Alternate Generals II

256 Pages·2016·1.12 MB·English

by  Turtledove (Editor) Harry

Annotation
Napoleon is in New Orleans in William Sanders's «Empire»; the German
Empire thrives in 1929 in Harry Turtledove's "Uncle Alf"; Pancho Villa's about
to become the vice-president in S.M. Stirling and Richard Foss's «Compadres»;
and General Patton gets a new diary in Roland J. Green's "George Patton Slept
Here." In Alternate Generals II, a collection of 13 wild speculations for those
who enjoy specifically military alternative histories, Harry Turtledove
(Colonization: Aftershocks) also gathers stories from the likes of Chris Bunch,
Michael F. Flynn and Susan Shwartz.
Harry Turtledove (Editor)
American Mandate
Southern Strategy
Uncle Alf
Horizon
Devil's Bargain
Roland J. Green
Tarnished Glory:
Compadres
And the Glory of Them
Twelve Legions of Angels
In the Prison of His Days
Labor Relations
Empire
THE END
Harry Turtledove (Editor)
Alternate Generals II
American Mandate
James Fiscus
September 1918. World War I nears its end in Europe, and the Ottoman
Empire offers to surrender to the United States. The British, eager to keep the
French out of Constantinople and the Straits, urge President Wilson to accept. A
month later, a small American force steams into the Golden Horn. At the
Versailles Conference, America accepts a League of Nations Mandate over
Constantinople and other parts of Turkey. General of the Armies John Pershing
commands American forces.
Smedley Butler stood on the upper walk of the GalataTower, the streets of
Constantinople's European district winding down the low hill to the Golden
Horn and the Bosporus below him. The iron railing was hot from the late August
sun. He stared east across the dark blue water of the Bosporus to the shore of
Anatolia. Smoke rose from Uscudar, the shattered Asian suburbs of the imperial
city, where Dwight Eisenhower and his company had died as Turkish
Nationalists drove American troops from Asiatic Turkey. He looked south over
the narrow flow of the Golden Horn to Stamboul, the ancient center of
Constantinople. The minarets and domes of Suleyman's great mosque were
bright in the early afternoon sun, as were the slender towers of the other great
mosques of the Ottoman sultans.
"Will the Nationalists move more men across, General?" The young marine
second lieutenant commanding the observation post shifted nervously.
"No need to. Mustafa Kemal already has an army behind us. Besides, we
have the Governor General's yacht to help."
TheU.S.S.Arizona rode at anchor half a mile off the Golden Horn, her
twelve 14-inch guns aiming beyond Butler to the Thracian Plain and the
Nationalist army infesting the city. Aft of her rear turret, an awning blazed white
in the afternoon sun, shading Governor General Albert B. Fall's reception for the
allied ambassadors. Smedley handed the binoculars to the lieutenant and turned
to enter the ancient stone tower. Butler's movements revealed a wiry toughness
earned from three decades' campaigning as a marine.
Explosions slapped behind him. He spun around as another explosion
banged across the water. A white fountain spouted from the far side of
theArizona. Smoke, gray turning black, billowed over the ship. Shock froze
Butler for an instant.
"Call Army headquarters. Order Colonel Patton to full alert."
Butler was breathing heavily from his charge down the interior steps of the
tower as he jumped into the rear seat of his open staff car. "Customs dock."
Smedley's aide and Army liaison, Major Shaw, asked, "General, what's
happened?" Shaw's gaunt face showed his concern.
Butler gripped the top of the door as the car bounced down the cobbled
street. "Explosions onArizona. Can't tell if the Navy blew themselves up or if the
Turks are attacking." The blast of the car's horn forced a way through the crowd
of European and Turkish pedestrians. The third and fourth stories of the stone
and wooden houses loomed over the Rolls Royce as it slid around a sharp corner
onto Istiklal Street. The driver swerved, just missing a small red trolley car, and
accelerated toward the water.
*
The explosion twisted the deck ofArizona from under John Pershing,
hurling him against the aft turret. He dropped to one knee but refused to fall
further. A cloud of oily smoke swept across the battleship's fantail. Pershing
pulled out a handkerchief and tied it over his nose and mouth. "Damn little good
this will do."
"General Pershing, sir, are you hurt?"
The concerned face of an ensign hovered above the general. "I don't think
so, son." Pershing stood slowly, testing his balance, feeling his sixty years. He
coughed deeply, trying to clear the smoke from his lungs, but only drawing in
more. "How is the ship?" He reached to straighten his hat and found it missing.
"Don't know, sir. Captain Hahn and Admiral Kessler were both forward
showing some pasha around. With the general's permission, I must get to my
station."
"Go." The ship jerked and listed heavily to starboard. Civilians attending
the reception shoved past Pershing to the railing. Pershing saw an Army major
who commanded the governor general's honor guard. "Reynolds, organize the
evacuation here. The Navy is busy trying to save the ship."
"Sir."
Pershing scanned the deck for Governor General Fall's shock of white hair,
seeing him far aft, surrounded by a small cordon of aides. As he neared Fall,
Pershing called, "Is your launch near, Governor?"
Fall ignored Pershing, helping an American oilman toward a rope ladder
recently tied to a stanchion. He turned to Pershing. "Best hurry, General."
Pershing heard a woman's scream of "Sally," and turned. An American
woman bent to help a girl of about five, who sat on the deck holding her leg and
crying. Blood stained the hem of the child's yellow dress. An older girl in a
matching outfit clung to the woman, her eyes wide with fear.
Pershing shoved his way back to the small group, and knelt by the youngest
girl. "Here, let me see." Pershing gently examined the girl's leg, which had a
slight cut. Emptiness gripped him, as he realized the girl was only a year or two
older than Mary Margaret and that the older girl was near Helen or Anne's age,
when all had burned to death before the war. He glanced up at the woman, filled
by memories of Frankie, dead in the same fire. He forced himself to concentrate
on the present, glad that his touch seemed to comfort the girl. "I don't think it's
serious, Madam."
The woman looked down, fear fading as she recognized Pershing. "General,
is the ship sinking?"
"Not till you're safe." Pershing spotted Reynolds. "Get these people to the
launch, Major."
A rumbling explosion-felt through the deck more than heard-shook the
massive battleship. Pershing stumbled asArizona listed further. At the fantail, he
helped a wounded sailor climb over the rail, and felt the man slip from his hands
into the arms of sailors on a local caique. He glanced at his hands, seeing the
blood and blackened skin that had peeled from the sailor's arms. Pershing wiped
his hands on his uniform, trying to ignore the charred-lamb stench of burned
human flesh.
"General Pershing." A Navy lieutenant, his white uniform covered in grime,
saluted. "Sir, the fire's near the forward magazine."
"Can you flood it?"
"No water pressure. Please abandon ship, General."
Pershing fought his instinct to stay, to help the wounded, knowing his
command was ashore. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant." Pershing turned to the stern and
climbed down into the steam launch, crowding onto a deck packed with sailors
and a few civilians. Fall and the oil tycoon stood on the far side of the launch.
The boat dropped away from the battleship on the fast current, moving out
of the heavy smoke from burning bunker oil. Pershing yelled to the boatswain at
the wheel, "Get us around to the bow so we can see the damage."
The launch sliced through the calm water toward the dreadnought's bow.
TheArizona 's port side appeared undamaged, but the ship's heavy list stabbed
her 14-inch guns upward, twelve great barrels silhouetted against the sky. The
launch rounded the sharp bow.
The foredeck ofArizona vanished in a ball of flame that billowed above the
tall masts. Pershing saw-or imagined, for he was never sure-both forward turrets
lift upward before crashing back through the main deck. The shock of the
explosion smashed into Pershing, knocking him into the crowd of sailors. Sound
roared over him. He raised his arms in protection against falling debris.
The dreadnought shuddered and rolled. Her tall basket-weave masts dipped
into the Bosporus, her guns jutting upward. The screams of crewmen flung into
the sea rose above the death rattle within the armored hull. The ship vanished
beneath the roiling surface. Oil carried fire across the blue water.
*
Old Glory and Butler's red flag with his single brigadier's star snapped in
the wind as Smedley leapt from his still-moving car. A growing throng of Turks
and Europeans crowded the small plaza, voices raised in half a dozen languages
Butler recognized, and a dozen he didn't. Black smoke rose from the burning oil
markingArizona 'sgrave. Smedley stared in shock at the flock of small boats
circling, seeking survivors. "It only took me ten minutes to get here. Battleships
shouldn't die that quickly."
A marine sergeant, a stocky, powerful man with gray hair and a face lined
from decades of campaigning, saluted sharply. "The swabbies say Turks floated
a mine to her on the current, but nobody knows, General."
"Where's Pershing, Sergeant Cooper?" Butler always felt rapport with
Cooper, a relic of the old Marine Corps whom he remembered from the march
on Peking and the Panama Battalion.
"With the Governor General, I hope, sir. His launch is picking up
survivors."
Butler glanced around the long, narrow promenade, only a few feet above
the swiftly moving Bosporus. Four-and five-story stone and brick buildings,
mainly occupied by European or local Greek-owned businesses, crowded the
waterfront in a jumble of pastels and stonework. Behind them, buildings climbed
the low hill to the medieval gray stones of the Galata Tower with its layer-cake
crown of balconies. The crowd grew rapidly, and Butler's hand brushed his
holstered.45 at the thought of yet another riot sweeping the city.
Smedley relaxed slightly as two trucks loaded with marines bounced to a
stop. "Good timing," Butler said. "Major Shaw, keep the promenade clear, but go
easy. The city could go up like a ton of dynamite. Don't light the match."
"I understand, sir." Shaw saluted.
"Sergeant, where's your phone?"
Cooper pointed to a low wooden shack. "Inside, General."
Butler stepped into the small guard post, his boots clicking on the plank
floor. He cranked the handle on the phone.
"Headquarters, Lieutenant Zack."
"General Butler here. Is the garrison on alert?"
"No, sir. Not without Colonel Patton's orders. I'm trying to reach him, sir."
"Where is Colonel Patton?"
"Not quite sure, sir. He's playing a polo match against the wogs, General,
over in Stamboul." The answer came with obvious reluctance. "Civilizing them,
he said."
Smedley Butler took off his broad-brimmed campaign hat for a moment and
wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, brushing his dark hair back,
using the gesture to bring his temper under control. "Full alert. Now. Send the
Army to reinforce the perimeter."
"Yes, sir."
"Marine riot squads into the streets. If the residents of Stamboul see this as
a signal to attack foreigners, the sultan's police won't stop them. Send every
vehicle you can spare to move the wounded to hospital."
"Yes, sir, General."
"Damn Patton!" Butler said in a harsh whisper as he walked from the
building. "Aristocratic bastard should be on duty, not playing polo. No wonder
the Turks ambushed him in Armenia."
"We finally have some ambulances, sir." Sergeant Cooper saluted. "And the
governor general's launch just landed."
Butler glanced at the flock of aides circling Fall as he walked away from his
launch. The governor general's shock of white hair was like a flag in the center
of the crowd. His voice, loud as always, carried his New Mexico drawl across
the plaza.
Butler pushed through the gaggle of sycophants around the governor
general. "Governor Fall, was General Pershing injured?"
"Nigger Jack's playing nurse…" Recognizing Butler, Fall sputtered to
silence, then continued, his voice petulant. His bronzed face, white hair and
drooping mustache made him look like a carnival pitchman. His blue eyes were
narrow and cold. "Pershing is still on my launch. Bring him to me, General
Butler."
Pershing's normally immaculate uniform was covered in soot and dirt. He
helped a sailor, whose right leg twisted hideously at the knee, stagger to the
dock. Butler took the sailor's other arm and the two generals eased the man to a
stretcher.
"Glad you made it ashore, General. We were afraid you'd been caught in the
explosion."
"There were children aboard. I could not abandon them to a fire." Pershing's
voice broke slightly as he talked.
"I understand, sir," Smedley said.
"General Pershing, we must talk. Now." Albert Fall's drawl cut through the
cries of the wounded. He indicated the tall, chunky oilman he had escorted from
the sinkingArizona. "You have not met Mister Walters. He landed from
thePrincess Matoika yesterday to sign a new concession with the sultan's
government. We must stop the Nationalists, General. They refuse to honor the
sultan's agreements."
"Mister Walters, you will excuse us, sir, as this conversation may involve
military matters," Pershing said.
Fall started to object, then followed Pershing and Butler into the nearby
guard shack. "General Pershing, the Army has allowed Mustafa Kemal and his
followers to become an irritation. Get rid of this bandit."
"Mustafa Kemal and the Turkish Nationalists have just driven a hundred
and fifty thousand Greek troops from Anatolia. He has twenty thousand of his
men at our backs in European Turkey." John Pershing's tone made his contempt
for Fall clear. "We have twenty-five hundred troops holding our perimeter and
General Butler's fifteen hundred marines holding the city. If we stay in
Constantinople and the Turks attack, we die, Governor. We must evacuate."
"I give you orders, General. You do not order me," Fall nearly shouted.
"I advised President Wilson to reject this mandate. He did not. With Wilson
gone, President Harding refuses to send more troops, and yet you block a
diplomatic solution with Mustafa Kemal. The American Mandate is over,
Governor."
"I am not here to surrender American interests to a wog," Fall said, his New
Mexico drawl thicker as his voice rose again. He pulled out a cigar and lit it, not
offering one to Pershing or Butler.
"You don't defend American interests, Governor. You defend American
companies," Butler said. "You ordered the sultan to revoke European oil
concessions and give them to Americans. There is a price for that. The French
signed a treaty with Kemal last year. The British are about to. You have isolated
us from European help to defend your racket."
"We do not need Europe, General Butler. You didn't run from the Niggers in
Haiti. Why do you run from the Turks?" Fall puffed a cloud of cigar smoke into
the air.
Butler spun and walked to the far side of the room so as not to strike the