1901 (8 page)

After several hours of hard marching, a brief pause for water turned into several minutes, and Weber realized the entire exhausted and hungry company was alone. Up front he could see Captain Walter and the other officers and senior noncoms talking animatedly. He edged himself closer and could see that the captain, a young man only a few years older than he, who seemed to be really quite a decent sort, was getting agitated. Then it dawned on him. They were lost.

“Hey, asshole!” Kessel yelled behind him. “Get your sweet butt back to the squad.” Weber sighed. It was an opportunity that he had to take no matter what the consequences. He dusted himself off and walked up to the knot of men, came to attention, saluted, and announced himself.

“Captain, Private Weber requests permission to speak, sir.”

Captain Walter looked annoyed, the other officers looked shocked, and the company first sergeant looked as though he would strangle him. One major rule for survival was to not piss off Sergeant Gunther.

“Not now, Private,” the captain said gently. The first sergeant moved as if to propel him back to his place, and he was aware of the utter silence behind him. Not even Kessel had anything to say. No one in the Imperial Army spoke to an officer, particularly one with as exalted a rank as a captain, without first being ordered to.

“Sir,” Weber persisted, a slight note of panic growing in his voice. “Please excuse my impertinence, sir, but I teach English. I both read it and speak it fluently.” To his relief, he saw a flicker of interest in the captain’s eyes and continued. “I also have studied much about this area and have relatives here.” As a youth he had spent a summer in New York with an aunt and uncle, but he saw no reason to divulge that information at this time. “If you are looking for a quicker way into the city, I may be of assistance.”

Captain Walter blinked and smiled slightly. “A quicker way? Yes, that’s one way of putting it.” Weber saw the others relax and take their cue from the captain. Yes, Weber was right. They were lost.

In a few words and gestures and with only a quick look at the inadequate maps the captain had, Weber guided them in the correct direction and they soon caught up with other German columns. When he was certain they were no longer lost, he asked the captain if he should return to his squad.

“Do you really read and write English? I mean the English the Americans speak?” asked the captain.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well then, you are the only one in the entire company who does. I will be damned if you are going back to any squad. I need you here. First sergeant! Have this man transferred to my headquarters. I don’t care what regulations say, I now have another clerk.” Then he laughed. “No, make him the company translator.”

The first sergeant cuffed him on the shoulder and parted his mouth in a gap-toothed leer that might have once been a smile. “Good lad. When the captain’s happy, everyone’s happy.”

And so am I happy, Weber thought, and a hearty fuck you, Corporal Kessel.

The happiness had lasted until about two hours ago. For a couple of days they stood perimeter guard while the ships in the harbor unloaded their cargoes. Then, when the perimeter got too tight, they were ordered to advance from the docks farther into the city itself. They were not going to do anything but expand their area a few dozen blocks to alleviate the cramping of men and supplies. But unlike the march into Brooklyn, where the crowds had seemed stunned and cowed by the presence of armed, marching soldiers, this slight move was resisted.

When the Germans moved out in skirmish formation to clear the streets and nearby buildings, the shouting began, and crowds gathered with astonishing quickness. From rooftops and windows the obscenities and challenges were hurled, along with an occasional and inaccurately aimed brick or bottle. Nevertheless, the populace retreated, albeit cautiously, as the soldiers advanced.

Soon, however, the soldiers were confronted by barricades. Wagons and other conveyances were turned on their sides and stacked in the streets with people behind them. To Weber’s horror, he could see that many Americans were armed with rifles and shotguns.

The Americans opened fire when the Germans were about a half block away. The exposed German infantry ducked and tried to take cover under the hail of bullets, most of which went wild. Even so, there were casualties. A man next to Weber went down with a scream. Weber saw a large hole in the man’s leg and blood gushing onto the ground.

“Fire!”

The order came and Weber obeyed. He shouldered his Mauser and began pumping bullets into the barricade, which seemed to explode in splinters and chaos. There were screams and howls of pain and rage as people were hit.

“Fall back!”

Why? Weber thought. Despite the fact that he didn’t want to be here, his blood was up. Those stupid people had tried to kill him! How dare they? Didn’t they know he meant them no harm? And now they had to be killed. How foolish they were to even try to stop the Imperial German Army. My God, he thought, I am beginning to sound like a soldier.

When the Germans reached their original starting point, Weber understood why they had been ordered to fall back as he heard the warships opening up with their great cannon. He realized that it was much better to let the big guns chew up the barricades than to storm them in the face of rifle fire. Along with the others, he exulted as this ultimate display of German might raged against the enemy.

Of course it had never been anyone’s intent to burn the city; it was just another example of how things race out of control when people start killing each other. It hadn’t taken long for Weber’s pride to turn to horror as he watched the flames roar through the crowded buildings. He waited in vain for the fire brigades to come and put them out even after the bombardment had finally ceased. How naive, he thought. There will be no fire brigades. The clean and lovely city of Brooklyn—no, it is called a borough now—will burn until the fires run out of things to burn.

For the rest of the day and the night he and the others watched in stunned disbelief while Brooklyn was largely destroyed. Their horrified eyes saw sights that they would never forget. They saw the tightly packed brick buildings erupt with people carrying whatever they could, often just bundles of clothing, sometimes not even that, as they tried to flee. They saw the eager flames lick at and take the tardy, turning them into running, screaming torches. They saw panic as the Americans trampled the slow and the weak in their efforts to get out of the way of the implacable and malevolent fire.

At one point, Weber may have cried. He didn’t know. He saw the captain and realized that the man also felt the sadness of the terrible event.

But he didn’t see Kessel. He looked around and saw the others from his old squad, but not Kessel. He asked one of his friends, who said he hadn’t seen their corporal since the order came to fall back from the barricade.

Good grief, Weber thought. Could Kessel have been killed? He grinned slightly at the thought of such rough justice. What a tragedy for mankind. Perhaps now the bastard is roasting in the fires of Brooklyn in preparation for the eternal fires of hell. For the first time, Weber felt some relief. Perhaps something good would come of this awful incident.

As Molly Duggan slowly regained consciousness, the first thing she became aware of was the pain that racked portions of her body. Then she noticed she was lying on a cold floor in a strange room. She forced her eyes open through her swollen lids and looked about. Where was she? She tried to roll over onto her side, and the pain in her groin caused her to gasp.

Then she remembered. She and her brother, Cormac, had gone beyond the barricades to harass the stupid Germans with their pointed helmets. Cormac, at twenty, was four years older than she and her caretaker following the recent death of her father. Cormac was a wild one; the idea of tormenting an armed army was lunacy, but Cormac convinced her and a number of others to join in the wildness.

With whoops and hollers they approached the cowlike Germans and threw rocks and horseshit at them, then laughed when the hurled turds struck home. It stopped being funny when the Germans started moving on them with their bright bayonets flashing in the sun. The tormentors had run back to the barricades, where, with an unladylike leap to the top of an overturned wagon, Molly yelled an obscenity she’d heard an angry customer in her father’s butcher shop exclaim over the price of a cut of meat. Cormac looked shocked, then laughed.

In a burst of sound the world ended and Cormac’s head exploded in a froth of bone and gray meat as the Germans opened fire. Molly screamed and fell off the wagon she was using for a platform as more gunfire swept the crowd, now trying to run from the barricade that had once seemed so strong. German soldiers, firing from the waist, clambered over it and the crowd scattered. Molly took shelter in a storefront that was empty and being rebuilt. As the Germans prowled the streets, looking for more prey, she hid behind a counter, not daring to breathe.

She heard footsteps crunching on the debris of the building and closed her eyes, as if the act would render her invisible. Suddenly, she was jerked upward by her long brownish red hair, and she found herself looking into the grim, ruddy face of one of the largest men she had ever seen. He said something in a guttural voice, which she took to be German. When she shook her head, he slapped her, dragged her to a back room, threw her to the floor, and, while standing on her wrist, laid aside his rifle and pack.

She screamed and tried to struggle, but it was no use; he was much too large and so much stronger. He laughed and hit her until she was barely aware of him ripping her clothes and arranging her for his convenience. She screamed again when he forced himself inside her, and he hit her again.

For a while she lay there, half conscious, in shock and pain, hoping he was gone. He wasn’t. When he returned, he was more than a little drunk and even more vicious as he repeated the performance, punching her and slapping her as she tried to writhe away. Finally, he hit her hard and she lost consciousness.

But now she was conscious and remembered his savagery. She curled herself into a fetal ball and tried to think. She still was wearing some of her clothes, and the rest, although torn, were lying about. But where was the German? Could she move enough to escape? She sniffed the air. What was burning?

Molly got to her hands and knees. For a moment she was dizzy, but it passed. The pain in her face, her breasts, her ribs, and her thighs did not go away, but she realized it could be endured. She sniffed the smoke again. If something nearby was burning, then any pain she might be feeling had to be ignored!

She reached out for the rags of her clothing and lurched to her feet, relieved to find she could stand. She arranged herself as best she might and started to walk to the front room of the store. The mumbling sound of a human voice stopped her. Carefully, she peered in. There was her German. Fear and nausea nearly overcame her; then she realized the German, squatting on the floor with his back to her, was soddenly drunk. His rifle was on the other side of the room. There were two empty bottles by his haunches, and he was swaying back and forth to an unheard rhythm.

He was also between her and the door, and the smell of smoke was getting worse. She glanced about and saw some workmen’s tools, including, thankfully, a hammer. She grasped the hammer in both her small hands and, as hatred and rage overwhelmed her, brought it down on the German’s head. In her pain she stumbled and her aim was bad. Although she struck only a glancing blow on his forehead, she still heard the sound of something crunch and felt the German’s blood spray her. He growled like an animal and tried to get up. She swung from the waist and hit him above his left eye. He screamed and grabbed his face and she hit him again, this time squarely on the forehead. He dropped like a sack of meal. With horror, she saw that his eye was dangling from its socket and appeared to be staring at her. She hit him a couple more times, until her fury was replaced by the realization that she had better get out of there. But to where?

Her mind told her that her once-tidy world had become fearful indeed, and all the memories of home and security were gone. Cautiously, she reached for the German’s rifle and picked it up. It was much heavier and more ill balanced than she expected, and she thought about leaving it. But then she grimly recalled that she’d been raped twice this day and had no inclination to have it occur again. She hadn’t the foggiest idea how to use the damn thing, but it was a fearsome-looking weapon, and the bayonet looked absolutely evil.

She experimented for a moment and found she could handle it in one arm with a degree of ease. Then, clutching her tattered clothes to her with one hand and the rifle with the other, she headed out the door. She must get away from the flames she could now see advancing. She had taken but a few steps when she realized she hadn’t made arrangements with Father Connelly to bury Cormac. She looked back at the churning smoke and fire that seemed to be moving closer down the abandoned streets, and sadly realized that there would be no funeral, and that Father Connelly was doubtless prudently running away as well. Good-bye, dear Cormac, she thought. She would leave him behind along with the dimming memories of a father who’d brought them from Ireland to a new world that was supposed to be clean and safe. God damn the Germans.

Patrick Mahan took steady aim at the man who held the knife to Katrina’s throat. Cautiously, carefully, he tried to gauge the situation and ignore the look of stark terror on Katrina’s face. How foolish they’d been to think that three men and a woman were safe once they’d cleared the mobs. Three bandits had leaped from the bushes and clubbed down the two servants, smashing their skulls, before anyone had a chance to react. In a motion that seemed to take forever, Patrick had reached for his revolver while kicking at the thug who grabbed at his leg. Finally the pistol came free and he shot the man in the face.

But now they were at an impasse. He had the gun and they had Katrina.

“Let her go,” he said with as much firmness as he could muster.