by John Jakes
As night approached, the invading army began to extend its line to the northwest. Worth’s brigade would hold the right, near the landing site, and it was there that Orry and his platoon went to work digging in. Even in perfect weather it would take several days to unload all the men and materiel necessary to complete the eight-mile siege line. Once the line was in place around Vera Cruz, it was expected that the artillery would begin bombardment. But the city might not fall for a long time. It was heavily fortified, defended by nine forts on the land side and the castle of San Juan de Luau in the harbor.
It was after midnight when Orry tottered into the mess tent. He was sodden with sweat and covered with sand and insect bites. He sank down next to George at a badly stained table, peered at what looked like a gobbet of old meat wedged into one of the cracks.
He picked at the dried lump with a fingernail. “Lord, this table’s filthy.”
Captain Place swabbed his cheeks with a bandanna. “It isn’t one of ours. There have been several mix-ups in off-loading equipment. These are surgical tables, last used in Monterrey. Amputations—that sort of thing—”
Orry gagged and wiped his hand on his trousers. Then he heard the raucous laughter. Even Place, not humorous by nature, roared. It was an old Army joke, Orry learned later. That made him feel better. He was no longer a greenhorn; he had finally been accepted.
No one knew, that night or ever, why the Mexican commandant at Vera Cruz hadn’t fired so much as one shot at the invaders. But the absence of an enemy made Orry nervous as he went from sentry post to sentry post in his sector about three in the morning. His right hand stayed close to the personal sidearm he had purchased at his own expense, a practice followed by most officers. The gun was a Model 1842, a single-shot percussion smoothbore made by I. N. Johnson and generally considered the best military pistol on the market.
The night was windy, with not a star showing. Orry was midway between two posts when he heard something on his left, the side away from the shore. He caught the sound of furtive voices and movement. His mouth dry, he drew his pistol.
“Who goes there?”
Instantly there was silence except for the wind.
He repeated his challenge, realizing belatedly that from out in the dark he was a clear target; the lantern-lit regimental staff tent was directly behind him. He started to move on quickly. He had taken only two steps when he again heard voices, loud this time, angrily shouting in Spanish.
Three shots rang out. He felt a ball flick his trousers. He dropped to one knee, aimed, and fired. A man screamed. Another cursed. Feet scurried away. Sentries at the nearby posts were shouting challenges.
Pain hit, canceling his brief feeling of triumph. He looked down and to his amazement discovered that a rifle ball had done more than tick against his trousers. It had pierced his calf.
He pacified the sentries and limped to the medical tent, a good half mile, his shoe filling with blood. The orderly on duty saluted. Before Orry could return it, he fainted.
The injury wasn’t serious. He was feeling fairly chipper when George visited him late the next day.
“Your first battle wound.” George grinned. “Congratulations.”
Orry made a face. “I expected my baptism of fire to be a little grander, thanks. Being shot by a skulking guerrilla isn’t my idea of heroism. I think I got one of them, though.”
“I know you did. Flicker found the body at sunup.”
“Soldier or civilian?”
“Soldier. Dressed like a peasant, but his accouterments were military.”
Orry looked less displeased. George crouched beside the cot and lowered his voice.
“Tell me something. When the shooting started, were you scared?” Orry shook his head. “There wasn’t time. But a minute or so afterward, I—” He was silent for a second. “I came to, I guess you could say. I went over every detail I could remember. Then I got scared.”
The more Orry thought about it, the more convinced he became that he had made an important discovery about the behavior of men at war.
In his tent a few nights later, George hunched closer to a dim lantern and rolled a pencil stub back and forth in his fingers. He was writing another of his long letters to Constance. He sent one about every three days. He loved her so much, he wanted to share as many of his experiences as propriety allowed.
He kept some of his deepest feelings out of the letters, though. His longing to be with her had filled him with a powerful hatred of this war, a reaction that went far beyond the resigned acceptance that had been his attitude before Corpus Christi.
While he was considering what to say next, something tickled the back of his neck. He whipped up his free hand, smacked the tiny insect, grimaced as he wiped his fingers on the edge of the cot. Then he put pencil to paper.
Unseen snipers usually fire a few rounds every night, but it has been quiet this evening. I am coming to believe that our true enemy is this land. The wind blows like
He scratched out the letter h; he had started to write hell.
fury, and as a consequence, the eyes and the skin are constantly savaged by flying sand. Retreating inside a tent minimizes that problem but does not guarantee peace or a good night’s sleep, for we Americans are locked in battle with another army which our superior officers neglected to mention. I refer to the army of fleas and wood ticks which infests this coast.
Little Mac McClellan, one of my classmates who’s down here with the engineers, has devised a novel defense against the infernal creatures. Each night he swabs himself from head to toe with salt pork and, thus odiously “protected,” crawls into a canvas bag which he then proceeds to close about his neck with a tight drawstring. He says it works splendidly, but I for one am not quite desperate enough to try such an extreme
George bolted up at the sound of a gunshot. Someone cried out. Men began shouting and running. He dropped the letter, hurried outside, and discovered that a nearby sentry had been felled by a sniper’s bullet.
The sentry, a private about George’s age, lay on his side with the upper half of his face bathed in lantern light. The one eye George could see was open and glaring. The fatal shot had struck the middle of the sentry’s back.
A sergeant took charge of disposing of the body. The private had belonged to another company; George didn’t know him. Badly shaken, George returned to the tent and picked up the letter. He would say nothing about the killing. He began to write but had to quit almost at once. The face of the dead private kept intruding in his thoughts, along with memories of Orry’s close call. It was five minutes later before his hands stopped trembling and he was able to pick up the pencil again.
Gale winds out of the north delayed the unloading of Scott’s artillery, ammunition, and pack animals. Not a round was fired at Vera Cruz until March 22. That evening the guns opened up for the first time. Scott planned to reduce the city by what he called a “slow, scientific process” of shelling.
Orry was soon back on duty. The Mexicans remained hidden as the bombardment continued. The American soldiers were restless and impatient to engage an enemy. They were beset by the climate all day, and now they were kept awake all night by the return fire of Mexican cannon, which could never reach the American lines but which were hellishly noisy nonetheless. Orry was constantly breaking up fights and disciplining his men.
Wherever he and George went, they encountered others from the Academy. About five hundred West Point graduates had been serving in the regular Army at the start of the war, and an equal number had been recalled from civilian life to command volunteer units. Tom Jackson, who seemed to grow more dour and indrawn every day, was in the artillery; Pickett and Bee and Sam Grant were in the infantry. Other Academy men the two friends knew slightly, and some just by reputation: Lee and Pierre Beauregard in the engineers; Joe Johnston and George Meade in the topogs; Dick Well and Tom Jackson’s roommate, Pleasanton, commanded dragoon units. Robert Anderson, Ambrose Burnside, Powell Hill, and a fanatic abolitionist na
med Banner Doubleday were artillerymen with Tom. The secure feeling generated by the presence of officers with the same background was one of the few good things about this campaign, George thought.
On March 24, six long-range naval guns supplied by Commodore Matthew Perry joined the siege. That same day, Orry was summoned to brigade headquarters with Captain Place to explain a knifing that had occurred in his platoon. The questioning was perfunctory because everyone at headquarters was in an exultant mood. Scouts kept streaming in to report that the American bombardment was at last inflicting substantial damage on the walls of the city.
“Commodore Perry’s cannon saved our skins,” Place growled when he and Orry left the tent after the interrogation. “Guess we owe him thanks, even if he did squawk like a mud hen about the Navy’s rights.” Scott had been forced to let naval gunners operate the six long-range pieces. Orry realized the Army had no corner on officers jealous of their—
“Lieutenant Main. I say—Main!”
“Yes, sir!” Orry automatically brought his hand up to salute, even as he pivoted in response to the voice he couldn’t quite place. He froze.
Elkanah Bent returned the salute in a relaxed, almost mocking way. He noted Orry’s fatigue cap with a scornful glance. Bent was wearing the more formal, French-inspired chapeau bras.
“Thought it was you,” Bent said. “I had a report that you had joined us. Your friend, too. Hazard.”
Orry took it as a bad sign that the Ohioan remembered George’s name. But of course he had promised to remember. Orry tried to act unconcerned.
“You’re looking well, Captain.”
“Considering all the action I’ve seen since last year, I feel remarkably fit. I was informed that you were one of our few casualties. A guerrilla ball caught you, did it not?”
“Yes, sir. The night we landed. The wound wasn’t serious.”
“That’s good news.” Bent’s sly expression said just the opposite. “Well, Lieutenant, I’m confident we shall encounter each other again. When we do, perhaps we can reminisce about our days at West Point.”
Captain Place’s brows drew together in a frown. He could sense the tension. But Orry was the only one who understood Bent’s remark. His spine tightened with apprehension as Bent waddled away, his hand self-consciously placed on the Phrygian helmet pommel of his sword. He was just as fat as ever, and just as poisonous.
“You knew that bastard at the Academy?” Place asked.
Orry nodded. “He was in the class ahead of me. Have you served with him?”
“Never, thank God. But everyone’s heard of Captain Bent of the Third Infantry. His regimental commander, Colonel Hitchcock, makes no secret of his contempt for him. He says Bent’s afflicted with uncontrollable ambition and is determined to climb upward—on a ladder of bodies, if necessary. Be thankful you no longer have any involvement with him.”
But I do, Orry thought as they walked on.
Perry’s cannon proved too much for the defenders of Vera Cruz. On March 29, under surrender terms arranged with General Scott’s staff, the Mexican garrison struck its colors and marched out through the Merced Gate. Moments later, while American batteries on shore and on shipboard thundered in salute, the Stars and Stripes rose on every flagstaff in the city.
The victory had cost fewer than a hundred American lives. George and Orry were shocked to learn that, back home, politicians and a certain segment of the public were unhappy that casualties had been so light. “They calculate the importance of the victory by the size of the butcher’s bill” was the way George put it. “And then they wonder why nobody wants to stay in the Army.”
Scott was pleased with the progress of the war. The surrender at Vera Cruz came on top of Taylor’s stunning February triumph at Buena Vista. Scott once again reorganized the army for a march on the capital.
On April 8 Twiggs’s division started inland. Patterson’s division followed the next day. General Worth’s men were awaiting orders to move forward in support when word came that Santa Anna, once again elevated to the presidency, had taken a position at Jalapa, on the National Road to Mexico City. On April 11 and 12 units from Twiggs’s command clashed with enemy scouts and lancers. Outside Vera Cruz the drums and bugles summoned Worth’s command for a forced march to join Twiggs at the village of Plan, del Rio.
During the early hours of the march, heat felled dozens of men at the roadside. Close to fainting himself, Orry risked the censure of his superiors by dropping back and propping up a stumbling soldier who had the makings of a fine noncom if the climate, disease, a Mexican ball, or homesickness for Brooklyn didn’t overcome him first. After twenty minutes the soldier was able to walk by himself again.
By dusk, four men in Orry’s platoon were sick with diarrhea. So were scores of others in the column. The ditches along the road stank and swarmed with green flies. But dysentery wasn’t the only malady to be feared. For weeks officers had worried aloud about the coming yellow-fever season. Outbreaks of the disease decimated the low-lying seacoast every year. Scott had wanted to move his men into the highlands before the season began, and the alarm from Twiggs had enabled him to do it. When a corporal complained about marching so far so fast—the distance was slightly less than sixty miles—Orry was quick to say, “As soon as we reach General Twiggs, you’ll be a lot better off.”
“Better off dodging greaser musket balls? Begin’ the lieutenant’s pardon, I don’t believe that.”
“But it’s true. You’re much less likely to be felled by a ball than by the vómito.”
Over the cook fire that night, Orry noticed that the smoke was climbing into clear, haze-free air. Cooler air. They were already above the coastal plain whose sometimes pestilential climate reminded him of home. He pointed out the change to the corporal, but the man remained unconvinced.
Sergeant Flicker arrived. He reported the sentinels posted according to Orry’s orders. He squatted by the fire, took out a piece of biscuit, and began picking weevils from it. He observed that the odds now favored a major engagement with the Mexicans; things had been quiet for too long. Then he said:
“By the way, sir. I never had a chance to ask you ’fore this. Did you get close to any of them senioritas in Vera Cruz?”
Orry was astonished at the noncom’s cheek. Flicker probably figured his length of service gave him certain privileges when dealing with officers. “No, Sergeant,” he answered. “I have a girl back home.” It was a convenient if painful lie.
“Oh. “ Flicker’s expression said he didn’t understand why one thing excluded the other. “Mighty accommodating, some of them ladies. ’Course, I had the bad luck to visit one of their establishments the night a captain from the Third foot got rough with the girl he’d paid for. She screamed bloody hell, and the head whore almost closed the place.”
“The Third, you say? What was the captain’s name?”
“Bent.”
Quietly: “I’ve heard of him.”
“Sure, who hasn’t? Butcher Bent, his men call him. It was a scandal what he did in Monterrey.”
“I didn’t hear about that.”
“You passed through the town last fall, didn’t you? Then I ’spect you remember the layout of the fortifications on the east side. The Black Fort on the main approach an’ the redoubt named for a tannery a little ways on? Bent was in Garland’s column, it headed in past the Black Fort. The fire was pretty fierce. When the column turned, fire from the redoubt damn near blew away the left flank. The men started runnin’, figuring to take cover in the streets close by. But those streets wasn’t safe either. A greaser pistol or rifle was blazin’ away from ever’ window and garden gate, seemed like. Things went crazy for a couple of minutes. The only way out was to move to the next streets, where there wasn’t so many of the varmints hidin’. That would get Bent an’ all the rest out from under the worst of the fire from the forts, too. But Butcher Bent didn’t care about savin’ anybody. He decided to be a hero and knock out the tannery redoubt. He sent a p
latoon to storm it.”
“Did they take it?”
“’Course not. It was impossible. Bent lost more’n half the platoon. Afterwards, I heard they found at least two men with bullet holes in their backs.”
“You mean they got shot running away from the redoubt?”
“They got shot runnin’ away from Captain Bent.”
“Godamighty. Why doesn’t someone report him?”
“He kisses a lot of backsides, Lieutenant. And some of the idiots in charge of this here army don’t give a goddamn about the way a man gets results, just so long as he gets ’em. They do say Bent’s got a passel of friends in Washington, too.”
Orry could have verified that but he didn’t.
“Nobody knows for certain that he shot those men,” Flicker went on. “I mean nobody can prove it. I did hear Bent’s threatened to court-martial anybody who raises questions about that little operation. That says somethin’ to you, don’t it?”
Orry nodded. “So his men aren’t talking about him?”
“Damn right they aren’t. They’re too scared. God knows how many he’ll send to their deaths before they catch him—or he gets ’lected President, which is prob’ly more likely. Jesus, can’t they find us some decent food?” He leaned forward and spat a wiggling weevil into the flames.
Later, Orry located George’s company at the roadside. Orry reported what Sergeant Flicker had told him.
“I believe every word,” George said. Carefully, he placed a stone on a thin sheet of paper on which he had been writing in pencil. There were eight or ten sheets beneath the partially filled one. Another letter to Texas, Orry presumed.