Harper was angry. His face reddened. “And what do you propose we do? Leave our homes and businesses to the Hun without a fight?”
“It’s better than dying for nothing. How do you have your men set up?”
Harper explained that his ten thousand, if there really were that many, were scattered about in a number of positions that he called strong points. When Luke again said his men would be overrun, Harper bristled.
“Look, Lieutenant, I was an officer in the Spanish-American War and a lot of what you’re saying is right. But I just can’t go abandoning people’s homes. We’ll stand and fight, and if we get whipped, we’ll pull back and fight some more.”
Luke pointed to the hills to the east. “Los Angeles is a state of mind, not a city. It’s sprawled all over the place. Los Angeles has been gobbling up small communities for years and there is no one central place to defend with your small force. You simply don’t have the men to defend the town, and I’ve seen a couple of your so-called strong points. They are nothing but sandbagged houses.”
“We will do what we must with what we have.”
“And Los Angeles is located in a bowl, surrounded by high ground.” Luke pointed to the foothills of the overlooking San Gabriel Mountains. “Have you at least put men up there? If you don’t, the Germans will and they’ll pound your men to pieces with their artillery. The Germans travel with 105mm howitzers that can easily reach you from those hills.”
Luke wasn’t so certain about that statement. The German guns had a range of about six miles, and the foothills might be farther than that. But he did want to shake Harper, shake some sense into the man, but Harper would have none of it and angrily told Luke to leave.
As Luke did so, he saw the apparent leader of the armed Mexicans staring at him. The man walked up to Luke and introduced himself as Tomas Montoya, a rancher from outside the city of Los Angeles. He was in his thirties, a trifle overweight, and looked angry.
“I could not help overhearing your conversation with the esteemed but very ignorant Mr. Harper. He means well but he will lead his men to disaster.” The sound of artillery from the south had grown much closer. “And it may have already begun.”
Both men were silent as they tried to gauge what was happening down the coast road. Finally, Montoya spoke. “I offered Harper fifty men, all armed and mounted, but he said he didn’t want Mexicans in his command. He said we were the cause of the whole problem.”
“Curious,” Luke said. “I thought the Germans had something to do with it.”
“I don’t blame him,” muttered Joe Flower. “I don’t like Mexicans either.”
Montoya glared at him. “And I don’t like Apaches.”
“Enough,” Luke said. “Like I said, the Germans are to blame for this, not Mexicans or Apaches.”
Montoya smiled tightly. “Agreed. May I ask what your plans are?”
“To watch and then head north and report to General Liggett.”
“When you leave, my men and I would like to go with you. You would be in charge, of course.”
Luke accepted the offer and they waited. The sound of firing got louder and closer. Messengers came and went from where Harper was trying to control events.
The first signs of disaster were the men who ran by. Some of them still had weapons, but the majority were unarmed. They had panicked and tossed their rifles away. Some were wounded and they all looked terrified. Harper tried to stop some of them but quickly gave up.
The trickle of panic-stricken men became a flood and the chatter of small-arms fire was a distinct sound. “Let’s move out of here,” Luke said and his new command followed to what they hoped was a safe place. “This part of town is going to draw a lot of attention very soon.”
As predicted, German howitzers from the hills did have the range. They began to pound Hollywood, and the retreating survivors of the fighting ran for their lives. Luke saw Harper still trying to bring order out of the chaos when a salvo of German shells landed on his position. A second later, Harper and a couple of other men who’d been with him had become little more than red smears on the ground.
Luke smiled grimly. “If you are under my command, Mr. Montoya, here is my first order. We ride like hell out of here.”
“An excellent idea,” said Montoya. “But perhaps there is something you would like to see first? Are either of you fine gentlemen good at blowing things up? If so, there are some, ah, facilities in and around Los Angeles that definitely should not fall into German hands. They are called refineries. Harper did blow up the oil storage tanks, but he neglected the refineries.”
Luke looked towards Joe Flower. “The corporal is outstanding at breaking things. Shall we proceed?”
Camp Dix was located almost in the center of New Jersey, north and east of Camden. It was big, sprawling, raw, and unfinished. The barracks were made of poorly cut and treated wood and there were gaping holes in the walls, letting the wind whip through. The roofs leaked badly, even in a mist. The result was that all of the recruits were miserably cold and wet. Most caught colds, or even pneumonia, and a scandal was growing in Washington. Still, Dix wasn’t any different from the dozen or so other basic training camps springing up throughout the United States.
Even worse were the sleeping and sanitary facilities. The wood slat bunks were too narrow and too short and nobody could believe that somebody had actually gone and ordered square toilet seats. The jokes about them were too numerous to count. And the toilet paper could have stripped rust from a pipe.
Wally and Tim had been called up, trucked to Dix, and jammed into barracks, where they’d waited. After two days, they were issued uniforms that didn’t fit, so they traded around with others with similar problems until they were reasonably comfortable. The food was uniformly bad and the wooden bunks were covered with thin straw mattresses. They were having serious second thoughts about the wisdom of their enlisting. If this was the Army, the Germans and Mexicans were going to have no trouble marching all the way from California to Camden.
They’d spent the two weeks waiting for a call up learning all they could about Germany, Mexico, Texas, and California. They spent time listening to a friend’s short-wave radio and hearing about events in Texas. California was too far away and the reports from there dire but vague. Newspapers were full of gloom and doom and the crowds at the telegraph office were glum as well. The Germans were moving up California and the Mexicans were doing the same thing in Texas, and nobody was doing much about it. To make matters worse, there were rumors of German warships off New York and elsewhere.
The night before they were shipped to Camp Dix, Tim had actually managed to get kissed. Kathy Fenton was nineteen, pretty enough, and lived down the street. She was a cashier at a Woolworth’s. They’d gone out a couple of times before and he wondered if they had a future. They’d all gotten more than a little drunk on some home made beer. Prohibition wasn’t the law, yet, although some said it was coming. Home brew seemed like a good way to practice for it. It had tasted like bad piss but it did contain alcohol, which gave everyone a buzz.
At any rate, Tim and Kathy had gone into a closet and made out like bandits. He’d kissed her hard and gotten his tongue in her mouth. She’d even let him touch her breast but stopped him when he tried to unbutton her blouse.
“Nothing more until we’re married,” she’d gasped.
Married? What the hell was she thinking of? He kissed her again and cupped her breast, outside the dress as she insisted, and she ground her pelvis against his erection. He decided it was better than nothing. Married? He liked her, but Jesus, was he ready to get married?