LEAGUED WITH INSURGENTS.
Some six hours after the work of debarkation had commenced it—in spite
of the obstacles—was finished and the task of setting up camp was begun.
By nightfall General Ruiz had installed his forces on an upland about
half-a-mile back from the seacoast as the night-air among the
coast-hugging mangrove swamps is very poisonous and a great breeder of
fevers. He had, the boys found, quite a respectable equipment,
consisting—besides his actual force, all of whom were armed with rifles
of more or less use and modern type—of two doctors, both of whom held
commissions as captains; a field telegraph outfit and four telegraphers;
two machine-firing guns and three mule guns, besides some heavier
field-guns of a less up-to-date pattern. Altogether, except for the
dilapidated state of his men, General Ruiz was fairly well provided with
the implements of modern warfare.
Ruiz himself, and his staff officers, had their tents pitched apart from
the main camp and one of the latter insisted on giving up his sleeping
quarters to the boys, much against their wills; but he was so insistent
that they seemed more likely to offend him by refusal than by accepting
his offer, so that night found them snugly ensconced in a comfortable
tent equipped with two neat cots, covered with gray army-blankets, and
hung with mosquito netting to keep out the myriad insect pests of the
tropics.
Long after the supper had been despatched in the general’s tent and
good-nights said, the boys talked over the situation. It was a novel
one. Through the open flap of their tent they could see the ragged
sentries pacing up and down, and, further out in the bush, came the cry
of the outposts as from time to time they hailed one another. The men
all slept huddled up together under ragged blankets and sacking on the
ground at the opposite side of the camp, as the boys could see by their
camp-fire glow, round which some of the men were still sitting up and
talking.
“We should strike out for La Merced at once;” decided Frank, after the
subject of their present situation had been talked over for an hour.
“I agree with you,” replied Harry, “but how are we going to do it? For
all we know we might run plump into Rogero’s forces and then we should
be in a peck of trouble. No, my advice is to stay with the army a few
days, they are marching in our direction anyhow, and then strike off for
La Merced when we get within a reasonable distance of it.”
“And poor Billy and Ben Stubbs, what will they think has become of us?”
went on Frank.
“They will stay at Plateau Camp for a day or two anyhow,” rejoined
Harry, “and at the end of that time they will have to come down into the
valley, for their provisions will have given out.”
“That will be pretty nearly as safe for them as walking into a lion’s
mouth,” objected Frank. “The country below there must be alive with
government troops and they are sure to encounter them.”
“There is nothing we can do till we get back to La Merced, that is
certain,” rejoined the philosophical Harry. “It’s no use crossing
bridges till we come to them. If the army marches to-morrow we should be
at home by the morning of the day after at the latest.”
With this reflection the boys turned in and slept like tops for two
hours or so. Their awakening was a startling one. The whole air seemed
filled with shouts and yells and there was a scattering sound of shots
coming from somewhere in the interior of the jungle.
“It’s a night attack!” shouted Frank, springing up and hastily throwing
on his clothes. “Come on, Harry!”
Both boys rushed out of their tent just as General Ruiz came to the
door.
“We have been attacked,” he said, “it looks like treachery somewhere. I
don’t know how many of them there are; but, so far, we have them in
hand.”
“You mean we have beaten them off?” asked Frank.
Ruiz shook his head.
“I am too old a soldier to believe that Rogero would attack me with a
handful,” he said. “No, boys, this attack was made by an advance guard
to draw our fire and ascertain just how large a force we really have.
The real attack will come in a few minutes.”
He was buckling on his sword as he spoke and thrusting his navy revolver
into a holster. This completed he held out his hand.
“I must say good-bye, now,” he said briskly, “but only for a short time
I hope. It is poor hospitality to rush you into the troubles of the
revolutionists, but it cannot be helped.”
With a stiff salute he turned and began issuing rapid orders to his
staff, who rushed over as they got them to where the demoralized troops
were struggling confusedly for their banked rifles. In a short time
something like order had been restored and a corps of men sent out with
machetes to clear paths into the high ground where the guns were to be
planted.
“He means to plant some guns above there,” pointed Frank, “so as to
command the valley when the real attack comes.”
At this moment one of the officers hurried up.
“You had better get to shelter, young gentlemen,” he said, “the trouble
will begin in a few minutes and I expect it will be a hot engagement
when it starts.”
Frank and Harry shook their heads. To the two high-spirited boys, facing
their first taste of real warfare, to be ordered into shelter did not
appeal at all.
“Can’t we do something to make ourselves useful?” asked Frank, as a
company of men at a silent “double-quick” swung by into the jungle,
where the scattering fire that had awakened them had died out.
“If the señors really mean that, I will see the general;” courteously
replied the officer, hurrying off.
“We have never smelled powder before,” exclaimed Harry, “and we don’t
mean to be sent back to the commissariat when we have a chance to see
some real fighting; eh, Frank?”
“Not much,” replied Frank, “of course, I suppose, as American citizens
and neutral parties, etc., we ought to sit back with our hands folded;
but when I think of the threats Rogero made to father I’d like to get a
crack at some of those fellows myself.”
“I’m with you, Frank, old fellow,” cried Harry warmly. “Come on, let’s
get on our revolvers and see if the general has anything for two
peaceful non-combatants who want to fight.”
As they came out of the tent with their revolvers strapped on and also a
rifle each—which they took the liberty of selecting from a rack of arms
left in the tent by the officer who had vacated it for them—they felt
that they were on the eve of a really exciting experience.
They had walked only a few steps when a figure, that they soon made out
to be General Ruiz himself, stepped up to them.
“Captain Alvarez tells me,” he said, “that you young men are pining for
action and do not care to sit on the idlers’ bench while we are
fighting. Now I have a mission for you.”
“Yes,” chorused Frank and Harry delighted.
“But it is a dangerous one and will require a lot of skill and care to
bring it to a successful conclusion.”
The boys begged him to tell them what it was. They assured him that they
would not fail in anything he might entrust to them.
“Simply this;” replied General Ruiz, looking them straight in the eyes,
“there is a lot of ammunition aboard the ship that I meant to bring
ashore to-morrow morning, but it is now imperative, with the turn
affairs have taken, that we have it here before many hours. I have not a
man in the ranks I dare trust on such a mission and I cannot spare any
of my officers. Will you do it?”
Of course the boys said they would. To tell the truth they were rather
disappointed. Bringing ammunition ashore was rather more prosaic work
than they had bargained for; but still, having promised to be of what
aid they could, they could not go back on their words.
“You take one of the boats on the beach,” went on the General—and the
boys noticed that he was now the officer addressing his subordinates and
not the courteous friend—“and row off to the gunboat. Captain Scheffel
will give you the keys to the magazine and you are to bring off as much
at a time as you think wise. I wish to remind you, however, that we need
the extra ammunition in a hurry.”
“Now,” he continued, in a less official tone, “I shall be answerable to
your father for you and I don’t want you to run any unnecessary risks.”
“I don’t see what risks we can run, except from sharks, rowing powder
and ammunition ashore in a ship’s lifeboat,” Frank could not forbear
saying.
General Ruiz was quick to catch his tone.
“A good soldier’s first duty is to obey,” he said, “no matter how much
he may dislike the duty he is assigned to.”
The boys felt the reproof and remained silent.
“And don’t despise this errand because you don’t happen to think there’s
any glory in it,” the general went on, “there is danger in it,—a good
deal more danger than I feel that I have a right to ask you to run,—but,
after all,” he concluded, “you are just as safe there as in the camp.”
The next minute he had gone and the boys started down the trail cut by
the machete men, by which the army had advanced from the beach. They
knew where the boats were drawn up, under the roots of a giant mangrove,
but in the darkness they had some difficulty in finding the exact spot.
At last, however, they discovered one of the small craft and Harry
leaned over to untie the painter. It was pitchy dark and the man who had
knotted the boat’s painter was not a scientific tier of knots.
“Bother it;” exclaimed Harry, fumbling with the knot, “we shan’t get
away till daylight at this rate.”
“Here, have some light on the subject,” struck in Frank lighting a
match. With the aid of the illumination. It didn’t take Harry long to
cast loose and tumble into the boat. Frank, who had been leaning over
him as he fumbled with the rope, straightened up and prepared to follow
him. The stump of the match was still in his fingers and shed a yellow
glow about them. Suddenly, Frank uttered a sharp exclamation. The next
minute the match burned his fingers and died out.
“That was funny;” he exclaimed as he took his seat in the boat and both
boys gave way with the oars.
“What was funny?” demanded Harry.
“Oh, nothing;” replied Frank, almost shamefacedly, “I suppose it was
fancy—must have been in fact. But as that match died out I am almost
certain I saw a face part the creepers and peer at me out of the
mangroves.”
“Who could it have been?” asked Harry.
“I have no idea,” rejoined Frank, “that’s why I put it all down to
imagination.”
Both boys ran the boat alongside the gunboat’s gangway a few minutes
later.
A sharp “Who goes?” spoken with a marked German accent, showed that good
watch was kept aboard the ship. As soon as the boys had announced their
identity satisfactorily and been allowed on board, the sentry hurried to
arouse Captain Scheffel, who, although he was in pajamas and his eyes
heavy with sleep, showed truly Teutonic unconcern in the presence of his
midnight awakening.
“Der keys for der magazine—hein?” he remarked placidly. “All right, I
get dem for you in a minud.”
He shuffled off to his cabin, the boys hardly keeping from laughing at
the queer aspect he presented. In a few minutes he was back with a bunch
of keys.
“Dis is him,” he said, selecting a Yale key, “and, boys, vun vurd—no
schmoking in der magazine—hein?”
“We don’t smoke at all, captain,” replied Frank with a laugh, “and if we
did we wouldn’t take our first lesson in a magazine.”
“Vell, schmokin’ is goot and magazine is goot bud dey don’d mix, ain’d
it?” commented the German skipper sententiously as he shuffled back to
his bunk. He was simply the hired navigator of the gunboat and, so long
as the boys didn’t blow his ship up, he had no further interest in their
movements.
The boys had carried perhaps their fiftieth case of rifle shells to the
deck and piled them there, preparatory to taking them ashore, when their
attention was attracted by evidence that the coming fight that Ruiz had
prophesied was already on. From where they stood they could catch the
flashes of the machine-guns on the hill and hear distinctly the rattle
of rifles which accompanied their steady cough.
“Come on, Frank,” said Harry, as the sounds were borne to their ears;
“we’ve no time to loaf now. They may need this stuff urgently this
minute. Come on; we’ll take what we’ve got here and get ashore with it.”
Several of the sailors who had come from below on the news that there
was fighting going on ashore gave them a hand to load the cases in the
boat and it was not very long before they were ready to cast off.
They rowed landward almost in silence watching between strokes the
phosphorescent gleams where the fins of the man-eaters cut about the
water on all sides.
“They’d find our cargo pretty indigestible;” laughed Frank, as one
monster, whose form showed flaming green in the depths alongside, dashed
by with hungry, gaping jaws and dived beneath the boat after darting a
glance at the boys out of his little pig-like eyes.
They had marked the location of the landing-place by a tall ceiba tree,
which formed an excellent landmark, before they left shore; so that they
had no trouble in picking up the spot in the mangroves where the boats
lay snugly hidden. As their boat’s nose grated in amongst the twisted
roots, Frank sprang quickly out and made fast the painter and then Harry
began the work of handing the ammunition ashore.
“Ruiz will have to send down some men to carry this stuff up into camp,”
remarked Harry, puffing under his exertions, which, as each case weighed
about fifty pounds, were not inconsiderable.
“And here they come, now;” rejoined Frank, as there was a trampling in
the mangroves at the back of them. Both boys looked up to greet the
newcomers and tell them how to lay hold of the boxes, when a startling
thing happened.
The new arrivals came forward steadily and halted in a line, and, as if
moved by clockwork, a dozen rifles went up to as many shoulders,
covering the boys, whose hands dropped to their sides in sheer amazement
at this unexpected turn of affairs.
Instinctively Frank and Harry reached for their revolvers, as soon as
they recovered their senses.
“The señors will not move if they value their lives;” said a voice in
excellent English, which proceeded from an officer; evidently in charge
of the force of men which had surprised them.
“What?” gasped the boys angrily.
“Because,” went on the soft-voiced officer, not noticing their indignant
exclamation, “I shall then be under the painful necessity of shooting
down the two Señors Chester without the formality of a court-martial.”