1920: America's Great War-eARC

by Robert Conroy

  Like everyone, Trotha’s eyes were focused on the British warships. Even though he hated them, he had to admire the stately and confident way they maneuvered around his ships and into the Sound. There was no sight of any American warships; the British were the only show in town.

  Sharp eyes would have been needed to see that the British squadron was well inside the invisible boundary that separated the American portion of the Sound from the Canadian. Even on a very clear day, extremely sharp eyes would have been needed to even get a hint of the small gray shapes that were leaving the sound as the British entered, and moving so slowly that they scarcely made a ripple, much less a wave. The waves of the sound and then the ocean that surged over the small vessels made them even less visible then they normally were.

  And nobody on the mighty German warships noticed those small gray shapes. Later, it would be agreed that the entire maneuver was extremely well planned and marvelously well choreographed.

  CHAPTER 7

  Kirsten was livid. How could the Dubbins brothers have run to her hideout after their brother was hanged and after they’d later gotten drunk and beaten up a German soldier? She’d always known the Dubbins brothers weren’t very bright, but this was beyond absurd. What were they thinking of, endangering her and the others like they’d done?

  “Well, where else were we supposed to go?” lamented the older brother, Lew. “We worked for you and you said you were our friend.”

  “Lew, if I look towards the south I can see a little wisp of dust in the air and that means someone’s coming. My bet is that it’s either a German patrol or Roy Olson has organized a posse and they’ve come to haul you in.”

  “You’ll defend us, won’t you?” Lew pleaded.

  “With what? Two other women and me are all that’s here, and Ella’s hurt. The other men and their families have all gone north. There is no way on earth I am going to get in a gunfight on your side against what’s coming here. However, I will let you take what you need of our food. I’ve got a feeling, thanks to you fools, that we’re not going to be up here much longer. When you’ve gone we’ll tell Olson or the Germans that you forced it from us and hope to God they believe us. Now take it and get out.” She shuddered. If her tale wasn’t believed, would she suffer like Ella had? Or, dear God, would Ella suffer again?

  The two Dubbins brothers quickly grabbed some supplies and rode off. Kirsten anxiously watched as the dust cloud grew larger and became a group of five horsemen. As they drew still closer, she easily recognized the bulk of Roy Olson in the lead. She was relieved to see no Germans in the group. Ella seemed to be improving, however slightly, but God only knew how she’d take seeing people in field gray uniforms.

  Roy and the others pulled up and dismounted. Kirsten noticed with perverse satisfaction that they were tired and flushed. And Roy, a large man, was taking it the worst. He was caked with dirt and sweat and his face was almost beet red.

  He plunked himself down in the shade and took some deep swallows of water, “God, that felt good. Now, where the devil are the idiot Dubbins brothers?”

  “They came, they robbed me, and they rode off. Now what did they do this time?”

  Olson blinked. “They robbed you? But you’ve got weapons.”

  “And I’ve known them for years and didn’t expect trouble. I also decided that it wasn’t worth resisting if they wanted some food. So what did they do?”

  “One brother was executed for cutting a telegraph line, and the others are wanted for beating up a German soldier. I finally have witnesses to that little shindig, and Captain Steiner wants the matter settled. When I bring them in, they’ll hang too.”

  “Since when did beating somebody become a hanging offense?”

  Olson laughed harshly, “Since the Germans came to town. How long ago did the boys leave?”

  “Maybe two hours, maybe three. You really think you can catch them? Your horses look dead.”

  He looked around. The others were listening. “Come with me,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  Olson took her by the arm and led her about a hundred yards away and behind some rocks. He pushed her against the rocks and stood in front of her, towering over her.

  “You’re right, Kirsten, I can’t catch them. But I can bring in second prize, and that’s you and the other two women, and I’m going to throw all of you in jail.”

  Kirsten was shocked at his barely controlled rage. “Why? What for?”

  Olson wiped his sweaty brow with a once-white handkerchief. “Because you aided and abetted fugitives in fleeing from justice. You claim they robbed you and, if the Germans are satisfied with your story, you’ll be allowed to go free. Of course you’ll have to live in a camp in Raleigh along with everybody else.”

  “A concentration camp?”

  She nearly spat out the phrase. The British had used such camps to imprison Boer civilians in the Boer war and the Spanish had invented the term to try to put down the rebellion in Cuba. In each case the camps were filled with innocent civilians who had died by the hundreds, perhaps thousands, as the result of neglect, bad food and water, disease, and generally unsanitary conditions.

  “You cannot imprison me for no good reason,” she said angrily. “If, as you say, I am found innocent, then I must be able to go and live when and where I wish.”

  Olson sighed and again wiped his brow. “How many times do I have to tell bloody, stubborn fools like you the world has changed? I am now the civilian law in Raleigh. These men are duly deputized, and you are under arrest. Let’s not make this any more difficult than we have to. What happens to you is going to largely depend on what I say. If I don’t believe your fairy tale about being robbed, then you’re going to spend years in a Mexican prison if the Germans don’t shoot you just for the hell of it.

  Roy smiled. “However, it doesn’t have to be that way.” He put his hand on her shoulder and dropped it to her breast. She froze in shock as he turned her back to him and slipped it inside her shirt and under her brassiere. She thought illogically that she’d just gotten the new rubber brassiere in the mail from Sears.

  He squeezed her nipple and put his other hand down her jeans. “On the other hand, if you cooperate, things could be really nice for you and your cousin. If not, she’ll get it a lot worse than when the Germans hurt her the first time.”

  Kirsten tried to twist away but he was too large and too strong. She never saw the punch. It struck her hard in the stomach, and a second one smashed against her jaw, sending her to the ground.

  Olson stood over her. “And this is just a beginning. You don’t want to go to a jail. You don’t want Germans or Mexicans guarding you, watching everything you do, staring every time you piss or shit, and visiting you women in your cell every time they feel like getting fucked. Hell, the Mexicans might just take you and Ella on the ground outside where everyone can see and everyone can have a turn. Don’t you wonder what that’ll do to the rest of Ella’s brain?”

  Kirsten staggered to her feet and looked at Roy in disbelief. He was never much of a friend, but he was a neighbor. When did he become an enemy, such a monster? It was hard to catch her breath and she was dizzy from the punch to her head.

  “Don’t worry, Kirsten, I’m not going to take you now. Too many people around and I like a little privacy, but you are coming back with me. If I have to use force to do that, people are going to get hurt, and it will be you and Ella and not me.”

  He pulled her back to the others. Kirsten looked in dismay at the four louts Roy had brought with him. She recognized them all as being his hired hands and they were laughing at her. They would follow Roy’s orders without compunction. She wanted to cry, but wouldn’t give Roy the satisfaction.

  “Ella can’t ride,” Kirsten said softly. She was beaten, both physically and emotionally. She would have to do what he wished. “We’ll have to rig a sled or something.”

  “Fair enough,” Roy smiled in triumph. “My men’ll help.”

  * * *

&nb
sp; When the newspapers drew maps of the German advance in California, along with bold arrows, they drew thick draw dark lines indicating to militarily unsophisticated readers that everything south of the markers was German and anything north still belonged to the United States. The implication was that the lines were absolute and impenetrable walls. Luke Martel knew better. No army would have enough men to cover everything. They simply didn’t have enough men to block the entire state even if they’d wanted to, and the rough geography in some areas would have made such an endeavor difficult if not impossible.

  Luke had pressed Colonel Nolan for the opportunity to slip behind the German lines and see just what the heck was happening in the southern part of the state. He knew his results would be a like a Kodak snapshot, but it would be better then what they were currently getting from the south, which was next to nothing.

  Nolan agreed and suggested a patrol of at least twenty men. Luke had argued that he should travel alone. It’d be easier, he’d said, for one person to hide and slip around the Germans, while a larger group would just attract too much attention.

  They compromised on adding just one other man. Corporal Joe Flowers was a Mescalero Apache, and Luke had known him and served with him in Mexico. Small, dark, and wiry, he looked older than his forty years, and Flowers’ dark eyes hinted that he had a low degree of intelligence and barely controlled violence. Martel knew better. Corporal Flowers was both highly intelligent and cunning, though he could be murderously violent when needed.

  Flowers was also a skilled hunter and tracker and those skills kept the two men out of sight of the several German patrols and columns they did spot when they crossed into German-held territory. One thing was clear; the German advance, however slow and ponderous, was a massive endeavor. At one time, they halted and watched what looked like the better part of an infantry division pass within a half mile of them. Along with the size of the German force, its arrogance was also on display. They moved north as if they did not have a care in the world, which, Luke admitted ruefully, was exactly the case.

  Another time, they were passed by a column of armored vehicles, trucks with machine guns protected by thin armor plating. “When the hell will we get some of our own,” Luke had muttered. Flowers did not respond. He had a habit of not answering dumb questions, especially from officers, even ones he liked.

  Luke might have made the same comment regarding airplanes. The skies might not be filled with them, but everyone they did see was a German.

  They traveled through gaps in the German advance without incident and without being noticed. Wherever possible, the enemy kept to what roads there were, which meant that Martel and Flowers could move freely off-road. As far as the Germans were concerned, the two khaki-clad soldiers were invisible, as both men preferred.

  They had made it most of the way south and were resting and hoped they were out of sight behind a mound of earth. Luke had come to the conclusion that they had learned very little except the obvious—the Germans were coming in great strength—and it was just about time to head back north. The Germans were slowly but inexorably advancing on Los Angeles. He hoped the defense of that town would be strong, but doubted it.

  Joe heard something, paused, then crawled to the top of the mound of earth. He gestured for Luke to stay down. “What do you see, Joe?”

  Joe answered with a straight face. “Me see heap many horses and men armed with fire sticks. Me see much danger.”

  Luke laughed. “Stop the dumb Indian bullshit. What do you see?”

  A grin split Joe’s face. Sometimes he could pull that trick on the very young lieutenants, but Martel had been around just a little too long. “Okay, lieutenant, have it your way. I see seven people on horseback and one person being pulled on a sled or travois. And they look American and not German or greaser.”

  Joe Flowers hated the Mexicans even more than most Indians hated white Americans. The Mexicans had abused his people more than the gringos, and had driven his people off their lands. It was because of the Mexicans that Joe Flowers had joined the American Army. He’d seen it as a great opportunity to kill them.

  Luke gave Joe his binoculars. The Indian had better eyesight and Luke had no problem admitting it. “This is interesting, Lieutenant. There are five men and two women on horseback and it looks like a third woman on the travois. She’s probably sick or hurt. And the other two women are prisoners. Both have their hands bound and tied to their pommels. One woman looks Mexican and the other American. All the men look like gringos.”

  “What color are the women’s eyes?”

  “Go to hell, Lieutenant.”

  Women prisoners was an intriguing thought, even more so if one was indeed an American. What the devil was going on, and was it worth betraying themselves and giving away their presence? If the women actually were prisoners, then whose and why? He looked at Joe, who shrugged.

  The group was moving very slowly, so it was no problem for Luke and Joe to circle around them and take up positions in front and to either side. They hid their horses and lay prone in the dirt. When the group was about fifty feet away, Luke and Joe emerged, their rifles aimed on the group.

  “Hands up,” Luke ordered in a loud voice and the shocked riders complied. They ordered the men off their horses and quickly disarmed them. Luke might regret such high-handedness at some future time, but he felt it was far better to apologize later then to be sorry. He did not release the women. For all he knew, they were ax murderers like Lizzie Borden.

  A heavyset man, obviously the leader from the way the other men looked to him, glared at Luke. His face was red with scarcely controlled rage. “Dear God,” he said angrily. “You’re deserters from the American Army, aren’t you? The real American Army is as extinct as Darwin’s dinosaurs.”

  Luke smiled tightly. “Sorry to disappoint you, but we’re part of a column,” Luke lied. “Now, who are you and why are these women tied up?”

  The man looked confused. “My name is Roy Olson and I am the law, the sheriff, in this area and these two women are under arrest for a number of crimes.”

  Sheriff? And way behind German lines? “And who appointed you sheriff, Mr. Olson?” Luke asked quietly. He had a discomfiting feeling he knew the answer.

  The white woman looked up. There was a massive bruise on her face and anger in her eyes. “The Germans gave him the job so he could abuse real Americans. Look what he did to me. And my crime? I gave food and water to people who apparently might have beaten up one of Olson’s precious German soldiers and that’s a hanging crime, according to Mr. Olson.”

  “Comment, Mr. Olson?”

  Olson glared at the woman and turned to Luke. “Part of it’s true. Of course, the Germans are in charge where we live, and, yes, we have to cooperate with them, and yes, attacking a German soldier is a capital offence. I do not make the laws, ah, Lieutenant, but I do have to obey them and I have been directed to bring these people in.”

  The woman sneered. “And did that include beating me and trying to rape me? The Germans burned our home, hurt and abused my cousin and now he wants us to go back with him and live in a concentration camp or, if he decides I’m a criminal, be sent to a prison in Mexico City. Unless, of course, I become his mistress. He beat me up just to make his point.”

  “Lying bitch,” Olson snarled. “She fell off her horse.”

  Luke made his choice. He told Joe to cut the two women free. As he did so, one of Olson’s men lunged for his rifle. The knife flew from Joe’s hand and buried itself in the man’s throat. A second man reached for a pistol he’d hidden in his boot, and Luke shot him in the chest. He screamed and fell back into Olson, covering him with blood. Olson fell backwards with his dead companion on top of him.

  Luke chambered another bullet, and Joe had his rifle aimed at Olson and his two thoroughly shocked surviving companions.

  “The Germans are going to hang you for this!” Olson said as he tried to stand up. He was covered with the other man’s gore. “And maybe they�
�ll hang hostages, too, and it’ll all be your Goddamn fault.”

  Luke laughed. “And maybe you’ll hang for being a traitor when we come back. In the meantime, you’re going to give us your horses, your weapons, your boots, and anything else we think might be useful. We will leave you enough water to last you a couple of days so you don’t die of thirst before you can be hanged for treason. When we come back with more of our men, I strongly suggest you be nowhere near here.”

  They mounted and rode off, leaving a thoroughly cowed three men behind them. Luke noticed that the woman—she’d told him her name was Kirsten—was really rather pretty in a wholesome, suntanned kind of way, or would be when the swelling on her face went down.

  “That was wonderful,” she said. “I had just given up all hope of seeing an American Army again. So tell me, how far away is the rest of your column?”

  Luke shrugged. “Maybe five hundred miles.”

  * * *

  German warships had begun blockading all major west coast ports including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. Admiral Sims quickly realized that, even though the Germans had a numerical advantage in ships, there simply weren’t enough of them to keep a tight blockade or watch the rest of America’s lengthy Pacific coastline. Of course, when Los Angeles inevitably fell, that would free up additional ships to tighten the blockade, but there still would never be enough enemy vessels to cover every cove and bay.

  Before the Germans took Los Angeles, however, Sims wanted to take some positive steps. Like everyone in the military, he was sick and tired of waiting and watching. The United States should never be used as a punching bag and that, he thought, was exactly what was happening. It was time to strike back, however small that attempt might be.