Robert Conroy - 1920 - America's Great War

Even though the guns belonged to the Navy, overland engineering expertise belonged to the army. The chief Army engineer, a genial, ruddy-faced major named Scully, had taken on the obduracy of the challenge with equanimity. Everybody admitted that the easiest way would have been to lower the disassembled guns onto ships by way of cranes. However, that would have enabled to Krauts to see what was up, and might have precipitated an attack.

So that left moving them overland, and Scully happily said it reminded him of what he’d read about the Egyptians building the pyramids. While visiting, Sims overheard the comment and reminded Scully that he didn’t want pyramids, just the damn guns moved. Scully didn’t take Sims’ anger seriously.

Detached from their firing mechanisms and supports, the gun barrels were the major problem—some weighed well over twenty tons.

“Would be nice if we had a railroad,” Scully had mused, “but we don’t.”

The closest thing was the cable-car system and nobody thought the cars and tracks could support the weight of a twelve-inch gun barrel.

Then there were the hills. Scully said the guns could probably be manhandled up, but the thought of trying to control them on the way down was frankly terrifying. Josh concurred. He had a nightmare vision of a gun barrel rolling down Nob Hill and crushing houses, cars, and people in its path.

So that left dragging the damn things over level ground, which is what they did, dragging them down San Francisco’s streets with literally hundreds of soldiers, sailors, and civilian volunteers pulling on control and guide ropes while trucks pulled in tandem.

To add to the difficulty, it all had to be done at night in order to keep German reconnaissance planes from discovering the secret and attacking. German pilots had come to respect the truck-mounted antiaircraft machine guns, but a photo plane didn’t have to fly within their range.

But they did it. Over the course of two nights, eight twelve-inch guns were moved and reassembled in their new sites facing inward onto the bay. Josh had to admit that it was indeed an epic evocative of building the pyramids or, as Scully said, a place in England called Stonehenge.

Dummy guns, consisting of telephone poles painted black, were left in their place to confuse the Germans. Sims congratulated the insufferable Scully, who informed the admiral that it had been a piece of cake and that he should have called on the Army sooner to bail him out of hot water. Sims was too pleased to take offense.

Off in the channel, Josh could see Oley Oldendorf out in his trawler, the very lucky Shark , laying more mines. Oldendorf, now a lieutenant commander, was out sowing his crop of mines almost every day. The Germans were clearly watching but had made little move to interrupt his efforts, except to lob some shells at extreme long range. Josh hoped the threat of mines would at least slow down the Germans.

It was mid-morning when an exhausted and dirty Josh Cornell dragged himself to Elise’s apartment. He’d been given the day off by Sims to rest and cleanup as Josh had given his best pulling on the tow ropes even though his injured shoulder now hurt like the devil. He had no hopes of seeing Elise. She would be at work with Sims. What he really needed was a chance to sleep.

He was just about to use his key on her apartment door when it opened and a smiling Elise stood there, wearing a long blue robe. Her bare feet poked out from under it. He suddenly felt awake and alive.

She grabbed him by the arm. “Come in, you silly boy. You’re dirty and tired and you need little Elise to take care of you.”

Lew Dubbins awoke with a start. The feel of cold steel against his throat was as great a shock as could be imagined and his bladder almost released. He’d gone to sleep in what he called his spider hole, a narrow slit in the ground hidden from view by a rock overhang and made comfortable by the fact that it was in the shade most of the afternoon. He and the hole were also covered by a blanket. When he peered through the bushes, it also commanded a good view of the Raleigh area.

The pressure of the knife increased and he felt even more extreme pressure to void his bladder. “Don’t talk, don’t move,” a man’s voice hissed. “You understand me? Blink a lot if you do.” Dubbins blinked like a man possessed.

The pressure eased a little. “You’re Dubbins, aren’t you?”

Dubbins nodded. There was no point in denying it. Who the hell else could he be? Olson and the Germans had finally caught him and he was going to hang. He could only hope that he would die bravely. “Who are you?” he managed to croak.

“My name is Joe and I’ll wait to tell you my last name, ’cause you might laugh and then I’ll really have to kill you. You see, I can’t stand people laughing at me. I’m a scout with the U.S. Army.”

Dubbins felt like crying with relief. “Jesus, I’ve been waiting a long time for you guys to come. They killed my brothers and they’re hurting a lot of soldiers down there.” The knife disappeared. “You could have killed me, you know. What if I’d jumped?”

Joe Flower laughed mirthlessly. “I used the blunt edge, you asshole.”

Dubbins turned and saw the grim face of Joe Flower glaring at him. This man is an Indian and very dangerous, he thought. “You here to help the prisoners?”

“No, I’m prospecting for gold and then I’m going to plant cotton,” Flower said. “Yeah, and I hope you’re gonna help me.”

“Can I kill Olson and Steiner?”

“Can’t make any promises,” Joe said, “but I’ll do everything I can to make it happen.”

Dubbins had a sudden fear of the two of them taking on the Germans and the Mexicans. “You alone?”

“No.”

Dubbins smiled. “Good. Then let me out of this hole so I can take a piss and I’ll let you in on what’s happening down there. You do know we have someone inside, don’t you?”

Joe Flower did not know that. Something more to let Montoya and the dozen Mexican-American cavalrymen he’d brought in on.

General Oskar von Hutier watched his men maneuver. The training wasn’t going to be perfect given the limited amount of time he had, but he was confident it would be enough. It had to be. He was thankful that the American Army was so awful. Had it been any better, the combination of good troops and rugged terrain would have either stalled the advance or made it so costly as to be unsustainable.

As it was, climbing up and down the rugged, brush-covered foothills was exhausting his men, and using up food and supplies at an enormous rate. He was thankful also for the fact that the German Navy controlled Los Angeles, which meant a steady stream of ships bringing those badly-needed supplies.

He saw one of his favorite young officers. “I trust all is going well, Captain Richter.”

Captain Horst Richter saluted and grinned. “Very well indeed, General. The Yanks will get a tremendous shock when our storm troopers swarm all over them. I only wish we had started this training so much sooner.”

“So do I, Richter, so do I. But we must make do with what we have. And besides, the Yanks weren’t holding still for us to attack and kill them like we wished.”

“Indeed, sir.” Richter saluted again and the general moved away to watch some other units train themselves to ignore fire and swarm enemy defenses. It was a simple truth that modern soldiers in the defense could lay down such a withering fire that slowly approaching attackers would be cut to pieces. It was also true that attacking soldiers being fired on would very logically go to ground to protect themselves from such a deadly rain of fire.

Thus, it was necessary to move quickly and punch hard at selected points, ignoring strong ones, and rushing through the weak. If it worked, his men would be in the American rear as an unstoppable force.