Behind the barricade, made of stones and wagons and all the useless, pitiable defenses that desperate men in desperate cities have always used, there were a hundred or more men who had lost their heads and would listen to nothing but the voice of their own fury. They were armed with old rifles taken from a plundered marine store’s establishment whose dusty cellar was piled with condemned arms. From the same place they had taken four automatic guns on rusty tripods.
Lashing themselves to greater and blinder rage at every attempt at opposition or argument, they had sworn to turn the weapons on their own police. But the black headlines on the extras that were tossed to them acted like the shock of ice-cold water on a drunken man.
One by one they slouched away. When the enemy arrived, there was nobody to oppose the files of bluejackets and marines that marched past the silent, gloomy crowds to occupy the city for the troops.
Green Scouts for the American Army
“Reports here that Providence is occupied,” Washington telegraphed to the army. “Send details.”
The General laughed sarcastically, and tossed the dispatch to his aide.
“Blazes!” growled the latter. “Since they established their aviation camp back of their lines at Narragansett Pier yesterday, every reconnoisance we’ve attempted has been just like stirring up a nest of yellow-jackets. I’m afraid that we’ve lost another machine, sir. It should have been back here hours ago. If it’s gone, we have only six left; and our crack aviation squadron from San Diego has been whittled down to 14 officers and 90 enlisted men. They simply pile on top of every machine of ours with half a dozen or more of their own.”
“The mounted patrols that we pushed out toward the south last night got good results,” said the General.
“Yes, sir. But,” the aide selected a sheet of paper from the pile, “it’s like trying to build up a monster from a single bone. Look at this, sir. Here’s a green patrol—plucky, too, for they got in farther than most. But see what they give us. They report a regiment of infantry at Exeter, west of Wickford; and they say that there is positively no artillery with it.”
“Of course!” answered the General. “They didn’t know where to look for artillery, or how it is concealed.”[71]