A Ballad of Love and Glory(5)
Riley never indulged in the drink. It would mean fewer wages to send back to his wife and son in Ireland. God knew there was never enough for them to eat. Even before the rotten potato crop, life had been harsh. Besides, he liked being in control of his senses, his body. Irishmen needed their wits about them, always. Especially in this country. Especially in this army.
Riley shoved his tentmate clear off the bed, and Sullivan fell with a thud on the ground. Even that didn’t rouse him. With no other choice, Riley slapped him hard across the face. Sullivan finally bolted awake.
“You got five minutes, lad,” Riley said. “And right well you know what will happen if you tarry.” He shook out Sullivan’s sky-blue fatigue jacket and trousers to check for scorpions and tarantulas and tossed the uniform to his tentmate, who stumbled to his feet.
“Och, I was dreamin’ of my mam,” Sullivan said as he slipped on his trousers over his dirty flannel underdrawers. “Sometimes, I start to forget what she looks like! But there she was, runnin’ hither to me. I was comin’ home in my dream, can ya believe it? I was comin’ home.”
“?’Tis a fine dream, lad, but time to wake up now.” Riley didn’t let on how similar—and how bittersweet—his own dreams of Ireland had been since he’d left three years before. “And be sure to shake your shoes,” he said on his way out of the tent. “Best not let the poisonous vermin infestin’ this place get ya.”
Sullivan was a skinny young man with wide green eyes as vibrant as grass after freshly fallen rain. His unruly red hair and the fuzz on his ruddy cheeks made him seem younger than his eighteen years. Riley himself had had that look once, until he learned better. The lad was about the age Riley was when he first joined the British Army twelve years before. Riley had earned his sergeant stripes serving in the Royal Artillery and had high hopes back then of making something of himself, but in the military, as in everything else, the English treated the Irish like chattel. He soon discovered that a Connemara man like himself would never stand a fair chance of promotion on his merits. The English never let him forget that Paddies were great cannon fodder. Riley still remembered the hardships he’d undergone, and he wanted to spare Sullivan some of the heartaches that boyish fancies—and follies—could bring.
Under the command of the Yankee general, Zachary Taylor, Riley quickly learned that being in the US Army was no different.
He pushed through the worn-out canvas flap into the rosy light and took a deep breath of the fresh morning air. The change in weather was a blessing. Most of his service had been spent in the coastal village of Corpus Christi, where he’d suffered blistering humid days under the scorching sun and keen, wet nights in a leaky tent. Here, on the northern bank of the Río Grande, he’d have to get used to the sudden changes in temperature. One day could burn as hot as living fire, and the next a bitterly cold norther could freeze a man to death in his sleep.
He made the sign of the cross and said a prayer before reporting for roll call. A gang of wild geese flew low above him. He followed their V-shaped line with his eyes south across the Río Grande where the red-tiled roofs and white buildings of the Mexican city of Matamoros peeked through the thickets. Hearing the church bells echoing across the river, scarcely two hundred yards wide, Riley wished he were inside the warm walls, among the swirling scents of melted candle wax, incense, and flowers like the churches back home. The Yanks ridiculed the Catholic faith and spurned the Irish as savage fanatics, forcing Protestant services on Catholic soldiers. Their disdain for his religion made Riley’s blood boil. He couldn’t rightly remember his last mass, his last confession, and he longed for the words of comfort only a man of the cloth could give. He hoped prayers would be enough for now. In nomine Patris et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. He hoped Jesus and His Holy Mother would understand. Amen.
“Anois, Sullivan, what’s keepin’ ya?” he called out, putting on his cap. His eye was caught by what seemed another odd bit of weather—he mistook it at first for patches of snow, until he realized it was paper, hundreds of leaflets rustling about in the wind, flapping between the tents. As the soldiers emerged from their tents, they bent down to examine the leaflets, muttering among themselves. Riley brushed the dirt off one he found stuck on a nearby bush.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Mexican Army to the English and Irish under the orders of the American General Taylor:
Know Ye: That the Government of the United States is committing repeated acts of barbarous aggression against the magnanimous Mexican nation; that the Government which exists under the flag of the stars is unworthy of the designation of Christian. Recollect that you were born in Great Britain, that the American Government looks with coldness upon the powerful flag of England and is provoking to rupture the warlike people to whom it belongs, President Polk boldly manifesting a desire to take possession of Oregon as he has already done Texas.
Now then, come with all confidence to the Mexican ranks, and I guarantee you, upon my honor, good treatment and that all of your expense shall be defrayed until your arrival in the beautiful capital of Mexico.
Germans, French, Poles, and individuals of other nations! Separate yourselves from the Yankees, and do not contribute to defend a robbery and usurpation which, be assured, the civilized nations of Europe look upon with utmost indignation. Come, therefore, and array yourselves under the tricolor flag, in confidence that the God of Armies protects it, and it will protect you, equally with the English.