Vera Cruz was being bombarded. The bastion guns boomed hotly, replying; the great guns of the castle chimed in; the chaparral was being torn to pieces. But so was the city; and out in the roadstead the two steam gunboats and the five sloops of war veered nearer and from a mile away began to shoot, also, at the city and the castle both.
The battle had opened. The Americans were firing only seven mortars; that was all—seven. Where were their other cannon? Stuck in the sand and brush, as like as not. The seven mortars were hard to see, but the city forts and the castle would bury them. As for those little ships a mile at sea, one shot from San Ulloa would sink any of them.
However, the mortars stuck to it. They kept firing all night, while it was too dark for the forts and the castle to answer. There was no sleep for Vera Cruz—not amidst that steady “Boom! Boom! Boom!” and “Crash! Crash! Crash!”, with showers of iron and rock flying far and wide into all parts of the city.
In the morning ten mortars were at work. The forts and San Ulloa spouted smoke and flame in vain. The walls had not been hurt; but what with the booming, and the crashing, and the yelling and running, assuredly Vera Cruz was no place in which to stay. Jerry resolved to get out before he, an American boy, was killed by shots from his own country.
This afternoon another norther set in, as if to help Vera Cruz. It silenced the mortars, and drove the American gunners to cover. Nobody could see to shoot in such a dust storm. The people were happy over it. They knew that the northers and the yellow fever would come to their rescue. The Americans were crazy, their guns useless, their trenches would be filled faster than they could be dug. But to Jerry the norther looked like a lucky stroke for one American, at least. To slip over the walls and sneak across the flat strip and enter the American camp would be as easy as—well, as cutting a watermelon.
III
THE AMERICANS GAIN A RECRUIT
The norther was making things uncomfortable in the city as well as outside. The streets were lashed by howling wind, and raked by sand and bits of clay; loosened stones crashed to the pavement, threatening the few people who scuttled around the corners; and when the thick dusk gathered early Vera Cruz seemed deserted. But if matters were bad here, what must they be yonder, out in the open?
Jerry was going to know, pretty soon. It was time that he left Vera Cruz. He did not belong in Vera Cruz, where Americans were disliked. It was the enemy’s country. The two Manuels had housed him in their shack, and had fed him, but only because he worked for them. He had not seen them this day—did not wish ever to see them again; they had cuffed him on the ears, they thought little of slapping him about. He had stayed with them because there was nothing else for him to do. But now his own people had arrived to teach these Mexicans a lesson; had brought the Flag right to the doorway of Mexico, and were knocking for admittance.
If they really did not get in—of course they would get in, but supposing they didn’t, and had to go away and try at another place! Supposing, as the Vera Cruzans said, the walls held out against the cannon, and the yellow fever raged, then he would be stranded the same as before. It was a long, long way from Vera Cruz to the United States.