THE FORTUNE OF WAR
The morning of the 9th of May dawned brightly on the ocean and on the
shore. There was a heavy sea running on the Gulf of Mexico, but the wind
that was blowing was little more than a ten-knot breeze. Before this, at
distances of a few miles from each other, a trio of armed vessels,
representing three of the great powers of the world, were dashing along
under full sail, as if they were in a hurry. They were so, for they all
were searching hungrily after a double-flagged bark, which they had
caught the day before, but which had managed to escape from them in the
night. She had done it mysteriously and impudently. Instead of her,
there now toiled along, away behind them, a dingy-looking Brazilian
coffee schooner, the skipper of which did not conceal his satisfaction
over the idea that he had unintentionally aided some other sailor--he
did not care who--to get away from all those war-sharks. Well to the
westward, with every sail spread that she could carry, the _Goshhawk_
sped along in apparent safety, but she was once more carrying the
American flag, and Ned Crawford, busy below at his breakfast, felt a
great deal easier in his patriotic mind. He could almost forget, for the
moment, that he was taking a cargo of the worst kind of contraband of
war goods to the armies of the enemies of his country. He was shortly on
deck again, to be heartily greeted by Captain Kemp with:
"Hullo, my boy, where are all your ships of war?"
Ned took a long, sweeping glance around the horizon, and replied:
"It looks as if we'd lost 'em."
"We've done it!" chuckled the captain. "I think we'll not see any more
of that lot. We made a fine run in the night, and we may be within three
days' sail of Vera Cruz. But that depends a great deal on the wind and
on our luck in keeping out of difficulties."
The captain turned away to his duties, and Ned went forward among the
sailors. He could always manage to have good chats with them, and they
were especially ready just now to discuss the war and their chances for
running against more cruisers. Ned did not count as one of them exactly,
but he was not to be looked down upon as a mere passenger. His father
had sent him out as a kind of honorary supercargo, or ship's clerk, in
the hope that he might learn something which would be of use to him when
he should grow up into a full-sized merchant. Perhaps he had already
found out a number of things upon which his father had not calculated
when he said good-by to him. He was about to learn some other things
which were not upon the ship's books, for he had reached the heel of the
bowsprit, where Senor Zuroaga was standing, gazing dreamily westward.
"Good morning, senor!" said Ned. "We did get away."
"I don't know how good a morning it is for me," replied the dark-faced
Mexican, wearily. "I may have only three or four days to wait before I
shall know whether or not I am to be shot at Vera Cruz by order of his
Excellency, President Paredes. My best chance is that he cannot know
that I am coming. After I get ashore, my life may very soon depend upon
his being beaten out of power by the armies of the United States."
"It couldn't be so in any other country," said Ned. "What have you ever
done against him?"
"I won't say just now," replied the senor, "but he knows that I am his
enemy. So I am of Santa Anna, if he is to get back. He murdered my
father and confiscated our property in Oaxaca. Do you know where that
is?"
"No," said Ned; "I don't know anything about the States of Mexico. It's
hard enough to keep track of the United States. They make a new one
every few weeks. They may have let in half a dozen while we've been at
sea."
"No," said Zuroaga, "but they've tightened their grip on Texas, and I
hope they'll hold on hard, if only to keep Paredes and Santa Anna from
murdering all the best men in it. Well, Oaxaca lies due south of the
State of Vera Cruz, and I can escape into it if I have half a chance.
I'd be safe then, for I have plenty of friends there. We have owned huge
tracts of land in Oaxaca ever since the Spaniards conquered Mexico."
"How did your folks get so much of it?" inquired Ned.
"I'll tell you," said the senor, proudly, and with a fiery flash in his
coal-black eyes. "A man by the name of Hernando Cortes really conquered
Mexico, without much help from the King of Spain. The king made a great
deal of him for it, at first. He made him a marquis, which was a great
thing in those days, whatever it is now. He also gave him a royal grant
of some of the land he had won for Spain. This land was the valley of
the Tehuantepec River, that empties into the Pacific Ocean near the
eastern boundary of Oaxaca. So his title was Marquis del Valle, and his
descendants hold a great deal of that land to this day. I am one of
them,--one of the Marquisanas, as they call us. I am a direct descendant
of Hernando Cortes, and that isn't all. One of my ancestors married an
Aztec princess, and so I am also descended from the Montezumas, who were
emperors of Mexico before the Spaniards came. I'm an Indian on one side,
and I've more than one good reason for hating a Spaniard and a tyrant."
Ned Crawford had read the story of the conquest of Mexico, like a great
many other American boys. That is, he had read it as if it had been a
tip-top novel rather than a reality. He had admired Hernando Cortes, as
a hero of fiction, but here he was, now, actually talking with one of
the hero's great-great-grandchildren, who was also, after a fashion,
one of the Montezumas. It was like a short chapter out of some other
novel, with the night race of the _Goshhawk_ thrown in by way of
variation. He was thinking about it, however, rather than asking
questions, and the senor went on:
"It's a rich, beautiful country, all that eastern part of Oaxaca. There
are splendid mountains and great forests of mahogany, rosewood, and
pine. Through it runs the Coatzacoalcos River, northerly, to the gulf.
Along the rivers and through the mountain passes, there is an old road
that Cortes himself made to lead his little army across to the Pacific."
"I'd like to go over on it!" exclaimed Ned. "I guess I will, some day. I
want to know all about Mexico."
He made up his mind, from what his companion went on to tell him, that
there would be a great deal worth seeing, but at that time nobody was
dreaming how many Americans, older and younger, were soon to travel over
the old Cortes road. California was to be annexed, as well as Texas, and
before Ned Crawford would be old enough to cast his first vote, there
was to be a great tide of eager gold hunters pouring along what was
called the Tehuantepec route to the placers and diggings.
The days of California gold mining had not yet come, and while Ned and
the senor talked on about the terrible history of Mexico, with its
factions, its bloody revenges, its pronunciamentos, and its fruitless
revolutions, the _Goshhawk_ sailed swiftly along toward Vera Cruz and the
powder-needing garrison of the castle of San Juan de Ulua.
Whether or not the war had actually begun was still a puzzling question
in the mind of Captain Kemp, but he would have had no doubt whatever if
he had been with General Taylor and his remarkable gathering of young
students of the art of war. They all obtained several important lessons
that day. One of these was that it is both difficult and dangerous for
an advancing army to push on through dense bushes and high grass in hot
weather, with Mexican lancers ready to pounce upon them among the lanes
of the chaparral. It was found, not only before but after the short,
sharp collision with the Mexican forces at Resaca de la Palma that a
number of valuable lives had been lost in the bushy wilderness.
The American army moved slowly forward, and before nightfall the long
lines of its blue uniforms went over the prairie rolls in full sight of
the fort. The Stars and Stripes were still flying above the badly
damaged ramparts, and cheer after cheer went up from thousands of
throats, including those of the rescued garrison. They had not really
lost many men, killed or wounded, but among the killed was their
commander, Major Brown, after whom the fort was now named. In later
years, a town grew up around the site of the frontier fortress, and it
is called Brownsville. General Taylor's men had triumphantly cut their
way through the difficult twenty miles from the sea to the siege, but
perhaps any individual hero among them might have safely quoted the wise
remark of Lieutenant Grant, as he looked at the fort and recalled his
exploits of the day.
"Well, after all," he said to himself, "I don't know but what the battle
of Resaca de la Palma would have been won just as well if I had not been
there."
Long years afterward, it was to be said of a number of other battles
that they would not have been won just as well if he had not been there
to win them, and the same would be equally true of several of his young
companions, as inexperienced as himself, and as ignorant of the great
things before them in the far future.
Their army went into camp near the fort; and the Mexican forces, for the
greater part, were believed to have retreated across the Rio Grande.
It is said that after every storm there comes a calm, but it was not a
pleasant calm in the neighborhood of the American camp. There were all
the while strong parties of Mexican lancers hovering around in all
directions, on the lookout for imprudent stragglers, and a sharp watch
had to be kept to guard against sudden dashes at the outposts, for the
"rancheros," as the Mexican horsemen were called, were both well-mounted
and enterprising. There was yet another kind of calm of a curious
character. General Taylor absolutely did not know what to do next, and
he could not know until after he should hear from the President what the
statesmen in Congress had decided. Beyond a doubt, war was going on
right here, but there was a dispute as to the nature of it and as to
what was to be done with it. The Mexican geographers claimed that the
southern boundary of Texas, even if it had been legally annexed to the
United States, was at the Nueces River, and that all their country
south of that line was still their own. According to them, therefore,
General Taylor's army was not in Texas at all, but in Mexico. On the
other hand, the American geographers placed the boundary at the Rio
Grande, many miles south of the Nueces, and claimed that the forces
defeated by General Taylor had invaded the United States. If both
parties were right, then it might have been said that all that land
between the rivers did not belong to anybody until the title to it
should be settled by a military court and gunpowder arguments. That was
really the way in which it was finally settled, and there is now no more
dispute about it. History tells us that so have all the great national
land titles of the world been argued and determined.
There was what some people call a waiting spell, and all things on sea
or land might be spoken of as feverishly quiet for a day or two. In the
afternoon of the third day, however, there was a sort of change in the
weather at one spot away out on the gulf. There was not a cloud in the
sky, indeed, and the _Goshhawk_ was skimming along under full sail so
steadily that part of her crew had nothing better to do than to lie
around on the deck, and feel satisfied that the breeze was so very good.
In the same manner, the American soldiers in the neighborhood of Fort
Brown were lying around in and out of their tents, and wishing that they
had more shade to protect them from the hot sun of Texas or Mexico,
whichever it might be. At that hour, however, there arrived upon the
_Goshhawk_ a bit of unexpected news which awakened everybody, for the man
at the lookout announced, excitedly:
"Schooner under Mexican flag, sir! Well away to loo'ard. Looks as if she
might come pretty nigh us."
"Just the thing I wanted!" shouted Captain Kemp, springing to his feet.
"We'll bear away for her. Up with the British flag, too. She'd shy the
Stars and Stripes. They wouldn't tell us what the news is, either."
Once more, therefore, the _Goshhawk_ became an Englishman, and her chase
after the latest news did not have to be a long one. Not many minutes
later, the two vessels were within hailing distance, and the stranger
spoke first, in a tone of evident anxiety:
"What ship is that?"
"_Goshhawk_, from Liverpool to Vera Cruz, with supplies for the Castle of
San Juan de Ulua. What ship is that?"
"Schooner _Tampico_, from Havana to Matamoras, with supplies for General
Ampudia," came much more cheerfully back. "We had to run away from
Matamoras in ballast to escape the gringos. Their cruisers are around
like hawks. You won't get to Vera Cruz if they can help it."
Captain Kemp already knew something about the reckless ways of
men-of-war, but he did not say so. He merely responded:
"Is that so? How about the war? We've no news at all."
"War?" shouted the Mexican skipper, triumphantly. "Why, there have been
three great battles already. We have whipped the Americans! General
Taylor is surrounded, and will have to surrender. So will the fort on
the Rio Grande. We shall drive the gringos out of Texas. I did not know
until now that you British were going to help us."
There could be no further conversation, for the _Goshhawk_ was sweeping
on out of hearing, but Ned Crawford exclaimed, indignantly:
"Our army defeated? How can that be? I don't believe it!"
Everybody on deck could hear the captain when he laughingly responded:
"The victories were won in that fellow's head, most likely. He was on
board his schooner at Matamoras, and he didn't see it done. All he knows
is that the war is really begun. It takes a long time, men, to make
either an American or a British army think of surrendering. We shall
hear a good deal more about those battles one of these days. I'd like to
read the newspaper reports, though, on both sides."
"They would be good fun," dryly remarked Senor Zuroaga. "There is nobody
on earth that can win victories like a newspaper editor."
"Hullo!" suddenly exclaimed Ned. "Something's the matter with the
captain! Did you hear that?"
There was quite enough to hear. A long, loud hail that came down from
the rigging was followed by almost a yell from Captain Kemp.
"We're chased again!" he said. "Thank God, she's astern! Men, we're in
for it! Now for Vera Cruz or a prison! I'm ready!"
Rapid orders went out, but hardly anything more could be done to
increase the speed of the ship. In fact, the lookout must almost have
taken it for granted that the strange sail away off yonder belonged to a
United States cruiser. Very likely it did, but it would have to draw a
good deal nearer before there could be any absolute certainty. In the
meantime, all on board the _Goshhawk_ might attend to whatever duties
they had, and discuss the remarkable tidings brought by the Mexican
schooner. While doing so, they could hardly have guessed correctly what
was doing and saying on board the other vessel which had caused their
anxiety. She was, indeed, a man-of-war, and she had received from a
returning army transport ship a whole lot of fresh news from General
Taylor's army, by way of Point Isabel on the coast, where he had been
encamped. Something like this had been shouted across the water by an
enthusiastic officer of the transport:
"Awful fightin'! Half a dozen battles! Taylor's whipped the Greasers
into smithereens! He's goin' to march right on into Mexico. I don't keer
if Uncle Sam annexes the hull half-Spanish outfit. I'm goin' in for one
o' them there big silver mines, if we do. Hurrah for Gineral Taylor!"
A chorus of ringing cheers had answered that, but here, also, there were
men of experience ready to question the entire accuracy of such
tremendous war news. The one thing, however, which was brought out
clearly to the mind of a naval commander was his greatly increased duty
of watchfulness to prevent any kind of munitions of war from reaching
the Mexican ports. That was the reason why he was now following at his
best speed what might after all prove to be an entirely innocent trader.
He even went below to consider the matter, and it was a full hour later
when the officer in charge of the deck came hastily down to tell him:
"Same fellow we chased before, sir. I've made him out. He's under
British colors again. Are we to chase?"
"Chase, sir?" roared the captain. "Of course we must chase! We know what
it means now. The old _Portsmouth_ must catch that rascal this time.
I'll come on deck."
Just as good glasses as those on board of her had been watching her
during that hour of swift sailing, and Captain Kemp was even now
lowering his telescope with what sounded like a sigh of relief.
"Mate," he said, "it's the same sloop that followed us before. It makes
me feel better. We know what's about the best she can do. If this wind
holds, I think we can fetch Vera Cruz at nightfall. No one Yankee'd
dare to follow us under the guns of San Juan de Ulua."
"I reckon not," slowly responded the mate of the _Goshhawk_, "but we
don't need to get under that chap's bow-chasers, either."
"No," said Captain Kemp, "but I'll risk a shot or two."
Ned Crawford heard him, for he had been following him pretty closely, to
know what was coming.
"I don't know," he was thinking, "how far one o' those cannon of hers'll
carry. I don't believe, either, that they can hit a mark that is
plunging along as we are. It'd be worse than shooting at a bird on the
wing. Still, it's kind of awful to be shot at by our own people."
The sailors of the _Goshhawk_ were also thinking, and they were beginning
to look at one another very doubtfully. Not only were they Americans,
most of them, but they had not shipped for any such business as this,
and they did not fancy the idea of being killed for nothing. Moreover,
Ned himself heard one of them muttering:
"There's an ugly look to this thing. If a shot from that cruiser were to
strike us amidships, we'd all be blown into the air."
Decidedly that was not a pleasant thing to think of. Neither was there
any great amount of comfort in a suggestion made by another of the men:
"Well, we'd never know what hurt us. We must keep out o' range."
Not long afterward there was a flash at one of the bow-ports of the
cruiser. The report which followed was a peremptory order to heave to,
under penalty of consequences. The gun was shotted, and a great many
eyes watched anxiously for the dipping of that well-aimed ball of iron.
It skipped from crest to crest of several waves before it sank, and then
Captain Kemp shouted:
"All right, men! Half a mile short! We shall get there. The coast's in
full sight now, and we've less than five miles to run."
"Ay, ay, sir!" came back from them, half cheerfully, but one voice was
heard to grumble:
"It's all right, is it? Well, if it wasn't for that half-mile o'
shortage, there'd be a mutinee-e on board o' this ship. I'd start it. I
ain't a-goin' to get myself knocked on the head by Uncle Sam's own men."
There would very likely have been a mutiny, even as it was, if there had
now been time for it to take shape. Thus far, the excitement of the
chase had been in the captain's favor, but the seamen would have been
legally justified in resisting him and bringing the ship to. His
authority would have ceased, for he had no right to compel them to break
the law or to run the risk of a broadside from a man-of-war.
Nearer, nearer, nearer, came both the dim outline of the Mexican coast
and the white sails of the pursuing _Portsmouth_. Louder and more
ominous grew the but half-suppressed murmurs of the sailors, but Captain
Kemp's face was now wearing a hard, set look, and he was known to be a
dangerous man to deal with. Something, which looked like the handle of a
pistol, stuck out of one of his side pockets, and his fingers wandered
to it now and then, as if he might be turning over in his mind the
possibility of soon having to shoot a mutineer. Ned was staring
anxiously back at the Yankee cruiser at the moment when his shoulder was
gripped hard, and Senor Zuroaga almost whirled him around, exclaiming:
"Look! Look yonder! That's the Castle of San Juan de Ulua! Oh, but don't
I wish it were a half-mile nearer! Hear that firing?"
The guns of the _Portsmouth_ were indeed sounding at regular intervals,
and she was evidently almost within range. She was also, however, well
within the prescribed distance line which a hostile cruiser may not pass
without being regarded as making the attack herself. Beyond a doubt,
too, there must have been observers at the fort, who were already
watching the operations of the two approaching vessels. Minutes passed,
which were counted by Ned with a heart that beat so he almost thought he
could hear it.
"I think we are safe now," began the senor, but he had been looking at
the fort, and there was one important fact of which he was not aware.
Only a couple of minutes earlier, the captain of the _Portsmouth_ had
shouted angrily to his first lieutenant:
"No, sir! I will not let her get away. I will take her or sink her! Out
with that starboard battery, and let them have it!"
Around swung the sloop, like the perfect naval machine that she was, and
there quickly followed the reports of several guns at once. It was not a
full broadside, but there was enough of it to have sunk the _Goshhawk_,
if the iron thrown had struck her at or near the water-line. None of it
did so, but the next exclamation of Senor Zuroaga was one of utter
dismay, for the foremast of the bark had been cut off at the cap and
there was a vast rent in her mainsail. Down tumbled a mass of spars and
rigging, forward, and the ship could no longer obey her helm.
"All hands cut away wreckage!" shouted Captain Kemp. "We're all right.
She won't dare come any nearer. Hurrah!"
It was a deep, thunderous roar from the castle which had called out that
apparently untimely hurrah. It was the voice of a 64-pounder gun from
the nearest rampart, and the shot it sent fell within ten feet of the
_Portsmouth's_ bows.
"Hullo!" exclaimed her captain, more angrily than ever. "We've run in
almost to pointblank range of those heavy guns. About! About!
Lieutenant, we must get out of this."
"All right, sir," was anxiously responded. "It isn't worth while to risk
any more shot of that size--not for all there's likely to be under the
hatches of that wretched bark. I think we barked her, anyhow."
He may have meant that for a kind of small joke, but she had been worse
hurt than he could know, for one 32-pounder shot had shattered her
stern, barely missing her sternpost and rudder gearing, and she was no
longer the trim and seaworthy vessel that she had been. One more heavy
gun had sounded from the seaward battery of the castle, but her garrison
had been in a genuinely Mexican condition of unreadiness, and it was
several minutes before they could bring up more ammunition and make
further use of their really excellent artillery. During those minutes,
the _Portsmouth_ had ample opportunity given her to swing around and
sweep swiftly out of danger. She had barely escaped paying dearly for
her pursuit of the _Goshawk._ Her satisfaction, however, consisted only
in part of the damage she had done to the bark, for, in getting around,
she had let drive her entire larboard broadside. It was a waste of
ammunition, certainly, but no Yankee man-of-war commander would ever
have forgiven himself if he had failed to make a good reply to a shot
from the Castle of San Juan de Ulua. Moreover, the sloop's gunners were
ready to swear solemnly that every ball they had sent had hit the fort.
The excitement on board the _Goshhawk_ had been at fever heat, but it was
now diminishing rapidly, for she did not contain a man who was not well
pleased to see the _Portsmouth_ give the matter up. All signs of mutiny
disappeared, of course, for there was no more duty of a military
character to be required of the men. The bark was soon set free of her
wreckage, and prepared to make her way in still further, under the
protection of the fort batteries. Captain Kemp was too busy for any kind
of conversation, and Senor Zuroaga came aft, to where Ned was curiously
studying the work of the 32-pound shot at the stern. The senor leaned
over the side and did the same for a long moment before he remarked:
"We have had a narrow escape. A few feet lower, and that shot would have
let the water in. Fifty feet forward, and it would have touched off the
gunpowder. As it is, our voyage is ended, and I shall know, in an hour
or two, whether or not I am to be shot in the morning."