Chapter 10
We ran straight for the long room which faced the street, and as we came in at one end of it the men behind the cots fired a frightened volley at us and fled out at the other. In less than two minutes the barracks were empty, and we had changed our base from that cock-pit of a fountain to a regular fortress with walls two feet thick, with rifles stacked in every corner, and, what at that moment seemed of greatest importance, with a breakfast for two hundred men bubbling and boiling in great iron pots in the kitchen. I had never felt such elation and relief as I did over that bloodless victory. It had come when things looked so bad; it had come so suddenly and easily that while some of the men cheered, others only laughed, shaking each other’s hands or slapping each other on the back, and some danced about like children. We tore the cots away from the windows and waved at the men behind the barricade, and they stood up and cheered us, and the men on the roof, looking very tall against the blue sky, stood up and waved their hats and cheered too. They had silenced the men in the cupola, and a sudden hush fell upon the plaza. It was easy to see that many sympathizers with the government had been shooting at us from the private houses. When they saw us take the barracks they had probably decided that the time had come to wipe off the powder-stains, and reappear as friends of the revolution. The only firing now was from where Garcia was engaged. Judging from the loudness of these volleys he had reached the outskirts of the town. I set half of my force to work piling up bags of meal behind the iron bars, and, in the event of fire, filling pails with water, and breaking what little glass still remained in the windows. Others I sent to bring in the wounded, and still others to serving out the coffee and soup we had found in the kitchen. After giving these orders I ran to the barricade to report. When I reached it the men behind it began to rap on the stones with the butts of their rifles as people pound with their billiard-cues when someone has made a difficult shot, and those on the roof leaned over and clapped their hands. It was most unmilitary, but I must say I was pleased by it, though I pretended I did not know what they meant.
Laguerre came to the door of the warehouse, and smiled at me.
“I’m glad you’re still alive, sir,” he said. “After this, when you get within seventy yards of the enemy, I hope you will be able to see him without standing up.”
The men above us laughed, and I felt rather foolish, and muttered something about “setting an example.”
“If you get yourself shot,” he said, “you will be setting a very bad example, indeed. We can’t spare anybody, Captain, and certainly not you.” I tried to look as modest as possible, but I could not refrain from glancing around to see if the men had heard him, and I observed with satisfaction that they had.
Laguerre asked me if I could hold the barracks, and I told him that I thought I could. He then ordered me to remain there.
“Would you like a cup of coffee, General?” I asked. The General’s expression changed swiftly. It became that of a very human and a very hungry man.
“Have you got any?” he demanded anxiously.
“If you can lend me some men,” I said, “I can send you back eight gallons.” At this the men behind the barricades gave a great cheer of delight, and the General smiled and patted me on the shoulder.
“That is right,” he said. “The best kind of courage often comes from a full stomach. Run along now,” he added, as though he were talking to a child, “run along, and don’t fire until we do, and send us that coffee before we get to work again.”
I called in all of my men from the side streets, and led them across to the barracks. I placed some of them on the roof and some of them on tables set against the inside of the wall in the yard.
As I did so, I saw Porter run across the plaza with about fifty of his men, and almost immediately after they had disappeared we heard cheering, and he returned with Captain Heinze. They both ran toward General Laguerre, and Porter then came across to me, and told me that the government troops were in full flight, and escaping down the side streets into the jungle. They were panic-stricken and were scattering in every direction, each man looking after his own safety. For the next two hours I chased terrified little soldiers all over the side of the town which had been assigned me, either losing them at the edge of the jungle, or dragging them out of shops and private houses. No one was hurt. It was only necessary to fire a shot after them to see them throw up their hands. By nine o’clock I had cleaned up my side of the town, and returned to the plaza. It was now so choked with men and mules that I was five minutes in forcing my way across. Garcia’s troops had marched in, and were raising a great hullabaloo, cheering and shouting, and embracing the townspeople, whom they had known during their former occupation, and many of whom were the same people who had been firing at us. I found Laguerre in counsel with Garcia, who was in high spirits, and feeling exceedingly pleased with himself. He entirely ignored our part in taking the town, and talked as though he had captured it single-handed. The fact that the government troops had held him back until we threatened them in the rear he did not consider as important. I resented his swagger and the way he patronized Laguerre, but the General did not seem to notice it, or was too well satisfied with the day’s work to care. While I was at head-quarters our scouts came in to report that the enemy was escaping along the trail to Comyagua, and that two of their guns had stalled in the mud, not one mile out from Santa Barbara. This was great news, and to my delight I was among those who hurried out to the place where the guns were supposed to be. We found them abandoned and stuck in the mud, and captured them without firing a shot. A half hour later we paraded our prizes in a triumphal procession through the streets of Santa Barbara, and were given a grand welcome by the allies and the townspeople. I had never witnessed such enthusiasm, but it was not long before I found out the cause of it. In our absence everybody had been celebrating the victory with aguardiente, and half of Garcia’s warriors had become so hopelessly drunk that they were lying all over the plaza, and their comrades were dancing and tramping upon them.
I found that this orgy had put Laguerre in a fine rage, and I heard him send out the provost guard with orders to throw all the drunken men into the public corral for lost mules.
When he learned of this Garcia was equally indignant. The matter ended with Laguerre’s locking up Garcia’s soldiers with our prisoners-of-war in the yard barracks, where they sang and shouted and fought until they were exhausted and went to sleep.
There was still much drink left on requisition, but the conquering heroes had taken everything there was to eat, and for some time I wandered around seeking for food before I finally discovered Miller, Von Ritter, and Aiken in the garden of a private house enjoying a most magnificent luncheon. I begged a share on the ground that I had just overcome two helpless brass cannon, and they gave me a noisy welcome, and made a place for me. I was just as happy as I was hungry, and I was delighted to find someone with whom I could discuss the fight. For an hour we sat laughing and drinking, and each talking at the top of his voice and all at the same time. We were as elated as though we had captured the city of London.
Of course Aiken had taken no part in the fight, and of course he made light of it, which was just the sort of thing he would do, and he especially poked fun at me and at my charge on the barracks. He called it a “grand-stand play,” and said I was a “gallery fighter.” He said the reason I ran out into the centre of the plaza was because I knew there was a number of women looking out of the windows, and he pretended to believe that when we entered the barracks they were empty, and that I knew they were when I ordered the charge.
“It was the coffee they were after,” he declared. “As soon as Macklin smelt the coffee he drew his big gilt sword and cried, ‘Up, my men, inside yon fortress a free breakfast awaits us. Follow your gallant leader!’ and they never stopped following until they reached the kitchen. They’re going to make Macklin a bugler,” he said, “so that after this he can blow his own trumpet without anyone being allowed to interrupt him.”
I was glad to find that I could take what Aiken said of me as lightly as did the others. Since the fight his power to annoy me had passed. I knew better than anyone else that at one time during the morning I had been in a very tight place, but I had stuck to it and won out. The knowledge that I had done so gave me confidence in myself--not that I have ever greatly lacked it, but it was a new kind of confidence. It made me feel older, and less inclined to boast. In this it also helped out my favorite theory that it must be easy for the man who has done something to be modest. After he has proved himself capable in the eyes of his comrades he doesn’t have to go about telling them how good he is. It is a saying that heroes are always modest, but they are not really modest. They just keep quiet, because they know their deeds are better talkers than they are.
Miller and I had despatched an orderly to inform Laguerre of our whereabouts, and at three o’clock in the afternoon the man returned to tell us that we were to join the General in the plaza. On arriving there we found the column already drawn up in the order of march, and an hour later we filed out of the town down the same street by which we had entered it that morning, and were cheered by the same people who eight hours before had been firing upon us. We left five hundred of Garcia’s men to garrison the place and prevent the townspeople from again changing their sympathies, and continued on toward Tegucigalpa with Garcia and the remainder of his force as our main body, and with the Legion in the van. We were a week in reaching Comyagua, which was the only place that we expected would offer any resistance until we arrived outside of the capital. During that week our march was exactly similar to the one we had made from the camp to Santa Barbara. There was the same rough trail, the jungle crowding close on either flank, the same dusty villages, the same fierce heat. At the villages of Tabla Ve and at Seguatepec our scouts surprised the rear guard of the enemy and stampeded it without much difficulty, and with only twenty men wounded. As usual we had no one to thank for our success in these skirmishes but ourselves, as Garcia’s men never appeared until just as the fight was over, when they would come running up in great excitement. Laguerre remarked that they needed a better knowledge of the bugle calls, as they evidently mistook our “Cease firing” for “Advance.”
The best part of that week’s march lay in the many opportunities it gave me to become acquainted with my General. The more I was permitted to be with him the longer I wanted to be always with him, and with no one else. After listening to Laguerre you felt that a talk with the other men was a waste of time. There was nothing apparently that he did not know of men and events, and his knowledge did not come from books, but at first hand, from contact with the men, and from having taken part in the events.
After we had pitched camp for the night the others would elect me to go to his tent, and ask if we could come over and pay our respects. They always selected me for this errand, because they said it was easy to see that I was his favorite.
When we were seated about him on the rocks, or on ammunition boxes, or on the ground, I would say, “Please, General, we want to hear some stories,” and he would smile and ask, “What sort of stories?” and each of us would ask for something different. Some would want to hear about the Franco-Prussian war, and others of the Fall of Plevna or Don Carlos or Garibaldi, or of the Confederate generals with whom Laguerre had fought in Egypt.
When the others had said good-night he would sometimes call me back on the pretence of giving me instructions for the morrow, and then would come the really wonderful stories--the stories that no historian has ever told. His talk was more educational than a library of histories, and it filled me with a desire to mix with great people--to be their companion as he had been, to have kings and pretenders for my intimates. When one listened it sounded easy of accomplishment. It never seemed strange to him that great rulers should have made a friend of a stray soldier of fortune, an Irish adventurer--for Laguerre’s mother was Irish; his father had been Colonel Laguerre, and once Military Governor of Algiers--and given him their confidence. And yet I could see why they should do so, for just the very reason that he took their confidence as a matter of course, knowing that his loyalty would always be above suspicion. He had a great capacity for loyalty. There was no taint in it of self-interest, nor of snobbishness. He believed, for instance, in the divine right of kings; and from what he let fall we could see that he had given the most remarkable devotion not only to every cause for which he had fought, but to the individual who represented it. That in time each of these individuals had disappointed him had in no way shaken his faith in the one to whom he next offered his sword. His was a most beautiful example of modesty and of faith in one’s fellowman. It was during this week, and because of these midnight talks with him around the campfire, that I came to look up to him, and love him like a son.
But during that same week I was annoyed to find that many of our men believed the version which Aiken had given of my conduct at Santa Barbara. There were all sorts of stories circulating through the Legion about me. They made me out a braggart, a bully, and a conceited ass--indeed, almost everything unpleasant was said of me except that I was a coward. Aiken, of course, kindly retold these stories to me, either with the preface that he thought I ought to know what was being said of me, or that he thought the stories would amuse me. I thanked him and pretended to laugh, but I felt more like punching his head. People who say that women are gossips, and that they delight in tearing each other to pieces, ought to hear the talk of big, broad-shouldered men around camp-fires. If you believe what they say, you would think that every officer had either bungled or had funked the fight. And when a man really has performed some act which cannot be denied they call him a “swipe,” and say he did it to gain promotion, or to curry favor with the General. Of course, it may be different in armies officered by gentlemen; but men are pretty much alike all the world over, and I know that those in our Legion were as given to gossip and slander as the inmates of any Old Woman’s Home. I used to say to myself that so long as I had the approval of Laguerre and of my own men and of my conscience I could afford not to mind what the little souls said; but as a matter of fact I did mind it, and it angered me exceedingly. Just as it hurt me at the Point to see that I was not popular, it distressed me to find that the same unpopularity had followed me into the Legion. The truth is that the officers were jealous of me. They envied me my place as Adjutant, and they were angry because Laguerre assigned one so much younger than themselves to all the most important duties. They said that by showing favoritism he was weakening his influence with the men and that he made a “pet” of me. If he did I know that he also worked me five times as hard as anyone else, and that he sent me into places where no one but himself would go. The other officers had really no reason to object to me personally. I gave them very little of my company, and though I spoke pleasantly when we met I did not associate with them. Miller and Von Ritter were always abusing me for not trying to make friends; but I told them that, since the other officers spoke of me behind my back as a cad, braggart, and snob, the least I could do was to keep out of their way.
I was even more unpopular with the men, but there was a reason for that; for I was rather severe with them, and imposed as strict a discipline on them as that to which I had been accustomed at West Point. The greater part of them were ne’er-do-wells and adventurers picked up off the beach at Greytown, and they were a thoroughly independent lot, reckless and courageous; but I doubt if they had ever known authority or restraint, unless it was the restraint of a jail. With the men of my own troop I got on well enough, for they saw I understood how to take care of them, and that things went on more smoothly when they were carried out as I had directed, so they obeyed me without sulking. But with the men of the troops not directly under my command I frequently met with trouble; and on several occasions different men refused to obey my orders as Adjutant, and swore and even struck at me, so that I had to knock them down. I regretted this exceedingly, but I was forced to support my authority in some way. After learning the circumstances Laguerre exonerated me, and punished the men. Naturally, this did not help me with the volunteers, and for the first ten days after I had joined the Legion I was the most generally disliked man in it. This lasted until we reached Comyagua, when something happened which brought the men over to my side. Indeed, I believe I became a sort of a hero with them, and was nearly as popular as Laguerre himself. So in the end it came out all right, but it was near to being the death of me; and, next to hanging, the meanest kind of a death a man could suffer.
When this incident occurred, which came so near to ending tragically for me, we had been trying to drive the government troops out of the cathedral of Comyagua. It was really a church and not a cathedral, but it was so much larger than any other building we had seen in Honduras that the men called it “The Cathedral.” It occupied one whole side of the plaza. There were four open towers at each corner, and the front entrance was as large as a barn. Their cannon, behind a barricade of paving stones, were on the steps which led to this door.
I carried a message from Laguerre along the end of the plaza opposite the cathedral, and as I was returning, the fire grew so hot that I dropped on my face. There was a wooden watering-trough at the edge of the sidewalk, and I crawled over and lay behind it. Directly back of me was a restaurant into which a lot of Heinze’s men had broken their way from the rear. They were firing up at the men in the towers of the cathedral. My position was not a pleasant one, for every time I raised my head the soldiers in the belfry would cut loose at me; and, though they failed to hit me, I did not dare to get up and run. Already the trough was leaking like a sieve. There was no officer with the men in the cafe, so they were taking the word from one of their own number, and were firing regularly in volleys. They fired three times after I took shelter. They were so near me that at each volley I could hear the sweep of the bullets passing about two yards above my head.
But at the fourth volley a bullet just grazed my cheek and drove itself into the wood of the trough. It was so near that the splinters flew in my eyes. I looked back over my shoulder and shouted, “Look out! You nearly hit me then. Fire higher.”
One of the men in the cafe called back, “We can’t hear you,” and I repeated, “Fire higher! You nearly hit me,” and pointed with my finger to where the big 44-calibre ball had left a black hole in the green paint of the trough. When they saw this there were excited exclamations from the men, and I heard the one who was giving the orders repeating my warning. And then came the shock of another volley. Simultaneously with the shock a bullet cut through the wide brim of my sombrero and passed into the box about two inches below my chin.
It was only then that I understood that this was no accident, but that someone in the restaurant was trying to murder me. The thought was hideous and sickening. I could bear the fire of the enemy from the belfry--that was part of the day’s work; the danger of it only excited me; but the idea that one of my own side was lying within twenty feet of me, deliberately aiming with intent to kill, was outrageous and revolting.
I scrambled to my feet and faced the open front of the restaurant, and as I stood up there was, on the instant, a sharp fusillade from the belfry tower. But I was now far too angry to consider that. The men were kneeling just inside the restaurant, and as I halted a few feet from them I stuck my finger through the bullet hole and held up my hat for them to see.
“Look!” I shouted at them. “You did that, you cowards. You want to murder me, do you?” I straightened myself and threw out my arms, “Well, here’s your chance,” I cried. “Don’t shoot me in the back. Shoot me now.”
The men gaped at me in utter amazement. Their lips hung apart. Their faces were drawn in lines of anger, confusion, and dislike.
“Go on!” I shouted. “Fire a volley at that belfry, and let the man who wants me have another chance at me. I’ll give the word. Make ready!” I commanded.
There was a pause and a chorus of protests, and then mechanically each man jerked out the empty shell and drove the next cartridge in place. “Aim!” I shouted. They hesitated and then raised their pieces in a wavering line, and I looked into the muzzles of a dozen rifles.
“Now then--damn you,” I cried. “Fire!”
They fired, and my eyes and nostrils were filled with burning smoke, but not a bullet had passed near me.
“Again!” I shouted, stamping my foot. I was so angry that I suppose I was really hardly accountable for what I did.
“I told you you were cowards,” I cried. “You can only shoot men in the back. You don’t like me, don’t you?” I cried, taunting them. “I’m a braggart, am I? Yes. I’m a bully, am I? Well, here’s your chance. Get rid of me! Once again now. Make ready,” I commanded. “Aim! Fire!”
Again the smoke swept up, and again I had escaped. I remember that I laughed at them and that the sound was crazy and hysterical, and I remember that as I laughed I shook out my arms to show them I was unhurt. And as I did that someone in the cafe cried, “Thank God!” And another shouted, “That’s enough of this damn nonsense,” and a big man with a bushy red beard sprang up and pulled off his hat.
“Now then,” he cried. “All together, boys. Three cheers for the little one!” and they all jumped and shouted like mad people.
They cheered me again and again, although all the time the bullets from the belfry were striking about them, ringing on the iron tables and on the sidewalk, and tearing great gashes in the awnings overhead.
And then it seemed as though the sunlight on the yellow buildings and on the yellow earth of the plaza had been suddenly shut off, and I dropped into a well of blackness and sank deeper and deeper.
When I looked up the big man was sitting on the floor holding me as comfortably as though I were a baby, and my face was resting against his red beard, and my clothes and everything about me smelt terribly of brandy.
But the most curious thing about it was that though they told everyone in the Legion that I had stood up and made them shoot at me, they never let anyone find out that I had been so weak as to faint.