“How?” McKinley asked. “You seem to forget we have no army. No navy.”
Before an astonished Roosevelt could respond, Hay spoke. “Mr. President, there may indeed be room for negotiation. I have it on good authority that they really don’t want Cuba or the Philippines, but are dead set on getting Puerto Rico. Of course, that was before they attacked. God only knows what their real minimum demands will be now that blood has been spilled and their sense of greed inspired.”
“Damnit, sir, I say we wage war!” Roosevelt was consumed with rage.
Hay blinked at the anger and fury in Roosevelt’s voice. As a diplomat he knew how important it was to maintain calmness and rationality in even the most trying of circumstances. Now it was even more important than ever. His country could not afford emotional responses that could be tragic mistakes. “Mr. Roosevelt, I suggest that we wait until today’s meeting with the military leaders to discuss feasible responses.”
“Yes,” said McKinley, rising to his feet. Both men noticed that the president held on to the back of a chair to steady himself. “This afternoon. We will discuss things then. I feel I must rest.” With that he turned and left the two astonished men alone in the cabinet room.
Wherever William McKinley walked, the waist-high grass and crop of young summer corn had been pounded down to nothing. Worse, the sun-baked Maryland field was covered with the dead and wounded from the tragic battle that had just taken place. Even though only a couple of hours had transpired since the guns mercifully ended, the dead were already blackened and bloating, some of them emitting noxious gases as their bodies rejected themselves.
Along with the dead, some of them lying as if asleep and others lying in bloody bits, there were a number of wounded. McKinley had to watch where he placed his feet lest he step on someone and cause even more pain. Or worse, have them reach out and cry for him to help them, which, of course, he could not do. “Mother, mother,” seemed to be the constant but weak chorus. He looked about for doctors, for stretcher bearers. Where were they? They were overwhelmed by the immensity of the day’s events, he realized, and they would be a long time coming, if ever, with their blood-drenched wagons. There was nothing to help them.
His ears took in a heavy buzzing, humming sound and he tried to place it. Then it dawned: flies. All about were flies. Flies by the hundreds, by the millions, by numbers uncountable, a living, moving cloud that hovered a few feet above the ground. They covered every corpse and every living wounded, and buzzed and munched their disgusting way to contentedness.
What horror, he thought as he gazed about. The entire field covered with bodies dressed largely in Union blue, but with a speckling of Confederate gray. Antietam, another name for horror.
“Now this, William, is a war. A real war!” Teddy Roosevelt stood in front of him, his wide-brimmed cowboy hat rakishly back on his head, his face a wide grin. “Not like what I saw against those Spanish pussycats!”
“Theodore, do you actually enjoy this?”
“Certainly, and so do you.”
McKinley was shocked. “No, I hate it,” he said vehemently.
Roosevelt laughed derisively. “Then why do you keep getting us involved in wars?”
“I didn’t start the Civil War.”
“Of course you did. You and millions like you from the North and South who wouldn’t see reason and the reality that the other side would fight. And you are certainly responsible for the Spanish war.”
Sadly, McKinley accepted the latter point. He had allowed himself to be manipulated by yellow journalists like Pulitzer and Hearst, and the other Manifest Destiny warmongers like Roosevelt, into accepting the dubious verdict that the explosion on the Maine was sabotage.
“William, don’t forget the Germans.”
“You blame me for that?”
“William, you are the president, the captain of the ship of state, and the invasion occurred on your watch. Of course you’re responsible.”
“But you’re the vice president!”
Roosevelt shrugged and stepped over an armless corpse. “People will forget. In normal times, the citizenry doesn’t even know, or care, who its vice president is. Besides, would you have listened to me?” McKinley agreed he would not have. “Oh, look,” Roosevelt said, “Spaniards.”
They had walked to a different portion of the field. Now it no longer looked like Maryland. The farm grass had been replaced by thicker and more luxuriant vegetation, more evocative of the Tropics. And these dead wore white and had sombreros and darker, Latin skins. But they were just as dead, just as maimed.
Then it dawned on him. He was dreaming. He laughed. A dream. Of course. Dreams were often terrible things and this certainly was one of the worst he’d had since he’d been a lad in Ohio.
“William, the Germans are coming.”
Despite himself, he started. “Where?” Then he saw the line of men clad in dark gray that was almost black. They wore funny helmets with spear points on the top and they were marching toward him rapidly.
“William, run! Hurry! Run!”
McKinley tried to turn but his legs wouldn’t respond. He knew the unreasoning panic of a nightmare when the evil cannot be avoided. The line of Germans was only yards away, and one man in particular had his bayoneted rifle pointed directly at him. He tried again to run but his legs were leaden and unresponsive. A dream, he thought, it is a dream! This creature, now upon him and grinning, cannot hurt. Despite this thought, he screamed and tried to thrash himself free. It’s a dream, he said, as the bayonet entered his chest. It cannot hurt me.
The pain began in the center of his body and it felt as if his chest would explode. The German was gone, replaced by visual waves of red ocean that sought to engulf him. It can’t hurt, he continued to think as further torrents of agony continued to rack his body. It’s a dream. It can’t be hurting, he continued as the red waves were replaced by black. After a bit, he could no longer hear his own voice protesting that it was only a dream.
They stood around the table in the Red Room, a shocked and confused group. Theodore Roosevelt entered and nervously took the place of honor at the head of the table. His normally ruddy complexion was pale, and he looked as if he might have been crying.
“We shall begin,” he said, “with a moment of silence for the soul of the late William McKinley. Although many of us, myself included, disagreed with him, often vehemently, we all respected him. His untimely death this afternoon leaves a void that will be difficult to fill. For those who did not witness it, I was sworn in just a few moments ago by Chief Justice Fuller. The late president will lie in state in the rotunda for two days; then he will return to Ohio, where his widow says he will be interred. Canton, I believe.”
After McKinley had gone to his rooms for a short nap, Hay and Roosevelt grew concerned when he did not return at the scheduled time. Thinking that he had overslept—a logical assumption because of the strain he’d been under—they waited a little longer to allow the man to rest. When he still didn’t come out, they had one of the servants enter the president’s private quarters to awaken him. That poor man’s screams sent them running down the hallway, where they found McKinley dead on the floor, his face blue. He was the victim of an apparent heart attack, doubtless brought on by the stress of the situation.
Now Theodore Roosevelt, at age forty-two, was the twenty-sixth and youngest-ever president of the United States, and he fervently prayed for guidance. It was one thing, he realized ruefully, to be the vice president, the gadfly, the tormentor. Now he had to make the decisions, and he was more than a little frightened. The fate of the nation was his to decide. As he prayed, he begged the Almighty for the guidance to do the right thing, and to do it bravely and well.
Roosevelt raised his head and the others followed suit, unconsciously affirming his primacy. He had a war to plan.
“Gentlemen, now to the task at hand. Today is Tuesday, the eleventh of June, and we have been at war for a little more than a week—a week during which, I might add, we have accomplished damn little.” His voice was harsh. “First, General Miles, what is the latest situation in and around New York?”
Miles seemed oblivious to the implied criticism. “As expected and anticipated by Colonel Mahan’s reports, the Germans have indeed moved off Long Island. The massive fires in Brooklyn may have delayed them a day or so, but a large contingent, perhaps a division, has moved toward White Plains and is likely to cross the border into Connecticut in a couple of days. They have met virtually no opposition, nor are they likely to. They have also moved a blocking force on the north side of the Harlem River. Thus, with naval units in the Hudson as well, Manhattan is now cut off and under a state of siege. The Germans have called for its surrender.”