Custer smiled wanly. “I know my place. When this is all over, I reserve the right to strangle him.”
On the other hand, Custer thought, if he sees how I am now and how heroically I behave during the coming battle, perhaps he can be a tool in getting back my reputation.
* * *
Two admirals commanded the massive fleet heading to Cuba and Janson thought that was at least one too many. Prentice had laughed and agreed.
In overall command was the aging David Dixon Porter. At seventy, he had served with Farragut and Grant during the Civil War. Totally professional, he had made many enemies by insisting on high standards by all ranks. He was well organized and considered a fighter. His organizational skills were on display as the great host of ships made it down the Atlantic coast towards Cuba. Porter’s skills were augmented by those of the much younger Admiral Pierce Crosby. Crosby was in charge of shepherding the civilian transports with a minimum of confusion and had managed to do so. Porter kept control of the warships and directed gunboats and patrol vessels out every time a strange sail or mast or puff of smoke was seen.
As night fell, each ship was required to show oil lamps as running lights to prevent collisions and ships getting lost. Of course, each morning still brought its number of strays, which the smaller warships like the Orion dutifully rounded up. Since they functioned as shepherds, Janson had gotten in the habit of referring to their civilian charges as lambs.
“What we really need,” said Janson, “is a kind of telegraph between ships. Using signal flags and sending Morse code by signal lamp is just too inaccurate and prone to error. And the range is too damn limited, too.”
Prentice laughed. “You’re right, but you’d need a really long cord for telegraph between ships. I don’t doubt that something will be invented to make it happen, but not on this trip. By the way, shouldn’t we be nearing Matanzas by now?”
Janson conceded the point about the wire and agreed that Cuba should be just over the horizon. The Orion was in the fleet’s van and the men had bets as to when Cuba would be sighted and who would be the first sailor to do so. Sailors, he concluded, would bet on damn near anything.
“Land ho!” a lookout cried and a number of men cheered while others grumbled. Money changed hands as the men lined the rail to see the faint smudge on the horizon.
“Damn it to hell,” muttered Janson. “Either we’re lost or we’re not headed for Matanzas.”
“Could it be Havana?” asked an equally puzzled Prentice. “But it sure doesn’t look like Havana.”
Janson yelled to his crew, asking if anyone recognized their landfall. One young sailor timidly raised his hand. “Sir, it sort of looks like Santa Cruz del Norte.”
“And just what the hell is Santa Cruz del Norte?” Janson asked with a smile.
The sailor responded, “Captain, it’s a shitty little fishing village just about halfway between Matanzas and Havana.”
“Oh my God,” said Prentice, awed by the apparent strategy. “If we land here, we’ll have an army that can either march on Havana or attack the Spaniard’s rear at Matanzas.”
* * *
Manuel Garcia had been inducted only two weeks earlier and had been given a uniform that didn’t fit and a rifle he had never fired. For that matter, he’d never fired a gun of any kind in his young life. Nor had he ever worn shoes on his sturdy, hardened feet.
He was near the small town of Santa Cruz del Norte, which was only a few miles from his home and his mother. He and a handful of others were commanded by his former schoolteacher, who was as confused and puzzled as everyone. The erstwhile soldiers had serious doubts about the teacher. They wondered if he wasn’t senile. Manuel wondered that as well. As Manuel’s teacher, he had professed his love for Spain and his willingness to die for her. Now he didn’t seem so sure of himself.
They had dug what someone referred to as a redoubt, but it was only a low earth-walled fort that faced the sea. A small cannon had been found and placed in it to threaten the ocean. That there were no shells or ammunition didn’t seem to concern anyone. Finally, the very young and junior Spanish officer who commanded them showed up with a dozen men along with small amount of ammunition. He pronounced himself pleased and told everyone that they could easily hold off the approaching American hordes if the Yanks should have the balls to show themselves. The men with the lieutenant were regulars and they openly sneered at Manual’s militia.
The announcement horrified Manuel. He knew there was a war on, but he had understood that the fighting was a score of miles away. That was also too close, but the front seemed stable, so people had learned to live and let live. What else could they do? They were pawns. He’d given thought to joining the rebels, but hadn’t worked up the nerve. If caught, he’d be hanged or shot. Now, with Americans possibly approaching, he wondered if he had the nerve to desert. He reminded himself that deserters were also either hanged or shot.
At least Corporal Menendez had kept his word. Manuel had worked as a clerk for the lieutenant up until the last couple of days. With the Americans believed to be on the way, clerking could wait. A letter from his mother implied that she and the corporal had become close. He had mixed emotions about that. He wanted his mother to be happy, but he wanted his mother to himself. Of course, he realized, there was little he could do about it at this time.
Only a couple of days later, Manuel and the others awakened to a nightmare. All the ships in the world were approaching his little fort. The lieutenant screamed and they all grabbed their rifles. One went off accidentally and the lieutenant screamed again. Manuel rubbed his eyes. The nightmare would not go away. He could see the guns of the giant warships and it looked like they were all turned towards him.
The American ships closed to within range of their mighty guns and opened fire. The sound was deafening and the shells exploded around their little fort. The first barrage hit nothing and killed no one. The lieutenant stood on the wall and yelled defiance at the Americans. He was hysterical and white froth came from his mouth.
Small boats filled with soldiers were being rowed towards the shore. Manuel counted his bullets—twelve. With twelve rounds he was supposed to hold off the Yankee hordes? He laughed harshly and realized he was growing up too fast.
The American guns fired again and this time they struck. The lieutenant disappeared in a spray of pink mist and pieces of bone. Manuel screamed and huddled on the ground. Another shell struck the cannon, sending it tumbling over. It landed on a Spaniard who began screaming at the top of his lungs. His screams lasted only a few seconds before they ended in a gurgle.
It occurred to Manuel that it would be safe to flee while the Yankees reloaded. Yes, it was time.
“Run,” he screamed as he got to his feet. He jumped over the low wall at the rear of the fort and ran for his life. The rest of the tiny garrison ran with him. None of them had their rifles and they frantically tore at their uniforms. In seconds they were almost naked. He would get clothes from his mother and hide in the bushes until the war passed him.
He laughed when he saw that his old teacher was buck naked and running faster than any of them.
* * *
Major General Darius Couch stepped more nimbly out of the small boat and into the ankle deep water than he thought he would. The idea of leading an army once again was exhilarating. He felt at least ten years younger than his actual age.
The bombardment of the pitiful shore defenses had been violent but short. The little earthen-walled fort almost seemed to disappear under the impact. The men of Gordon’s division had landed in reasonably good order and were moving inward towards the road that connected Matanzas with Havana. Chamberlain’s troops would land shortly. He would soon have a full fifteen thousand men to hurl at the enemy’s rear. It would be like Chancellorsville again, except that he would play the role of Stonewall Jackson and not the inept Joe Hooker. He reminded himself not to get shot by his own men like Jackson had.
The landing had been well organize
d and had gone off almost without a hitch. Only a couple of boats had capsized and spilled their passengers and only a handful of the passengers had drowned. It was regrettable, a tragedy, but a necessary price to pay. He thought it was a shame that so few people, including sailors who should know better, knew how to swim.
Couch’s attack would not be as sudden and dramatic as when Jackson’s force fell on an unsuspecting Union flank and destroyed it. No, he could easily imagine scores of messengers heading to General Weyler at Matanzas with the terrible news that a large new enemy was in his rear. Other messengers would be riding to inform Villate in Havana. He assumed that the Spanish had telegraph lines operating between Havana and Matanzas. If the lines existed, the American army would be able to cut the one that ran parallel to the road running from Matanzas to Havana. Weyler would have to contend with the fact that, in order to fight the new American army, he would have to pull men away from the siege lines at Matanzas. If that happened, he was confident that Nelson Miles, spurred on by Hancock, would launch his own counterattack, hopefully catching the Spanish in a pincers.
There had been serious discussions about what should be the main thrust of the American invasion. Some advisors had said they should strike directly towards Havana, the head of the Spanish snake. Hancock had been adamant. Their goal was the destruction of Weyler’s army. Hadn’t they learned anything, Hancock had wondered out loud, from the Civil War? While generals on both sides had striven to conquer capitals, large cities, and vast tracts of land, only Grant and Sherman had understood that you won a war by destroying the enemy’s ability to fight and today that meant killing Weyler’s army. Havana, like Washington or Richmond, would always be there.
There was another real fear. On hearing that an enemy was behind him, it was possible, even likely, that Weyler would attack Matanzas with a desperate fury. The smaller American force could be overwhelmed and massacred. Worse, thousands of Americans could wind up as prisoners.
The Second Corps had to get there in a hurry. So too did the Navy. Already empty American transports were heading back to Florida where they would reload with more men and supplies. In the meantime, he would request Admiral Dixon to send a number of his smaller gunboats east to Matanzas where their guns might help blunt a Spanish attack.
* * *
Manuel Garcia leaned on his shovel and contemplated his miserable fate and the likelihood that God hated him. What made him think that he could simply run away from the Spanish Army? He hadn’t gotten more than a couple of miles from the smoldering and bloody ruins of the fort at Santa Cruz del Norte before he’d been captured by a Spanish patrol. His protestations that he was fleeing for his life and simply looking to rejoin his unit were laughed at for the lies they were. He had wanted to find his way home and hide under his bed until this miserable war was over.
The Spanish took him and his old teacher to Havana where justice was meted out. The old man was hanged. Manuel had watched in horror as his teacher’s skinny legs kicked and his feet scraped at the earth that was cruelly and tantalizingly barely beneath his reach. His face turned black and his eyes almost bugged out of their sockets while he danced. The soldiers had laughed hysterically as he both emptied his bowels and ejaculated before he died. Manuel had despised Professor Sanchez, but he did not deserve to be murdered.
“That one burst of pleasure will have to last him for all eternity,” said a skinny sergeant. “You, however, will have a choice. You can choose to be hanged and dance just like your old friend did or you can join a labor battalion.”
There was no real choice. He joined the battalion. He even thought that he’d be safer than in an army unit since he wouldn’t be involved in any fighting. Events had proven him wrong in that regard as well. He and a number of boys his age and younger in the battalion were out in the open while the shelling occurred. They had dug slit trenches to dive in to if the shelling got too bad, but their overseers generally jumped in first and told the laborers to keep working. When the shelling got bad, the boys lay on the ground and whimpered, or ignored the orders and simply piled in.
When it was safe enough to continue, their eyes were greeted with more scenes of death and destruction. While it was evident that the Americans wanted only to destroy fortifications, their shells sometimes landed in nearby buildings, killing and maiming. He was beginning to grow used to the sight of dismembered bodies and the sounds of the screaming wounded and that frightened him. He never wanted to get accustomed to his new nightmare life.
Their sergeant, a fat pig who said he was from Barcelona and thereby superior to mere Cubans, screamed and ordered them back to work. Manuel and the other boys fantasized about driving one of their shovels up his ass. Along with being a pig, the sergeant was also a coward. Even when the bombardment was clearly not in their area, he was always the first one into a trench.
An explosion ripped through the nearby fortress of Castillo del Principe. The massive and oddly shaped stone structure jutted out from the Spanish defenses and, as someone had explained, was designed to provide flanking fire against an attacking enemy. Manual thought that was funny. The century-old stone structure would be a pile of rubble before long and the Americans would simply either ignore it or walk over what would soon be a jumble of rocks. Once, Manuel had been an unsophisticated farm boy. Now he was learning more about the world and war than he ever wanted to or thought possible.
Another explosion sent him reeling. For a moment he thought he was dead, but then he realized he was choking on dust. Dead men don’t choke, he told himself. He managed to get to a standing position. Several bodies lay near him along with a number of bloody body parts and other chunks of human meat. He gagged. He recognized the fat sergeant from Barcelona by his head. The rest of his body was nowhere to be seen. A couple of his young coworkers grabbed him and dragged him away while yelling at him. He had a hard time hearing but he understood their meaning if not their words. Flee, they were saying. Run for your life.
Manuel’s shovel had been broken by the blast, but the blade and a decent portion of the shaft remained. He reached down and grabbed it. If all else failed, it would serve as some kind of weapon.
“Grab your tools,” he yelled at them. The boys nodded their comprehension and grabbed shovels and anything else that could be used to defend themselves. When they were armed, they were all looking at him. By virtue of giving an order that made sense, he had just become their leader.
He and the others headed into the city, looking for Spanish patrols to avoid. They wanted to flee to the Americans but that would involve going through Spanish lines where they would likely be shot as the deserters they were.
Manuel wanted to cry. He wanted to go home to his mother. Did that make him a coward? If it did, he was not concerned. This was not his war and all he wanted was to leave Havana. And he certainly did not want to be responsible for a pack of boys as young as he.
◆ Chapter 17 ◆
The fire from the Spanish lines was deafening and overwhelming, causing everyone to keep their heads down as bullets and shells flew overhead or thudded into the American barricades and trenches. At the moment, the Spanish were making no attempt to attack. They were using their cannons and thousands of riflemen to provide covering fire for the soldiers who were creeping up towards the hated barbed wire.
Martin only let a handful of his men expose themselves to enemy bullets, and those were his invaluable sharpshooters. The Spanish were pushing pieces of wood and anything else that would stop or deflect a bullet ahead of each crawling soldier, which made them very hard to hit. What they were about to do was painfully obvious, but not even machine gun fire appeared to hit enough of them to stop or deter them.
“We knew they’d figure out something,” said Benteen. “I just didn’t think it would be this simple.”
When they were close enough to the wire, Spanish soldiers would quickly stand and hurl a grappling hook into the wire. Most of the time it held and a trailing rope was pulled on by Spaniards wh
o yanked the poles holding the wire from the ground. The wire was then dragged back to the Spanish lines. The wall of wire was being systematically dismantled.
“At least they’ve told us exactly where they’re going to attack,” Ryder said. “Now I can place my guns with a degree of confidence.”
Benteen muttered something obscene that Martin didn’t think warranted a reply. A two-hundred-yard breach in the barbed wire was almost completed. To stop an attack, he’d jammed in almost his entire brigade and Benteen had placed another behind it. Six Gatling guns were arrayed along with a number of cannons loaded with grape and shrapnel. Lang’s work in making the machine guns more portable was proving its worth.
On the other hand, he fervently wished that Sarah and the others were safe in Florida instead of less than a hundred yards behind him. Women should not be in battle, especially women who were dressed in men’s uniforms. If the position was overwhelmed, would the Spanish even recognize the nurses as women until after it was too late? And what would happen to them if they did? One of Valdez’s Cuban rebels said that the Spanish considered a woman in man’s clothing to be a whore and that she would likely be treated as one.
Trumpets sounded from below and thousands of voices roared their defiance. They signaled that it was time for the assault. A horde of Spaniards emerged from the ground. They’d gotten much closer than Ryder had believed they could. American rifles and machine guns ripped through them. They fell by the score, but kept coming. His cannon fired grape and shrapnel and shredded still more bodies. These too fell and the dead and wounded began to pile up. The smoke was blowing downhill and hiding the Spanish from Ryder’s men. The Americans fired into the clouds and hoped they hit something. His men had to expose themselves in order to fire and they were falling. Some screamed, but far too many simply lay ominously still where they lay in crumpled bloody heaps in their trenches.
1882: Custer in Chains Page 29
