The Lost Years of Billy Battles

Chapter 4

Chapter 4We ate slowly, waiting for Kurt Jahnke and Margarethe to appear. They never did. After almost two hours, I paid our bill and we prepared to leave. Before we could walk out the door, however, Geissler stopped us.

“How long do you stay in Veracruz?” he asked in English.

“We aren’t sure,” I replied. “We are thinking of sailing on down to Tabasco and then on to the Yucatan Peninsula.”

“Ach” Geissler said. “You are then soon leaving?”

“We don’t know when, Herr Geissler,” Katharina said. “We have no engagements, nowhere in particular we need to be. We are free to go when and where we want to.”

Geissler eyed Katharina closely for a second or two before speaking.

“I am much impressed by your Aussprache . . . uh . . . pronunciation of my name, Frau Battles. Not many Americans can say it so correctly.”

“I have always had an ear for music and languages, and my parents are German, so I grew up speaking German.”

“Sie sprechen also fließend deutsch.” Geissler’s tone was almost exultant, as though he had just uncovered some great secret about Katharina’s fluency in German.

“I am not so sure how fluent I am,” Katharina said.

“Ich glaube, dass Sie zu bescheiden sind, Frau Battles,” Geissler said, implying that Katharina was being too modest regarding her German language skills.

Katharina pretended to be flattered. The conversation was making me nervous. Geissler had managed to eke out the fact that Katharina was fluent in German. How long would it be before he learned that she was once a baroness? Did we want the German colony in Veracruz to know that Katharina was once the Baroness von Schreiber of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin? I decided to direct the conversation away from Katharina.

“Well, Mr. Geissler, as far as that goes, I know a little of the German language also,” I said. “My mother’s parents were German, and she grew up speaking the language. She passed a few words on to me—usually when I was acting up though.”

Geissler looked at me and then back to Katharina. “Na ja, I wanted only to invite you to an Ostermontagfest on April 13,” he said.

“A what?” I asked.

“Uh, an Easter Monday fest.”

“Don’t you mean an Easter Sunday fest?” I asked.

Katharina took my arm and smiled at Geissler. “No, my dear, it’s Easter Monday. It’s a traditional holiday in Germany that continues the Easter Sunday celebration.”

Geissler reached into his pocket and produced a piece of paper. “If you are still in Veracruz, please join us. Here is the address. It is a hacienda about twenty kilometers from town.”

“We would be delighted,” Katharina said.

“Ausgezeichnet,” Geissler said. Then he bowed, clicked his heels, and left.

We discussed the invitation as we walked back to the hotel.

“Just what we need, an Eierlauf with a bunch of spies and saboteurs, Katharina said.”

“Eierlauf?”

“In English I guess it translates to an ‘egg and spoon race.’”

I had to laugh at that. Visualizing Jahnke, Geissler, and their German countrymen scampering along while conveying an egg in a spoon was a droll image.

“I wonder why he invited us,” I said.

“There has to be an ulterior motive.”

April 13 wouldn’t arrive for another two weeks, and we wondered what we could do to keep busy in the interim. That answer was provided by Lieutenant Latham the next evening when he appeared at our hotel. We met in the lobby.

“I have received a communication today from Rear Admiral Mayo, commander of the Atlantic Fleet’s 5th Division off the coast of Tampico, asking if Mexican revolutionary forces under the leadership of Venustiano Carranza are near Veracruz,” he said. “I wasn’t sure how to answer that, so I decided I would ask you.”

Carranza was the leader of the Northern opposition Constitutionalists, an anti-Huerta force that included José Doroteo Arango Arámbula, aka “Pancho Villa,” and another revolutionary named Emiliano Zapata.

“We haven’t heard anything like that,” I said, looking at Katharina. “But why is an American fleet off the coast of Tampico?”

Latham explained that the Navy ships were deployed off the Mexican coast to protect American citizens and property. Tampico was home to the second largest settlement of American expatriates outside of Mexico City. Apparently, some of Carranza’s forces were only ten or fifteen miles away from Tampico’s prolific American-operated oil fields, and there was concern in Washington that oil workers and their families may be in danger.

I asked Latham to wait a few minutes and telephoned Parker at the U.S. consulate from a phone in the hotel lobby. Parker confirmed that Carranza’s forces were near Tampico, not Veracruz.

“But we have it on good authority that what’s left of Huerta’s southern army is on its way to Veracruz,” Parker said. “Our intelligence tells us that it is a ragtag, disorganized band with few, if any, supplies, including weapons and ammunition.”

“Coming to collect those weapons that are due to arrive in late April?”

“Exactly. They will occupy the city and make life miserable for everyone—especially any Americans they can get their hands on. Huerta is no friend of President Wilson. And, by the way, Jahnke left for Mexico City this morning to meet with German ambassador von Hintze.”

“How do you know that?”

“We intercepted a cable from the German embassy instructing Jahnke to go to Mexico City. He will be gone about a week. I suspect he will be getting orders from Berlin.”

“If you have intelligence capability like that, then why are Katharina and I here?”

“We need to know what Jahnke is going to do, what his plans are. We need you to get close to him.”

“That’s not going to be easy. We haven’t even met him yet.” Then I asked Parker if Katharina and I should sail back to Tampico, given the activity there.

“I see no reason to do that, but you might consider taking your boat safely away from the Veracruz dock,” Parker said. “That’s exactly the kind of trophy Huerta’s band of cutthroats would love to get their hands on. By the way, are you armed?”

“I have my hog leg, but I’m not going around town heeled.”

“From now on, I would if I were you. What about the missus.?”

“She carries a derringer.”

“Good.”

When I returned, I mentioned Parker’s warning concerning the Comanche.

“I think we’re okay during the day,” Latham said. “We have rifles in the boat’s armory, and I will make sure at least two men are on watch at all times. At dusk we will move her out into the middle of the bay.”

I wondered again if we should return to Tampico. Lieutenant Latham was adamant that we not do that.

“There are at least eight Navy ships up there. I think we would be in the way.”

“Well, then what about heading further south . . . maybe along the coast?” Katharina suggested. “I think it’s time for us to leak out of the landscape for a while. Isn’t that what you Kansans say?”

“Katharina is right. We’re attracting too much attention around here. And the man we are supposed to be watching will be gone for at least a week.”

Latham’s face brightened at the thought of sailing south. “We could stop in the states of Campeche and Yucatan,” Latham said. “They are the heart of the ancient Mayan civilization. Lots of old ruins and pyramids.”

Katharina and I stayed that night in our hotel and left the next morning after breakfast. We kept our suite, fearing that we might not find a vacancy when we returned. The hotel’s manager was reluctant to agree to that arrangement until I made an advance cash payment of $100.00.2

“Where are you going?” the hotel manager asked us.

“South, along the coast,” Katharina said.

“Please be careful. There are many bandidos and piratas . . . uh, pirates down there,” he said.

I conveyed the hotel manager’s warning to Latham when we came aboard the Comanche.

“Thanks, but I think we can handle anything those beaner bandits throw at us,” Latham said.

“What kind of weapons do you have in the boat’s armory?”

Latham took me below deck to a locked closet. He opened it and inside were five Colt 1911 pistols and ten Springfield model 1903 bolt-action rifles. There were also five wooden boxes marked “British Army, 25 No. 5 Mk. 1 Frag, 55 Lbs.”

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at one of the rectangular boxes.

“Oh, that’s a newfangled weapon from England,” he said, lifting one of the oblong, fist-sized, metal-encased grenades from the box. “They call them Mills fragmentation grenades. You pull the little pin here and throw them at the enemy. They are set to explode in about ten seconds. General Funston ordered us to take some with us. Said we should test ’em out on Mexicans and Germans if we got into a scrap.”

“I see.”

“You want to look at one?”

“No, but let me see one of those Springfields.”

He handed me one of the rifles.

“Looks like the German Mausers the Spanish used against us in the Philippines,” I said.

“You were in the Philippines?”

“Yeah, for about a year between 1898 and 1899.”

“Well, this beauty is a lot better than those Krags you were using in the Philippines. They’re modeled on the Mauser. It uses a 150-grain, thirty-ought-six cartridge. The rounds are loaded from a single five-round stripper clip.”

I had just put the nine-pound rifle to my shoulder to see how it felt when Katharina walked in.

“I thought so. Boys playing with their toys.”

“You want to try it?” I asked, holding the rifle out for Katharina.

“I prefer that pistol in there.” Katharina pointed to one of the black model 1911 .45-caliber automatics in the cabinet.

I could tell from the look on Latham’s face that he wasn’t too sure about handing Katharina the pistol.

“It’s okay. The baroness is a regular gunslinger at the Chicago Gun Club.”

“Please,” Latham said, removing a pistol from the closet. He ejected the loaded magazine and handed it and the pistol to Katharina along with a box of ammunition.

“I feel like a regular Annie Oakley,” she said, hefting the pistol. She then shoved the magazine back into the handle of the pistol. “It’s no good if it’s not loaded.”

We got underway later that afternoon after Seaman Jackson prepared a crock of chili for us and the crew. We washed it down with some Mexican beer that Latham brought back to the boat.

Latham explained that our first port of call would be the island town of Ciudad del Carmen in the state of Campeche some 350 miles away.

“They call it the Pearl of the Gulf,” Latham said as we got underway. “It’s little more than a fishing village, but they have wonderful seafood there.”

Latham was right. We steamed into the coastal breakwater anchorage of Ciudad del Carmen about two days later, just in time for lunch at one of the town’s outdoor restaurants near the square. Latham and Flores accompanied Katharina and me.

The Comanche was the only yacht in the anchorage, and it attracted a lot of attention. It didn’t take long for word of our arrival to spread to every casa and cantina. As the four of us walked through town, we repeatedly heard the phrase gringos ricos (rich gringos).

“Ha! If they only knew,” Katharina said.

Still, I didn’t like the fact that we had attracted so much attention. I wondered if there were people in town who might inform local bandits or pirates about the gringos ricos and their big yacht.

“I guess it’s possible, but anywhere Americans go down here they are going to attract attention,” Latham said. “Most Mexicans don’t like us much.”

“I wonder why?” Katharina said. “Do you think the fact that much of the American southwest was once part of Mexico might have something to do with their hostility? Or that in 1846 we invaded and occupied the country?”

Latham didn’t respond.

After gorging ourselves on fish prepared campechano style, including Pampano a la sal (baked fish covered with sea salt), Pan de Cazon (fish with layered tortillas), and Pulpo a las brazas (grilled octopus), we visited a nearby Mayan ruin.

Four hours later we were back on board the Comanche and headed for what Latham said was the open roadstead Port of Campeche, some 140 miles away. We moved due north out of the port and then swung east and followed the shoreline of the state of Campeche as it curved gently northeast toward the Yucatan Peninsula. At ten knots, we would make the trip to Campeche in about twelve hours.

“What is an open roadstead port?” I asked Latham.

Latham, a true man of the sea, grinned at my question. He appeared eager to teach landlubbers like Katharina and me the minutiae of ocean travel.

“It’s an estuary-based expanse of water outside a harbor that is sheltered from rip currents, tides, and swells, where ships can ride safely at anchor while waiting their turn to enter a port of call,” he said.

“So I take it Campeche is a pretty small port, if ships have to wait their turn to enter?”

“Exactly. The port depth is only six meters at its deepest point, and it can only handle ships 500 feet and under.”

“Well, that’s us, then,” Katharina said.

“Yes, but we won’t be tying up inside the harbor,” Latham said. “We’ll use the ship’s motorized dinghy to go back and forth to shore.”

“You mean that little thing back there?” Katharina asked, nodding toward the stern where a wooden twelve-foot Whitehall boat was hanging. The dinghy was suspended above the water by a series of cables and pulleys. A portable three-horsepower Evinrude two-stroke outboard motor was attached by clamps to the outside of the transom.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Battles, she’ll get us back and forth in good order,” Latham said.

As day became dusk, the cerulean water of the Gulf of Mexico turned a dark cobalt color. It was a moonless night, and the Comanche was soon enveloped by an ominous blackness. Lathan ordered the yacht’s running lights turned on. We stayed close to shore, perhaps a thousand yards off. Every so often we caught a glint of light from a house, or a campfire on a beach, or someone carrying a lantern.

“God, it’s dark out here,” Katharina said to me. “You can practically feel the blackness.”

She was right. The gloom was oppressive and swathed us with a menacing embrace.

“Should we turn in?”

“No arguments here,” Katharina said.

We said goodnight to Latham, who reminded us that we would arrive in Campeche around eight o’clock the next morning. Then we entered the owner’s cabin.