Walk in Hell

couldn’t see how many Confederate shells were falling on the road, how many others throwing up water from the Roanoke River as they searched for the bridge.

Engine roaring flat out, the ambulance sped across. The driver whooped triumphantly when he got to the other side: “Made it!” He, of course, was still in one undamaged piece. Martin couldn’t decide whether he was glad he hadn’t been blown up or sorry.

Flora Hamburger stood on a little portable stage in front of the Croton Brewery on Chrystie Street. The brewery was a block outside the Fourteenth Ward, but still in the Congressional district, whose boundaries didn’t perfectly match those used for local administration. She thought she would have come here even had it been outside the district. The associations the brewery called up were too perfect to ignore.

“Two years ago,” she called out to the crowd, “two years ago from this very spot, I called on President Roosevelt to keep us out of war. Did he listen? Did he hear me? Did he hear the will of the people, the farmers and laborers who are the United States of America?”

“No!” people shouted back to her, some in English, some in Yiddish. It was a proletarian crowd, women in cheap cotton shirtwaists, men in shirts without collars and wearing flat cloth caps on their heads, not bourgeois homburgs and fedoras or capitalist stovepipes.

“No!” Flora agreed. “Two years ago, the Socialist Party spoke out against the mad specter of war. Did Teddy Roosevelt and his plutocratic backers heed us? Did they pay the slightest attention to the call for peace?”

“No!” people yelled again. Too many of the women’s shirtwaists were mourning black.

“No!” Flora agreed once more. “And what have they got with their war? How many young men killed?” She thought of Yossel Reisen, who hadn’t had the slightest notion of the ideological implications of the war in which he’d joined-and who would never understand them now. “How many young men maimed or blinded or poisoned? How much labor expended on murder and the products of murder? Is that why troops paraded through the streets behind their marching bands?”

“They wanted victory!” someone shouted. The someone was Herman Bruck, strategically placed in the crowd. He’d borrowed clothes for the occasion, the fancy ones he usually wore being anything but suited for it.

“Victory!” Flora exclaimed. Bruck was doing everything he could to help her beat the appointed Democrat. That she had to give him. “Victory?” This time, it was a question, a mocking question. She looked around, as if she thought she would see it close by. “Where is it? Washington, D.C., has lain under the Confederates’ heavy hands since the first days of the war. We have won a few battles, but how many soldiers has General Custer thrown away to get to Tennessee? And how many battles were shown to be wasted when the Confederates, only two weeks ago, drove our forces back to the Roanoke River? How can anyone in his right mind possibly claim this war is a success?”

Applause poured over her like rain. Two years ago, when she’d urged the people here not to throw the United States onto the fire of a capitalist, imperialist war, she’d been ignored or booed even in the Socialist strongholds of New York City. Now people had seen the result of what they’d cheered to the skies. Having seen it, they didn’t like it so well.

She went on, “My distinguished opponent, Mr. Miller, will tell you this war is a success. Why shouldn’t he tell you that? It’s made him a success. He was a lawyer no one had ever heard of till Governor MacFarlane pulled his name out of a top hat after Congressman Zuckerman died, and sent him off to Philadelphia to pretend to represent this district.

“Friends, comrades, you know I wouldn’t be standing here today if Myron Zuckerman were alive. No, I take that back: I might be standing here, but I’d be campaigning for him, not for myself. But I tell you this: if you remember what Congressman Zuckerman stood for, you’ll send me to Philadelphia this November, not a fancy-pants lawyer who’s made his money doing dirty work for the trusts.”

More applause, loud and vigorous. In preparation for her speech, party workers had done a fine job of sticking up election posters printed in red and white on black all over the brewery, the synagogue across the street, and even the school at the corner of Chrystie and Hester. The Democrats had more money and more workers, which meant they usually put up more posters and hired people to tear down the ones the Socialists used to oppose them. Not this time, though.

And no hulking Soldiers’ Circle goons lurked to break up the rally, either. As the fighting heated up, more and more of them-the younger ones-had been called into the Army they so loudly professed to love. And, as the Remembrance Day riots of 1915 slowly faded into the past, the lid on New York City politics slowly loosened. Socialists elsewhere in the country were using government repression in New York as a campaign issue, too. Embarrassment was often a good tool against the minions of the exploiting class.

A couple of caps went through the crowd. Before long, they jingled as they passed from hand to hand. Party workers talked that up: “Come on, folks, give what you can. This is how we keep the truth coming to the American people. This is how we beat the Democrats. This is how we end the war.”

Flora descended from her platform. A couple of men-boys, rather-and a couple of solidly built women who looked like factory workers disassembled it and hauled it off to the wagon on which it had come from Socialist Party headquarters. Conscription had hit the party as hard as anyone else.

Herman Bruck made his way out of the crowd. Flora wondered how and why he’d been lucky enough to stay in gabardine and worsted and tweed and out of the green-gray serge most men his age wore. Her brother David was in green-gray, and, from his latest letter, about to be shipped off to one of the fighting fronts. If the war went on long enough, the same thing would happen to Isaac, who was two years younger.

So how had Herman escaped? It wasn’t as if he had a job in an essential industry. On the contrary-a lot of Socialist activists had been conscripted in spite of employment in industries related to the war. Asking him would have been rude, but she almost asked anyhow. Before she could, he said, “That was a fine speech. Hearing you out in the crowd instead of being up on the platform with you, I see how you came to be our candidate. I think you’ll win.”

She knew he had an ulterior motive-several ulterior motives, some personal, some political-for speaking as he did. But she was no more immune to flattery than any other human being ever born. “Thank you,” she said. “I think I will, too. The bad news in the war does nothing but help us. It reminds the people that we opposed the fighting from the start, and that we were right when we did.”

Bruck’s mouth twisted down. Her record on opposing the war was sounder than his. But then a sly glint came into his eye. “When they do elect you, you’ll have the salary of a capitalist-$7,500 a year. What will you do with all that money?”

Any notion of asking him why he wasn’t in the Army flew out of her head. She’d thought about winning the election and about taking her seat in the House of Representatives. Up till that moment, she hadn’t thought about getting paid for her services. Herman Bruck was right-$7,500 was a lot of money. “I’ll be able to make sure my family doesn’t want for anything,” she said at last.

He nodded. “That’s a good answer. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all the families here”-his wave encompassed the entire district-“didn’t want for anything? Nu, that’s why you’re running.” The sly look returned to his face. “And now you’ll have another reason to say no when I ask you out: what would a rich and important lady see in a tailor’s son?”

Flora snorted. “One thing I see in a tailor’s son is someone who nags like a grandmother.”

“If I ask you out, maybe you’ll say no, but maybe also you’ll say yes,” Herman answered. “If I don’t ask you out, how can you possibly say yes?”

She had to laugh. As she did so, she was more tempted to let him persuade her than she had been for a long time. This didn’t seem to be the right place, though, not with the crowd drifting away after the rally. And here came a couple of policemen, looking like old-time U.S. soldiers in their blue uniforms and forage caps. “All right, Miss Hamburger, you’ve had your speech,” one of them said in brisk tones. “No one gave you a bit of trouble during it or before it, and I’ll thank your people not to give me trouble now.”

“No trouble because of what?” she asked warily.

The cop didn’t answer. A couple of his friends came down Chrystie Street, one of them twirling a nightstick on the end of its leather strap. And then a shiny new White truck, the same sort the Army used, pulled to a stop in front of the Croton Brewery. Instead of being green-gray, it was painted red, white, and blue. DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF NEW YORK CITY, said the banner stretched across the canvas canopy. Another, smaller, banner below it read, Daniel Miller for Congress.

Out of the back of the truck jumped half a dozen men in overalls. A couple of others handed them big buckets