“Aye; and to-morrow they’ll be singing a different tune,” said John Doane.
“Did soombody obsarve this marn that we’d be makin’ a spoon or spoilin’ a horn?” asked Scotty MacPheel. “Faith, whin we carry yon batteries I doot soom of us’ll no hae muckle mair use for a spoon or any ither tool except a spade.”
“Right-o, Scotty,” Corporal Finerty agreed. “For me military eye tells me there’s a job ahead of us, though I’m not sayin’ the First Division can’t handle it. Sure it’s no secret what the ingineers reported; all the officers know it, an’ I’ve an ear on either side o’ my topknot. The Mexicans ferninst us are snug an’ tight, wid a reinforcement o’ two regiments from the north, an’ thray thousand men all tould, an’ batteries fetched clear from El Peñon an’ that other place, Mexicalcingo. Their right rists on the lavy that only infantry can travel; their lift ixtends clean into the bogs, where no man nor horse can make way around. An’ in front we got to charge in along this same open road, an’ belike have to put up scalin’ ladders to get in wid for use o’ the bayonet.”
“You talk like an officer, Finerty.”
“Yis, an’ I’m givin’ yez officers’ talk. If I had me desarts a gin’ral I’d ha’ been before this. An’ somethin’ else I’ll tell you. Yonder at the other side those lavy ridges, an’ only thray miles, is another set o’ batteries, an’ we can’t pass betwixt. There’s another road, too, west’ard, an’ a cross road connectin’ this and that, by way o’ Cherrybusco beyant San Antonio. So if we do take San Antonio, an’ Cherrybusco, won’t we have thim fellows on our backs? Now I’m figgerin’ that the gin’ral staff is thinkin’ a bit on how to carry the batteries yonder, first.”
The night passed peacefully. Duncan’s battery had been posted to command the road, the sentinels regularly sang: “All’s well,” and the camp slept. In the huge stone barn the Fourth Regiment was as comfortable as could be.
August 19, the next day, dawned bright and warm. Word came that all the divisions were now up as far as San Augustine. By the number of aides and orderlies dashing back and forth between the First Division headquarters and San Augustine, something was due to happen.
The orders of the day kept everybody close. Jerry had no opportunity to look up Hannibal, and Hannibal was unable to look him up, either. The air seemed filled with suspense. The Mexican batteries up the road stayed very alert, expecting an attack. But the brigade officers, within sight of Jerry, constantly trained their glasses upon the lava field to the west—really paying more attention to that than to San Antonio.
Then about the middle of the afternoon the dull booming of artillery and the crash of musketry came rolling across the bristling lava. Speedily two clouds of smoke rose toward the sun; both were three or four miles away. The larger one veiled a hill that just showed itself above the lava field.
It was a battle at last. The large cloud was from the Mexican batteries, the smaller cloud from the American guns.