Call to Arms

by Frederick Nolan

  ‘In the dictionary!’ came the time-honored reply. ‘Between agony and asshole!’

  Jonah Harvey heard the coarse burst of laughter behind him and wondered how men who knew they might be dead in an hour could laugh like that. All he could think of was the pounding in his head and the sick certainty in his stomach that he was going to be killed.

  The mean houses at the edge of town fell behind them. Up ahead they could see the squat hulk of the old fort. Beyond it lay the low line of trees and scrub timber that marked the edge of the river. Dust rose high behind them.

  ‘Good luck, so’jer boy!’ Gallehawk called and led his men away towards the river. Jed stood in the stirrups and looked back at his men, halted on the neck of land between the lagoon and the river.

  ‘Lieutenant Harvey, take your company in skirmish line to the east of the fort and await my signal!’

  ‘Sir!’ Harvey moved his men out.

  Jed nodded to Sergeant Rafferty, who snapped upright.

  ‘Carbines ready, I think, sergeant!’

  ‘Sor!’ Rafferty responded. ‘Troop, on the command, draw rifles. Troo-oop – drawhaw rifles!’

  The guns came out of their scabbards. Regulation First Cavalry issue was the Springfield pistol-carbine, but out here on the frontier, troopers horse-traded upwards for better weapons: a Sharps carbine maybe, or one of the much-coveted new Remington Army model revolvers. The result was a motley ragbag of firearms, but no less effective for that.

  ‘At the walk, forward, ho-oh!’ Jed shouted, pumping his arm up and down in the approved manner. As he did so he heard the echo of Harvey’s voice on the far side of the fort, a thin sound in the vast daylight.

  ‘At the trot, ho-oh!’

  The rumble of hoofs drowned everything except the sudden flat spiteful snap of small-arms’ fire up ahead of them. The Mexicans were running towards the broken bulwarks. The soft zip of bullets threaded through the air as the bugles blared and they thundered towards the earthen walls, two hundred, a hundred and fifty yards, a hundred. Jed could see dark-skinned men crouched behind piles of stone and hummocks of earth. The muzzle-flash of their guns looked like fireflies. The cavalry column rolled forward between the bastions, shouting, firing their guns. Jed heard screams, curses. He was icy calm and madly excited all at the same time.

  ‘Dismount!’ he shouted as loudly as he could. ‘Advance on foot!’

  He scrambled up on to the broken earthworks of the old fort. The Mexicans were all over the place, clambering over the broken walls like monkeys, firing their guns and then ducking back to safety. There was smoke everywhere and the constant flat clap of pistols being fired.

  Jed ran forward to the broken wall, conscious of other men to one side and behind him. A Mexican stood up and fired at him and Jed felt the air beside his head expand and contract as the bullet went by in the same moment that flame blossomed from the Mexican’s gun. He heard the ugly sound of a man being hit behind him as he shot the Mexican. The man went over backwards without a sound, as if he had never been there in the first place.

  A flicker of movement on Jed’s right made him turn. He saw one of the bandits fire a pistol point-blank into the face of Trooper Burke, who went backwards as if he had been hit with a two-by-four. Jed fired at the man. The hammer snapped. The man grinned evilly. Jed had time to notice that he had a squint as the man raised the gun and aimed it at him. Without conscious thought Jed leaped forward hitting the man with his pistol. The Mexican fell to his knees, his face a mess of broken bone and flesh, dropping his pistol. Jed snatched it up and shot him.

  He ran forward, shouting. His men were surging over the broken bastions and into the inner ring of the fort. Jed saw another Mexican and fired at him with the pistol. The bullet missed and the Mexican turned and fired hastily at Jed. Jed heard a cough behind him and turned to see one of his troopers, Gurney, sink to his knees, clutching his arm with a fist through which blood gouted. Shouting to his men to follow him, Jed moved ahead, leaping up on to one of the bastions so they could see him. He felt irresistible, immortal. There were three Mexicans below him, muskets in their hands, waiting. They saw him in the same instant that he saw them and he fired both of his pistols at them simultaneously. One of them got off a round that went zot! past Jed’s ear and whanged off the dried earth of the wall behind him. When the smoke cleared he saw one of the Mexicans lying flat on his back, arms and legs askew. The second one was on his side, his hands clutching his belly, while his feet propelled him around and around on the bloody earth. The third one leveled his rifle for another shot at Jed, but as he did so the troopers came up cheering and firing through the smoke and he was snatched off his feet like a leaf in a high wind. The soldiers rolled forward like a blue tide and the Mexicans fell back, back, regrouping for a moment here and there in twos or threes, firing at anything that moved. The skirmish line of troopers stretched prone, and laid a steady fire into the wreathing smoke. Jed fumbled cartridges into his pistol with hands that felt like a bunch of bananas. His heart was pounding mightily and his throat felt dry and tight. He did not know until someone told him later that there was a grin on his face that Satan might have envied.

  ‘Come on!’ he shouted to his men. ‘Come on!’

  He ran forward, crouching low, into the roiling smoke and dust, and saw that the Mexicans were all in the corral, trying to mount their panicking horses. Where the hell is Harvey? he wondered as he ran forward. A hail of bullets made him slew to one side and take refuge in a doorway. He saw another trooper slide into the dust, legs kicking high. He eased out of the doorway, and as he did so he heard the cheers of Harvey’s men on the far side of the corral.

  A big man with a flat expressionless face was in the center of the corral, shouting orders at the men around him. He had a knife-scar down one side of his face and wore a uniform with tarnished gold braid on the sleeves and shoulders. El Gato himself, Jed thought, running forward. As he did the man looked his way and for a fleeting second their eyes met. Then Jed reached the spot he was aiming for. Running up the dropped tail of a wagon, he leaped off the wagon bed in a crashing dive that smashed El Gato off his horse. The two men hit the earth with a bone-jarring crash. The hoofs of the frantic horses stomped around their flailing bodies. The Mexican was a giant of a man and strong with it. He smelled strongly of sweat and liquor. Jed hit him as hard as he could and heard the wind woof out of El Gato’s lungs. He got to one knee and clubbed him with his pistol. El Gato went down in the dust, rolling away, blood coursing down his jaw. His eyes were empty, mad. He came up with a gun in his hand, an enormous gun whose yawning bore looked like a cave. Jed kicked at it frantically as the bandit fired it, and the bullet boomed away into the sky. Again Jed hit the man with the empty pistol in his hand and El Gato went over sideways, the great gun falling from his nerveless hand. Jed stood up and, as he did, one of the Mexicans saw him through the churning dust and rode at him. The horse’s shoulder sent Jed reeling against the rough fence of the corral and he fell, winded, to one knee. There was a thunder of noise around him now. There was only one way for the Mexicans to retreat, and they were taking it, erupting out of the corral and thundering across the star-shaped, interior courtyard towards the gateless entrance of the fort. Jed saw El Gato, his shirt front soaked with blood, swing up into the saddle and spur his horse after his men.

  Jed ran across the corral and picked up the huge gun that El Gato had dropped. He ran out into the quadrangle and steadied himself against an upright, holding his right wrist tightly with his left hand, aiming the gun he had captured at the fleeing horsemen. The big gun boomed and he saw one of the men snatched out of the saddle as if he had hit a wire. In the rising dust, Jed saw the flickering glint of gold, and fired at the spot. As he did the dust swirled and he saw, as clearly as if he had been watching through a pair of binoculars, that the bullet had torn a great hole in El Gato’s body just below his ribs. The bandit lurched in the saddle, gasping in agony. My God! Jed thought, awed by the power of the weapo
n in his hands. This damned thing is like a cannon! He fired again and again as the Mexicans burst out of the entrance to the fort and out on to the open plain above the river, but whether his bullets, or those of the cheering cavalry troopers, brought down the fleeing Mexicans, who bounced like dummies on the sandy scrubland, Jed could not tell.

  He shouted for the buglers to sound the recall as the Mexicans, lashing their animals cruelly with quirts, thundered down towards the bank of the river west of the fort, where a sandbar halved its hundred-yard width. Spray glittered in the sunlight as the horses hit the shallows at a gallop, lunging clumsily in the water, unseating one or two men.

  Then all at once Gallehawk’s Rangers turned loose from the dense undergrowth where they had concealed themselves on the sandbar. A wall of death met the oncoming Mexicans, cutting a swathe through their ranks that was awful to see. Wounded men thrashed screaming in the suddenly bloody water; dead men floated face down like logs in the swift current. Volley after volley thundered as the Mexicans struggled in the heartless river. Men picked up and out of the saddle by the sheer weight of lead looked as if they were standing in their stirrups before leaping into the swirling water in one long, sliding, final motion.

  By this time Jed had his men positioned in two lines facing the river. The shattered Mexicans forced back from the edge of the river turned back towards the fort, and as they did, Jed gave the order to fire. Horses screamed in agony as they sprawled, thrashing wildly. Dead men littered the chaparral. The wounded shouted hoarsely for water, mother, God. The hanging smoke drifted away like a dream. It was over.

  Jed’s buglers began to blow assembly as the few Mexicans who had made it struggled out of the water on the far side of the river, spurring their horses towards Matamoros as fast as they could go. Jed saw for the first time that people from the town had come out to watch the fight. Some of them were moving among the wounded with water. He delegated the task of calling the roll and counting casualties to Harvey, and rode down to where Gallehawk was regrouping his Rangers on the bank of the river. The dour Texan looked up, unsmiling, as Jed called his name.

  ‘Well, so’jer boy,’ he said. ‘You did all right.’

  Jed looked at the Rangers. Their faces revealed nothing.

  ‘Anyone wounded?’ he said.

  ‘Eight dead,’ Gallehawk told him. ‘But no wounded.’

  ‘I’ll organize a burial detail,’ Jed said.

  ‘I’d be obliged. How many o’ yore people hurt?’

  ‘Lieutenant Harvey’s just calling the roll.’ Jed looked back across the open plain. The troopers were already drawn up in columns of four. Jonah Harvey came across on his horse.

  ‘Ready to move out, lieutenant,’ he said.

  ‘Casualties?’

  ‘Four dead, eight wounded, two of them pretty seriously.’

  ‘What about the Mexicans?’

  ‘Haven’t counted the dead,’ Harvey said. ‘Some of the wounded have crawled away and hidden. The Brownsville people are out hunting them.’

  ‘Keep an eye on those people, Jonah!’ Jed snapped. ‘I want no butchery!’

  ‘I’ve sent Rafferty and the other sergeants to make sure that prisoners are brought in alive, if possible,’ Jonah said. ‘Do you want me to impress some of the civilians into a burial detail?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Gallehawk said. ‘Tell ’em if they don’t bury them, we’ll leave these Messicans to stink up their town even worse than it already stinks.’

  ‘One more thing, Jed,’ Jonah said. ‘There’s a deputation waiting to talk to you. The alcalde, some of the local merchants.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Want to thank you for chasing El Gato, I imagine.’ Jed looked at Gallehawk. ‘We didn’t do it alone,’ he said. ‘You care to join me, colonel?’

  Gallehawk grinned. ‘That’ll be the day,’ he said.

  By the time the dead had been properly buried and the wounded tended, it was almost dark. Jed decided to bivouac the men near the scene of their victory, while he and Harvey fulfilled their obligations. Dinner with the Brownsville notables was a prospect considerably less than enticing, but it was part of an officer’s duty to promote goodwill, especially on foreign borders.

  It took Jed longer than he expected to shake off the after-action lethargy which gripped him. He had experienced it before, but not like this. All he wanted to do was fall on to a bunk somewhere and go to sleep.

  ‘I could do with a couple of stiff whiskeys, Jonah,’ Jed told his friend as they dressed. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Damned right!’ Jonah replied.

  They rode into town slowly, as if each sensed the other’s reluctance to socialize. But their silence was companionable and conducive to confidences.

  ‘You were a fighting fool out there today, Jonah!’ Jed said. His friend’s face was unreadable in the faint light of the stars. The horses plodded on. Then, as if he was afraid the words would not come at all unless he said them in a rush, Jonah blurted out what was bothering him.

  ‘I’ll tell you the truth, Jed,’ he confessed. ‘I was scared shitless!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was scared, Jed. I’ve never been so scared in all my life. The only thing that kept me functioning was the fact I was even more scared of anybody noticing how scared I really was.’

  Jed shook his head. ‘That why you got drunk?’

  ‘That’s why,’ Jonah said. ‘I realized we were going into action. That I might get killed. This precious, wonderful person: me! I just fell apart, Jed. I never fired a gun in anger before today.’

  ‘Damned fool!’ Jed said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I was too ashamed.’

  ‘You think you’re the only one it ever happened to?’

  Jonah looked at him, but said nothing. He thinks I’m saying it to make him feel better, Jed thought. He felt a surge of affection for his friend. It was one thing to be afraid. It was quite another to think that, among a hundred men, you were the only one who was.

  ‘Jonah, listen to me,’ he said. ‘Anybody who’s got a lick of sense gets nervous before a fight. It’s the most natural thing in the world.’

  ‘Oh, sure.’

  ‘It’s true, you damned idiot!’ Jed said, exasperatedly. ‘I’ve been in this man’s army for six years; I know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen good men weeping the night before a fight, sure they’re doomed to die. I’ve seen men run gibbering from a skirmish where the biggest danger was putting your ankle in a gopher hole. There’s no pattern to it. Sometimes it’s worse than others, but one you can be sure of: everybody gets it, one time or another.’

  Jonah looked at him again: ‘Honest, Jed?’ he said.

  ‘Would I lie to you?’ Jed grinned.

  ‘Damned right you would,’ Jonah growled, but Jed sensed his relief.

  The deputy-governor’s house was large and imposing. It was surrounded by a low stone wall with cultivated bougainvillea and fruit trees growing behind it. The house itself was U-shaped, the two arms enclosing a cool stone patio with a tinkling fountain. Someone was playing a guitar: Cielito Undo, Jed thought, recognizing the melody. A peon took their horses away and a serving woman showed them into a stone-floored hall. On the walls hung several old oil paintings and a pair of fine Toledo dueling swords.

  ‘Señores, gentlemen!’

  They turned to see a tall, stooped man coming down the polished wooden staircase. His hair was pure white, his dark eyes lively. His face was lined, and there were liver spots of age on the backs of his hands, but his grip was firm as he welcomed them. His name was Antonio Lopez y Varga; he apologized for the absence of the governor who was visiting his family in Mexico.

  ‘Permit me to introduce you to our other guests. Come in, come in! José, a copita for our brave guests!’

  They were introduced to the town’s leading merchant, Sam Wilkes, a portly man who told them he had come to Texas from Cincinnati. His wife was a pudding-faced woman with limp black hair and a
n incipient moustache. She spoke with the flat Kansas drawl.

  ‘May I also introduce to you my nephew, Coronet Rodolfo Lopez y Hoya,’ Varga continued. ‘And the Señorita Maria Gonzales y Cordoba, who is visiting us from San Antonio.’

  The Mexican officer was tall and slender, with a thin, foxy face and eyes that seemed to glitter with contempt. Jed hardly saw the man: he saw nothing except Maria Gonzales y Cordoba. For the first time Jed experienced the truth of a cliché: she took his breath away.

  She was not beautiful and yet she caught the eye and held it. Her hair was as black as the wing of a raven, her eyes dark and frank, her mouth full. She wore a dress of green silk and her bare shoulders were covered by a beautifully embroidered shawl. When she smiled, it was impossible not to smile back. She was striking, Jed thought, but he saw pride too, and courage and intelligence in the fine dark eyes.

  He bent low over her hand, aware of the strongest feelings of attraction towards this woman and wondering at them. He was more than old enough now to know the difference between the quick burst of lust that runs in every man’s juices when he meets a beautiful woman, and the deeper, more meaningful knowing that is beyond conscious impulse. Something about this one drew him and held him and he knew that she had sensed it too. There was just the faintest hint of uneasiness in her eyes as he stepped back and Jonah Harvey moved forward to take her hand. Jed realized that Maria had the same effect on his brother officer and thought it might well be she had that effect upon many men.

  He saw Harvey’s back straighten and tense, like a good horse awaiting the sound of the charge. Jonah’s deep set and somewhat mournful eyes gleamed with his delight in the girl’s beauty, and the conquering instinct rose inside him and fashioned a broad and handsome smile. He ran a hand through his too-long hair, an instinctive preening that Maria did not miss, any more than she missed the slight swagger to show off the uniform, briskly brushed clean before this meeting, the trousers with their broad yellow stripe, the bright-buttoned fatigue jacket, the white wing collar and the black cravat.