UNDER FIRE
"Where am I?" exclaimed Ned, as his eyes came lazily open the next
morning, and in a moment more they were open very widely.
He knew the room he was in, and his thoughts came swiftly back to him.
There hung his sheathed machete at the head of the hammock, and his
pistols lay at his side. There was as yet only just enough light to see
them by, but he sprang out and began to get ready for his first day in a
besieged city. His satchel and pony, he remarked, would be safe enough
at headquarters, and he could go after them whenever he might need them.
"I'll go to Anita's for breakfast," he added. "I can pay her for it,
too. Then I want to see the American fleet, if I can. Oh, but am I not
glad that General Zuroaga gave me that old telescope? I've seen lots of
mountains with it, and now I'll make it show me the ships and the army.
Oh, my soul and body! I'm part of the garrison of Vera Cruz."
That was stretching the facts of the case a little, but he certainly was
serving under the wrong flag that morning. He felt queer and lonely in
that empty, robber-haunted house, and he was glad to get out of it
without being seen. Anita welcomed him enthusiastically, for he had
brought to her and her neighbors the good news of the coming of Santa
Anna's victorious army, and he was a young Mexican patriot for whom she
was glad to cook a good breakfast for a fair price. After that was
eaten, however, Ned's perplexities began, for the first Mexican officer
whom he met, on leaving Anita's house, curtly demanded a look at his
papers. He was altogether too well dressed a fellow to be allowed to
pass by unnoticed. With almost a fainting heart, Ned produced the pass
given him by the major at headquarters, but the next moment the brave
soldier's arms were around him, and he was hugged as a true comrade who
had ridden hard and far to bring good tidings.
"I will show you the gates myself!" exclaimed the lieutenant, for such
he was. "I shall be in command of a patrol that is going out toward
Sacrificios for a look at the gringos. Come on with me."
This was precisely what Ned was wishing for, and, as they hurried along,
he was pumped for all the news he had and a good deal more. In fact, he
found it a task of some difficulty to obey the stern commands of General
Morales and still keep within the truth.
A gate was reached and passed, the officer at the gate receiving a kind
of pay in news, and then Ned drew a long breath, for he suddenly
remembered that he had left the city, contrary to orders.
"Never mind," he said to himself, "I'm inside the Mexican army lines."
In a moment more, he had forgotten everything but his spy-glass, a
pretty good one, for he and the squad of patrollers were at the summit
of a low sand-hill, and there before them, only two miles away, the
boats of the ships of war and the transport ships were coming and going
through the surf with loads of American soldiers. With them, and on all
the vessels in the offing, Ned saw something which had never before
seemed to shine so splendidly, and it brought the hot blood fiercely
from his heart to his cheeks, because he could not just then break out
into a hurrah for the Stars and Stripes. The hurrah did get up into his
throat, but there it had to stop, and it almost choked him. His prudence
got the better of it, somehow, and his next thought was:
"Oh, but won't they have a tough time getting their cannon ashore!"
He was not so far wrong, for that was a problem which was troubling
General Scott and his engineers, but there was one thing more which Ned
did not so much as dream of. In one of those boats a tall man, who was
not in uniform, was leaning forward and gazing earnestly at the shore.
"Mexico!" he muttered. "Ned is in there somewhere. I must have a hunt
for him as soon as I can. I wonder if I did right to ever let him go.
Even after we take Vera Cruz, there will be a long campaign and any
amount of hard fighting. O Ned, my son, where are you?"
Ned was there, indeed, very near and yet very far, and he was wondering,
as were many American officers and soldiers, why the Mexicans did not
cannonade the invading army while it was coming ashore. They might have
done so effectively, and in a day or two they did put a few guns in
position to send an occasional shot, but all the harm they did was to
kill one man.
The patrol party had now performed its duty, and it marched back again,
but in that morning adventure Ned had discovered that he was really free
to come and go. Perhaps the Mexican commander had forgotten him in the
pressure of his other affairs. Even when Ned went to the headquarters
for his pony and baggage, he was treated by everybody as a young fellow
of no importance whatever, and at dinnertime he was able to tell Anita
all about the terrible ships and the swarms of invading gringos on the
shore.
That night the lonely room in the Tassara house was almost too lonely.
Ned lay awake in his hammock through long hours, and was glad that he
had two armies to think of, so that he might keep from listening for
possible footsteps outside of his little chamber, or for an attempt by
some marauder to force open his door. He had barred that, and he had
fastened his window firmly, but he could not feel entirely secure, and
he got up twice to go to the door and listen.
Day after day went by from that time in very much the same manner, and
Ned believed that he was learning a great deal about war, whether or not
it would ever do him any good in business affairs after the war had
come to an end. The entire American army, guns and all, reached the
shore in safety, and all the while Santa Anna and his army were reported
as coming, coming, but they did not come, and the hearts of the besieged
garrison and the terror-stricken people began to die within them.
"They will be too late now," thought Ned, but he did not dare to say as
much to any of his Mexican friends.
From time to time he had been out to ply his telescope upon the fleet
and upon the army. He knew that all the American camps had been
established beyond the reach of any guns in the city fortifications, and
he had watched with intense interest the slow, sure processes of a
regular siege, conducted by a rarely capable general. He had seen the
erection of battery after battery, of which General Scott's artillerymen
were as yet making hardly any apparent use. He did not quite understand
that, in merely being there, more and more of them, those batteries were
already capturing the city. They were sending so few shots at the walls,
or even at the grim Castle of San Juan de Ulua, because the American
general wished to take Vera Cruz without bloodshed, if he could, and he
came very near to the accomplishment of his humane purpose.
Undoubtedly, he would have succeeded in starving out the city, if he,
too, had not received daily notice of the nearer approach of Santa Anna
and all the forces which he could gather. Nobody but that general
himself and his confidential officers knew how really few they were, or
how unfit to assail the Americans in their fortified camps on the shore
of the sea. So, a final day came when the surrender of Vera Cruz was
formally demanded, under the awful penalty of a general bombardment by
the American fleet and army in case of a refusal. Resistance, it was
declared, was now hopeless, and there was no military necessity for
killing anybody. General Morales sent back a positive rejection, for he
still entertained a faint hope of the timely arrival of assistance, and
he did not inform General Scott how sadly he had failed in all his
attempts to obtain supplies for the inhabitants and his army. Famine was
already beginning to threaten all of the poorer classes who had
neglected their opportunities to leave the city, or who had been unable
to do so. As for Ned Crawford's provisions, he had continued to board
with Anita, or with any mess of military men among whom he might happen
to be. He had made many acquaintances, and he had found the ragged,
unpaid, illiterate Mexican soldiers a genuinely hospitable lot of
patriotic fellows. He came to his supper somewhat late on the evening of
March 21st, and that night, after going to care for his pony, he came
back and slept on a blanket on the floor of Anita's kitchen. On the
morning of the 22d, he had but just walked out into the street when
suddenly all the air around him seemed to be full of thunder. Roar
followed roar, and peal followed peal, and then he heard affrighted
shrieks in all directions. The bombardment had begun!
"O Madre de Dios!" moaned the voice of poor Anita behind him. "O Senor
Carfora! We shall all be killed! What shall we do? Oh, the wicked
gringos! What did they come here for? I never did them any harm."
That was a terrible war question which was troubling Ned himself.
Whatever might have been the evil doings of either of the two
governments, or of all the scheming, ambitious politicians, the helpless
people of Mexico were in no manner to blame. Why, then, he asked
himself, should any of them, like Anita, for instance, be killed by
cannon-shot or torn in pieces by bursting shells? He could not settle
the matter in his mind just then, but he said to her, encouragingly:
"Don't be so badly scared. Up here in this northern part of the town, we
are as far away from the shooting as we could be. I'll go over to the
southern side of the city and see what is going on. As soon as I find
out, I'll come back and tell you."
"Oh, do!" she said, "but do not get killed. Come back and get some
dinner. I will cook you a real good one, if you will."
That was something of a promise, for he knew that she was one of the
prudent folk who had looked out for their supplies in time, but he
walked away toward the southerly wall and the forts with a strong
feeling that he must be in the middle of a kind of dreadful dream. He
reached the line of antiquated and defective defences, which had been
good enough long ago, but which were not constructed to resist modern
artillery. Old as it might be, the wall was in the way of his intended
sightseeing, but he saw a ladder leaning against the masonry, and up he
went without asking permission of anybody. He was now standing upon the
broad parapet, with his glass at his eye, and he was obtaining a
first-rate view of the bombardment. On the land, stretching away to the
west and south, were the long lines of the American batteries, within a
not very long range of him, and from each of them at intervals the red
sheets of fire burst forth, while over them the black clouds of powder
smoke arose to be carried away by the brisk March wind that was blowing.
Far away to his right, or seaward, all at anchor in the positions
assigned them, lay the United States ships of war, of all kinds and
sizes, and these, too, were getting at work, although they were as yet
by no means putting forth their whole destructive power. It was as if
they were but studying this siege business, getting the ranges
correctly, and were preparing to do worse things than this in the days
which were to come. Ned was gazing intently at a great 44-gun ship,
which appeared to be sending her missiles at the castle, when a heavy
shot from one of the batteries struck the wall within a few yards of
him. It seemed to go deeply in, and the entire top of the parapet was
torn away for a width of several feet. Ned hurried at once to get a good
look down into the chasm, for it was the first time that he had seen
anything of the kind.
"I wonder if our shot are doing this kind of thing for their batteries
yonder," he said aloud, in the Spanish which was now habitual with him,
but at that moment a not unfriendly hand was laid upon his shoulder, and
a quiet, firm voice said to him:
"What are you doing here, Senor Carfora? You seem to have no fear."
"General Morales!" exclaimed Ned, in astonishment. "No, your Excellency.
I was not thinking of that, but of this big hole. I was wondering if the
walls of the castle are not stronger than these. If they are not--"
"They are much stronger, my brave fellow," interrupted the general. "I
am going over now to see how they are standing it. The Americans are
very accurate gunners. Now, sir, you must not expose yourself in this
manner. You are not a soldier. Go back into the city!"
"General," said Ned, pointing in the direction of the cathedral, "do,
please, look! Some of their shot go over the wall and strike away
inside. I am safer here than I would be in yonder. What I am afraid of
is that a great many of the women and children may be killed. I think,
sir, that you ought not to be here, either. You are the general."
"My boy," said Morales, sadly, "I was thinking of the non-combatants
myself. This firing of the Yankees at the city is hideous. But it is
war, and it cannot be helped. Ah, me! Feeling as I do this morning, I
would ask nothing better than that one of these accursed shot or shell
should come for me. I would a hundred times rather die than be compelled
to surrender Vera Cruz."
He again motioned Ned toward the ladder, and no disobedience was
possible. He himself followed, for his solitary reconnoissance was
ended, and he had been practically assured that his walls were of small
value against heavy siege-guns. When he reached the ground, several
subordinate officers came to join him, and Ned heard him say to them:
"That reckless young scamp, Carfora, has the nerves of an old soldier.
He will make a good one by and by. We need more like him, for some of
our artillerymen left their guns under the American fire."
There was never any lack of courage among men of his kind, a Spaniard
descended from the old conquistadors, while some of the officers around
him were Indians fit to have led their tribes for Montezuma against the
men of Hernando Cortes.
As Ned walked homeward, he halted several times to tell some of his
army acquaintances what he had seen from the wall, and how he had talked
about it with General Morales. No doubt they esteemed him more highly
than ever for his patriotism and high social standing, but he spoke also
of the danger to the people, and they were sure that his heart was with
them. Truth to tell, so it was, for the bombardment shortly became to
him more horrible than ever. Something he could not see passed over his
head, with a hiss that was almost like a human screech. Then followed a
loud explosion, and there before him, on the bloody pavement, he saw the
mangled corpses of a Mexican mother and two small children, who had been
killed while they were hurrying away to a place of safety.
"Oh, the poor things!" sobbed Ned, as he burst out into tears. "What had
they to do with the war!"
He could not bear to take a second look at them, and he hurried on, but
when he reached the house he did not say anything about them to Anita.
He told her about the batteries and the ships, and about the brave
general on the parapet, and then she and her friends who were with her
went away back into the kitchen, to be as safe as possible from flying
shot and shell. It was not, they appeared to think, at all likely that
any wicked gringo gunner would take aim at that kitchen.
As for Ned, he had only come in to go out again, for keeping indoors,
with all that cannonading going on, was altogether out of the question.