Return to Holliday Creek (2)

The Corner of East Boundary and Broadway

By Robert Faulkender ©

 

It was March 14, 1916. Sergeant and lieutenant both pitched in alongside the men loading ammo. Still, it took forever for the two-truck convoy to pull through the gates of Camp Furlong.  Lucas rode in the lead vehicle. The lieutenant had ordered Skillman to set up in front of the Hotel Hover.  At Broadway, Lucas turned left. Skillman turned right, raced another hundred fifty yards down the dirt street, and skidded to a halt in front of the hotel. 

Mexican Soldiers 1910

     Civilians jammed the two story brick building. Most were armed and appeared ready to defend to the death the corner of Broadway and East Boundary Road—no place, special just the little town of Columbus on the U.S.-Mexican border. Skillman recruited four citizens to join two of his men for a sweep of the immediate area, then he and Corporal Grimes turned their attention to the Benet-Mercer machine-gun. 

     The weapon was a heavy, awkward piece of equipment, water cooled and prone to jamming. Skillman didn’t know that much about a machinegun, but he did understand fields of fire and he laid in the gun so it could fire east and west along Broadway as well as north up East Boundary. The chatter of automatic fire echoed from their left. Lucas was obviously in position. 

     Corporal Grimes took to the gunner job like a child to a rattle. He immediately fired a burst of rounds west to establish interlocking fields of fire on his left, then swept the gun smoothly to the right sighting for defilade in his grazing fire. 

Lieutenant Lucas arrived a few minutes later to check the position and coach the squad on gun handling. Three more troopers were with him; two he dispatched immediately to fill sandbags for beefing up the gun position’s defense.

     A muzzle flash up East Boundary Road burped from the darkness followed by rounds hitting the hotel. Grimes swung his weapon around and pumped a string of three round bursts in the direction of the flash. He was positively joyous.