An Honorable War Read online

  But then I looked at his beaming face and reconsidered. Theodore Roosevelt frequently pulled off the impossible.

  7

  L`Avenir Déjà Vu

  Sagamore Hill

  Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York

  Late Monday evening

  1 March 1897

  I forced myself to say it. “You?”

  For the first time in our eleven-year friendship, I saw a hurt look flash across Theodore Roosevelt’s face. The rocking stopped. The rapid-fire cadence slowed. “Of course, and why not? I am the best man for the job. No one knows yet, so you must please keep this quiet.”

  “Theodore . . . does McKinley know he’s giving the position to you? He hasn’t been a supporter of the navy and knows nothing about it himself.”

  “No, he hasn’t yet made the decision. The man is quite busy right now and these things take time, Peter. But Bill McKinley is a very smart fellow, and I am certain he will come to the obviously logical conclusion quite soon.”

  Unlike my young friend, the president-elect had been in the carnage of Antietam, and other scenes of horror thirty-four years earlier. He had repeatedly said he never wanted to see Americans go through such agony again.

  “McKinley campaigned on peace and neutrality. Your views on both probably scare him, Theodore.”

  “True, but I have assured the proper people I will be a loyal servant within the administration. My job will be to make the navy ready for war, should it ever come, not to make the decision to go to war. Going to war is the sole prerogative of the president—and the Congress, of course.”

  I couldn’t imagine Theodore keeping his mouth shut and following the new administration’s official policy on Cuba, which was to ignore the war dragging on there. Roosevelt never ignored anything, once he learned about it.

  “You’ve obviously got your pal Henry Cabot Lodge lobbying for you, but what about Boss Platt in New York and Boss Hanna in Washington? They aren’t enamored of you at all and will never go along with it. Hell, Hanna runs McKinley and he’s going to be president in three days! And what about Long? Does he know yet?”

  “Hanna will come around, and so will Platt. No, Long hasn’t been informed, but he will soon, once the president makes the decision.”

  “Theodore, this whole idea is absurd. Please do not speak about this with anyone else.”

  He leaned back in the chair, looked over at me with incongruous paternal affection, and said, “Oh ye of little faith. Peter, you are a master seaman and spy, and I have always looked up to you on naval and international matters, but your knowledge of the interior machinations of the American political class is simply not up to snuff.”

  Then he winked at me and said, “And I’ve saved the very best news for last.”

  “There’s more?”

  “Indeed there is, my friend. You’re curious about your new orders, aren’t you?”

  The roaring fire had dwindled to half of a log over a bed of glowing amber coals. I had dwindled, too. After conversing with Theodore for an hour, and with little sleep the previous two nights, my endurance was waning. I wasn’t in the mood for word games, and it reflected in my tone.

  “So what the hell will it be?”

  He ignored my attitude, his eyebrows raising in pure boyish joy. “You will be the personal aide to me, the incoming Assistant Secretary of the Navy! And that dee-lightfully incorrigible friend of yours, Chief Bosun Mate Rork, will be your assistant. I happen to know you are up for a two-year shore assignment. This is the perfect one for you! The happy couple will be able to be together at last. Your leave is up on May eighth, and on May ninth, you report in to the office. Springtime is wonderful in Washington. You and Maria will never have to leave your honeymoon home in Alexandria. A bully idea, even if I do say so myself.”

  “I was hoping for Key West or Pensacola. Some place calm and warm.”

  “Nonsense. Those backwater billets are for semi-retired old men. Peter, you would go crazy down there, and you know I’m right.”

  As young and active as he was, Theodore had no ability to understand I wanted to be semi-retired for two years. My body ached and my mind was tired. I wanted to be with Maria, far away from the sadly insane world of Washington.

  I sighed, thinking about it. “What are the duties of this personal aide position?”

  He stood and walked around the room, rattling off his statements like an admiral giving orders in battle. “Simple but challenging. Help me modernize the navy. Prepare it materially and organizationally for the war which we both know is coming, probably with Spain, or perhaps with Germany. Get continuing accurate assessments of our foes. This is critical work, and I need you to do it.”

  He unconsciously looked around the room as if it was full of people, his voice rising to stentorian level. “Think of it! You and me, Peter, taking on the encrusted barnacles at the navy department and cleaning ship! By our actions and accomplishments, we will make the malevolent men of Europe realize it would be sheer suicide on their part to ever try to hurt or obstruct this nation anywhere, in any way. Some of them may still try, but such a war will be short and decisive. America will be safer because of our work!”

  If a crowd had been there, he would’ve received a standing ovation. He didn’t get one from the animals, or from me. “Yes, it’s a commendable vision, Theodore. But let’s get back to my assignment. I presume it includes intelligence work, of a clandestine nature, no doubt . . .”

  “Periodically, yes! Something interesting to get the old blood pumping is good for every man. Besides, you are extraordinarily good at it. L`avenir, déjà vu, as our friends the French say—the future, already seen!”

  This was infuriating. My old blood was pumping just fine, without returning to the sordid world of espionage. I didn’t want to return to that world and I sure as hell didn’t want to work for Theodore. He’d planned it all out, obviously, with help from inside the navy.

  “You had my orders changed, didn’t you? Somebody in the Bureau of Navigation put them on hold, until you could get in there and issue new orders. It had to be a captain or above. Who was it?”

  The grand oration was over, so he sat down again. “Why do you want to know such trivial things, Peter?”

  “Because whoever it was, I want to hurt him, Theodore. And I’m thinking about hurting you right about now.”

  “Ah, ha! Now there’s the Peter Wake I know and love! A man of decision, of action! Been practicing your martial arts, eh? Tomorrow morning, we’ll have a proper match and see how you’ve progressed. Boxing? Or perhaps fencing, with sabers? I designed the front piazza to be big enough for that, you know.”

  I couldn’t take any more. “I’m tired, Theodore. I’m going to bed. Notify me immediately if my ship contacts the house.”

  With that said, I trudged up to my guest room. Behind me, Theodore kept talking, wishing me a pleasant sleep and informing me the match would start at eight, right after a bully good breakfast.

  I didn’t have the strength, patience, or courage, to reply.

  8

  The Island

  Patricio Island

  Pine Island Sound

  Florida Lower Gulf Coast

  Easter Sunday evening

  18 April 1897

  The full moon shown through the high gumbo limbo trees and coconut palms, bathing the bungalows and citrus grove in a breathtakingly mystical light, making you want to stay awake all night to see what apparitions might appear. The evening land breeze from Pine Island to the east teased the trees to wave and dance, the broad-leafed bananas most of all, casting whimsical shadows across the shell mound ridge, and long ruffled silver lines across the bay.

  Maria and I sat, entwined as only lovers can be, in the wicker sofa on the east side verandah, watching the moon rise through the sky. At first a pink tinge on the horizon, then a pale golden disc emer
ging from the mangroves, minutes later it was a magnificent silver orb, like some royal symbol of power. In a way, it was, for the moon performed its monthly duty for tides and lovers, just the same as it had for millions of years.

  My bungalow is named “Serenity.” Sean Rork’s bungalow is eighty feet to the north of ours on the ridge. Its name is “Fiddler’s Green,” the traditional Irish sailors’ term for Heaven, where all good seafarers go to rest in peace. He and I, with an old Florida Cracker named Whidden and a motley group of troubadour friends, built the two bungalows, along with a smaller one for Whidden, back in ’84.

  We had no house building abilities, so we used skills from our profession. The homes were clinker-built, like ships, and just as water-tight and stout. Each one had a parlor, a galley, a bedroom, a storeroom, and a wraparound verandah deck with wide roof overhangs. Every window had a hatch cover for foul weather, cheese cloth for fair weather. On sunny days and moonlight nights, they were open and well ventilated. In storms, they could be battened down to make the inhabitants snug and safe.

  I noticed Sean and his fiancé, Minnie, curled up in the sofa on their east verandah too. Minnie was a fifty-year-old widow of an ancient French sea captain up at Sarasota Bay, thirty miles to the north. Though she was nice enough, Maria and I doubted her long term compatibility with Sean’s somewhat whimsical sailor personality.

  Like many women I’ve known, Maria is a shrewd judge of character. She was convinced Minnie wanted Rork because he had an income, and real love had little, if anything, to do with it. Nonetheless, we supported the idea when the two became engaged two weeks earlier, mainly because of Rork’s enthusiasm when he announced their decision. The Baptist wedding, a major concession for the born and raised Irish Catholic Sean Aloysius Rork, was planned for August, when the circuit preacher would come back through the islands.

  A slightly slurred Gaelic lilt came across the shadows to us from Fiddler’s Green.

  “Ooohee, Peter, me boyo. God’s a happy one in Heaven tonight, an’ puttin’ on a grand show for us mere mortals, now ain’t he though?”

  I snuggled closer to Maria and called back, “That he is, Sean. That he is.”

  “Aye, an’ here’s a wee toast to the likes o’ us, all me friends, for in the morn we must face them that have no love in their souls, no music in their heads, an’ no humor in their hearts.”

  It was an old Irish lament, usually uttered when intoxicated, and directed toward the English overlords in Sean’s homeland of County Wexford, Ireland, from which he escaped to sea as a ship’s boy. Rork was directing it then toward the leadership in Washington, a cold Calvinistic New England and Ohio bunch who lacked the essential qualities he thought necessary for a fulfilling life. I completely agreed with him.

  Maria and I had left our place in Alexandria two days after I got to Washington. My orders from the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation were simple: effective immediately I was on annual leave. But it wasn’t the eight weeks I was due by the department, ending on May eighth. Instead, it was ending in six weeks, on April twenty-first, when I reported to my new office in Room 209 of the State, War, and Navy Building, right next to the presidential mansion. The bureau chief was conveniently absent the day I received my orders, but the personnel officers promised me the two other weeks of leave could be used “sometime during the year,” depending on the new assistant secretary of the navy’s authorization.

  With that bit of bad news, Maria and I rode the train for two days, to the end of the line at Punta Gorda, Florida. Along the way, she informed me of other news which distressed her. Her twenty-two-year-old son, Juanito, a minor functionary inside the ministry of the overseas colonies at Madrid, had written her yet another letter which included anti-American rhetoric. He and his older brother Francisco, a Franciscan priest stationed in Havana, had vehemently opposed our marriage, the youngest for nationalistic reasons and the oldest for religious reasons. It was a constant source of anguish for Maria. There was nothing I could do about it but listen sympathetically to her fears of never seeing them again and never knowing her grandchildren.

  From Punta Gorda, we took passage in the little fish company steamer which dropped us off at Patricio Island on its way to Punta Rassa. Sean Rork arrived on the island a week later, a breath of irrepressible gaiety which always cheered Maria up.

  When old man Whidden had died years earlier, Black Tom Moore had taken over as caretaker for the island. Black Tom was a former slave from up the coast at Gamble Plantation. His own best guess as to his age was somewhere in his seventies, but he had the constitution of a forty-year-old. With his mahogany skin, iron strong muscles, incredible skill at fishing, and an infectious laugh, he was a natural foil for Rork’s mischievous mind. Though a devoted Methodist Episcopalian who became literate by learning the Bible, Tom is good-natured toward our drinking, finding our path to perdition somewhat amusing. It wasn’t always that way, but over the previous four years, Rork had eventually worn down Tom’s initial disdain.

  Spring is a wonderful time of year in our islands, and the stay at Patricio was therapeutic for both mind and body. The main occupations of the day were farming the island’s many fruits and vegetables, a pastime Maria loved; fishing the abundant waters around us, Tom’s specialty; and repairing the island’s boat, the job of Rork and me. On this visit, our thirty-foot sloop, Nancy Ann, needed recaulking in her hull, and restitching on her mainsail—chores second nature for navy men.

  Evenings always begin on the west verandah of Serenity Bungalow. Everyone gathers for sunset and the traditional sounding of the conch shell, accompanied by a toss of Matusalem rum, as a salute to God’s incredible array of bay and islands below a pastel painted sky. Responding conchs from other islands report “All’s well here,” and while the sunset’s afterglow dims, we sit down to dinner. Though Tom guards his rights as chief cook, Maria is always allowed to use the galley to prepare special Andalusian dinners, a cuisine I’d fallen in love with twenty-five years earlier when on a mission in Spain.

  But now, the inevitable final night on the island had arrived with a gloriously jasmine-scented breeze under the benevolent moon. I held Maria tighter, memorizing everything about the scene: the faint lavender smell of her hair, her captivating eyes, the smooth feel of her skin, the swish of the trees, the lingering taste of mango and paella, and our tranquil mood.

  Rork’s lament was only too right. He, Maria, and I were returning to a place and people far different from our island refuge.

  9

  Back into the Fray

  Navy Library & Reception Room

  Room 474—State, War, & Navy Building

  Washington D.C.

  Friday evening

  23 April 1897

  Maria had never seen the Navy Library and Reception Room—officially designated by the government as “Room 474.” It is a beautiful place, as it should be, for it is the most expensively appointed room in the entire building.

  The library is a two-story-high room, open aired and surrounded by a mezzanine deck, the walls of which are lined with bookcases. Large chart tables usually arranged in rows on the lower floor were removed for the reception to officially greet the new cabinet appointees, Secretary Long and Assistant Secretary Roosevelt, and their staffs.

  The effect of the room is palatial, grandly decorated from floor to walls to ceiling in the ornate French style of moldings and buttresses. Nautical imagery is embedded everywhere. Sea shells lie over the Italian and French marble wall panels. Seahorses and dolphins play in the cast-iron railing of the mezzanine balcony. Neptune’s trident helps hold up each pillar capital. Stars for navigation are sprinkled across the ceiling, and there is a compass rose in the center of the azure blue English Minton tiled floor, just in case anyone needs to know what direction is east.

  The Washington Navy Yard provided a small band, which played in the background. The Marine Barracks marched over a guard of honor to st
and watch and look magnificent for the ladies. Someone had arranged a delectable display of hors d’oeuvres. It was all rather well done, as only official Washington can.

  The affair wasn’t exclusively for the navy. The president lived two hundred feet to the east, so he and his wife came plus other cabinet officers, their wives, and their staffs. Along with everyone else, the senior generals of the army trooped in from the War Department in the north wing of the building. For some reason, even foreign ambassadors with their military and naval attachés showed up. Naturally, the leadership of Congress couldn’t be ignored, since budget hearings were about to begin, thus they arrived to add their contribution to the already heated air. And, of course, the senior officers of the navy made a point of being noted in attendance. All in all, it was an amazing collection of pompous, shallow-minded, and thoroughly boring men, accompanied by their equally dreary wives.

  The line to pay respects to the three honorees, President McKinley, Secretary Long, and Assistant Secretary Roosevelt, was very long. Fortunately, as a relatively senior officer in a truly senior post, I no longer was at the tail end of the line, which was somewhere out on 17th Street. After thirty-four years’ service to the navy, eleven separate wounds from enemies around the world, and elevation to the rank of full captain, I had finally made it to the middle of the damned line.

  There was one bright spot in all of this, however—my wife was beside me. While I chafed miserably inside the stifling high collar of a full mess dress uniform, complete with a row of bangles and baubles dangling from my chest, Maria was stunningly beautiful and serene.

  She favors a muted, comfortable appearance, but for this occasion she was decked out in a green satin dress with black lace trim. Her raven black hair was done up in a loose wavy sort of twist. Her hypnotic eyes were accented by unique jewelry: a carnelian onyx and emerald necklace, with matching earrings and bracelet, all filigreed in an ornate Moorish-motif. At least four hundred years old, these family heirlooms were from the Muslim-Jewish era of the Iberian Peninsula. The entire effect garnered admiring glances from men and women alike.