Such delays by the howitzer, and a wagon transporting spare muskets for the expected recruits, were so frequent, that we made but slow progress, and when we emerged from the woods the sun was already shining upon the broad Transit road,—I might have said like a glory on the brow of Ometepec, but my memory is bad, and I doubt whether the fact may not be that the sun rises upon this point from lower down on the lake. After entering the Transit road, the rangers were sent ahead to discover if there were an enemy in the way. Our regiment, as we called it, now together for the first time since I joined it, consisted of some seventy men, divided into three companies, all under command of Colonel Waters,—a soldierly-looking man, and, moreover, brave, and not without training in the Mexican War. Some time before the regiment had numbered one hundred, but had become thus reduced by disease and the enemy.
On this ride I remember a feeble infusion of that excellent spirit which, since the days of Sir Walter Scott, ought to belong to all horse-soldiers, moss-troopers, or mounted rangers, but which I had despaired of ever finding in General Walker's service. It is true we had no bugler, or standard-bearer, or piece of feather in the troop, or, indeed, any circumstance of war, save our revolvers and Sharpe's rifles, vermin and dirty shirts. Nevertheless the morning was splendid, with a fresh breeze behind us; the road was hard and smooth, and rang under our horses' feet; and withal I felt, that, if we should see a troop of greaser lancers ahead, in good uniform, we might run 'em down, and bullet 'em, and strip 'em, with good romantic spirit, even.
But this is a most hollow cheat which Sir Walter Scott and other book-men have played off on some weak-headed young men of our low-minded generation. There is no doubt but a man seated amongst ten thousand cavalry, who shake the earth as they charge, ought to feel himself swell, as part of an avalanche or mighty Niagara,—as part of the mightiest visible force which feeble man can enter or his spirit commingle with. This were no contemptible joy, which the thin-blooded philosopher might laugh at,—better, indeed, than most to be found here on this fog-rounded flat of ours, where some few melodies from heaven and countless blasts from hell meet, and make such strange, unequal dissonance. But, alack! alack! it is not for the feeble, or the young soldier, fresh from his plough or his yardstick, his briefs or his pestle. For how shall we who have all our lives been standing guard against the approach of death, who start horror-shaken from the dropping of a tile, whose small wounds are quickly bound up by tender mother or sister, and lamented over,—how shall we feel romantic in the midst of a shower of bullets? Enough done, if our vanity or sense of duty hold us there in any spirit, so that we do the needed trigger-work, and not turn tail and disgrace ourselves. Even the veteran's satisfaction, since the laying aside of steel armor, is not much, to be sure, or is gathered after the battle. There is some savage ecstasy, perhaps, when he sees his enemy fall, or when he sees his back; this last, indeed, a glorious sight for any soldier,—worth rushing at the cannon's mouth to look at, almost. But the man, be he veteran or other, who tells me he found pleasure on the field where the Minié-balls kill afar off, in cold blood,—I know him for one of the eccentric, stupid, or talkers for purposes of vanity.—But this will suffice.
There were three places on the road, amongst the Cordillera ridges, where, in former wars, a Costa-Rican force, flying before the filibusters, had stopped to barricade, and gathered heart to withstand their pursuers awhile,—long enough to bark the surrounding trees with musket-shot,—some of them, indeed, amid their topmost branches; for it is a greaser-failing to shoot inordinately high. Each of these sites we approached with caution, expecting to see an enemy there; but there was none, and we came down safely at length to our old shed-camp. Here we halted, and made our station, as it was more convenient for pasturage, whilst the foot passed on to San Juan, two miles beyond.
The steamer not arriving, we remained at this place several days, employed as before, with the sugar-cane and the wood-ticks, miserable enough.
In the mean time, the foot at San Juan, finding unusual temptation to escape from this place, so much nearer the Costa-Rican line, were leaving in large parties; and unwilling service was made of the rangers to intercept the fugitives, by posting them below on all the paths leading through the forest to Costa Rica. General Walker esteemed these more faithful, because they had been more considerately treated, better fed, allowed greater freedom and privilege,—having no drill, loose discipline, and exemption from guard-duty when with the foot; and, above all, their part of the service being healthier, and, though more fatiguing, far preferable, on the whole, to the other. One night I was detailed, with others, on this disagreeable duty, and remember it, for other reasons, as the most wretched night of all that I passed in Nicaragua. Our station was on the bank of a little wooded stream, some miles below San Juan. After the guard had been posted, I lay down to get some hours' sleep, which I needed,—but was no sooner on the ground than a swarm of infinitesimally small creatures, of the tick genus, whose den I had invaded, came over me, and the rest was merely one sensation of becrawled misery; so that, notwithstanding great previous loss of sleep, I went again unrefreshed. I asked an old filibuster who lay near me, how he could sleep through it. "Oh," said he, "I've got my skin dirty and callous, and this easy-walking species, that can't bite, never troubles me." On this subject I read the following in Mr. Irving's "History of Columbus" with some emotion:—"Nor is the least beautiful part of animated nature [in those tropical regions] the various tribes of insects that people every plant, displaying brilliant coats-of-mail, which sparkle to the eye like precious gems." It seems strange to me that any good should be recognized in these children of despair, which have caused me more unhappiness than all the world's vermin beside. I think this praise must be from Mr. Irving himself, looking up the picturesque. It is not possible that Columbus would have had the heart to flatter and polish up these mailed insects, who, in his day, ate him, turned him over and over, and harried him more than ever was Job by Satan.
Next morning, whilst we were roasting green plantains in the fire for breakfast, a man dressed in General Walker's blue-shirt-and-cotton-breeches uniform came upon us suddenly from out of the woods beyond the stream. He was evidently going south,—but seeing our party, with startled look, he turned, and went in the direction of San Juan. We knew him at once for a deserter, but had no zeal to arrest him; and he had already got past us, when some one ejaculated,—"D—- him, why don't he go right? That's not the road to Costa Rica!" Upon this unlucky speech, the officer in command of the detail, who, either through inattention or design, was suffering the man to pass unquestioned, ordered him to be followed and seized. He was a German, and either a dull, heavy fellow, or else stupefied by his terrible misfortune; and being unable to say a consistent word for himself, the officer sent him off under guard to San Juan, where it was well known what General Walker would do with him.
Some hours after this misadventure, as most of us took it, our detail was relieved and we rode back to camp. The man who had been taken in the act of deserting was condemned to be shot at San Juan this same evening, in presence of the whole detachment. He was led down to the beach, and seated in a chair at the water's edge. He bore himself carelessly, or with an absent, almost unconscious air, like one who felt himself acting a part in a dream. A squad of drafted riflemen was brought up in front of him, and the word was given by a sergeant. They made their aim false purposely, and but one shot took effect on the doomed man. He fell back into the water, where he lay struggling, and stained the waves red with his blood. It was a wrenching sight, too brutal far, to see the sergeant place his gun against the poor wretch's head, and end his agony!
It seemed so abominable to every spectator there that General Walker should thus seek to enforce Devil's service from his men, entrapped mostly in the first place, without wages or half maintenance, and with no claim upon them whatever, but by a contract without consideration on the one part, on the other hard labor to the death,—that this exhibition, which in another army were calculated to strengthen just authority, here only aroused indignation and disgust. This very night, after witnessing the deserter's punishment, eleven men left the company to which he belonged in a body, and were seen no more in Nicaragua. And though for selfish reasons I was concerned to see the army falling to pieces, and the load of toil and danger increasing upon the rest of us, yet both I and the rest acknowledged that there was no tie of honor or honesty to keep any man with us who wished to escape; and this deed seemed to us without decent sanction.
The steamer at length made its appearance, and, after landing us about forty recruits, departed south with the States passengers for Panamá; and afterwards, the new soldiers being all furnished with muskets, the detachment started on its return to Rivas. On the way, it was rumored amongst the men, that a reinforcement to the enemy, marching from Costa Rica, were halted at Virgin Bay, and that General Walker was going to attack them. We hurried over the Transit road as fast as the foot were able,—General Sanders, I recollect, riding far in advance, sometimes out of sight, and thus giving himself to an ambush, had the enemy placed any. By repute he was a man of extreme courage, and held his life so contemptuously that he would scarce hesitate to charge an enemy's line by himself. But I fear that this time he had other impulse than his innate valor; for there was no occasion for a solitary man, riding in these gloomy woods, to be singing and hallooing, and whirling his sword about his head, and swaying to and fro on his horse, unless he were strongly worked by aguardiente.