Chapter Two
Younger, a man who had witnessed the bombardment at Chateau-Thierry, had never heard a detonation like it. It was literally deafening: immediately after the concussion, there was no sound in the world.
A blue-black cloud of iron and smoke, ominous and pulsing, filled the plaza. Nothing else was visible. There was no way to know what had happened to the human beings within.
From this heavy cloud burst an automobile — a taxicab. Not, however, on the street. The vehicle was airborne.
Younger, from his knees, saw the cab shoot from the cloud of smoke like a shell from a howitzer — and freeze, impossibly, in midair. For a single instant, in perfect silence, the vehicle was suspended twenty feet above the earth, immobile. Then its flight resumed, but slowly now, impossibly slowly, as if the explosion had drained not only sound from the world but speed as well. Everything Younger saw, he saw moving at a fraction of its true velocity. Overhead, the taxi tumbled end over end, gently, silently, aimed directly at Younger, Littlemore, and Colette, growing increasingly huge as it came.
Just then Littlemore and Colette were blown onto their backs by the concussive pressure from the blast. Only Younger, between them, who knew the burst of air pressure was coming and had braced himself for it, remained upright, watching the devastation unfold and the tumbling taxi descend upon them. Somewhere, as if from a distance, he heard Littlemore's voice yelling at him to get down, but Younger only cocked his head as the vehicle passed no more than a few inches above him. Behind him the taxi — without haste or sound — made a gentle landfall, skidding, flipping, embracing a metal lamppost, and bursting into flame.
Next, shrapnel. Iron fragments tore slowly through the air, leaving turbulent currents visible behind them, as if underwater. Younger saw the metal projectiles, red hot, softly destroying push carts, rippling human bodies with infinite patience. Knowing such things cannot be seen by the human eye, he saw them all.
The dark smoke cloud in the plaza was rising now, the color of thunder. It rose and rose, a hundred feet high, blooming and mushrooming as it ascended, blocking the sun. Fires burned inside it and at its edges.
Beneath the smoke, the street reappeared. Engulfed in darkness, though it was noon. And snowing. How snowing? The month, Younger asked himself, what month again?
Not snow: glass. Every window in every building was shattering up to twenty-five stories above, precipitating a snow shower of glass, in tiny bits and jagged shards. Falling softly on overturned cars. On little bundles of clay and flame, which had been men and women seconds before. On people still standing, whose clothing or hair was on fire, and on others, hundreds of others, struggling to get away, colliding, bleeding. Mouths open. Trying to scream, but mute. And barely moving: in the dream-like decelerated world that Younger saw, human motion was excruciating, as if shoes were glued to molten pavement.
All at once, the dense burning cloud overhead blew apart like an enormous firework. Dust and debris still occluded the air, but the glass storm ended. Sound and movement returned to the world.
As they got to their feet, Littlemore spat a broken toothpick out of his mouth, surveying the chaos. 'Can you help me, Doc?'
Younger nodded. He turned to Colette, a question in his eyes. She nodded as well. To Littlemore, Younger said, 'Let's go.'
The three thrust themselves into the stupefied crowd.
At the heart of the carnage, bodies lay everywhere, this way and that, without order or logic. Gritty dust and bits of smoldering paper wafted everywhere. People were streaming and stumbling out from the buildings, coughing, badly burned. From every direction came screams, cries for help and a strange hissing — super-heated metal beginning to cool.
'Jesus mother of Mary,' said Littlemore.
Younger crouched beside what looked like a young woman kneeling in prayer; a pair of scissors lay beside her. Younger tried to speak with her but failed. Colette cried out: the woman had no head.
Littlemore battled farther into the crowd, searching for something. Younger and Colette followed. Suddenly they came upon an open space, a vacant circle of pavement so hot that no one entered it. At their feet was a crater-like depression, fifteen feet in diameter, blackened, shiny, smoking, without crack or fissure. Part of a horse's torn-off cloven hoof was visible, its red-glowing shoe fused between two stones.
Doctor and detective looked at one another. Colette gripped Younger's arm. A pair of wild eyes stared up at her from the pavement: it was the severed head of the decapitated woman, lying in a pool not of blood but of red hair.
Far too many people were now packed into the plaza. Thousands were trying to flee, but thousands more were converging on Wall Street to see what had happened. Rumors of another explosion momentarily gripped a corner of the crowd on Nassau Street, causing a panic that trampled dead and wounded alike.
Littlemore climbed onto an overturned motorcar at the corner of Wall and Broad. This gave him a good four or five feet above the crowd surrounding the vehicle. He called out, asking for attention. He said the words police and captain over and over. The strength and clarity of his voice surprised Younger, but it was to no avail.
Littlemore fired his gun above his head. By the fifth shot, he had the crowd's attention. To Younger's eyes, the people looked more frightened than anything else. 'Listen to me,' shouted Littlemore after identifying himself once again, his voice reassuring in the midst of havoc. 'It's all over now. Do you hear me? It's all over. There's nothing to be afraid of. If you or someone you're with needs a doctor, stay put. I've got a doctor with me. We'll get you taken care of. Now, I want all the policemen here to come forward.'
There was no response.
Under his breath, Littlemore berated Captain Hamilton for ordering his officers on parade duty. 'All right,' he said out loud, 'what about soldiers? Any veterans here?'
'I served, Captain,' a youngster piped out.
'Good lad,' said Littlemore. 'Anybody else? If you served in the war, step forward.'
On all sides of Littlemore, the crowd rippled as men came forward.
'Give 'em room — step back if you didn't serve,' shouted Littlemore, atop his car. Then he added quietly, 'Well, I'll be.'
More than four hundred veterans were mustering to attention.
Littlemore called out to Younger: 'Could you use some men, Doc?'
'Twenty,' returned Younger. 'Thirty if you can spare them.'
Littlemore, commanding his companies, quickly restored order. He cleared the plaza and secured the perimeter, forming a wall of men with instructions to let people out but no gawkers in. Within minutes fire trucks and wagons from the Water Department began to arrive. Littlemore cleared a path for them. Flames were shooting out of windows fourteen stories overhead.
Next came the ambulances and police divisions — fifteen hundred officers in all. Littlemore stationed men at the entrances of every building. From an alleyway next to the Treasury Building, too narrow for the fire trucks, dark smoke poured out, together with the smell of burning wood and something fouler. Littlemore fought his way in, past a blown-out wrought-iron gate, ignoring the shouts of the firemen, looking for survivors. He didn't find any. Instead, in the thick smoke, he saw a great fiery mound of crackling wood. Everything metal pulsed scarlet: the iron gate, ripped from its hinges; a manhole cover; and the copper badge pinned to a corpse lying among the burning timber.
The corpse was a man's. Its right side was utterly unharmed. Its left was charred black, skinless, eyeless, smoldering.
Littlemore looked at the half-man's half-face. The one good eye and half a mouth were peaceful; they reminded him unaccountably of himself. The man's glowing badge indicated that he had been a Treasury officer. Something glinted and steamed in his incinerated hand: it was an ingot of gold, clutched by blackened and smoking fingers.
Younger used his squadron to take charge of the casualties, dead and alive. The walls of the Morgan Bank became his morgue. Younger had to tell the ex-soldiers not to pile the dead in a shapeless heap, but to line them up in even rows, dozen after dozen.
With supplies from a local pharmacy, Colette threw together a temporary dressing station and surgery inside Trinity Church. Shirtsleeves rolled, Younger did what he could, assisted both by Colette and a volunteer Red Cross
