Chapter VIII Zorilla Loses His Guns
Written by Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson, R.N.
As I stood there, rather nervous and uncertain what to do, listening to the queer noises which were coming up from the clearing, where Zorilla’s army had camped the night before, I heard the sound of naked feet, and stepped back among the dark trees. There was just sufficient grey light for me to see the road, and, as I watched it, two natives, breathing very heavily, hurried past me. They were weighed down with all sort of things; one had a saddle over his head and a huge cavalry sword under his arm, and the other had covered himself from head to foot with a blue cavalry cloak.
I guessed now what those noises were, and felt certain that Gerald’s people were busy in the clearing looting the camp. I don’t quite know why I went down there, but I did, and it was a most extraordinary sight in the uncertain light. First I came to that field-gun which had fired at us, its wheels and small shields white with bullet-marks. An empty ammunition limber was standing behind it, and the naked bodies of two dead men lay close by, mixed up with some dead mules. I stepped across them, and came upon a lot of regulars sitting at each side of the road, quite a couple of hundred of them, with their hands tied behind their backs. Poor wretches, they looked as if they expected death at any moment.
Hundreds of natives were swarming round some wagons, hauling boxes out, forcing them open with their machetes and scattering the contents on the ground; and a dozen of them were fighting over a case of brandy, breaking the necks off the bottles, and cutting their faces and hands in their struggles to drink some of the stuff. Nobody was taking the slightest notice of two field-guns, with their limbers and mule teams, which were standing in the road a few yards further down. The little half-drunken brutes were simply looting as hard as they could, not even troubling to pick up the rifles which lay about in hundreds. I felt sure that Gerald had sent them to take the guns into San Fernando, and, jolly angry, strode down between the two rows of prisoners, who, seeing me, thought I was Gerald, and began singing out a whining ‘Don Geraldio! Don Geraldio!’ I saw by their uniforms that they belonged to the same regiment as those fellows who had collared me in Santa Cruz, and that didn’t make me love them any more, but their mistaking me for Gerald gave me an idea.
Close by, an officer lay drunk as a fiddler, another had broken the neck of a champagne bottle, and was trying to swallow the stuff before it bubbled all away. I seized him by the neck, knocked the bottle out of his hand, and shook him.
He turned round, looked at me, and fell on his knees in absolute terror. I jerked him to his feet, singing out, ‘San Fernando!’ sweeping my arm round the camp, pointing to the guns, and then along the road towards the barricade.
‘San Fernando!’ I roared. He had a revolver in his belt, I pulled it out—it was unloaded, but that did not matter—and ran up to the wagons, kicking and cuffing the miserable wretches. They shrieked out, ‘Don Geraldio!’ and bolted, but two of them.—rather drunk they were—came for me with their machetes, and didn’t stop when I pointed the revolver at them.
It was a jolly awkward moment, but I gave the first a blow on the point of his jaw, which knocked him flying, and before the second could get at me, there were shouts of ‘Yuesencia! Yuesencia!’ and the officer from whom I had taken the champagne bottle cut him down, clean from the top of his skull to his mouth. He did it with a machete. More officers—half fuddled—came running up, and whether they thought I was Gerald or not, they were in a hopeless fright, and began to lay about them with the flat of their swords, and soon got their natives into order, although I saw a good many of them stealing away among the trees, laden with spoil.
Ugh! the brutes had evidently killed all the wounded. It was a perfectly sickening sight. I was beside myself with rage.
Then just as some mules were being hitched to that first field-gun, I saw a native trying to lead away a big black horse. The poor beast was limping badly every step he took, and the man was beating him cruelly. I rushed across, and the man saw me coming, and ran off. The horse had a very elaborate head-stall and blue saddle-cloth, and I felt certain that I had seen him somewhere before. ‘Poor old fellow,’ I said, stroking his nose. He was simply sweating with pain, and seemed to know I was a friend. I rubbed my hand down his legs, and looked at his feet, and soon found what the mischief was. One of his rear shoes was half off, and a projecting nail had made a gash in his frog, so no wonder the poor old chap was in such pain.
I found a bayonet and managed to lever the shoe off altogether, and then led him up to the field-gun. He came along as gently as a lamb, still limping a bit, but I do believe he was grateful, and as I led him between the lines of prisoners, one of them got quite excited, struggling to his knees, then to his feet, singing out, ‘Yuesencia! El General! General Zorilla! Caballo del General Zorilla.’
Ah! now I knew. He was the very horse on which Bob, the ‘Angel,’ and I had seen Zorilla ride across the square at Santa Cruz. He seemed to know the prisoner, so I thought he might have been his groom, and undid the cord round his arms. Directly they were free, he threw them round the horse’s neck and loved him.
‘San Fernando!’ I said, pointing up the road, and he nodded, ‘Bueno, Señor! Bueno, Yuesencia!’ and was as pleased as Punch.
The officers had, meanwhile, found enough mules for all three guns, and I sent them rumbling and rattling up towards the barricade, which the natives were already hauling away. You may bet your life I was jolly glad to see them make a start, for I knew that they were worth all the world to Gerald, and there was always the chance of some of Zorilla’s regulars turning up and recapturing them.
There were not mules enough for all the wagons—I felt perfectly certain that the natives had simply bolted into the forest with a lot of them—but there were sufficient for four, and I chose two, full of field-gun ammunition, and sent them up the road, and then we set about and collected all the rifles lying on the ground, and as many boxes of rifle ammunition as we could stow on another two, and I felt jolly pleased with myself when all four were jolting on their way to San Fernando. I made the officers understand that the prisoners’ arms were to be untied, but it wasn’t till I began cutting the cords adrift myself that they, rather sullenly, ordered their men to release the others. You can just imagine how gratefully they looked at me, and I felt certain that they wouldn’t be such fools as to try and escape, with five hundred fierce little machetos all round them, and thousands more in the forest. It was quite light by the time every one was under way, and I began to feel most horribly hungry and tired. Up above in the clear sky a number of vultures were slowly circling round and round with their long necks stretching downwards, waiting till we went away before they came down for their horrible feast, and as I left the clearing, and looked back, I saw any number of the little brown men sneaking out of the woods again to carry on looting, but I couldn’t be bothered with them, and they would keep those vultures away. I had rescued all that was most valuable, and wanted to get back to San Fernando as quickly as possible.
When we got up to where poor little Navarro was lying, by the roadside, I gave him some brandy from a bottle I’d stowed away in a wagon; it did him a power of good, and he now seemed quite sensible, looking very miserable when he saw the guns coming along.
‘The horse of El General,’ he said sadly, as the black horse limped past with the groom.
I put him on top of one of the wagons, but the jolting was so painful that he had to be carried on the litter again. He knew me all right now, and I gave him back my cigarette case, pulling his own out of my pocket to show him.
‘San Sebastian,’ he said, smiling; ‘I remember always.’
Well, off we went, the three guns and the four wagons on ahead, the two hundred prisoners, surrounded by the little machetos, marching behind them, and Navarro, on his litter, the groom with Zorilla’s black horse, and myself, on my little stallion, ‘Jim,’ bringing up the rear. I’d found some ammunition for that revolver, and had loaded it, but my face and yellowish hair was all that was wanted to make any one obey me, and I rode along on my tired little horse, absolutely bossing the show.
You may laugh if you like, but there I was in charge of the whole blooming crowd, feeling simply dead tired, but kept awake by the excitement of it.
‘Any one assisting the aforesaid Gerald Wilson——’ kept running through my head, and I grinned every time I thought of it.
At about ten or half-past we came to that wayside inn where Gerald and I had had those omelettes last night. It was most appallingly hot, and, though there was no food there, I determined to halt for an hour to rest the mules and men.
The prisoners lay down at the sides of the roads, under the shade, the little machetos curled up under the trees, and went to sleep in a twinkling, the officers went into the inn, and Navarro’s stretcher was laid down outside it, in the shade of the projecting roof. I could hardly keep my eyes open, and dare not even sit down for fear of falling asleep, because I wasn’t going to trust those officers again. They didn’t look in the least pleased (of course by this time they knew that I wasn’t Gerald), and a good many of their men had a sullen look on their faces, which I didn’t like a little bit. Still, so long as I kept my eye on them I wasn’t afraid of them playing the fool, and I spent that hour walking up and down the line of guns and wagons with their dejected mule teams, passing a word or two occasionally with Navarro, who was much brighter now, sitting up on his litter smoking a cigarette.
I thanked him for the letter which he had written to me from Santa Cruz, warning me about that ex-police agent. ‘Very bad man—he will never cease from revenge—next time you see him kill him,’ he said; and I rather wish that I hadn’t mentioned it, because I hated thinking of the little brute. Of course he was as anxious to get to San Fernando as I was; he wanted to see a doctor as soon as possible, and have his broken leg looked after.
At the end of the hour I tried to push on again, but I’m hanged if I could. I walked up to the inn and sang out, ‘San Fernando!’ to the officers sitting inside it, with half-empty bottles of wine in front of them, but they shook their heads and didn’t even stand up. This, I knew well enough, was meant to be rude. Only the chap who had killed the native as he was going for me, the one whom I had prevented drinking that champagne, stood up and came out, shaking his head, and jabbering Spanish. ‘Mucho caliente! Mucho caliente!’
‘He say no go San Fernando till night,’ Navarro explained. ‘Too hot.’
Well, as I’ve told you before, I’ve got a beastly bad temper: I wasn’t going to stand any nonsense, and I was inside that place in a twinkling.
‘San Fernando!’ I shouted, pointed to the blazing white road, where the mules were lying panting in the glare.
They only smiled.
I pulled my revolver out and roared again, but they only pulled theirs out and shook their heads.
I knew that I was up against something ‘tough,’ and I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t heard my name called.
Navarro was beckoning to me, and I went out, the officers laughing, and only that one following me.
‘Prisoners obey me—give them rifles—I want El Medico—San Fernando—quick,’ and he pointed to where the regulars were all lying asleep.
I knew well enough what he meant, and was in such a towering rage that I’d have taken any risk. I held out my hand, he held out his, and we shook.
‘Right you are, old chap, I’ll trust them.’
He jabbered to the officer who had followed me, and then said, ‘Take me to prisoners,’ so we picked up the litter and carried him to where they were, the other officers laughing, and not even getting up from their benches to see what was going to happen.
Then he introduced the officer to me. ‘Don Pedro de Castilio—Señor William Wilson,’ and we bowed to each other. I thought it an awful waste of time when every second mattered, and what we had to do had to be done quickly.
He went among the regulars, waking them, and half-a-dozen glided to a wagon and came back with rifles. Don Pedro took four of them along to the inn, and I saw them pointing their rifles through the windows.
‘Don Pedro make them prisoners,’ Navarro whispered, with his eyes gleaming.
That was a jolly smart move, and the officers never made a sound. If they’d sung out or fired a shot, we should have had the machetos round us in a second.
As fast as the other two woke their comrades, they stole away and got rifles, some of them bringing back a box of ammunition.
Not a macheto moved, and you bet I kept my eyes skinned lest they should wake, handing out ammunition as fast as the regulars came up for it. By the time I had seventy or eighty armed, I made them climb on top of the four wagons, so that they could defend themselves better in case the little forest-men tried to rush us with their machetes; I lifted Navarro on top of one of them too.
One of these wagons was right in front of the inn, so that my five young friends inside it had about twenty rifle-muzzles to look at. Still not a macheto stirred—they seemed dead to the world—so I went across to the inn.
It was they who were up against something ‘tough’ now, and they knew it, stood up, began unbuckling their sword-belts, and were just going to hand them to me, when I heard cries of ‘Señor! Señor!’ heard men running, and, looking over my shoulder, saw the rest of the regulars swarming round the wagon with the rifles in it, making a tremendous noise as they pulled them out. I ran along the road, and, as I ran, I saw the machetos, under the trees, all rising to their feet, gripping those horrid machetes.
I pointed to the wagons, there was no need for orders, the regulars simply scrambled on top of them like drowning rats on a log, running from wagon to wagon to find room, and crawling underneath them when they couldn’t. I jumped across to where Jim, my horse, was standing, got on him, and pulled him into the middle of the road.
The little machetos hadn’t quite got the hang of affairs, and looked half-dazed to see the regulars on top of the wagons and the rifles pointing at them.
I roared out, ‘San Fernando! San Fernando!’ but they were too startled to obey; and Don Pedro and his four men, too frightened to stay where they were any longer, bolted for the nearest wagon, the officers bursting out after them, and plunging into the forest among their own men.
‘San Fernando!’ I shouted, pointing down the road, and some of the little forest-men seemed to want to obey, but I saw those contemptible officers going in among them and dragging them back.
My aunt! I was in a jolly awkward fix. If they only made a rush, my chaps would simply be eaten up. I dare not get them down from the wagons to stir up the mules, for I felt absolutely certain that that would only be the signal for a massacre. We couldn’t move the wagons till the guns went on—the road was not broad enough to pass them—and the leading one was at least a couple of hundred yards away. I saw a lot of the machetos dart across the road ahead of us, and my heart went thump, for I thought they were making ready for a rush, but the little brutes simply unhitched the leading gun’s mule teams and led them into the forest.
Well, that was checkmate with a vengeance.
One of the officers now came up to the wagon on which Navarro was sitting and spoke to him. He sang out to me, and I went across.
‘He say, “No go San Fernando till night; if soldiers no give up rifles, machetos kill them. Officers tell machetos, soldiers take guns to Zorilla.”’
He was in a funk himself; the trees on both sides of us were simply swarming with the fierce little men, and I didn’t know what to do, my brain seemed all woolly, but I dare not let the regulars throw their rifles down.
‘Oh! that I knew Spanish and could talk to the little chaps and explain things,’ I was thinking, when there was the sound of a horse galloping along the road, behind us, and the ‘Gnome’ dashed up. I was glad to see him, if you like.
He looked at the regulars on top of the wagons, timidly pointing their rifles across the road, and at the crowds of machetos in the woods, and didn’t know what to think of it. Before he’d caught sight of me, I saw one of the officers running to him. I knew he’d tell him lies, so I cantered up to him too. He looked startled to see me, but quite pleased, and I made him come to the wagon where Navarro sat. ‘Tell him—ex-plain,’ I sang out. They seemed to know each other very well.
You should have seen him after he and Navarro had talked for a few seconds. He was in a towering rage, and he rode backwards and forwards along the edge of the road, evidently telling the officers exactly what he thought of them, and I knew that things were going right, because Navarro looked so chirpy and the officers so ashamed of themselves. The regulars, too, began to put up their rifles, and those who had crawled under the wagons crawled out again. Then, at last, the little forest-men stuck their machetes back into their belts, and a couple of hundred of them came along, looking like naughty children, and took charge of the mule teams. My aunt! I was so relieved and thankful and tired and hungry and hot all at the same time that I would have done any mortal thing for my fat little ‘Gnome.’
He sent the officers and the rest of their men away into the forest—to rejoin Gerald, I suppose—and jolly glad I was to see the last of them. Then we shoved off, rattling down the road, and you may guess that I never wanted to see that inn again. The ‘Gnome’ stopped with us for about a mile, and then, taking off his hat to me, galloped on ahead, leaving me with no one to question my authority any more.
Still, I didn’t feel in the least sure that those other fellows wouldn’t come back, so, with help from Navarro and Don Pedro, I got the two hundred regulars into some sort of order, fifty of them well in front of the guns as an advance guard, fifty between the guns and the wagons, fifty as a rear guard, and the remainder riding on the wagons themselves.
I wanted to make the little forest-men, who were leading the mules, give up their machetes, and explained that to Navarro, but he smiled, shook his head, and said, ‘Machetos good men now,’ so I had to be satisfied.
We tramped along like this, the mules getting slower and slower, till half-past one, when a violent thunderstorm made it almost as dark as night, and wetted us to the skin. It was jolly refreshing whilst it lasted, cooled the air splendidly, and afterwards we got along much faster. By three o’clock we were out of the forest; I had nothing to fear from the forest-men, and was as happy as a king. We rumbled down to the stream, splashed through the ford, after a lot of trouble with the mules, who would fill themselves with water before they’d come on, breasted the slope again, and got on top of the ridge looking down over San Fernando.
You can jolly well imagine how glad I was to see it, and the old Hector lying offshore. From here it was simply a triumphal procession. The ‘Gnome’ must have let the people know what had happened, for they met us in hundreds, flocking round me, trying to lead my horse, even to kiss my gaiters, dancing and shouting and clapping their hands, and fighting for the honour of holding on to the gun traces. ‘Viva los canones! Viva los Inglesas!’ they shouted, and dragged the guns along, much to the relief of the mules.
The cathedral bells were clanging joyously when we marched into the square, I in front, Navarro on his litter beside me, Zorilla’s charger behind us, then the two hundred regulars walking in front of the leading gun. You can guess how jolly important I felt, for the whole population had turned out, huzzahing and throwing their hats in the air, and on the steps and verandah of the Club were a lot of the Hector chaps and the Skipper himself.
As I took off my panama hat to salute him, he sang out, ‘Good lad! Good lad!’ and Navarro, seeing them, called out, ‘El Medico!’
Clegg, our Surgeon, was leaning over the verandah, so I stopped and had him taken in there. ‘Look after him, will you?’ I called out to Clegg; ‘his leg’s badly broken,’ and on we went again.
The regulars, in their hated uniforms, were a bit of a puzzle to the crowd, but they thought they had deserted to the insurgents, and soon swarmed round them, shouting, ‘Viva los cazedores!’ tearing off their own green and black rosettes and pinning them on the soldiers’ sleeves. Many of them had already got rid of their green and yellow badges, and you may bet your life they didn’t object to the black and green ones, so long as their skins were safe.
Ever since I had been stabbed by that wretched little ex-policeman, and whenever I got in among a crowd of natives, I found myself looking round to see if I could recognise him. I was doing so now without knowing it, looking from face to face all round me. Perhaps it was because of what Navarro had said, ‘He will never cease revenge,’ but I had the most extraordinary feeling that he was there, somewhere, and had his cunning little eyes fixed on me. I couldn’t see him anywhere, and thought the strange fancy was probably due to my being so sleepy. I pulled myself together, because we were now abreast the cathedral, the front of which had been hung with black and green flags, and, on the steps, the whole of the Provisional Government was waiting for me, bowing and taking off their top-hats. It was all I could do to keep from laughing, although I was so tired and sleepy and hungry that I could hardly sit in my saddle. They made me dismount, and would have kept me there for ages, but I seized hold of Mr. Don Pedro, pushed him forward, took my hat off, bowed, and led my plucky little stallion back to the Club. I knew that he would explain everything, and I always hate being fussed over. The crowd made way for me as if I’d been a blooming emperor; but I felt a touch on my shoulder and jumped, for I was still thinking of the little brute.
‘Beg parding, sir,’ I heard some one say, and there was O’Leary, his funny old face simply as excited as a child’s. ‘We’d just like you to see that ’ere bit of ‘ydraulic machinery what we brought along with us, sir.’
‘Right you are,’ I sang out—I know I yawned, I couldn’t help it—and he took me through a side street to the water front and a long low building, which ran along the shore, with a tumble-down ‘yard’ in front of it. Inside the tumble-down gates there were thirty or forty of our petty officers, with their jumpers off, digging out like pepper among a crowd of half-naked natives.
‘Look what we’ve done, sir,’ O’Leary grinned, and there I saw the long chases of two 4.7’s sticking up from their field carriages.
‘Pretty good work that,’ I said, yawning again.
‘They didn’t know nothink about ’em, sir, but for us, sir,’ he grinned; they were all grinning with delight, and the armourer’s crew, as black as paint, came across from a forge, in a shed beyond, stood by the guns, and grinned too.
‘Your brother’s done a good day’s work, we hear, sir,’ Griffiths, the boatswain’s mate, said, saluting me; ‘these ’ere guns’ll be a pleasant sur—prise to him when he gets back.’
Then Bob and the ‘Angel,’ Barton, the senior mid., Blotchy Smith, half-a-dozen more mids., and Marchant, the ‘Inkslinger,’ with their coats off, and covered with grease and dirt, came running across.
‘What are you up to?’ I asked, and they dragged me to another corner of the yard, and I found they’d been ‘assembling’ the pom-poms.
‘We’ve just been giving the chaps a bit of drill,’ Bob squeaked. ‘We’re having a glorious time. I wish we could stay on shore till the morning. We’d have everything finished by then. Won’t Cousin Gerald be pleased?’
Well, I was much too tired to stay any longer, and shoved off, all of them hurrying back to finish their job.
O’Leary followed me out. ‘They don’t know how they came ’ere, sir. I gave them English gents the “tip,” and they were all out of their packin’-cases when I comes along, innercent like, with all these chaps. We just looks in at the gateway, and sees ’em all lying “’iggle de piggledy” like, a-lying on the ground, and, well, I says to ’em, “Mr. Wilson, our Sub, what the Commander bullies, ’as a brother fighting for these ’ere niggers, so one good turn deserves another, so ’wot oh!’” and we just ’as a quiet arternoon’s fun, and you sees what we’ve done, sir.’
‘He’ll be awfully pleased. Thank you very much indeed,’ I said, and tramped back to the Club, more dead than alive, looking from side to side all the time, in case that little brute was lurking about anywhere with his knife. I was so stiff that I could hardly move one leg in front of the other, and my back aches now when I think of it.
Zorilla’s black charger was tied up to the Club railings, the groom apparently waiting for me, and I handed over both of the tired horses to one of the Englishmen who was there, stumbled up the steps, and fell back in one of those easy-chairs on the verandah, pretty well played out. Dr. Clegg came along.
‘What do you think of my pal?’ I asked him.
‘He won’t be on his legs again for six months,’ he told me, ‘I’m going to take him on board the Hector for the Fleet Surgeon to see.’
I was absolutely too weary just then to worry about anything, but I know that there were a lot of formalities to go through before he could be taken aboard, and that the Skipper and one of the San Fernando Englishmen bustled about and managed it all right. The Provisional Government would have done anything for us just then. I was jolly glad, because I owed a great deal more to little Navarro than I could repay.
I don’t know when I had felt so tired, and though any number of our chaps were crowding round me wanting me to talk, and the townspeople were thronging against the Club railings to see me, I hardly noticed them, and just wanted something to drink and then go to sleep. I really couldn’t keep my eyes open.