Munroe Kirk
"Forward, March": A Tale of the Spanish-American War
CHAPTER XXIV
FACING SAN JUAN HEIGHTS
The fight of Las Guasimas, in which Rough Riders and colored regulars covered themselves with glory, was only a first brisk skirmish between the advanced outposts of opposing armies, but its influence on both sides was equal to that of a pitched battle. It furnished a notable example of the steadiness and bull-dog tenacity of the American regular, as well as the absolute fearlessness and determination to win, at any cost, of the dudes and cowboys banded under the name of Rough Riders. It afforded striking proof that it is not the guns, but the men behind them, who win battles, since an inferior force, unsupported by artillery, and unprovided with bayonets, had charged and driven from strong intrenchments nearly four times their own number of an enemy armed with vastly superior weapons. It inspired the Americans with confidence in themselves and their leaders, while it weakened that of the Spaniards in both. To the Rough Riders it was a glorious and splendidly won victory, and as they swarmed over the intrenchments, from which the fire of death had been so fiercely hurled at them that morning, they yelled themselves hoarse with jubilant cheers.
Then came the reaction. They were exhausted with the strain of excitement and their tremendous exertions under the pitiless tropical sun. Strong men who had fought with tireless energy all at once found themselves trembling with weakness, and the entire command welcomed the order to make camp on the grassy banks of a clear stream shaded by great trees.
In their baptism of fire eight of the Riders had been killed outright, thirty-four more were seriously wounded, and fully half of the remainder could show the scars of grazing bullets or tiny clean-cut holes through their clothing, telling of escapes from death by the fraction of an inch. Ridge Norris, for instance, found a livid welt across his chest, looking as though traced by a live coal, and marking the course of a bullet that, with a hair's deflection, would have ended his life, while Rollo Van Kyp's hat seemed to have been an especial target for Spanish rifles.
After regaining their breath, and receiving assurance that the enemy had retreated beyond their present reach, these two, in company with many others, went back over the battle-field to look up the wounded, and bring forward the packs flung aside at the beginning of the fight.
At sunset that evening the Riders buried their dead, in a long single grave lined with palm-leaves, on a breezy hill-side overlooking the scene of their victory. The laying to rest of these comrades, who only a few hours before, had been so full of life with all its hopes and ambitions, was the most impressive ceremony in which any of the survivors had ever engaged. It strengthened their loyalty and devotion to each other and to their cause as nothing else could have done, and as the entire command gathered close about the open grave to sing "Nearer my God to Thee," many a voice was choked with feelings too solemn for expression, and many a sun-tanned cheek was wet with tears. The camp of the Rough Riders was very quiet that night, and the events of the day just closed were discussed in low tones, as though in fear of awakening the sleepers on the near-by hill-side.
After the fight of Las Guasimas, its heroes rested and waited for six days, while the remainder of the army effected its landing and made its slow way to the position they had won over the narrow trails they had cleared. These days of waiting were also days of vast discomfort, and the patient endurance of drenching tropical rains and steaming heat, the wearing of the same battle-soiled clothing day after day and night after night, and, above all, of an ever-present hunger, that sapped both strength and spirits. They had started out with but three days' rations, and four days passed before a scanty supply of hard-tack, bacon, and coffee began to dribble into camp. The road to Siboney, flooded by constant rains, bowlder-strewn, and inches deep in mud, was for a long time impassable to wagons; and during those six days such supplies of food and ammunition as reached the idle army were brought to it by three trains of pack-mules that toiled ceaselessly back and forth between the coast and the front, bringing the barest necessities of life, but nothing more.
So the American army suffered and prayed to be led forward, while the Spaniards between them and Santiago strengthened their own position with every hour, and confidently awaited their coming. The invaders now occupied the Sevilla plateau, and were within five miles of the city they sought to capture. In their front lay a broad wooded valley, to them an unknown region, and on its farther side rose a range of hills, that Ridge Norris told them were the San Juan Heights, strongly protected by block-houses, rifle-pits, and bewildering entanglements of barbed wire, a feature of modern warfare now appearing for the first time in history. With their glasses, from the commanding eminence of El Poso Hill, crowned with the ruined buildings of an abandoned plantation, the American officers could distinctly see the Spaniards at work on their intrenchments a mile and a half away, and note the ever-lengthening lines of freshly excavated earth.
But for six days the army waited, and its artillery, which was expected to seriously impair, if not utterly destroy the effectiveness of those ever-growing earthworks, still reposed peacefully on board the ships that had brought it to Cuba. Only two light batteries had been landed, and on the sixth day after Las Guasimas these reached the front. At the same time came word that General Pando with 5000 Spanish reinforcements was nearing the besieged city from the north. In that direction, and only three miles from Santiago, lay the fortified village of Caney, held by a strong force of Spanish troops. If it were captured, Pando's advance might be cut off. So General Shafter, coming ashore for the first time a week after the landing of his troops, planned a forward movement with this object in view. Lawton's division was to capture Caney, and then swing round so as to sever all outside communication with Santiago. While he was doing this, demonstrations that should deter the Spaniards from sending an additional force in that direction were to be made against San Juan and Aguadores. These movements were to occupy one day, and on the next the reunited army was to attack the entire line of the San Juan ridge. In the mean time no one knew anything of the valley lying between this strongly protected ridge and those who proposed to capture it.
So the order was issued, and late in the afternoon of June 30th, in a pouring rain, the camps were broken, and the drenched army eagerly began its forward movement. Lawton's division marching off to the right slipped and stumbled through the mud along a narrow, almost impassable, trail over the densely wooded hills until eight o'clock that evening, when, within a mile of Caney, it lay down for the night in the wet grass without tents or fire, and amid a silence strictly enjoined, for fear lest the Spaniards should discover its presence, and run away before morning.
At the same time Wheeler's division of dismounted cavalry, including the Rough Riders and Kent's infantry division, advanced as best it could over the horrible Santiago road, ankle-deep in mud and water, to El Poso Hill, on and about which it passed a wretchedly uncomfortable night. Seven thousand heavily equipped men, mingled with horses, artillery, pack-mules, and army wagons, all huddled into a narrow gully slippery with mud, advance so slowly, however eager they may be to push forward, that although the movement was begun at four o'clock, midnight found the rearmost regiment still plodding wearily forward.
With the coming of daylight, on July 1st, the army lay beneath a dense blanket of mist that spread its wet folds over the entire region they were to traverse. It was eight o'clock before Grimes's battery of four light field-pieces, posted on El Poso Hill, opened an ineffective fire upon the heights across the broad valley. For twenty minutes the Spaniards paid no attention to the harmless barking of the little guns; then the smoke cloud hanging over them proved so admirable and attractive a target that they could no longer resist firing at it. So shells began to fall about the battery with such startling accuracy that a score of Americans and Cubans gathered near it were killed or wounded before they could seek shelter. Among these first victims of the San Juan fight were several of the Rough Riders.
About this time General Sumner, temporarily in command of the cavalry, was ordered to advance his troops into the valley as far as the edge of the wooded belt, and within half a mile of the San Juan batteries.
"What shall I do when I get there?" asked General Sumner.
"Await further orders," was the curt reply.
There were other changes in commands that morning; for Brigadier-General Young, being prostrated by a fever, the Colonel of the Rough Riders was assigned to his duties, and became "General" Wood from that hour. At the same time his Lieutenant-Colonel stepped into the vacancy thus created, and as "Colonel" Roosevelt was destined to win for himself and his dashing command immortal fame before the setting of that day's sun.
So the Rough Riders, together with five other regiments of dismounted cavalry, started down the deep-cut road, which in places was not over ten feet wide, and was everywhere sticky with mud, while an entire infantry division was crowded into it behind them. Like all other roads in that country, this one, now densely packed with human beings advancing at a snail's pace along nearly three miles of its length, was bordered on both sides by an impenetrable tropical jungle.
The Spaniards were advised of the forward movement, and though they could not see it, were already directing a hot fire at this road, of whose location they were, of course, well aware, and from the outset dead and wounded men marked the line of American progress. After a mile of marching under these conditions, the foremost troops came to a place where the San Juan River crossed the road. A short distance beyond it crossed again, thus forming the ox-bow to be known ever after that memorable day as the "Bloody Bend." A little farther on was open country, and here General Sumner obeyed instructions by deploying his troopers to the right in a long skirmish line on the edge of the timber. In this position they lay down, sheltering themselves as best they could behind bushes or in the tall hot grass, and anxiously awaited further orders from headquarters. The Spanish fire, which they might not return, was ceaseless and pitiless, though because of absence of smoke none could see whence it came.
Already the loss in killed and wounded was assuming alarming proportions, and still on-coming troops were pouring into that Bloody Bend, where they must accept, with what fortitude they could command, their awful baptism of fire. Fifty feet above their heads floated the observation balloon of the engineers, betraying their exact position and forming an admirable focus for the enemy's fire, which, after awhile, to the vast relief of every one, shot the balloon to pieces so that it dropped from sight among the trees.
For hours the troops waited thus in the frightful tropical heat, monuments of patient endurance. The dead and the living lay side by side, though such of the wounded as could be reached were dragged back to dressing-stations on the river-banks. Even here they were not safe, for the dense foliage that afforded a grateful shade also concealed scores of Spanish sharp-shooters. These maintained a cowardly and deadly fire, the source of which could rarely be discovered, upon all coming within range, regardless of whether they were wounded men, surgeons in discharge of their duties, hospital stewards, or Red Cross assistants, thus adding a fresh horror to warfare.
It was a terrible position, and the American army was being cut to pieces without a chance to fire a gun in self-defence. To advance appeared suicidal, to attempt a retreat meant utter destruction. No orders could come over the blockaded road from the Commander-in-Chief, miles in the rear, nor could word of the awful situation be sent back to him in time. The men thus trapped gazed at one another with the desperate look of hunted animals brought to bay. Must they all die, and was there no salvation?
Suddenly a mounted officer dashed into the open, pointing with his sword to the nearest hill crowned by a block-house. Then through a storm of bullets he spurred towards it, and, with a mighty yell ringing high above the crash of battle, his men sprang after him.
CHAPTER XXV
RIDGE WINS HIS SWORD
A few minutes before this, while the Rough Riders lay in sullen despair, with death on all sides and filling the air above them, a staff-officer from headquarters, keenly anxious concerning the situation and for the honor of his chief, appeared among them. Whatever happened, he could not afford to betray uneasiness or fear. So he walked erect as calmly as though inspecting troops on parade, apparently unconscious of the bullets that buzzed like hornets about him. He was studying the position of the several regiments, and his face lighted with a smile as he found himself among the men of the First Volunteer Cavalry.
"Hello, Rough Riders!" he cried. "Glad to see you taking things so cool and comfortable. By-the-way, there is a promotion for one of you waiting at headquarters. It came by cable last evening. Sergeant Norris is promoted to a lieutenancy for distinguished service. If any one knows where he is, let the word be passed. It may be an encouragement for him to hear the good news."
Those men near enough to catch the officer's words raised a cheer, and Ridge, who lay among them, sprang to his feet with a flushed face.
"That's him!" shouted Rollo Van Kyp, and the officer, stepping forward with extended hand, said, "I congratulate you, Lieutenant Norris, and am proud to make your acquaintance."
At that moment Colonel Roosevelt, on horseback, and so forming the most conspicuous target for Spanish bullets on the whole field, dashed to the front, pointed to the nearest block-house, and called upon his men to follow him. With a yell they sprang forward, and Ridge, being already on his feet, raced with the front rank.
In line with the Rough Riders were their fighting partners, the black riders of the Tenth United States Cavalry, and at the first intimation of an advance these leaped forward in eager rivalry of their white comrades. Across the plain they charged, and then up the steep hill-side, while the Spanish fire doubled in fury, and the tall grass in front of them was cut as though by the scythe of a mower. Spectators in the rear gazed appalled at the thin line of troopers thus rushing to what seemed certain destruction.
"It is not war–it is suicide!" cried a foreign attache.
Whatever it was, it afforded an example that others were quick to follow, and the moment the intention of the Rough Riders became evident, regiment after regiment on the left–dismounted cavalry and infantry, regulars and volunteers, Hawkins's men and Kent's–broke from the cover that had afforded them so little protection, and swept across the open towards the deadly intrenchments crowning the main ridge of San Juan Heights. There was no order for this glorious charge. The commanding generals had not even contemplated such a bit of splendid but reckless daring. Even now, so hopeless did it seem, they would have stopped it if they could; but they might as well have tried to arrest the rush of an avalanche by wishing. It was a voluntary movement of men goaded beyond further endurance by suffering and suspense. As one of the foreign military spectators afterwards said, "It was a grand popular uprising, and, like most such, it proved successful."
The Rough Riders and the negro troopers who charged with them had no bayonets, and did but little firing until more than half-way up the hill they had undertaken to capture. With carbines held across their breasts, they simply moved steadily forward without a halt or a backward glance. Behind them the slope was dotted with their dead and. wounded, but the survivors took no heed of their depleted ranks. Roosevelt, with the silken cavalry banner fluttering beside him, led the way, and there was no man who would not follow him to the death.
Half-way up the hill-side Ridge Norris pitched headlong to the ground, and some one said: "Poor fellow! News of his promotion came just in time." As the young Lieutenant fell, another officer, cheering on his men immediately behind him, also dropped, pierced with bullets. The sword that he had been waving was flung far in advance, and as Ridge, who had only stumbled over an unnoticed mound of earth, regained his feet unharmed, he saw it lying in front of him and picked it up. He was entitled to carry a sword now, and here was one to his hand.
The Spaniards could not believe that these few men, frantically climbing that bullet-swept hill-side, would ever gain the crest. So they doggedly held their position, firing with the regularity of machines, and expecting with each moment to see the American ranks melt away or break in precipitate night. They did melt away in part, but not wholly, and their only flight was a very slow one that bore them steadily upward.
Just under the brow of the hill they paused for a long breath, and then leaped forward in a fierce final rush. Over the rifle-pits they poured, tearing down the barbed-wire barricades with their bare hands, and making a dash for the block-house. Already the dismayed Spaniards were streaming down the farther side of the hill. A last withering volley crashed from the loop-holed building, and then its defenders also took to panic-stricken flight. In another minute the flaunting banner of Spain had been torn down, and the stars and stripes of freedom waved proudly in its place. At the same moment, from earthwork and rifle-pit fluttered the yellow silk flags of the cavalry and the troop guidons; while to distant ears the news of victory was borne by the cheer of exhausted but intensely happy men.
Many of them were for the moment incapable of further effort, but as many more, inspired with fresh strength by success, dashed down the opposite side of the hill in pursuit of the flying Spaniards. Among these was Ridge Norris, waving his newly acquired sword, and yelling that there were other hills yet to be captured. A few minutes later these found themselves madly charging, for a second time, up a steep, bullet-swept slope in company with other cavalrymen and long lines of infantry. Now they were assaulting San Juan Heights, defended by the strongest line of works outside of Santiago. The Spaniards had deemed the position impregnable, and so it would have been to any troops on earth save Americans or British; but the men now swarming up its slippery front not only believed it could be taken, but that they could take it. And they did take it, as the first hill had been taken, by sheer pluck and dauntless determination. In vain did the Spaniards hurl forth their deadliest fire of machine-gun and rifle. The grim American advance was as unchecked as that of an ocean tide. Finally it surged with a roar like that of a storm-driven breaker over the crest, and dashed with resistless fury against the crowning fortifications. In another minute the Spaniards were in full flight, and from the hard-won heights of San Juan thousands of panting, cheering, jubilant Yankee soldiers were gazing for the first time upon the city of Santiago, which, only three miles away, lay at their feet, and apparently at their mercy.
While the troops who had thus stormed and carried San Juan were exulting over their almost incredible victory, word came that Lawton's men had performed a similar feat at Caney, and after hours of ineffective firing had finally won the forts by direct and unsupported assault.
Thus the entire line of Santiago's outer defences, many miles in length, had fallen to the Americans; but could they hold them until the arrival of their artillery? This was the question anxiously discussed at headquarters, where several of the Generals declared immediate retreat to be the only present salvation of the American army. The existing fortifications of San Juan Heights were unavailable for use against the Spaniards, and it did not seem possible that the tired troops could dig new ones in time. The enemy had as yet suffered but slight losses, and still occupied his inner line of forts, block-houses, and rifle-pits, nearly, if not quite, as strong as those just won from him. Beyond lay Santiago, with barricaded streets, loop-holed walls, and everywhere bewildering mazes of barbed wire.
While the commanding officers discussed the situation, arguing hotly for and against retreat, their men dug trenches along the farther crest of the San Juan hills. All night long they worked by the light of a full moon, excavating the gravelly soil with bayonet and meat-tin, filling hundreds of bags with sand, and laying them in front of the shallow pits, with little spaces between them, through which rifle-barrels might be thrust. At the same time they scooped out terraces on the slope up which they had charged, and there pitched their camps, a long way from drinking-water, but close to the firing-line. Thus by daylight they were ready for any movement the enemy might make. Nor were they prepared any too quickly, for with earliest dawn the Spaniards opened a heavy fire, both artillery and rifle, on the American position. In places the opposing lines were not three hundred yards apart, and across this narrow space the Spanish fire was poured with unremitting fury for fourteen consecutive hours.
The Americans only returned this fire by an occasional rifle-shot, to show that they were still on hand, and through the interminable hours of that blistering day they simply clung by sheer grit to the heights they had won.
On the previous day the Americans had lost over a thousand men killed or wounded, and during the present one-sided fight one hundred and seven more fell victims to Spanish bullets; but the trenches had been held, and that day's work settled forever the question of their retention.
In the mean time Lieutenant Norris, who had miraculously escaped unhurt from the very front of two fierce charges, was curious to know whose sword he was carrying; and so, after San Juan Heights had been safely won, he strolled back over the battle-field to try and discover its owner. After a long search he found the little mound of earth over which he had stumbled, and was startled to see it was a recently made grave. Beside it lay an officer in Rough Rider uniform, face down, and wearing an empty scabbard. His, then, was the sword; but who was he? A gentle turning of the still body revealed the placidly handsome features of the young New-Mexican, Arthur Navarro. Near the grave, across which one of his arms had been flung, as though lovingly, lay a wooden cross bearing a rudely cut inscription in Spanish. It had evidently been overthrown by the charging Americans. Now Ridge picked it up, read the inscription, and stared incredulous. "Captain Ramon Navarro, Royal Spanish Guards. Died for his country, June 22, 1898."
"My friend Ramon, killed the very day he saved me from capture!" murmured Ridge. "But how marvellous that they should have buried him here, that his grave should have saved my life by giving me that fall, and that the bullets intended for me should have taken the life of the cousin who was to have been his partner!"
So the two, one from the New World and one from the Old, who loved each other, but had been separated during life by the calls of duty, were united in death; for they buried the young New-Mexican close beside his Spanish cousin, and the grasses of San Juan Hill wave above them both.
Wearing the sword thus intrusted to him, and which he would send to far-away New Mexico at the earliest opportunity, Lieutenant Norris bore his full share of the second day's fighting on San Juan Heights. Late that night, as he was coming in from the trenches, he was called to General Sumner's tent to act as interpreter. A deserter, apparently a Spanish sailor, had just been brought in, and was evidently trying to convey some important information that no one present could understand.
"He says," exclaimed Ridge, after listening intently to the man, "that Admiral Cervera's ships–coaled, provisioned, and under full head of steam–are about to make a dash from the harbor. He thinks they will start soon after sunrise, or when our ships have drawn off to their accustomed day-time distance."
Although the reliability of this startling news was very doubtful, it was deemed of sufficient importance to be immediately transmitted to Admiral Sampson.
"Who is the best rider in your command?" asked the General, turning to Colonel Roosevelt, who had assisted at the examination of the Spanish deserter.
"Lieutenant Norris," was the unhesitating answer.
"Then let Mr. Norris take my orderly's horse, make his way with all speed to Siboney, press into service the first steam craft he comes across, and carry this fellow's statement, with my compliments, to Admiral Sampson."
Five minutes later our young trooper, once more on horseback, and in a blaze of excitement, was galloping for dear life over the rugged road by which the army had come from the coast.
