Van Cleve and His Friends
CHAPTER XVI
BUT ’T WAS A GLORIOUS VICTORY
NEXT morning at daybreak, the argonauts steamed into the harbor of Guantanamo, which they found already populous with shipping, colliers, transports, lighters, a whole fleet of little vessels of their own calibre, herded together in one place where the Milton D. Bowers herself modestly sought a berth, and half a dozen tall warships. They recognized their friend of the night before, the Inverness, now peaceably riding at anchor on the east side of the channel, close inshore and just opposite some ridges of freshly turned earth which looked like the bunkers on the golf-links at home, Van Cleve thought, but which, he was told, were the intrenchments of Camp Huntington. All around there were other earthworks and tents, white and blue and khaki-colored uniforms going to and fro, bugle-calls and the smoke of campfires, and overhead the flag spreading its brave and cheerful colors on a strong breeze. It was a stirring spectacle; and though this place is adorned with some of as noble and beautiful scenery as may be found anywhere in the world, I doubt if the travelers made much of it. They were not caring for scenery, and the sight of this armed occupation, vigilant and powerful, and the news of the past night would have distracted them from the most wonderful panorama on the face of the globe.
They landed, Schreiber insisting on going, too, although he was limping painfully, with his ankle very much swollen in a rough bandage they had contrived, and went up to a shining little sheet-iron-walled stove of a building which they had found to be the telegraph-office, at the foot of the hill under Captain McCalla’s camp of marines; and here Schreiber had the luck to fall in with two other correspondents, a Mr. Hunter of the New York Planet, and another man whose name Van Cleve did not catch, both of them just from the front with accounts of Saturday’s fighting and San Juan Hill. The army had known nothing of the navy’s doings, and supposed the cannonading they had heard to be Sampson bombarding the forts at the mouth of the harbor, as he had done before! ‘Pshaw, we knew better than that! ’said Schreiber, with mock superiority.
‘Well, our fellows have too many other things to think about, back there in the jungle,’ Hunter said. He told them something of the fight, the other man joining in. It had n’t been any such soft snap as the navy boys had, to judge by what you heard. These Spaniards were n’t running away, nor dreaming of it; they were fighters — they could shoot, too. ‘Why, it took Lawton nearly a whole day, nearly the whole of Friday, — let’s see, it was Friday, was n’t it, Jim? — to carry that position at that little town where the church was, Caney they called it — nearly the whole day, and everybody thought it would n’t be but an hour or so! Well, of course, they outnumbered our fellows. Oh, yes, two to one, at least. The Cubans hardly counted; we did the real fighting. Oh, I suppose some of the Cubans did pretty well, but I did n’t see any of ’em. They were n’t near so many of them wounded and killed as we had, in proportion. Did you hear about that poor fellow, Lieutenant Ord of the Sixth? Did you hear what happened to him ? Why, he got to the top of the hill with the first ones when they charged it (Hey? Yes, it was the Sixth, and the Rough Riders, and the colored regiment, and parts of other regiments mixed in), and this Ord came to a Spaniard lying there badly wounded, and says, “Look out for this man, boys,” or “Pick up this fellow and see he gets taken care of,” or something like that. And with that the Spaniard raised up and shot him through the heart! Suppose he thought Ord was telling the men to bayonet him and finish him. Probably that ’s what a Spanish or Cuban officer would have done. Eh? Oh, the men killed him; about tore him to pieces, they say. They thought a great deal of Ord. Nice fellow, they say — I never happened to meet him. But that just shows you what kind these Spanish are; Uncle Sam’s going to be thoroughly sick of this Cuba Libre job before long. All our fine men sacrificed. You ought to see the wounded — or rather you ought n’t to see them if you can help it. My God, it’s awful! Awful. War’s about what Sherman said it was, I guess.’
They talked on a little excitedly at times, still under the spell of what they had witnessed. Both of them were dirty, haggard, ready to drop with fatigue; Hunter told Van he had not slept for fifteen hours, most of which had been spent on the way from the battlefield here. It was nothing but a jungle trail, almost impassable in places, and they had been obliged to tramp the most of it, their horses having given out very soon; it was next to impossible to get any kind of transportation in the country. Nevertheless, they were starting back as soon as they had had some rest; something might happen any minute, and they did n’t want to miss it. Takuhira, upon this, decided to accompany them, hearing that a friend of his, Lieutenant Akiyama of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was already with the army, in observation; and Van Cleve, too, might have gone, but on hearing his errand, although neither of them, unfortunately, knew his friend Gilbert, they both assured him that Siboney would be the best place to look for him.
‘ Everybody’s there, or has been there — or at Daiquiri. The Red Cross, and the correspondents, and the post-office people, and everybody. That’s the place to look for any one. If you can’t find him, you’re sure to find somebody that knows him, and can put you on his trail,’ they said. Van began to feel that he was getting ' hot, ’ as they say in the children’s games, and wanted to go at once and send telegrams to Lorrie and to his family; but the gentleman in charge of the station refused, not without a smile. The government, he said politely, had raised and repaired the Haytian cable at this point for its own use, and private individuals, unless in some such capacity as Mr. Hunter’s, had no status just then.
Afterwards the party all dined together on board the Milton D. Bowers, magnificently, the cook having found means to add some crabs and a basket of mangoes to their usual bill of fare, which was further enriched by a can of baked beans from some unknown source. ‘I tell you, the boys at the front would like some of this! Those beans would look like the WaldorfAstoria to them,’ said one of the correspondents; ‘all the time we’ve been with them, nobody’s had anything but bacon and hard-tack, and not too much of that, poor fellows! Well, war is war, I suppose!’ With which philosophical reflection he fell to heartily.
At two o’clock the Milton D., according to arrangement, once more set sail; and Van Cleve bade good-bye to these gentlemen, none of whom, I believe, he has ever met since, except the Japanese attaché, who turned up a few days later at Siboney in company with Major Shiba, the other military envoy of his country. Santiago had surrendered; the campaign was over; the foreign officers in observation were returning to the quarters assigned them on board ship; even for Van Cleve himself, the adventure was ended.
He was very far from foreseeing all this, though, as they steamed west along the coast in a heavy sea and rising storm, with Schreiber, erelong, wretchedly ill in the cabin, as usual, and Captain Bowers taciturnly smoking a particularly rank and vicious pipe, which he seemed to enjoy most when the tug’s motion was at its worst. The next morning, after a night of threshing about in the seas, Van was not much surprised to hear that it would be impossible to make a landing until the wind and swell died down somewhat. He could both see and hear the surf now, booming and breaking on the shore of the unprotected little cove, a formidable spectacle. They contemplated it all day long, the tug taking up a station a quarter of a mile out, in line with a number of transports and other vessels, like themselves afraid to risk launching a boat in such weather.
Siboney appeared from this distance to be a row of shanties, a half-constructed pier, and the broken ruins of an old one swept by waves, with a slender strip of beach in front and, grimmest sight of all, a big lighter, lying on her side, about fifty yards from shore, a castaway, with the seas pounding over her desolately.
‘Them other things you kin make out closer inshore is some more boats and stuff that got stove in trying to land through the surf,’ Captain Bowers said, pointing out various dark objects which had puzzled Van Cleve’s inexperienced eyes. ‘Ain’t it a sin ’n’ a shame? All that good stuff wasted!’ His tone was mournful; it was the first and only time he had displayed so much feeling of any kind, but Van understood and thoroughly sympathized. The young man’s own thrifty soul was outraged.
After twelve hours or so more of waiting, during which, although there was a great deal of coming and going on shore, they heard no sounds of firing, or other indications of hostilities being resumed, he and Schreiber at last got to land in a rowboat, manned by a pair of tatterdemalions, which came out to meet them finally, in answer to repeated signals, when Captain Bowers had taken the tug in as near as was prudent. Both boatmen were armed with pistols and machetes, though nowise soldierly (or indeed at all prepossessing) in appearance.
’Must be the commanding general of the Cuban armies and his chief-ofstaff,’the newspaper-man suggested satirically; ‘and, by George, look at the rest of the patriots getting ready to land us! Look out for your watch, Kendrick!’
In fact, there seemed to be a lively traffic of this sort among the native longshoremen, running down into the water to seize a boat by the bows, and rush it bodily through the surf, up high and dry on the sand. There was a mob of them, clamoring, villainous-faced, incredibly dirty; the beach was busy as a hive. It was littered with wreckage of lighters and launches, partly submerged, or standing up stark and stiff when the tide was out. There were mounds of barrels and boxes covered with tarpaulin, under guard; muleteams and wagons, their drivers cursing royally; soldiers without end; and a handful of bedraggled-looking civilians, government employees, members of the Red Cross commission, more correspondents.
The line of huts they had seen from the harbor the day before turned out to be ten or a dozen zinc-roofed, boxlike structures built originally by the Spanish-American Iron Company —which had mines somewhere in the neighborhood, as Schreiber vaguely recollected hearing— for its operatives, but now in use as hospitals; and one of them, the largest, bore a sign, ‘United States Post-Office, Military Station No. 1.’ Van Cleve and his companion walked up toward it. Fresh from the strong, clean sea, they had not gone a hundred steps inland when a puff of tepid, foul air, heavy with unspeakable odors of animal and vegetable decay commingled, fairly strangled them. Schreiber, who had been limping vigorously ahead, turned alarmingly pale and faint for a second; but he kept on gallantly. ‘That had a kind of yellow-fever taste, did n’t it?’ he gasped, with unquenchable levity. ‘Cheer up, the worst is yet to come! Did you see that dead mule behind one of the houses just now? He was very dead. In fact, he must have been quite entirely dead about the week before last, I should judge. Viva Cuba Libre! ’
Military Post-Office No. 1 had a high stoop in front of it, that gave it a queer likeness to the country cross-roads store and post-office combined, in a village of the same size at home; and two or three loungers on the porch as our friends came up heightened the resemblance. ‘How it reminds me of that dear Rising Sun, Indiana!’ murmured Schreiber, tenderly. There were a couple of privates waiting, probably, for their regimental mail to be sorted out, and another man, not a soldier, as he was dressed in canvas trousers, boots, and a sweater, was taking a nap, in informal style, stretched out on the floor, with an arm across his face. The two orderlies glanced at the newcomers without curiosity, and went on with a desultory conversation wherein war and conquest or other trade topics were not in the least concerned. ‘ The first time was at a picnic given by the Eagles — Independent Order of Eagles, y’ know, they’re pretty strong with us — and I could n’t say exactly how often since,’ said one of them, finishing some statement; and the other nodded indifferently.
‘That fellow there lays like he was dead — notice?’ he said presently. ‘Guess he’s about played out. He’s just as still!’
‘Dead! Well, I reckon he’s deader drunk than any other kind of dead,’ said the other man, with a laugh. ‘They don’t lay that way when they ’re shot, though — mostly they lay all kind of crumpled-up, in my experience,’ he added, with the air of a veteran. He was a smooth-chinned lad of twentythree or thereabouts.
Van Cleve and Schreiber went inside. In the stifling heat, two clerks, one in pajamas and the other wearing an undershirt, blue denim overalls, and a pair of carpet-slippers on his bare feet, were sorting mail.
‘Look in the rack. All you fellows’ mail is together in one place — right over there. You can just look for yourself,’ one of them answered the correspondent wearily, scarcely glancing up from the piles of letters he was shuffling to and fro. Van, however, was not expecting anything; nobody knew where he was. He wanted to post a letter he had written to Lorrie the night before; and that done, hastily retreated to the open air, wiping the perspiration from his face.
‘Hot, ain’t it?’ said one of the soldiers, amiably.
‘I don’t see how those men stand it in there. Another minute of that oven would have finished me,’ declared Van.
Schreiber came to the door behind him and said, not without excitement, ‘Look here, Kendrick, there’re two letters there for your friend. I saw them. R. D. Gilbert — that’s he, is n’t it? His folks must have got on to where to find him. He’s probably written.’
‘R. D. Gilbert?’ said Van Cleve, with a start. ‘Then he’s here, to a certainty. I wonder if any of them in the postoffice know him.’
He was turning to go inside again, when at the second repetition of the name, the man on the floor stirred, rolled over, sat up at last, after two or three efforts, staring around with a puffy, reddened face. ‘Whazzat? What you want?’ said Bob.
If this meeting had occurred on the melodramatic stage, for which, as an incident, it was well suited, Van Cleve would undoubtedly have had to exclaim, ‘My God, Bob! You here!’ clutching his temples in a frenzy of horrified astonishment. The plain fact is, he did and said, for an instant, nothing at all. It took him that time to realize that this was Bob — Bob at last in a worse state from drink and hardships than Van had ever seen him: gaunt, disordered, blear-eyed, almost repulsive. In another moment, he perceived that Bob, although looking straight at him, had not yet recognized him, which, to be sure, was not to be wondered at, Van quickly remembered, considering his own appearance, and that he was the last person Robert would be expecting to see.
Schreiber, who also had been staring hard, now burst out with, ‘Well, I’ll be — Why, that’s Gilbert! Is n’t it Gilbert? Why, that’s him now! Well, I’ll be—!’ He looked all around helplessly. Bob surveyed him with blank eyes.
‘Friend of yours?’ said one of the soldiers, addressing Schreiber.
‘ No — yes — that is, here’s his friend. This is his friend. Been chasing him fifteen hundred miles! Would n’t that jar you, though? Fifteen hundred miles! And here he is!’
‘Why, hello, Bob!’ said Van Cleve, mechanically. Then he collected himself, and made another effort. ‘Hello, Bob, don’t you know me? It’s Van Cleve Kendrick, you know — Van Cleve, you know!’ Unconsciously he raised his harsh voice, as he repeated the name. Bob eyed him so dully and unresponsively, it made him anxious.
‘No use hollerin’ at him, mister. Better let him sleep it off,’ observed one of the privates; ‘he’s pickled for fair!’
‘No, he ain’t, he’ll know you in a minute,’ said the other, with a judicial glance; ‘he knew when you called his name just now. Wake up, bo!’ he continued to Bob, genially; ‘here’s somebody come to see you!’
This experienced gentleman was right; Robert had unquestionably had some liquor, but that he was legitimately fagged-out from exertion, want of sleep, and, very likely, want of food, would have been evident, on a closer inspection, to anybody. He got upon his feet, while they were speaking, without any help; looked hard at the dirty, bearded man in front of him, and ejaculated at last in his own natural voice, but filled with bewilderment, ‘Van Cleve! It’s not you, Van?’
‘See? What’d I tell you? He’s got you!’ said the soldier, triumphantly.
‘How’d you get here?’ said Bob. In the wonder and perplexity of the moment, neither of them thought of shaking hands. Van Cleve’s wits, in truth, were at a standstill; he had never speculated much as to the precise environment and conditions wherein he would find his friend, and had no plans about what he was going to say other than to tell Bob plainly and forcibly that, having betrayed a young woman, according to her own confession, he must come home and marry her. What he had not allowed for, was such a chance as this: the open beach, the crowded, noisy camp where decent privacy seemed a thing unobtainable, the sudden stumbling upon the man he sought. He was inordinately taken aback. It was only for a second, but the others looked at him curiously. Bob all at once recognized Schreiber, and spoke to him by name, and they two shook hands enthusiastically. Robert pulled out a half-empty flask from his hip-pocket, and offered it all around. ‘Have a drink? It’ll do you good. Got to take a little stimulant in this climate, you know. I do myself all the time,’ he said frankly; ‘here’s how, boys! What’s your regiment? Oh, two regiments? We’ll have to have two drinks on that! What’s yours? Third? Bully for the Third! Here, got to drink to your regiment, you know. What’s yours, hey?’
The second young fellow said, with an uneasy grin, glancing at the others, that he belonged to the Twentieth, and he did n’t want any, thanky, sir. Van Cleve interfered. ‘ You ’ve had enough of that, Bob,’ he said, the exertion of authority restoring him to his habitual poise on the instant; ‘here, give me the bottle. You want something to eat, that’s what you want. Where do you go here?’
‘Aw, Van Cleve—!’ Bob began pleadingly; but he surrendered his flask without more protest. No amount of drinking could overcome the poor sinner’s native gentleness and tractability. ‘Kind of good to see you, Van,’ he said next, affectionately; ‘but I must say, you took me by surprise. Don’t all of us look like tramps, though!’ He cast a glance of whimsical appreciation over his own figure and his friend ’s. ‘How’d you get here?’
‘Why, I — I’ll tell you presently. I’d like to get something to eat, first. Where do you live? Where do you go to eat and sleep, I mean?’
Bob burst into a laugh, broken by hiccoughs. ‘Where do I live? Where do any of us live? How’s that, fellows? Where do we all live? Why, in Cuba, first turn to your left and keep on going!’ He looked to Schreiber for sympathy. ‘What’s your address, Schreiber? ’
‘It’s going to be Herman Schreiber, Esquire, The Front, directly,’said the war-correspondent, himself amused. ‘He’s about right, Kendrick, you don’t live, nor eat, nor sleep anywhere — you just get along the best you can. What’s doing, anyhow, Gil?’
‘At the front? Nothing. No fighting I mean. I came back last night. I was all in. I’ve been trying to get a little rest.’
‘Lying here on the ground?’ Van said, thinking with a certain shock of Mrs. Gilbert, and Lorrie. If they knew—! If they could see him—! But, thank Heaven, they could n’t!
Bob nodded, momentarily speechless, in a fit of coughing. ‘Sure! No place else to go, you know,’ he said when he got his breath. ‘ Why not! It’s what they all do — sick and wounded and all. What’s good enough for our army is good enough for me, I hope.’
Van Cleve eyed him over with a good deal of secret worry. Under the mask of dirt and sunburn, and apart from the specific look of the hard drinker with the lines and hollows and unwholesome textures that Bob’s face had begun to show long ago, Van Cleve thought he detected some appearances graver still; that cough and that stoop were not due wholly to privation and too much whiskey, he said to himself. For a flash he was astounded at the alarm that gripped him. Bob was worthless; but he loved Bob. ’You have n’t had anything to eat yet? ’ he said roughly, as usual, when he was much moved. And the other shaking his head in a renewed paroxysm of coughing. Van took him by the arm. ‘ Come along, we ’ll get something — we ’ll hunt it up somewhere; he said.
They got Bob’s mail — a letter from his father, and one from Lorrie with the Tampa postmark, as Van Cleve noted to his surprise — and started off, the newspaper man, who did not lack tact, bidding them good-bye pleasantly, and taking the opposite direction.
CHAPTER XVII
IN WHICH WE WITNESS A SURRENDER
‘How on earth did you ever happen to hook up with him — Schreiber, you know? How did you happen to come down here, anyhow?’ Bob wanted to know, in recurrent wonder. ‘Think of my not knowing who you were at first! But, Van, I was simply stunned, I could n’t believe it was you.’ He looked into his friend’s face, in sudden and affectionate anxiety. ‘You don’t mind, do you? My not knowing you right off, I mean? I thought you looked as if you did n’t like it, for a minute. But honestly, Van Cleve, I could n’t help it.’
‘Oh, that’s all right. I don’t think anything of that. It was perfectly natural,’ said Van Cleve shortly; he was unconscious of the impatient note in his voice, of the scowl between his deep-set eyes. The thing he had to do was on his mind, and it had all at once become hateful to him, utterly abhorrent. Robert looked so sick and shaken, Van Cleve wanted to take care of him, not to accuse and coerce him; moreover, face to face, Bob seemed, as he always had to his friend, intrinsically harmless; he wronged himself terribly and irretrievably, but it was hard to believe that he could wrong anybody else. ‘ Damn that girl! ’ Van thought angrily; ‘if she’s any too good herself, I miss my guess! It would be easy enough to lead Bob into anything, and blame any trouble that came along afterwards on him. He’s a mark for any woman.’
Bob was speaking again. ‘Old grouch!’ he said, thumping his friend’s shoulder caressingly. ‘What made you come here, anyhow, Van Cleve? Did you just take a notion you’d come, or how was it?’
‘Well, I — I came after you, really, Bob. The family want you to come home.’
‘They know the Record-World fired me; I suppose that’s the reason?’ said Bob, with a kind of amiable annoyance.
‘Why, yes — one reason.’
Bob began to explain cheerfully. ‘I suppose they had to — the management, I mean. I have n’t any kick to make about it. They’re all pretty square men, and they did the right thing, from their standpoint, to let me out. I’d — I’d been drinking. It’s hard to keep out of it; everybody drinks more or less, but most of the men get away with it somehow. They stand it better than I do; they can hold more without its affecting them. Oh, well, I never did much like the work, anyhow — running around, asking an infernal lot of questions, and prying into other people’s business; it is n’t much of a gentleman’s job, seems to me. I was about ready to quit when they notified me. I’m even on the transaction. I’ve got the experience, and that’s all there was in it for me; it’ll be invaluable in anything else I go into,’ he concluded comfortably, and dismissed the subject. ‘But I don’t see why you thought you had to come down here after me, Van. You did n’t need to take all that trouble. Was mother worrying?’
‘Well, you see they did n’t know where you were or what had become of you.’
‘Why, I wrote them. I told them all about it. I told them I was going on with the army. And then I wrote again from here, as soon as I found out about the postal arrangements, and told them to address me here.’
‘They had n’t got that letter when we left home, of course. But they must have since, for I see Lorrie’s written you from Tampa,’ said Van Cleve.
Bob stared at him in stark amazement. ‘Lorrie? At Tampa? What’s Lorrie doing at Tampa? They’re not all of them there?’
‘No, just Lorrie. She thought you were there, and she wanted to get to you. I brought her. She would come,’ Van said, rather defensively, as he saw the indignant surprise on the brother’s face. Robert was genuinely shocked. The mere mention of Lorrie awoke all the manliness there was in him; Lorrie was his creed and his conscience.
‘ Would come? What were they thinking of — what were you thinking of, to let her come? That’s no place for our Lorrie. Would come! You talk as if Lorrie were one of these hysterical, tomfool women that have to be given in to, or they ’ll go crazy. Lorrie’s got sense. What did she want to come after me for ? ’ He stopped; and a new expression came over his face, a look of selfforgetful sympathy and tenderness that made it beautiful with all the grime and weariness and marks of dissipation. ‘Oh, I see! It was Phil. Poor Lorrie! You can’t blame her for that. She wanted to be near Phil. Poor Lorrie!’ All his features quivered. ‘Cort’s dead. You knew that, Van? Killed right at the first before he’d had a chance to do anything — poor Cort! He was the best fellow. I know you never liked him, but you did n’t know him. Cort was a splendid fellow.’
‘I’m sorry for Lorrie just the same,’ said Van Cleve.
‘Is she — does she know? How is she? ’
Van Cleve shook his head gravely. ‘ Don’t ask, Bob. It’s the saddest thing I ever saw. Yes, she heard it one of the first.’ He described the Tampa experiences briefly. ‘The uncertainty was cruelly hard on her. But, of course, that’s all over now.’
Bob said, ‘Yes, it’s all over,’ and passed the back of his hand across his eyes. After a moment of striving to get his voice under control, he managed to add, ‘You know I saw it, Van Cleve. I saw him after he was shot.’
‘You did!’
The other nodded, twisting his lips as if in bodily pain at the mere recollection. ‘Yes. Oh, my God, cruel things happen in war! Yes, I saw it. I was n’t up in front where he was when the fighting began. I was coming along behind, with another fellow — another newspaper man, I mean. I don’t know who he was. I suppose we must have been a couple of hundred yards behind the nearest soldiers. They marched in two lots —two divisions, you know — some of them straight up this ravine (you come to the Santiago road that way directly), and Wood’s men, the Rough Riders (only they did n’t have any horses) went up that steep place, past the blockhouse — that one over there to your left — you ’re looking in the wrong direction. I followed them. It was terribly hot. Sometimes when we got to one of those little narrow places, all walled in with trees and vines grown up solid on both sides, it was like being at the bottom of some kind of red-hot. well; it made your head swim. Some of the men fainted. When there began to be firing in front, the men got an order to move faster. You never would have called it a charge; it was n’t anything like the things you read about in books. They — they just walked along a little faster. When we caught up with them I saw one man near me get his sleeve hooked on a thorn, and he stopped to pull it away, and scratched his finger and said, “ Damn! ” and stuck it in his mouth! All the time the firing was going on in front.'
‘They said Cortwright and those other men were killed at the first fire,’ Van Cleve interrupted him.
‘Yes, I know. I worked off to the side somehow. You could n’t see a thing, you know. The bushes were full of men spread out trying to get through. I don’t believe any of them knew where they were any more than I did, after a little while. They just kept going toward where you could hear the guns. The whole thing only lasted an hour, about. Cort did n’t die right off; some of them were shot dead where they stood, but he was n’t. They lifted him out of the way over into some of the bushes. It was just the way you sometimes see a dead cat in an alley at home, stuck over in the gutter till the street-cleaners come and get it. They could n’t stop to see about dying men; they just had to get him out of the road and keep on. Cruel things happen in war.’
Bob paused, his face working. He began again. ‘I did n’t know about Cortwright until I walked on to him almost. You don’t know anything that’s happening anywhere in a battle except right where you are. I almost walked on to him.’ Bob stopped again; he swallowed and wiped the sweat from his face. ‘He was lying there breathing with a — with a thick sound, and his eyes half-closed, showing the whites, and his face all gray. He used to be so good-looking and — and rather vain of his looks, too, you recollect, Van; any man would have been. And he looked so you did n’t want to touch him. That’s horrible, but it’s so. I got over that, though, and went and raised him up. I don’t know whether he knew me or not, but he looked at me. I said, “It’s me; it’s Bob Gilbert, Corty, don’t you know me?” but he just said in a whisper, “I’m thirsty.” And then I gave him a drink out of a canteen I had and he s-said, “ Th-thank you!”’ Bob broke down and sobbed openly. ‘He was dying, Van; he was dying, and he said, “Thank you!”’
‘Poor fellow!’ said Van, touched. ‘Was that all?’
‘Yes. He died. He never said another word. I wish he had. If he’d said Lorrie’s name, I’d like to have told her. But he never spoke again.’
There was a silence while Bob wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his soiled shirt, and Van Cleve stared abstractedly at the glaring beach and sea. ‘Well, a man can die but once,’ said the latter at last; ‘I suppose getting shot’s as good a way as there is, when all’s said and done. It’s quick, anyhow. I don’t believe he could have suffered much.’
‘You — you could n’t let me have a drink of the whiskey now, could you, Van? I’m pretty well used-up,’ said Bob, pitifully.
‘Whiskey would n’t do you any good,’ said Van Cleve, unmoved. They had found a temporary resting-place in the lee of what looked like a heap of lumber and scrap-iron, but was in reality a collection of wagons, ‘ knocked down’ in sections and roughly bundled together for transportation. And now a military-looking person came and ordered them away from it with few words and strong. Nevertheless, Van Cleve had the courage to inquire of him where food might be got. Robert had no money left, it appeared; he had nothing at all except the clothes on his back, and as he pathetically stated, some few of poor Cort’s things, his watch and a little bundle of letters which Bob had taken off the body to give to Lorrie. ' They buried him there close to where he was killed, like all the rest,’ he sighed.
Van got out his wallet and gave him five dollars. ‘Now look here, you’d better not stir around in this sun any more than you can help,’ he said, with his practical kindness; ‘you stay near this place, while I go and see about the stuff to eat. If anybody comes along with crackers or bananas, you might buy something without waiting for me, only you ought to be pretty careful, I think,’ and went off.
Alas, when he returned in half an hour or so with his supplies, Robert was nowhere in sight; and Van Cleve, with gloomy forebodings, which should have visited him earlier, after another half hour of worried search, found the other, as he had expected, in company with a villainous-eyed Cuban, drunk and happy in a nook of sand and scrubpalms, passing a newly acquired bottle back and forth. Bob had forgotten all about ‘poor Cort,’ all about Lorrie, all about his own late reverses and adventures, in this stimulating companionship; he hailed Van Cleve jovially. But the Cuban, who was not at all drunk, looked upon the arrival of this bodyguard with a very darkling countenance; and as Van attempted to get Bob away, he intervened with what sounded like evil words in Spanish, and what certainly was an evil expression.
‘Get out of the way, you!’ says Van Cleve, pushing Bob (who, as always, was perfectly amiable and obedient) along in front of him. ‘Come on, Bob. Yes, I know — it’s all right, old fellow, but you want to come with me, you know, now. Get out, you! Huh, you would, would you? Well, I guess not! Not this time, anyway!’
The Cuban picked himself up, and fled with a yowl of malediction.
“S right, knock him (hic) down, Van!’ said Bob, gravely wagging his head in approval; ‘Cubans’— he flapped his hand — ‘Cubans no good. Only ought be careful, Van. Ough t’ have gun.’
Van Cleve clapped his hip-pocket. ‘Good Lord, I forgot all about it!’ he ejaculated.
The next problem was to see Bob safely bestowed somewhere, out of reach, if possible, of any more sympathetic natives or brother Americans; and in this extremity Van bethought him of the Milton D. Bowers. There she lay , two or three hundred yards out, peaceful and secure; and Captain Bowers made only one comment when the boat came alongside and they helped Robert aboard. ‘Found yer friend, I see. He’s got a pretty good load,’ he remarked, turned his quid reflectively, spat into the water, and inquired, ‘ He’s the one you were figurin’ on takin’ back to the States, I presume likely?’
‘Yes,’ said Van Cleve.
‘On the Milton D.?’ the captain asked, stroking his chin-beard.
‘That’s what I intend to do,’ said Van.
It is a pity that no reliable witness was at hand to report the battle of giants that ensued. Captain Bowers was a Connecticut Yankee; Van Cleve was his grandfather’s grandson; it must have been a hot engagement. Van has never, naturally, been at all communicative about the episode, but one may conjecture it to have ended in a draw. ‘Oh, yes, he stuck me. But he did n’t stick me as much as he expected,’ Mr. Kendrick has been heard to acknowledge. The Gilberts, I think, know nothing about the transaction to this day.
After all these events, and when he had left Bob stertorously sleeping in the cabin, Van Cleve, who had vaguely looked for the sun to be setting, found to his astonishment that it was barely noon! There had been no chance to say a word about the real cause of his visit; it would have been worse than useless to attempt the subject in Bob’s present condition. And, having by this time reached a more philosophical mood about it, Van decided that the miserable affair might wait till the next day, without harm. By to-morrow Bob would be at any rate sober, and fit to listen. ‘His nerves can’t suffer by it,’ thought Van, grimly; ‘they’re all gone to pieces anyhow. He has n’t any constitution left. He’ll probably have to go to Colorado or Arizona or somewhere, to keep alive. I don’t know how the family will manage. Some people certainly do have a hard time.’ For his own part, he felt a sense of release, now that his errand was all but done. He wrote another note to Lorrie, briefly reciting that he had found her brother and was bringing him home; that Bob was in ‘fairly good shape, though looking rather tough, like everybody else down here.’ He hoped she was all right, and she must not worry, that everything was going along as smoothly as they could possibly expect; and as near as he could calculate just now, they would arrive at Tampa by Saturday or Monday at furthest; it could n’t take more than a week.
He went ashore again to post this; and wandering about fell in with and followed for some distance a string of pack-mules taking supplies to the front; much of the road, it seemed, was almost impassable for wagons, although our engineers had widened and built it up in many places. It was nearly all as Bob had described it, sunken between solid walls of greenery, suffocatingly hot, and, until they began to climb the higher ground, steaming with noisome odors.
He walked along by one of the drivers, who, seeing that lie was feeling the heat, offered him a drink out of his canteen, which Van accepted gratefully; he had not thought to provide himself with water. They got into talk. The teamster had been picked up by the army at Mobile, being a graduate of one of the old, well-established academies of mule-driving to be found along the levees at Memphis and New Orleans, or indeed almost anywhere throughout the Southern States; he said that he liked it ‘first-rate,’ and reckoned he’d stick with the job as long as Colonel Humphries had any use for him. He was, in fact, quite open and sincere in a conviction that his department was the most valuable and indispensable in the entire army, of which he considered himself and his mules as much a part as any regiment, brigade, or division; and he confided to Van Cleve that old Pete, his mainstay, that there big gray mule with that there scar on the flank, had been a little off his feed here lately; he was afraid the climate was ‘getting to him’; the trip in the transport had n’t done none of the mules no good. ‘If Pete er me was to be laid up with th’ sun er fever er anythin’, I dunno what they’d do — be doggoned if I know what they’d do!’ he said seriously. It appeared there were none too many of either mules or packers.
Van Cleve, if he was a little amused, rather liked him for this honest and simple point of view. ‘That’s the way men ought to feel that are trying to do a big thing together ; every one as if his particular part of the job was the biggest of all,’ he thought.
His new acquaintance, in a week of traversing the Daiquiri and Siboney roads, backwards and forwards, had learned the countryside by heart, and knew the location of every body of troops as well as the commanding general himself. ‘Here’s whar they had the first scrimmage. You-all heerd about that, I reckon,’ he said as they reached the summit of one of the ridges; and, halting to breathe the mules, he pointed out to Van Cleve the entrance of the mesa trail where Wood’s men had joined the others, and a shallow depression on one hand carpeted with cartridge-shells in ominous profusion. ‘They must ’a’ had it hot ’n’ heavy right thar,’ he opined. But, for that matter, the jungle floor and pathways were now everywhere littered with grim reminders of the fight, rotting rags of bandages, bits of clothing, and wrecked stretchers. Van picked up one of the shells and put it in his pocket.
‘They buried some man yonder, I see,’ he said, nodding toward a long mound near-by.
‘Buried a dozen or more of ’em all in th’one hole,’said the teamster. ‘They did n’t have time to mark their names down, mebbe they did n’t even know ’em.’
Van Cleve went and looked down at the mound whereon some of the dead mens’ fellows had raked together a few stones in the shape of a cross. The sight of the poor tribute moved the young man strongly; he took off his hat as he stood. Already the rank jungle was creeping upon the grave, effacing it. Van Cleve wondered if Cortwright lay there. Cruel things happen in war.
Some way farther on they came to another crest, and suddenly, for the first time, the road and surrounding country opened in front of them. Across the immediate valley was what looked like a mammoth green field, hills, a little shining patch of water, roads threading this way and that. Tents could be seen, and clusters of black dots, some of which moved apparently an inch or so while Van watched them; but mostly it was very still. It was not merely that there were no martial sights and sounds such as Van Cleve found he had been half expecting, — there was nothing; the peace of harvest-time at home was not more quiet and urbane. He could have believed the landscape motionless in an enchantment.
‘That’s the city over thar, cap, — Santiago, y’ know,’ said the driver, pointing with his whip to some faintly visible buildings, pink and dust-colored, on the farther rim of the valley, as it seemed. ‘Hey? Why, about seven or eight miles, I judge. This side, kinder frontin’ to you, is San Juan Hill, whar they fit the other day.’
‘Do you mean that little bare spot over there? Is that a hill? I thought San Juan was a high place,’ said Van Cleve, in surprise.
‘It were high enough,’ said the teamster, with a tinge of offense; but he relented directly, seeing that Van had had no idea of belittling the army’s achievement; and showed him where to look for the earthworks and block-houses, and in what direction lay Caney, where there had been the bitter struggle last Friday. He could name some of the groups of tents and black dots. ‘Gin’ral Wheeler’s division is right square acrost from us — less ’n they’ve moved since yestiddy morning. A division is jest one lot o’ men, you know,’ he explained carefully; ‘’t ain’t all the army. Thar’s a whole passel more with Gin’ral Kent round here kinder quarterin’ to yer left, and some ’way over on the other side. You can’t see one or t’ other of ’em from here. But headquarters is down this side tol’ble near whar we air now; if you step this way a little, you kin see th’ flag.’
‘ It’s about ninety per cent safer than where General Wheeler is, I should say,’ commented Van Cleve, having, after repeated directions, at last located the spot, a great deal closer than he had supposed. ‘Is the commanding general always that handy to the rear?’
‘Well, he’s got ter kinder stay put, ye know. He’s got to be alluz in th’ one place so’s they’ll know whar to find him. And up in front, ye just nachelly can’ t stay in one place,’ the muleteer suggested, making ready to move on. ‘You Peet, you dig right out, now, you ol’ —!’ he addressed his convoy with much affectionate profanity.
As it had taken them upwards of three hours to reach this point, Van thought that he himself had better return before night caught him on the road; and two wagon-loads of sick and wounded on their way to the hospital at Siboney coming along just then, he joined them. He was keenly curious, and indeed promised himself, to view the battlefield nearer, but he did not have another chance.
It was Van’s fate throughout to see the war from its reverse side, to miss all its hideous splendors, to encounter none of its heroes. In a romance of any pretensions, Mr. Kendrick would by this time have been hand-in-glove with all the celebrities on the field, and would, for his own part, have contributed dazzingly to our successes. But as a matter of fact, during the whole of his desultory adventures, and among the numerous companions whom he picked up at random for a day or an hour, Van Cleve never spoke to anybody above the rank of a private, and saw and did nothing sensational.
(To be continued.)