They Came To Cordura Read Online Free PDF

didn’t even know them and they didn’t know me. I wasn’t afraid then, Major, but I am tonight. I’m sure glad we won’t have to fight. Besides, it’s so awful cold I can’t sleep.”
    Major Thorn put away pencil and notebook. “I’m ready to turn in myself. We’ll be warmer if we double up.”
    He brought his blankets and shelter-half and after Hetherington unrolled showed him how to make a sleeping bag: one shelter-half on the ground, four blankets, then the other shelter-half. Officer and enlisted man got in together, covering their heads. Gradually their breathing evened.
    “Major?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m sorry I got to crying. I couldn’t help it. I did remember how it was, but I didn’t want to say.” Hetherington shivered. “The honest truth was, the Lord took hold of me.”
    The fire coals faded. Vast night came down the butte upon them. They lay stiffly, each waiting for the other’s warmth.

Chapter Three
    GROUNDED at Guerrero by mechanical trouble due to the sandstorm, Aeroplane 44 landed at Gral. Trias at 11.30 hours with orders from Pershing, and within twenty minutes Provisional Squadron, 12th Cavalry, Colonel Selah Rogers commanding, pulled out and south.
    March formation was by column of twos by platoons in this order: Apache Scouts, Troops A, C, D, E, F, G, Machine-Gun Troop, pack train.
    Total strength of the force was 14 officers and 319 men. Troops which normally numbered 64 men had been depleted by fever and injury and remount shortages to around 40 men per troop.
    Major Thorn and the enlisted man Hetherington rode at some interval from the rear of the Machine-Gun Troop.
    Estimated distance to Cusihuiriachic was thirty-two miles. At the alternate walk and trot by which cavalry covers five to six miles per hour, it was believed the Squadron would reach there by nightfall, terrain and the condition of the animals permitting.
    The 12th Cavalry was equipped with the revised McClellan saddles. The saddlebags easily contained two days’ rations, or four packages, of hard bread, plus bacon, coffee, sugar, mess kit, curry comb, brush and personal gear. Each soldier carried two days’ forage of native corn in a grain-bag strapped across the pommel of the saddle, and in his web belt ninety rounds of ammunition. Second blanket and shelter-half were tied rolled at the cantle. Springfields stood upright on the left side of the horses in leather buckets, or boots. Bayonets, usually strapped behind the left shoulder, had long before been discarded. All sabres were stored at Dublán .
    More formidable than when in garrison with men and gear spick-and-span and animals sleek with brushing, is cavalry on campaign. It is not colorful, it does not stir the blood; it is a weapon much worn, but ready for sharp and instant use, sand-edged, professional, deadly. It awes. This squadron had been in the field more than a month. Horses were gaunt, their ankles road-puffed, their withers prominent, for the muscles on either side had atrophied. Some limped for lack of a shoe. A cast shoe seen beside a road stopped a column. A dropped beast was simultaneously shot and stripped of its iron. The troopers rode for the most part silently, shoulders hunched, hat-brims low, dust goggles or neckerchiefs up, and what could be seen of their faces was tanned and grimed and whiskered. Uniforms were sorry: many leather leggings, straps rubbed through against the canteen, were tied on with twine; woolen breeches wore out first at the knees, then at the seats, and many troopers sported makeshift patches cut from canvas shelter-halves; bare elbows stuck from holes in shirtsleeves. But the barrels and stocks of the rifles, butts down in the ‘Old Oaken Buckets’, gleamed with oil and the muzzles menaced the sky. Though leavened with boys on their first enlistment, the squadron was made up mainly of men in their thirties, but whether eighteen or fifty, all were Regular Army. They had spoiled for two years in barracks at Columbus