The Lost Years of Billy Battles

Chapter 2

Chapter 2That night as we prepared to turn in, Katharina and I discussed Funston’s proposal.

“I don’t like it, William. I don’t like it one bit.” Katharina had propped herself up in bed with a book in her lap.

I was not inclined to argue with her. What Funston had proposed was that Katharina and I travel to Veracruz and pose as tourists on a tour of Mexico. The reason for this subterfuge was that the U.S. had received intelligence that a German merchant ship named the SS Ypiranga, carrying arms and munitions for Mexican dictator General Victoriano Huerta, was on the way to Veracruz. That was in direct violation of the arms embargo the U.S. had placed on Mexico.

Because we both spoke German, our job would be to watch and listen, without attracting any undue attention to ourselves, and relay any intelligence we might gather back to Funston. Veracruz was apparently swarming with German agents and a surplus of other European spies.

“I don’t see how what happens in Mexico is any of our concern,” Katharina said. “Won’t those idiots in Washington ever learn to stop meddling in the political affairs of other countries?”

The next morning over breakfast Katharina raised that very point with Funston, who I could tell demonstrated considerable restraint in crafting an answer to her question.

“We need to stifle the flow of weaponry into Mexico, because this civil war of theirs is getting out of hand and spilling over the border into Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona,” Funston said. “And to top it all off that damned Huerta is working a might too closely with Germany.”

Katharina and I looked at one another. Some 15 years before, we had learned of secret plans by Germany to invade the United States,1 so the idea of a German-Mexican collaboration was not out of the question—especially now, with tensions high in Europe because of the wars in the Balkan Peninsula. If war were to break out in Europe, it would be in Germany’s interests to keep the United States occupied with Mexico.

Funston was a shrewd man and immediately noticed that we seemed to know something that he didn’t.

“I get the feeling I’m in the dark here,” Funston said, looking first at Katharina and then at me.

“It’s a long story, General,” Katharina said. “Let’s just say William and I had a run-in with some German government agents over a document I shouldn’t have had, and having it almost got us both killed.”

“Now you’ve got my complete attention.”

“That’s all I can tell you, but suffice it to say that what was in those documents was not in the interest of the United States.”

Funston got up and poured himself a fresh cup of coffee from a silver urn on a nearby side table.

“I see. Then, without a doubt, you two are the perfect pair to do some sleuthing down in Veracruz. Not only will you understand what’s being said, but you have an understanding of Germany’s ambitions in this part of the world if and when war erupts in Europe.”

Katharina looked at Funston. “You know what Ambrose Bierce said about war, don’t you?”

“No, what did he say?”

“War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.”

“Old bitter Bierce was not one of my favorite hacks,” Funston said. “You know he was last seen in Mexico in the city of Chihuahua. I suspect Pancho Villa’s men got weary of his sarcasm and insolence and shot him.”

“We don’t know that,” I said. “He may have just leaked out of the landscape looking for peace and quiet in his old age.”

“We may never know. But as for you, Captain Battles, I trust you won’t be lighting a shuck for parts unknown.”

“Not if I can help it,” Katharina said.

“Splendid. I expect you and the captain to find out what those Heinies are up to in Veracruz.”

“There’s only one problem,” I said. “I speak German with an American accent.”

Katharina nodded. “And I’m not actually a Heinie, as you so charmingly put it.”

“Yes, but you were a German baroness,” Funston said. “That has to carry some weight with those squareheads.”

Katharina and I exchanged glances. I wondered if we should tell Funston of Katharina’s unabridged history with the late Baron von Schreiber. She could tell what I was thinking.

“That may be true,” she said. “But that was then. Today I’m married to a Kansas sand cutter. Isn’t that what they call you Kansans?”

After some discussion we decided to explain my facility with the German language by telling anyone who asked that I was born in the Oberharz region of Germany and immigrated to America with my parents when I was twelve. Because Katharina and I had visited my mother’s relatives in 1902 in the Oberharz village of Lautenthal, we were confident we could describe the area well enough to convince any doubters. In addition, we would make it clear that both of us had strong ties to the fatherland.

Against our better judgment, Katharina and I agreed to enter into the North American version of what Rudyard Kipling once called “The Great Game” and function as secret agents for Funston in Veracruz. To make our story more plausible, Funston requisitioned a yacht crewed by seven incognito U.S. Navy sailors. We were to sail from Brownsville, Texas, stop in Tampico, and then continue on to Veracruz.

The yacht’s papers indicated that she was registered in New Orleans to William Templeton, a wealthy businessman, but that we had recently purchased the boat and were taking it on a shakedown cruise from New Orleans to various port cities in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Templeton was an old friend from Kansas City,” Funston said. “He passed away last year, and his widow has agreed to loan me their boat. We’ve been on it, and I can tell you it is quite sumptuous, eh, Eda?”

Eda nodded. “If you like bobbing around on the ocean, it is. But I am not a nautical person.”

“Neither am I,” Katharina said. “But as long as it keeps us afloat, I’ll be happy.”

That evening we boarded the train from San Antonio to Brownsville. The trip took about 12 hours, and when we arrived we were met by a Navy lieutenant named Latham and Petty Officer 1st Class Goodson. They took us to the deepwater port of Brownsville where the yacht, called the Comanche, was moored.

The Comanche was a twin-masted, 145-ton, 135-foot steam-driven vessel with a beam of 18 feet.

“She’s quite a vessel, isn’t she?” Lieutenant Latham said as we walked alongside the dock where the yacht was moored. Latham was a tall, reedy, sharp-featured man in his early thirties. His sandy hair was close-thatched in the military style of the time. He had a seasoned, self-assured demeanor that suggested he was a leader of men.

The Comanche had a white steel hull and a teakwood deckhouse that contained the owner’s cabin. Her fore and aft decks were shielded overhead by broad swaths of white canvas. A single black 15-foot smokestack was amidships.

“That she is,” I said. “What kind of engine does she have?”

“She’s powered by a four-cylinder triple-expansion compound reciprocating steam engine that develops almost 400 horsepower and will move her along at a cruising speed of 12 knots,” Latham said. “She has a maximum draft of eight feet, which means she can operate in shallow water.”

“Well, it’s a lot bigger than I figured it would be. It must have cost a fortune,” Katharina said.

“Yes, it did. And our orders from General Funston are to make sure she isn’t damaged in any way,” the lieutenant said.

“Drat, and I planned to carve my initials on the cabin wall,” Katharina said.

Lieutenant Latham looked confused and cleared his throat uneasily. He was obviously not used to dealing with feisty civilians.

“Pay no attention to the baroness,” I said. “She does not have a nautical nature.”

Katharina shot me an exasperated look as she always did when I referred to her as baroness.

“Well, let’s get aboard this tub,” she said. “When will we be getting underway, Admiral?”

The lieutenant smiled sheepishly. “We have to get provisions and then get up steam. I figure we will shove off in two to three days or so.”

That meant we would be sailing on the weekend, either Saturday or Sunday. It was already March 19, and Funston wanted us in Veracruz by early April because he had been informed by the US counsel there that the SS Ypiranga was due to arrive around April 21.

“We don’t know if the Germans are behind this shipment or if someone else is,” Funston had told us. “In any case, the arms and munitions are aboard a German ship registered in Hamburg. We need to find out who is behind it. That will be your primary task.”

“Is that all? Why not send a cable to Kaiser Wilhelm and ask him?” Katharina’s sardonic streak had been on full display.

Funston, whose sense of humor was not particularly honed to sarcasm, had simply nodded, looked at me, and cleared his throat. “Were it that simple, Katharina. Were it that simple.”

Lieutenant Latham and Petty Officer Goodson got us settled in the owner’s cabin, a sumptuous collection of dark mahogany rooms that extended from just behind the bridge to about forty feet aft. It was replete with overstuffed chairs, tables, a couch, a bedroom with an oversized bed, a private bathroom with shower and tub, and a well-stocked bar with an excellent collection of spirits.

“This is the kind of government work I could get used to,” I said, collapsing into one of the hefty leather chairs. I thought I heard my war-martyred body creak a little, but instead it was Lieutenant Latham knocking softly at our cabin door.

Katharina opened the door for him.

“I forgot to explain the way the Comanche will be organized and commanded. May I come in for a few minutes?”

I nodded. “Have a seat, Mr. Latham.”

“I hope I’m not expected to do the cooking,” Katharina said, settling into a chair opposite the lieutenant.

“Oh, not at all, ma’am. That will be done by Seaman Jackson. He’s a fine belly cheater. Sorry. Uh . . . I mean, cook.”

“No need to apologize, Lieutenant Latham. I may have lived in a castle once upon a time, but I’m just a simple Chicago girl at heart,” Katharina said, looking at me.

“Simple? I think not, Baroness,” I said. “So, Latham, you wanted to tell us the rules?” I said.

Latham shot us a wary glance. Perhaps my calling Katharina “Baroness” had thrown him off.

“Yes, well, as ranking officer, I am the ship’s captain. Mr. Goodson will be second in command, followed by Petty Officer Third Class Ruppert. While we are aboard the Comanche, that will be the chain of command. Do you agree?”

I nodded. “You’ll get no argument from me. What I know about oceangoing vessels you could put into a leprechaun’s navel.”

Lathan cleared his throat. “Yes, well, as I said, Seaman Jackson will run the galley. As for the black gang, Seaman Vane is our chief engineer, Seaman Longworth is the boat’s first assistant engineer, and Seaman Flores is the boat’s wiper.”

“Black gang? Wiper?” I had not heard those terms before.

“Sorry,” Latham said. “The black gang is the engine room crew. The wiper is an all-around worker in the engine room. He keeps the machinery clean and does repair work.”

“Flores? Is he Mexican?”

“No, he’s Cuban and, of course, he speaks Spanish. We figured that might come in handy.”

“How wonderfully premeditated,” Katharina said. “Somebody who actually speaks the language of the country to which we are sailing. Though I do believe my other half here can converse a bit in Spanish.”

Lieutenant Latham fidgeted. “Yes, well, General Funston said we are not to divulge our U.S. Navy affiliation. As far as anybody is concerned, we are your civilian crew.”

“Sounds reasonable to me, given that we are on a surreptitious mission.”

Latham explained that both he and Petty Officer Goodson had experience in the Gulf of Mexico, having served aboard U.S. Navy vessels in the region for the past two years.

“We know all of the Mexican ports very well,” Latham said.

We got underway two days later, and after twenty-four hours at sea, we sailed into Tampico’s coastal breakwater harbor and then six miles up the broad Pánuco River to the anchorage.

After tying up along the wharf, Katharina, Lieutenant Latham, and I disembarked and took a stroll through the city. The place was not what I expected. It was a rough and tumble oil boomtown and had been since oil was discovered in 1901 in the state of Tamaulipas. It reminded me of places like Tombstone, Arizona, and Las Vegas, New Mexico—with a couple of notable exceptions. Much of its architecture consisted of New Orleans French-Quarter-style terraces and balconies because of the influx of French-speaking creoles from Louisiana in the 1850s.

There were plenty of American ex-patriots also, most of whom were engaged in the oil industry which was owned almost exclusively by American companies, including Standard Oil. Groups of beefy American oil workers prowled the streets and populated many of the cantinas. Everything from ragtime to música folclórica Mexicana poured from their open doorways.

“Looks like Uncle Sam is well-represented here,” Lieutenant Latham said.

“Should we be surprised?” Katharina quipped.

Tampico’s streets were lined with open-air shops and restaurants featuring fresh seafood cooked in the Louisiana creole style. The three of us stopped at one such eatery on Calle Jaurez and enjoyed a splendid lunch of huachinango (fresh local red snapper). Then it was back to the Comanche.

“We need to get underway tonight,” Latham said. “It’s about a forty-eight-hour passage to Veracruz.”

The Comanche headed back down the Rio Pánuco at about nine o’clock and then south along the coast toward Veracruz. Katharina and I sat on the aft deck sipping some of William Templeton’s fine Kentucky bourbon.

“This is damned fine coffin varnish,” I said, swirling the bourbon in my glass. Katharina didn’t respond. Instead, she gazed pensively at the frothy wake the Comanche was leaving behind in the tenebrous water.

“The more I think about this little adventure of ours, the more I dislike it,” Katharina said finally.

I had been looking at her face silhouetted against the bright moon. At forty-nine, she was as stunning and alluring as the day I first met her aboard the SS China twenty years before—perhaps more so. Her light-brown hair was brushed back and streaked with a bit of gray, as was mine, and she had a few more lines in her face, but neither diminished her natural beauty. My eyes were still fixed on her when she noticed that I was gawping at her.

“What?” she asked, smoothing her hair self-consciously. “Do I have a seagull on my head?”

I laughed out loud. “Now that would be a sight, the baroness wearing a seagull.”

“Well, what then?”

“Nothing. I was just . . . well, I was just looking at you and thinking how lucky I was to have met you way back when.”

Katharina leaned nearer, put her arm through mine, and nuzzled my neck.

“I have to confess, I never really understood what you saw in me,” I continued, putting my arm around her waist. “My luck was runnin’ kind of muddy back then, and I’m sure I wasn’t very good company.”

“I think we were both in the same boat—literally and figuratively. And that’s what drew us to one another.”

“Good point.”

“But I have to say, you took your time about it, spending all that time in Saigon—”

“What about you? Going on to Germany after that brief stopover in Saigon?”

“My dear William. Any woman with any brains at all could see you were not ready to commit yourself to any kind of meaningful liaison. After all, we barely knew one another.”

“Were you?”

“Were I what?”

“Were you ready to commit yourself?”

“No, but had you remained in Manila and not flitted off to Saigon we might have cut a year off our courting time.”

I took Katharina’s hand. “It was well worth the wait.”

“Such soft solder won’t get you anywhere.” Katharina stopped, looked around to make sure we were alone, and then continued. “Except in my bed.”

“Spoken like a true soiled dove. If it’s harvest time in the fields of Venus, then show me the way, Baroness.”

“Loutish galoot. Now I just might change my mind.”

She didn’t.