O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [99]
“What are we going to do with those smoothbore, single-shot forty-five-caliber elephant guns?”
“Shove them up a museum’s ass,” Zach said, coming to his feet.
“Don’t get your shit hot, I haven’t finished, yet. ‘Conclusion: calls for the development of automatic weapons as an urgent priority.’”
“Ben, where did I hear it said that the invention of a fully automatic weapon will be the greatest killing machine in all warfare? Which of your lectures did I pick that up at? A couple of sets of machine guns on either flank of our beachhead in an elevated place will go a long way to assure the success of that beachhead.”
“ ‘Conclusion,’” Ben read on:
‘Nothing is more imperative to the future of amphibious warfare than a proper, self-propelled landing boat with a crew of three capable of holding twenty or more assault troops . . .
‘Such a landing boat, of shallow draft, with flat bottom, and armor-plated, must be able to handle breaking surf and deposit the marines at the waterline . . .
‘The boat will not be beached. It will take on wounded, have reverse capability, turn around, and go back to the mother ship for more men and weapons. A continuing line of boats from ship to beach and back is the heartbeat of expeditionary landings.’
Zach folded his fingers together like a sinner at prayer. “It all depends on how far away from home the eagle wants to shit. Islands are going to be fortified, Ben, as outer defenses. We’re not always going to be able to make soft landings. And we’re not going to dump men halfway around the world without the support of the nation, advance bases, naval protection, and the basic weaponry . . . and men.”
“We are at peace, Zach. We are a democracy. Military planners will be very cautious, that’s human history. They learn too late that these theories should have been developed before we’re standing ass deep in wet cement waiting for it to dry. ‘Random Study Sixteen’ has too much truth in it. It shakes up too many stagnant doctrines.”
At that moment Ben Boone felt an anxiety of the kind he’d felt before only when being shot at. It all came to a head so damned fast. It wasn’t the end of the career that half paralyzed him now. It was the realization that these basic ideas were going to be rejected and the price might be a lot of dead American fighters.
He wanted to plead with Zachary O’Hara to modify things, slip around with the usual dodgy language of a military study. He saw Zach and he saw right. He could not ask this young officer to change his conclusions without losing his own beliefs.
Well, now, not much left to do but continue to turn it in and pray for Richard X. Maple.
• 30 •
THE CASINO
Late Summer—1891
Despite the unwelcome appearance of Lieutenant Zachary O’Hara in Newport, the summer of Horace and Daisy Kerr had gone well. After a few indigestions, Horace felt that the compact he’d made on the train with Amanda had gained roots. Amanda had proven she intended to purge herself of that Marine. His name was not mentioned and there was not so much as a hint that they had seen each other.
If there was a void in Amanda’s life, the Kerrs felt that Dixie Jane Constable filled it. Amanda had many friends, particularly in the arty circles, but she rarely made an intimate friend. An exception had been Willow Fancy. Willow was married now, having a child, and they had drifted out of the center stream of each other’s life.
With Dixie Jane, it was like true love. Amanda could have this child as her own as sister, teacher, and the wife of Dixie Jane’s father.
Amanda moved about Tobermory with a lightness, got to know her cousins and uncles better, and was a most charming co-hostess with her mother.
How magnificently Amanda eased into the woman’s role. Well done, Horace! Horace had passed the summer with waning suspicion and scarcely uttered a harsh word.
For Daisy Kerr, nirvana! The slightest hint that Amanda and Glen might announce