Jack London

“ SO HUERTA remained in Mexico City with his problem. And, granting the theory, we get the picture of that desperate man in his high capital; ten millions of treasure awaiting him across the salt sea, ruler and prisoner in his great palace, playing the big game of life with death in the toss, Villa, who will kill him, sure as fate, drawing nearer day by day from the north.
And Huerta plays the game. The gringo is civilized and a humanitarian within the limits of technique. There is only one way for Huerta to escape. ”

“ OF COURSE, if one were to pin them down to it—these bright-blooded boys of ours whose feet itch to tread wider spaces and far-places—they would admit that a few, a very few, are going to get hurt. But their next thought, which is scarce a thought but rather a blood count of emotion, would be: Aw, what's the use of youth and where's its wages if risks are not to be run in the high tide and heyday of life? ”

“ Young fellows, that was all, just young fellows—all trim, fine-bodied huskies, smooth-shaven, boyish, bold, eager-eyed, efficient-looking, capable, adventurous, serving out their wanderlust of youth, as youth will do; for youth will be served, whether at Tampico or Vera Cruz, and youth is prone to like its service to be in foreign parts and oversea. ”

“ THE cool way in which they discussed battleships, submarines, aerial bombs, torpedoes, and all the rest of the wonderful up-to-date machine contrivances and devices for the abrupt and violent introduction of foreign substances into the bodies of their fellow mortals would have been peculiarly edifying to the contemplative mind of a philosopher. For, come to think of it, that is just what war is—the introduction of foreign substances into men's bodies with violent and disruptive intent. ”

“ Our young men must also play, must romp, must be doing something, either sowing their wildness of youth at home, or, preferably, fighting abroad, vindicating themselves, and the fighting machine of an army which they compose—and, deeper, unreasoned, and unguessed, vindicating the institutions which have molded them and which are woven into the fibers of them. ”

“ Where the heart is there the treasure is, and, to judge by the delight shown in their faces as they scanned the bull market in war stock, these soldier boys of ours certainly had their hearts in the game for which they were drilled and uniformed. ”

“ AND both gaze yearningly out across the blue waters of the quiet Gulf and already see themselves upon it and steaming south for Tampico and Vera Cruz, or any other place so long as it is not this piping place of peace.
I remember the young men of Japan when they went out to war. Never did any generation of young men desire more madly to go out upon the red way. ”

“ What is, is beyond all peradventure. And the genus Homo is just precisely what he is—a highly intelligent animal with an amazing spiritual endowment that, on occasion, individually and collectively, functions in violent and destructive ways. War must be dreadfully human, else why did all those well-cultured, ethically trained men in the smoking room and observation car talk the way they did? ”

“ The Looming Figure of Huerta
A MINUTE later they were agreeing with the oldsters in one detail of managing the war, namely, that simultaneously with the movement on Tampico and Vera Cruz, the National Guards and Rangers should cross over and take possession of every Mexican border town and water hole clear to the Pacific.
"The first line of defense is the enemy's territory," was the unanimous judgment.
Little they reck, these younglings of our nation, of what is before them. Their feet are a-tingle to be out on the old red way of man. Colts and calves play in the pastures. ”

“ Now our young men taking the sea path south are going out differently. Primarily, it is adventure. As a matter of course they are patriotic, but they have no sense of any seriousness before them. They feel they face no giant enemy in the south. They tell over again the tale of the Alamo, and recite with glee how Sam Houston lambasted Santa Anna at San Jacinto. Why, what they won't do to the Mexican is . . . and they discover that speech is a most frail and inadequate means of expression of young blood and rollicking spirit.
What Is Youth Without Danger? ”

“ Madero saved Villa's life when Huerta desired to execute Villa. Huerta, by custom established of old time, contrived to have Madero shot to death without witnesses, while Madero was in the act of attempting to escape in the darkness of night from a guard of Huerta's soldiers. This, by the way—this attempting to escape on foot by prisoners—is also a custom of old time invariably never practiced by Mexican captives of Mexicans. Yet statistics would tend to show conclusively that it is quite generally practiced. Only—well, sometimes statistics just must be doubted. ”

“ In short, in this act of saying farewell to their men folks the army women are splendid. Some I saw acceding to their husbands' wishes—saying a last good-by and departing before the whistles of the transports blew. One in particular I noted—a captain's wife. He led her down the gangway to the wharf and kissed her a long good-by, after which he returned on board. Then, her lips trembling, she turned and went straight down the dock to the shore. Not once did she turn her head and look back. A color sergeant, his wet-eyed wife beside him, held a very young baby in his arms. ”

“ It was difficult, speeding through the peaceful country, to realize that these well-tailored, well-mannered, courteous men—some of them even with spectacles—could be so easily divorced from their spectacles and clothes and become raw savages, as ferocious as their talk. ”

“ We, in the clear white light of the full dawn of the twentieth century, so introduce pieces of iron which we propel enormous distances by virtue of our laboratory method of chemically mixing gunpowder. ”

“ They disappeared, these solders' dogs, and further deponent sayeth not, save that these same dogs ran down the gangway at Vera Cruz.
It may be nice to be an army woman in time of peace, but in war it is not so nice. Have our army women learned the control that plays so large a part in their husbands' business? ”

“ It seemed that near the whole city was pouring into four transports without crowding them.
One pathetic note was the soldiers' dogs. Now it must be understood that solders' dogs are different from other dogs. They always accumulate about the fixed camps where the men remain for months. They are very wise. They know unerringly an officer from a soldier. ”

“ But to-day we at least introduce it according to certain set rules, agreements and conventions. The intent, as of old, is to destroy the fellow creature who blocks our way of life or desire, but we do it with more technique and consideration. ”