Fall of Giants

When she was out of sight he headed automatically for the Oval Office, then changed direction: his mind was in too much of a turmoil for him to be with the president. He went into the men’s room for a moment’s peace. Fortunately there was no one else there. He washed his face, then looked in the mirror. He saw a thin man with a big head: he was shaped like a lollipop. He had light brown hair and brown eyes, and was not very handsome, but women usually liked him, and Caroline loved him.

Or she had, at least, for a little while.

He should not have let her go. How could he have watched her walk away like that? He should have persuaded her to postpone her decision, think about it, talk to him some more. Perhaps they could have thought of alternatives. But in his heart he knew there were no alternatives. She had already been through all that in her mind, he guessed. She must have lain awake nights, with her husband sleeping beside her, going over and over the situation. She had made up her mind before coming here.

He needed to return to his post. America was at war. But how could he put this out of his mind? When he could not see her, he spent all day looking forward to the next time he could. Now he could not stop thinking about life without her. It already seemed a strange prospect. What would he do?

A clerk came into the men’s room, and Gus dried his hands on a towel and returned to his station in the study next to the Oval Office.

A few moments later, a messenger brought him a cable from the American consul in Veracruz. Gus looked at it and said: “Oh, no!” It read: FOUR OF OUR MEN KILLED COMMA TWENTY WOUNDED COMMA FIRING ALL AROUND THE CONSULATE STOP.

Four men killed, Gus thought with horror; four good American men with mothers and fathers, and wives or girlfriends. The news seemed to put his sadness in perspective. At least, he thought, Caroline and I are alive.

He tapped on the door of the Oval Office and handed the cable to Wilson. The president read it and went pale.

Gus looked keenly at him. How did he feel, knowing they were dead because of the decision he had made in the middle of the night?

This was not supposed to happen. The Mexicans wanted freedom from tyrannical governments, didn’t they? They should have welcomed the Americans as liberators. What had gone wrong?

Bryan and Daniels showed up a few minutes later, followed by the secretary of war, Lindley Garrison, a man normally more belligerent than Wilson, and Robert Lansing, the State Department counselor. They gathered in the Oval Office to wait for more news.

The president was wired tighter than a violin string. Pale, restless, and twitchy, he paced the floor. It was a pity, Gus thought, that Wilson did not smoke-it might have calmed him.

We all knew there might be violence, Gus thought, but somehow the reality is more shocking than we anticipated.

More details came in sporadically, and Gus handed the messages to Wilson. The news was all bad. Mexican troops had resisted, firing on the marines from their fort. The troops were supported by citizens, who took potshots at Americans from their upstairs windows. In retaliation the USS Prairie, anchored offshore, turned its three-inch guns on the city and shelled it.

Casualties mounted: six Americans killed, eight, twelve-and more wounded. But it was a hopelessly unequal contest, and over a hundred Mexicans died.

The president seemed baffled. “We don’t want to fight the Mexicans,” he said. “We want to serve them, if we can. We want to serve mankind.”

For the second time in a day, Gus felt knocked off his feet. The president and his advisers had had nothing but good intentions. How had things gone so wrong? Was it really so difficult to do good in international affairs?

A message came from the State Department. The German ambassador, Count Johann von Bernstorff, had been instructed by the kaiser to call on the secretary of state, and wished to know whether nine o’clock tomorrow morning would be convenient. Unofficially, his staff indicated that the ambassador would be lodging a formal protest against the halting of the Ypiranga.

“A protest?” said Wilson. “What the dickens are they talking about?”

Gus saw immediately that the Germans had international law on their side. “Sir, there had been no declaration of war, nor of a blockade, so, strictly speaking, the Germans are correct.”

“What?” Wilson turned to Lansing. “Is that right?”

“We’ll double-check, of course,” said the State Department counselor. “But I’m pretty sure Gus is right. What we did was contrary to international law.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means we’ll have to apologize.”

“Never!” said Wilson angrily.

But they did.

{IV}