Many of the messages we sent and received were in straight English but nearly all the important ones, especially those for and from Washington, were in code, the purpose of which was to prevent any one else, except our officers, from reading them and this kind of message is not very interesting but we know that something is going on anyway. We anchored off Vera Cruz on the 21st and the natives must have thought from the number of warships that hemmed them in that we were going to blow them to smithereens. A few hours after our arrival we landed a thousand marines and they drove back Huerta’s soldiers and captured the customs house. The chief reason this was done was because our government had got wise to the fact that a couple of German ships were scheduled to arrive at Vera Cruz with a cargo of guns and ammunition for Huerta, and our Commander had received orders on the way down to prevent this by seizing the customs house. There was not much show of armed resistance on the part of Huerta’s men but in the scuffle that took place four of our men were killed and about twenty were wounded. I made up my mind right then and there that if I ever got a chance I’d blow the sombrero off of some greaser out of pure revenge. The favorite method of warfare that is waged by the Mexicans is _sniping_, that is, they hide behind something and take a shot now and then at you. As a result of sniping a few days later the number of our men that had been killed was brought up to eighteen and the number of wounded to 71. When things had quieted down Hart Douglas, another operator and I got a six hour shore leave. We buckled on our holsters and slipped our revolvers into them with small thought of having a chance to use them. We took a look around the town and all went well for awhile when _zip, zip_, a couple of bullets whizzed by my ear and Hart dropped with a bullet in his lung. I whipped out my gun and wheeled around just in time to spot a couple of snipers lying on a near-by roof with their rifles pointing toward us. I emptied the five chambers at them as fast as I could pull the trigger. I got one of them; he raised himself to his feet and pitched headlong into the street. But the other one got me for he drew a bead on my gun arm which, also don’t forget, is my key arm. A couple of marines put poor Hart on a stretcher and carried him over to a field hospital. Another bound up my arm, walked with me over to the launch and when I got aboard my ship the doctor dressed it. [Illustration: “I WHIPPED OUT MY GUN JUST IN TIME TO SPOT A COUPLE OF SNIPERS”]