By the Tuesday, it was obvious to those in the know, that Santa Anna would over-run the place within the week; if not sooner.
So, the former Amelia Henderson-Stuart, forsook her adventure-filled honeymoon in Texas, packed her baggage, her Italian Count, took the only transport out of San Antonio, an old buckboard she'd hurriedly purchased at an exorbitant price and left town before sunup.
They were stopped mid afternoon at a small roadblock as their buckboard lurched around a sharp bend.
A young officer bedecked in a most colourful uniform, bowed and identified himself, in clear English, as a first lieutenant in the Mexican Army.
He perused their papers and although he was very courteous, he requested they alight.
"I am so sorry," he said. "But until I am able to check with my superiors as to your countries' position in our conflict -whether friend or foe- you must remain here."
Amelia stepped down and when the Count followed, two ruffians grabbed him and tied him up. Amelia hit one fellow with her sunshade and said, "Unhand my husband you scum."
Whereupon the lieutenant circled her small waist from behind and carried her towards a makeshift shack.
"Hide that buckboard off the road for now Private," he said over his shoulder, in English as a curtesy to Amelia.
"Let the horse loose to graze."
The younger soldier hopped up and moved it a short distance into the woods.
Inside the shack, Amelia was less than impressed with having been manhandled by the lieutenant.
He asked her to please sit quietly.
"How dare you," Amelia continued from the chair on which she had been unceremoniously dumped.
One of the men who'd tied up the Count entered and spoke urgently to the lieutenant, in Spanish.
Amelia could barely understand the language but picked up, "They need you there now." And "...Force of over 300," or something; she wasn't sure.
The young officer strapped on his sidearm, picked up his sword and mounted the waiting horse.
She hoped she was mistaken but his parting order in Spanish sounded like, "If they give you trouble sergeant, dispose of them both. Do it quietly and move back into the forest until..."
Amelia couldn't understand the rest. The Lieutenant spurred the black stallion and disappeared into the heavy woods.
The sergeant locked her in the shack.
She could hear the Count, yelling outside, somewhere.
"Where is my wife? "
"What have you done with her? "
"Where is she?"
The soldiers spoke to each other in Spanish and finally said, "Ok, Mister, we'll bring her out here so you can see her."
When Amelia walked out, she noticed the Count with his arms strung out around a large tree.
She ran to her husband and asked him if he was all right?
He said he was.
She turned and regarded the young soldier left standing guard.
He couldn't be more than 19 or 20.
He smiled shyly at Amelia.
Although she had seen no more than 26 summers herself, she felt infinitely older than he.
Maybe because her husband was 54.
She noticed the sergeant had gone.
"This is all a mistake. We have nothing to do with your quarrel."
"As a matter of fact, " said Amelia, warming to a strategy forming in her mind...it hadn't escaped her that the boy was now looking at her with awe. "We were to visit Mexico next. Weren't we Count?" " You really must let us leave."
Her pleading look had melted the hearts of men since she was a mere girl. It worked now; she knew. The young soldier was putty in her hands.
". And for your kindness," she smiled, "I'll see that your family is looked after when I get back home. Please give me some details on how to contact them."
Amelia waited a moment or two.
She could see the cogs going around in the boy's head; he only needed a gentle push.
As an indication of her sincerity, and to get a positive response from him, Amelia produced a small notebook from somewhere in her voluminous skirt. "Ok, give me the details for sending my emissary to your home when this is over.
To her delight, the young soldier smiled and rattled off an address of his parents' home. It was a little fishing village on the west coast.
The boy became talkative and told her that the people were very poor there and that he sends his meagre pay, back to his parents.
Amelia dutifully and with flourish wrote it in the book closed it and smiled at the boy, once more.
"Now, if you'd be so kind, I'd be grateful if you'd fetch my transport and let the Count loose from that horrible tree."
This would be an adventure she would talk about all her life, she knew, when she arrived back home. Although she fully intended to compensate his family for his good deed.
She heard a laugh from somewhere behind her and the sergeant stepped up to her.
"We have orders to kill you and disappear into the hills, " he said and pulled out a knife.
The Count jerked desperately on the ropes that bound him.
"If you want to save your husband from a painful death, you will fuck us and, maybe, we will let you both go."
"You better hurry," he added. "They will be here in an hour." "We will be gone, and you? You will be gone too; one way or another."
"It is your choice."
Amelia was horrified.
"I won't do it."
The soldier walked up to the Count and put a wicked looking blade to his throat.
"Well say goodbye to your husband then."
"Wait," said Amelia.
She looked at her new husband, tethered to the tree and knew exactly what she must do.
Nip this in the bud before it gets worse.
Experience with men even at the highest levels at Court taught her that.
If you give them time to think, they will come up with the most devious and perverted ways of using one.
And one needs look no further than her own new husband as a prime example.
His dark misuse of the serfs on his estates, back home, was hard to countenance.
The shoe was on the other foot now; this time, the serfs had him.
