XVIII
Back to Vera Cruz—Luncheon on theChester—San Juan’s prison horrors—Tea on theMayflower—The ministry of war and the commissary methods—Torreon falls again?—Don Eduardo Iturbide.
N.’s sciatica is so bad that Dr. Fichtner told him to get to sea-level immediately. So last night we left, Dr. Ryan coming with us. At the station we found a guard of fifty of the crack Twenty-ninth Regiment to “protect” us, and a car placed at our disposal by Huerta. We had already arranged to go with Hohler and Mr. Easton, who is the secretary of the National lines, in his private car, thinking we wouldn’t put the government to the expense of one specially for us—though, as the government already owes some millions to the railroads, a few hundreds more or less would make little difference. We were half an hour late, as we insisted upon having the government car put off; but the fifty soldiers, with a nice young captain, suffering from an acute attack of tonsilitis, we could not shake.
At Vera Cruz we found a norther blowing, and I was glad to have my tailor-made suits. Mr. Lind seemed not quite so well as before. I think eight months of Vera Cruz food and monotony have told on him, besides the evident failure of his policy. He feels dreadfully about the Creelman article. He cast one look of supreme chagrin at me when I mentioned Shanklin’s disgust at being quoted as having found Huerta in thecoulissesof a theater, with an actress on each knee, and with another hanging around his neck, feeding him brandy. The truth being that Shanklin went to pay his respects to him in his box at some charity representation, and found Huerta, mightily bored, sitting alone with two aides. The Lind thing is not so easy to refute. Hedidwrite the letter to the rebel, Medina, and he has dreamed dreams, and sent them on to Washington. His policy is a dead failure, and I think its ghost walks with him at night.
We lunched on theChesterwith Captain Moffett, who is most discriminating about the whole situation, and, after an hour on the wind-swept deck, came back to the car, where we found delightful, spontaneous Captain McDougall, of theMayflower, come to ask us if we wouldn’t transfer our bags and ourselves and servant over to his ship. The annoying part of the whole trip is that Admiral Fletcher is in Mexico City. We did not tell any one of our coming down to Vera Cruz, nor did he announce that he was coming up, with Mrs. Fletcher and his two daughters. However, it is simply one of those annoyingcontretempsfor which there is no help. They went up by the “Interoceanic” route as we came down by the “Mexican.” I would have returned myself, leaving N. on theMayflower; but he feels that he must carry out the plan of returning to-morrow night, as he has correspondence that he wants to show the admiral.
Last night we dined on theEssex, to which Admiral Cradock has transferred his flag, theSuffolkhaving gone to Bermuda for a new coat of paint and other furbishings. Admiral Cradock is always the same delightful friend and companion. I played bridge till a late hour, with the admiral, Hohler, and Captain Watson.Watson has just come from Berlin, where for three years he was navalattaché. I saw many photographs of old friends—the Granvilles, Sir Edward Goschen, the Grews, the Kaiser. After a rather uncertain trip back to the shore, Hohler, Nelson, and myself threaded our way along the dark interstices of the Vera Cruz wharves and terminal tracks to the car—I, in long dress and thin slippers, bowed to thenorte.
We can’t get out to theFlorida, Captain Rush in command, on account of the high sea. I went to Mass with Ryan in the cathedral, which they have painted a hideous, cold gray, with white trimmings, since I saw it last. Then it had itsbelle patinéof pinkish-brown, that shone like bronze in the setting sun, and it was beautiful at all hours. However, the winds and the storms and the hot sun will again beautify man’s hideous work.
We had lunch for Admiral Cradock and several of his staff in the car, to which we had also asked Captain Moffett and Captain McDougall—a rather “close,” but merry company of nine officers and myself, in the little dining-room. After dinner we started out to San Juan Ulua.
I am comfortably writing in my state-room. We are not yet near Mexico City. My beloved volcanoes are a little unradiant, a dusty veil hangs over everything. It is often that way a month before the rains begin.
When we got to the station at seven, last night, we found that the train, which, according to schedule, was to leave at 7.20, had departed, with our private car and the servants, at 6.55. The servants had begged at least to have our car uncoupled, but no! You can imagine the faces of thechargéswhohadto be in MexicoCity Monday morning. The upshot of it all was that a locomotive was finally got ready, sent to catch the train and to bring back our car. After the telegraph and telephone, the whole station, and the town, for that matter, were up on end, we got off at ten o’clock. If the car had not come back, we intended to board a locomotive and to chase the train through the tropical night. The locomotive we finally secured broke down later on. On one of the steep, dark, flower-scented inclines, strange, dusky silhouettes gathered silently to watch the repairing, which was finally accomplished in the uncertain light of torch and lantern. Now we are due at the city at 12.30, the locomotive, our car, the car containing the fifty soldiers, and the poor officer who hasn’t had even a drop of water since he left Mexico City, Friday night. We sent pillows and blankets out to him and tried to make him comfortable, but of the good cheer, wine and viands he could take none.
I must tell you about the visit to the prison of San Juan. After lunch, Dr. Ryan, Captain McDougall, Dr. Hart, Mr. Easton, and I got into theMayflower’sboat and were taken to the landing of that most miserable of places. A strong wind was blowing from the purifying sea, which must help, from October to April, at least, to keep San Juan from being an unmitigated pest-hole. It is a huge place, composed of buildings of different periods, from the Conquerors to Diaz, with intersecting canals between great masses of masonry. To get to the commandant’s quarters we were obliged to skirt the water’s edge, where narrow slits of about three inches’ width, in walls a meter and a half thick, lead into otherwise unlighted and unaired dungeons. Human sounds came faintly from these apertures.
Entering through the portcullis, we found ourselves in the big courtyard where the official life of the prisongoes on, overlooked by the apartments of the colonel and the closely guarded cells for big political prisoners. Good-conduct men, with bits of braid on one arm, solicited us to buy the finely carved fruit-stones and cocoa-nuts. To us these represented monkeys, heads, and the like; to the men that make them they represent sanity and occupation for the horrible hours—though God alone knows how they work the fine and intricate patterns in the semi-darkness of even the “best” dungeons.
Afterward we went up on the great parapets, thenorteblowing fiercely—I in my black Jeanne Hallé hobble-skirt and a black tulle hat, as later we were to go to tea on theMayflower. We walked over great, flat roofs of masonry in which were occasional square, barred holes. Peering down in the darkness, thirty feet or so, of any one of these, there would be, at first, no sound, only a horrible, indescribable stench mingling with the salt air. But as we threw boxes of cigarettes into the foul blackness there came vague, human groans and rumbling noises, and we could see, in the blackness, human hands upstretched or the gleam of an eye. If above, in that strong norther, we could scarcely stand the stench that arose, what must it have been in the depths below? About eight hundred men live in those holes.
When we got back to the central court, our hearts sick with the knowledge of misery we could do nothing to alleviate, the prison afternoon meal was being served—coffee, watery bean soup, and a piece of bread. Oh, the pale, malaria-stricken Juans and Ramons and Josés that answered to the roll-call, carrying their tin cups and dishes, as they passed the great caldrons. They filed out, blinking and stumbling, before the armed sentinels, to return in a moment to the filthy darkness! Captain McDougall, a very human sort of person, tasted of thecoffee from one of their tin cups. He said it wasn’t bad, and he gave the men a friendly word and packages of cigarettes as they passed.
We bought all the little objects they had to sell, and distributed among them dozens of boxes of cigarettes. But we, with liberty, honors, opulence, and hopes, felt the foolishness of our presence, our blessing of liberty being all that any one of them would ask. The prisoners are there for every crime imaginable, but many of the faces were sorrowful and fever-stamped, rather than brutal.Allwere apparently forgotten of Heaven and unconsidered of man. We also visited the little, wind-swept cemetery, with its few graves. The eternal hot tides wash in and out of the short, sandy stretch that bounds it. About the only “healing” worked here is what the salt sea does to the poor bodies raked out of those prison holes. There is a stone to mark the place where some of our men were buried when they took the fortress in 1847. Dr. Ryan discovered a foot in a good American boot—evidently the remains of an individual recently eaten by a shark.
That fortress has been the home of generations of horrors, and there is no one in God’s world to break through that oozing masonry and alleviate the suffering it conceals. It was one of the cries of Madero to open up the prison, but he came, and passed, and San Juan Ulua persists. I haven’t described one-tenth of the horrors. I know theremustbe prisons and theremustbe abuses in all communities; but this pest-hole at the entrance to the great harbor where our ships lie within a stone’s-throw seems incredible.
Afterward, the contrast of tea, music, and smart, ready-to-dance young officers on the beautifulMayflowerrather inclined me to stillness. I was finding it difficult to let God take care ofHisworld!
I am sitting in the motor, jotting this down in the shade of some trees by the beautiful Alameda, waiting for N. to finish at the Foreign Office. Afterward he goes to “Guerra” and I to shop.
Yesterday afternoon, on our return from Vera Cruz, N. dashed to the telephone and communicated with the Fletchers. They came to tea at four. Later Nelson went out with the admiral, and I drove to San Angel with Mrs. Fletcher and her two pretty daughters. She is most agreeable. Her appreciation of the sunset on the volcanoes, which were in their most splendid array for the occasion, was all my heart could have asked. They return to Vera Cruz to-night.
I am feeling very fit, after a good night’s rest; the air envelops me like a luminous wrap, and the sun is softly penetrating.
The arms and ammunition are not yet delivered. Nothing was done in N.’s absence, of course. He didn’t want them, anyway; of what use are they in civilian hands?...
The War Ministry is just off theZocalo, in one side of the great, square building of the Palacio Nacional. From where I am sitting I see the soft, pink towers of the cathedral, in their lacy outlines. On the left is the Museo Nacional—a beautiful old building of the pink,tezontlestone the Spaniards used to such effect in their buildings. It contains all the Aztec treasures still remaining after centuries of destruction, and has a cozy, sun-warmedpatiowhere the sacrificial altars and the larger pieces are grouped. Most of them were found in the very site of the cathedral, which replaced theteocalliof the Aztecs—the first thing the Spaniards destroyed, to rear on its site the beautiful cathedral. I am surrounded by an increasing crowd of beggars, drawn by afew indiscreet centavos given to an old Indian woman, who too loudly blessed me; cries of “Niña, por el amor de Dios!” and “Niña, por la Santa Madre de Dios!” make me feel that I would better move on. The name of God is invoked so unceasingly by the beggars here that the wordpordiosero(for-Godsaker, beggar,) has passed into the language.
N. came out ofGuerra, having met in the corridor the immensely tall Colonel Cardenas, the best shot in Mexico. He is supposed to know just how Madero’s mortal coil was hustled off. He was in command of the squad transporting him and Pino Suarez from the Palacio to thePenitenciaríawhen they were shot. We then went to the third side of the Palacio Nacional, where the zapadores barracks is, to see how the officer of the Twenty-ninth, who went down with us to Vera Cruz, is getting on. It was very interesting, at twelve o’clock, to watch the various persons who bring food into the barracks. The guards search them all—men, women, and children—by passing their hands down their sides. The prettier young women get pinches or pokes anywhere the guard happens to fancy bestowing them, and they all give little squeals and jumps, sometimes annoyed, sometimes pleased. They bring in great baskets oftortillas,enchiladas,frijoles, fruits, etc. The men in the barracks are absolutely dependent on them for food, as there is no other army supply. Another guard kept off troublesome, too solicitous small boys with a bit of twisted twine, flicking them, with a stinging sound, about the legs. I found it most amusing. Finally the young captain himself came out to thank us and to tell us he was almost well—with an expectant look on his pale face. He wants N. to have him made a major. Why not, when every officer seems to have been promoted—aclever trick of Huerta’s. He has made several extra grades at the top to give himself room. He will need space for manœuvers of an army largely composed of higher officers. He is going to get the interior loan of fifty millions, with the guarantee of the Paris loan.... The Austro-Hungarian minister has just come to ask me to go out to San Angel with him, so adieu.
We have just had a beautiful motor-drive out to San Angel Inn, talking politics and scenery. The volcanoes had great lengths of clouds, thrown like twisted scarfs, about their dazzling heads.
Kanya de Kanya was with Count Aerenthal during his four years in Vienna, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and during that time made copious notes relating to the burning questions of the Near East, which will, of course, throw light on the big international issues of that period. He is hoping for a quiet time out here, to get them in order, though he can’t publish them until a lot more water has flowed under the Austro-Hungarian mill.
I got home in time to sit with Aunt Laura awhile before dressing for dinner, for which I was expecting Hohler. The meal was somewhat unquiet. One of the newspaper men called up to say that Torreon had fallen, and gave a few convincing details, such as that of Velasco’s life being spared. The fifty-million-dollar loan receded into the dim distance. We immediately pictured to ourselves the pillaging, ravishing hordes of Villa—the “human tiger,” as some of our newspapers mildly put it—falling down upon Mexico City, the peaceful. Nelson ordered the motor, and he and Hohler went out, as soon as dinner was over, to get some news at the War Department. A big fight, we know, is going on. As I write, brother is killing and mutilating brother,in the fertilelagunadistrict, and horrors unspeakable are taking place. Velasco is said to be honest and capable, and he has money and ammunition.
General Maure, who left for the front a few days ago, wouldn’t start until he had money enough for two months for his men. He also is supposed to be honest, and if hedoesfeed his men, instead of putting the money in some bank in the States (if they wouldallfeed their men, instead of asking worn, empty-stomached men to do the work), he may, perhaps, proceed toward victory. The corruption of the officers is what nullifies the work of the army, and Huerta says he is powerless against it. Any man he might court-martial is sure of the support of the United States. In order to remain faithful the troops only ask enough food to keep life in their bodies during the campaign. The picture of starving troops, locked in box-cars during the night, to prevent their deserting, and then being called on to fight when they are let out in the morning, makes one fairly sick. A free hand at loot and a full stomach on food belonging to somebody else are naturally irresistible when the chance comes.
Such an appreciative letter has come from Archbishop Riordan, thanking Nelson for his Pius Fund achievement.
Mexico has declined, upon good international law, to take upon herself the board bill (now amounting to hundreds of thousands in gold) for the interned refugees at Fort Bliss. We wonder how long Uncle Sam will feel like playing host? This situation, among many tragic ones growing out of our policy, is the only thing that calls an unrestrained grin to the face—a grin at Uncle Sam’s expense.
I am sitting in the motor in Chapultepec Park, under the shade of a great cypress, while N. converses with theDictator in his motor down the avenue. All sorts of birds are singing, and a wonderful little humming-bird (chupamirtos, the Indians call them) is so near I can hear it “hum.” Elim is running over the green grass with his butterfly-net. I am thinking, “Sweet day, so soft, so cool, so bright.” This seems the city of peace. In the north the great combat continues. The rebels use almost exclusively expansive bullets, which give no chance to the wounded. Huerta, whom Nelson saw last night, is calm and imperturbable. His loan of 50,000,000 pesos is an accomplished fact. This won’t suit Washington.
Nelson was speaking this morning of the famous interview between Lind, Gamboa (then Minister for Foreign Affairs), and himself—that interview which has now become part of history. Lind has a characteristic gesture—that of tapping with his right hand on his left wrist. With this gesture to emphasize his words he said to Gamboa, “Three things we can do if Huerta does not resign: First, use the financial boycott.” (This has been done.) “Second, recognize the rebels.” (This has been done to the fullest extent by raising the embargo, giving them full moral support and being ready to give them financial aid with the slightest co-operation and decency on their part). “Third, intervene.”
These propositions were set forth nearly eight months ago, and to-day Huerta’s position is better, by far, than at that time. He has kept law and order in his provinces. The big third thing—intervention—yet remains, but on what decent grounds can we intervene?
If, by any remote chance, the rebels should get here, what desecrations, what violations of Mexico City—the peaceful, the beautiful!
I waited a long time for Nelson this morning. Gen. Rincon Gaillardo came up to speak to me, looking verysmart in his khaki riding-clothes with a touch of gold braid. He is an erect, light-haired, straight-featured Anglo-Saxon-looking man. He had just returned from a tour of inspection in Hidalgo; had ridden through the state with a couple of aides, and had found everything most peaceful. I asked, of course, if there was any news from the north; but everywhere wire and communication of any kind is cut, and no one knows. Eduardo Iturbide (he is spoken of as governor of the Federal district to succeed Corona), also came up to speak to me. A lot of people were waiting to see Huerta, but he never hurries. After he had seen Rincon Gaillardo and Nelson, he went away, ignoring discomfited occupants of half a dozen motors.
Iturbide always says he has no political talents, but it was inevitable that he be drawn into events here. He would give prestige and dignity to any office. There is a description of the Emperor Augustin Iturbide, “brave, active, handsome, in the prime of life,” that entirely applies to him. I wonder, sometimes, if Don Eduardo’s fate may not be as tragic as that of the man whose name he bears. The ingredients of tragedy are never missing from any Mexican political situation. The only variation lies in the way they are mixed. What I call Mexican magic has a way of arresting judgment. One never thinks a thing will happen here until it has happened—not though a thousand analogous situations have worked themselves out to their inevitable, tragic end. It was Don Eduardo who made to me the profound and tragedy-pointing remark, “We understand you better than you understand us.”[12]
Huerta keeps very calm, these days, Nelson says; no nervestherewhile waiting for news. I suppose he knows just how bad his men are, and also the very indefinite quality of the rebels. He talked of two years’ work being necessary for pacification, and then of going to live in Washington, to prove that he is neither a wild Indian nor a brigand. He is very pleased to get his loan; the money is here, and he has known how to get hold of it.
At the outset Huerta was surrounded by experienced and responsible men, but when it became generally understood that the United States would not recognize his government, intrigues were started against him, and he was forced to make changes in his Cabinet. Later on, when a friend reproached him with this, he answered, quite frankly, “No one regrets it more than I; for now, unfortunately, all my friends are thieves!”
Yesterday’s copy ofMister Lindhas, as a frontispiece, Mr. Wilson and Villa, standing in a red pool, drinking each other’s health from cups dripping with blood. It is awful to think such things can exist, even in imagination. N. has protested to the Federal authorities.
This morning the newspapers give the “sad” news that Carranza seems to be lost in the desert—the mountain lost on its way to Mohammed! General Aquevedo, who knows that country as he knows his pocket, is supposed to be after him with 1,200 men. I don’t think Villa would weep other than crocodile tears if anything happened to Carranza; but what would Washington dowithout that noble old man to bear the banner of Constitutionalism? “One year of Bryan makes the whole world grin!” The idealization of a pettifogging old lawyer (licenciado), who had already laid his plans to turn against Madero, and the sanctification of a bloodthirsty bandit, might well make the whole world grin, if the agony of a people were not involved.
I went with Dr. Ryan, this morning, to visit the General Hospital. It is a magnificent establishment, modeled on the General Hospital in Paris, with complete electrical, hydro-therapeutic, and mechanical appliances, thirty-two large sun- and air-flooded pavilions, operating-rooms, and special buildings for tuberculosis patients, children, and contagious diseases. The sad part of it is that it is only about a third full. Theleva(press-gang) always rakes in a lot of men here. They hang about the handsome doors and grab the dismissed patients, which makes the poor wretches prefer to suffer and die in their nameless holes.
On returning, I went down to the Palacio Nacional with N., who was on a still hunt for the President. The arms are not yet in the Embassy. As I was sitting in the motor with Elim, the Frenchchargégot out of his motor with Captain de Bertier, the French militaryattachéjust arrived from Washington, and looking very smart in his spick-and-span uniform, ready for his official presentation to Huerta. They had their appointment for twelve, which had already struck, but the President was not there, having departed to Popotla. Huerta works along his own lines, and a missed appointment is little to him.
Just home. Mr. de Soto has called me up to tell me there is bad news from the front; but I think even the bad news is a rumor, as every line around Torreon has been cut for days.
At last news is in from the north (by the Associated Press), from Gomez Palacio and Ciudad Juarez. Two train-loads of rebel wounded had arrived, and Villa had hastily telegraphed for more hospital supplies, though he had taken with him an enormous quantity. At the end of five days’ continuous fighting the rebels had failed to make any break in the almost impregnable defenses of Torreon and Gomez Palacio. Wounded troopers say that by order of Villa they charged into almost certain death at Gomez Palacio, bringing upon themselves the heavy cannonading from the Federal guns; that they were deliberately sacrificed in order that other forces might be able to attack the town at other points without encountering much resistance. And there are strange rumors of Villa’s succumbing to temptation from the “movie” men, and holding the attack back till daybreak! It is terrible to contemplate the slaughter of unquestioning and innocent Pepes and Juans. I burn to go with the hospital service. There will be terrible need on both sides, and a wounded man is neither rebel nor Federal.
This is largely an agrarian revolution, and Huerta was the first to realize it. He says that everybody has made promises to the people, and nobody has kept them. I wonder, if the people ever get a chance to make promises, willtheykeep them?Quién sabe?However, all this is not a question of taking sides, but of stating facts.
The invitation of the United States to Huerta to attend the Hague Conference has been solemnly accepted by him; now international jurists are called on to decide if the very sending of the invitation does not imply technical recognition. It is one of those slips which occasionally happen, and Huerta is too astute to let that, or any other opportunity, pass where he canscore against the United States. Things being equal, he couldroulerWashington as it has never beenroulédbefore; but things aren’t equal, and he can only show immense courage, sustained indifference, and indomitable will in whatever may come up. Just now more and more troops are being rushed to the north.
We are delighted to hear that Warren Robbins and Jack White are to be sent here as second and third secretaries. There is ample work for all, and it will be pleasant to have friends and co-workers. It has been a wearing time for N., single-handed in all official decisions and representations.
News from the north is more encouraging, but a horrible struggle is going on. Elim and I went with Nelson to Chapultepec. Though the park is no longer crowded in the morning, as in the old days, the band having disappeared, with a lot of other things, there is still much strolling about the cypress-shaded alleys. A shining freshness filters through the old trees, the birds sing, the children play. Its beauty makes one’s heart both glad and sick. As we expected, we found the President sitting in his motor, which was surrounded by half a dozen others full of petitioners of all sorts. General Corral, in his khaki, came up to salute me and to say good-by. He had just taken leave of the President and was on his way to the station, whence he was starting to the north with 2,000 men. I pressed his hand and wished him Godspeed; but he may never again stand under those trees with a smile on his face and hope in his heart.
The President got out of his auto and I out of ours, and we had a talk, I presenting Elim. Huerta really is acharmingold fellow! I told him I was anxious to go to Saltillo with theCruz Roja. He said, “There will be work to do here in town, and I will make you head ofthe International League. You are very kind!” (“Vd. es muy buena, Señora.”) And he pressed my hand with those small, velvety paws of his. He has discarded the slouch-hat and now wears with his long, loose frock-coat a top-hat—(“que da mas dignidad”) “for the sake of dignity,” he said, when Nelson told him he was “very stunning.”
Afterward we went down to the Buena Vista station, where General Corral’s troops were being entrained. We found a very busy scene. There were long lines of baggage-cars, with fresh straw covering the floors; other baggage-cars containing army women, with their small children, babes at the breast, and the bigger children, who may be of service. Infants between two and ten are left behind. There is a good deal of heterogeneous impedimenta. Having no homes, these women are wont to take all their possessions with them—bird-cages, goats, old oil-cans, filled with Heaven knows what. The soldiers were laughing and joking, and the venders of fruits, highly colored bonbons, and still more highly colored sweet drinks, were having a busy time. The sun was terribly hot, so we came away, I with a prayer in my heart for the poor devils.Is“God in His heaven”?Is“all well with the world”?
I am advising Dr. Ryan to get off to Torreon. I myself telegraphed to Admiral Fletcher, asking that a box of hospital stores, bandages, cotton, iodine, adhesive tape, and bichloride tablets be sent up by the officer who is coming up to stay with us. Dr. Ryan can get off to-morrow afternoon. There is work, much work, to do, and I am sick that “my position” prevents me from going with him. My hands are trembling for work.
As to news, everybody in town is pleased, Huertistasand Villistas alike. The former have had word of complete victory—and the latter hears that the rebel forces had taken every gate in Torreon and that the Federals were in full retreat!