Robert Conroy - 1920 - America's Great War

They coasted to a dead slow speed. A ramp was opened and, one by one, the mines were dropped over. The Shark maintained enough speed to get out of the way of the mines when they bobbed back up to the surface.

“Be a helluva note to be sunk by our own mine,” muttered one of the sailors. Oldendorf laughingly agreed and slapped the sailor on the back.

In minutes it was over. Their deadly cargo was gone and they turned to go north, to San Francisco. Finally, a searchlight popped on and a finger of light swept the area they’d just left. They all held their breath as they steadily pulled away. The searchlight went off just as suddenly as it went on and they all commenced breathing again.

Oldendorf stood beside Josh. “Well, Ensign, do you think this night’s effort was worth it?”

“Frankly sir, not really.”

“Oh?”

“Sir, before the peace of 1915, both the Germans and the British sowed thousands, maybe tens of thousands of these mines, and all we dropped were twenty-four. Sorry sir, but this isn’t even a pinprick.”

Oldendorf was about to reply when a second searchlight flashed on and this one bathed them in its glare, forcing them to shield their eyes. A machine gun opened up from the nearby shore and a cannon boomed. A geyser of water erupted in front of them and bullets stitched the Shark ’s wooden hull, spraying splinters over her crew. Something struck Josh’s shoulder and knocked him down. He pulled himself up and looked at the devastation. Several of the Shark ’s crew were lying on the deck and moaning, and Oldendorf, while still standing, was covered in blood from a gash in his head. Something hot, wet, and sticky was running down Josh’s chest.

The minelayer’s machine guns opened fire in the general direction of the searchlight and, to their astonishment, it winked out. It seemed unlikely that they’d hit it, so Josh thought they’d possibly scared the operators into turning it off.

Before they could take a deep breath, a crewman sighted ships coming from San Diego Bay. “Lead ship looks like a destroyer,” Oldendorf said. “We’ll run as far as we can and if we can’t shake her, we’ll head to shore and beach the Shark .”

Josh watched in morbid fascination as the destroyer sliced through the water, cutting the distance with every second. It was as if the Shark was standing still. The destroyer was almost out of the channel and there were two patrol boats trailing her. The destroyer fired one of her deck guns and another geyser erupted a few yards off the Shark ’s bow.

“I’m getting damn sick and tired of this!” Oldendorf yelled.

Suddenly, a flash of light erupted along the hull of the destroyer and she appeared to lift out of the ocean. The force of the explosion caused her to heel over and almost capsize. For an instant before the light faded, Josh saw men tumbling overboard. When the German destroyer righted herself, it was apparent that her back was broken and she was going to sink.

There was no more pursuit. The confused German patrol boats milled about the dying destroyer and began taking off her crew. Oldendorf again stood by Josh. “You hurt bad, Josh?”

“I don’t think so, sir. It hurts like hell, but everything moves okay. I’m just a little tired of getting wounded.”

Oldendorf nodded. “Amazing. The Brits drop thousands of the damned things and get little in the way of results, while we drop a couple dozen and kill a destroyer.”

Josh sat down. His world was beginning to spin. Shock was again setting in. Josh thought ruefully that this was the second time he’d seen a destroyer sink.

The journey to Los Angeles was helped by Corporal Joe Flower’s finding and liberating a carriage from a farmhouse. One look at his angry face and the occupants declined to argue. This meant that Ella and Maria could ride in relative comfort and the party moved along with greater speed. Ella continued to show signs of physical improvement, although her eyes had not lost their blank look. Kirsten was extremely concerned. What had happened to her had clearly been too much for her mind to handle. Ella had lived in a world where women were respected and put on pedestals, not stripped in front of a crowd and then gang-raped. Poor Ella hadn’t even been in favor of women voting. She’d agreed with those men who felt that women weren’t psychologically up to the heavy responsibility. Kirsten’s hatred of the Germans continued to increase. So did her contempt for Roy Olson.

On the positive side, she and Luke Martel had gotten to know each other fairly well. He was a lot smarter then she’d first assumed and, like her, was self educated and well read. And the scar on his face was just that, a scar, and not part of his personality, although it would frighten small children on Halloween. She decided she would ultimately halt her journey in San Francisco. It was a decision based on the facts that Luke was stationed there and that she had no place else to go.

Thus it was with a degree of regret, if not sadness, that they parted at the railroad station in Los Angeles. Luke had managed to find Maria, Ella, and Kirsten spots on a train headed north to safety. This was easier said than done since the sprawling city of Los Angeles was evacuating itself. Thousands of people were streaming north and away from the Germans who, it was said, were just a few hours away. The evacuation had been going on for days and there were still many tens of thousands of people in the sprawling city. People were beginning to panic as the sounds of guns and the sight of distant smoke became evident and moved ever closer.

There was a stench in the air that Luke identified as burning oil. Good. Someone was taking care of denying the Germans the oil stored in L.A.

Luke was embarrassed and frustrated to admit he was a United States soldier. He saw no other uniforms in the city that had once had a population of more than half a million. Now it was becoming a ghost town. It shocked him to see Americans moving north like hordes of beggars or migrants with nothing more than suitcases or even bags of goods to call their own. Some had no more than the clothing on their backs and few had any food. This can’t be the United States of America, he thought.

Some of the fortunate ones had cars or carriages and these were jammed to overflowing with people and their possessions. The lucky ones had horses. Cars and trucks would only go as far as their gas tanks would take them, assuming they didn’t break down in the first place, while horses could still travel on an empty stomach and leave congested roads; avoiding traffic jams.

Owners of vehicles of all kinds were charging exorbitant rates to move people away from the oncoming Germans. Rumors of German atrocities abounded, and Luke recognized some of them from the early days of the 1914 war, and these included massacres, mass rapes, and the impaling of pregnant women and children on bayonets. He didn’t believe the impalements, but the murders and rapes had occurred, both in Belgium and now in California. Kirsten’s cousin was proof of that.

Despite the lack of an army presence, there were large numbers of armed men congregating in Los Angeles, and they all seemed to be reporting to someone named Joseph Harper, a wealthy merchant who had taken a semblance of control of the deteriorating situation. Luke decided it was time to find this man.

Luke found Joe Harper near the Hollywood section of town, where the movie industry had relocated only a few years earlier. Now the sight of sets and production buildings in the background seemed grotesque. So too was the rumble and thunder of approaching artillery. The German Army was just down the road. Several dozen armed Mexicans lounged around, resting their horses. A young man who looked like he was their leader glared at Luke as he passed by.