As she listened to the sounds of the raging battle, she was unable to distinguish whether the roar of the muskets and the booms of the cannons were coming from the Mexican Army or the Yanquis. She thought of John Riley, and as she rushed from one wounded m an to the next, cleaning and dressing their injuries, her mind again and again k ept turning to their outing in the country eating tunas. Or dancing at the fandango, his strong arms wrapped around her. These memories helped her get through the day. She encouraged Maloney to think of happy moments as well, but he claimed he couldn’t. Whenever he was asked to hold a man down for an amputation, Maloney would close his eyes and cry as if the limb being sawed off was his own. But he also cried when he was sent to load the dead onto the wagons, their glazed eyes fixed upon him as he buried their mutilated bodies in shallow graves. Still, Ximena was thankful for his help. Every other able - bodied man was out on the battlefield, and only the women were here as sisting the two surgeons. Throughout the day, more wounded were brought in, their shrieks and moans merging with the lamentations and supplications of the others until Ximena felt that her head was going to explode. There weren’t enough bandages to staunch the blood, not enough gau ze or sponges. When she knew Maloney couldn’t take the blood and misery anymore, she sent him outside for some fresh air and to see if he could learn any news of the battle. He liked going to the cathedral where he could watch the fighting from the bell to wer along with the priests. The day before, he’d rushed in to tell her that Taylor’s howitzers and mortars were having no effect on the citadel, and together they had rejoiced to know John and his men were safe and their guns were taking down anyone who ca me within range. She remembered back in Matamoros when she’d gone to the fields to watch the morning drills. She imagined him now, pointing his sword at the Yanqui troops and yelling “¡Fuego!” In the afternoon, however, Maloney returned from the cathedral with devastating news. “Och, acushla . The Yanks have taken Ind ependence Hill and the Bishop’s Palace. General Ampudia best be retakin’ that western position as soon as possible. It commands the whole city. Now that the palace has fallen, what’s to stop the Yankees?” “They will be stopped,” Ximena said.
In the evening, when the firing ceased and they went out with a cart to collect the wounded, Ximena saw the Yanqui flag flying over the Bishop’s Palace and shivered. She didn’t want to think about what that meant. Instead, she focused on not slipping on th e pools of blood and splattered brains as she walked over the mangled soldiers strewn on the streets, some with their hearts or entrails exposed. It was a field of carnage. Limbs scattered about, heads without bodies, bodies without legs or arms, eyes hang ing from their sockets. Crushed bones crunched under her feet. Flies swarmed in black clouds. Stray dogs fought over severed limbs. The soldiers who writhed and howled in agony didn’t frighten her. The ones who filled her with dread were those who lay on t he cold ground gazing serenely at her as life se eped from their eyes and their ghastly wounds. They had resigned themselves to their unhappy fate and seemed to welcome their approaching death with an appalling calmness. By now, she had learned to let them be, to ignore the impulse to help them. The dead had different expressions on their countenance, some smiling, others full of defiance, some placid, others frozen in rage. “Please, a drink of water!” the Yanqui soldiers cried as they clutched at her skirt. “¡Agua, por favor!” her countrymen wail ed. She lowered the water gourd she carried over her shoulders and tended to both friend and foe alike. She heard a wail of despair different from the others and turned to see a group of soldaderas searching the rubble. One of them was bending over her dead husband, yelling his name. As Ximena was about to go comfort her, the soldadera picked up her husband’ s musket and rushed down the street to where the Yanquis congregated, screaming something in her indigenous tongue. Musket fire was heard from where she disappeared, and everyone rushed to take cover. Had she been shot down? Or had she shot someone? “You oughtn’t be here,” Maloney said as they hid behind the wagon. He patted her shoulder. “Go back to the hospital. Leave the gatherin’ to me and the others.” Ximena shook her head. “I’m fine.” She looked at the citadel in the distance. It was silent now, and she wished John would come to the city so she could see for herself that he was alive. His absence these past few days had made her heart fold up its petals like a tulip on a rainy day. It w as wrong, she knew. He was not hers to long for, and it was an insult to Joaquín’s memory. But she had lost everyone she loved, and at times she felt there was no reason to carry on. It was only when the Irishman looked at her with the desire he tried so h ard to deny, and her heart awakened, unfurling in the heat of his gaze, that she remembered she was still alive. “Is it frettin’ yourself after him, you are?” Maloney asked. “The big fella can mind himself right enough. And up in the citadel, he’s safer than we are here below.” “Is he angry... angry with me?”
“No, jewel. He’s cross with himself, he is.” He patted her hand in understanding. Looking back at the street, he frowned and said, “Wait here, lass.” He st epped over the bodies strewn along the street until he stood before a Yanqui soldier leaning against the wall of a house. “Begorra! If ’tisn’t Kerr Delaney himself!” Bending down to touch the soldier, he let out a yelp when the soldier opened his eyes and asked for water. “He’s alive! Quick, give me a hand, lassie.” “Faith! Is that you, ould rascal?” the soldier said. “Heard ya went over to the other side.” “Aye, I sure did. Don’t talk now, Kerr, a chara . Let me tend to ya first.” After they loaded him onto the wagon and were walking back to the hospital, Maloney told Ximena about his friend. “He was in the hospital tent with me when the Yankees did this,” he said, touching the HD on his forehead. “When he recovers, he’ll join our side, he will.” “I hope it is so,” she said. When they got back, she and Maloney took care of the soldier, who was weakened from the loss of blood. A musket ball had pierced his thigh, but it had a clean exit and there had been no major injury to the muscle. “Och, you’re one lucky Irishman!” Maloney said, giving his friend a sip of mezcal from his flask. Ximena turned to leave so that they could chat while she tended to the other men, glad to see Maloney laughing again. “Don’t go, lassie, come listen to this story. Riley is goin’ to get a good laugh when he hears this.” Delaney was a big, hairy man, his bushy beard as red as terracotta tiles. After Maloney presented her to him, Ximena listened to his story. He said that two nights before, while camping out at the pecan grove near the city, he and his comrades had sneaked into Captain Bragg’s tent while the man was sound asle ep. Ximena remembered that John and Maloney hated this man. “We thought we’d have ourselves a bit of a bonfire, so we lit the fuse of an artillery shell,” Delaney said. “We rolled it through the flap of Bragg’s tent and ran away.” “Now, I know you didn’t get him because I just saw the rascal firin’ his guns upon the city,” Maloney said, laughing. “But ma bouchal , tell us what happened next.” “Well then, after a minute or two, the shell exploded and his tent was blazin’. His friends came runnin’ to the rescue and pulled him out, all covered in soot, his hair and furry eyebrows singed. His face looked as if he’d been swe epin’ a chimney, I tell y a!”
Both men laughed. Ximena smiled, but she couldn’t help feeling bad for the Yanqui officer. To be hated so much that his own men would try to kill him. “By my soul, ’tis a great pity that all we managed to do was give the captain some wee cuts and a hole or two in his nightshirt,” Delaney said, his eyes changing from dark to light green, like leaves flickering in the wind. “I bet he took it out on all of ye rapscallions,” Maloney said. “Aye, plenty of us got the gag put in our mouths.” “Faith, ’tis plain as plain the heart of that vile creature is blacker than bog water,” Maloney said, shaking his head. Ximena continued on with her duties, leaving the men to their stories, until finally, the wounded man was snoring away on his cot. Maloney, still sitting on his stool, k ept watch over his friend. On the third day, having lost the outer defenses and making no effort to re capture the strongholds, General Ampudia ordered his troops to fall back to the center of the city and abandon their positions, thus allowing the Yanquis to move in from the east an d west completely uncontested. The only fort that hadn’t fallen into the enemy’s hands was the citadel. The shooting intensified and came so close that even the cries and moans of the wounded couldn’t drown out the musket fire raging outside. “The Yankees are blastin’ through the houses!” Maloney said when he came back from the cathedral. Everyone listened as he told about the Mexican snipers up on the rooftops shooting at the Yanquis as they tried to make their way through the streets. But the enemy was smart. They eluded the snipers perched on the roofs by forcing their way through the houses, making holes in the adjoining walls from one house to the next with heavy pickaxes and crowbars, and thereby avoiding the streets — and the sharpshooters — altogether. “The city folk are gatherin’ in the cathedral and the main plaza now,” Maloney said. “They have nowhere else to go. But the Yankees have positioned two howitzers and a six - pound cannon on the rooftops and are pointin’ them straight at the crowd s.” Suddenly, an explosion shook the building. Before Ximena could stop him, Maloney rushed out of the hospital to see what had happened. “Let us pray,” said one of the priests who was giving the holy sacraments to the dying. He dropped to his knees, and everyone else soon followed. Ximena pressed her hands together in prayer as the wailing of the people outside grew louder and louder. Then Maloney came in, his hat clutched in his hands, his face pale.
“Well, what ya waitin’ for, ould fella? What in tarnation is happenin’ out there?” Delaney yelled from his cot. “The Yankees have damaged the cathedral with their mortar,” he said, fighting back tears. “The fallin’ stones crushed some of the civilians gathered there. They’re buried in the rubble.” “But the cathedral has gunpowder!” Ximena said. “One more blast and they’ll blow us to smithereens,” Delaney said. “There is no safe place left in the city. Our Lord have mercy on us,” Dr. Iñigo said. “General Ampudia is in the sacristy. I will plead with him to put an end to this madness.” He hurried out of the building while everyone else braced themselves for what might come. With their cannons bearing on the cathedral and the plaza mayor, the Yanqui troops were in position to attack at first light. The firing ceased at dusk, and when Ximena left the Hospital del Rosario to see the damage for herself, rain was pouring down on t he city, making it difficult for the locals to dig through the fallen stones for their dead and wounded, most of them women and children. The monks in the Templo de San Francisco next to the convent prayed and sang hymns. Their voices echoed against the bu ildings, and listening to them, Ximena found a little peace. Around three in the morning, when things had finally settled down, they heard the distant sound of a bugle. Maloney rose from his cot and ran to see what was happening outside. When he returned, Ximena and Delaney were awake, waiting for him. The three of them went to sit outside the hospital doors. The rain had ceased, and the air was cold. Ximena wrapped her rebozo around her tightly. Delaney had shed his Yanqui uniform and now wore a Mexican jacket that Maloney had taken from a fallen soldier. It stretch ed too tight on his burly frame, but at least it k ept him warm. “I saw Captain Moreno comin’ out of the sacristy and bein’ escorted to Taylor’s headquarters with a flag of truce,” Maloney said. “Is possible Ampudia send him to...?” Ximena didn’t possess the English word for what she knew in her heart was about to happen. “Surrender?” Maloney said. “Surrender,” she r epeated, hating the taste of the word in her mouth, as foul and bitter as creosote tea. S eptember 1846
Monterrey, Nuevo León In the end, the battle lasted three days. Through his field glasses, Riley bore witness to the surrender of the citadel. After the capitulation of Monterrey, it was decided that he and the other Irish volunteers should abandon the black fortress. They came into the city and hid in civilian homes, out of sight of the Yankee general. Though the terms of the capitulation had protected Riley and the others from falling into the hands of the enemy, it was better that they not be present during the surrender of the strongest position in the city. Taylor might demand that every deserter be turned over to him. So now, at eleven in the morning, Riley and his gunners, along with the city’s inhabitants, were obliged to watch from the rooftops as the Mexican flag was lowered and eight cannon blasts cut through the air, a final salute to the Mexican colors. The smoke rose in the wind and was carried off across the plains toward the towering mountains. When General Ampudia had called back the troops two nights earlier, ordering that they abandon their posts and retreat to the main plaza, Riley knew it was folly to concentrate all the forces in the center of the city. His fellow foreign soldiers, as well as his Mexican comrades, believed that the army could hold off the attack and defend Monterrey. But the general wouldn’t give ear to them. Being a half mile away in the citadel, Riley didn’t get to witness the fighting within the city, he only knew what he and his battery had done on the plain where they were stationed. For three days, Riley and his gunners had fired the cannons from the citadel relentlessly, tearing into the blue columns marching double - quick time toward Monterrey. They killed or wounded many who came within range, forcing the Yanks to march over their fallen comrades as they rushed to attack the city. Wi th his own eyes, he saw the dozens and dozens of mangled bodies scattered across the plain, soldiers whom he and his gunners had stopped dead in their tracks with their canister shot. The Mexican lancers finished off whatever troops Riley’s men had managed to disperse, spearing the enemy while Riley’s guns k ept swe eping the plain, raining metal on those who tried to hide in the cornfields. The vultures and the coyotes did the rest.