Part 27 (2/2)
There was no answer to the inquiry and the rescuers only found out how it was when they entered the boat and dragged the three unconscious men out to light and air where they quickly recovered. The inventor of the boat made an examination of her machinery and found that the valves had been tampered with and rendered useless. It was fortunate that Boyton had taken the precaution of swinging the boat to chains, for otherwise they would have died like rats in a trap and remained in their iron coffin at the bottom of the bay.
The inventor went to Lima to report the occurrence and that night Boyton received a message warning him to keep a sharp look out as there was a Chilean spy among the crew and it was he who had tampered with the valves. At midnight two officers arrived from the capitol and the crew was summoned before them. They had an accurate description of the spy and after close scrutiny, an officer placed his hand on the shoulder of one of the crew, saying: ”This is the man.” Then followed one of the quickest court martials on record. A small group of men walked a short distance out on the dock in the darkness. There was a click of a revolver and a dead Chilean.
The Peruvian troops were now marshaled at Chorrillos to repel the further advance of the Chilean army that had landed at Pisco. The flower of the Peruvian forces marched out of Lima in happy antic.i.p.ation of battle. The brilliant ranks were composed of young men in gorgeous uniforms, who sang gaily as they marched on to Chorrillos. The native troops were the Cholo Indians that who had been driven in from their homes back of the Cordilleras and almost forced to fight. They marched stolidly through the streets, turning their eyes neither to the right nor to the left, though hundreds of them had never seen a town before.
They were followed by a wild though picturesque rabble of rabona women, carrying great bundles tied on their heads or backs, shrieking and chattering in their native tongue like gariho monkeys. These women formed the commissary department of the native troops. Whenever there was a halt, the rabonas would quickly unlimber their bundles and in an incredibly short time be engaged in the preparation of some sort of soup which they sold to the Indians for one cent per bowl.
The Chileans had advanced beyond Pisco and the first battle near Lima, on the plains outside of Chorrillos, was imminent. Paul and his crew with several torpedoes, went down the coast in a boat in the hope of being able to get under a Chilean vessel; but those vessels fired on the boat and sunk her, while the Captain and his men hastily gained the sh.o.r.e and joined the army on the heights. On January fourteenth, 1881, the Chileans began the attack on Chorrillos, the fas.h.i.+onable watering place about three leagues from Lima. Colonel Yglesi with but a handful of troops made a brave defense and had reinforcements been sent him from Miraflores, where the main body of the Peruvian army was stationed, the tide of battle would have been turned. As it was, he held out as long as he could and then retreated to the main body, after killing three- thousand of the enemy, just double the number of his original command.
On his retreat, the Chileans swarmed into Chorrillos, more intent on plunder and wanton murder than honorable warfare, while the Chilean fleet continued to pour a storm of shot and sh.e.l.l after the retreating fragments of the little command. That night the Chileans broke into the liquor store-houses and soon drunkenness increased their natural blood thirstiness. Prisoners were murdered in cold blood and women were wantonly shot down. They even fought among themselves, many being killed in that way. Next morning the streets of Chorrillos presented a sad and b.l.o.o.d.y spectacle. Dead and dying were everywhere.
Even the poor rabona women had not been spared. Their bodies could be seen all over the place. Many dead were seen on the beach where they had fallen when cruelly bayoneted off the cliffs.
While Boyton and a brave Peruvian officer, Colonel Timoteo Smith, were hastily crossing a meadow, they saw a young Chilean officer fall from his horse, wounded. They noticed that he wore the iron cross of Germany on his breast and ran forward to save him. Before they could reach him, a Peruvian Indian, knife in hand, bounded to the spot, cut the young man's throat from ear to ear and tearing the decoration from his breast, quickly disappeared. On examining the body it proved to be that of a young captain or lieutenant. It was learned afterward that he was the nephew of the celebrated General Von Moltke, the German soldier and strategist. His death was outright murder.
After the retreat to Miraflores, a truce was declared and an effort made to arrange terms of peace. The foreign diplomats, among whom was United States Minister Christiancy, and high military officers were holding a conference, while the two armies faced each other. During the peace conference, a gun was fired. It was said at the time that a Peruvian soldier fired at a cow. At any rate, the Chileans began the attack at once. The crack of their guns along the line sounded like the running of a finger over the key board of a piano. The bullets began to shatter the house in which the diplomats were conferring. They suddenly became aware of their danger and fled in all directions.
Minister Christiancy was seen in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves valiantly running across the fields towards Lima along with many others. Not to speak flippantly, it was a genuine go-as-you-please hurdle race, for they had to jump the low, mud walls forming the fences. The Peruvians were utterly routed. When Don Nicholas saw the battle going against him, he gallantly mounted his charger and rode to the front; but it was too late. He turned in despair and fled to the mountains followed by a few of his immediate troops.
One of the leading causes of Peru's defeat, was the fact that her soldiers were armed with two makes of rifles of different caliber.
The cartridges became mixed and hundreds of soldiers were seen to throw down their guns and flee because their sh.e.l.ls would not fit.
The ammunition, too, was strapped on mules that scampered away out of reach after the first fire.
Paul with hundreds of others, fled to Lima. The city had been taken possession of by a mob of drunken sailors and soldiers, who went about in large bodies, robbing and killing indiscriminately. The streets were strewn with the dead. Next day the foreign residents banded themselves together to put down the mob. Boyton took command of a company of Americans and went through the streets shooting down the rioters wherever found. On a street at one side of the palace a row of little houses was occupied by Jewish money changers. This was an especial point of attack by the rioters on the first night. They were under the impression that loads of money would be found there. Next morning the narrow street was full of dead rioters, showing the desperate and successful defense made by the Jews, who shot the robbers through holes made in their doors and walls.
Hundreds of Chinamen were shot and their valuables taken. The foreign patrols soon beat the mob into submission, and then collecting silks and other goods that had been taken from the people, they placed them in a general repository where they could be claimed by the owners, if alive.
While the rioting was going on in Lima, the Peruvians set fire to all the s.h.i.+pping in the harbor at Callao, to keep it from falling into the hands of the conquerors. The patrols were kept busy until the twentieth of January, when the Chileans marched triumphantly into Lima. The city presented a queer sight. From almost every house the flag of some foreign nation was flying, to save it from pillage and destruction; but scowling faces appeared at the windows. The first act of the Chilean army was to break in and rob the custom house. An attempt was made to restrain the men, but some awful scenes were enacted before it was done.
During this time, Paul and some friends had a chance to visit the battle-fields of Miraflores and Chorrillos. And the sights they witnessed! The gallant, young soldiers who had left Lima in brilliant uniforms, with high hopes of success, and gay songs on their lips, lay a confused ma.s.s of bloated corpses. Four days of tropical sun had made them burst, and the stench was horrible. Dreading contagion, for the field of death lay near to Lima, the Chileans had forced the Chinamen of that city to gather the dead, cover them with kerosene and fire.
After nightfall, the blue glow rising from these awful funeral pyres, lit up the whole field. Bands of Chinamen leading mules who carried panniers containing vessels of kerosene, pa.s.sed around, and whenever they saw a corpse not burning, they struck a hole in it with a spade, poured in the oil and fired. At other points on the road, lay heaps of mangled dead, while the earth around was torn up in most unaccountable manner. This was caused by ground torpedoes placed in the road by some fertile genius, who thought that he could thus destroy the advancing Chileans.
After two or three of those hidden mines had exploded with dreadful effect on the Chilean soldiers, they compelled the Peruvian prisoners to march ahead, and when these were destroyed they set a drove or cattle ahead in self-defense. Chorrilos, where Paul's headquarters had been so long, lay a ma.s.s of ruins. Bodies in every fallen house gave forth the awful stench of human decay.
Paul stood on the cliffs overlooking the pleasant bay, in whose waters his little sloop had been anch.o.r.ed so many times, and beheld the result of a charge of the Chilean army. Bodies of the dead soldiers lay thick under the foot of the cliff, Chilean and Peruvian grasped in each other's arms as they had been hurled in the fury of battle to death below.
Along the beach from the cliffs to the ocean, lay numbers of the soldiers who had been wounded, and while endeavoring to reach the tempting waters and quench their thirst, had perished. Others, who in their delirium had drank its brine, died in more agony, and lay in strings along the side washed by the waves.
At the approach of a human being, flocks of hideous galanasas and great droves of condors would rise lazily, too heavy from their ghastly feast, to flap their monstrous wings.
It was a sight to sicken one forever of the vaunted glories of the battlefield.
Soon after the occupation, General Backadana issued a proclamation requiring all Peruvian officers to surrender. The Chileans knew that Boyton was in the country, and for what purpose, but he surrendered under his a.s.sumed name ”Delaport,” an engineer.
He was paroled, and went to Ancon, a village on the coast that had been deserted, and no Chilean guards had been placed there.
Plans were laid for his escape; but he found it impossible to get off to a steamer.
He procured a little boat and spent most of the time on the islands off the coast and among the caves, his American friends in Lima sending him provisions. For a companion he had a young Peruvian officer who also thought it well to keep under cover. For three weeks they amused themselves fis.h.i.+ng, hunting, exploring, and several times they rowed far out to sea, in the hope of being picked up by some pa.s.sing steamer and taken north, but the hope was not realized.
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