XXIV
Dinner on theEssex—The last fight of Mexico’s naval cadets—American heroes—End of the Tampico incident—Relief for the starving at San Juan Ulua—Admiral Fletcher’s greatest work.
When Nelson left, as you know, he turned our affairs over to the British, an English-speaking, friendly, great Power, which could and would help our nationals in their desperate plight. Behold the result! Last night we dined on theEssex, in our refugee clothes. Sir Christopher, looking very handsome in cool, spotless linen, met us at the gangway with real cordiality and interest.
His first words after his welcome were, “I have good news for you.”
“What is it?” we asked, eagerly. “We have heard nothing.”
“Carden is going to arrange to get out a refugee-train of several hundred Americans on Monday or Tuesday, and I have this afternoon sent off Tweedie [commander of theEssex] with two seven-foot marines and a native guide to accompany the convoy down. He is to get up by hook or crook. He will go by train, if there is a train, by horse if there isn’t, and on foot, if he can’t get horses.”
You can imagine the love feast that followed as we went down to dinner. We were proceeding with a very nice piece of mutton (Admiral Badger had sent a fine, juicy saddle over to Sir Christopher that morning) when a telegram came—I think from Spring-Rice. Anyway,the four Englishmen read it and looked rather grave. After a pause Sir Christopher said, “They might as well learn it from us.” What do you think that telegram contained? The news that American interests had been transferred from Sir Lionel’s hands into those of Cardoza, the Brazilian minister! Of course I said to Sir Christopher, “Our government very naturally wants to compliment and sustain good relations with South America, and this is an opportunity to emphasize the fact,” but it was rather a damper to our love feast.
Well, we have taken our affairs and the lives of many citizens out of the hands of a willing, powerful, and resourceful nation and put them into the hands of a man who, whatever Power he represents, has not the practical means to carry out his kind desires or friendly intentions. I doubt if Huerta knows him more than by sight. Washington has made up its mind about Carden and the English rôle in Mexico, and no deeds of valor on the part of Carden will make any difference. Washington won’t have him. Sir Christopher Cradock, here in a big battle-ship in the harbor, is willing and able to co-operate with Sir Lionel, the head of a powerful legation in Mexico City, for the relief of our nationals in sore plight and danger of life; but apparently that has nothing to do with the case. Washington is relentless.
TheEssexshows between eighty and ninety “wounds,” the results of the fire from the Naval Academy on Wednesday. Paymaster Kimber, whom they took me in to see after dinner, was in bed, shot through both feet and crippled for life. The ship was an “innocent bystander,” with a vengeance. In Sir Christopher’s saloon, or rather, Captain Watson’s saloon, were hung two slippers (one of pink satin and the other of white) which had been found at the Naval Academy after the fight—dumbwitnesses of other things than war. The officers said the Academy was a horrid sight. Those boys had taken their mattresses from their beds, put them up at the windows, and fired over the top; but when the fire from the ships began these flimsy defenses were as nothing. There were gallant deaths that day. May their brave young souls rest in peace. I don’t want to make invidious distinctions, but in Mexico the youngest are often the brightest and noblest. Later there is apt to be a discouraging amount of dross in the gold.
I keep thinking of Captain Tweedie,en routeto Mexico City to help bring out American women and children. When he gets there he will find that rescue isn’t any of his business!
Yesterday afternoon theNorth Dakotacame in. We saw her smoke far out at sea, and she was a great sight as she dropped anchor outside the breakwater. I was looking through the powerful glass on Captain Simpson’s bridge. Her blue-jackets and marines were massed in orderly lines, doubtless with their hearts beating high at the idea of active service. Lieutenant Stevens, who was slightly wounded in the chest on Wednesday, came back to the ship yesterday. He is a young bridegroom of last autumn and has been here since January. The “cheerful, friendly” bullet is in his chest in a place where he can always carry it. I understand that when he was wounded he was on the outskirts of the town, and that he and another wounded man, themselves on the verge of collapse, carried an unconscious comrade several kilometers to the hospital. But who shall recordallthe gallant deeds of the 21st and 22d of April?[18]
“Minnesota,” April 26th. 3P.M.
I witnessed from the deck of our ship, an hour ago, the dramatic end of the Tampico incident, and, doubtless, the beginning of a much greater one—the raising of our flag over the town of Vera Cruz, which was to-day put under martial law. At 1.30 I went up on deck. The bay was like a hot mirror, reflecting everything. Through a glass I watched the preparations for the raising of the flag on the building by the railroad station—an English railway. “Who’s whose now,” came into my mind.
It was a busy scene on shore and land. Admiral Badger passed over the shining water in his barge, a beautiful little Herreschoff boat, shortly before two o’clock, wearing side-arms. His staff was with him. Battalions were landing from various ships and immense crowds stood near the railroad station. There was an electric something in the air. Captain Simpson and his officers, of course, were all on deck, looking through their glasses, and we were all breathing a little hard, wondering what the foreign war-ships would do. Would they acknowledge our salute? Exactly at two o’clock the flag was raised, and immediately afterward theMinnesotagave the famous twenty-one salutes to our own flag, refused us at Tampico. The bay was ominously quiet after the thunder of our cannon. I suppose the foreign ships were all busy cabling home to their governments for instructions. No man could venture to settle that question on his own initiative. It was anti-climax with a vengeance!
Is this to be the end of all that triangular work of Nelson’s between Huerta, the Foreign Office, and Washington during the two weeks elapsing since Colonel Hinojosa’s taking of our blue-jackets out of their boat at Tampico and our leaving the Embassy in Mexico City?
...
This morning I went ashore, accompanied by a young officer, McNeir. We sauntered for an hour or so about the town, which has decidedly pulled itself together. Shops that were heaped with overturned furniture, broken glass, and strewn with dirty papers and débris of every description, visible through shattered windows and broken doors two days ago, had been swept out and were showing signs of normal occupation. New doors were being made, and the little green balconies of peace were being mended. Ensign McNeir suddenly found that he had been spat upon. His broad chest was lavishly embroidered in a design of tobacco-juice, doubtless from an innocent-looking green balcony. He had blood in his eye, and kept glancing about, hoping to find the man that did it.
The Naval Academy was a horrid sight as we went in from the sea-front. In the school-rooms books, maps, globes, and desks were overthrown among masses of mortar. One of the blackboards bore the now familiar words in chalk,Mueran los Gringos. Great holes were in floors, walls, and ceilings. When we went up-stairs the devastation was even greater. Our men had fought in the street, and theChesterandPrairiefired over their heads just into the windows of the second floor, where were the commandant’s quarters, and the large, airy dormitories. The dormitories had been rifled before we put a guard over the building, the lockers emptied of their boyish treasures—knives, books, photographs; occasionallya yellow or red artificial rose, a ribbon, or a bit of lace testified to other gods than Mars.
The great floors were ankle-deep in a litter of uniforms, shirts, collars, gloves, letters, brushes, combs, and the like. They had been comfortable, airy quarters, and I suppose now will make good barracks, or headquarters, forourofficers. Photographers were busy as we passed through. In the two dormitories giving on the Plaza at the back, away from the ships’ fire, the dying and wounded had evidently been carried. Blood-soaked pillows, mattresses, and sheets bore witness to their agonies. Our men were busy everywhere in the building, sorting, packing, and putting things in order. A town under martial law seemed, this morning, an orderly affair indeed.
I inclose Admiral Fletcher’s “Proclamation to the Public of Vera Cruz,” also his order for martial law. This proclamation will facilitate the functions of government. Many difficulties were in the way of renewing the regular civil and business activities of the town. There is a clause in the Mexican constitution which makes it high treason for any Mexican to hold employment under a foreign flag during enemy occupation, and for once the Mexicans seem to be living up to the constitution.
It is wonderful how our blue-jackets and marines have been able to go into Vera Cruz and perform the complicated, skilled labor necessary to the well-being of a town. Everything, from the ice-plants and tramways to the harbor lighthouse and post-office, has been put in working order; they seem to step with equal facility into one and every position requiring skilled labor. They are a most resourceful set of men, these hatchet-faced, fair-haired youths, the type standing out so distinctly in that tropical setting. I was deeply impressed. Six thousand of them are on land. On the trip downour automobile clutch was damaged. Two blue-jackets looked at it and, though neither had ever been in an automobile before, they brought it back to the Terminal station, several hours later, in perfect order, able and longing to run it about town.
At noon yesterday thousands of arms were delivered to the authorities—a hybrid collection of Mauser guns, old duelling and muzzle-loading pistols. Relics of 1847 were also numerous. For several days there has been little or no “sniping.” One man remarked, “Take it from me, it’s a quiet old town. I walked ten blocks at midnight, last night, without seeing a human being.” I might also add thatIknow two methods of clearing streets at night rivaling the curfew—snipers,andthe press-gang.
“Proclamation to the People of Vera Cruz“As the aggressions against the soldiers under my command have continued, isolated shots being made from various edifices, and desiring that order and tranquillity be absolutely re-established, I demand that all who have in their possession arms and ammunition give them up at the Police inspection in the Municipal Palace within the shortest time possible. Those who have not done so before twelve o’clock of the 26th of this month will be punished with all severity, as also those continuing hostilities against the forces under my command. On the surrender of arms the corresponding receipt will be given.“(Rear Admiral)F. F. Fletcher.“Vera Cruz,April 25, 1914.”
“Proclamation to the People of Vera Cruz
“As the aggressions against the soldiers under my command have continued, isolated shots being made from various edifices, and desiring that order and tranquillity be absolutely re-established, I demand that all who have in their possession arms and ammunition give them up at the Police inspection in the Municipal Palace within the shortest time possible. Those who have not done so before twelve o’clock of the 26th of this month will be punished with all severity, as also those continuing hostilities against the forces under my command. On the surrender of arms the corresponding receipt will be given.
“(Rear Admiral)F. F. Fletcher.
“Vera Cruz,April 25, 1914.”
Yesterday at five o’clock we sent one thousand rations into the starving fort of San Juan Ulua, and to-day our flag flies high above it. All the political prisoners werereleased. We could see from the deck of theMinnesotatwo boat-loads of them coming across the shining water and being landed at the Sanidad pier. After that, I suppose, they swelled the ranks of the undesirable without money, occupation, homes, or hopes.
I saw Mr. Hudson, yesterday, looking rather worn. With groanings and travail unspeakable theMexican Heraldis being published in Vera Cruz. He says they have the greenest of green hands to set the type, and the oftener it is corrected the worse the spelling gets, the nights being one long hell. But as most of his readers have a smattering of Spanish and English, with more than a smattering of personal knowledge of the situation, theHeraldstill is most acceptable as a “breakfast food.”
The Inter-oceanic, the route to Mexico City over Puebla, is being fast destroyed. Mustin in his hydroplane can be seen flying over the bay, reconnoitering in that direction. Puebla is the key to the taking of Mexico City from Vera Cruz. It is always capitulating to somebody. It will doubtless do so to us. In 1821 Iturbide took it. In 1847 it was taken by Scott; in 1863 by the French soldiers of Napoleon. In the battle of Puebla, 1867, there was a furious engagement between Don Porfirio and the French. It is a beautiful old city—sometimes called the “Rome” of Mexico, founded by Padre Motolinía, situated about midway between the coast and the Aztec city. It is crowded with churches and convents, though many of these latter have been put to other uses; however, the point now is when and how our men will reach it. The blue skies and the deepbarrancastell no tales.
Yesterday afternoon Major Butler came to see us. He is in command at the “roundhouse” of Mr. Cummings’stelegraphic episode, and is decidedly downcast at the idea that some peaceful agreement of a makeshift order will be reached. He is like a hungry man who has been given thin bread and butter when he wants beefsteak and potatoes. He seemed, also, rather embarrassed to be calling on us peacefully, on theMinnesota’sdeck, instead of rescuing us after a successful storming of Chapultepec, or a siege at the Embassy.
Yesterday a notice was sent to hundreds of newspapers at home (without my knowledge, of course) that I was getting up a Red Cross nurse corps; but there is no need for it. TheSolaceis not half full, the hospitals on shore have plenty of room, and the ships’ doctors are not too busy. I had said that if fighting continued I would return from New York with the first corps of nurses that came out. I have a feeling that instead of pushing on to PanamaviaMexico and Guatemala we are going to make some patchwork with the A. B. C. combination. It can be only a makeshift, at the best, and in any event will be a reprieve for Huerta, though that is the last thing our government intends. Its heart is given elsewhere.
Last night Admiral Cradock and Captain Watson came to dinner. No mention was made by them of the raising of the flag over Vera Cruz and of the salutes that had so thrilledus. I imagine each admiral and captain in port confined his activities during the afternoon to cabling to his home government. The only thing Sir Christopher said on the situation was to mildly inquire, “Do you know yet whether you are at war or not?” Captain Simpson had an excellent dinner, and we played bridge afterward, the starry night concealing the fateful flag above the English railroad terminal.
A belatednorteis predicted, but my land eyes see no sign of it. General Funston, of Aguinaldo and SanFrancisco earthquake fame, arrives this morning. The army, I understand, has more suitable equipment and paraphernalia for the work of occupation, or whatever they call it; but I am unforgettably thrilled by the majesty and might of our great navy.
Thenortestill threatens, but up to now, with falling glass, there has been only a slight stirring of heavy, lifeless air.
Yesterday morning we went on shore at ten, and found the auto before the door of the Terminal station (otherwise Admiral Fletcher’s headquarters). A French chauffeur, risen up from somewhere, was sitting in it. No use inquiring into the genesis of things these days. We took Captain Simpson down to his old headquarters on thePaseo de los Cocos. He wanted to see Captain Niblack, who had replaced him in command. Then we drove down through the town to the “roundhouse,” bowing to friends and acquaintances on every side, and feeling unwontedly comfortable and cool.
The roundhouse makes ideal quarters—a huge coolness, with plenty of room for all the avocations of camp life. After wading through a stretch of sand under a blazing sky, we found Major Butler in his “headquarters”—a freight-car—but with both opposite doors rolled back, making the car cool and airy. Two of his officers were with him. He is himself a man of exhaustless nervous energy, and the A. B. C. combination hangs like a sword over his head. He could go forward and wipe up the coast to Panama, if he had the chance, he and his set of dauntless men. A few disconsolate-looking mules and horses were browsing in the dry, sandy grass near by; they had been taken against payment.
“In the good old days in Nicaragua it was otherwise.Youtookwhat youneeded. This government running things is too pious and honest to suit me,” was his disgruntled observation when I asked if the steeds belonged to him.
The order and tranquillity of this town is maintained by force of arms and is complete. Since the desultory shots heard Friday night, sniping being then in full force, there has been silence along the dark waters; silence in everycul-de-sac, and silence on every roof.
At twelve we went back for Captain Simpson. We had a glimpse of Captain Niblack and Captain Gibbons, looking very big and effective in their khaki clothes. We left N. at the Diligencias, under the arcades, where people still drink lukewarm liquids, though Captain Simpson said he had told them where they could get cart-loads of ammonia for the repairing of the ice-plant. At one o’clock I had a very pleasanttête-à-têtelunch with Captain Simpson. He was navalattachéin London before getting theMinnesota, and we found ourselves, for once, talking of people and things far removed from Vera Cruz. A note came for Nelson from Captain Huse, saying the admiral wanted to confer with him, and Captain Simpson sent a man to find Nelson and deliver it. Afterward, Captain Moffett of theChestercame on board. He has been a friend of ours from the first, a very agreeable man, alwaysau courantwith events as they really are. We are all hoping that the matter of the affairs of Americans being taken out of the hands of Sir Lionel and given to the Brazilians would not get into the newspapers. It might lead to hard feeling between the nations and individuals concerned. Captain Watson of theEssexthen appeared on board, with the Baron and Baroness von Hiller, and we all went in his launch to the outer harbor, which I had not yet seen—the view being completelyblocked by theCondé, which also hid the handsomeEssex, really very near us. Oh, the glory and majesty and potency of the United States as there depicted! Great dreadnoughts, destroyers, torpedo-boats, every imaginable craft, nearly eighty of them—and for what? To pry a sagacious and strong old Indian out of a place and position that he has proved himself eminently well fitted to fill. Captain Ballinger’s hydroplane, operated by Mustin, was circling above the harbor, coming from time to time to rest upon the water like some creature equally at home in sky or sea.
In the evening we went to dine with the von Hillers, aboard theYpiranga. Admiral Cradock and Captain Watson were also there. Captain Watson told me of the return of Commander Tweedie, who had brought down from Soledad in his private car two hundred and six American men, women, and children, whom he had found dumped on sand-dunes, and who had been without food and without drink for twenty-four hours. I don’t know the details, but I will ask Tweedie to lunch to-morrow. This much I do know—that the English, whose help we have refused, continue to display their strong arms and kind hearts and have been angels of mercy to our ruined and distracted countrymen.
After dinner we went up on deck, where Captain Bonath of theYpirangajoined the party. He was more than polite to N. and myself, in a frozen way, but the air was charged and tense, and the look of surprise, indignation, and resentment not yet gone from his face. In the course of the conversation it came out that the Brazilian consul in Vera Cruz is a Mexican! There was a scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulders on the part of the captain, and Captain Watson caught and then avoided his eye. To all inquiries and innuendoes we have only answered that, as Washington seemed toput some hope in the A. B. C. mediation affair, it was thought best, at home, to pay Brazil the compliment of putting our affairs in her hands. The fact is that all that has been done at this special moment for our needy and suffering ones has been accomplished by the long, strong arm of England. Rowan, who was also at dinner, came away with us and we walked along the pier through our lines of sentinels pacing everywhere in the heavy darkness. Away back in the country, on the dim distant sand-dunes they are pacing too, alert, prepared for any surprise.
When we came out to theMinnesotanot a breath was stirring over the glassy water. Captain Simpson met us at the gangway. I told him the air was a little tense on shore, and added that I wanted to have Tweedie come to see us to-morrow. So we arranged luncheon for to-day. Captain Simpson remarked, with his usual broad outlook, “The nations will have to work out things in their own way; but we, the individuals, can always show appreciation and courtesy.”
Yesterday, at 9.30, Captain Watson came to fetch me to go to San Juan, dashing up to the ship in great style in his motor-launch. Captain Simpson sent Lieutenant Smyth, who was eager to see it, with us. We descended the gangway in the blazing sun and got into the launch, which, however, refused to move further. Finally, after some time of hot rolling on the glassy water, we transferred to one of theMinnesota’sboats, and in a few minutes I found myself landing, after two months, at the dreadful and picturesque fortress, under its new flag. The old one, let us hope, will never again fly over hunger, insanity, despair, and disease.[19]
We found Captain Chamberlain in his office. He is astrong, fine-looking young man. Indeed, our marines and blue-jackets are a magnificent-looking set, hard as nails, and endlessly eager. Captain Chamberlain was surrounded by all the signs of “occupation,” in more senses than one. Records, arms, ammunition, uniforms of the “old régime” were piled about, waiting till the more vital issues of flesh and blood, life and death, have been disposed of. Captain Chamberlain was in New York only a week ago, and now finds himself set to clean up, in all ways, this human dumping-ground of centuries. He detailed an orderly to accompany us, and we went through a door on which the Spanish orders of the day were still to be seen written in chalk.
We started through the big machine-house, which was in excellent up-keep, so the officers said, full of all sorts of valuable material, especially electrical. This brought us out on the big centralpatio, where three groups of fifty-one prisoners each sat blinking in the unaccustomed light, and waiting to have straw hats portioned out to them, temporarily shielding their heads from the sun with rags, dishes, pans, baskets, and the like. An extraordinary coughing, sneezing, spitting, and wheezing was going on. Even in the hot sunshine these men were pursued by the specters of bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma, and kindred ills. We went into a dim dungeon, just cleared of these one hundred and fifty-three men. It seemed as if we must cut the air to get in, it was so thick with human miasmas; and for hours afterward an acrid, stifling something remained in my lungs, though I kept inhaling deeply the sun-baked air. As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I looked about; the dripping walls were oozing with filth; there were wet floors, and no furniture or sanitary fittings of any kind. A few shallow saucepans, such as I had seen rations poured into at my former visit, were lying about. Therest was empty, dark, reeking horror. But God knows the place was abundantly hung and carpeted and furnished with human misery, from the dull, physical ache of the half-wittedpeon, to the exquisite torture of the man of mind habituated to cleanliness and comfort. What appalling dramas have there been enacted I dare not think.
One was told me. A man, not long imprisoned, accidentally found, in the darkness, a stick and a thick, empty bottle. With the bottle he drove the stick deep into the brain of a man, unknown to him, who was dozing near him. When taken out to be shot he was found to be of the educated class. He said, in unavailing self-defense, that he had been crazed by the darkness and the suffocating stench.
On coming out into the blessed air again, we examined at rather close range these lines of men just readmitted to the fellowship of sun and sky. They presented a varied and disheartening study for the ethnologist—or conqueror. There was every type, from half-breed to full Indian; the majority of the faces were pitted by smallpox. A few of the men had small, treasured bundles, to which they clung, while others, except for the rags that covered them, were as unfettered by possessions as when they were born. Thick, matted, black hair and irregular growths of stubby, Indian beards gave their faces a savage aspect. At the end of one of the lines were two very young boys, not more than thirteen or fourteen, their faces still fresh and their eyes bright. I wanted to ask why they were there, but their line had received its hats, and they were marched out through the portcullis to the beach.
Many of the inmates of San Juan were conscripts awaiting the call to “fight” for their country; others were civil delinquents, murderers, thieves. Most of thepoor brutes had a vacant look on their faces. The political prisoners had already been freed. Two of the big dungeons were still full. There were five or six hundred in one space, pending the cleaning out of the empty ones, when they were to be redistributed. Captain Chamberlain was in thepatio, trying to expedite matters, when we came out of the first dungeon. I think he had some sixty men to assist him, and was wrestling with book and pencil, trying to make some sort of classification and record. We walked over to another corner to inspect a dungeon said to have chains on the walls and other horrors still in place. Between the thick bars of one where those sentenced to death for civil crimes were kept peered a sinister face, pockmarked, loose of mouth, and dull-eyed. I asked the owner of it what he had done. “Maté” (“I killed”), he answered, briefly and hopelessly. He knew he was to pay the penalty.
There has not yet been time for our men to investigate fully the meager, inexact records of the prison. We went through thepatio, under the big portcullis, along the way leading by the canals or moats to the graveyard by the beach. This was speakingly empty. There were only a few graves, and those seemed to be of officers or commanders of the castle and members of their families long since dead. With mortality so constantly at work, and with no graves to be found, testimony, indeed, was given by the sharks swimming in the waters. A simpler process than burial was in practice: a hunting in the darkness, a shoveling out of bodies, a throwing to the sea—the ever-ready.
As we passed along one of the ledges we could hear sounds of life, almost of animation, coming through the loopholes that slanted in through the masonry—a yard and a half deep by four inches wide. These four-inch spaces were covered by a thick iron bar. When I hadlast passed there, a dead, despairing silence reigned. Now, all knew thatsomethinghad happened, that morewasto happen, and that good food was the order of the day. Coming back, we met the second detachment of fifty-one, being marched out to the sandy strip at the ocean-end of the fortress. Many of them will be freed to-day to join those other hundreds that I saw. They will know again the responsibilities, as well as the joys of freedom, but, alas, they will be of very little use to the state or to themselves. We walked up the broad stairs leading to the flat roofs covering the dungeons. A squad of our men had established themselves on the wide landing, with their folding-cots, rifles, and all the paraphernalia of their business. Captain Watson said, as we got upon theazotea, “The holes in the floor were ordered cut by Madero when he came into power.” I told him that I didn’t think so, they had seemed to me very old; and when we examined them the raised edges were found to be of an obsolete form and shape of brick, and the iron barrings seemed to have centuries of rust on them. Nothing was changed. Nothing hadeverbeen changed. It remained for a foreign hand to open the doors.
The torpedo-house, which was near our landing, seemed business-like, clean, and very expensive, even to my inexpert eyes. Stores were being landed by one of theMinnesota’sboats—great sides of beef, bread, coffee, vegetables, sugar. I was so thankful to see them, and to know that hunger no longer stalked right under our bows.
I reached home in time fortwobaths and to change all my clothing before one o’clock, when Commander Tweedie arrived for lunch. He had a most interesting tale to tell of his journey down from Mexico City, and told it in the characteristic, deprecating way of an Englishmanwho has done something, but who neither wants credit nor feels that he has done anything to deserve it. He came back as far as Soledad in a special train, with a guard of twenty-five of the famous Twenty-ninth. At Soledad he saw a miserable, hungry, thirsty, worn-out party of Americans, men, women, and children, from Cordoba. Most of them had been in jail for eight days, and then found themselves stranded at Soledad for twenty-four hours, without food or drink, huddled up by the railroad station. Tweedie is a man of resource. Instead of getting back to Vera Cruz and reporting on the condition, he made up his mind that he would take the party on with him, or stay behind himself. After some telegraphing to Maass, with whom he had, fortunately, drunk acopita(oh, the power of the wickedcopita!) as he passed his garrison, he finally got permission to start for Vera Cruz with the derelicts, under the fiction of their being English.
They had to walk the twenty blazing kilometers from Tejería, a sort of burning plowshare ordeal, one old lady and various children being carried in blankets. He gave them every available drop of liquid he had in his car, and he said the way the children lapped up the ginger-ale and lemonade was very amusing. Still under the auspices of Carden, a train-load of five or six hundred started, last night or this morning, for Coatzacoalcos. Sir Lionel, fearing a panic, decided not to say, till he gets off this last train-load, that our affairs are no longer in his hands. I think magnanimity can scarcely go further; my heart is full of gratitude for the inestimable services the English have rendered my countrypeople.
At four o’clock I went on shore to see Admiral Fletcher. Ensign Crisp (wearing side-arms) accompanied me. Captain Simpson thinks it more suitable to send some one with me, but never, in all her four hundred years or soof existence, has Vera Cruz been safer, more cheerful, more prosperous, more hygienic. Thezopilotescircling the town must think mournfully of the days when everything was thrown into the street for all that flies or crawls to get fat and multiply on.
I found Admiral Fletcher in his headquarters at the Terminal, serene and powerful. He said, “I go out to theFloridato-morrow. I have finished my work here. Things are ready to be turned over to General Funston.” I told him not only of my admiration for his work during these last days, and what it entailed, but that more than all I admired his work of keeping peace in Mexican waters for fourteen months. A dozen incidents could have made for disturbance but for his calm judgment, his shrewd head, and the big, very human heart beating in his breast; and I said to him what I have repeated on many occasions, that it is due to Huerta, to Admiral Fletcher, and to Nelson that peace has been maintained during these long, difficult months. It was destined for an incident outside the radius of the power of these three to bring about the military occupation.
We spoke a few words of the old Indian, still wrestling on the heights. Admiral Fletcher ended by saying, in his quiet, convincing manner, “Doubtless when I get to Washington I will understand that point of view. Up to now I know it only from this end.”
I told him how I hated half-measures; how they were disastrous in every relation of life—family, civil, public, and international—and never had that been proven more clearly than here. Even he does not seem to know whether we have brought all this tremendous machinery to the shores of Mexico simply to retreat again, or whether we are to go on. As I went away, I could but tell him once more of my respect and affection for himself and my admiration for his achievements. I passedout of the room, with tears in my eyes. I had seen a great and good man at the end of a long and successful task. Later, other honors will come to him. Probably he will get the fleet. But never again will he, for fourteen long months, keep peace, with his battle-ships filling a rich and coveted harbor. When all is said and done, that is his greatest work.