Chapter IX Zorilla Attacks
Written by Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson, R.N.
I slept like a top for an hour, and woke up in a fright; I thought that little brute was trying to stab me, but it was only one of the local Englishmen, a man named Seymour, shaking me.
‘I’ll be more careful next time,’ he said, smiling and rubbing his shoulder where I’d caught him ‘one’ as he bent over me. ‘You yelled as if you were being murdered.’
‘I thought I was,’ I said, waking up.
He had just come back from Gerald, and had a message for me. Gerald wanted me to go out to him again. He was at a place called Marina, about eight miles along the coast-line, half-way to El Castellar, and was making it his headquarters for the night.
‘You’ll see lots of fun if you go out there,’ Seymour told me, ‘he has Zorilla’s army surrounded just above Alvarez’s farm, not two miles from Marina, and expects to collar the whole lot to-night or to-morrow morning. He’s done a great day’s work and has captured the last gun they have.’
He was sending his own buggy to Marina with Gerald’s bag, and offered me a lift.
You may bet I jumped at the offer; there was just time for me to have a wash and some tea; along came the carriage with two jolly smart ponies in it; one of the Club servants brought down Gerald’s kit-bag—one of the last presents the mater had given him before he left home—in I jumped, and away those ponies flew, bumping the carriage along at a fine rate.
There was no more going to sleep then—it was as much as I could do to hold on to my seat, and prevent myself being chucked out.
We rattled down to the foreshore and turned along the coast road, bowling along it at a great pace, every now and then meeting wounded men limping wearily towards San Fernando. Some of our own ward-room officers were tramping back to catch the ‘dinner’ boat off to the ship, and they must have envied me pretty considerably. Thank goodness, the Skipper had given me forty-eight hours’ leave, and I hadn’t to get aboard till to-morrow at noon. I was so jolly keen to see some more fun, and to tell Gerald how I’d managed to bring those guns back to San Fernando, that I forgot all about being so sleepy.
The road ran along the top of the beach, skirting the shore all the way, and the forest came right up to the side of it, and made it beautifully shady, but it was in such a terrible state of holes and ruts, crumbling down here and there on the beach side, and overgrown with bushes on the forest side, that it looked as if the sea and the forest between them would swallow it up pretty soon.
Four miles out from the town there were two poor chaps lying by the roadside; I expect they had been wounded during the night, and had tried to make their way into San Fernando, but died before they could do so. Horrid-looking crows, something like vultures, were hopping about round them. I hated the brutes—they hardly got out of the way of the wheels.
Just as it was getting dusk we passed some bungalows, and the native driver shouted, ‘Marina! El Casino!’ pointing ahead to a large building in front of us standing close to the beach.
‘Don Geraldio!’ he nodded.
Then we splashed through a stream, and it wasn’t too dark for me to see a little native chap squatting by the side of a low garden wall there, or to recognise him. It was that ex-policeman—I could see the scar on his forehead—somehow or other I was expecting to see him—and, without thinking, I jumped out of the carriage, stumbled for an instant, and then sprang at him, but he’d seen me too, and fled. I had Don Pedro’s revolver with me, and fired as he jumped the low wall and darted among some trees. I was after him in a second—of course I had missed him, I always was a rotten shot with a revolver at any time—and then he fired back, and a bullet sung past my elbow. I caught sight of his white shirt among the trees, and fired at him again, and he bolted out of the garden, across the road, and into the forest.
It was hopeless to follow him there.
The pistol-shots had frightened the ponies, and they were dashing madly along the road, Gerald’s kit-bag flying out. I picked it up, and lugged it along to the front of that big building—a gaudy-looking kind of place, nearly all windows, with a flat roof, verandahs and balconies all round it, and ‘El Casino,’ in big gilt letters over the door, half-hidden by a huge black and green flag which hung down over the entrance.
Gerald, surrounded by officers, was standing at the top of the steps, and I was only thankful that that little brute had not gone on another hundred yards.
‘Hello, Billums!’ Gerald sang out. ‘Got my bag all right? I thought, when the buggy dashed past a moment ago, that old Zorilla would get it. Come along with me, I’m going to have a shave and get into clean things.’
He took me along with him, and whilst he was shaving himself, and his little groom, José, was unpacking his bag, I told him about the ex-policeman.
‘For goodness’ sake, take care of yourself, Gerald,’ I said; ‘he’ll get you if he dies for it,’ but ‘Don’t worry,’ was all I could get out of him, as he scraped his face. I don’t mind telling you that I was thoroughly frightened—much more for Gerald than myself, though the more I bothered him to take some precautions, the more angry he got.
‘Blow it!’ he said; ‘you’ve made me cut myself. Confound these safety razors. My dear Billums, if he’s going to get me, he will. I’ll keep my eye skinned for the beast, but they’re all so much alike that you can’t tell t’other from which—scar or no scar. Nobody’s life is worth a cent in this country unless you trust to luck.’
‘But why don’t you have an escort?’ I pleaded.
‘Have an escort? My dear Billums, if I had an escort, they’d think I was afraid.’
I gave it up, and told him all about bringing those guns and ammunition-wagons back into San Fernando, and all the troubles I’d had with the officers and their men; I didn’t forget to tell him about the ‘Gnome’ coming up in the nick of time.
He was jolly pleased, though he didn’t say much. ‘That chap you call the ‘Gnome’ is one of the best people I’ve got, I don’t know what I should do without him.’
All this time orderlies came in and out, and Gerald did not seem to have a moment’s peace. Then a man came in with a note.
‘It’s from Zorilla,’ Gerald said. ‘He wants to know what’s become of Navarro, his fat little A.D.C. You ought to know—that chap with the cigarette case.’
I told him he had been taken on board the Hector.
‘Jolly glad,’ he said, sent for some paper, sat down with the soap lather on his face and a towel round his waist, and wrote a reply. ‘Wouldn’t be the proper thing not to write it myself.’
‘Tell Zorilla we found his horse, and have brought him into San Fernando,’ I sang out.
‘Good stroke, Billums, good stroke. We’ll send him back when he’s fit—always make friends of an enemy, especially if he’s a good chap like Zorilla,’ and he added a postscript.
‘Where is he?’ I asked, as the messenger darted away.
‘About three miles off—in another clearing, for the night.’
‘But the horse won’t be much good to him,’ I said, remembering what the Englishman had told me. ‘You’ve got him surrounded, and he must surrender, mustn’t he?’
‘Yes, I have,’ Gerald smiled, ‘three thousand men round about the same number. I don’t believe I have more—hundreds have gone off to their homes with loot. I tell you what. Old Zorilla isn’t beaten till he’s dead, and he may be up to any tricks to-night. It’s seven miles to El Castellar and it’s eight to San Fernando, and he’ll lose his job and his reputation if he falls back on the fort. He’s lost his guns, and he’ll get ’em back, and San Fernando too, if he dies for it. I know the dear old chap.’
‘I thought you’d won,’ I said, feeling very worried.
‘Oh, bother! You’ve never won in this country. The more you win, the more enemies you make—there are plenty of people, on our side, who want me out of it. That is why those chaps wouldn’t obey you this morning—they’re as jealous as thieves. I run the show, and they don’t like it—a good many of them don’t—not the men, the officers. They want their siesta in the middle of the day, and eight hours’ sleep besides—it’s the custom of the country—they don’t get it. They’ve always run revolutions on those lines, and I don’t.’
He’d dressed himself now and brushed his yellow hair well back. ‘That’s better; come along and have some grub.’
Well, I hadn’t any appetite, but he had—and ate a jolly good meal in spite of all the orderlies and officers coming and going. He did want to dine on the open verandah, close to the road, but I thought of that little beast creeping up with the revolver, and managed to get him into an inside room, by complaining of the cold. The air was so still that all the time he was eating we could hear firing going on far away in the forest, but that didn’t interfere with his appetite in the least. ‘Zorilla’s not made a move yet,’ he said at last. ‘Come and have a game of billiards,’ and we did actually play on a French table with balls as big as oranges, in a room overlooking the sea, the cool breeze blowing through wide-open windows, and the noise of rifle-shots almost drowned by the lazy noise of the water on the beach. José, who seemed to follow Gerald about like a dog, squatted in a corner, a young insurgent officer scored for us, and Gerald, playing stiffly with his bad arm, was as keen on beating me as if we had been in the pater’s billiard-room at home. We were half-way through the game, and he was piling up cannon after cannon, sprawling over the table to make his strokes, and I was standing at his side, when I suddenly heard something snap outside, saw the insurgent officer look out—fright on his face—turned my head, and there was that little beast, with a joyful smile on his ugly face, pointing a revolver straight through the window at Gerald.
I don’t know how I did it, but I’d pulled Gerald off the table, and he was sprawling on the floor, before the room filled with smoke and noise, and a bullet had cut clean across the green cloth. I saw the insurgent officer whip out a revolver and fire, I sprang out into the dark with mine, and José, with a yell, a machete in his hand, dashed past me, down on to the beach. But there wasn’t a sign of any one.
People rushed into the room, the lights were knocked out, and then Gerald sang out, asking what was the matter.
‘My dear Billums, I wouldn’t have had that happen for worlds,’ he said, when the lamps had been relighted, and I’d shown him where the bullet had ripped across the table.
‘What happen?’ I asked.
‘Why, you knocking me down, of course.’
He was quite hurt about it, and wanted to finish the game, said the cut across the cloth would make it all the more ‘sporting,’ but the noise of firing in the forest became more furious, and orderlies came in with news that Zorilla was on the move at last.
Gerald wrote out more orders and shrugged his shoulders. ‘He’s marching towards El Castellan. I suppose he thinks I shall try and prevent him.’
‘But won’t you?’ I asked.
‘My dear Billums, of course not; he can go there as fast as he likes. He thinks I shall try and get in front of him, and then he’ll double back to San Fernando. Not much! Come along and we’ll have a look round.’
I followed him out of the Casino—it was quite dark, the forest absolutely black—we mounted horses, and, with a lot of officers, trotted down the road. I was so nervous and overwrought in the dark lanes, which we presently rode through, that my heart thumped every time I heard ‘Quien Vive!’ or ‘Que Gente!’ called out by sentries or pickets we couldn’t see, and the murmurs of ‘Yuesencia!’ or ‘Don Geraldio!’ from hundreds of unseen mouths. Gerald found some officers and seemed satisfied; somehow or other we got back, and the night was so still, except for the distant firing, the rustling trees, and the very faint noise of the sea, and the darkness was so intense, that I was jolly glad to be inside the Casino again.
More orderlies were waiting for Gerald here, and a prisoner was dragged into the light.
‘That settles it,’ he said decisively, looking at the poor, miserable, frightened, whining brute. ‘He’s been caught in the El Castellar direction—where they are advancing. He belongs to the 5th Santa Cruz Cazedores—the worst fighters in the army. Old Zorilla wouldn’t put them there if he was in earnest. I’m going to bring back every man I can get hold of, place them the other side of that stream—down the road there—it runs nearly straight inland for four or five miles, and I wish to goodness the moon would come out.’
Whilst he was speaking, a whole crowd of bare-footed riflemen and machetos went silently past, going back towards San Fernando, the officers, haggard and dirty, stopping to salute Gerald and ask for orders before disappearing after them. It was the noiselessness of them all that was getting on my nerves, and the feeling of hopelessness at not being able to speak to any one except Gerald. All this time, too, I kept looking out for that ex-policeman, expecting him to spring out at any moment.
Every one who came along I half expected to be he, and little José, I think, did so too, standing close to Gerald, just like a cat, with a machete in his hand. Gerald saw it once, and made him throw it away, but he picked it up again when Gerald wasn’t looking.
The ‘Gnome’ appeared from somewhere, and I saw that my brother was very glad to see him—he came across to me, and we bowed, and I squeezed his hand. He was sent away along that stream with some men he’d brought. ‘Come and finish our game of billiards, Billums,’ Gerald sang out. Honestly I don’t know whether he was showing off, or was nervous, or whether he did really want to finish it, but we heard a heavy carriage splashing through that stream, and the new President—de Costa himself—appeared. They both went into the Casino and, I was thankful to see, into an upstairs room, where they couldn’t be shot at. I went with them and sat down in a chair—their voices seemed to be floating away somewhere—and the next I know was that little José was pulling at my sleeve, it was just getting light, very heavy firing was going on close by, yells and shrieks were coming from the forest, and men were running noisily along the road beneath the window. Gerald wasn’t there.
I sprang up and followed José. The Casino was empty, and, as I dashed out, a window, above me, broke and fell in little pieces at my feet. I heard bullets flying everywhere.
I looked down towards the stream, and people were lying on the road, beyond the ford, firing in our direction. José pulled me back behind the Casino, and we ran along the shore, waded through the stream as it flowed over the sands, and got behind our people. Gerald wasn’t there either, only the ‘Gnome,’ in his big hat, waddling backwards and forwards.
‘Geraldio? Don Geraldio?’ I asked, and he stopped a moment to point away up stream.
He was trying to stop the shooting, because there was nobody in sight, although bullets were flying past all the time, and very heavy firing was going on further inland. He managed to stop it presently, and then I had time to look round.
Just across the stream was the little wall under which the ex-policeman had been sitting last night. It enclosed the garden of a small bungalow, and one side of it ran along the road, and the other along the stream. It was light enough for me to see the road running up to the Casino, about a hundred and fifty yards further on—the black and green flag was still hanging there—and about three hundred yards beyond this it turned away to the left, and we could only see the glimmer of light on the water. As far as I could tell, we had none of our people in front of us, but it was impossible to make out anything in the forest, on the left of the road, and it turned out that we still had a lot of chaps there.
The ‘Gnome’ was extending his people down the beach, making them scrape up a kind of breastwork in the sand, right down to the edge of the sea. They began digging away like a lot of hungry wolves, and some of them had found fishing nets, and were laying them down on the far side of the stream. I suppose one always thinks the position one happens to be in must be the main point of attack, and I wished to goodness that Gerald would come along, for I didn’t like the way the chaps lying in the road kept looking back. I guessed that what Gerald had expected last night had happened, and that Zorilla had turned at last, and thought what a grand old chap he must be, after all his bad luck, to be able to make his disheartened, half-starved troops attack us.