Amazing Tales for Making Men Out of Boys (8 page)

Puebla had been besieged by the French since the middle of March but there was no sign yet of victory. On April 29, a month or so after the Legion’s arrival, word reached Jeanningros that a hugely valuable convoy was to be sent by road from Vera Cruz to the besieged city. Along with vital equipment and rations, the wagons would be carrying 3 million francs’ worth of gold bullion for the soldiers’ pay. It would be the job of the Legion to ensure its safe passage.

Sorely depleted by illness though it was, Jeanningros selected the 3rd Company for the job. It was anyway the only body of men available and they would have to make the best of it. Three other officers volunteered to go along: Second Lieutenant Maudet, company pay officer Lieutenant Vilain and Captain Jean Danjou.

Vilain and Maudet had risen through the Legion’s ranks. Almost
certainly French by birth, they had enlisted as other nationalities—Frenchmen being forbidden by law to join the Legion (the men they commanded were a mix of Italian, German, Polish and Spanish). Vilain and Maudet were good soldiers, winning their promotions at the Battle of Magenta in 1859 during the Austro-Sardinian War. While the enlisted men had a grudging respect for Maudet, they held a seething loathing for Vilain, who, they believed, had used his position as pay officer to keep them short of money. He had a long way to go if he was to win their loyalty.

Captain Danjou was from a proud French military family. He had graduated second lieutenant from the best military academy in France, the Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, and was sent straight to French Algeria. During fighting there in May 1853, his left hand was so badly wounded it had to be amputated below the elbow. He had a fully articulated wooden replacement made and fitted, and carried on his soldiering undaunted, winning promotion to full lieutenant later the same year. He fought next in the Crimean War, seeing action at the siege of Sebastopol. His captaincy came in June 1855. Captain Danjou must have been quite dashing—even by the standards of the day when battle scars were commonplace among career soldiers. As was the custom of men of his rank, he wore a carefully maintained mustache and a thick goatee. By all accounts he was a handsome man.

Like Vilain and Maudet, Danjou fought in the Austro-Sardinian War at Magenta and at Solferino. He served then in Morocco before being sent into Mexico along with the French Expeditionary Force in 1862, when he was made Quartermaster to Colonel Jeanningros.

It was still fully dark when the little company of soldiers of the 3rd Company set out from their base in the village of Chiquihuite. Despite the stifling heat promised by the day ahead, they were dressed in their standard uniforms of knee-high black boots, baggy
red woolen pantaloons and blue woolen tunics. On their heads they wore the kepis, to cover and protect their necks from the heat of the sun. Each man carried a 70-caliber smooth-bore musket.

These were men of a sort seldom seen in our world now. They were foreign to the land through which they marched, foreign to the land that sent them and foreign to one another. This was a legion of strangers, after all, and each was far from home. They had left forgotten lives many years and many miles behind them and when asked what country was home to them they would reply only, “La Légion est ma patrie”—the Legion is my country. They were hard men, hardened by drill and by battle and toughened by years of self-reliance and discipline. But what they had and held most dear was brotherhood. They depended on each other as they depended upon themselves.

As they’d prepared to leave Chiquihuite that morning, Colonel Jeanningros had wondered aloud if they were enough to protect such a valuable convoy and see it safely to Puebla.

“They are Legionnaires,” said Captain Danjou.

Out on the road he assembled his company into a defensive formation. He was at the center with a small group of men and some of the mules loaded with the ammunition and rations necessary for the journey. Two equal-sized columns of Legionnaires marched in parallel either side of—and 100 yards away from—the road. He deployed no scouts, reasoning that since his men were infantry and not cavalry, soldiers on foot would provide little in the way of early warning of attack. Better if they all stuck together. The bullion and siege equipment would depart Chiquihuite two hours later and follow the scouting company at a safe distance.

Trepidation marched along the road as well. The Legionnaires were old enough to know that word of what the convoy contained would be traveling ahead of them into the ear of the enemy. There was little doubt that a Mexican Army force would be sent to inter
cept them en route. It was only a question of how strong and how determined that force might be.

As Danjou and his men passed through the Legion post of Paso del Macho in the early hours of the morning, the company commander there offered to supplement the company with a platoon of his own. Danjou refused and the 3rd Company carried on its way.

The Mexican force out hunting the convoy was 2,000 strong—1,200 foot soldiers and 800 horsemen. The cavalry were armed with US-made Remington and Winchester repeating rifles—far superior weapons to the muskets carried by the Legionnaires. The commander was General Francisco de Paula-Milan, and his spies had provided him with accurate information about the Legionnaires he sought—and the cargo they were tasked with protecting. As he rode in pursuit he was confident his men would quickly destroy the defenders and relieve them of their riches.

Some time around dawn Danjou and his men marched through the ruinous remains of a hamlet the locals called Hacienda Camarón. In time the men of the Legion would come to know the place as Camerone but for now it registered as no more than a cluster of dilapidated buildings and huts enclosed by a high, stone wall. The Third Company did not stop, marching for another mile before Danjou called a halt and told the men to prepare their breakfasts. A handful of sentries were posted on the perimeter of the makeshift camp. Now at least there was daylight, and while they waited on water to boil for coffee the Legionnaires could look around at the unfamiliar vegetation smothering the landscape. Maybe a few of them noticed that the waist-high profusion might at least prove a hindrance for any enemy cavalry coming their way.

There would be no time for coffee this morning. Most of these Legionnaires would never taste it again. With the water still cold in the billycans the sentries sounded the alarm. Cavalry! It was the outriders of Milan’s force and hundreds of mounted men were
bearing down on the tiny company. Buglers licked dry lips and sounded the call to arms as best they could.

Legionnaires were men for whom drill was second nature and they formed their defensive square without having to think about it. Disciplined volley fire from their muskets was keeping the Mexicans at bay for now—but there was no hope of survival out here in the open. Danjou ordered a fighting retreat toward the only hope of salvation—the buildings and walls of Hacienda Camarón. Still in their square, the Legionnaires began a steady withdrawal, keeping to the thickest of the vegetation to deter any solid charge by the mounted men.

Confident of victory, Colonel Milan held his horsemen back and had them simply circle the Legionnaires, harrying them and picking them off one by one.

It was now that Danjou suffered his first setback—when the mules carrying the company rations and ammunition bolted out of the square and into the clutches of the enemy. Now the defenders had only the musket balls and powder they carried in their pouches and webbing. Danjou remained in control. Twice on the way back toward the hacienda he brought the square to a halt and ordered volley fire. Mexican cavalry fell from their saddles, but there were still too many.

Then came the second blow—16 of Danjou’s Legionnaires had been cut out of the square by the encircling horsemen. By the time the survivors reached the relative safety of the hamlet, their captain was in command of just 46 men. Several of those were wounded. Suddenly rifle fire poured into the company from within Camarón itself—some of Milan’s men had made it there first and were in sniping positions in the upper floors of the ruined farm building.

Even by the standards of men accustomed to making the best of awkward situations, this was dire. The men of the 3rd Company were surrounded by unknown and potentially overwhelming
numbers and already their only sanctuary was compromised by an enemy within.

Danjou had no room for thoughts about their chances as he gave orders to barricade all entrances to Camarón and to throw up a makeshift perimeter between the scattered walls and sheds. The courtyard remained vulnerable to the snipers in the main building, but Danjou did not have enough men to risk trying to draw them out. Again and again enemy horsemen rushed at the barricades and each time the Legionnaires drove them back.

Now a Mexican officer, Lieutenant Ramón Laine, approached the walls under the flag of truce. The Legionnaires held their fire and Laine was permitted to offer terms for the defenders’ honorable surrender. The encircling force numbered 2,000—what hope did the Legionnaires have in the face of such odds? Danjou went to each of his men in turn and told them he would accept the terms if just one Legionnaire thought it the right thing to do. Each man told Danjou what the captain already knew, that they would rather fight. Laine was informed of the decision and sent on his way.

The sun was hot now as the morning advanced. The Mexicans came on. Milan was enraged by the refusal of his terms and the force of these fresh attacks was greater than before. Again the enemy was driven back but this time at a terrible cost. Captain Danjou had fallen—shot and mortally wounded. The bullet probably came from a sniper, seizing his moment while Danjou rallied his men in the face of the latest attack. He died there in the courtyard, but not before winning from his men their vow to fight on. And so it was and so they did.

Lieutenant Vilain, the hated pay officer, now stepped up into command. “Mes enfants!” he cried. “I command you now. We may die, but never will surrender!”

By now Camarón was besieged not just by cavalry but by infantry soldiers, 1,200 of them and crack shots all. The firing was as hot as
the day. The sun rose ever higher in the sky and so the suffering of the defenders increased. Within the walls musket smoke coiled and hung like a shroud. Muskets grew so hot with incessant firing that it was almost impossible to hold them. There was no water in any of the buildings and a run to the well in the courtyard, into the sights of the snipers, was to invite certain death. It was said later that the men of the 3rd Company were reduced to drinking their own blood and urine before it was over. Again Milan offered terms of surrender. This time it was Vilain who went from man to man, asking what was in their hearts. They had fought for Danjou, they said, and now they fought for Vilain. There would be no surrender.

Some time in the middle of the afternoon a bullet took Vilain. History does not record whether he was loved or loathed at the end. In any case the Legionnaires fought for him and died beside him. What is true is that Lieutenant Maudet stepped up now and asked the survivors if they would surrender or fight on. They chose to fight, of course.

Now came a desperate attack by the Mexican infantry to test the defenders’ mettle once more. Steady and disciplined fire from the remaining 70-caliber muskets drove the Mexicans back.

Unable to clear the defenders from the hacienda, the besieging soldiers set fire to the place instead. Now the smoke and flames of burning straw and timber were added to the heat of the sun. By late afternoon Maudet commanded no more than a dozen Legionnaires and they stood or lay in a manmade hell of thirst and fire and dying.

Beyond the walls they could hear the fury of Colonel Milan as he demanded of his officers how it could be that 2,000 men and cavalry had not yet accounted for the defenders of Camarón? There was no answer to be had.

Finally, with bugles sounding, rifles blazing fire and men howling, the Mexicans began a final desperate push. Maudet and his survivors
made it into an outbuilding. The officer looked around at his fellows. There were five men still alive beside him—Corporals Berg and Maine and Legionnaires Constantin, Leonard and Wensel. Between them they had a handful of ammunition. Still the attackers came on, frenzied now as the defenders pulled back from one ruined outbuilding to another.

At bay, in a lull in the firing, Maudet looked into the faces of his comrades for the last time, taking in every detail. Their future was simple. They’d already been through the ammunition pouches of the fallen and had just one round apiece.

“Load your weapons,” ordered Maudet.

He looked toward the shattered doorway through which they had come and through which he planned to leave, for good or ill.

“On my command, fire,” he said. “Then follow me and we’ll finish this with our bayonets.”

With Maudet leading the way, the survivors plunged headlong into legend. Their lieutenant fell, mortally wounded.

The firing stopped. The Mexicans pressed forward and, as the smoke of gunfire cleared, in one corner of the courtyard stood the last three defenders of Hacienda Camarón. Their ammunition was spent and they were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, muskets raised and bayonets fixed. The attackers were moving forward as one, ready to finish the job, when an officer’s voice ordered them to halt. It was a Mexican colonel named Combas, and with saber in hand he shouldered his way through the encircling soldiers until he could see with his own eyes who it was that had defied them for so long.

When he saw the trio standing firm—Corporal Berg, Corporal Maine and Legionnaire Wensel—he asked of them, “Surely you must surrender now?”

It was Corporal Maine who replied, having first glanced left and right to check that he was the senior of the surviving men.

“If we may keep our arms and tend our wounded, then we will surrender,” he said.

“To men such as you,” said Combas, “one may refuse nothing.”

And so it was that the three were brought before the Mexican commander, Colonel Milan. On hearing what had happened in those last hours and minutes and moments he said, “
Pero, non son hombres—son demonios!
” Truly, these are not men, these are demons!