1020 – April 13 – On the canyon floor East of El Tintero
They all turned as they heard several sharp cracks from rifles near the head of the canyon. Pvt Hicks had come back down off the top of the pass to wig-wag with his hat and bandana “attack coming”.
“Damn!..... Get the prisoners and our wounded into the creek bed. Our own wounded can guard them. That’s the best we can do. Shoot any of them who tries to bolt”
“Leclerc, get your automatic rifle set up. Everyone spread out in extended order, Find whatever cover you can.”
Looking back up the canyon, Rommel could see Montoya, Hicks, and O’Rourke working their way back down the slope as quickly as they could manage, by leapfrogging of two covering the third in motion. No sign of Giertich, or the Villistas though.
Rommel took a quick scan around to see if there was a better disposition for his own force, but there probably wasn’t enough time now to regain the heights quickly. The canyon floor was just as rounded and with as limited of cover as when his boys ambushed the Mexicans’. There was just a bit of a step down in the canyon floor to the west which would provide a bit of cover for half his men against an attack from the east. The only other geography working in their favor right now, was that the Villistas couldn’t spread out to take advantage of their superior numbers. Several of his soldiers were frantically digging shallow fox holes, but not enough time to really make them useful. He’d been too hasty in bringing his platoon down to the canyon floor, but nothing to be done for that now.
Montoya was only about one-hundred and fifty yards away now, and the three turned and just started sprinting for their compatriots.
Three Villista’s appeared on the top of the pass, clearly scanning the layout below. One turned back and disappeared.
“Hold fire till they’re closer. Bryggen, Tikkanen, target anyone you think is a leader” (those two were the better shots in the Platoon.)
“Leclerc, have you figured out how to fire that machine rifle yet?”
“Yup, purty sure….” From Leclerc. “Say, how ‘bout we get a fire going out front in the crik bed and toss in some of pistol and odd ammunition? That may give ‘em the idea there’s more to us down here. We gotta get rid of it anyways.”
“….No time for that, I’m thinking.”
Montoya, Hicks, and O’Rourke regained the US position. Between gasps for air, Montoya rolls out, “Maybe eighty-five or more were heading this way before we skeddadled. Giertich took one in the chest on the other side of the pass. He’s dead.”
Montoya joined O’Rourke in using one of the dead horses for cover.
Montoya barked at Rommel, “They’re comin’ over the pass now in force. Get down sir! Those fellows can shoot!”
Tedeschi handed Rommel one of the spare Springfields and a belt full of ammunition pouches. He hunkered down behind another of the dead horses, knowing that the 7mm bullets of the Mexican Mausers might well pass right through the horse and into him. At least, there was an illusion of protection.
The Villistas could only spread out ten or fifteen riders wide, without being bunched up, or too far up the steeper part of the slopes. They were still over six hundred yards away up canyon, so Rommel let them come on farther. He was unsure of his own men’s marksmanship. The Army had allowed very little range time from before they crossed the border. Apparently, bullets were too expensive to waste on practice….
Now, they were down to four-hundred yards off. “Open Fire! Fire at will!”
A rippling set of shots from the Springfields, with the staccato chattering of the Madsen tore the air. Men and horse went down in the first rows, and a few riders pressed on, but others, who had been at
Celaya where the machine guns of Obregon’s troops had cut them down like wheat, held up. There was no future in this fight. Time to live to fight another day, so the brief attack ended and the survivors headed back up the slope.
Rommel called “Cease firing” when the Villistas got to about six hundred yards off.
“Montoya, Jacobus, find out what we have left for ammunition. Everyone should still have a couple of dozen rounds left. Distribute more from Leclerc’s cache, if needed.”
Speaking to Leclerc about the Madsen, “You weren’t joking one bit about Hellfire and Damnation with that thing!”
Leclerc blinked a few times and exhaled slowly. ”Well…. That was SOMETHING, wasn’t it? Just a few seconds of firing… I can’t even begin ta imagine what those boys in Flanders go through when there’s hunnerds of machine guns laying down a hailstorm of bullets…”
A quick look with the binoculars provided an estimate of fifteen to eighteen more Villistas on the ground, along with a number of horses but that was as close as he was going to check.
“Get our wounded, the prisoners ready to move, and our other gear packed up right now. I doubt they come back again today, but I don’t want to give them time to loop around through another canyon to hit us on the flank.”
Thinking to himself, “They have to low on ammunition too”
Leclerc and his men got on with their earlier task of destroying the incompatible ammunition and some of the earlier Mexican guns. They also finish pack-tying the Mausers and spare Springfields and bandoliers onto the two pack horses. Leclerc rigged up an impromptu sling for the Madsen from horse reins and he carried the gun and a spare magazine himself. It was heavy, but manageable. The other magazines, including the now empty one and the partial were divided up among his squad.
As they formed up to leave the canyon, Rommel had Montoya’s squad step off to the new front (West), and Bryggen’s squad as rear guard. Jacobus and Leclerc on the flanks, with the wounded and prisoners in the middle. They had left the second attack wounded for the Villista’s to deal with their own.
As they were leaving, Private Eik showed Rommel the body of the soldado where he had found the Mauser pistol and Leclerc’s guess that that man was an officer. “Judging by his clothes and the fancy tack on his horse, you’re probably right about him being an officer. Put his body up on that big horse, along with Dimmington’s body. We’ll see if anybody back at El Valle recognizes him”
About ten minutes later, Leclerc and his men came slowly jogging down the trail to catch up with the rest of the column. Rommel could hear a series of pops from roasting ammunition (and odd rifles) and see a dirty column of smoke arising from Leclerc’s bonfire. “Ennnh, I’ve got my doubts about how well that’s gonna work, but it was the best we could do…:
1020 Situation map - source contour map from mapcarta.com
(please forgive my terrible cartography.....)