The Quest of the Four: A Story of the Comanches and Buena Vista

Earlier in the day Phil would have thrilled with horrorat the scene before him, but in such a long and furiousbattle his faculties had become blunted. It was nothingto see men fall, dead or wounded. The struggle for lifeat the expense of another's life, the most terrible phase ofwar, had now come. His only conscious thought at thatmoment was to destroy the mass of Mexicans pressedagainst the mountain, and he loaded and fired with a zealand rapidity not inferior to that of anybody.

The Mexican mass seemed to shrink and draw in uponitself. The officers encouraged the men to return theterrible fire that was cutting them down. Some did so, but it was too feeble a reply to check Taylor's advance.Santa Anna, farther down, saw the terrible emergency.Vain, bombastic, and treacherous, he was, nevertheless, agreat general, and now the spark of genius hidden in sucha shell blazed up. In the height of the battle, and withfive thousand of his best men being cut to pieces beforehim, a singular expedient occurred to him. He knew thecharacter of the general opposed to him; he knew thatTaylor was merciful and humane, and suddenly he sentforward a messenger under a white flag. Taylor, amazed, nevertheless received the messenger and ordered the firingon the trapped Mexicans to cease. He was still moreamazed when he read the Mexican commander's note.Santa Anna wished to know in rhetorical phraseologywhat General Taylor wanted. While Taylor was consideringand preparing the reply to so strange a question atsuch a time, and the messenger was riding back with it,Ampudia's whole division escaped from the trap up thebase of the mountain. Then the Mexicans at the otherpoints instantly reopened fire. It was a singular andtreacherous expedient, but it succeeded.

A cry of rage rose from Phil's company, and it wasuttered by others everywhere. The boy had seen theherald under the white flag, and, all the rest, too, hadwondered at the nature of the message he brought. Hedid not yet know what was in Santa Anna's note, but heknew that a successful trick had been played. The bloodin his veins seemed to turn to its hottest. His pulseswere beating the double quick, and he felt relief onlywhen Taylor, enraged at Santa Anna's ruse, ordered theKentucky and Illinois men to pursue Ampudia's fleeingdivision.

Forward they went, scarcely a thousand, because verymany comrades had fallen around them that day, butthey had never been more eager for the charge. Thesmoke thinned out before them and they advanced swiftlywith leveled rifles. They reached the southern edge ofthe plateau, and then they recoiled in horror. SantaAnna had not only saved a division by a trick, but he hadused the same opportunity to draw in his columns andmass the heaviest force that had yet converged upona single point. Ten thousand men appeared over theuneven ground and approached the single thousand. Toface such numbers advancing with great guns was impossible.Again it seemed that the day, after a brilliantsuccess, was lost.

The Americans at once turned and rushed into a gorgefor shelter and defense.

The side of the gorge was so steep that Phil slippedand rolled to the bottom. But he quickly sprang up, unconscious of his bruises. Breakstone and Arenberg, withpale faces, were at his side. The gorge was not as muchof a shelter and defense as it had seemed. It was insteada trap, the worst into which they had come that day.From the cliffs on both sides of the gorge the Mexicanssent down a continuous rain of bullets and shell. SantaAnna, exulting in his success, urged them on and, hisseconds, Ampudia, Pacheco, Lombardini and the others, ran from point to point, encouraging their troops andcrying that the battle was now won.

The Americans fired upward at their enemies, but theywere pressed together in great confusion. Men andofficers went down so fast that it looked to Phil like hayfalling before the scythe. Here fell the brave Colonel Clay, the son of the great Henry Clay, and with him McKeeand Hardin and many other gallant sons of Kentuckyand Illinois.

A great horror seized Phil. Penned in that awfulgorge, with that continuous shower of steel and lead fromabove, he felt as if he were choking. He and othersrushed for the mouth of the gorge, but the wary SantaAnna had closed it with a great body of lancers, who werenow advancing to assist in the complete destruction ofthe Americans.

The defenders reeled back, and Santa Anna, thinkingthe time had come to deliver the final blow, sent theMexican infantry in thousands down the sides of the gorge, where they attacked with the bayonet the few hundredsthat yet fought. Phil was quite sure that no hope wasleft. Before, at every critical moment there had alwaysbeen a slender chance of some kind or other, but now hecould see absolutely none. A million red motes dancedbefore him, and he struck almost blindly with his clubbedrifle at a Mexican who was trying to bayonet him.

But from a point above, not yet taken by the Mexicans, the brave O'Brien and Thomas, as brave, were still firingtheir cannon and sending the shot and shell into theMexican masses, where they were not mingled with theAmericans. But they themselves were exposed to adeadly fire. One by one their gunners fell. They werecompelled to fall back step by step. Not enough menwere left to load and fire the pieces. Soon all thegunners were killed or wounded except O'Brien himself.Presently he, too, was wounded, and the guns weresilent. Now, truly, it seemed that the last moment hadcome!

Phil, when he struck with his clubbed rifle, knew thathe hit something, because the Mexican with the eagerbayonet was no longer there. He saw Breakstone andArenberg yet beside him, both wounded, but both erectand defiant. He saw Grayson a little distance away, stillalive, and farther on a little group of Kentuckians andIllinoisans, fighting to the last. He had an instant'svision of the whole awful gorge, filled with men drivenon by the rage of battle, the dead and wounded strewedall about, the smoke hovering above like a roof, and themasses of Mexicans who completely encircled them nowclosing in for the final blow.

It was all a real panorama, passing in an instant, andthen from above, and at a new point, came the crash ofgreat guns, the shot and shell striking among theMexicans, not among the Americans. Not even at this, thelast crisis, when the battle seemed lost beyond redemption, had fortune, or rather courage and energy, failed.Bragg, coming on a run with his battery, suddenly openedat short range, and with awful effect, into the Mexicanmasses. In another minute Sherman arrived with hisguns, and close behind, coming as fast as breath wouldallow, were infantry with the rifle, and, to make thesurprise complete, Washington's guns suddenly appeared onthe right and began to sweep away the lancers who heldthe mouth of the gorge.

Never had fortune made a quicker and more completechange. The Mexicans who had suddenly trapped theKentuckians and Illinoisans had been entrappedthemselves with equal suddenness.

The fire now rose to the greatest height of the day.They had been fighting on the plateau, in the ravines, onthe slopes, and through the pass for hours. Vastquantities of smoke still hung about and lay like a blanketagainst the side of the mountain. The sun was far downthe western slope.

The Kentucky and Illinois men drew themselves intoa close body near the upper end of the gorge. There theyfired as fast as exhaustion would allow, but salvation wascoming from above, and now they knew it. Closer andcloser crept the American artillery. Heavier and heaviergrew its fire. The riflemen, also, sent in the bullets likehail. Taylor himself, a half dozen bullets through hisclothing, stood on the brink directing the attack. Thegorge where the Mexicans stood was swept by a storm ofdeath. Santa Anna, from the other side, watched indismay. Lancers and infantry alike, unable to stand sucha sleet, rushed for the mouth of the gorge. Few of thelancers, who made the larger target, escaped, and theinfantry suffered almost as much.

The gorge was cleared, and the Americans held theplateau. Everywhere the Mexicans fell back, leaving thewhole field in possession of the little force that had foughtso long and so fiercely to hold it. The Mexican buglesounded again, but now it was the command to retire.The sun dipped down behind the mountains, and theshadows began to gather in the Pass of Angostura. Theimpossible had happened. Mexico's finest army, five toone, led by her greatest general, had broken in vainagainst the farmer lads of the South and West, and thelittle band of regulars. The victory was won over thegreatest odds ever faced by Americans in a pitched battle.

CHAPTER XV

THE WOMAN AT THE WELL

Phil was still in a daze. He and those around him, exhausted by such long and desperate efforts, sucha continuous roar in their ears, and such avariation of intense emotions from the highest to the lowest, were scarcely conscious that the battle was over. Theyknew, indeed, that night was falling on the mountainsand the pass, that the Mexicans had withdrawn from thefield, that their flags and lances were fading in thetwilight, but it was all, for a little while, dim and vague tothem. The night and the silence coming togethercontained a great awe. Phil felt the blood pounding in hisears, and he looked around with wonder. It wasBreakstone who first came to himself.

"We've won! We've won!" he cried. "As sure asthere is a sun behind those mountains, we've beat allMexico!"

Then Phil, too, saw, and he had to believe.

"The victory is ours!" he cried.

"It is ours, but harm has been done," said Arenbergin a low voice. Then he sank forward softly on hisface. Phil and Breakstone quickly raised him up. Hehad fainted from loss of blood, but as his wounds wereonly of the flesh he was soon revived. Breakstone hadthree slight wounds of his own, and these were bound up, also. Phil, meanwhile, was hunting in the gorge for otherfriends. Grayson was alive and well, but some that hehad known were gone. He was weak, mind and bodyalike, with the relaxation from the long battle and allthose terrible emotions, but he helped with the wounded.Below them lay the army of Santa Anna, its lightsshining again in the darkness, and, for all Phil knew, itmight attack again on the morrow, but he gave littleattention to it now. His whole concern was for hiscomrades. The victory had been won, but they had beencompelled to purchase it at a great price. The losseswere heavy. Twenty-eight officers of rank were amongthe killed, regiments were decimated, and even theunhurt were so exhausted that they could scarcely stand.

Phil sat down at the edge of the gorge. He was yetfaint and dizzy. It seemed to him that he would neverbe able to exert himself again. Everything swam beforehim in a sort of confused glare. He was conscious thathis clothing was stained red in two or three places, butwhen he looked, in a mechanical way, at the wounds, hesaw they were scratches, closed already by the processesof nature. Then his attention wandered again to the field.He was full of the joy of victory, but it was a vague, uncertain feeling, not attaching itself to any particularthing.

The twilight had already sunk into the night, and theblack wind, heavy with chill, moaned in the Pass ofAngostura. It was a veritable dirge for the dead. Phil feltit all through his relaxed frame, and shivered both withcold and with awe. Smoke and vapor from so muchfiring still floated about the plateau, the pass, and theslopes, but there was a burning touch on his face whichhe knew did not come from any of them. It was the dustof the desert again stinging him after the battle as it haddone before it. He obeyed its call, summoned anew allhis strength, both of body and mind, and climbed out ofthe gorge, where friend and foe still lay in hundreds, mingled and peaceful in death.

He found more light and cheer on the plateau and inthe pass. Here the unhurt and those hurt slightly werebuilding fires, and they had begun to cook food and boilcoffee. Phil suddenly perceived that he was hungry. Hehad not tasted food since morning. He joined one of thegroups, ate and drank, and more vigor returned. Thenhe thought of the horse which he had left tethered in analcove, and which he had not used at all that day. Thehorse was there unharmed, although a large cannon-balllay near his feet. It was evidently a spent ball whichhad rolled down the side of the mountain, as it was notburied at all.

The horse recognized Phil and neighed. Phil put hishand upon his mane and stroked it. He was very gladthat this comrade of his had escaped unhurt. Hewondered in a dim way what his terror must have been tiedin one place, while the battle raged all day about him."Poor old horse," he said, stroking his mane again.Then he led him away, gave him food and water, andreturned to his comrades and the field. He knew that hisduty lay there, as the Mexican army was still at hand.Many thought that it would attack again in the morning, and disposition for defense must be made. He did notsee either Breakstone or Arenberg, but he met Middleton,to whom he reported.

"Scout down at the mouth of the pass and along themountain slopes, Phil," he said, and the boy, replenishinghis ammunition, obeyed. It was not quite dark, andthe wind was exceedingly cold. The mercury that nightwent below the freezing point, and the sufferings of thewounded were intense. Phil kept well among the ravinesand crags. He believed that the Mexican lancers wouldbe prowling in front of their camp, and he would nothave much chance if he were attacked by a group ofthem. Moreover, he was tired of fighting. He did notwish to hurt anybody. Never had his soul inclined morefervently to peace.

He passed again into the gorge which had witnessedthe climax and deadliest part of the battle. Here he sawdark-robed figures passing back and forth among thewounded. He looked more closely and saw that theywere Mexican nuns from a convent near Buena Vista, helping the wounded, Americans and Mexicans alike.Something rose in his throat, but he went on, crossingthe pass and climbing the slopes of the Sierra Madre.Here there was yet smoke lingering in the nooks andcrannies, but all the riflemen seemed to have gone.

He climbed higher. The wind there was very cold, butthe moonlight was brighter. He saw the peaks andridges of the Sierra Madre, like a confused sea, and helooked down upon the two camps, the small American oneon the plateau and in the pass and the larger, still farlarger, Mexican one below. He could trace it by thelights in the Mexican camp, forming a great half circle, and he would have given much to know what was goingon there. If Santa Anna and his men possessed thecourage and tenacity of the defenders, they would attackagain on the morrow.

He moved forward a little to get a better view, andthen sank down behind an outcropping of rock. A Mexican,a tall man, rifle on shoulder, was passing. He, too, was looking down at the two camps, and Phil believedthat he was a scout like himself. The Mexican, notsuspecting the presence of an enemy, was only a dozen feetaway, and Phil could easily have shot him withoutdanger to himself, but every impulse was against the deed.He could not fire from ambush, and he had seen enoughof death. The Mexican was going toward his own camp, and presently, he went on, disappearing behind a curveof the mountain, and leaving Phil without a shadow ofremorse. But he soon followed, creeping on down themountainside toward the camp of Santa Anna.

The rocks and gullies enabled him to come so nearthat he could see within the range of light. He beheldfigures as they passed now and then, dark shadows beforethe blaze, but the camp of Santa Anna did not show thelife and animation that he had witnessed in it when hespied upon it once before. No bugles were blowing, nobodies of lancers, with the firelight shining on glitteringsteel, rode forth to prepare for the morrow and victory.Everything was slack and relaxed. He even saw menlying in hundreds upon the ground, fast asleep fromexhaustion. As far as he could determine, no scoutingparties of large size were abroad, and he inferred fromwhat he saw that the Mexican army was worn out.

He could not go among those men, but the general effectproduced upon him at the distance was of gloom anddespair among them. An army preparing for battle inthe morning would be awake and active. The longer helooked, the greater became his own hope and confidence, and then he slowly made his way back to his own campwith his report. Lights still burned there, but it wasvery silent. After he passed the ring of sentinels he sawnothing but men stretched out, almost as still as the deadaround them. They slept deeply, heavily, a sleep sointense that a blow would not arouse. Many had lain downwhere they were standing when the battle ceased, andwould lie there in dreamless slumber until the nextmorning. Phil stepped over them, and near one of the fireshe saw Breakstone and Arenberg, each with his head onhis arm, deep in slumber.

He made his report to Middleton, describing withvivid detail everything that he had seen.

"It agrees with the reports of the other scouts," saidMiddleton. "I think the enemy is so shattered that hecannot move upon us again, and now, Phil, you mustrest. It will be midnight in an hour, and you havepassed through much."

"It was a great battle!" said Phil, with a look ofpride.

"And a great victory!" said Middleton, he, too, although older, feeling that flash of pride.

Phil was glad enough now to seek sleep. The nervousexcitement that kept him awake and alert was all gone.He remembered the fire beside which Bill Breakstone andArenberg slept, and made his way back there. Neitherhad moved a particle. They still lay with their heads ontheir elbows, and they drew long, deep breaths with suchsteadiness and regularity that apparently they had madeup their minds to sleep for years to come. Four othermen lay near them in the same happy condition.

"Six," said Phil. "Well, the fable tells of the SevenSleepers, so I might as well complete the number."

He chose the best place that was left, secured hisblanket from his saddlebow, wrapped himself thoroughlyin it, and lay down with his feet to the fire. Howglorious it felt! It was certainly very cold in the Pass ofAngostura. Ice was forming, and the wind cut, butthere was the fire at his feet and the thick blanket aroundhim. His body felt warm through and through, and thehard earth was like down after such a day. Now victorycame, too, with its pleasantest aroma. Lying thereunder the stars, he could realize, in its great sense, allthat they had done. And he had borne his manly part init. He was a boy, and he had reason for pride.

Phil stared up for a little while at the cold stars whichdanced in the sky, myriads of miles away, but afterawhile his glance turned again toward the earth. Theother six of the seven sleepers slept on, not stirring at all, save for the rising and falling of their chests, and Phildecided that he was neglecting his duty by failing to jointhem at once in that vague and delightful land to whichthey had gone.

He shut his eyes, opened them once a minute or twolater, but found the task of holding up the lids too heavy.They shut down again, stayed down, and in two minutesthe six sleepers had become the seven.

Phil slept the remainder of the night as heavily as ifhe had been steeped in some eastern drug. He, too, neither moved hand nor foot after he had once gone tooblivion. The fire burned out, but he did not awake.He was warm in his blanket, and sleep was bringing backthe strength that body and mind had wasted in the day.It was quiet, too, on the battlefield. The surgeons stillworked with the wounded, but they had been taken backin the shelter of the pass, and the sounds did not come tothose on the plateau. Only the wind moaned incessantly, and the cold was raw and bitter.

About half way between midnight and morning BillBreakstone awoke. He merely opened his eyes, notmoving his body, but he stared about him in a dim wonder.His awakening had interrupted a most extraordinarydream. He had been dreaming that he was in a battlethat had lasted at least a month, and was not yetfinished. Red strife and its fierce emotions were stillbefore him when he awoke. Now he gazed all around, andsaw only blackness, with a few points of light here andthere.

His eyes, growing used to the darkness, came back, and he saw six stiff figures stretched on the ground in arow, three on each side of him. He looked at themfixedly and saw that they were the figures of humanbeings. Moreover, he recognized two of them, and theywere his best friends. Then he remembered all about thebattle, the great struggle, how the terrible crisis cameagain and again, how the victory finally was won, andhe was glad that these two friends of his were alive, though they seemed to be sleeping as men never sleptbefore.

Breakstone sat up and looked at the six sleepers. Theblankets of two of them had shifted a little, and he pulledthem back around their necks. Then he glanced downthe valley where the lights of Santa Anna's armyflickered, and it all seemed wonderful, unbelievable to him.Yet it was true. They had beaten off an army of morethan twenty thousand men, and had inflicted upon SantaAnna a loss far greater than their own. He murmuredvery softly:

"Dreadful was the fight,Welcome is the night;Fiercely came the foe,Many we laid low;Backward he is sent,But we, too, are spent.

I believe that's about as true a poem as I evercomposed," he said, "whatever others may think about therhyme and meter, and to be true is to be right. Thatwork well done, I'll go back to sleep again."

He lay down once more and, within a minute, he kepthis word. Phil and his comrades were awakened just atthe break of day by Middleton. Only a narrow streak oflight was to be seen over the eastern ridges, but theCaptain explained that he wanted them to go on a little scouttoward the Mexican army. They joined him withwillingness and went down the southern edge of the plateau.A few lights could be seen at the points that Phil hadmarked during the night, and they approached verycautiously. But they saw no signs of life. There were nopatrols, no cavalry, none of the stir of a great army, nothing to indicate any human presence, until they cameupon wounded men, abandoned upon the rugged groundwhere they lay. When Phil and his comrades, beliefturned into certainty, rushed forward, Santa Anna andhis whole army were gone, leaving behind them theirdead and desperately wounded. Tents, supplies, andsome arms were abandoned in the swift retreat, but thearmy itself had already disappeared under the southernhorizon, leaving the field of Buena Vista to the victors.

They hurried back with the news. It spread like firethrough the army. Every man who could stand was onhis feet. A mighty cheer rolled through the Pass ofAngostura, and the dark gorges and ravines of the SierraMadre gave it back in many echoes.

The victory, purchased at so great a price, was complete.Mounted scouts, sent out, returned in the course ofthe day with the information that Santa Anna had notstopped at Agua Neva. He was marching southward asfast as he could, and there was no doubt that he wouldnot stop until he reached the City of Mexico, where hewould prepare to meet the army of Scott, which was tocome by the way of Vera Cruz. The greatness of theirvictory did not dawn upon the Americans until then.Not only had they beaten back a force that outnumberedthem manifold, but all Northern Mexico lay at the feet ofTaylor. The war there was ended, and it was for Scottto finish it in the Valley of Mexico.

The following night the fires were built high on theplateau and in the Pass of Angostura. Nearly everybodyrested except the surgeons, who still worked. Hundredsof the Mexican wounded had been left on the field, andthey received the same attention that was bestowed uponthe Americans. Nevertheless, the boy soldiers werecheerful. They knew that the news of their wonderfulvictory was speeding north, and they felt that they hadserved their country well.

Phil did not know until long afterward that at homethe army of Taylor had been given up as lost. Newsthat Santa Anna was in front of him with an overwhelmingforce had filtered through, and then had come thelong blank. Nothing was heard. It was supposed thatTaylor had been destroyed or captured. It was knownthat his force was composed almost wholly of youngvolunteers, boys, and no chance of escape seemed possible.

In the West and South, in Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana,Arkansas, and Mississippi, the anxiety was mosttense and painful. There, nearly every district had sentsome one to Buena Vista, and they sought in vain fornews. There were dark memories of the Alamo andGoliad, especially in the Southwest, and these peoplethought of the disaster as in early days they thought of adefeat by the Indians, when there were no wounded orprisoners, only slain.