13 A Wind of the Desert

Although many of the soldiers, the more hardened, had lain down to sleep, Phil did not feel that he could close his eyes. Too many deep emotions stirred his soul. He felt that he was at the verge of a great event, one in which he was to take a part to the full extent of his strength and courage, and there, too, was the sign of the lava, always coming back, always persisting. He might reason with himself and call himself foolish, but he could not dispossess his mind of the idea that it was an omen to show him that he was upon the trail by which that letter had come so vast a distance to him in the little town of Paris.

Every nerve in the boy was astir. He walked back and forth on one of the promontories, looking at the mountains which now in the darkness had become black and full of threats, and trying in vain to soothe and quiet himself so he could lie down like the others and take the rest and forgetfulness that all men need before going into battle. While he was there, Middleton called to him:

“Come, Phil,” he said, reverting to his old manner of comradeship, “you ride with us to-night.”

“Ride to-night!” replied Phil. “Where?”

“To the south, to meet Santa Anna. I am ordered to take thirty men and keep going until I come into touch with the enemy. I am to have thirty men of my choice, and you, Breakstone, and Arenberg were the first three that I named. You don’t have to go unless you wish.”

“But I wish!” exclaimed Phil earnestly. “Don’t think I’m unwilling, Captain! Don’t think it!”

Middleton laughed.

“I don’t,” he said. “I knew that you would be keen for it. Saddle your horse and look to your arms. We ride in five minutes.”

Phil was ready in three, and the thirty troopers rode silently down one of the ravines and into the lower country. Phil looked back and saw the fires of the camp, mere red, yellow, and pink dots of flame. The mountains themselves were fused into a solid mass of black. The troop, arrow headed in shape, with Middleton at the point of the shaft, and Phil, Breakstone, and Arenberg close behind him, rode in silence save for the beat of their horses’ hoofs. The wind here did not moan like that in the pass, but it seemed to Phil to be colder, and it had an edge of fine particles that stung his cheeks and eyes.

The night was bright enough to allow of fairly swift riding, and the ground was no longer cut and gullied as at the mouth of the pass. Hence the troopers were not compelled to devote their whole attention to their horses and they could watch the country for sign of an enemy. But they did not yet see any such sign. Phil knew that they were on the road, leading southward to Santa Anna, and he felt sure that if they kept upon it they must soon come upon the Mexican army. Yet the silence and desolation were complete here. The pass had been weird and somber to the full, but there they had thousands of comrades, and the fires in the ravines had been cheering. Now the unlit darkness was all about them, and it still had that surcharged quality that it had borne for Phil when in the pass. Nor did the fine dust cease to sting his face.

“What is it, Bill?” he asked. “Where does it come from, this dust?”

“It’s a wind of the desert that stings us, Phil,” replied Breakstone. “It comes vast distances, and I think, too, that it brings some of the fine dust ground off the surface of the lava. Its effect is curious. It’s like burnt gunpowder in the nostrils. It seems to heat the inside, too.”

“It makes me feel that way,” said Phil, “and it seems to be always urging us on.”

“An irritant, as it were,” said Breakstone, “but I don’t think we need it. The event itself is enough to keep us all on edge. Feel cold, Phil?”

“No, I’ve got a pair of buckskin gauntlets. Fine thing for riding on nights like this.”

“So have I. But the night is cold, though. Now we’re always thinking of warm weather in Mexico, but we never find a country what we expect it to be. Ah, we’re leaving the road. The Captain must think there is something not far ahead.”

They turned at a sharp angle from the road, and entered a thin forest. Phil looked back toward the mouth of the pass from which they had come. Everything there was behind an impenetrable black veil. The last point of fire had died, and the mountains themselves were hidden. But he took only a single backward look. The wind of the desert was still stinging his face, and it seemed to arouse him to uncommon fire and energy. His whole attention was concentrated upon their task, and he was eager to distinguish himself in some way. But he neither heard nor saw anything unusual.

They proceeded slowly through the forest, seeking to prevent all but the least possible noise, and came presently to a field in which Indian corn seemed to have grown. But it was bare now, save for the dead stalks that lay upon the ground, and here the troop spread out, riding almost in a single line.

It was Phil, keen of eye and watchful, who first saw a dim red tint under the far southern horizon, and he at once called Middleton’s attention. The Captain halted them instantly, and his gaze followed the line of Phil’s pointing finger.

“It is Santa Anna’s army,” he said, “and you, Phil, have the honor of locating it first. The dim band of light which you pointed out is made by their camp fires, which are many. We need not try to conceal that fact from ourselves.”

“We take a nearer view, do we not, Captain?” asked Bill Breakstone.

“Of course.” replied Middleton, “but be cautious, all of you. It is important to see, but it is equally important to get back to General Taylor with the tale our eyes may tell.”

They rode forward again in a long and silent line. Phil’s heart began to throb. The desert wind was still stinging his face with the fine impalpable dust that seemed to excite every nerve. As they advanced, the red tint on the southern horizon broadened and deepened. It was apparent that it stretched far to east and west.

“It iss a great army, and it means much harm,” said Arenberg softly, more to himself than to anybody else.

Nearer and nearer rode the bold horsemen, stopping often to watch for the Mexican lancers who would surely be in advance of the army, beating up the country, despite the darkness, but they did not yet see any. They rode on so far that they heard the occasional sound of a trumpet in the Mexican camp, and the fires no longer presented a solid line.

“Captain.” asked Bill Breakstone, “what do you think the sound of those trumpets means at an hour like this?”

“I’m not sure, Bill,” replied Middleton, “but it must signify some movement. The Mexicans, like many other people, love color and parade and sound, but they would scarcely be indulging in such things at midnight just for their own sakes. It is some plan. Santa Anna is a man of great energy and initiative. But we must discover what it is. That is what we came for.”

The advance was renewed, although they went slowly, guarding as well as they could against the least possible sound from their horses. They were now so near that they could see figures passing before the fires, and the dark outline of tents. They also heard the hum of many voices, the tread of hoofs by hundreds, and the jingling of many spurs and bridle bits. Phil watched almost breathless, and the desert wind still blew on his face, stirring him with its fine, impalpable powder, and adding new fire to the fire that already burned in his veins. And Phil saw that Middleton shared in this excited interest. The officer’s gloved hand on his bridle rein quivered with eagerness.

“Yet a little nearer, my lads,” he whispered. “Wo must risk everything to find out what Santa Anna is intending at so late an hour.”

Screened by a narrow thicket of strange, cactuslike plants, they rode so close that they could see between the leaves and thorns directly into the camp. Here they sat on motionless horses, but Phil heard a deep “Ah!” pass between Middleton’s closed teeth. The boy himself had experience and judgment enough to know now what was going forward. All this jingling of bits and spurs meant the gathering of the Mexican cavalry. The Mexican camp fires burned along a front that seemed interminable, and also scores of torches were held aloft to guide in the work that was now being done.

Phil saw the Mexican horsemen wheel out by hundreds, until there was a great compact body of perhaps two thousand men, gaudily dressed, well mounted, and riding splendidly. Many carried rifles or muskets, but there were at least a thousand lancers, the blades of their long weapons gleaming in the firelight. Officers in gorgeous uniforms were at their head. Presently the trumpet blew again, and the great force of cavalry under General Minon began to move.

“An advance at midnight,” breathed Middleton, but Phil heard him. “And there go infantry behind them. It is an attack in force. I have it! I have it! They are going toward Agua Neva. Santa Anna thinks that our whole army is there, and probably he believes he can get in our rear and cut us off. Then he’ll compress us between his vast numbers as if we were in the jaws of a vise.”

Then he added, in a slightly louder tone:

“Come, my lads, we ride to Agua Neva, but we must be as careful as ever. We know now what our task is, and we will do it.”

They turned and rode away. Fortune was with them. No horse neighed. Perhaps the sound of their hoofs might have been heard now, had it not been for the great Mexican column marching toward Agua Neva, where the rear guard under Marshall was hurrying the stores, that had been left there, northward to Taylor. Middleton swung his little troop to one side, until they were well beyond the hearing of Minon’s cavalry.

“There can no longer be any doubt that they are heading for Agua Neva,” he said, “and we must beat them there, no matter what happens. Ride, boys, ride!”

They broke into a gallop, sweeping in a long line across some open fields, riding straight for a few points of light behind which they knew was Agua Neva. They were now well ahead of the great column, and Middleton took the chance of meeting any stray band of Mexican scouts and skirmishers. They did meet such a band, but it was small, and, when the Mexican hail was answered with a shout in a foreign tongue, it quickly scattered and gave the Americans free passage. A few shots were fired, but nobody in Middleton’s troop was touched, and none in the other. Without breaking line the Americans rode on. The lights grew clearer and increased in number. In a few moments they clattered down on Agua Neva, and ready sentinels, rifle in hand, halted them.

“Friends!” cried Middleton. “I am Captain Middleton, with scouts from General Taylor. I must see your commander at once!”

But Marshall was there as he spoke, and Middleton exclaimed in short words, surcharged with emphasis and earnestness:

“Santa Anna is coming down upon you! We have seen his cavalry marching, and the infantry are behind them! They will soon be here! They must think that our whole army is in Agua Neva, and evidently they intend to surround it.”

“All right,” said Marshall calmly. “Most of the wagons are already on the way to the pass. We cover their retreat, and the General told us to hold on here as long as we could. We mean to do it. Are you with us. Captain?”

“Certainly,” replied Captain Middleton briefly. “You can depend on us to the last.”

“Minon’s cavalry must be coming now,” said Marshall. “It seems to me that I hear the tread of many horsemen.”

“It is they,” said Middleton. Marshall’s men and his then fell back toward the little town. They were only a few hundred in number, but they had no idea of retreating without a fight. They were posted behind some stone walls, hedges, and a few scattered houses. The last of the wagons loaded with stores were rumbling away northward toward the Pass of Angostura.

Phil sat on his horse behind a stone wall, and all was silence along the line. The wind still blew, and stung his face with the dust of the desert. His heart throbbed and throbbed. He saw Middleton open his watch, hold it close to his face in order that he might see the hands in the moonlight, and then shut it with a little snap.

“Midnight exactly,” he said, “and here they come!”

The heavy tread of many men was now in their ears, and the lances gleamed in the moonlight, as the great Mexican force swung into the open space about the little town. They came on swiftly and full of ardor, but a sheet of fire blazed in their faces. The long rifles of the Americans were well aimed, despite the night—they could scarcely miss such a mass—and horses and riders went down together.

While they were still in confusion, Marshall’s little force loaded and fired again. A terrible uproar ensued. Men groaned or shouted, horses neighed with fright or screamed with pain. Many of them ran riderless between the combatants. Phil heard the Mexican officers shouting orders and many strange curses. Smoke arose and permeated the night air already charged with the dust of the desert. The Mexicans fired almost at random in the darkness, but they were many, and the bullets flying in showers were bound to strike somebody. Two or three Americans dropped slain from their horses, or, on foot, died where they were struck, behind the walls. The Mexicans in a vast half circle still advanced. Marshall and Middleton conferred briefly.

“How many men have you?” asked Marshall.

“Thirty.”

“I have about fifty more cavalrymen. Take them and charge with all your might. They may think in the darkness that you have a thousand.”

“Come!” said Middleton to his men, and he and the eighty rode out into the open. They paused there only an instant, because the great half circle of the Mexicans was still advancing. Phil, in the moonlight, saw the enemy very distinctly, the lances and escopetas, the tall conical hats with wide brims, and the dark faces under them. Then, at the command of Middleton, they fired their rifles and galloped straight at the foe.

Phil could never give any details of that wild moment. He was conscious of a sudden surge of the blood, the thudding of hoofs, the blades of lances almost in his face, fierce, dark eyes glaring into his own, and then they struck. The impact was accompanied by the flashing of sabers, the falling of men and horses, shouts and groans, while the smoke from the firing to the right and left of them drifted in their faces.

Phil felt a shock as his horse struck that of a Mexican lancer. The lance-blade flashed past his face, and it felt cold on his cheek as it passed, but it did not touch him. The Mexican’s horse went down before the impact of his, and he saw that the whole troop, although a few saddles were emptied, had crashed through the Mexican line. They had cut it apart like a knife through cheese. While the Mexicans were yet reeling from the shock, Middleton, a born cavalry leader, wheeled his men about, and they charged back through the Mexican line at another point. The second passage was easier than the first, because Minon’s men had been thrown into disorder, yet it was not made without wounds. Phil was slightly grazed in the side by a bullet, and a lance had torn his coat on his shoulder. If the cloth had not given way he would have been thrown from the saddle. As it was, he nearly dropped his rifle, but he managed to retain both seat and weapon.

“All right!” shouted a voice in his ear. It was that of Breakstone, who was watching over him like a father.

“All right,” returned Phil confidently, and then they were back with Marshall’s men, all but a dozen, who would ride no more.

“Good work,” said Marshall to Middleton. “That startled them. They will ride back a little, and our riflemen, too, are doing almost as good work in the moonlight as they could in the sunlight.”

The blood was pounding so heavily in Phil’s ears after the double charge that he did not realize until then that the heavy firing had never ceased. The little American force reloaded and pulled the trigger so quickly that the volume of their firing gave the effect of numbers three or four times that of the real. The darkness, too, helped the illusion, and the Southerners and Westerners replied to the shouts of the Mexicans with resounding cheers of their own. An officer galloped up, and Phil heard him shout to Marshall above the crash of the firing:

“The last of the wagons is beyond the range of fire!”

“Good,” said Marshall. “Now we, too, must fall back. The moment they discover how few we are they can wrap us in a coil that we cannot break. But we’ll fight them while they follow us.”

The little force was drawn in skillfully, and the horsemen on either flank began to retire from Agua Neva. The Mexicans, urged by Minon, Torrejon, Ampudia, and Santa Anna himself, pushed hard against the retiring force, seeking either to capture or destroy it. More than once they threatened to enfold it with their long columns, but here the horsemen, spreading out, held them off, and the long range rifles of the Americans were weapons that the Mexicans dreaded. As on many another battlefield, the Westerners and Southerners, trained from their boyhood to marksmanship, fired with terrible accuracy. The moonlight, now that their eyes had grown used to it, was enough for them. Their firing, as the slow retreat northward toward the Pass of Angostura went on, never ceased, and their path was marked by a long trail of their fallen foes. Santa Anna and his generals sought in vain to flank them, but the darkness was against the greater force. It was not easy to combine and make use of numbers when only moonlight served. Regiments were likely to fire into one another, but the small compact body of the Americans kept easily in touch, and they retreated practically in one great hollow square blazing with fire on every side. “Hold on as long as you can,” Taylor had said to Marshall, but Marshall, in the face of twenty to one, held on longer than any one had dreamed.

Santa Anna had expected to get his great cavalry force in the rear of Taylor at Agua Neva, but at midnight, finding Taylor not there and only a small detachment left, he had hoped to capture or destroy that in a few minutes. Instead, half his army was fighting a most desperate rear guard action with a few hundred men, and every second Marshall saved was precious to the commander back there at the Pass of Angostura.

Phil was grazed by another bullet, and his horse was stung once. Arenberg was slightly wounded, but Breakstone was untouched, and the three still kept close together. The boy could not take note of the passage of time. It seemed to him that they had been fighting for hours as they gave way slowly before the huge mass of the Mexican army. Great clouds of smoke from the firing had turned the moonlight to a darker quality. Now and then it drifted in such quantities that the moon was wholly obscured, and then it was to the advantage of the Americans, who could fire from their hollow square in every direction, and be sure that they hit no friend.

They had now left the town far behind and were well on the way to the Pass. Phil noticed that the fire of the Mexicans was slackening. Evidently Santa Anna had begun to believe that it would not pay to follow up any longer a rear guard that stung so hard and so often. This certainly was the belief of Bill Breakstone.

“The pursuit is dying,” he said, “not because they don’t want us, but because our price is too high.

“My verse is a little ragged this time, Phil, but it is made in the heat of action, and it at least tells a true tale. See how their fire is sinking! The flashes stop to the right, they stop to the left, and they will soon stop in the center. It’s a great night, Phil, for Marshall and his men. They were ordered to do big things, and they’ve filled the order twice over. And we came into it, too, Phil, don’t forget that! There, they’ve stopped entirely, as I told you they would!”

The firing along Santa Anna’s front ceased abruptly, and as the retreat continued slowly the columns of the Mexican army were lost in the darkness. No lance heads glittered, and the bugles no longer called the men to action. Bill Breakstone had spoken truly. Santa Anna found the rear guard too tough for him to handle in the darkness, and stopped for the rest of the night. When assured of this, Marshall ordered his little force to halt, while they took stock of the wounded and dressed their hurts as best they could at such a hurried moment. Then they resumed their march for the pass, with the wagons that they had defended so well lumbering on ahead.

After the exertion of so much physical or mental energy the men rode or walked in silence. Phil was surprised to find that his hands and face were wet with perspiration, and he knew then that his face must be black with burnt gunpowder. But he felt cold presently, as the chill night wind penetrated a body relaxed after so great an effort. Then he took the blanket roll from his saddle and wrapped it around him. Breakstone and Arenberg had already done the same. Looking back, Phil saw a few lights twinkling where the Mexicans had lighted their new camp fires, but no sound came from that point. Yet, as of old, the desert wind blew, and the fine dust borne on its edge stung his face, and brought to his nostrils an odor like that of battle. Under its influence he was still ready for combat. He gloried in the achievement of this little division in which he had a part, and it gave him strength and courage for the greater struggle, by far, that was coming. Breakstone shared in his pleasure, and talked lightly in his usual fashion, but Arenberg was sober and very thoughtful.

“Well, we burnt old Santa Anna’s face for him, if we did do it in the dark,” said Bill, “and we can do it in daylight, too.”

“But did you see his numbers?” said Arenberg. “Remember how vast was his camp, and with what a great force he attacked us at Agua Neva. Ach, I fear me for the boys who are so far from their home, the lads of Kentucky and Illinois and the others!”

“Don’t be downhearted, Hans, old boy,” said Breakstone with genuine feeling. “I know you have things on your mind—though I don’t ask you what they are—that keep you from being cheerful, but don’t forget that we’ve the habit of victory. Our boys are Bonaparte’s soldiers in the campaign of Italy, they don’t mean to be beaten, and they don’t get beaten. And you can put that in your pipe, too, and smoke it, Sir Philip of the Horse Battle and the Night Retreat. Look, we’re approaching the Pass. See the lights come out one by one. Don’t the lights of a friend look good?”

Phil agreed with him. It was a satisfying thing to come safely out of a battle in which they had done what they had wanted to do, and return to their own army. It was now nearly morning, but the troops still marched, while the last wagons rumbled on ahead. Scouts came forward to hail them and to greet them warmly when they found that they were friends. There was exultation, too, when they heard the news of the fine fight that the little division had given to Santa Anna. Lieutenant Washington, who was in charge of the division that commanded the road, met Middleton and Marshall a hundred yards from the mouths of his guns, and Phil heard them talking. General Taylor had not yet returned from Saltillo, where he had gone to strengthen and fortify the division at that place, as he greatly feared a flank movement of Santa Anna around the mountain to seize the town and cut him off.

Wool, meanwhile, was in command, and he listened to the reports of Marshall and Middleton, commending them highly for the splendid resistance that they had offered to overwhelming numbers. Phil gathered from their tone, although it was only confirmation of a fact that he knew already, that their little force was in desperate case, indeed. Never before had the omens seemed so dark for an American army. For in a desolate and gloomy country, with every inhabitant an enemy and spy upon them, with an army outnumbering them five to one approaching, brave men might well despair.

It struck Phil with sudden force that the odds could be too great after all, and that he might never finish his quest. In another hour or two he might see his last sunrise. He shook himself fiercely, told himself that he was foolish and weak, and then rode toward the pass. They tethered their horses on the edge of the plateau, and at the advice of Middleton all sought sleep.

But the boy’s nerves were yet keyed too highly for relaxation. His weary body was resting, but his heart still throbbed. He saw the sentinels walking back and forth. He saw the dark shapes of cannon posted on the promontories, and above them the mountains darker and yet more somber. Several fires still burned in the ravines, and the officers sat about them talking, but most of the army slept.

As Phil lay on the earth he heard the wind moaning behind him as it swept up the pass, but it still touched his face with the fine impalpable dust that stung like hot sand, and that seemed to him to be an omen and a presage. He lay a long time staring into the blackness in the direction in which Santa Anna’s army now lay, where he and his comrades had fought such a good fight at midnight. He saw nothing there with his real eye, but with his mind’s eye he beheld the vast preparations, the advance of the horsemen, and the flashing of thousands of lances in the brilliant light.

When the morning sun was showing over the ridges and peaks of the Sierra Madre, and pouring its light into the nooks and crannies of the ravines, he fell asleep.

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