Kitabı oku: «The Fall of a Nation», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XXIII

VASSAR’S Committee of Public Safety in the rear room of Schultz’ store grew rapidly into a recruiting stand for volunteers.

Before twelve o’clock the old Armory across the way was packed with hundreds of excited followers eager to fight. A bare hundred of them had permits to carry revolvers. A few had secured sticks of dynamite from builders. A hundred old muskets Vassar’s East Side Guard had used were there – but not a shell.

While they talked and raged in stunned amazement over the situation, a newsboy’s hoarse cry of extra startled the meeting. The morning papers had all gone to press before the blow had been struck.

“Get a paper – quick!” Vassar cried to Brodski, his district leader.

The familiar call of the two newsboys yelling from each side of the street could now be heard. This time their words were clearly heard above the din.

“Wuxtra! Wuxtra!”

“New York City captured!”

“Proclamation of Prince Karl von Waldron!”

“Wuxtra! Wuxtra! Wuxtra!”

Brodski returned with copies of the Herald, Tribune, Times, World, Sun, and Press.

Each had issued a morning extra.

On the front page, in double-leaded black-faced type, surmounted by an imperial coat-of-arms supporting a crown, the proclamation of the new Governor-General was printed:

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED

STATES

Your Republic no longer exists. The invincible fleet of the Imperial Federation of Northern and Central Europe is now rapidly approaching New York. The transports which it guards bear the first division of the Imperial Army of Occupation, one hundred and fifty thousand strong.

The chief cities of the country have already surrendered to my garrisons of 200,000 veteran soldiers. Under my immediate command in Greater New York are 50,000 soldiers – 25,000 infantry and cavalry and 25,000 men equipped with 8000 machine guns.

We are here to preserve order, guard your property and deliver the first city of America intact to the Commander-in-Chief of the approaching Imperial Army.

All saloons are ordered closed until opened by license of the new government. All assemblies in schools, churches, theaters, public halls or on the streets or parks are forbidden under penalty of death.

All persons found with firearms, explosives or weapons of any kind which might be used in war or for the purpose of rioting will be given until noon tomorrow to deposit the same in the Seventy-first Regiment Armory, Park Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street.

After that hour the penalty for any citizen, male or female, caught bearing arms, will be instant death and the confiscation of property.

All automobiles, motor-cars, bicycles and horses are hereby proclaimed the property of the Imperial Government and it is forbidden under penalty of death for any person save a soldier in royal uniform to use them.

The railroads will be opened for traffic under Imperial control within forty-eight hours. No uneasiness need be felt, therefore, that your food supply will fail. The subways and surface lines will be ready for use within twenty-four hours.

All persons are ordered to resume their usual occupations tomorrow morning at daylight when the means of transportation have been restored.

Resistance of any kind will be absolutely futile. The President of the United States and his entire Cabinet are prisoners of war, and your Capitol, duly guarded, is in my hands. Your fleet is in the Pacific, and I have destroyed the locks of the Panama Canal.

The Imperial Government earnestly desires that all bloodshed be avoided. We have the best interests of the people at heart. We will establish for the first time in your history a government worthy of this nation. My Imperial Master will treat all loyal subjects as his beloved children. His foes will be ground to dust beneath his feet. For these no quarter will be asked, none given.

I have already caused the arrest and imprisonment of two hundred well-known citizens to be held as hostages for your good behavior.

Your great churches, your municipal buildings and your big commercial houses have all been mined. At the first outbreak of rebellion, your hostages will be shot and your city reduced to ashes.

In the name of my Imperial Master I command the peace.

Prince Karl von Waldron,

Governor-General of the Provinces of North America.

Vassar read this remarkable proclamation aloud amid a silence that was strangling.

He opened the papers and glanced at the editorial columns. It was as he feared.

A free press in America no longer existed.

Waldron was dictating every utterance from his tower on the heights of Manhattan.

Each paper earnestly appealed to all citizens to refrain from violence and make the best of their situation until intelligent advice could be given after a sufficient time had passed for reflection and conference with all parts of the nation.

Vassar mopped his brow and groaned.

“Well, boys,” he began, “we must give them credit for doing a good job. They don’t bungle, they don’t muddle, they don’t leave anything to chance. They’ve got us for the moment. There’s but one thing to do, submit – ”

“No! – No!” came the angry growl.

Vassar smiled.

“Submit for the present, I was trying to tell you, until we can find the nucleus of an army to support. He didn’t mention our forts or our little army. They failed to get those forts from the rear and they’re intact. There are half a dozen battleships somewhere on the Atlantic side. The main fleet cannot reach us within a month. The Panama Canal has been blown up of course. But the ships that are here with two dozen efficient submarines and aeroplanes will be heard from before the army lands – ”

“That’s the talk!” Benda cried. “We’re all Americans, signor!”

“Ya, gov’nor!” Schultz whispered. “This is my country now – I fight – if you’ll give me a gun.”

A boy of eighteen, smeared with dirt and mud, pushed his way into the crowd and thrust a note into Vassar’s hand.

“In God’s name, Billy!” the young leader cried. “What are you doing here?”

The boy saluted.

“My duty, sir. When I heard what was happening I reported to General Hood. I’m on secret dispatch work.”

Vassar gripped the boy’s hand, dropped it, tore the letter open, read it hastily, and turned to the crowd:

“Now men, listen! The forts are intact. General Wood appoints me on his staff, with the rank of colonel. He is establishing his headquarters at Southhampton, Long Island. The Pennsylvania has slipped to sea and is gathering our fleet. She has picked up wireless messages which leads her to believe that the landing will be made at that point. Our little fleet is getting ready for the fight. I want every man that can find a gun to hustle over to Jamaica. The army holds the Long Island Railroad from Jamaica. Trains are now waiting for you there.

“They can’t begin to enforce that proclamation until their army lands. The garrisons here will stick to the armories and their machine guns until reinforced – ”

A suppressed cheer swept the crowd.

Vassar lifted his hand for silence.

“Now I want volunteers to take this order to every election district in New York – ”

“Si – si, signor,” Benda cried. “Angela and my bambino – they go too. I play and shout for the Emperor. Angela she beat the tambourine and play for the soldiers. We get the word in the danger places, quick!”

“Good boy!” Vassar exclaimed. “I’ll send you where the others might fail – ”

In rapid succession he sent his five hundred followers through the city bearing the whispered word to every district.

When the last man had hurried away he turned to Billy.

“Your sister and the children?”

“Virgina’s gone to a mountaineer’s cabin in the Adirondacks – left the night the Jubilee began – ”

“No wonder she didn’t reply – “ Vassar muttered.

“She’ll be back here in double quick time, though, when she hears of this. You know Virginia’s got no commonsense – ”

“And the kids?”

“I took Zonia and Marya over to our house. The old man and your father’s with them. They’ve a couple of shotguns and two revolvers. They’re all right.”

Vassar smiled grimly at the boy’s faith.

“Report to General Hood that I will reach Jamaica within six to eight hours and that he may expect twenty thousand men to be there before nine o’clock tonight. How’d you get here?”

“Hid my bicycle in Brooklyn and walked across the bridge.”

“I’ll follow suit. I know where I can put my hand on a good bicycle or two at the Athletic Club – ”

Billy saluted and hurried on his mission.

At nine o’clock, the Jamaica terminal was jammed with forty thousand volunteers armed with every weapon conceivable, from a crowbar to a yacht cannon. A sailor had actually smuggled an old brass saluting piece into a ramshackled automobile and gotten into the station with it. These relics from the ark were left in the basement of the terminal.

General Hood had succeeded in getting sixty thousand rifles from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Governor’s Island, the Forts and one uncaptured armory in Brooklyn which the guns of the Pennsylvania had torn open and held until occupied by his troops.

All night the Volunteers from Brooklyn and New York streamed into Jamaica. Before daylight a hundred thousand men were struggling to board the trains for Southampton.

But fifty thousand were allowed to leave. There were no more guns. The remaining fifty thousand were held as reserves with such rude weapons as they possessed. Guards were placed defending the approaches to Brooklyn and New York and a camp established for drilling and training the new recruits into the semblance of an army.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE sun rose on a day never to be forgotten by the people of Long Island. Refugees were pouring along every road from the city. A wild rumor of the bombardment of New York had spread and they were determined to get behind General Hood’s thin line of half-armed defenders. They were still imbued with a blind faith that somewhere our mighty nation had an army of adequate defense.

Virginia Holland had reached home by automobile to find her father’s house turned into a recruiting camp. Old soldiers of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Confederate veterans of New York and Brooklyn, were out in their faded uniforms demanding guns with which to defend the flag.

Holland received them in his house and began to drill on the lawn. Virginia with sinking heart hurried to serve refreshments to the mob of excited men. Marya and Zonia joined with enthusiasm.

Benda was there awaiting Vassar’s arrival with a squad of his friends for whom he had procured uniforms and a few guns. He was drilling them in his earnest, awkward way when Angela suddenly appeared in the line of refugees from New York.

He rushed to stop her:

“Ah, my Angela, you here! And I told you stay home!”

Angela tossed her head with contempt for his fears.

“I come with you – ”

“Go back – back – I say!”

Angela merely laughed and resumed her march with the refugees. If they could live she could.

Tommaso threw up his hands in despair and returned to his drill.

At noon Vassar approached at the head of a division of raw troops. The road was lined with cheering people. He halted his men at the gate, dismounted and entered the Holland lawn, hoping against hope for a word with Virginia. He watched for a moment old Holland at the pathetic task of drilling his blue and gray veterans.

“It won’t do, Mr. Holland,” he said with a smile. “Your fighting is done – ”

“Nonsense!” Holland protested. “I’ll show you – ”

He put his line of veterans through the manual of arms and one of them fainted.

Vassar slipped his arm about him tenderly.

“It’s no use. I need your guns. Give them to me – ”

Tommaso marched in and took the half-dozen guns against the bitter protests of the old men.

They gathered at the gate and cheered and cried as the boys answered the assembly call.

Vassar met Virginia and extended his hand in silence. She turned away fighting for self-control. Her heart was too sore in its consciousness of tragedy for surrender yet. His tall figure straightened, he turned and hurried to his men.

It was not until she saw him riding bravely toward the enemy to the certain doom that awaited our men that she lifted her hands in a vain effort to recall him and sob her repentance in his arms.

CHAPTER XXV

IN vain officers tried to stem the torrent of humanity that poured out in the wake of the volunteers. The wildest rumors had deprived them of all reason. They had heard that the city would be shelled by the foreign fleet within six hours and reduced to ashes. It was reported that the enemy’s giant submarines had already passed the forts at Sandy Hook and the Narrows and were now taking their places around the city in the North and East Rivers. The guns of these dreadnaught submarines threw five-inch shells and New York was already at their mercy.

It was useless to argue with these terror-stricken people. They merely stared in dumb misery and trudged on, mothers leading children, dirty, bedraggled, footsore and hungry – little boys and girls carrying their toys and pets – the old, the young, scrambling, crowding, hurrying they knew not where for safety.

Vassar arrived at General Hood’s headquarters in time to witness the clash of our squadron with the advance fleet of the enemy.

The battle was not more than five miles at sea in plain view of the shore.

He watched the struggle in dumb misery.

It was magnificent. But it was not war. He felt this from the moment he saw our five ships with their little flotilla of torpedo boats and submarines head for the giant armada that moved toward them with the swift, unerring sweep of Fate.

Our great red, white and blue battle flags suddenly fluttered in the azure skies as the Pennsylvania’s forward turret spit a white cloud of smoke. A long silence, ominous and tense followed and the sand dunes shivered with the roar of her mighty guns.

The big cruiser leading the van of the advancing foe answered with two white balls of smoke and Vassar saw the geysers rise from their exploding shells five hundred yards short of our ship.

From out of the distant sky above the armada emerged a flock of gray gulls – tiny specks at first, they gradually spread until their steel wings swept a space five miles in width. The hydroplanes of the enemy had risen from the sea and were coming to meet our brave airmen with their pitiful little fleet of biplanes.

Higher and higher our boys climbed till but tiny specks in the sky. The great gray fleet of the hostile gulls began to circle after them.

The guns of our battleship were roaring their defiance now in salvos that shook the earth. The imperial armada, with twenty magnificent dreadnaughts, advanced to meet them with every gun thundering.

“O my God!” Vassar groaned. “To think our people closed their eyes and refused to see this day!”

Had his bill for national defense become a law our navy would have ranked second, if not first, in the world. It would not have been necessary to shift it from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We could have commanded both oceans. It would be too late when our main fleet returned by the Straits of Magellan.

Our ships were putting up a magnificent fight. One of them had been struck and was evidently crippled, but her big guns were still roaring, her huge battle flags streaming in the wind.

Vassar lowered his glasses and turned to General Hood.

“They’re going to die game!”

The General answered with his binoculars gripped tight, gazing seaward. “They’re gamecocks all right – but I’m just holding my breath now. You notice the enemy does not advance?”

“Yes, by George, they’re afraid! There’s not a dreadnaught among them that can match the guns of our flagship!”

“Nonsense,” Hood answered evenly, “they’ve slowed down for another reason. Unless I’m mistaken they’ve led our squadron into a school of submarines – ”

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before a huge column of water and smoke leaped into the heavens beside the flagship, her big hull heeled on her beam’s end and she hung in the air a helpless, quivering mass of twisted steel slowly sinking.

“They’ve got her!” Vassar groaned.

Before the Pennsylvania had disappeared her three sister ships had been torpedoed. They were slowly sinking, the calm waters black with our drowning men.

The sea was literally alive with submarines. The conning towers of dozens could be seen circling the doomed ships.

The Oklahoma had been disabled by shell fire before the submarines appeared. She was running full steam now for the beach, with a dozen submarines closing in on her. The white streak of foam left by their upper decks could be distinctly seen from the shore. Utterly reckless of any danger from the after guns of the dying dreadnaught they were racing for the honor of launching the torpedo that would send her to the bottom.

Her after guns roared and two submarines were smashed. Their white line of foam ended in a widening mirror of oil on the dark surface of the sea.

At almost the same moment a torpedo found her bow and sent the huge prow into the air. She dropped and her stern lifted, the propellers still spinning. Two swift submarines making twenty-two knots an hour had circled her on both sides and brought their torpedoes to bear on her bow at the same moment. Her battle flag was flying as she sank headforemost to her grave.

The wind suddenly shifted and the men who watched with beating hearts heard the stirring strains of “The Star Spangled Banner” floating across the waters from her slippery decks. Weird and thrilling were its notes mingling with the soft wash of the surf at low tide. The music was unearthly. Its strains came from the deep places of eternity.

Instinctively both men lowered their glasses and stood with uncovered heads until the music died away and only the dark blue bodies of our boys were seen where a mighty ship had gone down.

“We’ve but one life to give!” Hood exclaimed. “It’s a pity we haven’t the tools now to make that life count for more!”

The little torpedo boat flotilla closed in and dashed headlong for the submarines. To the surprise of the watchers not one of the undersea craft dived or yielded an inch. Their five-inch disappearing guns leaped from the level of the water and answered our destroyers gun for gun. Their decks were awash with the sea and armored so heavily that little danger could be done by our shells.

The battle of the sharks was over in thirty minutes. Not a single destroyer escaped. They had dashed headlong into a field of more than a hundred dreadnaught submarines. One by one our destroyers broke in pieces and sank to rise no more.

A few dark blue blots on the smooth waters could be seen – all we had left afloat – and they were sinking one by one without a hand being lifted to their rescue.

The imperial armada was mistress of the seas. The great ships moved majestically in and prepared to shell the shores to clear the way for their landing.

CHAPTER XXVI

SO intense and spectacular had been the battle of the fleets that neither Vassar nor his superior officer had lifted their eyes to the dim struggle of the skies. The birdmen had climbed to such heights they were no larger to the eye than a flock of circling pigeons. The tragedies of this battle were no less grim and desperate. Two of these daring defenders of our shores had been ordered to stay out of the fight and report to General Hood if the fleet should be sunk.

They saw one of these couriers descending in swift, graceful circles. He landed on the sand dunes, sprang from his seat and saluted the General.

“Well, sir?” General Hood cried.

The birdman was a smiling young giant with blond hair and fine blue eyes. They were sparkling with pride.

“It was some fight, General – believe me! Our fellows covered themselves with glory – that’s all! I nearly died of heart failure because I couldn’t go in with ’em.”

“How many escaped?”

“I didn’t see any of the boys try to get away, sir – ”

“They all fell?”

“Oh, yes sir, of course, they all fell – but, take it from me, they gave those fellows merry hell before they did – ”

He paused and mopped his brow.

“My, but it’s hot down here!” he complained. “They looked like fierce eagles up there and every time they made a dash at an enemy their claws brought blood. Honest to God, General, I saw one of our big biplanes smash six taubes and send them swirling into the sea before they got him. They were as thick after him as bees too. He’d climb up and then dip for them with a devilish swoop – his machine gun playing a devil’s tattoo on the fellow below. Six times he got his man, and then I saw them close in on him – not two to one or ten to one – it was twenty to one! He didn’t have a chance. It was a crime. If our fellows had just had half as many machines, they’d have won hands down. There were only nine of them in the fight against fifty of the enemy – ”

“How many of the enemy all told did they account for?” Hood asked sharply.

“God knows – I couldn’t take it all in. But I saw fifteen of them go down. There wasn’t one of our men that failed to score. They fought like devils. I never saw such skill. I never saw such daring. I’m proud I’m a citizen of this Republic. We gave the world the aeroplane and we’re going to show them how to use it before we get through!”

The General scribbled an order and handed it to the birdman.

“Take that to the commander at Fort Hamilton, and report to me at Patchogue, my new headquarters.”

The birdman touched his goggled cap, his assistant started the engines and in a minute the great bird was swinging into the sky. With two graceful circles mounting steadily she straightened her course for the Narrows and Vassar turned to the General.

“You will retreat to Patchogue?”

“There’s no other course possible. We can’t fight the guns of those ships. They can land at their leisure. My hope is that they will be delayed by the weather. God may help us a little if Congress wouldn’t.”

“You want time to intrench?”

“Yes and get our artillery in position. If we can’t get some big guns in place to meet theirs – it’s no use. I’ve asked the forts to send me two battalions of coast artillery organized for the field. We’ll get a battalion of artillery from Virginia by boat tomorrow. Our men are coming as fast as they can get here over hundreds and thousands of miles, with our railroads blocked If the weather delays this landing until we can mass two hundred guns against their four hundred we may make a stand by digging in. I’ll have my mob underground by tomorrow night in some sort of fashion. If they give me a week – it may take some time to smoke me out – ”

“It’s breezing up!” Vassar interrupted excitedly.

“And it’s from the right point too, thank God,” the General responded. “I could have shouted when I heard the first strains of that band floating in from sea.”

Already the sea was roaring with a new angry note. The barometers on the armada had given the signal too. The mighty fleet was standing far out to sea now awaiting a more favorable moment to spring on the land that lay at the mercy of their great guns.