# With Funston’s Men

AYBREAK on a glassy sea and startled flying fish are struggling to fly in the absence of wind. Seaward the destroyers, like cardboard silhouettes, pass across the blood-red orb of the sun just clearing the horizon.
On Tiptoe for Excitement
ASHORE all is as peaceful and as markedly on its toes as is the sea. Everywhere marines and bluejackets are cooking breakfast. From the roof of the Terminal Hotel sailors are wigwagging. Sailor aids of sailor officers gallop back and forth on commandeered Mexican horses, and commandeered automobiles dash by with the officers on the seats and armed sailors standing on the running boards.
Feats of Sailor Ingenuity
MEXICAN officers seem to have notions different from ours in the matter of prosecuting war. When the landing of our forces was imminent, General Maas, who was the Federal commander at Vera Cruz, released the criminal portion of the prisoners confined in the fortress of San Juan de Ulloa. These were the hard cases, the murderers and robbers and men guilty of violent and terrible crimes. The politicals General Maas was very careful not to release. And when our forces did land, General Maas fled for the hinterland before the fighting began, having first instructed his soldiers to shift for themselves. While the released prisoners did take some part in the street fighting and housetop sniping, in the main they devoted themselves to pillage. Hard cash was what they went after, as for instance the smashed safes in Mr. Tansey's office at the Pierce Oil Refinery attest. Falling back before our men, these convicts terrorized the country people, looting everything of value and not refraining from attacking the women. So merciless were they that the outraged peons captured and summarily executed two of them who had lingered behind their fellows.
Navigating a Mexican Horse
THEY tell of one young sailor who mounted a commandeered horse in a lull in the fighting. He had not minded the fighting, but it was with somewhat of the spirit one embarks on a forlorn hope that he got his legs astride the animal. "Well," he said as he settled himself in the saddle, "commence."
Incredible Marksmanship
ONLY very brave men or fools without any knowledge of modern shell fire could have fired upon our sailors and marines from the Naval School. Broadside on, at close range, lay the Chester. When the first shots were fired upon our men, the Chester went into action for a hot five minutes. Had the taxpayer at home witnessed the way those upper story windows were put out by the Chester's shells, he would never again grudge the money spent in recent years in target practice. Onlookers say that it reminded them of Buffalo Bill's exhibitions of rifle shooting.
Aboard the Rescue Train
DOWN in the railroad station, where I boarded the rescue train that runs out each day to the Federal lines, our sailors and marines were cooking, washing clothes, and teaching the Mexican youth how to pitch baseball. All along the track, until the country was reached, our men were encamped and performing sentry duty.
The Oxlike Peon Soldier
ONE could not help being sorry for these sorry soldier Indians, who slouched awkwardly about while our Lieutenant scanned the far track across the break in the hope of some sign of our countrymen fleeing from the capital. Sorry soldier Indians they truly were. When I though of our own fine boys of the fleet and the army back in Vera Cruz, it seemed to me that it could not be war, but murder. What chance could such lowly, oxlike creatures, untrained themselves and without properly trained officers, have against our highly equipped, capably led young men? These soldiers of the peon type are merely descendants of the millions of stupid ones who could not withstand the several hundred ragamuffins of Cortez and who passed stupidly from the hash slavery of the Montezumas to the no less harsh slavery of the Spaniards and of the later Mexicans.
But Even Peons Can Hurl Death
AND yet one must not forget that each one of these sorry soldiers bore a modern rifle, the cartridges for which, loaded with smokeless powder, are capable of propelling a bullet to kill at a mile's distance and farther, and, at closer range, to perforate the bodies of two or three men. Also, each of these sorry soldiers, at command, by the mere crooking of index fingers, could release far-flighted messengers of death. Also, the mark of the cross, rightly applied to the steel-jacketed nose of the bullet, can turn that bullet into a dumdum that makes a small hold on entering a man's body and a hole the size of a soup plate on leaving. It requires no intelligence thus to notch a bullet. Even a peon can do it.
Even Peace Lovers Must Be Prepared
I AM a rational man. I firmly believe in arbitrament by police magistrates and civil courts. Nevertheless, on occasion, I find myself in contact with men who are prone, say, to rob me of my purse, and who elect to do it by violent and disruptive means. So, on such occasions, I am compelled to carry an automatic in order to dispute with such men my path in life which they are blocking and ambuscading. Personally, and for a lazy man, carrying a big automatic is a confounded nuisance. I hope for the day to come when it will not be necessary for any man to carry an automatic. But in the meantime, preferring to be a live dog rather than a dead lion, I keep thin oil on my pistol and try it out once in a while to make sure that it is working.
The Man He Could Lick
AND we stood there under our white Turkish towel, surrounded by armed men, and quested across a stretch of ruined railroad for the sight of some of our own men, women, and children making their way down to the coast from mobs that looted, plundered, and cried death to them.
The Goal of the Refugees
A TRAIN appeared in the distance between green walls of jungle. Through our glasses we could make out parasols and sunshades that advertised women of our race who had escaped the perils of the mob-ridden interior.
Experiences at Mexican Hands
SAID one of the refugees, a doctor: "I just wish the fellows at Washington who are running things could have had our experience. It would change their views on diplomacy and on army and navy appropriation bills. I tell you, if they had been robbed and mobbed and thrown into jail along with their wives and children, and heard the roar going up all about them of 'Muerto los gringos!' and then, finally, got down the country as we have, with their tongues hanging out, and seen these warships and bluejackets—I tell you they couldn't get back to the States quick enough to start working for a larger army and navy."
Refugee Criticism of Policy
THE thorough agreement of all American residents is that the present crisis was brought on by the policy of our Government, and that the only way out is to go on through. The taking of Vera Cruz by the naval forces of the United States precipitated the bad feeling against Americans that has been fermenting during the past several years, and if the United States should recede from its present position, it will forever be impossible for Americans again to live in Mexico.
"Just Turn Texas Loose"
SAID a man of action, his State obvious by his remark: "Never mind the rest of the United States. Just turn Texas loose and we'll lick them to a frazzled finish."
Our Diplomatic Utterances
A BUSINESS man from the City of Mexico: "They have insulted me, broken windows of my home, and looted my store. Also they have robbed me of my automobile; on the way down to Vera Cruz a Mexican officer took my revolver away from me. At the present moment I have two hundred pesos and the clothes I stand up in, and my country is talking compromise."
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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