Leon Uris (11 page)

Maureen continued to work as a household servant in Washington until she became pregnant at the end of their first year of marriage.

Maureen had left Ireland and entered America suffering from a dormant, undetected consumption, a scourge of the Irish.

The disease flared during her pregnancy as she drained her own strength and gave it to the child in her womb. Zachary was born in 1868. Maureen died three days after.

When only a few weeks old, Zachary was given to his aunt Brigid to raise in New York. Paddy’s grief was worse than all hungers, all blood in all battles.

In a gesture of eternal fidelity, the Corps sent Paddy on a good-
will morale-building mission to far-flung posts and aboard vessel after vessel.

When the man started coming out of it, he never searched for bliss again. He drank and fornicated to a degree that strangely added bravura to his legend. Sadly, his visits to New York were damned near unbearable; what he saw in his son was the reason for his wife’s death.

The Corps tottered on letting him go but always found an excuse not to, until Brigid almost died in a flu epidemic.

The commandant called him in.

“Your sister can no longer care for Zachary. Her employers are willing to give her quarters at their home, but not with a child. We cannot have you on an extended beer bust boosting morale if your son is in an orphanage. Either you establish a home for Zachary or I will regretfully have to terminate your service.”

It was language clearly understood. Paddy had enough seniority, extra pay for being an expert rifleman and for winning the Congressional Medal, and for travel per diem, that he was able to establish a cottage not far from the barracks, where there were always wives of NCOs about for nanny work.

What was good about the arrangement was that Zachary, who had made use of his first five years in Hell’s Kitchen with his aunt, picked up the pattern of the Corps and wove himself into his father’s life flawlessly.

There was generally room for Zachary to tag along on his father’s rounds, and he never got into trouble, and learned to make do on his own. These became a place where father and son came together on occasion. Paddy, ever a reader, always had a book or two in his kit and Zach learned them all . . . and then some.

Zach was a little Marine from the beginning, a small drummer boy at first, complete with uniform, who knew the drill, accepted the rigid order of life, smelled out his da’s moods.

He also knew the joys of barrack life, the hard language, the knit of the only family he ever had.

At times, when appropriate, Zach was able to join the hikes, in
sand and mud, fire live ammunition, sleep in a pup tent, and was super-cut in matters of spit, polish, and Corps preciseness.

And God Almighty, when he did some honorary drumming and bugling for a pass in review or colors, it was pure nirvana.

They buddied in a sort of way. Zach was no stranger to the slop chute, though his drinks were soda, or a dance off base, and the boy played good baseball and rode decently.

Although they were in close physical proximity at times, their hearts never really seemed to get together. They were like a pair of planets on flashy elliptical orbits that came within touching at times—but then always streaked off in opposite directions.

There were those sudden moments, time and again, when Paddy would be stunned by a flash of Maureen’s face in the boy.

Zach was burned from it and led to plunge into a lonely place where he wondered if his da hated him. The pair of them would go into long silent periods that only an Irish father and son could endure. Apart . . . together . . . apart together, never quite touching.

Came that revered day for Paddy O’Hara’s mustering-out parade. There were seven senators, double that number of congressmen, the commanders of the army and navy, and the vice-president of the United States in attendance.

Paddy was financed to open a fine Irish pub in Hell’s Kitchen and became a ward heeler for Tammany Hall. He still cut a fine figure behind the long bar as well as in the back bar, where a glass case held his Medal of Honor, his sword, and other sacred memorabilia.

Paddy’s loneliness for the Corps was partly filled by Irish adoration. His saloon was a notable meeting place for the growing Irish political and municipal establishment. It was Zach, as much as Paddy, who hungered for the tidy life and staunch friendships of the Corps, and the boy counted each birthday as one year closer to enlistment.

Zach developed a life of being very useful in the bar, seeing that his da was well fed, got some decent sleep, and dressed like a
dandy. They had a right decent flat above the saloon, but often was the night Paddy entertained a lady and needed the space.

Zach carved out a place for himself in the storeroom adjoining the bar; a chair and a light for reading and straw-filled burlap bags to snooze on.

There’s no lack of humor in an Irish pub and there was no lack of it in the deceptively gentle boy who, only God knows why, enjoyed girls more than the smell of stale ale.

Zachary was a walking boy, all caught up in the wonderment of the neighborhoods. Bearing no ill will and always ready with a handshake and smile, Zachary was comfortable down there with the Italians and Germans opposite Hell’s Kitchen on the East Side. There were the strange wonderments of the Chinese and the Jews all staking out boundaries and their own peculiar aromas and singsong talk.

He had a black friend, a teamster’s assistant who took him to the Black Continent on the Upper West Side.

Zach understood something tremendous was happening. They all wanted a piece of America. Something grand was going to emerge from the confusion.

But in truth, one would be hard put to say who missed the crisp air of the parade ground the most, Paddy or his fine son.

Had not that terrible night happened, burying them both under a rubble of secrecy, they might well have drifted into a stable relationship. But what happened was bound to happen and it did, and the foulness of it all ripped their hearts out.

Zachary O’Hara was sworn in before his eighteenth birthday and Paddy died a little over a year later from stomach cancer, taking that terrible night to his grave.

From day one Zachary O’Hara was fully aware of the name he carried into the Corps, but he also knew he could never be his da, despite their terrible ending.

No doubt the Corps was damned glad to get O’Hara but more proud that O’Hara never tried to get a free ride. He was dedicated, decent, well read, and well mannered, a solid Marine on his own.

After his short tour of duty in the Washington barracks, Private O’Hara was assigned to two years in the new AMP course being launched.

He devoured his studies, had a penny in his pocket, buddies in the barrack, girls at the Riverside Amusement Park on the Potomac, and Washington seemed like cherry blossom time all year round.

Despite his low station, Zach’s ballroom prowess became known and his services were constantly sought. The presence of a mere Marine private at the more formal affairs caused eyebrow-raising contretemps among the charmingly dull but ambitious officer cadre in the capital.

The charmingly dull daughters of the establishment, age sixteen and beyond, were breathless to be able to snare him for an evening.

Charmingly stern fathers and chirpy mothers gave their daughters leeway when it came to Zachary O’Hara, considering that his late father was one of the most celebrated heroes in the nation’s history.

Although the AMP studies were severely demanding, Zachary had acquired military knowledge from birth, and it gave him a leg up. He did what any good Marine would do under the circumstances, ran the clock out on very little sleep and mastered the fine art of sleeping while eating breakfast. He thrived on it, even when Gunny Kunkle leaned on him.

As Amanda Kerr had surmised, they ran into each other now and again.

Horace Kerr realized that his daughter Amanda was too intelligent, too adventurous, for any of the young men in her circle. He also recognized that Private O’Hara seemed to be the only young man who could keep up with her.

Horace went into a soft strategy. He made his own appraisal of
Zachary O’Hara and was impressed. Damned shame, Horace thought, he didn’t have a proper pedigree.

Amanda was now past seventeen. Her important life decisions lay ahead. The father and daughter were well into their first true era of peace. From the cotillion onward, they seemed to feel each other’s rhythms. He had given her a lot of room to rove in and she in turn had seriously taken on her family duties.

Now this Zachary fellow, he reckoned, was very attractive and Amanda had never been so taken by a boy. It was only a matter of time before she would want to invite him again. If Horace made a fuss, it could lead to another rebellion.

Rebellions rarely happened, once when Amanda was a child, and once before the cotillion, but she could knock down the walls of a city, she was that bold and determined. Horace knew not to draw a line, because there would be hell to pay if he crossed it.

He had awarded his daughter what he had given to very few—respect. Her words were never to be taken frivolously and her wishes never brushed aside. It was a civil relationship now, a relationship of equals.

Horace had the wreckage of his relationships with his son and older daughter to haunt him. Likewise, a long line of disappointing relatives—father, brothers, nephews—feeding at the trough of his success, themselves riddled with mediocrity.

Amanda was it. She was the endgame. From the time she was six or seven when she had first stood her ground against him, Horace trod with care, but Amanda had finally come to understand that she would not gain her desired end unless she carried out her half of the bargain.

Bedrock? Amanda knows what she wants in life, Horace realized. In the end, it won’t be a Marine. Horace trusted her behavior and instincts. She’d not go overboard and lose her inheritance. She was too ambitious, too clever, and too spoiled to throw away what lay ahead for her.

So, Horace, he told himself, don’t rush in like a bull. Handsome
Marines come and handsome Marines go, but the Kerr family is forever. Don’t squeeze her on this, trust her poise and control.

“Why don’t you invite Private O’Hara to join us for Sunday brunch at the Willard, our next time in Washington?”

He could feel his words give her pleasure, but she also understood that this was a gesture with limitations.

“He’s a decent chap,” Horace went on, “and this is America. After all, his father saved half the Marine Corps at one time or the other.”

“That’s very nice, Father. I’ll think about it.”

Horace did not tack on an addendum of warnings. Amanda already knew what they were, and knowing them, she rationed her time with Zachary delicately. Nor did she ever let Zach know of the stabs of jealousy she had endured seeing another and then another girl show up on the arm of this blossoming Irish rover.

Zachary loved seeing Amanda. There was more to see of her each day. He never told her of the stabs of emotion that he had felt as well.

No one would mistake Private O’Hara for a fine Irish tenor, although he sang the aching lyrics with perfect soul, if not perfect pitch. He and Amanda had gone off on a picnic and he serenaded her as he paddled their canoe toward shore. He eased the vessel onto a shallow beach, took off his boots and socks, stored them carefully, rolled up his trousers and jumped out into calf-high water, tied the boat, then carried her ashore, piggyback.

Their picnic was in soft shade and grass by a field of wild black-eyed Susans. Amanda wasn’t feeling hungry, so he ate for the two of them. She was intoxicated by the beauty of the day.

She stood up suddenly. “Turn your back,” she ordered. In a moment he was allowed to turn back around. He saw her pan
taloons and underskirts folded on the ground. She still had her dress on but it was close to transparent in the light. Amanda lay back down and stretched and groaned with pure delight.

“I’m free!” she cried.

“Well, don’t get any more free,” he said, telling his heart to quit thumping.

“I hate all those clothes they make us wear.”

He could steal a peek or two, but not to touch, he warned himself. They cooed for a bit, then dressed in proper swimming costumes, dared to dive into the river, re-dressed, and she leaned back against an oak as he fished around in the bottom of the picnic basket.

Amanda’s mood changed, just like that. “I was looking over the blueprints of the new class of armored cruiser my father is going to build.”

Zach offered her a bite of apple, which she took. Her eyes told his eyes that she was going to jab him about something.

“You can read blueprints?”

“What you meant to say is that girls aren’t smart enough to read blueprints.”

Zach knew she was picking a bloody argument. He clicked on his warning button to remain placid.

“I’m impressed, Amanda, okay? I’m really impressed. I guess I won’t be serving sea duty on one of your father’s boats.”

“Why do you want to stay in the Marines?”

Zachary knew her question had been long in coming. The afternoon became serious.

“It’s my home,” he answered.

“Somebody always telling you what to do?”

“There are rules, and if you follow them, it’s a good thing. It’s a good structure and I have a thousand brothers.”

“You couldn’t have joined to please your mother, Zachary. You did it to please your father.”

“Probably,” he answered. “It all came in a natural order of things for me.”

“Then you would be someone else if it hadn’t been for your father,” she said.

“Who would you be,” he shot back, “if it weren’t for
your
father?”

“But I like who I am,” she said, “and where I am, and I know where I am going.”

“So do I.”

“Then you must like being a private sleeping on a straw mattress in a barrack.”

“I haven’t had time to sew my stripe on. I’ve been promoted to private first class.”