Chapter 26: An Age Without a Name

A young Theo Roosevelt whistled next to Will McKinley as the two of them watched fleets of ships land on the moonlit Cuban shore.

“Bully! I can’t believe we’re finally getting ourselves a chance to fight!”

“Neither can I,” McKinley replied with a sigh, “but we must go and meet these trials bestowed upon us by Heaven with all that we have.”

As the two spoke, one of the approaching vessels suddenly capsized in the bay, spilling its crew out onto the frigid waves.

“Great Scott!” Roosevelt exclaimed, “We need to—”

Before he could finish, a figure rushed to the shore and dove straight into the water without removing their military uniform. Roosevelt and McKinley ran after them, reaching the shore just as the figure reemerged from the waves. The man held the full five-man crew in each of his arms, with a soggy cigarette gripped even tighter between his front teeth.

“Excellent work there, Buck!” Roosevelt declared, giving the man a hearty pat on his back.

“I don’t need your praise, Theo,” Buck O’Neill replied as he tried reigniting his dampened cigarette, “I need a place to sit and dry my clothes.”

Roosevelt and Buck headed up the shore, settling down and starting a campfire between the two of them. They sat on the sand, gazing up at the stars above.

“You know Buck,” Roosevelt spoke quietly, “sometimes I feel like you’re the only one in the world who really understands me.”

“Maybe I am,” Buck replied, “There aren’t many who could discuss Aryan word-roots with you before sliding off into a review of the novels of Balzac after all.”

“That’s not what I mean here!” Roosevelt insisted. “I’m talking about your sense of bravery! About your need…your hunger even…to rush into danger with a smile painted wide across your face.”

Buck sat in silence, watching the starry sky above them.

“…perhaps you’re right,” he finally spoke up. “We are both men of ambition after all…men who would rather live one crowded hour of glorious life than an entire age without a name…to feel the rush of battle and risk it all for the chance to obtain life’s greatest accolades…”

Buck rubbed his hand along the various badges pinned to his uniform as he continued looking to the night sky.

“…really now…who would not risk his life for a star?”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Roosevelt said as the two of them drifted off to sleep.

The next day McKinley soldier’s trekked through the Cuban jungle, following along a well-marked trail until the group made it into a clearing.

“I’m going to scout up ahead,” McKinley announced as he made his way forward. “You all are to stay put until I order you otherwise.” He focused his attention on Roosevelt and Buck. “Am I understood?”

“Yes Sir,” the two grumbled in unison.

At that, the battalion settled into position, dropping their bags and preparing makeshift lunches as they listened in to the strange bird calls coming from the Cuban wilderness.

“I am just positively famished!” Roosevelt remarked as he leaned his bag against a small barbed fence. “Why, this reminds me of this one dinner I attended where…”

Roosevelt stopped talking as his eyes focused on the fence behind his bag.

“What’s wrong, Theo?” Buck asked.

Roosevelt lowered himself to the ground, rubbing his fingers across a severed part of the barbed wire.

“My God…this wire has been cut earlier today!”

Buck raised an eyebrow.

“What makes you think so?”

“Because I’m a rancher,” he replied, pointing to the metal wire. “See here? The end is bright, and there’s been enough dew since sunrise to put a light rust on it.”

“Hey fellas!” the army doctor exclaimed as he approached the two of them, “What’s—”

“Quiet!” Roosevelt and Buck screamed, silencing the camp.

The group huddled alone in silence for a moment. Then, a horrible humming noise tore across the woods as a bullet shot straight through the tree directly next to Roosevelt, sending a spray of splinters into his cheeks.

“My God,” Roosevelt spoke softly, turning to Buck, “we’re being fired at.”

“Which means…”

The two grinned at each other and leapt straight into the air.

“We’re under attack!” they screamed with elation as a storm of bullets hailed down across the camp.

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Roosevelt’s Flashback I. After William McKinley reluctantly declared war on the Spanish, Theodore Roosevelt retired as assistant secretary of the Navy to take part in the fighting in Cuba. He grew close to a number of fellow soldiers there such as the chain-smoker Bucky O’Neill, who was not only a man of great courage (with him really jump straight in the water to try and save his fellow soldiers, though in reality he didn’t manage to save them), but also quite an intellectual with Theodore saying he would be “discussing Aryan word-roots…and then sliding off into a review of the novels of Balzac.”