A Ballad of Love and Glory(74)
“Are you ready for this, Lieutenant?” Dalton said as he came to stand beside him. Riley ran his hand along the cold metal surface of one of his cannons.
“Aye, indeed,” Riley said. “I’ve been ready. Fág an Bealach.”
Together, they stuck their banner in the ground and watched as the flag of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion unfurled in the breeze, a vivid green against the azure of the sky.
27
March 1847
Buena Vista/La Angostura
In the morning, Ximena was awoken by the Mexican bugles calling the troops to fall in. The soldiers had not had any rations, for there were none. The military bands from each brigade played loudly as Santa Anna positioned his forces to begin the attack. Ximena knew the noise and fanfare were meant to intimidate the Yanquis. She watched the men drop to their knees as the priests walked along the lines to offer their blessings, incense wafting into the air. From far away she could see John and the San Patricios kneeling by their cannons, waiting for their benedictions. She spotted Juan Cortina with the cavalry, their lances lowered as the priests sprinkled them with holy water. Their prayers rose in unison to the heavens. Then Santa Anna addressed the troops, and she strained to hear his remarks.
“I glory in the consciousness of being at the head of an army of heroes, who not only know how to fight bravely but to suffer patiently both hunger and thirst, a sacrifice required of you by our nation.”
The cheers went up into the air. “?Viva la República!” echoed against the mountain range, and then one by one the units took their positions. When Santa Anna gave the order, the military bands sounded the charge and the fighting commenced.
Along with the other soldaderas, Ximena remained on the ridge overlooking the battle grounds. As the cannons and muskets crashed and roared, and the crack of the rifles and the clanging hooves of the cavalry reverberated over the battlefield, she thought of the worst storms she’d witnessed in San Antonio de Béxar and the Río Bravo region, when the clapping thunder and vivid flashes of lightning seemed to be splitting the heavens above. She’d never imagined she would one day witness storms even worse than those—with gunpowder flashes and bombs exploding, with a hail of cannon balls falling upon the battlefield. This darkening storm was deadlier and more sinister than any created by nature. For this one was man-made, forged by greed, vanity, tyranny.
Finally, the soldaderas dispersed to forage for food and gather firewood, others to the makeshift field hospital. Ximena had seen enough of the battle as well, and yet, she couldn’t pull away. She watched Cheno with his mounted riders charging at the enemy. He tossed his rawhide lasso at a Yanqui cavalryman, catching him by the neck, and pulled him off his horse and hauled him along until the man choked to death. She thought of the stories Joaquín had told her of the spring roundups out on the open prairie when branding calves, of him teaching Cheno everything he knew about roping until the day came when the younger man bested him in the skill.
When a Yanqui cannon tore into the Mexican cavalry, making a bloody mangled mess of horse and man, she could take no more. She returned to the hospital tent to get away from the horrific sights and sounds of the battlefield, from the sight of John shouting orders to his men, his cannons ripping into the North American ranks below on the plateau. From the hospital she could hear the incessant roar of the San Patricios’ cannons throughout the day. Yes, the sounds could have been from the enemy, but in her heart she couldn’t bear to think that the bloodcurdling screams rising from the battlefield belonged to her countrymen and to the foreign soldiers who had so gallantly taken a stand on behalf of Mexico.
After many hours, the combat finally ceased when the sky broke open, flooding the terrain with a cold, heavy rain, turning the battlegrounds into a lagoon. Both armies took a respite to wait for the rain to pass. From the ridge, she could see the horror of the aftermath, with soldiers fallen in heaps everywhere, limbs interlaced. The hospital aides and burial parties went out to search in the muck for their injured and slain. The wheels of the wagons got stuck in the mud, and the hospital aides had no choice but to carry the wounded one by one in makeshift stretchers made of muskets. The wounded were laid upon the muddy ground of the hospital for want of cots and blankets, and there they remained stretched upon the bare earth, their uniforms caked with mud and blood.
Ximena, the surgeons, and the other hospital attendants did their best to ease the suffering of the wounded they had managed to bring in, but they had insufficient medical supplies and shelter to provide them and not a grain of rice or drop of clean water to offer.
The wind blew, like the wails of La Llorona. Ximena shivered under her thin rebozo as she listened to the eerie sounds. Two San Patricios came in carrying their comrade in their arms. Kerr Delaney’s left arm had been blown off by an exploding shell. The surgeon ordered her to prepare the Irishman for an immediate amputation, and she wished she could save what was left of the arm from the surgeon’s saw. But upon seeing the torn muscles, the crushed bones, the thin pieces of flesh hanging from the limb, she knew there was nothing she could do but help hold him down and give him strength.
“It’s going to be all right, Kerr,” she said.
“Don’t fret about me, lassie,” he said. “And don’t be alarmed about Lieutenant Riley. We’ve been givin’ the Yanks hell out there. Took two of their guns, we did.”