The First Division men off duty began to sift down nearer to the batteries to get, as Corporal Finerty remarked, “a smell o’ powder.” Jerry, Fifer O’Toole and Hannibal caught up with the corporal on the Tacubaya road. They four stood behind battery Number 1, which was the two eighteen-pounders and the twenty-four-pounder howitzer, commanded by Captain Drum, of the Fourth Artillery.
A group of the Palmettos was here. It was good to see the Mohawks again. Palmettos, New Yorkers, and Keystoners—they had a fighting reputation.
“Howdy?” the South Carolinans greeted easily. They were a set of men who usually said little.
“Same to you,” Corporal Finerty answered. “An’ faith, you’ve been a long time comin’. For why do yez trail through by night, wakin’ up a camp that’s tired wid hard fightin’?”
“Well, pardner, you talk like you want to hawg all the fun,” they replied. “To-morrow we’ll see who’s first up that hill—the Volunteers or you Regulars. Even start, my bucko.”
“If you know annything, out wid it,” Corporal Finerty demanded. “Do we storm Chapultepec, you say?”
“Would we make a forced march by night for less, Mister Regular?”
“Sure, now, what’s the use o’ foolin’ wid Chapultepec?” retorted the corporal. “Let the ar-r-tillery tind to that, an’ wait a bit an’ we’ll open thim southern gates for yez, so yez can come in at ’ase.”
“Never you mind those south gates. It’s Chapultepec or nothing, for the army’s going in by the west. The engineers decided that long ago. We heard the talk at the battery before you fellows were up. Those roads from the south are no good, Mister. Every one leads through marshes and is flanked by ditches and cut by batteries and other ditches, and there’s a thundering big canal running ’round the city walls. And the marshes and the ditches and the canal are full o’ water. So ’tis this way, Mister: we-all and the Pillow men scouted about yesterday, backing up Twiggs, for a showing ag’in the south. But we were ordered to trapse hyar in front o’ Chapultepec by night, leaving only Old Davy and his Riley brigade for a feint. And to-morrow we-all are going to see the elephant on top o’ yonder hill.”
“B’gorry, you could fetch no better news, lads,” spoke the corporal. “There be fourteen hundred o’ the First Division lift, to turn their backs on the rist o’ the army an’ their faces on the enemy.”