Soldiers of Conquest (11 page)

“I wanted to see the damage you're doing to the walls,” Grant replied.

“So do I. But you can't tell from here, too much heat waves in the air.”

“I think I'll go for a closer look.”

“Better get permission from the captain before you go out beyond the lines.”

“That's what I'm here for.”

The two lieutenants drew near Lee, who seeing them coming, ceased working with the chief gunner to aim one of the cannons and walked out from the gun to meet them.

Grant saluted and spoke. “Captain, I'd like to go forward and take a good look at the walls of the city. See how much damage that's been done to them.”

“Go ahead.”

“I'll go with you to keep you out of trouble,” said the black eyed Beauregard. He turned to Lee. “With your permission, captain.”

Lee nodded agreement. “That house out there should provide a good view point.” He pointed at the structure situated two hundred yards closer to the city. “I'll join you there when I'm finished here. Keep out of sight of the Mexican gunners for they'll drop a cannon ball on you.”

Lee watched the two younger, smaller men go swiftly off through the dunes, Beauregard with a swagger, and Grant with his usual slouched shouldered movement.

*

Grant and Beauregard darted from dune to dune as above their heads the screaming shells of the Americans and Mexican cannons ripped the air. They reached the house Lee had indicated, a building with thick adobe walls painted a pale yellow. Though they believed the house would be abandoned with the occupants scared away by the cannonading, they entered warily with pistols drawn. They went quietly thought the four rooms, each with all its furnishings still in place. The house waited silently for the return of its owners.

“We're all by our lonesome” Grant said to Beauregard, and hoping no hostile eyes had spotted them crossing the dunes.

He holstered his pistol, took his glasses out of its case, went to a front window, and focused on the fifteen-foot tall walls of Veracruz. Beauregard came up with his glass to the window on Grant's right.

As Grant studied the southeastern section of the city's walls, the section at which the American cannon fire had been concentrated, his dismay grew. “Why, the walls are hardly hurt at all,” he exclaimed. “Just a stone missing here and there. Nothing serious at all.”

“And the embrasures and forts aren't damaged one bit,” Beauregard said. “Just as if we have been shooting feather pillows at them,” he added with disbelief.

Both men froze at the abrupt sound of breaking roof beams and sheathing as a shell smashed down through the roof of the house and buried itself in the earthen floor.

“It's a bomb!” Grant shouted knowing instantly what had occurred. “Get down!”

Grant hurled himself to the side, trying desperately to gain distance from the shell and get low to escape its blast of iron fragments when it exploded.

The shell burst with a brilliant orange flash and a brain jarring concussion. The earthen floor leapt in an exploding brown geyser. A tremendous blast of wind and dirt caught Grant and flung him savagely across the room. He landed hard as a dropped stone and flat on his stomach with his face buried in the dirt of the floor near an outside wall.

Huge pain ran through him, which told him he was still alive. Hurry! Get out of the house before another shell lands. Even as the thought came, a slab of the thick adobe wall collapsed upon him, and splintered roof beams fell on top of that, and the ton weight penned him to the earth.

Grant twisted his head to the side to free his face and sucked at the air. He drew in a little air, and a lot of adobe dust. He heaved and strained to lift the broken pieces of house off him. His battered body ached and creaked and groaned with the effort, but the mass of debris on top of him didn't budge. He was trapped and slowly suffocating. This was a damn poor way to die.

Where was Beauregard? Had he been hurt? Killed? Why wasn't he helping Grant get free?”

Grant heard a dragging sound in the beams and blocks of adobe as someone moved part of them. Then through the ringing in his ears he heard Lee shout, “Grant, you alive?”

“Just barely, captain. Get the house off me.”

He heard the clatter of wood and adobe being thrown aside and felt the crushing weight easing. He thrust his back powerfully upward against the mass. It lifted and his head came free. He heaved again and rolled out from under the heavy chunk of adobe. He looked up into the concerned faces of Lee and Beauregard.

“How bad you hurt?” Lee asked as he knelt down beside the bruised and dust covered Grant.

“I believe I'll live. Good thing you weren't far behind us.” Grant looked at Beauregard and found him equally dusty.

“I'm okay,” Beauregard said with a wry smile. “I was farther away from it than you and flat on the floor when it exploded. But I think my hearings ruined for my ears are wringing like a hundred bells.” He looked steadily at Grant. “Thanks for your warning it made me act quicker than I would've otherwise.”

Grant rose to his feet, and stood feeling shaky. “Thanks to both of you for pulling me out before I ate a lung full of dust.”

“We can't afford to lose a good quartermaster,” Lee said. “Now let's get out of this place before they hit it with another shell.”

Lee and Beauregard went out through a gap in the broken rear wall of the house. Grant followed, his head aching terribly, right shoulder feeling like it was half wrenched from its socket, and blowing dust out of his nostrils. He was a lucky fellow.

Reaching a safe distance from the house, Lee halted them behind a dune. “I want to take a good look at the walls and forts,” he said.

“You'll find that almost no damage has been done,” Beauregard said.

Lee stared at the city through his glass for a time. Finally he lowered the glass. “The range was too long for our light field artillery to damage either the walls or the forts,” he said sadly. “If our heavy siege weapons were here it would be a different story.”

Lee looked to the east where Admiral Conner's fleet of war ships was anchored a half mile offshore. “I know where there are guns that can destroy the walls,” he said.

*

Hidden and protected from the enemy cannons by the depth of the sunken road, Lee, Grant and Beauregard walked swiftly toward headquarters. Reaching the end of the sunken road at the seacoast they came upon Scott and Worth riding horseback in their direction. The three junior officers saluted the generals.

“What happened to you two?” asked Scott looking down at the two dusty, disheveled lieutenants.

“We were standing in the wrong spot when a Mexican shell landed and exploded,” Grant said.

“You both are very fortunate,” Scott said and amused at Grant's reply.

He spoke to Lee. “Captain, what is our success in damaging the city's walls?”

“Sir, we are averaging one hundred and twenty-five shells an hour with nine out of ten exploding,” Lee was proud of the number and wanted Scott to know. “The houses and businesses of the city are suffering badly, and I'm sure the citizens are terrified. But the fortifications and their garrisons are escaping with nothing but minor damage. I saw but a few stones broken loose from the walls. Further, I believe the 24-pounders that we'll have ready by tomorrow morning won't do the job either. We must have more powerful weapons.”

Scott cast a look at the sea. “As you know, Commodore Conner and I have discussed the use of his heavy naval cannons in the event that out siege guns didn't arrive in a timely manner. I'll signal him that I accept his offer.”

Scott spoke to Lee. “Captain, you will see that they are sited as rapidly as possible after they're landed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And have these two dirty lieutenants get into clean uniforms.” Scott gave Grant and Beauregard a hint of a smile, reined his horse around, and rode off toward headquarters.

Lee led through the darkness, finding the way among the sand dunes by the pale light of a quarter moon. Behind him in the dunes, a thousand soldiers and two hundred sailors labored, hooked with shoulder straps to long ropes fastened to six giant cannons. He had formed the men into teams of two hundred each to drag the Navy's three 8-inch howitzers, hurling 64-pound exploding shells, and the three 32-pounders firing solid iron balls to their emplacement sites.

Lee halted in the gloom of the night and stared backward. The noise of more than two thousand booted feet churning the sand, made Lee think that some great night beast might make the same sound. Above the noise of the boots came the rumbling chant of the men. “Heavy metal” pause “to the front.” repeated over and over in rhythm to their strenuous breathing.

General Scott had signaled Admiral Conner aboard the Mississippi that he wished a parley. Conner came ashore accompanied by Admiral Perry who had arrived two days before with orders to relieve the ailing Conner. Perry out of respect for Conner and upon seeing the fierce cannonading in progress against Veracruz, had placed himself temporarily second in command of the war fleet. The two admirals had readily agreed to Scott's request for the loan of their most powerful cannons. They made one condition, their naval gunners must service the six weapons.

By nightfall the seamen had the guns floated ashore. Lee working with Naval Lieutenant Aulick began the tortuous task of moving the guns to their firing positions two and one-half miles distant. The guns were extremely difficult to drag for they were mounted on ship's carriages that had no wheels and thus dug deep furrows in the sand. The men were willing, and with muscles and tendons straining, snaked the weapons over the dunes and through the lagoons, some of the water two feet deep.

In the small hours of the morning, the guns had been dragged to the brush-covered ridge of sand that Lee had chosen. He set Aulick and his sailors to preparing the battery sites on the backside of sand ridges, fill sandbags to build parapets, and dig trenches to dive into when the enemy's shells came crashing down. The soldiers were sent to the beach to bring forward the powder and shot for the weapons.

In the first faint blush of dawn, the sailors wrestled the six guns into the prepared sites. Lee released all from duty. As they walked wearily away among the dunes on the way to the beach, the naval gun crews came into sight.

Lee's heart gave a sudden surge of pleasure for in the front of the sailors was his younger brother Naval Lieutenant Sidney Lee who had duty on Conner's flagship the Mississippi. Lee hastened forward and clasped his brother's hand.

“Sid, so you're going to be with me?”

Sidney, black headed and clean-shaven, beamed happily at the unexpected encounter. “'Ppears so. Until the city falls.”

“Which guns are yours?”

“I'm boss of the howitzers. They should knock the walls down.”

“We just can't do without you sailors,” Lee said with a smile.

“The navy is always there when you need help.”

Lee spoke in a serious tone, “Sid, keep your head down. And have your men to do the same for the Mexicans are getting good at hitting what they aim at.”

“Right,” said Sidney.

“Come and let me point out the targets.” Lee said. He put his arms around Sidney's shoulders and they moved toward the howitzers where the gun crews were sponging the barrels to clear out the sand in preparation for action. Lee worried about his brother being permanently located on the coast for yellow fever was running rampant through the sailors of the fleet. One ship had left its blockading station off Tampico for the States with two hundred seamen suffering from the disease. Now Sidney would also be in the thick of heavy cannon bombardment. It was strange to first see combat with his brother. How terrible it would be to see him killed before his eyes. A heavy feeling of responsibility for Sidney's safety swept over Lee.

They stopped by the howitzers and Lee brought from his pocket a copy he had made of the map Giffard had given Scott. He pointed at the map and then at buildings in the city that could be seen and were targets. Others that were also targets but couldn't be seen from the dunes, he marked on the map.

“Now let's set the guns for the first salvo,” Lee said. “Cut the fuses of your first shells to ten seconds, and then adjust the length more finely after you see where they explode,” Lee said.

“Yes, big brother,” Sidney said, his eyes laughing.

*

“My, God, look at that!” Lieutenant Aulick shouted excitedly as he stared through his field glasses at the walls of Veracruz.

Yes indeed, a wonderful sight, thought Lee as he too observed the American cannonballs striking the city's walls. He was with Aulick at the battery of naval 32-pounders that he were aimed for concentrated fire at a section of walls near the Mexican infantry and cavalry barracks.

The brush that had been piled across the top of the sand ridge to hide the naval cannons had been flung aside and the powerful guns had opened fire on Veracruz. The ground shook with the thunder of the guns and the air was full of shells as the bucking and snarling guns let go as rapidly as the men could reload them. The crash of the shells exploding against the city's walls returned sharp and savage. Lee felt satisfaction as the heavy iron balls blasted large segments of wall loose and sent fragments of iron and stone raking the army barracks and nearby casemates.

The Mexican artillerymen returned a terrific fire with every ball aimed at the new American batteries. The city's forts and walls were covered with a dark cloud of gun smoke through which red lances of fire flashed. Cannonballs rained down upon the American gun crews. Deadly iron fragments whined about in all directions. A ball with a sputtering fuse landed and rolled past the guns and exploded harmlessly far behind the men.

The air around the battery of 32-pounders was bitter with the stink of burnt gunpowder, and Lee's eyes and lungs burned. He groped out of the smoke and hastened the hundred yards to the battery of howitzers to be with his brother in this dangerous battle of solid shot and exploding shells.