They Came To Cordura by Glendon Swarthout Page B

storage of sabres at Dublán because without them there could not be a classic charge. He could not explain the presence of enemy on this hill unless they were herd guard for the horses left to graze during the night. His men huddled against the bank, waiting his orders. This was his first command. The position above could not be flanked. There was no cover on the bare hill. He must order an assault. Instead, he scrambled over the lip of the bank, slipped to one knee, and commenced a rush upward. It was a run of sixty yards through fire now directed only at him. Something hot slit his shirt at the shoulder. He dodged in reflex. He fell once, stood, ran gasping for breath to the fence, uncertain what to do. Two Mexicans wearing baggy white peon trousers and charro hats rose and ran. He saw four brown, surprised faces within arm’s length and jumping atop the stone emptied his pistol at them. A bullet blasted whole teeth and bits of bloody bone enamel from an open mouth. The Lieutenant retched. He heard his men coming up the hill and tried to stop retching.
    There was only sporadic shooting now. The area of the casa grande and its out buildings had been cleared. Dead or foundered horses dotted the arid slopes.
    What was left of the force of Cruz Dominiguez and Javier Arreaga was dispersing into the hills south of the ranch and scattering east and west upon the high plain as well, some men on foot, some riding saddled, some bareback two to a horse. Provisional Squadron’s animals were physically incapable of pursuit.
    Several troopers dismounted to let go a few rounds at the fleeing enemy with Springfields.
    Finally the last shot was fired. Its echo cracked off the hills until space swallowed it.
    In the blue sky of early morning the black and billowing swarm of crows still hovered above the scene of harsh and surpassing beauty, curious, calling.
    The officer who had looked at his watch before the charge looked again, having to hold one hand with the other to steady it.
    It was 05.59 hours.
    Elasped time of the fight at Ojos Azules had been twenty-six minutes.

Chapter Five
    THESE were the results of the fight. Of the Americans, 6 were killed and 14 wounded or injured. Forty-nine horses were dead of exhaustion or had been injured and destroyed. Of the Mexican force, its strength estimated at 300 to 400 men, 44 dead were counted, 17 were captured, and an unknown number of wounded had escaped. One hundred and four horses and 112 rifles were left behind. One of the enemy dead found in the log corral wearing a sombrero ornamented with silver and a colored picture of Christ and the Virgin was identified by the Lieutenant of Federales as Cruz Dominiguez, an officer of Villa’s who, with Arreaga, had commanded the Mexicans.
    These results were dispatched at once by a messenger on a fresh horse to Pershing, who was understood to be west, at Pilon Cillos . Provisional Squadron was ordered to water and feed grain, then slaughter beef for breakfast. It would quarter at the ranch until orders to move on were received by aeroplane or return messenger.
    The horses were attended to first, getting a good feed of corn and some fodder found in the stables of the ranch. It was the first hay the animals had seen in weeks. Then a detail drove in four young steers, slaughtered and butchered them and hung the quarters from a scaffold in the corral as troops lined up to cut rations of fresh meat. Fires were built. Men broiled beef and made coffee.
    After eating there was much to do and doing it required most of the day. Platoons were turned into work-parties. One policed up the terreno and the grounds of the ranch, hauling away carcasses and stripping them of shoes. A second had the sad chore of collecting the six American dead and laying them in the stables under blankets for burial the following day. Another party rounded up the horses left behind by the Villistas, over a hundred of them. Ponies beside the American horses, thriving under conditions