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39 - Insurgent Mexico by John Reed · Insurgent Mexico

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  Speaker 1: Section thirty eight of Insurgent Mexico. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Timothy Livewrite, Part four A People in Arms, Chapter fourteen.
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  Speaker 1: The fall of Gomez Palacio. El Nino was now within
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  Speaker 1: half a mile of the town, and the workmen of
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  Speaker 1: the repair gang labored on the last stretch of track
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  Speaker 1: under heavy shrapnel fire. The two cannon on the front
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  Speaker 1: of the trains bore all the brunt of their artillery,
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  Speaker 1: and bravely did they return the fire. So well, in fact,
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  Speaker 1: that after one Federal shell had killed ten workmen, el
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  Speaker 1: Nino's captain put two guns on the Serro out of action.
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  Speaker 1: So the Federals left the trains alone and turned their
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  Speaker 1: attention to shelling Herrera out of lerdo. The Constitutionalist army
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  Speaker 1: was terribly shattered. In the four days fighting, about a
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  Speaker 1: thousand men had been killed and almost two thousand more wounded.
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  Speaker 1: Even the excellent hospital train was inadequate to handle the wounded.
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  Speaker 1: Out on the wide plain where we were, the faint
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  Speaker 1: smell of dead bodies pervaded everything in Gomez. It must
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  Speaker 1: have been horrible Thursday. The smoke from twenty funeral pires
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  Speaker 1: stained the sky. But Villa was more determined than ever.
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  Speaker 1: Gomez must be taken in quickly. He didn't have ammunition
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  Speaker 1: or supplies enough for a siege, and moreover, his name
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  Speaker 1: was a legend already with the enemy. Wherever Pancho Villa
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  Speaker 1: appeared in battle, they had begun to believe it lost.
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  Speaker 1: And the effect on his own troops was more important too,
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  Speaker 1: so he scheduled another night attack. The track is all repaired,
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  Speaker 1: reported Calsato, superintendent of the railways, Good said, viam bring
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  Speaker 1: up all the trains from the rear tonight, because we're
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  Speaker 1: going into Gomez in the morning. Night fell breathless, silent night,
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  Speaker 1: with a sound of frogs along the ditches across the
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  Speaker 1: front of the town. The soldiers lay waiting for the
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  Speaker 1: word to attack. Wounded, worn out, nervously broken, they straggled
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  Speaker 1: to the front, keyed up to the last notch of desperation.
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  Speaker 1: This night would not be repulsed. They would take the
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  Speaker 1: town or die where they stood. And as nine o'clock approached,
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  Speaker 1: the hour at which the attack had been set, the
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  Speaker 1: tension became dangerous. Nine o'clock came and passed, not a
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  Speaker 1: sound or movement. For some reason, the order was withheld.
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  Speaker 1: Ten o'clock. Suddenly, off to the right, a volley burst
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  Speaker 1: from the town. All along our line awoke the answer.
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  Speaker 1: But after a few more volleys the Federal fire altogether ceased.
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  Speaker 1: From the town came other more mysterious sounds. The electric
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  Speaker 1: lights went out, and in the darkness there was a
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  Speaker 1: subtle stir and movement indefinable. At length, the order was
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  Speaker 1: given to advance, But as our men crept forward in
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  Speaker 1: the dark, the front rank suddenly gave a yell, and
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  Speaker 1: the truth spread through the ranks and out into the country.
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  Speaker 1: In one triumphant shout, Gomez Ballacio had been evacuated. With
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  Speaker 1: a great babble of voices, the army poured into the town.
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  Speaker 1: A few scattered shots sounded, where our troops caught some
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  Speaker 1: of the Federal's lootings, for the Federal army had gutted
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  Speaker 1: the whole town before it left, And then our army
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  Speaker 1: began to loot. Their shouts and drunken singing, and the
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  Speaker 1: sounds of smashing doors reached us. Out on the plain,
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  Speaker 1: little tongues of flame flickered up where the soldiers were
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  Speaker 1: burning some house that had been a ford of federals.
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  Speaker 1: But the looting of the rebels was confined, as it
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  Speaker 1: almost always is, to food and drink and clothes to
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  Speaker 1: cover them. They disturbed no private house. The chiefs of
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  Speaker 1: the army winked at this. A specific order was issued
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  Speaker 1: by Villa stating that whatever any soldier picked up was
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  Speaker 1: his and could not be taken from him by an officer. Now,
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  Speaker 1: up to this time there was not much of stealing
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  Speaker 1: in the army, at least so far as we were concerned.
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  Speaker 1: But the morning of the entry in a Gomez, a
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  Speaker 1: curious change had come over the psychology of the soldiers.
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  Speaker 1: I woke up at our camp beside the ditch to
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  Speaker 1: find my horse gone. Bucephalus had been stolen in the night,
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  Speaker 1: and I never saw him again. During our breakfast, several
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  Speaker 1: troopers dropped in to share our meal. When they had gone,
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  Speaker 1: we missed a knife and a revolver. The truth was
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  Speaker 1: that everybody was looting from everybody else, so I too
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  Speaker 1: stole what I needed. There was a great gray mule
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  Speaker 1: grazing in the field nearby, with a rope around his neck.
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  Speaker 1: I put my saddle on him and rode down toward
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  Speaker 1: the front. It was a noble animal, worth at least
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  Speaker 1: four times as much as bucephalus, As I soon discovered,
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  Speaker 1: everybody I met coveted that mule. One trooper marching along
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  Speaker 1: with two rifles, hailed me, Oija copagnero, where did you
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  Speaker 1: get that mule? I found him in a field, said I, unwisely,
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  Speaker 1: It is just as I thought, he exclaimed. That is
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  Speaker 1: my mule. Get off and give him to me at once.
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  Speaker 1: And this is your saddle, I asked, by the Mother
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  Speaker 1: of God, it is then you lie about the mule,
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  Speaker 1: for the saddle is my own. I rode on, leaving
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  Speaker 1: him yelling in the road. A short distance farther on,
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  Speaker 1: an old peon walking along suddenly ran up and threw
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  Speaker 1: his arms around the animal's neck. Ah, at last, my
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  Speaker 1: beautiful mule, which I lost my Juanito. I shook him off,
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  Speaker 1: in spite of his entreaties that at least I should
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  Speaker 1: pay him fifty pesos as compensation for his mule. In town,
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  Speaker 1: a cavalryman rode across in front of me, demanding his
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  Speaker 1: mule at once. He was rather ugly and had a revolver.
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  Speaker 1: I got away by saying that I was a captain
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  Speaker 1: of artillery and that the mule belonged to my battery.
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  Speaker 1: Every few feet some owner of that mule sprang up
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  Speaker 1: and asked me how dared I ride his own deer
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  Speaker 1: panchito or badrito or domacito. At last one came out
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  Speaker 1: of a quartel with a written order from his colonel,
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  Speaker 1: who had seen the mule from his window. I showed
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  Speaker 1: them my pass, signed by Francisco Villa. That was enough.
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  Speaker 1: Across the wide desert where the constitutionalists had fought so long,
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  Speaker 1: the army was winding in from every direction in long
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  Speaker 1: snakelike columns, dust hanging over them, and along the track
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  Speaker 1: as far as the eye could reach, came the trains,
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  Speaker 1: one after another, blowing triumphant whistles, crowded with thousands of
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  Speaker 1: women and soldiers cheering. Within the city, dawn had brought
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  Speaker 1: absolute quiet and order. With the entrance of Villa and
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  Speaker 1: his staff. Eloting had absolutely ceased, and the soldiers again
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  Speaker 1: respected other people's property. A thousand were hard at work
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  Speaker 1: gathering up the bodies and carrying them to the edge
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  Speaker 1: of the city, where they were set on fire. Five
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  Speaker 1: hundred more policed the town. The first order issued was
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  Speaker 1: that any soldier caught drinking should be shot in The
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  Speaker 1: third train was our car, the private box car fitted
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  Speaker 1: up for the correspondence photographers and moving picture men. At
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  Speaker 1: last we had our bunks, our blankets, and fong, our
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  Speaker 1: beloved Chinese cook. The car was switched up near in
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  Speaker 1: the railway station, in the very front rank of trains,
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  Speaker 1: and as we gathered in its grateful interior, hot, dusty
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  Speaker 1: and worn out, the Federals and Torreon dropped a few
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  Speaker 1: shrapnel shells right close beside us. I was standing in
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  Speaker 1: the door of the car at the time and heard
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  Speaker 1: the boom of cannon, but paid no particular attention to it.
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  Speaker 1: Suddenly I noticed the small object in the air, like
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  Speaker 1: an exaggerated beetle, trailing a little spiral of black smoke
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  Speaker 1: behind it. It passed the door of the car with
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  Speaker 1: a noise, and about forty feet beyond burst with a
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  Speaker 1: frightful crash. Who among the trees of a park where
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  Speaker 1: a company of cavalry and their women were camping, A
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  Speaker 1: hundred men leaped for their plunging horses in a panic,
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  Speaker 1: and galloped frantically toward the rear, the women streaming after them.
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  Speaker 1: Two women had been killed, it seemed, and a horse, blankets, food,
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  Speaker 1: rifles all were discarded in the panic pow another burst
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  Speaker 1: of the other side of the car. They were very
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  Speaker 1: close behind us on the track. Twenty long trains laden
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  Speaker 1: with shrilly, screaming women were trying to back out of
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  Speaker 1: the yards, all at once with a mighty hysterical tooting
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  Speaker 1: of whistles. Two or three more shells followed. Then we
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  Speaker 1: could hear al Nino replying, but the effect on the
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  Speaker 1: correspondence and newspapermen was peculiar. No sooner had the first
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  Speaker 1: shell exploded than someone produced the whisky jug entirely of
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  Speaker 1: his own impulse, and we passed it around. No one
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  Speaker 1: said a word, but everybody drank a stiff swig as
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  Speaker 1: it came his way. Every time a shell would explode nearby,
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  Speaker 1: we would all WinCE and jump, but after a while
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  Speaker 1: we did not mind it. Then we began to congratulate
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  Speaker 1: each other and ourselves for being so brave as to
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  Speaker 1: stay by the car under artillery fire. Our courage increased
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  Speaker 1: as the firing grew far between, and finally quit all
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  Speaker 1: together and as the whiskey grew low, everybody forgot dinner.
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  Speaker 1: I remember that in the darkness two belligerent Anglo Saxons
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  Speaker 1: stood at the door of the car, challenging the soldiers
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  Speaker 1: who passed, and abusing them in the most discourty this language.
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  Speaker 1: We fell out amongst ourselves too, and one man almost choked,
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  Speaker 1: a driveling old fool who was with the moving picture outfit.
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  Speaker 1: Late that night, we were still trying earnestly to persuade
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  Speaker 1: two of the boys not to sally fourth without the
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  Speaker 1: password and reconnoiter the Federal lines at Torreon. Ah, what's
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  Speaker 1: there to be afraid of? Cried they. A Mexican greaser
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  Speaker 1: hasn't got any guts. One American can lickt fifty Mexicans.
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  Speaker 1: Why did you see how they ran this afternoon when
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  Speaker 1: the shells hit that grove, And how we hai we
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  Speaker 1: stayed by the car. End of Section thirty eight.