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Title: Wounds in the rain: War stories

Author: Stephen Crane

Release date: September 12, 2013 [eBook #43706]

Language: English

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        Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOUNDS IN THE RAIN: WAR STORIES ***




Produced by sp1nd and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
images generously made available by The Internet Archive)






Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with
underscores: _italics_.




WOUNDS IN THE RAIN

_War Stories_


BY

STEPHEN CRANE

_Author of_

"The Red Badge of Courage," "Active Service," "War is Kind," etc.


New York
Frederick A. Stokes Company
_Publishers_

Copyright, 1899, by
S. S. MCCLURE COMPANY.

Copyright, 1899, by
THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY.

Copyright, 1899, by
FRANK LESLIE PUBLISHING HOUSE (Incorporated).

Copyright, 1900, by
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY.

_All Rights Reserved._




    TO

    Moreton Frewen

    THIS SMALL TOKEN OF THINGS

    WELL REMEMBERED BY

    HIS FRIEND

    STEPHEN CRANE.

BREDE PLACE, SUSSEX, _April_, 1900.




CONTENTS


THE PRICE OF THE HARNESS                                    1

THE LONE CHARGE OF WILLIAM B. PERKINS                      33

THE CLAN OF NO-NAME                                        42

GOD REST YE, MERRY GENTLEMEN                               74

THE REVENGE OF THE ADOLPHUS                               107

THE SERGEANT'S PRIVATE MADHOUSE                           138

VIRTUE IN WAR                                             152

MARINES SIGNALLING UNDER FIRE AT GUANTANAMO               178

THIS MAJESTIC LIE                                         190

WAR MEMORIES                                              229

THE SECOND GENERATION                                     309




WOUNDS IN THE RAIN




THE PRICE OF THE HARNESS


I

Twenty-five men were making a road out of a path up the hillside. The
light batteries in the rear were impatient to advance, but first must
be done all that digging and smoothing which gains no encrusted medals
from war. The men worked like gardeners, and a road was growing from
the old pack-animal trail.

Trees arched from a field of guinea-grass which resembled young wild
corn. The day was still and dry. The men working were dressed in the
consistent blue of United States regulars. They looked indifferent,
almost stolid, despite the heat and the labour. There was little
talking. From time to time a Government pack-train, led by a
sleek-sided tender bell-mare, came from one way or the other way, and
the men stood aside as the strong, hard, black-and-tan animals crowded
eagerly after their curious little feminine leader.

A volunteer staff-officer appeared, and, sitting on his horse in the
middle of the work, asked the sergeant in command some questions which
were apparently not relevant to any military business. Men straggling
along on various duties almost invariably spun some kind of a joke as
they passed.

A corporal and four men were guarding boxes of spare ammunition at the
top of the hill, and one of the number often went to the foot of the
hill swinging canteens.

The day wore down to the Cuban dusk, in which the shadows are all grim
and of ghostly shape. The men began to lift their eyes from the shovels
and picks, and glance in the direction of their camp. The sun threw his
last lance through the foliage. The steep mountain-range on the right
turned blue and as without detail as a curtain. The tiny ruby of light
ahead meant that the ammunition-guard were cooking their supper. From
somewhere in the world came a single rifle-shot.

Figures appeared, dim in the shadow of the trees. A murmur, a sigh of
quiet relief, arose from the working party. Later, they swung up the
hill in an unformed formation, being always like soldiers, and unable
even to carry a spade save like United States regular soldiers. As they
passed through some fields, the bland white light of the end of the day
feebly touched each hard bronze profile.

"Wonder if we'll git anythin' to eat," said Watkins, in a low voice.

"Should think so," said Nolan, in the same tone. They betrayed no
impatience; they seemed to feel a kind of awe of the situation.

The sergeant turned. One could see the cool grey eye flashing under the
brim of the campaign hat. "What in hell you fellers kickin' about?" he
asked. They made no reply, understanding that they were being
suppressed.

As they moved on, a murmur arose from the tall grass on either hand. It
was the noise from the bivouac of ten thousand men, although one saw
practically nothing from the low-cart roadway. The sergeant led his
party up a wet clay bank and into a trampled field. Here were scattered
tiny white shelter tents, and in the darkness they were luminous like
the rearing stones in a graveyard. A few fires burned blood-red, and
the shadowy figures of men moved with no more expression of detail than
there is in the swaying of foliage on a windy night.

The working party felt their way to where their tents were pitched. A
man suddenly cursed; he had mislaid something, and he knew he was not
going to find it that night. Watkins spoke again with the monotony of a
clock, "Wonder if we'll git anythin' to eat."

Martin, with eyes turned pensively to the stars, began a treatise.
"Them Spaniards----"

"Oh, quit it," cried Nolan. "What th' piper do you know about th'
Spaniards, you fat-headed Dutchman? Better think of your belly, you
blunderin' swine, an' what you're goin' to put in it, grass or dirt."

A laugh, a sort of a deep growl, arose from the prostrate men. In the
meantime the sergeant had reappeared and was standing over them. "No
rations to-night," he said gruffly, and turning on his heel, walked
away.

This announcement was received in silence. But Watkins had flung
himself face downward, and putting his lips close to a tuft of grass,
he formulated oaths. Martin arose and, going to his shelter, crawled in
sulkily. After a long interval Nolan said aloud, "Hell!" Grierson,
enlisted for the war, raised a querulous voice. "Well, I wonder when we
_will_ git fed?"

From the ground about him came a low chuckle, full of ironical comment
upon Grierson's lack of certain qualities which the other men felt
themselves to possess.


II

In the cold light of dawn the men were on their knees, packing,
strapping, and buckling. The comic toy hamlet of shelter-tents had been
wiped out as if by a cyclone. Through the trees could be seen the
crimson of a light battery's blankets, and the wheels creaked like the
sound of a musketry fight. Nolan, well gripped by his shelter tent, his
blanket, and his cartridge-belt, and bearing his rifle, advanced upon a
small group of men who were hastily finishing a can of coffee.

"Say, give us a drink, will yeh?" he asked, wistfully. He was as
sad-eyed as an orphan beggar.

Every man in the group turned to look him straight in the face. He had
asked for the principal ruby out of each one's crown. There was a grim
silence. Then one said, "What fer?" Nolan cast his glance to the
ground, and went away abashed.

But he espied Watkins and Martin surrounding Grierson, who had gained
three pieces of hard-tack by mere force of his audacious inexperience.
Grierson was fending his comrades off tearfully.

"Now, don't be damn pigs," he cried. "Hold on a minute." Here Nolan
asserted a claim. Grierson groaned. Kneeling piously, he divided the
hard-tack with minute care into four portions. The men, who had had
their heads together like players watching a wheel of fortune, arose
suddenly, each chewing. Nolan interpolated a drink of water, and sighed
contentedly.

The whole forest seemed to be moving. From the field on the other side
of the road a column of men in blue was slowly pouring; the battery had
creaked on ahead; from the rear came a hum of advancing regiments. Then
from a mile away rang the noise of a shot; then another shot; in a
moment the rifles there were drumming, drumming, drumming. The
artillery boomed out suddenly. A day of battle was begun.

The men made no exclamations. They rolled their eyes in the direction
of the sound, and then swept with a calm glance the forests and the
hills which surrounded them, implacably mysterious forests and hills
which lent to every rifle-shot the ominous quality which belongs to
secret assassination. The whole scene would have spoken to the private
soldiers of ambushes, sudden flank attacks, terrible disasters, if it
were not for those cool gentlemen with shoulder-straps and swords who,
the private soldiers knew, were of another world and omnipotent for the
business.

The battalions moved out into the mud and began a leisurely march in
the damp shade of the trees. The advance of two batteries had churned
the black soil into a formidable paste. The brown leggings of the men,
stained with the mud of other days, took on a deeper colour.
Perspiration broke gently out on the reddish faces. With his heavy roll
of blanket and the half of a shelter-tent crossing his right shoulder
and under his left arm, each man presented the appearance of being
clasped from behind, wrestler fashion, by a pair of thick white arms.

There was something distinctive in the way they carried their rifles.
There was the grace of an old hunter somewhere in it, the grace of a
man whose rifle has become absolutely a part of himself. Furthermore,
almost every blue shirt sleeve was rolled to the elbow, disclosing
fore-arms of almost incredible brawn. The rifles seemed light, almost
fragile, in the hands that were at the end of these arms, never fat but
always with rolling muscles and veins that seemed on the point of
bursting. And another thing was the silence and the marvellous
impassivity of the faces as the column made its slow way toward where
the whole forest spluttered and fluttered with battle.

Opportunely, the battalion was halted a-straddle of a stream, and
before it again moved, most of the men had filled their canteens. The
firing increased. Ahead and to the left a battery was booming at
methodical intervals, while the infantry racket was that continual
drumming which, after all, often sounds like rain on a roof. Directly
ahead one could hear the deep voices of field-pieces.

Some wounded Cubans were carried by in litters improvised from hammocks
swung on poles. One had a ghastly cut in the throat, probably from a
fragment of shell, and his head was turned as if Providence
particularly wished to display this wide and lapping gash to the long
column that was winding toward the front. And another Cuban, shot
through the groin, kept up a continual wail as he swung from the tread
of his bearers. "Ay--ee! Ay--ee! Madre mia! Madre mia!" He sang this
bitter ballad into the ears of at least three thousand men as they
slowly made way for his bearers on the narrow wood-path. These wounded
insurgents were, then, to a large part of the advancing army, the
visible messengers of bloodshed and death, and the men regarded them
with thoughtful awe. This doleful sobbing cry--"Madre mia"--was a
tangible consequent misery of all that firing on in front into which
the men knew they were soon to be plunged. Some of them wished to
inquire of the bearers the details of what had happened; but they could
not speak Spanish, and so it was as if fate had intentionally sealed
the lips of all in order that even meagre information might not leak
out concerning this mystery--battle. On the other hand, many unversed
private soldiers looked upon the unfortunate as men who had seen
thousands maimed and bleeding, and absolutely could not conjure any
further interest in such scenes.

A young staff-officer passed on horseback. The vocal Cuban was always
wailing, but the officer wheeled past the bearers without heeding
anything. And yet he never before had seen such a sight. His case was
different from that of the private soldiers. He heeded nothing because
he was busy--immensely busy and hurried with a multitude of reasons and
desires for doing his duty perfectly. His whole life had been a mere
period of preliminary reflection for this situation, and he had no
clear idea of anything save his obligation as an officer. A man of this
kind might be stupid; it is conceivable that in remote cases certain
bumps on his head might be composed entirely of wood; but those
traditions of fidelity and courage which have been handed to him from
generation to generation, and which he has tenaciously preserved
despite the persecution of legislators and the indifference of his
country, make it incredible that in battle he should ever fail to give
his best blood and his best thought for his general, for his men, and
for himself. And so this young officer in the shapeless hat and the
torn and dirty shirt failed to heed the wails of the wounded man, even
as the pilgrim fails to heed the world as he raises his illumined face
toward his purpose--rightly or wrongly, his purpose--his sky of the
ideal of duty; and the wonderful part of it is, that he is guided by an
ideal which he has himself created, and has alone protected from
attack. The young man was merely an officer in the United States
regular army.

The column swung across a shallow ford and took a road which passed the
right flank of one of the American batteries. On a hill it was booming
and belching great clouds of white smoke. The infantry looked up with
interest. Arrayed below the hill and behind the battery were the horses
and limbers, the riders checking their pawing mounts, and behind each
rider a red blanket flamed against the fervent green of the bushes. As
the infantry moved along the road, some of the battery horses turned at
the noise of the trampling feet and surveyed the men with eyes as deep
as wells, serene, mournful, generous eyes, lit heart-breakingly with
something that was akin to a philosophy, a religion of self-sacrifice--oh,
gallant, gallant horses!

"I know a feller in that battery," said Nolan, musingly. "A driver."

"Dam sight rather be a gunner," said Martin.

"Why would ye?" said Nolan, opposingly.

"Well, I'd take my chances as a gunner b'fore I'd sit way up in th' air
on a raw-boned plug an' git shot at."

"Aw----" began Nolan.

"They've had some losses t'-day all right," interrupted Grierson.

"Horses?" asked Watkins.

"Horses and men too," said Grierson.

"How d'yeh know?"

"A feller told me there by the ford."

They kept only a part of their minds bearing on this discussion because
they could already hear high in the air the wire-string note of the
enemy's bullets.


III

The road taken by this battalion as it followed other battalions is
something less than a mile long in its journey across a heavily-wooded
plain. It is greatly changed now,--in fact it was metamorphosed in two
days; but at that time it was a mere track through dense shrubbery,
from which rose great dignified arching trees. It was, in fact, a path
through a jungle.

The battalion had no sooner left the battery in rear when bullets began
to drive overhead. They made several different sounds, but as these
were mainly high shots it was usual for them to make the faint note of
a vibrant string, touched elusively, half-dreamily.

The military balloon, a fat, wavering, yellow thing, was leading the
advance like some new conception of war-god. Its bloated mass shone
above the trees, and served incidentally to indicate to the men at the
rear that comrades were in advance. The track itself exhibited for all
its visible length a closely-knit procession of soldiers in blue with
breasts crossed with white shelter-tents. The first ominous order of
battle came down the line. "Use the cut-off. Don't use the magazine
until you're ordered." Non-commissioned officers repeated the command
gruffly. A sound of clicking locks rattled along the columns. All men
knew that the time had come.

The front had burst out with a roar like a brush-fire. The balloon was
dying, dying a gigantic and public death before the eyes of two armies.
It quivered, sank, faded into the trees amid the flurry of a battle
that was suddenly and tremendously like a storm.

The American battery thundered behind the men with a shock that seemed
likely to tear the backs of their heads off. The Spanish shrapnel fled
on a line to their left, swirling and swishing in supernatural
velocity. The noise of the rifle bullets broke in their faces like the
noise of so many lamp-chimneys or sped overhead in swift cruel
spitting. And at the front the battle-sound, as if it were simply
music, was beginning to swell and swell until the volleys rolled like a
surf.

The officers shouted hoarsely, "Come on, men! Hurry up, boys! Come on
now! Hurry up!" The soldiers, running heavily in their accoutrements,
dashed forward. A baggage guard was swiftly detailed; the men tore
their rolls from their shoulders as if the things were afire. The
battalion, stripped for action, again dashed forward.

"Come on, men! Come on!" To them the battle was as yet merely a road
through the woods crowded with troops, who lowered their heads
anxiously as the bullets fled high. But a moment later the column
wheeled abruptly to the left and entered a field of tall green grass.
The line scattered to a skirmish formation. In front was a series of
knolls treed sparsely like orchards; and although no enemy was visible,
these knolls were all popping and spitting with rifle-fire. In some
places there were to be seen long grey lines of dirt, intrenchments.
The American shells were kicking up reddish clouds of dust from the
brow of one of the knolls, where stood a pagoda-like house. It was not
much like a battle with men; it was a battle with a bit of charming
scenery, enigmatically potent for death.

Nolan knew that Martin had suddenly fallen. "What----" he began.

"They've hit me," said Martin.

"Jesus!" said Nolan.

Martin lay on the ground, clutching his left forearm just below the
elbow with all the strength of his right hand. His lips were pursed
ruefully. He did not seem to know what to do. He continued to stare at
his arm.

Then suddenly the bullets drove at them low and hard. The men flung
themselves face downward in the grass. Nolan lost all thought of his
friend. Oddly enough, he felt somewhat like a man hiding under a bed,
and he was just as sure that he could not raise his head high without
being shot as a man hiding under a bed is sure that he cannot raise his
head without bumping it.

A lieutenant was seated in the grass just behind him. He was in the
careless and yet rigid pose of a man balancing a loaded plate on his
knee at a picnic. He was talking in soothing paternal tones.

"Now, don't get rattled. We're all right here. Just as safe as being in
church.... They're all going high. Don't mind them.... Don't mind
them.... They're all going high. We've got them rattled and they can't
shoot straight. Don't mind them."

The sun burned down steadily from a pale blue sky upon the crackling
woods and knolls and fields. From the roar of musketry it might have
been that the celestial heat was frying this part of the world.

Nolan snuggled close to the grass. He watched a grey line of
intrenchments, above which floated the veriest gossamer of smoke. A
flag lolled on a staff behind it. The men in the trench volleyed
whenever an American shell exploded near them. It was some kind of
infantile defiance. Frequently a bullet came from the woods directly
behind Nolan and his comrades. They thought at the time that these
bullets were from the rifle of some incompetent soldier of their own
side.

There was no cheering. The men would have looked about them, wondering
where was the army, if it were not that the crash of the fighting for
the distance of a mile denoted plainly enough where was the army.

Officially, the battalion had not yet fired a shot; there had been
merely some irresponsible popping by men on the extreme left flank. But
it was known that the lieutenant-colonel who had been in command was
dead--shot through the heart--and that the captains were thinned down
to two. At the rear went on a long tragedy, in which men, bent and
hasty, hurried to shelter with other men, helpless, dazed, and bloody.
Nolan knew of it all from the hoarse and affrighted voices which he
heard as he lay flattened in the grass. There came to him a sense of
exultation. Here, then, was one of those dread and lurid situations,
which in a nation's history stand out in crimson letters, becoming a
tale of blood to stir generation after generation. And he was in it,
and unharmed. If he lived through the battle, he would be a hero of the
desperate fight at ----; and here he wondered for a second what fate
would be pleased to bestow as a name for this battle.

But it is quite sure that hardly another man in the battalion was
engaged in any thoughts concerning the historic. On the contrary, they
deemed it ill that they were being badly cut up on a most unimportant
occasion. It would have benefited the conduct of whoever were weak if
they had known that they were engaged in a battle that would be famous
for ever.


IV

Martin had picked himself up from where the bullet had knocked him and
addressed the lieutenant. "I'm hit, sir," he said.

The lieutenant was very busy. "All right, all right," he said, just
heeding the man enough to learn where he was wounded. "Go over that
way. You ought to see a dressing-station under those trees."

Martin found himself dizzy and sick. The sensation in his arm was
distinctly galvanic. The feeling was so strange that he could wonder at
times if a wound was really what ailed him. Once, in this dazed way, he
examined his arm; he saw the hole. Yes, he was shot; that was it. And
more than in any other way it affected him with a profound sadness.

As directed by the lieutenant, he went to the clump of trees, but he
found no dressing-station there. He found only a dead soldier lying
with his face buried in his arms and with his shoulders humped high as
if he were convulsively sobbing. Martin decided to make his way to the
road, deeming that he thus would better his chances of getting to a
surgeon. But he suddenly found his way blocked by a fence of barbed
wire. Such was his mental condition that he brought up at a rigid halt
before this fence, and stared stupidly at it. It did not seem to him
possible that this obstacle could be defeated by any means. The fence
was there, and it stopped his progress. He could not go in that
direction.

But as he turned he espied that procession of wounded men, strange
pilgrims, that had already worn a path in the tall grass. They were
passing through a gap in the fence. Martin joined them. The bullets
were flying over them in sheets, but many of them bore themselves as
men who had now exacted from fate a singular immunity. Generally there
were no outcries, no kicking, no talk at all. They too, like Martin,
seemed buried in a vague but profound melancholy.

But there was one who cried out loudly. A man shot in the head was
being carried arduously by four comrades, and he continually yelled one
word that was terrible in its primitive strength,--"Bread! Bread!
Bread!" Following him and his bearers were a limping crowd of men less
cruelly wounded, who kept their eyes always fixed on him, as if they
gained from his extreme agony some balm for their own sufferings.

"Bread! Give me bread!"

Martin plucked a man by the sleeve. The man had been shot in the foot,
and was making his way with the help of a curved, incompetent stick. It
is an axiom of war that wounded men can never find straight sticks.

"What's the matter with that feller?" asked Martin.

"Nutty," said the man.

"Why is he?"

"Shot in th' head," answered the other, impatiently.

The wail of the sufferer arose in the field amid the swift rasp of
bullets and the boom and shatter of shrapnel. "Bread! Bread! Oh, God,
can't you give me bread? Bread!" The bearers of him were suffering
exquisite agony, and often they exchanged glances which exhibited their
despair of ever getting free of this tragedy. It seemed endless.

"Bread! Bread! Bread!"

But despite the fact that there was always in the way of this crowd a
wistful melancholy, one must know that there were plenty of men who
laughed, laughed at their wounds whimsically, quaintly inventing odd
humours concerning bicycles and cabs, extracting from this shedding of
their blood a wonderful amount of material for cheerful badinage, and,
with their faces twisted from pain as they stepped, they often joked
like music-hall stars. And perhaps this was the most tearful part of
all.

They trudged along a road until they reached a ford. Here under the
eave of the bank lay a dismal company. In the mud and in the damp shade
of some bushes were a half-hundred pale-faced men prostrate. Two or
three surgeons were working there. Also, there was a chaplain,
grim-mouthed, resolute, his surtout discarded. Overhead always was that
incessant maddening wail of bullets.

Martin was standing gazing drowsily at the scene when a surgeon grabbed
him. "Here, what's the matter with you?" Martin was daunted. He
wondered what he had done that the surgeon should be so angry with him.

"In the arm," he muttered, half-shamefacedly.

After the surgeon had hastily and irritably bandaged the injured member
he glared at Martin and said, "You can walk all right, can't you?"

"Yes, sir," said Martin.

"Well, now, you just make tracks down that road."

"Yes, sir." Martin went meekly off. The doctor had seemed exasperated
almost to the point of madness.

The road was at this time swept with the fire of a body of Spanish
sharpshooters who had come cunningly around the flanks of the American
army, and were now hidden in the dense foliage that lined both sides of
the road. They were shooting at everything. The road was as crowded as
a street in a city, and at an absurdly short range they emptied their
rifles at the passing people. They were aided always by the over-sweep
from the regular Spanish line of battle.

Martin was sleepy from his wound. He saw tragedy follow tragedy, but
they created in him no feeling of horror.

A man with a red cross on his arm was leaning against a great tree.
Suddenly he tumbled to the ground, and writhed for a moment in the way
of a child oppressed with colic. A comrade immediately began to bustle
importantly. "Here," he called to Martin, "help me carry this man, will
you?"

Martin looked at him with dull scorn. "I'll be damned if I do," he
said. "Can't carry myself, let alone somebody else."

This answer, which rings now so inhuman, pitiless, did not affect the
other man. "Well, all right," he said. "Here comes some other fellers."
The wounded man had now turned blue-grey; his eyes were closed; his
body shook in a gentle, persistent chill.

Occasionally Martin came upon dead horses, their limbs sticking out and
up like stakes. One beast mortally shot, was besieged by three or four
men who were trying to push it into the bushes, where it could live its
brief time of anguish without thrashing to death any of the wounded men
in the gloomy procession.

The mule train, with extra ammunition, charged toward the front, still
led by the tinkling bell-mare.

An ambulance was stuck momentarily in the mud, and above the crack of
battle one could hear the familiar objurgations of the driver as he
whirled his lash.

Two privates were having a hard time with a wounded captain, whom they
were supporting to the rear, He was half cursing, half wailing out the
information that he not only would not go another step toward the rear,
but that he was certainly going to return at once to the front. They
begged, pleaded at great length as they continually headed him off.
They were not unlike two nurses with an exceptionally bad and
headstrong little duke.

The wounded soldiers paused to look impassively upon this struggle.
They were always like men who could not be aroused by anything further.

The visible hospital was mainly straggling thickets intersected with
narrow paths, the ground being covered with men. Martin saw a busy
person with a book and a pencil, but he did not approach him to become
officially a member of the hospital. All he desired was rest and
immunity from nagging. He took seat painfully under a bush and leaned
his back upon the trunk. There he remained thinking, his face wooden.


V

"My Gawd," said Nolan, squirming on his belly in the grass, "I can't
stand this much longer."

Then suddenly every rifle in the firing line seemed to go off of its
own accord. It was the result of an order, but few men heard the order;
in the main they had fired because they heard others fire, and their
sense was so quick that the volley did not sound too ragged. These
marksmen had been lying for nearly an hour in stony silence, their
sights adjusted, their fingers fondling their rifles, their eyes
staring at the intrenchments of the enemy. The battalion had suffered
heavy losses, and these losses had been hard to bear, for a soldier
always reasons that men lost during a period of inaction are men badly
lost.

The line now sounded like a great machine set to running frantically in
the open air, the bright sunshine of a green field. To the prut of the
magazine rifles was added the under-chorus of the clicking mechanism,
steady and swift, as if the hand of one operator was controlling it
all. It reminds one always of a loom, a great grand steel loom,
clinking, clanking, plunking, plinking, to weave a woof of thin red
threads, the cloth of death. By the men's shoulders under their eager
hands dropped continually the yellow empty shells, spinning into the
crushed grass blades to remain there and mark for the belated eye the
line of a battalion's fight.

All impatience, all rebellious feeling, had passed out of the men as
soon as they had been allowed to use their weapons against the enemy.
They now were absorbed in this business of hitting something, and all
the long training at the rifle ranges, all the pride of the marksman
which had been so long alive in them, made them forget for the time
everything but shooting. They were as deliberate and exact as so many
watchmakers.

A new sense of safety was rightfully upon them. They knew that those
mysterious men in the high far trenches in front were having the
bullets sping in their faces with relentless and remarkable precision;
they knew, in fact, that they were now doing the thing which they had
been trained endlessly to do, and they knew they were doing it well.
Nolan, for instance, was overjoyed. "Plug 'em," he said: "Plug 'em." He
laid his face to his rifle as if it were his mistress. He was aiming
under the shadow of a certain portico of a fortified house: there he
could faintly see a long black line which he knew to be a loop-hole cut
for riflemen, and he knew that every shot of his was going there under
the portico, mayhap through the loop-hole to the brain of another man
like himself. He loaded the awkward magazine of his rifle again and
again. He was so intent that he did not know of new orders until he saw
the men about him scrambling to their feet and running forward,
crouching low as they ran.

He heard a shout. "Come on, boys! We can't be last! We're going up!
We're going up." He sprang to his feet and, stooping, ran with the
others. Something fine, soft, gentle, touched his heart as he ran. He
had loved the regiment, the army, because the regiment, the army, was
his life,--he had no other outlook; and now these men, his comrades,
were performing his dream-scenes for him; they were doing as he had
ordained in his visions. It is curious that in this charge he
considered himself as rather unworthy. Although he himself was in the
assault with the rest of them, it seemed to him that his comrades were
dazzlingly courageous. His part, to his mind, was merely that of a man
who was going along with the crowd.

He saw Grierson biting madly with his pincers at a barbed-wire fence.
They were half-way up the beautiful sylvan slope; there was no enemy to
be seen, and yet the landscape rained bullets. Somebody punched him
violently in the stomach. He thought dully to lie down and rest, but
instead he fell with a crash.

The sparse line of men in blue shirts and dirty slouch hats swept on up
the hill. He decided to shut his eyes for a moment because he felt very
dreamy and peaceful. It seemed only a minute before he heard a voice
say, "There he is." Grierson and Watkins had come to look for him. He
searched their faces at once and keenly, for he had a thought that the
line might be driven down the hill and leave him in Spanish hands. But
he saw that everything was secure, and he prepared no questions.

"Nolan," said Grierson clumsily, "do you know me?"

The man on the ground smiled softly. "Of course I know you, you
chowder-faced monkey. Why wouldn't I know you?"

Watkins knelt beside him. "Where did they plug you, old boy?"

Nolan was somewhat dubious. "It ain't much. I don't think but it's
somewheres there." He laid a finger on the pit of his stomach. They
lifted his shirt, and then privately they exchanged a glance of horror.

"Does it hurt, Jimmie?" said Grierson, hoarsely.

"No," said Nolan, "it don't hurt any, but I feel sort of
dead-to-the-world and numb all over. I don't think it's very bad."

"Oh, it's all right," said Watkins.

"What I need is a drink," said Nolan, grinning at them. "I'm
chilly--lying on this damp ground."

"It ain't very damp, Jimmie," said Grierson.

"Well, it is damp," said Nolan, with sudden irritability. "I can feel
it. I'm wet, I tell you--wet through--just from lying here."

They answered hastily. "Yes, that's so, Jimmie. It _is_ damp. That's
so."

"Just put your hand under my back and see how wet the ground is," he
said.

"No," they answered. "That's all right, Jimmie. We know it's wet."

"Well, put your hand under and see," he cried, stubbornly.

"Oh, never mind, Jimmie."

"No," he said, in a temper. "See for yourself." Grierson seemed to be
afraid of Nolan's agitation, and so he slipped a hand under the
prostrate man, and presently withdrew it covered with blood. "Yes," he
said, hiding his hand carefully from Nolan's eyes, "you were right,
Jimmie."

"Of course I was," said Nolan, contentedly closing his eyes. "This
hillside holds water like a swamp." After a moment he said, "Guess I
ought to know. I'm flat here on it, and you fellers are standing up."

He did not know he was dying. He thought he was holding an argument on
the condition of the turf.


VI

"Cover his face," said Grierson, in a low and husky voice afterwards.

"What'll I cover it with?" said Watkins.

They looked at themselves. They stood in their shirts, trousers,
leggings, shoes; they had nothing.

"Oh," said Grierson, "here's his hat." He brought it and laid it on the
face of the dead man. They stood for a time. It was apparent that they
thought it essential and decent to say or do something. Finally Watkins
said in a broken voice, "Aw, it's a dam shame." They moved slowly off
toward the firing line.

                     *      *      *      *      *

In the blue gloom of evening, in one of the fever-tents, the two rows
of still figures became hideous, charnel. The languid movement of a
hand was surrounded with spectral mystery, and the occasional painful
twisting of a body under a blanket was terrifying, as if dead men were
moving in their graves under the sod. A heavy odour of sickness and
medicine hung in the air.

"What regiment are you in?" said a feeble voice.

"Twenty-ninth Infantry," answered another voice.

"Twenty-ninth! Why, the man on the other side of me is in the
Twenty-ninth."

"He is?... Hey, there, partner, are you in the Twenty-ninth?"

A third voice merely answered wearily. "Martin of C Company."

"What? Jack, is that you?"

"It's part of me.... Who are you?"

"Grierson, you fat-head. I thought you were wounded."

There was the noise of a man gulping a great drink of water, and at its
conclusion Martin said, "I am."

"Well, what you doin' in the fever-place, then?"

Martin replied with drowsy impatience. "Got the fever too."

"Gee!" said Grierson.

Thereafter there was silence in the fever-tent, save for the noise made
by a man over in a corner--a kind of man always found in an American
crowd--a heroic, implacable comedian and patriot, of a humour that has
bitterness and ferocity and love in it, and he was wringing from the
situation a grim meaning by singing the "Star-Spangled Banner" with all
the ardour which could be procured from his fever-stricken body.

"Billie," called Martin in a low voice, "where's Jimmy Nolan?"

"He's dead," said Grierson.

A triangle of raw gold light shone on a side of the tent. Somewhere in
the valley an engine's bell was ringing, and it sounded of peace and
home as if it hung on a cow's neck.

"And where's Ike Watkins?"

"Well, he ain't dead, but he got shot through the lungs. They say he
ain't got much show."

Through the clouded odours of sickness and medicine rang the dauntless
voice of the man in the corner.




THE LONE CHARGE OF WILLIAM B. PERKINS


He could not distinguish between a five-inch quick-firing gun and a
nickle-plated ice-pick, and so, naturally, he had been elected to fill
the position of war-correspondent. The responsible party was the editor
of the "Minnesota Herald." Perkins had no information of war, and no
particular rapidity of mind for acquiring it, but he had that rank and
fibrous quality of courage which springs from the thick soil of Western
America.

It was morning in Guantanamo Bay. If the marines encamped on the hill
had had time to turn their gaze seaward, they might have seen a small
newspaper despatch-boat wending its way toward the entrance of the
harbour over the blue, sunlit waters of the Caribbean. In the stern of
this tug Perkins was seated upon some coal bags, while the breeze
gently ruffled his greasy pajamas. He was staring at a brown line of
entrenchments surmounted by a flag, which was Camp McCalla. In the
harbour were anchored two or three grim, grey cruisers and a transport.
As the tug steamed up the radiant channel, Perkins could see men moving
on shore near the charred ruins of a village. Perkins was deeply moved;
here already was more war than he had ever known in Minnesota.
Presently he, clothed in the essential garments of a war-correspondent,
was rowed to the sandy beach. Marines in yellow linen were handling an
ammunition supply. They paid no attention to the visitor, being morose
from the inconveniences of two days and nights of fighting. Perkins
toiled up the zigzag path to the top of the hill, and looked with eager
eyes at the trenches, the field-pieces, the funny little Colts, the
flag, the grim marines lying wearily on their arms. And still more, he
looked through the clear air over 1,000 yards of mysterious woods from
which emanated at inopportune times repeated flocks of Mauser bullets.

Perkins was delighted. He was filled with admiration for these jaded
and smoky men who lay so quietly in the trenches waiting for a
resumption of guerilla enterprise. But he wished they would heed him.
He wanted to talk about it. Save for sharp inquiring glances, no one
acknowledged his existence.

Finally he approached two young lieutenants, and in his innocent
Western way he asked them if they would like a drink. The effect on the
two young lieutenants was immediate and astonishing. With one voice
they answered, "Yes, we would." Perkins almost wept with joy at this
amiable response, and he exclaimed that he would immediately board the
tug and bring off a bottle of Scotch. This attracted the officers, and
in a burst of confidence one explained that there had not been a drop
in camp. Perkins lunged down the hill, and fled to his boat, where in
his exuberance he engaged in a preliminary altercation with some
whisky. Consequently he toiled again up the hill in the blasting sun
with his enthusiasm in no ways abated. The parched officers were very
gracious, and such was the state of mind of Perkins that he did not
note properly how serious and solemn was his engagement with the
whisky. And because of this fact, and because of his antecedents, there
happened the lone charge of William B. Perkins.

Now, as Perkins went down the hill, something happened. A private in
those high trenches found that a cartridge was clogged in his rifle. It
then becomes necessary with most kinds of rifles to explode the
cartridge. The private took the rifle to his captain, and explained the
case. But it would not do in that camp to fire a rifle for mechanical
purposes and without warning, because the eloquent sound would bring
six hundred tired marines to tension and high expectancy. So the
captain turned, and in a loud voice announced to the camp that he found
it necessary to shoot into the air. The communication rang sharply from
voice to voice. Then the captain raised the weapon and fired.
Whereupon--and whereupon--a large line of guerillas lying in the bushes
decided swiftly that their presence and position were discovered, and
swiftly they volleyed.

In a moment the woods and the hills were alive with the crack and
sputter of rifles. Men on the warships in the harbour heard the old
familiar flut-flut-fluttery-fluttery-flut-flut-flut from the
entrenchments. Incidentally the launch of the "Marblehead," commanded
by one of our headlong American ensigns, streaked for the strategic
woods like a galloping marine dragoon, peppering away with its
blunderbuss in the bow.

Perkins had arrived at the foot of the hill, where began the arrangement
of 150 marines that protected the short line of communication between the
main body and the beach. These men had all swarmed into line behind
fortifications improvised from the boxes of provisions. And to them were
gathering naked men who had been bathing, naked men who arrayed themselves
speedily in cartridge belts and rifles. The woods and the hills went
flut-flut-flut-fluttery-fluttery-flut-fllllluttery-flut. Under the
boughs of a beautiful tree lay five wounded men thinking vividly.

And now it befell Perkins to discover a Spaniard in the bush. The
distance was some five hundred yards. In a loud voice he announced his
perception. He also declared hoarsely, that if he only had a rifle, he
would go and possess himself of this particular enemy. Immediately an
amiable lad shot in the arm said: "Well, take mine." Perkins thus
acquired a rifle and a clip of five cartridges.

"Come on!" he shouted. This part of the battalion was lying very tight,
not yet being engaged, but not knowing when the business would swirl
around to them.

To Perkins they replied with a roar. "Come back here, you ---- fool. Do
you want to get shot by your own crowd? Come back, ---- ----!" As a
detail, it might be mentioned that the fire from a part of the hill
swept the journey upon which Perkins had started.

Now behold the solitary Perkins adrift in the storm of fighting, even
as a champagne jacket of straw is lost in a great surf. He found it out
quickly. Four seconds elapsed before he discovered that he was an
almshouse idiot plunging through hot, crackling thickets on a June
morning in Cuba. Sss-s-swing-sing-ing-pop went the lightning-swift
metal grasshoppers over him and beside him. The beauties of rural
Minnesota illuminated his conscience with the gold of lazy corn, with
the sleeping green of meadows, with the cathedral gloom of pine
forests. Sshsh-swing-pop! Perkins decided that if he cared to extract
himself from a tangle of imbecility he must shoot. The entire situation
was that he must shoot. It was necessary that he should shoot. Nothing
would save him but shooting. It is a law that men thus decide when the
waters of battle close over their minds. So with a prayer that the
Americans would not hit him in the back nor the left side, and that the
Spaniards would not hit him in the front, he knelt like a supplicant
alone in the desert of chaparral, and emptied his magazine at his
Spaniard before he discovered that his Spaniard was a bit of dried palm
branch.

Then Perkins flurried like a fish. His reason for being was a Spaniard
in the bush. When the Spaniard turned into a dried palm branch, he
could no longer furnish himself with one adequate reason.

Then did he dream frantically of some anthracite hiding-place, some
profound dungeon of peace where blind mules live placidly chewing the
far-gathered hay.

"Sss-swing-win-pop! Prut-prut-prrrut!" Then a field-gun spoke.
"_Boom_-ra-swow-ow-ow-ow-_pum_." Then a Colt automatic began to bark.
"Crack-crk-crk-crk-crk-crk" endlessly. Raked, enfiladed, flanked,
surrounded, and overwhelmed, what hope was there for William B. Perkins
of the "Minnesota Herald?"

But war is a spirit. War provides for those that it loves. It provides
sometimes death and sometimes a singular and incredible safety. There
were few ways in which it was possible to preserve Perkins. One way was
by means of a steam-boiler.

Perkins espied near him an old, rusty steam-boiler lying in the bushes.
War only knows how it was there, but there it was, a temple shining
resplendent with safety. With a moan of haste, Perkins flung himself
through that hole which expressed the absence of the steam-pipe.

Then ensconced in his boiler, Perkins comfortably listened to the ring
of a fight which seemed to be in the air above him. Sometimes bullets
struck their strong, swift blow against the boiler's sides, but none
entered to interfere with Perkins's rest.

Time passed. The fight, short anyhow, dwindled to prut ... prut ...
prut-prut ... prut. And when the silence came, Perkins might have been
seen cautiously protruding from the boiler. Presently he strolled back
toward the marine lines with his hat not able to fit his head for the
new bumps of wisdom that were on it.

The marines, with an annoyed air, were settling down again when an
apparitional figure came from the bushes. There was great excitement.

"It's that crazy man," they shouted, and as he drew near they gathered
tumultuously about him and demanded to know how he had accomplished it.

Perkins made a gesture, the gesture of a man escaping from an
unintentional mud-bath, the gesture of a man coming out of battle, and
then he told them.

The incredulity was immediate and general. "Yes, you did! What? In an
old boiler? An old boiler? Out in that brush? Well, we guess not." They
did not believe him until two days later, when a patrol happened to
find the rusty boiler, relic of some curious transaction in the ruin of
the Cuban sugar industry. The patrol then marvelled at the truthfulness
of war-correspondents until they were almost blind.

Soon after his adventure Perkins boarded the tug, wearing a countenance
of poignant thoughtfulness.




THE CLAN OF NO-NAME

    Unwind my riddle.
    Cruel as hawks the hours fly;
    Wounded men seldom come home to die;
    The hard waves see an arm flung high;
    Scorn hits strong because of a lie;
    Yet there exists a mystic tie.
    Unwind my riddle.


She was out in the garden. Her mother came to her rapidly. "Margharita!
Margharita, Mister Smith is here! Come!" Her mother was fat and
commercially excited. Mister Smith was a matter of some importance to
all Tampa people, and since he was really in love with Margharita he
was distinctly of more importance to this particular household.

Palm trees tossed their sprays over the fence toward the rutted sand of
the street. A little foolish fish-pond in the centre of the garden
emitted a sound of red-fins flipping, flipping. "No, mamma," said the
girl, "let Mr. Smith wait. I like the garden in the moonlight."

Her mother threw herself into that state of virtuous astonishment which
is the weapon of her kind. "Margharita!"

The girl evidently considered herself to be a privileged belle, for she
answered quite carelessly, "Oh, let him wait."

The mother threw abroad her arms with a semblance of great high-minded
suffering and withdrew. Margharita walked alone in the moonlit garden.
Also an electric light threw its shivering gleam over part of her
parade.

There was peace for a time. Then suddenly through the faint brown
palings was struck an envelope white and square. Margharita approached
this envelope with an indifferent stride. She hummed a silly air, she
bore herself casually, but there was something that made her grasp it
hard, a peculiar muscular exhibition, not discernible to indifferent
eyes. She did not clutch it, but she took it--simply took it in a way
that meant everything, and, to measure it by vision, it was a picture
of the most complete disregard.

She stood straight for a moment; then she drew from her bosom a
photograph and thrust it through the palings. She walked rapidly into
the house.


II

A man in garb of blue and white--something relating to what we call
bed-ticking--was seated in a curious little cupola on the top of a
Spanish blockhouse. The blockhouse sided a white military road that
curved away from the man's sight into a blur of trees. On all sides of
him were fields of tall grass, studded with palms and lined with fences
of barbed wire. The sun beat aslant through the trees and the man sped
his eyes deep into the dark tropical shadows that seemed velvet with
coolness. These tranquil vistas resembled painted scenery in a theatre,
and, moreover, a hot, heavy silence lay upon the land.

The soldier in the watching place leaned an unclean Mauser rifle in a
corner, and, reaching down, took a glowing coal on a bit of palm bark
handed up to him by a comrade. The men below were mainly asleep. The
sergeant in command drowsed near the open door, the arm above his head,
showing his long keen-angled chevrons attached carelessly with
safety-pins. The sentry lit his cigarette and puffed languorously.

Suddenly he heard from the air around him the querulous, deadly-swift
spit of rifle-bullets, and, an instant later, the poppety-pop of a
small volley sounded in his face, close, as if it were fired only ten
feet away. Involuntarily he threw back his head quickly as if he were
protecting his nose from a falling tile. He screamed an alarm and fell
into the blockhouse. In the gloom of it, men with their breaths coming
sharply between their teeth, were tumbling wildly for positions at the
loop-holes. The door had been slammed, but the sergeant lay just
within, propped up as when he drowsed, but now with blood flowing
steadily over the hand that he pressed flatly to his chest. His face
was in stark yellow agony; he chokingly repeated: "Fuego! Por Dios,
hombres!"

The men's ill-conditioned weapons were jammed through the loop-holes
and they began to fire from all four sides of the blockhouse from the
simple data, apparently, that the enemy were in the vicinity. The fumes
of burnt powder grew stronger and stronger in the little square
fortress. The rattling of the magazine locks was incessant, and the
interior might have been that of a gloomy manufactory if it were not
for the sergeant down under the feet of the men, coughing out: "Por
Dios, hombres! Por Dios! Fuego!"


III

A string of five Cubans, in linen that had turned earthy brown in
colour, slid through the woods at a pace that was neither a walk nor a
run. It was a kind of rack. In fact the whole manner of the men, as
they thus moved, bore a rather comic resemblance to the American pacing
horse. But they had come many miles since sun-up over mountainous and
half-marked paths, and were plainly still fresh. The men were all
practicos--guides. They made no sound in their swift travel, but moved
their half-shod feet with the skill of cats. The woods lay around them
in a deep silence, such as one might find at the bottom of a lake.

Suddenly the leading practico raised his hand. The others pulled up
short and dropped the butts of their weapons calmly and noiselessly to
the ground. The leader whistled a low note and immediately another
practico appeared from the bushes. He moved close to the leader without
a word, and then they spoke in whispers.

"There are twenty men and a sergeant in the blockhouse."

"And the road?"

"One company of cavalry passed to the east this morning at seven
o'clock. They were escorting four carts. An hour later, one horseman
rode swiftly to the westward. About noon, ten infantry soldiers with a
corporal were taken from the big fort and put in the first blockhouse,
to the east of the fort. There were already twelve men there. We saw a
Spanish column moving off toward Mariel."

"No more?"

"No more."

"Good. But the cavalry?"

"It is all right. They were going a long march."

"The expedition is a half league behind. Go and tell the general."

The scout disappeared. The five other men lifted their guns and resumed
their rapid and noiseless progress. A moment later no sound broke the
stillness save the thump of a mango, as it dropped lazily from its tree
to the grass. So strange had been the apparition of these men, their
dress had been so allied in colour to the soil, their passing had so
little disturbed the solemn rumination of the forest, and their going
had been so like a spectral dissolution, that a witness could have
wondered if he dreamed.


IV

A small expedition had landed with arms from the United States, and had
now come out of the hills and to the edge of a wood. Before them was a
long-grassed rolling prairie marked with palms. A half-mile away was
the military road, and they could see the top of a blockhouse. The
insurgent scouts were moving somewhere off in the grass. The general
sat comfortably under a tree, while his staff of three young officers
stood about him chatting. Their linen clothing was notable from being
distinctly whiter than those of the men who, one hundred and fifty in
number, lay on the ground in a long brown fringe, ragged--indeed, bare
in many places--but singularly reposeful, unworried, veteran-like.

The general, however, was thoughtful. He pulled continually at his
little thin moustache. As far as the heavily patrolled and guarded
military road was concerned, the insurgents had been in the habit of
dashing across it in small bodies whenever they pleased, but to safely
scoot over it with a valuable convoy of arms, was decidedly a more
important thing. So the general awaited the return of his practicos
with anxiety. The still pampas betrayed no sign of their existence.

The general gave some orders and an officer counted off twenty men to
go with him, and delay any attempt of the troop of cavalry to return
from the eastward. It was not an easy task, but it was a familiar
task--checking the advance of a greatly superior force by a very hard
fire from concealment. A few rifles had often bayed a strong column for
sufficient length of time for all strategic purposes. The twenty men
pulled themselves together tranquilly. They looked quite indifferent.
Indeed, they had the supremely casual manner of old soldiers, hardened
to battle as a condition of existence.

Thirty men were then told off, whose function it was to worry and rag
at the blockhouse, and check any advance from the westward. A hundred
men, carrying precious burdens--besides their own equipment--were to
pass in as much of a rush as possible between these two wings, cross
the road and skip for the hills, their retreat being covered by a
combination of the two firing parties. It was a trick that needed both
luck and neat arrangement. Spanish columns were for ever prowling
through this province in all directions and at all times. Insurgent
bands--the lightest of light infantry--were kept on the jump, even when
they were not incommoded by fifty boxes, each one large enough for the
coffin of a little man, and heavier than if the little man were in it;
and fifty small but formidable boxes of ammunition.

The carriers stood to their boxes and the firing parties leaned on
their rifles. The general arose and strolled to and fro, his hands
behind him. Two of his staff were jesting at the third, a young man
with a face less bronzed, and with very new accoutrements. On the strap
of his cartouche were a gold star and a silver star, placed in a
horizontal line, denoting that he was a second lieutenant. He seemed
very happy; he laughed at all their jests, although his eye roved
continually over the sunny grass-lands, where was going to happen his
first fight. One of his stars was bright, like his hopes, the other was
pale, like death.

Two practicos came racking out of the grass. They spoke rapidly to the
general; he turned and nodded to his officers. The two firing parties
filed out and diverged toward their positions. The general watched them
through his glasses. It was strange to note how soon they were dim to
the unaided eye. The little patches of brown in the green grass did not
look like men at all.

Practicos continually ambled up to the general. Finally he turned and
made a sign to the bearers. The first twenty men in line picked up
their boxes, and this movement rapidly spread to the tail of the line.
The weighted procession moved painfully out upon the sunny prairie. The
general, marching at the head of it, glanced continually back as if he
were compelled to drag behind him some ponderous iron chain. Besides
the obvious mental worry, his face bore an expression of intense
physical strain, and he even bent his shoulders, unconsciously tugging
at the chain to hurry it through this enemy-crowded valley.


V

The fight was opened by eight men who, snuggling in the grass, within
three hundred yards of the blockhouse, suddenly blazed away at the
bed-ticking figure in the cupola and at the open door where they could
see vague outlines. Then they laughed and yelled insulting language,
for they knew that as far as the Spaniards were concerned, the surprise
was as much as having a diamond bracelet turn to soap. It was this
volley that smote the sergeant and caused the man in the cupola to
scream and tumble from his perch.

The eight men, as well as all other insurgents within fair range, had
chosen good positions for lying close, and for a time they let the
blockhouse rage, although the soldiers therein could occasionally hear,
above the clamour of their weapons, shrill and almost wolfish calls,
coming from men whose lips were laid against the ground. But it is not
in the nature of them of Spanish blood, and armed with rifles, to long
endure the sight of anything so tangible as an enemy's blockhouse
without shooting at it--other conditions being partly favourable.
Presently the steaming soldiers in the little fort could hear the sping
and shiver of bullets striking the wood that guarded their bodies.

A perfectly white smoke floated up over each firing Cuban, the penalty
of the Remington rifle, but about the blockhouse there was only the
lightest gossamer of blue. The blockhouse stood always for some big,
clumsy and rather incompetent animal, while the insurgents, scattered
on two sides of it, were little enterprising creatures of another
species, too wise to come too near, but joyously raging at its easiest
flanks and drilling the lead into its sides in a way to make it fume,
and spit and rave like the tom-cat when the glad, free-band fox-hound
pups catch him in the lane.

The men, outlying in the grass, chuckled deliriously at the fury of the
Spanish fire. They howled opprobrium to encourage the Spaniards to fire
more ill-used, incapable bullets. Whenever an insurgent was about to
fire, he ordinarily prefixed the affair with a speech. "Do you want
something to eat? Yes? All right." Bang! "Eat that." The more common
expressions of the incredibly foul Spanish tongue were trifles light as
air in this badinage, which was shrieked out from the grass during the
spin of bullets, and the dull rattle of the shooting.

But at some time there came a series of sounds from the east that began
in a few disconnected pruts and ended as if an amateur was trying to
play the long roll upon a muffled drum. Those of the insurgents in the
blockhouse attacking party, who had neighbours in the grass, turned and
looked at them seriously. They knew what the new sound meant. It meant
that the twenty men who had gone to the eastward were now engaged. A
column of some kind was approaching from that direction, and they knew
by the clatter that it was a solemn occasion.

In the first place, they were now on the wrong side of the road. They
were obliged to cross it to rejoin the main body, provided of course
that the main body succeeded itself in crossing it. To accomplish this,
the party at the blockhouse would have to move to the eastward, until
out of sight or good range of the maddened little fort. But judging
from the heaviness of the firing, the party of twenty who protected the
east were almost sure to be driven immediately back. Hence travel in
that direction would become exceedingly hazardous. Hence a man looked
seriously at his neighbour. It might easily be that in a moment they
were to become an isolated force and woefully on the wrong side of the
road.

Any retreat to the westward was absurd, since primarily they would have
to widely circle the blockhouse, and more than that, they could hear,
even now in that direction, Spanish bugle calling to Spanish bugle, far
and near, until one would think that every man in Cuba was a trumpeter,
and had come forth to parade his talent.


VI

The insurgent general stood in the middle of the road gnawing his lips.
Occasionally, he stamped a foot and beat his hands passionately
together. The carriers were streaming past him, patient, sweating
fellows, bowed under their burdens, but they could not move fast enough
for him when others of his men were engaged both to the east and to the
west, and he, too, knew from the sound that those to the east were in a
sore way. Moreover, he could hear that accursed bugling, bugling,
bugling in the west.

He turned suddenly to the new lieutenant who stood behind him, pale and
quiet. "Did you ever think a hundred men were so many?" he cried,
incensed to the point of beating them. Then he said longingly: "Oh, for
a half an hour! Or even twenty minutes!"

A practico racked violently up from the east. It is characteristic of
these men that, although they take a certain roadster gait and hold it
for ever, they cannot really run, sprint, race. "Captain Rodriguez is
attacked by two hundred men, señor, and the cavalry is behind them. He
wishes to know----"

The general was furious; he pointed. "Go! Tell Rodriguez to hold his
place for twenty minutes, even if he leaves every man dead."

The practico shambled hastily off.

The last of the carriers were swarming across the road. The
rifle-drumming in the east was swelling out and out, evidently coming
slowly nearer. The general bit his nails. He wheeled suddenly upon the
young lieutenant. "Go to Bas at the blockhouse. Tell him to hold the
devil himself for ten minutes and then bring his men out of that
place."

The long line of bearers was crawling like a dun worm toward the safety
of the foot-hills. High bullets sang a faint song over the aide as he
saluted. The bugles had in the west ceased, and that was more ominous
than bugling. It meant that the Spanish troops were about to march, or
perhaps that they had marched.

The young lieutenant ran along the road until he came to the bend which
marked the range of sight from the blockhouse. He drew his machete, his
stunning new machete, and hacked feverishly at the barbed wire fence
which lined the north side of the road at that point. The first wire
was obdurate, because it was too high for his stroke, but two more cut
like candy, and he stepped over the remaining one, tearing his trousers
in passing on the lively serpentine ends of the severed wires. Once out
in the field and bullets seemed to know him and call for him and speak
their wish to kill him. But he ran on, because it was his duty, and
because he would be shamed before men if he did not do his duty, and
because he was desolate out there all alone in the fields with death.

A man running in this manner from the rear was in immensely greater
danger than those who lay snug and close. But he did not know it. He
thought because he was five hundred--four hundred and fifty--four
hundred yards away from the enemy and the others were only three
hundred yards away that they were in far more peril. He ran to join
them because of his opinion. He did not care to do it, but he thought
that was what men of his kind would do in such a case. There was a
standard and he must follow it, obey it, because it was a monarch, the
Prince of Conduct.

A bewildered and alarmed face raised itself from the grass and a voice
cried to him: "Drop, Manolo! Drop! Drop!" He recognised Bas and flung
himself to the earth beside him.

"Why," he said panting, "what's the matter?"

"Matter?" said Bas. "You are one of the most desperate and careless
officers I know. When I saw you coming I wouldn't have given a peseta
for your life."

"Oh, no," said the young aide. Then he repeated his orders rapidly. But
he was hugely delighted. He knew Bas well; Bas was a pupil of Maceo;
Bas invariably led his men; he never was a mere spectator of their
battle; he was known for it throughout the western end of the island.
The new officer had early achieved a part of his ambition--to be called
a brave man by established brave men.

"Well, if we get away from here quickly it will be better for us," said
Bas, bitterly. "I've lost six men killed, and more wounded. Rodriguez
can't hold his position there, and in a little time more than a
thousand men will come from the other direction."

He hissed a low call, and later the young aide saw some of the men
sneaking off with the wounded, lugging them on their backs as porters
carry sacks. The fire from the blockhouse had become a-weary, and as
the insurgent fire also slackened, Bas and the young lieutenant lay in
the weeds listening to the approach of the eastern fight, which was
sliding toward them like a door to shut them off.

Bas groaned. "I leave my dead. Look there." He swung his hand in a
gesture and the lieutenant looking saw a corpse. He was not stricken as
he expected; there was very little blood; it was a mere thing.

"Time to travel," said Bas suddenly. His imperative hissing brought his
men near him; there were a few hurried questions and answers; then,
characteristically, the men turned in the grass, lifted their rifles,
and fired a last volley into the blockhouse, accompanying it with their
shrill cries. Scrambling low to the ground, they were off in a winding
line for safety. Breathing hard, the lieutenant stumbled his way
forward. Behind him he could hear the men calling each to each: "Segue!
Segue! Segue! Go on! Get out! Git!" Everybody understood that the peril
of crossing the road was compounding from minute to minute.


VII

When they reached the gap through which the expedition had passed, they
fled out upon the road like scared wild-fowl tracking along a
sea-beach. A cloud of blue figures far up this dignified shaded avenue,
fired at once. The men already had begun to laugh as they shied one by
one across the road. "Segue! Segue!" The hard part for the nerves had
been the lack of information of the amount of danger. Now that they
could see it, they accounted it all the more lightly for their previous
anxiety.

Over in the other field, Bas and the young lieutenant found Rodriguez,
his machete in one hand, his revolver in the other, smoky, dirty,
sweating. He shrugged his shoulders when he saw them and pointed
disconsolately to the brown thread of carriers moving toward the
foot-hills. His own men were crouched in line just in front of him
blazing like a prairie fire.

Now began the fight of a scant rear-guard to hold back the pressing
Spaniards until the carriers could reach the top of the ridge, a mile
away. This ridge by the way was more steep than any roof; it conformed,
more, to the sides of a French war-ship. Trees grew vertically from it,
however, and a man burdened only with his rifle usually pulled himself
wheezingly up in a sort of ladder-climbing process, grabbing the slim
trunks above him. How the loaded carriers were to conquer it in a
hurry, no one knew. Rodriguez shrugged his shoulders as one who would
say with philosophy, smiles, tears, courage: "Isn't this a mess!"

At an order, the men scattered back for four hundred yards with the
rapidity and mystery of a handful of pebbles flung in the night. They
left one behind who cried out, but it was now a game in which some were
sure to be left behind to cry out.

The Spaniards deployed on the road and for twenty minutes remained
there pouring into the field such a fire from their magazines as was
hardly heard at Gettysburg. As a matter of truth the insurgents were at
this time doing very little shooting, being chary of ammunition. But it
is possible for the soldier to confuse himself with his own noise and
undoubtedly the Spanish troops thought throughout their din that they
were being fiercely engaged. Moreover, a firing-line--particularly at
night or when opposed to a hidden foe--is nothing less than an
emotional chord, a chord of a harp that sings because a puff of air
arrives or when a bit of down touches it. This is always true of new
troops or stupid troops and these troops were rather stupid troops.
But, the way in which they mowed the verdure in the distance was a
sight for a farmer.

Presently the insurgents slunk back to another position where they
fired enough shots to stir again the Spaniards into an opinion that
they were in a heavy fight. But such a misconception could only endure
for a number of minutes. Presently it was plain that the Spaniards were
about to advance and, moreover, word was brought to Rodriguez that a
small band of guerillas were already making an attempt to worm around
the right flank. Rodriguez cursed despairingly; he sent both Bas and
the young lieutenant to that end of the line to hold the men to their
work as long as possible.

In reality the men barely needed the presence of their officers. The
kind of fighting left practically everything to the discretion of the
individual and they arrived at concert of action mainly because of the
equality of experience, in the wisdoms of bushwhacking.

The yells of the guerillas could plainly be heard and the insurgents
answered in kind. The young lieutenant found desperate work on the
right flank. The men were raving mad with it, babbling, tearful, almost
frothing at the mouth. Two terrible bloody creatures passed him,
creeping on all fours, and one in a whimper was calling upon God, his
mother, and a saint. The guerillas, as effectually concealed as the
insurgents, were driving their bullets low through the smoke at sight
of a flame, a movement of the grass or sight of a patch of dirty brown
coat. They were no column-o'-four soldiers; they were as slinky and
snaky and quick as so many Indians. They were, moreover, native Cubans
and because of their treachery to the one-star flag, they never by any
chance received quarter if they fell into the hands of the insurgents.
Nor, if the case was reversed, did they ever give quarter. It was life
and life, death and death; there was no middle ground, no compromise.
If a man's crowd was rapidly retreating and he was tumbled over by a
slight hit, he should curse the sacred graves that the wound was not
through the precise centre of his heart. The machete is a fine broad
blade but it is not so nice as a drilled hole in the chest; no man
wants his death-bed to be a shambles. The men fighting on the
insurgents' right knew that if they fell they were lost.

On the extreme right, the young lieutenant found five men in a little
saucer-like hollow. Two were dead, one was wounded and staring blankly
at the sky and two were emptying hot rifles furiously. Some of the
guerillas had snaked into positions only a hundred yards away.

The young man rolled in among the men in the saucer. He could hear the
barking of the guerillas and the screams of the two insurgents. The
rifles were popping and spitting in his face, it seemed, while the
whole land was alive with a noise of rolling and drumming. Men could
have gone drunken in all this flashing and flying and snarling and din,
but at this time he was very deliberate. He knew that he was thrusting
himself into a trap whose door, once closed, opened only when the black
hand knocked and every part of him seemed to be in panic-stricken
revolt. But something controlled him; something moved him inexorably in
one direction; he perfectly understood but he was only sad, sad with a
serene dignity, with the countenance of a mournful young prince. He was
of a kind--that seemed to be it--and the men of his kind, on peak or
plain, from the dark northern ice-fields to the hot wet jungles,
through all wine and want, through all lies and unfamiliar truth, dark
or light, the men of his kind were governed by their gods, and each man
knew the law and yet could not give tongue to it, but it was the law
and if the spirits of the men of his kind were all sitting in critical
judgment upon him even then in the sky, he could not have bettered his
conduct; he needs must obey the law and always with the law there is
only one way. But from peak and plain, from dark northern ice-fields
and hot wet jungles, through wine and want, through all lies and
unfamiliar truth, dark or light, he heard breathed to him the approval
and the benediction of his brethren.

He stooped and gently took a dead man's rifle and some cartridges. The
battle was hurrying, hurrying, hurrying, but he was in no haste. His
glance caught the staring eye of the wounded soldier, and he smiled at
him quietly. The man--simple doomed peasant--was not of his kind, but
the law on fidelity was clear.

He thrust a cartridge into the Remington and crept up beside the two
unhurt men. Even as he did so, three or four bullets cut so close to
him that all his flesh tingled. He fired carefully into the smoke. The
guerillas were certainly not now more than fifty yards away.

He raised him coolly for his second shot, and almost instantly it was
as if some giant had struck him in the chest with a beam. It whirled
him in a great spasm back into the saucer. As he put his two hands to
his breast, he could hear the guerillas screeching exultantly, every
throat vomiting forth all the infamy of a language prolific in the
phrasing of infamy.

One of the other men came rolling slowly down the slope, while his
rifle followed him, and, striking another rifle, clanged out. Almost
immediately the survivor howled and fled wildly. A whole volley missed
him and then one or more shots caught him as a bird is caught on the
wing.

The young lieutenant's body seemed galvanised from head to foot. He
concluded that he was not hurt very badly, but when he tried to move he
found that he could not lift his hands from his breast. He had turned
to lead. He had had a plan of taking a photograph from his pocket and
looking at it.

There was a stir in the grass at the edge of the saucer, and a man
appeared there, looking where lay the four insurgents. His negro face
was not an eminently ferocious one in its lines, but now it was lit
with an illimitable blood-greed. He and the young lieutenant exchanged
a singular glance; then he came stepping eagerly down. The young
lieutenant closed his eyes, for he did not want to see the flash of the
machete.


VIII

The Spanish colonel was in a rage, and yet immensely proud; immensely
proud, and yet in a rage of disappointment. There had been a fight and
the insurgents had retreated leaving their dead, but still a valuable
expedition had broken through his lines and escaped to the mountains.
As a matter of truth, he was not sure whether to be wholly delighted or
wholly angry, for well he knew that the importance lay not so much in
the truthful account of the action as it did in the heroic prose of the
official report, and in the fight itself lay material for a purple
splendid poem. The insurgents had run away; no one could deny it; it
was plain even to whatever privates had fired with their eyes shut.
This was worth a loud blow and splutter. However, when all was said and
done, he could not help but reflect that if he had captured this
expedition, he would have been a brigadier-general, if not more.

He was a short, heavy man with a beard, who walked in a manner common
to all elderly Spanish officers, and to many young ones; that is to
say, he walked as if his spine was a stick and a little longer than his
body; as if he suffered from some disease of the backbone, which
allowed him but scant use of his legs. He toddled along the road,
gesticulating disdainfully and muttering: "Ca! Ca! Ca!"

He berated some soldiers for an immaterial thing, and as he approached
the men stepped precipitately back as if he were a fire-engine. They
were most of them young fellows, who displayed, when under orders, the
manner of so many faithful dogs. At present, they were black,
tongue-hanging, thirsty boys, bathed in the nervous weariness of the
after-battle time.

Whatever he may truly have been in character, the colonel closely
resembled a gluttonous and libidinous old pig, filled from head to foot
with the pollution of a sinful life. "Ca!" he snarled, as he toddled.
"Ca! Ca!" The soldiers saluted as they backed to the side of the road.
The air was full of the odour of burnt rags. Over on the prairie
guerillas and regulars were rummaging the grass. A few unimportant
shots sounded from near the base of the hills.

A guerilla, glad with plunder, came to a Spanish captain. He held in
his hand a photograph. "Mira, señor. I took this from the body of an
officer whom I killed machete to machete."

The captain shot from the corner of his eye a cynical glance at the
guerilla, a glance which commented upon the last part of the statement.
"M-m-m," he said. He took the photograph and gazed with a slow faint
smile, the smile of a man who knows bloodshed and homes and love, at
the face of a girl. He turned the photograph presently, and on the back
of it was written: "One lesson in English I will give you--this: I love
you, Margharita." The photograph had been taken in Tampa.

The officer was silent for a half-minute, while his face still wore the
slow faint smile. "Pobrecetto," he murmured finally, with a philosophic
sigh, which was brother to a shrug. Without deigning a word to the
guerilla he thrust the photograph in his pocket and walked away.

High over the green earth, in the dizzy blue heights, some great birds
were slowly circling with down-turned beaks.


IX

Margharita was in the gardens. The blue electric rays shone through the
plumes of the palm and shivered in feathery images on the walk. In the
little foolish fish-pond some stalwart fish was apparently bullying the
others, for often there sounded a frantic splashing.

Her mother came to her rapidly. "Margharita! Mister Smith is here!
Come!"

"Oh, is he?" cried the girl. She followed her mother to the house. She
swept into the little parlor with a grand air, the egotism of a savage.
Smith had heard the whirl of her skirts in the hall, and his heart, as
usual, thumped hard enough to make him gasp. Every time he called, he
would sit waiting with the dull fear in his breast that her mother
would enter and indifferently announce that she had gone up to heaven
or off to New York, with one of his dream-rivals, and he would never
see her again in this wide world. And he would conjure up tricks to
then escape from the house without any one observing his face break up
into furrows. It was part of his love to believe in the absolute
treachery of his adored one. So whenever he heard the whirl of her
skirts in the hall he felt that he had again leased happiness from a
dark fate.

She was rosily beaming and all in white. "Why, Mister Smith," she
exclaimed, as if he was the last man in the world she expected to see.

"Good-evenin'," he said, shaking hands nervously. He was always awkward
and unlike himself, at the beginning of one of these calls. It took him
some time to get into form.

She posed her figure in operatic style on a chair before him, and
immediately galloped off a mile of questions, information of herself,
gossip and general outcries which left him no obligation, but to look
beamingly intelligent and from time to time say: "Yes?" His personal
joy, however, was to stare at her beauty.

When she stopped and wandered as if uncertain which way to talk, there
was a minute of silence, which each of them had been educated to feel
was very incorrect; very incorrect indeed. Polite people always babbled
at each other like two brooks.

He knew that the responsibility was upon him, and, although his mind
was mainly upon the form of the proposal of marriage which he intended
to make later, it was necessary that he should maintain his reputation
as a well-bred man by saying something at once. It flashed upon him to
ask: "Won't you please play?" But the time for the piano ruse was not
yet; it was too early. So he said the first thing that came into his
head: "Too bad about young Manolo Prat being killed over there in Cuba,
wasn't it?"

"Wasn't it a pity?" she answered.

"They say his mother is heart-broken," he continued. "They're afraid
she's goin' to die."

"And wasn't it queer that we didn't hear about it for almost two
months?"

"Well, it's no use tryin' to git quick news from there."

Presently they advanced to matters more personal, and she used upon him
a series of star-like glances which rumpled him at once to squalid
slavery. He gloated upon her, afraid, afraid, yet more avaricious than
a thousand misers. She fully comprehended; she laughed and taunted him
with her eyes. She impressed upon him that she was like a
will-o'-the-wisp, beautiful beyond compare but impossible, almost
impossible, at least very difficult; then again, suddenly,
impossible--impossible--impossible. He was glum; he would never dare
propose to this radiance; it was like asking to be pope.

A moment later, there chimed into the room something that he knew to be
a more tender note. The girl became dreamy as she looked at him; her
voice lowered to a delicious intimacy of tone. He leaned forward; he
was about to outpour his bully-ragged soul in fine words,
when--presto--she was the most casual person he had ever laid eyes
upon, and was asking him about the route of the proposed trolley line.

But nothing short of a fire could stop him now. He grabbed her hand.
"Margharita," he murmured gutturally, "I want you to marry me."

She glared at him in the most perfect lie of astonishment. "What do you
say?"

He arose, and she thereupon arose also and fled back a step. He could
only stammer out her name. And thus they stood, defying the principles
of the dramatic art.

"I love you," he said at last.

"How--how do I know you really--truly love me?" she said, raising her
eyes timorously to his face and this timorous glance, this one timorous
glance, made him the superior person in an instant. He went forward as
confident as a grenadier, and, taking both her hands, kissed her.

That night she took a stained photograph from her dressing-table and
holding it over the candle burned it to nothing, her red lips meanwhile
parted with the intentness of her occupation. On the back of the
photograph was written: "One lesson in English I will give you--this: I
love you."

For the word is clear only to the kind who on peak or plain, from dark
northern ice-fields to the hot wet jungles, through all wine and want,
through lies and unfamiliar truth, dark or light, are governed by the
unknown gods, and though each man knows the law, no man may give tongue
to it.




GOD REST YE, MERRY GENTLEMEN


Little Nell, sometimes called the Blessed Damosel, was a war
correspondent for the _New York Eclipse_, and at sea on the despatch
boats he wore pajamas, and on shore he wore whatever fate allowed him,
which clothing was in the main unsuitable to the climate. He had been
cruising in the Caribbean on a small tug, awash always, habitable
never, wildly looking for Cervera's fleet; although what he was going
to do with four armoured cruisers and two destroyers in the event of
his really finding them had not been explained by the managing editor.
The cable instructions read:--"Take tug; go find Cervera's fleet." If
his unfortunate nine-knot craft should happen to find these great
twenty-knot ships, with their two spiteful and faster attendants,
Little Nell had wondered how he was going to lose them again. He had
marvelled, both publicly and in secret, on the uncompromising asininity
of managing editors at odd moments, but he had wasted little time. The
_Jefferson G. Johnson_ was already coaled, so he passed the word to his
skipper, bought some tinned meats, cigars, and beer, and soon the
_Johnson_ sailed on her mission, tooting her whistle in graceful
farewell to some friends of hers in the bay.

So the _Johnson_ crawled giddily to one wave-height after another, and
fell, aslant, into one valley after another for a longer period than
was good for the hearts of the men, because the _Johnson_ was merely a
harbour-tug, with no architectural intention of parading the high-seas,
and the crew had never seen the decks all white water like a mere
sunken reef. As for the cook, he blasphemed hopelessly hour in and hour
out, meanwhile pursuing the equipment of his trade frantically from
side to side of the galley. Little Nell dealt with a great deal of
grumbling, but he knew it was not the real evil grumbling. It was
merely the unhappy words of men who wished expression of comradeship
for their wet, forlorn, half-starved lives, to which, they explained,
they were not accustomed, and for which, they explained, they were not
properly paid. Little Nell condoled and condoled without difficulty. He
laid words of gentle sympathy before them, and smothered his own misery
behind the face of a reporter of the _New York Eclipse_. But they
tossed themselves in their cockleshell even as far as Martinique; they
knew many races and many flags, but they did not find Cervera's fleet.
If they had found that elusive squadron this timid story would never
have been written; there would probably have been a lyric. The
_Johnson_ limped one morning into the Mole St. Nicholas, and there
Little Nell received this despatch:--"Can't understand your inaction.
What are you doing with the boat? Report immediately. Fleet transports
already left Tampa. Expected destination near Santiago. Proceed there
immediately. Place yourself under orders.--ROGERS, _Eclipse_."

One day, steaming along the high, luminous blue coast of Santiago
province, they fetched into view the fleets, a knot of masts and
funnels, looking incredibly inshore, as if they were glued to the
mountains. Then mast left mast, and funnel left funnel, slowly, slowly,
and the shore remained still, but the fleets seemed to move out toward
the eager _Johnson_. At the speed of nine knots an hour the scene
separated into its parts. On an easily rolling sea, under a crystal
sky, black-hulled transports--erstwhile packets--lay waiting, while
grey cruisers and gunboats lay near shore, shelling the beach and some
woods. From their grey sides came thin red flashes, belches of white
smoke, and then over the waters sounded boom--boom--boom-boom. The crew
of the _Jefferson G. Johnson_ forgave Little Nell all the suffering of
a previous fortnight.

To the westward, about the mouth of Santiago harbour, sat a row of
castellated grey battleships, their eyes turned another way, waiting.

The _Johnson_ swung past a transport whose decks and rigging were
aswarm with black figures, as if a tribe of bees had alighted upon a
log. She swung past a cruiser indignant at being left out of the game,
her deck thick with white-clothed tars watching the play of their
luckier brethren. The cold blue, lifting seas tilted the big ships
easily, slowly, and heaved the little ones in the usual sinful way, as
if very little babes had surreptitiously mounted sixteen-hand trotting
hunters. The _Johnson_ leered and tumbled her way through a community
of ships. The bombardment ceased, and some of the troopships edged in
near the land. Soon boats black with men and towed by launches were
almost lost to view in the scintillant mystery of light which appeared
where the sea met the land. A disembarkation had begun. The _Johnson_
sped on at her nine knots, and Little Nell chafed exceedingly, gloating
upon the shore through his glasses, anon glancing irritably over the
side to note the efforts of the excited tug. Then at last they were in
a sort of a cove, with troopships, newspaper boats, and cruisers on all
sides of them, and over the water came a great hum of human voices,
punctuated frequently by the clang of engine-room gongs as the steamers
manoeuvred to avoid jostling.

In reality it was the great moment--the moment for which men, ships,
islands, and continents had been waiting for months; but somehow it did
not look it. It was very calm; a certain strip of high, green, rocky
shore was being rapidly populated from boat after boat; that was all.
Like many preconceived moments, it refused to be supreme.

But nothing lessened Little Nell's frenzy. He knew that the army was
landing--he could see it; and little did he care if the great moment
did not look its part--it was his virtue as a correspondent to
recognise the great moment in any disguise. The _Johnson_ lowered a
boat for him, and he dropped into it swiftly, forgetting everything.
However, the mate, a bearded philanthropist, flung after him a
mackintosh and a bottle of whisky. Little Nell's face was turned toward
those other boats filled with men, all eyes upon the placid, gentle,
noiseless shore. Little Nell saw many soldiers seated stiffly beside
upright rifle barrels, their blue breasts crossed with white shelter
tent and blanket-rolls. Launches screeched; jack-tars pushed or pulled
with their boathooks; a beach was alive with working soldiers, some of
them stark naked. Little Nell's boat touched the shore amid a babble of
tongues, dominated at that time by a single stern voice, which was
repeating, "Fall in, B Company!"

He took his mackintosh and his bottle of whisky and invaded Cuba. It
was a trifle bewildering. Companies of those same men in blue and brown
were being rapidly formed and marched off across a little open
space--near a pool--near some palm trees--near a house--into the hills.
At one side, a mulatto in dirty linen and an old straw hat was
hospitably using a machete to cut open some green cocoanuts for a group
of idle invaders. At the other side, up a bank, a blockhouse was
burning furiously; while near it some railway sheds were smouldering,
with a little Roger's engine standing amid the ruins, grey, almost
white, with ashes until it resembled a ghost. Little Nell dodged the
encrimsoned blockhouse, and proceeded where he saw a little village
street lined with flimsy wooden cottages. Some ragged Cuban cavalrymen
were tranquilly tending their horses in a shed which had not yet grown
cold of the Spanish occupation. Three American soldiers were trying to
explain to a Cuban that they wished to buy drinks. A native rode by,
clubbing his pony, as always. The sky was blue; the sea talked with a
gravelly accent at the feet of some rocks; upon its bosom the ships sat
quiet as gulls. There was no mention, directly, of invasion--invasion
for war--save in the roar of the flames at the blockhouse; but none
even heeded this conflagration, excepting to note that it threw out a
great heat. It was warm, very warm. It was really hard for Little Nell
to keep from thinking of his own affairs: his debts, other misfortunes,
loves, prospects of happiness. Nobody was in a flurry; the Cubans were
not tearfully grateful; the American troops were visibly glad of being
released from those ill transports, and the men often asked, with
interest, "Where's the Spaniards?" And yet it must have been a great
moment! It was a _great_ moment!

It seemed made to prove that the emphatic time of history is not the
emphatic time of the common man, who throughout the change of nations
feels an itch on his shin, a pain in his head, hunger, thirst, a lack
of sleep; the influence of his memory of past firesides, glasses of
beer, girls, theatres, ideals, religions, parents, faces, hurts, joy.

Little Nell was hailed from a comfortable veranda, and, looking up, saw
Walkley of the _Eclipse_, stretched in a yellow and green hammock,
smoking his pipe with an air of having always lived in that house, in
that village. "Oh, dear little Nell, how glad I am to see your angel
face again! There! don't try to hide it; I can see it. Did you bring a
corkscrew too? You're superseded as master of the slaves. Did you know
it? And by Rogers, too! Rogers is a Sadducee, a cadaver and a pelican,
appointed to the post of chief correspondent, no doubt, because of his
rare gift of incapacity. Never mind."

"Where is he now?" asked Little Nell, taking seat on the steps.

"He is down interfering with the landing of the troops," answered
Walkley, swinging a leg. "I hope you have the _Johnson_ well stocked
with food as well as with cigars, cigarettes and tobaccos, ales, wines
and liquors. We shall need them. There is already famine in the house
of Walkley. I have discovered that the system of transportation for our
gallant soldiery does not strike in me the admiration which I have
often felt when viewing the management of an ordinary bun-shop. A
hunger, stifling, jammed together amid odours, and everybody
irritable--ye gods, how irritable! And so I---- Look! look!"

The _Jefferson G. Johnson_, well known to them at an incredible
distance, could be seen striding the broad sea, the smoke belching from
her funnel, headed for Jamaica. "The Army Lands in Cuba!" shrieked
Walkley. "Shafter's Army Lands near Santiago! Special type! Half the
front page! Oh, the Sadducee! The cadaver! The pelican!"

Little Nell was dumb with astonishment and fear. Walkley, however, was
at least not dumb. "That's the pelican! That's Mr. Rogers making his
first impression upon the situation. He has engraved himself upon us.
We are tattooed with him. There will be a fight to-morrow, sure, and we
will cover it even as you found Cervera's fleet. No food, no horses, no
money. I am transport lame; you are sea-weak. We will never see our
salaries again. Whereby Rogers is a fool."

"Anybody else here?" asked Little Nell wearily.

"Only young Point." Point was an artist on the _Eclipse_. "But he has
nothing. Pity there wasn't an almshouse in this God-forsaken country.
Here comes Point now." A sad-faced man came along carrying much
luggage. "Hello, Point! lithographer _and_ genius, have you food? Food.
Well, then, you had better return yourself to Tampa by wire. You are no
good here. Only one more little mouth to feed."

Point seated himself near Little Nell. "I haven't had anything to eat
since daybreak," he said gloomily, "and I don't care much, for I am
simply dog-tired."

"Don' tell _me_ you are dog-tired, my talented friend," cried Walkley
from his hammock. "Think of me. And now what's to be done?"

They stared for a time disconsolately at where, over the rim of the
sea, trailed black smoke from the _Johnson_. From the landing-place
below and to the right came the howls of a man who was superintending
the disembarkation of some mules. The burning blockhouse still rendered
its hollow roar. Suddenly the men-crowded landing set up its cheer, and
the steamers all whistled long and raucously. Tiny black figures were
raising an American flag over a blockhouse on the top of a great hill.

"That's mighty fine Sunday stuff," said Little Nell. "Well, I'll go and
get the order in which the regiments landed, and who was first ashore,
and all that. Then I'll go and try to find General Lawton's
headquarters. His division has got the advance, I think."

"And, lo! I will write a burning description of the raising of the
flag," said Walkley. "While the brilliant Point buskies for food--and
makes damn sure he gets it," he added fiercely.

Little Nell thereupon wandered over the face of the earth, threading
out the story of the landing of the regiments. He only found about
fifty men who had been the first American soldier to set foot on Cuba,
and of these he took the most probable. The army was going forward in
detail, as soon as the pieces were landed. There was a house something
like a crude country tavern--the soldiers in it were looking over their
rifles and talking. There was a well of water quite hot--more palm
trees--an inscrutable background.

When he arrived again at Walkley's mansion he found the verandah
crowded with correspondents in khaki, duck, dungaree and flannel. They
wore riding-breeches, but that was mainly forethought. They could see
now that fate intended them to walk. Some were writing copy, while
Walkley discoursed from his hammock. Rhodes--doomed to be shot in
action some days later--was trying to borrow a canteen from men who had
one, and from men who had none. Young Point, wan, utterly worn out, was
asleep on the floor. Walkley pointed to him. "That is how he appears
after his foraging journey, during which he ran all Cuba through a
sieve. Oh, yes; a can of corn and a half-bottle of lime juice."

"Say, does anybody know, the name of the commander of the 26th
Infantry?"

"Who commands the first brigade of Kent's Division?"

"What was the name of the chap that raised the flag?"

"What time is it?"

And a woeful man was wandering here and there with a cold pipe, saying
plaintively, "Who's got a match? Anybody here got a match?"

Little Nell's left boot hurt him at the heel, and so he removed it,
taking great care and whistling through his teeth. The heated dust was
upon them all, making everybody feel that bathing was unknown and
shattering their tempers. Young Point developed a snore which brought
grim sarcasm from all quarters. Always below, hummed the traffic of the
landing-place.

When night came Little Nell thought best not to go to bed until late,
because he recognised the mackintosh as but a feeble comfort. The
evening was a glory. A breeze came from the sea, fanning spurts of
flame out of the ashes and charred remains of the sheds, while overhead
lay a splendid summer-night sky, aflash with great tranquil stars. In
the streets of the village were two or three fires, frequently and
suddenly reddening with their glare the figures of low-voiced men who
moved here and there. The lights of the transports blinked on the
murmuring plain in front of the village; and far to the westward Little
Nell could sometimes note a subtle indication of a playing
search-light, which alone marked the presence of the invisible
battleships, half-mooned about the entrance of Santiago Harbour,
waiting--waiting--waiting.

When Little Nell returned to the veranda he stumbled along a man-strewn
place, until he came to the spot where he left his mackintosh; but he
found it gone. His curses mingled then with those of the men upon whose
bodies he had trodden. Two English correspondents, lying awake to smoke
a last pipe, reared and looked at him lazily. "What's wrong, old chap?"
murmured one. "Eh? Lost it, eh? Well, look here; come here and take a
bit of my blanket. It's a jolly big one. Oh, no trouble at all, man.
There you are. Got enough? Comfy? Good-night."

A sleepy voice arose in the darkness. "If this hammock breaks, I shall
hit at least ten of those Indians down there. Never mind. This is war."

The men slept. Once the sound of three or four shots rang across the
windy night, and one head uprose swiftly from the verandah, two eyes
looked dazedly at nothing, and the head as swiftly sank. Again a sleepy
voice was heard. "Usual thing! Nervous sentries!" The men slept. Before
dawn a pulseless, penetrating chill came into the air, and the
correspondents awakened, shivering, into a blue world. Some of the
fires still smouldered. Walkley and Little Nell kicked vigorously into
Point's framework. "Come on, brilliance! Wake up, talent! Don't be
sodgering. It's too cold to sleep, but it's not too cold to hustle."
Point sat up dolefully. Upon his face was a childish expression. "Where
are we going to get breakfast?" he asked, sulking.

"There's no breakfast for you, you hound! Get up and hustle."
Accordingly they hustled. With exceeding difficulty they learned that
nothing emotional had happened during the night, save the killing
of two Cubans who were so secure in ignorance that they could not
understand the challenge of two American sentries. Then Walkley ran a
gamut of commanding officers, and Little Nell pumped privates for their
impressions of Cuba. When his indignation at the absence of breakfast
allowed him, Point made sketches. At the full break of day the
_Adolphus_, and _Eclipse_ despatch boat, sent a boat ashore with Tailor
and Shackles in it, and Walkley departed tearlessly for Jamaica, soon
after he had bestowed upon his friends much tinned goods and blankets.

"Well, we've got our stuff off," said Little Nell. "Now Point and I
must breakfast."

Shackles, for some reason, carried a great hunting-knife, and with it
Little Nell opened a tin of beans.

"Fall to," he said amiably to Point.

There were some hard biscuits. Afterwards they--the four of
them--marched off on the route of the troops. They were well loaded
with luggage, particularly young Point, who had somehow made a great
gathering of unnecessary things. Hills covered with verdure soon
enclosed them. They heard that the army had advanced some nine miles
with no fighting. Evidences of the rapid advance were here and
there--coats, gauntlets, blanket rolls on the ground. Mule-trains came
herding back along the narrow trail to the sound of a little tinkling
bell. Cubans were appropriating the coats and blanket-rolls.

The four correspondents hurried onward. The surety of impending battle
weighed upon them always, but there was a score of minor things more
intimate. Little Nell's left heel had chafed until it must have been
quite raw, and every moment he wished to take seat by the roadside and
console himself from pain. Shackles and Point disliked each other
extremely, and often they foolishly quarrelled over something, or
nothing. The blanket-rolls and packages for the hand oppressed
everybody. It was like being burned out of a boarding-house, and having
to carry one's trunk eight miles to the nearest neighbour. Moreover,
Point, since he had stupidly overloaded, with great wisdom placed
various cameras and other trifles in the hands of his three
less-burdened and more sensible friends. This made them fume and gnash,
but in complete silence, since he was hideously youthful and innocent
and unaware. They all wished to rebel, but none of them saw their way
clear, because--they did not understand. But somehow it seemed a
barbarous project--no one wanted to say anything--cursed him privately
for a little ass, but--said nothing. For instance, Little Nell wished
to remark, "Point, you are not a thoroughbred in a half of a way. You
are an inconsiderate, thoughtless little swine." But, in truth, he
said, "Point, when you started out you looked like a Christmas-tree. If
we keep on robbing you of your bundles there soon won't be anything
left for the children." Point asked dubiously, "What do you mean?"
Little Nell merely laughed with deceptive good-nature.

They were always very thirsty. There was always a howl for the
half-bottle of lime juice. Five or six drops from it were simply
heavenly in the warm water from the canteens. Point seemed to try to
keep the lime juice in his possession, in order that he might get more
benefit of it. Before the war was ended the others found themselves
declaring vehemently that they loathed Point, and yet when men asked
them the reason they grew quite inarticulate. The reasons seemed then
so small, so childish, as the reasons of a lot of women. And yet at the
time his offences loomed enormous.

The surety of impending battle still weighed upon them. Then it came
that Shackles turned seriously ill. Suddenly he dropped his own and
much of Point's traps upon the trail, wriggled out of his blanket-roll,
flung it away, and took seat heavily at the roadside. They saw with
surprise that his face was pale as death, and yet streaming with sweat.

"Boys," he said in his ordinary voice, "I'm clean played out. I can't
go another step. You fellows go on, and leave me to come as soon as I
am able."

"Oh, no, that wouldn't do at all," said Little Nell and Tailor
together.

Point moved over to a soft place, and dropped amid whatever traps he
was himself carrying.

"Don't know whether it's ancestral or merely from the--sun--but I've
got a stroke," said Shackles, and gently slumped over to a prostrate
position before either Little Nell or Tailor could reach him.

Thereafter Shackles was parental; it was Little Nell and Tailor who
were really suffering from a stroke, either ancestral or from the sun.

"Put my blanket-roll under my head, Nell, me son," he said gently.
"There now! That is very nice. It is delicious. Why, I'm all right,
only--only tired." He closed his eyes, and something like an easy
slumber came over him. Once he opened his eyes. "Don't trouble about
me," he remarked.

But the two fussed about him, nervous, worried, discussing this plan
and that plan. It was Point who first made a business-like statement.
Seated carelessly and indifferently upon his soft place, he finally
blurted out:

"Say! Look here! Some of us have got to go on. We can't all stay here.
Some of us have got to go on."

It was quite true; the _Eclipse_ could take no account of strokes.
In the end Point and Tailor went on, leaving Little Nell to bring on
Shackles as soon as possible. The latter two spent many hours in the
grass by the roadside. They made numerous abrupt acquaintances with
passing staff officers, privates, muleteers, many stopping to inquire
the wherefore of the death-faced figure on the ground. Favours were
done often and often, by peer and peasant--small things, of no
consequence, and yet warming.

It was dark when Shackles and Little Nell had come slowly to where they
could hear the murmur of the army's bivouac.

"Shack," gasped Little Nell to the man leaning forlornly upon him, "I
guess we'd better bunk down here where we stand."

"All right, old boy. Anything you say," replied Shackles, in the bass
and hollow voice which arrives with such condition.

They crawled into some bushes, and distributed their belongings upon
the ground. Little Nell spread out the blankets, and generally played
housemaid. Then they lay down, supperless, being too weary to eat. The
men slept.

At dawn Little Nell awakened and looked wildly for Shackles, whose
empty blanket was pressed flat like a wet newspaper on the ground. But
at nearly the same moment Shackles appeared, elate.

"Come on," he cried; "I've rustled an invitation for breakfast."

Little Nell came on with celerity.

"Where? Who?" he said.

"Oh! some officers," replied Shackles airily. If he had been ill the
previous day, he showed it now only in some curious kind of deference
he paid to Little Nell.

Shackles conducted his comrade, and soon they arrived at where a
captain and his one subaltern arose courteously from where they were
squatting near a fire of little sticks. They wore the wide white
trouser-stripes of infantry officers, and upon the shoulders of their
blue campaign shirts were the little marks of their rank; but otherwise
there was little beyond their manners to render them different from the
men who were busy with breakfast near them. The captain was old,
grizzled--a common type of captain in the tiny American army--overjoyed
at the active service, confident of his business, and yet breathing out
in some way a note of pathos. The war was come too late. Age was
grappling him, and honours were only for his widow and his
children--merely a better life insurance policy. He had spent his life
policing Indians with much labour, cold and heat, but with no glory for
him nor his fellows. All he now could do was to die at the head of his
men. If he had youthfully dreamed of a general's stars, they were now
impossible to him, and he knew it. He was too old to leap so far; his
sole honour was a new invitation to face death. And yet, with his
ambitions lying half-strangled, he was going to take his men into any
sort of holocaust, because his traditions were of gentlemen and
soldiers, and because--he loved it for itself--the thing itself--the
whirl, the unknown. If he had been degraded at that moment to be a
pot-wrestler, no power could have starved him from going through the
campaign as a spectator. Why, the army! It was in each drop of his
blood.

The lieutenant was very young. Perhaps he had been hurried out of West
Point at the last moment, upon a shortage of officers appearing. To
him, all was opportunity. He was, in fact, in great luck. Instead of
going off in 1898 to grill for an indefinite period on some
God-forgotten heap of red-hot sand in New Mexico, he was here in Cuba,
on real business, with his regiment. When the big engagement came he
was sure to emerge from it either horizontally or at the head of a
company, and what more could a boy ask? He was a very modest lad, and
talked nothing of his frame of mind, but an expression of blissful
contentment was ever upon his face. He really accounted himself the
most fortunate boy of his time; and he felt almost certain that he
would do well. It was necessary to do well. He would do well.

And yet in many ways these two were alike; the grizzled captain with
his gently mournful countenance--"Too late"--and the elate young second
lieutenant, his commission hardly dry. Here again it was the influence
of the army. After all they were both children of the army.

It is possible to spring into the future here and chronicle what
happened later. The captain, after thirty-five years of waiting for his
chance, took his Mauser bullet through the brain at the foot of San
Juan Hill in the very beginning of the battle, and the boy arrived on
the crest panting, sweating, but unscratched, and not sure whether he
commanded one company or a whole battalion. Thus fate dealt to the
hosts of Shackles and Little Nell.

The breakfast was of canned tomatoes stewed with hard bread, more hard
bread, and coffee. It was very good fare, almost royal. Shackles and
Little Nell were absurdly grateful as they felt the hot bitter coffee
tingle in them. But they departed joyfully before the sun was fairly
up, and passed into Siboney. They never saw the captain again.

The beach at Siboney was furious with traffic, even as had been the
beach at Daqueri. Launches shouted, jack-tars prodded with their
boathooks, and load of men followed load of men. Straight, parade-like,
on the shore stood a trumpeter playing familiar calls to the
troop-horses who swam towards him eagerly through the salt seas.
Crowding closely into the cove were transports of all sizes and ages.
To the left and to the right of the little landing-beach green hills
shot upward like the wings in a theatre. They were scarred here and
there with blockhouses and rifle-pits. Up one hill a regiment was
crawling, seemingly inch by inch. Shackles and Little Nell walked among
palms and scrubby bushes, near pools, over spaces of sand holding
little monuments of biscuit-boxes, ammunition-boxes, and supplies of
all kinds. Some regiment was just collecting itself from the ships, and
the men made great patches of blue on the brown sand.

Shackles asked a question of a man accidentally: "Where's that regiment
going to?" He pointed to the force that was crawling up the hill. The
man grinned, and said, "They're going to look for a fight!"

"Looking for a fight!" said Shackles and Little Nell together. They
stared into each other's eyes. Then they set off for the foot of the
hill. The hill was long and toilsome. Below them spread wider and wider
a vista of ships quiet on a grey sea; a busy, black disembarkation-place;
tall, still, green hills; a village of well separated cottages; palms;
a bit of road; soldiers marching. They passed vacant Spanish trenches;
little twelve-foot blockhouses. Soon they were on a fine upland near
the sea. The path, under ordinary conditions, must have been a
beautiful wooded way. It wound in the shade of thickets of fine trees,
then through rank growths of bushes with revealed and fantastic roots,
then through a grassy space which had all the beauty of a neglected
orchard. But always from under their feet scuttled noisy land-crabs,
demons to the nerves, which in some way possessed a semblance of
moon-like faces upon their blue or red bodies, and these faces were
turned with expressions of deepest horror upon Shackles and Little
Nell as they sped to overtake the pugnacious regiment. The route
was paved with coats, hats, tent and blanket rolls, ration-tins,
haversacks--everything but ammunition belts, rifles and canteens.

They heard a dull noise of voices in front of them--men talking too
loud for the etiquette of the forest--and presently they came upon two
or three soldiers lying by the roadside, flame-faced, utterly spent
from the hurried march in the heat. One man came limping back along the
path. He looked to them anxiously for sympathy and comprehension. "Hurt
m' knee. I swear I couldn't keep up with th' boys. I had to leave 'm.
Wasn't that tough luck?" His collar rolled away from a red, muscular
neck, and his bare forearms were better than stanchions. Yet he was
almost babyishly tearful in his attempt to make the two correspondents
feel that he had not turned back because he was afraid. They gave him
scant courtesy, tinctured with one drop of sympathetic yet cynical
understanding. Soon they overtook the hospital squad; men addressing
chaste language to some pack-mules; a talkative sergeant; two amiable,
cool-eyed young surgeons. Soon they were amid the rear troops of the
dismounted volunteer cavalry regiment which was moving to attack. The
men strode easily along, arguing one to another on ulterior matters. If
they were going into battle, they either did not know it or they
concealed it well. They were more like men going into a bar at one
o'clock in the morning. Their laughter rang through the Cuban woods.
And in the meantime, soft, mellow, sweet, sang the voice of the Cuban
wood-dove, the Spanish guerilla calling to his mate--forest music; on
the flanks, deep back on both flanks, the adorable wood-dove, singing
only of love. Some of the advancing Americans said it was beautiful. It
_was_ beautiful. The Spanish guerilla calling to his mate. What could
be more beautiful?

Shackles and Little Nell rushed precariously through waist-high bushes
until they reached the centre of the single-filed regiment. The firing
then broke out in front. All the woods set up a hot sputtering; the
bullets sped along the path and across it from both sides. The thickets
presented nothing but dense masses of light green foliage, out of which
these swift steel things were born supernaturally.

It was a volunteer regiment going into its first action, against an
enemy of unknown force, in a country where the vegetation was thicker
than fur on a cat. There might have been a dreadful mess; but in
military matters the only way to deal with a situation of this kind is
to take it frankly by the throat and squeeze it to death. Shackles and
Little Nell felt the thrill of the orders. "Come ahead, men! Keep right
ahead, men! Come on!" The volunteer cavalry regiment, with all the
willingness in the world, went ahead into the angle of V-shaped Spanish
formation.

It seemed that every leaf had turned into a soda-bottle and was popping
its cork. Some of the explosions seemed to be against the men's very
faces, others against the backs of their necks. "Now, men! Keep goin'
ahead. Keep on goin'." The forward troops were already engaged. They,
at least, had something at which to shoot. "Now, captain, if you're
ready." "Stop that swearing there." "Got a match?" "Steady, now, men."

A gate appeared in a barbed-wire fence. Within were billowy fields of
long grass, dotted with palms and luxuriant mango trees. It was
Elysian--a place for lovers, fair as Eden in its radiance of sun, under
its blue sky. One might have expected to see white-robed figures
walking slowly in the shadows. A dead man, with a bloody face, lay
twisted in a curious contortion at the waist. Someone was shot in the
leg, his pins knocked cleanly from under him.

"Keep goin', men." The air roared, and the ground fled reelingly under
their feet. Light, shadow, trees, grass. Bullets spat from every side.
Once they were in a thicket, and the men, blanched and bewildered,
turned one way, and then another, not knowing which way to turn. "Keep
goin', men." Soon they were in the sunlight again. They could see the
long scant line, which was being drained man by man--one might say drop
by drop. The musketry rolled forth in great full measure from the
magazine carbines. "Keep goin', men." "Christ, I'm shot!" "They're
flankin' us, sir." "We're bein' fired into by our own crowd, sir."
"Keep goin', men." A low ridge before them was a bottling establishment
blowing up in detail. From the right--it seemed at that time to be the
far right--they could hear steady, crashing volleys--the United States
regulars in action.

Then suddenly--to use a phrase of the street--the whole bottom of the
thing fell out. It was suddenly and mysteriously ended. The Spaniards
had run away, and some of the regulars were chasing them. It was a
victory.

When the wounded men dropped in the tall grass they quite disappeared,
as if they had sunk in water. Little Nell and Shackles were walking
along through the fields, disputing.

"Well, damn it, man!" cried Shackles, "we _must_ get a list of the
killed and wounded."

"That is not nearly so important," quoth little Nell, academically, "as
to get the first account to New York of the first action of the army in
Cuba."

They came upon Tailor, lying with a bared torso and a small red hole
through his left lung. He was calm, but evidently out of temper. "Good
God, Tailor!" they cried, dropping to their knees like two pagans; "are
you hurt, old boy?"

"Hurt?" he said gently. "No, 'tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as
a church-door, but 'tis enough, d'you see? You understand, do you?
Idiots!"

Then he became very official. "Shackles, feel and see what's under my
leg. It's a small stone, or a burr, or something. Don't be clumsy now!
Be careful! Be careful!" Then he said, angrily, "Oh, you didn't find it
at all. Damn it!"

In reality there was nothing there, and so Shackles could not have
removed it. "Sorry, old boy," he said, meekly.

"Well, you may observe that I can't stay here more than a year," said
Tailor, with some oratory, "and the hospital people have their own work
in hand. It behoves you, Nell, to fly to Siboney, arrest a despatch
boat, get a cot and some other things, and some minions to carry me. If
I get once down to the base I'm all right, but if I stay here I'm dead.
Meantime Shackles can stay here and try to look as if he liked it."

There was no disobeying the man. Lying there with a little red hole in
his left lung, he dominated them through his helplessness, and through
their fear that if they angered him he would move and--bleed.

"Well?" said Little Nell.

"Yes," said Shackles, nodding.

Little Nell departed.

"That blanket you lent me," Tailor called after him, "is back there
somewhere with Point."

Little Nell noted that many of the men who were wandering among the
wounded seemed so spent with the toil and excitement of their first
action that they could hardly drag one leg after the other. He found
himself suddenly in the same condition, His face, his neck, even his
mouth, felt dry as sun-baked bricks, and his legs were foreign to him.
But he swung desperately into his five-mile task. On the way he passed
many things: bleeding men carried by comrades; others making their way
grimly, with encrimsoned arms; then the little settlement of the
hospital squad; men on the ground everywhere, many in the path; one
young captain dying, with great gasps, his body pale blue, and
glistening, like the inside of a rabbit's skin. But the voice of the
Cuban wood-dove, soft, mellow, sweet, singing only of love, was no
longer heard from the wealth of foliage.

Presently the hurrying correspondent met another regiment coming to
assist--a line of a thousand men in single file through the jungle.
"Well, how is it going, old man?" "How is it coming on?" "Are we doin'
'em?" Then, after an interval, came other regiments, moving out. He
had to take to the bush to let these long lines pass him, and he was
delayed, and had to flounder amid brambles. But at last, like a
successful pilgrim, he arrived at the brow of the great hill
overlooking Siboney. His practised eye scanned the fine broad brow of
the sea with its clustering ships, but he saw thereon no _Eclipse_
despatch boats. He zigzagged heavily down the hill, and arrived
finally amid the dust and outcries of the base. He seemed to ask a
thousand men if they had seen an _Eclipse_ boat on the water, or an
_Eclipse_ correspondent on the shore. They all answered, "No."

He was like a poverty-stricken and unknown suppliant at a foreign
Court. Even his plea got only ill-hearings. He had expected the news of
the serious wounding of Tailor to appal the other correspondents, but
they took it quite calmly. It was as if their sense of an impending
great battle between two large armies had quite got them out of focus
for these minor tragedies. Tailor was hurt--yes? They looked at Little
Nell, dazed. How curious that Tailor should be almost the first--how
_very_ curious--yes. But, as far as arousing them to any enthusiasm of
active pity, it seemed impossible. He was lying up there in the grass,
was he? Too bad, too bad, too bad!

Little Nell went alone and lay down in the sand with his back against a
rock. Tailor was prostrate up there in the grass. Never mind. Nothing
was to be done. The whole situation was too colossal. Then into his
zone came Walkley the invincible.

"Walkley!" yelled Little Nell. Walkley came quickly, and Little Nell
lay weakly against his rock and talked. In thirty seconds Walkley
understood everything, had hurled a drink of whisky into Little Nell,
had admonished him to lie quiet, and had gone to organise and
manipulate. When he returned he was a trifle dubious and backward.
Behind him was a singular squad of volunteers from the _Adolphus_,
carrying among them a wire-woven bed.

"Look here, Nell!" said Walkley, in bashful accents; "I've collected a
battalion here which is willing to go bring Tailor; but--they
say--you--can't you show them where he is?"

"Yes," said Little Nell, arising.

                     *      *      *      *      *

When the party arrived at Siboney, and deposited Tailor in the best
place, Walkley had found a house and stocked it with canned soups.
Therein Shackles and Little Nell revelled for a time, and then rolled
on the floor in their blankets. Little Nell tossed a great deal. "Oh,
I'm so tired. Good God, I'm tired. I'm--tired."

In the morning a voice aroused them. It was a swollen, important,
circus voice saying, "Where is Mr. Nell? I wish to see him
immediately."

"Here I am, Rogers," cried Little Nell.

"Oh, Nell," said Rogers, "here's a despatch to me which I thought you
had better read."

Little Nell took the despatch. It was: "Tell Nell can't understand his
inaction; tell him come home first steamer from Port Antonio, Jamaica."




THE REVENGE OF THE ADOLPHUS


I

"Stand by."

Shackles had come down from the bridge of the _Adolphus_ and flung
this command at three fellow-correspondents who in the galley were
busy with pencils trying to write something exciting and interesting
from four days quiet cruising. They looked up casually. "What for?"
They did not intend to arouse for nothing. Ever since Shackles had
heard the men of the navy directing each other to stand by for this
thing and that thing, he had used the two words as his pet phrase and
was continually telling his friends to stand by. Sometimes its
portentous and emphatic reiteration became highly exasperating and men
were apt to retort sharply. "Well, I _am_ standing by, ain't I?" On
this occasion they detected that he was serious. "Well, what for?"
they repeated. In his answer Shackles was reproachful as well as
impressive. "Stand by? Stand by for a Spanish gunboat. A Spanish
gunboat in chase! Stand by for _two_ Spanish gunboats--_both_ of them
in chase!"

The others looked at him for a brief space and were almost certain that
they saw truth written upon his countenance. Whereupon they tumbled out
of the galley and galloped up to the bridge. The cook with a mere
inkling of tragedy was now out on deck bawling, "What's the matter?
What's the matter? What's the matter?" Aft, the grimy head of a stoker
was thrust suddenly up through the deck, so to speak. The eyes flashed
in a quick look astern and then the head vanished. The correspondents
were scrambling on the bridge. "Where's my glasses, damn it? Here--let
me take a look. Are they Spaniards, Captain? Are you sure?"

The skipper of the _Adolphus_ was at the wheel. The pilot-house was so
arranged that he could not see astern without hanging forth from one
of the side windows, but apparently he had made early investigation.
He did not reply at once. At sea, he never replied at once to
questions. At the very first, Shackles had discovered the merits of
this deliberate manner and had taken delight in it. He invariably
detailed his talk with the captain to the other correspondents. "Look
here. I've just been to see the skipper. I said 'I would like to put
into Cape Haytien.' Then he took a little think. Finally he said: 'All
right.' Then I said: 'I suppose we'll need to take on more coal
there?' He took another little think. I said: 'Ever ran into that port
before?' He took another little think. Finally he said: 'Yes.' I said
'Have a cigar?' He took another little think. See? There's where I
fooled 'im----"

While the correspondents spun the hurried questions at him, the
captain of the _Adolphus_ stood with his brown hands on the wheel and
his cold glance aligned straight over the bow of his ship.

"Are they Spanish gunboats, Captain? Are they, Captain?"

After a profound pause, he said: "Yes." The four correspondents hastily
and in perfect time presented their backs to him and fastened their
gaze on the pursuing foe. They saw a dull grey curve of sea going to
the feet of the high green and blue coast-line of north-eastern Cuba,
and on this sea were two miniature ships with clouds of iron-coloured
smoke pouring from their funnels.

One of the correspondents strolled elaborately to the pilot-house.
"Aw--Captain," he drawled, "do you think they can catch us?"

The captain's glance was still aligned over the bow of his ship.
Ultimately he answered: "I don't know."

From the top of the little _Adolphus'_ stack, thick dark smoke swept
level for a few yards and then went rolling to leaward in great hot
obscuring clouds. From time to time the grimy head was thrust through
the deck, the eyes took the quick look astern and then the head
vanished. The cook was trying to get somebody to listen to him. "Well,
you know, damn it all, it won't be no fun to be ketched by them
Spaniards. Be-Gawd, it won't. Look here, what do you think they'll do
to us, hey? Say, I don't like this, you know. I'm damned if I do." The
sea, cut by the hurried bow of the _Adolphus_, flung its waters astern
in the formation of a wide angle and the lines of the angle ruffled
and hissed as they fled, while the thumping screw tormented the water
at the stern. The frame of the steamer underwent regular convulsions
as in the strenuous sobbing of a child.

The mate was standing near the pilot-house. Without looking at him, the
captain spoke his name. "Ed!"

"Yes, sir," cried the mate with alacrity.

The captain reflected for a moment. Then he said: "Are they gainin' on
us?"

The mate took another anxious survey of the race. "No--o--yes, I think
they are--a little."

After a pause the captain said: "Tell the chief to shake her up more."

The mate, glad of an occupation in these tense minutes, flew down to
the engine-room door. "Skipper says shake 'er up more!" he bawled. The
head of the chief engineer appeared, a grizzly head now wet with oil
and sweat. "What?" he shouted angrily. It was as if he had been
propelling the ship with his own arms. Now he was told that his best
was not good enough. "What? shake 'er up more? Why she can't carry
another pound, I tell you! Not another ounce! We----" Suddenly he ran
forward and climbed to the bridge. "Captain," he cried in the loud
harsh voice of one who lived usually amid the thunder of machinery,
"she can't do it, sir! Be-Gawd, she can't! She's turning over now
faster than she ever did in her life and we'll all blow to hell----"

The low-toned, impassive voice of the captain suddenly checked the
chief's clamour. "I'll blow her up," he said, "but I won't git ketched
if I kin help it." Even then the listening correspondents found a
second in which to marvel that the captain had actually explained his
point of view to another human being.

The engineer stood blank. Then suddenly he cried: "All right, sir!" He
threw a hurried look of despair at the correspondents, the deck of the
_Adolphus_, the pursuing enemy, Cuba, the sky and the sea; he vanished
in the direction of his post.

A correspondent was suddenly regifted with the power of prolonged
speech. "Well, you see, the game is up, damn it. See? We can't get out
of it. The skipper will blow up the whole bunch before he'll let his
ship be taken, and the Spaniards are gaining. Well, that's what comes
from going to war in an eight-knot tub." He bitterly accused himself,
the others, and the dark, sightless, indifferent world.

This certainty of coming evil affected each one differently. One was
made garrulous; one kept absent-mindedly snapping his fingers and
gazing at the sea; another stepped nervously to and fro, looking
everywhere as if for employment for his mind. As for Shackles he was
silent and smiling, but it was a new smile that caused the lines about
his mouth to betray quivering weakness. And each man looked at the
others to discover their degree of fear and did his best to conceal his
own, holding his crackling nerves with all his strength.

As the _Adolphus_ rushed on, the sun suddenly emerged from behind grey
clouds and its rays dealt titanic blows so that in a few minutes the
sea was a glowing blue plain with the golden shine dancing at the tips
of the waves. The coast of Cuba glowed with light. The pursuers
displayed detail after detail in the new atmosphere. The voice of the
cook was heard in high vexation. "Am I to git dinner as usual? How do
I know? Nobody tells me what to do? Am I to git dinner as usual?"

The mate answered ferociously. "Of course you are! What do you s'pose?
Ain't you the cook, you damn fool?"

The cook retorted in a mutinous scream. "Well, how would I know? If
this ship is goin' to blow up----"


II

The captain called from the pilot-house. "Mr. Shackles! Oh, Mr.
Shackles!" The correspondent moved hastily to a window. "What is it,
Captain?" The skipper of the _Adolphus_ raised a battered finger and
pointed over the bows. "See 'er?" he asked, laconic but quietly
jubilant. Another steamer was smoking at full speed over the sun-lit
seas. A great billow of pure white was on her bows. "Great Scott!"
cried Shackles. "Another Spaniard?"

"No," said the captain, "that there is a United States cruiser!"

"What?" Shackles was dumfounded into muscular paralysis. "No! Are you
_sure_?"

The captain nodded. "Sure, take the glass. See her ensign? Two funnels,
two masts with fighting tops. She ought to be the _Chancellorville_."

Shackles choked. "Well, I'm blowed!"

"Ed!" said the captain.

"Yessir!"

"Tell the chief there is no hurry."

Shackles suddenly bethought him of his companions. He dashed to them
and was full of quick scorn of their gloomy faces. "Hi, brace up there!
Are you blind? Can't you see her?"

"See what?"

"Why, the _Chancellorville_, you blind mice!" roared Shackles. "See
'er? See 'er? See 'er?"

The others sprang, saw, and collapsed. Shackles was a madman for the
purpose of distributing the news. "Cook!" he shrieked. "Don't you see
'er, cook? Good Gawd, man, don't you see 'er?" He ran to the lower deck
and howled his information everywhere. Suddenly the whole ship smiled.
Men clapped each other on the shoulder and joyously shouted. The
captain thrust his head from the pilot-house to look back at the
Spanish ships. Then he looked at the American cruiser. "Now, we'll
see," he said grimly and vindictively to the mate. "Guess somebody else
will do some running," the mate chuckled.

The two gunboats were still headed hard for the _Adolphus_ and she
kept on her way. The American cruiser was coming swiftly. "It's the
_Chancellorville_!" cried Shackles. "I know her! We'll see a fight
at sea, my boys! A fight at sea!" The enthusiastic correspondents
pranced in Indian revels.

The _Chancellorville_--2000 tons--18.6 knots--10 five-inch guns--came
on tempestuously, sheering the water high with her sharp bow. From her
funnels the smoke raced away in driven sheets. She loomed with
extraordinary rapidity like a ship bulging and growing out of the sea.
She swept by the _Adolphus_ so close that one could have thrown a
walnut on board. She was a glistening grey apparition with a blood-red
water-line, with brown gun-muzzles and white-clothed motionless
jack-tars; and in her rush she was silent, deadly silent. Probably
there entered the mind of every man on board the _Adolphus_ a feeling
of almost idolatry for this living thing, stern but, to their thought,
incomparably beautiful. They would have cheered but that each man
seemed to feel that a cheer would be too puny a tribute.

It was at first as if she did not see the _Adolphus_. She was going to
pass without heeding this little vagabond of the high-seas. But
suddenly a megaphone gaped over the rail of her bridge and a voice was
heard measuredly, calmly intoning. "Hello--there! Keep--well--to--
the--north'ard--and--out of my--way--and I'll--go--in--and--see--
what--those--people--want----" Then nothing was heard but the swirl of
water. In a moment the _Adolphus_ was looking at a high grey stern. On
the quarter-deck, sailors were poised about the breach of the
after-pivot-gun.

The correspondents were revelling. "Captain," yelled Shackles, "we
can't miss this! We must see it!" But the skipper had already flung
over the wheel. "Sure," he answered almost at once. "We can't miss it."

The cook was arrogantly, grossly triumphant. His voice rang along the
deck. "There, now! How will the Spinachers like that? Now, it's our
turn! We've been doin' the runnin' away but now we'll do the chasin'!"
Apparently feeling some twinge of nerves from the former strain, he
suddenly demanded: "Say, who's got any whisky? I'm near dead for a
drink."

When the _Adolphus_ came about, she laid her course for a position to
the northward of a coming battle, but the situation suddenly became
complicated. When the Spanish ships discovered the identity of the ship
that was steaming toward them, they did not hesitate over their plan of
action. With one accord they turned and ran for port. Laughter arose
from the _Adolphus_. The captain broke his orders, and, instead of
keeping to the northward, he headed in the wake of the impetuous
_Chancellorville_. The correspondents crowded on the bow.

The Spaniards when their broadsides became visible were seen to be
ships of no importance, mere little gunboats for work in the shallows
back of the reefs, and it was certainly discreet to refuse encounter
with the five-inch guns of the _Chancellorville_. But the joyful
_Adolphus_ took no account of this discretion. The pursuit of the
Spaniards had been so ferocious that the quick change to heels-overhead
flight filled that corner of the mind which is devoted to the spirit of
revenge. It was this that moved Shackles to yell taunts futilely at the
far-away ships. "Well, how do you like it, eh? How do you like it?" The
_Adolphus_ was drinking compensation for her previous agony.

The mountains of the shore now shadowed high into the sky and the
square white houses of a town could be seen near a vague cleft which
seemed to mark the entrance to a port. The gunboats were now near to
it.

Suddenly white smoke streamed from the bow of the _Chancellorville_ and
developed swiftly into a great bulb which drifted in fragments down the
wind. Presently the deep-throated boom of the gun came to the ears on
board the _Adolphus_. The shot kicked up a high jet of water into the
air astern of the last gunboat. The black smoke from the funnels of the
cruiser made her look like a collier on fire, and in her desperation
she tried many more long shots, but presently the _Adolphus_, murmuring
disappointment, saw the _Chancellorville_ sheer from the chase.

In time they came up with her and she was an indignant ship. Gloom
and wrath was on the forecastle and wrath and gloom was on the
quarter-deck. A sad voice from the bridge said: "Just missed 'em."
Shackles gained permission to board the cruiser, and in the cabin, he
talked to Lieutenant-Commander Surrey, tall, bald-headed and angry.
"Shoals," said the captain of the _Chancellorville_. "I can't go any
nearer and those gunboats could steam along a stone sidewalk if only it
was wet." Then his bright eyes became brighter. "I tell you what! The
_Chicken_, the _Holy Moses_ and the _Mongolian_ are on station off
Nuevitas. If you will do me a favour--why, to-morrow I will give those
people a game!"


III

The _Chancellorville_ lay all night watching off the port of the two
gunboats and, soon after daylight, the lookout descried three smokes to
the westward and they were later made out to be the _Chicken_, the
_Holy Moses_ and the _Adolphus_, the latter tagging hurriedly after the
United States vessels.

The _Chicken_ had been a harbour tug but she was now the U.S.S.
_Chicken_, by your leave. She carried a six-pounder forward and a
six-pounder aft and her main point was her conspicuous vulnerability.
The _Holy Moses_ had been the private yacht of a Philadelphia
millionaire. She carried six six-pounders and her main point was the
chaste beauty of the officer's quarters.

On the bridge of the _Chancellorville_, Lieutenant-Commander Surrey
surveyed his squadron with considerable satisfaction. Presently he
signalled to the lieutenant who commanded the _Holy Moses_ and to the
boatswain who commanded the _Chicken_ to come aboard the flag-ship.
This was all very well for the captain of the yacht, but it was not so
easy for the captain of the tug-boat who had two heavy lifeboats swung
fifteen feet above the water. He had been accustomed to talking with
senior officers from his own pilot house through the intercession of
the blessed megaphone. However he got a lifeboat overside and was
pulled to the _Chancellorville_ by three men--which cut his crew almost
into halves.

In the cabin of the _Chancellorville_, Surrey disclosed to his two
captains his desires concerning the Spanish gunboats and they were glad
for being ordered down from the Nuevitas station where life was very
dull. He also announced that there was a shore battery containing, he
believed, four field guns--three-point-twos. His draught--he spoke of
it as _his_ draught--would enable him to go in close enough to engage
the battery at moderate range, but he pointed out that the main parts
of the attempt to destroy the Spanish gunboats must be left to the
_Holy Moses_ and the _Chicken_. His business, he thought, could only be
to keep the air so singing about the ears of the battery that the men
at the guns would be unable to take an interest in the dash of the
smaller American craft into the bay.

The officers spoke in their turns. The captain of the _Chicken_
announced that he saw no difficulties. The squadron would follow the
senior officer in line ahead, the _S. O._ would engage the batteries as
soon as possible, she would turn to starboard when the depth of water
forced her to do so and the _Holy Moses_ and the _Chicken_ would run
past her into the bay and fight the Spanish ships wherever they were
to be found. The captain of the _Holy Moses_ after some moments of
dignified thought said that he had no suggestions to make that would
better this plan.

Surrey pressed an electric bell; a marine orderly appeared; he was sent
with a message. The message brought the navigating officer of the
_Chancellorville_ to the cabin and the four men nosed over a chart.

In the end Surrey declared that he had made up his mind and the juniors
remained in expectant silence for three minutes while he stared at the
bulkhead. Then he said that the plan of the _Chicken's_ captain seemed
to him correct in the main. He would make one change. It was that he
should first steam in and engage the battery and the other vessels
should remain in their present positions until he signalled them to run
into the bay. If the squadron steamed ahead in line, the battery could,
if it chose, divide its fire between the cruiser and the gunboats
constituting the more important attack. He had no doubt, he said, that
he could soon silence the battery by tumbling the earth-works on to the
guns and driving away the men even if he did not succeed in hitting the
pieces. Of course he had no doubt of being able to silence the battery
in twenty minutes. Then he would signal for the _Holy Moses_ and the
_Chicken_ to make their rush, and of course he would support them with
his fire as much as conditions enabled him. He arose then indicating
that the conference was at an end. In the few moments more that all
four men remained in the cabin, the talk changed its character
completely. It was now unofficial, and the sharp badinage concealed
furtive affections, Academy friendships, the feelings of old-time
ship-mates, hiding everything under a veil of jokes. "Well, good luck
to you, old boy! Don't get that valuable packet of yours sunk under
you. Think how it would weaken the navy. Would you mind buying me three
pairs of pajamas in the town yonder? If your engines get disabled, tote
her under your arm. You can do it. Good-bye, old man, don't forget to
come out all right----"

When the captains of the _Chicken_ and the _Chicken_ emerged from the
cabin, they strode the deck with a new step. They were proud men. The
marine on duty above their boats looked at them curiously and with awe.
He detected something which meant action, conflict, The boats' crews
saw it also. As they pulled their steady stroke, they studied
fleetingly the face of the officer in the stern sheets. In both cases
they perceived a glad man and yet a man filled with a profound
consideration of the future.


IV

A bird-like whistle stirred the decks of the _Chancellorville_. It was
followed by the hoarse bellowing of the boatswain's mate. As the cruiser
turned her bow toward the shore, she happened to steam near the _Adolphus_.
The usual calm voice hailed the despatch boat. "Keep--that--gauze
under-shirt of yours--well--out of the--line of fire."

"Ay, ay, sir!"

The cruiser then moved slowly toward the shore, watched by every eye in
the smaller American vessels. She was deliberate and steady, and this
was reasonable even to the impatience of the other craft because the
wooded shore was likely to suddenly develop new factors. Slowly she
swung to starboard; smoke belched over her and the roar of a gun came
along the water.

The battery was indicated by a long thin streak of yellow earth. The
first shot went high, ploughing the chaparral on the hillside. The
_Chancellorville_ wore an air for a moment of being deep in meditation.
She flung another shell, which landed squarely on the earth-work,
making a great dun cloud. Before the smoke had settled, there was a
crimson flash from the battery. To the watchers at sea, it was smaller
than a needle. The shot made a geyser of crystal water, four hundred
yards from the _Chancellorville_.

The cruiser, having made up her mind, suddenly went at the battery,
hammer and tongs. She moved to and fro casually, but the thunder of her
guns was gruff and angry. Sometimes she was quite hidden in her own
smoke, but with exceeding regularity the earth of the battery spurted
into the air. The Spanish shells, for the most part, went high and wide
of the cruiser, jetting the water far away.

Once a Spanish gunner took a festive side-show chance at the waiting
group of the three nondescripts. It went like a flash over the
_Adolphus_, singing a wistful metallic note. Whereupon the _Adolphus_
broke hurriedly for the open sea, and men on the _Holy Moses_ and the
_Chicken_ laughed hoarsely and cruelly. The correspondents had been
standing excitedly on top of the pilot-house, but at the passing of the
shell, they promptly eliminated themselves by dropping with a thud to
the deck below. The cook again was giving tongue. "Oh, say, this won't
do! I'm damned if it will! We ain't no armoured cruiser, you know. If
one of them shells hits us--well, we finish right there. 'Tain't like
as if it was our _business_, foolin' 'round within the range of them
guns. There's no sense in it. Them other fellows don't seem to mind it,
but it's their _business_. If it's your _business_, you go ahead and do
it, but if it ain't, you--look at that, would you!"

The _Chancellorville_ had sent up a spread of flags, and the _Holy
Moses_ and the _Chicken_ were steaming in.


V

They, on the _Chancellorville_, sometimes could see into the bay,
and they perceived the enemy's gunboats moving out as if to give
battle. Surrey feared that this impulse would not endure or that
it was some mere pretence for the edification of the town's people
and the garrison, so he hastily signalled the _Holy Moses_ and the
_Chicken_ to go in. Thankful for small favours, they came on like
charging bantams. The battery had ceased firing. As the two auxiliaries
passed under the stern of the cruiser, the megaphone hailed them.
"You--will--see--the--en--em--y--soon--as--you--round--the--point.
A--fine--chance. Good--luck."

As a matter of fact, the Spanish gunboats had not been informed of the
presence of the _Holy Moses_ and the _Chicken_ off the bar, and they
were just blustering down the bay over the protective shoals to make it
appear that they scorned the _Chancellorville_. But suddenly, from
around the point, there burst into view a steam yacht, closely followed
by a harbour tug. The gunboats took one swift look at this horrible
sight and fled screaming.

Lieutenant Reigate, commanding the _Holy Moses_, had under his feet a
craft that was capable of some speed, although before a solemn
tribunal, one would have to admit that she conscientiously belied
almost everything that the contractors had said of her, originally.
Boatswain Pent, commanding the _Chicken_, was in possession of an
utterly different kind. The _Holy Moses_ was an antelope; the _Chicken_
was a man who could carry a piano on his back. In this race Pent had
the mortification of seeing his vessel outstripped badly.

The entrance of the two American craft had had a curious effect upon
the shores of the bay. Apparently everyone had slept in the assurance
that the _Chancellorville_ could not cross the bar, and that the
_Chancellorville_ was the only hostile ship. Consequently, the
appearance of the _Holy Moses_ and the _Chicken_, created a curious and
complete emotion. Reigate, on the bridge of the _Holy Moses_, laughed
when he heard the bugles shrilling and saw through his glasses the wee
figures of men running hither and thither on the shore. It was the
panic of the china when the bull entered the shop. The whole bay was
bright with sun. Every detail of the shore was plain. From a brown hut
abeam of the _Holy Moses_, some little men ran out waving their arms
and turning their tiny faces to look at the enemy. Directly ahead, some
four miles, appeared the scattered white houses of a town with a wharf,
and some schooners in front of it. The gunboats were making for the
town. There was a stone fort on the hill overshadowing, but Reigate
conjectured that there was no artillery in it.

There was a sense of something intimate and impudent in the minds of
the Americans. It was like climbing over a wall and fighting a man in
his own garden. It was not that they could be in any wise shaken in
their resolve; it was simply that the overwhelmingly Spanish aspect of
things made them feel like gruff intruders. Like many of the emotions
of war-time, this emotion had nothing at all to do with war.

Reigate's only commissioned subordinate called up from the bow gun.
"May I open fire, sir? I think I can fetch that last one."

"Yes." Immediately the six-pounder crashed, and in the air was the
spinning-wire noise of the flying shot. It struck so close to the last
gunboat that it appeared that the spray went aboard. The swift-handed
men at the gun spoke of it. "Gave 'm a bath that time anyhow. First one
they've ever had. Dry 'em off this time, Jim." The young ensign said:
"Steady." And so the _Holy Moses_ raced in, firing, until the whole
town, fort, waterfront, and shipping were as plain as if they had been
done on paper by a mechanical draftsman. The gunboats were trying to
hide in the bosom of the town. One was frantically tying up to the
wharf and the other was anchoring within a hundred yards of the shore.
The Spanish infantry, of course, had dug trenches along the beach, and
suddenly the air over the _Holy Moses_ sung with bullets. The
shore-line thrummed with musketry. Also some antique shells screamed.


VI

The _Chicken_ was doing her best. Pent's posture at the wheel seemed to
indicate that her best was about thirty-four knots. In his eagerness he
was braced as if he alone was taking in a 10,000 ton battleship through
Hell Gate.

But the _Chicken_ was not too far in the rear and Pent could see
clearly that he was to have no minor part to play. Some of the antique
shells had struck the _Holy Moses_ and he could see the escaped steam
shooting up from her. She lay close inshore and was lashing out with
four six-pounders as if this was the last opportunity she would have to
fire them. She had made the Spanish gunboats very sick. A solitary gun
on the one moored to the wharf was from time to time firing wildly;
otherwise the gunboats were silent. But the beach in front of the town
was a line of fire. The _Chicken_ headed for the _Holy Moses_ and, as
soon as possible, the six-pounder in her bow began to crack at the
gunboat moored to the wharf.

In the meantime, the _Chancellorville_ prowled off the bar, listening
to the firing, anxious, acutely anxious, and feeling her impotency in
every inch of her smart steel frame. And in the meantime, the
_Adolphus_ squatted on the waves and brazenly waited for news. One
could thoughtfully count the seconds and reckon that, in this second
and that second, a man had died--if one chose. But no one did it.
Undoubtedly, the spirit was that the flag should come away with honour,
honour complete, perfect, leaving no loose unfinished end over which
the Spaniards could erect a monument of satisfaction, glorification.
The distant guns boomed to the ears of the silent blue-jackets at their
stations on the cruiser.

The _Chicken_ steamed up to the _Holy Moses_ and took into her nostrils
the odour of steam, gunpowder and burnt things. Rifle bullets simply
steamed over them both. In the merest flash of time, Pent took into his
remembrance the body of a dead quartermaster on the bridge of his
consort. The two megaphones uplifted together, but Pent's eager voice
cried out first. "Are you injured, sir?"

"No, not completely. My engines can get me out after--after we have
sunk those gunboats." The voice had been utterly conventional but it
changed to sharpness. "Go in and sink that gunboat at anchor."

As the _Chicken_ rounded the _Holy Moses_ and started inshore, a man
called to him from the depths of finished disgust. "They're takin' to
their boats, sir." Pent looked and saw the men of the anchored gunboat
lower their boats and pull like mad for shore.

The _Chicken_, assisted by the _Holy Moses_, began a methodical
killing of the anchored gunboat. The Spanish infantry on shore fired
frenziedly at the _Chicken_. Pent, giving the wheel to a waiting sailor,
stepped out to a point where he could see the men at the guns. One
bullet spanged past him and into the pilot-house. He ducked his head
into the window. "That hit you, Murry?" he inquired with interest.

"No, sir," cheerfully responded the man at the wheel.

Pent became very busy superintending the fire of his absurd battery.
The anchored gunboat simply would not sink. It evinced that unnatural
stubbornness which is sometimes displayed by inanimate objects. The
gunboat at the wharf had sunk as if she had been scuttled but this
riddled thing at anchor would not even take fire. Pent began to grow
flurried--privately. He could not stay there for ever. Why didn't the
damned gunboat admit its destruction. Why----

He was at the forward gun when one of his engine room force came to him
and, after saluting, said serenely: "The men at the after-gun are all
down, sir."

It was one of those curious lifts which an enlisted man, without in any
way knowing it, can give his officer. The impudent tranquillity of the
man at once set Pent to rights and the stoker departed admiring the
extraordinary coolness of his captain.

The next few moments contained little but heat, an odour, applied
mechanics and an expectation of death. Pent developed a fervid and
amazed appreciation of the men, his men, men he knew very well, but
strange men. What explained them? He was doing his best because he was
captain of the _Chicken_ and he lived or died by the _Chicken_. But
what could move these men to watch his eye in bright anticipation of
his orders and then obey them with enthusiastic rapidity? What caused
them to speak of the action as some kind of a joke--particularly when
they knew he could overhear them? What manner of men? And he anointed
them secretly with his fullest affection.

Perhaps Pent did not think all this during the battle. Perhaps he
thought it so soon after the battle that his full mind became confused
as to the time. At any rate, it stands as an expression of his feeling.

The enemy had gotten a field-gun down to the shore and with it they
began to throw three-inch shells at the _Chicken_. In this war it was
usual that the down-trodden Spaniards in their ignorance should use
smokeless powder while the Americans, by the power of the consistent
everlasting three-ply, wire-woven, double back-action imbecility of a
hay-seed government, used powder which on sea and on land cried their
position to heaven, and, accordingly, good men got killed without
reason. At first, Pent could not locate the field-gun at all, but as
soon as he found it, he ran aft with one man and brought the after
six-pounder again into action. He paid little heed to the old gun crew.
One was lying on his face apparently dead; another was prone with a
wound in the chest, while the third sat with his back to the deck-house
holding a smitten arm. This last one called out huskily, "Give'm hell,
sir."

The minutes of the battle were either days, years, or they were flashes
of a second. Once Pent looking up was astonished to see three shell
holes in the _Chicken's_ funnel--made surreptitiously, so to speak....
"If we don't silence that field-gun, she'll sink us, boys." ... The
eyes of the man sitting with his back against the deck-house were
looking from out his ghastly face at the new gun-crew. He spoke with
the supreme laziness of a wounded man. "Give'm hell." ... Pent felt a
sudden twist of his shoulder. He was wounded--slightly.... The anchored
gunboat was in flames.


VII

Pent took his little blood-stained tow-boat out to the _Holy Moses_.
The yacht was already under way for the bay entrance. As they were
passing out of range the Spaniards heroically redoubled their
fire--which is their custom. Pent, moving busily about the decks,
stopped suddenly at the door of the engine-room. His face was set and
his eyes were steely. He spoke to one of the engineers. "During the
action I saw you firing at the enemy with a rifle. I told you once to
stop, and then I saw you at it again. Pegging away with a rifle is no
part of your business. I want you to understand that you are in
trouble." The humbled man did not raise his eyes from the deck.
Presently the _Holy Moses_ displayed an anxiety for the _Chicken's_
health.

"One killed and four wounded, sir."

"Have you enough men left to work your ship?"

After deliberation, Pent answered: "No, sir."

"Shall I send you assistance?"

"No, sir. I can get to sea all right."

As they neared the point they were edified by the sudden appearance of
a serio-comic ally. The _Chancellorville_ at last had been unable to
stand the strain, and had sent in her launch with an ensign, five
seamen and a number of marksmen marines. She swept hot-foot around the
point, bent on terrible slaughter; the one-pounder of her bow presented
a formidable appearance. The _Holy Moses_ and the _Chicken_ laughed
until they brought indignation to the brow of the young ensign. But he
forgot it when with some of his men he boarded the _Chicken_ to do what
was possible for the wounded. The nearest surgeon was aboard the
_Chancellorville_. There was absolute silence on board the cruiser as
the _Holy Moses_ steamed up to report. The blue-jackets listened with
all their ears. The commander of the yacht spoke slowly into his
megaphone: "We have--destroyed--the two--gun-boats--sir." There was a
burst of confused cheering on the forecastle of the _Chancellorville_,
but an officer's cry quelled it.

"Very--good. Will--you--come aboard?"

Two correspondents were already on the deck of the cruiser. Before the
last of the wounded were hoisted aboard the cruiser the _Adolphus_ was
on her way to Key West. When she arrived at that port of desolation
Shackles fled to file the telegrams and the other correspondents fled
to the hotel for clothes, good clothes, clean clothes; and food, good
food, much food; and drink, much drink, any kind of drink.

Days afterward, when the officers of the noble squadron received the
newspapers containing an account of their performance, they looked at
each other somewhat dejectedly: "Heroic assault--grand daring of
Boatswain Pent--superb accuracy of the _Holy Moses'_ fire--gallant
tars of the _Chicken_--their names should be remembered as long as
America stands--terrible losses of the enemy----"

When the Secretary of the Navy ultimately read the report of Commander
Surrey, S.O.P., he had to prick himself with a dagger in order to
remember that anything at all out of the ordinary had occurred.




THE SERGEANT'S PRIVATE MADHOUSE


The moonlight was almost steady blue flame and all this radiance was
lavished out upon a still lifeless wilderness of stunted trees and
cactus plants. The shadows lay upon the ground, pools of black and
sharply outlined, resembling substances, fabrics, and not shadows at
all. From afar came the sound of the sea coughing among the hollows in
the coral rock.

The land was very empty; one could easily imagine that Cuba was a
simple vast solitude; one could wonder at the moon taking all the
trouble of this splendid illumination. There was no wind; nothing
seemed to live.

But in a particular large group of shadows lay an outpost of some forty
United States marines. If it had been possible to approach them from
any direction without encountering one of their sentries, one could
have gone stumbling among sleeping men and men who sat waiting, their
blankets tented over their heads; one would have been in among them
before one's mind could have decided whether they were men or devils.
If a marine moved, he took the care and the time of one who walks
across a death-chamber. The lieutenant in command reached for his watch
and the nickel chain gave forth the faintest tinkling sound. He could
see the glistening five or six pairs of eyes that slowly turned to
regard him. His sergeant lay near him and he bent his face down to
whisper. "Who's on post behind the big cactus plant?"

"Dryden," rejoined the sergeant just over his breath.

After a pause the lieutenant murmured: "He's got too many nerves. I
shouldn't have put him there." The sergeant asked if he should crawl
down and look into affairs at Dryden's post. The young officer nodded
assent and the sergeant, softly cocking his rifle, went away on his
hands and knees. The lieutenant with his back to a dwarf tree, sat
watching the sergeant's progress for the few moments that he could see
him moving from one shadow to another. Afterward, the officer waited to
hear Dryden's quick but low-voiced challenge, but time passed and no
sound came from the direction of the post behind the cactus bush.

The sergeant, as he came nearer and nearer to this cactus bush--a
number of peculiarly dignified columns throwing shadows of inky
darkness--had slowed his pace, for he did not wish to trifle with the
feelings of the sentry, and he was expecting the stern hail and was
ready with the immediate answer which turns away wrath. He was not made
anxious by the fact that he could not yet see Dryden, for he knew that
the man would be hidden in a way practised by sentry marines since the
time when two men had been killed by a disease of excessive confidence
on picket. Indeed, as the sergeant went still nearer, he became more
and more angry. Dryden was evidently a most proper sentry.

Finally he arrived at a point where he could see Dryden seated in the
shadow, staring into the bushes ahead of him, his rifle ready on his
knee. The sergeant in his rage longed for the peaceful precincts of the
Washington Marine Barracks where there would have been no situation to
prevent the most complete non-commissioned oratory. He felt indecent in
his capacity of a man able to creep up to the back of a G Company
member on guard duty. Never mind; in the morning back at camp----

But, suddenly, he felt afraid. There was something wrong with Dryden.
He remembered old tales of comrades creeping out to find a picket
seated against a tree perhaps, upright enough but stone dead. The
sergeant paused and gave the inscrutable back of the sentry a long
stare. Dubious he again moved forward. At three paces, he hissed like a
little snake. Dryden did not show a sign of hearing. At last, the
sergeant was in a position from which he was able to reach out and
touch Dryden on the arm. Whereupon was turned to him the face of a man
livid with mad fright. The sergeant grabbed him by the wrist and with
discreet fury shook him. "Here! Pull yourself together!"

Dryden paid no heed but turned his wild face from the newcomer to the
ground in front. "Don't you see 'em, sergeant? Don't you see 'em?"

"Where?" whispered the sergeant.

"Ahead, and a little on the right flank. A reg'lar skirmish line. Don't
you see 'em?"

"Naw," whispered the sergeant. Dryden began to shake. He began moving
one hand from his head to his knee and from his knee to his head
rapidly, in a way that is without explanation. "I don't dare fire," he
wept. "If I do they'll see me, and oh, how they'll pepper me!"

The sergeant lying on his belly, understood one thing. Dryden had gone
mad. Dryden was the March Hare. The old man gulped down his uproarious
emotions as well as he was able and used the most simple device. "Go,"
he said, "and tell the lieutenant while I cover your post for you."

"No! They'd see me! They'd see me! And then they'd pepper me! O, how
they'd pepper me!"

The sergeant was face to face with the biggest situation of his life.
In the first place he knew that at night a large or small force of
Spanish guerillas was never more than easy rifle range from any marine
outpost, both sides maintaining a secrecy as absolute as possible in
regard to their real position and strength. Everything was on a
watch-spring foundation. A loud word might be paid for by a
night-attack which would involve five hundred men who needed their
earned sleep, not to speak of some of them who would need their lives.
The slip of a foot and the rolling of a pint of gravel might go from
consequence to consequence until various crews went to general quarters
on their ships in the harbour, their batteries booming as the swift
search-light flashes tore through the foliage. Men would get
killed--notably the sergeant and Dryden--and outposts would be cut off
and the whole night would be one pitiless turmoil. And so Sergeant
George H. Peasley began to run his private madhouse behind the
cactus-bush.

"Dryden," said the sergeant, "you do as I tell you and go tell the
lieutenant."

"I don't dare move," shivered the man. "They'll see me if I move.
They'll see me. They're almost up now. Let's hide----"

"Well, then you stay here a moment and I'll go and----"

Dryden turned upon him a look so tigerish that the old man felt his
hair move. "Don't you stir," he hissed. "You want to give me away. You
want them to see me. Don't you stir." The sergeant decided not to stir.

He became aware of the slow wheeling of eternity, its majestic
incomprehensibility of movement. Seconds, minutes, were quaint little
things, tangible as toys, and there were billions of them, all alike.
"Dryden," he whispered at the end of a century in which, curiously, he
had never joined the marine corps at all but had taken to another walk
of life and prospered greatly in it. "Dryden, this is all foolishness."
He thought of the expedient of smashing the man over the head with his
rifle, but Dryden was so supernaturally alert that there surely would
issue some small scuffle and there could be not even the fraction of a
scuffle. The sergeant relapsed into the contemplation of another
century.

His patient had one fine virtue. He was in such terror of the phantom
skirmish line that his voice never went above a whisper, whereas his
delusion might have expressed itself in hyena yells and shots from his
rifle. The sergeant, shuddering, had visions of how it might have
been--the mad private leaping into the air and howling and shooting at
his friends and making them the centre of the enemy's eager attention.
This, to his mind, would have been conventional conduct for a maniac.
The trembling victim of an idea was somewhat puzzling. The sergeant
decided that from time to time he would reason with his patient. "Look
here, Dryden, you don't see any real Spaniards. You've been drinking
or--something. Now----"

But Dryden only glared him into silence. Dryden was inspired with such
a profound contempt of him that it was become hatred. "Don't you stir!"
And it was clear that if the sergeant did stir, the mad private would
introduce calamity. "Now," said Peasley to himself, "if those guerillas
_should_ take a crack at us to-night, they'd find a lunatic asylum
right in the front and it would be astonishing."

The silence of the night was broken by the quick low voice of a sentry
to the left some distance. The breathless stillness brought an effect
to the words as if they had been spoken in one's ear.

"_Halt--who's there--halt or I'll fire!_" Bang!

At the moment of sudden attack particularly at night, it is improbable
that a man registers much detail of either thought or action. He may
afterward say: "I was here." He may say: "I was there." "I did this."
"I did that." But there remains a great incoherency because of the
tumultuous thought which seethes through the head. "Is this defeat?" At
night in a wilderness and against skilful foes half-seen, one does not
trouble to ask if it is also Death. Defeat is Death, then, save for the
miraculous. But the exaggerating magnifying first thought subsides in
the ordered mind of the soldier and he knows, soon, what he is doing
and how much of it. The sergeant's immediate impulse had been to
squeeze close to the ground and listen--listen--above all else, listen.
But the next moment he grabbed his private asylum by the scruff of its
neck, jerked it to its feet and started to retreat upon the main
outpost.

To the left, rifle-flashes were bursting from the shadows. To the rear,
the lieutenant was giving some hoarse order or admonition. Through the
air swept some Spanish bullets, very high, as if they had been fired at
a man in a tree. The private asylum came on so hastily that the
sergeant found he could remove his grip, and soon they were in the
midst of the men of the outpost. Here there was no occasion for
enlightening the lieutenant. In the first place such surprises required
statement, question and answer. It is impossible to get a grossly
original and fantastic idea through a man's head in less than one
minute of rapid talk, and the sergeant knew the lieutenant could not
spare the minute. He himself had no minutes to devote to anything but
the business of the outpost. And the madman disappeared from his pen
and he forgot about him.

It was a long night and the little fight was as long as the night. It
was a heart-breaking work. The forty marines lay in an irregular oval.
From all sides, the Mauser bullets sang low and hard. Their occupation
was to prevent a rush, and to this end they potted carefully at the
flash of a Mauser--save when they got excited for a moment, in which
case their magazines rattled like a great Waterbury watch. Then they
settled again to a systematic potting.

The enemy were not of the regular Spanish forces. They were of a corps
of guerillas, native-born Cubans, who preferred the flag of Spain. They
were all men who knew the craft of the woods and were all recruited
from the district. They fought more like red Indians than any people
but the red Indians themselves. Each seemed to possess an
individuality, a fighting individuality, which is only found in the
highest order of irregular soldiers. Personally they were as distinct
as possible, but through equality of knowledge and experience, they
arrived at concert of action. So long as they operated in the
wilderness, they were formidable troops. It mattered little whether it
was daylight or dark; they were mainly invisible. They had schooled
from the Cubans insurgent to Spain. As the Cubans fought the Spanish
troops, so would these particular Spanish troops fight the Americans.
It was wisdom.

The marines thoroughly understood the game. They must lie close and
fight until daylight when the guerillas promptly would go away. They
had withstood other nights of this kind, and now their principal
emotion was probably a sort of frantic annoyance.

Back at the main camp, whenever the roaring volleys lulled, the men in
the trenches could hear their comrades of the outpost, and the
guerillas pattering away interminably. The moonlight faded and left an
equal darkness upon the wilderness. A man could barely see the comrade
at his side. Sometimes guerillas crept so close that the flame from
their rifles seemed to scorch the faces of the marines, and the reports
sounded as if from two or three inches of their very noses. If a pause
came, one could hear the guerillas gabbling to each other in a kind of
drunken delirium. The lieutenant was praying that the ammunition would
last. Everybody was praying for daybreak.

A black hour came finally, when the men were not fit to have their
troubles increased. The enemy made a wild attack on one portion of the
oval, which was held by about fifteen men. The remainder of the force
was busy enough, and the fifteen were naturally left to their devices.
Amid the whirl of it, a loud voice suddenly broke out in
song:

    "When shepherds guard their flocks by night,
      All seated on the ground,
    An angel of the Lord came down
      And glory shone around."

"Who the hell is that?" demanded the lieutenant from a throat full of
smoke. There was almost a full stop of the firing. The Americans were
somewhat puzzled. Practical ones muttered that the fool should have a
bayonet-hilt shoved down his throat. Others felt a thrill at the
strangeness of the thing. Perhaps it was a sign!

    "The minstrel boy to the war has gone,
      In the ranks of death you'll find him,
    His father's sword he has girded on
      And his wild harp slung behind him."

This croak was as lugubrious as a coffin. "Who is it? Who is it?"
snapped the lieutenant. "Stop him, somebody."

"It's Dryden, sir," said old Sergeant Peasley, as he felt around in the
darkness for his madhouse. "I can't find him--yet."

    "Please, O, please, O, do not let me fall;
      You're--gurgh--ugh----"

The sergeant had pounced upon him.

This singing had had an effect upon the Spaniards. At first they had
fired frenziedly at the voice, but they soon ceased, perhaps from sheer
amazement. Both sides took a spell of meditation.

The sergeant was having some difficulty with his charge. "Here, you,
grab 'im. Take 'im by the throat. Be quiet, you devil."

One of the fifteen men, who had been hard-pressed, called out, "We've
only got about one clip a-piece, Lieutenant. If they come again----"

The lieutenant crawled to and fro among his men, taking clips of
cartridges from those who had many. He came upon the sergeant and his
madhouse. He felt Dryden's belt and found it simply stuffed with
ammunition. He examined Dryden's rifle and found in it a full clip. The
madhouse had not fired a shot. The lieutenant distributed these
valuable prizes among the fifteen men. As the men gratefully took them,
one said: "If they had come again hard enough, they would have had us,
sir,--maybe."

But the Spaniards did not come again. At the first indication of
daybreak, they fired their customary good-bye volley. The marines lay
tight while the slow dawn crept over the land. Finally the lieutenant
arose among them, and he was a bewildered man, but very angry. "Now
where is that idiot, Sergeant?"

"Here he is, sir," said the old man cheerfully. He was seated on the
ground beside the recumbent Dryden who, with an innocent smile on his
face, was sound asleep.

"Wake him up," said the lieutenant briefly.

The sergeant shook the sleeper. "Here, Minstrel Boy, turn out. The
lieutenant wants you."

Dryden climbed to his feet and saluted the officer with a dazed and
childish air. "Yes, sir."

The lieutenant was obviously having difficulty in governing his
feelings, but he managed to say with calmness, "You seem to be fond of
singing, Dryden? Sergeant, see if he has any whisky on him."

"Sir?" said the madhouse stupefied. "Singing--fond of singing?"

Here the sergeant interposed gently, and he and the lieutenant held
palaver apart from the others. The marines, hitching more comfortably
their almost empty belts, spoke with grins of the madhouse. "Well, the
Minstrel Boy made 'em clear out. They couldn't stand it. But--I
wouldn't want to be in his boots. He'll see fireworks when the old man
interviews him on the uses of grand opera in modern warfare. How do you
think he managed to smuggle a bottle along without us finding it out?"

When the weary outpost was relieved and marched back to camp, the men
could not rest until they had told a tale of the voice in the
wilderness. In the meantime the sergeant took Dryden aboard a ship, and
to those who took charge of the man, he defined him as "the most useful
---- ---- crazy man in the service of the United States."




VIRTUE IN WAR


I

Gates had left the regular army in 1890, those parts of him which had
not been frozen having been well fried. He took with him nothing but an
oaken constitution and a knowledge of the plains and the best wishes of
his fellow-officers. The Standard Oil Company differs from the United
States Government in that it understands the value of the loyal and
intelligent services of good men and is almost certain to reward them
at the expense of incapable men. This curious practice emanates from no
beneficent emotion of the Standard Oil Company, on whose feelings you
could not make a scar with a hammer and chisel. It is simply that the
Standard Oil Company knows more than the United States Government and
makes use of virtue whenever virtue is to its advantage. In 1890 Gates
really felt in his bones that, if he lived a rigorously correct life
and several score of his class-mates and intimate friends died off, he
would get command of a troop of horse by the time he was unfitted by
age to be an active cavalry leader. He left the service of the United
States and entered the service of the Standard Oil Company. In the
course of time he knew that, if he lived a rigorously correct life, his
position and income would develop strictly in parallel with the worth
of his wisdom and experience, and he would not have to walk on the
corpses of his friends.

But he was not happier. Part of his heart was in a barracks, and it was
not enough to discourse of the old regiment over the port and cigars to
ears which were polite enough to betray a languid ignorance. Finally
came the year 1898, and Gates dropped the Standard Oil Company as if it
were hot. He hit the steel trail to Washington and there fought the
first serious action of the war. Like most Americans, he had a native
State, and one morning he found himself major in a volunteer infantry
regiment whose voice had a peculiar sharp twang to it which he could
remember from childhood. The colonel welcomed the West Pointer with
loud cries of joy; the lieutenant-colonel looked at him with the pebbly
eye of distrust; and the senior major, having had up to this time the
best battalion in the regiment, strongly disapproved of him. There were
only two majors, so the lieutenant-colonel commanded the first
battalion, which gave him an occupation. Lieutenant-colonels under the
new rules do not always have occupations. Gates got the third
battalion--four companies commanded by intelligent officers who could
gauge the opinions of their men at two thousand yards and govern
themselves accordingly. The battalion was immensely interested in the
new major. It thought it ought to develop views about him. It thought
it was its blankety-blank business to find out immediately if it liked
him personally. In the company streets the talk was nothing else. Among
the non-commissioned officers there were eleven old soldiers of the
regular army, and they knew--and cared--that Gates had held commission
in the "Sixteenth Cavalry"--as _Harper's Weekly_ says. Over this fact
they rejoiced and were glad, and they stood by to jump lively when he
took command. He would know his work and he would know _their_ work,
and then in battle there would be killed only what men were absolutely
necessary and the sick list would be comparatively free of fools.

The commander of the second battalion had been called by an Atlanta
paper, "Major Rickets C. Carmony, the commander of the second battalion
of the 307th ----, is when at home one of the biggest wholesale
hardware dealers in his State. Last evening he had ice-cream, at his
own expense, served out at the regular mess of the battalion, and after
dinner the men gathered about his tent where three hearty cheers for
the popular major were given." Carmony had bought twelve copies of this
newspaper and mailed them home to his friends.

In Gates's battalion there were more kicks than ice-cream, and there
was no ice-cream at all. Indignation ran high at the rapid manner in
which he proceeded to make soldiers of them. Some of his officers
hinted finally that the men wouldn't stand it. They were saying that
they had enlisted to fight for their country--yes, but they weren't
going to be bullied day in and day out by a perfect stranger. They were
patriots, they were, and just as good men as ever stepped--just as good
as Gates or anybody like him. But, gradually, despite itself, the
battalion progressed. The men were not altogether conscious of it. They
evolved rather blindly. Presently there were fights with Carmony's
crowd as to which was the better battalion at drills, and at last there
was no argument. It was generally admitted that Gates commanded the
crack battalion. The men, believing that the beginning and the end of
all soldiering was in these drills of precision, were somewhat
reconciled to their major when they began to understand more of what he
was trying to do for them, but they were still fiery untamed patriots
of lofty pride and they resented his manner toward them. It was abrupt
and sharp.

The time came when everybody knew that the Fifth Army Corps was the
corps designated for the first active service in Cuba. The officers and
men of the 307th observed with despair that their regiment was not in
the Fifth Army Corps. The colonel was a strategist. He understood
everything in a flash. Without a moment's hesitation he obtained leave
and mounted the night express for Washington. There he drove Senators
and Congressmen in span, tandem and four-in-hand. With the telegraph he
stirred so deeply the governor, the people and the newspapers of his
State that whenever on a quiet night the President put his head out of
the White House he could hear the distant vast commonwealth humming
with indignation. And as it is well known that the Chief Executive
listens to the voice of the people, the 307th was transferred to the
Fifth Army Corps. It was sent at once to Tampa, where it was brigaded
with two dusty regiments of regulars, who looked at it calmly, and said
nothing. The brigade commander happened to be no less a person than
Gates's old colonel in the "Sixteenth Cavalry"--as HARPER'S WEEKLY
says--and Gates was cheered. The old man's rather solemn look
brightened when he saw Gates in the 307th. There was a great deal of
battering and pounding and banging for the 307th at Tampa, but the men
stood it more in wonder than in anger. The two regular regiments
carried them along when they could, and when they couldn't waited
impatiently for them to come up. Undoubtedly the regulars wished the
volunteers were in garrison at Sitka, but they said practically
nothing. They minded their own regiments. The colonel was an invaluable
man in a telegraph office. When came the scramble for transports the
colonel retired to a telegraph office and talked so ably to Washington
that the authorities pushed a number of corps aside and made way for
the 307th, as if on it depended everything. The regiment got one of the
best transports, and after a series of delays and some starts, and an
equal number of returns, they finally sailed for Cuba.


II

Now Gates had a singular adventure on the second morning after his
arrival at Atlanta to take his post as a major in the 307th.

He was in his tent, writing, when suddenly the flap was flung away and
a tall young private stepped inside.

"Well, Maje," said the newcomer, genially, "how goes it?"

The major's head flashed up, but he spoke without heat.

"Come to attention and salute."

"Huh!" said the private.

"Come to attention and salute."

The private looked at him in resentful amazement, and then inquired:

"Ye ain't mad, are ye? Ain't nothin' to get huffy about, is there?"

"I---- Come to attention and salute."

"Well," drawled the private, as he stared, "seein' as ye are so darn
perticular, I don't care if I do--if it'll make yer meals set on yer
stomick any better."

Drawing a long breath and grinning ironically, he lazily pulled his
heels together and saluted with a flourish.

"There," he said, with a return to his earlier genial manner. "How's
that suit ye, Maje?"

There was a silence which to an impartial observer would have seemed
pregnant with dynamite and bloody death. Then the major cleared his
throat and coldly said:

"And now, what is your business?"

"Who--me?" asked the private. "Oh, I just sorter dropped in." With a
deeper meaning he added: "Sorter dropped in in a friendly way, thinkin'
ye was mebbe a different kind of a feller from what ye be."

The inference was clearly marked.

It was now Gates's turn to stare, and stare he unfeignedly did.

"Go back to your quarters," he said at length.

The volunteer became very angry.

"Oh, ye needn't be so up-in-th'-air, need ye? Don't know's I'm dead
anxious to inflict my company on yer since I've had a good look at ye.
There may be men in this here battalion what's had just as much
edjewcation as you have, and I'm damned if they ain't got better
_manners_. Good-mornin'," he said, with dignity; and, passing out of
the tent, he flung the flap back in place with an air of slamming it as
if it had been a door. He made his way back to his company street,
striding high. He was furious. He met a large crowd of his comrades.

"What's the matter, Lige?" asked one, who noted his temper.

"Oh, nothin'," answered Lige, with terrible feeling. "Nothin'. I jest
been lookin' over the new major--that's all."

"What's he like?" asked another.

"Like?" cried Lige. "He's like nothin'. He ain't out'n the same kittle
as us. No. Gawd made him all by himself--sep'rate. He's a speshul
produc', he is, an' he won't have no truck with jest common--_men_,
like you be."

He made a venomous gesture which included them all.

"Did he set on ye?" asked a soldier.

"Set on me? No," replied Lige, with contempt "I set on _him_. I sized
'im up in a minute. 'Oh, I don't know,' I says, as I was comin' out;
'guess you ain't the only man in the world,' I says."

For a time Lige Wigram was quite a hero. He endlessly repeated the tale
of his adventure, and men admired him for so soon taking the conceit
out of the new officer. Lige was proud to think of himself as a plain
and simple patriot who had refused to endure any high-soaring nonsense.

But he came to believe that he had not disturbed the singular composure
of the major, and this concreted his hatred. He hated Gates, not as a
soldier sometimes hates an officer, a hatred half of fear. Lige hated
as man to man. And he was enraged to see that so far from gaining any
hatred in return, he seemed incapable of making Gates have any thought
of him save as a unit in a body of three hundred men. Lige might just
as well have gone and grimaced at the obelisk in Central Park.

When the battalion became the best in the regiment he had no part in
the pride of the companies. He was sorry when men began to speak well
of Gates. He was really a very consistent hater.


III

The transport occupied by the 307th was commanded by some sort of a
Scandinavian, who was afraid of the shadows of his own topmasts. He
would have run his steamer away from a floating Gainsborough hat, and,
in fact, he ran her away from less on some occasions. The officers,
wishing to arrive with the other transports, sometimes remonstrated,
and to them he talked of his owners. Every officer in the convoying
warships loathed him, for in case any hostile vessel should appear they
did not see how they were going to protect this rabbit, who would
probably manage during a fight to be in about a hundred places on the
broad, broad sea, and all of them offensive to the navy's plan. When he
was not talking of his owners he was remarking to the officers of the
regiment that a steamer really was not like a valise, and that he was
unable to take his ship under his arm and climb trees with it. He
further said that "them naval fellows" were not near so smart as they
thought they were.

From an indigo sea arose the lonely shore of Cuba. Ultimately, the
fleet was near Santiago, and most of the transports were bidden to wait
a minute while the leaders found out their minds. The skipper, to whom
the 307th were prisoners, waited for thirty hours half way between
Jamaica and Cuba. He explained that the Spanish fleet might emerge from
Santiago Harbour at any time, and he did not propose to be caught. His
owners---- Whereupon the colonel arose as one having nine hundred men at
his back, and he passed up to the bridge and he spake with the captain.
He explained indirectly that each individual of his nine hundred men
had decided to be the first American soldier to land for this campaign,
and that in order to accomplish the marvel it was necessary for the
transport to be nearer than forty-five miles from the Cuban coast. If
the skipper would only land the regiment the colonel would consent to
his then taking his interesting old ship and going to h---- with it.
And the skipper spake with the colonel. He pointed out that as far as
he officially was concerned, the United States Government did not
exist. He was responsible solely to his owners. The colonel pondered
these sayings. He perceived that the skipper meant that he was running
his ship as he deemed best, in consideration of the capital invested by
his owners, and that he was not at all concerned with the feelings of a
certain American military expedition to Cuba. He was a free son of the
sea--he was a sovereign citizen of the republic of the waves. He was
like Lige.

However, the skipper ultimately incurred the danger of taking his
ship under the terrible guns of the _New York_, _Iowa_, _Oregon_,
_Massachusetts_, _Indiana_, _Brooklyn_, _Texas_ and a score of cruisers
and gunboats. It was a brave act for the captain of a United States
transport, and he was visibly nervous until he could again get to sea,
where he offered praises that the accursed 307th was no longer sitting
on his head. For almost a week he rambled at his cheerful will over the
adjacent high seas, having in his hold a great quantity of military
stores as successfully secreted as if they had been buried in a copper
box in the cornerstone of a new public building in Boston. He had had
his master's certificate for twenty-one years, and those people
couldn't tell a marlin-spike from the starboard side of the ship.

The 307th was landed in Cuba, but to their disgust they found that
about ten thousand regulars were ahead of them. They got immediate
orders to move out from the base on the road to Santiago. Gates was
interested to note that the only delay was caused by the fact that many
men of the other battalions strayed off sight-seeing. In time the long
regiment wound slowly among hills that shut them from sight of the sea.

For the men to admire, there were palm-trees, little brown huts,
passive, uninterested Cuban soldiers much worn from carrying American
rations inside and outside. The weather was not oppressively warm, and
the journey was said to be only about seven miles. There were no
rumours save that there had been one short fight and the army had
advanced to within sight of Santiago. Having a peculiar faculty for the
derision of the romantic, the 307th began to laugh. Actually there was
not _anything_ in the world which turned out to be as books describe
it. Here they had landed from the transport expecting to be at once
flung into line of battle and sent on some kind of furious charge, and
now they were trudging along a quiet trail lined with somnolent trees
and grass. The whole business so far struck them as being a highly
tedious burlesque.

After a time they came to where the camps of regular regiments marked
the sides of the road--little villages of tents no higher than a man's
waist. The colonel found his brigade commander and the 307th was sent
off into a field of long grass, where the men grew suddenly solemn with
the importance of getting their supper.

In the early evening some regulars told one of Gates's companies that
at daybreak this division would move to an attack upon something.

"How d'you know?" said the company, deeply awed.

"Heard it."

"Well, what are we to attack?"

"Dunno."

The 307th was not at all afraid, but each man began to imagine the
morrow. The regulars seemed to have as much interest in the morrow as
they did in the last Christmas. It was none of their affair,
apparently.

"Look here," said Lige Wigram, to a man in the 17th Regular Infantry,
"whereabouts are we goin' ter-morrow an' who do we run up against--do
ye know?"

The 17th soldier replied, truculently: "If I ketch th' ---- ---- ----
what stole my terbaccer, I'll whirl in an' break every ---- ---- bone
in his body."

Gates's friends in the regular regiments asked him numerous questions
as to the reliability of his organisation. Would the 307th stand the
racket? They were certainly not contemptuous; they simply did not seem
to consider it important whether the 307th would or whether it would
not.

"Well," said Gates, "they won't run the length of a tent-peg if they
can gain any idea of what they're fighting; they won't bunch if they've
about six acres of open ground to move in; they won't get rattled at
all if they see you fellows taking it easy, and they'll fight like the
devil as long as they thoroughly, completely, absolutely,
satisfactorily, exhaustively understand what the business is. They're
lawyers. All excepting my battalion."


IV

Lige awakened into a world obscured by blue fog. Somebody was gently
shaking him. "Git up; we're going to move." The regiment was buckling
up itself. From the trail came the loud creak of a light battery moving
ahead. The tones of all men were low; the faces of the officers were
composed, serious. The regiment found itself moving along behind the
battery before it had time to ask itself more than a hundred questions.
The trail wound through a dense tall jungle, dark, heavy with dew.

The battle broke with a snap--far ahead. Presently Lige heard from the
air above him a faint low note as if somebody were blowing softly in
the mouth of a bottle. It was a stray bullet which had wandered a mile
to tell him that war was before him. He nearly broke his neck looking
upward. "Did ye hear that?" But the men were fretting to get out of
this gloomy jungle. They wanted to see something. The faint
rup-rup-rrrrup-rup on in the front told them that the fight had begun;
death was abroad, and so the mystery of this wilderness excited them.
This wilderness was portentously still and dark.

They passed the battery aligned on a hill above the trail, and they had
not gone far when the gruff guns began to roar and they could hear the
rocket-like swish of the flying shells. Presently everybody must have
called out for the assistance of the 307th. Aides and couriers came
flying back to them.

"Is this the 307th? Hurry up your men, please, Colonel. You're needed
more every minute."

Oh, they were, were they? Then the regulars were not going to do _all_
the fighting? The old 307th was bitterly proud or proudly bitter. They
left their blanket rolls under the guard of God and pushed on, which
is one of the reasons why the Cubans of that part of the country
were, later, so well equipped. There began to appear fields, hot,
golden-green in the sun. On some palm-dotted knolls before them they
could see little lines of black dots--the American advance. A few men
fell, struck down by other men who, perhaps half a mile away, were
aiming at somebody else. The loss was wholly in Carmony's battalion,
which immediately bunched and backed away, coming with a shock against
Gates's advance company. This shock sent a tremor through all of
Gates's battalion until men in the very last files cried out nervously,
"Well, what in hell is up now?" There came an order to deploy and
advance. An occasional hoarse yell from the regulars could be heard.
The deploying made Gates's heart bleed for the colonel. The old man
stood there directing the movement, straight, fearless, sombrely
defiant of--everything. Carmony's four companies were like four herds.
And all the time the bullets from no living man knows where kept
pecking at them and pecking at them. Gates, the excellent Gates, the
highly educated and strictly military Gates, grew rankly insubordinate.
He knew that the regiment was suffering from nothing but the deadly
range and oversweep of the modern rifle, of which many proud and
confident nations know nothing save that they have killed savages with
it, which is the least of all informations.

Gates rushed upon Carmony.

"---- ---- it, man, if you can't get your people to deploy, for ----
sake give me a chance! I'm stuck in the woods!"

Carmony gave nothing, but Gates took all he could get and his battalion
deployed and advanced like men. The old colonel almost burst into
tears, and he cast one quick glance of gratitude at Gates, which the
younger officer wore on his heart like a secret decoration.

There was a wild scramble up hill, down dale, through thorny thickets.
Death smote them with a kind of slow rhythm, leisurely taking a man now
here, now there, but the cat-spit sound of the bullets was always. A
large number of the men of Carmony's battalion came on with Gates. They
were willing to do anything, anything. They had no real fault, unless
it was that early conclusion that any brave high-minded youth was
necessarily a good soldier immediately, from the beginning. In them had
been born a swift feeling that the unpopular Gates knew everything, and
they followed the trained soldier.

If they followed him, he certainly took them into it. As they swung
heavily up one steep hill, like so many wind-blown horses, they came
suddenly out into the real advance. Little blue groups of men were
making frantic rushes forward and then flopping down on their bellies
to fire volleys while other groups made rushes. Ahead they could see a
heavy house-like fort which was inadequate to explain from whence came
the myriad bullets. The remainder of the scene was landscape. Pale men,
yellow men, blue men came out of this landscape quiet and sad-eyed with
wounds. Often they were grimly facetious. There is nothing in the
American regulars so amazing as his conduct when he is wounded--his
apologetic limp, his deprecatory arm-sling, his embarrassed and ashamed
shot-hole through the lungs. The men of the 307th looked at calm
creatures who had divers punctures and they were made better. These men
told them that it was only necessary to keep a-going. They of the 307th
lay on their bellies, red, sweating and panting, and heeded the voice
of the elder brother.

Gates walked back of his line, very white of face, but hard and stern
past anything his men knew of him. After they had violently adjured him
to lie down and he had given weak backs a cold, stiff touch, the 307th
charged by rushes. The hatless colonel made frenzied speech, but the
man of the time was Gates. The men seemed to feel that this was his
business. Some of the regular officers said afterward that the advance
of the 307th was very respectable indeed. They were rather surprised,
they said. At least five of the crack regiments of the regular army
were in this division, and the 307th could win no more than a feeling
of kindly appreciation.

Yes, it was very good, very good indeed, but did you notice what was
being done at the same moment by the 12th, the 17th, the 7th, the 8th,
the 25th, the----

Gates felt that his charge was being a success. He was carrying out a
successful function. Two captains fell bang on the grass and a
lieutenant slumped quietly down with a death wound. Many men sprawled
suddenly. Gates was keeping his men almost even with the regulars, who
were charging on his flanks. Suddenly he thought that he must have come
close to the fort and that a Spaniard had tumbled a great stone block
down upon his leg. Twelve hands reached out to help him, but he cried:

"No--d---- your souls--go on--go on!"

He closed his eyes for a moment, and it really was only for a moment.
When he opened them he found himself alone with Lige Wigram, who lay on
the ground near him.

"Maje," said Lige, "yer a good man. I've been a-follerin' ye all day
an' I want to say yer a good man."

The major turned a coldly scornful eye upon the private.

"Where are you wounded? Can you walk? Well, if you can, go to the rear
and leave me alone. I'm bleeding to death, and you bother me."

Lige, despite the pain in his wounded shoulder, grew indignant.

"Well," he mumbled, "you and me have been on th' outs fer a long time,
an' I only wanted to tell ye that what I seen of ye t'day has made me
feel mighty different."

"Go to the rear--if you can walk," said the major.

"Now, Maje, look here. A little thing like that----"

"Go to the rear."

Lige gulped with sobs.

"Maje, I know I didn't understand ye at first, but ruther'n let a
little thing like that come between us, I'd--I'd----"

"Go to the rear."

In this reiteration Lige discovered a resemblance to that first old
offensive phrase, "Come to attention and salute." He pondered over the
resemblance and he saw that nothing had changed. The man bleeding to
death was the same man to whom he had once paid a friendly visit with
unfriendly results. He thought now that he perceived a certain hopeless
gulf, a gulf which is real or unreal, according to circumstances.
Sometimes all men are equal; occasionally they are not. If Gates had
ever criticised Lige's manipulation of a hay fork on the farm at home,
Lige would have furiously disdained his hate or blame. He saw now that
he must not openly approve the major's conduct in war. The major's
pride was in his business, and his, Lige's congratulations, were beyond
all enduring.

The place where they were lying suddenly fell under a new heavy rain of
bullets. They sputtered about the men, making the noise of large
grasshoppers.

"Major!" cried Lige. "Major Gates! It won't do for ye to be left here,
sir. Ye'll be killed."

"But you can't help it, lad. You take care of yourself."

"I'm damned if I do," said the private, vehemently. "If I can't git
_you_ out, I'll stay and wait."

The officer gazed at his man with that same icy, contemptuous gaze.

"I'm--I'm a dead man anyhow. You go to the rear, do you hear?"

"No."

The dying major drew his revolver, cocked it and aimed it unsteadily at
Lige's head.

"Will you obey orders?"

"No."

"One?"

"No."

"Two?"

"No."

Gates weakly dropped his revolver.

"Go to the devil, then. You're no soldier, but----" He tried to add
something, "But----"

He heaved a long moan. "But--you--you--oh, I'm so-o-o tired."


V

After the battle, three correspondents happened to meet on the trail.
They were hot, dusty, weary, hungry and thirsty, and they repaired to
the shade of a mango tree and sprawled luxuriously. Among them they
mustered twoscore friends who on that day had gone to the far shore of
the hereafter, but their senses were no longer resonant. Shackles was
babbling plaintively about mint-juleps, and the others were bidding him
to have done.

"By-the-way," said one, at last, "it's too bad about poor old Gates of
the 307th. He bled to death. His men were crazy. They were blubbering
and cursing around there like wild people. It seems that when they got
back there to look for him they found him just about gone, and another
wounded man was trying to stop the flow with his hat! His hat, mind
you. Poor old Gatesie!"

"Oh, no, Shackles!" said the third man of the party. "Oh, no, you're
wrong. The best mint-juleps in the world are made right in New York,
Philadelphia or Boston. That Kentucky idea is only a tradition."

A wounded man approached them. He had been shot through the shoulder
and his shirt had been diagonally cut away, leaving much bare skin.
Over the bullet's point of entry there was a kind of a white spider,
shaped from pieces of adhesive plaster. Over the point of departure
there was a bloody bulb of cotton strapped to the flesh by other pieces
of adhesive plaster. His eyes were dreamy, wistful, sad. "Say, gents,
have any of ye got a bottle?" he asked.

A correspondent raised himself suddenly and looked with bright eyes at
the soldier.

"Well, you have got a nerve," he said grinning. "Have we got a bottle,
eh! Who in h---- do you think we are? If we had a bottle of good
licker, do you suppose we could let the whole army drink out of it? You
have too much faith in the generosity of men, my friend!"

The soldier stared, ox-like, and finally said, "Huh?"

"I say," continued the correspondent, somewhat more loudly, "that if we
had had a bottle we would have probably finished it ourselves by this
time."

"But," said the other, dazed, "I _meant_ an empty bottle. I didn't mean
no _full_ bottle."

The correspondent was humorously irascible.

"An empty bottle! You must be crazy! Who ever heard of a man looking
for an empty bottle? It isn't sense! I've seen a million men looking
for full bottles, but you're the first man I ever saw who insisted on
the bottle's being empty. What in the world do you want it for?"

"Well, ye see, mister," explained Lige, slowly, "our major he was
killed this mornin' an' we're jes' goin' to bury him, an' I thought I'd
jest take a look 'round an' see if I couldn't borry an empty bottle,
an' then I'd take an' write his name an' reg'ment on a paper an' put it
in th' bottle an' bury it with him, so's when they come fer to dig him
up sometime an' take him home, there sure wouldn't be no mistake."

"Oh!"




MARINES SIGNALLING UNDER FIRE AT GUANTANAMO


They were four Guantanamo marines, officially known for the time as
signalmen, and it was their duty to lie in the trenches of Camp
McCalla, that faced the water, and, by day, signal the _Marblehead_
with a flag and, by night, signal the _Marblehead_ with lanterns. It
was my good fortune--at that time I considered it my bad fortune,
indeed--to be with them on two of the nights when a wild storm of
fighting was pealing about the hill; and, of all the actions of the
war, none were so hard on the nerves, none strained courage so near the
panic point, as those swift nights in Camp McCalla. With a thousand
rifles rattling; with the field-guns booming in your ears; with the
diabolic Colt automatics clacking; with the roar of the _Marblehead_
coming from the bay, and, last, with Mauser bullets sneering always in
the air a few inches over one's head, and with this enduring from dusk
to dawn, it is extremely doubtful if any one who was there will be able
to forget it easily. The noise; the impenetrable darkness; the
knowledge from the sound of the bullets that the enemy was on three
sides of the camp; the infrequent bloody stumbling and death of some
man with whom, perhaps, one had messed two hours previous; the
weariness of the body, and the more terrible weariness of the mind, at
the endlessness of the thing, made it wonderful that at least some of
the men did not come out of it with their nerves hopelessly in shreds.

But, as this interesting ceremony proceeded in the darkness, it was
necessary for the signal squad to coolly take and send messages.
Captain McCalla always participated in the defence of the camp by
raking the woods on two of its sides with the guns of the _Marblehead_.
Moreover, he was the senior officer present, and he wanted to know what
was happening. All night long the crews of the ships in the bay would
stare sleeplessly into the blackness toward the roaring hill.

The signal squad had an old cracker-box placed on top of the trench.
When not signalling they hid the lanterns in this-box; but as soon as
an order to send a message was received, it became necessary for one of
the men to stand up and expose the lights. And then--oh, my eye--how
the guerillas hidden in the gulf of night would turn loose at those
yellow gleams!

Signalling in this way is done by letting one lantern remain
stationary--on top of the cracker-box, in this case--and moving the
other over to the left and right and so on in the regular gestures of
the wig-wagging code. It is a very simple system of night
communication, but one can see that it presents rare possibilities when
used in front of an enemy who, a few hundred yards away, is overjoyed
at sighting so definite a mark.

How, in the name of wonders, those four men at Camp McCalla were not
riddled from head to foot and sent home more as repositories of Spanish
ammunition than as marines is beyond all comprehension. To make a
confession--when one of these men stood up to wave his lantern, I,
lying in the trench, invariably rolled a little to the right or left,
in order that, when he was shot, he would not fall on me. But the squad
came off scathless, despite the best efforts of the most formidable
corps in the Spanish army--the Escuadra de Guantanamo. That it was the
most formidable corps in the Spanish army of occupation has been told
me by many Spanish officers and also by General Menocal and other
insurgent officers. General Menocal was Garcia's chief-of-staff when
the latter was operating busily in Santiago province. The regiment was
composed solely of _practicos_, or guides, who knew every shrub and
tree on the ground over which they moved.

Whenever the adjutant, Lieutenant Draper, came plunging along through
the darkness with an order--such as: "Ask the _Marblehead_ to please
shell the woods to the left"--my heart would come into my mouth, for I
knew then that one of my pals was going to stand up behind the lanterns
and have all Spain shoot at him.

The answer was always upon the instant:

"Yes, sir." Then the bullets began to snap, snap, snap, at his head
while all the woods began to crackle like burning straw. I could lie
near and watch the face of the signalman, illumed as it was by the
yellow shine of lantern light, and the absence of excitement, fright,
or any emotion at all on his countenance, was something to astonish all
theories out of one's mind. The face was in every instance merely that
of a man intent upon his business, the business of wig-wagging into the
gulf of night where a light on the _Marblehead_ was seen to move
slowly.

These times on the hill resembled, in some days, those terrible scenes
on the stage--scenes of intense gloom, blinding lightning, with a
cloaked devil or assassin or other appropriate character muttering
deeply amid the awful roll of the thunder-drums. It was theatric beyond
words: one felt like a leaf in this booming chaos, this prolonged
tragedy of the night. Amid it all one could see from time to time the
yellow light on the face of a preoccupied signalman.

Possibly no man who was there ever before understood the true eloquence
of the breaking of the day. We would lie staring into the east, fairly
ravenous for the dawn. Utterly worn to rags, with our nerves standing
on end like so many bristles, we lay and watched the east--the
unspeakably obdurate and slow east. It was a wonder that the eyes of
some of us did not turn to glass balls from the fixity of our gaze.

Then there would come into the sky a patch of faint blue light. It was
like a piece of moonshine. Some would say it was the beginning of
daybreak; others would declare it was nothing of the kind. Men would
get very disgusted with each other in these low-toned arguments held in
the trenches. For my part, this development in the eastern sky
destroyed many of my ideas and theories concerning the dawning of the
day; but then I had never before had occasion to give it such solemn
attention.

This patch widened and whitened in about the speed of a man's
accomplishment if he should be in the way of painting Madison Square
Garden with a camel's hair brush. The guerillas always set out to whoop
it up about this time, because they knew the occasion was approaching
when it would be expedient for them to elope. I, at least, always grew
furious with this wretched sunrise. I thought I could have walked
around the world in the time required for the old thing to get up above
the horizon.

One midnight, when an important message was to be sent to the
_Marblehead_, Colonel Huntington came himself to the signal place with
Adjutant Draper and Captain McCauley, the quartermaster. When the man
stood up to signal, the colonel stood beside him. At sight of the
lights, the Spaniards performed as usual. They drove enough bullets
into that immediate vicinity to kill all the marines in the corps.

Lieutenant Draper was agitated for his chief. "Colonel, won't you step
down, sir?"

"Why, I guess not," said the grey old veteran in his slow, sad,
always-gentle way. "I am in no more danger than the man."

"But, sir----" began the adjutant.

"Oh, it's all right, Draper."

So the colonel and the private stood side to side and took the heavy
fire without either moving a muscle.

Day was always obliged to come at last, punctuated by a final exchange
of scattering shots. And the light shone on the marines, the dumb guns,
the flag. Grimy yellow face looked into grimy yellow face, and grinned
with weary satisfaction. Coffee!

Usually it was impossible for many of the men to sleep at once. It
always took me, for instance, some hours to get my nerves combed down.
But then it was great joy to lie in the trench with the four signalmen,
and understand thoroughly that that night was fully over at last, and
that, although the future might have in store other bad nights, that
one could never escape from the prison-house which we call the past.

                     *      *      *      *      *

At the wild little fight at Cusco there were some splendid exhibitions
of wig-wagging under fire. Action began when an advanced detachment of
marines under Lieutenant Lucas with the Cuban guides had reached the
summit of a ridge overlooking a small valley where there was a house, a
well, and a thicket of some kind of shrub with great broad, oily
leaves. This thicket, which was perhaps an acre in extent, contained
the guerillas. The valley was open to the sea. The distance from the
top of the ridge to the thicket was barely two hundred yards.

The _Dolphin_ had sailed up the coast in line with the marine advance,
ready with her guns to assist in any action. Captain Elliott, who
commanded the two hundred marines in this fight, suddenly called out
for a signalman. He wanted a man to tell the _Dolphin_ to open fire on
the house and the thicket. It was a blazing, bitter hot day on top of
the ridge with its shrivelled chaparral and its straight, tall cactus
plants. The sky was bare and blue, and hurt like brass. In two minutes
the prostrate marines were red and sweating like so many hull-buried
stokers in the tropics.

Captain Elliott called out:

"Where's a signalman? Who's a signalman here?"

A red-headed "mick"--I think his name was Clancy--at any rate, it will
do to call him Clancy--twisted his head from where he lay on his
stomach pumping his Lee, and, saluting, said that he was a signalman.

There was no regulation flag with the expedition, so Clancy was obliged
to tie his blue polka-dot neckerchief on the end of his rifle. It did
not make a very good flag. At first Clancy moved a ways down the safe
side of the ridge and wigwagged there very busily. But what with the
flag being so poor for the purpose, and the background of ridge being
so dark, those on the _Dolphin_ did not see it. So Clancy had to return
to the top of the ridge and outline himself and his flag against the
sky.

The usual thing happened. As soon as the Spaniards caught sight of this
silhouette, they let go like mad at it. To make things more comfortable
for Clancy, the situation demanded that he face the sea and turn his
back to the Spanish bullets. This was a hard game, mark you--to stand
with the small of your back to volley firing. Clancy thought so.
Everybody thought so. We all cleared out of his neighbourhood. If he
wanted sole possession of any particular spot on that hill, he could
have it for all we would interfere with him.

It cannot be denied that Clancy was in a hurry. I watched him. He was
so occupied with the bullets that snarled close to his ears that he was
obliged to repeat the letters of his message softly to himself. It
seemed an intolerable time before the _Dolphin_ answered the little
signal. Meanwhile, we gazed at him, marvelling every second that he had
not yet pitched headlong. He swore at times.

Finally the _Dolphin_ replied to his frantic gesticulation, and he
delivered his message. As his part of the transaction was quite
finished--whoop!--he dropped like a brick into the firing line and
began to shoot; began to get "hunky" with all those people who had been
plugging at him. The blue polka-dot neckerchief still fluttered from
the barrel of his rifle. I am quite certain that he let it remain there
until the end of the fight.

The shells of the _Dolphin_ began to plough up the thicket, kicking the
bushes, stones, and soil into the air as if somebody was blasting
there.

Meanwhile, this force of two hundred marines and fifty Cubans and the
force of--probably--six companies of Spanish guerillas were making such
an awful din that the distant Camp McCalla was all alive with
excitement. Colonel Huntington sent out strong parties to critical
points on the road to facilitate, if necessary, a safe retreat, and
also sent forty men under Lieutenant Magill to come up on the left
flank of the two companies in action under Captain Elliott. Lieutenant
Magill and his men had crowned a hill which covered entirely the flank
of the fighting companies, but when the _Dolphin_ opened fire, it
happened that Magill was in the line of the shots. It became necessary
to stop the _Dolphin_ at once. Captain Elliott was not near Clancy at
this time, and he called hurriedly for another signalman.

Sergeant Quick arose, and announced that he was a signalman. He
produced from somewhere a blue polka-dot neckerchief as large as a
quilt. He tied it on a long, crooked stick. Then he went to the top of
the ridge, and turning his back to the Spanish fire, began to signal to
the _Dolphin_. Again we gave a man sole possession of a particular part
of the ridge. We didn't want it. He could have it and welcome. If the
young sergeant had had the smallpox, the cholera, and the yellow fever,
we could not have slid out with more celerity.

As men have said often, it seemed as if there was in this war a God of
Battles who held His mighty hand before the Americans. As I looked at
Sergeant Quick wig-wagging there against the sky, I would not have
given a tin tobacco-tag for his life. Escape for him seemed impossible.
It seemed absurd to hope that he would not be hit; I only hoped that he
would be hit just a little, in the arm, the shoulder, or the leg.

I watched his face, and it was as grave and serene as that of a man
writing in his own library. He was the very embodiment of tranquillity
in occupation. He stood there amid the animal-like babble of the
Cubans, the crack of rifles, and the whistling snarl of the bullets,
and wig-wagged whatever he had to wig-wag without heeding anything but
his business. There was not a single trace of nervousness or haste.

To say the least, a fight at close range is absorbing as a spectacle.
No man wants to take his eyes from it until that time comes when he
makes up his mind to run away. To deliberately stand up and turn your
back to a battle is in itself hard work. To deliberately stand up and
turn your back to a battle and hear immediate evidences of the
boundless enthusiasm with which a large company of the enemy shoot at
you from an adjacent thicket is, to my mind at least, a very great
feat. One need not dwell upon the detail of keeping the mind carefully
upon a slow spelling of an important code message.

I saw Quick betray only one sign of emotion. As he swung his clumsy
flag to and fro, an end of it once caught on a cactus pillar, and he
looked sharply over his shoulder to see what had it. He gave the flag
an impatient jerk. He looked annoyed.




THIS MAJESTIC LIE


In the twilight, a great crowd was streaming up the Prado in Havana.
The people had been down to the shore to laugh and twiddle their
fingers at the American blockading fleet--mere colourless shapes on the
edge of the sea. Gorgeous challenges had been issued to the far-away
ships by little children and women while the men laughed. Havana was
happy, for it was known that the illustrious sailor Don Patricio de
Montojo had with his fleet met the decaying ships of one Dewey and
smitten them into stuffing for a baby's pillow. Of course the American
sailors were drunk at the time, but the American sailors were always
drunk. Newsboys galloped among the crowd crying _La Lucha_ and _La
Marina_. The papers said: "This is as we foretold. How could it be
otherwise when the cowardly Yankees met our brave sailors?" But the
tongues of the exuberant people ran more at large. One man said in a
loud voice: "How unfortunate it is that we still have to buy meat in
Havana when so much pork is floating in Manila Bay!" Amid the
consequent laughter, another man retorted: "Oh, never mind! That pork
in Manila is rotten. It always was rotten." Still another man said:
"But, little friend, it would make good manure for our fields if only
we had it." And still another man said: "Ah, wait until our soldiers
get with the wives of the Americans and there will be many little
Yankees to serve hot on our tables. The men of the _Maine_ simply
made our appetites good. Never mind the pork in Manila. There will be
plenty." Women laughed; children laughed because their mothers laughed;
everybody laughed. And--a word with you--these people were cackling and
chuckling and insulting their own dead, their own dead men of Spain,
for if the poor green corpses floated then in Manila Bay they were not
American corpses.

The newsboys came charging with an extra. The inhabitants of
Philadelphia had fled to the forests because of a Spanish bombardment
and also Boston was besieged by the Apaches who had totally invested
the town. The Apache artillery had proven singularly effective and an
American garrison had been unable to face it. In Chicago millionaires
were giving away their palaces for two or three loaves of bread. These
despatches were from Madrid and every word was truth, but they added
little to the enthusiasm because the crowd--God help mankind--was
greatly occupied with visions of Yankee pork floating in Manila Bay.
This will be thought to be embittered writing. Very well; the writer
admits its untruthfulness in one particular. It is untruthful in that
it fails to reproduce one-hundredth part of the grossness and indecency
of popular expression in Havana up to the time when the people knew
they were beaten.

There were no lights on the Prado or in other streets because of a
military order. In the slow-moving crowd, there was a young man and an
old woman. Suddenly the young man laughed a strange metallic laugh and
spoke in English, not cautiously. "That's damned hard to listen to."

The woman spoke quickly. "Hush, you little idiot. Do you want to be
walkin' across that grass-plot in Cabanas with your arms tied behind
you?" Then she murmured sadly: "Johnnie, I wonder if that's true--what
they say about Manila?"

"I don't know," said Johnnie, "but I think they're lying."

As they crossed the Plaza, they could see that the Café Tacon was
crowded with Spanish officers in blue and white pajama uniforms. Wine
and brandy was being wildly consumed in honour of the victory at
Manila. "Let's hear what they say," said Johnnie to his companion, and
they moved across the street and in under the _portales_. The owner of
the Café Tacon was standing on a table making a speech amid cheers. He
was advocating the crucifixion of such Americans as fell into Spanish
hands and--it was all very sweet and white and tender, but above all,
it was chivalrous, because it is well known that the Spaniards are a
chivalrous people. It has been remarked both by the English newspapers
and by the bulls that are bred for the red death. And secretly the
corpses in Manila Bay mocked this jubilee; the mocking, mocking corpses
in Manila Bay.

To be blunt, Johnnie was an American spy. Once he had been the manager
of a sugar plantation in Pinar del Rio, and during the insurrection it
had been his distinguished function to pay tribute of money, food and
forage alike to Spanish columns and insurgent bands. He was performing
this straddle with benefit to his crops and with mildew to his
conscience when Spain and the United States agreed to skirmish, both in
the name of honour. It then became a military necessity that he should
change his base. Whatever of the province that was still alive was
sorry to see him go for he had been a very dexterous man and food and
wine had been in his house even when a man with a mango could gain the
envy of an entire Spanish battalion. Without doubt he had been a mere
trimmer, but it was because of his crop and he always wrote the word
thus: C R O P. In those days a man of peace and commerce was in a
position parallel to the watchmaker who essayed a task in the midst of
a drunken brawl with oaths, bottles and bullets flying about his intent
bowed head. So many of them--or all of them--were trimmers, and to any
armed force they fervently said: "God assist you." And behold, the
trimmers dwelt safely in a tumultuous land and without effort save that
their little machines for trimming ran night and day. So many a
plantation became covered with a maze of lies as if thick-webbing
spiders had run from stalk to stalk in the cane. So sometimes a planter
incurred an equal hatred from both sides and when in trouble there was
no camp to which he could flee save, straight in air, the camp of the
heavenly host.

If Johnnie had not had a crop, he would have been plainly on the side
of the insurgents, but his crop staked him down to the soil at a point
where the Spaniards could always be sure of finding him--him or his
crop--it is the same thing. But when war came between Spain and the
United States he could no longer be the cleverest trimmer in Pinar del
Rio. And he retreated upon Key West losing much of his baggage train,
not because of panic but because of wisdom. In Key West, he was no
longer the manager of a big Cuban plantation; he was a little tan-faced
refugee without much money. Mainly he listened; there was nought else
to do. In the first place he was a young man of extremely slow speech
and in the Key West Hotel tongues ran like pin-wheels. If he had
projected his methodic way of thought and speech upon this hurricane,
he would have been as effective as the man who tries to smoke against
the gale. This truth did not impress him. Really, he was impressed with
the fact that although he knew much of Cuba, he could not talk so
rapidly and wisely of it as many war-correspondents who had not yet
seen the island. Usually he brooded in silence over a bottle of beer
and the loss of his crop. He received no sympathy, although there was a
plentitude of tender souls. War's first step is to make expectation so
high that all present things are fogged and darkened in a tense wonder
of the future. None cared about the collapse of Johnnie's plantation
when all were thinking of the probable collapse of cities and fleets.

In the meantime, battle-ships, monitors, cruisers, gunboats and torpedo
craft arrived, departed, arrived, departed. Rumours sang about the ears
of warships hurriedly coaling. Rumours sang about the ears of warships
leisurely coming to anchor. This happened and that happened and if the
news arrived at Key West as a mouse, it was often enough cabled north
as an elephant. The correspondents at Key West were perfectly capable
of adjusting their perspective, but many of the editors in the United
States were like deaf men at whom one has to roar. A few quiet words of
information was not enough for them; one had to bawl into their ears a
whirlwind tale of heroism, blood, death, victory--or defeat--at any
rate, a tragedy. The papers should have sent playwrights to the first
part of the war. Play-wrights are allowed to lower the curtain from
time to time and say to the crowd: "Mark, ye, now! Three or four months
are supposed to elapse. But the poor devils at Key West were obliged to
keep the curtain up all the time." "This isn't a continuous performance."
"Yes, it is; it's _got_ to be a continuous performance. The welfare of
the paper demands it. The people want news." Very well: continuous
performance. It is strange how men of sense can go aslant at the
bidding of other men of sense and combine to contribute to a general
mess of exaggeration and bombast. But we did; and in the midst of the
furor I remember the still figure of Johnnie, the planter, the
ex-trimmer. He looked dazed.

This was in May.

We all liked him. From time to time some of us heard in his words the
vibrant of a thoughtful experience. But it could not be well heard; it
was only like the sound of a bell from under the floor. We were too
busy with our own clatter. He was taciturn and competent while we
solved the war in a babble of tongues. Soon we went about our peaceful
paths saying ironically one to another: "War is hell." Meanwhile,
managing editors fought us tooth and nail and we all were sent boxes of
medals inscribed: "Incompetency." We became furious with ourselves. Why
couldn't we send hair-raising despatches? Why couldn't we inflame the
wires? All this we did. If a first-class armoured cruiser which had
once been a tow-boat fired a six-pounder shot from her forward
thirteen-inch gun turret, the world heard of it, you bet. We were not
idle men. We had come to report the war and we did it. Our good names
and our salaries depended upon it and we were urged by our
managing-editors to remember that the American people were a collection
of super-nervous idiots who would immediately have convulsions if we
did not throw them some news--any news. It was not true, at all. The
American people were anxious for things decisive to happen; they were
not anxious to be lulled to satisfaction with a drug. But we lulled
them. We told them this and we told them that, and I warrant you our
screaming sounded like the noise of a lot of sea-birds settling for the
night among the black crags.

In the meantime, Johnnie stared and meditated. In his unhurried,
unstartled manner he was singularly like another man who was flying the
pennant as commander-in-chief of the North Atlantic Squadron. Johnnie
was a refugee; the admiral was an admiral. And yet they were much akin,
these two. Their brother was the Strategy Board--the only capable
political institution of the war. At Key West the naval officers spoke
of their business and were devoted to it and were bound to succeed in
it, but when the flag-ship was in port the only two people who were
independent and sane were the admiral and Johnnie. The rest of us were
lulling the public with drugs.

There was much discussion of the new batteries at Havana. Johnnie was a
typical American. In Europe a typical American is a man with a hard
eye, chin-whiskers and a habit of speaking through his nose. Johnnie
was a young man of great energy, ready to accomplish a colossal thing
for the basic reason that he was ignorant of its magnitude. In fact he
attacked all obstacles in life in a spirit of contempt, seeing them
smaller than they were until he had actually surmounted them--when he
was likely to be immensely pleased with himself. Somewhere in him there
was a sentimental tenderness, but it was like a light seen afar at
night; it came, went, appeared again in a new place, flickered, flared,
went out, left you in a void and angry. And if his sentimental
tenderness was a light, the darkness in which it puzzled you was his
irony of soul. This irony was directed first at himself; then at you;
then at the nation and the flag; then at God. It was a midnight in
which you searched for the little elusive, ashamed spark of tender
sentiment. Sometimes, you thought this was all pretext, the manner and
the way of fear of the wit of others; sometimes you thought he was a
hardened savage; usually you did not think but waited in the cheerful
certainty that in time the little flare of light would appear in the
gloom.

Johnnie decided that he would go and spy upon the fortifications of
Havana. If any one wished to know of those batteries it was the admiral
of the squadron, but the admiral of the squadron knew much. I feel sure
that he knew the size and position of every gun. To be sure, new guns
might be mounted at any time, but they would not be big guns, and
doubtless he lacked in his cabin less information than would be worth a
man's life. Still, Johnnie decided to be a spy. He would go and look.
We of the newspapers pinned him fast to the tail of our kite and he was
taken to see the admiral. I judge that the admiral did not display much
interest in the plan. But at any rate it seems that he touched Johnnie
smartly enough with a brush to make him, officially, a spy. Then
Johnnie bowed and left the cabin. There was no other machinery. If
Johnnie was to end his life and leave a little book about it, no one
cared--least of all, Johnnie and the admiral. When he came aboard the
tug, he displayed his usual stalwart and rather selfish zest for fried
eggs. It was all some kind of an ordinary matter. It was done every
day. It was the business of packing pork, sewing shoes, binding hay. It
was commonplace. No one could adjust it, get it in proportion,
until--afterwards. On a dark night, they heaved him into a small boat
and rowed him to the beach.

And one day he appeared at the door of a little lodging-house in Havana
kept by Martha Clancy, born in Ireland, bred in New York, fifteen years
married to a Spanish captain, and now a widow, keeping Cuban lodgers
who had no money with which to pay her. She opened the door only a
little way and looked down over her spectacles at him.

"Good-mornin' Martha," he said.

She looked a moment in silence. Then she made an indescribable gesture
of weariness. "Come in," she said. He stepped inside. "And in God's
name couldn't you keep your neck out of this rope? And so you had to
come here, did you--to Havana? Upon my soul, Johnnie, my son, you are
the biggest fool on two legs."

He moved past her into the court-yard and took his old chair at the
table--between the winding stairway and the door--near the orange tree.
"Why am I?" he demanded stoutly. She made no reply until she had taken
seat in her rocking-chair and puffed several times upon a cigarette.
Then through the smoke she said meditatively: "Everybody knows ye are a
damned little mambi." Sometimes she spoke with an Irish accent.

He laughed. "I'm no more of a mambi than _you_ are, anyhow."

"I'm no mambi. But your name is poison to half the Spaniards in Havana.
That you know. And if you were once safe in Cayo Hueso, 'tis nobody but
a born fool who would come blunderin' into Havana again. Have ye had
your dinner?"

"What have you got?" he asked before committing himself.

She arose and spoke without confidence as she moved toward the
cupboard. "There's some codfish salad."

"_What?_" said he.

"Codfish salad."

"_Codfish what?_"

"Codfish salad. Ain't it good enough for ye? Maybe this is
Delmonico's--no? Maybe ye never heard that the Yankees have us
blockaded, hey? Maybe ye think food can be picked in the streets here
now, hey? I'll tell ye one thing, my son, if you stay here long you'll
see the want of it and so you had best not throw it over your
shoulder."

The spy settled determinedly in his chair and delivered himself his
final decision. "That may all be true, but I'm _damned_ if I eat
codfish salad."

Old Martha was a picture of quaint despair. "You'll not?"

"No!"

"Then," she sighed piously, "may the Lord have mercy on ye, Johnnie,
for you'll never do here. 'Tis not the time for you. You're due after
the blockade. Will you do me the favour of translating why you won't
eat codfish salad, you skinny little insurrecto?"

"Cod-fish salad!" he said with a deep sneer. "Who ever heard of it!"

Outside, on the jumbled pavement of the street, an occasional two-wheel
cart passed with deafening thunder, making one think of the overturning
of houses. Down from the pale sky over the patio came a heavy odour of
Havana itself, a smell of old straw. The wild cries of vendors could be
heard at intervals.

"You'll not?"

"No."

"And why not?"

"Cod-fish salad? Not by a blame sight!"

"Well--all right then. You are more of a pig-headed young imbecile than
even I thought from seeing you come into Havana here where half the
town knows you and the poorest Spaniard would give a gold piece to see
you go into Cabanas and forget to come out. Did I tell you, my son
Alfred is sick? Yes, poor little fellow, he lies up in the room you
used to have. The fever. And did you see Woodham in Key West? Heaven
save us, what quick time he made in getting out. I hear Figtree and
Button are working in the cable office over there--no? And when is the
war going to end? Are the Yankees going to try to take Havana? It will
be a hard job, Johnnie? The Spaniards say it is impossible. Everybody
is laughing at the Yankees. I hate to go into the street and hear them.
Is General Lee going to lead the army? What's become of Springer? I see
you've got a new pair of shoes."

In the evening there was a sudden loud knock at the outer door. Martha
looked at Johnnie and Johnnie looked at Martha. He was still sitting in
the patio, smoking. She took the lamp and set it on a table in the
little parlour. This parlour connected the street-door with the patio,
and so Johnnie would be protected from the sight of the people who
knocked by the broad illuminated tract. Martha moved in pensive fashion
upon the latch. "Who's there?" she asked casually.

"The police." There it was, an old melodramatic incident from the
stage, from the romances. One could scarce believe it. It had all the
dignity of a classic resurrection. "The police!" One sneers at its
probability; it is too venerable. But so it happened.

"Who?" said Martha.

"The police!"

"What do you want here?"

"Open the door and we'll tell you."

Martha drew back the ordinary huge bolts of a Havana house and opened
the door a trifle. "Tell me what you want and begone quickly," she
said, "for my little boy is ill of the fever----"

She could see four or five dim figures, and now one of these suddenly
placed a foot well within the door so that she might not close it. "We
have come for Johnnie. We must search your house."

"Johnnie? Johnnie? Who is Johnnie?" said Martha in her best manner.

The police inspector grinned with the light upon his face. "Don't you
know Señor Johnnie from Pinar del Rio?" he asked.

"Before the war--yes. But now--where is he--he must be in Key West?"

"He is in your house."

"He? In my house? Do me the favour to think that I have some
intelligence. Would I be likely to be harbouring a Yankee in these
times? You must think I have no more head than an Orden Publico. And
I'll not have you search my house, for there is no one here save my
son--who is maybe dying of the fever--and the doctor. The doctor is
with him because now is the crisis, and any one little thing may kill
or cure my boy, and you will do me the favour to consider what may
happen if I allow five or six heavy-footed policemen to go tramping all
over my house. You may think----"

"Stop it," said the chief police officer at last. He was laughing and
weary and angry.

Martha checked her flow of Spanish. "There!" she thought, "I've done my
best. He ought to fall in with it." But as the police entered she began
on them again. "You will search the house whether I like it or no. Very
well; but if anything happens to my boy? It is a nice way of conduct,
anyhow--coming into the house of a widow at night and talking much
about this Yankee and----"

"For God's sake, señora, hold your tongue. We----"

"Oh, yes, the señora can for God's sake very well hold her tongue, but
that wouldn't assist you men into the street where you belong. Take
care: if my sick boy suffers from this prowling! No, you'll find
nothing in that wardrobe. And do you think he would be under the table?
Don't overturn all that linen. Look you, when you go upstairs, tread
lightly."

Leaving a man on guard at the street door and another in the patio, the
chief policeman and the remainder of his men ascended to the gallery
from which opened three sleeping-rooms. They were followed by Martha
abjuring them to make no noise. The first room was empty; the second
room was empty; as they approached the door of the third room, Martha
whispered supplications. "Now, in the name of God, don't disturb my
boy." The inspector motioned his men to pause and then he pushed open
the door. Only one weak candle was burning in the room and its yellow
light fell upon the bed whereon was stretched the figure of a little
curly-headed boy in a white nightey. He was asleep, but his face was
pink with fever and his lips were murmuring some half-coherent childish
nonsense. At the head of the bed stood the motionless figure of a man.
His back was to the door, but upon hearing a noise he held a solemn
hand. There was an odour of medicine. Out on the balcony, Martha
apparently was weeping.

The inspector hesitated for a moment; then he noiselessly entered the
room and with his yellow cane prodded under the bed, in the cupboard
and behind the window-curtains. Nothing came of it. He shrugged his
shoulders and went out to the balcony. He was smiling sheepishly.
Evidently he knew that he had been beaten. "Very good, Señora," he
said. "You are clever; some day I shall be clever, too." He shook his
finger at her. He was threatening her but he affected to be playful.
"Then--beware! Beware!"

Martha replied blandly, "My late husband, El Capitan Señor Don Patricio
de Castellon y Valladolid was a cavalier of Spain and if he was alive
to-night he would now be cutting the ears from the heads of you and
your miserable men who smell frightfully of cognac."

"Por Dios!" muttered the inspector as followed by his band he made his
way down the spiral staircase. "It is a tongue! One vast tongue!" At
the street-door they made ironical bows; they departed; they were angry
men.

Johnnie came down when he heard Martha bolting the door behind the
police. She brought back the lamp to the table in the patio and stood
beside it, thinking. Johnnie dropped into his old chair. The expression
on the spy's face was curious; it pictured glee, anxiety,
self-complacency; above all it pictured self-complacency. Martha said
nothing; she was still by the lamp, musing.

The long silence was suddenly broken by a tremendous guffaw from
Johnnie. "Did you ever see sich a lot of fools!" He leaned his head far
back and roared victorious merriment.

Martha was almost dancing in her apprehension. "Hush! Be quiet, you
little demon! Hush! Do me the favour to allow them to get to the corner
before you bellow like a walrus. Be quiet."

The spy ceased his laughter and spoke in indignation. "Why?" he
demanded. "Ain't I got a right to laugh?"

"Not with a noise like a cow fallin' into a cucumber-frame," she
answered sharply. "Do me the favour----" Then she seemed overwhelmed
with a sense of the general hopelessness of Johnnie's character. She
began to wag her head. "Oh, but you are the boy for gettin' yourself
into the tiger's cage without even so much as the thought of a
pocket-knife in your thick head. You would be a genius of the first
water if you only had a little sense. And now you're here, what are you
going to do?"

He grinned at her. "I'm goin' to hold an inspection of the land and sea
defences of the city of Havana."

Martha's spectacles dropped low on her nose and, looking over the rims
of them in grave meditation, she said: "If you can't put up with
codfish salad you had better make short work of your inspection of the
land and sea defences of the city of Havana. You are likely to starve
in the meantime. A man who is particular about his food has come to the
wrong town if he is in Havana now."

"No, but----" asked Johnnie seriously. "Haven't you any bread?"

"_Bread!_"

"Well, coffee then? Coffee alone will do."

"_Coffee!_"

Johnnie arose deliberately and took his hat. Martha eyed him. "And
where do you think you are goin'?" she asked cuttingly.

Still deliberate, Johnnie moved in the direction of the street-door.
"I'm goin' where I can get something to eat."

Martha sank into a chair with a moan which was a finished
opinion--almost a definition--of Johnnie's behaviour in life. "And
where will you go?" she asked faintly.

"Oh, I don't know," he rejoined. "Some café. Guess I'll go to the Café
Aguacate. They feed you well there. I remember----"

"_You_ remember? _They_ remember! They know you as well as if you were
the sign over the door."

"Oh, they won't give me away," said Johnnie with stalwart confidence.

"Gi-give you away? Give you a-way?" stammered Martha.

The spy made no answer but went to the door, unbarred it and passed
into the street. Martha caught her breath and ran after him and came
face to face with him as he turned to shut the door. "Johnnie, if ye
come back, bring a loaf of bread. I'm dyin' for one good honest bite in
a slice of bread."

She heard his peculiar derisive laugh as she bolted the door. She
returned to her chair in the patio. "Well, there," she said with
affection, admiration and contempt. "There he goes! The most
hard-headed little ignoramus in twenty nations! What does he care?
Nothin'! And why is it? Pure bred-in-the-bone ignorance. Just because
he can't stand codfish salad he goes out to a café! A café where they
know him as if they had made him!... Well.... I won't see him again,
probably.... But if he comes back, I hope he brings some bread. I'm
near dead for it."


II

Johnnie strolled carelessly through dark narrow streets. Near every
corner were two Orden Publicos--a kind of soldier-police--quiet in the
shadow of some doorway, their Remingtons ready, their eyes shining.
Johnnie walked past as if he owned them, and their eyes followed him
with a sort of a lazy mechanical suspicion which was militant in none
of its moods.

Johnnie was suffering from a desire to be splendidly imprudent. He
wanted to make the situation gasp and thrill and tremble. From time to
time he tried to conceive the idea of his being caught, but to save his
eyes he could not imagine it. Such an event was impossible to his
peculiar breed of fatalism which could not have conceded death until he
had mouldered seven years.

He arrived at the Café Aguacate and found it much changed. The thick
wooden shutters were up to keep light from shining into the street.
Inside, there were only a few Spanish officers. Johnnie walked to the
private rooms at the rear. He found an empty one and pressed the
electric button. When he had passed through the main part of the café
no one had noted him. The first to recognise him was the waiter who
answered the bell. This worthy man turned to stone before the presence
of Johnnie.

"Buenos noche, Francisco," said the spy, enjoying himself. "I have
hunger. Bring me bread, butter, eggs and coffee." There was a silence;
the waiter did not move; Johnnie smiled casually at him.

The man's throat moved; then like one suddenly re-endowed with life, he
bolted from the room. After a long time, he returned with the
proprietor of the place. In the wicked eye of the latter there gleamed
the light of a plan. He did not respond to Johnnie's genial greeting,
but at once proceeded to develop his position. "Johnnie," he said,
"bread is very dear in Havana. It is very dear."

"Is it?" said Johnnie looking keenly at the speaker. He understood at
once that here was some sort of an attack upon him.

"Yes," answered the proprietor of the Café Aguacate slowly and softly.
"It is very dear. I think to-night one small bit of bread will cost you
one centene--in advance." A centene approximates five dollars in gold.

The spy's face did not change. He appeared to reflect. "And how much
for the butter?" he asked at last.

The proprietor gestured. "There is no butter. Do you think we can have
everything with those Yankee pigs sitting out there on their ships?"

"And how much for the coffee?" asked Johnnie musingly.

Again the two men surveyed each other during a period of silence. Then
the proprietor said gently, "I think your coffee will cost you about
two centenes."

"And the eggs?"

"Eggs are very dear. I think eggs would cost you about three centenes
for each one."

The new looked at the old; the North Atlantic looked at the
Mediterranean; the wooden nutmeg looked at the olive. Johnnie slowly
took six centenes from his pocket and laid them on the table. "That's
for bread, coffee, and one egg. I don't think I could eat more than one
egg to-night. I'm not so hungry as I was."

The proprietor held a perpendicular finger and tapped the table with
it. "Oh, señor," he said politely, "I think you would like two eggs."

Johnnie saw the finger. He understood it. "Ye-e-es," he drawled. "I
would like two eggs." He placed three more centenes on the table.

"And a little thing for the waiter? I am sure his services will be
excellent, invaluable."

"Ye-e-es, for the waiter." Another centene was laid on the table.

The proprietor bowed and preceded the waiter out of the room. There was
a mirror on the wall and, springing to his feet, the spy thrust his
face close to the honest glass. "Well, I'm damned!" he ejaculated. "Is
this me or is this the Honourable D. Hayseed Whiskers of Kansas? Who am
I, anyhow? Five dollars in gold!... Say, these people are clever. They
know their business, they do. Bread, coffee and two eggs and not even
sure of getting it! Fifty dol---- ... Never mind; wait until the war is
over. Fifty dollars gold!" He sat for a long time; nothing happened.
"Eh," he said at last, "that's the game." As the front door of the café
closed upon him, he heard the proprietor and one of the waiters burst
into derisive laughter.

Martha was waiting for him. "And here ye are, safe back," she said with
delight as she let him enter. "And did ye bring the bread? Did ye bring
the bread?"

But she saw that he was raging like a lunatic. His face was red and
swollen with temper; his eyes shot forth gleams. Presently he stood
before her in the patio where the light fell on him. "Don't speak to
me," he choked out waving his arms. "Don't speak to me! _Damn_ your
bread! I went to the Café Aguacate! Oh, yes, I went there! Of course,
I did! And do you know what they did to me? No! Oh, they didn't do
anything to me at all! Not a thing! Fifty dollars! Ten gold pieces!"

"May the saints guard us," cried Martha. "And what was that for?"

"Because they wanted them more than I did," snarled Johnnie. "Don't you
see the game. I go into the Café Aguacate. The owner of the place says
to himself, 'Hello! Here's that Yankee what they call Johnnie. He's got
no right here in Havana. Guess I'll peach on him to the police. They'll
put him in Cabanas as a spy.' Then he does a little more thinking, and
finally he says, 'No; I guess I won't peach on him just this minute.
First, I'll take a small flyer myself.' So in he comes and looks me
right in the eye and says, 'Excuse me but it will be a centene for the
bread, a centene for the coffee, and eggs are at three centenes each.
Besides there will be a small matter of another gold-piece for the
waiter.' I think this over. I think it over hard.... He's clever
anyhow.... When this cruel war is over, I'll be after him.... I'm a
nice secret agent of the United States government, I am. I come here to
be too clever for all the Spanish police, and the first thing I do is
get buncoed by a rotten, little thimble-rigger in a café. Oh, yes, I'm
all right."

"May the saints guard us!" cried Martha again. "I'm old enough to be
your mother, or maybe, your grandmother, and I've seen a lot; but it's
many a year since I laid eyes on such a ign'rant and wrong-headed
little, red Indian as ye are! Why didn't ye take my advice and stay
here in the house with decency and comfort. But he must be all for
doing everything high and mighty. The Café Aguacate, if ye please. No
plain food for his highness. He turns up his nose at cod-fish sal----"

"Thunder and lightnin', are you going to ram that thing down my throat
every two minutes, are you?" And in truth she could see that one more
reference to that illustrious viand would break the back of Johnnie's
gentle disposition as one breaks a twig on the knee. She shifted with
Celtic ease. "Did ye bring the bread?" she asked.

He gazed at her for a moment and suddenly laughed. "I forgot to
mention," he informed her impressively, "that they did not take the
trouble to give me either the bread, the coffee or the eggs."

"The powers!" cried Martha.

"But it's all right. I stopped at a shop." From his pockets, he brought
a small loaf, some kind of German sausage and a flask of Jamaica rum.
"About all I could get. And they didn't want to sell them either. They
expect presently they can exchange a box of sardines for a grand
piano."

"'We are not blockaded by the Yankee warships; we are blockaded by our
grocers,'" said Martha, quoting the epidemic Havana saying. But she did
not delay long from the little loaf. She cut a slice from it and sat
eagerly munching. Johnnie seemed more interested in the Jamaica rum. He
looked up from his second glass, however, because he heard a peculiar
sound. The old woman was weeping. "Hey, what's this?" he demanded in
distress, but with the manner of a man who thinks gruffness is the only
thing that will make people feel better and cease. "What's this anyhow?
What are you cryin' for?"

"It's the bread," sobbed Martha. "It's the--the br-e-a-ddd."

"Huh? What's the matter with it?"

"It's so good, so g-good." The rain of tears did not prevent her from
continuing her unusual report. "Oh, it's so good! This is the first in
weeks. I didn't know bread could be so l-like heaven."

"Here," said Johnnie seriously. "Take a little mouthful of this rum. It
will do you good."

"No; I only want the bub-bub-bread."

"Well, take the bread, too.... There you are. Now you feel better....
By Jove, when I think of that Café Aguacate man! Fifty dollars gold!
And then not to get anything either. Say, after the war, I'm going
there, and I'm just going to raze that place to the ground. You see!
I'll make him think he can charge ME fifteen dollars for an egg....
And then not give me the egg."


III

Johnnie's subsequent activity in Havana could truthfully be related in
part to a certain temporary price of eggs. It is interesting to note
how close that famous event got to his eye so that, according to the
law of perspective, it was as big as the Capitol of Washington, where
centres the spirit of his nation. Around him, he felt a similar and
ferocious expression of life which informed him too plainly that if he
was caught, he was doomed. Neither the garrison nor the citizens of
Havana would tolerate any nonsense in regard to him if he was caught.
He would have the steel screw against his neck in short order. And what
was the main thing to bear him up against the desire to run away before
his work was done? A certain temporary price of eggs! It not only hid
the Capitol at Washington; it obscured the dangers in Havana.

Something was learned of the Santa Clara battery, because one morning
an old lady in black accompanied by a young man--evidently her
son--visited a house which was to rent on the height, in rear of the
battery. The portero was too lazy and sleepy to show them over the
premises, but he granted them permission to investigate for themselves.
They spent most of their time on the flat parapeted roof of the house.
At length they came down and said that the place did not suit them. The
portero went to sleep again.

Johnnie was never discouraged by the thought that his operations would
be of small benefit to the admiral commanding the fleet in adjacent
waters, and to the general commanding the army which was not going to
attack Havana from the land side. At that time it was all the world's
opinion that the army from Tampa would presently appear on the Cuban
beach at some convenient point to the east or west of Havana. It turned
out, of course, that the condition of the defences of Havana was of not
the slightest military importance to the United States since the city
was never attacked either by land or sea. But Johnnie could not foresee
this. He continued to take his fancy risk, continued his majestic lie,
with satisfaction, sometimes with delight, and with pride. And in the
psychologic distance was old Martha dancing with fear and shouting:
"Oh, Johnnie, me son, what a born fool ye are!"

Sometimes she would address him thus: "And when ye learn all this, how
are ye goin' to get out with it?" She was contemptuous.

He would reply, as serious as a Cossack in his fatalism. "Oh, I'll get
out some way."

His manoeuvres in the vicinity of Regla and Guanabacoa were of a
brilliant character. He haunted the sunny long grass in the manner of a
jack-rabbit. Sometimes he slept under a palm, dreaming of the American
advance fighting its way along the military road to the foot of Spanish
defences. Even when awake, he often dreamed it and thought of the
all-day crash and hot roar of an assault. Without consulting
Washington, he had decided that Havana should be attacked from the
south-east. An advance from the west could be contested right up to the
bar of the Hotel Inglaterra, but when the first ridge in the south-east
would be taken, the whole city with most of its defences would lie
under the American siege guns. And the approach to this position was as
reasonable as is any approach toward the muzzles of magazine rifles.
Johnnie viewed the grassy fields always as a prospective battle-ground,
and one can see him lying there, filling the landscape with visions of
slow-crawling black infantry columns, galloping batteries of artillery,
streaks of faint blue smoke marking the modern firing lines, clouds of
dust, a vision of ten thousand tragedies. And his ears heard the
noises.

But he was no idle shepherd boy with a head haunted by sombre and
glorious fancies. On the contrary, he was much occupied with practical
matters. Some months after the close of the war, he asked me: "Were you
ever fired at from very near?" I explained some experiences which I had
stupidly esteemed as having been rather near. "But did you ever have'm
fire a volley on you from close--very close--say, thirty feet?"

Highly scandalised I answered, "No; in that case, I would not be the
crowning feature of the Smithsonian Institute."

"Well," he said, "it's a funny effect. You feel as every hair on your
head had been snatched out by the roots." Questioned further he said,
"I walked right up on a Spanish outpost at daybreak once, and about
twenty men let go at me. Thought I was a Cuban army, I suppose."

"What did you do?"

"I run."

"Did they hit you, at all?"

"Naw."

It had been arranged that some light ship of the squadron should
rendezvous with him at a certain lonely spot on the coast on a certain
day and hour and pick him up. He was to wave something white. His shirt
was not white, but he waved it whenever he could see the signal-tops of
a war-ship. It was a very tattered banner. After a ten-mile scramble
through almost pathless thickets, he had very little on him which
respectable men would call a shirt, and the less one says about his
trousers the better. This naked savage, then, walked all day up and
down a small bit of beach waving a brown rag. At night, he slept in the
sand. At full daybreak he began to wave his rag; at noon he was waving
his rag; at night-fall he donned his rag and strove to think of it as a
shirt. Thus passed two days, and nothing had happened. Then he retraced
a twenty-five mile way to the house of old Martha. At first she took
him to be one of Havana's terrible beggars and cried, "And do you come
here for alms? Look out, that I do not beg of you." The one unchanged
thing was his laugh of pure mockery. When she heard it, she dragged him
through the door. He paid no heed to her ejaculations but went straight
to where he had hidden some gold. As he was untying a bit of string
from the neck of a small bag, he said, "How is little Alfred?"
"Recovered, thank Heaven." He handed Martha a piece of gold. "Take this
and buy what you can on the corner. I'm hungry." Martha departed with
expedition. Upon her return, she was beaming. She had foraged a thin
chicken, a bunch of radishes and two bottles of wine. Johnnie had
finished the radishes and one bottle of wine when the chicken was still
a long way from the table. He called stoutly for more, and so Martha
passed again into the street with another gold piece. She bought more
radishes, more wine and some cheese. They had a grand feast, with
Johnnie audibly wondering until a late hour why he had waved his rag in
vain.

There was no end to his suspense, no end to his work. He knew
everything. He was an animate guide-book. After he knew a thing once,
he verified it in several different ways in order to make sure. He
fitted himself for a useful career, like a young man in a college--with
the difference that the shadow of the garote fell ever upon his way,
and that he was occasionally shot at, and that he could not get enough
to eat, and that his existence was apparently forgotten, and that he
contracted the fever. But----

One cannot think of the terms in which to describe a futility so vast,
so colossal. He had builded a little boat, and the sea had receded and
left him and his boat a thousand miles inland on the top of a mountain.
The war-fate had left Havana out of its plan and thus isolated Johnnie
and his several pounds of useful information. The war-fate left Havana
to become the somewhat indignant victim of a peaceful occupation at the
close of the conflict, and Johnnie's data were worth as much as a
carpenter's lien on the north pole. He had suffered and laboured for
about as complete a bit of absolute nothing as one could invent. If the
company which owned the sugar plantation had not generously continued
his salary during the war, he would not have been able to pay his
expenses on the amount allowed him by the government, which, by the
way, was a more complete bit of absolute nothing than one could
possibly invent.


IV

I met Johnnie in Havana in October, 1898. If I remember rightly the
U.S.S. _Resolute_ and the U.S.S. _Scorpion_ were in the harbour,
but beyond these two terrible engines of destruction there were not as
yet any of the more stern signs of the American success. Many Americans
were to be seen in the streets of Havana where they were not in any way
molested. Among them was Johnnie in white duck and a straw hat, cool,
complacent and with eyes rather more steady than ever. I addressed him
upon the subject of his supreme failure, but I could not perturb his
philosophy. In reply he simply asked me to dinner. "Come to the Café
Aguacate at 7:30 to-night," he said. "I haven't been there in a long
time. We shall see if they cook as well as ever." I turned up promptly
and found Johnnie in a private room smoking a cigar in the presence of
a waiter who was blue in the gills. "I've ordered the dinner," he said
cheerfully. "Now I want to see if you won't be surprised how well they
can do here in Havana." I was surprised. I was dumfounded. Rarely in
the history of the world have two rational men sat down to such a
dinner. It must have taxed the ability and endurance of the entire
working force of the establishment to provide it. The variety of dishes
was of course related to the markets of Havana, but the abundance and
general profligacy was related only to Johnnie's imagination. Neither
of us had an appetite. Our fancies fled in confusion before this
puzzling luxury. I looked at Johnnie as if he were a native of Thibet.
I had thought him to be a most simple man, and here I found him
revelling in food like a fat, old senator of Rome's decadence. And if
the dinner itself put me to open-eyed amazement, the names of the wines
finished everything. Apparently Johnny had had but one standard, and
that was the cost. If a wine had been very expensive, he had ordered
it. I began to think him probably a maniac. At any rate, I was sure
that we were both fools. Seeing my fixed stare, he spoke with affected
languor: "I wish peacocks' brains and melted pearls were to be had here
in Havana. We'd have 'em." Then he grinned. As a mere skirmisher I
said, "In New York, we think we dine well; but really this, you
know--well--Havana----"

Johnnie waved his hand pompously. "Oh, I know."

Directly after coffee, Johnnie excused himself for a moment and left
the room. When he returned he said briskly, "Well, are you ready to
go?" As soon as we were in a cab and safely out of hearing of the Café
Aguacate, Johnnie lay back and laughed long and joyously.

But I was very serious. "Look here, Johnnie," I said to him solemnly,
"when you invite me to dine with you, don't you ever do _that_ again.
And I'll tell you one thing--when you dine with me you will probably
get the ordinary table d'hôte." I was an older man.

"Oh, that's all right," he cried. And then he too grew serious. "Well,
as far as I am concerned--as far as I am concerned," he said, "the war
is now over."




WAR MEMORIES


"But to get the real thing!" cried Vernall, the war-correspondent. "It
seems impossible! It is because war is neither magnificent nor squalid;
it is simply life, and an expression of life can always evade us. We
can never tell life, one to another, although sometimes we think we
can."

When I climbed aboard the despatch-boat at Key West, the mate told me
irritably that as soon as we crossed the bar, we would find ourselves
monkey-climbing over heavy seas. It wasn't my fault, but he seemed to
insinuate that it was all a result of my incapacity. There were four
correspondents in the party. The leader of us came aboard with a huge
bunch of bananas, which he hung like a chandelier in the centre of the
tiny cabin. We made acquaintance over, around, and under this bunch of
bananas, which really occupied the cabin as a soldier occupies a sentry
box. But the bunch did not become really aggressive until we were well
at sea. Then it began to spar. With the first roll of the ship, it
launched its honest pounds at McCurdy and knocked him wildly through
the door to the deck-rail, where he hung cursing hysterically. Without
a moment's pause, it made for me. I flung myself head-first into my
bunk and watched the demon sweep Brownlow into a corner and wedge his
knee behind a sea-chest. Kary gave a shrill cry and fled. The bunch of
bananas swung to and fro, silent, determined, ferocious, looking for
more men. It had cleared a space for itself. My comrades looked in at
the door, calling upon me to grab the thing and hold it. I pointed out
to them the security and comfort of my position. They were angry.
Finally the mate came and lashed the thing so that it could not prowl
about the cabin and assault innocent war-correspondents. You see? War!
A bunch of bananas rampant because the ship rolled.

In that early period of the war we were forced to continue our dreams.
And we were all dreamers, envisioning the seas with death grapples,
ship and ship. Even the navy grew cynical. Officers on the bridge
lifted their megaphones and told you in resigned voices that they were
out of ice, onions, and eggs. At other times, they would shoot quite
casually at us with six-pounders. This industry usually progressed in
the night, but it sometimes happened in the day. There was never any
resentment on our side, although at moments there was some nervousness.
They were impressively quick with their lanyards; our means of replying
to signals were correspondingly slow. They gave you opportunity to say,
"Heaven guard me!" Then they shot. But we recognised the propriety of
it. Everything was correct save the war, which lagged and lagged and
lagged. It did not play; it was not a gory giant; it was a bunch of
bananas swung in the middle of the cabin.

Once we had the honour of being rammed at midnight by the U.S.S.
_Machias_. In fact the exceeding industry of the naval commanders of
the Cuban blockading fleet caused a certain liveliness to at times
penetrate our mediocre existence. We were all greatly entertained over
an immediate prospect of being either killed by rapid fire guns, cut in
half by the ram or merely drowned, but even our great longing for
diversion could not cause us to ever again go near the _Machias_ on a
dark night. We had sailed from Key West on a mission that had nothing
to do with the coast of Cuba, and steaming due east and some
thirty-five miles from the Cuban land, we did not think we were liable
to an affair with any of the fierce American cruisers. Suddenly a
familiar signal of red and white lights flashed like a brooch of jewels
on the pall that covered the sea. It was far away and tiny, but we knew
all about it. It was the electric question of an American war-ship and
it demanded a swift answer in kind. The man behind the gun! What about
the man in front of the gun? The war-ship signals vanished and the sea
presented nothing but a smoky black stretch lit with the hissing white
tops of the flying waves. A thin line of flame swept from a gun.

Thereafter followed one of those silences which had become so
peculiarly instructive to the blockade-runner. Somewhere in the
darkness we knew that a slate-coloured cruiser, red below the
water-line and with a gold scroll on her bows, was flying over the
waves toward us, while upon the dark decks the men stood at general
quarters in silence about the long thin guns, and it was the law of
life and death that we should make true answer in about the twelfth
part of a second. Now I shall with regret disclose a certain dreadful
secret of the despatch-boat service. Our signals, far from being
electric, were two lanterns which we kept in a tub and covered with a
tarpaulin. The tub was placed just forward of the pilot-house, and when
we were accosted at night it was everybody's duty to scramble wildly
for the tub and grab out the lanterns and wave them. It amounted to a
slowness of speech. I remember a story of an army sentry who upon
hearing a noise in his front one dark night called his usual sharp
query. "Halt--who's there? Halt or I'll fire!" And getting no immediate
response he fired even as he had said, killing a man with a hair-lip
who unfortunately could not arrange his vocal machinery to reply in
season. We were something like a boat with a hair-lip. And sometimes it
was very trying to the nerves.... The pause was long. Then a voice
spoke from the sea through a megaphone. It was faint but clear. "What
ship is that?" No one hesitated over his answer in cases of this kind.
Everybody was desirous of imparting fullest information. There was
another pause. Then out of the darkness flew an American cruiser,
silent as death, handled as ferociously as if the devil commanded her.
Again the little voice hailed from the bridge. "What ship is that?"
Evidently the reply to the first hail had been misunderstood or not
heard. This time the voice rang with menace, menace of immediate and
certain destruction, and the last word was intoned savagely and
strangely across the windy darkness as if the officer would explain
that the cruiser was after either fools or the common enemy. The yells
in return did not stop her. She was hurling herself forward to ram us
amidships, and the people on the little _Three Friends_ looked at a
tall swooping bow, and it was keener than any knife that has ever been
made. As the cruiser lunged every man imagined the gallant and famous
but frail _Three Friends_ cut into two parts as neatly as if she had
been cheese. But there was a sheer and a hard sheer to starboard, and
down upon our quarter swung a monstrous thing larger than any ship in
the world--the U.S.S. _Machias_. She had a freeboard of about three
hundred feet and the top of her funnel was out of sight in the clouds
like an Alp. I shouldn't wonder that at the top of that funnel there
was a region of perpetual snow. And at a range which swiftly narrowed
to nothing every gun in her port-battery swung deliberately into aim.
It was closer, more deliciously intimate than a duel across a
handkerchief. We all had an opportunity of looking miles down the
muzzles of this festive artillery before came the collision. Then the
_Machias_ reeled her steel shoulder against the wooden side of the
_Three Friends_ and up went a roar as if a vast shingle roof had
fallen. The poor little tug dipped as if she meant to pass under the
war-ship, staggered and finally righted, trembling from head to foot.
The cries of the splintered timbers ceased. The men on the tug gazed at
each other with white faces shining faintly in the darkness. The
_Machias_ backed away even as the _Three Friends_ drew slowly ahead,
and again we were alone with the piping of the wind and the slash of
the gale-driven water. Later, from some hidden part of the sea, the
bullish eye of a searchlight looked at us and the widening white rays
bathed us in the glare. There was another hail. "Hello there, _Three
Friends_!" "Ay, ay, sir!" "Are you injured?" Our first mate had taken a
lantern and was studying the side of the tug, and we held our breath
for his answer. I was sure that he was going to say that we were
sinking. Surely there could be no other ending to this terrific
bloodthirsty assault. But the first mate said, "No, sir." Instantly the
glare of the search-light was gone; the _Machias_ was gone; the
incident was closed.

I was dining once on board the flag-ship, the _New York_, armoured
cruiser. It was the junior officers' mess, and when the coffee came, a
young ensign went to the piano and began to bang out a popular tune. It
was a cheerful scene, and it resembled only a cheerful scene. Suddenly
we heard the whistle of the bos'n's mate, and directly above us, it
seemed, a voice, hoarse as that of a sea-lion, bellowed a command: "Man
the port battery." In a moment the table was vacant; the popular tune
ceased in a jangle. On the quarter-deck assembled a group of
officers--spectators. The quiet evening sea, lit with faint red lights,
went peacefully to the feet of a verdant shore. One could hear the
far-away measured tumbling of surf upon a reef. Only this sound pulsed
in the air. The great grey cruiser was as still as the earth, the sea,
and the sky. Then they let off a four-inch gun directly under my feet.
I thought it turned me a back-somersault. That was the effect upon my
mind. But it appears I did not move. The shell went carousing off to
the Cuban shore, and from the vegetation there spirted a cloud of dust.
Some of the officers on the quarter-deck laughed. Through their glasses
they had seen a Spanish column of cavalry much agitated by the
appearance of this shell among them. As far as I was concerned, there
was nothing but the spirt of dust from the side of a long-suffering
island. When I returned to my coffee I found that most of the young
officers had also returned. Japanese boys were bringing liquors. The
piano's clattering of the popular air was often interrupted by the boom
of a four-inch gun. A bunch of bananas!

One day, our despatch-boat found the shores of Guantanamo Bay flowing
past on either side. It was at nightfall and on the eastward point a
small village was burning, and it happened that a fiery light was
thrown upon some palm-trees so that it made them into enormous crimson
feathers. The water was the colour of blue steel; the Cuban woods were
sombre; high shivered the gory feathers. The last boatloads of the
marine battalion were pulling for the beach. The marine officers gave
me generous hospitality to the camp on the hill. That night there was
an alarm and amid a stern calling of orders and a rushing of men, I
wandered in search of some other man who had no occupation. It turned
out to be the young assistant surgeon, Gibbs. We foregathered in the
centre of a square of six companies of marines. There was no firing. We
thought it rather comic. The next night there was an alarm; there was
some firing; we lay on our bellies; it was no longer comic. On the
third night the alarm came early; I went in search of Gibbs, but I soon
gave over an active search for the more congenial occupation of lying
flat and feeling the hot hiss of the bullets trying to cut my hair. For
the moment I was no longer a cynic. I was a child who, in a fit of
ignorance, had jumped into the vat of war. I heard somebody dying near
me. He was dying hard. Hard. It took him a long time to die. He
breathed as all noble machinery breathes when it is making its gallant
strife against breaking, breaking. But he was going to break. He was
going to break. It seemed to me, this breathing, the noise of a heroic
pump which strives to subdue a mud which comes upon it in tons. The
darkness was impenetrable. The man was lying in some depression within
seven feet of me. Every wave, vibration, of his anguish beat upon my
senses. He was long past groaning. There was only the bitter strife for
air which pulsed out into the night in a clear penetrating whistle with
intervals of terrible silence in which I held my own breath in the
common unconscious aspiration to help. I thought this man would never
die. I wanted him to die. Ultimately he died. At the moment the
adjutant came bustling along erect amid the spitting bullets. I knew
him by his voice. "Where's the doctor? There's some wounded men over
there. Where's the doctor?" A man answered briskly: "Just died this
minute, sir." It was as if he had said: "Just gone around the corner
this minute, sir." Despite the horror of this night's business, the
man's mind was somehow influenced by the coincidence of the adjutant's
calling aloud for the doctor within a few seconds of the doctor's
death. It--what shall I say? It interested him, this coincidence.

The day broke by inches, with an obvious and maddening reluctance. From
some unfathomable source I procured an opinion that my friend was not
dead at all--the wild and quivering darkness had caused me to
misinterpret a few shouted words. At length the land brightened in a
violent atmosphere, the perfect dawning of a tropic day, and in this
light I saw a clump of men near me. At first I thought they were all
dead. Then I thought they were all asleep. The truth was that a group
of wan-faced, exhausted men had gone to sleep about Gibbs' body so
closely and in such abandoned attitudes that one's eye could not pick
the living from the dead until one saw that a certain head had beneath
it a great dark pool.

In the afternoon a lot of men went bathing, and in the midst of this
festivity firing was resumed. It was funny to see the men come
scampering out of the water, grab at their rifles and go into action
attired in nought but their cartridge-belts. The attack of the
Spaniards had interrupted in some degree the services over the graves
of Gibbs and some others. I remember Paine came ashore with a bottle of
whisky which I took from him violently. My faithful shooting boots
began to hurt me, and I went to the beach and poulticed my feet in wet
clay, sitting on the little rickety pier near where the corrugated iron
cable-station showed how the shells slivered through it. Some marines,
desirous of mementoes, were poking with sticks in the smoking ruins of
the hamlet. Down in the shallow water crabs were meandering among the
weeds, and little fishes moved slowly in schools.

The next day we went shooting. It was exactly like quail shooting. I'll
tell you. These guerillas who so cursed our lives had a well some five
miles away, and it was the only water supply within about twelve miles
of the marine camp. It was decided that it would be correct to go forth
and destroy the well. Captain Elliott, of C company, was to take his
men with Captain Spicer's company, D, out to the well, beat the enemy
away and destroy everything. He was to start at the next daybreak. He
asked me if I cared to go, and, of course, I accepted with glee; but
all that night I was afraid. Bitterly afraid. The moon was very bright,
shedding a magnificent radiance upon the trenches. I watched the men of
C and D companies lying so tranquilly--some snoring, confound
them--whereas I was certain that I could never sleep with the weight of
a coming battle upon my mind, a battle in which the poor life of a
war-correspondent might easily be taken by a careless enemy. But if I
was frightened I was also very cold. It was a chill night and I wanted
a heavy top-coat almost as much as I wanted a certificate of immunity
from rifle bullets. These two feelings were of equal importance to my
mind. They were twins. Elliott came and flung a tent-fly over
Lieutenant Bannon and me as we lay on the ground back of the men. Then
I was no longer cold, but I was still afraid, for tent-flies cannot
mend a fear. In the morning I wished for some mild attack of disease,
something that would incapacitate me for the business of going out
gratuitously to be bombarded. But I was in an awkwardly healthy state,
and so I must needs smile and look pleased with my prospects. We were
to be guided by fifty Cubans, and I gave up all dreams of a
postponement when I saw them shambling off in single file through the
cactus. We followed presently. "Where you people goin' to?" "Don't
know, Jim." "Well, good luck to you, boys." This was the world's lazy
inquiry and conventional God-speed. Then the mysterious wilderness
swallowed us.

The men were silent because they were ordered to be silent, but
whatever faces I could observe were marked with a look of serious
meditation. As they trudged slowly in single file they were reflecting
upon--what? I don't know. But at length we came to ground more open.
The sea appeared on our right, and we saw the gunboat _Dolphin_
steaming along in a line parallel to ours. I was as glad to see her as
if she had called out my name. The trail wound about the bases of some
high bare spurs. If the Spaniards had occupied them I don't see how we
could have gone further. But upon them were only the dove-voiced
guerilla scouts calling back into the hills the news of our approach.
The effect of sound is of course relative. I am sure I have never heard
such a horrible sound as the beautiful cooing of the wood-dove when I
was certain that it came from the yellow throat of a guerilla. Elliott
sent Lieutenant Lucas with his platoon to ascend the hills and cover
our advance by the trail. We halted and watched them climb, a long
black streak of men in the vivid sunshine of the hillside. We did not
know how tall were these hills until we saw Lucas and his men on top,
and they were no larger than specks. We marched on until, at last, we
heard--it seemed in the sky--the sputter of firing. This devil's dance
was begun. The proper strategic movement to cover the crisis seemed to
me to be to run away home and swear I had never started on this
expedition. But Elliott yelled: "Now, men; straight up this hill." The
men charged up against the cactus, and, because I cared for the opinion
of others, I found myself tagging along close at Elliott's heels. I
don't know how I got up that hill, but I think it was because I was
afraid to be left behind. The immediate rear did not look safe. The
crowd of strong young marines afforded the only spectacle of
provisional security. So I tagged along at Elliott's heels. The hill
was as steep as a Swiss roof. From it sprang out great pillars of
cactus, and the human instinct was to assist one's self in the ascent
by grasping cactus with one's hands. I remember the watch I had to keep
upon this human instinct even when the sound of the bullets was
attracting my nervous attention. However, the attractive thing to my
sense at the time was the fact that every man of the marines was also
climbing away like mad. It was one thing for Elliott, Spicer, Neville,
Shaw and Bannon; it was another thing for me; but--what in the devil
was it to the men? Not the same thing surely. It was perfectly easy for
any marine to get overcome by the burning heat and, lying down,
bequeath the work and the danger to his comrades. The fine thing about
"the men" is that you can't explain them. I mean when you take them
collectively. They do a thing, and afterward you find that they have
done it because they have done it. However, when Elliott arrived at the
top of the ridge, myself and many other men were with him. But there
was no battle scene. Off on another ridge we could see Lucas' men and
the Cubans peppering away into a valley. The bullets about our ears
were really intended to lodge in them. We went over there.

I walked along the firing line and looked at the men. I kept somewhat
on what I shall call the _lee_ side of the ridge. Why? Because I was
afraid of being shot. No other reason. Most of the men as they lay
flat, shooting, looked contented, almost happy. They were pleased,
these men, at the situation. I don't know. I cannot imagine. But they
were pleased, at any rate. I wasn't pleased. I was picturing defeat. I
was saying to myself:--"Now if the enemy should suddenly do so-and-so,
or so-and-so, why--what would become of me?" During these first few
moments I did not see the Spanish position because--I was afraid to
look at it. Bullets were hissing and spitting over the crest of the
ridge in such showers as to make observation to be a task for a brave
man. No, now, look here, why the deuce should I have stuck my head up,
eh? Why? Well, at any rate, I didn't until it seemed to be a far less
thing than most of the men were doing as if they liked it. Then I saw
nothing. At least it was only the bottom of a small valley. In this
valley there was a thicket--a big thicket--and this thicket seemed to
be crowded with a mysterious class of persons who were evidently trying
to kill us. Our enemies? Yes--perhaps--I suppose so. Leave that to the
people in the streets at home. They know and cry against the public
enemy, but when men go into actual battle not one in a thousand
concerns himself with an animus against the men who face him. The great
desire is to beat them--beat them whoever they are as a matter, first,
of personal safety, second, of personal glory. It is always safest to
make the other chap quickly run away. And as he runs away, one feels,
as one tries to hit him in the back and knock him sprawling, that he
must be a very good and sensible fellow. But these people apparently
did not mean to run away. They clung to their thicket and, amid the
roar of the firing, one could sometimes hear their wild yells of insult
and defiance. They were actually the most obstinate, headstrong, mulish
people that you could ever imagine. The _Dolphin_ was throwing shells
into their immediate vicinity and the fire from the marines and Cubans
was very rapid and heavy, but still those incomprehensible mortals
remained in their thicket. The scene on the top of the ridge was very
wild, but there was only one truly romantic figure. This was a Cuban
officer who held in one hand a great glittering machete and in the
other a cocked revolver. He posed like a statue of victory. Afterwards
he confessed to me that he alone had been responsible for the winning
of the fight. But outside of this splendid person it was simply a
picture of men at work, men terribly hard at work, red-faced, sweating,
gasping toilers. A Cuban negro soldier was shot though the heart and
one man took the body on his back and another took it by its feet and
trundled away toward the rear looking precisely like a wheelbarrow. A
man in C company was shot through the ankle and he sat behind the line
nursing his wound. Apparently he was pleased with it. It seemed to suit
him. I don't know why. But beside him sat a comrade with a face drawn,
solemn and responsible like that of a New England spinster at the
bedside of a sick child.

The fight banged away with a roar like a forest fire. Suddenly a marine
wriggled out of the firing line and came frantically to me. "Say, young
feller, I'll give you five dollars for a drink of whisky." He tried to
force into my hand a gold piece. "Go to the devil," said I, deeply
scandalised. "Besides, I haven't got any whisky," "No, but look here,"
he beseeched me. "If I don't get a drink I'll die. And I'll give you
five dollars for it. Honest, I will." I finally tried to escape from
him by walking away, but he followed at my heels, importuning me with
all the exasperating persistence of a professional beggar and trying to
force this ghastly gold piece into my hand. I could not shake him off,
and amid that clatter of furious fighting I found myself intensely
embarrassed, and glancing fearfully this way and that way to make sure
that people did not see me, the villain and his gold. In vain I assured
him that if I had any whisky I should place it at his disposal. He
could not be turned away. I thought of the European expedient in such a
crisis--to jump in a cab. But unfortunately---- In the meantime I had
given up my occupation of tagging at Captain Elliott's heels, because
his business required that he should go into places of great danger.
But from time to time I was under his attention. Once he turned to me
and said: "Mr. Vernall, will you go and satisfy yourself who those
people are?" Some men had appeared on a hill about six hundred yards
from our left flank. "Yes, sir," cried I with, I assure you, the finest
alacrity and cheerfulness, and my tone proved to me that I had
inherited histrionic abilities. This tone was of course a black lie,
but I went off briskly and was as jaunty as a real soldier while all
the time my heart was in my boots and I was cursing the day that saw me
landed on the shores of the tragic isle. If the men on the distant hill
had been guerillas, my future might have been seriously jeopardised,
but I had not gone far toward them when I was able to recognise the
uniforms of the marine corps. Whereupon I scampered back to the firing
line and with the same alacrity and cheerfulness reported my
information. I mention to you that I was afraid, because there were
about me that day many men who did not seem to be afraid at all, men
with quiet, composed faces who went about this business as if they
proceeded from a sense of habit. They were not old soldiers; they were
mainly recruits, but many of them betrayed all the emotion and merely
the emotion that one sees in the face of a man earnestly at work.

I don't know how long the action lasted. I remember deciding in my own
mind that the Spaniards stood forty minutes. This was a mere arbitrary
decision based on nothing. But at any rate we finally arrived at the
satisfactory moment when the enemy began to run away. I shall never
forget how my courage increased. And then began the great bird
shooting. From the far side of the thicket arose an easy slope covered
with plum-coloured bush. The Spaniards broke in coveys of from six to
fifteen men--or birds--and swarmed up this slope. The marines on our
ridge then had some fine, open field shooting. No charge could be made
because the shells from the _Dolphin_ were helping the Spaniards to
evacuate the thicket, so the marines had to be content with this
extraordinary paraphrase of a kind of sport. It was strangely like the
original. The shells from the _Dolphin_ were the dogs; dogs who went in
and stirred out the game. The marines were suddenly gentlemen in
leggings, alive with the sharp instinct which marks the hunter. The
Spaniards were the birds. Yes, they were the birds, but I doubt if they
would sympathise with my metaphors.

We destroyed their camp, and when the tiled roof of a burning house
fell with a crash it was so like the crash of a strong volley of
musketry that we all turned with a start, fearing that we would have to
fight again on that same day. And this struck me at least as being an
impossible thing. They gave us water from the _Dolphin_ and we filled
our canteens. None of the men were particularly jubilant. They did not
altogether appreciate their victory. They were occupied in being glad
that the fight was over. I discovered to my amazement that we were on
the summit of a hill so high that our released eyes seemed to sweep
over half the world. The vast stretch of sea shimmering like fragile
blue silk in the breeze, lost itself ultimately in an indefinite pink
haze, while in the other direction, ridge after ridge, ridge after
ridge, rolled brown and arid into the north. The battle had been fought
high in the air--where the rain clouds might have been. That is why
everybody's face was the colour of beetroot and men lay on the ground
and only swore feebly when the cactus spurs sank into them.

Finally we started for camp. Leaving our wounded, our cactus
pincushions, and our heat-prostrated men on board the _Dolphin_. I did
not see that the men were elate or even grinning with satisfaction.
They seemed only anxious to get to food and rest. And yet it was plain
that Elliott and his men had performed a service that would prove
invaluable to the security and comfort of the entire battalion. They
had driven the guerillas to take a road along which they would have to
proceed for fifteen miles before they could get as much water as would
wet the point of a pin. And by the destruction of a well at the scene
of the fight, Elliott made an arid zone almost twenty miles wide
between the enemy and the base camp. In Cuba this is the best of
protections. However, a cup of coffee! Time enough to think of a
brilliant success after one had had a cup of coffee. The long line
plodded wearily through the dusky jungle which was never again to be
alive with ambushes.

It was dark when we stumbled into camp, and I was sad with an
ungovernable sadness, because I was too tired to remember where I had
left my kit. But some of my colleagues were waiting on the beach, and
they put me on a despatch-boat to take my news to a Jamaica
cable-station. The appearance of this despatch-boat struck me with
wonder. It was reminiscent of something with which I had been familiar
in early years. I looked with dull surprise at three men of the
engine-room force, who sat aft on some bags of coal smoking their pipes
and talking as if there had never been any battles fought anywhere. The
sudden clang of the gong made me start and listen eagerly, as if I
would be asking: "What was that?" The chunking of the screw affected me
also, but I seemed to relate it to a former and pleasing experience.
One of the correspondents on board immediately began to tell me of the
chief engineer, who, he said, was a comic old character. I was taken to
see this marvel, which presented itself as a gray-bearded man with an
oil can, who had the cynical, malicious, egotistic eye of proclaimed
and admired ignorance. I looked dazedly at the venerable impostor. What
had he to do with battles--the humming click of the locks, the odour of
burnt cotton, the bullets, the firing? My friend told the scoundrel
that I was just returned from the afternoon's action. He said: "That
so?" And looked at me with a smile, faintly, faintly derisive. You see?
I had just come out of my life's most fiery time, and that old devil
looked at me with that smile. What colossal conceit. The
four-times-damned doddering old head-mechanic of a derelict junk shop.
The whole trouble lay in the fact that I had not shouted out with
mingled awe and joy as he stood there in his wisdom and experience,
with all his ancient saws and home-made epigrams ready to fire.

My friend took me to the cabin. What a squalid hole! My heart sank. The
reward after the labour should have been a great airy chamber, a
gigantic four-poster, iced melons, grilled birds, wine, and the
delighted attendance of my friends. When I had finished my cablegram, I
retired to a little shelf of a berth, which reeked of oil, while the
blankets had soaked recently with sea-water. The vessel heeled to
leaward in spasmodic attempts to hurl me out, and I resisted with the
last of my strength. The infamous pettiness of it all! I thought the
night would never end. "But never mind," I said to myself at last,
"to-morrow in Fort Antonio I shall have a great bath and fine raiment,
and I shall dine grandly and there will be lager beer on ice. And there
will be attendants to run when I touch a bell, and I shall catch every
interested romantist in the town, and spin him the story of the fight
at Cusco." We reached Fort Antonio and I fled from the cable office to
the hotel. I procured the bath and, as I donned whatever fine raiment I
had foraged, I called the boy and pompously told him of a dinner--a
real dinner, with furbelows and complications, and yet with a basis of
sincerity. He looked at me calf-like for a moment, and then he went
away. After a long interval, the manager himself appeared and asked me
some questions which led me to see that he thought I had attempted to
undermine and disintegrate the intellect of the boy, by the elocution
of Arabic incantations. Well, never mind. In the end, the manager of
the hotel elicited from me that great cry, that cry which during the
war, rang piteously from thousands of throats, that last grand cry of
anguish and despair: "_Well, then, in the name of God, can I have a
cold bottle of beer?_"

Well, you see to what war brings men? War is death, and a plague of the
lack of small things, and toil. Nor did I catch my sentimentalists and
pour forth my tale to them, and thrill, appal, and fascinate them.
However, they did feel an interest in me, for I heard a lady at the
hotel ask: "Who _is_ that chap in the very dirty jack-boots?" So you
see, that whereas you can be very much frightened upon going into
action, you can also be greatly annoyed after you have come out.

Later, I fell into the hands of one of my closest friends, and he
mercilessly outlined a scheme for landing to the west of Santiago and
getting through the Spanish lines to some place from which we could
view the Spanish squadron lying in the harbour. There was rumour that
the _Viscaya_ had escaped, he said, and it would be very nice to make
sure of the truth. So we steamed to a point opposite a Cuban camp which
my friend knew, and flung two crop-tailed Jamaica polo ponies into the
sea. We followed in a small boat and were met on the beach by a small
Cuban detachment who immediately caught our ponies and saddled them for
us. I suppose we felt rather god-like. We were almost the first
Americans they had seen and they looked at us with eyes of grateful
affection. I don't suppose many men have the experience of being looked
at with eyes of grateful affection. They guide us to a Cuban camp
where, in a little palm-bark hut, a black-faced lieutenant-colonel was
lolling in a hammock. I couldn't understand what was said, but at any
rate he must have ordered his half-naked orderly to make coffee, for it
was done. It was a dark syrup in smoky tin-cups, but it was better than
the cold bottle of beer which I did not drink in Jamaica.

The Cuban camp was an expeditious affair of saplings and palm-bark tied
with creepers. It could be burned to the ground in fifteen minutes and
in ten reduplicated. The soldiers were in appearance an absolutely
good-natured set of half-starved ragamuffins. Their breeches hung in
threads about their black legs and their shirts were as nothing. They
looked like a collection of real tropic savages at whom some
philanthropist had flung a bundle of rags and some of the rags had
stuck here and there. But their condition was now a habit. I doubt if
they knew they were half-naked. Anyhow they didn't care. No more they
should; the weather was warm. This lieutenant-colonel gave us an escort
of five or six men and we went up into the mountains, lying flat on our
Jamaica ponies while they went like rats up and down extraordinary
trails. In the evening we reached the camp of a major who commanded the
outposts. It was high, high in the hills. The stars were as big as
cocoanuts. We lay in borrowed hammocks and watched the firelight gleam
blood-red on the trees. I remember an utterly naked negro squatting,
crimson, by the fire and cleaning an iron-pot. Some voices were singing
an Afric wail of forsaken love and death. And at dawn we were to try to
steal through the Spanish lines. I was very, very sorry.

In the cold dawn the situation was the same, but somehow courage seemed
to be in the breaking day. I went off with the others quite cheerfully.
We came to where the pickets stood behind bulwarks of stone in
frameworks of saplings. They were peering across a narrow cloud-steeped
gulch at a dull fire marking a Spanish post. There was some palaver and
then, with fifteen men, we descended the side of this mountain, going
down into the chill blue-and-grey clouds. We had left our horses with
the Cuban pickets. We proceeded stealthily, for we were already within
range of the Spanish pickets. At the bottom of the cañon it was still
night. A brook, a regular salmon-stream, brawled over the rocks. There
were grassy banks and most delightful trees. The whole valley was a
sylvan fragrance. But--the guide waved his arm and scowled warningly,
and in a moment we were off, threading thickets, climbing hills,
crawling through fields on our hands and knees, sometimes sweeping like
seventeen phantoms across a Spanish road. I was in a dream, but I kept
my eye on the guide and halted to listen when he halted to listen and
ambled onward when he ambled onward. Sometimes he turned and pantomimed
as ably and fiercely as a man being stung by a thousand hornets. Then
we knew that the situation was extremely delicate. We were now of
course well inside the Spanish lines and we ascended a great hill which
overlooked the harbour of Santiago. There, tranquilly at anchor, lay
the _Oquendo_, the _Maria Theresa_, the _Christobal Colon_, the
_Viscaya_, the _Pluton_, the _Furor_. The bay was white in the sun and
the great blacked-hull armoured cruisers were impressive in a dignity
massive yet graceful. We did not know that they were all doomed ships,
soon to go out to a swift death. My friend drew maps and things while I
devoted myself to complete rest, blinking lazily at the Spanish
squadron. We did not know that we were the last Americans to view them
alive and unhurt and at peace. Then we retraced our way, at the same
noiseless canter. I did not understand my condition until I considered
that we were well through the Spanish lines and practically out of
danger. Then I discovered that I was a dead man. The nervous force
having evaporated I was a mere corpse. My limbs were of dough and my
spinal cord burned within me as if it were red-hot wire. But just at
this time we were discovered by a Spanish patrol, and I ascertained
that I was not dead at all. We ultimately reached the foot of the
mother-mountain on whose shoulders were the Cuban pickets, and here I
was so sure of safety that I could not resist the temptation to die
again. I think I passed into eleven distinct stupors during the ascent
of that mountain while the escort stood leaning on their Remingtons. We
had done twenty-five miles at a sort of a man-gallop, never once using
a beaten track, but always going promiscuously through the jungle and
over the rocks. And many of the miles stood straight on end so that it
was as hard to come down as it was to go up. But during my stupors, the
escort _stood_, mind you, and chatted in low voices. For all the signs
they showed, we might have been starting. And they had had nothing to
eat but mangoes for over eight days. Previous to the eight days they
had been living on mangoes and the carcase of a small lean pony. They
were, in fact, of the stuff of Fenimore Cooper's Indians, only they
made no preposterous orations. At the major's camp, my friend and I
agreed that if our worthy escort would send down a representative with
us to the coast, we would send back to them whatever we could spare
from the stores of our despatch-boat. With one voice the escort
answered that they themselves would go the additional four leagues, as
in these starving times they did not care to trust a representative,
thank you. "They can't do it; they'll peg out; there must be a limit,"
I said. "No," answered my friend. "They're all right; they'd run three
times around the whole island for a mouthful of beer." So we saddled up
and put off with our fifteen Cuban infantrymen wagging along tirelessly
behind us. Sometimes, at the foot of a precipitous hill, a man asked
permission to cling to my horse's tail, and then the Jamaica pony would
snake him to the summit so swiftly that only his toes seemed to touch
the rocks. And for this assistance the man was grateful. When we
crowned the last great ridge we saw our squadron to the eastward spread
in its patient semicircular about the mouth of the harbour. But as we
wound towards the beach we saw a more dramatic thing--our own
despatch-boat leaving the rendezvous and putting off to sea. Evidently
we were late. Behind me were fifteen stomachs, empty. It was a
frightful situation. My friend and I charged for the beach and those
fifteen fools began to _run_.

It was no use. The despatch-boat went gaily away trailing black smoke
behind her. We turned in distress wondering what we could say to that
abused escort. If they massacred us, I felt that it would be merely a
virtuous reply to fate and they should in no ways be blamed. There are
some things which a man's feelings will not allow him to endure after a
diet of mangoes and pony. However, we perceived to our amazement that
they were not indignant at all. They simply smiled and made a gesture
which expressed an habitual pessimism. It was a philosophy which denied
the existence of everything but mangoes and pony. It was the Americans
who refused to be comforted. I made a deep vow with myself that I would
come as soon as possible and play a regular Santa Claus to that
splendid escort. But--we put to sea in a dug-out with two black boys.
The escort waved us a hearty good-bye from the shore and I never saw
them again. I hope they are all on the police-force in the new
Santiago.

In time we were rescued from the dug-out by our despatch-boat, and we
relieved our feelings by over-rewarding the two black boys. In fact
they reaped a harvest because of our emotion over our failure to fill
the gallant stomachs of the escort. They were two rascals. We steamed
to the flagship and were given permission to board her. Admiral Sampson
is to me the most interesting personality of the war. I would not know
how to sketch him for you even if I could pretend to sufficient
material. Anyhow, imagine, first of all, a marble block of impassivity
out of which is carved the figure of an old man. Endow this with life,
and you've just begun. Then you must discard all your pictures of
bluff, red-faced old gentlemen who roar against the gale, and
understand that the quiet old man is a sailor and an admiral. This will
be difficult; if I told you he was anything else it would be easy. He
resembles other types; it is his distinction not to resemble the
preconceived type of his standing. When first I met him I was impressed
that he was immensely bored by the war and with the command of the
North Atlantic Squadron. I perceived a manner where I thought I
perceived a mood, a point of view. Later, he seemed so indifferent to
small things which bore upon large things that I bowed to his apathy as
a thing unprecedented, marvellous. Still I mistook a manner for a mood.
Still I could not understand that this was the way of the man. I am not
to blame, for my communication was slight and depended upon
sufferance--upon, in fact, the traditional courtesy of the navy. But
finally I saw that it was all manner, that hidden in his indifferent,
even apathetic, manner, there was the alert, sure, fine mind of the
best sea-captain that America has produced since--since Farragut? I
don't know. I think--since Hull.

Men follow heartily when they are well led. They balk at trifles when a
blockhead cries go on. For my part, an impressive thing of the war is
the absolute devotion to Admiral Sampson's person--no, to his judgment
and wisdom--which was paid by his ship-commanders--Evans of the _Iowa_,
Taylor of the _Oregon_, Higginson of the _Massachusetts_, Phillips of
the _Texas_, and all the other captains--barring one. Once, afterward,
they called upon him to avenge himself upon a rival--they were there
and they would have to say--but he said no-o-o, he guessed it--wouldn't
do--any--g-o-oo-o-d--to the--service.

Men feared him, but he never made threats; men tumbled heels over head
to obey him, but he never gave a sharp order; men loved him, but he
said no word, kindly or unkindly; men cheered for him and he said: "Who
are they yelling for?" Men behaved badly to him and he said nothing.
Men thought of glory and he considered the management of ships. All
without a sound. A noiseless campaign--on his part. No bunting, no
arches, no fireworks; nothing but the perfect management of a big
fleet. That is a record for you. No trumpets, no cheers of the
populace. Just plain, pure, unsauced accomplishment. But ultimately he
will reap his reward in--in what? In text-books on sea-campaigns. No
more. The people choose their own and they choose the kind they like.
Who has a better right? Anyhow he is a great man. And when you are once
started you can continue to be a great man without the help of bouquets
and banquets. He don't need them--bless your heart.

The flag-ship's battle-hatches were down, and between decks it was
insufferable despite the electric fans. I made my way somewhat
forwards, past the smart orderly, past the companion, on to the den of
the junior mess. Even there they were playing cards in somebody's
cabin. "Hello, old man. Been ashore? How'd it look? It's your deal,
Chick." There was nothing but steamy wet heat and the decent
suppression of the consequent ill-tempers. The junior officers'
quarters were no more comfortable than the admiral's cabin. I had
expected it to be so because of my remembrance of their gay spirits.
But they were not gay. They were sweltering. Hello, old man, had I been
ashore? I fled to the deck, where other officers not on duty were
smoking quiet cigars. The hospitality of the officers of the flag-ship
is another charming memory of the war.

I rolled into my berth on the despatch-boat that night feeling a
perfect wonder of the day. Was the figure that leaned over the
card-game on the flag-ship, the figure with a whisky and soda in its
hand and a cigar in its teeth--was it identical with the figure
scrambling, afraid of its life, through Cuban jungle? Was it the figure
of the situation of the fifteen pathetic hungry men? It was the same
and it went to sleep, hard sleep. I don't know where we voyaged. I
think it was Jamaica. But, at any rate, upon the morning of our return
to the Cuban coast, we found the sea alive with transports--United
States transports from Tampa, containing the Fifth Army Corps under
Major-General Shafter. The rigging and the decks of these ships were
black with men and everybody wanted to land first. I landed,
ultimately, and immediately began to look for an acquaintance. The
boats were banged by the waves against a little flimsy dock. I fell
ashore somehow, but I did not at once find an acquaintance. I talked to
a private in the 2d Massachusetts Volunteers who told me that he was
going to write war correspondence for a Boston newspaper. This
statement did not surprise me.

There was a straggly village, but I followed the troops who at this
time seemed to be moving out by companies. I found three other
correspondents and it was luncheon time. Somebody had two bottles of
Bass, but it was so warm that it squirted out in foam. There was no
firing; no noise of any kind. An old shed was full of soldiers loafing
pleasantly in the shade. It was a hot, dusty, sleepy afternoon; bees
hummed. We saw Major-General Lawton standing with his staff under a
tree. He was smiling as if he would say: "Well, this will be better
than chasing Apaches." His division had the advance, and so he had the
right to be happy. A tall man with a grey moustache, light but very
strong, an ideal cavalryman. He appealed to one all the more because of
the vague rumours that his superiors--some of them--were going to take
mighty good care that he shouldn't get much to do. It was rather
sickening to hear such talk, but later we knew that most of it must
have been mere lies.

Down by the landing-place a band of correspondents were making a sort
of permanent camp. They worked like Trojans, carrying wall-tents, cots,
and boxes of provisions. They asked me to join them, but I looked
shrewdly at the sweat on their faces and backed away. The next day the
army left this permanent camp eight miles to the rear. The day became
tedious. I was glad when evening came. I sat by a camp-fire and
listened to a soldier of the 8th Infantry who told me that he was the
first enlisted man to land. I lay pretending to appreciate him, but in
fact I considered him a great shameless liar. Less than a month ago, I
learned that every word he said was gospel truth. I was much surprised.
We went for breakfast to the camp of the 20th Infantry, where Captain
Greene and his subaltern, Exton, gave us tomatoes stewed with hard
bread and coffee. Later, I discovered Greene and Exton down at the
beach good-naturedly dodging the waves which seemed to be trying to
prevent them from washing the breakfast dishes. I felt tremendously
ashamed because my cup and my plate were there, you know, and---- Fate
provides some men greased opportunities for making dizzy jackasses of
themselves and I fell a victim to my flurry on this occasion. I was a
blockhead. I walked away blushing. What? The battles? Yes, I saw
something of all of them. I made up my mind that the next time I met
Greene and Exton I'd say: "Look here; why didn't you tell me you had to
wash your own dishes that morning so that I could have helped? I felt
beastly when I saw you scrubbing there. And me walking around idly."
But I never saw Captain Greene again. I think he is in the Philippines
now fighting the Tagals. The next time I saw Exton--what? Yes, La
Guasimas. That was the "rough rider fight." However, the next time I
saw Exton I--what do you think? I forgot to speak about it. But if ever
I meet Greene or Exton again--even if it should be twenty years--I am
going to say, first thing: "Why----" What? Yes. Roosevelt's regiment
and the First and Tenth Regular Cavalry. I'll say, first thing: "Say,
why didn't you tell me you had to wash your own dishes, that morning,
so that I could have helped?" My stupidity will be on my conscience
until I die, if, before that, I do not meet either Greene or Exton. Oh,
yes, you are howling for blood, but I tell you it is more emphatic that
I lost my tooth-brush. Did I tell you that? Well, I lost it, you see,
and I thought of it for ten hours at a stretch. Oh, yes--he? He was
shot through the heart. But, look here, I contend that the French cable
company buncoed us throughout the war. What? Him? My tooth-brush I
never found, but he died of his wound in time. Most of the regular
soldiers carried their tooth-brushes stuck in the bands of their hats.
It made a quaint military decoration. I have had a line of a thousand
men pass me in the jungle and not a hat lacking the simple emblem.

The first of July? All right. My Jamaica polo-pony was not present. He
was still in the hills to the westward of Santiago, but the Cubans had
promised to fetch him to me. But my kit was easy to carry. It had
nothing superfluous in it but a pair of spurs which made me indignant
every time I looked at them. Oh, but I must tell you about a man I met
directly after the La Guasimas fight. Edward Marshall, a correspondent
whom I had known with a degree of intimacy for seven years, was
terribly hit in that fight and asked me if I would not go to
Siboney--the base--and convey the news to his colleagues of the _New
York Journal_ and round up some assistance. I went to Siboney, and
there was not a _Journal_ man to be seen, although usually you judged
from appearances that the _Journal_ staff was about as large as the
army. Presently I met two correspondents, strangers to me, but I
questioned them, saying that Marshall was badly shot and wished for
such succour as _Journal_ men could bring from their despatch-boat. And
one of these correspondents replied. He is the man I wanted to
describe. I love him as a brother. He said: "Marshall? Marshall? Why,
Marshall isn't in Cuba at all. He left for New York just before the
expedition sailed from Tampa." I said: "Beg pardon, but I remarked that
Marshall was shot in the fight this morning, and have you seen any
_Journal_ people?" After a pause, he said: "I am sure Marshall is not
down here at all. He's in New York." I said: "Pardon me, but I remarked
that Marshall was shot in the fight this morning, and have you seen any
_Journal_ people?" He said: "No; now look here, you must have gotten
two chaps mixed somehow. Marshall isn't in Cuba at all. How could he be
shot?" I said: "Pardon me, but I remarked that Marshall was shot in the
fight this morning, and have you seen any _Journal_ people?" He said:
"But it can't really be Marshall, you know, for the simple reason that
he's not down here." I clasped my hands to my temples, gave one
piercing cry to heaven and fled from his presence. I couldn't go on
with him. He excelled me at all points. I have faced death by bullets,
fire, water, and disease, but to die thus--to wilfully batter myself
against the ironclad opinion of this mummy--no, no, not that. In the
meantime, it was admitted that a correspondent was shot, be his name
Marshall, Bismarck, or Louis XIV. Now, supposing the name of this
wounded correspondent had been Bishop Potter? Or Jane Austen? Or
Bernhardt? Or Henri Georges Stephane Adolphe Opper de Blowitz? What
effect--never mind.

We will proceed to July 1st. On that morning I marched with my
kit--having everything essential save a tooth-brush--the entire army
put me to shame, since there must have been at least fifteen thousand
tooth-brushes in the invading force--I marched with my kit on the road
to Santiago. It was a fine morning and everybody--the doomed and the
immunes--how could we tell one from the other--everybody was in the
highest spirits. We were enveloped in forest, but we could hear, from
ahead, everybody peppering away at everybody. It was like the roll of
many drums. This was Lawton over at El Caney. I reflected with
complacency that Lawton's division did not concern me in a professional
way. That was the affair of another man. My business was with Kent's
division and Wheeler's division. We came to El Poso--a hill at nice
artillery range from the Spanish defences. Here Grimes's battery was
shooting a duel with one of the enemy's batteries. Scovel had
established a little camp in the rear of the guns and a servant had
made coffee. I invited Whigham to have coffee, and the servant added
some hard biscuit and tinned tongue. I noted that Whigham was staring
fixedly over my shoulder, and that he waved away the tinned tongue with
some bitterness. It was a horse, a dead horse. Then a mule, which had
been shot through the nose, wandered up and looked at Whigham. We ran
away.

On top of the hill one had a fine view of the Spanish lines. We stared
across almost a mile of jungle to ash-coloured trenches on the military
crest of the ridge. A goodly distance back of this position were white
buildings, all flying great red-cross flags. The jungle beneath us
rattled with firing and the Spanish trenches crackled out regular
volleys, but all this time there was nothing to indicate a tangible
enemy. In truth, there was a man in a Panama hat strolling to and fro
behind one of the Spanish trenches, gesticulating at times with a
walking stick. A man in a Panama hat, walking with a stick! That was
the strangest sight of my life--that symbol, that quaint figure of
Mars. The battle, the thunderous row, was his possession. He was the
master. He mystified us all with his infernal Panama hat and his
wretched walking-stick. From near his feet came volleys and from near
his side came roaring shells, but he stood there alone, visible, the
one tangible thing. He was a Colossus, and he was half as high as a
pin, this being. Always somebody would be saying: "Who _can_ that
fellow be?"

Later, the American guns shelled the trenches and a blockhouse near
them, and Mars had vanished. It could not have been death. One cannot
kill Mars. But there was one other figure, which arose to symbolic
dignity. The balloon of our signal corps had swung over the tops of the
jungle's trees toward the Spanish trenches. Whereat the balloon and the
man in the Panama hat and with a walking stick--whereat these two waged
tremendous battle.

Suddenly the conflict became a human thing. A little group of blue
figures appeared on the green of the terrible hillside. It was some of
our infantry. The attaché of a great empire was at my shoulder, and he
turned to me and spoke with incredulity and scorn. "Why, they're trying
to take the position," he cried, and I admitted meekly that I thought
they were. "But they can't do it, you know," he protested vehemently.
"It's impossible." And--good fellow that he was--he began to grieve and
wail over a useless sacrifice of gallant men. "It's plucky, you know!
By Gawd, it's plucky! But _they can't do it_!" He was profoundly
moved; his voice was quite broken. "It will simply be a hell of a
slaughter with no good coming out of it."

The trail was already crowded with stretcher-bearers and with wounded
men who could walk. One had to stem a tide of mute agony. But I don't
know that it was mute agony. I only know that it was mute. It was
something in which the silence or, more likely, the reticence was an
appalling and inexplicable fact. One's senses seemed to demand that
these men should cry out. But you could really find wounded men who
exhibited all the signs of a pleased and contented mood. When thinking
of it now it seems strange beyond words. But at the time--I don't
know--it did not attract one's wonder. A man with a hole in his arm or
his shoulder, or even in the leg below the knee, was often whimsical,
comic. "Well, this ain't exactly what I enlisted for, boys. If I'd been
told about this in Tampa, I'd have resigned from th' army. Oh, yes, you
can get the same thing if you keep on going. But I think the Spaniards
may run out of ammunition in the course of a week or ten days." Then
suddenly one would be confronted by the awful majesty of a man shot in
the face. Particularly I remember one. He had a great dragoon
moustache, and the blood streamed down his face to meet this moustache
even as a torrent goes to meet the jammed log, and then swarmed out to
the tips and fell in big slow drops. He looked steadily into my eyes; I
was ashamed to return his glance. You understand? It is very
curious--all that.

The two lines of battle were royally whacking away at each other, and
there was no rest or peace in all that region. The modern bullet is a
far-flying bird. It rakes the air with its hot spitting song at
distances which, as a usual thing, place the whole landscape in the
danger-zone. There was no direction from which they did not come. A
chart of their courses over one's head would have resembled a spider's
web. My friend Jimmie, the photographer, mounted to the firing line
with me and we gallivanted as much as we dared. The "sense of the
meeting" was curious. Most of the men seemed to have no idea of a grand
historic performance, but they were grimly satisfied with themselves.
"Well, begawd, we done it." Then they wanted to know about other parts
of the line. "How are things looking, old man? Everything all right?"
"Yes, everything is all right if you can hold this ridge." "Aw, hell,"
said the men, "we'll hold the ridge. Don't you worry about that, son."

It was Jimmie's first action, and, as we cautiously were making our way
to the right of our lines, the crash of the Spanish fire became
uproarious, and the air simply whistled. I heard a quavering voice near
my shoulder, and, turning, I beheld Jimmie--Jimmie--with a face
bloodless, white as paper. He looked at me with eyes opened extremely
wide. "Say," he said, "this is pretty hot, ain't it?" I was delighted. I
knew exactly what he meant. He wanted to have the situation defined. If
I had told him that this was the occasion of some mere idle desultory
firing and recommended that he wait until the real battle began, I
think he would have gone in a bee-line for the rear. But I told him the
truth. "Yes, Jimmie," I replied earnestly. "You can take it from me
that this is patent, double-extra-what-for." And immediately he nodded.
"All right." If this was a big action, then he was willing to pay in
his fright as a rational price for the privilege of being present. But
if this was only a penny affray, he considered the price exorbitant,
and he would go away. He accepted my assurance with simple faith, and
deported himself with kindly dignity as one moving amid great things.
His face was still as pale as paper, but that counted for nothing. The
main point was his perfect willingness to be frightened for reasons. I
wonder where is Jimmie? I lent him the Jamaica polo-pony one day and it
ran away with him and flung him off in the middle of a ford. He
appeared to me afterward and made bitter speech concerning this horse
which I had assured him was a gentle and pious animal. Then I never saw
Jimmie again.

Then came the night of the first of July. A group of correspondents
limped back to El Poso. It had been a day so long that the morning
seemed as remote as a morning in the previous year. But I have
forgotten to tell you about Reuben McNab. Many years ago, I went to
school at a place called Claverack, in New York State, where there was
a semi-military institution. Contemporaneous with me, as a student, was
Reuben McNab, a long, lank boy, freckled, sandy-haired--an
extraordinary boy in no way, and yet, I wager, a boy clearly marked in
every recollection. Perhaps there is a good deal in that name. Reuben
McNab. You can't fling that name carelessly over your shoulder and lose
it. It follows you like the haunting memory of a sin. At any rate,
Reuben McNab was identified intimately in my thought with the sunny
irresponsible days at Claverack, when all the earth was a green field
and all the sky was a rainless blue. Then I looked down into a
miserable huddle at Bloody Bend, a huddle of hurt men, dying men, dead
men. And there I saw Reuben McNab, a corporal in the 71st New York
Volunteers, and with a hole through his lung. Also, several holes
through his clothing. "Well, they got me," he said in greeting. Usually
they said that. There were no long speeches. "Well, they got me." That
was sufficient. The duty of the upright, unhurt, man is then difficult.
I doubt if many of us learned how to speak to our own wounded. In the
first place, one had to play that the wound was nothing; oh, a mere
nothing; a casual interference with movement, perhaps, but nothing
more; oh, really nothing more. In the second place, one had to show a
comrade's appreciation of this sad plight. As a result I think most of
us bungled and stammered in the presence of our wounded friends. That's
curious, eh? "Well, they got me," said Reuben McNab. I had looked upon
five hundred wounded men with stolidity, or with a conscious
indifference which filled me with amazement. But the apparition of
Reuben McNab, the schoolmate, lying there in the mud, with a hole
through his lung, awed me into stutterings, set me trembling with a
sense of terrible intimacy with this war which theretofore I could have
believed was a dream--almost. Twenty shot men rolled their eyes and
looked at me. Only one man paid no heed. He was dying; he had no time.
The bullets hummed low over them all. Death, having already struck,
still insisted upon raising a venomous crest. "If you're goin' by the
hospital, step in and see me," said Reuben McNab. That was all.

At the correspondents' camp, at El Poso, there was hot coffee. It was
very good. I have a vague sense of being very selfish over my blanket
and rubber coat. I have a vague sense of spasmodic firing during my
sleep; it rained, and then I awoke to hear that steady drumming of an
infantry fire--something which was never to cease, it seemed. They were
at it again. The trail from El Poso to the positions along San Juan
ridge had become an exciting thoroughfare. Shots from large-bore rifles
dropped in from almost every side. At this time the safest place was
the extreme front. I remember in particular the one outcry I heard. A
private in the 71st, without his rifle, had gone to a stream for some
water, and was returning, being but a little in rear of me. Suddenly I
heard this cry--"Oh, my God, come quick"--and I was conscious then to
having heard the hateful zip of a close shot. He lay on the ground,
wriggling. He was hit in the hip. Two men came quickly. Presently
everybody seemed to be getting knocked down. They went over like men of
wet felt, quietly, calmly, with no more complaint than so many
automatons. It was only that lad--"Oh, my God, come quick." Otherwise,
men seemed to consider that their hurts were not worthy of particular
attention. A number of people got killed very courteously, tacitly
absolving the rest of us from any care in the matter. A man fell; he
turned blue; his face took on an expression of deep sorrow; and then
his immediate friends worried about him, if he had friends. This was
July 1. I crave the permission to leap back again to that date.

On the morning of July 2, I sat on San Juan hill and watched Lawton's
division come up. I was absolutely sheltered, but still where I could
look into the faces of men who were trotting up under fire. There
wasn't a high heroic face among them. They were all men intent on
business. That was all. It may seem to you that I am trying to make
everything a squalor. That would be wrong. I feel that things were
often sublime. But they were _differently_ sublime. They were not
of our shallow and preposterous fictions. They stood out in a simple,
majestic commonplace. It was the behaviour of men on the street. It was
the behaviour of men. In one way, each man was just pegging along at
the heels of the man before him, who was pegging along at the heels of
still another man, who was pegging along at the heels of still another
man who---- It was that in the flat and obvious way. In another way it
was pageantry, the pageantry of the accomplishment of naked duty. One
cannot speak of it--the spectacle of the common man serenely doing his
work, his appointed work. It is the one thing in the universe which
makes one fling expression to the winds and be satisfied to simply
feel. Thus they moved at San Juan--the soldiers of the United States
Regular Army. One pays them the tribute of the toast of silence.

Lying near one of the enemy's trenches was a red-headed Spanish corpse.
I wonder how many hundreds were cognisant of this red-headed Spanish
corpse? It arose to the dignity of a landmark. There were many corpses
but only one with a red head. This red-head. He was always there. Each
time I approached that part of the field I prayed that I might find
that he had been buried. But he was always there--red-headed. His
strong simple countenance was a malignant sneer at the system which was
forever killing the credulous peasants in a sort of black night of
politics, where the peasants merely followed whatever somebody had told
them was lofty and good. But, nevertheless, the red-headed Spaniard was
dead. He was irrevocably dead. And to what purpose? The honour of
Spain? Surely the honour of Spain could have existed without the
violent death of this poor red-headed peasant? Ah well, he was buried
when the heavy firing ceased and men had time for such small things as
funerals. The trench was turned over on top of him. It was a fine,
honourable, soldierly fate--to be buried in a trench, the trench of the
fight and the death. Sleep well, red-headed peasant. You came to
another hemisphere to fight because--because you were told to, I
suppose. Well, there you are, buried in your trench on San Juan hill.
That is the end of it, your life has been taken--that is a flat, frank
fact. And foreigners buried you expeditiously while speaking a strange
tongue. Sleep well, red-headed mystery.

On the day before the destruction of Cervera's fleet, I steamed past
our own squadron, doggedly lying in its usual semicircle, every nose
pointing at the mouth of the harbour. I went to Jamaica, and on the
placid evening of the next day I was again steaming past our own
squadron, doggedly lying in its usual semicircle, every nose pointing
at the mouth of the harbour. A megaphone-hail from the bridge of one of
the yacht-gunboats came casually over the water. "Hello! hear the
news?" "No; what was it?" "The Spanish fleet came out this morning."
"Oh, of course, it did." "Honest, I mean." "Yes, I know; well, where
are they now?" "Sunk." Was there ever such a preposterous statement? I
was humiliated that my friend, the lieutenant on the yacht-gunboat,
should have measured me as one likely to swallow this bad joke.

But it was all true; every word. I glanced back at our squadron, lying
in its usual semicircle, every nose pointing at the mouth of the
harbour. It would have been absurd to think that anything had happened.
The squadron hadn't changed a button. There it sat without even a smile
on the face of the tiger. And it had eaten four armoured cruisers and
two torpedo-boat-destroyers while my back was turned for a moment.
Courteously, but clearly, we announced across the waters that until
despatch-boats came to be manned from the ranks of the celebrated
horse-marines, the lieutenant's statement would probably remain
unappreciated. He made a gesture, abandoning us to our scepticism. It
infuriates an honourable and serious man to be taken for a liar or a
joker at a time when he is supremely honourable and serious. However,
when we went ashore, we found Siboney ringing with the news. It was
true, then; that mishandled collection of sick ships had come out and
taken the deadly thrashing which was rightfully the due of--I don't
know--somebody in Spain--or perhaps nobody anywhere. One likes to
wallop incapacity, but one has mingled emotions over the incapacity
which is not so much personal as it is the development of centuries.
This kind of incapacity cannot be centralised. You cannot hit the head
which contains it all. This is the idea, I imagine, which moved the
officers and men of our fleet. Almost immediately they began to speak
of the Spanish Admiral as "poor old boy" with a lucid suggestion in
their tones that his fate appealed to them as being undue hard, undue
cruel. And yet the Spanish guns hit nothing. If a man shoots, he should
hit something occasionally, and men say that from the time the Spanish
ships broke clear of the harbour entrance until they were one by one
overpowered, they were each a band of flame. Well, one can only mumble
out that when a man shoots he should be required to hit something
occasionally.

In truth, the greatest fact of the whole campaign on land and sea seems
to be the fact that the Spaniards could only hit by chance, by a fluke.
If he had been an able marksman, no man of our two unsupported
divisions would have set foot on San Juan hill on July 1. They should
have been blown to smithereens. The Spaniards had no immediate lack of
ammunition, for they fired enough to kill the population of four big
cities. I admit neither Velasquez nor Cervantes into this discussion,
although they have appeared by authority as reasons for something which
I do not clearly understand. Well, anyhow they couldn't hit anything.
Velasquez? Yes. Cervantes? Yes. But the Spanish troops seemed only to
try to make a very rapid fire. Thus we lost many men. We lost them
because of the simple fury of the fire; never because the fire was
well-directed, intelligent. But the Americans were called upon to be
whipped because of Cervantes and Velasquez. It was impossible.

Out on the slopes of San Juan the dog-tents shone white. Some kind of
negotiations were going forward, and men sat on their trousers and
waited. It was all rather a blur of talks with officers, and a craving
for good food and good water. Once Leighton and I decided to ride over
to El Caney, into which town the civilian refugees from Santiago were
pouring. The road from the beleaguered city to the out-lying village
was a spectacle to make one moan. There were delicate gentle families
on foot, the silly French boots of the girls twisting and turning in a
sort of absolute paper futility; there were sons and grandsons carrying
the venerable patriarch in his own armchair; there were exhausted
mothers with babes who wailed; there were young dandies with their
toilettes in decay; there were puzzled, guideless women who didn't know
what had happened. The first sentence one heard was the murmurous "What
a damn shame." We saw a godless young trooper of the Second Cavalry
sharply halt a waggon. "Hold on a minute. You must carry this woman.
She's fainted twice already." The virtuous driver of the U.S. Army
waggon mildly answered: "But I'm full-up now." "You can make room for
her," said the private of the Second Cavalry. A young, young man with a
straight mouth. It was merely a plain bit of nothing--at--all but,
thank God, thank God, he seemed to have not the slightest sense of
excellence. He said: "If you've got any man in there who can walk at
all, you put him out and let this woman get in." "But," answered the
teamster, "I'm filled up with a lot of cripples and grandmothers."
Thereupon they discussed the point fairly, and ultimately the woman was
lifted into the waggon.

The vivid thing was the fact that these people did not visibly suffer.
Somehow they were numb. There was not a tear. There was rarely a
countenance which was not wondrously casual. There was no sign of
fatalistic theory. It was simply that what was happening to-day had
happened yesterday, as near as one could judge. I could fancy that
these people had been thrown out of their homes every day. It was
utterly, utterly casual. And they accepted the ministrations of our men
in the same fashion. Everything was a matter of course. I had a filled
canteen. I was frightfully conscious of this fact because a filled
canteen was a pearl of price; it was a great thing. It was an enormous
accident which led one to offer praises that he was luckier than ten
thousand better men.

As Leighton and I rode along, we came to a tree under which a refugee
family had halted. They were a man, his wife, two handsome daughters
and a pimply son. It was plain that they were superior people, because
the girls had dressed for the exodus and wore corsets which captivated
their forms with a steel-ribbed vehemence only proper for wear on a
sun-blistered road to a distant town. They asked us for water. Water
was the gold of the moment. Leighton was almost maudlin in his
generosity. I remember being angry with him. He lavished upon them his
whole canteen and he received in return not even a glance of--what?
Acknowledgment? No, they didn't even admit anything. Leighton wasn't a
human being; he was some sort of a mountain spring. They accepted him
on a basis of pure natural phenomena. His canteen was purely an
occurrence. In the meantime the pimple-faced approached me. He asked
for water and held out a pint cup. My response was immediate. I tilted
my canteen and poured into his cup almost a pint of my treasure. He
glanced into the cup and apparently he beheld there some innocent
sediment for which he alone or his people were responsible. In the
American camps the men were accustomed to a sediment. Well, he glanced
at my poor cupful and then negligently poured it out on the ground and
held up his cup for more. I gave him more; I gave him his cup full
again, but there was something within me which made me swear him out
completely. But he didn't understand a word. Afterward I watched if
they were capable of being moved to help on their less able fellows on
this miserable journey. Not they! Nor yet anybody else. Nobody cared
for anybody save my young friend of the Second Cavalry, who rode
seriously to and fro doing his best for people, who took him as a
result of a strange upheaval.

The fight at El Caney had been furious. General Vera del Rey with
somewhat less than 1000 men--the Spanish accounts say 520--had there
made such a stand that only about 80 battered soldiers ever emerged
from it. The attack cost Lawton about 400 men. The magazine rifle! But
the town was now a vast parrot-cage of chattering refugees. If, on the
road, they were silent, stolid and serene, in the town they found their
tongues and set up such a cackle as one may seldom hear. Notably the
women; it is they who invariably confuse the definition of situations,
and one could wonder in amaze if this crowd of irresponsible, gabbling
hens had already forgotten that this town was the deathbed, so to
speak, of scores of gallant men whose blood was not yet dry; whose
hands, of the hue of pale amber, stuck from the soil of the hasty
burial. On the way to El Caney I had conjured a picture of the women of
Santiago, proud in their pain, their despair, dealing glances of
defiance, contempt, hatred at the invader; fiery ferocious ladies, so
true to their vanquished and to their dead that they spurned the very
existence of the low-bred churls who lacked both Velasquez and
Cervantes. And instead, there was this mere noise, which reminded one
alternately of a tea-party in Ireland, a village fête in the south of
France, and the vacuous morning screech of a swarm of sea-gulls. "Good.
There is Donna Maria. This will lower her high head. This will teach
her better manners to her neighbours. She wasn't too grand to send her
rascal of a servant to borrow a trifle of coffee of me in the morning,
and then when I met her on the calle--por Dios, she was too blind to
see me. But we are all equal here. No? Little Juan has a sore toe. Yes,
Donna Maria; many thanks, many thanks. Juan, do me the favour to be
quiet while Donna Maria is asking about your toe. Oh, Donna Maria, we
were always poor, always. But you. My heart bleeds when I see how hard
this is for you. The old cat! She gives me a head-shake."

Pushing through the throng in the plaza we came in sight of the door of
the church, and here was a strange scene. The church had been turned
into a hospital for Spanish wounded who had fallen into American hands.
The interior of the church was too cave-like in its gloom for the eyes
of the operating surgeons, so they had had the altar table carried to
the doorway, where there was a bright light. Framed then in the black
archway was the altar table with the figure of a man upon it. He was
naked save for a breech-clout and so close, so clear was the
ecclesiastic suggestion, that one's mind leaped to a phantasy that this
thin, pale figure had just been torn down from a cross. The flash of
the impression was like light, and for this instant it illumined all
the dark recesses of one's remotest idea of sacrilege, ghastly and
wanton. I bring this to you merely as an effect, an effect of mental
light and shade, if you like; something done in thought similar to that
which the French impressionists do in colour; something meaningless and
at the same time overwhelming, crushing, monstrous. "Poor devil; I
wonder if he'll pull through," said Leighton. An American surgeon and
his assistants were intent over the prone figure. They wore white
aprons. Something small and silvery flashed in the surgeon's hand. An
assistant held the merciful sponge close to the man's nostrils, but he
was writhing and moaning in some horrible dream of this artificial
sleep. As the surgeon's instrument played, I fancied that the man
dreamed that he was being gored by a bull. In his pleading, delirious
babble occurred constantly the name of the Virgin, the Holy Mother.
"Good morning," said the surgeon. He changed his knife to his left hand
and gave me a wet palm. The tips of his fingers were wrinkled,
shrunken, like those of a boy who has been in swimming too long. Now,
in front of the door, there were three American sentries, and it was
their business to--to do what? To keep this Spanish crowd from swarming
over the operating table! It was perforce a public clinic. They would
not be denied. The weaker women and the children jostled according to
their might in the rear, while the stronger people, gaping in the front
rank, cried out impatiently when the pushing disturbed their long
stares. One burned with a sudden gift of public oratory. One wanted to
say: "Oh, go away, go away, go away. Leave the man decently alone with
his pain, you gogglers. This is not the national sport."

But within the church there was an audience of another kind. This was
of the other wounded men awaiting their turn. They lay on their brown
blankets in rows along the stone floor. Their eyes, too, were fastened
upon the operating-table, but--that was different. Meek-eyed little
yellow men lying on the floor awaiting their turns.

One afternoon I was seated with a correspondent friend, on the porch of
one of the houses at Siboney. A vast man on horseback came riding along
at a foot pace. When he perceived my friend, he pulled up sharply.
"Whoa! Where's that mule I lent you?" My friend arose and saluted.
"I've got him all right, General, thank you," said my friend. The vast
man shook his finger. "Don't you lose him now." "No, sir, I won't;
thank you, sir." The vast man rode away. "Who the devil is that?" said
I. My friend laughed. "That's General Shafter," said he.

I gave five dollars for the Bos'n--small, black, spry imp of Jamaica
sin. When I first saw him he was the property of a fireman on the
_Criton_. The fireman had found him--a little wharf rat--in Port
Antonio. It was not the purchase of a slave; it was that the fireman
believed that he had spent about five dollars on a lot of comic
supplies for the Bos'n, including a little suit of sailor clothes. The
Bos'n was an adroit and fantastic black gamin. His eyes were like white
lights, and his teeth were a row of little piano keys; otherwise he was
black. He had both been a jockey and a cabin-boy, and he had the
manners of a gentleman. After he entered my service I don't think there
was ever an occasion upon which he was useful, save when he told me
quaint stories of Guatemala, in which country he seemed to have lived
some portion of his infantile existence. Usually he ran funny errands
like little foot-races, each about fifteen yards in length. At Siboney
he slept under my hammock like a poodle, and I always expected that,
through the breaking of a rope, I would some night descend and
obliterate him. His incompetence was spectacular. When I wanted him to
do a thing, the agony of supervision was worse than the agony of
personal performance. It would have been easier to have gotten my own
spurs or boots or blanket than to have the bother of this little
incapable's service. But the good aspect was the humorous view. He was
like a boy, a mouse, a scoundrel, and a devoted servitor. He was
immensely popular. His name of Bos'n became a Siboney stock-word.
Everybody knew it. It was a name like President McKinley, Admiral
Sampson, General Shafter. The Bos'n became a figure. One day he
approached me with four one-dollar notes in United States currency. He
besought me to preserve them for him, and I pompously tucked them away
in my riding breeches, with an air which meant that his funds were now
as safe as if they were in a national bank. Still, I asked with some
surprise, where he had reaped all this money. He frankly admitted at
once that it had been given to him by the enthusiastic soldiery as a
tribute to his charm of person and manner. This was not astonishing for
Siboney, where money was meaningless. Money was not worth
carrying--"packing." However, a soldier came to our house one morning,
and asked, "Got any more tobacco to sell?" As befitted men in virtuous
poverty, we replied with indignation. "What tobacco?" "Why, that
tobacco what the little nigger is sellin' round."

I said, "Bos'n!" He said, "Yes, mawstah." Wounded men on bloody
stretchers were being carried into the hospital next door. "Bos'n,
you've been stealing my tobacco." His defence was as glorious as the
defence of that forlorn hope in romantic history, which drew itself up
and mutely died. He lied as desperately, as savagely, as hopelessly as
ever man fought.

One day a delegation from the 33d Michigan came to me and said: "Are
you the proprietor of the Bos'n?" I said: "Yes." And they said: "Well,
would you please be so kind as to be so good as to give him to us?" A
big battle was expected for the next day. "Why," I answered, "if you
want him you can have him. But he's a thief, and I won't let him go
save on his personal announcement." The big battle occurred the next
day, and the Bos'n did not disappear in it; but he disappeared in my
interest in the battle, even as a waif might disappear in a fog. My
interest in the battle made the Bos'n dissolve before my eyes. Poor
little rascal! I gave him up with pain. He was such an innocent
villain. He knew no more of thievery than the whole of it. Anyhow one
was fond of him. He was a natural scoundrel. He was not an educated
scoundrel. One cannot bear the educated scoundrel. He was ingenuous,
simple, honest, abashed ruffianism.

I hope the 33d Michigan did not arrive home naked. I hope the Bos'n did
not succeed in getting everything. If the Bos'n builds a palace in
Detroit, I shall know where he got the money. He got it from the 33d
Michigan. Poor little man. He was only eleven years old. He vanished. I
had thought to preserve him as a relic, even as one preserves forgotten
bayonets and fragments of shell. And now as to the pocket of my
riding-breeches. It contained four dollars in United States currency.
Bos'n! Hey, Bos'n, where are you? The morning was the morning of
battle.

I was on San Juan Hill when Lieutenant Hobson and the men of the
_Merrimac_ were exchanged and brought into the American lines. Many of
us knew that the exchange was about to be made, and gathered to see the
famous party. Some of our Staff officers rode out with three Spanish
officers --prisoners--these latter being blindfolded before they were
taken through the American position. The army was majestically minding
its business in the long line of trenches when its eye caught sight of
this little procession. "What's that? What they goin' to do?" "They're
goin' to exchange Hobson." Wherefore every man who was foot-free staked
out a claim where he could get a good view of the liberated heroes, and
two bands prepared to collaborate on "The Star Spangled Banner." There
was a very long wait through the sunshiny afternoon. In our impatience,
we imagined them--the Americans and Spaniards--dickering away out there
under the big tree like so many peddlers. Once the massed bands, misled
by a rumour, stiffened themselves into that dramatic and breathless
moment when each man is ready to blow. But the rumour was exploded in
the nick of time. We made ill jokes, saying one to another that the
negotiations had found diplomacy to be a failure, and were playing
freeze-out poker for the whole batch of prisoners.

But suddenly the moment came. Along the cut roadway, toward the crowded
soldiers, rode three men, and it could be seen that the central one
wore the undress uniform of an officer of the United States navy.
Most of the soldiers were sprawled out on the grass, bored and wearied
in the sunshine. However, they aroused at the old circus-parade,
torch-light procession cry, "Here they come." Then the men of the
regular army did a thing. They arose _en masse_ and came to
"Attention." Then the men of the regular army did another thing. They
slowly lifted every weather-beaten hat and drooped it until it touched
the knee. Then there was a magnificent silence, broken only by the
measured hoof-beats of the little company's horses as they rode through
the gap. It was solemn, funereal, this splendid silent welcome of a
brave man by men who stood on a hill which they had earned out of blood
and death--simply, honestly, with no sense of excellence, earned out of
blood and death.

Then suddenly the whole scene went to rubbish. Before he reached the
bottom of the hill, Hobson was bowing to right and left like another
Boulanger, and, above the thunder of the massed bands, one could hear
the venerable outbreak, "Mr. Hobson, I'd like to shake the hand of the
man who----" But the real welcome was that welcome of silence. However,
one could thrill again when the tail of the procession appeared--an
army waggon containing the blue-jackets of the _Merrimac_ adventure. I
remember grinning heads stuck out from under the canvas cover of the
waggon. And the army spoke to the navy. "Well, Jackie, how does it
feel?" And the navy up and answered: "Great! Much obliged to you
fellers for comin' here." "Say, Jackie, what did they arrest ye for
anyhow? Stealin' a dawg?" The navy still grinned. Here was no rubbish.
Here was the mere exchange of language between men.

Some of us fell in behind this small but royal procession and followed
it to General Shafter's headquarters, some miles on the road to
Siboney. I have a vague impression that I watched the meeting between
Shafter and Hobson, but the impression ends there. However, I remember
hearing a talk between them as to Hobson's men, and then the
blue-jackets were called up to hear the congratulatory remarks of the
general in command of the Fifth Army Corps. It was a scene in the fine
shade of thickly-leaved trees. The general sat in his chair, his belly
sticking ridiculously out before him as if he had adopted some form of
artificial inflation. He looked like a joss. If the seamen had suddenly
begun to burn a few sticks, most of the spectators would have exhibited
no surprise. But the words he spoke were proper, clear, quiet,
soldierly, the words of one man to others. The Jackies were comic. At
the bidding of their officer they aligned themselves before the
general, grinned with embarrassment one to the other, made funny
attempts to correct the alignment, and--looked sheepish. They looked
sheepish. They looked like bad little boys flagrantly caught. They had
no sense of excellence. Here was no rubbish.

Very soon after this the end of the campaign came for me. I caught a
fever. I am not sure to this day what kind of a fever it was. It was
defined variously. I know, at any rate, that I first developed a
languorous indifference to everything in the world. Then I developed a
tendency to ride a horse even as a man lies on a cot. Then I--I am not
sure--I think I grovelled and groaned about Siboney for several days.
My colleagues, Scovel and George Rhea, found me and gave me of their
best, but I didn't know whether London Bridge was falling down or
whether there was a war with Spain. It was all the same. What of it?
Nothing of it. Everything had happened, perhaps. But I cared not a jot.
Life, death, dishonour--all were nothing to me. All I cared for was
pickles. _Pickles_ at any price! _Pickles!!_

If I had been the father of a hundred suffering daughters, I should
have waved them all aside and remarked that they could be damned for
all I cared. It was not a mood. One can defeat a mood. It was a
physical situation. Sometimes one cannot defeat a physical situation. I
heard the talk of Siboney and sometimes I answered, but I was as
indifferent as the star-fish flung to die on the sands. The only fact
in the universe was that my veins burned and boiled. Rhea finally
staggered me down to the army-surgeon who had charge of the
proceedings, and the army-surgeon looked me over with a keen healthy
eye. Then he gave a permit that I should be sent home. The manipulation
from the shore to the transport was something which was Rhea's affair.
I am not sure whether we went in a boat or a balloon. I think it was a
boat. Rhea pushed me on board and I swayed meekly and unsteadily toward
the captain of the ship, a corpulent, well-conditioned, impickled
person pacing noisily on the spar-deck. "Ahem, yes; well; all right.
Have you got your own food? I hope, for Christ's sake, you don't expect
us to feed you, do you?" Whereupon I went to the rail and weakly yelled
at Rhea, but he was already afar. The captain was, meantime, remarking
in bellows that, for Christ's sake, I couldn't expect him to feed me. I
didn't expect to be fed. I didn't care to be fed. I wished for nothing
on earth but some form of painless pause, oblivion. The insults of this
old pie-stuffed scoundrel did not affect me then; they affect me now. I
would like to tell him that, although I like collies, fox-terriers, and
even screw-curled poodles, I do not like him. He was free to call me
superfluous and throw me overboard, but he was not free to coarsely
speak to a somewhat sick man. I--in fact I hate him--it is all wrong--I
lose whatever ethics I possessed--but--I hate him, and I demand that
you should imagine a milch cow endowed with a knowledge of navigation
and in command of a ship--and perfectly capable of commanding a
ship--oh, well, never mind.

I was crawling along the deck when somebody pounced violently upon me
and thundered: "Who in hell are you, sir?" I said I was a
correspondent. He asked me did I know that I had yellow fever. I said
No. He yelled, "Well, by Gawd, you isolate yourself, sir." I said;
"Where?" At this question he almost frothed at the mouth. I thought he
was going to strike me. "Where?" he roared. "How in hell do I know,
sir? I know as much about this ship as you do, sir. But you isolate
yourself, sir." My clouded brain tried to comprehend these orders. This
man was a doctor in the regular army, and it was necessary to obey him,
so I bestirred myself to learn what he meant by these gorilla outcries.
"All right, doctor; I'll isolate myself, but I wish you'd tell me where
to go." And then he passed into such volcanic humour that I clung to
the rail and gasped. "Isolate yourself, sir. Isolate yourself. That's
all I've got to say, sir. I don't give a God damn where you go, but
when you get there, stay there, sir." So I wandered away and ended up
on the deck aft, with my head against the flagstaff and my limp body
stretched on a little rug. I was not at all sorry for myself. I didn't
care a tent-peg. And yet, as I look back upon it now, the situation was
fairly exciting--a voyage of four or five days before me--no food--no
friends--above all else, no friends--isolated on deck, and rather ill.

When I returned to the United States, I was able to move my feminine
friends to tears by an account of this voyage, but, after all, it
wasn't so bad. They kept me on my small reservation aft, but plenty of
kindness loomed soon enough. At mess-time, they slid me a tin plate of
something, usually stewed tomatoes and bread. Men are always good men.
And, at any rate, most of the people were in worse condition than
I--poor bandaged chaps looking sadly down at the waves. In a way, I
knew the kind. First lieutenants at forty years of age, captains at
fifty, majors at 102, lieutenant-colonels at 620, full colonels at
1000, and brigadiers at 9,768,295 plus. A man had to live two billion
years to gain eminent rank in the regular army at that time. And, of
course, they all had trembling wives at remote western posts waiting to
hear the worst, the best, or the middle.

In rough weather, the officers made a sort of a common pool of all the
sound legs and arms, and by dint of hanging hard to each other they
managed to move from their deck chairs to their cabins and from their
cabins again to their deck chairs. Thus they lived until the ship
reached Hampton Roads. We slowed down opposite the curiously mingled
hotels and batteries at Old Point Comfort, and at our mast-head we flew
the yellow-flag, the grim ensign of the plague. Then we witnessed
something which informed us that with all this ship-load of wounds and
fevers and starvations we had forgotten the fourth element of war. We
were flying the yellow flag, but a launch came and circled swiftly
about us. There was a little woman in the launch, and she kept looking
and looking and looking. Our ship was so high that she could see only
those who rung at the rail, but she kept looking and looking and
looking. It was plain enough--it was all plain enough--but my heart
sank with the fear that she was not going to find him. But presently
there was a commotion among some black dough-boys of the 24th Infantry,
and two of them ran aft to Colonel Liscum, its gallant commander. Their
faces were wreathed in darkey grins of delight. "Kunnel, ain't dat Mis'
Liscum, Kunnel?" "What?" said the old man. He got up quickly and
appeared at the rail, his arm in a sling. He cried, "Alice!" The little
woman saw him, and instantly she covered up her face with her hands as
if blinded with a flash of white fire. She made no outcry; it was all
in this simply swift gesture, but we--we knew them. It told us. It told
us the other part. And in a vision we all saw our own harbour-lights.
That is to say those of us who had harbour-lights.

I was almost well, and had defeated the yellow-fever charge which had
been brought against me, and so I was allowed ashore among the first.
And now happened a strange thing. A hard campaign, full of wants and
lacks and absences, brings a man speedily back to an appreciation of
things long disregarded or forgotten. In camp, somewhere in the woods
between Siboney and Santiago, I happened to think of ice-cream-soda. I
had done very well without it for many years; in fact I think I loathe
it; but I got to dreaming of ice-cream-soda, and I came near dying of
longing for it. I couldn't get it out of my mind, try as I would to
concentrate my thoughts upon the land crabs and mud with which I was
surrounded. It certainly had been an institution of my childhood, but
to have a ravenous longing for it in the year 1898 was about as
illogical as to have a ravenous longing for kerosene. All I could do
was to swear to myself that if I reached the United States again, I
would immediately go to the nearest soda-water fountain and make it
look like Spanish Fours. In a loud, firm voice, I would say, "Orange,
please." And here is the strange thing: as soon as I was ashore I went
to the nearest soda-water fountain, and in a loud, firm voice I said,
"Orange, please." I remember one man who went mad that way over tinned
peaches, and who wandered over the face of the earth saying
plaintively, "Have you any peaches?"

Most of the wounded and sick had to be tabulated and marshalled in
sections and thoroughly officialised, so that I was in time to take a
position on the verandah of Chamberlain's Hotel and see my late
shipmates taken to the hospital. The verandah was crowded with women in
light, charming summer dresses, and with spruce officers from the
Fortress. It was like a bank of flowers. It filled me with awe. All
this luxury and refinement and gentle care and fragrance and colour
seemed absolutely new. Then across the narrow street on the verandah of
the hotel there was a similar bank of flowers. Two companies of
volunteers dug a lane through the great crowd in the street and kept
the way, and then through this lane there passed a curious procession.
I had never known that they looked like that. Such a gang of dirty,
ragged, emaciated, half-starved, bandaged cripples I had never seen.
Naturally there were many men who couldn't walk, and some of these were
loaded upon a big flat car which was in tow of a trolley-car. Then
there were many stretchers, slow-moving. When that crowd began to pass
the hotel the banks of flowers made a noise which could make one
tremble. Perhaps it was a moan, perhaps it was a sob--but no, it was
something beyond either a moan or a sob. Anyhow, the sound of women
weeping was in it.--The sound of women weeping.

And how did these men of famous deeds appear when received thus by the
people? Did they smirk and look as if they were bursting with the
desire to tell everything which had happened? No they hung their heads
like so many jail-birds. Most of them seemed to be suffering from
something which was like stage-fright during the ordeal of this chance
but supremely eloquent reception. No sense of excellence--that was it.
Evidently they were willing to leave the clacking to all those natural
born major-generals who after the war talked enough to make a great
fall in the price of that commodity all over the world.

The episode was closed. And you can depend upon it that I have told you
nothing at all, nothing at all, nothing at all.




THE SECOND GENERATION


I

Caspar Cadogan resolved to go to the tropic wars and do something. The
air was blue and gold with the pomp of soldiering, and in every ear
rang the music of military glory. Caspar's father was a United States
Senator from the great State of Skowmulligan, where the war fever ran
very high. Chill is the blood of many of the sons of millionaires, but
Caspar took the fever and posted to Washington. His father had never
denied him anything, and this time all that Caspar wanted was a little
Captaincy in the Army--just a simple little Captaincy.

The old man had been entertaining a delegation of respectable
bunco-steerers from Skowmulligan who had come to him on a matter which
is none of the public's business.

Bottles of whisky and boxes of cigars were still on the table in the
sumptuous private parlour. The Senator had said, "Well, gentlemen, I'll
do what I can for you." By this sentence he meant whatever he meant.

Then he turned to his eager son. "Well, Caspar?" The youth poured out
his modest desires. It was not altogether his fault. Life had taught
him a generous faith in his own abilities. If any one had told him that
he was simply an ordinary d--d fool he would have opened his eyes wide
at the person's lack of judgment. All his life people had admired him.

The Skowmulligan war-horse looked with quick disapproval into the eyes
of his son. "Well, Caspar," he said slowly, "I am of the opinion that
they've got all the golf experts and tennis champions and cotillion
leaders and piano tuners and billiard markers that they really need as
officers. Now, if you were a soldier----"

"I know," said the young man with a gesture, "but I'm not exactly a
fool, I hope, and I think if I get a chance I can do something. I'd
like to try. I would, indeed."

The Senator lit a cigar. He assumed an attitude of ponderous
reflection. "Y--yes, but this country is full of young men who are not
fools. Full of 'em."

Caspar fidgeted in the desire to answer that while he admitted the
profusion of young men who were not fools, he felt that he himself
possessed interesting and peculiar qualifications which would allow him
to make his mark in any field of effort which he seriously challenged.
But he did not make this graceful statement, for he sometimes detected
something ironic in his father's temperament. The Skowmulligan
war-horse had not thought of expressing an opinion of his own ability
since the year 1865, when he was young, like Caspar.

"Well, well," said the Senator finally. "I'll see about it. I'll see
about it." The young man was obliged to await the end of his father's
characteristic method of thought. The war-horse never gave a quick
answer, and if people tried to hurry him they seemed able to arouse
only a feeling of irritation against making a decision at all. His mind
moved like the wind, but practice had placed a Mexican bit in the mouth
of his judgment. This old man of light quick thought had taught himself
to move like an ox cart. Caspar said, "Yes, sir." He withdrew to his
club, where, to the affectionate inquiries of some envious friends, he
replied, "The old man is letting the idea soak."

The mind of the war-horse was decided far sooner than Caspar expected.
In Washington a large number of well-bred handsome young men were
receiving appointments as Lieutenants, as Captains, and occasionally as
Majors. They were a strong, healthy, clean-eyed educated collection.
They were a prime lot. A German Field-Marshal would have beamed with
joy if he could have had them--to send to school. Anywhere in the world
they would have made a grand show as material, but, intrinsically they
were not Lieutenants, Captains and Majors. They were fine men, though
manhood is only an essential part of a Lieutenant, a Captain or a
Major. But at any rate, this arrangement had all the logic of going to
sea in a bathing-machine.

The Senator found himself reasoning that Caspar was as good as any of
them, and better than many. Presently he was bleating here and there
that his boy should have a chance. "The boy's all right, I tell you,
Henry. He's wild to go, and I don't see why they shouldn't give him a
show. He's got plenty of nerve, and he's keen as a whiplash. I'm going
to get him an appointment, and if you can do anything to help it along
I wish you would."

Then he betook himself to the White House and the War Department and
made a stir. People think that Administrations are always slavishly,
abominably anxious to please the Machine. They are not; they wish the
Machine sunk in red fire, for by the power of ten thousand past words,
looks, gestures, writings, the Machine comes along and takes the
Administration by the nose and twists it, and the Administration dare
not even yell. The huge force which carries an election to success
looks reproachfully at the Administration and says, "Give me a bun."
That is a very small thing with which to reward a Colossus.

The Skowmulligan war-horse got his bun and took it to his hotel where
Caspar was moodily reading war rumours. "Well, my boy, here you are."
Caspar was a Captain and Commissary on the staff of Brigadier-General
Reilly, commander of the Second Brigade of the First Division of the
Thirtieth Army Corps.

"I had to work for it," said the Senator grimly. "They talked to me as
if they thought you were some sort of empty-headed idiot. None of 'em
seemed to know you personally. They just sort of took it for granted.
Finally I got pretty hot in the collar." He paused a moment; his heavy,
grooved face set hard; his blue eyes shone. He clapped a hand down upon
the handle of his chair.

"Caspar, I've got you into this thing, and I believe you'll do all
right, and I'm not saying this because I distrust either your sense or
your grit. But I want you to understand you've _got to make a go of
it_. I'm not going to talk any twaddle about your country and your
country's flag. You understand all about that. But now you're a
soldier, and there'll be this to do and that to do, and fighting to do,
and you've got to do _every d----d one of 'em_ right up to the handle.
I don't know how much of a shindy this thing is going to be, but any
shindy is enough to show how much there is in a man. You've got your
appointment, and that's all I can do for you; but I'll thrash you with
my own hands if, when the Army gets back, the other fellows say my son
is 'nothing but a good-looking dude.'"

He ceased, breathing heavily. Caspar looked bravely and frankly at his
father, and answered in a voice which was not very tremulous. "I'll do
my best. This is my chance. I'll do my best with it."

The Senator had a marvellous ability of transition from one manner to
another. Suddenly he seemed very kind. "Well, that's all right, then. I
guess you'll get along all right with Reilly. I know him well, and
he'll see you through. I helped him along once. And now about this
commissary business. As I understand it, a Commissary is a sort of
caterer in a big way--that is, he looks out for a good many more things
than a caterer has to bother his head about. Reilly's brigade has
probably from two to three thousand men in it, and in regard to certain
things you've got to look out for every man of 'em every day. I know
perfectly well you couldn't successfully run a boarding-house in Ocean
Grove. How are you going to manage for all these soldiers, hey? Thought
about it?"

"No," said Caspar, injured. "I didn't want to be a Commissary. I wanted
to be a Captain in the line."

"They wouldn't hear of it. They said you would have to take a staff
appointment where people could look after you."

"Well, let them look after me," cried Caspar resentfully; "but when
there's any fighting to be done I guess I won't necessarily be the last
man."

"That's it," responded the Senator. "That's the spirit." They both
thought that the problem of war would eliminate to an equation of
actual battle.

Ultimately Caspar departed into the South to an encampment in salty
grass under pine trees. Here lay an Army corps twenty thousand strong.
Caspar passed into the dusty sunshine of it, and for many weeks he was
lost to view.


II

"Of course I don't know a blamed thing about it," said Caspar frankly
and modestly to a circle of his fellow staff officers. He was referring
to the duties of his office.

Their faces became expressionless; they looked at him with eyes in
which he could fathom nothing. After a pause one politely said, "Don't
you?" It was the inevitable two words of convention.

"Why," cried Caspar, "I didn't know what a commissary officer was until
I _was_ one. My old Guv'nor told me. He'd looked it up in a book
somewhere, I suppose; but _I_ didn't know."

"Didn't you?"

The young man's face glowed with sudden humour. "Do you know, the word
was intimately associated in my mind with camels. Funny, eh? I think it
came from reading that rhyme of Kipling's about the commissariat
camel."

"Did it?"

"Yes. Funny, isn't it? Camels!"

The brigade was ultimately landed at Siboney as part of an army to
attack Santiago. The scene at the landing sometimes resembled the
inspiriting daily drama at the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge. There
was a great bustle, during which the wise man kept his property gripped
in his hands lest it might march off into the wilderness in the pocket
of one of the striding regiments. Truthfully, Caspar should have had
frantic occupation, but men saw him wandering bootlessly here and there
crying, "Has any one seen my saddlebags? Why, if I lose them I'm
ruined. I've got everything packed away in 'em. Everything!"

They looked at him gloomily and without attention. "No," they said. It
was to intimate that they would not give a rip if he had lost his nose,
his teeth and his self-respect. Reilly's brigade collected itself from
the boats and went off, each regiment's soul burning with anger because
some other regiment was in advance of it. Moving along through the
scrub and under the palms, men talked mostly of things that did not
pertain to the business in hand.

General Reilly finally planted his headquarters in some tall grass
under a mango tree. "Where's Cadogan?" he said suddenly as he took off
his hat and smoothed the wet grey hair from his brow. Nobody knew. "I
saw him looking for his saddle-bags down at the landing," said an
officer dubiously. "Bother him," said the General contemptuously. "Let
him stay there."

Three venerable regimental commanders came, saluted stiffly and sat in
the grass. There was a pow-wow, during which Reilly explained much that
the Division Commander had told him. The venerable Colonels nodded;
they understood. Everything was smooth and clear to their minds. But
still, the Colonel of the Forty-fourth Regular Infantry murmured about
the commissariat. His men--and then he launched forth in a sentiment
concerning the privations of his men in which you were confronted with
his feeling that his men--his men were the only creatures of importance
in the universe, which feeling was entirely correct for him. Reilly
grunted. He did what most commanders did. He set the competent line to
doing the work of the incompetent part of the staff.

In time Caspar came trudging along the road merrily swinging his
saddle-bags. "Well, General," he cried as he saluted, "I found 'em."

"Did you?" said Reilly. Later an officer rushed to him tragically:
"General, Cadogan is off there in the bushes eatin' potted ham and
crackers all by himself." The officer was sent back into the bushes for
Caspar, and the General sent Caspar with an order. Then Reilly and the
three venerable Colonels, grinning, partook of potted ham and crackers.
"Tashe a' right," said Reilly, with his mouth full. "Dorsey, see if 'e
got some'n else."

"Mush be selfish young pig," said one of the Colonels, with his mouth
full. "Who's he, General?"

"Son--Sen'tor Cad'gan--ol' frien' mine--dash 'im."

Caspar wrote a letter:

    "_Dear Father_: I am sitting under a tree using the flattest part
    of my canteen for a desk. Even as I write the division ahead of us
    is moving forward and we don't know what moment the storm of battle
    may break out. I don't know what the plans are. General Reilly
    knows, but he is so good as to give me very little of his
    confidence. In fact, I might be part of a forlorn hope from all to
    the contrary I've heard from him. I understood you to say in
    Washington that you at one time had been of some service to him,
    but if that is true I can assure you he has completely forgotten
    it. At times his manner to me is little short of being offensive,
    but of course I understand that it is only the way of a crusty old
    soldier who has been made boorish and bearish by a long life among
    the Indians. I dare say I shall manage it all right without a row.

    "When you hear that we have captured Santiago, please send me by
    first steamer a box of provisions and clothing, particularly
    sardines, pickles, and light-weight underwear. The other men on the
    staff are nice quiet chaps, but they seem a bit crude. There has
    been no fighting yet save the skirmish by Young's brigade. Reilly
    was furious because we couldn't get in it. I met General Peel
    yesterday. He was very nice. He said he knew you well when he was
    in Congress. Young Jack May is on Peel's staff. I knew him well in
    college. We spent an hour talking over old times. Give my love to
    all at home."

The march was leisurely. Reilly and his staff strolled out to the head
of the long, sinuous column and entered the sultry gloom of the forest.
Some less fortunate regiments had to wait among the trees at the side
of the trail, and as Reilly's brigade passed them, officer called to
officer, classmate to classmate, and in these greetings rang a note of
everything, from West Point to Alaska. They were going into an action
in which they, the officers, would lose over a hundred in killed and
wounded--officers alone--and these greetings, in which many nicknames
occurred, were in many cases farewells such as one pictures being given
with ostentation, solemnity, fervour. "There goes Gory Widgeon! Hello,
Gory! Where you starting for? Hey, Gory!"

Caspar communed with himself and decided that he was not frightened. He
was eager and alert; he thought that now his obligation to his country,
or himself, was to be faced, and he was mad to prove to old Reilly and
the others that after all he was a very capable soldier.


III

Old Reilly was stumping along the line of his brigade and mumbling like
a man with a mouthful of grass. The fire from the enemy's position was
incredible in its swift fury, and Reilly's brigade was getting its
share of a very bad ordeal. The old man's face was of the colour of a
tomato, and in his rage he mouthed and sputtered strangely. As he
pranced along his thin line, scornfully erect, voices arose from the
grass beseeching him to take care of himself. At his heels scrambled a
bugler with pallid skin and clenched teeth, a chalky, trembling youth,
who kept his eye on old Reilly's back and followed it.

The old gentleman was quite mad. Apparently he thought the whole thing
a dreadful mess, but now that his brigade was irrevocably in it he was
full-tilting here and everywhere to establish some irreproachable,
immaculate kind of behaviour on the part of every man jack in his
brigade. The intentions of the three venerable Colonels were the same.
They stood behind their lines, quiet, stern, courteous old fellows,
admonishing their regiments to be very pretty in the face of such a
hail of magazine-rifle and machine-gun fire as has never in this world
been confronted save by beardless savages when the white man has found
occasion to take his burden to some new place.

And the regiments were pretty. The men lay on their little stomachs and
got peppered according to the law and said nothing, as the good blood
pumped out into the grass, and even if a solitary rookie tried to get a
decent reason to move to some haven of rational men, the cold voice of
an officer made him look criminal with a shame that was a credit to his
regimental education. Behind Reilly's command was a bullet-torn jungle
through which it could not move as a brigade; ahead of it were Spanish
trenches on hills. Reilly considered that he was in a fix no doubt, but
he said this only to himself. Suddenly he saw on the right a little
point of blue-shirted men already half-way up the hill. It was some
pathetic fragment of the Sixth United States Infantry. Chagrined,
shocked, horrified, Reilly bellowed to his bugler, and the
chalked-faced youth unlocked his teeth and sounded the charge by
rushes.

The men formed hastily and grimly, and rushed. Apparently there awaited
them only the fate of respectable soldiers. But they went because--of
the opinions of others, perhaps. They went because--no loud-mouthed lot
of jail-birds such as the Twenty-Seventh Infantry could do anything
that they could not do better. They went because Reilly ordered it.
They went because they went.

And yet not a man of them to this day has made a public speech
explaining precisely how he did the whole thing and detailing with what
initiative and ability he comprehended and defeated a situation which
he did not comprehend at all.

Reilly never saw the top of the hill. He was heroically striving to
keep up with his men when a bullet ripped quietly through his left
lung, and he fell back into the arms of the bugler, who received him as
he would have received a Christmas present. The three venerable
Colonels inherited the brigade in swift succession. The senior
commanded for about fifty seconds, at the end of which he was mortally
shot. Before they could get the news to the next in rank he, too, was
shot. The junior Colonel ultimately arrived with a lean and puffing
little brigade at the top of the hill. The men lay down and fired
volleys at whatever was practicable.

In and out of the ditch-like trenches lay the Spanish dead, lemon-faced
corpses dressed in shabby blue and white ticking. Some were huddled
down comfortably like sleeping children; one had died in the attitude
of a man flung back in a dentist's chair; one sat in the trench with
his chin sunk despondently to his breast; few preserved a record of the
agitation of battle. With the greater number it was as if death had
touched them so gently, so lightly, that they had not known of it.
Death had come to them rather in the form of an opiate than of a bloody
blow.

But the arrived men in the blue shirts had no thought of the sallow
corpses. They were eagerly exchanging a hail of shots with the Spanish
second line, whose ash-coloured entrenchments barred the way to a city
white amid trees. In the pauses the men talked.

"We done the best. Old E Company got there. Why, one time the hull of B
Company was _behind_ us."

"Jones, he was the first man up. I saw 'im."

"Which Jones?"

"Did you see ol' Two-bars runnin' like a land-crab? Made good time,
too. He hit only in the high places. He's all right."

"The Lootenant s all right, too. He was a good ten yards ahead of the
best of us. I hated him at the post, but for this here active service
there's none of 'em can touch him."

"This is mighty different from being at the post."

"Well, we done it, an' it wasn't b'cause _I_ thought it could be done.
When we started, I ses to m'self: 'Well, here goes a lot o' d----d
fools.'"

"'Tain't over yet."

"Oh, they'll never git us back from here. If they start to chase us
back from here we'll pile 'em up so high the last ones can't climb
over. We've come this far, an' we'll stay here. I ain't done pantin'."

"Anything is better than packin' through that jungle an' gettin'
blistered from front, rear, an' both flanks. I'd rather tackle another
hill than go trailin' in them woods, so thick you can't tell whether
you are one man or a division of cav'lry."

"Where's that young kitchen-soldier, Cadogan, or whatever his name is.
Ain't seen him to-day."

"Well, _I_ seen him. He was right in with it. He got shot, too, about
half up the hill, in the leg. I seen it. He's all right. Don't worry
about him. He's all right."

"I seen 'im, too. He done his stunt. As soon as I can git this piece of
barbed-wire entanglement out o' me throat I'll give 'm a cheer."

"He ain't shot at all b'cause there he stands, there. See 'im?"

Rearward, the grassy slope was populous with little groups of men
searching for the wounded. Reilly's brigade began to dig with its
bayonets and shovel with its meat-ration cans.


IV

Senator Cadogan paced to and fro in his private parlour and smoked
small, brown weak cigars. These little wisps seemed utterly inadequate
to console such a ponderous satrap.

It was the evening of the 1st of July, 1898, and the Senator was
immensely excited, as could be seen from the superlatively calm way in
which he called out to his private secretary, who was in an adjoining
room. The voice was serene, gentle, affectionate, low.

"Baker, I wish you'd go over again to the War Department and see if
they've heard anything about Caspar."

A very bright-eyed, hatchet-faced young man appeared in a doorway, pen
still in hand. He was hiding a nettle-like irritation behind all the
finished audacity of a smirk, sharp, lying, trustworthy young
politician. "I've just got back from there, sir," he suggested.

The Skowmulligan war-horse lifted his eyes and looked for a short
second into the eyes of his private secretary. It was not a glare or an
eagle glance; it was something beyond the practice of an actor; it was
simply meaning. The clever private secretary grabbed his hat and was at
once enthusiastically away. "All right, sir," he cried. "I'll find
out."

The War Department was ablaze with light, and messengers were running.
With the assurance of a retainer of an old house Baker made his way
through much small-calibre vociferation. There was rumour of a big
victory; there was rumour of a big defeat. In the corridors various
watchdogs arose from their armchairs and asked him of his business in
tones of uncertainty which in no wise compared with their previous
habitual deference to the private secretary of the war-horse of
Skowmulligan.

Ultimately Baker arrived in a room where some kind of head clerk sat
writing feverishly at a roll-top desk. Baker asked a question, and the
head clerk mumbled profanely without lifting his head. Apparently he
said: "How in the blankety-blank blazes do I know?"

The private secretary let his jaw fall. Surely some new spirit had come
suddenly upon the heart of Washington--a spirit which Baker understood
to be almost defiantly indifferent to the wishes of Senator Cadogan, a
spirit which was not courteously oily. What could it mean? Baker's
fox-like mind sprang wildly to a conception of overturned factions,
changed friends, new combinations. The assurance which had come from
experience of a broad political situation suddenly left him, and he
would not have been amazed if some one had told him that Senator
Cadogan now controlled only six votes in the State of Skowmulligan.
"Well," he stammered in his bewilderment, "well--there isn't any news
of the old man's son, hey?" Again the head clerk replied blasphemously.

Eventually Baker retreated in disorder from the presence of this head
clerk, having learned that the latter did not give a ---- if Caspar
Cadogan were sailing through Hades on an ice yacht.

Baker stormed other and more formidable officials. In fact, he struck
as high as he dared. They one and all flung him short, hard words, even
as men pelt an annoying cur with pebbles. He emerged from the brilliant
light, from the groups of men with anxious, puzzled faces, and as he
walked back to the hotel he did not know if his name were Baker or
Cholmondeley.

However, as he walked up the stairs to the Senator's rooms he contrived
to concentrate his intellect upon a manner of speaking.

The war-horse was still pacing his parlour and smoking. He paused at
Baker's entrance. "Well?"

"Mr. Cadogan," said the private secretary coolly, "they told me at the
Department that they did not give a cuss whether your son was alive or
dead."

The Senator looked at Baker and smiled gently. "What's that, my boy?"
he asked in a soft and considerate voice.

"They said----" gulped Baker, with a certain tenacity. "They said that
they didn't give a cuss whether your son was alive or dead."

There was a silence for the space of three seconds. Baker stood like an
image; he had no machinery for balancing the issues of this kind of a
situation, and he seemed to feel that if he stood as still as a stone
frog he would escape the ravages of a terrible Senatorial wrath which
was about to break forth in a hurricane speech which would snap off
trees and sweep away barns.

"Well," drawled the Senator lazily, "who did you see, Baker?"

The private secretary resumed a certain usual manner of breathing. He
told the names of the men whom he had seen.

"Ye--e--es," remarked the Senator. He took another little brown cigar
and held it with a thumb and first finger, staring at it with the calm
and steady scrutiny of a scientist investigating a new thing. "So they
don't care whether Caspar is alive or dead, eh? Well ... maybe they
don't.... That's all right.... However ... I think I'll just look in on
'em and state my views."

When the Senator had gone, the private secretary ran to the window and
leaned afar out. Pennsylvania Avenue was gleaming silver blue in the
light of many arc-lamps; the cable trains groaned along to the clangour
of gongs; from the window, the walks presented a hardly diversified
aspect of shirt-waists and straw hats. Sometimes a newsboy screeched.

Baker watched the tall, heavy figure of the Senator moving out to
intercept a cable train. "Great Scott!" cried the private secretary to
himself, "there'll be three distinct kinds of grand, plain practical
fireworks. The old man is going for 'em. I wouldn't be in Lascum's
boots. Ye gods, what a row there'll be."

In due time the Senator was closeted with some kind of deputy
third-assistant battery-horse in the offices of the War Department. The
official obviously had been told off to make a supreme effort to pacify
Cadogan, and he certainly was acting according to his instructions. He
was almost in tears; he spread out his hands in supplication, and his
voice whined and wheedled.

"Why, really, you know, Senator, we can only beg you to look at the
circumstances. Two scant divisions at the top of that hill; over a
thousand men killed and wounded; the line so thin that any strong
attack would smash our Army to flinders. The Spaniards have probably
received reenforcements under Pando; Shafter seems to be too ill to be
actively in command of our troops; Lawton can't get up with his
division before to-morrow. We are actually expecting ... no, I won't
say expecting ... but we would not be surprised ... nobody in the
department would be surprised if before daybreak we were compelled to
give to the country the news of a disaster which would be the worst
blow the National pride has ever suffered. Don't you see? Can't you see
our position, Senator?"

The Senator, with a pale but composed face, contemplated the official
with eyes that gleamed in a way not usual with the big, self-controlled
politician.

"I'll tell you frankly, sir," continued the other. "I'll tell you
frankly, that at this moment we don't know whether we are a-foot or
a-horseback. Everything is in the air. We don't know whether we have
won a glorious victory or simply got ourselves in a deuce of a fix."

The Senator coughed. "I suppose my boy is with the two divisions at the
top of that hill? He's with Reilly."

"Yes; Reilly's brigade is up there."

"And when do you suppose the War Department can tell me if he is all
right. I want to know."

"My dear Senator, frankly, I don't know. Again I beg you to think of
our position. The Army is in a muddle; it's a General thinking that he
must fall back, and yet not sure that he _can_ fall back without losing
the Army. Why, we're worrying about the lives of sixteen thousand men
and the self-respect of the nation, Senator."

"I see," observed the Senator, nodding his head slowly. "And naturally
the welfare of one man's son doesn't--how do they say it--doesn't cut
any ice."


V

And in Cuba it rained. In a few days Reilly's brigade discovered that
by their successful charge they had gained the inestimable privilege of
sitting in a wet trench and slowly but surely starving to death. Men's
tempers crumbled like dry bread. The soldiers who so cheerfully,
quietly and decently had captured positions which the foreign experts
had said were impregnable, now in turn underwent an attack which was
furious as well as insidious. The heat of the sun alternated with rains
which boomed and roared in their falling like mountain cataracts. It
seemed as if men took the fever through sheer lack of other occupation.
During the days of battle none had had time to get even a tropic
headache, but no sooner was that brisk period over than men began to
shiver and shudder by squads and platoons. Rations were scarce enough
to make a little fat strip of bacon seem of the size of a corner lot,
and coffee grains were pearls. There would have been godless quarreling
over fragments if it were not that with these fevers came a great
listlessness, so that men were almost content to die, if death required
no exertion.

It was an occasion which distinctly separated the sheep from the goats.
The goats were few enough, but their qualities glared out like crimson
spots.

One morning Jameson and Ripley, two Captains in the Forty-fourth Foot,
lay under a flimsy shelter of sticks and palm branches. Their dreamy,
dull eyes contemplated the men in the trench which went to left and
right. To them came Caspar Cadogan, moaning. "By Jove," he said, as he
flung himself wearily on the ground, "I can't stand much more of this,
you know. It's killing me." A bristly beard sprouted through the grime
on his face; his eyelids were crimson; an indescribably dirty shirt
fell away from his roughened neck; and at the same time various lines
of evil and greed were deepened on his face, until he practically stood
forth as a revelation, a confession. "I can't stand it. By Jove, I
can't."

Stanford, a Lieutenant under Jameson, came stumbling along toward them.
He was a lad of the class of '98 at West Point. It could be seen that
he was flaming with fever. He rolled a calm eye at them. "Have you any
water, sir?" he said to his Captain. Jameson got upon his feet and
helped Stanford to lay his shaking length under the shelter. "No, boy,"
he answered gloomily. "Not a drop. You got any, Rip?"

"No," answered Ripley, looking with anxiety upon the young officer.
"Not a drop."

"You, Cadogan?"

Here Caspar hesitated oddly for a second, and then in a tone of deep
regret made answer, "No, Captain; not a mouthful."

Jameson moved off weakly. "You lay quietly, Stanford, and I'll see what
I can rustle."

Presently Caspar felt that Ripley was steadily regarding him. He
returned the look with one of half-guilty questioning.

"God forgive you, Cadogan," said Ripley, "but you are a damned beast.
Your canteen is full of water."

Even then the apathy in their veins prevented the scene from becoming
as sharp as the words sounded. Caspar sputtered like a child, and at
length merely said: "No, it isn't." Stanford lifted his head to shoot a
keen, proud glance at Caspar, and then turned away his face.

"You lie," said Ripley. "I can tell the sound of a full canteen as far
as I can hear it."

"Well, if it is, I--I must have forgotten it."

"You lie; no man in this Army just now forgets whether his canteen is
full or empty. Hand it over."

Fever is the physical counterpart of shame, and when a man has the one
he accepts the other with an ease which would revolt his healthy self.
However, Caspar made a desperate struggle to preserve the forms. He
arose and taking the string from his shoulder, passed the canteen to
Ripley. But after all there was a whine in his voice, and the
assumption of dignity was really a farce. "I think I had better go,
Captain. You can have the water if you want it, I'm sure. But--but I
fail to see--I fail to see what reason you have for insulting me."

"Do you?" said Ripley stolidly. "That's all right."

Caspar stood for a terrible moment. He simply did not have the strength
to turn his back on this--this affair. It seemed to him that he must
stand forever and face it. But when he found the audacity to look again
at Ripley he saw the latter was not at all concerned with the
situation. Ripley, too, had the fever. The fever changes all laws of
proportion. Caspar went away.

"Here, youngster; here is your drink."

Stanford made a weak gesture. "I wouldn't touch a drop from his blamed
canteen if it was the last water in the world," he murmured in his
high, boyish voice.

"Don't you be a young jackass," quoth Ripley tenderly.

The boy stole a glance at the canteen. He felt the propriety of arising
and hurling it after Caspar, but--he, too, had the fever.

"Don't you be a young jackass," said Ripley again.


VI

Senator Cadogan was happy. His son had returned from Cuba, and the 8:30
train that evening would bring him to the station nearest to the stone
and red shingle villa which the Senator and his family occupied on the
shores of Long Island Sound. The Senator's steam yacht lay some hundred
yards from the beach. She had just returned from a trip to Montauk
Point where the Senator had made a gallant attempt to gain his son from
the transport on which he was coming from Cuba. He had fought a brave
sea-fight with sundry petty little doctors and ship's officers who had
raked him with broadsides, describing the laws of quarantine and had
used inelegant speech to a United States Senator as he stood on the
bridge of his own steam yacht. These men had grimly asked him to tell
exactly how much better was Caspar than any other returning soldier.

But the Senator had not given them a long fight. In fact, the truth
came to him quickly, and with almost a blush he had ordered the yacht
back to her anchorage off the villa. As a matter of fact, the trip to
Montauk Point had been undertaken largely from impulse. Long ago the
Senator had decided that when his boy returned the greeting should have
something Spartan in it. He would make a welcome such as most soldiers
get. There should be no flowers and carriages when the other poor
fellows got none. He should consider Caspar as a soldier. That was the
way to treat a man. But in the end a sharp acid of anxiety had worked
upon the iron old man, until he had ordered the yacht to take him out
and make a fool of him. The result filled him with a chagrin which
caused him to delegate to the mother and sisters the entire business of
succouring Caspar at Montauk Point Camp. He had remained at home
conducting the huge correspondence of an active National politician and
waiting for this son whom he so loved and whom he so wished to be a man
of a certain strong, taciturn, shrewd ideal. The recent yacht voyage he
now looked upon as a kind of confession of his weakness, and he was
resolved that no more signs should escape him.

But yet his boy had been down there against the enemy and among the
fevers. There had been grave perils, and his boy must have faced them.
And he could not prevent himself from dreaming through the poetry of
fine actions in which visions his son's face shone out manly and
generous. During these periods the people about him, accustomed as they
were to his silence and calm in time of stress, considered that affairs
in Skowmulligan might be most critical. In no other way could they
account for this exaggerated phlegm.

On the night of Caspar's return he did not go to dinner, but had a tray
sent to his library, where he remained writing. At last he heard the
spin of the dog-cart's wheels on the gravel of the drive, and a moment
later there penetrated to him the sound of joyful feminine cries. He
lit another cigar; he knew that it was now his part to bide with
dignity the moment when his son should shake off that other welcome and
come to him. He could still hear them; in their exuberance they seemed
to be capering like schoolchildren. He was impatient, but this
impatience took the form of a polar stolidity.

Presently there were quick steps and a jubilant knock at his door.
"Come in," he said.

In came Caspar, thin, yellow, and in soiled khaki. "They almost tore me
to pieces," he cried, laughing. "They danced around like wild things."
Then as they shook hands he dutifully said "How are you, sir?"

"How are you, my boy?" answered the Senator casually but kindly.

"Better than I might expect, sir," cried Caspar cheerfully. "We had a
pretty hard time, you know."

"You look as if they'd given you a hard run," observed the father in a
tone of slight interest.

Caspar was eager to tell. "Yes, sir," he said rapidly. "We did, indeed.
Why, it was awful. We--any of us--were lucky to get out of it alive. It
wasn't so much the Spaniards, you know. The Army took care of them all
right. It was the fever and the--you know, we couldn't get anything to
eat. And the mismanagement. Why, it was frightful."

"Yes, I've heard," said the Senator. A certain wistful look came into
his eyes, but he did not allow it to become prominent. Indeed, he
suppressed it. "And you, Caspar? I suppose you did your duty?"

Caspar answered with becoming modesty. "Well, I didn't do more than
anybody else, I don't suppose, but--well, I got along all right, I
guess."

"And this great charge up San Juan Hill?" asked, the father slowly.
"Were you in that?"

"Well--yes; I was in it," replied the son.

The Senator brightened a trifle. "You were, eh? In the front of it? or
just sort of going along?"

"Well--I don't know. I couldn't tell exactly. Sometimes I was in front
of a lot of them, and sometimes I was--just sort of going along."

This time the Senator emphatically brightened. "That's all right, then.
And of course--of course you performed your commissary duties
correctly?"

The question seemed to make Caspar uncommunicative and sulky. "I did
when there was anything to do," he answered. "But the whole thing was
on the most unbusiness-like basis you can imagine. And they wouldn't
tell you anything. Nobody would take time to instruct you in your
duties, and of course if you didn't know a thing your superior officer
would swoop down on you and ask you why in the deuce such and such a
thing wasn't done in such and such a way. Of course I did the best I
could."

The Senator's countenance had again become sombrely indifferent. "I
see. But you weren't directly rebuked for incapacity, were you? No; of
course you weren't. But--I mean--did any of your superior officers
suggest that you were 'no good,' or anything of that sort? I mean--did
you come off with a clean slate?"

Caspar took a small time to digest his father's meaning. "Oh, yes,
sir," he cried at the end of his reflection. "The Commissary was in
such a hopeless mess anyhow that nobody thought of doing anything but
curse Washington."

"Of course," rejoined the Senator harshly. "But supposing that you had
been a competent and well-trained commissary officer. What then?"

Again the son took time for consideration, and in the end deliberately
replied "Well, if I had been a competent and well-trained Commissary I
would have sat there and eaten up my heart and cursed Washington."

"Well, then, that's all right. And now about this charge up San Juan?
Did any of the Generals speak to you afterward and say that you had
done well? Didn't any of them see you?"

"Why, n--n--no, I don't suppose they did ... any more than I did them.
You see, this charge was a big thing and covered lots of ground, and I
hardly saw anybody excepting a lot of the men."

"Well, but didn't any of the men see you? Weren't you ahead some of the
time leading them on and waving your sword?"

Caspar burst into laughter. "Why, no. I had all I could do to scramble
along and try to keep up. And I didn't want to go up at all."

"Why?" demanded the Senator.

"Because--because the Spaniards were shooting so much. And you could
see men falling, and the bullets rushed around you in--by the bushel.
And then at last it seemed that if we once drove them away from the top
of the hill there would be less danger. So we all went up."

The Senator chuckled over this description. "And you didn't flinch at
all?"

"Well," rejoined Caspar humorously, "I won't say I wasn't frightened."

"No, of course not. But then you did not let anybody know it?"

"Of course not."

"You understand, naturally, that I am bothering you with all these
questions because I desire to hear how my only son behaved in the
crisis. I don't want to worry you with it. But if you went through the
San Juan charge with credit I'll have you made a Major."

"Well," said Caspar, "I wouldn't say I went through that charge with
credit. I went through it all good enough, but the enlisted men around
went through in the same way."

"But weren't you encouraging them and leading them on by your example?"

Caspar smirked. He began to see a point. "Well, sir," he said with a
charming hesitation. "Aw--er--I--well, I dare say I was doing my share
of it."

The perfect form of the reply delighted the father. He could not endure
blatancy; his admiration was to be won only by a bashful hero. Now he
beat his hand impulsively down upon the table. "That's what I wanted to
know. That's it exactly. I'll have you made a Major next week. You've
found your proper field at last. You stick to the Army, Caspar, and
I'll back you up. That's the thing. In a few years it will be a great
career. The United States is pretty sure to have an Army of about a
hundred and fifty thousand men. And starting in when you did and with
me to back you up--why, we'll make you a General in seven or eight
years. That's the ticket. You stay in the Army." The Senator's cheek
was flushed with enthusiasm, and he looked eagerly and confidently at
his son.

But Caspar had pulled a long face. "The Army?" he said. "Stay in the
Army?"

The Senator continued to outline quite rapturously his idea of the
future. "The Army, evidently, is just the place for you. You know as
well as I do that you have not been a howling success, exactly, in
anything else which you have tried. But now the Army just suits you. It
is the kind of career which especially suits you. Well, then, go in,
and go at it hard. Go in to win. Go at it."

"But--" began Caspar.

The Senator interrupted swiftly. "Oh, don't worry about that part of
it. I'll take care of all that. You won't get jailed in some Arizona
adobe for the rest of your natural life. There won't be much more of
that, anyhow; and besides, as I say, I'll look after all that end of
it. The chance is splendid. A young, healthy and intelligent man, with
the start you've already got, and with my backing, can do
anything--anything! There will be a lot of active service--oh, yes, I'm
sure of it--and everybody who----"

"But," said Caspar, wan, desperate, heroic, "father, I don't care to
stay in the Army."

The Senator lifted his eyes and darkened. "What?" he said. "What's
that?" He looked at Caspar.

The son became tightened and wizened like an old miser trying to
withhold gold. He replied with a sort of idiot obstinacy, "I don't care
to stay in the Army."

The Senator's jaw clinched down, and he was dangerous. But, after all,
there was something mournful somewhere. "Why, what do you mean?" he
asked gruffly.

"Why, I couldn't get along, you know. The--the----"

"The what?" demanded the father, suddenly uplifted with thunderous
anger. "The what?"

Caspar's pain found a sort of outlet in mere irresponsible talk. "Well,
you know--the other men, you know. I couldn't get along with them, you
know. They're peculiar, somehow; odd; I didn't understand them, and
they didn't understand me. We--we didn't hitch, somehow. They're a
queer lot. They've got funny ideas. I don't know how to explain it
exactly, but--somehow--I don't like 'em. That's all there is to it.
They're good fellows enough, I know, but----"

"Oh, well, Caspar," interrupted the Senator. Then he seemed to weigh a
great fact in his mind. "I guess----" He paused again in profound
consideration. "I guess----" He lit a small, brown cigar. "I guess you
are no damn good."


THE END.








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