by Blake, J
Sergeant Lawrence now suggested they take advantage of the cathouse upstairs while they had the chance. “I hear tell Mexicaner poon is right nice stuff, but it’s like to be a while afore you boys get ye a chance at it.”
They had not known of the brothel upstairs and were all of them hurrying for the stairs even as Lawrence was still talking.
John’s girl was a pretty blackhaired Cajun missing a front tooth. She had a heavy accent and the thickest pubic bush he’d ever seen. He relished the springy feel of it under his hand, against his belly. Her taste was of riverwater and he couldn’t get enough of fondling her breasts and the swells of her hips and buttocks, kissing her, tonguing her thick nipples. She was a goodhearted girl who had not long been in the business and she smiled on his hunger and said she guessed it’d been a while, huh. When he entered her for the second time she giggled and clutched him to her and said nothing about having to pay again.
That afternoon Lawrence led them down the docks to a waiting steamboat where some forty other recruits were already on board and hooting at them to hurry along, goddamn it. Sergeant Lawrence got them aboard and waved farewell from the dock as lines were cast and whistles shrieked and the steamer set out downriver under thick plumes of purple smoke arcing from its stacks.
They entered the open gulf under a brilliant blue sky full of screeching white seagulls. “Well old son,” Lucas said, staring back at the receding delta, “I reckon we off to see the elephant, sure enough.”
11
In command of the party of recruits was one Lieutenant Stottlemeyer who generally kept to his quarters and left the troops’ daily training to a Sergeant Frome. Frome roused the men every morning before daybreak and as soon as they had done with their mess he put them out on deck to drill the morning long as the dark shoreline slowly and easily lifted and fell on the north horizon. Occasionally a man broke ranks to run to the rail and cast up his breakfast to the sea. The early part of each afternoon was given over to washing clothes and cleaning gear, to learning military organization and regulations and general orders and the chain of command. Then came rifle practice off the stern. They shot at bottles and tins bobbing in the steamer’s wake and they made bets and John won most of them. He gained a quick reputation as the deadeye on board. Following the shooting session the men were put to cleaning their rifles and then ordered into formation and Lieutenant Stottlemeyer would come out to make his afternoon weapons inspection. That done, the day’s duties were at an end but for those assigned to the night guard. Each day’s posting of the guard roster met with grumbling from those whose names were on it, and no one grumbled louder than Lucas Malone.
“What in the hell we guardin against?” he carped. “We’re out on the damn ocean, for the love of Jesus! Anybody really think some Mexican’s gonna swim out here to this boat and sneak aboard and cut your throat in the middle of the night? Bad enough we spend ever damn morning marchin around like we gonna impress the Mexicans to death, but this guardin against nothin but the seagulls aint but a lot of stuff, you ask me.”
To which Sergeant Frome would invariably respond: “Aint nobody askin you, Malone. And you best get holt a that loose tongue.”
To which Lucas Malone’s invariable response would be to wait until Frome turned his back and then stick out his tongue and pinch it between two fingers and cross his eyes and give a twisted lefthanded salute. The other recruits would burst out laughing and Frome would whirl about to see Lucas affecting to study his fingernails.
John thought he himself might be the only man on board who liked guard duty in the dead of the night. He liked being alone on deck when the passing sea was silverish purple under the moon and the sky was a riot of stars. Every now and then some large swimming thing broke the surface hard by the ship and trailed a greenyellow fire. The only sounds were of the paddles churning through the water and the stays humming in the saltwind. Since his first look at the ocean back in Pensacola he had wondered if he were perhaps a seafarer at heart. In these solitary hours of watching the night sea rolling by he thought he surely was.
Two weeks out of New Orleans they were struck by a norther that blacked the sky for the next two days and raised eight-foot swells the color of lead. The steamboat rose and dropped and the wind howled in the craft’s every crevice. Waves burst white over the decks. Most of the troop became seasick at the boat’s first marked undulations and by the end of the storm’s first day the whole vessel reeked of vomit. Like most of the other recruits Lucas Malone kept to quarters with his head hanging over the edge of his bunk and sporadically added to the coat of puke on the deck. Even some of the crewmen were unable to keep food on their roiled stomachs. Among the recruits only John and a fellow named Jimmy Zane who’d been a lighter crewman along the Mississippi coast were not bothered by the steamer’s relentless pitch and roll. They went topside and clung to the rail and hollered with delight as the seaspray stung their faces and the wind tossed their hair wild. They then went below to the galley laughing and shivering in their dripping clothes to warm themselves with cups of hot coffee.
12
On a bright clear morning a week later they were anchored outside the shallows of Corpus Christi Bay and across from the wide sandy bight where lay the mouth of the Nueces River. Even before they’d come around the barrier islands and hove into view of the mainland they’d seen the dust and smoke rising off the seven-month-old encampment of General Zachary Taylor’s army of 3,500 men. Beyond the camp lay the town of Corpus Christi itself, whose population had swelled from 2,000 before the arrival of the army to tens of thousands now. It had become a sprawling enterprise of whiskey sellers, outfitters, thieves, gamblers, whores, sutlers, and troupes of entertainers. And the larger the town had grown the worse had become Taylor’s problems with drunkenness and brawling among his troops and a general erosion of discipline in the ranks.
They lowered into lighters to be conveyed across the bay. As they closed in on the river landing they saw that the camp was in high commotion. Work details were busy everywhere, striking tents, loading wagons, hitching them to teams of oxen and mules, lining them in formation, wrangling and saddling horses. The air was clamorous with blatting regimental bands and barking dogs, shrilling horses and bellowing men. The sense was of chaos barely contained. The helmsman laughed at the recruits’ excitement and said, “You boys here just in time to get moving with Old Zack to the Rio Grande. Second Dragoons done left yesterday.”
“The Rio Grande!” a recruit said. “Is war been declared?”
“Not yet it aint,” the helmsman said with a blacktoothed grin. “But some Mexican shoot you in the head afore it is you gone be just as dead.”
They were met at the landing by a personnel officer and his assistants who swiftly processed each man’s papers and assigned him to a unit and directed him to one of a handful of waiting company sergeants. John and Lucas and the Mississipian Jimmy Zane were among five assigned to Company A of the Fifth Infantry. They were turned over to a short hard-faced master sergeant named Kaufmann who ordered, “Fall in, goddamnit, and follow me.”
He led them through the dusty hubbub of the massive but orderly process of an army readying itself to march a long way. They wended through a maze of tents still standing and around groups of soldiers tending to their equipment who hooted at them and called “New fish!” at their passing. At the perimeter of the officers’ billets Master Sergeant Kaufmann told them to stay in place and then went to one of the large tents and announced himself and was granted entry. A few yards away in a small roped-off square a hatless soldier stood on a barrel with his hands tied behind him and a handlettered sign hung round his neck. The sign read I AM A JACKASS. Lucas Malone called to him: “Say bucko, what was it ye done to earn youself that place of honor?” The hapless soldier made no response but only stared glumly at his feet.
A minute later Kaufmann reemerged in the company of a young captain whose hat was set at a rakish angle. He stood before them with hands clasped behind him. H
is boots shone black and his brass buttons gleamed, “I am Captain Merrill,” he said, “commanding officer, A Company, Fifth Infantry. I welcome you and have but one thing to say to you and I say it with all possible fervor: Soldier well. We have no place for the man who will not soldier well. We have no tolerance for him, we have no pity. So soldier well and trust in the Lord. That is all. They’re yours, Master Sergeant.” He turned on his heel and went back in his tent.
John glanced at Lucas Malone who cast up his eyes. Kaufmann barked, “This way!” and ushered them to a supply wagon where they were outfitted with full field packs and powder flasks and pouches of ammunition for the Jaegers. He then led them to A Company’s position and introduced a beefy man named Willeford as their platoon sergeant. The platoon was busy packing gear and few men gave them notice.
“Before I turn you over to Sergeant Willeford,” Kaufmann said, “I want to make something real clear to all you. Any a you steps one goddamn foot out of line I’ll kick your ass black and blue and that’s a fucken promise. We gone have a war to fight real soon and we got no goddamn time for foolishness. Do what you’re told and do it smartly. I got no use for peckerwoods aint able to be a proper soldier.”
Jimmy Zane leaned over to John with a small grin and whispered, “Kiss my ass if it aint one damn bossman or another making threats at us.”
Kaufmann heard him. He stepped up to him and because Jimmy Zane was almost as short as he was he did not have to crane his neck as he usually did when he was face-to-face with a man. “I guess you don’t hear too good,” he said. “Or maybe you just can’t be bothered to pay attention.”
Jimmy Zane smiled lazily. “I hear all right,” he said.
Kaufmann drove his knee up hard between Jimmy Zane’s legs. The recruit’s eyes bugged and his mouth fell open and Kaufmann punched him in the stomach with his whole shoulder behind the blow. Jimmy Zane’s slung rifle slipped from his shoulder as he fell to all fours. His face turned darkly purple and he could not breathe. The rest of the platoon had quickly gathered about with faces avid for a violent entertainment.
Willeford stepped between Kaufmann and Jimmy Zane and said, “Hold on, Bill, it’s enough. Christ, he’s new fish, he didn’t know no better. You taught him plenty just now.”
Jimmy Zane was at last able to pull in a breath and he promptly vomited. Kaufmann pushed Willeford aside and squatted beside the gagging recruit and grabbed him by the hair and jerked his head back so he could look him in the face. Jimmy Zane’s eyes were bloodshot and tearful. His belly convulsed again and vomit welled from his mouth and ran off his chin.
“Next time I’ll go hard on you, boy,” Kaufmann told him. “Ye best remember it.” He released him and stood and looked at the other new men and said, “That holds for all you. It’s warning to you as much as—”
“Atten-HUTY!” someone shouted, and every man drew stiffly upright but for Jimmy Zane, who remained on hands and knees, still gasping and puking by turns.
“At your ease!” The voice was gravelly and almost bored. John turned and beheld General Zachary Taylor, Old Rough and Ready himself. He knew him on the instant, this famous hero of the Florida Indian wars, had seen his ink-drawn likeness in newspapers, on posters in New Orleans. Gray and weathered he was, with a face that looked hard enough to blunt a hatchet, wearing his farmer’s outfit of straw hat, checked gingham coat, pants of dirty burlap. He was mounted sidesaddle on Old Whitey—the horse’s name known to every man in camp—and flanked by a coterie of a half-dozen officers. He leaned forward and spat a streak of tobacco, then nodded at Jimmy Zane and said, “What’s troubling that man, Master Sergeant?”
Kaufmann stepped forward and saluted smartly. “Naught but a dose of discipline, General. Man was insubordinate. He’s new fish, sir, but it aint no excuse.”
Taylor regarded Kaufmann carefully and slowly nodded. He looked at Jimmy Zane now gaining his feet. “Son,” he said gently, “look up here.” Jimmy Zane lifted his red eyes and wiped vomit from his chin with his sleeve.
“Now boy, you look to have a proper wit,” Taylor said. “So I reckon you’ll understand me when I say there’s damn good reason for a chain of command and only a purebred fool tries to rattle it. An army without discipline is no more than a mob, and mobs don’t win wars. Follow orders, son. Follow orders and do your duty. I know you’ll make us proud.” He put the white horse forward and the other officers heeled their mounts after him.
Kaufmann looked hard at Jimmy Zane and pointed a finger at him in final warning and then turned and strode away. As the crowd of spectators broke up, a corporal called out to Jimmy Zane, “Welcome to the Yoo-nited States Army, new fish,” and several soldiers laughed.
Watching Kaufmann go, John said, “I believe somebody ought beat down that little bullying bastard.”
Lucas said, “I’d like to be that somebody, what I believe.”
13
Working alongside their new comrades that afternoon they found it was as the young volunteers in Baton Rogue had said: there were men in this army whose English they could barely understand, men who spoke the language not at all and could understand none of it save basic military commands. The English spoken in the ranks was tangled in a dozen accents. The brogue of Eire was commonplace. The ranks abounded with Irishmen fled from the Famine and landed among a people who loathed them for immigrant Catholic rabble and posted signs on their establishment doors: “No dogs or Irish allowed.” In Boston and Philadelphia and Saint Louis, Catholic churches had been burned in riotous protest against the waves of papist potatoheads washing up on American shores. Only the army offered the newly arrived Irishman a ready place, as it did other foreigners as well—Germans mostly, some French, a few Swedes and Dutchmen, and men whose place of origin and native tongue would ever remain a mystery. Some of these immigrants knew only the soldier’s trade and would have come to the ranks in any case, but most had no trade at all and enlisted solely of economic need. Naturally their patriotism was held suspect and they were often found wanting by their native-born Protestant officers. And so naturally they suffered the greatest portion of punishments. And so naturally they were many of them embittered.
As they busily struck and rolled tents Jimmy Zane’s muttered curses about Kaufmann met with derision from his new platoon mates. “Shitfire,” a soldier from Kentucky said, “that warnt nary punishment. I knew a feller in the Second Infantry was made to sit astraddle a sawhorse with his hands tied behind him and a twenty-pound weight hung on each foot. Made to sit like that for twelve hours. Said his balls and asshole ached for a month after. Said ever time he took a piss it stood him on his toes. Know what for he got punished thataway? Laughing. He laughed during roll call.”
Another told of punching a sergeant who’d kicked him for being slow to rise from his bunk one morning. As punishment he was fined six months’ pay and made to carry a thirty-pound iron ball everywhere he went for the next two months. “It was chained round me waist, it was, so I couldnt set the bloody thing down for a fucking minute except I sat on the ground and laid it beside me. It was a job to take a piss, I tell ye. Had to do it on me knees. End of the day me back was sore as a whore’s with the holding of it. It give me arms like Hercules and the back of an old man, it did. Hell, a knee in the walnuts is nothing to carrying that iron ball for two goddamn months.”
“You think that is fucking punish?” a soldier with a heavy Prussian accent asked him. “Look to here what happens for I hit a sergeant.” He stripped off his shirt and exposed a back crosshatched with pink ropy scars left of a flogging endured more than a year before. “This is twenty lash,” he said. “I seen some have forty. Fifty. I seen some die.”
“Why’d you hit him?” a young recruit asked.
The Prussian looked at him as a parent upon a slow-witted child. “Because he is deserving it is why.”
A private named O’Malley showed them his outsized thumb knuckles, the consequence of being hoisted to his tiptoes by his bound thumbs and let to hang t
hat way for two hours with a gag in his mouth. “Most times they’ll do ye by the wrists and then it aint so bad,” he said. Someone asked what he’d done to get that punishment and he said he couldn’t quite remember. “I was bloody drunk at the time but I have a wee recollection of some son of a bitch calling me a damned Catholic cannibal.”
They heard too all about the “yoke,” an iron collar weighing eight pounds and fitted with three prongs, each a foot long. “After the first coupla hours it feels like your neckbone’s about broke,” said a soldier bearing a “T” brand under one eye. “And just try sleeping with one a them things round you neck.”
Commonplace was the buck and gag, whereby the malefactor was made to sit on the ground with his heels drawn up against his buttocks and his hands tied together around his knees and a stout stick positioned under his knees and over his arms and a gag placed snugly in his mouth. One among them told of being bucked and gagged on the same long pole with three friends for an entire day and night in near-freezing weather. They were guilty of failing to return to camp at the end of an evening’s pass and then coming in drunk the next morning. “When they finally set us loose from that buck we couldn’t hardly stand up. I thought my back would be crooked the rest of my days. I thought my hands would hang to my knees forever. And sitting on that cold ground gave me a pile the size a your thumb, I aint lying.”
“You see now, new fish,” a soldier said to Jimmy Zane, “that wasn’t hardly punishment ye got from Kaufmann. The sarge just wanted your attention is all.”
14
They were on the move before daybreak in the rising dust of hundreds of wagons and draft animals and thousands of marching feet. The bands blared “Hail Columbia” and “Yankee Doodle” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The infantry sergeants sang cadence and Mexican muleteers cracked their whips and exhorted their teams in profane Spanish amid the rumble of hooves and clatter of wheels, the rattle of armament and harness rings. They followed the Nueces westward, away from the coastal marshlands and out to the firmer ground of the prairie and there made their turn south. Mexican sheepherders fifteen miles downcountry felt the ground quiver under their feet and spied the dust raised by the coming of the Yankee killing machine and made swift signs of the cross.