The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles

Chapter 22-1

Chapter 22It took about a week for things to settle down. Anna

Marie was home, my mother was healing nicely, and we had managed to

deal with Eichel without ever involving the authorities and without

even telling the McNabs what had happened. McNab was an important

man in Denver, and I knew he would not have countenanced using

Soapy Smith’s old crew and Bat Masterson to deceive Eichel and

bring about the safe return of Anna Marie.

Of course, as soon as Anna Marie saw her

grandma McNab, she spilled the beans. Mrs. McNab was horrified, but

after a few minutes, she calmed down and eventually agreed to break

the news to her husband.

“I am sure he will be madder’n a rained-on

rooster,” I said. “And I guess I can’t blame him. But I trust Bat

as much as any man, and he knows how to deal with men like

Eichel.”

“You let me handle Cornelius,” Mrs. McNab

said. And handle him she did. The only thing I heard from Mr. McNab

was about a week later when he took me aside and thanked me for

retrieving Anna Marie.

“I don’t think she was ever in any real

danger,” I said. “Eichel wanted the documents Katharina had, and he

was using Anna Marie as leverage.”

“Still, these things have been known to go

wrong.”

I nodded. “In any case, Bat Masterson was

the key, along with some of Soapy Smith’s old gang.”

McNab cleared his throat nervously. “Yes,

well, I prefer not to know the details.”

Of course, the details were simple. The

“police” who took Eichel and his men into custody were Soapy’s old

crew. Bat, as a deputy Arapahoe County sheriff, was the only real

policeman in the group.

As one of the ersatz policemen explained to

me, “Most of us have been arrested so many times behaving like

coppers is as easy as lickin’ butter off a knife.”

And as Bessie had promised, she had

“controlled the environment” in Union Station. With a very few

exceptions, just about everybody in Union Station was playing a

role in Bessie’s masterful production. To ensure there would be no

interruptions in the ladies facilities as soon as the woman

pretending to be Katharina walked into the room an “out of order”

sign was placed on the door.

More complicated were the secret German

government documents Katharina had brought with her from

Chicago.

“I was going to show these to you when I got

here, but everything happened so fast with Eichel, your mother, and

Anna Marie that there was never any time,” Katharina said,

producing a sheaf of papers from her valise. She placed the papers

on the kitchen table.

At the top was the Imperial German Navy

ensign.

Beneath that were the German words Streng

Geheimen. I knew enough German to know that they meant “top

secret.” Beneath those words was the word “OPERATIONSPLAN-I.” I

looked at the first page, then the second, and finally, I leafed

quickly through all thirty or so of them. They were carbon copies,

and the German they contained was more than my knowledge of the

language could deal with.

“I assume you have read all of this?” I

asked. “A lot of this is beyond my ability.”

Katharina

nodded. “Yes, there is a lot of military language in there, but let

me summarize it for you. These are German invasion plans of the

U.S. East Coast.” [7]

“What?”

“I know it is difficult to believe, but

these documents came to me from Edeltraud von Gust, and she was not

only one of my husband’s sisters, the von Gust’s are very close to

Alfred von Tirpitz, the German Navy secretary. Edeltraud and

Heinrich never got on. She was opposed to his politics of German

expansion.”

Katharina then proceeded to summarize the

contents of the top-secret German papers.

The German invasion plan of the U.S. called

for a large German fleet to sail across the Atlantic

Ocean and to engage and defeat the U.S. Navy’s Atlantic

Fleet. German ships would then attack the Norfolk Naval

Shipyard, the Newport

News Shipbuilding center, and all other naval

installations in the Hampton

Roads area of Virginia. Another attack was to be aimed

at the Portsmouth

Naval Shipyard at the junction of the states of Maine

and New Hampshire. The New York

Harbor facilities are fortified with powerful anti-ship

guns and were considered a prime target.

The author of the document was Lieutenant

Eberhard von Mantey, working under the direction of Admiral von

Tirpitz, who, in turn had been tasked to create the plan by no less

than Germany’s emperor kaiser

Wilhelm II. The objective, Katharina explained, was to

hit the “most sensitive point” of American defenses and force the

U.S. to negotiate.

“But why? It makes no sense,” I

interrupted.

“It does if you are the kaiser and you feel

that Germany has been shortchanged when it comes to grabbing

wealthy far-flung colonies the way Great Britain, France, Belgium,

the Netherlands, and a few other European powers have,” Katharina

said. “The plan is to attack naval power on the U.S.

East Coast, and the objective is to establish a German

naval base in the Caribbean, and then to negotiate for another in

the Pacific.

“Then why not attack England or France? They

are the ones with the colonies.”

“From reading these plans, it’s clear that

Wilhelm II doesn’t intend to

conquer the U.S.,” she said. “He apparently wants only

to reduce the country’s influence. The invasion is supposed to

force the U.S. to bargain from a weak position, to sever its

growing economic and political connections in the Pacific, the

Caribbean, and South America, and to increase Germany’s influence

in those places.”

I shook my head.

“He is convinced the United States will be

at war with Spain in a matter of months, and he sees that as an

opportunity to strike when we are the most vulnerable. Once

America’s most important naval shipyards are under German control,

the German naval task forces are to remain in blockade

positions while a German negotiating team meets with American

government officials to wring from them whatever demands are

determined appropriate by the kaiser.

“I just seems so far-fetched, so out of

character.”

“Don’t forget, there are a lot of first- and

second-generation Germans in the United States—more than just about

any other country—and some of them will support such a move by the

kaiser.”

“So this is what all the fuss was about? Why

my mother was almost killed and my daughter kidnapped? For some

hair-brained German scheme to bombard the American East Coast?”

“Think about it, William. If these documents

get to President McKinley in Washington, why, who knows what might

happen?”

“Is that your intention? To give them to

President McKinley?”

“I don’t know… I haven’t even shown them to

my father. In fact, you are the only one who has seen them other

than Edeltraud von Gust and me. Manfred knows about them, but he

hasn’t seen them. I wonder how Eichel knew I had them. Who told

him? Somebody besides Edeltraud must have known these copies were

missing. But how did Eichel know I had them?”

I stood up and poured both of us cups of

coffee.

“What do you think I should do,

William?”

“You probably should have let Eichel have

them. And that would have been the end of it.”

Katharina stood up and walked to the kitchen

window. “Yes, but what if there really is an attack and I knew

about it. I would be called a traitor.”

I shook my head. “There is not going to be

an attack.”

“I am not so sure.”

“Here’s an idea. What if I wrote a story

about some secret German plans to attack the East Coast of America

and I don’t attribute the story to anyone except to say some secret

German government documents came into my possession? That might

spill the beans enough to keep the Germans from following through

on any misguided plan of attack.”

Katharina turned away from the window and

looked at me. “It might work, but I worry that Edeltraud will be

found out. And what if the U.S. authorities demand to see the

documents you base your report on? I think I’ll just keep them in a

safe place. The fact that the German government knows I have the

plans may be enough of a deterrence.”

That is what Katharina did. She never sent

them to President McKinley nor did she ever show them to anyone

that I am aware of. Moreover, there was no German attack on the

East Coast of America—at least not as I am writing this. Katharina

wrote a letter to Admiral von Tirpitz, telling him the documents

were in a safe place; and if she or anyone in her family were ever

harmed, they would be sent immediately to the U.S. Department of

War.

Katharina stayed in Denver for another month

and then returned to Chicago when she received a telegram that her

mother had fallen ill. I hated to see her go. We were growing

closer by the day, and at one point, I almost brought up the

subject of marriage, partly because one day my mother had asked me

what my intentions were and partly because I knew I had fallen in

love with Katharina.

“You can’t continue like this, William,”

Mother told me. “It’s just not proper.”

I had decided to go to Chicago once

Katharina’s mother had regained her health and ask Katharina to

marry me. Then everything changed on April 25, when Congress

declared war on Spain.

America had been champing at the bit to go

to war with Spain since mid-February when the U.S. battleship Maine

exploded in Havana harbor. Now with war declared, I wondered about

those German invasion plans that Katharina was in possession of. I

was still wondering that when I received a telephone call from

Katharina, urging me to go to Manila to make sure Manfred was all

right.

“I would go myself, but my mother is still

seriously ill,” she said.

I was on

a train to San Francisco two weeks later. Mr. Harris of the

Sun was accommodating, and as he had before, he provided me

with a letter of credit, credentials that attested to my employment

by the newspaper as a correspondent, and a $500[8]

advance in expense money.

My mother, on the other hand, was not happy.

“Why you? You are an American just as he is. Why, you could be

arrested as soon as you walk ashore.”

She was right, of course. But at the time, I

didn’t see it that way. I knew Manfred, I was in love with his

sister, and I knew that the Spanish had executed Jose Rizal a year

and a half earlier after a mock trial found him guilty of sedition,

rebellion, and conspiracy. There was little doubt in my mind that

the Spanish would do the same to Manfred given his friendship with

Rizal and many of his colleagues.

I had to go. Once again, my ship was the

Pacific Steamship Company’s SS Nile—the same ship I had

taken from San Francisco to Saigon in 1894. Even though the Nile

was newer and its engine more powerful, the trip still took almost

six weeks. The ship steamed out of San Francisco harbor May 15, and

we arrived in Manila June 21 after stops in Honolulu, Yokohama,

Nagasaki, and Hong Kong. At each stop, I found myself thinking back

to four years before. I missed Katharina and wished she were with

me on this voyage.

Our ship was stopped in Manila harbor by two

American Navy gunboats. Several seaman and officers came aboard,

checked our papers, and performed an inspection of the ship and its

hold, looking for weapons. In those days, there were no passports

like those that we have today.

Instead, I carried a diploma-like

certificate with an engraved seal of the Department of State at the

top that I had obtained in San Francisco. At the bottom was a red

wax seal, and next to that my physical description and signature. I

also carried a letter of credit. I still have both.

“What’s your business in the Philippines,” a

naval officer asked, examining my papers.

“I am an importer of fine Philippine lumber,

and I have come to assist in temporarily closing down our office in

Manila… given the current circumstances.”

I figured it was best not to tell anybody

that I was a reporter and editor for the Denver Sun.

“Are you carrying any weapons?” he

asked.

“No,” I lied, opening my coat to show I was

unarmed.

“I mean, in your luggage.”

“Carrying a smoke pole in my trunk wouldn’t

do me much good.”

The officer handed my papers back to me.

“How long you planning on staying?”