by John Harris
Filled with Mexicans and Americans who had come from the other side of the Rio Grande for a night out on the town, the night clubs and casinos were pulsing with the sound of music and the shouts from the gambling tables. A few people were about, mostly Federal soldiers staring at the lights and a few interested gringos moving along the ill-lit streets. Recent rains had formed puddles on the uneven surfaces of the roads and the dim street lamps cast sinister shadows. Occasionally there was a tinkling burst of piano music, the screech of a fiddle or the twanging of a guitar. The smell of cooking food and stale drink filled the air. Down a side street someone was singing.
‘If to your window should come Huerta
Give him cold tortillas and send him on his way…’
From the other side of the street there was an explosion of shouts as a fight broke out. The whole place was alive from the Avenida Septiembre 16 to the American border.
Forming up in dark squares, watched only by beggars and a few late-moving women and children, the dust-blackened invaders kept silent. Then some onlooker, brighter than the rest, realised what was happening and started to run. One of the Villistas saw him and lifted his rifle. The echoes of the shot clattered against the flat walls and sent the crowds scattering for the alleyways as the runner fell on his face, his wide-brimmed hat rolling away like a hoop. A woman screamed and shutters slammed to, then the plank doors that sealed the shops were swung into place and lights were doused.
‘No point in waiting any longer,’ Slattery said.
Warnings were already being yelled but the Villistas surged through the streets to the brightly-lit centre of the city at such a speed the alarm was swamped even before it got going.
‘Qué viva Villa! Arriba la Revolución!’
At the shout, saloon doors opened and faces appeared at windows. An outbreak of firing stopped the laughter and the music dead. The hubbub faded and people emerging into the streets to see what was happening promptly turned round and bolted back inside, struggling to break through those still trying to get out to see the fun.
Black-faced Villistas in wide hats and criss-crossed with bandoliers of ammunition appeared in the doorways of clubs, dance halls and casinos, spurs jingling, guns in their fists. Employees and customers were lined up against the walls and invited to make contributions to the revolutionary war chest. No threats were made but most of the civilians and Americans were only too pleased to empty their pockets into the sacks and sombreros held out by the grinning soldiers. The gambling dens were cleaned out to the tune of half a million pesos.
The senior officers of the Federal garrison were caught without difficulty. A few nights before they had attended a performance by an American stock theatre company in El Paso where they had been entertained by the cast, and as the Villistas arrived, the American actors were returning the visit and were halfway through an impromptu performance of a scene from Il Trovatore with the tenor – almost a replica of Stutzmann – in full stride when the door burst open to reveal a bunch of grinning dusty men, all armed to the teeth. Their bag included the deputy commander and all his staff.
‘Norteamericanos over there! No harm will come to you! Federal officers over here! You’ll be shot!’
Streaming through the streets, their black faces white-runnelled with sweat, the Villistas were inside the sleeping barracks before anyone knew they had arrived. Sentries, sergeants and officers were swept aside before they could lift a finger. Half-dressed, terrified men began to boil out of doors and windows like ants from a nest, scuttling for their lives down the dark alleyways, throwing aside tunics, caps and weapons as they ran. A leaderless mob of Federal soldiers began to stream from the city towards the ravine of the Rio Bravo and the safety of the desert darkness, or to hide themselves in the throng hurrying for the International Bridge and the shelter of El Paso. Men in fragments of evening dress and uniform hid themselves among the frightened Americans and only here and there a group of Orozquistas, knowing what Villa had in store for them, attempted to resist. They were shot down where they stood.
The attack had been a complete surprise. Within three hours the city was in Villa’s hands. In one bold stroke, with eight hundred eager men and five hundred railway track workers, with only a scattering of shots and not a single casualty, the uneducated peón who was sneered at wherever Colegio Militar officers met, had captured the most important city in the north with all its vast stores of ammunition and weapons and its easy access to the cornucopia of supplies on the American border.
Slattery caught up with Villa at the Customs House.
‘You like the way I did it, inglés?’ Villa called out.
‘A perfect Trojan horse, Don Pancho.’
Villa’s brows wrinkled. ‘Who is this Trojan? And what’s so special about his horse? See that the Americans put my picture in their papers. Tomorrow, I’ll have the bands in the street to show they will come to no harm.’
Persuading Monserrat to drive him to the river, Slattery joined the crowd swarming for the International Bridge, where he hired a car to the trolley-bus terminus and caught a tram into El Paso.
At the offices of the newspaper, he dug out the caretaker and unearthed the address of the editor. At his knocking, the editor’s head appeared from a window over the door, red-faced and angry until Slattery told him what had happened. Then, unashamed in pink long johns, he showed the coal-blackened Slattery into his living room while his wife, her hair in curl papers, prepared coffee.
‘Captured Juárez!’ The editor was bewildered. ‘Hell, there’s been no fighting!’
As the bodies of the Orozquistas were loaded into carts, outside the Customs House hordes of anxious businessmen, admirers, position-seekers and well-wishers waited to see Villa. News of his victory had been reported by the El Paso paper and the former peón was the man of the hour and newspapermen of every shape and size and representing every possible political angle began to stream into the town.
‘Tell them how we won, inglés,’ Villa said. ‘Tell them we did it. Us. On our own, without help.’
While Slattery tried to pass out information to the yelling crowd of men and women demanding facts, the bridges across the border were opened and, to show that all was well and that the Americans had nothing to fear, Villa had the Federal bands mustered and marched through the town to celebrate the victory. Mingling with the crowds of wide-eyed souvenir hunters and government agents were emissaries of foreign powers, soldiers of fortune and women prepared to sell themselves to the highest bidder. Emerging from the murky shadows of Mexican politics, Villa had become the dominant figure overnight, a man whose views were suddenly important, not only on both sides of the border but in Foreign Offices in Europe. Knowing he could well soon be master of Mexico, big businesses which had been backing Huerta started looking round hurriedly for someone who could restore the sort of government that profited them most.
As they celebrated, however, news arrived that the Federal general in Chihuahua was mobilising another five thousand men to retake the town and a messenger appeared, swamped against the cold in an ankle-length civilian overcoat, with the information that troop trains were being mustered for the counter attack.
Villa shrugged. ‘We’ll be ready,’ he said. ‘We’ll show Don Venus who cracks the whip in Mexico.’
‘You’ve also shown him that the north’s wide open to him,’ Slattery pointed out dryly. ‘He no longer has to stay in Nogales. And now he can move, he can claim he’s the official representative of the whole of Northern Mexico. And since everybody, including you, has officially accepted him as the First Chief of the Constitutionalist Party, that’s exactly what he’s just become.’
Villa looked up under his eyebrows, his hat on the back of his head, his feet shuffling in the dust, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. ‘That’s not what I wanted to hear, inglés,’ he growled. ‘You’ve just spoiled my dinner.’
Eight
The capture of Juárez had opened the border to the rebels and American
arms began to flow across the Rio Grande. They arrived hidden in pianos, under wagonloads of coal, in crates of tinned food, under planks, in trucks labelled whiskey. The prices were extortionate because a lot of people north of the border were making a fortune out of Mexico’s tragedy, but the Constitutionalists were happy to pay and Villa was raising the money with rustled steers.
Juárez was just returning to normal when the Stutzmann zarzuela company arrived to put on Luisa Fernanda. As the group, lead singers and chorus, all marshalled by Stutzmann in his high shrill tenor, climbed from the train after a roundabout journey that had included a motor and lorry detour round Chihuahua by Parral, the soldiers swarming in the station entrance recognised Magdalena and started yelling for her to sing.
It was impossible to refuse so the train was held up as she stood on the steps of her compartment while the orchestra unpacked their fiddles, guitars and cellos and tuned up. She gave them ‘La Paloma’. She sang it first as a love song, low and sweet, then she gave it to them as a battle song, belting it out until the whole crowd, a good two thousand of them, were roaring it with her. As they yelled for more, she raised her hands.
‘No, no. That’s enough. I’m tired. I need to rest my voice.
She sang them ‘La Golodrina’, the song of farewell, and as she turned away, she found herself face to face with Slattery, tall, strong, red-haired, with his fox’s face.
There was always something breathtaking about him that made his appearance like a physical impact, and his bland impudence always made her want to laugh. Finding herself swept away by a mounting wave that was beyond her control, she closed her eyes for a second like a swimmer plunging into the sea.
‘Come and see me, Fitz,’ she said. ‘I’m staying at the hotel near the Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Not now – tomorrow. I’m busy now. Hermann’s made me a partner and I can’t leave everything to him.’
With Atty strutting round the town in a knickerbocker suit, cap and celluloid collar looking for girls, and with Jesús, growing rapidly as he ate proper meals for the first time in his life, in attendance in a store suit as stiff as a plank with a string tie and a straw boater, Slattery was free to head for Magdalena’s hotel on his own.
She had risen late after the previous night’s performance and was in a loose gown of blue that matched her eyes. She wore little make-up but it seemed to enhance rather than detract from her beauty. She held out her hands to Slattery and they stood for a moment in silence, holding each other, then she pushed him away and held him at arm’s length.
‘They say you don’t love me,’ she told him.
‘Who say?’
‘The company. Hermann. They are most concerned. They know all about you disappearing and they all know I’ve followed you. Chihuahua to Torreón. Torreón to Mexico City. Mexico City here.’
‘You were following me?’
She laughed. ‘Hadn’t you guessed? Of course I was. I persuaded Hermann to find bookings near you. I’ve a lot of influence with Hermann. He’s been in love with me for years.’
Slattery grinned. ‘And they say I don’t love you?’
Her fingers tightened on his. ‘I want to hear it from you. If you have other loves I want to hear it in your own words.’
He looked at her with narrowed eyes. ‘You know,’ he said, without a smile, ‘all this sounds like a line from an operetta.’
She stared at him, blank-eyed and innocent, then she gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘It’s a song,’ she admitted. ‘A Mexican song. Mexicans have such a gift for saying things from the heart.’
‘How much of it is true?’
‘If you love me, I shall own a piece of Heaven.’
‘Is that a song too?’
She flung herself into his arms, and he swung her round, her feet off the floor. ‘It’s the same song. But it says everything I want to say. I couldn’t say it better if I’d rehearsed it.’
‘I bet you did a bit.’
‘Oh, mein lieber Slattery, perhaps a little. For when I saw you again. You’re not going to vanish this time, are you?’
He shrugged. ‘The story is that the Federals at Chihuahua are on their way. There could be fighting. At the slightest sign of trouble, make sure you slip across the border. El Paso will always welcome you.’
‘I promise. But come after the show tonight. I’ll be on my own and I need you. Promise me that.’
That evening, dressed in his best, Slattery slipped into the theatre at the end of the first act, sent a note to the dressing-rooms, and prepared to wait until the end and fight off all comers for the privilege of driving Magdalena to her hotel. But he had just settled down on a chair thoughtfully provided by an attendant at the back of the pit when Jesús crept in and touched his elbow.
‘You’re wanted, your honour,’ he said. ‘General Huerta’s sent a large force by rail from Chihuahua. The telegraphist at the station’s just picked up the news from Zaragoza. Fierro’s moved down the line with locomotives, chains and hooks and started tearing up the tracks. They say he’s almost within cannon range of the Federals.’
For a moment, remembering his promise to Magdalena, Slattery considered ignoring the order, but it was urgent and couldn’t be thrust aside, and he’d been a soldier too long.
The second act had only just started but it was impossible to wait, so, getting hold of the manager, he wrote a note and left it to be delivered to Magdalena’s dressing room. When he reached headquarters, the Mayor of El Paso was with Villa. Apologies had already been made for the single American life lost during the fall of Juárez.
‘Tell him, inglés,’ Villa said, ‘–in good words he can understand – that when the Federals come I’ll meet them in the desert far enough south to prevent any bullets flying across the border. Tell him we’ll meet them at Tierra Blanca, thirty-five miles away.’
‘I don’t think he expects you to go that far south, Don Pancho,’ Slattery said.
Villa gave him a sly look. ‘I haven’t chosen Tierra Blanca to please the gringos, compadre,’ he murmured. ‘When God made Mexico, he forgot the water, and if we occupy the station at Tierra Blanca, we shall have plenty and the Federals, who will be in the plain, will have none.’
The vast shabby horde that lined up on the baked desolation outside Juárez would never have looked like a military host to a European. Supplied from the vast stores captured at Juárez, however, they comprised one of the finest armies Mexico could boast.
It was hot, parching and dry, and the massed columns of the Divisione del Norte began to defile to left and right, lines of soldiers moving from the shade of the few trees into the glare of the sun. Bugles blared their calls and flags flapped, some of them the red, white and green of Mexico with their eagle and serpent symbol, some of them banners bearing private badges, private mottos and private challenges. ‘Death to Huerta!’ ‘The Terror Men.’ ‘The Golden Boys.’
A few groups were armed only with old Springfield rifles, their cartridges carried in their pockets, and it was only the better-armed, better-dressed, better-mounted units which were close to the spectators. Slattery, busy since the previous evening, had marshalled the correspondents at a good vantage point and a newsreel man was standing in the back of a truck, cranking his camera. As Villa passed, a helper slanted a large round mirror stolen from a hotel dressing-table to throw the sunshine against his face and kill the shadow under his hat.
Among the moving throng rumbled and jolted the field pieces, their ironshod wheels throwing up dust as they turned. Big-hatted white-bloused pacificos stood among the dark-coated city dwellers and the American tourists from El Paso. An old man driving his goats homeward became entangled at one point and threw the parade into confusion. Out of pure mischief, a group of troopers sent the goats running in different directions while the army shouted with laughter. But when one of the men was foolish enough to show off his prowess with a gun by dropping one of the animals with a shot and a wail of anguish went up from the owner, Villa was on the scene imm
ediately, swinging a heavy revolver. The guilty marksman rolled from his saddle to the ground, holding a bloody head.
‘Give him its value!’ Villa roared.
‘But, mi General!’
As Villa lifted his revolver, the terrified man fished in his pockets and sent a shower of coins flying through the air. The crowd burst out clapping and the ancient goatherd was reduced to stammering gratitude.
‘The Mother of God, the Blessed Niño and Our Lady of Guadalupe ride with you, mi General!’
As the parade finished, the army began to move towards the east, as though about to make a wide circling movement back to their encampment, but only troops who were short of weapons and ammunition continued towards the town. As soon as they were out of sight of the spectators the rest wheeled away to where the trains waited. A ten-piece orchestra played them off.
The newspapermen were quicker than the rest to notice that Villa’s crack units had not returned and the newsreel man jolted off south on his own with the flat-topped van he used for developing the plates for stills. As Atty drove after them, Slattery sat alongside him in silence. He had written a long letter to Magdalena and left it with Stutzmann, but he knew he would need to do more than that. It had been a cavalier way of treating her and his mind was full of her face, of her half-smiling eyes that suddenly seemed to be inviting, and the way she walked with long supple strides, tall and slender and somehow always summery. He was growing disillusioned with Villa and the war. There had been a time when he had felt war was his whole life, when he couldn’t ever imagine being a civilian. Now he wasn’t so sure.