He made five more trips back to the pen before Travis ordered him back inside.
“It’s getting just too risky, Jamie,” Travis told him. “Besides, you’ve brought back ample shot and powder. Take a much deserved rest.”
For a fact, Jamie had brought back seventy powder flasks, all full, and sixty shot pouches, all full. Jamie did not argue with Colonel Travis. Bowie had assigned him to the regular army, and he would follow orders. In most cases.
* * *
Santa Anna was now under pressure to do something. He knew his men were becoming demoralized. Six days had passed and little, if any, damage had been done to the Alamo. As far as he could tell, the defenders had not suffered a single casualty. It was infuriating. He knew he had to do something to restore morale.
But what?
The arrival of an aide with news gave him the thought.
“Sir! The troops from Aldama and Tolucca are within a few hours’ ride of Bexar. Some two thousand strong!”
Santa Anna’s dark face brightened. “We shall have a parade and much music. At first light, instruct the cooks to prepare a feast. Butcher some of the oxen.”
With the arrival of those men, Santa Anna probably had close to seven thousand men at his disposal — the exact figure was never known — against some one hundred and fifty or so men holed up in the Alamo, who were low on powder, low on food, and cold — some did not even have shoes and were forced to wrap their feet in rags and strips of blankets to ward off frostbite.
But there was one thing the men of the Alamo did not lack, something they had plenty of, and because of that, the world would praise them for generations to come. The word Alamo would become a battle cry for freedom.
The one attribute the men of the Alamo had plenty of was Courage.
Thirty-five
The Seventh Day
February 29th, 1836
“Joe,” Jamie said to Travis’s slave just after dawn. “Get him awake and to the walls. He’ll want to see this.”
Travis was at the door in jig-time. “What is it, Jamie?”
“Santa Anna’s reinforcements have arrived. Or are arriving. Several thousand of them. With more cannon.”
Travis paled just for an instant. Then he caught himself. Joe pressed a cup of coffee into his master’s hand.
“And like the ones here,” Jamie said, “they’ve brought their women with them.”
Travis strode quickly to the walls and climbed up to the parapet. The sight before him was anything but heartening. The town of San Antonio de Bexar was filled with thousands of people. Several bands started playing, each one seeming to be competing against the other.
All Travis could say was, “My God!”
Crockett said, “Yep. I reckon it’s time we all was callin’ on Him. For a fact.”
All that day the men of the Alamo crowded the walls, watching as more troops rode or marched in, with their colorful uniforms, flags and pennants waving, and the bands playing. The smell of cooking meat came to the men along the walls, the spices the Mexicans were using causing many a mouth to salivate. Since the Mexican army permitted their soldiers to bring their wives and kids and girlfriends and various female camp-followers along, the scene before the men of the Alamo was particularly unnerving... both above and below the belt.
Travis seemed to sense that the end was near. He retired to his quarters to write yet another plea for help. He wrote passionately but rationally to Governor Smith and to Sam Houston, telling about the hundreds of shells that had fallen in, around, and on the mission. He wrote that the morale of his men was still high, even though there now appeared to be no hope left for any of them. He implored Smith and Houston for help, particularly for shot and powder.
Travis closed with this: God and Texas — Victory or Death.
In Bexar, Santa Anna had forgotten all about the news of reinforcements coming in from Gonzales. He wanted all his men to enjoy the feast and the bands and the parades. He pulled in most of his patrols, giving the small band of men coming from the east a much better chance of making it, at least to the outskirts of town. Getting through the enemy lines to the Alamo was quite another matter.
Only a few cannons from the Mexican side roared that day, and the cannons of the Alamo were silent; Travis was pitifully low on powder, and what powder he had for his artillery was not much good. He knew he had to save his powder for the final assault.
“God help us all,” he muttered.
* * *
By late afternoon of the seventh day, the volunteers from Gonzales had come to within a few miles of San Antonio. They took to whatever cover they could find and stayed out of sight, shivering on the cold ground until full nightfall. Then they abandoned their horses and struggled out on foot, each man carrying a heavy load of supplies.
Their plan was to reach the Alamo a short time after midnight; when the Mexican camp would be sleeping and most of the fires low. Of course they also had another worry: not to get shot by the men along the walls of the Alamo.
The men from Gonzales carried with them a homemade flag of silk. It was to be the battle flag of the Alamo. It had a hand-sewn picture of a cannon in the center and above and below the cannon, the words: COME AND TAKE IT. They had no way of knowing how prophetic those words would turn out to be.
The men from Gonzales crept along slowly, by some miracle making their way through the Mexican lines. Then they reached the ditch that surrounded the compound and stayed in it until they were at the walls.
A nervous sentry heard a noise and fired. The men from Gonzales went belly down in the muddy ditch.
“Goddamnit!” one said.
“Hold your fire,” the captain of the guard yelled. “Them boys is ours!”
Thirty-six
The Eighth Day
March 1st, 1836
The men from Gonzales had reached the Alamo at about four o’clock in the morning. There would be no more sleep that night for anyone, not even for Bowie, who had managed to overcome his often comalike malady and would remain lucid, if still very weak, for the next one hundred and twenty or so hours... and then the men of the Alamo would sleep forever.
Travis greeted Captains Kimbell and Martin and John Smith warmly. If the colonel had any disappointment about the small size of the group, and he certainly did, he did not show it. After the initial whooping and hollering from the defenders had died down, Travis took Captain Martin aside.
“You’re the first of the relief columns, right, Albert?” he asked.
Captain Martin threw formality to the cold March winds. He shook his head. “There will be no relief columns, Bill. We’ve been written off.”
Colonel William Barret Travis sagged against the thick wall; its coldness felt to him like the icy hand of death touching his shoulder. “My God, Albert,” he exclaimed softly. “You’ve come to die.”
“Yes,” was the reply.
“The men with you?”
“They know.”
“Then so, too, will the others before dawn breaks.”
“Probably. But I feel we shall not die for naught. We’ll be the spark that ignites the fuse for independence.”
“One hundred and eighty-nine men,” Travis whispered, his words barely audible. “Against thousands.”