Three Books in One: A Covenant of Love, Gate of His Enemies, and Where Honor Dwells

by Gilbert, Morris

  “I never met anybody like him,” Gid remarked as Lee walked back to the group of officers with the general.

  “There is something about the man,” McClellan agreed. “General Scott thinks he’ll command the entire Union Army before he’s finished.”

  The capture of Vera Cruz was relatively simple. For some reason, the Mexican command decided to pull its main forces out, and morale inside the city collapsed. Scott kept the mortars firing, and on the twenty-sixth of March, his army marched into the city. His victory had been swift and unblemished. His losses were minimal, by the standards of war—only thirteen killed and fifty-five wounded. At once he began preparing for the march into Mexico. Still, it was almost two weeks before the first of his troops set off. His immediate goal was Jalpa, seventy-four miles up the national road to Mexico City, four thousand feet above sea level.

  Santa Anna had pulled his army together and chosen a spot twelve miles coastward from Jalpa where the national road passed between commanding hills as it climbed into the highlands. He established his headquarters near the sleepy town of Cerro Gordo, or “Big Hill.” It was named for the mountain that dominated it, which the Mexicans called El Telegrafo.

  Company K found itself under the command of General Twiggs, and they marched rapidly toward Cerro Gordo. Twiggs was eager for action and didn’t seem to notice that many of his troops were collapsing in the heat. On April 11 they reached the bridge across the Rio del Plan, about three miles downstream from Cerro Gordo. The next morning, Gid and the other officers were called to a staff meeting. Twiggs informed them that about four thousand Mexicans were dug into the hill that lay in front of them.

  “We’ll wait for General Scott,” Twiggs informed them. “Get your equipment and men ready. I think it’ll be a hard fight.”

  Scott pitched camp near the bridge on April 14, but instead of attacking, he began a careful three-day reconnaissance of the Mexican positions. He learned that Mexican cannon occupied the high ground on both sides of the road. A frontal assault would be suicidal.

  On the American left, the Rio del Plan ran through a gorge five hundred feet deep, which made an advance in that direction impossible. Scott’s best hope was to find a way to attack on the right—the weak side of the Mexican position. Scott gave the job of blazing a trail in this direction to his engineers, who included Robert E. Lee, P. G. T. Beauregard, and George McClellan.

  It was early in the morning when Captain Lee came to the tent McClellan shared with Gideon. The two men looked up, and Lee said, “I need one of you for a mission General Scott has assigned me. The General tells me that you are busy, Lieutenant McClellan, so I would appreciate it if you could help me, Lieutenant Rocklin.”

  “Yes, sir! Of course!” Gid grabbed his gear and followed Captain Lee toward the edge of camp. He spotted Clay holding a horse in readiness and waved toward him, but got no response.

  “We’ve got a difficult job, Lieutenant,” Lee said. He explained the need for finding a hole in the Mexican line. With a smile, he added, “I thought a Virginian might be good at sneaking through the rough country. Did you ever do any stalking?”

  “Yes, Captain Lee, but I should tell you, I’m not really a Virginian. What I mean is, my parents moved to Washington some time ago, but I have a cousin serving in the ranks whose family is in Virginia. Thomas Rocklin is his father.”

  “I know of him. But in any case, we’ve got to crawl through some rough country. Get your sidearm loaded and we’ll start right away.”

  Gid never forgot that wild trip. He and Lee soon outdistanced the small escort and about midmorning came upon a small spring ringed with trampled ferns. “Somebody’s been here, Captain,” Gid said, then stopped, for the sound of voices came to them.

  “Quick, behind this log!” Lee whispered, and the two of them dropped behind a huge log near the water. A troop of Mexican soldiers appeared, drank from the spring, then sat down on the log, laughing and chatting. Ants and spiders began to chew on Gid, and he saw that Lee was in the same condition. They lay motionless for hours, scarcely daring to breathe, and it was almost evening before the soldiers left. The two men stood up, stiff and burning with insect bites, then made their way back to camp.

  “Thanks for your company, Lieutenant Rocklin,” Lee said. “I think we’ll be able to attack tomorrow.” His eyes were bright, and afterward Gid remembered how the prospect of battle had excited the stately Virginian.

  “Thanks for letting me go with you, sir.”

  Basing his plans on Lee’s report, Scott called for a two-faceted attack for April 18. General Twiggs’s division of regulars, reinforced by Shield’s brigade, would cut the Jalpa road in order to trap the bulk of Santa Anna’s army. At the same time, General Pillow’s brigade would mount a diversionary attack designed to convince Santa Anna that the American main effort would come exactly where he expected it—against the strongly defended promontories between the road and the river.

  “I believe he’ll fall for it, Lee,” General Scott said, staring at the map in front of him. “Be sure that we have good communication. If any of our people get pinned down, we’ll need to know about it right away.”

  “Yes, General. I’ll see to it.”

  And see to it he did, by hunting down the best couriers available—one of whom was Clay Rocklin. As it happened, Lee came by the headquarters of Company K and found Gid hard at work. “I need your best courier,” Lee said at once. “He must be dependable.”

  If Clay had not been there, looking on with hope in his eyes, Gid would have chosen another man. But he gave way to an impulse. “I have a Virginian for you, Captain Lee. This is Clay Rocklin from Richmond.”

  Lee looked toward Clay, saying with a smile, “Private Rocklin, I’m glad you’re with us. We’ll expect you to do the Rocklins proud, as your cousin has.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir!”

  As Lee left, Gid said, “It’s a big attack, Clay. Be careful.”

  “I can take care of myself!”

  Clay stalked away, resentment in every line of his body, Lee’s remark about Gid burning in his ears and his heart. When he got back to his tent that night, his excitement over the prospect of seeing action was dampened by Lee’s obvious regard for Gid.

  He slept poorly, and early in the morning he had a frightful nightmare. He dreamed that he was dressed in armor, like a knight of the Round Table, and he was facing some dark, terrible creature. He could not see what it was, but a woman was weeping, and a great desire to help her came to him. He pulled the visor of his helmet down, lowered his lance, and rode full-tilt at the beast, still not able to see the creature well. As he drew near, his horse suddenly reared up, and he was thrown to the earth. Unable to rise because of the weight of his armor, he saw the grisly beast emerge from a darkling wood—yet he was not afraid. Struggling to his feet, he drew his sword and cried out, “Come to me, and I will kill you!”

  But when the beast drew near, he saw to his horror that though it had the body of a grisly beast, the face was his own! “I have come for you,” the beast whispered, and it threw terrible arms around him, crushing him and filling his nostrils with its foul breath! Closer and closer the monster drew him to its rank body, and he felt the life flowing out of him. Despair filled him as he heard the woman still crying, and he began to die.

  Clay awoke with a wild cry and sat bolt upright in bed. The sun was already breaking the darkness, and Hood, awakened by his cry, muttered, “What’s happening, Clay?” He got out of his bed, then peered at Rocklin. “Bad dreams, eh? Well, we all have ‘em, I suppose.” He leaned down and fumbled for something, then found it.

  “Take this with you on your little jaunt, Clay.”

  “Where’d you get it, Rodney?” Clay asked, staring at the quart of whiskey Hood had given him. “I thought you were out of the stuff.”

  “Got it off a Mexican last night. He says it’ll take your skull off, so be careful. But a man’s got to have a drink, now, don’t he?”

  Clay
put the bottle in with his other things, saying, “Thanks, Hood. Don’t get in the way of any bullets, you hear?”

  “Not bloody likely!”

  Clay mounted his horse and fell behind the line of infantry that moved slowly toward the Mexican position. The air was still that morning, and the flags hung limply on their staffs as the men marched out. There was no cheering, and Clay was depressed by it all. He had expected more than this.

  The going was hard, with ravines so steep that men could barely climb them. Artillery was let down each steep slope on ropes and pulled up on the opposite side. Men grew thirsty and drank from streams, and many were limping by the time the action started.

  Gid heard it first, then Boone Monroe. “That’s rifle fire,” Gid said with a nod. “Sounds like some of our advance parties have made contact.”

  They had indeed, for a rifle company on a reconnoitering mission at the base of the mountain had clashed unexpectedly with a troop of Mexicans. At once Twiggs commanded three companies to rescue the rifle company. Gid called out, “K Company, forward! Private Rocklin, stay fifty yards behind us.”

  The men followed Gid, and soon they chased the attacking enemy down the mountains—and straight into three thousand Mexicans. Outnumbered twenty-five to one, Gid saw there was no hope without reinforcements. He waved for Clay, who came pounding forward. Gid was watching the enemy and didn’t notice how unsteady Clay looked or how flushed his face was as he reined up.

  “Ride back to General Twiggs, Clay!” Gid yelled. “Tell him we’ve got more Mexicans than we can handle! Tell him if he comes in from the south, he’ll wipe them out! We’ll do our best to hold—now ride!”

  Clay tore out, and Gid turned back to the fight, which was not going well. All afternoon they fought, and when darkness fell, Gid was shocked at their losses. “If we don’t get help by morning,” he said in quiet desperation to Sergeant Monroe, “we’ll be chewed up and swallowed.” Then he added, “But Clay is the best rider I’ve ever seen, and he’s studied the ground. He won’t let us down.”

  The fragile hope Gid was trying to keep alive would have died completely had he been able to see his cousin at that moment. For Clay was lying on the trail, halfway back to General Scott’s headquarters. The Mexican who had sold the whiskey to Hood had sold several other bottles of the vile stuff to the men of K Company—and it was pure poison. Two of the men went raving mad for a time, and another lost his vision for three days. Everyone who drank it was hard hit. The liquor Clay had drunk had attacked his nerves. He had begun to lose his vision and finally had fallen from his horse. His stomach cramped, and he blundered along the trail, unable to see. Finally he passed out, facedown, on the trail.

  General Scott’s advance scouts found Clay Rocklin at noon the next day. They took him to headquarters, and Scott said sternly, “You’re drunk, Private!”

  Clay gasped out, “Send troops … to Lieutenant … Rocklin!” It was all he could do, for his stomach cramped and he fell to the floor in agony.

  Scott stared at him, a merciless light in his pale blue eyes. “Place this man under arrest. Now! Lock him up!”

  “He’s pretty sick, sir,” one of the scouts suggested.

  “He’s drunk on duty! Put him in irons.” As soon as they removed Clay bodily, he called out, “Lee! I want you!”

  Captain Lee came at once. “Yes, General?”

  Scott related what had happened, adding, “It’s probably too late, but send a relief column to help Rocklin.”

  Lee nodded, saying only, “I regret this, General. I picked Rocklin myself.”

  Scott stared at him, then forced himself to relax. “No blame on you, my boy. We have to trust men—and sometimes they fail us.”

  “Yes, sir, but Lieutenant Rocklin is too valuable a man to be wasted. I’ll get the relief column at once, a cavalry troop. They’ll be there in two hours.”

  When the troops arrived, they found one hundred men dead, shot to pieces. The reinforcements drove off the Mexicans, and at once the commander began to call, “Lieutenant Rocklin!”

  “I’m here, Captain.” The captain whirled to see a dusty officer step out from behind a large rock. “Glad you made it. But it’s too late for most of my men.”

  Captain Steele said at once, “The courier didn’t get through, Lieutenant. We found him just a few hours ago—dead drunk.” His voice was thick with disgust, and looking around at the pitiful bodies in the clearing, he swore and cried out, “I’d like to be on the firing squad that shoots him!”

  There was no firing squad, though. Word of the bad whiskey got about, and that was taken into account. And although no one mentioned it, the members of the court-martial all felt tremendously sorry for Gideon Rocklin. It was that, plus admiration for the lieutenant, that motivated the officers who stood in judgment over Clay Rocklin to bring in a verdict of guilty, but with a mild sentence: immediate dishonorable discharge.

  Clay stood at attention as the verdict was read. He felt the eyes of Robert E. Lee, who was on the court, upon him and could not meet them. When the sentence was read and he was dismissed, he moved blindly to his tent. He knew the men hated him, blamed him for the senseless deaths of so many of their number. But none of them blamed Clay as much as he blamed himself. They had no idea of the shame he felt, a shame that turned the world black for him.

  He left without seeing Gid, though his cousin looked for him. He moved slowly, like an old man, and as he boarded the boat that would take him home, he felt like a man who was condemned for life to a prison cell far under the ground. The court could let him go free, but it could not take away the guilt that burned in his belly like fire.

  And he knew it would never stop. He had killed those men as surely as if he had shot or bayoneted them himself. And he could never bring them back to life. He could only live—for the rest of his life—with the knowledge that he was a murderer.

  As the boat moved across the dark waters, he stared down into the depths, longing to throw himself overboard. But he did not. Instead, he left the deck and stumbled to his cabin, where he drank himself into a stupor.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE END OF A MAN

  Well, the scripture says seven is the perfect number—and it looks like that’s what you ladies have here!”

  Reverend Jeremiah Irons had come for his twice-weekly visit with Charlotte Rocklin and, taking a shortcut from the stable to the house, had encountered what seemed to be a miniature school. Actually it was Ellen Rocklin with her four children and Melanie, Gideon’s wife, with her three. Irons stood beside the two women, admiring the yelling band of children, all of whom were so much alike in appearance that it was almost comical.

  “They’ll never be able to deny their Rocklin blood,” the preacher remarked.

  Melanie smiled suddenly. “They call us the Black Rocklins, Rev. Irons.” She was looking pretty in her blue dress, and her blue eyes sparkled in the August sunlight. “Can you point out which are mine and Gid’s and which are Ellen and Clay’s?”

  “I never let myself get trapped into a discussion of people’s children,” Irons said with a grin. “In Arkansas where I come from, some folk get almost as upset if you insult their children as they do if you bad-mouth their favorite coonhound.” He studied the children, who were engaged in some sort of game involving a wagon filled with rocks. They were trying to hitch a sad-looking bluetick hound to the wagon, but all he would do was lie down and scratch.

  Those children certainly do look alike, Irons thought as he watched. All of them have the same dark hair and dark eyes. And they’re all the same age, or almost so. Fine-looking children … How sad that Clay’s are in far more trouble than they know!

  But he said only, “I used to lie when women showed me their babies. I’d say ‘My, that is a beautiful child’—and the baby would be ugly as a pan of worms!”

  Melanie laughed in delight. “Do you still lie, sir?”

  “Oh no,” Irons said, his brown eyes filled with humor. “Now whenever a m
other brings out her baby and it looks like seven pounds of raw hamburger, I point at it and say in my most admiring voice, ‘Now that is a baby!’” He laughed at himself, then said, “I didn’t know you were here, Mrs. Rocklin.”

  Melanie said quickly, “Oh, I wanted the children to have some time with their Virginia grandparents while Gid is gone.”

  That was not strictly the truth. She had come at Gid’s suggestion. “Go for a visit to Gracefield,” he had written. “They’re probably worried sick about Clay, and you could encourage Ellen. Take the boys and make a holiday of it.” So she had gathered up the boys for the visit.

  When Melanie arrived, she had found Thomas and Susanna sick with grief. Clay had not been heard from since his dishonorable discharge. As for Ellen, she was as angry as a woman could be. Melanie sensed that Ellen’s feelings went deeper than Clay’s disgraceful act; somehow the fragile marriage of the pair had been destroyed. Melanie had tried to counsel Ellen to be forgiving, but the rage in Ellen was white-hot, and the best she could do was spend time with her children.

  Irons gave Melanie a careful look. He traveled over the country a great deal, holding evangelistic meetings and visiting other ministers. The story of Clay Rocklin’s dishonorable behavior was spoken of everywhere he went, and since he was known to be a close friend of Clay’s, he was often asked about the matter. He never said one harsh word about Clay but defended him as well as he could. Now he said carefully, “Well, I’ll expect you and your brood in church Sunday. And I’m giving you the job of bringing Miss Ellen and her children with you.”

  It was a mild rebuke, but Ellen flushed with irritation. “If you had to be father and mother to four children, Rev. Irons, you might not have so much time on your hands!”