O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [15]
“The Marines,” Roosevelt argued, “breed animosity aboard ships. Sailors can, most certainly, police their own vessels. The Marines went out of style with grappling hooks and cutlasses. They don’t even shoot well anymore.”
Though there was some sentimental feeling for the Marines from past fights, the Corps had become a redundant, obsolete unit of candy soldiers. Culpeper was bending under the demands of the party, the admirals, and a most vocal Horace Kerr.
The story goes that Horace Kerr’s ancestors had landed south of Plymouth Rock two days earlier than the Mayflower. His great-grandfather was an hour ahead of the Minutemen at Concord and his shipworks won the war for the North.
Indeed, Kerr had made his initial fortune building ships for the Union fleet. He was a rising star among the entrepreneurial barons.
Now, over two decades after the war, Kerr was in the center of the new steam-and-steel navy. He himself was a man of steel, helping craft the new American fleet, an imperial fleet, for the nation’s great leap into world commerce. A hard-edged genius, Kerr was a real power in the power rooms of Washington.
Four presidents had heard him out, carefully. He could not be intimidated by anyone . . . except, perhaps, by his daughter, Amanda, who at that moment burst into the office and headed for the cloud of cigar smoke.
The Marine on guard followed on her heels.
“Amanda,” Horace Kerr roared, “what the devil is going on here?”
“Sorry, sirs,” the Marine said. “I told the lady the meeting was closed.”
“You might have restrained her,” Commodore Harkleroad grumbled. “You people do have training on how to stand guard?”
“Sirs, I did not think there was anything in the manual that directly applied to this situation. I felt that shooting her or threatening her with my saber or physically placing her under arrest was not appropriate to the situation, inasmuch as she and Mr. Kerr had the same last name, sirs!”
“You were standing guard against a girl!” Harkleroad snapped.
“She used trickery to get past me,” the Marine answered.
“You are impertinent! I demand a reprimand!” Horace Kerr feigned a rage that caused the potted plants to tremble.
Secretary Culpeper joined them, turning to Commandant Ballard to see what “Uncle Tom” had to say. The commandant scratched out a note and slid it over the desk.
Culpeper glanced at it and passed it to the others. It read: Paddy O’Hara’s son.
Silence.
“Amanda, how lovely to see you,” Culpeper crooned.
Commodore Harkleroad said something in mangled French on the order of “beware the femme fatale.” What might have been considered a laugh found its way around the table.
“I really don’t think this calls for bread and water, does it, Miss Amanda?” Tom Ballard asked softly.
Amanda, who had gathered which way the wind was blowing, turned to the Marine and said, “I was very rude and I apologize.”
The others nodded in unison.
“Colonel Ballard,” Amanda said, “I’d like you to command . . . Private . . . er . . .”
“Zachary O’Hara,” Ballard said.
“I want you to order Private O’Hara to attend a post-debutante charity dance at Inverness,” she said, referring to an event that was to be held at the Kerrs’ Baltimore mansion. “Saturday, next.”
“I can assure Miss Amanda that Private O’Hara will be guarding your door, properly.”
“No,” Amanda corrected. “I wish to extend my apology by having him as a guest.” She turned. “I’ll wait, Father,” she said, and burst out of the office as suddenly as she had burst in. Ballard nodded for Zachary to leave.
Horace Kerr softened. “She’s a handful. Just turned sixteen, you know, made her social debut in Baltimore a few months ago. She’s feeling her oats. Stepping into her charity duties, all that.”
“He does have a proper uniform for the occasion, does he not, Tom?” Kerr asked, referring to the private.
“I can’t do a hell of a lot for the Marines these days, but I can see to it he has a dress uniform.”
In the 110-year history of the Corps, it was the only time that a commandant