Chapter 19

19

September 1846

Monterrey, Nuevo León

After the rst day of battle, Ximena was up al night supervising the care of the wounded. Toward morning, when her spirit and body could take no more, Dr.

Iñigo, the head surgeon, bid her to retire. “Rest, señora, recuperate your strength.”

Ximena and the other soldaderas and local women volunteering as hospital aides had spent the early part of the day preparing bandages, cleaning tools and sponges, and making poultices and ointments. Later they were tasked with washing and dressing wounds, comforting the living and the dying. So, by the time she was sent to bed, Ximena didn’t argue. She knew she had reached her limit.

She dragged herself to a cot in the corridors, not far from the patients in case she was needed. But no sooner had she closed her eyes than she was startled awake by the explosions. The local women had displayed incredible stamina preparing for the battle, and yet many ended up huddled in a corner, crying and praying for the bombardment to stop. Ximena wanted to o er them a word of comfort, but she hadn’t the strength.

The rst day, there hadn’t been many casualties. But on the second day, she knew the tide might change. Maloney rol ed over on his cot, covering his ears to block out the sound of the shel s raining down. He would have never made an artil erist, he’d said. But Ximena knew it was more than that. It was the agony of war itself the old man couldn’t endure, and she wished she could take him far away from the chaos. She went over to him, coaxing him to get up and help take

out those who’d died during the night. She feared they would need every cot and blanket available by day’s end.

As she listened to the sounds of the raging battle, she was unable to distinguish whether the roar of the muskets and the booms of the cannons were coming from the Mexican Army or the Yanquis. She thought of John Riley, and as she rushed from one wounded man to the next, cleaning and dressing their injuries, her mind again and again kept turning to their outing in the country eating tunas. Or dancing at the fandango, his strong arms wrapped around her.

These memories helped her get through the day.

She encouraged Maloney to think of happy moments as wel , but he claimed he couldn’t. Whenever he was asked to hold a man down for an amputation, Maloney would close his eyes and cry as if the limb being sawed o was his own.

But he also cried when he was sent to load the dead onto the wagons, their glazed eyes xed upon him as he buried their mutilated bodies in shal ow graves. Stil , Ximena was thankful for his help. Every other able-bodied man was out on the battle eld, and only the women were here assisting the two surgeons.

Throughout the day, more wounded were brought in, their shrieks and moans merging with the lamentations and supplications of the others until Ximena felt that her head was going to explode. There weren’t enough bandages to staunch the blood, not enough gauze or sponges. When she knew Maloney couldn’t take the blood and misery anymore, she sent him outside for some fresh air and to see if he could learn any news of the battle. He liked going to the cathedral where he could watch the ghting from the bel tower along with the priests. The day before, he’d rushed in to tel her that Taylor’s howitzers and mortars were having no e ect on the citadel, and together they had rejoiced to know John and his men were safe and their guns were taking down anyone who came within range. She remembered back in Matamoros when she’d gone to the elds to watch the morning dril s. She imagined him now, pointing his sword at the Yanqui troops and yel ing “¡Fuego!”

In the afternoon, however, Maloney returned from the cathedral with devastating news.

“Och, acushla. The Yanks have taken Independence Hil and the Bishop’s Palace. General Ampudia best be retakin’ that western position as soon as

possible. It commands the whole city. Now that the palace has fal en, what’s to stop the Yankees?”

“They wil be stopped,” Ximena said.

In the evening, when the ring ceased and they went out with a cart to col ect the wounded, Ximena saw the Yanqui ag ying over the Bishop’s Palace and shivered. She didn’t want to think about what that meant. Instead, she focused on not slipping on the pools of blood and splattered brains as she walked over the mangled soldiers strewn on the streets, some with their hearts or entrails exposed. It was a eld of carnage. Limbs scattered about, heads without bodies, bodies without legs or arms, eyes hanging from their sockets. Crushed bones crunched under her feet. Flies swarmed in black clouds. Stray dogs fought over severed limbs. The soldiers who writhed and howled in agony didn’t frighten her. The ones who l ed her with dread were those who lay on the cold ground gazing serenely at her as life seeped from their eyes and their ghastly wounds.

They had resigned themselves to their unhappy fate and seemed to welcome their approaching death with an appal ing calmness. By now, she had learned to let them be, to ignore the impulse to help them.

The dead had di erent expressions on their countenance, some smiling, others ful of de ance, some placid, others frozen in rage. “Please, a drink of water!” the Yanqui soldiers cried as they clutched at her skirt. “¡Agua, por favor!”

her countrymen wailed. She lowered the water gourd she carried over her shoulders and tended to both friend and foe alike.

She heard a wail of despair di erent from the others and turned to see a group of soldaderas searching the rubble. One of them was bending over her dead husband, yel ing his name. As Ximena was about to go comfort her, the soldadera picked up her husband’s musket and rushed down the street to where the Yanquis congregated, screaming something in her indigenous tongue.

Musket re was heard from where she disappeared, and everyone rushed to take cover. Had she been shot down? Or had she shot someone?

“You oughtn’t be here,” Maloney said as they hid behind the wagon. He patted her shoulder. “Go back to the hospital. Leave the gatherin’ to me and the others.”

Ximena shook her head. “I’m ne.”

She looked at the citadel in the distance. It was silent now, and she wished John would come to the city so she could see for herself that he was alive. His absence these past few days had made her heart fold up its petals like a tulip on a rainy day. It was wrong, she knew. He was not hers to long for, and it was an insult to Joaquín’s memory. But she had lost everyone she loved, and at times she felt there was no reason to carry on. It was only when the Irishman looked at her with the desire he tried so hard to deny, and her heart awakened, unfurling in the heat of his gaze, that she remembered she was stil alive.

“Is it frettin’ yourself after him, you are?” Maloney asked. “The big fel a can mind himself right enough. And up in the citadel, he’s safer than we are here below.”

“Is he angry… angry with me?”

“No, jewel. He’s cross with himself, he is.” He patted her hand in understanding. Looking back at the street, he frowned and said, “Wait here, lass.” He stepped over the bodies strewn along the street until he stood before a Yanqui soldier leaning against the wal of a house. “Begorra! If ’tisn’t Kerr Delaney himself!” Bending down to touch the soldier, he let out a yelp when the soldier opened his eyes and asked for water.

“He’s alive! Quick, give me a hand, lassie.”

“Faith! Is that you, ould rascal?” the soldier said. “Heard ya went over to the other side.”

“Aye, I sure did. Don’t talk now, Kerr, a chara. Let me tend to ya rst.”

After they loaded him onto the wagon and were walking back to the hospital, Maloney told Ximena about his friend. “He was in the hospital tent with me when the Yankees did this,” he said, touching the HD on his forehead. “When he recovers, he’l join our side, he wil .”

“I hope it is so,” she said.

When they got back, she and Maloney took care of the soldier, who was weakened from the loss of blood. A musket bal had pierced his thigh, but it had a clean exit and there had been no major injury to the muscle. “Och, you’re one lucky Irishman!” Maloney said, giving his friend a sip of mezcal from his ask.

Ximena turned to leave so that they could chat while she tended to the other men, glad to see Maloney laughing again.

“Don’t go, lassie, come listen to this story. Riley is goin’ to get a good laugh when he hears this.”

Delaney was a big, hairy man, his bushy beard as red as terracotta tiles. After Maloney presented her to him, Ximena listened to his story. He said that two nights before, while camping out at the pecan grove near the city, he and his comrades had sneaked into Captain Bragg’s tent while the man was sound asleep. Ximena remembered that John and Maloney hated this man.

“We thought we’d have ourselves a bit of a bon re, so we lit the fuse of an artil ery shel ,” Delaney said. “We rol ed it through the ap of Bragg’s tent and ran away.”

“Now, I know you didn’t get him because I just saw the rascal rin’ his guns upon the city,” Maloney said, laughing. “But ma bouchal, tel us what happened next.”

“Wel then, after a minute or two, the shel exploded and his tent was blazin’.

His friends came runnin’ to the rescue and pul ed him out, al covered in soot, his hair and furry eyebrows singed. His face looked as if he’d been sweepin’ a chimney, I tel ya!”

Both men laughed. Ximena smiled, but she couldn’t help feeling bad for the Yanqui o cer. To be hated so much that his own men would try to kil him.

“By my soul, ’tis a great pity that al we managed to do was give the captain some wee cuts and a hole or two in his nightshirt,” Delaney said, his eyes changing from dark to light green, like leaves ickering in the wind.

“I bet he took it out on al of ye rapscal ions,” Maloney said.

“Aye, plenty of us got the gag put in our mouths.”

“Faith, ’tis plain as plain the heart of that vile creature is blacker than bog water,” Maloney said, shaking his head.

Ximena continued on with her duties, leaving the men to their stories, until nal y, the wounded man was snoring away on his cot. Maloney, stil sitting on his stool, kept watch over his friend.

On the third day, having lost the outer defenses and making no e ort to recapture the strongholds, General Ampudia ordered his troops to fal back to the center of the city and abandon their positions, thus al owing the Yanquis to move in from the east and west completely uncontested. The only fort that hadn’t fal en into the enemy’s hands was the citadel. The shooting intensi ed and came so close that even the cries and moans of the wounded couldn’t drown out the musket re raging outside.

“The Yankees are blastin’ through the houses!” Maloney said when he came back from the cathedral. Everyone listened as he told about the Mexican snipers up on the rooftops shooting at the Yanquis as they tried to make their way through the streets. But the enemy was smart. They eluded the snipers perched on the roofs by forcing their way through the houses, making holes in the adjoining wal s from one house to the next with heavy pickaxes and crowbars, and thereby avoiding the streets—and the sharpshooters—altogether. “The city folk are gatherin’ in the cathedral and the main plaza now,” Maloney said. “They have nowhere else to go. But the Yankees have positioned two howitzers and a six-pound cannon on the rooftops and are pointin’ them straight at the crowds.”

Suddenly, an explosion shook the building. Before Ximena could stop him, Maloney rushed out of the hospital to see what had happened.

“Let us pray,” said one of the priests who was giving the holy sacraments to the dying. He dropped to his knees, and everyone else soon fol owed. Ximena pressed her hands together in prayer as the wailing of the people outside grew louder and louder. Then Maloney came in, his hat clutched in his hands, his face pale.“Wel, what ya waitin’ for, ould fela? What in tarnation is happenin’ out there?” Delaney yel ed from his cot.

“The Yankees have damaged the cathedral with their mortar,” he said, ghting back tears. “The fal in’ stones crushed some of the civilians gathered there. They’re buried in the rubble.”

“But the cathedral has gunpowder!” Ximena said.

“One more blast and they’l blow us to smithereens,” Delaney said.

“There is no safe place left in the city. Our Lord have mercy on us,” Dr. Iñigo said. “General Ampudia is in the sacristy. I wil plead with him to put an end to

this madness.” He hurried out of the building while everyone else braced themselves for what might come.

With their cannons bearing on the cathedral and the plaza mayor, the Yanqui troops were in position to attack at rst light. The ring ceased at dusk, and when Ximena left the Hospital del Rosario to see the damage for herself, rain was pouring down on the city, making it di cult for the locals to dig through the fal en stones for their dead and wounded, most of them women and children. The monks in the Templo de San Francisco next to the convent prayed and sang hymns. Their voices echoed against the buildings, and listening to them, Ximena found a little peace.

Around three in the morning, when things had nal y settled down, they heard the distant sound of a bugle. Maloney rose from his cot and ran to see what was happening outside. When he returned, Ximena and Delaney were awake, waiting for him. The three of them went to sit outside the hospital doors.

The rain had ceased, and the air was cold. Ximena wrapped her rebozo around her tightly. Delaney had shed his Yanqui uniform and now wore a Mexican jacket that Maloney had taken from a fal en soldier. It stretched too tight on his burly frame, but at least it kept him warm.

“I saw Captain Moreno comin’ out of the sacristy and bein’ escorted to Taylor’s headquarters with a ag of truce,” Maloney said.

“Is possible Ampudia send him to…?” Ximena didn’t possess the English word for what she knew in her heart was about to happen.

“Surrender?” Maloney said.

“Surrender,” she repeated, hating the taste of the word in her mouth, as foul and bitter as creosote tea.