No Plan Is Perfect
By Robert Faulkender ©
Sergeant Skillman went up the ladder first. Like he expected the Mexicans were behind the store façade. At random intervals, they hung over the top, fired down the street, and then dropped onto the roof top while Ol’ Grimes shot the store front to smithereens.
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| Poncho Villa |
The moment Skimmer crouched at his side, Skillman stood, and with his army colt drawn and cocked, finger on the trigger, he stepped away from Skimmer. He commanded with the voice of a drill sergeant, “You men, cease fire; roll over on your stomachs, hands out stretched. If you move any other way, I’ll shoot you.” It didn’t need translation.
Four Mexicans were startled to the point of frozen in place. The sergeant didn’t need to see their faces to know their hearts.
He called out, “Spencer, can you hear me?”
From the darkness: “Yes, Sergeant.”
“Are all your men in place?”
“… Uh… Yes, Sergeant...”
From where the Mexicans were, even if it were daylight, they could not have seen the outhouse. The voice of Spencer came out of the darkness like the voice of God.
Someone exclaimed “Mon Dio!” And whether from fright or from bravery, the Mexican at the greatest range grabbed for his pistol. Skillman shot him.
Then Spencer opened up.
Skillman ducked. “CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE! “I got this, Skimmer. Get over there and shut Spencer down.
By the beginning of morning nautical twilight, the dark patches around them focused into shapes. Sergeant Skillman and his two men marched three Mexicans, dragging a wounded fourth, down East Boundary Road into the machine-gun position in front of the Hoover Hotel.
At the crack of dawn, Villa and his mob had captured a hundred horses, plus two supply wagons and had raced out of town. He lost 85 men—dead, and 5 prisoners. The machine guns, despite the notorious tendency to jam, had expended over 20,000 rounds of 30 caliber ammunition—mostly attributable to Corporal Grimes.
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