by Lou Cameron
El Viejo del Montaña shook his head and said, “We have already expended too much ammunition, just allowing you and Juaquin to get the hang of those fancy guns. I should have left them behind in camp with our adelitas, dammit. Do I look like an ammunition factory? You are not to fire either Maxim again without a direct order from me. Now let me ride forward again for to see if they heard you all the way into town, you idiot!”
He rode back to his rise, ignoring the questions of the other men he passed on the way. None of them ever seemed to ask anything intelligent. It was lonely at the top.
On the rise again, he was met by the rider he’d sent to secure the crossing. The scout said, “I heard machine gun fire. What’s going on, jefe?”
The older guerrilla said, “Stupidity. Not content with burning half our ammunition in camp for to learn how those Maxims operate, Gordo has just wasted half a belt showing off. I never should have taken those crazy guns. They fire six hundred rounds a minute, for God’s sake!”
“Si, but look on the bright side, jefe. Nothing and nobody can remain on its feet when it’s met by a solid stream of lead!”
El Viejo del Montaña nodded, mollified for the moment, and said, “That was the idea in hauling them along tonight. But Captain Gringo is said to favor automatic fire, too. So tell me, is he laying for us behind that railroad embankment ahead or not?”
The scout shook his own sombrero and replied, “Pero no, jefe. I rode over the tracks and up and down the open road on the far side as well. The way ahead is clear as far as the eye can see by moonlight,”
“Bueno. It is good to see something seems to be going right for a change. Let us be on our way, then. Congressman Libardo’s daughters are said to be muy bonito and their mother’s not bad, herself. We must teach Libardo not to vote the wrong way in the future. Our friends in the capital feel sure he’ll agree to that new tax bill once he has to borrow some ransom money from his political opponents, eh?”
El Viejo del Montaña turned in his saddle to shout, “Onward, my brave soldados!” And the whole straggling band of fifty-seven riders and two machine gun crews moved down the slope toward the crossing at an easy trot while, flat in the tall grass on the far side, the full company of picked troops Captain Gringo had moved in an hour earlier kept quiet as field mice. He’d warned them he’d shoot the first motherfucker who so much as farted before he gave the command to fire.
The Segovian troopers were well positioned as well as better trained than the approaching guerrillas. Had El Viejo del Montaña been leading real soldiers instead of just calling natural bullies soldados he’d of course have had his automatic weapons out to his flanks and ordered his men to cross the tracks spread out abreast in a harder-to-stop line of skirmish. But he didn’t. So Captain Gringo patted the action of his own set-up machine gun as he marveled, “Jesus, this is too good to be true! He’s letting us cross his T!”
He said it to himself. Gaston was a good thousand yards east in command of the one field gun they’d sneaked out of the presidio after dark. But Gaston was watching from the rim of the grassy draw he’d placed his four-pounder in to keep it from getting a moon bum. So he, too, rejoiced at the dumb way the guerrillas were approaching the ambush. Crossing the T was an easy way to describe a tactical position field commanders always hoped for but seldom got, since the other side usually wanted to go on living, too. Men spread out abreast are tough to pick off, since each is an individual and hardly stationary target if he knows what’s good for him. But a column of men coming at your guns in line makes a target indeed. If you miss the guy you aim at, you’re likely to hit the guy behind him, or, what the hell, the third or fourth.
Gaston whispered orders down to his gun crew as he waited to hear Captain Gringo give the command that would start the show. What on earth was his young friend waiting for? The species of leader in the big straw hat was over the tracks now and about to cross the road, chicken or no chicken! Was Dick asleep, merde alors?
Captain Gringo wasn’t. From his position out to the right flank of his forward line he had a better view than Gaston of the guerrillas, and he wanted as many as possible on his side of the railroad embankment before he ... Damn! The old goat on that lead pony was reining in as if he’d spotted something in the moonlit grass ahead! So Captain Gringo blew his whistle, loud, and all hell broke loose!
Captain Gringo didn’t fire his machine gun just yet. He knew how automatic fire was supposed to be used. From their positions in the tall grass, his company of riflemen cranked shot after shot from their bolt-action Krags, rolling sideways after every shot as he’d trained them, so that nobody aiming at their muzzle flashes would have much luck. Some of the guerrillas actually managed to get off a few rounds before going down and a lot of them managed to hit the ground alive, if shaken, because the troopers had been ordered to aim at their mounts first. A horse made a better target, even in broad daylight, and a dismounted rider played hell getting out of rifle range. The dumber ones died when they struggled to their feet instead of taking cover behind their fallen mounts or that railroad bank. Captain Gringo still held his own fire. The enemy never would have started to form a defense line along the railroad bank had they even suspected a flank attack. But they didn’t. So within three minutes the opposing forces were facing one another firing from prone positions abreast. The guerrillas had the mild advantage of the railroad bank and fallen mounts for cover. But they were badly outnumbered and bunched closer than they would have been had Captain Gringo been leading them. He found out who was when a voice called out, “Hey, army! Our leader, El Viejo del Montaña is down! So you have won this round and now you will let the rest of us go, eh?”
Captain Gringo seldom answered stupid questions even when it wouldn’t give his position away. So he just kept his head down. But one of his own men called out with a nasty laugh, “Sure, amigo! Just stand up and bend over so I can put a bullet up your ass, eh?”
“Sucker of your mother’s pussy!” The guerrilla roared back. “You stand up and show your ass so we can wipe it for you with hot lead!”
He must have meant it. Down at the far end a machine gun opened up, firing full automatic, longer than it should have in one burst.
Captain Gringo chuckled dryly. He’d have never let them get their hands on automatic weapons had he known he’d have to face them so soon. The idea was to let them waste lots of vital ammo learning the ropes, not to get his own men killed. But as the wild man on the other side hosed his Maxim back and forth, wasting six hundred rounds a minute on nothing much, Captain Gringo saw there was little to worry about. He heard them change the belt. But as they opened up again, the enemy Maxim suddenly jammed after only a short burst of renewed frantic fire. Captain Gringo wasn’t the only one out that night who could see the mistake. The voice of the self-appointed guerrilla leader called out, “Stop that, Gordo! We’re already low on ammo, you dumb fat bastard! Break up those belts and pass the brass up the line!”
Captain Gringo didn’t want them to do that. So he decided it was time to teach them how one really used a machine gun in combat. He held the muzzle steady as he proceeded to lay short but savage bursts along the enemy line from their north flank, blowing sombreros high and laying their owners low in bloody bunches. He chewed up at least a third of their line before they knew what was hitting them. Then some wiseass opened up on his position with automatic fire, from close, dammit, in waist-high grass!
Captain Gringo winced and rolled away from his own tripoded Maxim as the other machine gun blew its water jacket open and spun it on its mount with a burst of unfortunately well-aimed lead. The enemy gunner called Luis had wasted lots of .30-30 learning to use a machine gun, but he’d learned faster and better than Gordo.
But he did make one mistake. He kept firing at the same position from the same position, assuming Captain Gringo was waiting in the nearby cover to recover his shot-up weapon as soon as possible.
But who wanted a machine gun with its water jacket empty and its
ammo belt all twisted around its tripod like that? Captain Gringo didn’t. So he started crawling through the deep grass toward the sound of the other gun, moving a bit wide, of course, so that once he was in position he could simply rise to one knee, take careful aim in the moonlight, and put one .38 round in one ear and out the other.
As Luis fell sideways in the grass, clear of the other Maxim, Captain Gringo dove forward, snatched up a fresh belt to feed the action, then pulled it free of its tripod to rise to his feet in the waist-high grass, growling, “Now let me show you mothers how to use a machine gun!”
He did, firing from the hip in short but deadly bursts as the lightness of the new weapon warned him the jerk-offs had never filled the water jackets at all. But by now even a serious rifleman would have rattled the shot-up guerrillas, firing at them from behind their own lines. So they broke and started running wildly, afoot but uncaring as they sought to put as much distance as possible between them and the awesome mess their late leader had led them into.
Some of them even made it. Captain Gringo could only drop so many running targets at a time as they flashed black and silver in the moonlight past him. Then Gaston opened up with the four-pounder, and the curtain of exploding shells ahead of them gave them pause indeed. Captain Gringo saw one black figure approaching with its hands held high outlined against burning grass. He started to blow it away. Then he had a better idea and called out, “Cease fire! Take anyone with his hands very high alive! Do you hear what I’m saying, you worthless baby rapers?”
They apparently could. So although his troopers shot a few of the surrendering guerrillas in hot blood, boys being boys, the battle ended with seven more or less alive prisoners and not one casualty on Captain Gringo’s side. He agreed there was no point in trying to march the two gut-shot hombres all the way back to town. But after they’d been shot that still left five. So when Gaston joined Captain Gringo on the road he naturally asked why.
Captain Gringo explained in English, “Dead men tell no tales. Angelita says the local newspapers include one in opposition to the current government, aid we’ll naturally let reporters interview our prisoners before they’re court martialed, right?”
“Ah, let us make certain nothing happens to them before they can talk. Mais even if they implicate big shots who should be ashamed of themselves, won’t the other big shots cover up for them?”
“Big shots usually do. But every little bit helps. We’ve done the real job nobody really wanted us to do. We’ve wiped out the national emergency, easy. So let’s get back to the presidio and tidy up. We don’t have much time.”
“Time for what? Can you not see that once we turn our prisoners in and accept our medals like little men, the situation will be out of our control again?”
“I just said that, dammit. Let’s go. We have to get back before anyone tells Torrez what a dirty trick we just played on him!”
The victorious return of Captain Gringo’s troops, while no doubt a dismal surprise to some, naturally called for an official if late night celebration. So while even the junta members who’d tried to send Captain Gringo on a wild goose chase were busy taking bows at the presidio, Captain Gringo and Gaston had no trouble breaking into the presidential palace to collect their back pay and, as Gaston pointed out, any bonus due them as well.
As Gaston went to work on the wall safe in El Presidente’s office Captain Gringo drew the blinds, switched on the desk lamp, and sat down to catch up on his reading. There was no end to the prewritten but undated and unsigned documents Torrez kept on hand just in case. He muttered, “Oboy, here’s a promotion to Major General for Parez. They don’t need a major general for such a wee army, but I guess it would look better if the asshole outranked me when he busted me or worse for failure, right?”
Gaston hissed, “Pouvez-vous shut up? This combination would be soup of the duck if I could hear the clicking of clacks inside and ... voila, you can sing now, if you wish! I told you it would be soup of the duck. That très noisy dynamite you made me carry all the way upstairs was, as I said, a needless burden.”
Captain Gringo rose, stuffing additional papers Sir Basil Hakim and the opposition newspaper might find interesting in his civilian jacket as Gaston swung the safe open. The Frenchman didn’t bother with papers he found inside. He tossed them aside as he stuffed his own pockets with money. Captain Gringo considered picking up more evidence. But what the hell. The familiar old plot was elephantine in its simplicity, once it was pointed out to anyone with the brains of a gnat. So he helped himself to some money, too, and said, “That’s enough. Let’s get out of here. I’ll carry the dynamite.”
“Why?” asked Gaston. “I told you I did not need such crude methods to open a très ordinary safe, Dick.”
Captain Gringo bent over, picked up the box of DuPont he’d taken from the presidio magazine along with other goodies and said, “Get out your pisoliver and take the lead. You never know when boom-boom sticks might come in handy.”
They made it downstairs and out the back way without incident. In the motor pool behind the palace Captain Gringo put the dynamite in the back seat of a parked Benz three-wheeler and said, “Get in. I’ll crank her up.” Gaston climbed up into the horseless carriage, but asked, “Is this the most silent manner of slipping away in the darkness one might manage, Dick?”
Captain Gringo stepped around to the rear to crank the engine back there as he replied, “So far you're making more noise than this gas buggy is. If we don’t get a backfire, nobody should hear our engine more than two blocks away, and that boat landing’s just too far to run.”
“I agree a midnight drive beats a très fatigue hike. But be careful, Dick. They built Police Headquarters across the plaza from the palace for some annoying reason and—” The engine tried to start with the first crank but choked on something and backfired in a dulcet twelve-gauge tone. As Captain Gringo cursed and cranked again, Gaston shouted, “Hurry, dammit!” and then, as the balky engine backfired again, he added, “It’s no use! Let us remove our adorable asses from the vicinity of such a demand for attention before it is too late!”
It already was. As Captain Gringo cranked again, and this time got the engine to start, a couple of uniformed cops came around the dark corner of the presidential palace, guns drawn and whistles blowing. Gaston blew them both away as Captain Gringo leaped in beside him and threw the Benz into gear. The red rubber tires smoked as they took off across the motor pool in the dark and they still had a ways to go when one rear tire blew. Captain Gringo did the best he could to control their wild swerve. So neither soldier of fortune was hurt as they slammed into another parked automobile and shuddered to a tinny halt.
Other whistles were tweeting all around them in the night by now, of course. So Captain Gringo ignored Gaston’s advice to get a horse. He dropped down and ran for the nearest undamaged vehicle, this one a Panard four-wheeler with the engine up front, where horsepower was supposed to be. As he cranked the cold engine up Gaston joined him, shouting, “I don’t know if you noticed it, my noisy child, but the ones you just managed to wreck seem to be on fire!”
“So get in this one, dammit. It’s ready to roll!”
“It had better be. Before the flames reach the adorable dynamite you insisted on bringing along! Are those otherwise useless sticks fused and capped, by the way?”
Captain Gringo was too busy to answer. He knew they were. He burned more rubber getting the hell out of there, and it was tough shit about the cops trying to block the far exit as the Panard tore through it, and them.
As the bodies thudded wetly to the pavement behind them, Gaston sighed and said, “I hope we don’t blow another tire between here and the river now! I was hoping to give the junta until morning to discover we had crossed them double, hein?”
Captain Gringo skidded around a corner and tore south along the river road as he growled, “Hey, bite your tongue. We didn’t double-cross them. They were out to screw us from the beginning! They never wanted real pros
chasing their straw man in the first place. That’s why they tried to kill us a lot before we could get here. Hakim and the few honest big shots within miles insisted on outside help. So once we got here despite the junta’s secret objections, old Torrez and his pals had to go along with the gag until they could figure out some other way to dump us. That wild goose chase they tried to send us on might have given them a swell chance to discredit us, but—”
The road ahead suddenly lit up bright as day and the shock wave chasing them down it gave their stolen car a tinny kick in the ass. Gaston turned in his seat to stare back at the huge mushroom of smoke and flame rising from the center of town as he marveled, “Eh bien, that dynamite was capped and fused, you careless child! Mais why do I still see flames rising? The presidential palace was solid masonry, non?”
“It was. And every horseless carriage back there had a full tank. Rubber tires burn pretty good, too. Hold on tight. I’m aiming at a telephone pole.”
Gaston gasped, “Mais non!” as Captain Gringo shoved the wind screen ahead of them flat against the hood and gunned the powerful four-horse engine. Gaston was still cursing as well as hanging on for dear life when Captain Gringo smacked a roadside cedar pole at an angle, then steered quickly the other way to avoid the falling results of his wild driving. As the pole crashed across the road behind them, tearing down the line to the riverside landing, the little Frenchman moaned, “I see the method in your madness, but do you have to drive so madly? Slow down, you species of speed demon! We are going so fast I cannot catch my breath!”
Captain Gringo chuckled and replied, “Yeah, we’re doing almost thirty miles an hour. Haul the wind screen back up, will you? This’d be a hell of a time to catch a road cinder in my eye!”
Gaston did as he was told, moaning all the while that if God had intended humans to travel this fast he’d have given them wings.
Captain Gringo didn’t answer. He knew they were burning up the road far too fast for its original intended use, and the wagon ruts were a bitch to avoid by moonlight. Then he spotted a line of torchlights ahead and snapped, “Hang on!” as he gave the engine the gun and snarled, “Come on, you crawling pile of tin! Let’s see you move, goddammit!”
