The Wilson Deception (5 page)

“Of course not.” Foster sipped his coffee with a self-possession that Lansing found unsettling in someone barely thirty. Evidently evening coffee didn't keep him from sleeping.

 

T
he dockside tumult in Brest made it easy for Speed Cook to jump ship for the second time in a week. He shouldered his suitcase the way a stevedore would carry passenger luggage. Once off the gangplank, he swung the bag down and carried it civilian style. Then he kept walking. The fog and drizzle helped. With a wool cap covering his gray hair, he drew no notice.

The ship's captain got a fair deal: Cook's free labor in return for hauling him across the Channel at a time when getting to France wasn't easy.

Cook had used the same device to get from America to England. With so many sailors siphoned off onto navy ships, merchant captains asked few questions of possible crew members. Which meant that he would be one of the few Americans at the Second Pan-African Congress in Paris. That prospect put some juice in his stride.

His path to the activist life had been improbable. He had been scuffling for dollars, promoting Negro baseball games up at Olympic Field on 136th Street in Harlem. The ticket sales weren't much, but he did all right with some smart betting on the side. During one game, he recognized the famous Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois in the stands. He introduced himself and they hit it off. Dr. Du Bois could be highfalutin with his New England ways, but underneath the superior veneer, the man had the same rage Speed had, that every Negro had. The thing with Dr. Du Bois was that he had thought through his rage. He could explain it, trace out where it came from in history. He could point to ways Speed could put it to work to make things better for all colored people. So Speed signed up with Du Bois and his NAACP, stopped scuffling for dollars and joined the cause, the movement, something bigger than himself.

In Paris, he would meet the leading colored people on the planet, ones from Africa and Europe. The other Americans who meant to go, the ones who formed that International League of Darker Peoples, they weren't going to make it. They couldn't get passports. The US government didn't want a lot of darker peoples walking around Paris, reminding folks that America still had lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan and no voting by colored folks. That would be embarrassing when President Wilson was bringing democracy to the world, at least to those parts that had white people. Du Bois had managed to get an actual passport—he was too prominent to be turned down—but no one else could. The others wailed with disappointment at being left behind, something they hadn't much experienced in their doily-covered, froufrou lives.

Cook hadn't moaned and groaned about the injustice of Wilson's government. When his passport application was denied, he dusted off the seamen's papers he had from years back, then signed on to a terrible old rust bucket that was carrying wheat to the folks starving in Europe. It wallowed to England in only nine days. And now he was in France, jumping his second ship.

Before going to Paris, he had something important to do. American soldiers, waiting to embark on the voyage home, crowded the streets near the Brest waterfront. He bulled through them, which was easy for a big man like him. The cobbled streets were slick from recent rain. The sky was threatening. It felt cold enough for snow. Stone walls near the port looked centuries old. He checked his bag at the railroad station, struggling with the language. He asked a doughboy for directions to army headquarters. Drizzle started as he walked five blocks to a large stone building that stood comfortably away from the mayhem on the docks.

He pulled off his cap as he stepped to the sergeant at a desk in the center of the entranceway. “Sir, I'm hoping to find the Three hundred sixty-ninth infantry regiment.”

The sergeant wore a broad-brimmed hat with crisp creases and a sparkling braid at the base of the crown. He ignored Speed for at least a minute, not moving, staring at papers spread before him. He called over a guard standing at the foot of the staircase. “Take this to Colonel Davison.” After handing over an envelope, he returned his attention to the papers on his desk.

Cook shifted his weight and strained to keep his voice level. “Excuse me, Sergeant, I just need some directions and I'll be on my way.”

“Uncle, do I look like I don't have nothing better to do than sit around and chin with you all day?”

“I'm looking for my boy, he served with the Three hundred and sixty-ninth. He was at the front, but we haven't heard from him for too long. Army can't seem to tell us where he is. I need to find him. His mother needs to know. I don't even know if they're here in Brest, but it seems worth a try.”

The sergeant took a deep breath, then pulled a sheet from a drawer. “The camp for nigger soldiers, let me see.” His finger traced down the page. “It's over the east side of town.” He looked up and pointed to his left. “That way.”

“What's the best way to get there?”

“Shank's mare, uncle. You look a strong feller.”

Speed swallowed the bile that still rose in his throat, even after so many years.

He passed taverns and cafés, ones that doubtless catered to soldiers and sailors but were buttoned up tight in the ugly morning. Whoever pocketed the dollars and pounds and francs from the men who passed through Brest wasn't investing it locally. The street cobbles tilted at treacherous angles. The buildings slouched wearily, paint peeling from woodwork and wood sheets hammered in place of glass panes.

Cook felt the familiar sense of dread come over him, the tingling at the back of his neck. They had no word from Joshua since September. The boy's last letter had the usual reassuring words for Aurelia, but if you read between the lines, you could tell he was tired. His spirit was tired. From his work with Du Bois, Cook knew that the army worked hard to ruin the lives of colored soldiers. It wasn't enough to send them out to get killed. They had to be insulted and humiliated, too, made something less. Always less.

He and Aurelia waited anxiously through those last weeks before the armistice, when the fighting was at its peak. They made excuses for Joshua not writing, for the army not getting letters out of France. But when the armistice came, the silence stretched on. Cook tried the army offices in New York, but had no luck. He wrote to Joshua's commanding officer. He got no response. He tried to work through some politicians he knew in New York. They were precinct hacks but they might have known someone who knew someone. Still nothing. He even asked Dr. Du Bois to see what he could find out, but he learned no more. Aurelia grew more and more alarmed. Their daughter Cecily scoured the lists of the dead in the newspapers. When she saw a Joshua Clark listed, Aurelia wondered if it might be a mixup, that it was supposed to be “Joshua Cook,” but then they found out that Clark was from a white regiment.

It got so they couldn't talk about it any more, but they couldn't talk about anything else. Aurelia blamed him for Joshua going in the army. If something bad happened, and something bad must have happened, she might never forgive him, or herself. Dr. Du Bois had pushed the idea that Negroes should join the army and fight. That way, he argued, the race would show it was worthy, worthy of fair treatment. Its young men, standing shoulder to shoulder with white soldiers, would finally change things.

It sounded good in their living room on 127th Street. It sounded good to Joshua, who went down and signed up, didn't wait to be drafted. After that, it started to sound a lot worse. Now it was about his own son, not other people's boys. And now, now they knew it hadn't changed a thing, and it probably wouldn't ever, not the way they treated the colored soldiers.

Cook judged he'd walked a mile and a half, maybe more. He saw a colored soldier. “Hey, son,” he called. “Where can I find the Three hundred sixty-ninth?”

“Straight ahead, sir. Sinking into that swamp over there.” The soldier pointed down the road Speed was on.

“Thank you, son.”

Speed's steps came faster. Soon, he would know something. Maybe in a few minutes. Maybe an hour. Not more than that. He didn't let himself think about what that terrible news might be.

A large tent had a handwritten sign stating “369TH.” It was warmer inside, the space lit by bare electric light bulbs that dangled from wires. A few colored soldiers sat to one side. He guessed they were messengers.

Snatching off his cap, he wrung it out on the dirt floor. He approached a table created by boards set across stacked crates. A white clerk looked up at him.

“Excuse me. I'm looking for information about my son, Sergeant Joshua Cook.”

A flicker of recognition passed over the clerk's face.

“Do you know my son?”

“No. No, I don't.”

“Can you tell me anything about him?”

“That's really a matter for Colonel Hayward. He's due back in an hour. You can wait over there.” The clerk nodded toward some flimsy-looking chairs along the tent wall.

“Can I look around for my son?”

“He's not here.”

“Where is he? Where's my boy, Sergeant Cook? Is he hurt?”

“You have to wait for Colonel Hayward.”

“Listen. I've been waiting for almost four months. I know Colonel Hayward.” Cook leaned forward across the makeshift table. He itched to grab the clerk and shake him.

A hand clapped down on his shoulder, hard. Cook spun around, shrugging off the hand of a guard.

When he turned back, the clerk had stepped back and was holding his hands out, palms down. “You have to wait. It won't be long.”

The minutes crept by. Then they moved slower. Then they got down on their bellies and lay completely still. Cook kneaded his wool cap, twisting it and untwisting it, punishing the soggy, scratchy fabric. He thought he would explode. Or scream. Or hit something.

A man who had to be Hayward pounded through the tent flap. He pulled off his hat and shook the moisture off it while walking past the clerk and behind a canvas divider that hung across two-thirds of the tent. The clerk followed him without looking at Cook, who was already out of his seat. The clerk returned and waved him forward.

Hayward came around his makeshift desk when Cook entered his space. They shook hands.

“Colonel, we met in New York.”

“Yes, I recall.”

“I need to know what's happened to my son Joshua.”

“Your son's alive, but he's got troubles. Please sit down.”

Speed felt shaky as he dropped into a chair. Hayward took a chair next to him. His strong, blunt features included a deep cleft in his chin. He looked Cook in the eye and described the situation.

Cook's relief turned to disbelief, then anger when he heard that General Parkman had reversed Joshua's acquittal. “Colonel, what can I do? How can I get him free?”

“Mr. Cook, that retrial might be happening right now or very soon. If I were a cynical man, I'd say they delayed it until the Three sixty-ninth was sent here to be shipped back to the States. That way, none of us can testify. Several of our officers testified for him at his first trial, about him being a good soldier.” Hayward held out a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket.

Cook declined the offer. Hayward lit one. He took a deep drag.

“Where is he?” Cook asked.

“Still near Chaumont, the army headquarters.”

“Then I'll go there.” Cook's leg was jiggling up and down. He wanted to get on his way, but Hayward had been decent for a white man. Cook didn't want to be rude.

Hayward chewed his lip for a moment. “You might not want to go there first. You might think about starting in Paris. If you know any officers in the army, anyone at the peace conference, even someone in the French Army, maybe you can persuade them to help. General Parkman has been implacable, but your son's case can't be that important to him. Somebody above him might be able to fix this.” He sighed and put his hand on Cook's arm. “I'm sorry for this. Your son's a good man. Most of them are. Don't believe anyone who says anything else. It's been my privilege to go to war with them.”

When Cook stepped out of the tent, he barely noticed the rain. He made it back to the railway station without noticing anyone or anything. He had no plan. He needed a plan. He thought of Aurelia and Cecily. He couldn't write them with this news. It was too terrible. He'd write when he knew more. When he had a plan.

 

“I
tell you, Jamie, I can't stand this.” Colonel Jerome Siegel burst into Fraser's office through the open door. He threw a stapled, multi-page memorandum on Fraser's desk. The distinctive HQ format was unmistakable.

“First we're supposed to prepare for an advance into Germany. Then, it's all about supporting the Army of Occupation in the Rhineland. Now it's demobilize, demobilize, demobilize, fast as you can.” He stalked over to the lone window in the office and jammed his hands in his pockets. “And tomorrow, goddammit, it'll be something else entirely.”

Fraser got along fairly well with his commanding officer, a quiet, curly-haired doctor from Massachusetts. Siegel had risen far enough in the military bureaucracy that he hadn't treated a patient in five years. Though he was an army lifer, he didn't resent physicians like Fraser who parachuted into the army from lucrative private practices. He was glad to have good doctors, even wealthy ones with silk hat backgrounds, as long as they did the job for the men.

“So, what's the drill now?”

“Send everyone home in ninety days. Ninety days! Wilson and his buddies downtown haven't even begun to work out a peace treaty and we're supposed to make plans to send all of these patients, all of our personnel, and all of our equipment home by May first.” He shook his head and threw himself into a visitor's chair. “Imagine how screwed up the Germans had to be to lose to us.”

“They'd been fighting for three years before we got here. We might give the French and the British and the Russians some of the credit.”

“Thank God for all of them.” Siegel began to stroke his chin. “So, Jamie, I need you to work your magic again. A full plan for demobilization—every patient, every staff member, on a ship headed home by May Day.”

“Pretty crazy.”

“Especially since there's no report of any real progress from the peace conference. I know you've been gaga over our commander in chief since he came through here, but he'd better saddle up and finish this business.”

“Did you see his speech yesterday?”

Siegel sat back with a smile on his face. “Nope, but I get the feeling I'm about to hear part of it.”

Fraser reached behind him and grabbed the morning's paper, which he had folded to Wilson's speech. He used his finger to scan the text. “Here. Here he says it. ‘We are the masters of no people but are here to see that every people in the world shall choose its own masters and govern its own destinies, not as
we
wish but as
it
wishes.'” Fraser put down the paper and looked at Siegel. “Can you imagine an Englishman or a Frenchman or a German saying that?”

Siegel smiled. “You forget, sir, that you're talking to a New England Republican. We're congenitally unable to applaud statements by Southern Democrats.” He shook his head. “I hope what he says is true, Jamie. For all our sakes, especially those poor bastards who did the dying.”

Fraser leaned forward. “When do you need this new plan?”

“Suppertime?”

Fraser smiled and raised an eyebrow.

“All right,” Siegel said, “just this once, you can have until Thursday morning.”

“It doesn't have to make sense, does it?”

“How the hell could it?” Siegel stood and walked to the doorway, then turned back. “And Jamie, one more thing. I'd like you to be in the last contingent to leave, with me. Sorry, but I don't want to try to run this operation without you.”

“Of course, Jerry.”

“Thanks.”

Fraser stood and took the place before the window. The courtyard view was simple and stark. No snow. Bare trees that weren't prospering. A few stone planters with scraggly plants. A gray sky above. He thought about preparing a plan to send everyone home in three months. Demobilization could never happen so fast.

The prospect of home didn't cheer him. These months in France, for all the gore and death and slaughter, had been a respite for him, a respite from the life that had been running off the tracks. He remembered a saying from his childhood. If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Fraser had kept Him amused.

He thought little of his first marriage to Ginny. Sometimes he couldn't even summon up the image of her face. Their life together, one that seemed happy at the time, had disappeared into the roaring void of the night when she'd died giving birth to their baby boy, who also died, the pathetic Dr. James Fraser unable to save either.

Eliza, he had thought, would bring him back to life. From the start, he had known she was a stretch for him. He was a country doctor, a widower, a hick from eastern Ohio. She was a glamorous figure, beautiful and poised, a former actress who deftly moved into theatrical management with all the skills of a professional performer. The first few years were wonderful. Their daughter Violet was a blessing. Fraser began to make his way in New York medical circles, learning to be a better doctor than he thought he could be. The chance to participate in research at the new Rockefeller Institute was more than he had ever hoped for.

Yet he never lost his self-image as an overachieving bumpkin. He felt no surprise when Eliza tired of him and sought more diverting company. She tried to argue with him, to tell him what was wrong with their life, but he wasn't any good at arguing. They were one-sided arguments. He couldn't think of what to say until hours after she went to bed, long after it was too late. He began to work later and later at the lab, avoiding home. She was discreet about her gentleman friends, mostly. Fraser didn't ask. The cuckolded husband is a ridiculous figure. It was better not to think about it.

The experience of an unhappy marriage was such an appalling mixture of the infuriating and the trite. How could a person marry someone who made him unhappy? It seemed so simple. Marry a person who makes you happy. Marrying wrong was bad enough—after all, it made him unhappy most days—but piled on top were the embarrassment and the anger at himself for doing so. Yet all around him were people who made the same mistake. It was cold comfort. It only cheapened his own blunder, reducing his exquisite pains to the moral stature of a hangnail or a blister. They were all ridiculous, all of them.

Then Howard, an actor, entered the picture and stayed far too long. He turned Fraser's embarrassment into mortification. If Howard was what Eliza wanted—with his vanity, his good looks, and his empty head—Fraser had misjudged his wife from the start. When the war came, Fraser leapt at the chance to join the Army Medical Corps, an honorable way to stop having to share his home with a woman who seemed a stranger. The army was a refuge from his life.

His father had served in the Thirtieth Ohio Volunteers during the Civil War, coming home from the Vicksburg campaign a sick and emaciated man who lingered at the edge of life for a few more years. By joining in this new war, Fraser could honor his father. He might even do his country some good.

Soon, though, his time in refuge would end. He was going to have to face Eliza. Face his daughter. Face his life.

He turned back to his desk and sat down. He could get a jump on the demobilization plan if he started before morning rounds.