Halls of Montezuma

by Tony Roberts

  “So senor,” the olive-skinned girl said, wriggling out of her dress, “where do you want to start?”

  “You start, senorita,” Case grinned, throwing himself onto the bed, “I’d like to see which of you three can pleasure me the best!”

  With a squeal the three dived onto him, tugging at his clothing and throwing the blue wool uniform off onto the floor. Gasps of shock greeted his nakedness; they’d never seen such a tortured looking body before. Surely this man could not survive such wounds? Then one looked down at the important part. “This is not scarred,” the half native-half Spanish girl said, squeezing it gently, pleased at the reaction that elicited.

  “Mmmm…” Case said with a groan. The full-bloodied Spanish girl had taken off her blouse and was pushing her breasts into his face. Case obliged and sucked on them, causing his already hardening organ to stiffen fully. With a cry of pleasure the half native girl climbed on top and began riding hard, bounding up and down. The third girl, the olive-skinned one, began kissing him on every part of his body not covered by the other two.

  Case sighed and gave himself up to the attentions of the three women. Welcome to Matamoros, he thought dreamily.

  The following day the men rose from their new barracks in the town to parade in the town center. The plaza was big enough for one regiment at a time to parade, and General Taylor wanted to show the inhabitants of Matamoros of the strength of his army. Case yawned and waited his turn to march through the square. “What’s up with ye, man?” Michael demanded. “Ye’ve been yawning all morning!”

  “Had a hard day yesterday. I’ll tell you about it some time.”

  “Well it wasn’t praying in church, that’s for sure,” Jimmy said. “You’re no Irishman! You don’t sound like one and you don’t go to church.”

  “I’m not,” Case agreed. “I may have an Irish name but I’m American. And so are you all. I’ve had this argument with that deserter Quinn before, so let’s not go over old ground, okay?”

  “Touchy touchy,” Jimmy grumbled.

  “He was trying out the whores, that’s where he was,” Kenny sniggered from behind. “Saw him staggering out in the afternoon. Looked like he’d been beaten up by a crowd of thieves.”

  “And what were you doing in that street then?” Case challenged. “Looking to spend your pay?”

  “Fuck off,” Kenny smiled. “At least I’m not exhausted by one of those skinny tarts.”

  “I had three, you bastard. So stick that up your ass.”

  “Three!” Kenny was clearly dubious. “Lying bastard.”

  Case smiled and faced front. Their turn was coming. Michael looked at his companion and goggled in wonder. “Three whores?” he mouthed silently. Case nodded and almost burst out laughing. Kenny kicked him in spite.

  Feisler mumbled out loud about greed and sin and the punishment awaiting Case on judgment day. Bring it on, Case thought with some enthusiasm. Then they were off, marching around the square.

  After they had returned to barracks, Michael sat on his bunk silently, not even looking at anyone. His gloomy expression caught the attention of a couple and Case, who bunked next to him, came over and stood before him. “So what’s eating you, Michael?”

  Michael glanced up, scowled, and looked down again.

  “So you going to tell me or you going to sulk like a spoiled brat all day long?” Case was pissed with the young man. Clearly something was eating him and Case had a fair idea it was directed at him.

  “You shouldn’t have gone to the brothel, Case! Not when we were in mass!”

  “What? I’m no churchgoer, and what I do with my time is my business. It certainly isn’t yours! What you do with your spare time is up to you. Don’t go telling me what I should or should not be doing, Michael. Besides, I think you’re bothered by something much more than just that.”

  The young Irishman looked up, said nothing, but his face reddened. He looked down again and looked as miserable as sin. Case leaned over and kept his voice down so none of the others could overhear. “You want to get it off your chest; if you’re pissed off with me then I’d like to know why. If not, then don’t treat me like I’ve shat in your bed.”

  Michael swallowed, then got up and walked off to the communal toilets at the end of the long room. Here there were a few rudimentary cubicles for washing and other such ablutions, but they stank and weren’t very hygienic. At least a door was between the main room and the washroom. Case followed him and leaned against the door, shutting it firmly. Michael stood miserably in the middle of the washroom, head down.

  “Okay. Talk.” Case folded his arms.

  “Well, it’s all this talk about whores; they’re not clean are they? And they’re not virtuous women either!”

  “Shit, no! Whores are whores; they take money for allowing their bodies to be used by us. Seems a fair exchange to me. Besides, they could take up the habit and become nuns, but oddly they don’t. Wonder why? They choose to be whores. Okay, I accept some of them don’t have a lot of choice because of their background and it’s a preferable existence to living on the street, but most whores I’ve met do it because it’s what they want to do. I’m no social reformer; I wouldn’t want to do away with whores.

  “Listen, Michael. A soldier is faced with boredom and danger. Little else. Mostly boredom. Men away from their families and homes, they’re going to want a woman, particularly if they’ve survived a battle. Take it from me, a guy whose life has been in danger and has survived, wants to celebrate his life by having a woman the first chance he gets. Who knows, it may be his last. That’s especially true now there’s a war. Don’t think those two fights back north of the river will be the only ones. There’s more to come.

  “We take shit from our own officers, the enemy and who knows, the damned populace as well. We fight in hot, cold, wet and dry weather. We get shot at, stabbed at, spat at, blasted at. We sleep in the open air, in swamps, amongst rocks and bloody thorns. Politicians don’t like us, except when it’s to enforce their brand of politics over some other bunch of poor bastards. As soon as we achieve it, these same politicians want us to vanish. Priests damn us from the pulpits, calling us murderers. Civilians fear us, as we burn, rape and pillage. And if they’re our own populace, we eat their food, and in return they pay taxes to keep us. No, nobody likes us, but none of them can do without us. That’s what being a soldier means.

  “So why deny us our little pleasures? We get $7 a month, and the food supplied to us is uneatable. Our uniforms are falling apart and we’re hundreds of miles from what we call home. Can you guarantee we will be here this time next week? Or, like some of our friends, lying cold and dead on some foreign field while those who love us wait at home wondering if we’re safe and sound?” Case fell silent, aware that he had nobody to mourn him, but he’d been speaking for all soldiers, not just himself.

  Michael shook his head slowly. “No, Case. I’d no idea what it was to be a soldier. I was frightened to death before those battles…..” He took a deep breath and looked up. “I’m sorry, Case, ye saved my life by killing that sergeant, and here I am sore at ye for enjoying yeself with whores. I’m just thinking of that Bridget, so I am.”

  “Well don’t! She’s not worth the effort. If she wants to be with that German guy then you’re better off not wasting your time. Best you forget her and enjoy a proper whore rather than a pretend one. As soon as we get paid again I’ll drag you kicking and screaming to the bordello and pay the bustiest, feistiest girl there to screw your brains out.”

  “Ah hell, no Case. I’d much prefer to down a bottle of whiskey, so I would.”

  “Whatever,” Case grinned. The door suddenly banged and moved.

  “Hey, move aside, I want a piss!” a voice came from the other side.

  Case held onto the door. “You okay now?”

  Michael nodded. Case opened the door and an aggrieved looking solder staggered in. “Hell, Case, I nearly wet myself waiting there!”

  “Hell, Jackson, wh
y change a habit of a lifetime?” Case replied, dragging Michael out of the washroom.

  As the door shut Case swore he heard a muffled “fuck you” from Jackson.

  The weeks went past with the army still occupying the town. News was slow to get to them but when it did it brought a buzz of excitement. President Polk had asked for and got from Congress $10million and called for 50,000 volunteers to flock to arms against the Mexicans. News from home finally arrived but for Case and Michael, they got nothing. Case was puzzled; everyone else seemed to be getting letters from home, so why not the two of them?

  Michael said he didn’t understand either; he’d sent their letters and Jimmy’s home via the commissary back in Corpus Christi and the fact Jimmy had got a reply showed at least his had got home. Case really wanted to know what had happened with Ann’s birth and it ate at him a little.

  To pass the time Case got Michael drunk on tequila. They had no whiskey to drink so they got used to the local fire water. Michael was really sore at Bridget for betraying him and Case worried what would happen if the young man ever got back home to confront her. But Michael never went near the bordello; he seemed to have developed an aversion to women. Case made up for it by frequenting Senora Vazquez’s whenever he could. Some of the other soldiers caught gonorrhea from their visits but Case knew he was immune; sometimes being immortal had its advantages.

  The men also developed a taste for Mexican food. It was, as Kenny remarked after one belly-busting banquet in a Mexican taverna, a whole lot better than the inedible shit the army sutlers offered. General Taylor even had one sutler whipped in public for trying to sell rotten meat at a hugely inflated price to some troops.

  The summer was blisteringly hot, rather like the chilies in their food, and Case was thankful the army stayed put in Matamoros rather than march out and try to locate the Mexican army. Scouts rode out, however, and informed General Taylor that the enemy, under the aggressive General Ampudia, were fortifying the city of Monterey under a new Army of the North which outnumbered Taylor’s force by 2 to 1.

  All the time the new volunteers were arriving in Matamoros, a real mixture of old veterans and new recruits. Just as strength was being built up, a load of the new arrivals went down with dysentery. Taylor stalled, while the President wrote stronger and stronger letters urging him to march on Monterey.

  “I can’t march on the enemy with half my army shitting their guts out!” Taylor raged. “What the hell does he want us to do? Load the cannons with shit and bombard them with that? I’ve no transport, half my supplies are locked up between New Orleans and here and half my troops are in the goddam closet!”

  A few of the new arrivals came to replace the troops from Case’s company that had either died in battle or had been too badly wounded to continue, or had gone down sick and been transported back to New Orleans. One had been put in Case’s nine man squad; a man from Newfoundland called Ed Pickering. Pickering had declared a life in Newfoundland was too boring and he’d traveled to Boston where he’d seen a notice pasted up in the city asking for volunteers, so he’d done just that. He was a tall, fair-haired individual with an easy smile, smooth skin and deep brown eyes.

  “Beats fishing off the Cape,” he said, lying down in his bunk.

  “Odd choice for a fisherman,” Case commented, cleaning his musket, “thought you’d join the navy, not us foot soldiers.”

  Pickering grinned. “Don’t mind being at sea in peacetime, but if I’m going to fight I’d rather be on land. Can’t sink. Besides, I’d had enough of the sea, wanted to see more of the world.”

  Case grunted and resumed cleaning his gun. Barrack life revolved around parades, marching out of the town to practice shooting and spending free time in the brothels, bars or church, depending on your attitude to life. In fact, rivalries between various groups of men spilled into brawls, usually started in bars where tequila and other strong drinks were available. Case had to drag Michael out of one particularly vicious fight when the young Irishman picked on a broken-nosed German called Eisenfels. Michael, screaming furiously at the quietly drinking Eisenfels, attacked without provocation, calling him ‘Hans’ and threatening to castrate him with a broken bottle.

  The German smacked Michael in the jaw, laying him out with one blow, then all hell broke loose. Case picked up the unconscious man and carried him out into the evening air. He sat him against a wall and threw a handy bucket of not very clean water over him. Michael spluttered awake and looked round.

  “You stupid dumb young idiot!” Case snarled, “want to get yourself beaten to a pulp? What got into you anyway? That guy wasn’t doing anyone any harm, now look!”

  The fight was spilling out onto the street down the alleyway and it wouldn’t be long before the provosts appeared on the scene, breaking a few heads and faces. “He reminded me of Hans,” Michael wailed. “Oh Bridget!”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Case exploded. “You still can’t get that cock-teasing bitch out of your system. Right, there’s nothing to it but….” Case pulled the blubbering Michael to his feet and dragged him off down the alleyway. Turning right and then left he pulled him along to Senora Vazquez’s place. Throwing him onto one of the benches in the entryway, he sought out the madam. “I have two silver coins of Spain,” he said, placing them in Conchita’s palm. “I want this young man thoroughly exhausted by morning. Is Maria free?” Case knew all the girls by their first name. Maria was the olive-skinned girl.

  “Why, yes, Senor Case! She has just finished pleasuring a Major!”

  “Well this boy ain’t any major, but he’s needing a major session.”

  Conchita giggled and called Maria down. The girl appeared, smiled at Case, then looked with interest at the sobbing Michael. “What is wrong with him?”

  “Missing a bloody unfaithful girl back in Virginia,” Case complained. “I would like you to try to cure him of that.”

  “Oh well, I can but try, senor!” Maria said, arching her figure in front of Case.

  “I’ll return before day break to drag him back to camp. Be merciless, you she-devil!”

  Case left the bordello and returned to the bar where the provosts had rounded up some of the fighting soldiers and hauled them off to their compound. Inside the chairs and tables lay in a varying degree of disrepair but as things do, most of the patrons were drinking like nothing had happened. Some of those who had been fighting were now drinking together, bellowing out a particularly off-key version of Home Sweet Home, making Case wince.

  He sat alone in a corner, drinking quietly, savoring the drink, thinking deeply. He was in an environment he felt much happier with. Soldiering was in his blood, and he would rather be in a place like this than tilling the soil of some farm. He’d never felt entirely comfortable doing a job that didn’t involve the military in one way or another, even if at times he needed it to escape the war weariness he felt on those occasions he got tired of fighting.

  I suppose it’s what the Jew said on that damned cross, he mused, ‘soldier, you are content with what you are; therefore that is what you shall remain until we meet again.’ Maybe it was the curse that kept him returning to a soldier’s life. Who knows? Who cares?

  Today he was fighting for America. Tomorrow? Well, let that come and we’ll see. He drained the glass and looked at the night sky through the dusty and fly-blown window. It was time to get Michael. He grunted and rose. Something was eating that boy, something deep and traumatic. What it was he didn’t know but he’d try to find out. He stepped out into the pre-dawn air and yawned, cracking his muscles. I hope this damned war gets going again. Things are getting stale here. We need to get out of this town. He made his way to the bordello and found Michael upstairs sleeping, Maria sat on the bed next to him.

  “How is he?”

  “Drunk,” Maria said briefly. “He wanted to drink and talk. No sex.”

  Case frowned. “He’s an odd boy. Did he say anything of interest?”

  Maria shook her head. “Nothing, except
his life back in Virginia. He misses home.”

  “He had a bad experience with a girl. He’s here to try to forget her, but I don’t think he can. Oh well, up, boy! Time to get back to camp.”

  Michael moaned and turned over. Case grabbed him, slapped his face a couple of times and hauled him off the bed. “Come on, soldier! Report back to camp!”

  “Leave me alone!” Michael complained, rubbing his face. “Okay, okay! I’m coming.”

  Maria clucked and held the young man’s arm, guiding him down the stairs. Michael wasn’t too steady and Case waited impatiently at the bottom of the stairs for him. They left the building and the fresh air was too much for Michael, who toppled over.

  “Oh God!” Maria exclaimed, flapping her arms in worry. “What shall we do?”

  “Leave him,” Case said curtly, turning his back. As far as he was concerned, Michael was a grown man and if he was too incapable then it was his own affair. Besides, drunks usually had remarkable powers of recuperation. Sue enough, Michael got to his feet, shook his head and staggered after Case. Maria made a sound of exasperation and stood there, glaring at the two men.

  “Men! All you want is drink and women!”

  Case stopped, turned and nodded. “Yep. Both are bad for us but we need them. In huge quantities. If we didn’t you’d have to find another living, senorita.”

  Maria gasped in outrage and picked up a handy clod of earth lying by her feet. She hurled it towards Case, and it plopped harmlessly to the ground twenty feet short.

  Case grinned. “Thank you ma’am. Be seeing you.”

  “You pig! You have no feelings! You ugly American! Go to hell!”

  “I sure will, Maria. Maybe I’m already there.” He turned and walked off, Michael stumbling after him, lost in a world of alcohol and tiredness. They got back to camp before dawn and grabbed what sleep they could. Michael was still drunk and tired when the wake-up call came, and was picked out by Sergeant Mason, screaming in fury at him. Case sighed. He knew what was coming next.