DAWN. A RIM of silver, slim as the finest bracelet on a woman’s wrist, spread across the eastern edge of the horizon. The wind from the north-west had dropped a little so that the night had held its temperature, the canvas of the few tattered banners born along in the wake of the revolutionary army swayed but little more. Above the silver strand the dark of the cloud was breaking up; purple and orange flashes showed through then were recovered, then showed again all the brighter.
The steady rumble of horses’ hoofs, the metallic jangle of spurs and harness, the heavy clatter of the wagons bearing artillery and supplies—all merged into a single sound: that of an army advancing.
Villa had decided on a two-pronged attack, invading the besieged town from the south and the west, breaking through the defenses at their weakest points and then turning inwards. The plan was for the two attacking groups to meet at the center of the town, driving any surviving troops either back to the Rio Grande or out to the south-west and into the guns of the men Villa was leaving behind for just such a purpose.
Onslow could find little fault with it as a plan; the only thing wrong was the timing. Two weeks ago the town had been ripe for the taking. But Villa had delayed, first for no apparent reason at all, later for the film company to bring their men and equipment to the scene of the battle. They were to be present when Villa rode into Ojinaga, victorious; now he would ride in with a woman at his side and a woman who was not even a Mexican. What had happened to the intensity of his patriotism to his revolutionary ardor?
Mark Champion and his assistant, Bill Friedman, were following the main thrust of men advancing from the south, with Onslow and Yates McCloud sticking close to them, acting as the guards Villa had promised.
The red-headed Duke Rogers, together with the ubiquitous Doc and an excited yet frightened Harry Johnson, were remaining with the reserve troops. If some of the federales were driven south from the town they would catch them then, if not they could bring up the camera for Villa’s triumphal entrance. That was not going to be made until the enemy had been cleared, the danger past. Villa was not going to risk his new consort to a sniper’s bullet, a wounded soldier’s final fling.
He would not hang back until the last, himself, of course; he knew well enough what his men expected from him. They might grudgingly accept his taking a yanqui mistress, but they would not allow him to absent himself from the battlefield. Besides, Villa’s presence at the head of a charge was worth a dozen other men.
‘This isn’t exactly going to be a surprise show,’ said Champion, leaning across towards Onslow from the back of the wagon he had commandeered to transport his equipment and act as a stand for the camera tripod.
‘No way you can move this many men and guns without folk knowing what you’re at,’ Onslow replied.
‘I suppose not.’
‘Besides, from what I heard, you’ve seen your share of action. Ain’t nothing much goin’ to shake you.’
Champion laughed: ‘Damn, that’s true enough.’
‘What about them slugs you’re supposed to be carryin’ around inside you? That true?’
‘True as I stand here on this fool wagon. Surgeon said he didn’t dare take ’em out. The little bastards are all snug up to some vein or other and there’s no way any knife can inch ’em out till I’m dead and gone—and then there won’t be no need.’
‘Where d’you pick ’em up?’
‘In the Balkans. I was covering the war out there. Grisly damn business. Day I stopped two of these beauties inside me now, I was standing on this hill next to the correspondent from the London Times. The same burst of fire that wounded me shot his belly full of more holes than a piece of rotting cheese. Stank worse, too. They carried the pair of us on stretchers back to this field hospital. Even the bloody surgeon had to keep turning his head away from this feller’s guts. Never saw or smelt anything like it. Made that show up in the hills the other day look like a Sunday school picnic.’
Onslow nodded. ‘How come you’re down here in Mexico,’ he asked, ‘and not out in Europe shooting film in the trenches? That seems more like the Balkans than this.’
‘True enough, major, that’s why I’m here and not there.’ He laughed. ‘Feller gets a few shells in him that won’t come out, he thinks there’s someone up there trying to tell him something. I figured if I wanted to carry on living, I’d best listen. That’s why I’m down here following Pancho Villa into battle.’
‘Yeah,’ said Onslow. ‘Let’s hope that voice is telling you right.’
‘Or that there isn’t anything wrong with my listening.’ Champion looked up at the sky. In the east it had lightened considerably, the orange widening into still spreading bands lined here and there with purple and violet. Ahead of them the town of Ojinaga was clearly visible. The outlines of roughcast walls, adobe buildings pushed up out of the early light—the last stronghold of the Federal forces in the north of the country.
Champion turned towards Bill Friedman and patted his shoulder as though he were younger than even he was. ‘Keep your head low when the shooting starts, Billy. Do that and make sure you keep this damned camera loaded.’
Onslow slipped his watch from his pocket, lifting it from the soft leather case.
‘How we doin’, major?’ called McCloud from the opposite side of the wagon.
Onslow looked across at him as he returned the watch to his pocket. ‘Pretty much on time, I...’
The first explosion cut him short, a blast of artillery fire that erupted in the midst of the column ahead like a thunderclap. There was a sudden movement of men and horses, a desperate shying away to left or right. Animals and men went down amongst the stink of gunpowder and a fierce spray of dust that whipped into their faces like gray rain in the middle of a storm.
The noise was shrill and excited—whinnying and yelling and in amongst that the screams of those who had been wounded.
A rider galloped back along the line, past Onslow and McCloud and the camera wagon, either for help or orders.
Some of the men had begun to use their rifles but they were hopelessly out of range, with no chance of picking out a target.
The second explosion was off target, some fifty yards to the right of the column. A vivid flash of almost white light that somehow held blueish-red at its heart. A cloud of earth and dirt and fragments of rock.
Champion stood on the wagon, his shoulders hunched against the blast but no more.
‘Twelve-pounders,’ he shouted to Onslow above the echo of the blast.
‘Yeah.’ Onslow’s face was expressionless, not showing the anger he was feeling. If Villa had moved earlier most of the fieldpieces that the Federal troops possessed would have had scant ammunition, if any. Now it looked as though the advancing men might take a pummeling that would threaten to keep them from taking the town without considerable loss of life.
The column was still moving forward, shifting with irregular pace, some on horseback, others on foot, always underneath everything the rumble of wheels as Villa’s own artillery pieces were dragged towards Ojinaga.
Another blast sounded away to their left, well out of reach, and it was clear that the other wing of Villa’s forces was going to be taking the same treatment.
They had come up to the point of the first explosion and the driver of the wagon swung it round the crater of torn earth, Champion yelling at him to rein the team of mules to a halt so that he could shoot some film.
As the overcoated figure in the strange hat leaned over the camera, Onslow and McCloud waved the marching men round and on towards the town. Three of those who had been injured in the blast were laying on the ground close to the line. They were stretched out on their backs, one moaning continually, the others silent, stunned. The cotton shirts and trousers were smeared with blood. The one who was moaning had a gash across his chest which was pumping blood steadily, another had a deep wound high in his right thigh. There seemed to be no one to attend to him. Those filing past turned their heads towards the wounded and called comments of encouragement or turned their heads the other way and pretended that they saw nothing.
‘Shift the camera round,’ called Champion. ‘Let’s get a shot of those fellers there.’
As Champion turned the crank handle, focusing on the gashed and bloodied chest, Bill Friedman was laying flat on the wagon, head and shoulders hanging over the edge, vomiting through his hands.
What might have taken less than an hour took instead until the sky was clear and bright and blue and unperturbed by the violent events being played out below it. The federales hammered away at the attacking lines with twelve- and six-pounders and eight-inch mortars, so that every yard had to be gained at the expense of a dead or wounded man, every surge towards the town was threatened by the whistle and crump and then the roaring flight of earth and stone and human blood and bone.
When the adobe walls were clearly in sight, Villa ordered his own fieldpieces to be moved wide of his troops and to open fire. The artillery was mostly old and in poor condition, the gunners unused to its vagaries. For every shell that pounded the walls or looped over them into the town, there was one which landed harmlessly short. On at least two occasions a shell landed in the vanguard of Villa’s own men, creating havoc in the rear, maiming and killing their own side.
‘Jesus Christ!’ exclaimed Champion. ‘What the Hell is going on there?’
Onslow shook his head and held his tongue.
‘This is the army that’s driven the government troops out of half Mexico?’ Champion said incredulously.
‘This isn’t their kind of fighting,’ said McCloud from behind him. ‘They fight best out in the open. Close up as well, hand to hand. But field guns and sieges, they’re something else again.’
They stopped talking as one of Villa’s men walked slowly past their wagon, heading in the opposite direction to the advance. He walked determinedly, eyes apparently focused on something ahead that he was insistent upon reaching. Others moved aside to let him pass.
His left arm had been wrenched off by one of the explosions, a shell from the Federal troops or his own, it didn’t matter. His white shirt was ripped away at the shoulder and the arm had gone with it. He—or someone else—had attempted to stem the flow of blood with a wedge of torn clothing which the man held in place with his right hand. By now the worst of the wound had congealed over, but some blood still trickled out, kept moving by the jarring movement as he walked. The blood ran down the man’s forearm and across the front of his shirt, in a speckled line down his white, soiled trousers.
If he was still conscious of the pain his body must have been feeling, it didn’t show in his face. That was calm, assured. He could have been setting out for the fields at the beginning of a day’s work; taking a stroll in the early evening to meet his sweetheart and sit with her under the calming sky; carrying flowers to the graves of his father and his sister who had died of fever in the winter before.
Through the lens of his camera, Champion saw all of this, turned the handle and captured it for some sort of immortality.
Fifty yards past the camera wagon, the wounded man stumbled and fell. No hand reached out to help him, hardly any eyes saw, all too concerned with what lay ahead. He knelt in the middle of the column of men and horses for perhaps three minutes more and then collapsed onto his face in the swirling dust.
No one moved him.
They marched round him until the dirt had covered his body like a cloak and it was obvious that he was not going to move again. Then they marched over him.
It was a matter of little significance.
The adobe walls were pock-marked from the morning’s hail of fire. Sections had been blasted away and the rubble was strewn for yards around. Here and there among the crumbled defenses Federal riflemen took aim at their attackers, but they were few in number and getting pressed back with every successive wave of the advance. Within minutes the walls would be breached and Villa’s men would be entering the town.
Onslow drew the broom handle Mauser from its wooden holster and checked the clip of ten cartridges. He similarly checked the readiness of the Colt .45 automatic at his hip. McCloud had his Winchester ’95 free of its sheath alongside the saddle, a fresh box magazine in place. He had made sure that the short-barreled Colt Lightning in his shoulder holster was fully loaded.
‘You armed?’ Onslow asked the cameraman.
‘Naturally,’ exclaimed Champion and fished down into one of the capacious pockets of his overcoat.
He pulled into sight a pistol with a six inch barrel tipped by a heavy-looking sight; the sides of the barrel were steeply ridged. The handle was curved and slim, a ring at the base dangling below Champion’s fist.
‘Never go anywhere without it,’ he grinned, ducking as a shell burst not too far to his right. ‘Everywhere this old coat of mine goes, this little beauty goes, too.’
‘That English?’ asked Onslow.
‘It is. .455 Webley and Scott Mark IV. Government issue. Got this from a second lieutenant who served in South Africa. The Boers, you know. Had it with him at Kimberley and then again when they took Pretoria, told me he killed four darkies with six shots one time when he was trapped out on the veldt. Let’s hope it does as much for me if it has to.’
A roar of triumph went up from the men around them as a charge of riders swept towards a gap in the wall, with the figure of Pancho Villa at their head.
‘Damn!’ said Champion. ‘That was one moment we should have had.’
‘Too bad,’ said Onslow, ‘but we’d better follow fast if you want to be up with the action.’
‘Okay,’ agreed Champion, grinning. ‘Besides, when it’s all over, we can always get Villa to charge in again. Just for the cameras.’
He laughed and lifted his trilby hat from his head, waving it in the air and shouting to the driver to whip the mules into a gallop. Onslow and McCloud moved into position ahead of the wagon and followed the pack of Villistas into the town.
The federales had built barricades along the narrow streets that led to the central square. Tables and chairs, wardrobes and whatever furniture they had been able to drag from the squat houses—all was piled high, stacked in a maze of legs and arms, panels and drawers. Soldiers hid behind the barricades and fired with rifles or pistols at the rebels as they rode down the streets, remaining in position until the numbers facing them were too great. At that point they retreated and ran to the next obstacle further towards the center.
As the camera wagon turned a corner and headed towards one of the partly demolished barricades, a volley of shots sang over it, making Champion and Bill Friedman hurl themselves to the boards.
Onslow pulled the Mauser free and checked the left side of the street; McCloud, Winchester to his shoulder, checked the right.
A hand, then the muzzle of a gun appeared and Onslow cocked the hammer and fired his first shot; the weapon went onto automatic and another five shots burst after the first, back and forth across the window.
McCloud sent a couple of shots in from the rifle for good measure.
‘Get him?’
‘Don’t know. Can’t be...’
A movement on the far side of the street took Onslow’s attention; he whirled fast, the Mauser tight in his hand. A figure blurred in a doorway, a glint that might be a gun. Onslow, breath caught, lips taut, fired a burst of four shots, emptying the clip. He went down onto one knee, pulled the bolt back at the rear of the Mauser, ejected the spent clip and pushed a fresh one home.
Inside the doorway, a body bounced from wall to wall, torn by bullets.
‘Cover me!’ Onslow yelled to McCloud, and sprang towards the adobe, in through the doorway.
The interior of the adobe was dark, shaded; it smelt of too many people forced to live close together for too long; it smelt of dryness and rot and generations of sweat and dirt. A shape shifted against the side wall and Onslow moved the Mauser to his left hand and drew the Colt .45. The light began to clear; Onslow’s eyes brought things into focus. The boy swayed outwards from the side wall and stared at the tall figure in the doorway. His hand opened and a kitchen knife dropped to the floor. He could have taken it up for any reason—defense, attack, he could have meant no harm to anyone. He half-collapsed against the wall and his head lolled forward onto his chest for a moment. Onslow thought that he might be as old as ten, though he was probably younger. Two of the slugs from the Mauser had penetrated his body, one breaking the rib cage to the left, the other tearing at his right shoulder so that the upper arm now hung awkwardly.
The boy’s head came slowly up and he looked into Onslow’s face.
‘You okay in there?’ came McCloud’s shout.
There was a slight pause before Onslow shouted back that he was.
The boy wasn’t. The front of his shirt was dark with blood and sticking to his chest. One section of the once white, now red cotton had been pierced through by a length of bone, brittle and broken-ended. The boy coughed blood and Onslow all but turned away.
The crackle of gunfire from outside was distant and then closer; then distant again.
The boy’s eyes were dark, large and wide.
Dark.
The room wasn’t dark enough.
Part of Onslow was saying: there was no way I could have known; he could have been a soldier, a sniper, the glint of that knife signaled danger; he could have had a gun and if I hadn’t fired when I did I could be dead now or dying. Instead of him. There. Like that. Dying.
The same part of him said: this is war. A revolutionary war. Ordinary people have to suffer. Even the young. Eventually they will profit. In the end they will be better off.
Another part of him ignored those words, those thoughts. They went unheeded as Onslow stared at the Mexican boy who had never reached ten years of age and who now never would. The never-to-be-ten-years-old eyes looked back at him in darkness and pain and incomprehension at what had happened; the never-to-be-ten-years-old head jerked forwards and then back, striking itself against the hard adobe of the wall. More blood issued from the boy’s open mouth.
Onslow wanted him to be quick and die. He hated him for living. Hated him for having been there in that doorway and most of all for not dying quickly, but lingering so that he had to see the boy’s face. Face his pain. He hated the boy for making him think that way about what he was doing. Onslow knew that once he started -- seriously—to think that way about his way of life he was starting to die himself.
‘Major! What the Hell’s goin’ on in there?’
Footsteps sounded behind him in the narrow street and gunfire, the thump and crump of occasional artillery fire, the rattle and chatter of machine guns.
‘Major!’
Onslow went towards the boy and as he did so, the boy fell away from the wall directly into his path and he had to catch him. He was so light in his arms that Onslow thought he was little more than the clothes that he wore. Except for the blood that soaked through them and now stuck to the front of Onslow’s shirt. He lifted the boy away and there was blood on his hands. He felt the boy shudder and tighten within his grasp; he felt the dark eyes upon him and leaned the boy back against the wall, mouth agape, breath mixed with blood like paint.
Onslow set the muzzle of the Colt automatic against the boy’s temple and felt through the metal of the gun, through his hand and along his arm, the shake and tremble of the boy’s agony.
He turned his head aside and squeezed back on the trigger.
Something splashed across his cheek and he wiped it clear with his sleeve.
He did not look at the boy again.
Yates McCloud was in the doorway, Winchester at the ready, alarmed by the unexpected shot.
‘What happened?’
Onslow shook his head and pushed past him, out into the light. The air smelt of cordite and burning; it was beginning to stink with death. Mark Champion was hauling the camera towards the entrance of the adobe from which Onslow had emerged.
‘No.’ Onslow’s voice was flat, undemonstrative.
Champion hesitated, looked at him. ‘Thought there might be something for us in there.’
Onslow shook his head: ‘No.’
‘You’re sure?’
For a moment Onslow’s eyes burned with anger and he began to yell. Champion nodded briskly and moved the camera away, gesturing to Bill Friedman to get back on the wagon.
Half a dozen riders went past at a gallop, clattering along the narrow street.
‘If we stay here, we’ll miss the action.’ said Champion.
Onslow nodded silently, glanced at McCloud, holstered his weapons and pulled himself up into the saddle. He could still see the boy’s eyes in front of his own. He remembered the Federal patrol he and his men had wiped out in the hills. They were being paid to kill children.