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. 'Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.' I turned my head away and threw up. Never will I read Psalm 137 again.
That night we spent on the lower slopes of Icebox Hill. When the sun went down, we perforce stopped trying. Not only did the darkness make it impossible to work but there was looting going on. I had a deep conviction that any looter was a potential rapist and murderer. I was prepared to die for Margrethe should it become necessary - but I had no wish to die gallantly but futilely, in a confrontation that could have been avoided.
Early the following afternoon the Mexican Army arrived. We had accomplished nothing useful in the meantime more of the same picking away at rubble. Never mind what we found. The soldiers put a stop even to that; all civilians were herded back up the peninsula, away from the ruined city, to the railroad station across the river. There we waited - new widows, husbands freshly bereaved, lost children, injured on make-do stretchers, walking wounded, some with no marks on them but with empty eyes and no speech. Margrethe and, I were of the lucky ones; we were merely hungry, thirsty, dirty, and covered with bruises from head to foot from lying on the ground during the earthquake. Correction: during two earthquakes.
Had anyone else experienced two earthquakes?
I hesitated to ask. I seemed to be the unique observer to this world-changing - save that, twice, Margrethe had come with me because I was holding her at the instant
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