18

Diplomats, Mohammed, and Missionaries

Davis exhaled slowly, then breathed the night air in. “Come on, let’s go in. I need to introduce you to the consul general. He’s definitely not your average diplomat. And I can show you who’s who in there.”

Wake just wanted to go back to his room and rest—his mind was awash with names and events and histories of the countries in the region. More than ever, he felt inadequate for the job ahead. But instead, he buttoned his coat and followed Davis, marveling at the man’s ease at handling the strong champagne, recitation of all that information, and ability to energize again and put on a chameleon-like change in demeanor upon reentering the swirling chaos of the ballroom.

Wake was three steps behind Davis when the younger man stopped and pointed to the corner. “Ah, there he is, by the bar, as one would expect. Come along and meet my boss.” The crush of people pushed Wake toward a middle-aged, salt-and-pepper-haired man whose massive frame undulated as he laughed loudly at a joke told by a pretty girl.

Davis smiled ingratiatingly as he touched the man’s shoulder. “Sir, this is Lieutenant Peter Wake, who’s been at the hotel for about a week waiting for the squadron to return. Lieutenant, this is Mr. Beauregard Strom, Consul General for the United States at Genoa.”

Strom turned and slapped a huge hand into Wake’s, booming out a Southern-tinged greeting that could be heard across the room. “Why, hello there, Lieutenant. Good to finally meet you. Sorry we didn’t have a chance to meet before this. Hope you’re as comfortable as can be expected over there at that hotel. I know it isn’t much. Funding constraints, you see.”

Wake was nonplussed. He was six feet tall himself, but Strom was taller and bigger by fifty pounds, an imposing figure. And the man was completely different from every other diplomat Wake had met in his career. He wasn’t soft-spoken or suave. He had what sounded to Wake to be a Louisiana accent and a voice that was without elitist affect, sincerely jovial and direct to the point. Unlike most of the diplomats he had met, who usually made his skin crawl with suspicion, Strom was someone Wake instantly liked.

“Thank you, sir. An honor to meet you. The hotel room is adequate for my needs, sir.”

“Adequate! It’s a dump, Lieutenant. But it’s all we can do. Has young Dan here given you a briefing on the situation with your squadron, and Europe in general?”

“Yes, sir. A good one.”

Strom leaned forward and lowered his tone, his bass voice still audible above the tinkling of glasses and the string music. “Europe is a stew, Lieutenant. A stew of poisons that’s been brewing for centuries. I’ve been here since Grant sent me in seventy. It was really a mess then, what with the Germans making monkeys out of the French and everybody wondering what would come next. Getting slightly better now, though. Things are calming down a bit. Still, the trick is to sit at the table and compliment the stew, just don’t eat it. If you catch my drift. The navy will have to be careful to not alienate the people in charge of Europe. Especially around here, in Italy. They get mighty touchy about some things.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Wake reflexively to what he considered an order.

“By God, a sailor’s answer! Did you hear that, Dan? I do believe we’ll be seeing a lot of Lieutenant Wake in the future, since Case’s squadron will be stationed here until May and probably beyond.”

Strom put a hand on Davis’ shoulder. “Dan, let him know about northern Africa and the Ottomans too. That’s the area where things will be changing. We want to be extremely careful down there.” Then the consul general engaged an elderly man in conversation, switching into what sounded to Wake like fluent French.

“I’ll do that now, sir,” acknowledged Davis to Strom’s back, picking up two more champagnes, before gesturing Wake back to the balcony.

“Interesting man,” offered Wake when they arrived back at their perch overlooking the city. With the rain clouds lifted, the ancient lanterna lighthouse winking over on the western side of the harbor, and the night cloaking the city filth, Wake thought Genoa looked its best. Or it could be the champagne, he realized, as Davis replied.

“Very interesting. I’ll tell you about his background later. But first I’d better cover the lands of Mohammed. Completely alien culture.”

Wake laughed as he gestured around them. “Dan, I thought all this was pretty bizarre.”

“It is, but the Ottoman world makes this place look like home.”

“All right, what about this infamous Muslim world? I hear we have to rescue missionaries there frequently,” asked Wake after unbuttoning his coat again in the cool air.

Davis nodded. “Yes, and sometimes it’s the same ones over and over. Blustering fools. Worse than the politicians who curry their favor back home and bully us into supporting their crusades against non-Christians—that means Muslims, by the way. The missionaries don’t care about Jews.”

“Why do the politicians back home curry the favor of a few missionaries on the other side of the world?”

“Because those few missionaries are supported financially by tens of thousands of people back home through special societies. Un-Godly—pardon the pun—amounts of money get raised. You’ve seen the pamphlets, haven’t you?”

Wake had indeed, but had never donated or even given it much thought. His rather meager weekly offerings to the Methodist church in Pensacola had been for that congregation’s benefit. There was so much need for help in the recovering South that he never contemplated foreign aid and dismissed the appeals he’d seen. “The politicians don’t want to alienate voters, so they make it look like they care.”

“Yes,” Davis grumbled. “And when the missionaries scream for help to the local U.S. consulate after they’ve gotten into some dicey situation or other, the consulate passes the call onto you—the American navy. You get to go and rescue them.”

“How often?”

“Couple of times a year. Usually it happens over in the Levant, where we’ve got a lot of missionaries. They love living in the Holy Land, trying to convert people who have been doing just fine with Mohammed for the last thousand years. Once they’ve insulted and aggravated the locals enough to get the attention and retribution of the regional Ottoman authorities, in comes a request for a warship to intimidate the natives. Missionaries have extra-legal status. Generally, they are considered by the Ottoman Empire not to be under the authority of the local courts and laws. So the local leaders try their best to ignore them. And remember, the Turks control everything, to varying degrees, from Persia to Algiers. Morocco is one of the few Arab places that’s independent of the Ottoman Empire.

“However, if the authorities get frustrated and actually end up doing anything against a missionary, then the request is for a bombardment. If a missionary is imprisoned, then a landing party is called to go ashore. Bombardments and shore parties are rare, maybe once a year. Boy, the Ottomans do not like that. Not at all.”

“It’s a request, though. A consul has no command over a ship captain.”

“No, but they try. We’ve got a fool of a consul at Beirut who cannot get along with anyone. The Consul General at Constantinople, George Boker, tries to keep him from doing a lot of harm, but the idiot manages to make himself infamous anyway, constantly asking for his country to back him up with gunfire. Tried once to make a local pasha eat dirt for insulting him. And no, I’m not jesting.”

“Hmm. What about the Europeans? What do they do?”

“Same thing with their gunboats. They’ve got missionaries everywhere too. Hell, their diplos are even more bloodthirsty than our consuls. My impression is their navies use it as good opportunities for gun practice. You’ll hear ’em brag about it. Of course they want to expand their empires. We don’t have an empire.”

“Which of the European powers are where in northern Africa?” inquired Wake. Northern Africa was in the squadron’s area of responsibility.

“Spanish have enclaves in Morocco on the Med. The French have a large presence in Morocco and Algiers, and a bit in Egypt. The Italians are big in Tunis and Tripoli. The Brits are big in Egypt. Of course, the French built the Suez Canal, but the Brits are edging them out pretty fast. That’s their main route to India now. Crucial for them.”

Wake heard a bell ring. Davis pulled out his watch and said, “Damn, it’s that late already? This soirée is over, Peter. Sorry, I got to talking and forgot the time—didn’t even introduce you around to the other legations. Well, at least you’ve got the general lay of the land now.”

“Thanks for that, Dan. You’ve given me a lot to think about. I appreciate the help.”

“Well, you still need to know about the diplomatic personalities here. Guess I’ll have to do that at lunch before the next bash, which is only a few nights from now.”

Seeing Wake’s reaction, Davis laughed. “Don’t worry. Usually they’re only once a week. This week is unusual. The French are throwing this next party for the feast of Saint Peter Damian. That’s to gain favor with the Italians—you see Peter Damian is an Italian saint. Very big around here.”

“The French consul does that reception?” asked Wake, his mind swimming with an image of Catherine.

“Oh, yes. And let me tell you, they do know how to give a good party. I’ll give ’em that.”

Davis and Wake joined the throng exiting the main doors to the street. Wake was trying to memorize all that he’d just learned when Davis pointed to a man entering a closed carriage where a gowned woman waited in inside, her face hidden in shadow.

“Hey, there they are now. Consul General Henri Faber de Champlain. A real live hero of the Third French Republic, and his wife. I’ll tell you about him later, but I’ve got to see to my own consul general now. Good night, Peter.”

Wake vaguely answered, but his eyes were on the man glowering out of the carriage’s window at the crowd as it trotted off down the darkened street. Wake felt a chill go through him as he looked at those cold eyes.