Captain Macklin
(Scribner's, 1902)
Ready for more fightin' stuff? If so, you'd better run and get this action-filled novel by Richard Harding Davis. The main character, Royal Macklin, gets thrown out of West Point after slipping away to a dance in uniform. As his discharge ends his military career, he decides to join General Laguerre's Foreign Legion in Honduras. Laguerre is fighting against the government of Alvarez, who is the practical puppet of an American steamboat line. Joe Fiske is the business tycoon who holds Honduras in the palm of his hands, and keeping Alvarez in office is his business. Laguerre is the gadfly who threatens to upset the whole operation and send Fiske's plans spinning galley-west.
After making it into Honduras safely, Macklin teams up with Aiken, the acting American consul, who leads him through miles of steaming jungles and perilous territory to Laguerre's camp. Heinze, one of Laguerre's 'officers,' starts hostilities with Macklin, but the latter proves himself adept to military matters, and Laguerre soon promotes the young soldier to the rank of captain. Macklin leads the troops to capture Santa Barbara, and later repels the government forces out of the capital of Honduras. At this point, it appears that Garcia, the supposed ally of Laguerre, has sold out to Fiske's faction. Rather than play into Garcia's hands, the legion declares Laguerre the new president of Honduras! After taking the city by assault, Laguerre is set up as president, and blueprints for a new government of freedom and justice are sketched out. Fiske the banana king, however, does not intend to let these rag-tag soldiers edge him out of the country. Trouble is brewing, for sure, and it won't be long before warfare begins again at home.
The matter is exacerbated when Fiske's son openly insults Laguerre in Macklin's presence. Macklin beats him in the street, and this precipitates a duel on the following morning. Fiske's hoity toity sister attempts to stop the duel, but her judgmental and narrow-minded attitude only lock in hostilities further. The fact is, Fiske's faction is corrupt. They are entirely serving their own interests, and the country had best to be rid of them. The Fiske people have, however, that all-essential factor of money-control. And when they bribe half of Laguerre's soldiers into leaving their General and joining the government faction, the contest becomes a matter of life and death. As sedition breaks out Laguerre and his few faithful followers must flee the capital before they are killed by the merciless forces of Alvarez and Garcia, who now, allied together in the common interest, seek to exterminate the new government and its officers.
This novel is quite a rollicking adventure through the sanguine waters of revolutionary activity in South America. The drama is painted true-to-life. As a matter of fact, it seems that Davis draws all his colors from personal experience. The author was in Honduras in 1895, his travels resulting in the interesting little book Three Gringoes in Venezuela and Central America (1896). Davis had first hand knowledge of the conditions of life in that country, as well as the real forces behind the government. And consequently, in this present novel one feels that there is very little of the fictitious in it. General Laguerre's character seems to be based on one of those 'soldiers of fortune' whom Davis knew personally. Major-General Henry MavcIver may have been the template he worked from. Davis had met MacIver, and wrote an interesting account of his life in The Real Solders of Fortune (1906). At any rate, we can't help admiring this tale. The style is clear-cut and bold. The sentiments are lofty and sincere. As usual, Davis gives us something more than just a fast-moving story. He shows us fine ideals and heroic motives.
As this is one of Davis' best novels-- perhaps his very best-- the book itself is quite easy to locate. I have one of the early printings of the Scribner's edition, which was re-issued several times throughout the years. The tale contains seven illustrations by Walter Appleton Clark. It is about the same length as The White Mice, and like that later tale, the action never lags for a second. Although I personally think that Davis found his forte in the short story rather than the novel, he produced several wonderful examples of sustained interest in fiction-- and this is one of them. Once you pick it up, you can't put it down. When all is said and done, Captain Macklin is a novel you don't want to miss. Get your gun and get in line.
--B.A.S.
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