Days of Infamy (48 page)

He took a brief moment. “Into Thy hands Lord …” he whispered softly, and then braced himself.

“No number of defeats and catastrophes will weaken the will of the American people.” The President’s voice began gathering energy and determination. “We are furious that the Japanese surprised us at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines. This massacre will make us even angrier. Your losses are our losses. Your defeats are our defeats. We will go forward together and we will crush those who have violated the laws of civilization.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Churchill replied. “As you know, we are stretched very thin with the German threat here in Europe and now the Japanese attack in the Pacific. We could not cope with both without your magnificent help. The loss of our lone capital ships on the Asian coast leaves us open clear to India, perhaps even to the coast of Africa. You know, my friend, the full implications of that.”

“The guttersnipe,” Franklin said after a long pause. “He will take advantage of that as well. Any news?”

Both had been waiting all day for a “Führer announcement” that Berlin Radio had started to trumpet shortly after noon London time. It might be their first public acknowledgment of the setback in the battle before Moscow, but both sensed what it would be… that Germany would declare war on America.

Compounded with the sharp defeats of the last few days, the President knew it would hit America hard, but aroused as the public was, he knew they would rally even more to the fight ahead.

“We are going to be distracted by the scale of the Pearl Harbor disaster, which I will brief you on when you visit Washington,” the President replied, not willing to speculate on events in Berlin at this moment. His focus had to be on the here and now. “The defense of the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines will require us to spend more energy and resources in the Pacific than we had envisioned last August,” Roosevelt added.

“However, we will continue to emphasize the Atlantic battle with submarines and the resources needed to contain and then defeat Germany in Europe. It will be harder because the anger of the American people is so overwhelmingly focused on the Japanese, but you and I are in total agreement that Hitler is the more dangerous enemy, and we will act accordingly,” the President continued, reassuring Churchill about his greatest fear.

“For the near future, however, I have to shift some aircraft carriers and other ships into the Pacific to slow down the Japanese onslaught. We are moving ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific to ensure that their empire cannot get to Australia or cut off our supply lines across the South Pacific.”

“For our part, “Churchill responded, “we will continue to reinforce Malaya and Singapore in the expectation that we can stop the Japanese offensive on land and rebuild our air power as a first step back toward defeating them decisively.”

“As soon as my military commanders have assessed our resources, I will get back to you about what we can do in the next few weeks,” FDR promised.

He did not add that a major shakeup was already in the works.
Commander in Chief Pacific (CinCPac) would go to Admiral Nimitz, and for the time being would be based out of San Diego. He had requested, as well, that some key personnel from Pearl be flown back Stateside immediately to confer with Nimitz, and then if need be forwarded on to Washington. He wanted a firsthand report, as quickly as possible, as to what had gone wrong prior to the battles of December 7 through 9.

Earlier in the day he had been handed a report by Admiral Stark that had gradually worked its way up the chain of command, dated the day before the attack, from an intelligence officer named Watson, warning that Pearl itself might be the target, his assessment based on analysis of signal traffic. He had called for the man’s file and already had plans for what he might be doing next, to make sure more such surprises did not land on their doorstep.

“I want you to know, Mr. President,” the Prime Minister said, interrupting his thoughts, “that even though we have taken some hard hits in the last few days, I am very confident that we will win through to victory. No dictatorship can withstand the combined fury of the British and American people.”

“That’s the spirit, my old friend. Eleanor and I look forward to your visit at Christmas. Together we will plot our revenge and our ultimate victory.”

“Until then, Mr. President,” Churchill replied as he hung up.

President Roosevelt sat back in his wheelchair, lit a cigarette, and closed his eyes.

The speech by Hitler would start any minute now, and he knew what it would be, it would be like that guttersnipe to leap on what he assumed was a fallen prey. The Japanese had dealt a deadly blow, far worse than he had first thought after the initial attacks of December 7. More such defeats would undoubtedly follow in the months, perhaps even year to come.

But the fight had just started, and together with his friend on the other side of the Atlantic, as long as their will was not shaken, surely they would win through to inevitable victory.

COLD.

It is so cold, so damnably cold, he thought, pulling his hat lower in an attempt to shield his face from the wind and the driving rain.

His woolen cape was soaked through, water coursing down his neck, his uniform already clammy. Though his knee-high boots were of the finest calfskin, they were soaked as well, and his pants sopping wet halfway up the thigh as a result of his having slipped several times walking along the banks of the flood-swollen Delaware River.

Another gust of wind out of the east kicked up spray that stung his face, and he turned his back as it swept by, roaring through the treetops and up the ridge on the Pennsylvania side of the river.

“This damn storm will play hell with moving the artillery across.”

General George Washington, commander of what had once been so valiantly called the Continental Army of the United States of America, turned toward the speaker, his artillery chief, General
Henry Knox. Rotund at what had to be three hundred pounds and powerful looking, towering several inches over Washington’s six foot, two inches, the artilleryman was shivering, his spectacles misted by the rain. Knox looked pathetic, a bookseller turned warrior who should have been in his store in Boston, resting by a crackling fire rather than out on an evening such as this.

“They’ll cross. They have to cross,” Washington replied calmly. “This wind is just as cold for the Hessians as it is for us. They may not be very good at picketing in this kind of storm.”

He wondered if Knox and the others gathered nearby, Generals Stirling and Greene, their orderlies and staff, were waiting for the most obvious of orders on a night like this, just waiting for him to sigh and say, “Return the men to their encampments.”

He shook his head, shoulders hunched against the spates of rain, which were turning to sleet.

He looked across the river, to the east, to the Jersey shore.

In his haunted memories, memories that did indeed haunt, he could see that other river bordering New Jersey sixty miles to the east… the Hudson, and just beyond the Hudson… the East River.

Merciful God, was it but five months ago we were arrayed there in our proud defiance?

Another gust swept across the Delaware, but this time he did not turn away from it.

How hot it had been during those days of August. How proud we were. How proud and confident I was, he thought. He shook his head at the memory of it. Our victory at Boston and the British withdrawal from that port had misled all of us into an absurd overconfidence. We had marched to New York in anticipation of the next British move with the satisfaction of having driven off the army of the most powerful country in the world, and were expecting to do so again with ease.

On the very day that the Declaration was read publicly for the first time, on July 4, the vanguard of King George’s reply was sighted coasting Long Island, bearing toward New York’s outer harbor.

He had second-guessed the move months before, and so had
moved his army, fresh from their triumph at Boston, on the long march south to defend New York.

Filled with confidence, so many had boasted that if the British and their hireling Germans, commonly called Hessians, did attempt to return there, this new army of America would make short work of them.

Arriving in New York, the Continentals had set to work with vigor, building bastions, fortifications, and strongpoints, ringing the harbor with hundreds of guns and near to thirty thousand troops.

Most of the troops he had commanded during the long siege of Boston had been New Englanders. It had been a difficult command, and one, at first, not easily accepted. The men of Massachusetts felt one of their own should be in command, for, after all, was it not their state that had stood up first, and was it not their state where the battle was being fought?

It had taken the utmost of tact to manage them in a situation that would have caused any regular officer of the British army to howl with rage or derision or both. Yet manage them he did, slowly earning their begrudging respect.

As they set to work building their fortifications around New York Harbor, reinforcements flooded in from the other states, transforming the army. There were tough backwoodsmen from the frontiers of Pennsylvania, western New York, Virginia, and the Carolinas joining spit-and-polish regiments from the tidewater of Chesapeake Bay and unruly militia by the thousands from Jersey, lower New York, and Connecticut.

His army swelled until there were more men than the entire population of Philadelphia, America’s most populous city. The worry then, added to when the invasion would strike, was simply keeping so many men fed, housed, and healthy and not at each other’s throats. As to the feeding and housing, the need had been met, for the countryside was rich; supplies could be floated down the Hudson Valley and drawn in from the fertile Jersey countryside. As to health, that soon broke down as it would in almost any army that stayed in camp. Smallpox struck thousands and hundreds perished, but such was to be expected, even in the best tended of armies. As to stopping
the men from going at each other’s throats, that had proven near to impossible at times.

Though he would never admit it within the hearing of a single living soul, the New Englanders struck him as a haughty and ill-bred lot, lacking in the refinements expected of them by a gentleman planter of Virginia. He was not the only person in the command to carry such feelings, and nearly all others expressed them openly, vocally, and at times, violently. He actually started to pray that the British would return, and soon, for if not, the army might very well rend itself apart.

And they had come, as if in answer to that prayer, and proved in reality, a curse.

In the first week of July the vanguard appeared; in the next weeks, more and yet more—ships of the line, frigates, fast sloops and brigs, supply ships, and then the transports brought regiment after regiment of England’s finest. How ironic that with each passing day he could ride down to the narrows between Long Island and Staten Island and with a telescope watch the ranks disembarking on to Staten Island. Regimental standards he remembered with such admiration from the last war floated on the breeze, and when the wind came from the west he could even hear their bands playing. And alongside men who were once old comrades were the blue uniforms of the regiments from Hesse and Hanover, men who at first were merely scorned, but soon would be feared by every man in his army.

The Howe brothers, Richard in command of the navy, William the army, had made their arrangements in a ponderous, leisurely fashion, the intent obvious, to overawe before the first shot was fired. There had even been diplomatic protocols observed, offers of reconciliation if only Washington and his rabble would ground arms, renew allegiance to the king, and return peaceably to their homes.

The offers, of course, had been met with scorn and contempt. Officers around him had boasted that once swords were crossed, it would be the British who begged for mercy; before summer was out the entire lot of them would be sent packing to their humiliated master, George the Third.

Another gust of wind swept in from across the frozen plains of New Jersey, racing across the river, causing him to shiver again as the frigid rain lashed his face.

Few boasted now, few indeed.

THIS DAY, CHRISTMAS
Day, had dawned clear and cold, the ground frozen, dusted with a light coating of snow. With a moon near full tonight, the weather at first appeared to be perfect for this move; roads frozen solid, light from the moon to guide them… and then by midday the harbingers of what was coming appeared. Glover’s Marblehead men, checking their boats, would raise their heads and, in their nearly incomprehensible New England dialect, pronounce that a regular “nor’easter was comin’.”

Glover, the taciturn fisherman from the tempestuous New England coast. With Glover there was not the personal bond of affection that he felt had evolved between himself and Knox, but here was a doughty man he knew he could rely upon.

He had seen such weather often enough back home at Mount Vernon, the wind backing around to the east, clouds rolling up from the south, the broad Potomac tossed with whitecaps, temperature at first rising and then plummeting, as it now was.

The plan for tonight had been that by sunset the army would be mustered and already moved by individual columns of battalions to the points of embarkation. That plan had collapsed as the last rays of the sun were blanketed by the lowering clouds already lashing out with icy rain driving in from the east. The army was to have made its first move to concealed positions within a few minutes’ walk from the riverbank while it was still light. Some of the men were not yet out of their camps, and all semblance of an orderly preparation, which once darkness closed in was to have been unleashed by a fast rush to the boats and then across the river, was already falling apart. Now the far shore was an indistinct blur, waves kicking up midstream, ice floes crashing and bobbing as they swirled by.