1901

“Ulli!” Ludwig yelled. Nothing. He hollered again, as did the others. It created a din, and one of the German military police walked over and asked what the matter was. Upon being told, he asked where the woman had come from, and one of the Schulers pointed to an alley. Grimly, the soldier pulled his revolver and moved slowly into the grimy passageway, littered with refuse of all kinds. Ludwig and the others followed, all suddenly aware that they were unarmed in a hostile land and that the shadows of the alley conveyed a sense of menace.

The alley turned a corner and, now thoroughly frightened, they followed. The policeman gasped, then paused and pointed. A pair of bare feet jutted from behind a barrel. Not wanting to see but knowing they had to, they moved closer. It was Ulli. He was naked and his crotch was a bloody mess. His throat had been cut. His penis was in his mouth.

Richmond Hobson watched as the train rolled slowly into the huge warehouse and dock complex on Newark Bay. When it finally stopped, the guards dropped nimbly to the ground. They were all wearing civilian clothes instead of their customary uniforms. Hobson had wanted no uniforms to attract attention to the unidentifiable, canvas-draped shapes on the flatcars.

As he walked along the train, the guards acknowledged him and moved away. Richmond Pearson Hobson had a reputation as a very different and difficult man. At thirty-one, Hobson was the youngest officer in the U.S. Navy to achieve the rank of captain. It was the result of an incredibly brave action in which he had tried to sink a coal ship, the Merrimac, in Santiago harbor during the war with Spain. If he had been successful, the Spanish fleet would have been unable to sortie. But he hadn’t been successful. Although the Merrimac had indeed sunk, he failed to block the channel and, worse, wound up as a prisoner.

It was more than ironic that he had been promoted and lionized in the press for achieving nothing. The attempt was a failure and it galled him.

Undeniably brave, Hobson was also highly intelligent, some said brilliant. He had graduated at the head of his class at Annapolis and was thought to have a magnificent future ahead of him. His specialty was naval architecture. Of course, no one could yet give him command of the fleet, but now he had been given responsibility for hurting the Germans in some manner, and that was good.

A righteous man, Hobson neither drank nor swore. He had a stern and handsome look that made women turn and stare. He was not a womanizer and scarcely noticed their existence.

A small, bearded man in a dark suit and a derby hat walked up to him. “Satisfied, Captain?” Unlike the guards, who were military men in civilian clothes, this man was very much a civilian and unawed by Hobson’s rank.

“Not until the Germans are gone, Mr. Holland. One more trainload and my men will be ready for action. They are getting nervous. Idleness does not suit them with the enemy in sight. How about your crew?” he asked, thinking of the strange vessel that bobbed helplessly alongside the dock.

“They will be ready, Captain, and they will perform well, as will my little creation.”

“Good,” Hobson said. “Just what I expected.” The two men strode outside and stood in the soft rain staring at the covered shapes in the water. To a casual observer, they looked like small craft that were out of service. There were many such covered craft in the harbor and these went totally unnoticed among them.

“Mr. Holland, do you know what I did today?”

“Can’t imagine.”

Hobson chuckled, an act that surprised the other man, since Hobson rarely smiled, much less laughed. “I took a carriage over to the East River near Hoboken and looked at the enemy through my telescope. And do you know what I saw?”

“No.”

“John, I saw German officers looking through their own telescopes at me! Their presence on American soil made me ill. They must be driven off and made to pay.”

Hobson glanced down into the water at the small boats that were his command and smiled grimly, which caused the other man to shudder. “And very soon, Mr. Holland, we shall come to collect.”

The scene at the field hospital was one of organized confusion. Several of the colored soldiers from the 10th Cavalry loitered around the tents, wondering fearfully about their comrades. Patrick pulled back the tent flap and entered. Ian Gordon, dirty and bloodied, tried to rise from his chair. Patrick pushed him down. “Ian, how badly are you hurt?”

“Mainly my pride. Except for some bruises and minor cuts, the bulk of this blood belongs to others.”

“Heinz?”

Gordon nodded grimly. “Sad to say, yes. He’s badly wounded. Possibly dying. Damnit, we did all we could to bring him and the others back.”

“I know.” At least the boy was still alive. Better this was a skirmish, not a great battle. Thus the doctors could give Heinz proper attention, and not be overwhelmed by the numbers of hurt and maimed, as had happened in the past.