XI
The one American resident that the Managua newspapers do not occasionally attack is the Marine.
Some years ago one periodical published an editorial accusing the Legation Guard of general misconduct, whereupon the soldiers promptly wrecked its plant. No such accusations have been repeated.
There are about a hundred and fifty marines in Managua. They were the cleanest-cut body of young men that I had ever seen anywhere. There was no drunkenness among them, no rough-house, no swaggering or bullying attitude toward the natives, no tendency to pick a fight with the local police.
“The only difficulty we ever have,” said the American minister, John E. Ramer, “is that now and then one of them falls in love with a Nicaraguan señorita. The lad might be able to support her in her accustomed luxury here, but he couldn’t do it at home. Consequently, for the best interests of both parties, the officers—if they see it coming—try to cheat Cupid by transferring the man to another post.”
The barracks are situated on the outskirts of town. The men are well quartered—with drill-grounds, club, baseball diamond, moving picture theater, and tennis courts—and so completely comfortable that a Nicaraguan president, paying a visit to the camp, once threw up his hands in astonishment with the exclamation:
“Your privates live like generals!”
Adjacent to their cantonment is that of the Nicaraguan soldiers. I strolled over to the native barracks one day with Corporal Landy, the Legation orderly.
“Hello, you bandits!” he greeted them, and all the Nicaraguans grinned. “These devils,” he explained to me in Spanish, that they might hear, “never have any drill or fatigue or anything else to do except to sit around and watch us sweat.” And they all chuckled good-humoredly, as though they liked it. Very casually he took the gun away from a native sentry to show me the rust upon it. “And that cannon they have there, if you were to fire it, would turn a somersault and land on its back.”
They talked together on friendly terms about the night last year when a revolution was expected. Each had the other covered with machine-guns in case of an emergency. They laugh about it now, and each assures the other, “I was aiming straight at you that night.”
I attended an inspection one Saturday morning. The Rochester, previously at Amapala, had reached Corinto, and Admiral Dayton came up to inspect the troops. There was a close-order drill, then extended order, then fire call, and finally the call to arms wherein every man took the post he would take in case of actual fighting in Managua. The bugle rang out. There was a scurrying of machine-gunners to the various emplacements about the barracks. Down by the front entrance the sallying party formed to charge with fixed bayonets through the streets of Managua.
Just across the line, the Nicaraguan troops sat cross-legged on the ground, and grinned appreciatively, as though they felt that this was an exhibition staged for their personal entertainment. They themselves were never called upon to practice for such emergencies. When the marines first did it, some years ago, the native soldiers had all scurried back into the barracks to get their own guns, while an anxious presidential voice came over the telephone wire to the American Legation, demanding:
“What’s the matter in your camp? Your marines are running about like madmen! Are they declaring war upon us?”
They soon assembled again, and marched back to the barracks, while the band played “Dixie,” and the stars and stripes floated in the breeze. This whole occupation, because of its aspect in foreign eyes, was a thing that might be deplored, but what Yankee in a far-away land would not be thrilled at the sight?