1901 (29 page)

It was an insult almost too deadly to bear. The fact that the kaiser’s people were still migrating to the land of his enemy during an actual conflict struck his pride like a lightning bolt. Too bad I wasn’t there, Holstein thought. It would have been wonderful.

The problem was the German bureaucracy. Although fully aware of the war, they’d never been told to shut down the processing of applications to depart; thus they continued doing what they’d last been ordered to do. Holstein chuckled. They were mindless twits.

The kaiser was not mollified one bit when he was told that stopping people from leaving German ports would not halt the migrations. People were also going over the border to France and out the Channel ports, or even through Austria to Trieste on the Adriatic. The only way to stop it would be to seal the borders, and this would outrage those other countries. Whatever the kaiser said or did, the emigration would continue. It was a hopeless situation and the kaiser was furious.

Holstein chuckled at the thought of the red-faced kaiser. “Ah my, the crown is such a burdensome thing.”

Schlieffen answered Holstein’s comment with his own small laugh as he stopped to examine a vivid red rose. He knew better than to aggravate Holstein.

“But, dear general,” Holstein continued, “I hear more rumors that your army is having unexpected problems.”

Schlieffen sighed and straightened. Damn the man and his sources. Again it would do little good to deny or even obfuscate, but he would try. “All campaigns have unexpected problems. If we knew the future, there’d be no need for generals. Or for statesmen.”

“I hear there are desertions.”

“Some. It’s to be expected. Virtually all our rankers are conscripts and believe America to be the land of milk and honey. It was nothing that overly surprised us.”

Holstein was insistent. “But I understand the numbers are higher than pleasing.”

Schlieffen paused. That fact was being withheld from the kaiser. Why risk another tantrum and fruitless orders to halt desertions? How did the old bastard find out these things? Was everyone in Germany a spy for him? “True enough, but we think it has stabilized.”

“Even so, I understand that the number of missing is starting to equal the number of killed and wounded.”

“Well, since we haven’t fought a major battle in some time, I think that might be expected.” His mouth puckered in a line of worry. “Even without battles, however, the war seems to be entering a particularly brutish phase. There have been murders, assaults, sabotage, and other small incidents behind the lines as well as numerous small-unit actions along the front line. As a student of military history, I find it evocative of Napoleon’s problems with conquered Spain.”

Holstein chose another topic and probed. “Now that your army is over the one hundred thousand mark, is the navy still up to supplying it?”

This time a visible cloud passed over the general’s face. “Food,” he answered promptly, “is becoming a problem. We are unable to acquire it from the countryside, and virtually all of it must be shipped over and prepared locally. Much of the meat is spoiled on arrival, and no army likes to live out of tin cans for very long. To be frank, dear von Holstein, the food issue does worry me. More than your deserters, by the way. In simple, round numbers, each man needs about ten pounds of food and supplies each day. No, he doesn’t eat ten pounds; that figure takes into consideration such things as spoilage, theft, accidents, sabotage, and the like. Thus each day we require a million pounds, or five hundred tons, simply to sustain ourselves at the current level. As our numbers increase, so will our needs.”

Holstein was surprised. “Five hundred tons? That is nothing. A good-sized freighter holds several times that amount.”

“Of course, but as I said, our numbers are increasing. We are also required to feed much of the civilian population that has remained behind, many of whom are working for us. They too have no other source of food. We did offer to let the Americans ship food to the city, but they quickly realized that our soldiers were helping themselves to the better selections and stopped the shipments. I do not condone looting, but the taking of food by a hungry soldier is something entirely different. There are, we estimate, yet a half million civilians within our lines. Some we have impressed into work gangs, repairing roads, bridges, and the like, and these we must also feed. And there are still women, children, and nonworking males to consider.”

“Useless mouths. Have you a solution?”

“We are working on one. It will probably involve the forced expulsion of most of the useless ones.”

“Excellent.”

“And,” Schlieffen sighed, “we still have several thousand of their prisoners to administer. They refuse parole, and the Americans aren’t so stupid as to exchange one of our trained soldiers for one of their scum. Besides, we hold more than twice as many prisoners as they do. No, the actual daily tonnage of food needed to sustain the enterprise is well above the amount I mentioned. And as the war grinds on, we will commence shipment of winter uniforms and replacement equipment as well. I might add that some of our more enterprising soldiers are already liberating winter blankets and such from local houses. Again, I can hardly blame them for being prudent, however much it outrages the locals.”

Schlieffen paused and cast an anxious look at the clouding sky. Rain was imminent. “There is another reality to confront regarding supplies. Simply put, the longer the Yanks refuse to negotiate, the more likely it becomes that we will have to continue with the part of the original plans that calls for us to march on toward Boston to teach them a further lesson. When we prove that we can march across their country at will, they will act more reasonably toward our demands. That march, of course, will require copious amounts of supplies of all sorts, not just food and ammunition. You must understand that an army on campaign and doing battle uses supplies at an enormous rate—much greater than an army in a static environment. Sadly, we seem to have underestimated the stubbornness of the Americans regarding the islands in question. A European power would have negotiated a long time ago. Neither I nor the kaiser can understand this reluctance on the part of the Yanks.”

“Then I take it you cannot be pleased with the overall situation.”

“Von Holstein, no man likes another to be master of his destiny. So far, the navy has done an excellent job shepherding ships to safety, but we are also hearing rumors that the American navy is, belatedly, going to start attacking our transports. If they are successful in causing a major interdiction of our supplies, we could have a crisis.”

Holstein mulled over the comment. A crisis. What a polite way of saying that the German army, isolated in the land of plenty, could starve to death. Schlieffen had also confirmed the fact of the desertions. Although he might try to pooh-pooh them, the reality was that a few desertions could easily become a torrent, which would disable the army. And the man had inadvertently thrown him another piece of information by acknowledging that sabotage, however minimal, had occurred.

Holstein paused and politely sniffed a nameless flower. After a few trivial comments and amenities he said, “We must have these little chats more often, General.” Then they went their separate ways.

J
OHNNY
T
WO
D
OGS
was happier than he had been in a long time. It had been five years since he’d last tracked a man, and that had been to help bring to ground his revered leader, Geronimo. Even though that final hunt had been successful and resulted in the capture of the southern Chiricahua leader, it had saddened Johnny to see the proud and grizzled old man surrender to the overwhelming might of General Miles’s army. It had made him perversely proud to see that only a score or so of Apaches had kept such a mighty host at bay. Geronimo might have been bent in body, but not in spirit.

In years past, Johnny had ridden with Geronimo, but that had been back when he was young, full of pride and fire, and possessed by the hope that the white man could be driven off the sacred Apache lands. Then the toll of years and the deaths of his comrades mounted, and with them came the realization that the white man was too strong, too numerous, and too damned greedy to be deterred. The only way any Apache would survive would be to make peace with the conquering whites. It had even been the whites who had given him his name of Johnny Two Dogs, thinking his old and twisted body bore a hilarious resemblance to two dogs fucking. He had an Apache name, of course, but that was his alone and he did not share it with the whites. Let them call him what they wished.

Making peace with the whites did not come before he had exacted his price—his pound of flesh, literally. There were several blue bellies whose bones were bleaching in the sands of New Mexico as a result of his deadly shooting and his stealth in stalking the ultimate enemy—armed human game.

Johnny had resigned himself to spending the rest of his years with the remnants of his nation on the grounds of Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where, even though he had helped track Geronimo, he had been interned along with Geronimo and his band. All the Apache scouts had been treated thus. The white bastards were consistent, at least, in their treatment of the red man. Unfair, but consistent.

Geronimo had understood Johnny and forgiven him. Now—and the thought made Johnny’s face crinkle in a rare grin—the old man was becoming a Christian and urging the Apache children to stay in school. He was also making a fair living selling autographed pictures of himself to the fat tourists who wandered onto the grounds and wanted to see the legendary warrior. Talk about adapting!

Until a couple of weeks ago, all Johnny could see coming down the road was age, not tourists. Who would want his autograph, even if he could write? He was nothing but a squat, unwashed little man in his middle fifties who dressed in rags, lived on the government dole, and would likely die on the handouts of rotten food and shabby blankets if the cheap liquor didn’t get him first. But then came word that the Apache scout’s particular talents might be needed again by the army. And, hallelujah, he would be paid for killing the goddamn whites.

The fact that two white nations were at war with each other, and that one set of whites was paying for the privilege, was mildly interesting but unimportant. He’d agreed promptly and, along with a score of other equally delighted Apaches, entrained for unknown lands back east.

On arrival in Connecticut, he saw that the whites lived in an astonishingly lush and crowded land. Johnny and his fellow Apaches had passed through countless towns and seen farms and dwellings more numerous than the stars in the sky. It was an awesome display of the white man’s power, and Johnny again resolved never to challenge it, at least not head-on. He’d almost changed his mind and gone back to the dismal but predictable comforts of Fort Sill, but the twin urges of money and the satisfaction of killing his ancient enemy held him in this strange and verdant land. Here he was given instructions on how to tell good whites from bad whites by the way they dressed and talked. That amused his fellow Apaches, who were convinced that the only good white devil was a dead one. They knew that the statement was similar to what whites said and thought about red men, and they silently reveled in the irony. They were shown pictures of warriors from the German nation and told to kill them all anytime and anyplace. The Apaches were specifically told not to kill women or civilians and, especially, not to kill their new comrades—those same blue bellies who, until recently, had been trying to kill all the Apaches. There was some grumbling about the exclusions, but one of the blue soldiers explained that there were more than enough Germans to satisfy the Apaches. They doubted this but allowed the man to continue. Could these Germans have more soldiers than Generals Crook and Miles had used against the Apache? They thought not. Not, at least, until they realized the immensity of the camps of soldiers of the great white father in Washington.

Johnny sighed. It was an imperfect world, but it was his world and he was still alive in it. And he had permission to kill. He was told that he was a member of the 1st Scout Company, which reported directly to Gen. Arthur MacArthur. The scouts were pleased. This was a great honor, since General MacArthur’s frontier skills and experiences were legendary. In actuality, however, the company reported to the general’s young son, who had been born and raised on the frontier and who also respected the Apaches’ unique fighting abilities. The dark-haired puppy was very young, but he seemed to know what he was doing.

It also amused Johnny that the blue bellies were becoming brown bellies, finally acknowledging the advantage those nice blue uniforms conveyed to a sniper. He was told the Germans wore a dark gray that was as difficult to see as brown.

Although Johnny would have preferred to wage war in the arid lands he knew so well, he had to admit that the ruined and abandoned buildings surrounded by woods and lush, uncropped fields and tall grasses might actually be better. Right now, for instance, he was only about a hundred yards away from a road down which horse-drawn wagons, German wagons, flowed at a steady but irregular rate.

He had been waiting hours for an opportunity. He would wait for weeks if he had to, but he knew from the insolent way the Germans traveled that his time would soon come. There were no pickets and no scouts or guards. The Germans must have thought they owned the land over which they traveled.

As the night shadows lengthened, the flow of wagons thinned almost to a halt. Finally, with the sun well below the horizon, Johnny’s sharp eyes spied a single wagon, lightly loaded and pulled by two slow horses, moving in his direction. As it drew closer, he saw the shapes of two heavyset men sitting in the front. By their silhouettes he confirmed they were Germans, and he knew they probably carried weapons. But he also felt he recognized their type. They were not combat troops. These were the older and fatter men who worked in the warehouses and parceled out their treasures as if they belonged to them and not their government. He could understand and respect the soldiers who fought him, but the ones who insulted him, spat at him, and made him beg for a blanket to ward off the cold he had learned to hate. The approaching sound of loud guttural voices showed the men’s indifference to their surroundings, which made them unlikely to be dangerous unless forewarned.