Chapter 39

39

September 1847

San Ángel, outskirts of Mexico City

Riley sat on the dirt oor of the prison cel , listening to the staccato of the pelting rain outside. This rain put him in mind of the mighty torrents that ever and anon swept in from the Atlantic over Clifden, and the thought of his homeland made him ache for his son. He had broken many promises, had made too many people su er on his account. If only God would al ow him to at least ful l that one promise, just that one—to send for Johnny.

He looked at his men. Some sat on the oor, like him, with their backs against the cold stone wal s. Their hands and feet were chained. No one spoke.

They just listened to the rain and the sound of one another’s breathing.

But in the spaces between the breaths and the rain, Riley heard another sound. It sent a chil up his spine because he knew what it meant. The sound of a saw cutting into wood. The echoes of a hammer punctuating the night. He got up and walked over to Dalton, who sat musing by the door. It was too dark to see his friend’s face clearly, but Riley could smel his fear.

“I would yield my life for yours if I could, Pat,” Riley said softly. “You know right wel I speak in earnest, don’t ya?”

“Nay, I’m a lucky Paddy. I’m goin’ to die a quick death,” Dalton said with a forced laugh. “I don’t begrudge you your sentence, John. I’ve seen men bigger than you get ogged. ’Tis not a pretty sight, to be sure. And the brandin’, wel , I would rather swin’ than to be turned into a monster.” Dalton laughed again, and though he had spoken in jest, Riley felt his breath catch in his throat.

“Beggin’ your pardon, John, a chara. I didn’t mean that.”

Riley said nothing. He had led his men to their deaths, and now he would be forced to watch them turned into rope dancers. He would never be able to forget it, not if he lived to be a hundred.

“I shal die as a San Patricio ought to die,” Dalton said, “with the satisfaction of havin’ done my duty wel under your command. That shal be my soldier’s glory.”

“Aye, that you have, indeed. You have fought bravely and loyal y under the green banner.”

Riley made out the glistening of tears in his friend’s eyes. And his own chest throbbed as if his heart had been replaced by a handful of stinging nettles.

“You wil make sure they bury me proper, won’t ya?” Dalton said. At his trial, he had asked the court to be buried in consecrated ground, and his request had been granted.

But one never knew what the Yanks would do or not do in the end. Stil , Riley nodded. “I wil make sure of it, Pat, I promise.”

The guards came for them early in the morning. Some of the men had drifted o into listless sleep. Others, like Riley, had sat vigil al night. He had prayed to every saint he knew, even Saint George, the patron saint of soldiers. He had begged God to spare the lives of his men, but when he heard the footsteps outside the cel , he knew it was not to be.

“Rise and shine, batal ion of traitors,” one of the guards said as he unlocked the cel . “The day you have been waiting for is here.”

They broke them up into two lines, those going to the gal ows and those meant for the muleteer’s whip. Riley cringed at seeing how short his line was compared to the other one. Only seven in his line, sixteen in the other.

Riley pushed his way up to Dalton and the two men grasped hands. Dalton sti ed a sob. “Promise me, John,” he said, holding Riley tighter. “Promise me that when this is over, you won’t think about this day. That you won’t carry the burden of our deaths—”

“Move, traitors, move!” the guard said, hitting Riley with the butt of his musket so hard he had to struggle to regain his breath. “And you, fal in line!”

They marched them al out of their prison, down the corridors where the sounds of their shu ing feet and dragging metal chains echoed against the damp wal s. They took them outside and proceeded to San Jacinto Plaza in the heart of San Ángel. Daylight had broken, and the rain had ceased, but the cobblestones were wet and slippery beneath their feet. Riley held his head up but didn’t look at anyone in particular. The square was ful of people, even at this hour. Yankee soldiers stood around the perimeter, their faces l ed with mockery and hatred, clearly looking forward to the grotesque spectacle that was about to unfold. He looked away and his eyes fel on the hundreds of Mexican vil agers holding rosaries and chanting silent prayers, the women—young and old—wrapped in shawls and pleading for him, for his men.

“Perdónenlos,” the women cried out, their arms raised in supplication.

“¡Tengan piedad por los Colorados!”

He searched their faces but did not nd Ximena’s. And wasn’t it better that way? Best for her not to see him like this.

“God have pity on us,” Dalton said.

Riley turned his head at the sound of his friend’s voice and there, looming before him, were the gal ows with sixteen nooses hanging down, swaying in the morning breeze. There was no platform, no trap-door. Eight wagons pul ed by mules had been placed underneath the nooses, waiting.

“Courage, my brave brothers!” Riley said. “Courage!” But his own knees were already trembling.

Hezekiah Akles broke forth in tears.

“Curse ye, curse ye al !” James Mil s cried.

“Quiet now!” one of the guards said, pul ing on the chains and forcing them to continue their march forward. Riley winced as the wrist chains ate into his esh, knowing this was only the beginning.

General Twiggs came out to the plaza on his horse, and at the sight of him everyone fel silent. “We’l start with you rst,” he said, looking at Riley but indicating his line with the other six men who were to be ogged. Riley could feel the horse’s hot breath and saw a hint of his re ection in its glossy brown eye.

He looked away. When this was over, he would never want to look at his re ection again.

“Thomas Riley, Hezekiah Akles, James Mil s, John Bartley, John Bowers, Alexander McKee, and John Riley,” General Twiggs said. “You have been found guilty of desertion and have been sentenced to receive fty lashes and to be branded with the letter D for deserter. We wil now proceed.” He ordered his sergeants to take Riley and the six other men to the stand of ash trees where a smal group of priests stood chanting prayers as they held a large cruci x high in the air.

One by one the seven prisoners were freed from their chains and stripped of their ragged shirts and coats, and with torsos now exposed, each man was tied to a tree. The muleteers came to stand behind each man, their rawhide whips at the ready. Riley caught sight of the whips, with their long-knotted tails quivering like rattlesnakes ready to strike. He took a deep breath as the muleteer behind him measured the distance between his bare back and the whip. Saint Patrick, protect me.

Twiggs shouted the order to begin. As the whips whistled through the air in unison and tore through human skin, the cries of the men echoed against the buildings. Birds ew out of the trees and ed.

Riley had never known such pain. It felt as if he were being skinned alive. He bit his lip and tasted blood but didn’t cry out. Some of the San Patricios fainted, others begged for mercy. Through the wailing and the praying, and the cracking of the whips, Riley latched on to the sound of Twiggs’s voice counting the lashes one by one as they landed. Drifting in and out of darkness, he felt himself succumbing to the pain. He thought of his son and could hear his voice cal ing him, Don’t leave me, Dadaí. He wil ed himself to come back.

At one point, Twiggs pretended to have lost count and nine long lashes went by before he began to count again.

“Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three…”

Then, before his eyes, Riley saw Nel y. She was white, thin as mist, and she held out her arms to him. I’ve been waitin’ for you, John…

He shook the apparition away and felt the pain again, so excruciating he struggled to breathe, to not succumb to the solemn darkness. He opened his eyes

and saw the crowd around him, and then there she was, Ximena, standing next to the priests clustered nearby. Was she real? Was he imagining her as wel ?

“Forty-nine… fty!” General Twiggs shouted. Riley sagged against the tree, gulping for air. There was a roaring in his ears, and he struggled to stay conscious. Wasting no time, Twiggs gave the order to continue and seven soldiers approached the prisoners, each carrying a branding iron heated a ery red and glowing with the letter D. They held them inches away from the prisoners’ faces, and Riley could smel the smoke, feel the intense heat.

“Hold them down!” Twiggs said.

“Mercy, have mercy!” Ximena yel ed, her shawl apping in the wind like wings, and Riley thought he was seeing an angel, just as the left side of his face was pushed against the rough bark of the tree and a soldier pressed the hissing hot iron into his right cheek. When it entered his esh, a searing pain, like a jolt of lightning, made his body jerk, his muscles clenching in agony.

“Aaaaghhhhh!” The smel of burnt esh, his own esh. Riley wished he could bash his head against the tree trunk and put an end to his agony.

“Please, enough. ¡Basta!” said the priests as they rushed over to his side.

“Wait a minute,” Twiggs said as he dismounted from his horse. He approached Riley and ordered his sergeant to reheat the iron. “The D is upside down,” Twiggs said. “Do it again and do it right this time, even if you have to burn his damn head o !”

“The man has su ered enough,” padre Sebastián beseeched him. “Please, have mercy.”

“Let him go!” Riley heard Ximena say. “His punishment has been carried out. Let it be enough, I beg you.”

“I’ve been ordered to brand this traitor with a letter D—not an upside-down letter—and by God I wil do it!” Twiggs said. “Now, bring the iron and do it right, man!”

Riley was unable to speak. The Yankees grabbed him and pushed his burnt right cheek into the bark of the tree, and when the red hot iron was pressed into his other cheek, he bel owed in anguish until darkness nal y overtook him.

When he came to, Riley realized he’d been dragged across the square with the six others and made to stand in front of the gal ows. He was dripping wet, and a Yankee stood above him holding an empty pail. “Wake up, sleepyhead. Wake up,” he said.

Riley didn’t shake o the water. He sighed in relief as the cold water soothed the burning on his face for a few precious seconds before it came back again in ful force, the pain radiating from his cheeks, pulsing throughout his entire body and soul. The odor of burnt esh drifted in the wind, and his face felt as if it were melting. He wanted to tear o his skin with his own hands, but he was back in chains and couldn’t move.

As his face swel ed, his vision blurred, and he could scarcely make out the gures of the men at the gal ows, standing two by two on wagons. The mules in front of each wagon jerked side to side, and the men almost lost their balance.

Soldiers climbed up on each wagon and placed white hoods around the prisoners’ heads. The nooses were secured on their necks just as the priests nished moving down the wagons o ering the last rites to the unfortunate souls whose fate was to die so far from home.

Suddenly, Riley yel ed, “Erin Go Bragh! ”

“Erin Go Bragh! ” the condemned men repeated.

Twiggs gave the order, and the mules pul ed the wagons forward, leaving the sixteen men swinging violently in the air, their bodies twitching and jerking.

Since there was no trapdoor, the fal hadn’t broken the men’s necks, denying them a quick death. One by one they became stil , al but Patrick Dalton, who continued to convulse for several minutes longer. Riley couldn’t un x his gaze from his friend as he choked to death. At last, Dalton stopped quivering and was stil . The silence of surrender, of death, hung over the plaza.

Forgive me, Pat. Riley broke forth in tears, which stung his burned, swol en esh. I’m sorry to the heart, I am, that your life should end with such little dignity.

He could barely see as one by one the bodies were taken down. Seven of them, including Dalton’s, were loaded into a wagon for the priests to bear them away and give them a proper burial. The other nine of his men were to be buried there, under the gal ows, and Riley and the six other whipped and branded men were forced to dig their graves.

Some of the Mexican men demanded that Twiggs al ow them to do the digging, that the prisoners had su ered enough. But Twiggs wouldn’t listen. He could scarcely stand, but Riley dug fast and hard. He was the reason his men were dead. From the moment he had put out the cal to his countrymen and the other foreign-born soldiers, he had sentenced them to their fate. Now his soul was stained by their blood. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

To humiliate them further, the pipers on the opposite side of the square began to play “The Rogue’s March” as Riley and the others were dragged back into the jail with an iron col ar around their necks. He heard his name being cal ed. Turning around, he saw Ximena only a few paces back, trying to get past the soldiers. He couldn’t make her out, for his face had swel ed so much that his eyes were closing up on him. But he would recognize her voice anywhere. She was here. He hadn’t just imagined her.