But all that day the militiamen were prowling about, interfering with the fun. The ball-game took place in an open field which the strikers had rented and paid for; they were amusing themselves in a harmless way, and surely they had a right to be let alone. But the militiamen came, as they always did to these ball-games; they stood by the base-lines and jeered at the bad plays, and when no one paid attention to them, they began aiming their rifles, pretending to shoot the players. Finally one of them stuck out his bayonet and tripped a base-runner; and so the game had to be stopped.
Hal went off to appeal to Captain Harding, who happened to be at the Horton station, making arrangements for the train on which his company was to be carried to Western City next morning. Hal got him on the telephone, and was able to have the soldiers ordered away from the ball-ground. They went, jeering. “You play your game today; we’ll play ours tomorrow!” That remark spread among the strikers, and at night, while the dance was on, there came a rumor that the militiamen were surrounding the tents, and were about to make an attack. The dance broke up in confusion, and the Greeks took turns mounting guard all night with guns in their hands.
In the midst of events such as this, needless to say Hal had had no time to make love to Mary Burke; he did not even have time to think about the matter as he had promised. He would see her in dreadful agitation—not for herself, but for all these helpless women and children. He would realize afresh the devilishness of what was going on here, and would go over to the Horton station, and with militia brutes standing by, glowering at him, would send telegrams to Wilmerding and Lucy May and Governor Barstow—he even sent one to Peter Harrigan, who read all his mail, and so, no doubt, his telegrams!
Early the next morning came Lieutenant Carroll with a squad of men. There was a strike-breaker being held in the colony against his will, the Lieutenant declared, and he had orders to fetch the man. The Lieutenant gave the name, a Greek name; and Louie was called, and said that the man was not in the colony, had not been for a long time. He was a cripple; why should anybody want to hold him against his will? The Lieutenant shook his fist in Louie’s face and called him a liar; the man was there, and they would have him without delay.
The officer went to the telephone and called Major Curran, his superior. The Major spoke to Louie, and told him to come to the militia encampment to see him. The other Greeks gathered about their leader, urging him not to go; it was a trap, they were trying to get him out of the way before they attacked. Hal and Mrs. Olson were summoned, and they also advised Louie not to go—because they saw the excitement under which the Greeks were laboring, and knew that Louie was the only one who could restrain them. But Louie finally said that he would meet the Major at the railway-station, which was half-way to the militia-camp.
Hal walked out part of the way with him, discussing the situation. Even in the midst of the excitement and alarms, some of the Greeks had been able to remember that this was Easter Monday, and they were dancing in the square with music—a violin, a mandolin and a flute. The mournful wailing of the flute followed the two men as they walked, and Louie changed his step to it, noticing the music, even while he was talking about the saloon-keeper Major of Militia, and what he might be meaning to do to the tent-colony.
They stopped on a slight rise of ground and looked about them. They could see over to the militia-encampment, and remarked that the troopers were saddling their horses and fastening on their cartridge-belts. Suddenly came the call of a bugle, drowning out the music. It came from Water-tank Hill, an elevation which commanded the tent-colony; and Hal looked and saw that two machine-guns had been transported to this hill during the night. “Look at that!” he exclaimed. “Can they really be going to attack us?”
Louie hurried over to the railroad-station to see Major Curran; and meantime Hal stood watching. He saw groups of the militiamen moving down the arroyo which led to the steel bridge crossing the railroad-track—another important position if there was to be fighting. In fact, it seemed to him that all the surrounding country was alive with khaki-clad figures. He stood hesitating; should he go over to the railway-station and appeal to the Major and his cousin? Or should he return to the tent-colony and help keep the strikers in hand?
[23]
Five minutes must have passed after Louie had reached the depot, when suddenly Hal was startled to hear a loud explosion from somewhere back of the militia-camp. It was followed by a second explosion, then by a third. He did not know what to make of the sounds; it transpired afterwards that three bombs had been made by Lieutenant Stangholz and set off under his orders, for a signal to members of the new “Troop E”, stationed up in the canyons at the coal-camps. The meaning of the signals was that there was trouble, and that the troopers were to come down to Horton. But to the strikers, ignorant people, a prey to terror, these signal-bombs were some form of artillery which the militia had brought up, and were using against them.
Instantly, it seemed, the tent-colony was swarming like a bee-hive; the Greeks poured out with guns in their hands, making for the railroad-cut and the steel bridge. Looking toward the depot, Hal saw Louie running, frantically waving a white handkerchief and shouting. Hal ran towards him. “Major Curran say all mistake!” he cried. “Don’t want to fight! Want ever’body come back!”
“Why has he posted those machine-guns?”
“Don’t know. He say ever’body stop, don’t make no more trouble.” But it was too late. At that moment came the whir of the machine-guns on Water-tank Hill, directed upon the colony, and the tents were riddled by a hail of bullets. The frenzied women and children rushed out into the streets, scattering in every direction.
Hal and Louie dashed towards the colony. The first person they met was Kowalewsky, to whom Louie repeated his breathless sentences. Major Curran had promised that there should be no violence. He must search for the missing man, but he would try to do it decently; the strikers might trust him. Louie rushed off, waving a white handkerchief, in pursuit of the strikers, with the Polish organizer following him, and bullets from the machine-gun kicking up spurts of dust about his feet.
Hal plunged into the tents, to get the women and children into the cellars which had been dug for their protection. The first tent he came to was that of the Burke family, where he found Mary gathering the children and getting them down through a hole in the floor. Old Patrick was at the bottom, catching them in his arms. They lifted Mrs. Jonotch down, no easy task, for she was a considerable bulk; then all her children were piled in, one after another, and Tommie Burke and Jennie, and Mrs. Ramirez, a Mexican woman, and her children.
So the cellar was filled, and still there were women and children screaming and crying. Mrs. Zamboni, the Slavish widow, was almost insane with fright, and Hal took her by the arm, and carrying or dragging all her children, they went down the street to the tent of the Minettis, where there was also a cellar. As they entered the tent, a bullet struck a china bowl and sent the fragments flying; the children set up terrified yells.
“Jump down! Jump down!” cried Hal to Rosa, and he helped her into the cellar, and handed her the little baby and the second child. “Where’s Big Jerry?” he cried.
“He got gun; he go fight!” answered Little Jerry; and added, “I got gun too, I go fight!” He had a little air-gun which Hal had given him, and was starting out of the tent to follow his father, when Hal caught him by the arm. “I kill them militias!” he cried; but Hal handed him, kicking and screaming, to his mother.
Hal helped down Mrs. Zamboni and her swarm of children as they came. Then he rushed on to the next tent, where he found John Edstrom, weak and ill, but giving what help he could to women and children. Seeing that the trap-doors in some of the tent-platforms were no more than thirty inches square, Hal got an axe and knocked loose a few boards, so that those in the cellars might not be stifled.
While he was busied thus, Mary Burke came running up to him. “There’s a crowd out there in the field!” she cried; and Hal, following her down the
street, saw a great number of women and children huddled like a flock of frightened sheep.
“They must come in here,” he said, “and get under ground.”
“But there won’t be room enough!” There had been more than twelve hundred people in the tent-colony.
Suddenly Hal thought of the well which was over by the railroad pump-house; twenty or thirty feet wide, and perhaps a hundred feet deep, with rickety stairs leading in a circle to the bottom, and several platforms on the way. He had considered this as a place of shelter in case of trouble. “Take the people there,” he said to Mary; and seeing Mrs. Jack David, he called to her to help, and the two women ran out into the field.
[24]
Meantime Hal went back to his task of getting those in the tents out of reach of the flying bullets. He came upon an Italian family, concealed in a packing-case in back of their tent; he dragged them out, and persuaded them to lie in a drainage trench. In another tent he found a Lithuanian woman crouching behind a stove, her eyes staring wildly, her teeth chattering so that she could not speak. She had shut her baby up inside the oven! Fortunately, there was no fire in the stove, but the child would have suffocated in a few minutes. Hal carried the child and dragged the mother, putting them into one of the rifle-pits which the Greeks had dug behind their tents.
Louie and Kowalewsky joined Hal, having run the gauntlet of fire once more. Louie had taken an even greater risk, running out toward the militiamen and waving his white handkerchief; but it had availed nothing—they had shot at him, wounding him in the arm, and putting bullets through his coat. He shouted to Hal that somebody was firing from the tent-colony and this was drawing the fire upon women and children; he and Hal raced about, searching for these men, shouting to them to desist. It was some time before Hal realized the truth—that the sound which they thought was firing from the tents was the bursting of explosive bullets. This use of explosive bullets was vehemently denied by the militia, but it was a point on which the subsequent testimony of witnesses was overwhelming. One of the bullets hit a stove near Hal, and splinters of steel cut his clothing and hands.
Mary Burke came in, breathless and gasping, having run all the way back from the well; she showed Hal where the heel of her shoe had been carried away by a bullet. She told him that sixty or seventy women and children were crowded onto the rickety underground platforms, which trembled when anyone moved. There being no more people left in the tents, Hal and Mary went to the cellar where they had put the Burke family. There was just room for two more to squeeze in, and there they stayed, packed like sardines, for hours, while the firing went on.
The sun beat down upon the tent, and in the course of the afternoon the hole, which was only six feet square, became stifling hot; the children were whimpering and the babies screaming, and it was necessary to get water for them. So Hal and Mary clambered out again. Thinking that the militiamen would not fire upon the tents if they realized that only non-combatants were in them, they ran to the hospital-tent. Hal put a red-cross badge upon his sleeve, and Mary Burke put on the white costume of a nurse. They knew that the militia-officers could see these signs through their field-glasses, but they found that they had only made themselves targets. As Mary went about, taking water to the children, the bullets followed her so that people begged her to stay away.
They went back to the shelter; but late in the afternoon little Jennie Burke fainted, and it was necessary again to get water. Hal started to go, but Tommie, with the eagerness of a boy, climbed out ahead of him. He limped with his lame foot across the tent, and the next instant came an explosion, and he fell upon the floor.
There was a moment’s stillness; then the women screamed, and Hal caught hold of the platform and lifted himself out, and saw the horrible thing that had happened. The boy was lying in a pool of blood, the whole back of his head blown away by an explosive bullet.
“Don’t come up! Don’t come up!” he cried to Mary; and he lifted the body and carried it to one side, so that the blood and brains should not trickle down upon the people. Then he went back into the hole, and told what had happened, and caught Mary in his arms as she swooned away.
[25]
It was late in the afternoon when the firing showed signs of dying away. Hearing the shouts of men in the street, Hal decided to investigate, and climbed out. He saw a sight which struck a chill to his heart. The tents were on fire! And in a moment he saw why they were on fire. A militiaman in uniform was coming down the street, carrying in one hand a pail full of liquid, and in the other hand a broom; he stopped at one of the tents, and dipping three or four times into the pail, splashed the stuff over the canvas. Then he put a match to it, and the tent went up in a roaring blaze.
“What are you doing?” Hal shouted. “There are women and children in those tents!”
The man turned and stared at him. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded; and stepping across the street, he began to sling his broom upon a second tent. When Hal sprang toward him, making to interfere, the man whirled and stuck the broom into his face. Hal recoiled, and the man struck another match. At the same moment a second militiaman ran out of the tent, carrying an armful of clothing.
Hal saw another man approaching the tent of the Burkes, also with a broom and pail. “There are people in there, down in the cellar!” he shouted.
“Well, get them out, and be quick!” said the man, with an oath. And he pulled back the flap of the tent. “Come up out of there!” he cried. “Be quick about it, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Have you got orders to burn these tents?” Hal demanded.
“Sure thing!” was the answer. And looking inside, the man saw old Patrick Burke. “What the hell you doing in there?”
“I’m trying to get out my children.”
Hal turned, and looking down the street, saw Lieutenant Carroll and a group of men, some of them in uniform, some of them not. He knew this officer for a ruffian, but he could not believe that he would permit the burning up of women and children. He ran to him and made a frantic appeal. The Lieutenant’s response was to leap into the tent and proceed to throw the people out as if they had been grain-sacks.
“Hold on!” cried Patrick Burke. “I’ve got a boy killed here!”
“God damn you, you old red-neck!” cried Carroll. “I know who you are—you’ve done as much shooting as anybody!”
“I never done no shooting!” protested the old man. “I never had a gun.”
“I’ve got a notion to kill you right here!” replied the Lieutenant, with a string of unprintable oaths. Then he saw “Red Mary” climbing out of the hole, followed by her sister Jennie, who had got her picture in the paper when she was kicked in the breast by General Wrightman. Both these people had deserved cursing from the militia, and now they got it. Old Patrick got more cursing because he was slow and clumsy, his arms and hands being slippery with blood. Finally, however, he managed to get the body of his dead boy onto his shoulder, and staggered away through the smoke and flame, followed by the cowering women and children. Then the kerosene was slapped onto the tent, and it went up in a blaze like a dried Christmas tree.
Hal started again to protest, and Lieutenant Carroll whirled upon him. “What the hell have you got to do with this?” he shouted. Then, to one of his men, “Take this fellow out of here.”
“Is Captain Harding about?” demanded Hal.
“I don’t know whether he is or not. He’s got nothing to do with me if he is.”
“Look here, man!” shouted Hal, wildly. “Do you want to burn up women and children? Don’t you know the cellars are full of people?”
“We’re getting them out aren’t we?”
“You’re not doing anything of the sort! Your men aren’t even looking inside!”
These words seemed to bring the Lieutenant to his senses. He turned to some of his men, who were carrying off armfuls of stuff: “Hey, you! Drop that loot, and get these red-necks out!” And he began to curse them, as furiously as he had c
ursed the Burke family. They were not soldiers, they were a bunch of pan-handlers and bums!
That was really the truth about the membership of this newly organized “Troop E”; it was not a militia-body, but a mob. Its enlisted members had never had a drill, nor even a roll-call—many of them had not yet got their uniforms.
They did not know their officers, and their officers did not know them; now they were turned loose, each man to follow his own impulses. Some of them were dragging out trunks and boxes, prying them open with bayonets, or smashing them with axes. You saw men going down the street, laughing and joking, carrying clothing, cigars and food; you saw others risking their lives to drag women and children out of the burning tents.
[26]
There was still time to save people, for there was no wind, and the flames were not spreading; each tent had to be separately kindled. No one paid any attention to Hal Warner, for the reason that so many others wore civilian clothing. Knowing where the cellars were, he ran from one to another shouting to the people to come out. In some cases the women were so dazed by terror that he had to spring down into the holes and lift them out bodily; then they would stand in the middle of the street, sobbing and moaning, confused by the glare of the flames and the yells of the raiders.
In one of the cellars Hal found the body of a woman on the ground. He did not know whether she had fainted or been suffocated; he lifted her out, and was climbing out himself, when he saw something which made him crouch back. A group of half a dozen militiamen were bringing in two prisoners: one of them Kowalewsky, the Polish organizer, and the other poor old sick John Edstrom. A moment later came others with a third prisoner, Louie the Greek.
The Coal War Page 32