A Ballad of Love and Glory(52)
That afternoon, Juan Cortina returned to the city and stopped at the citadel to give notice that the Yankees were camped three miles distant in the grove of pecans at the Bosques de Santo Domingo. Cortina had scattered the new leaflets around the campground to be found and read the next morning. Ampudia had posted sentries along the roads with instructions to escort any deserters seeking to join the Mexican ranks. Riley was pleased to see Sergeant Cortina return safely back to the city. The body of another Mexican spy, Jerónimo Valdez, had been found in the chaparral earlier that day, and Riley knew Ximena would have been devastated if anything had happened to her friend.
Throughout the afternoon, he and his battery spotted the enemy forces making reconnaissance, and the Texas Rangers roaming the periphery of the town. Later, the Rangers, always the daredevils, galloped toward them at full speed. Riley suspected they would dodge his fire, but he still gave the command. He’d seen them ride before and knew how fast and agile they could be. Riley’s guns roared warnings, and the Mexican snipers directed their muskets at them, but the daredevils escaped unscathed, circling the citadel, yelling their Texas cry, before racing back to rejoin the troops.
The next day, September 20, Monterrey would be celebrating its two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary, but on the eve of such an important event, instead of the customary fandangos and celebrations, more families fled the city in haste. Those who remained gathered silently with the troops in the central square to pray for victory. Riley remained in the citadel, avoiding Ximena. He wouldn’t go into the city that night. It was his punishment.
The priests came to bless the guns and to give the garrison their benediction. Riley and his men couldn’t sleep. From the ramparts of the citadel, they watched the city, eerily silent, as if holding its breath as it waited for the combat to ensue. He thought of Ximena in the hospital. He should have gone to see her, to make things right between them. If anything happened to either of them… No, he refused to think those thoughts. He made the sign of the cross and said a silent prayer, for himself, for Ximena, for his wife.
19
September 1846
Monterrey, Nuevo León
After the first day of battle, Ximena was up all night supervising the care of the wounded. Toward morning, when her spirit and body could take no more, Dr. I?igo, the head surgeon, bid her to retire. “Rest, se?ora, recuperate your strength.”
Ximena and the other soldaderas and local women volunteering as hospital aides had spent the early part of the day preparing bandages, cleaning tools and sponges, and making poultices and ointments. Later they were tasked with washing and dressing wounds, comforting the living and the dying. So, by the time she was sent to bed, Ximena didn’t argue. She knew she had reached her limit.
She dragged herself to a cot in the corridors, not far from the patients in case she was needed. But no sooner had she closed her eyes than she was startled awake by the explosions. The local women had displayed incredible stamina preparing for the battle, and yet many ended up huddled in a corner, crying and praying for the bombardment to stop. Ximena wanted to offer them a word of comfort, but she hadn’t the strength.
The first day, there hadn’t been many casualties. But on the second day, she knew the tide might change. Maloney rolled over on his cot, covering his ears to block out the sound of the shells raining down. He would have never made an artillerist, he’d said. But Ximena knew it was more than that. It was the agony of war itself the old man couldn’t endure, and she wished she could take him far away from the chaos. She went over to him, coaxing him to get up and help take out those who’d died during the night. She feared they would need every cot and blanket available by day’s end.
As she listened to the sounds of the raging battle, she was unable to distinguish whether the roar of the muskets and the booms of the cannons were coming from the Mexican Army or the Yanquis. She thought of John Riley, and as she rushed from one wounded man to the next, cleaning and dressing their injuries, her mind again and again kept turning to their outing in the country eating tunas. Or dancing at the fandango, his strong arms wrapped around her. These memories helped her get through the day.
She encouraged Maloney to think of happy moments as well, but he claimed he couldn’t. Whenever he was asked to hold a man down for an amputation, Maloney would close his eyes and cry as if the limb being sawed off was his own. But he also cried when he was sent to load the dead onto the wagons, their glazed eyes fixed upon him as he buried their mutilated bodies in shallow graves. Still, Ximena was thankful for his help. Every other able-bodied man was out on the battlefield, and only the women were here assisting the two surgeons.
Throughout the day, more wounded were brought in, their shrieks and moans merging with the lamentations and supplications of the others until Ximena felt that her head was going to explode. There weren’t enough bandages to staunch the blood, not enough gauze or sponges. When she knew Maloney couldn’t take the blood and misery anymore, she sent him outside for some fresh air and to see if he could learn any news of the battle. He liked going to the cathedral where he could watch the fighting from the bell tower along with the priests. The day before, he’d rushed in to tell her that Taylor’s howitzers and mortars were having no effect on the citadel, and together they had rejoiced to know John and his men were safe and their guns were taking down anyone who came within range. She remembered back in Matamoros when she’d gone to the fields to watch the morning drills. She imagined him now, pointing his sword at the Yanqui troops and yelling “?Fuego!”