They Came To Cordura (12 page)

Major Thorn shivered. The night had become knife-cold. When the men had piled enough fuel he brought his blankets and saddlebags to his own fire, cleaned his dusty glasses on his shirt-sleeve, took out his black notebook and pencil stub and began to write.

Notes for Cavalry Journal

The rifle boot, on the left side of the horse, often causes sore withers on the right, the side opposite the boot. Remedy: since carrying the rifle on the trooper’s back has been found unsatisfactory, switch the boot from side to side on alternate days.

It was no use. The pencil trembled in his fingers. He could wait no longer. Standing, he motioned Lieutenant Fowler to him. Shoulders draped with blankets against the cold, the men about the big fire were busy with oil and patches and their Springfields.

Fowler sat near him, expectant. The gold bar on his collar shone. Entering his serial number and middle name in the notebook, Thorn turned the pages to some notes he had previously made, checking them against replies. Fowler answered readily.

“There were six Mexicans behind the fence?”

“Yes, sir. Two of them ran before I could get within range.”

“That left four. You killed all four?”

“I believe so, Major. I didn’t count them.” He did not say he could not have counted because he was vomiting.

“This was a very unusual thing,” Thorn said slowly. “A troop commander attacks and destroys an enemy position alone. Thinking back, can you recall what your feelings were at the time?”

Lieutenant Fowler began to unlace his leggings. “We were pinned down under that steep bank. The Mexican fire was just over our heads. I remember thinking the position had to be taken, that was all, and that I ought to do it.”

“But in order to take it you had to climb sixty yards of hill in the open, under fire. You had at least twenty men left of your troop. The conventional thing to do was order an assault. But you didn’t. You must have come to the other decision on the basis of certain factors, and it’s those factors I am interested in.”

Lieutenant Fowler’s glance lingered on the Major’s boots as he continued to unlace. Boots were the one item of apparel he had been unable to locate, and he felt the lack of them keenly.

“I must have thought it was my duty. I’m sure that was the only factor.”

“Duty?” Thorn said testily. “Not at all. Come now, Fowler, try to remember.”

“I’m sorry, sir. It must have been a sense of duty. I know the obligation of a troop commander to his men.”

“He has no obligation to commit suicide.”

“He has if necessary,” Fowler said stubbornly.

“No.” Thorn tried another tack. “Do you recall any particular physical sensation when you made the decision or as you started up the bank—that is, anything unusual? You must have been tired by then. Was there a sudden reserve of new energy and great excitement?”

“No. In any case, Major, I don’t see where this line of questioning is supposed to lead.’’

It had gone badly, as it had with Hetherington. Fowler was a snob, a dandy, a gossip, and a good beating behind a barracks would do wonders for him. But he was also a brave man. And it was time he knew it. Major Thorn told him. Fowler sat with back straight, plebe posture.

“The Medal of Honor?”

“Yes. I understand your feelings,” Thorn said. “It must be strange to have the highest honor so early. Whatever you do in combat the rest of your life will be an anti-climax.”

The Lieutenant’s hands began to lace up the leggings he had just unlaced. He tried to remain expressionless.

“You should know, too, that I am also writing citations for Chawk, Renziehausen and Trubee. That is the purpose of this detail. To return to base until Congress has approved the Medal for all of you.’’

“All of us? Four men in one fight?” Fowler stood as though jerked by a string. “It’s impossible!”

“That is for me to decide,” Thorn said.

Fowler’s eyes were wide with recognition, in part of his new status, in part of something else. “The Medal of Honor. . .“ he repeated.

“Will you keep this quiet until I have seen the others?” Thorn asked. “And send Renziehausen over.”

Finally the junior officer turned and walked towards the big fire, his half-laced leggings flapping.

Thorn threw more
granjeno
on his fire. As it blazed up, Renziehausen appeared and waited at attention until invited to sit. To put him wholly at ease the officer drew him out for some minutes. Wilber James Renziehausen was nineteen and might have passed for sixteen. For beard he had freckles. His campaign hat, tilted rakishly over one ear, uncovered his need of a haircut. Both knees of his breeches had split, exposing boyish knobs. But he was well built and good-looking and his eyes were bright and clean as the fire. He was like a new pistol, loaded, cocked, and ready to go off in a smile at any excuse. His home, he said, had been a farm near West Allis, Wisconsin. He had three older brothers and a sister. He had bade his parents goodbye the day after graduation from high school, determined to come west to be a cowboy or prospect for gold or fight Indians or anything adventurous. But he could neither ride nor rope, the gold was gone, and Indians sold beads and blankets, and he had seen the cavalry drill at Fort Sam. He had been in the Army a year and liked it very much, especially campaigning like this. The fight at
Ojos Azules
had been the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him.

Opening his notebook Major Thorn once more checked the data he had put down against the youth’s answers. After vaulting the gate he had killed one Mexican with his pistol. The other, who had fought with him, had been riddled with tin of the grenade thrown by his own men from the roof. He, Renziehausen, had not killed him.

“Just before you started, wasn’t another man from F shot in the head trying the same thing?” Thorn asked.

“Yes, sir. Corp’ral Cooper.”

“You saw this happen, yet you went over anyway? What made you?” Thorn was easy about it. “Try to remember.”

The private frowned. “Gee, Major, I can’t. We had to get through the gate and somebody had to open it and I was the nearest.”

“But weren’t you afraid?”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

Renziehausen grinned. “You won’t believe me, Major, but I done the same thing lots of times at home when I was a kid.” He described how he and neighbor boys had fought many an engagement with slingshots, holding and attacking his father’s barn. “Some of us would be in the barn and some would come hollering down the hill to drive them out. We’d run down to the fence by the horse trough and somebody would have to go over first while they was peppering at us from the haymow door. I always shinned over the first one and I never got hit. That morning at
Ojos
was the same and I remembered I never got hit so I went over and I didn’t. So I wasn’t scairt, not me. I wasn’t scairt the whole fight, honest, Major.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

The officer reached to remove the private’s hat. “Then how do you explain this?”

He lifted the chinstrap from around the band. It had been bitten nearly through.

“You must have been very hungry, son, or very scared. It does no harm to admit it. Everyone is that way in a fight. Still you went over the gate. Can’t you tell me why?”

The youth shook his head. Even in firelight his deep blush could be seen.

“Try to remember. It is very important.”

“I can’t, Major. I just knew I’d be lucky and I wasn’t scairt.”

Giving up, regretting he had used the evidence of the chinstrap, Thorn returned the hat and, speaking gently, told Renziehausen why he had been detailed to base.

“Me? All of us?”

“Yes.”

“Will I really get it? The Congressional Medal of Honor?”

“I am sure of it.”

“What’ll they say at home?” the boy whispered “What’ll my brothers say?”

He wanted to believe, could not, then all at once let himself. In a paroxysm of joy he put his head down and hugged his knees, clasped himself, his own being, rocking back and forth, unable to speak. The officer looked away, embarrassed.

At that instant he heard the shout, the pound of feet between the other fires. Leaping up he saw the immense figure grappling for a second with the Geary woman. Before he could get there Chawk flung the woman away and waving a bottle high tipped it up and let tequila splash upon his face and run down his throat.

“Hand over the bottle, Sergeant.” The officer breathed hard from his run.

“You stinking Army scum,” Adelaide Geary said. “If I had a gun I’d put a bullet in your belly and watch your guts run out.”

Scowling at the officer, Chawk lowered the bottle. “The bitch hid it on us, Major, like the smokes. I dunno why the boys an’ me can’t drink it—spoils o’war.”

“If she tries to escape you have my permission to shoot her,” Thorn said. “Beyond that, what she has or does is none of our business. So hand it over.”

The huge non-com stared at him. Flames at his back, he made a grotesque and terrible sight. His splayed moustache dripped. He heard through dark, hairy holes on each side of his head, for even his ears were swathed in bandage.

“Goddam, Major, you know we ain’t wet our gullets since we come south. Whose side you on?”

Thorn could not understand it. Like a pack-mule, the man had been in service long enough to be conditioned to taking orders. The thing had to be settled. He sensed the other men on their feet behind him, waiting.

“Nobody’s,” he said sharply. “I am commanding this detail and I intend to take it to base according to my orders.” He had an idea. “If all of you knew why you were detached from regiment—what is going to happen to you—you would stop acting like squaws, and soldier the rest of the way. Now give me that bottle and I’ll tell you.”

It worked. Curiosity struggled with thirst, and still scowling Chawk handed over the tequila. Major Thorn went to the Geary woman, gave it to her, then turned to face the men. It was neither the time nor the way he wanted but it had to be now. He took a step or two so that he might face them all, Chawk on his right, the others on his left.

“This is not a guard detail,” he began. “This may be the most unusual detail the Army has ever assembled for any purpose. As you know, I was transferred from regiment to serve as Awards Officer for this Expedition, being responsible directly to General Pershing. My job is to see that men who distinguish themselves on this campaign are written up so that they can be decorated. You remember Boice at Columbus. You may have heard I wrote a citation for him and that he was given the Medal of Honor. He was killed last week. He never knew Congress had approved his award. As a result, General Pershing has authorized me to detach those men whose citations are to be sent to Congress, to take them out of action and transfer them to base duty until their awards can be acted on by Congress. In this way no harm can come to them as it did to Boice before they find out what brave men they are.”

No one moved. There were no questions. Sergeant Chawk stared at the ground. Major Thorn feared they had not understood.

“I have already told Lieutenant Fowler and Private Renziehausen,” he said. “Now you all know. Between here and base I will talk to each one of you and after that write your citations. When we hear that Congress has approved, General Pershing will probably make the presentations himself. You will then be returned to regiment.”

Bottle in hand, the Geary woman listened. Tethered beside her, yellow-clawed, the toucan clicked back and forth upon the leather of her saddle. It glowed in firelight as though its very feathers were aflame. Major Thorn cleared his throat.

“It is—it is not only my duty to write these citations for you. I consider it a high privilege. You are very brave men. Not one man in ten thousand receives the Congressional Medal of Honor. What it will mean to you I do not know. I hope more than the extra two dollars a month in pay. It is the highest honor your country can give to any man. It means, among other things, that for a few minutes, there at
Ojos
the other morning, and in the case of Hetherington, at
Guerrero
, each one of you did more than duty required. For a few minutes you acted—you lived—beyond what are normally understood to be—you lived beyond the limits of human conduct.”

They were like men of wood. Their faces were concealed by the frost of their breathing. He shivered. Silence and cold penetrated him. Outside, in darkness, there were only horse sounds: shuffles and stamps, short neighs, the profane breaking of wind.

“That will be all,” he said. “Lieutenant Fowler, have them finish cleaning weapons before they turn in.”

They went, still as before, back to their own fire. Major Thorn returned to his. So that he would not look at them he made more coffee in his tin cup and while it heated wrote further in his notebook.

The cause of many sore backs is the see-sawing of the blanket over the withers. As the horse loses flesh in the field, the saddle cants downward at the pommel, throwing the weight of the soldier forward, and the forward end of the saddle blanket saws at the flesh. If his can be cured by inserting a small strap through a hole in the forward end of the blanket, under the pommel arch, so as to hold the fold up into the arch without touching the withers. This stops the seesawing and permits a current of cool air to reach the withers.

I won with Chawk this time. Not by authority but by bargaining. Something I wanted him to do for something he wanted to know. The wrong way. What will you do next time, when you have nothing else to offer?

I will fight him if I have to but having to protect his head I could not beat him.

Reminding himself that he must separate the notes, personal and those to go to the
Journal,
when they reached
Cordura
, he had his coffee and, calling Lieutenant Fowler to him, posted guard for the night. Had they not had the responsibility of a prisoner, there would have been no need for guard. It was 21.00 hours. He would take the first two hours, then Renziehausen, Chawk and Trubee in that order. The Lieutenant’s face was blank and his ‘yes-sir’ mechanical.