“Boom!”
It was such a tremendous explosion that it shook the solid buildings
of the city. It also brought Jerry upon his feet, all standing, where
he had been asleep for the night in a vacant niche against a stone
warehouse. A great many of the people slept this night in the open air,
just where they chanced to be, so that they might miss no excitement.
The explosion awakened them all. There was a rush for good viewpoints;
perhaps the battle had begun. Right speedily Jerry had scrambled atop
the wall at a place between batteries, from which he could see the
harbor and the Americans’ beach eastward. Nobody objected to him, here.
“Boom――_Boom!_” A double explosion well-nigh knocked him backward. A
cloud of black smoke had spurted from the walls of San Juan de Ulloa
castle, a quarter of a mile before; but yonder amidst the sand hills
the louder “_Boom!_” had raised a much greater, blacker smoke, where
the shell had burst.
The people upon the wall cheered.
“Viva, viva!”
“Now we shall see. San Juan is speaking with his giants.”
“Yes, the Paixhans,” said a Volunteer. “It is the Paixhans that he is
turning loose, to blow the Yankees up. Viva!”
The Paixhan guns were large pieces that threw shells in a line, instead
of solid shot or high-sailing bombs like the mortars.
“Boom!” from the castle; and in a moment, “_Boom!_” from the thickets
of the dunes. The smoke jetted angrily; the people imagined that they
could see brush and trees and bodies flying through the air; but just
how much damage was being done no one might say, because most of the
American army was out of sight, concealed in the wilderness of the
jungle.
General Morales, commanding the city and castle, had issued a
proclamation calling upon the soldiers and citizens to rally for the
defense. All this day the American boats, large and small, plied back
and forth between the fleet and the shore, out of range, bringing in
horses and mules and cannon and supplies; when the cannon had been
landed, soldiers and sailors fell to like ants and helped the long
teams drag them across the beach, into the sand hills. The larger part
of the army had been swallowed by the chaparral; but now and again
a column of blue-uniformed men could be sighted, winding through a
cleared spot, as if gradually encircling the city on the land side.
All day the city forts and outworks and the castle pitched round-shot
and shell into the dunes. There were several little battles when the
Mexican lancers and infantry outposts met the American advance. A
number of wounded Mexican soldiers were carried in; but the American
flags kept coming on, bobbing here and there, bound inland.
“To-morrow it will blow,” the weather prophets asserted, noting the
yellow sunset. “A norther! Then those gringos will wish they were
somewhere else.”
“Yes, that is so.”
Sure enough, about noon the next day (which had dawned calm), far out
at sea a sharp, vivid line of white appeared, approaching rapidly.
“The norther! Hurrah! It is the norther!”
A norther never had been so welcomed before. The shipping was
frantically lowering sails and putting out storm anchors. The war
vessels at Sacrificios were riding under bare poles. The line of white
reached them――they bowed to it, their masts sweeping almost to the
water. On it came, at prodigious speed, in a front miles long. The
white was foam, whipped feathery by wind. Suddenly all the shipping in
the harbor was in a confusion of scud; the few American small boats
plying between war vessels and beach were striving desperately, and
see! The dunes had been veiled in a cloud of yellow dust driven by the
gale.
The change was miraculous. So strong was the wind that it cleaned the
walls of people. Like the rest, Jerry crouched in shelter, while the
gale howled overhead.
The dunes were completely shut from view by the cloud of scud and sand.
Firing from the city and castle ceased. There was nothing to do but
wait and let the norther work. Somewhere under that sand cloud the
Americans crouched also, fighting for breath and to keep from being
buried. Here in Vera Cruz everybody was safe and happy, except Jerry
Cameron. He was safe, but he was sorry for those other Americans,
although he did not dare to say so.
It was a bad norther. It blew without a pause for two nights and days.
Then, about noon of the third day, which was March 13, it quit about as
suddenly as it had arrived. It left the ocean tossing with white caps
and thundering against the sea-wall and upon the beach, but the air
over the dunes cleared and all eyes peered curiously to see what had
become of the American army.
Why, the flags were nearer! Some of them fluttered at the very inside
edge of the hills, not much more than half a mile away, across the open
space which skirted the city walls. There were signs that the ground
was being dug out, as if for batteries. As soon as the ocean quieted a
little, the boats again hustled back and forth, landing more guns and
supplies. The forts and castle fired furiously at the American camps.
But the Americans had not been stopped by the norther and they were not
to be stopped by shot and shell.
Now more than a week passed in this kind of business, with the city and
castle firing, and with the Mexican soldiers skirmishing in the brush
to annoy the gringos, and with the Americans doing little by day, but
each night creeping nearer. One morning a strange new token was to be
sighted. To the south the ground had been upheaved, during the night,
out from the edge of the dunes, and a line of earth extended like a
mole-run into the cleared space. The Americans were burrowing.
The city forts lustily bombarded the place and evidently drove the
Americans out of the trench, for there was no reply. In fact, very few
gringos were seen, but their flags might be glimpsed, farther back.
Where were their cannon?
After this fresh burrows appeared frequently. Still there was no firing
by the American cannon. What was being done, in that brush, none of the
Vera Cruzans could say from such a distance. Only――――
“It will be a siege,” the wise-acres nodded. “Very well. We shall wait
until the vomito comes. The vomito will fight for us, in the sand hills
where our brave soldiers cannot go. The yellow fever will find those
skulking gringos, who dare not attack us.”
Then, about two o’clock of March 22, after the Americans had been
digging and dragging cannon for almost two weeks, and had advanced
their flags in a complete half circle around the city, excitement
rose again. A Yankee officer and two other men, bearing a white flag,
had ridden out from among the dunes and were boldly cantering forward
across the flat strip, for the southern Gate of Mexico.
The three were received by a Mexican officer sent by General Morales.
Word spread that the American general, named Scott, demanded the
surrender of Vera Cruz! He gave two hours for an answer.
General Morales did not require the two hours. Before the time was up,
back went the flag of truce, while the soldiers loudly cheered when
they learned that he had refused to surrender. If the Americans wished
to try a battle, let them start in; they all would die without having
reached the walls; and as for breaching the walls with their cannon,
that was impossible.
Four o’clock had been the limit set by the American general, Scott.
Usually Vera Cruz slept from noon until four; all Mexico took its
siesta then: stores were closed and shutters drawn and nobody stirred
abroad; in Vera Cruz even the water carriers who cried “Water! Pure
water!” on the streets, dozed like the rest. And by this time, two
weeks, the people had grown accustomed to the guns, so that they slept
right through.
But this afternoon the city waked early, and by four o’clock the roof
tops and the walls were thick with spectators watching to see what
would happen. Ragged Jerry gazed with the others. He had paid no
attention to the two Manuels. There had been no fagot gathering, and
little other business except talk.
The sea was smooth; the ships swung at anchor under a blue sky; out
at Sacrificios island, four miles distant to the east, the Stars and
Stripes languidly flapped from the mast ends of the men-of-war; the
sand dunes shimmered yellow, buzzards circled above them and the
chaparral which flowed into the flat strip――the buzzards might see the
American army, but few persons in the city could. Nevertheless, from
the east clear around into the west the faint sounds of the burrowing
blue coats drifted in.
There was no sign of any charge. Then, at four o’clock precisely, from
a spot half a mile out, between the city and Collado Beach, a sudden
great belch of black smoke issued; a black speck streaked high through
the sky, fell――and there was a resounding crash and a mighty shock,
from an explosion in the very center of the city. The clatter of
stones followed.
Next, while the people gazed at each other, astounded, in the southeast
the chaparral was drowned by a perfect torrent of the same smoke,
blasts of air rocked the very walls and buildings, all the city shook
to explosion after explosion mingled. Several shells had arrived at
once; the air was filled with dust and shrieks.
Vera Cruz was being bombarded. The bastion guns boomed hotly, replying;
the great guns of the castle chimed in; the chaparral was being torn
to pieces. But so was the city; and out in the roadstead the two steam
gunboats and the five sloops of war veered nearer and from a mile away
began to shoot, also, at the city and the castle both.
The battle had opened. The Americans were firing only seven mortars;
that was all――seven. Where were their other cannon? Stuck in the sand
and brush, as like as not. The seven mortars were hard to see, but the
city forts and the castle would bury them. As for those little ships a
mile at sea, one shot from San Ulloa would sink any of them.
However, the mortars stuck to it. They kept firing all night, while it
was too dark for the forts and the castle to answer. There was no sleep
for Vera Cruz――not amidst that steady “Boom! Boom! Boom!” and “Crash!
Crash! Crash!”, with showers of iron and rock flying far and wide into
all parts of the city.
In the morning ten mortars were at work. The forts and San Ulloa
spouted smoke and flame in vain. The walls had not been hurt; but what
with the booming, and the crashing, and the yelling and running,
assuredly Vera Cruz was no place in which to stay. Jerry resolved to
get out before he, an American boy, was killed by shots from his own
country.
This afternoon another norther set in, as if to help Vera Cruz. It
silenced the mortars, and drove the American gunners to cover. Nobody
could see to shoot in such a dust storm. The people were happy over it.
They knew that the northers and the yellow fever would come to their
rescue. The Americans were crazy, their guns useless, their trenches
would be filled faster than they could be dug. But to Jerry the norther
looked like a lucky stroke for one American, at least. To slip over the
walls and sneak across the flat strip and enter the American camp would
be as easy as――well, as cutting a watermelon.