Renegade 31

by Lou Cameron

  Captain Gringo smiled courteously but replied, “Our regrets to El Presidente, but we’ll be on duty at the presidio this evening and won’t be able to make it.”

  The Segovian looked astounded and said, “What do you mean you can’t make it? Didn’t you hear me tell you it’s an invitation from El Presidente himself?”

  Captain Gringo nodded and said, “Let me put it this way. I can whip your half-ass army into shape and go after those guerrillas or I can tinkle ice with people we already know are on our side. I can’t do both. Torrez struck me as a sensible gentleman. So just tell him we’re doing the job he hired us to do and I’m sure he’ll understand.”

  “But you and Colonel Verrier here just arrived and by six it will be getting too dark for to chase bandits, so—”

  “So who said anything about taking the field tonight?” Captain Gringo cut in, adding, “With luck I can have your forces in shape to do more than fuck-off in, oh, seventy-two hours, if I start now! If enough to matter show up for the general inspection I just ordered, I’ve got a lot of paces to put them through, so tell El Presidente thanks but no thanks.”

  The grandee shook his head in wonder, told his driver to drive on, and rode off muttering to himself about Jews and North Americans not knowing when to relax. Gaston chuckled and said, “He may have a point, you know. Warfare is conducted in a more casual fashion in this part of the world, my huffing and puffing shitter of chickens.”

  Captain Gringo said, “That’s one thing we have going for us. El Viejo del Montaña may be expecting us to carry on as usual. The general who used to chase him spent more time chasing skirts, and it’s obvious nobody else has ordered a forced march in living memory. Let’s get back to the presidio and ask where they keep their big guns, if they have any.”

  But again they were cut off by a horseless carriage, this one a cheaper old Panard with only one guy in it, at the tiller. He said, “Get in, caballeros. I was sent for to take you to the presidential palace.”

  Captain Gringo laughed and said, “There seems to be a lot of that going around this afternoon. That’s not where we’re headed.”

  The driver shrugged and said, “Get in anyway. I was paid for to give you a lift and it is of no importance where you wish for to go, see?”

  Gaston took a step forward. But Captain Gringo stopped him and said, “No thanks. We’re only going around the corner and, no offense, you ought to use some saddle soap on that back seat. Who was your last passenger, a chicken who wasn’t housebroken?”

  The driver turned to regard his Panard’s shabby passenger accommodations with regret as he explained, “When one drives for hire one gets all sorts of odd fares, caballero. May I tell them I gave you a ride, anyway, should they ask?”

  “Sure. Who are the they we’re talking about?”

  “A couple of other soldados who hailed me over near the palace. They said you would be coming from that tailor shop about now and that you would need a ride back to the center of town.”

  Captain Gringo repeated they didn’t and the driver drove on with a fatalistic shrug. The two soldiers of fortune walked the other way and had just made it to the corner when at least forty pounds of dynamite went off behind them with an ear-splitting roar!

  They both ducked around the corner as glass, bricks, and roof tiles clattered to the pavement they’d just been walking. Gaston had just gasped, “Sacre goddamn! What was that?” when yet another explosion tore the peaceful air of La Siesta apart at a greater distance! Captain Gringo got his .38 out, saying, “Beats the shit out of me. But both those bangs were too close for comfort! We’d better have a look. Cover me as I take the lead.”

  He moved back around the corner. The calle ahead was hazed with settling dust and filled with screams and moans. As he worked his way closer he saw the tailor shop wasn’t there anymore. But this time fortunately the thick-walled buildings on either side of the smoldering excavation had withstood the blast. As a bewildered man who’d been jolted awake came out in his nightshirt to find out what all the noise had been about, Captain Gringo called out to him, “Get back inside and make sure no lamps or candles fell over. Check every room, before you put your pants on!” And then, as another head stuck out a window across the narrow street he added, “You heard me. Make sure you’re not on fire and stay inside for now!”

  They both obeyed, either because of his imposing voice and uniform or because he made sense. Gaston turned as he heard running boot heels overtaking him. He saw it was a group of troopers from the nearby presidio. He snapped, “What kept you? Corporal, into that wreckage with your men to search for survivors. I must follow our commanding officer, wherever the devil he thinks he is going!”

  As Gaston followed Captain Gringo out the far side of the haze in the middle of the block he saw more of the same filling the next intersection. Captain Gringo sniffed and said, “I smell burning rubber,” and Gaston said, ‘‘Oui, and human flesh as well. No other species cooks as sweetly, hein?”

  Captain Gringo stepped around a wood-spoked rubber-tired wheel near the edge of the dust cloud and bored on in. As he groped deeper into the slowly clearing haze he could just make out a wide shallow crater in the pavement ahead. A smoking engine block rested on the cobbles between. A human hand, with nothing attached to it, perched on the crater’s rim like a big pale spider.

  Gaston stared morosely at what was left of the last ride they’d been offered and said, ‘‘Try it this way. Assuming we’d be one place or the other at three, they had très amuse time bombs waiting in both the tailor shop and the taxi they told to wait out front!”

  Captain Gringo said, ‘‘Tell me something I didn’t know, and I’m not at all amused. Those cocksuckers didn’t care how many other innocent parties they had to blow up just to get a crack at us!”

  “Oui, it is beginning to look as if someone does not want us to do the job we were hired to do, non?”

  “Shit, they tried to kill us before we left San José. The only important question is who? The poor slob who was driving this taxi said he’s been paid to pick us up by guys in uniform. So that lets El Viejo de Montaña off the hook, right?”

  “Oui. And, all in all, I doubt very much the proprietor of that tailor shop back there hated us enough to commit bankruptcy as well as suicide. Mais let us consider just how many people might have known we’d be at a particular place at three, hein?”

  Captain Gringo snorted in disgust and said, “Let’s not and save ourselves the wear and tear on our brains! Let’s get on back to the presidio.”

  “Wait, Dick. Have you forgotten you just told everyone you’d be holding that general inspection this afternoon?”

  Captain Gringo made a wry face and said, “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that, Gaston.”

  Gaston said, “Someone has to. If it is not safe for a Segovian general to get laid or visit his tailor, how safe can it be to keep an appointment for a hardly secret event like a general inspection?”

  Captain Gringo smiled thinly and replied, “I guess we’ll just have to chance finding out, right?”

  “Wrong. Phyl’s steam launch is still tied up just a few miles away and I feel sure I could show you the way back to the coast if you let me. Mais let us fly, before someone gets lucky, Dick! This job is beyond danger into impossible! How in the name of sweet Santa Barranza can you hope to lead an army against très deadly enough guerrillas when we know for certain now that at least some of our own men are out to kill us?”

  Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “The motherfuckers who keep trying to stop us aren’t our men. They’re working for somebody else no matter what kind of pants they have on. I owe it to a pretty girl, and a lot of people who had the same right to live, to find out who’s behind all this skullduggery and pay ’em back, with interest!”

  “Merde alors, how does one pay back bloody death with interest?”

  “Easy. You gut-shoot the bastards once you catch ’em!”

  When they got back to the pres
idio they found the twin explosions and resultant conflicting rumors had rallied everyone around the flag better than a dozen bugle calls might have. The place looked more like a disturbed ant pile than a military post. So the first thing needed was some organization. Captain Gringo caught a junior officer on the fly, spun him around, and snapped, “I want all these civilians off the post. Make sure all military personnel stay. All leaves are canceled as of now. Then send Major Parez and your O.D. to me. I’ll be in the C.O.’s office. Any questions?”

  “Si, my general. What is an O.D.?”

  “Jesus H. Christ, you don’t have anyone pulling Officer of the Day? Never mind. Stupid question. Just carry out the orders you do understand and report to me with the other officers within the half hour.”

  He grumped on to his official quarters with Gaston in tow, telling dames he bumped into to get off the post poco tiempo and telling officers to follow him. He didn’t lead them all upstairs to the chamber he’d decided to set up as the war room. He sent some of the brighter-looking ones on other errands. So by quarter to four, and cursing because it had taken so long, Captain Gringo had most of the people who were supposed to be running things seated in his new war room as he stood by a big hitherto blank map freshly pasted to the stucco wall at one end of the room. It was the first decent map of La Republica de Segovia he’d ever seen. So he let them rumble and grumble and studied it some as they settled down. There weren’t enough chairs, and the junior officers had to stand in the back, but they looked like they could use the exercise.

  Captain Gringo had sent one bewildered officer into town to buy him a set of artist’s pastels. He only needed red and blue chalk, but he needed good pastel that could be cleanly erased and they came in a set.

  He drew a neat square on the black and white map in blue. That drew their less noisy attention, since they had no idea what their new general was up to. Any guy who wears a uniform long enough tends to get at least a little curious about job skills he’s supposed to have. So they listened politely, and some even understood as Captain Gringo announced, “This blue square is us, here at G.H.Q. We draw our own positions in blue. We mark known enemy positions in red. That’s so we can tell ’em apart, see?”

  He picked up a red pastel, found the vaguely indicated Colon Mountains a day’s forced march to the east and made a big vague oval with a little flag and big question mark. Before he could say it, a bright-looking second lieutenant said, “Ah, si, that is where El Viejo del Montaña is right now, no?”

  Captain Gringo said, “No, and you’re at ease, Lieutenant. We’ll get to questions and answers in a minute. But since you asked, out of turn, we don't know the guerrillas spend all their time between raids as indicated here, and you’ll notice I drew this blob a lot bigger than our GHQ even though El Viejo del Montaña has a much smaller army, I hope. So far, all anyone’s been able to tell me is that he holes up somewhere here in the Colones. That’s covering a lot of country I don’t know shit about. We couldn’t see the mountains to our north as we came up the river, so that means they can’t be all that high. I’ve been told they’re covered with rain forest as well as running against the grain east and west between the not too far apart rivers. True or false?”

  Nobody answered.

  He frowned and asked, “Jesus, haven’t any of you ever been up in those hills?”

  Again no answer. So he nodded and said, “Right. Your last C.O. died in bed, so why should any of you know more than he did about enemy positions? I don’t know how to tell you this, muchachos, but the way an army fights is to take the field against the other side.”

  Major Parez cleared his throat and when Captain Gringo nodded at him he said, “Most naturally you will find us ready to obey orders, my general. But is it not an established military fact of life that the defenders always take fewer casualties than the attackers?”

  Captain Gringo nodded grimly and said, “It is, up to a point. You’ve all doubtless heard, with some pleasure, about the Battle of El Alamo. For thirteen days the Texans holed up inside thick adobe walls shot the livers and lights out of the Mexicans attacking them from all sides.”

  “Si, that stupid Mexican, Santa Anna, did not know what he was up to, no?”

  “No. Santa Anna knew exactly what he was doing, even if it cost him more than he could afford in the end. He knew Sam Houston was gathering another army of Texans to his north and that it was getting bigger every day. So he didn’t have time to spare and had to spend men instead. The Texans inside El Alamo could have held out for months, had Santa Anna settled down for a nice safe siege. But he didn’t. He kept up the pressure, and though his losses were terrible the Texans lost at least a few men and a hell of a lot of ammo every time the Mexicans charged. So in just under two weeks, the defenders were exhausted, out of ammo, and El Alamo fell. Alamos always fall, if the guys on the offensive have the balls to keep attacking. Get the picture?”

  A junior officer raised a hand and when Captain Gringo pointed at him asked, “For why did the Mexican general require to take this Alamo? Had I been in his place, knowing a bigger and more dangerous army was gathering somewhere else, I would have simply bypassed the handful of Texans inside those walls. What good was an old mission doing nothing in the middle of the Texas plains?”

  “What’s your name, Lieutenant?”

  “Uh, Golchero, Pedro Golchero, and I assure the general I meant no offense!”

  “None taken. I’m just trying to keep track of the brighter kids in this class, Golchero. You and I are smarter than Santa Anna. I'd have bypassed a pointless outpost, too. But the point is that old Santa Anna had the choice! That’s the only edge Mars gives a soldado with hair on his chest. If nobody took the offensive, wars would be a lot quieter, but they’d last forever. It’s safer to stay on the defensive. But you have no say about when and where the enemy may choose to hit you next. It’s dangerous to take the offensive, but you get to keep the initiative. You can hit the enemy where you think his tender balls might be, and if you’re wrong you’re the one, and the only one, who can order a retreat! I’ve been reading up on the recent activities of this El Viejo del Montaña, and frankly he sounds like an asshole. I know it’s not nice to speak ill of the dead, but the general I’m replacing was an asshole, too. He waited here, in this cozy corner of this presidio, until the other side made a move. Then he sent you guys out to chase the raiders while he chased skirts. Naturally, nobody was ever there by the time any troops could possibly arrive. It was a hell of a way to run a railroad and, speaking of railroads, I see a good fifty kilometers of track running from this town to the steamboat landing on the Patuca to our north. How come we’re not guarding it? I know the guerrillas are bush league. They’d have to be if they haven’t wrecked an unguarded train or two by now. But let’s not count on El Viejo del Montaña staying stupid forever! Does anyone here know what this side-spur rail line here leads to?”

  Another officer explained the international cartel who’d been kind enough to build the line had a lead mine at the end of the spur and added in an injured tone, “We do have outposts guarding that rail junction as well as both ends of the main line.”

  Captain Gringo frowned and asked, “Outposts? We got outposts? How come I don’t see any fucking outposts on this fucking map? Get up here and take charge of this chalk, Captain.”

  The Segovian came forward and did so. As he neatly blocked in a constellation of little squares between the capital and the Colon range, Captain Gringo sighed and said, “Now they tell me! Your last C.O. believed in defensive positions indeed. It’s nice to see this army may be twice as big as I thought. But that makes the protracted existence of El Viejo del Montaña even more mysterious! By the way, that dramatic title we’ve given him is a mouthful, and it makes him sound too important as well. From now on nobody’s to refer to the old cabrón as Viejo del Montaña. We’ll just call him El Viejo Cabrón, agreed?”

  There was a collective tee-hee from the crowd, who of course knew viejo cabrón me
ant ‘Old Goat’ in Spanish and an old fool whose women hung horns on him in Spanish slang.

  Gaston had laughed, too, but called out, “I agree we should make our très fatigue enemy leader sound less impressive. May I now ask whether, by any chance, the artillery they told me I would be commanding could be out at those adorable outposts I notice closer to the larger plantations?”

  Captain Gringo asked Parez, who nodded and said, “We have, oh, two batteries of British four-pound field guns, I think. As my colonel suggests, the guns have been distributed among the more important outposts in the green belt.”

  Gaston frowned and demanded, “One gun, alone, at each place? Sacre goddamn, field artillery is intended to roll, not to sit like the duck in small scattered positions, doing nothing. It is safe to assume El Viejo del ... El Viejo Cabrón, I mean, has nobody with him who knows how to fire a cannon. If he did, he’d have collected all the cannon he wanted by this time, non?”

  Parez replied defensively, “The guerrillas have never dared to attack any part of this army! They hit mostly by night, hard and dirty, where, as my general says, the balls are soft. They burn outlying haciendas and wreck irrigation sluice gates. They machete coffee and bananas most bravely and steal many peon girls and other livestock. They avoid mano a mano fights with armed soldados, or, in God’s truth, well-armed men of any kind. I assure you we have been, how you say, containing the rebellion not too badly up to now.”

  Captain Gringo was just about to tell him what he thought of the way a modest but certainly big enough army had been dealing with a gang of overrated chicken thieves when El Presidente Torrez and a gaggle of less important civilian officials burst in on them.