Although Lieutenant Paul Dimmock managed to land on his hands and knees instead of sprawling flat to the ground, he knew that he could not hope to rise before his pursuers reached him.
Confident that they now had the Texian at their mercy, the six Mexicans were also relieved that the long and grueling chase was almost over. But, foolishly, even though they knew they had left the area which the Tamaulipa Brigade had swept clear of all opposition, only one of them had eyes for anything other than their quarry.
‘Look!’ yelled the man with the badly scratched cheek, some instinct making him glance beyond their proposed victim. As a warning, the single word left much to be desired. It gave no indication of where he wanted to direct his companions’ attention. Realizing its shortcomings, he supplemented it. ‘Up there, by the trees!’
Catching the note of alarm in the Lancer’s voice, the sergeant looked up. What he saw gave him as great a shock as it had the speaker.
Three armed men were running from the grove of post oaks.
Apparently they had emerged from concealment even before the Texian had fallen down, but had gone unnoticed by the Mexicans who had been too excited and engrossed in the prospect of catching and killing their victim.
Only one glance was needed for the sergeant to decide that the newcomers were unlikely to be friendly and had not come out of hiding to help capture, or kill, the man they were pursuing.
Two of the men were dressed in such a similar fashion that they might have been wearing some kind of uniform. Each had on a low-crowned, wide-brimmed black hat, a fringed buckskin shirt, a pair of tight fitting fawn riding breeches and black Hessian boots. vii In addition to the rifles in their hands, both carried a pistol on the right side of the waist belt and a massive, white handled knife—presumably of the kind already known, even to Mexicans, as a ‘bowie’, in honor of the man credited with designing the original weapon viii —sheathed at the left. There was only one noticeable difference in the pair’s attire. The taller and bulkier man’s tightly rolled bandana was scarlet, while his companion sported one of a multi-hued riot of clashing colors.
In some ways, the third member of the party was even more remarkable than his companions. Much shorter, not more than five foot six, he was bare headed and had close cropped black hair. His face was an almond color, with slanted eyes and cheerful features that did not appear to be either Mexican or Anglo-Saxon. A loose fitting black shirt hung outside somewhat baggy trousers of the same material which were tucked into Hessian boots. Unlike his companions, he had no firearms. Instead, a pair of long hilted, slightly curved swords—the one on the right being some inches shorter than its mate at the left—swung from slings attached to his leather waist belt. He held a six-foot long bow with an arrow nocked to its string. If the Mexicans had been more observant, they might have noticed that its handle was set two thirds of the way down the stave instead of centrally. There was a quiver suspended across his back, so that the flights of the arrows it held rose over his right shoulder and were readily accessible to his ‘draw’ hand.
Despite the rifles held by the two taller of the newcomers, the sergeant and his party felt little anxiety. In fact, the alarm in the voice of the man with the scratched face had been caused more by surprise than fear. Nothing they had seen of Texians so far, either at San Patricio or Goliad, had led them to form a healthy respect for the rebels’ fighting qualities. At neither place had they shown to any great advantage.
There was something that the Lancers were failing to take into account. At San Patricio, the men opposing them had been an undisciplined and disaffected rabble who were the remains of the force with which—against Houston’s orders—the adventurer, Colonel Frank Johnson, had planned to attack and loot Matamoros. The troops at Goliad had already lost all faith in their commanding officer and were demoralized before they had been surrounded by the vastly superior numbers of the Tamaulipa Brigade.
If the six Mexicans had fought at San’ Antonio de Bexar, either in December the previous year ix or during the siege of the Alamo Mission, they would not have been so disdainful of Texians’ fighting prowess.
Nor did the Lancers consider that the three men would be able to prevent them from killing the Texian. Even though they had the greater distance to cover before reaching him, their horses were carrying them much faster than the trio could run.
The same thought obviously occurred to the newcomers. However, their solution to the problem did not appeal to be the wisest to the racing Mexicans. But, it was what the Lancers expected of Texians.
Coming to a halt, the two taller men raised their rifles. The other, strange looking, man, clearly considering that he was at a distance where his weapon would not prove effective, continued to advance. However, he took care not to come between his companions and the Lancers.
Having sighted, the two men squeezed their triggers practically in unison. Flame and white smoke lunged from the muzzles of the rifles. Back snapped the head of the Mexican who had drawn ahead of his companions and his shako spun upwards from it. Letting his lance drop, he slid limply from his saddle and followed the weapon to the ground. Although the sergeant had also been singled out for attention, he was more fortunate. He too lost his headdress, the bullet merely removed it by striking the badge and not ripping through his skull.
A hard-bitten veteran, the non-com was still startled by the narrow escape. Involuntarily he drew back on his horse’s reins with a snatch that caused it to slacken its already leg-weary gait. The pause allowed his companions to draw ahead of him. However, he recovered his nerve quickly enough and encouraged his mount to increase its speed. Studying the two newcomers, he concluded that the worst of the danger was over. The rifles were now empty and there was no time for them to be made ready for use again. In all probability, the men would drop them and try to continue the fight with the pistols. To his way of thinking, the handguns posed much less of a threat than the rifles.
‘Keep going!’ the sergeant bellowed, noticing that some of his Lancers were looking back at him and showing signs of perturbation. ‘We can kill him before they reload.’
Raising his head as he heard the shots, Dimmock stared at his rescuers through eyes half blinded by sweat. What he saw caused him to experience a momentary surge of relief. Not only did he recognize the two men’s attire as that of the Texas Light Cavalry, but he felt sure that he could name both of them.
Six foot tall, the man on the right was heavily built and conveyed an impression of well-padded lethargy. Curly, auburn hair showed from beneath his hat. Despite the gravity of the situation, his sun-reddened features retained something of an amiable and almost sleepy expression. Unless Dimmock was mistaken, his name was Mannen Blaze.
Matching his companion in height, the second man’s straight-backed, whipcord lean frame—set off to its best advantage by the well-tailored garments—made him appear slightly shorter. He had black hair, but it was his face that supplied the clue to his identity. Brows like inverted ‘V’s’ over coal black eyes, an aquiline nose, a neatly trimmed mustache and a short, sharp pointed chin beard gave the features an almost Satanic cast which, in part, accounted for why Captain Jackson Baines Hardin was nicknamed ‘Ole Devil’. x
As the third member of the rescue party was advancing outside the lieutenant’s range of vision, which was restricted by perspiration and exhaustion, the two young men—neither had yet reached twenty-six years of age—appeared to be alone and to have no other assistance.
Nor did they seem to have a very clear grasp of the situation!
The smoke that was still curling away from the muzzles proved that each of the newcomers had fired his single barrelled rifle. So Dimmock duplicated the Mexican sergeant’s line of reasoning on what they would do next.
Much to the lieutenant’s consternation, the pair made no attempt to do either of the things which he and the non-com were anticipating.
It was almost as if Dimmock’s would-be rescuers were unaware that they now held empty weapons. They neither dropped the rifles as a prelude to drawing their pistols, nor lowered the butts in preparation to start reloading.
Dimmock found the pair’s lack of activity puzzling to say the least. Although he had never met them, he knew something of Ole Devil Hardin and Mannen Blaze. They had already begun to earn themselves reputations for being fighting men of the first water. It was said that they were courageous without being reckless, overconfident or foolhardy and possessed considerable knowledge where the handling of weapons was concerned. In the latter case particularly, the lieutenant felt that they were not living up to their reputations. He wondered if, having rushed into their present predicament without taking the odds against them into account, they were now frozen into immobility with fright.
If Dimmock had been less exhausted and emotionally disturbed, he might have noticed certain things about the two Texians’ weapons; although, even if he had, it was improbable he would have appreciated what it meant. At first glance, the rifles which were still at their shoulders seemed to be ordinary enough. However, even a casual closer look would have disclosed a few small differences and one major one. Not only did Dimmock fail to detect the unusual aspects, but certain small movements being made by his rescuers also escaped his observation.
The sergeant and the four remaining Lancers were no better informed, nor more observant. They were still too far away to see the less obvious aspects of what was happening. Even if they had been closer, they too were unlikely to have appreciated the point of the Texians’ right thumbs manipulating a small lever on the side of their rifles’ frames.
Keener sighted than his companions, the sergeant noticed that the pairs right forefingers emerged from the trigger guards, went forward to cock the hammer—which was below the frame instead of, as was more usual, on top—and returned to their original positions. However, he failed to see what the actions had achieved as the rifles had already been fired once and had not yet been reloaded. To the sergeant’s way of thinking, small though he might be, the third member of the rescue party could pose a much greater threat than either of his larger companions. At least he had a weapon that was capable of being discharged almost immediately.
Having advanced a further half a dozen strides, the third of the party came to a halt. Standing erect, with his torso turned sideways to the direction of his spread apart feet, he raised the bow to the perpendicular. Then he began to draw it in a manner that was unlike anything the sergeant had ever seen, even though he had fought against Indian archers on several occasions in Mexico and was sufficiently impressed by their capabilities to have studied their methods. xi
That was, although the non-com had no way of knowing, only to be expected. Some people thought that Tommy Okasi was Chinese. In fact, he came from the— at that time xii —virtually unknown Japanese islands and was well trained in all his nation’s very effective martial arts. The Japanese archery techniques differed in some respects from those commonly known, such as the position of the handle on the stave xiii and the way of making the draw. xiv
Deeply alarmed by what he regarded as Ole Devil Hardin’s and Mannen Blaze’s stupidity, Dimmock tried to yell some kind of abusive advice at them. With his lungs so depleted of air, the words would not come. Nor, as they were engrossed in taking sight along the barrels of their empty and useless rifles, could they see the distress and torment on his face.
Rage and frustration tore at the lieutenant. Once he was dead, even if the pair of would-be rescuers survived, they would not learn of the massacre at Goliad. So his desertion of his comrades-in-arms would have been in vain.
Even as Dimmock was struggling to register his feelings vocally, he saw the two men’s forefingers tightening on the triggers.
Up flipped the under-hammers!
While the Mexicans were still too far away to see as much as their proposed victim could, they soon found out. Once again, although it was impossible as far as their knowledge went, the rifles cracked and spat out lead with deadly effect.
Struck between the eyes, the man with the scratched cheek was killed outright and never knew of the phenomenon. Almost at the same instant, one of the bareheaded riders lost more than the shako which had been swept from him while following Dimmock through the woodland. A bullet struck him in the center of the throat and slammed him, spurting blood from the torn open jugular vein, backwards off of his horse. Hissing through the air faster than the eye could follow, the arrow loosed by Tommy Okasi impaled the left breast of the second man to have lost his headdress. Although he did not fall from his mount immediately, the lance slipped from his grasp and he involuntarily reined the animal away to the right before death claimed him and he toppled to the ground.
Once again, pure chance had kept the sergeant alive. So swiftly had everything happened that he still had not regained the ground lost when the shock of nearly being shot had caused him to slow down. The three victims had been ahead of him and had taken the brunt of the attack.
It was more than just the sight of his three companions being killed that caused the last of the Lancers to lose his nerve. Like all of his party, he had believed that the Texians were holding empty rifles. Discovering that they were able to fire a second time without reloading, in some way which he could not understand, he was filled with superstitious dread. Wishing that he had a free hand to cross himself and ward off what he felt sure must be evil spirits, he swung his horse to the left. It was his intention to flee before one of the magical weapons was turned in his direction.
Conscious of his last companion’s desertion, the sergeant was made of sterner stuff. Having come so far, he meant to finish what he had set out to do. He had no more idea than the Lancer of how empty rifles were able to deal out death to two more of his men, but he refused to let that sway him from his purpose. Ignoring the two Texians, who were still lining the weapons, he aimed his lance at the back of his kneeling victim.
The second shots had surprised Dimmock just as much as the Mexicans. For a moment, he thought that his rescuers must be using double barreled rifles. Then he realized that was not the answer. Each weapon had but a single barrel.
Surprise and puzzlement caused the lieutenant to forget his deadly peril. Staring at the rifle in Ole Devil Hardin’s hands, he noticed that it was different in at least two respects from the more conventional arms with which he was familiar. In the first place, no provision had been made for carrying a ramrod suspended below the octagonal barrel where it would be readily accessible for reloading. If he had been able to see he would have noticed that. Although the position of the hammer—which the satanic-faced Texian’s forefinger was once again drawing to full cock—was not common, it had been utilized by more than one gunsmith.
The most important and significant departure from normal was a rectangular metal bar with rounded ends which passed through the rifle’s frame above where the head of the hammer would strike when released. There were holes drilled into the face of the bar. Dimmock noticed that the three on the right were apparently plugged with grease, but the one at the left was clear yet blackened like the muzzle of a pistol when a shot had been fired through it.
Even as Dimmock became aware of the bar, it began to move, seemingly of its own volition. Creeping to the left, it exposed a second empty and powder blackened hole and one of those which were blocked with grease disappeared into the frame. He could not make out exactly what had happened, or why.
The lieutenant’s lack of comprehension was understandable. There were comparatively few people in Texas, or the United States for that matter, who would have recognized and been aware of the full potential of Ole Devil Hardin’s and Mannen Blaze’s weapons. They were, in fact, a fairly successful attempt by the Mormon gunsmith, Jonathan Browning, to produce an arm capable of firing more than one shot without the need to reload in the conventional manner.
Despite the difficulty of transporting it with the magazine in place, Browning had developed a rifle capable of continuous fire unequalled by contemporary weapons. xv The metal bar was, in fact a five shot magazine; this having been the number he had considered most suitable for convenient handling. After a bullet had been discharged, operating the lever with the right thumb caused the magazine to pass through the aperture in the receiver until the next loaded chamber was in position. Then the mechanism thrust the magazine forward to make a gas-tight seal against the bore of the barrel and locked it firmly. As a further aid to operation, the proximity of the under-hammer to the right forefinger permitted it to be cocked without the need to remove the butt from the shoulder.
With the mechanisms of the rifles operating, Ole Devil and his cousin realized that the next loaded chambers would not be in place sufficiently quickly to stop the sergeant. Already he was very close to the man on the ground and he showed no sign of turning aside from the threat of their weapons.
Tommy Okasi was equally aware of the danger and just as helpless to avert it. After loosing the arrow, his right hand had flashed upwards and was drawing another shaft from the quiver. Swiftly as he was acting, he would not have time to nock it to the string, make his draw, sight and release it in time to stop the Mexican killing the man they were trying to save.
Suddenly the rapidly approaching thunder of hooves recalled Dimmock to a remembrance of his situation. A glance to his rear showed him just how grave it still was. The sergeant’s horse was so close that it seemed to loom right above him and the head of the lance was rushing with terrifying speed towards the center of his back.
Self-preservation, that strongest of human emotions, caused Dimmock to react without the need for conscious thought. He threw himself to the right in a desperate rolling motion—and not a moment too soon!
The lance’s head missed its mark by such a narrow margin that the lieutenant felt it scrape lightly across his back before spiking into the ground.
Realizing that his weapon had missed its intended target, the sergeant allowed it to turn and plucked its head free. He was swinging it forward, hoping to take one of the Texians with him, when both of the rifles roared and hurled bullets up into his body. Almost as soon as the loads had been expelled through the forty and five-sixteenths inch long barrels, Ole Devil and Mannen sprang aside, allowing the horse to carry its dying rider between them.
Having set up his bow, Tommy saw it would not be needed to help deal with the sergeant. So he pivoted and, after taking aim, sent his arrow through the back of the fleeing Lancer.
Finishing his evasion action face down, Dimmock lay sobbing for breath, full of relief at his deliverance from what had appeared to be certain death.
Lowering the Browning rifle, Ole Devil looked at the lieutenant and identified the uniform of the Brazos Guards. However, he gave a quick and negative shake of his head when Mannen Blaze was on the point of advancing. Despite his general air of lethargy, the burly redhead was anything but the slow-witted dullard he liked to appear. Realizing why his cousin had made the prohibitive gesture, he too stood still. They waited until Dimmock had recovered something of his composure before advancing to hear his news.