by RW Krpoun
“There’s a chance things will get better.”
“There’s a chance they’ll stay the same, and a chance they’ll get worse.”
“What were we fighting for in China?”
“Well, the best I recall I was fighting for thirty-five dollars a month plus allowances. More in the Islands because I had made Sergeant.”
“That’s it? Money?”
“Did you turn down your pay?”
He shook his head angrily. “I thought…I thought the Army would be different.”
“Really? It was before my time, but the way I heard it the Indians got dealt with in a fairly straightforward manner.”
He sighed. “The Boxers just wanted things to be Chinese, not so influenced by the West.”
“Yeah, I know. So they went about it by killing Christians. They tried pretty hard to kill us, too, when we showed up. Can’t fault them for the effort even if the outcome fell short of their expectations. Is that the price you’re willing to pay, Billy? Women raped because they’re from wealthy families, or from peon families who won’t choose a side, or just to keep your rebels in the field?”
“So what is the answer, Seth? Leave Madero and Huerta in charge?”
“I don’t know about that. What I do know is that revolutions don’t always go the way you want. Look at the French: they put a King to the axe, turned the country on its ear, and when the dust settled they had an Emperor and what, twenty years of war? The poor bastards who rose in the streets for liberty ended up dead on battlefields the length and breadth of Europe, killing other peasants for the Emperor.”
Billy slapped his saddle horn. “So we do nothing?”
“Dunno. But before you set out to do a job you ought to have an idea how it will finish out. Seems to me that that is in the Good Book, only better-worded.”
“Really? How do you see this endeavor of yours playing out?”
“With me dead.”
He waited, but I had nothing to add. “So why are you doing it?”
“It’s that or leave a bunch of orphans in the lurch.”
“Mexico is a nation of orphans.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“How can you ride away and leave the peons in the lurch?”
“Because they’re not my people, for one thing!”
“Ever heard of the Good Samaritan?”
“Running guns isn’t the same thing. You can’t fix Mexico, Billy, but me and a few good hands can made a difference for those kids.”
“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.”
“What?”
“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp,” Billy repeated. “Robert Browning said that, in a poem called Andrea del Sarto.”
“He should have stuck with designing pistols.”
“That’s a different Browning.”
“Thank the Lord. I would hate to think of a gunsmith worrying about poetry.”
“It means you should strive for more than what is readily available.”
“So instead just checking a dead man’s pockets, you should go after any gold dental work?”
“No!”
“Easy, Billy, you’ll give yourself a conniption,” I grinned. Billy had been bully-ragged something fierce during the march to Peking. Of course, he had been inclined towards spouting similar nonsense back then, too. Back in the old Fourteenth bragging, Bible thumping, and complaining were respected topics, but references to poetry and the rights of man as they related to the enemy were not. Billy had been a slow learner. “Enough about the nature of Mexico. Tell me about this bunch we’re going to find.”
He took a deep breath and began, and as I expected my needling had put his thoughts elsewhere and he was much more frank than he would have been otherwise. “The force is under the command of Colonel Sanchez, with roughly four hundred rifles and a couple Maxims the last I heard; his force is completely mounted. About fifty of his troops are soldaderas.”
“What?”
“Soldaderas, female soldiers.”
“What, you mean camp followers?”
“Well, some soldaderas are camp followers, but others, and all of Sanchez’s, are soldiers.”
“Women soldiers.”
“Yes.”
“Modern times,” I shook my head disgustedly.
A mile or two later I reined Pork Chop in and pointed. “Dust: somebody’s on the move with a large group. Heading southeast is my guess.” I pulled the Krag and checked the round in the chamber. “Lets head for that rise; maybe it’s Green Coat.”
At the crest we saw a long ragged column of dusty riders with a score of pack mules in their rear. The riders were Mexicans clad in an eclectic collection of clothing, mostly worn khaki uniform items from a half-dozen different armies. All were armed, likewise with a wild range of firearms: I saw trapdoor Springfield carbines from the US’ Indian Wars, old British Snyder and Martini-Henry rifles, French Lebels, and a sprinkling of modern Mauser rifles, plus individual representatives of most civilian arms produced in the USA for the last fifty years.
A notable percentage of the column were women, some in long skirts, others in trousers, armed and festooned with as many cartridge belts and pouches as the men. Red rags fluttered from rifle muzzles and bridles, and nearly every rider wore a red bandana on their person.
I looked over at Billy as outriders closed upon us. “I thought Colonel Sanchez was lying low.”
Chapter Eleven
Not only was Sanchez on the move, he was riding to war. Once Billy had been recognized by the outriders and held a lengthy conversation with them he was escorted to the latest rebel Colonel I was going to have to deal with. Sanchez was a squat, heavy-set individual encased in a dusty blue uniform; his broad features and general disposition reminded me unpleasantly of a sour toad.
Sanchez spoke excellent English so Billy briefed him in that language, sticking to a very sketchy outline. When he finished the Colonel stared off into the distance, lips pursed. Finally he adjusted the lay of his narrow-billed kepi and turned his bulging eyes to me. “The dead walk?”
“More or less. There’s a snake oil business involved, it sort of powers them like steam powers a locomotive.”
He pondered that. “We have heard rumors. There is a large group a few miles in that direction,” he jerked his chin towards the southeast. “We are on our way to sort this business out before the government finds a way to turn it to their advantage.”
“Sir, I do not think that is wise…” Billy began, subsiding when Sanchez casually lifted a hand in a dismissive gesture.
“Colonel, if you’re determined to engage you should know that these creatures have destroyed two government forces in the last few days, one of which comprised two full companies of infantry.” I didn’t care if he wanted to hear me or not.
He favored me with a mirthless smile. “We have done much the same.”
“I don’t doubt. I know this is hard to believe, but advise your soldiers to aim for the head. The snake oil makes the recipient crazy-the effect is like they are on opium, they feel no pain. If you do not hit them in the head they will continue to wreak havoc for quite some time.”
Sanchez stared at me for a long moment, then turned to an aide and rattled off a stream of Spanish. I was listening closely and heard “el objecto para la cabeza” or something to that effect, so I subsided into my saddle, my job complete.
Billy didn’t want to be silenced, but he wouldn’t keep talking whenever the Colonel gave one of his little waves, and soon we found ourselves escorted to the mule train by a young staff lieutenant in a tailored blue uniform. We were not under arrest or anything of the sort-we still had our weapons, but it was clear that we weren’t going anywhere, either. You might suggest that the Colonel was practicing operational security, but I suspected that he was unsure of what the blazes was going on and wasn’t going to turn loose of two men who might be spouting crazy talk, but who also might know more than Sanchez did about local circums
tances. It showed more sense than I would have credited from my initial impression of the Colonel, but as a former Regular I have a poor opinion of irregulars.
I nodded to the rebels as we passed and winked at a couple of the younger soldaderas as we waited for the column to pass, but Billy just sat on his horse and stewed.
“They’re riding into a disaster,” he snarled as we fell in with the mules. I noted a couple of Maxim guns were strapped to the pack saddles.
“Yeah. What did you expect? You didn’t believe me when I told you.”
He sighed. “This is the best force the rebels have in the state. Without Ramirez to hold them together his group will fall apart. The revolution needs this column.”
“They need ammunition, too: I didn’t see any but Sanchez’s guards carrying a full belt. They have, what, twenty to forty rounds per rifle?”
“Supplies are needed,” Billy nodded absently.
“So why is Sanchez taking the rebellion’s only hope in this area into the unknown?”
“The word is that the government forces have lost control, so if the government withdraws, we must advance.”
“You know, when we were fighting the Moros we learned that that sort of thinking makes you dangerously predictable.”
“I know.”
“The Moros did exactly that sort of thing. We caught them out more’n once playing on that. They learned slow; of course, they had a high turnover,” I grinned at the memory.
“What did the Moros ever do to you?” Billy snapped.
I jerked a thumb towards my face. “I wasn’t born with this beauty mark. They killed a couple of my friends, too.”
“You didn’t have to be there.”
“Once you take the oath, that isn’t true. The Army was nice and simple, Billy: you go where you’re sent and kill who you’re told. They pay on time, and all the detail-work gets sorted out by other people.”
He shook his head disgustedly.
“What did the kids fighting under the government’s colors ever do to you, Billy? You didn’t have to come here, after all,” I grinned at him.
“I haven’t killed any of them.”
“What, you think your hands are clean? Me and my boys killed two Mexicans for you a few days ago.”
“They were gun thugs.”
“So they deserved it?”
He shook his head angrily. “Look…things…there’s always a price.”
“Like mounds of dead Boxers and Peking sacked?”
“No!”
“Dead’s dead. Do you think it hurts less if you get cut down by some fella trying to make things different? ” I chuckled. “When this revolution is over the poor bastards who fought and lived like dogs will go back to being peons, and those who had good boots, real uniforms, and better horses will end up in charge, regardless of which side wins. That’s how revolutions work: some bastards decide they aren’t getting enough so they start telling the little guys that their rights are being ignored, and that they should take up arms. The bastards that are getting enough call out their ordinary boys and tell ‘em the fabric of the nation is threatened and every man should do his duty. A lake of blood gets shed, cities burn, lives are ruined by the barrel-full, and when the entire business is concluded there’s not much change for the ordinary people.”
“You’re a cynic, Seth.”
“Could be.”
“There’s a movement coming, Seth, and it will cause this century to be different. The common man isn’t going to get thrown away in wars that are nothing but kings and emperors vying for glory. That’s what makes this fight so important: the Mexican peons are easily some of the most downtrodden people in the world, and they are rising up against their overlords. The Twentieth Century is going to be the time of the common man, a time of peace and unity. We are going to reshape the world-I tell you, by the second half of this century children will grow up knowing that war is just something in the history books, like ships with sails.”
“There are still a lot of sailing ships.”
“Today, yes. In fifty years there won’t be a one. You’re seeing a world casting aside the old trappings, freeing itself of the ideas of class, state, even religion. We’ll remake the world into a system of fairness.”
I slapped him on the shoulder. “I think you spent too much time in the sun in China, boy. But maybe you’re right: this might just be the last war in the great Century of Peace. That’s a nice thought.”
An hour later there was dust on the horizon and a great deal of galloping of outriders and stiff-backed consultation by Sanchez with his officers. Billy might be foreseeing an end to class distinctions but the good Colonel was a stickler for military protocol. I watched the dust move steadily closer as scouts scouted, junior officers trotted here and there with great seriousness, and Sanchez scowled from atop his horse like every statute of a general ever made.
Billy rode up to see what was going on but I stayed with the mules, chewing on jerky and keeping an eye on the flanks and rear. I wasn’t feeling good about this at all despite there being four hundred rifles and two Maxims between me and the crazies. Logic told me that the crazies crossing open ground in front of riflemen should not end well for the crazies, but logic hadn’t served those Mexican troops in the last two outposts. There had been good men behind the rifles at both Mexican military outposts, and both had fallen. I had no doubt that the rebels around me were fighting men, but I wasn’t so sure about their leadership.
The dust was getting close when the Colonel came to a decision and officers scattered like blue-clad quail to get the column turned around with a great deal of unnecessary orders and exhortations. Billy came back at the canter as the rebels started to retrace their steps.
“They’re coming,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the dust.
“Yeah, I puzzled that one out all by myself. Are we running away?”
“No, the Colonel has decided to set up at the ruins and let them come to him.”
He was referring to a burnt-out hacienda we had passed a half-mile or so ago.
“Seems a rather cautious approach for such a fierce military man,” I grinned.
“I told you how important this column is to the rebellion. Believe it or not, he actually listened to what I said, and the scouts confirmed that the enemy isn’t normal men. Colonel Sanchez plans to establish a dismounted skirmish line and bring his Maxims into play.”
“That would seem to be sensible.” We were crossing a sunken road that ran across the hacienda’s front; the ground sloped gently up to where the hacienda stood on a low rise, surrounded by pasture on all sides. “Looks like he’s taking the dominant terrain. Straight out of the book.” That struck a chord with me, but I shrugged it off-why had I thought about a saloon as I had said that? “What did the scouts say about what is coming?”
“Its a pretty large force, bigger than the column, but only a few are armed, and those only have simple melee weapons.”
“They don’t need weapons,” I said automatically, scanning the flanks, feeling more uneasy by the minute.
“Something bothering you, Seth?”
“Maybe. I dunno. The enemy only has infantry, and slow infantry at that. This should be a bloodbath.”
“That’s how I see it.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Look, if you see something the Colonel doesn’t I’ll relay it to him; he’s a lot less dubious about us now.”
“I don’t see anything out of place. It’s probably just nerves-I haven’t been in a big fight since the Army.” But I was thinking about the Judge and his comment about trusting your gut. Something felt wrong even as everything was being done right.
The hacienda was just a stub of a ruin, just a ground floor and timbers supporting a platform-like chunk of the second floor, and someone had salvaged much of the debris for building materials. The barn and outbuildings had been freshly burned. Whoever had salvaged the ruins had also buried the former occupants in a mass
grave while they were at it, leaving a raw trench running along the rear slope just below the crest. A few of the rebels made a point of riding their horses over the grave, which seemed rather disrespectful to me.
“I guess the locals had been living in the barn when somebody came by to give them the treatment a second time,” I observed to Billy as the column straggling onto the rise.
He jerked his chin at a smear of writing on a board on the ground. “Government forces-they marked this place as rebels.”
“Where they?”
“Were they what?”
“Rebels.”
“No so far as I know.”
“Huh.”
Colonel Sanchez barked orders with alacrity, and his force deployed with fair precision. The hacienda was the just behind the center of the line, and a few privates hastily raked away debris so the commander and his staff wouldn’t dirty their boots while they commanded from the shade. The two Maxims were set up on the section of second floor, which was solid enough for the purpose. The elevated position allowed the guns an excellent field of fire, although had the enemy any riflemen the crews wouldn’t have lasted long.
Instead of horse holders Sanchez had his troops picket their mounts, which they did a little too close to the firing line in my opinion. It meant that the Colonel’s entire column was on the firing line, which was a commendable concentration of force, but it left him without a reserve or flank security, just the teen-aged mule-skinners keeping an eye out. Of course to mount a flanking attack in this open, rolling terrain you would need cavalry, so Sanchez wasn’t exactly taking a big risk.
I walked the firing line for something to do, my Krag in the crook of my arm. The rebels were setting in, sitting on the grass with decent spacing between each man. I hoped they intended to go prone when the fighting started, but only a couple were positioning bedrolls as rifle rests and testing their sight pictures. In the Islands we hadn’t had many set-piece actions, but the few times we had, sending a detail to post range stakes had paid rich dividends in rifle accuracy. Sanchez showed no sign of interest in the practice, which made me wish that Brother Andrew was commanding this column.
