Soldiers of Conquest by F. M. Parker Page B

and dug holes in the sand big enough to bury several men. Others landed in the chaparral and shredded it and sent splinters flying like darts. The larger balls could be seen as they slowed at the end of their trajectory. The new recruits cringed and ducked. The veterans smiled hard smiles and cursed and shouted at the recruits to stay at their stations.
    Lee saw the three powder boys of the battery hunkered down by the crates of gunpowder. They were frightened and trembling for this was their first taste of battle. He hurried to them and catching them by their thin shoulders drew their quaking bodies to him. They were about the same age as his son Rooney and he felt sorry for them. ”Do your jobs, lads, as you’ve been taught. Grab the powder and run it to your gun.” He hugged the boys close for a second and then released them. “Go!” he ordered.
    The boys snatched up cloth wrapped packets of gunpowder, each containing the correct charge and ran for the gun he tended.
    The American cannons boomed. The earth shook with the explosions of American shells landing within the city’s walls, and Mexican shells exploding around the Americans. Large clouds of gun smoke hid the guns of both the defender and attacker. Columns of smoke rose from burning houses in the town.
    Lee moved out of the battery’s gun smoke and looked at Veracruz. He saw an amazing, frightening thing. A cannon ball was coming straight at him. It grew rapidly in size. By instinct he ducked. A swoosh of air fanned the side of his head as the cannon ball passed but inches away.
    He stayed bent to the side for a few seconds, and then slowly straightened. How strange it was to see a cannon ball coming at him. Still the danger had come and gone and he was no less willing than before to be a soldier, and to assume risks that were the steppingstones to distinction and gaining rank.

CHAPTER 11
    From the crest of a sand hill baking under a hot, yellow sun, Grant watched the American and Mexican gunners dueling furiously with their cannons. The Americans had hurled shells at the city for a full day and throughout the night and now into early afternoon. He estimated that at least sixty buildings were burning among the homes and businesses within Veracruz. The smoke from the fires, rising and mingling with the gun smoke from the Mexican cannon, shadowed the city with a dark gray pall. The citizens now knew the horror of war, of the pain and death an exploding shell could bring in a blinding flash.
    Grant lowered his field glasses with a grunt of disgust. Try as he might, he couldn’t determine what damage, if any, the Americans had done to the walls and forts of the city.
    He looked up at the sky where the high arcing shells of the contending sides, passing in mid-flight, were marked against the sky by the smoke trails left by the burning fuses. The hundreds of ribbons of smoke had been woven by the slow wind into an arching gray dome that stretched from the walls of Veracruz to the cannons in the dunes.
    Grant stowed the field glasses way in its leather case. He would have to go closer. He came down from the hill and went toward the battery where the cannons bucked and roared and spewed their metal balls. Lee and Beauregard, and McClellan saw him approaching. Beauregard moved away from the noisy guns to meet him.
    Beauregard called out ahead. “Hello, Sam. What are you doing way out here?”
    â€œI wanted to see the damage you’re doing to the walls,” Grant replied.
    â€œSo do I. But you can’t tell from here, too much heat waves in the air.”
    â€œI think I’ll go for a closer look.”
    â€œBetter get permission from the captain before you go out beyond the lines.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m here for.”
    The two lieutenants drew near Lee, who seeing them coming, ceased working with the chief gunner to aim one of the cannons and walked out from the gun to meet them.
    Grant saluted and