“Here is a young soldier, a caporál,” he explained. “He has a baby here with him, and that baby is sick.”
The friends arose with alacrity. The corporal threw back the gray blanket from the baby’s face.
“He is sick, all right,” Danny said. “Maybe we should get a doctor.”
But the soldier shook his head. “No doctors. I do not like doctors. This baby does not cry, and he will not eat much. Maybe when he rests, then he will be well again.”
At this moment Pilon entered and inspected the child. “This baby is sick,” he said.
Pilon immediately took control. Jesus Maria he sent to Mrs. Palochico’s house to borrow goat milk. Big Joe and Pablo to get an apple box, pad it with dry grass, and line it [84] with a sheepskin coat. Danny offered his bed, but it was refused. The corporal stood in the living room and smiled gently on these good people. At last the baby lay in its box, but its eyes were listless and it refused the milk.
The Pirate came in, bearing a bag of mackerels. The friends cooked the fish and had their dinner. The baby would not even eat mackerel. Every now and then one of the friends jumped up and ran to look at the baby. When supper was over, they sat about the stove and prepared for a quiet evening.
The corporal had been silent, had given no account of himself. The friends were a little hurt at this, but they knew he would tell them in time. Pilon, to whom knowledge was as gold to be mined, made a few tentative drills into the corporal’s reticence.
“It is not often that one sees a young soldier with a baby,” he suggested delicately.
The corporal grinned with pride.
Pablo added, “This baby was probably found in the garden of love. And that is the best kind of babies, for only good things are in it.”
“We too have been soldiers,” said Danny. “When we die, we will go to the grave on a gun carriage, and a firing squad will shoot over us.”
They waited to see whether the corporal would improve upon the opportunity they had offered. The corporal looked his appreciation. “You have been good to me,” he said. “You have been as good and kind as my friends in Torreón would be. This is my baby, the baby of my wife.”
“And where is your wife?” Pilon asked.
The corporal lost his smile. “She is in Mexico,” he said. Then he grew vivacious again. “I met a man, and he told me a curious thing. He said we can make of babies what we will. He said, ‘You tell the baby often what you want him to do, and when he grows up he will do that.’ Over and over I tell this baby, ‘You will be a generál.’ Do you think it will be so?”
The friends nodded politely. “It may be,” said Pilon. “I have not heard of this practice.”
“I say twenty times a day, ‘Manuel, you will be a generál some day. You will have big epaulets and a sash. [85] Your sword will be gold. You will ride a palomino horse. What a life for you, Manuel!’ The man said he surely will be a generál if I say it so.”
Danny got up and went to the apple box. “You will be a generál,” he said to the baby. “When you grow up you will be a great generál.”
The others trooped over to see whether the formula had had any effect.
The Pirate whispered, “You will be a generál,” and he wondered whether the same method would work on a dog.
“This baby is sick all right,” Danny said. “We must keep him warm.”
They went back to their seats.
“Your wife is in Mexico—” Pilon suggested.
The corporal wrinkled his brows and thought for a while, and then he smiled brilliantly. “I will tell you. It is not a thing to tell to strangers, but you are my friends. I was a soldier in Chihuahua, and I was diligent and clean and kept oil in my rifle, so that I became a caporál. And then I was married to a beautiful girl. I do not say that it was not because of the chevrons that she married me. But she was very beautiful and young. Her eyes were bright, she had good white teeth, and her hair was long and shining. So pretty soon this baby was born.”
“That is good,” said Danny. “I should like to be you. There is nothing so good as a baby.”
“Yes,” said the corporal, “I was glad. And we went in to the baptism, and I wore a sash, although the book of the army did not mention it. And when we came out of that church, a capitán with epaulets and a sash and a silver sword saw my wife. Pretty soon my wife went away. Then I went to that capitán and I said, ‘Give me back my wife,’ and he said, ‘You do not value your life, to talk this way to your superior.’ ” The corporal spread his hands and lifted his shoulders in a gesture of caged resignation.
“Oh, that thief!” cried Jesus Maria.
“You gathered your friends. You killed that capitán,” Pablo anticipated.
The corporal looked self-conscious. “No. There was nothing to do. The first night, someone shot at me through the window. The second day a field gun went off by [86] mistake and it came so close to me that the wind knocked me down. So I went away from there, and I took the baby with me.”
There was fierceness in the faces of the friends, and their eyes were dangerous. The Pirate, in his corner, snarled, and all the dogs growled.
“We should have been there,” Pilon cried. “We would have made that capitán wish he had never lived. My grandfather suffered at the hands of a priest, and he tied that priest naked to a post in a corral and turned a little calf in with him. Oh, there are ways.”
“I was only a caporál,” said the boy. “I had to run away.” Tears of shame were in his eyes. “There is no help for a caporál when a capitán is against him; so I ran away, with the baby Manuel. In Fresno I met this wise man, and he told me I could make Manuel be what I wished. I tell that baby twenty times every day, ‘You will be a generál. You will wear epaulets and carry a golden sword.’ ”
Here was drama that made the experiments of Cornelia Ruiz seem uninteresting and vain. Here was a situation which demanded the action of the friends. But its scene was so remote that action was impossible. They looked in admiration at the corporal. He was so young to have had such an adventure!
“I wish,” Danny said wickedly, “that we were in Torreón now. Pilon would make a plan for us. It is too bad we cannot go there.”
Big Joe Portagee had stayed awake, a tribute to the fascination of the corporal’s story. He went to the apple box and looked in. “You going to be a general,” he said. And then, “Look! This baby is moving funny.” The friends crowded around. The spasm had already started. The little feet kicked down and then drew up. The hands clawed about helplessly, and then the baby scrabbled and shuddered.
“A doctor,” Danny cried. “We must have a doctor.” But he and everyone knew it was no use. Approaching death wears a cloak no one ever mistakes. While they watched, the baby stiffened and the struggle ended. The mouth dropped open, and the baby was dead. In kindness Danny covered the apple box with a piece of blanket. The [87] corporal stood very straight and stared before him, so shocked that he could not speak nor think.
Jesus Maria laid a hand on his shoulder and led him to a chair. “You are so young,” he said. “You will have many more babies.”
The corporal moaned, “Now he is dead. Now he will never be a generál with that sash and that sword.”
There were tears in the eyes of the friends. In the corner all the dogs whined miserably. The Pirate buried his big head in the fur of Señor Alec Thompson.
In a soft tone, almost a benediction, Pilon said, “Now you yourself must kill the capitán. We honor you for a noble plan of revenge, but that is over and you must take your own vengeance, and we will help you, if we can.”
The corporal turned dull eyes to him. “Revenge?” he asked. “Kill the capitán? What do you mean?”
“Why, it was plain what your plan was,” Pilon said. “This baby would grow up, and he would be a generál; and in time he would find that capitán, and he would kill him slowly. It was a good plan. The long waiting, and then the stroke. We, your friends, honor you for it.”