The Fall of a Nation

CHAPTER XXIV

THE sun rose on a day never to be forgotten by the people of Long Island. Refugees were pouring along every road from the city. A wild rumor of the bombardment of New York had spread and they were determined to get behind General Hood’s thin line of half-armed defenders. They were still imbued with a blind faith that somewhere our mighty nation had an army of adequate defense.

Virginia Holland had reached home by automobile to find her father’s house turned into a recruiting camp. Old soldiers of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Confederate veterans of New York and Brooklyn, were out in their faded uniforms demanding guns with which to defend the flag.

Holland received them in his house and began to drill on the lawn. Virginia with sinking heart hurried to serve refreshments to the mob of excited men. Marya and Zonia joined with enthusiasm.

Benda was there awaiting Vassar’s arrival with a squad of his friends for whom he had procured uniforms and a few guns. He was drilling them in his earnest, awkward way when Angela suddenly appeared in the line of refugees from New York.

He rushed to stop her:

“Ah, my Angela, you here! And I told you stay home!”

Angela tossed her head with contempt for his fears.

“I come with you – ”

“Go back – back – I say!”

Angela merely laughed and resumed her march with the refugees. If they could live she could.

Tommaso threw up his hands in despair and returned to his drill.

At noon Vassar approached at the head of a division of raw troops. The road was lined with cheering people. He halted his men at the gate, dismounted and entered the Holland lawn, hoping against hope for a word with Virginia. He watched for a moment old Holland at the pathetic task of drilling his blue and gray veterans.

“It won’t do, Mr. Holland,” he said with a smile. “Your fighting is done – ”

“Nonsense!” Holland protested. “I’ll show you – ”

He put his line of veterans through the manual of arms and one of them fainted.

Vassar slipped his arm about him tenderly.

“It’s no use. I need your guns. Give them to me – ”

Tommaso marched in and took the half-dozen guns against the bitter protests of the old men.

They gathered at the gate and cheered and cried as the boys answered the assembly call.

Vassar met Virginia and extended his hand in silence. She turned away fighting for self-control. Her heart was too sore in its consciousness of tragedy for surrender yet. His tall figure straightened, he turned and hurried to his men.

It was not until she saw him riding bravely toward the enemy to the certain doom that awaited our men that she lifted her hands in a vain effort to recall him and sob her repentance in his arms.

CHAPTER XXV

IN vain officers tried to stem the torrent of humanity that poured out in the wake of the volunteers. The wildest rumors had deprived them of all reason. They had heard that the city would be shelled by the foreign fleet within six hours and reduced to ashes. It was reported that the enemy’s giant submarines had already passed the forts at Sandy Hook and the Narrows and were now taking their places around the city in the North and East Rivers. The guns of these dreadnaught submarines threw five-inch shells and New York was already at their mercy.

It was useless to argue with these terror-stricken people. They merely stared in dumb misery and trudged on, mothers leading children, dirty, bedraggled, footsore and hungry – little boys and girls carrying their toys and pets – the old, the young, scrambling, crowding, hurrying they knew not where for safety.

Vassar arrived at General Hood’s headquarters in time to witness the clash of our squadron with the advance fleet of the enemy.

The battle was not more than five miles at sea in plain view of the shore.

He watched the struggle in dumb misery.

It was magnificent. But it was not war. He felt this from the moment he saw our five ships with their little flotilla of torpedo boats and submarines head for the giant armada that moved toward them with the swift, unerring sweep of Fate.

Our great red, white and blue battle flags suddenly fluttered in the azure skies as the Pennsylvania’s forward turret spit a white cloud of smoke. A long silence, ominous and tense followed and the sand dunes shivered with the roar of her mighty guns.

The big cruiser leading the van of the advancing foe answered with two white balls of smoke and Vassar saw the geysers rise from their exploding shells five hundred yards short of our ship.

From out of the distant sky above the armada emerged a flock of gray gulls – tiny specks at first, they gradually spread until their steel wings swept a space five miles in width. The hydroplanes of the enemy had risen from the sea and were coming to meet our brave airmen with their pitiful little fleet of biplanes.

Higher and higher our boys climbed till but tiny specks in the sky. The great gray fleet of the hostile gulls began to circle after them.

The guns of our battleship were roaring their defiance now in salvos that shook the earth. The imperial armada, with twenty magnificent dreadnaughts, advanced to meet them with every gun thundering.

“O my God!” Vassar groaned. “To think our people closed their eyes and refused to see this day!”

Had his bill for national defense become a law our navy would have ranked second, if not first, in the world. It would not have been necessary to shift it from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We could have commanded both oceans. It would be too late when our main fleet returned by the Straits of Magellan.

Our ships were putting up a magnificent fight. One of them had been struck and was evidently crippled, but her big guns were still roaring, her huge battle flags streaming in the wind.

Vassar lowered his glasses and turned to General Hood.

“They’re going to die game!”

The General answered with his binoculars gripped tight, gazing seaward. “They’re gamecocks all right – but I’m just holding my breath now. You notice the enemy does not advance?”

“Yes, by George, they’re afraid! There’s not a dreadnaught among them that can match the guns of our flagship!”

“Nonsense,” Hood answered evenly, “they’ve slowed down for another reason. Unless I’m mistaken they’ve led our squadron into a school of submarines – ”

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before a huge column of water and smoke leaped into the heavens beside the flagship, her big hull heeled on her beam’s end and she hung in the air a helpless, quivering mass of twisted steel slowly sinking.

“They’ve got her!” Vassar groaned.

Before the Pennsylvania had disappeared her three sister ships had been torpedoed. They were slowly sinking, the calm waters black with our drowning men.

The sea was literally alive with submarines. The conning towers of dozens could be seen circling the doomed ships.

The Oklahoma had been disabled by shell fire before the submarines appeared. She was running full steam now for the beach, with a dozen submarines closing in on her. The white streak of foam left by their upper decks could be distinctly seen from the shore. Utterly reckless of any danger from the after guns of the dying dreadnaught they were racing for the honor of launching the torpedo that would send her to the bottom.

Her after guns roared and two submarines were smashed. Their white line of foam ended in a widening mirror of oil on the dark surface of the sea.

At almost the same moment a torpedo found her bow and sent the huge prow into the air. She dropped and her stern lifted, the propellers still spinning. Two swift submarines making twenty-two knots an hour had circled her on both sides and brought their torpedoes to bear on her bow at the same moment. Her battle flag was flying as she sank headforemost to her grave.

The wind suddenly shifted and the men who watched with beating hearts heard the stirring strains of “The Star Spangled Banner” floating across the waters from her slippery decks. Weird and thrilling were its notes mingling with the soft wash of the surf at low tide. The music was unearthly. Its strains came from the deep places of eternity.

Instinctively both men lowered their glasses and stood with uncovered heads until the music died away and only the dark blue bodies of our boys were seen where a mighty ship had gone down.

“We’ve but one life to give!” Hood exclaimed. “It’s a pity we haven’t the tools now to make that life count for more!”

The little torpedo boat flotilla closed in and dashed headlong for the submarines. To the surprise of the watchers not one of the undersea craft dived or yielded an inch. Their five-inch disappearing guns leaped from the level of the water and answered our destroyers gun for gun. Their decks were awash with the sea and armored so heavily that little danger could be done by our shells.

The battle of the sharks was over in thirty minutes. Not a single destroyer escaped. They had dashed headlong into a field of more than a hundred dreadnaught submarines. One by one our destroyers broke in pieces and sank to rise no more.

A few dark blue blots on the smooth waters could be seen – all we had left afloat – and they were sinking one by one without a hand being lifted to their rescue.

The imperial armada was mistress of the seas. The great ships moved majestically in and prepared to shell the shores to clear the way for their landing.

CHAPTER XXVI

SO intense and spectacular had been the battle of the fleets that neither Vassar nor his superior officer had lifted their eyes to the dim struggle of the skies. The birdmen had climbed to such heights they were no larger to the eye than a flock of circling pigeons. The tragedies of this battle were no less grim and desperate. Two of these daring defenders of our shores had been ordered to stay out of the fight and report to General Hood if the fleet should be sunk.

They saw one of these couriers descending in swift, graceful circles. He landed on the sand dunes, sprang from his seat and saluted the General.

“Well, sir?” General Hood cried.

The birdman was a smiling young giant with blond hair and fine blue eyes. They were sparkling with pride.

“It was some fight, General – believe me! Our fellows covered themselves with glory – that’s all! I nearly died of heart failure because I couldn’t go in with ’em.”

“How many escaped?”

“I didn’t see any of the boys try to get away, sir – ”

“They all fell?”

“Oh, yes sir, of course, they all fell – but, take it from me, they gave those fellows merry hell before they did – ”

He paused and mopped his brow.

“My, but it’s hot down here!” he complained. “They looked like fierce eagles up there and every time they made a dash at an enemy their claws brought blood. Honest to God, General, I saw one of our big biplanes smash six taubes and send them swirling into the sea before they got him. They were as thick after him as bees too. He’d climb up and then dip for them with a devilish swoop – his machine gun playing a devil’s tattoo on the fellow below. Six times he got his man, and then I saw them close in on him – not two to one or ten to one – it was twenty to one! He didn’t have a chance. It was a crime. If our fellows had just had half as many machines, they’d have won hands down. There were only nine of them in the fight against fifty of the enemy – ”

“How many of the enemy all told did they account for?” Hood asked sharply.

“God knows – I couldn’t take it all in. But I saw fifteen of them go down. There wasn’t one of our men that failed to score. They fought like devils. I never saw such skill. I never saw such daring. I’m proud I’m a citizen of this Republic. We gave the world the aeroplane and we’re going to show them how to use it before we get through!”

The General scribbled an order and handed it to the birdman.

“Take that to the commander at Fort Hamilton, and report to me at Patchogue, my new headquarters.”

The birdman touched his goggled cap, his assistant started the engines and in a minute the great bird was swinging into the sky. With two graceful circles mounting steadily she straightened her course for the Narrows and Vassar turned to the General.

“You will retreat to Patchogue?”

“There’s no other course possible. We can’t fight the guns of those ships. They can land at their leisure. My hope is that they will be delayed by the weather. God may help us a little if Congress wouldn’t.”

“You want time to intrench?”

“Yes and get our artillery in position. If we can’t get some big guns in place to meet theirs – it’s no use. I’ve asked the forts to send me two battalions of coast artillery organized for the field. We’ll get a battalion of artillery from Virginia by boat tomorrow. Our men are coming as fast as they can get here over hundreds and thousands of miles, with our railroads blocked If the weather delays this landing until we can mass two hundred guns against their four hundred we may make a stand by digging in. I’ll have my mob underground by tomorrow night in some sort of fashion. If they give me a week – it may take some time to smoke me out – ”

“It’s breezing up!” Vassar interrupted excitedly.

“And it’s from the right point too, thank God,” the General responded. “I could have shouted when I heard the first strains of that band floating in from sea.”

Already the sea was roaring with a new angry note. The barometers on the armada had given the signal too. The mighty fleet was standing far out to sea now awaiting a more favorable moment to spring on the land that lay at the mercy of their great guns.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE General hastened to give orders for the retirement. By noon the next day his battleline stretched from Patchogue through Holtsville to Port Jefferson and a hundred thousand men were wielding pick and shovel with savage determination. There was one thing these men didn’t lack whatever was missing in their equipment. They hadn’t enough guns. They had no uniforms – save on the handful of regulars sprinkled among them. They hadn’t much ammunition. They did have courage. They were there to do and die.

For three days the wind blew a steady gale from the southwest and piled the white foaming breakers high on the sand dunes.

Through the pounding surf the sea lifted our bloated dead until they lay in grim blue heaps on the white sands at low tide. General Hood despatched Vassar to see that they were buried. He piled them in big trenches one on top of the other.

The wind died to a gentle caress as Vassar stood and watched them dumped into unmarked trenches – brave boys whose lives we could have saved with a few paltry millions spent in preparation.

His thoughts were bitter.

Had we been prepared no nation on earth had dared attack us. Our fighting force in men would fill an army of 16,000,000. Our strength in money was greater than Continental Europe combined. We had the men. We had the money. We were just not ready – that was all. We could have whipped combined Europe had we been prepared, and combined Europe, knowing this, would have courted our favor with bows and smiles.

The thin line of the new moon broke through the soft fleece of clouds and the stars came out in countless thousands. The lights were playing far out at sea too, the big searchlights of the scouts and battle cruisers. They flashed on the grave diggers now, held steady for a moment and swung in search of guns. They were not interested in the dead.

Vassar’s heart went out in a throb of pity as he watched the scene – pity for the men whom a mighty nation had murdered for nothing – pity for the well-meaning but foolish men and women whose childish theories of peace had made this stupendous crime possible.

He thought too with the keenest pang of the anguish that would come to the heart of the woman he loved when the magnitude of this betrayal of a nation crushed her soul. Men like Barker and Pike would continue their parrot talk perhaps until Death called them. The heart of Virginia Holland would be crushed by this appalling tragedy. If he could only take her in his arms and whisper his love!

At dawn next morning Vassar stayed to watch from the hills the landing of the armada. They had scorned to waste a shot from their big guns to cover the landing. It was unnecessary. Their airmen had reconnoitered and reported the defending army miles away hastily digging their trenches.

“Good!” the imperial commander replied on receiving this report. “The bigger and longer their trenches, the bigger the battle. What we want is one fight and that settles it.”

Through four days the landing proceeded with marvelous precision, each man at his post. The whole great movement went forward without a hitch with scarcely an accident to mar its almost festive character.

Twenty-five huge transports lay in the offing discharging their thousands of troops from barges and lighters. The men swarmed on the sands like locusts. Nothing had been left to chance. Nothing had been forgotten. They had cavalry in thousands – huge artillery that covered acres. Fifty magnificent horses were hitched to a single gun of the largest type. Their food supplies were apparently exhaustless. Each regiment had its moving kitchens, its laundry wagons, its bakery.

The signal corps were already stringing their wires. A wireless plant had been in communication with the commander on the flagship since the work of landing began.

When the last ship had discharged her cargo, it was known that four full army corps, each with complete equipment of cavalry, artillery and machine guns, had been landed and that this first division of the invading host consisted of not less than one hundred and sixty thousand officers and men – every one of whom spoke good English as well as his native tongue.

The news spread with lightning rapidity through the army of defense and on past their lines into the terror-stricken city. The thousands of half-mad refugees who had fled to the country began now to turn again toward New York. They had slept in the fields and woods for more than a week. Their condition was pitiful and their suffering a source of constant worry to the officers.

On the day that the invaders began their march from the beach to form on the turnpike for their final sweep against the trenches, Hood had massed from all sources two hundred pieces of artillery to defend his trenches against more than five hundred of the enemy. What the range and caliber of these hostile guns might be he could only guess. He knew one thing with painful certainty – whatever their range and caliber might be they were manned by veteran artillerymen who had fought them for years under the hideous conditions of modern war. Not a man in his army had ever been under the fire of modern artillery. That his gunners would give a good account of themselves, however, he had not the slightest doubt.

The rub would come when they began to fall. Trained men to take their places were not to be had. If it should come to cold steel, he could trust the raw volunteers in his trenches to defend their homes against a horde of devils. The trouble was but a handful of his men were equipped with bayonets.

He had just inspected his lines and given his final instructions to his brigade commanders when an extraordinary procession marched into his lines from Brooklyn, headed by the Honorable Plato Barker and the Reverend Dr. A. Cuthbert Pike, still president of the Peace Union.

The General refused to see or speak to them. Pike sought Vassar and begged him as an old political associate of Barker’s to secure ten minutes’ interview.

“I assure you, Congressman,” Pike insisted in his nervous fidgety way, “that Barker may be able to open negotiations with the invaders if you will let us through the lines!”

Vassar sought for ten minutes to dissuade Pike from his purpose. His faith was unshaken – in sheer asinine fatuity it was sublime. It was so ridiculous that the young leader decided that the best thing that could happen to the country was to get both Barker and Pike inside the enemy’s lines.

Barker had not been able to reach New York for the Peace Jubilee. He had regarded this great work of his career complete – crowned with glorious success. He had passed on to greater things. So remarkable had been his triumph in the Parliament of Man, so complete the vindication of his theories of arbitration and moral suasion as a substitute for war, that he had been able to raise the price of his Chautauqua lecture fees to five hundred dollars guarantee and one-third the gate receipts.

When the tragic crash came which threatened at one stroke to dislocate his process of reasoning and destroy his lecture bookings at the same moment, he was at the little town of Winona, Indiana, lecturing to five thousand enraptured Chautauqua peace enthusiasts. He had just finished counting the gate receipts, twenty-five hundred dollars on the day. His share was five hundred dollars and the half of the remaining thousand, making fifteen hundred dollars – the largest fee ever received by a lecturer in the history of the country.

With a regretful look at their pile, he was congratulating the management on having so much left over after he had been paid, when the astounding message was read announcing the insurrection of two hundred thousand armed foreigners, their capture of the President, his Cabinet, the Capitol and the fall of the cities.

The great man laughed.

“It’s a huge hoax, my friends!” he shouted in soothing tones. “A wag is putting up a joke on me – that’s all. I’m an old timer. I take these things as they come – don’t worry.”

His soothing words quieted the crowd for an hour until the second message arrived announcing the surrender of Chicago, and St. Louis to the same mysterious power and announcing that the landing from a great armada of the hostile army was hourly expected at New York.

The silver-tongued orator at once took up his burden and hastened East to meet the coming foe.

He lifted his hand in solemn invocation over the vast throng of panic-stricken hearers as he took his departure.

“Be of good cheer, my friends!” he cried. “I have always held the high faith that if we appeal to the heart of the misguided foe who invades our soil we can make him a good American. I, for one, will set my life on the issue. I will go as your ambassador to this foe. He is a man of the same hopes and faith even as you and I. Touched by the same divine influences that have lifted us from the barbarism of war we can save him also!

“Have no fear – this is all senseless panic. Personally I do not believe this wild canard of a foreign invasion. Our cities may be the victims of a wide conspiracy of dissatisfied Socialists and Anarchists – but a foreign foe – bah! I go to meet him with faith serene!”

Pike related the story of this scene with a hush of awe in his voice as if he had seen a vision of the living God and the sight had stricken him partly dumb.

Vassar appealed finally to the General to give them a pass through the lines.

“Tell those two windbags to go through my lines if they wish – I don’t give a damn where they go,” Hood snapped. “I only hope and pray that a friendly bayonet lets the air out of them so that we shall never hear them again. I won’t see them. I won’t speak to them. I won’t give them a scrap of paper. If they dare to pass with any fool proposition of their disordered brains, it’s their affair – not mine. Tell them to get out of this camp quick – I don’t care which way they go.”

At Pike’s solicitation Vassar escorted Barker through the lines and watched the pair disappear arm in arm down the turnpike toward Southampton.

They walked five miles before they found a conveyance. They tried to hire a rig from a farmer. He refused to move at any price – even after Barker explained who he was and the tremendous import of his mission.

Through much dickering they succeeded in buying of him an old horse that had been turned out to graze. The Long Islander drove a hard bargain. After loud protests, and finally denunciation for his lack of patriotism, Barker counted out two hundred and fifty dollars of his last lecture fee. He still carried the fifteen hundred dollars in cash in his inside pocket.

They tried in vain to find another horse. For this one they had no saddle. As Barker was getting stout, and puffed painfully at the hills, little Pike insisted that he ride.