Front cover
An Affair of Honor
The fifth novel in the Honor Series following the exploits of Lt. Peter Wake United States Navy
Robert N. Macomber
Pineapple Press, Inc.
Sarasota, Florida
The Honor Series
By Robert N. Macomber
At the Edge of Honor
Point of Honor
Honorable Mention
A Dishonorable Few
An Affair of Honor
A Different Kind of Honor
The Honored Dead
The Darkest Shade of Honor
Honor Bound
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by Robert N. Macomber
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Inquiries should be addressed to:
Pineapple Press, Inc.
P.O. Box 3889
Sarasota, Florida 34230
www.pineapplepress.com
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data available upon request
E-ISBN 978-1-56164-524-4
Print and ebook design by Shé Hicks
Dedication
This novel is respectfully dedicated to
Sidi Goudimi Ahmed,
my incredible Berber driver/guide on the long trek
along the coasts, through the mountains, and down to the desert of Morocco,
a good man, a wonderful teacher, a patient friend, and an
outstanding ambassador for his people, his nation, and his faith.
Salaamu ’lekum, Sahbi. Shukran bezzef.
and to
the magnificent and ancient
people of Morocco
We are all the children of Abraham….
Map 1
U.S.S. Omaha in the West Indies December 1873
Map 2
Ashore in Italy Winter 1874
Map 3
Ashore in Spain January 1874
Map 4
Northern Africa Spring 1874
Foreword
As with all of my novels, I have tried to accurately portray the times and locales that Peter Wake encounters. I picked 1874 for this novel because of the tremendous amount of dynamic change going on around the world. What a time for Wake to head east!
America was recovering from her self-slaughter the decade before. In the South, the military occupation of the Reconstruction was ending, the Democrats were returning to power, and the newly won freedoms for African-Americans were about to evaporate. Nationwide, the financial panic of 1873 had devastated large parts of the economy, the U.S. Army was fighting Indians out west, and the technological revolution was in full swing.
The U.S. Navy was a sad, weak shadow of its Civil War strength—neglected by Congress, pitied or laughed at by other navies, and struggling to fulfill its squadron commitments around the world. The most powerful navies were the British, French, and German. Naval technology was advancing rapidly, but American sailors still had to sail.
The Caribbean had become a fetid backwater of the European empires—sugar values were in decline and the mother countries were concentrating on expanding their holdings in Africa and Asia. The West Indies had become a drain on the empires and were no longer a prestigious posting.
Europe in 1874 was full of intrigue. The French had been humiliated by the Mexicans in the mid-1860s and by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Napoleon III had been ousted, another republic proclaimed, and the nation was attempting to reestablish its confidence at home and image abroad. The victorious Germans had unified under Bismarck and Wilhelm I, and were becoming global players, expanding their military and naval power rapidly. The Italians, unified by Garibaldi and Cavour for the first time in sixteen centuries, were beaten by the Austrians in the war of 1866 and abandoned by their French protectors. The Spanish, having removed the corrupt monarchy, were trying to start a republic but falling back into the chaos of their perpetual civil war. The Austrians had united with the Hungarians and their empire stretched across much of central Europe and was now facing the Muslim Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire was beginning to crumble, but remained large and very dangerous. The Russians were desperately trying to modernize and keep up with the Germans, unsuccessfully. The smaller countries aligned themselves with their biggest neighbor or proclaimed a neutral stance and hoped for the best. Great Britain’s empire was in her glory, economically sound and protected by the most famous navy the world has known, but even she was watching the new German nation with close attention.
Africa didn’t have many independent nations, but Morocco was one of them. Even the Ottomans couldn’t conquer the Magreb Arabs and Berbers. The French had a large economic influence there and the Moroccan leadership walked the tightrope of political reality. It was (and still is) a mystical land, in most ways ancient and completely alien to a European or American in 1874. Marrakech and Fez were the fabled cities of the caravan trade routes, the stuff of dreams and legends.
Peter Wake ends up seeing all of this—a wary American naval officer suddenly adrift in Machiavellian Europe and mysterious Morocco. The dead-eyed oddsmakers of Monaco probably wouldn’t back him one centime, but my money’s on our hero.
He has the wonderful American habit of beating the oddsmakers.
Onward and upward!
Bob Macomber
Marrakech, Morocco
Northwest Africa
1
Déjà Vu
20 December 1873
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Spanish West Indies
“More sangria, señor?” asked the waiter.
Lieutenant Peter Wake, United States Navy, nodded and shifted his lanky frame back in the chair, reveling in the warm sea breeze. Seated at a stone patio table at the Café Réal, overlooking the jade-colored waters of San Juan’s bay, he savored the aromas of salt air, white frangipani flowers, and citrus-marinated grouper cooking on coals. Downing the drink in one long swig, he glanced over his shoulder, and immediately the waiter refilled the fruit wine that was enhanced by strong dark rum.
The mold-covered, faded pink buildings of the declining Spanish empire were the same on this visit, but Wake felt a new air about the place. And not just because the ominous annual huracán season was ending. No, a momentous event had occurred just months earlier—slavery had been ended forever. Wake smiled at the thought of it as he drank the sangria, slower now, for he didn’t want to get drunk.
The waiter’s dark face, leathered by time and toil, crinkled into a sly grin. “You are perhaps waiting for a beautiful lady to arrive, señor?” he asked.
Wake laughed and answered with a mock sigh. “No, Jorge. I am expecting only a man. But it would
