A Ballad of Love and Glory(75)
After the operation, Santa Anna’s manservant came looking for her. She changed her apron and cleaned herself as best she could and was escorted to his quarters. A war meeting was taking place, and they all turned to look at her. A hush fell inside the tent. Her eyes locked with John’s, and she wished she could run to his arms, but she stood at the entrance of the tent, clutching her basket. On seeing her, Santa Anna dismissed everyone, and his chiefs and officers took their leave. John squeezed her shoulder as he passed and smiled encouragingly. His uniform was blackened with powder stains, and his eyes were irritated from the smoke, but otherwise, he seemed fine. In the evening, she would prepare chamomile tea to rinse his eyes.
“Delaney?”
“He’s alive.”
“Good. I’ll go see him now,” he said. The flaps of the tent closed behind him, and it took every ounce of strength to remain inside the tent and not follow him out.
Santa Anna bid her closer to where he sat. “Ximena, please, I’m in need of your services.” He winced as he removed his wooden leg.
“You didn’t have to send your officers away,” she said. “I can minister to your wounds while you conduct your meeting.”
“No, no. They must resume their positions. And I can’t have my subordinates see me in this state. I would lose my authority if they saw any weakness on my part.”
His stump was bleeding again, the closure had broken open. But he also had cuts and bruises on his face, and as she watched him remove his uniform jacket and saw the blood on the shirt beneath, she understood why he had sent everyone away.
“Damn Yanquis killed my horse from under me,” he said as she checked for broken ribs. “I barely managed to avoid being crushed to death by my own mount. That wouldn’t have been such a glorious death, would it?”
While she cleaned and dressed his wounds, he spoke to her about the battle, how before the rain had forced a pause in the fighting, he had enveloped Taylor’s left flank and gained his rear, had decimated three of his cavalry units, and had taken two standards and three artillery pieces, two of which had been seized by the San Patricios themselves. Trophies of war, he called them. “My troops have secured an advantageous position on the plateau,” he said. “As soon as this wretched storm passes, we will attack even harder. Victory will be ours by the time the sun sets tonight, and I shall present a new laurel to our nation.”
She nodded enthusiastically, wanting to believe. Needing to believe. “You can do it, General. You can end this war today.”
“I won’t yield,” he said as she reattached his wooden leg. “No matter how hungry or thirsty we are…” He stood up proudly and helped her stand up, then placed his hands on her shoulders. “We will stand our ground and fight to victory or death! Se lo prometo, Ximena.”
* * *
As soon as the storm passed, the fighting recommenced, its brutality a dark contrast to the beautiful rainbow that painted the sky. Through the interminable hours, all she could do was pray, knowing that if Jimmy Maloney were there with her, he would’ve kept her abreast of the battle. But he was gone, and now the only thing she cared about, regardless of whether they won or lost, was that John and Cheno would be alive and standing when the last cannonball flew.
As dusk settled over the land, the two armies called for a cease-fire, twelve hours after the fighting began. The field was a marshland, the gunpowder too damp. Ximena and the other soldaderas went into the boggy field of carnage. So many mutilated bodies of both men and horses were scattered about that she couldn’t even walk without stepping on a limb or slipping on a pool of blood. As the curses, prayers, and screams of the dying reached a crescendo around her, and she saw the faces disfigured by death, she realized that the real winner in this battle was La Muerte.
Men and beasts shrieked in excruciating agony. Ximena forced herself to keep her eyes in front of her or she knew she would go mad. The wounded were being carried out to the hospital tent, but the dead lay everywhere. The soldaderas roamed the battlefield anxiously as they sought their men. Their wails mingled with the anguished cries of the dying. But sometimes, the cries were of jubilation when a wife found her husband in the muck still alive and intact. Those were moments of ecstasy, and Ximena’s spirit lifted briefly as she watched husband and wife embrace once again.
She knew that she needed to work quickly, find those who could be saved and leave the rest to their fate. God have mercy on us all, she thought. The night was closing in around them and, in the dim light with their muddy uniforms, she couldn’t tell if the bodies belonged to the Mexican or the North American army, but it didn’t matter. These were human beings who reached out to her, supplicating for help, asking to be held, men who in their last seconds of life, called out to their mothers, their wives. What could she do but kneel beside them, clutching their hands and praying for their souls as she watched them take their last breaths?
She felt a firm but gentle hand on her shoulder and turned to find John standing behind her. She fell into his arms, desperate to be held and comforted by him. At this moment, she wished with all her heart to never be separated from him again. Even if she knew that he could never be hers.
“I wish you weren’t obliged to behold such desolation.” He wrapped his arms tighter around her, and she could feel, by the way he gave into their embrace, his own need for solace. She kissed him then, and when he returned her kiss, his desire for her anchored her, gave her the strength to carry on with the task at hand.