his army responded to having the Stormtroopers in their midst. He was about to refuse the request when John Adams interjected.