1920: America's Great War

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.”

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.

Thus, Ensign Josh Cornell found himself on the deck of a squat, ugly fishing boat not unlike the one that had rescued him off San Francisco. This one, however, was registered to the U.S. Navy as a miscellaneous ship and her crew was all U.S. Navy personnel. Despite his still gimpy leg, Josh was present to observe on Sims’ behalf. Lieutenant Jesse Oldendorf commanded the ship they’d facetiously renamed the Shark. Her armament consisted of a couple of machine guns taken from the hulks at Mare Island and she carried a cargo that needed to be delivered to the Germans.

Oldendorf was also an Annapolis man and a decade older then Josh. Oldendorf’s friends called him “Oley.” Since “Oley” was two grades higher, Josh called him “sir.” Like Josh, Oldendorf was thrilled to be out at sea even though his warship was a stinking former fishing boat that the Navy hadn’t even bothered to repaint, which Josh quickly realized was intentional. There had been serious discussions with Admiral Sims as to whether or not the Germans would recognize the Shark as a U.S. Navy ship if she was captured, and if the crew be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.

Sims’ response had been succinct. “Don’t get captured.”

Oldendorf kept the Shark as close as possible to the beautiful but rugged shoreline as they slipped south towards San Diego, chugging along at a sedate ten knots. He had no concern about being spotted. She would be seen by many and there would be no attempt to hide her. The Shark looked like what she had been, an innocuous fisher, just one of hundreds still on the water. Keeping close to shore meant they could turn and ground the ship if a German did decide to take a close look since there was no way they could outrun or outfight much of anything. That way the twelve-man crew stood at least a small chance of escaping overland and the issue of whether they were covered by the Geneva Convention would be moot.

The Shark’s cargo was two dozen contact mines. These would be dropped in San Diego’s shipping channel and anchored to the ocean bottom, leaving the mines to bob at or just below the surface. Hopefully, an unwary ship would hit one and be sunk.

They reached their destination without incident. It was dark but not very cloudy and the crew of the Shark felt vulnerable and naked as they slipped into San Diego Bay’s narrow channel. Oldendorf muttered that he couldn’t believe the Germans’ inertia. He didn’t even see a patrol boat. Were they that confident? He grinned wickedly. Maybe they were overconfident.

They coasted to a dead slow speed. A ramp was opened and, one by one, the mines were dropped over. The Shark maintained enough speed to get out of the way of the mines when they bobbed back up to the surface.

“Be a helluva note to be sunk by our own mine,” muttered one of the sailors. Oldendorf laughingly agreed and slapped the sailor on the back.

In minutes it was over. Their deadly cargo was gone and they turned to go north, to San Francisco. Finally, a searchlight popped on and a finger of light swept the area they’d just left. They all held their breath as they steadily pulled away. The searchlight went off just as suddenly as it went on and they all commenced breathing again.

Oldendorf stood beside Josh. “Well, Ensign, do you think this night’s effort was worth it?”

“Frankly sir, not really.”

“Oh?”

“Sir, before the peace of 1915, both the Germans and the British sowed thousands, maybe tens of thousands of these mines, and all we dropped were twenty-four. Sorry sir, but this isn’t even a pinprick.”

Oldendorf was about to reply when a second searchlight flashed on and this one bathed them in its glare, forcing them to shield their eyes. A machine gun opened up from the nearby shore and a cannon boomed. A geyser of water erupted in front of them and bullets stitched the Shark’s wooden hull, spraying splinters over her crew. Something struck Josh’s shoulder and knocked him down. He pulled himself up and looked at the devastation. Several of the Shark’s crew were lying on the deck and moaning, and Oldendorf, while still standing, was covered in blood from a gash in his head. Something hot, wet, and sticky was running down Josh’s chest.

The minelayer’s machine guns opened fire in the general direction of the searchlight and, to their astonishment, it winked out. It seemed unlikely that they’d hit it, so Josh thought they’d possibly scared the operators into turning it off.

Before they could take a deep breath, a crewman sighted ships coming from San Diego Bay. “Lead ship looks like a destroyer,” Oldendorf said. “We’ll run as far as we can and if we can’t shake her, we’ll head to shore and beach the Shark.”

Josh watched in morbid fascination as the destroyer sliced through the water, cutting the distance with every second. It was as if the Shark was standing still. The destroyer was almost out of the channel and there were two patrol boats trailing her. The destroyer fired one of her deck guns and another geyser erupted a few yards off the Shark’s bow.

“I’m getting damn sick and tired of this!” Oldendorf yelled.

Suddenly, a flash of light erupted along the hull of the destroyer and she appeared to lift out of the ocean. The force of the explosion caused her to heel over and almost capsize. For an instant before the light faded, Josh saw men tumbling overboard. When the German destroyer righted herself, it was apparent that her back was broken and she was going to sink.

There was no more pursuit. The confused German patrol boats milled about the dying destroyer and began taking off her crew. Oldendorf again stood by Josh. “You hurt bad, Josh?”

“I don’t think so, sir. It hurts like hell, but everything moves okay. I’m just a little tired of getting wounded.”

Oldendorf nodded. “Amazing. The Brits drop thousands of the damned things and get little in the way of results, while we drop a couple dozen and kill a destroyer.”

Josh sat down. His world was beginning to spin. Shock was again setting in. Josh thought ruefully that this was the second time he’d seen a destroyer sink.

The journey to Los Angeles was helped by Corporal Joe Flower’s finding and liberating a carriage from a farmhouse. One look at his angry face and the occupants declined to argue. This meant that Ella and Maria could ride in relative comfort and the party moved along with greater speed. Ella continued to show signs of physical improvement, although her eyes had not lost their blank look. Kirsten was extremely concerned. What had happened to her had clearly been too much for her mind to handle. Ella had lived in a world where women were respected and put on pedestals, not stripped in front of a crowd and then gang-raped. Poor Ella hadn’t even been in favor of women voting. She’d agreed with those men who felt that women weren’t psychologically up to the heavy responsibility. Kirsten’s hatred of the Germans continued to increase. So did her contempt for Roy Olson.

On the positive side, she and Luke Martel had gotten to know each other fairly well. He was a lot smarter then she’d first assumed and, like her, was self educated and well read. And the scar on his face was just that, a scar, and not part of his personality, although it would frighten small children on Halloween. She decided she would ultimately halt her journey in San Francisco. It was a decision based on the facts that Luke was stationed there and that she had no place else to go.

Thus it was with a degree of regret, if not sadness, that they parted at the railroad station in Los Angeles. Luke had managed to find Maria, Ella, and Kirsten spots on a train headed north to safety. This was easier said than done since the sprawling city of Los Angeles was evacuating itself. Thousands of people were streaming north and away from the Germans who, it was said, were just a few hours away. The evacuation had been going on for days and there were still many tens of thousands of people in the sprawling city. People were beginning to panic as the sounds of guns and the sight of distant smoke became evident and moved ever closer.

There was a stench in the air that Luke identified as burning oil. Good. Someone was taking care of denying the Germans the oil stored in L.A.

Luke was embarrassed and frustrated to admit he was a United States soldier. He saw no other uniforms in the city that had once had a population of more than half a million. Now it was becoming a ghost town. It shocked him to see Americans moving north like hordes of beggars or migrants with nothing more than suitcases or even bags of goods to call their own. Some had no more than the clothing on their backs and few had any food. This can’t be the United States of America, he thought.

Some of the fortunate ones had cars or carriages and these were jammed to overflowing with people and their possessions. The lucky ones had horses. Cars and trucks would only go as far as their gas tanks would take them, assuming they didn’t break down in the first place, while horses could still travel on an empty stomach and leave congested roads; avoiding traffic jams.

Owners of vehicles of all kinds were charging exorbitant rates to move people away from the oncoming Germans. Rumors of German atrocities abounded, and Luke recognized some of them from the early days of the 1914 war, and these included massacres, mass rapes, and the impaling of pregnant women and children on bayonets. He didn’t believe the impalements, but the murders and rapes had occurred, both in Belgium and now in California. Kirsten’s cousin was proof of that.

Despite the lack of an army presence, there were large numbers of armed men congregating in Los Angeles, and they all seemed to be reporting to someone named Joseph Harper, a wealthy merchant who had taken a semblance of control of the deteriorating situation. Luke decided it was time to find this man.

Luke found Joe Harper near the Hollywood section of town, where the movie industry had relocated only a few years earlier. Now the sight of sets and production buildings in the background seemed grotesque. So too was the rumble and thunder of approaching artillery. The German Army was just down the road. Several dozen armed Mexicans lounged around, resting their horses. A young man who looked like he was their leader glared at Luke as he passed by.

Joe Harper was in his fifties and seemed a friendly sort, although clearly exhausted and stressed. “Where’s the rest of your army, Lieutenant?”

“I wish I could say they’d be arriving momentarily, but I can’t. May I ask what your plans are, Mr. Harper?”

“I hope to defend the city. I would not think of blaming you personally, but I hope you realize that the absence of the United States Army means we have to do it ourselves.”

“And is that wise? I managed to pass through several large German units on my way here, and I estimate at least fifty thousand enemy soldiers converging on Los Angeles as we speak, as is obvious from the sounds and the smoke. How many men do you have?”

Harper looked visibly shaken. He clearly hadn’t thought there’d be that many Germans. “Maybe ten thousand,” he said softly.

Luke shook his head. The man was going to get a whole lot of people killed. “Ten thousand poorly armed, inadequately trained men, and led by people who mean well, but you’ll be fighting against the highly professional and well-equipped German Army. With respect Mr. Harper, they will cut you to pieces. More bluntly, they will go through your army like shit through a goose. Thousands of your men will be killed or wounded and nothing will be accomplished except unnecessary bloodshed.”

Harper was angry. His face reddened. “And what do you propose we do? Leave our homes and businesses to the Hun without a fight?”

“It’s better than dying for nothing. How do you have your men set up?”

Harper explained that his ten thousand, if there really were that many, were scattered about in a number of positions that he called strong points. When Luke again said his men would be overrun, Harper bristled.

“Look, Lieutenant, I was an officer in the Spanish-American War and a lot of what you’re saying is right. But I just can’t go abandoning people’s homes. We’ll stand and fight, and if we get whipped, we’ll pull back and fight some more.”

Luke pointed to the hills to the east. “Los Angeles is a state of mind, not a city. It’s sprawled all over the place. Los Angeles has been gobbling up small communities for years and there is no one central place to defend with your small force. You simply don’t have the men to defend the town, and I’ve seen a couple of your so-called strong points. They are nothing but sandbagged houses.”

“We will do what we must with what we have.”

“And Los Angeles is located in a bowl, surrounded by high ground.” Luke pointed to the foothills of the overlooking San Gabriel Mountains. “Have you at least put men up there? If you don’t, the Germans will and they’ll pound your men to pieces with their artillery. The Germans travel with 105mm howitzers that can easily reach you from those hills.”

Luke wasn’t so certain about that statement. The German guns had a range of about six miles, and the foothills might be farther than that. But he did want to shake Harper, shake some sense into the man, but Harper would have none of it and angrily told Luke to leave.

As Luke did so, he saw the apparent leader of the armed Mexicans staring at him. The man walked up to Luke and introduced himself as Tomas Montoya, a rancher from outside the city of Los Angeles. He was in his thirties, a trifle overweight, and looked angry.

“I could not help overhearing your conversation with the esteemed but very ignorant Mr. Harper. He means well but he will lead his men to disaster.” The sound of artillery from the south had grown much closer. “And it may have already begun.”

Both men were silent as they tried to gauge what was happening down the coast road. Finally, Montoya spoke. “I offered Harper fifty men, all armed and mounted, but he said he didn’t want Mexicans in his command. He said we were the cause of the whole problem.”

“Curious,” Luke said. “I thought the Germans had something to do with it.”

“I don’t blame him,” muttered Joe Flower. “I don’t like Mexicans either.”

Montoya glared at him. “And I don’t like Apaches.”

“Enough,” Luke said. “Like I said, the Germans are to blame for this, not Mexicans or Apaches.”

Montoya smiled tightly. “Agreed. May I ask what your plans are?”

“To watch and then head north and report to General Liggett.”

“When you leave, my men and I would like to go with you. You would be in charge, of course.”

Luke accepted the offer and they waited. The sound of firing got louder and closer. Messengers came and went from where Harper was trying to control events.

The first signs of disaster were the men who ran by. Some of them still had weapons, but the majority were unarmed. They had panicked and tossed their rifles away. Some were wounded and they all looked terrified. Harper tried to stop some of them but quickly gave up.

The trickle of panic-stricken men became a flood and the chatter of small-arms fire was a distinct sound. “Let’s move out of here,” Luke said and his new command followed to what they hoped was a safe place. “This part of town is going to draw a lot of attention very soon.”

As predicted, German howitzers from the hills did have the range. They began to pound Hollywood, and the retreating survivors of the fighting ran for their lives. Luke saw Harper still trying to bring order out of the chaos when a salvo of German shells landed on his position. A second later, Harper and a couple of other men who’d been with him had become little more than red smears on the ground.

Luke smiled grimly. “If you are under my command, Mr. Montoya, here is my first order. We ride like hell out of here.”

“An excellent idea,” said Montoya. “But perhaps there is something you would like to see first? Are either of you fine gentlemen good at blowing things up? If so, there are some, ah, facilities in and around Los Angeles that definitely should not fall into German hands. They are called refineries. Harper did blow up the oil storage tanks, but he neglected the refineries.”

Luke looked towards Joe Flower. “The corporal is outstanding at breaking things. Shall we proceed?”

Camp Dix was located almost in the center of New Jersey, north and east of Camden. It was big, sprawling, raw, and unfinished. The barracks were made of poorly cut and treated wood and there were gaping holes in the walls, letting the wind whip through. The roofs leaked badly, even in a mist. The result was that all of the recruits were miserably cold and wet. Most caught colds, or even pneumonia, and a scandal was growing in Washington. Still, Dix wasn’t any different from the dozen or so other basic training camps springing up throughout the United States.

Even worse were the sleeping and sanitary facilities. The wood slat bunks were too narrow and too short and nobody could believe that somebody had actually gone and ordered square toilet seats. The jokes about them were too numerous to count. And the toilet paper could have stripped rust from a pipe.

Wally and Tim had been called up, trucked to Dix, and jammed into barracks, where they’d waited. After two days, they were issued uniforms that didn’t fit, so they traded around with others with similar problems until they were reasonably comfortable. The food was uniformly bad and the wooden bunks were covered with thin straw mattresses. They were having serious second thoughts about the wisdom of their enlisting. If this was the Army, the Germans and Mexicans were going to have no trouble marching all the way from California to Camden.

They’d spent the two weeks waiting for a call up learning all they could about Germany, Mexico, Texas, and California. They spent time listening to a friend’s short-wave radio and hearing about events in Texas. California was too far away and the reports from there dire but vague. Newspapers were full of gloom and doom and the crowds at the telegraph office were glum as well. The Germans were moving up California and the Mexicans were doing the same thing in Texas, and nobody was doing much about it. To make matters worse, there were rumors of German warships off New York and elsewhere.

The night before they were shipped to Camp Dix, Tim had actually managed to get kissed. Kathy Fenton was nineteen, pretty enough, and lived down the street. She was a cashier at a Woolworth’s. They’d gone out a couple of times before and he wondered if they had a future. They’d all gotten more than a little drunk on some home made beer. Prohibition wasn’t the law, yet, although some said it was coming. Home brew seemed like a good way to practice for it. It had tasted like bad piss but it did contain alcohol, which gave everyone a buzz.

At any rate, Tim and Kathy had gone into a closet and made out like bandits. He’d kissed her hard and gotten his tongue in her mouth. She’d even let him touch her breast but stopped him when he tried to unbutton her blouse.

“Nothing more until we’re married,” she’d gasped.

Married? What the hell was she thinking of? He kissed her again and cupped her breast, outside the dress as she insisted, and she ground her pelvis against his erection. He decided it was better than nothing. Married? He liked her, but Jesus, was he ready to get married?

Later, he picked up Wally, who was staggering drunk, and they went home, confident they’d have hellacious hangovers the next morning, which they did. It made the trip to Dix even more memorable as about half the young men on the train were in the same fix. After one guy got sick, almost everyone lost yesterday’s lunches, turning the train into a stinking mess.

For several days after their arrival and getting uniforms, nothing happened in Camp Dix. They ate, they slept, and they wondered. Finally they were called out to the parade ground, all two hundred of the NCOs in training. They noticed similar groups gathering in other areas of the sprawling base.

A little man in an impeccable khaki uniform stood in front of them and ordered them to sit down on the ground. He had a multitude of stripes on his sleeve. He was barely five feet tall and skinny and wrinkled. He could have been anywhere from thirty to eighty years in age.

Instinctively, Wally and Tim knew this little man was to be both respected and feared.

“Oy yam here to train you,” he said. His accent was unidentifiable but he was definitely speaking something resembling English.

“Oy yam Sergeant Smith,” he pronounced it “Smeeth.” “And you will obey me in all things, and you will do so without hesitation or question. What I teach you might just save your fookin’ lives. If you have any difficulty with my accent or the way I talk or some strange words oy might use, it is because oy am from a little ways from here.”

Wally sucked in his breath and poked Tim. “I’ll say he’s a ways from here. He’s British. Jesus, they brought in the British Army to train us.”

Sergeant “Smith” paused. He heard the murmurings as his young trainees figured out what he’d said and not said. It was true, he thought with a happiness he dared not let them see. Americans were an intelligent lot. Smith and his companions at Dix and many other camps were ready to begin training the recruits. So what if they were still short of rifles and other tools of war. They would somehow make sure the recruits were at least as well prepared as the men he’d led at the Marne in 1914, or against the Boers years earlier. He knew he could not give these men his years of experience, but he could damn sure see to it that they were as ready as they could be when they faced down the Kaiser’s hordes.

He glared at them and they met his look. They showed curiosity, even respect, but no fear. “Oy hate the fookin’ Germans. Hate them with a fookin’ passion.” He saw he had their attention.

“Men, oy will train you to the best of your abilities. I will train you to achieve things you never thought you could possibly do and then you will do some more.”

He paused. “I will train you to defeat the fookin’ Germans!” His voice didn’t quite rise, but it did gain in strength.

“I will train you to kill the fookin’ Germans, and I will train you to drive their fookin’ Kraut asses out of your country! Now get up and get started!”

There was silence, and Smith wondered if he’d gone too far, or maybe he’d scared them, or maybe they hadn’t understood his thick Yorkshire accent. Then all two hundred men stood up and started applauding, and the applause turned to cheers, and the cheers to howls. Yes, he thought, this was going to be most interesting, and God damn the fookin’ Germans.