Ole Devil at San Jacinto (Old Devil Hardin Western Book 4) (30 page)

l
According to
Presidente
Santa Anna’s official communiqué, over six hundred Texians
were killed at a cost of ‘about seventy Mexicans dead and three
hundred wounded’.

li
During the final assault on the Alamo Mission, General
Manuel Fernandez Castrillón showed hesitation when
Presidente
Santa Anna ordered
him to shoot six prisoners who were taken. Wishing to demonstrate
their devotion to duty, the members of
el
Presidente’s
staff—who had taken no part in the actual
fighting—drew their swords and carried out the ‘executions’ with
such vigor that they almost included Castrillón among their
victims.

lii
In General Houston’s opinion, the ‘Runaway Scrape’ had a
worse effect on morale than any of the misfortunes which had
befallen the Texians. He informed the Government via its Secretary
of War,
‘
Your
removal to Harrisburg has done more to increase the panic in the
country than anything else that has occurred in Texas, except the
fall of the Alamo’.

liii
Unfortunately, for political reasons, Major General Houston
was advised to make no reference to the trick which had been played
on
Presidente
Santa Anna. So neither Ole Devil Hardin nor Lieutenant
Dimmock could be given the credit they deserved. All that could be
said was the latter had died showing great courage during a patrol
which encountered a large body of Mexican soldiers.

liv
How is told in
OLE DEVIL AND THE MULE TRAIN.

lv
Ole Devil Hardin's summation was correct.
Presidente
Santa Anna had left
General Ramirez Sesma and a thousand men at Thompson’s Ferry,
hoping to trap the Republic of Texas’s Army between them and the
force led by General Vincente Filisola which was escorting the
baggage train if they responded to his insulting
message.

lvi
As is explained in
GET URREA,
there was a far more sinister reason for the
departure of the Tamaulipa Brigade.

lvii
Colonel Juan Almonte fled from the field of battle
unscathed, but on discovering that all avenues of escape were
blocked, returned after the fighting was over to surrender ‘with
honor’.

lviii
For details, read
GET URREA
and
THE QUEST FOR BOWIE'S BLADE.

lix
Ole Devil Hardin never attained the skill of another member
of the clan to whom Tommy Okasi imparted the secrets of
ju-jitsu
and
karate.
This was Captain
Dustine Edward Marsden ‘Dusty’ Fog, C.S.A., details of whose career
are given in the author’s Floating Outfit and Civil War series. Ole
Devil's 'granddaughter', Betty Hardin, also acquired considerable
ability in both these martial arts.

lx
Some researchers claim that James Bowie’s oldest brother,
Rezin Pleasant, was the actual designer of the knife.

lxi
The dimensions have been duplicated by master cutler
William D. ‘Bo’ Randall, Jr., of Orlando, Florida, in his Model 12
‘Smithsonian’ bowie knife, one of which is carried by James
Allenvale ‘Bunduki’ Gunn, see:
BUNDUKI,
BUNDUKI AND DAWN
and
SACRIFICE FOR THE QUAGGA
GOD
and
FEARLESS MASTER OF THE JUNGLE.

lxii
Jonathan Browning’s eldest son, John Moses
(
1855-1926) became the world’s
most prolific and, arguably, finest designer of firearms. He makes
a ‘guest appearance’
in:
CALAMITY SPELLS TROUBLE.

lxiii
While engaged in manufacturing the Slide Repeating rifle,
Jonathan Browning also developed a rifle which could be discharged
six times in succession. The ammunition was held in a cylinder
similar to that of later revolvers, but there was no mechanism and
it had to be rotated manually after each shot. While the same
caliber
—
approximately
.45—
and almost ten inches shorter, it was more bulky and
weighed twelve pounds, two ounces. It was not offered for sale
until he had settled in Council Bluffs, Utah, in 1852. By that
time, due to the ever increasing availability of Samuel Colt’s
mechanically superior rifles and revolvers
,
it too had become redundant.

lxiv
Samurai:
a member of the Japanese lower nobility’s elite warrior
class, who usually served as a retainer for the
Daimyos,
the hereditary feudal barons. A
master-less
Samurai
who became a mercenary was known as a
Ronin.
From the mid-1800s, increased contact
with the Western Hemisphere brought an ever growing realization
that the retention of a hereditary and privileged warrior class was
not compatible with the formation of a modern and industrialized
society. Various edicts issued by the Emperor between 1873 and 1876
abolished the special rights of the
Samurai
and, although some of their traditions,
concepts and military skills were retained, they ceased to exist in
their original form.

lxv
The various members of the Hardin, Fog and Blaze clan with
whom I discussed the subject while visiting Fort Worth, Texas, said
that, because of the circumstances and the high social standing of
the people involved—all of whom have descendants holding positions
of influence and importance in Japan at the time of writing—it is
inadvisable even at this late date to make public the facts
concerning the reason for Tommy Okasi’s departure.

lxvi
Traditionally, the
daisho
was carried thrust into the sash about the
Samurai’s
waist; in which
case, the longer sword was called a
katana.
As Tommy Okasi spent a considerable amount
of his time on horseback after he arrived in the United States, he
found it more convenient to wear his suspended by their sheaths on
either side of a leather belt.

lxvii
After the blade had been shaped by fusing together numerous
layers of steel, it was ready to be tempered. A clay-like material,
for which every master swordsmith had his own secret recipe, was
applied to the whole of the blade apart from an inch or so at
the.tip and along the entire cutting edge. After heating the blade
to the correct temperature—which by tradition was commenced in the
half light of the early morning
—
it was plunged into a tub of cold water. The
exposed metal cooled instantly and became very hard. Being encased
in the clay sheath, the rest of the metal lost its heat more
gradually and, remaining comparatively soft, was given a greater
pliancy. To prove that the finished product was capable of carrying
out the work for which it was intended, the smith beat it against a
sheet of iron and hacked to pieces the body of a dead criminal
before handing it over to the owner. This is, of course, only a
simplified description of the process.

lxviii
Unlike Occidental ‘self’ bows of the period, with the stave
formed from a single billet of timber, the Japanese weapon was
built of three bamboo strips sheathed on two sides with mulberry
wood. This formed a core which was encased by further lengths of
bamboo, the whole pasted by fish glue and painted with lacquer. By
laminating the bamboo and the softer, more pliable, mulberry wood,
a great strength and flexibility was achieved.

How Tommy Okasi
strung his bow is described in:
OLE DEVIL AND THE MULE TRAIN
and a comparison
with one Occidental method when using a modern recurved—where the
ends of the limbs are bent back from the straight line—composite
hunting bow (with some form of fiberglass limbs and a wooden
handle-riser) can be made by reading:
SACRIFICE FOR THE QUAGGA GOD.

lxix
The traditional Japanese arrow was made from
mashinodake,
a very hard,
straight and thin species of bamboo. After being cut in the winter,
the bamboo was left to dry out of doors until spring. After it had
been further dried and hardened by being placed close to afire, the
joints were carefully smoothed down. When the shaft had been
polished with emery powder and water, it was once more exposed to
the fire. Finally, it was fletched with three feathers from a hawk,
falcon or eagle and had its
nock and some form of metal arrowhead affixed.

The
karimata, ‘
forked arrow’ point—which Tommy Okasi
did not find cause to use on the assignment described in this
work—was a two-pronged design with extremely sharp cutting edges.
Originally intended to sever ropes and leather armour lacings, it
was also an extremely potent weapon. The width varied from one to
six inches between the tips of the prongs. Because of the terrible
injuries they were capable of inflicting, the larger sizes—none of
which Tommy had in his possession—were also called ‘bowel
rakers’.

In conclusion, the author feels
that a brief description of the Japanese technique called
yabusame—
translated literally, 'shooting from a running horse’—may
be of interest. In competition, the mounted
kyudoka
rides at a gallop over a course two
cho—
roughly two hundred and thirty-eight yards—in length, along
which are placed at approximately thirty-eight, one hundred and
eighteen and one hundred and ninety-three yards, two foot square
wooden targets on posts between thirty-six and forty-eight inches
high. Passing them at a distance of around thirty yards, the
kyudoka
discharges an arrow
with a forked head that shatters on impact.

lxx
Although early types of firearms had been known in Japan
since the arrival of Portuguese explorers in 1543, the
Samurai
had small regard for
them as weapons and spent little time in learning how to use
them.

lxxi
Until the visits by a flotilla under the command of
Commodore Perry, United States’ Navy in 1853-54 paved the way,
there was little contact between Japan and the Western
World.