The Badlands Brigade (A Captain Gringo Adventure Book 12)

by Lou Cameron

  “Bullshit, we’ve been fighting the bastards for eight hundred years and you still have an English name.”

  Captain Gringo stopped, looked around and saw nobody important was near enough to matter, and said, quietly, “All right. We may as well get it settled. Gaston, hold my hat and gun while we take a little trip to Fist City.”

  Bull Donovan grinned wolfishly and began to unbutton his own jacket. But Lefty O’Toole got between them and said, “Easy, gints. I’m too sensitive to see blood-this early in the morning. You’ll be after telling the Captain you’re sorry and were just joking, Donovan. That’s an order.”

  Bull Donovan scowled and said, “Sure and you heard the man offer to fight me, didn’t you, you damned auld Kerry-man?”

  “I did, and it’s a fool from Limerick I’m trying to save from a turrible mistake, Bull Donovan! I told you I knew Captain Gringo, and he’s more than two of yez could handle, drunk or sober!”

  “He talks like a Protestant,” Donovan spat.

  Captain Gringo had his jacket open as he said, “Stay out of it, O’Toole. Let’s get it settled one way or the other, once and for all.”

  “I’m sorry, Bull Donovan,” O’Toole sighed, “but the man outranks me and you can’t say I didn’t try to save your life.”

  But as the first sergeant got out of the way, Bull Donovan’s eyes met those of Captain Gringo and the big Irishman saw something in the cool gaze of the tall American that made him wonder if he was coming down with a touch of the ague. He grimaced and said, “Well, if O’Toole don’t want me to light you I’ll have mercy on you, Walker.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Captain Gringo said. “You’ll call me Captain or you’ll call me sir or you’ll put up your fucking dukes!”

  Bull Donovan hesitated long enough to hear a banshee keening in the morning breeze and then he shrugged and said, “Sure and I was just fooling with you ... sor.”

  “I wasn’t,” Captain Gringo replied, as he buttoned his jacket back up and told O’Toole he was ready to inspect the outfit, now. Apparently they’d established who’d be running it, unless he was ever dumb enough to let Bull Donovan get behind him in a fire fight.

  ~*~

  There wasn’t that much of an outfit to inspect. Captain’ Gringo, Gaston, and the two Irishmen were more or less professionals, but the ragged line of enlisted men O’Toole whistled out of their barracks seemed to be local peons, and there weren’t enough of them to call a company, heavy weapons or not. The “rogues” Gaston had mentioned seemed to be in command of Able and Charlie companies, up the line, and there were some other soldiers of fortune manning the French 75s. Captain Gringo had two Maxim guns and less than two platoons of peons led by Honduran non-coms he hoped had been through basic training. As he walked down the line inspecting his new outfit, he ignored the rope soled canvas boots and shabby uniforms. He was more interested in their training than their looks, he stopped by a bright looking private and asked, “What’s your seventh general order, Soldier?”

  “Por favor, señor?”

  “I’m not a señor, I’m your Captain. Do you know any of your general orders, Soldier?”

  “Por favor, what is a general order, My Captain?”

  “That’s what I thought,” muttered the tall American as he turned to the youth’s squad leader and said, “I want all your men to know their twelve general orders by 1500 hours, Corporal.”

  “I would do this gladly, sir, if I knew what you were talking about.”

  “Oboy! What are you doing as a squad leader if you haven’t had any basic, either?”

  “I do not know, sir. They told me I was to be the squad leader because I was older than these other pobrecitos. I told them I did not know for how to be a squad leader, but they said to do the best I could.”

  Captain Gringo sighed, stepped back from the line, and called out, “All right. Has any man here ever served in any military outfit?”

  No answer.

  “Let me put it this way, have any of you at least fired a gun?”

  A few, a very few hands went up. Captain Gringo shook his head wearily and said, “Right. You, you, and you there with the moustache, report after formation to Sergeant O’Toole and he’ll assign you to the squads you’ll be leading. You kids who already have stripes can keep them for now while we sort out this mess.” He turned to O’Toole and growled. “Dismiss the, uh, company, I guess. I’m going back to HQ and find out what the fuck they think they’re doing here. Donovan, front and center.”

  Bull Donovan came over to them, still looking like a pouty kid, and Captain Gringo said, “You heard how swell I think they are. I want you and Lefty, here, to see about some drill. I don’t give a damn how they spit and salute, but they ought to know how to shoot. Is there a rifle range handy?”

  Donovan shook his head and O’Toole said, “You should have seen them when we took charge of ’em a few days ago, son. We’ve drilled hell out o ’em with the results you just saw. Sure and it takes time to turn a cane cutter into a sojer, and even if there was a rifle range, we don’t have any ammo to be after giving em to practice with. I asked that major that got shot last night about it and he said we’d be issued ammo when we left for the front.”

  Donovan, who wasn’t quite as stupid as he looked, since that would have been impossible, chimed in with, “Ah Jasus, what good would it do thim if we had the training ammo? Sure it takes time as well as ammo to teach a man to handle a gun.”

  Captain Gringo said, “You’re right, but do the best you can and at least give them the manual of arms and some dry firing. Come on, Gaston. We have some bones to pick with Morales!”

  As they retraced their steps to the headquarters building across the parade, Gaston said, “Very inspiring, non? Of course, we only have two machineguns, so if you manned one and I manned the other—”

  “Against an advancing brigade?”

  “It does sound trés ridicule, but there are the other companies.”

  “Sure, with maybe a handful of pros and a gaggle of worthless peons in all three. Damn it, we didn’t sign on as machine gunners. We agreed to lead a heavy weapons company. But nothing like that exists around here except in the general’s thick head!”

  As they got to the middle of the parade, Gaston said, “You go on and fuss at the general, my old and peeved. I would like to look at those field guns. If they have no ammo, either, all bets are off and we just start running, agreed?”

  “We can’t skip out on Golondrina,” Captain Gringo began, but Gaston had veered off to head over to the 75 batteries, if that was what you wanted to call them.

  Captain Gringo met Lieutenant Bardo coming out of the headquarters building and asked him where the general was. Bardo said Morales had left the post and he didn’t know for where. He added, “We are moving out in a few minutes. Are your men ready?”

  “No, are yours? What do you mean in a few minutes? Where’s the fucking general if we’re supposed to march right away?”

  Bardo shrugged and said, “I told you I don’t know, but he left word with his aide, Major Gomez, and ah, here comes the Major, now.”

  The officer they’d last seen waving a stick at the map came outside to join them, saying, “Ah, I was just going to send a runner to you, Captain. We are pushing out at 1200, which is less than twenty minutes if my watch is correct. Bardo, here, will lead with his infantry screen. You will of course follow in the heavy weapons battalion. Are you ready to march?”

  “Not really, Major. But I’ll give it a try if you’ll tell me where to get some mules for my caissons and gun carriages.”

  “We are not taking any pack animals with us, save for the peons themselves of course. You are right about it being rough-going along the coast. I’ve sent for some prisoners from the local jail to haul the big guns but you will have to use your own privates to drag the machineguns and supplies along. The 75s will follow and set us as I indicated on the map, of course.”

  “Swell. Where will you be, Majo
r?”

  “Me? I shall be in the rear at my command post, naturally. I imagine I’ll be safe enough five kilometers back from the line, no?”

  “That sounds pretty safe. Do we have a signal corps in this army or are we supposed to guess what your orders might be once the fighting starts?”

  “Are you being impertinent, Captain?”

  “Nossir. I just like to know what I’m doing in a battle.”

  “Oh. We have plenty of runners and I’ll have a field phone from my CP to the 75 batteries.”

  “Swell. How are the guns supposed to range on the enemy without close communications with the forward observers, Major?”

  Major Gomez looked like he’d never considered that and he probably hadn’t, but he smiled and answered, “We’ll use runners, of course. I haven’t time to discuss details right now, Captain. We’ll have a day on the trail to work things out. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m a very busy man.”

  Captain Gringo thought he was an asshole, too, but he didn’t say it as Lieutenant Bardo said, “I have to get back to my battalion, too.”

  “Yeah, but just one question, Bardo. Have your riflemen had any training at all? I mean, like maybe with rifles?”

  Bardo shrugged and replied, “If it had been up to me, they would have perhaps received more training ammo, but it was not up to me, so we shall have to manage.”

  Captain Gringo took out a smoke and lit it as the junior officer legged off, looking chipper as hell, considering. As the tall American headed back to his outfit, Gaston fell in beside him, saying, “Well, to give the devil his due, the 75s are in better shape than I expected. The guns are in good order and the caissons are full. I met a couple of rogues I knew from the old days and they are experienced gunners.”

  “Yeah, and I just learned that fuck-up, Gomez, will be commanding the operation from a distance safe enough for his grandmother, using runners for battle intercom.*’

  “Ouch. No gunners are that good. Perhaps they will just zero in on the crossing and fire when they hear us make the poof poof poof, hein?”

  “Yeah, but it’s still a hell of a way to run a railroad. I hope the Hondurans in command know enough to elevate as the enemy dragoons fall back. Nobody figures to stand in a ford under fire very long.”

  “Dick, you worry too much. What do we care what the silly bastards do or don’t do, hein? Surely you and I will not be there when the shooting starts?”

  “We’ll have to be,” Captain Gringo corrected Gaston, “We’re shoving out in a few minutes and it’s not nice to go AWOL in broad-ass daylight unless you have someplace to go. And besides ...”

  Gaston cut in with a weary expression to say, “And besides you are thinking what will happen to those poor stupid kids if they haven’t anyone but a couple of Irish saloon wreckers in charge of them when the balloon goes up! I thought you’d given up on this tedious business of looking out for the little people, Dick.”

  “So had I. but what the hell, you have to admit it’s an interesting challenge.”

  “Merde alors! You are going to get me killed as well!”

  “You don’t have to come along if you don’t want. I can probably cover for you if you cut out right now.”

  Gaston shrugged and said, “I like challenges, too. I really ought to have my head examined one of these days, before someone blows it off.

  ~*~

  Any trained and legged-up North, South, or Central American military unit could have made it to the border in a day’s forced march, assuming there was a road to march on, of course. Getting the “Iron Brigade” of General Morales there was another matter. It was a brigade neither in training nor numbers, and the road net between Puerto Cortes and the Rio Motagua was another joke. Captain Gringo didn’t know where General Morales was while his Major Gomez led them out. But with every mile on the trail, he gained new respect for the General’s ability to look out for himself.

  Napoleon had said an army marches on its stomach. So the Iron Brigade carried plenty of grub and pots and pans. The gear was packed by the cheerful, ragged, dirty, barefoot adelitas tagging long. Since more than one of the camp followers had calved a kid or more in her quasi-military career, there were more dependents marching with the men of the Iron Brigade than there were soldiers, if you wanted to call the rag-tag mob of peones soldiers. Some of them had even handed their rifles to a woman or child to carry as they marched out of step, chatting like magpies or singing military songs off key.

  Captain Gringo knew there was nothing he or any of the other officers could do about it. Had Napoleon led Latin-American troops he’d have added that some armies marched with their cocks, too. The adelitas hadn’t just tagged along to cook and sew. But what the hell, it should keep the desertion rate down and since the enemy would have his own dependents tagging along, things tended to even out.

  With his own adelita missing, Captain Gringo would have felt a bit deprived had he not seen the advantages of being an officer in the Iron Brigade. The men, the supplies, and even the field guns were getting there by foot transport. But he and the other commissioned officers had been issued mounts. Not horses. Horses wouldn’t have lasted long in the sticky heat of the Mosquito Coast. So he rode a Spanish saddle mule named Suicida, which meant in English exactly what it sounded like in Spanish. It wasn’t clear whether Suicida was inclined to kill herself or her rider. She was either half blind or indifferent and had to be guided constantly to keep her from wandering off the trail in an apparent attempt to drown them both.

  The trail was another cruel joke. It’s only advantage lay in it’s being so narrow that the outfit had to, more or less, march in column as they followed it’s twists and turns through the soggy coastal plain. It had apparently been discovered rather than laid out by the colonial engineers who’d designated it the post road north. It followed such high ground as there was with an occasional causeway across a sawgrass swamp and a drainage ditch on one side or the other attempted here and there. But it mostly wound like a flat red snake through scattered forest and occasional cleared plantation land. The wooded stretches tended to lay on lower ground with puddles and pools of tea colored water between the buttress roots of the trees. Anywhere you found a few acres of reasonably dry ground, someone had planted bananas, cane, cocoa, or peppers. Captain Gringo knew the coffee, quinine, and mahogany Honduras exported grew on the higher ground far to his south-west.

  He rode up and down the column in the wide stretches, more to gain a grasp on the situation than to attempt any control of it. His own so-called Heavy Weapons company seemed to be doing okay under the Irish non-coms he had riding herd. Neither Bull Donovan nor Lefty O’Toole had been issued mules. But since rank had its privileges, they were riding on the carts with the machineguns and the “gun crews” hauled them along the trail. Captain Gringo didn’t say anything. Neither man weighed that much in addition to the guns and ammo, and he knew the two soldiers of fortune were already pissed off about their low ranks.

  His company was marching to the rear of the rifle outfits under Bardo, so when he noticed the column starting to accordion Captain Gringo rode forward, ducking under the tree limbs alongside the trail, to see what was holding up the parade. He found Gaston had already joined Gomez, Bardo, and some of the other officers reined in where the trail suddenly became a dead-end against a big open meadow of sawgrass. As he joined them, Major Gomez was saying, “I do not understand this. My map says the post road crosses this marsh on a causeway.”

  Captain Gringo took a cigar from his damp shirt and lit it before he dug his own copy of the situation map from a saddlebag and unfolded the soggy paper across his pommel. He found where they were, or were supposed to be, and said, “I’ve got a causeway, too. I guess someone ordered one built, back in the Spanish colonial days. But when you guys got your independence you lost the work order or something.”

  “This is terrible,” Gomez sighed. “How on earth are we to save our country from invasion if we can’t get at the invaders,
eh?”

  It was a dumb question. But a lot of what was going on seemed dumb to Captain Gringo right now. He folded his map and put it away as he pursed his lips and said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, Major. We’re not half way to the Rio Motagua and it’s already obvious that nobody but a frothing-at-the-mouth idiot would be invading along this route in the first damn place.”

  Gomez shrugged and admitted, “Nobody said the Guatemalans are smart. Our orders are to stop them, not to educate them. Our scouts say they are on the Motagua, preparing to cross.”

  “I know what your scouts say, Major, and I say it’s a feint. There’s no way in hell a bandito with sense to pour piss out of his boots would pick such a crazy invasion route, and you guys keep telling me the British are backing Guatemala.”

  One of the Texans commanding the field guns had ridden to the head of the stalled column to join them, and as Captain Gringo finished, the Texan chimed in, “I’ve been looking at my map, too, and this Yankee is on the money, Major. That there Rio Motagua may be your border where it runs into the sea up ahead. But further upstream the map shows the Guatemalan border five country miles or more on this side of yonder creek!”

  Gomez shrugged and said, “We ceded them both sides of the river valley in the peace treaty after the last war we had with them. So what?”

  The Texan spat and snorted, “So what? Jesus H. Christ, why in thunder would anyone be fixing to ford a stream under fire downstream when they could start out crossing a dry border just a few miles up her? It don’t make a lick of sense, even for these parts!”

  Captain Gringo nodded and said, “It’s good to see Texas can agree with Connecticut on something. Assuming Guatemalan generals are too dumb to see a straight line over high and dry roads from Guatemala City to Tegucigalpa is the best invasion route, they just can’t get far enough into Honduras to matter following the coastline.”

  Gaston had been trying to stay out of it as he made his own devious plans for later that evening. But he nodded and said, “Oui. There is yet another point the map reveals that someone seems to have missed. The Rio Motagua is a winding stream indeed and, further up in the high country, it runs on the far side of Guatemala City. It is not trés curious that the Guatemalans would wish to cross it twice, when, as we can all see, there was no need to ford it once.”