The Filibusters by Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne (book club suggestions TXT) 📖

To describe the dull mechanism of drill by which the raw material culled from the by-ways of British colonies was transformed into the most wonderfully efficient pocket army a commander ever handled, would make a piece of reading inexpressively tedious. Many of the fellows had already served in the regular services, or with colonial troops which were more or less irregular. Most were (as I have said) men of good family, who, with the various devils of debt, ill-luck, and a thousand other difficulties dinging on their heels at home, and the chance of fortune, excitement, and another spell of soft living ahead, made unequalled soldiers. And the balance, if they could not talk over their camp-fires of the ‘Varsity and the public schools, of Hurlingham and the clubs, were all the keener to outdo the “swells” who were their covering files.

One might say that our forces were divided into the regulation foot, horse, and guns; for though we had as yet no mounts, and all (save for a small corps who served the machine guns) went through infantry drill, yet there was a squadron of eighty strong set apart to act as cavalry so soon as we could get requisition animals to put beneath them. These men were all fellows who had served in that arm in Australia or Southern Africa, and, indeed, came to us as soldiers ready made.

We were singularly fortunate, too, in our gunners, having no less than eight men who had handled Maxims previously, of whom three had actually fought them in active service; so that, all of the corps being fine horsemen, when the guns were mounted on their galloper carriages, we had faith that they would never break down through ignorant bungling, and a comforting hope that they would be vastly useful to us.

Behold us, then, having broken camp at the White Tortuga Key, and embarked on the transports Clarindella, Captain Evans, and Silas Bloomer, Captain Torganssen. We had cleared the outermost shoals of the Key with the last of the day, and stood out across the smooth Gulf water to where the sun’s afterglow glowered in the West. It was then for the first time that the General announced to us the name of the spot at which he intended to commence his campaign.

“I shall take Los Angeles,” he said.

To those of us who knew the coast, the announcement gave a bit of a thrill. We had discussed the matter a hundred times already; had pitched upon a hundred places where for a hundred reasons the landing should be effected; but had never once, even in the most reckless mood, cast our thoughts upon Los Angeles. It was the principal seaport of Sacaronduca, the second town of the Republic; it held a garrison of 3,000 regular troops, and was commanded on its sea face with concrete forts armed with weapons brought from Europe only a year ago. It was a place incredibly strong; a fortress written about with diagrams in the professional literature to school engineers; and he was a very bold man who would ram his head against it.

But it was not our part to criticise or comment, and (whatever we felt in our own private stomachs) outwardly we were full of rejoicing. We spoke with glee on the moral effect which the capture of such a place would have upon the Cause.

The night came away clear and dark; but later, when we neared the coast, a great white globe of moon burned over the waters behind us like some garish arc lamp. We must have been seen by sentries on shore from the first moment our masttrucks rose up out of the sea, in clean-cut black against the radiance.

It was the very daring of the plan which gave it hope. Ours were two small armed merchant vessels of no remarkable speed; the guns of Los Angeles could have sunk an ironclad navy with ease and convenience. We had separated from one another before rising the land, sheering some five miles apart, so that we steered in as strangers to one another on converging courses. Of course it was a coincidence (from the shore point of view) that we should both pass the outer pier heads within thirty seconds of one another.

Then came the difficulty. The harbour was long and lean; a river, in fact, dredged out and embanked with stone; and the law ran that all vessels should drop an anchor at the entrance of the port, and wait till the doctor’s boat should choose to come off and give them pratique. To do this one had to slow down outside.

We did not. We ran between the pier heads at thirteen knots, with black smoke rolling in greasy coils from our funnels, and live cinders leaping out amongst it. The General knew the harbour like a book, and he stood at the con on the Clarindella’s upper bridge. The Silas Bloomer followed close in her wake.

To give the forts due credit, they were not slow to wake. Sentries’ rifles cracked in warning on every side of us, and two of the water batteries summoned us to stop with unshotted guns. Lights kindled in the embrasures. Flash signals winked their messages all round the cup of the hills. But the big guns were neither manned nor loaded; and by the time the gunners had their breechblocks in and out, cartridges home, and sights aligned, we were far too dangerous a mark to fire at. We had run (amid much wailing from Captain Evans) with noise and violence against the Custom House quay; had made fast warps ashore in the fastest time in experience, and had landed with the derricks five light machine guns on field carriages. There was not a gangway put over. The men jumped from the bulwarks on to the wharf. They fell into rank as the keys of a piano leap up when a player rests. But only for a moment. The next instant, at word of command, they split into three companies, and went off at the double through different streets.

The forts were ready to fire then, but there were only two deserted steamers and the huge stone Custom buildings of Los Angeles to vent their shells upon. The invaders had gained a way into the white streets of the city without losing a man.

So far General Briggs had succeeded brilliantly in (so to speak) getting under the forts with no other weapon than strategy; but the occupying a few streets of the city and holding the entirety of it as a conqueror were two very different matters. There were three thousand troops in garrison; we had a bare two hundred and fifty all told; and it was a certain thing that, unless we somehow contrived to pin them, they would most assuredly beset us.

But it required no great astuteness on the General’s part to foresee this plainly, and, being a man of nice invention, he had made his dispositions so as to meet the circumstances. From a large-scale map, the officers had learnt up the ways of the city, the turns of the suburbs, and the lay of the country beyond, till the curves of it lay at their fingers’ ends. The General had shown photographs, had made sketches, had described vividly. Here was a boulevard of palms, there a cable tramline, there a palace with a front of pink and grey stucco; here lay the Fonda del Falcone, with a golden bird by way of sign, at that corner was the Paseo de Colon, leading from the Columbus Statue to the Great Plaza, where the obsolete artillery was parked.

Fluellen’s orders were the most delicate. He was to raid a tram-stables, take mule-teams for his guns, and get out of the city at forced speed through the poorer quarter at the back. He was to make his way through a maze of mountain roads to the foot of a rocky spur called La Nuca del Diabolo, and then, as best he might, he was to get his Maxims on to the top of the rocks.

“Why they have not fortified the place themselves,” said the General in his instructions at the Key, ” I do not know. In view of an event happening such as I hope to bring about it is a piece of incredible folly. One must suppose they considered it inaccessible for any rapid occupation. But there I do not agree with them. I have been at the top of this Devil’s Crag myself at the cost of a stiff climb, and I know that with plenty of men I could get three light machine guns up in three hours. I shall give you credit for being more skilful, Fluellen, and I shall be obliged to you if you will plant me there a battery of four.”

Fluellen had with him fifty men. The rest, with Coffin and Carew as divisional commanders, debouched from the central plaza in two bodies of some ninety odd apiece, Carew going to the northward, Coffin marching down an avenue which carried the cable cars, and led in a general direction south-west.

With Coffin went the General and the headquarter staff, which consisted mainly of Davis and myself; and our attack was to be the signal for the others to begin playing their part. If from one reason or another they failed to cooperate at the right time, then whatever happened to them we, at any rate, were doomed to extinction. So any way the position was anxious enough.

Our way lay (as I have said) down a street which carried the cable cars. At each side there were two rows of feathery cabbage palms, making shade for the foot walks; and beyond these were gardens and lawns; and beyond again villas of the most irregular size and tint. They were pink, mauve, brick-red, and white, and in the half light they gave one the bewildering idea of an impressionist picture done with a palette knife and looked at close to. The most of these villas had their windows close shuttered, with lights gleaming yellow through the crevices; some were all dark; a few, a very few, were all lit up. From one of these last some men and a cluster of women cried a welcome at us and waved handkerchiefs as we tramped past. Some of the men began to raise a cheer. ” Silence there in the ranks,” the General ordered sharply. ” Mr. Coffin, mark those men, and punish them afterwards.”

From another of the lit villas a different kind of salute was given us.