Assassin's Honor (9781561648207) (44 page)

With that Grover Cleveland was gone. I still had no clue of why I'd been there.

Executive Mansion
Washington, D.C.
Monday evening
3 April 1893

“Once again,” Rear Admiral Walker had growled when giving Rork and me orders to report to Washington in three days, “you two misfits are in some sort of hot water with the powers that be at Naval Headquarters. Get there by noon on the third of April and do not be late. And this time, I can't help you. You must've really done it, because this has gone way above my pay grade. Evidently, you'll have to explain yourselves to the commander in chief himself.”

“What's the reason, sir?” I asked with trepidation.

“They didn't tell me, but with you it's never good. Maybe Norton Gardiner finally did you in when so many others failed—you've given him plenty of ammunition to use. Of course, it could be the list of German complaints, too. The possibilities are always endless with you two.”

He had a point. Both Gardiner and the Germans were pretty upset with me.

Gardiner's threatened retribution came in the form of a formal complaint against me, filed with the Bureau of Navigation, the operations branch at Naval Headquarters. The main charges consisted of Assault and Battery, Dereliction of Duty, Failure to Follow Naval Regulations, and Conduct Unbecoming a Commissioned Officer. Other lesser violations were appended.

This information didn't get to me for some time, because Gardiner didn't make the charges for quite a while. He was otherwise occupied, mutely convalescing at the Washington Naval Hospital from a “parasymphyseal fracture of the mandible,” according to the report. In mid-February 1893, Gardiner was released and made his charges against me.

In consequence of this delay, the billet at his hometown Boston Navy Yard was filled by another officer. Because he couldn't go to sea in his condition, and because no captain wanted him, Gardiner had to take a billet left open, at Mare Island Naval Station in California, the administrative assistant to the executive officer. He reported for duty in early March and that had been the last news of him I'd heard.

What happened to the charges, I knew not, and never inquired. Sadly, in the bureaucratic labyrinths of the U.S. Navy, forms disappear due to accidental misfiling by our overworked and underappreciated yeomen all the time. Unless someone persists in tracking down such errant documents, they can be lost forever. Apparently, Gardiner had shown no such persistence, busy as he was out west.

The German matter started to unfold rather ominously. With enviable efficiency, Captain Blau's complaints reached Berlin by cablegram three days from his arrival in Mobile, where he found no German émigrés willing to register for the Kaiser's army back in the Fatherland. Within a week after that, the State Department in Washington was trying to figure out what to do
with Berlin's indignant demands for my dismissal, the German Navy's reimbursement, and a public formal apology by the United States of America. He alleged I had stolen their coal and violated international law and naval honor by invoking
Force Majeure
under false pretexts during the man overboard episode. My defense to Walker was that they got their coal for free at Key West, and my officer really did fall overboard, with witnesses to prove it.

He wasn't impressed, saying, “That's the best you can come up with? You're slipping, Wake.”

I admit this all sounds pretty bad, especially the international law and personal honor violation, but it seems the U.S. Navy isn't the only department in Washington with inertia lubricated by incompetence. Thank goodness.

My acquaintances within the minion class at the State Department—which coincidentally resides in the same building as the Navy Department and my old office at ONI—reported to me in January an impressively large file had been prepared for the usual detailed review up the chain of diplomatic command. A very thorough piece of work it was, too, including a standardized assessment of the validity of the foreigners' claims, potential legal recourses and remuneration costs, potential lingering liability issues, and a detailed timeline of making decisions on the entire matter.

This enormous effort, one of dozens simultaneously engaged in by our country's diplomatic folks, naturally took a long period to create, assemble, organize, and present. That explains its lateness in completion, which effectively negated the included timeline for making a decision. This development necessitated a revision of the assessment and timeline, with the attendant re-ascension up the chain of command. Thus, by mid-March, as Norton Gardiner was reporting in to his new job, nobody at the State Department was sure of exactly what was in the huge file valise lying atop the cabinet in the corner, how long it had been there, or when it would have a decision made on it, for
now a new problem arrived. The senior people in the chain of command had changed with the arrival of a new administration. That necessitated another . . . well, I am sure the reader knows the rest by now.

Obviously, a little of Captain Blau's Teutonic efficiency is needed at the State Department. But far be it from me to criticize hard-working federal employees.

A definitely more important factor was the shift of Germany's attention away from poor Captain Blau's humiliation to momentous events unfolding in Europe. The Slavic Russians had joined with the Gallic French to encircle Kaiser Wilhelm and his vaunted Prussian army. Not only that, but the British were proving to be less than helpful friends to Germany. I sincerely promise none of this was any of my doing.

Old Otto von Bismarck, Europe's master at the diplomatic intrigue game, would never have let it get that bad, but rash young Kaiser Wilhelm had dismissed Bismarck two years prior, convinced he knew better. So the problems of a navy sea captain off the coast of Mexico paled in comparison to the very real problems Germany faced—those two allied colossi on her borders, both of which had ample resources and reasons to crush her.

So, though I wasn't too worried about Gardiner or the Germans, Rork and I were still anxiously ignorant as the presidential butler solemnly took us down the hall and announced us. With a deep breath and crease-straightening final self-inspections, we entered and stood at attention in the president's private study.

There were only two men there, President Cleveland and Secretary of the Navy Hilary Herbert, both sitting in leather chairs by the paper-cluttered desk. Herbert was a slow-talking Alabamian with a receding hairline, deceptively sensitive eyes, and a fluffy chin beard. His grandfatherly image belied his political acumen in naval affairs.

Cleveland greeted us formally, as did Herbert.

Then the president said, “Commander Wake and Bosun Rork, I have been meaning to get something done with you two for some time now, and that time has at last arrived. Secretary Herbert, will you please do the honors?”

“A privilege, sir!” answered Herbert as he rose from his chair with a shallow box and long document in hand. Rork and I still stood at attention, for we had not been given permission to do otherwise.

Herbert's drawl was even more pronounced as he read the document aloud. “Let all men know that, by order of the President of the United States of America, in recognition of three decades of faithful and perilous service to the country, the rank of captain, with all its privileges and respects, is hereby conferred upon Commander Peter Wake, of the United States Navy. “Done this third day of April, in the year of our Lord eighteen-hundred ninety-three, in the one-hundred-nineteenth year of our country, by Hilary Abner Herbert, Secretary of the Navy of the United States.”

The president ponderously rose from his chair and shook my hand.

“Congratulations, Peter. I told you years ago you would get this because you had earned it.”

With the silver eagles of a full captain in his other hand, he turned to my friend and said, “Bosun Rork, would you please affix these insignia upon Captain Wake's collar?”

“Aye, aye, sir!” snapped Rork, unsuccessfully trying to suppress a grin.

“The collar, not his throat, Rork. I don't want the captain bleeding on my new carpet,” joked the president.

When Rork was done, the president grinned and said, “And now, Mr. Secretary, you have yet another duty to perform, do you not?”

“I do indeed, sir! A true honor. And a new one in the history of our country!”

He glanced at Rork, then began to read the second document.

“By the authority invested in my office of Secretary of the Navy of the United States, I hereby designate and promote Boatswain's Mate Sean Aloysius Rork, United States Navy, to the rank of Chief Petty Officer. Done this third day of April, in the year of our Lord eighteen-hundred ninety-three, in the one-hundred nineteenth year of our country, by Hilary Abner Herbert, Secretary of the Navy of the United States.”

The president pumped Rork's hand. “Congratulations, Sean. This new rank just began two days ago. You are the fourth to receive it in the navy, and the first to receive it in this great house!”

To me, Cleveland said, “Captain Wake, would you please present Chief Petty Officer Rork his new insignia?”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

Rork stood tall and straight, but I couldn't stop the tears from filling my eyes.

The week prior, we'd discussed the navy's new rank, which Rork noted was implemented on April Fool's Day, but my friend didn't think he'd be promoted to it.

“Me bones're too bloomin' old,” he grumbled. “The younger lads'll get it.”

Herbert had another surprise.

“You're too senior for
Bennington
, now, Captain Wake, so it's back to Washington for you after your annual leave is up in May. I need a special assignment aide, and you are the man to do the job. Rork here can be your assistant.”

The president added, “And I want you both close by me for your advice. So I'll see you again in mid-May, ready for work.”

He headed for the door, then stopped and looked back at me.

“By the way, Captain Wake, I read the German complaint about you, as well as your rebuttal.” He frowned before continuing. “That's the best you could come up with? Your excuses were always more entertaining in the old days . . .

“And someday, I'd like to meet that young officer who
accidently
fell overboard, Lambert. But now, I have to depart, gentlemen. Again, congratulations.”

First Methodist Episcopalian Church
714 Eaton Street
Key West, Florida
6 p.m., Thursday
4 May 1893

The church was filled to capacity by the entire congregation, all of whom knew and loved Useppa, for she had attended there and lived in the parsonage for many years. In addition, there were the black students and faculty of the Douglass School, where Useppa taught; a large contingent of Cano's family from Havana, led by the matriarch, his charming mother; and several navy acquaintances in white. Resplendent in medals, gold braid, and that intimidating beard, was the commander of the North Atlantic Squadron himself, Rear Admiral John Grimes Walker.

There was even a sprinkling of Rork's pals from the seedier establishments in the town, including the venerable Annie Wenz, primly attired and ignoring the verbal and visual daggers aimed her way by the lady congregants. She probably knew most of
their husbands better than they. Annie was squired by Brian Travis, former Union army officer and the only member of the Yard Dogs troubadour band out of jail at the time. I noted they were seated at the back pew by the door, just in case a fast getaway was needed.

Next to them was a special guest, whom the wedding party was overjoyed to greet before the ceremony. José Martí looked and sounded pretty well recovered from his close call. He was already in Key West for a meeting about an unauthorized uprising in Holguín, Cuba, which had failed terribly with the loss of many lives—the very thing he had warned against.