Alternate Generals II

"How's the city?"

"Five men beaten by a mob over in Stamboul, but not seriously hurt. Antiriot squads showed up and the Turks ran."

"It won't be that easy stopping the Turkish army," Butler said, wishing again that America had never accepted the Turkish surrender and been drawn into the politics of colonies and oil.

"General Butler, I talked to a Turk who was in the sultan's navy during the war. He saw torpedo tracks in the water."

"Where was he?"

"On a caique offArizona 's starboard side."

"Could it be a translation error?"

"No, sir. He worked for the British Embassy before the war. Speaks English good enough."

"I want to meet him tomorrow, Sergeant." Butler returned Cooper's salute, and walked slowly into the Pera Palas, tucking his hat under one arm, and passing through paneled hallways to the bar. The room blazed with electric lights.

Straight and trim in a clean uniform, Pershing stared out a window at the brief twilight. Lieutenant Zack stood with several American and British officers a few feet from Pershing.

Zack saluted Butler, who repressed a smile. "I respect your salute, Lieutenant, but I'm uncovered. You've only seen me under arms, when I keep my hat on indoors as you Army boys do all the time."

"I forgot, sir."

"That's all right, Lieutenant." Butler moved on to Pershing. "General Pershing…"

Pershing held up one hand. "Georgie Patton was killed this afternoon, General."

"How, sir?" Butler felt the shock of the news twist his gut.

"He was playing polo. Shot from the crowd by a sniper. Fifth man this week. As usual, no one was caught." Pershing took two Scotches from a passing waiter and handed one to Butler. "The surgeon said he was killed by a ball from an old musket. Something left over from the days of the Janissaries. Georgie might have liked that." He raised his glass. "Colonel Patton!" He drank deeply.

Butler echoed Pershing's toast, thinking at the same time that not much had been lost with Patton, except a commander who wasted his men in battle. Butler was certain that if Patton hadn't been wounded in Armenia he'd have stayed in command and played Custer. Never would have fought his way back to Trabzon the way Bradley did. Pershing's voice yanked Butler from his thoughts.

"General Butler, your news?"

"Yes, sir. We found a man who saw torpedo tracks beforeArizona exploded."

"Nonsense." A rear admiral Butler recognized as one of the governor general's toadies moved closer. "The Turks don't have a submarine and we'd have seen a surface ship. He saw a school of fish."

"The Turks captured a French boat during the War that we have not recovered. Several German boats are still missing in the Mediterranean." Pershing's voice rose in anger. "You are not doing your job if you don't know that, Admiral Simon. Now that you have replaced Admiral Kessler as chief of my naval forces, you will correct your inattention. General Butler's suggestion is credible."

"Even if the Turks had a submarine, they couldn't run it. And if they could get it away from the dock, they couldn't hit all of Asia with a torpedo." Fall stood in the center of his darkly paneled office, puffing clouds of smoke from his cigar.

"The Turks couldn't stop the British at Gallipoli, either, but Mustafa Kemal did. And he couldn't drive the Greek Army into the sea." Pershing's anger flared at the politician. "Look across the Bosporus to Anatolia. You'll see Mustafa Kemal's army, not King Constantine's."

"The British destroyed themselves at Gallipoli, and the Greeks are little but wogs living in ruins their fathers left them. American civilians will evacuate on thePrincess Matoika, along with your wounded. After they steam, you shall defeat the Turks," Fall said. "We will not surrender our concessions."

Pershing coughed heavily, waiting for his breath to return before talking. "That liner will carry five thousand men, women, and children. She can not leave the Golden Horn if the Turks have a submarine waiting."

"The Matoika will do as I order, and so shall you, General," Fall said. He turned his back on both generals, dismissing them.

Butler and Pershing stalked down the hall in the Palazzo Corpi, their footsteps echoing in unison through the old American Embassy building. "I'd like to know how much that bastard skimmed from the oil concessions," Butler snapped.

"At least as much as Gulbenkian, according to a cable from Washington," Pershing said.

"Mister Five Percent and his American twin."

"Except that Fall took the money under the table," Pershing said, thinking, Charlie Dawes is a wonder at finance, and that's what it took to get that information. Always good to have the right man in the right place.

Marine guards snapped salutes as the two generals walked quickly down the wide steps set in the building's classical facade. Pershing led the way back toward the Pera Palas. He stood a moment listening to the clear notes of a Dixieland pianist.

"Find that submarine and destroy it, General."

Late morning, and the summer's heat was already building. A pack of wild, raw-boned dogs lazed in the narrow street. Some snapped over scraps of food tossed by passing Turks. Butler and Cooper, both dressed as merchant seamen, instinctively avoided the pack's spoor.

"I suppose the dogs keep the rats under control," Smedley said to Cooper in a near whisper. Butler knew that the two marines stood out, but hoped to draw less attention on foot than in his car. The anger of the city was directed at the American military. Civilians had been relatively safe.

The three- and four-story buildings, their upper floors overhanging the street, dimmed the afternoon sun. The brightly painted houses often had irregular shapes, built to match the turns of the street as it wound up the hill. The Turkish women who came to the Para Palas or the other European buildings north of the Golden Horn often dressed as Europeans. Here in Stamboul, long skirts, headscarves, and thin veils covered most of the women. Some of the men still wore turbans and baggy pants and jackets instead of the fez and European suits.

The street opened into the tree-filled plaza around the mosque of Ahmed I. Six minarets stabbed gracefully into the sky around the massive structure. Ranks of small domes rose as if to support a great central dome. The two marines moved quickly past the low arches surrounding a courtyard attached to the main building, passing the Egyptian and Roman obelisks that had once decorated the Byzantine Hippodrome.

Butler and Cooper skirted a marine antiriot squad that watched the vendors in an open market. The two marines entered a side street that led them away from the gray domes of the Sultanahmed and wound their way through a new pack of curs. The dogs refused to move for mere pedestrians. The street widened at an intersection. A dozen dogs stared at each other in the middle of the plaza, teeth bared and hackles raised, protecting the territories of rival packs. Other dogs slept in the shade.

"There's Suleyman," Cooper said, indicating a tall, powerfully built Turk who waited in a coffee shop across the intersection. The Turk's black suit and dark fez gave him the look of a merchant or bureaucrat. Suleyman stood as the two marines joined him.

"Suleyman, this is General Butler."

"Efendim." The Turk bowed slightly, his voice carrying respect without subservience. "Brave men died when your ship sank, Efendi. May God show them mercy."

The marines accepted cups of strong, sweet coffee from a waiter. "Suleyman Efendi," Butler said, "you saw torpedo wakes?"

"Evet, Efendi. Three or four." Suleyman indicated several Turkish men standing across the street. "The waiter is my cousin, but it is better if we talk in the back where we are not watched." He wiped coffee from his thick, black mustache, and stood, moving his six-foot frame with the ease of an athlete as he led Butler to the rear of the building. Cooper stayed in the coffee shop, watching the street.