December 1896
East of Nanjing, Republic of China
“How many?” Gasped Hans Czinka, running his hand along the fresh stubble growing along his jawline. Never able to grow a full beard or even a decent mustache, the Romani therefore preferred to shave regularly.
“A hundred thousand…” The words echoed through the expansive, hillside trench expanding daily via the weary backs of the 1st Company. Like virtually every other defensive fortification along the Yangtze, the trench ran parallel to the great river, with cannon placed high upon the bluffs. Czinka wondered if the Impies on the northern bank were doing the same or just assumed they’d never face a Republican attack.
“No…no…that not possible…” wondered Lester Wilkins, a Nebraska farm boy who’d enlisted to get out from under his father’s thumb and seek adventure. Like the other soldiers, Wilkins was filthy from head to toe. The only saving grace of the endless toil lay in the effort providing temporary relief from the cold.
“That is what they say, Wilkins,” Oscar Wagner assured the youth. Though not terribly much older than Wilkins, the tall, strapping Ohio-born Corporal carried an air of worldliness about him few in the Company could match. Rumors abounded that Wagner could expect a promotion to sergeant soon given the casualty rates among the non-coms over the past month…not to mention that most Columbian units tended to understaff both commissioned and non-commissioned officers to well below regulation minimums.
Theoretically, 1st Company should have had at least three officers (a Captain, Senior Lieutenant and Junior Lieutenant), four sergeants and four corporals. However, the 1st currently possessed but one Captain split between his nominal command and his duties at headquarters, a recent West Point graduate at junior Lieutenant, two sergeants (one in hospital) and two corporals. Even with the casualties of the past weeks, 1st Company merited more leadership.
“What can I tell you, Wilkins?” Wagner shrugged, equally distressed at the casualty figures. “Official reports estimate nearly seventy-five thousand enemy dead and perhaps twenty-five thousand of our own…including the allies, of course…in less than twenty-four hours.”
“But…that’s more than the United States of Columbia lost in all the War for Independence put together!”
Czinka rolled his eyes. In some ways, Wilkins was fairly well educated by soldierly standards…but the youth lacked the common sense of knowing when to shut up.
A crackle of distant thunder echoed across the water, drawing the attention of the soldiers. More than a few sighs emerged from sore throats. Winter had already arrived in China. Though being forced to remain in a muddy ditch under a blanket of snow was unpleasant, the prospect of shivering in rain-soaked uniforms as the temperatures plummeted at night was incalculably worse. Already, two soldiers in 1st Company had grown so ill that they’d been forced into hospital.
No word was received of their condition despite many inquiries. Ever since the mass Imperial attack across the Yangtze, followed by a series of epidemics, units were effectively quarantined in place to guard against outbreak…and keep them in the trenches. Only three times in the past fortnight had the 2nd Regiment returned to the relative comfort of their barracks. Morale sunk by the hour as the casualty figures poured in.
“Back to work, dammit!”
The common ranks turned to find their green officer, Lieutenant Stevens, glaring upon the idle soldiers from the cusp of the trench. He turned northwards, where yet another shell arced in the distance from Imperial territory, sure to land miles eastwards.
“Do you not see that?” He demanded, his “officer voice” on display.
Czinka, who’d had his ass chewed by the best of them since taking the oath, remained unimpressed by the West Pointer.
“It is only a matter of time before the Mandarin launches another assault on these shores! The deeper our defenses, the better…”
Apparently, Czinka thought, Stevens has yet to learn officers didn’t need to explain their orders. They just ordered.
As the enlisted men shuffled back to their spades, Stevens wandered off, leaving Wagner to supervise the grunt labor. Soon enough, the woolen and hemp bags were again being desultorily filled by the grumbling soldiers.
“All right…” Wagner began, “you heard the Lieutenant…”
“Mail call! 2nd Regiment!” inserted a new voice.
A ragged cheer went up. After weeks at sea, a long holdover in Kyushu and then months in China, only a handful of mail deliveries had arrived on these shores despite many soldiers writing daily to their loved ones. The Army was reportedly setting up some sort of postal system to provide better service to the servicemen but little evidence of improvement lay evident. Letters were still required to be addressed to the Brigade’s headquarters in Upper California to be then transferred across the ocean on packet ships with the hope that some staff officers might direct them to the correct Regiment.
The system, predictably, proved utterly inadequate and deficient. Any service beyond “none” was borderline miraculous.
A portly staff sergeant called out, “Gather round, 1st Company!” He commenced pulling a stack of letters and packages from a bag.
“Hankins!”
“He’h!” One of the negroes squealed in delight, racing forward to grab the letter from home.
“Bates!”
A long silence before someone murmured, “He’s dead.”
The sergeant frowned, returned the letter to the bag, and grabbed the next, “Winston!”
“Here!”
“Carmichael!”
“He’s in hospital…”
“Berbatov!”
“Here, sergeant!”
Neither Czinka nor Wagner expected a parcel. The former’s parents were illiterate and not the writing type anyway while the latter remained persona non grata among his Mennonite kin in Ohio. Wagner merely pulled out his pipe, dabbed in a bit of tobacco and watched in amused envy his mates receiving word from home. Czinka had never taken to the habit of pipe smoking and found chewing tobacco revolting, a position seconded by Kanoelani (assuring the soldier never WOULD take up tobacco). Indeed, the army had, on numerous occasions, cracked down on spittoons in the barracks on hygienic grounds.
Both soldiers were content to rest in silence, appreciating the simple joy their comrades took in…
“Czinka!”
The Private, leaning upon his spade, nearly doubled over in shock.
“Me?!” He called out, astounded.
“Are you Czinka?” the Sergeant demanded in irritation.
“Yes, Sergeant, I a…”
“Then git your damned letter, Private!” He growled irritably, gesturing towards Czinka with disdain, obviously already exhausted with his task. The Romani managed to stumble forward to collect, absently offering a “thank you”. A few of his mates cheered in the background, pleased for their friend. Even a few words on paper represented a tangible slice of home.
Far better, the Sergeant announced that the 1st Company would return to their makeshift barracks that very evening, the first night the unit would spend under cover in weeks.
This time, the cheers were universal.
Later that night:
Among large groups of men far from home, bound together on or off duty (even on the toilet), privacy by necessity tended towards nil. This extended to letters from home. Every word was shared with one’s mates, especially the odd titillating letter from a wife or girlfriend.
Less popular were dispatches from parents but…hey…anything was better than nothing.
After a few more hours of labor, 1st Company was at last allowed to file through the battered streets of Nanjing towards the old warehouse serving as their quarters. A hearty fire burned in the corner, greeting the men with their first encounter with warmth in days.
Naturally, the soldiers were commanded to intensely bath…there were outbreaks of Bleeding Death, cholera, and typhoid throughout the stricken city…as well as provide a deep clean of the quarters which had, until a few hours before, offered sanctuary to 4th Company. The bedding was boiled (as were all the soldiers’ garments), the cots closely inspected for lice or other contagion. Fortunately, the structure proved as sanitary as one might expect and Lieutenant Stevens finally allowed dinner to be delivered at eight in the evening.
Via the light of the fire and a few nearby lamps, the soldiers, one by one, fortunate enough to receive letters were ushered into a prime spot and expected to share. Most, naturally, found a moment to open the dispatches and read the contents in private over the previous hours, Wagner obligingly overlooking this. No one held this against them.
But any news from home for one man was cherished by all.
A half dozen soldiers stepped forward to share: most of the letters were mundane, usually parents or siblings. The one fellow who’d received a note from his girl back home somehow managed to spin her innocuous words into an erogenous bent much to the cheers of his mates.
Finally, Czinka’s turn came. In truth, the private could not explain why he’d chosen not to open the letter over the previous hours. He longed for words from home. His siblings, unlike his parents, were literate…ish, at least. Still, over the past five years of service, Czinka had received fewer than a dozen letters from New Orleans.
Pushed to the center of the soldiers perched in a semicircle facing the stove, the grinning Romani nodded gamely and settled in before the fire, his hands shaking as he opened the envelope. Though darkness had fallen, the cheery fire (probably fueled by the remnants of destroyed wooden buildings) and lamps provided ample illumination, and Czinka read the return address.
“It is,” he began, “from my parents…” A few good-natured disappointed groans emerged from the crowd. Most hoped for a raunchy letter though Czinka’s relationship with the pretty nurse in the infirmary was well known…and envied.
“My son…we thank your childhood friend Martin Faire for writing these words…” Czinka looked about and stated, “Martin is schoolmaster in Algiers…” before returning to the page. Though his own literacy remained a word in progress, the soldier noted Martin was kind enough to omit any difficult words, his writing large and clear.
“We bring good tidings…your sister Gisela married Donald Delgado this past summer, whose father owns the carpentry story on 5th street.” Plainly his pretty younger sister had married well. The Delgados were among the wealthiest Romani families in New Orleans though, like virtually all his people, lived a sedentary life after liberation from Spanish “incarceration” in the West Indies. For the life of him, Czinka could not recall which island the Delgados hailed from.
Despite the prosaic nature of the missive, the soldier noted his mates’ rapt attention and he read on.
“Martine…” Czinka looked up and noted, “My other sister married a local farmer”, before continuing, “has given birth to yet another fine son, her fourth in six years. She and her husband have taken to name him “Hans” after his uncle…”
Touched by the gesture, he and Martine had never been particularly close, the soldier felt a slight tremor in his voice as he wondered as to how the boy was faring. He nodded as his friends slapped his back in congratulations. Martine had always been a social climber, seeking out the wealthiest man she could and snagged the only son of a horse farmer. Her father-in-law died a year after her marriage, leaving four hundred acres and some fifty beasts to his son. No doubt his sister thoroughly enjoyed playing the lady of the plantation.
“A son named after you,” the Joseon interpreter, Nam-Bo, murmured, “a great honor. I pray for the baby and his family…”
“Thank you, Nam…”
“Read on!” Called one soldier.
“Did she mention anything about the conception?” Another inquired vulgarly, though the jibe obviously in jest. Several soldiers swatted him about the head for his crassness.
“More! More!” came the demands one after another.
After a few more paragraphs detailing the struggles of the family laundry service, his parents confessed that Czinka’s brother had been sentenced for three months in jail for unspecified “unruly behavior”. Some people will never learn, he shook his head. Janos always sought the easy way…
Grateful for the lack of detail on his younger brother’s escapades, Czinka read on, “…however, we are sad to inform you of the death of your cousin Julia’s husband, John…”
Shocked, the soldier took a moment to absorb this. A year or two older than Czinka himself, John was another childhood friend. A local, John Simmons always treated the newly arrived Romani with respect and obviously grew close Julia after Czinka enlisted. Not the beauties his younger sisters might be, Julia was always among the most amiable of his family and the soldier genuinely regretted her loss.
As the letter would explain, the worst was yet to come.
“…As we wrote last year, the first major gathering of the Romanini clans was being held in Wichita in June. To our surprise, many of our people arrived in the old caravans! We had no idea that some Romanini still travelled in the old ways…”
“The old music was played, the old songs sung, it was beautiful. We even met with some distant relatives unseen since the time of your great-grandfather…”
“Unfortunately, the festival…of some four thousand Romani…was set upon by a group of Travellers…” Based on the language of the letter, Czinka was quite certain Martin took GREAT liberties with his parents’ words.
“What is a…Traveller?” Inquired Nam-Bo, the Joseon’s wide features scrunched in confusion.
“They are…like Romani…but different people. They are Irish people…who travel about like Romani…in caravans…doing much the same work,” Czinka labored to explain, his English tending to fail when called upon to elaborate on such subjects. “Some call them “Tinkers”…but they are not related to us.”
He frowned, “When France conquered England…there was both Travellers AND Romani. There was peace between two…but…after the war…the Irish Travellers go back to Ireland because…the English would kill them…but they inform on the Romani and the French shipped the Romani in England to the West Indies…”
Turning towards the assembled soldiers, most of which looked on in interest, “A…a…Blood Feud? Yes, a Blood Feud was born. The Irish Travellers were not welcome in Ireland as they think…and they go to Columbia. When slavery of Romani…and Maghrebs…and others make illegal in Spanish Empire…most Romani go to Columbia too…”
“Ah…” Nam-Bo nodded, “Blood Feud…”
“Yes,” Czinka closed his eyes. While his own Romani ancestors were of German and Hungarian origin, the episode remained a sore point for those exiled from Britain to generations of toil on West Indian plantations. “The Travellers…they live in Columbian states like…Ohio and Tejas. Romani live in Louisiana, East Florida, Missouri…”
“When the two group meet…”
“They fight,” Nam-Bo concluded, grasping the intent of Czinka’s hesitation.
“John was murdered,” Czinka nodded, eyes misting as he read on. “He wasn’t even a real Romani, just a Gadje who marry into our family…My parents say he got in argument with young Travellers from Tejas…and one stab him in the throat…” After this, the soldier could bear no more.
John Simmons was a good man. He deserved better than to die at the hands of Irish trash…
A firm grasp on his shoulder confirmed his friend Oscar’s comforting presence. One of the man’s greatest traits was to know when to say nothing. Still, Czinka wished nothing more than to be with Kanoelani right now…an impossibility given the restrictions on movement until the epidemic may be brought under control. Even the visits to the infirmary under one fabricated pretense or another (aided by his friends in 1st company) had come to an end.
Though pleased that his sisters were doing so well, the soldier grieved for the passing of his old friend and the shattering effect the event must have upon poor Julia.
