Blood and Iron (27 page)

“Here’s hoping you’re right.” Carsten glanced up at the sky, which was full of thick gray clouds. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

Moerlein thought he was being sarcastic. “Yeah, if you’re moss on a tree,” he answered. “I was hoping we’d get sent down to South America myself, to give Brazil a hand against Argentina. That’s my kind of weather.”

“No, thanks,” Carsten said with a shudder. “I burn like a rib roast in the galley after the cooks forgot about it.”

When the
Remembrance
came into Dublin harbor, she got a welcome about the size of the one the
Dakota
had enjoyed coming into New York City after the end of the Great War. New York City boasted more people than the whole country of Ireland, but the ones who lined both sides of the River Liffey cheered loud enough to make up for their lack of numbers. As the
Remembrance
drew near its assigned wharf, Sam was bemused by the sight of tens of thousands of people, almost all of them as fair-skinned as he was.

“If you towed this place down to Brazil, you’d give everybody here heatstroke in about a day and a half,” he said. No one else paid him any attention. If the other sailors on deck contemplated Irishwomen’s skins, as they doubtless did, they had different things on their minds. So, for that matter, did Sam.

A couple of light gray German cruisers were berthed only a few piers over from the
Remembrance
. Sailors aboard them waved toward the aeroplane carrier. Sam and his comrades waved back. Here in Dublin, Americans and Germans were both about the business of giving England a black eye. All the same, Sam sent those cruisers an appraising glance, wondering what going into battle against the squareheads would be like. And officers aboard the German ships were bound to be photographing the
Remembrance
so their bosses in Berlin could figure out how to fight her and whether to build ships like her.

After she’d been made fast, the lord mayor of Dublin and a redheaded fellow in a fancy naval uniform came aboard to welcome her to their country. The lord mayor, who wore a green-white-and-orange sash, made a speech. The admiral studied the
Remembrance
as if wishing he had a dozen of her class under the Irish flag.

“And so,” the lord mayor said at last, in an accent that struck Carsten’s ear as more nearly British than Irish, “we are proud indeed to welcome this magnificent warship to our port, a symbol of the affection between the United States and Ireland that caused you to aid us in at last regaining our freedom after so many centuries of oppression at the hands of the British Crown.”

Along with the rest of the assembled American sailors, Sam dutifully applauded. During the war, the USA would have done anything to help give England a rough time. That, more than affection, had prompted U.S. help for the Irish rebellion. The mayor didn’t look stupid; he had to know as much. Politicians looked to be the same on both sides of the Atlantic.

Had the world been a perfect place, an Irishman would have commanded the
Remembrance
. Captain Oliver Roland, though, was a swarthy man of French descent. He said, “The United States are delighted to welcome Ireland into the family of nations. Along with those of Poland and Quebec, her independence shows how the powers of the Quadruple Alliance respect the national aspirations of peoples whom our late foes for too long kept from the freedom they deserved.”

The lord mayor bowed in delight. The Irish admiral clapped his hands. Beside Sam, Willie Moore let out a rude but quiet snort. The gun-crew chief proceeded to put words to it: “The Poles get to do what the Germans tell ’em, and the froggies in Quebec get to do what we tell ’em, and the micks have never been any goddamn good at doing what anybody tells ’em.”

That was cynical. It was also very likely to be true. A chief gunner’s mate could say it to a man in his crew. Had Captain Roland said it to the lord mayor of Dublin, it wouldn’t have gone over so well. The skipper had to be, or at least had to act like, a politician here.

“We going to get liberty, Chief?” Sam whispered to Moore.

“I hear we are,” Moore whispered back. “Other thing I hear is, anybody picks up a dose of the clap, they’re going to cut his balls off so he never, ever gets a chance to do it again. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I sure do,” Sam answered in a whispered falsetto.

Willie Moore’s eyes opened wide for a moment. Then, in lieu of laughing, he started to cough. “Damn you, Carsten, you sly son of a bitch,” he wheezed. He coughed again, and gave Sam a dirty look. Sam did his best to assume a mantle of angelic innocence. By Moore’s expression, his best was none too good.

He did get liberty, but not till three days later: this close to England, Captain Roland wanted to keep as near a full crew aboard the
Remembrance
as possible. Maybe officers toured Dublin’s cathedrals and other sights. Sam still thought about trying to become an officer himself. He wasn’t interested in cathedrals, though. He went into the first bar—pubs, they called them here—he spotted, only a couple of blocks away from the quay on the River Liffey by which the
Remembrance
lay.
GUINNESS IS GOOD FOR YOU
! proclaimed a sign in the window. It showed a healthy-looking fellow pouring down a pint of stout. Sam had heard of Guinness, but he’d never drunk any. He couldn’t imagine a better place to ease his thirst and improve his education at the same time. In he went.

When he asked for the famous stout, the publican beamed at him. “Indeed and I’m happy to serve a Yank,” he declared, sounding much more like an Irishman than had the lord mayor. “If you haven’t changed your money, a quarter of a dollar’ll do it.”

“I’ll bet it will,” Sam said, not very happily. Back in the States, he could buy five glasses of beer for a quarter. But he wasn’t back in the States, and Guinness was supposed to be something special. He dug in his pocket and set a silver coin on the bar.

The Irishman did give him full measure, filling the pint pot to the brim and then using the last drips from the tap to draw a shamrock in the creamy head. Seeing Sam’s eye on him, he smiled shyly. “Just showing off,” he murmured.

“Thanks,” Sam said, and lifted the glass in salute. “Cheers.” He sipped at the Guinness. After a moment’s thought, he nodded. It might not have been worth a quarter, but it came close. A lot more was going on in that taste than in the pale, watery beers he bought at home. It put him in mind of drinking pumpernickel bread. It packed a wallop, too. He could see where, after three or four pints, he wouldn’t be hungry any more and he wouldn’t be able to walk, either.

He wasn’t ready to get blind. He had something else on his mind first. “You happen to know where I could find me a friendly girl?” he asked.

“I do that,” the tapman answered. “You go round the corner here”—he pointed—“then knock at the house with the blue door. Tell ’em Sean sent you, and they’ll take a wee bit off the price.”

They’d give him his cut for sending trade their way, was what he meant. Sam had got that same answer from a good many bartenders in his time. It didn’t bother him. They weren’t in business for their health; they wanted to make a buck—no, a pound here—like anybody else.

He drank another pint of Guinness and then, feeling a pleasant buzz, found the house with the blue door. Sean’s name got him inside. “
Another
one!” the madam said, seeing his uniform. “Christ, you Yanks are horny devils.”

“We’ve been at sea a long time, ma’am,” Sam answered.

Before long, he was happily settled upstairs with a plump blonde who said he could call her Louise. His first round ended almost before it started, as often happened after a long time without. He laid out some more cash and began again. Things were progressing most enjoyably when some sort of commotion broke out down below.

He concentrated on the business at hand till a raucous American-accented voice bellowed, “Any sailors off the
Remembrance
who ain’t back aboard in an hour, you’re damn well gonna get stranded! We’re sailing then!” That blue door slammed shut.

“Jesus!” Sam said, and applied himself. He came in a few strokes. That spoiled things for Louise, who, he thought, had been warming up nicely beneath him. But he didn’t have time to worry about her, not any more. She gave him an unhappy look as he scrambled into his clothes. He didn’t have time to worry about that, either. He was right behind one American leaving the whorehouse, and right in front of another one.

Panting, he hurried up the gangplank to the
Remembrance
. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked as he came aboard.

“Uprising in the north,” a sailor answered. “They don’t want to cut England’s apron strings up there. The Irish have asked us to give ’em a hand with our aeroplanes and guns, and we’re going to do it.”

“Oh. All right.” Sam thought for a moment, then chuckled. “Damn good thing they didn’t rise up an hour earlier, that’s all I’ve got to say.”

Emily Pinkard said, “I swear to Jesus, Jeff, if I didn’t know where you was goin’ nights, I’d reckon you had yourself another girl on the side.”

“Well, I don’t.” Jefferson Pinkard gave his wife a severe look. She was the one who’d been unfaithful, and now she had the nerve to think he might be? Emily dropped her eyes. She knew what she’d done. Jeff went on, “The Freedom Party’s important, dammit. I don’t think there’s anything more important in the whole country right now.”

What was she doing on nights when he wasn’t home? Pinkard worried about that, especially since Bedford Cunningham, however much he’d thought of Jake Featherston’s speech, hadn’t followed up by joining the Freedom Party. Jeff had, and kept going to Party meetings. Before he’d signed up, everything had seemed pointless, useless. Now his life had a focus. He’d found a cause.

“It’s bigger than I am,” he said, trying to make Emily understand. “It’s more important than I am. But I’m part of it. Things’ll get better, and they’ll get better partly thanks to me. To me.” He jabbed a thumb at his own chest.

Emily sighed. “People carry on too much about politics, I swear they do. You come right down to it, none of that stuff means anything anyways.”

“Weren’t for politics, we wouldn’t have fought the war.” Jeff gave her a perfunctory kiss, then headed out the door. “I ain’t got time to argue tonight. I don’t want to be late.”

He’d heard that the Freedom Party had started out meeting in a Richmond saloon. Since Alabama was a dry state, the Birmingham Party headquarters couldn’t imitate those of the founding chapter. Jeff regretted that; he would have enjoyed sitting around with the new friends he’d made and hashing things out over a couple of schooners of beer or shots of whiskey.

He enjoyed sitting around with his new friends anyway, but doing it in a livery stable wasn’t the same. Still, the stable owner was a Party member, and the money he got for renting the place out once a week as a meeting hall helped keep him afloat. With so many people going from carriages to motorcars these days, he needed all the help he could get.

The chairman of the Birmingham chapter was a beefy, red-faced fellow named Barney Stevens. He’d been a sergeant during the war; Pinkard would have bet he’d been a mean one. At eight o’clock on the dot, he said, “Come on, boys—let’s get this show on the road.”

Together, they sang “Dixie.” The singing wasn’t of the best, nor anywhere close. That didn’t matter. Roaring out the words to the Confederacy’s national hymn reminded Jeff—and everyone else—why they’d banded together. The good times the song talked about could come again. The Freedom Party would make them come again.

After the last notes died, Stevens said, “Boys, the force that will conquer in the end is the fire of our young Confederate manhood. Today new people who claim power are arising in the Confederacy, men who’ve shed their blood for the Confederate States and know their blood flowed in vain, through the fault of the men who ran the government.”

Jeff clapped till his hard-palmed hands were sore. He looked around the stable. A handful of the men there were of solid middle years. Most, though, were like him: men in their twenties and early thirties who’d been through the crucible of war and were ready to be poured into some new shape.

“There are too damned many of us for the government to put down by force,” Barney Stevens declared, and his audience applauded again. “We have to wreck what needs wrecking, and by God there’s plenty of it. We have to be hard and tough. The abscess on the body of the country needs cutting out and squeezing till the clear red blood flows. And the blood needs to flow for a good long time before the body is pure again.”

“Freedom!” Jeff and the others shouted. The stable, the heavy air inside smelling of hay and horses, echoed to the cry.

“Come this fall,” Stevens went on, “you’ll need a new chairman here, on account of the Ninth District is going to send me to Congress.” More cheers. Through them, he said, “And when I get to Richmond, I’m going to have me a few things to say about—”

“Freedom!” Pinkard shouted again, along with his comrades. He had a hard-on. It made him laugh. Emily had been unfaithful to him with a man. He was being unfaithful to her with the Party.

Stevens said, “Between now and election day, we’re going to make people notice us. This Saturday afternoon, I hear tell, the niggers our damnfool government gave the vote to are gonna hold a rally—like they was really citizens, like they deserve to be citizens.” Scorn dripped from his words. He wasn’t quite so good as the national chairman, but he wasn’t bad, either. He grinned out at the crowd. “How many of you boys want to put on white shirts and butternut pants and pay ’em a call?”

Almost every hand shot into the air. One of the men Stevens picked was Jefferson Pinkard. The chairman of the Birmingham chapter said, “Meet me at the corner of Cotton and Forestdale two o’clock Saturday afternoon. We’ll have ourselves a good old time, damned if we won’t.”

“What about the cops?” somebody called from the back of the stable.

“What about ’em?” Barney Stevens said contemptuously. “They ain’t gonna do nothin’ to hold us off a bunch of uppity niggers.” He grinned again. “And besides, a lot of them is us.”