O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [125]
Then came disturbing news. The navy had made the decision to build a battleship on the West Coast. One could call that progress, Horace supposed, but it was ridiculous as well. How the hell are those people out there going to cast fourteen-inch guns? Or the new steam turbines? Or all the electrical equipment? A California-built battleship would take some of the luster from the great yards at Newport News and Brooklyn, to say nothing of Dutchman’s Hook.
Horace’s dream of bottling up the Chesapeake was put on hold. Did he even want the monopoly now? Those sons of bitches in Washington were talking about antitrust legislation, the first step to choking off the great industrialists!
What was the use of taking over the Constable yard anymore? Could there even be a merger without the marriage of Amanda and Glen Constable? Hell! It all had to do with Amanda’s flight. That awful night she left Tobermory.
With all his plans of all the years, an alignment had finally been set for continuity and industrial power that would put him among the mighty.
Now he didn’t know if he even wanted the fucking Chesapeake.
. . . enough of that.
The Christmas ritual was upon him. Horace Kerr would again play his role of noble benefactor. No Scrooge, he. On with the show!
Dutchman’s Hook was trimmed up in ribbons, and Horace, acting like an eager candidate for office, made a round of the yard, pumping hands with the sauerbraten, spaghetti, and pork-and-beans workmen. Envelopes, a bonus of two to four days’ extra pay according to rank, were passed out, and kegs of beer uncorked, and everyone doffed their hats.
The foremen and shop bosses, all called by first name, pocketed five days’ pay as bonuses. They got rum. The main gates were locked against a demonstration by temperance screechers.
Who says you can’t toast the Lord on his birthday!
In the meeting hall in the executive building, the architects, engineers, office staff, and titled managers received baskets that included cheese from Luxembourg, English tea biscuits, jellies and jams from Maine, and Scotch whiskey.
And for their children, a Santa Claus with sacks of little wooden livery vans, popguns, rag dolls made by a black community’s old folks—an annual goodwill purchase—and bags of candies. Peppermint stripes drooled sticky off happy little chins.
Due to the influx of female office workers—most of whom were unmarried—brought in to use the new writing machines and such, the Pinkertons kept a wary eye on the backside pinchers and those making too many trips down the hall or too many trips to the punch bowl.
It was a wonderful party.
Horace was still gimpy from his sail to Immigrant Reef and leaned on a cane, with Daisy attending him closely.
When they reached their carriage and tucked in, they scarcely spoke all the way into Baltimore.
During the past few years, there had been an explosion in the uses of electricity. Inverness was the first of the Baltimore mansions to illuminate its grounds. Each season now, Kerr engineers enhanced the spectacle, lighting up the place with its own generators and drawing common folk from all over the city. They came by trolley and walked six blocks up Butcher’s Hill.
Nice Christmas touch, the folks from downhill able to share the lights with those living uphill. Crowd control was in place; white people came through the main gate and walked the circular driveway into the blaze of lights. Blacks came through a side entrance.
A rotating bandstand erected by the great pine tree had orchestras from the Peabody Conservatory, the symphony, the Salvation Army, and the U.S. Army, Fort Meade, backing choruses from Protestant churches.
. . . and around to the enormous west lawn and living crèche with camels from the Baltimore zoo, live Josephs, Marys, and Wise Men. Baby Jesus was a doll.
The cast changed hourly.
Those on the “list” gained entry to Inverness itself, to the foyer where Horace had planned earlier to hang the finished portrait