Leon Uris (39 page)

“Horace gave no hint of deep sorrow, only the cruel ice of a blunt predator cornering his quarry.”

“Where do you think you’ll go where I will not find you?”

“We are not going to hide. You know where Zach and I will be.”

The long ash, which rarely left the end of his cigar, collapsed and dribbled down his vest.

“You’re going down to the swamp with the niggers!”

“I am going to Nebo to be with loving friends.”

“And you think I can’t overrun a bunch of jigaboo shacks. I’ll burn Nebo to the ground.”

And then, in a second, Horace switched gears.

“Let us be calm,” he said.

The two women tried to let the rancor from his tirade pass on through.

“May I speak?” he asked rhetorically. “I did my best to spare you, Amanda. I stuffed it all inside me, knowing what I know. Now, let me share some truth with you. I have known from the very beginning this Zachary O’Hara was a smooth operator, and smelled the whiffs of his scandals rising in Washington even as he courted you. I thought you and I had come to understand, when we made our bargain on the train, that you had also caught on to him.

“What is clear,” he went on, “you wanted him for one reason alone. You couldn’t have him and you had to win. You caved in the minute he confronted you at the casino. He didn’t really want you or he could have had you all summer.

“Major Boone served up that French whore, Lilly Villiard, and O’Hara tired of her and thought he’d look you up again.

“I suggest O’Hara picked over the virgins in heat in Newport
and realized you were the best of the lot. He will piss away whatever inheritance Daisy gives you so he can have a high life. But, Amanda! You haven’t a shred of sacrifice in your soul. You want the empire but will have thrown it away for this Irish garbage.”

“Thank you for trying to save me, Father, but you are a perverse liar.”

Horace roared up from his seat like a sea monster erupting from its lake-bottom lair. He limped to her portrait, jerked it off the easel, lifted it over his head, and smashed it on the corner of the desk, then fell into the chair and lifted the phone.

Amanda reached into her bosom and took out a teardrop-shaped vial on the end of the thin chain she wore.

“If you phone for your Pinkertons, they will find me dead on the floor.”

“Bullshit!” Horace roared.

Daisy was on her feet, in front of her daughter. Horace Kerr smirked, and clicked for the switchboard.

“If Amanda didn’t have poison, I’d find her some.”

He clicked again.

“Service,” the operator said.

“You don’t bluff Horace Kerr!”

“Service,” the operator repeated. “May I help you, Mr. Kerr?”

He hung up.

Daisy now held her daughter together.

“I will see Amanda safely away from here and I will brook no effort from you to lay a finger on her.” And Daisy voiced her first words of liberation: “Or
they
will know about it.”

“Who are
they?
” he asked.

“
They
are the
they
we spend every living hour of our existence trying to impress.
They
are your Republican cronies in the cabinet and your stout sailing pals and the bankers snickering over your headlines in their cozy clubs.
They
are your executives and your workmen at Dutchman’s Hook and
they
are your church. For a man who fears disgrace and scandal more than death, it would be a
fitting end when
they
all learn about how Sir Henry Pearson adored my ‘beggar’s snatch.’ The diary of a life is already written and in safe hands. Are we free to leave?”

His eyes bulged. He gasped pathetically.

“That’s blackmail.”

“Indeed. Are we free to leave?” Daisy said.

“Go. Get out!”

Daisy trailed Amanda to the doors.

“Daisy,” he gasped.

“Yes?”

“Will you return?”

“Of course, Horace. Emily needs me and I am your wife, but the moment you try to send your goons into Nebo, I shall orchestrate the utter destruction of kingdom Kerr.”

•
36
•

The guard unlocked the main door of the administration building. Ben entered quickly and glanced at the wall clock. It was two-thirty in the morning. Down the corridor his heel clicks resounded, cutting the silence. Ben turned into the secure area. The iron-barred gate of the code room opened.

“Coded communiqué by telegram, Major. I’ll have it decoded in a moment.”

As the machine spit out tape, the chief petty officer cut and pasted it on a message blank. Ben signed the log, took the message to a desk, and adjusted the lamp.

URGENT—SECRET—EYES ONLY BBOONE, USMC

FROM—RX MAPLE

DESTROY AFTER READING

SUBJECT—USMC GARRISON FOR AMNESTY ISLANDS

MEETINGS WITH ADMIRAL IN CHIEF US NAVY PORTER LANGENFELD AND STAFF HAVE NOT GONE FAVORABLY.

NECESSITY OF QUOTE LIMITED EXPEDITIONS AND CAMPAIGNS UNQUOTE IN THE FUTURE IS BUILT ON CONJECTURE AND UNPROVABLE THEORY.

FINAL CONFERENCE TO TAKE PLACE DEC 7 AT 0900 NAVY HDQS BEFORE RECOMMENDATION TO SECRETARY OF NAVY.

B BOONE REPORT NAVY HDQS WASH IMMEDIATELY FOR DEC 7 MEETING. BEN YOU MUST PRESENT NEW COMPELLING BULLETPROOF ARGUMENT OR CORPS WILL NOT GET AMNESTY IS

RX MAPLE

Ben made over the parade ground for the bachelor officers’ quarters. The light was burning in O’Hara’s room.

Zach’s behavior at the casino, three months earlier, could have turned into a major brouhaha. The navy wasn’t going to have its sainted reputation in Newport besmirched by a Marine.

Major Boone got to the superintendent, Rear Admiral St. Clair, first, and pleaded not to take Lieutenant O’Hara off “Random Sixteen.” Since the rear admiral knew the potential value of the study, Zach was slipped through with a rap on the knuckles.

Zach was determined to regain Ben’s trust and no manner of man put in the hours of work he did. His days consisted of three meals, often brought to his room, an hour’s exercise, and the rest of the time working, mostly in his room. He pushed himself into sitting sleep every night.

The sudden, unexpected message from Maple filled Ben with horror. There was only one way to read it. The anti-Marine people on Admiral-in-Chief Langenfeld’s staff were making a deliberate move to see that the Corps was phased out.

On this night, Zach lay on his cot and arced darts at a target on the billboard. Blue darts and red darts. The reds were winning.
Every so often Zach stopped, scribbled out a thought, a paragraph, a correction, then returned to the darts.

Came the knock.

Zach tumbled off his bed, covered his papers, and unlocked the door. As Ben entered, Zach took his jacket off the good chair and offered it. Considering the hour, Zach understood that a storm flag had been hoisted.

“On the conclusions and recommendations number ninety-two you turned in yesterday,” Ben said angrily.

“Number nine-two, yes, sir.”

“You cannot tell the navy they must issue the Marines Krag-Jorgensen rifles. You know, fucking A, that the navy and the army develop their own weaponry through separate ordnance programs, at great cost to the taxpayer.”

“A Krag-Jorgensen fired accurately from five to six hundred yards is the only viable weapon to stop a machine-gun squad,” Zach argued.

Ben, one of the legendary riflemen in the Corps’ history, knew damned well that Zachary O’Hara was right.

“Sir, Gunny Kunkle ‘borrowed’ Krag-Jorgensens from the army when we were at AMP. Every man in our class qualified as a sharpshooter or expert.”

Although the lieutenant was under discipline, he was not being cowed.

“We are all fighting for the same country, sir.”

“Enough!”

After a scaly silence, Zach asked for permission to speak.

“It’s two-thirty in the morning, Major. You didn’t storm in here to talk about rifles.”

A pained smile emerged from Ben. “You got something to drink here?”

“No, sir. Part of my punishment is to refrain from alcohol. I can fix some tea.”

“Fix it.”

Ben scribbled a note and buzzed the mess hall. In a moment a red-eyed pot-walloper appeared.

“Go to the officers’ honor bar, fetch me a bottle of rum, and leave this IOU note.”

Zach made a pot of tea. Ben contemplated until the rum arrived, then enhanced his mug and offered some to Zach.

“Punishment’s over,” Ben said, pouring. “You know why I beached you, Zach.”

“Yes, sir. To save my ass from my temper.”

“Suppose you disconnected on a battlefield like you did at the casino. Ever think of that?”

“Every day,” Zach said.

“Well, the beef was over a woman. Usually is. What attempt have you made to contact her in the past three months?”

“None, sir.”

“Telephone, letter, messenger? Have you jumped ship to see her?”

“No, sir.”

“You’ll get no praise for a job you should have done in the first place without creating this nightmare.”

“I don’t want praise, sir.”

“Zach, ‘Random Sixteen’ is one of the most uncluttered, logical briefs I’ve ever laid eyes on. It has been repudiated.”

“I haven’t finished it!”

“The central theme of future small campaigns and incursions is being rejected by the navy. They are not assigning the Amnesty Islands to us. By cutting off our training ground to work out our theories, they are intending to stand us down. We’re getting the shaft.”

“Are they crazy?”

“Crazy or not, they’re the guys with the fuzzy balls. Admiral Langenfeld rules by committee. Commodore Chester Harkleroad is the monster at the gate. The Corps is not even on the committee.”

Ben needed rum. Ben drank.

The two men had worked so closely, they could pick up on each other’s intentions. Ben was brewing something wild and Zach read it perfectly.

“Ben, one of the first things you ever got across to me was that military planners in a democracy in times of peace will steer clear of a distant threat or be accused of warmongering. America is napping in bliss. It doesn’t want to be awakened. What we were talking about that night is not going to be apparent for at least another generation.”

“But it is going to happen,” Ben retorted.

“America has time on its side,” Zach answered, “but eventually the threat will become clear.”

“Can’t wait that long. If they deny us the Amnesties as a training ground, it may be the bell tolling for our demise. The Corps has to present a logical purpose, or good-bye, Mama.”

“It will show we’re too desperate,” Zach said.

“I remember clearly when we had the conversation. We were sitting on my porch exactly a week before you fucked up at the casino. We had corned beef and cabbage. We started playing war games.”

Zach had picked up the correct vibration.

“You stood, Zach, and pointed to Narrangansett Bay and you said, ‘What do you see, Ben?’ and I said, ‘It looks like Narragansett Bay,’ and you said, ‘Hell, no, it’s the Pacific Ocean and right down the middle at the international date line is the place of our future troubles.’”

“Are you really going to try to sell this?”

“Yep.”

The bell tolled 0300.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Write up some notes regarding that conversation. Two, three, four clean, terse pages. Have it ready by reveille. I’m on the nine o’clock train for Providence.”

Well, there it was, a battlefield decision,
now.
It could be a career buster for the major. But damned, the prophecy was going to be true!

“They’ll be ready,” Zach said.

“Thank you, Zach.”

“Thank you for the opportunity,” Zach said strangely. “I feel privileged. At least we’ll go down fighting.”

Ben got to his feet, wobbly.

“Major, I lied to you.”

“Really? Concerning what?”

“Amanda did not send me packing. We love each other. After my tantrum at the casino, I was afraid you wouldn’t trust me to see ‘Random Sixteen’ through. Moreover, I knew I’d be restricted to quarters, and if her father knew too early, I wouldn’t be able to protect her, so we made up the story that we broke up in anger.”