The Other Teddy Roosevelts (22 page)

He paused and looked around at his officers. “I realize that in doing this I am violating my orders, but there are greater principles at stake here. I am flattered that the President thinks I am indispensable to the American public, but our nation is based on the principle that no one man deserves any rights or privileges not offered to all men.” He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “However, since I
am
contravening a direct order, I believe that not only each one of you, but every one of the men as well, should be given the opportunity to withdraw from the Rough Riders. I will force no man to ride against his conscience and his beliefs. I would like to you go out now and put the question to the men; I will wait here for your answer.”

To nobody’s great surprise, the regiment voted unanimously to ride to glory with Teddy Roosevelt.

***

3 August, 1917 

My Dearest Edith:

As strange as this may seem to you (and is seems surpassingly strange to me), I will soon be a fugitive from justice, opposed not only by the German army but quite possibly by the U.S. military as well.

My Rough Riders have embarked upon a bold adventure, contrary to both the wishes and the direct orders of the President of the United States. When I think back to the day he finally approved my request to reassemble the regiment, I cringe with chagrin at my innocence and naivete; he sent us here only so that I would not have access to the press, and he would no longer have to listen to my demands. Far from being permitted to play a leading role in this noblest of battles, my men have been held far behind the front, and Jack Pershing was under orders from Wilson himself not to allow any harm to come to us.

When I learned of this, I put a proposition to my men, and I am extremely proud of their response. To a one, they voted to break camp and ride to the front so as to strike at the heart of the German military machine. By doing so, I am disobeying the orders of my Commander-in-Chief, and because of this somewhat peculiar situation, I doubt that I shall be able to send too many more letters to you until I have helped to end this war. At that time, I shall turn myself over to Pershing, or whoever is in charge, and argue my case before whatever tribunal is deemed proper.

However, before that moment occurs, we shall finally see action, bearing the glorious banner of the Stars and Stripes. My men are a finely-tuned fighting machine, and I daresay that they will give a splendid account of themselves before the conflict is over. We have not made contact with the enemy yet, nor can I guess where we shall finally meet, but we are primed and eager for our first taste of battle. Our spirit is high, and many of the old-timers spend their hours singing the old battle songs from Cuba. We are all looking forward to a bully battle, and we plan to teach the Hun a lesson he won’t soon forget.

Give my love to the children, and when you write to Kermit and Quentin, tell them that their father has every intention of reaching Berlin before they do!

All my love,

Theodore

***

Roosevelt, who had been busily writing an article on ornithology, looked up from his desk as McCoy entered his tent.

“Well?”

“We think we’ve found what we’ve been looking for, Mr. President,” said McCoy.

“Excellent!” said Roosevelt, carefully closing his notebook. “Tell me about it.”

McCoy spread a map out on the desk.

“Well, the front lines, as you know, are
here
, about fifteen miles to the north of us. The Germans are entrenched
here
, and we haven’t been able to move them for almost three weeks.” McCoy paused. “The word I get from my old outfit is that the Americans are planning a major push on the German left, right about
here
.”

“When?” demanded Roosevelt.

“At sunrise tomorrow morning.”

“Bully!” said Roosevelt. He studied the map for a moment, then looked up. “Where is Jack Pershing?”

“Almost ten miles west and eight miles north of us,” answered McCoy. “He’s dug in, and from what I hear, he came under pretty heavy mortar fire today. He’ll have his hands full without worrying about where an extra regiment of American troops came from.”

“Better and better,” said Roosevelt. “We not only get to fight, but we may even pull Jack’s chestnuts out of the fire.” He turned his attention back to the map. “All right,” he said, “the Americans will advance along this line. What would you say will be their major obstacle?”

“You mean besides the mud and the Germans and the mustard gas?” asked McCoy wryly.

“You know what I mean, Hank.”

“Well,” said McCoy, “there’s a small rise here—I’d hardly call it a hill, certainly not like the one we took in Cuba—but it’s manned by four machine guns, and it gives the Germans an excellent view of the territory the Americans have got to cross.”

“Then that’s our objective,” said Roosevelt decisively. “If we can capture that hill and knock out the machine guns, we’ll have made a positive contribution to the battle that even that Woodrow Wilson will be forced to acknowledge.” The famed Roosevelt grin spread across his face. “We’ll show him that the dodo may be dead, but the Rough Riders are very much alive.” He paused. “Gather the men, Hank. I want to speak to them before we leave.”

McCoy did as he was told, and Roosevelt emerged from his tent some ten minutes later to address the assembled Rough Riders.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “tomorrow morning we will meet the enemy on the battlefield.”

A cheer arose from the ranks.

“It has been suggested that modern warfare deals only in masses and logistics, that there is no room left for heroism, that the only glory remaining to men of action is upon the sporting fields. I tell you that this is a lie.
We matter!
Honor and courage are not outmoded virtues, but are the very ideals that make us great as individuals and as a nation. Tomorrow, we will prove it in terms that our detractors and our enemies will both understand.” He paused, and then saluted them. “Saddle up—and may God be with us!”

***

They reached the outskirts of the battlefield, moving silently with hooves and harnesses muffled, just before sunrise. Even McCoy, who had seen action in Mexico, was unprepared for the sight that awaited them.

The mud was littered with corpses as far as the eye could see in the dim light of the false dawn. The odor of death and decay permeated the moist, cold morning air. Thousands of bodies lay there in the pouring rain, many of them grotesquely swollen. Here and there they had virtually exploded, either when punctured by bullets or when the walls of the abdominal cavities collapsed. Attempts had been made during the previous month to drag them back off the battlefield, but there was simply no place left to put them. There was almost total silence, as the men in both trenches began preparing for another day of bloodletting.

Roosevelt reined his horse to a halt and surveyed the carnage. Still more corpses were hung up on barbed wire, and more than a handful of bodies attached to the wire still moved feebly. The rain pelted down, turning the plain between the enemy trenches into a brown, gooey slop.

“My God, Hank!” murmured Roosevelt.

“It’s pretty awful,” agreed McCoy.

“This is not what civilized men do to each other,” said Roosevelt, stunned by the sight before his eyes. “This isn’t war, Hank—it’s butchery!”

“It’s what war has become.”

“How long have these two lines been facing each other?”

“More than a month, sir.”

Roosevelt stared, transfixed, at the sea of mud.

“A month to cross a quarter mile of
this
?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“How many lives have been lost trying to cross this strip of land?”

McCoy shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe eighty thousand, maybe a little more.”

Roosevelt shook his head. “
Why
, in God’s name? Who cares about it? What purpose does it serve?”

McCoy had no answer, and the two men sat in silence for another moment, surveying the battlefield.

“This is madness!” said Roosevelt at last. “Why doesn’t Pershing simply march around it?”

“That’s a question for a general to answer, Mr. President,” said McCoy. “Me, I’m just a captain.”

“We can’t continue to lose American boys for
this
!” said Roosevelt furiously. “Where is that machine gun encampment, Hank?”

McCoy pointed to a small rise about three hundred yards distant.

“And the main German lines?”

“Their first row of trenches are in line with the hill.”

“Have we tried to take the hill before?”

“I can’t imagine that we haven’t, sir,” said McCoy. “As long as they control it, they’ll mow our men down like sitting ducks in a shooting gallery.” He paused. “The problem is the mud. The average infantryman can’t reach the hill in less than two minutes, probably closer to three—and until you’ve seen them in action, you can’t believe the damage these guns can do in that amount of time.”

“So as long as the hill remains in German hands, this is a war of attrition.”

McCoy sighed. “It’s been a war of attrition for three years, sir.”

Roosevelt sat and stared at the hill for another few minutes, then turned back to McCoy.

“What are our chances, Hank?”

McCoy shrugged. “If it was dry, I’d say we had a chance to take them out…”

“But it’s not.”

“No, it’s not,” echoed McCoy.

“Can we do it?”

“I don’t know, sir. Certainly not without heavy casualties.”

“How heavy?”

“
Very
heavy.”

“I need a number,” said Roosevelt.

McCoy looked him in the eye. “Ninety percent—if we’re lucky.”

Roosevelt stared at the hill again. “They predicted fifty percent casualties at San Juan Hill,” he said. “We had to charge up a much steeper slope in the face of enemy machine gun fire. Nobody thought we had a chance—but I did it, Hank, and I did it alone. I charged up that hill and knocked out the machine gun nest myself, and then the rest of my men followed me.”

“The circumstances were different then, Mr. President,” said McCoy. “The terrain offered cover and solid footing, and you were facing Cuban peasants who had been conscripted into service, not battle-hardened professional German soldiers.”

“I know, I know,” said Roosevelt. “But if we knock those machine guns out, how many American lives can we save today?”

“I don’t know,” admitted McCoy. “Maybe ten thousand, maybe none. It’s possible that the Germans are dug in so securely that they can beat back any American charge even without the use of those machine guns.”

“But at least it would prolong some American lives,” persisted Roosevelt.

“By a couple of minutes.”

“It would give them a
chance
to reach the German bunkers.”

“I don’t know.”

“More of a chance than if they had to face machine gun fire from the hill.”

“What do you want me to say, Mr. President?” asked McCoy. “That if we throw away our lives charging the hill that we’ll have done something glorious and affected the outcome of the battle? I just don’t know!”

“We came here to help win a war, Hank. Before I send my men into battle, I have to know that it will make a difference.”

“I can’t give you any guarantees, sir. We came to fight a war, all right. But look around you, Mr. President—
this
isn’t the war we came to fight. They’ve changed the rules on us.”

“There are hundreds of thousands of American boys in the trenches who didn’t come to fight this kind of war,” answered Roosevelt. “In less than an hour, most of them are going to charge across this sea of mud into a barrage of machine gun fire. If we can’t shorten the war, then perhaps we can at least lengthen their lives.”

“At the cost of our own.”

“We are idealists and adventurers, Hank—perhaps the last this world will ever see. We knew what we were coming here to do.” He paused. “Those boys are here because of speeches and decisions that politicians have made, myself included. Left to their own devices, they’d go home to be with their families. Left to ours, we’d find another cause to fight for.”

“This isn’t a cause, Mr. President,” said McCoy. “It’s a slaughter.”

“Then maybe this is where men who want to prevent further slaughter belong,” said Roosevelt. He looked up at the sky. “They’ll be mobilizing in another half hour, Hank.”

“I know, Mr. President.”

“If we leave now, if we don’t try to take that hill, then Wilson and Pershing were right and I was wrong. The time for heroes is past, and I
am
an anachronism who should be sitting at home in a rocking chair, writing memoirs and exhorting younger men to go to war.” He paused, staring at the hill once more. “If we don’t do what’s required of us this day, we are agreeing with them that we don’t matter, that men of courage and ideals can’t make a difference. If that’s true, there’s no sense waiting for a more equitable battle, Hank—we might as well ride south and catch the first boat home.”

“That’s your decision, Mr. President?” asked McCoy.

“Was there really ever any other option?” replied Roosevelt wryly.

“No, sir,” said McCoy. “Not for men like us.”

“Thank you for your support, Hank,” said Roosevelt, reaching out and laying a heavy hand on McCoy’s shoulder. “Prepare the men.”

“Yes, sir,” said McCoy, saluting and riding back to the main body of the Rough Riders.

“Madness!” muttered Roosevelt, looking out at the bloated corpses. “Utter madness!”

McCoy returned a moment later.

“The men are awaiting your signal, sir,” he said.

“Tell them to follow me,” said Roosevelt.

“Sir…” said McCoy.

“Yes?”

“We would prefer you not lead the charge. The first ranks will face the heaviest bombardment, not only from the hill but from the cannons behind the bunkers.”

“I can’t ask my men to do what I myself won’t do,” said Roosevelt.

“You are too valuable to lose, sir. We plan to attack in three waves. You belong at the back of the third wave, Mr. President.”