Just Tell Me That and We're Done?
“Recruit Number Five.”
“Yeah? What the hell do you want?”
The neighbor-gang punk spat on the ground, face twisted with disgust as he glared at me. The men he’d brought along—and even the Marginals except for Gavin and Corey—wore the same look: Let’s see what this guy’s really made of.
The atmosphere was ripe.
I picked up one of the long wooden stakes I’d set aside nearby. The punk flinched and took a half-step back.
“W-what’s that for?”
I tossed the stake to him and grabbed another for myself.
“From this moment, Recruit Number Five will attack me as if I were a German soldier.”
“······.”
“The weapons and the setting aren’t the real thing, but what matters is the attitude you bring into a fight.”
The fear, the rush, the brain-numbing impulse that hit you when bullets were flying—
“You need to taste even a little of it. But odds are a punk like you would die on a real battlefield without ever firing a shot. Why? Because you’d be bawling like a baby, calling for your mama.”
“You crazy bastard···.”
“Today you can scream for your mama all you want and still walk away alive. So go ahead—yell your lungs out.”
He couldn’t swallow the provocation. Fingers clenched around the stake in the same grip he’d use in a street scrap between gangs.
“In combat the Germans come at you with a Gewehr 98 rifle, bayonet fixed—the Seitengewehr.”
I spread my feet a little, gripped the stake like a rifle, held it slanted, and pointed the tip at him.
“Imagine a bayonet on the end of that stake—about a handspan longer than this. When a big baby like you tries to thrust—”
“Shut your damn mouth!”
He lost it and charged.
The stake came whistling down from high overhead. I stepped back with one foot and lunged forward at the same time, driving my own stake straight out with both hands.
The tip punched dead-center into his throat.
“Ghk!”
Shoulder, chest, belly—three more thrusts and the stake flew from his hands. I closed in, slammed a shoulder into him, and dumped him on the dirt. Boot planted on his chest, I stabbed again and again.
“A German who’s just lost a comrade doesn’t stop at one! Stab, stab again, keep going until the whole body is a bloody sieve! You son of a bitch! You dare kill my buddy!?”
“Aagh! S-spare me!”
Every time the wood connected I felt the solid jolt of impact. It had been far too long.
The watching men stood slack-jawed, too stunned to speak. When I raised the stake high to smash it down on his face they sucked in sharp breaths of pure horror.
Thwack!
The tip grazed his cheek and slammed into the ground beside his head. Eyes squeezed shut, he cautiously peeled one eyelid open.
I steadied my breathing and went on.
“In actual trench fighting a clean one-on-one like this almost never happens. Somebody’s always thrusting from the left, the right, the front, the back. Truth is, surviving a bayonet scrap is pure luck—one hundred percent.”
“······.”
“But if you try to run? Your own officer puts a bullet in the back of your skull. So rather than freeze up and die for nothing, this instructor wants you to become real soldiers who kill at least one more before you go. That’s why we’re doing this drill.”
I hauled Recruit Number Five to his feet. His face was untouched, still intact. He’d have some bruises, but that was nothing.
“Recruit Number Five.”
“······ Fuck.”
“Pick up the stake again. Execute.”
“!”
He shook his head, trembling.
“Recruit Number Five.”
“Uh.”
“The answer is ‘Yes, sir.’”
“······ Fuck··· sir.”
“Again.”
“······ Yes, sir.”
“Return to your position.”
Thanks to Number Five’s sacrifice the mood turned serious. The defiant stares were gone; every eye locked on my mouth alone.
Before diving into full training I laid out what I knew of the Great War’s battlefields.
“Once you’re committed to combat you move exactly as your superiors order. Individual fighting skill barely matters.”
Even a seasoned veteran struggles to survive a suicidal charge or some bone-headed tactic.
“This instructor believes the greatest change in this war is trench warfare. So you need to understand the trenches—because one of them might become your grave.”
You dig the earth, build a position, hide inside it, then fix bayonets and charge like madmen when the whistle blows. I described the layout of a trench and how the killing actually unfolded.
Someone finally couldn’t stand the lecture.
“When do we learn marksmanship?”
“Recruit Number Three.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Honestly, unless you’re a sniper, knowing how to load a magazine and pull the trigger is enough.”
Therefore the real goal of the training was this:
“Physical endurance to last on the field, the right mindset, hygiene—and raising your odds of surviving a bayonet scrap by even one single percent. That’s what we hammer into your bodies.”
Besides, crowded Manhattan had nowhere decent to practice shooting, and we had no rifles. My own conviction was that in the Great War survival hinged far less on marksmanship than on other factors.
First you had to avoid incompetent officers, avoid the clever but vicious German officers, and—above all—avoid being thrown into the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the bloodiest meat grinder of the entire war that chewed up a million and a quarter Allied troops.
Yes. In the end everything came down to luck.
“The hopeful part is that you may only see combat for a short time before the whole war ends.”
“W-what makes you say that?”
I’d tell them after every phase of training was finished. For now we started with pure physical conditioning.
“To raise your baseline fitness we will now conduct a run.”
July 7th. Red campaign hat pulled low, scarf wrapping my face, I led the recruits out of the vacant lot and along the East River. After two kilometers of double-time I taught them PT calisthenics while they still gasped for air.
Day one only: Exercise One—the high jump; Exercise Two—touch the toes; Exercise Three—raise the hips.
“I guarantee that after a few days of this you’ll feel your body change. If you can’t take it, don’t bother showing up tomorrow.”
Three hours later I asked Gavin,
“How many do you think will come back tomorrow?”
“······ Well, I won’t.”
“Recruit Number Six, have you lost your mind?”
“Kidding. We’ll see tomorrow. You saw their faces.”
They all left with jaws clenched tight. How many of them would actually return?
“By the way, Tanner’s been quiet about the dock-union strikes lately.”
“They settled with the companies. Not everything they wanted, but the firms agreed to a raise.”
The logistics outfits that had held out so long changed their tune the moment the draft lottery hit. Over a million young men of prime working age were about to be yanked off to war. Filling that hole was hard enough; letting a strike continue on top of it was suicide. The federal government already had a second round of conscription planned.
“So Boss Tanner’s got free time these days. That’s why he opened the saloon on Coney Island. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious for news.”
What today’s session had drilled into me was the need for a proper training ground. And that meant money.
Before the Spanish flu hit I needed to get out of the crowded tenement houses, and bigger businesses required capital too.
After training I returned to the underground lingerie workshop beneath the tenement. Mother had the workers gathered around her, demonstrating the sewing for a brand-new product. Piles of glittering metal sat on the sewing machines—hooks for brassieres.
Until now they’d turned out mediocre drawers that couldn’t compete. At last her company would have a product of its own.
On the other hand, the road from selling brassieres to pure profit landing in my pocket was still endless. Patents on the other inventions would take time to convert into cash as well. Up till now, whenever something was stolen from me I simply stole more to make up the difference. Sadly, nobody was stealing from me these days.
The thought that I was actually wishing for thieves made me snort with laughter. Yet every method that sprang to mind for making money was illegal.
This was getting dangerous.
The next day, at the scheduled hour and place for Day Two, five men stood waiting. I tugged the red campaign hat lower and looked them over.
“Honestly I expected nothing. Only two dropouts—this instructor can barely contain his joy.”
“······.”
The real surprise was Recruit Number Five. Resentment still painted his face, and when I moved to clap him on the shoulder he recoiled as if from a snake, but he was here.
“This instructor’s heart has never burned hotter. We’ll carry that fire into the run. Form two columns—fall in!”
With only five of them the movement looked sharper than yesterday.
“Since the instructor is in a generous mood, today we go all the way to Exercise Seven.”
— He’s a real goddamn lunatic.
— Shh.
“Who just spoke?”
Silence.
“All right. Continuing from yesterday, Exercise Four—the squat thrust. I demonstrate once only.”
Three more hours later, as we broke up, Gavin passed along Tanner’s message.
“Five this afternoon. Plymouth Street in Brooklyn. Can you make it?”
I nodded and took the scrap of paper with the exact location. The link between Gavin and Tanner in Brooklyn was the telephone. Sets had begun spreading; Manhattan and Brooklyn already had solid exchange networks.
A telephone instrument itself ran about fifteen dollars; service was another eight a month. Expensive enough that only businesses and the upper crust owned one. Public booths stood in hotel lobbies, post offices, train stations, and piers—drop a nickel and you got three minutes. The operator made the connection; if you ran over you got a recorded demand for more coins. Not long ago a paper had reported that a three-minute call from New York to San Francisco cost $20.70.
Anyway, the rates were high and wiretaps always a risk, so sensitive talk still required a face-to-face meeting. I myself had never used a telephone, never even touched one.
A short walk from home to Canal Street, then the streetcar across the Manhattan Bridge, and I was in Brooklyn in roughly thirty minutes. Northward from the stop until the red-brick church came into view.
Plymouth Church. The same pulpit where Henry Ward Beecher had once shipped crates of Sharp’s rifles—labeled “Bibles”—to Kansas for the free-soil fighters.
That Tanner would choose such a historic spot meant—
“Zero meaning. I was gonna meet in a restaurant, but that would’ve drawn more eyes.”
“The church is quiet.”
“Exactly why I picked it. Anyway—two days ago Meehan walked into my saloon himself.”
Meehan meant Dini Meehan, boss of the White Hand Gang. Exactly as expected, Knox’s sudden appearance had pointed him straight at Tanner Smith.
“First words out of his mouth were ‘Where’s Knox?’ I told him the guy was just a customer who liked the place.”
“He buy it?”
“Hell no. He’s nobody’s fool. I’ve seen him before, but he’s even sharper now.”
Cruel, merciless, cunning, a calculating strategist. And one particular incident had vaulted Dini Meehan’s reputation into the stratosphere.
Years earlier, the day his own sentencing was due, Brooklyn police flooded the courthouse with reserves, terrified of a riot if he was convicted. The judge stunned them all by walking him free. That single moment let Meehan forge the White Hand into the strongest Irish outfit in Brooklyn.
“He’s almost certain you and I aren’t just casual customers. I didn’t care. I casually dropped the Harvard man’s name and floated the idea that I wanted a saloon of that size.”
Dini Meehan had countered with a deal of his own.
“A few days ago a shipment of war matériel bound for Europe vanished from the Navy Yard. Warehouse cleaned out.”
It wasn’t the first time. Ever since the war started, munitions headed for Europe through Brooklyn had a bad habit of disappearing. Gangs, of course—and the White Hand had taken its share. But this latest job had been pulled by somebody else: the Italian Navy Street crew.
Stolen army goods usually fed the domestic black market or got sold overseas. Either way, the Italians were sitting on the haul right now, and Dini Meehan had learned exactly where.
“If you know the location, why not just hit it yourselves?”
“Get spotted and it’s all-out war. Every Neapolitan in the borough would link arms and come after the White Hand.”
So Meehan had dreamed up a way to pick his own nose with someone else’s finger. Knox—the same Knox who’d recently wiped out a pack of Italians on the docks—would do the dirty work.
“He wants to use you to snatch the goods.”
“And then double-cross us? That’s a dead end.”
“I figured the same. That’s why he handed me the warehouse address first. Yesterday afternoon I watched the Italians guarding it with my own eyes.”
They’d also agreed that the raiding party would be half White Hand, half Marginals.
“That’s even worse, Tanner. They wait till the trucks are loaded, then knife us. All that’ll be left are Marginals corpses.”
“······ That’s exactly what’s eating at me. You know what kind of animal Dini Meehan is. The whole reason I wanted to see you today is to talk it through.”
Trust between them was thinner than a hair. Tanner could have simply refused—yet the prize if it worked was too sweet to ignore.
“Half the munitions plus full backing to open the Coney Island saloon. That’s the offer.”
“Half—what’s the estimated value?”
“I checked the stolen inventory list: rifles, ammunition, explosives. Quantity-wise we’re looking at tens of thousands of dollars minimum. Honestly, I need the cash for the saloon myself.”
The reward was too juicy to walk away from. After a short silence I said,
“If you’ve got a gun, hand it over. Let’s go look at the place.”
Tanner grinned, pulled a pistol from his bag, and passed it across. Bringing me to Brooklyn in person had always been meant to show me the warehouse.
A Colt M1911—flooded the market right after the war, common as dirt. Every pistol seemed to be one of these.
Click.
I dropped the magazine, counted the seven rounds, then slapped it home.
“You handle that thing like you were born with it. Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Spare me the flattery. Let’s move.”
Tanner led the way to a stable outside the church and pressed the reins of a sleek brown horse into my hand. I froze, then slid my eyes sideways to him.
“No car?”
“Where the hell would I get car money? Climb on.”
“······.”
“Wait—you can’t ride?”
His cheeks puffed out, ready to laugh. I swung into the saddle before he could.
In my past life as a merc I’d ridden horses now and then in the Middle East. One of the guys who used to mock me for it was a friend named Jo Yu-gang—died of a heart attack while sightseeing in the States.
— Dude, what century is this? You see sand and suddenly think it’s the Wild West?
— Anything you learn can save your ass. When the only ride left is a horse, you’d better know how. Or you gonna run?
— Yeah, yeah.
He’d made engine-revving noises and laughed. If that same friend had been dumped into this exact moment he’d either be clinging to Tanner on the same horse or face-planting in the dirt.
That’s why a man should learn everything he can.
The horse was well broken; I settled into the gait quickly despite the years. The sky burned with late-afternoon fire as we cantered north along the East River on unpaved roads for about twenty minutes.
At a quiet stretch Tanner reined in.
“From here we go silent.”
We tied the horses to a signpost and pushed deeper on foot. Long grass parted; three warehouses rose in the distance. Tanner handed me a spyglass from his bag. Through the lenses the buildings and their surroundings jumped into sharp relief.
“They’re right on the river, so they probably used these for smuggling long before now.”
“Then there might be more than just the army stuff.”
“Possible, but we don’t have time to clear every crate. Not far from here the Italians run a saloon and a gambling house. From the first shot to the moment their reinforcements arrive, we’ll be lucky to empty one warehouse.”
I shifted positions, studying every angle around the buildings. When I finally lowered the glass I had made my decision.
“You’re really in? You think we can pull it off?”
“On a few conditions. First—you know places that do illegal gun work?”
I’d heard of a few. Tanner knew them too.
“There’s a gunsmith in Hell’s Kitchen who’s a goddamn artist. Temperamental as hell, but the best hands in the city. That all you need to know?”
“Two bolt-action rifles, two pistols, thirty rounds of ammunition, explosives, a boat···.”
Tanner’s eyes grew wider with every word.