Chapter VIII The Artillery Comes Up
Over to the right, along the base of the line of trees, heavy dust billowed up, men shouted, whips snapped, and there was a rumble and a jangling of chains. We plunged into a little path that wound among the chaparral and emerged upon a tiny village, lost in the brush near the ditch. It was strikingly like a Chinese or Central American village: five or six adobe huts thatched with mud and twigs. It was called San Ramon, and there a little struggling knot of men swayed about every door, clamoring for coffee and tortillas, and waving fiat money. The pacificos squatted in their tiny corrals, selling macuche at exorbitant prices; their women sweated over the fire, hammering tortillas and pouring villainous black coffee. All around, in the open spaces, lay sleepers like the dead, and men with bloody arms and heads, tossing and groaning. Presently an officer galloped up, streaked with sweat, and screamed, “Get up, you fools! Pendecos! Wake up and get back to your companies! We’re going to attack!” A few stirred and stumbled, cursing, to their weary feet—the others still slept. “Hijos de la——!” snapped the officer, and spurred his horse upon them, trampling, kicking.... The ground boiled men scrambling out of the way and yelling. They yawned, stretched, still half asleep, and sifted off slowly toward the front in an aimless way.... The wounded only dragged themselves listlessly to the shade of the brush.
Along the side of the ditch went a sort of wagon track, and up this the Constitutionalist artillery were arriving. One could see the gray heads of the straining mules, and the big hats of their drivers, and the circling whips—the rest was masked in dust. Slower than the army, they had been marching all night. Past us rumbled the carriages and caissons, the long, heavy guns yellow with dust. The drivers and gunners were in fine good humor. One, an American, whose features were absolutely indistinguishable in the all-mantling mud of sweat and earth, shouted to know if they were in time, or if the town had fallen.
I answered in Spanish that there were lots of colorados yet to kill, and a cheer ran along the line.
“Now we’ll show them something,” cried a big Indian on a mule. “If we could get into their cursed town without guns, what can we do with them?”
The alamos ended just beyond San Ramon, and under the last trees Villa, General Angeles, and the staff sat on horseback at the bank of the ditch. Beyond that the ditch ran naked across the naked plain into the town, where it took water from the river. Villa was dressed in an old brown suit, without a collar, and an ancient felt hat. He was covered with dirt, and had been riding up and down the lines all night; but he bore no trace of fatigue.
When he saw us he called out, “Hello, muchachos! Well, how do you like it?”
“Fine, mi General!”
We were worn out and very dirty. The sight of us amused him profoundly; he never could take the correspondents seriously, anyway, and it seemed to him very droll that an American periodical would be willing to spend so much money just to get the news.
“Good,” he said with a grin. “I’m glad you like it, because you’re going to get all you want.”
The first gun had now come opposite the staff and unlimbered, the gunners ripping off the canvas covers and tilting up the heavy caisson. The captain of the battery screwed on the telescopic sight and the crank of the raising-lever spun. The brass butts of heavy shells shone in gleaming rows; two men staggered under the weight of one, and rested it on the ground while the captain regulated the shrapnel timer. The breech-lock crashed shut, and we ran far back. Cra-boom-shock! A soaring whistling Pi-i-i-e-e-eeuu! flew high after the shell, and then a tiny white smoke flowered at the foot of the Cerro de la Fila—and, minutes after, a far detonation. About a hundred yards apart, all along in front of the gun, picturesque ragged men stared motionless through their field-glasses. They burst into a chorus of yells, “Too low! Too far to the right! Their guns are all along the ridge! Time it about fifteen seconds later!” Down front the rifle fire had frittered away to ragged sputtering and the machine guns were silent. Everybody was watching the artillery duel. It was about five-thirty in the morning, and already very hot. In the fields behind sounded the parched chirp of crickets; the lofty fresh tops of the alamos rustled in a high languid breeze; birds began to sing again.
Another gun wheeled into line, and the breech-block of the first clacked again. There came the snap of the trigger, but no roar. The gunners wrenched open the breech and hurled the smoking brass projectile on the grass. Bad shell. I saw General Angeles in his faded brown sweater, hatless, peering through the sight and cranking up the range. Villa was spurring his reluctant horse up to the caisson. Cra—boom—shock! Pi-i-i-e-e-eeuu! The other gun this time. We saw the shell burst higher up the stony hill this time. And then four booms floated to us, and, simultaneously, the enemy’s shells, which had been exploding desultorily over the line of trees nearest the city, marched out into the open desert and leaped toward us in four tremendous explosions, each nearer. More guns had wheeled into line; others filed off to the right along a diagonal of trees, and a long line of heavy trucks, plunging mules, and cursing, shouting men choked up the dusty road to the rear. The unlimbered mules jingled back and the drivers threw themselves, exhausted, under the nearest chaparral.
The Federal shrapnel, well fired and excellently timed, was bursting now only a few hundred yards in front of our line, and the minute boom of their guns was almost incessant. Crash—Wheeeeaa! Over our heads, snapping viciously in the leafy trees, sang the rain of lead. Our guns replied spasmodically. The home-made shells, fashioned on converted mining machinery in Chihuahua, were not reliable. Galloped past stout Captain Marinelli, the Italian soldier of fortune, steering as near the newspapermen as possible, with a serious, Napoleonic look on his face. He glanced once or twice at the camera man, smiling graciously, but the latter coldly looked away. With a workmanlike flourish he ordered the wheeling of his gun into position and sighted it himself. Just then a shell burst deafeningly about a hundred yards in front. The Federals were getting the range. Marinelli bounded away from his cannon, mounted his horse, limbered up and came galloping dramatically back with his gun rumbling along at a dead run behind. None of the other guns had retreated. Puffing up his foaming charger in front of the camera man, he flung himself to the ground and took a position.
“Now,” he said, “you can take my picture!”
“Go to hell,” said the camera man, and a great shout of laughter went up along the line.
The high cracked note of a bugle thrilled through the racking roar. Immediately mules dragging their jangling limbers appeared, and shouting men. The caissons snapped shut.
“Going down front,” shouted Colonel Servin. “Not hitting. Too far away here....”
And the long-halted line snapped taut and wound out into the open desert, under the bursting shells.