Patrick chuckled and took the vice president’s hand as well. Roosevelt seemed not to have changed from Cuba and now resembled nothing so much as a middle-aged little boy who was having a wonderful time. Unlike the president’s garb, Roosevelt’s was crisp and dapper.
McKinley smiled tolerantly at his vice president. Patrick wondered if a degree of friendship had developed between the two men who were so unalike. Political rumors had them intensely disliking each other before the Spanish war, which Roosevelt had wanted and McKinley had adamantly opposed. Now, of course, that war was won and so was the reelection, and Roosevelt was McKinley’s vice president. Winning does take the edge off of past differences.
Patrick was gestured to a chair and the three sat. After refusing offers of refreshment, Patrick waited for the president to get to the reason for this gathering.
Roosevelt spoke instead. “Patrick, I daresay you are curious about this summons, or invitation if you’d prefer.”
“I am.”
McKinley spoke. “It concerns your experiences in Germany, Major.”
“Sir, I am hardly the most qualified person in the army to discuss Germany.”
Roosevelt laughed loudly. “You certainly are not, Patrick. But what you are is here, right now and today. Not only are most of our senior officers in the Philippines or serving in some fort in Arizona, but virtually everyone else with your knowledge who resides within a hundred miles of here is away for a nice summer weekend. No, my friend, you were selected not only for your expertise but because you were the only one around.”
McKinley softened the comment. “Theodore assures me that you are intelligent and discreet as well as in possession of at least much of the information we now need.”
Patrick nodded, having been quietly put in his place. Yet how did he now tell them of his conversation with Ian without looking like an utter fool?
He was pondering how to do that when McKinley leaned over and stared intently at him. “Major, let us come to the primary reason for your visit. Please tell us about your experiences with the kaiser.”
It was both a reprieve and an opening. While in Germany he had indeed met the German kaiser and gotten to know him fairly well, or at least as well as anyone in his position could. The first meeting took place at a birthday party for one of the kaiser’s relatives. Patrick, as an eligible and reasonably presentable young bachelor officer at the U.S. embassy, had been invited.
The kaiser was intrigued by Patrick’s American uniform and spoke to him briefly in the receiving line. Afterward, the kaiser summoned him and they discussed the state of the American military and Patrick’s purpose in visiting Germany.
“Patrick,” said Roosevelt, “I was not aware you spoke German.”
“I don’t. At least not enough to hold a good conversation. The kaiser, however, speaks excellent—no, extremely fluent—English. Please recall, sir, that both his mother and grandmother were English, and English was possibly his first language. I also think he enjoyed picking up American slang and other phrases from me. For a despot, he can be quite charming when he wants to. Although, sir, it was a hypnotic sort of charm. Unlike you as president of the United States, the kaiser has absolute and total power over the lives and deaths of millions. It was a chilling realization.”
Patrick went on to explain that there had been more contact with the emperor. Since he was openly there to observe the German army, the kaiser invited him to be his own guest during the coming maneuvers. It was a marvelous opportunity, and he jumped at it. For two weeks he watched and marveled at tens of thousands of Imperial Germany’s elite forces marching and countermarching while artillery thundered and cavalry charged. The force and power were staggering, and the kaiser was delighted with his ability to show off his magnificent and murderous toys to his American guest.
“Gentlemen, I must tell you about a curious incident during the maneuvers. At one point, the kaiser decided to get directly involved, and he took over command of a brigade. I went with him while he ordered them about. The German High Command wasn’t too pleased, but they didn’t toady up to him either. Within a few hours he’d led his brigade into an ambush, and the referees ruled it defeated. He sulked for hours. It didn’t get any better when his own senior officers later analyzed his performance and pointed out his many mistakes.”
Roosevelt chuckled. “Good grief. I assume he had them beheaded or something appropriate.”
“Hardly. Even he would never do that to those of his own class. No, he would have banished his critics. They later softened the blow by acknowledging that affairs of state and the need to run an empire had doubtless prevented him from keeping his military skills up to date.”
“He accepted that?”
Patrick laughed at the memory. “Like a child being forgiven a minor transgression and allowed to play outside again. Gentlemen, the kaiser is a very immature fellow, in many ways just a forty-year-old child. A very dangerous child, however. He is the absolute ruler of a militaristic state, and the military supports him utterly. Some people may think him ludicrous, but not his generals. To them he is the descendant of Frederick the Great, and they think he will lead them to glory. Bloody glory.”
Roosevelt started to say something, but McKinley shushed him. “Tell me about their army.”
“Sir, it is huge—almost half a million men on active service with again as many in reserve. It is modern, efficient, and brutal.”
“Brutal?”
“Yes, sir, brutal.” He told them that although he’d been impressed with the army as a whole, it was their behavior in China that had stunned him, even sickened him.
“Sir, they were told by that same childlike Kaiser Wilhelm that they were being sent to China to save white men and women from the evils of the yellow race. The kaiser told them that the Chinese were descendants of the Huns and his soldiers should remember that, and be even more brutal than the Huns in order to impress them with German superiority.”
McKinley was clearly shocked. “And that is how they behaved?”
“Yes, sir. Their command was furious that the siege of the legations in Peking was over when they arrived, so they amused themselves with punitive marches about the countryside. Sir, they burned, looted, raped, and murdered! It was barbarism, it was savagery, and it was inhuman! And it was so unnecessary. The rebellion was over and all they did was slaughter innocent peasants.”
Patrick sagged back in his chair at the memory of the stacked dead, the maimed, and the black smoke pouring from the pitiful Chinese hovels while the survivors wailed and screamed. “It was then I decided that my continued presence in China served no earthly purpose, so I requested permission from our attaché in Peking to leave.”
McKinley nodded solemnly. “And well you did. And these obscene orders came from your charming friend the kaiser?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Major, is he capable of further erratic behavior?”
“President McKinley, he is a person who is extremely willful, and he can be totally irresponsible. It may be that power has corrupted him. It is a tragedy that he is in total control of a country as strong and militaristic as Germany. There are no checks on him. Their parliament, the Reichstag, has no real power.”
Patrick paused and took a deep breath. What was the saying—in for a penny, in for a pound? “Is he capable of something erratic and tragic? Yes, gentlemen, without question. He is capable of something as gigantic as declaring war on the United States and launching an invasion if he thought he’d been insulted.”
There was silence in the room. McKinley and Roosevelt stared at him. Finally the president spoke, his voice icy and calm. “I thought you said you knew nothing about your summons here.”
Now I’ll tell them, he thought. “Mr. President, while waiting and biding time before this meeting, I had a most unusual conversation.”
In a rush, Patrick told of his meeting with Ian Gordon and his friend’s prediction that an invasion of the United States was not only imminent, but would occur that very night.
When he finished, the silence in the room could have been cut with the proverbial knife. McKinley looked gray and pale; his hands gripped the edge of his desk so that the knuckles turned white. Roosevelt’s reaction was almost ludicrous. His mouth was open and, set as it was in his round face, he looked like a nearsighted fish. His pince-nez had tumbled from the bridge of his nose and dangled about his waist.
“Nonsense,” Roosevelt rasped as he finally got his breath. “Cuba. It has to be Cuba. Great God, Cuba’s what they want, isn’t it?”
Patrick shook his head. “I can only tell you what Mr. Gordon told me—New York City.”