Halls of Montezuma

by Tony Roberts

  The barked command to gather their equipment brought him back to reality and he took his place with the others ready to step onto the jetty. The boat was skillfully maneuvered up to the wooden construction and ropes were thrown onto it for the soldiers there to make fast. The troops then disembarked and lined up on dry land and waited for the inevitable inspection.

  Case cursed as he waited in line; sweat running down his brow and neck. He was damn uncomfortable and where did the fucking flies come from? No matter where you were in warm climes, these bastard winged shits found you. He slapped one particularly irritating blue-assed bug to death against his neck and got roared at by the camp sergeant to stand the hell still.

  An officer sauntered up, white trousers gleaming, epaulettes shaking to and fro, and eyed the new arrivals with a look of distaste on his face. “I am Lieutenant Bradman,” he said. “You will be under my command. I expect obedience and discipline. Any violation will be severely punished. Sergeant Mason will fill you in on camp etiquette.” He stopped and examined one particularly miserable looking soldier, sweating under his dark blue cap and struggling to remain upright under the full weight of his pack, equipment and shoulder arm. “God dammit,” Bradman breathed, “I have enough sick men already without receiving any more! Are you the best Washington could send? God help us!”

  He stalked off, muttering, and the sergeant stepped forward, disgust evident on his face. “Looks like a load of Irishmen and Germans,” he said. “You Germans speak English?”

  “Ja, herr sergeant” one of the German troops replied.

  Sergeant Mason stepped up to the man and pushed his square chin into the surprised trooper’s face. “Drop the herr and it’s yes, not ja! You’re in the army to learn the language! So learn!”

  He stepped back and turned his head to examine the sixty men. “Oh Lord, I’m gonna have fun with you poor pilgrims. I’ll show you your tents and then I want you all to report to the camp doctor for an examination. We don’t want no pox, shits or dick complaints amongst you lot, hear?”

  “Yes sergeant!” a few replied.

  Mason growled, but let it pass. He ordered the men to follow him and they marched through the camp. Some soldiers lounged slovenly, watching the new arrivals with amusement. They seemed ill disciplined, uniforms ragged and unbuttoned. The officers were absent and Case wondered where they all were. The smell was awful. It looked like sanitation was not properly dealt with and flies were absolutely everywhere.

  Case and Jimmy were allocated a tent, and all the others were paired off too. They threw their equipment inside gratefully, and stacked their muskets upright in an interlocking circle with their neighbors. Case deliberately took his time so that by the time he took up his place in the queue, he was last. He knew the doctor would be tired after examining fifty-nine others and so wouldn’t want to take too much time over him. His body was enough to make any doctor sit up and take notice, and he’d rather be last than first in the queue.

  Even so, it was damned hot in that sun and he was glad as the shuffling line ahead of him shrank. The doctor’s tent was set apart slightly from the rest and a few boxes and crates stood in an untidy heap to one side. Probably medical supplies, Case guessed. Then it was his turn and he entered the tent, ducking his head.

  The doctor was a middle-aged dark haired man with a sallow face. He was sat behind a makeshift table on a small chair and was scribbling something on a sheet of paper. “Right,” the doctor said briskly, “you’re the last?”

  “Yes sir,” Case replied, unsure as to what to call him.

  “Doctor will do,” the man smiled thinly. He stood up and looked at Case in surprise. “You look healthy enough, if a bit rough round the edges. Been in many fights?”

  “Uh, yeah, doctor. A few.” Sure, like Ctesiphon, Orleans, Yarmuk, Tours, Agincourt, Crecy and a shit load of others.

  “Okay, let’s see your physical shape. Take the jacket off.” Case shrugged and unbuttoned the item and draped it on the table. Underneath was a white cotton shirt and that was taken off too. The doctor gaped at the mass of scars all over his body.

  “What the devil? What happened to you, for God’s sake?”

  “Zulus, doc. I served in South Africa a few years back.”

  “British army?”

  “Yup. They look worse than they are. I’m fine, as you can see.”

  The doctor wasn’t convinced but after checking his reflexes and strength, ruefully shook his head and made a few notes on his sheet. “Well boy, you look like a nightmare but you’re as fit as any of the others. In fact, you’re the fittest! Just stay away from the village over along the coast; the girls have the pox.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well what do you think, son? All these filthy specimens here and they’re the only girls for hundreds of miles. After the goddamned army has been at them they’re all poxed!”

  Case laughed. “Don’t worry doc, I’m clean and will remain that way.”

  “Good! Now clear off and leave this overworked underpaid sonofabitch to do his paperwork. Old ‘Rough and Ready’ wants to know how many fit men he’s got.”

  “Rough and Ready’?” Case paused in the process of buttoning up his jacket.

  “General Zachary Taylor to you, son. You’ll soon learn why he’s called that.”

  Case finished dressing and left. After returning to his tent and reflecting on their arrival at the camp, he wandered about, as much as to learn the layout as anything else. The sea looked inviting but nobody else was there so he thought it best not to give it a try. Instead he strolled across one of the two small watercourses that ran across the plain and through the camp and south towards the small collection of buildings that marked the settlement of Corpus Christi. A knot of soldiers stood guard on the edge of the camp and the officer with them, a lieutenant, put out a hand to stop him.

  “Hold on there, soldier, nobody is allowed past this point.” The lieutenant spoke in a southern drawl and his beard hid whatever smile he may, or may not, have had on his face.

  “Sorry sir,” Case snapped a smart salute and began to turn back.

  “Your name, Private?”

  “Sir. Private Case Lonnergan, arrived today from training camp in Virginia.”

  “Thought I’d not seen you here before. I’m Lieutenant Longstreet, eighth infantry regiment. I take it you’re not with my unit?”

  “No sir. Lieutenant Bradman commands my company. I think I’m in the fourth, sir.”

  “Well keep your nose clean and you’ll be fine, Lonnergan.”

  “Thank you sir.” Case turned about and wandered back on the edge of the camp, watching some of the officers riding their mounts on the flat expanses of land to the left. He wasn’t impressed. Many of the soldiers looked sloppy and the officers bored. Taylor would have to whip them into line if things started up between the Mexicans and the Americans. The army here was known as the ‘Army of Occupation’ and it was obviously here to pave the way for formal annexation.

  “Hey, where you’ve been?” Jimmy demanded when Case got back. “We got drill at six. Gotta get ready pretty fast!”

  And so they knuckled down to camp life. It wasn’t too hard. A few hours a drill a day, followed by talks on what was expected of them. The men discussed the situation around the fires in the evenings and they all agreed war was coming; they could sense it. Case even got to swim in the saltwater bay which was a relief from the humid, sticky conditions.

  Some of the men went down with sickness which was no surprise; sanitation was poor and the latrines not even up to Roman standards. Case shook his head; Avidius Cassius would have had the soldier’s balls for breakfast if they’d dug latrine pits like this in his day.

  The other gripe the men had was the quality of food. It was barely edible and the meat often crawling with maggots. One soldier took Case, Jimmy and a couple of the other new recruits over to a rock near the edge of camp. The men were mystified.

  “Okay guys,” the New Yorker said, facing
the recent arrivals. “One surefire way of checking to see if your meat is fit to eat.” He weighed a lump of beef in his hand, then turned and threw it at the rock. It struck with a dull slap and slowly fell to the ground. “Okay,” he said, picking it up, “that’s fit.”

  “How do you know?” Jimmy asked.

  “Cuz if it’d stuck to the rock, it ain’t.”

  Case couldn’t believe the conditions. And yet this was half of the American army and facing a potential enemy that outnumbered them.

  A month after arriving at camp the news came. Texas had been annexed into the United States, becoming the 28th state. Now everyone buzzed with excitement; Mexico would never stand aside and allow that to happen. Just across the Texan border six thousand Mexicans would be gearing up for war, and in their way was General Taylor’s army.

  Case once more would be fighting in a war.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The men tramped along the dry, sandy road, heading south. They were caked head to foot in the dry, sand colored dust and many wore face masks improvised out of scarves or strips of cloth torn from shirts.

  Somewhere up ahead was the Rio Grande; the big river that the Americans claimed was the southern boundary of Texas and therefore the United States. The Mexicans insisted that the Nueces River was the border, some miles to the north. The troops had crossed that watercourse long ago and were now in territory the Mexicans saw as theirs.

  Case walked with his head bowed, his mind blank, allowing the miles to fall away behind him. It was an old soldier’s trick and it had served him well many times in the past. Besides him tramped Jim Mulherne and three paces behind was Michael O’Driscoll.

  Case had been stunned when Michael had turned up a month ago, with the latest draft of recruits from training camp. The new arrivals had been to replace the mounting number of sick cases that were being shipped back to New Orleans as they were too ill to remain in camp. Case had confronted the grinning Michael and demanded to know what the devil he was doing there in Corpus Christi.

  “Oh well Case,” Michael had said, a wry twist to his lips, “I thought ye needed looking after away from home.” Then a more serious look came to his face and his eyes went down. “And I found out that Bridget had been having an affair with that bloody German Hans Schwarz. I couldn’t stay there with the shame of it so I ran away to the army. I thought of ye and wanted to be where ye were. At least I can depend on ye, so I can.”

  “Oh bloody hell,” Case had said. “That damned stupid little girl! She needs a damned good beating.”

  “Ah, what the hell, let them have each other; she’d’ve been the death of me, so she would. Maybe that big hulk of a fool did me a favor. I don’t know.”

  Case had taken him by the shoulder in sympathy. “I’m sorry Michael, I should have told you, but on Ann’s wedding night I caught them in the barn together – Bridget and Hans – and threatened to un-man him if I caught him sniffing round any of the girls again. It seems me going gave him the courage to go at it again.”

  “Oh it doesn’t matter anymore,” Michael had shrugged. “I’m well away from the likes of them.”

  “True enough. So, what news of the farm? How is Ann?”

  “Oh, she’s a big as a barrel, so she is. The baby’s due in February some time, so the doctor says. Her ma’s saying she’s having the baby in her bedroom and had almost locked the poor girl upstairs now she’s this close! And Sean…. Oh he’s walking on hot cinders, so he is. Frightened one sneeze’ll shoot the baby out before it’s due.”

  The men, gathered round for news of ‘home’, had grinned. Some had received letters from their homes but none had turned up for Case. “Odd,” he had commented, “I thought perhaps Ann might have written.”

  “Locked away by her ma? Hah!”

  Case had nodded and vowed to write that evening, which he did. He had given the letter to Michael who had attached himself to Case as a willing valet, and had made himself indispensable around the tent. Jimmy had been a little put out at first but Michael had extended the service to the other man and Jimmy happily accepted the unusual help. Some of the others, jealous of the care and attention the two were receiving, had made comments, none too quietly, about bottoms being wiped and Michael breastfeeding the two. But after Case had knocked the teeth of one of the nastier types out with a huge punch, most of the comments had stopped.

  Except from Quinn. Quinn had seen this as an opportunity to make mischief and his barbed observations soon earned him a dedicated core of hangers-on who were happy to be his bodyguards and companions in camp. Sergeant Mason wasn’t dumb and spotted potential trouble, so he had arranged for the two groups to be in different platoons and camped them as far away from each other as possible. Not that he could prevent the two groups from crossing every so often, but he made sure no silly business erupted.

  Then, just as Case had been thinking about Ann’s imminent birth, orders had come for General Taylor to march south for the Rio Grande and the border with Mexico. So now here they were, within spitting distance of the river, as far south as they could go without crossing into Mexico proper. And somewhere out there was the Mexican Army of the North under a man called General Pedro de Ampudia who had some notoriety. Case grunted in dismissal; he’d faced far worse generals and commanders before. They were only as good as the men they commanded and the peasants who made up the majority of the infantry in the enemy army were low on morale and motivation. The ones to watch were the cavalry, proud men who came from a different caste. Their performance would decide things.

  Taylor rode alongside his men, dressed like a rough farmer in baggy blue jeans, dirty white duster and a battered old straw hat. He chewed on tobacco frequently and interspersed with cursing spat out a yellow stream with monotonous regularity. He certainly behaved like no general, and Case held a grudging respect for him. How he would perform in action was another matter, of course.

  They arrived at the river and the hot, dusty, tired men threw off their webbing and packs, threw their shoulder arms down and raced to the fresh water, soaking themselves gratefully in the river, Case included. The officers made a half-hearted effort to stop them but they soon realized they’d get nothing from the men until they’d sated their thirst and cooled down.

  Splashing around the men whooped in delight and poured water over their heads and drank their fill. Case swilled a mouthful of water and spat it out over his hands and pushed the water over his face, washing off the sandy dust from his skin. The march had been a bastard and he was thankful they’d made it before dark. Standing in the shallows amongst the tall river grass, he looked across to Mexico and stopped.

  Standing watching them were a patrol of Mexican soldiers, wearing lighter blue uniforms and taller caps, almost like the bicornes Case had seen British infantry wear during the long wars with Napoleonic France. They regarded the American army silently, counting. General Taylor barked an order and the officers began urging the men up out of the river and into some semblance of order.

  The Mexicans, too far off to make out their faces, watched as the ranks formed and settled. They turned and made off southwards, marching swiftly along a dusty road into the distance. “Well,” General Taylor observed, spitting a yellow stream into the dust by his horses’ feet, “that sure put the goddam wind up their asses.”

  Some of those within earshot grinned.

  The men were permitted to stand easy while Taylor’s cavalry scoured the immediate countryside. Off to the east in the near distance glittered the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and the waters of the Rio Grande bubbled along to the south. West was where many of the scouts rode, kicking up clouds of dust amongst the scattered clumps of grass, scrub and spiky cacti.

  “What do ye think we’re going to do, Case?” Michael asked, craning his neck round nervously.

  “Wait here till the scouts get back, I guess. The general can’t cross the river unless we’re at war and I don’t think that’s happened; we’d’ve heard otherwise. And this riv
er’s too wide to cross here, especially with Major Ringgold’s cannon in tow.”

  Some of the others nodded. The cannon gave them an extra sense of security. “Well,” Jimmy said, “maybe they have declared war and we’re going to sneak over and capture a few beautiful Mexican ladies.”

  “What?” one of the other soldiers shook his head, “did you see those women back at Corpus Christi? That’d be no joke!”

  “We’ll be forced to build a port here, don’t you worry,” someone else spoke up. “We’re miles from the supply base and the general will need a place to offload supplies close by. We’ve all got spades; bet you we’ll be digging before long.”

  “Nah,” a voice disagreed from the second rank, “war’s comin’ and so’s the Mexican army. We’re gonna fight them here and our cannon will blast them to pieces!”

  Case spat into the dust. If anywhere, the battle wouldn’t be here. The river was far too wide and the terrain too broken for any decent maneuvering. The Mexican army would have to cross the river and there weren’t any crossings near by. Taylor’s scouts would be searching upstream for the first crossing point and searching for any sign of the enemy.

  The officers gathered on horseback around Taylor and the old, weather-beaten general began pointing with emphasis to the west. After a few moments of discussion the group broke up and orders were barked. A groan went up when the men realized they were to march yet again, this time following the course of the river upstream. Reluctantly they set off but this time there was the river to their left and they frequently stopped to refresh themselves.

  A few hours after setting off, and just as night was falling, a sizeable town appeared over the river and the men stopped, staring at the collection of houses, bridges and municipal buildings.

  The other thing that attracted their attention were the ranks of Mexican soldiers arranged in front of the town, ready for action. They’d found the Army of the North at last.