by Lou Cameron
The Cuban at the throttle did as he was told, but insisted, “This is madness, Captain Gringo. They are all trained killers!”
“Not all. Just the guards, and they have no way of knowing who we are or what we’re up to until we get there. Damn, I wish we had more flatcars. That’s a big fucking camp and we can’t carry more than a few hundred, even hanging on the sides.”
Young Churchill slid up beside him, peering down the track at the big installation they were approaching. He muttered, “I say, it’s inhuman to have those people out on this open range in the dry season. I was told in any case the few camps were much smaller.”
“They’re not that few. Butcher Weyler has ’em all over the island. What are you doing up here, Winnie?”
“I thought you might need a loader. I know something about machine guns, you see.”
‘‘Okay, be ready to pass me belts from that tin case behind you as I call for ’em. I thought you were on their side, Winnie.”
“I’m not on either side, damn it. I’m in this bloody country as a bloody neutral observer. Do you think the Spanish military police will believe that if you manage to get me captured?”
“Probably not. They’ve shot a lot of people who spoke better Spanish as they stood against the wall.”
“In that case, I’ll pass the ammunition and you make sure you shoot both bloody guns straight. We’ll discuss my neutrality sometime when I feel more detached.”
As the target grew between Captain Gringo’s twin muzzles, he saw that like a bubble the concentration camp had more size than substance. An open area the size of three football fields had been enclosed by barbed wire and trampled to dust by the thousand or so men, women, and children literally camped on it without any shelter but the rags they wore. There was a guard tower at each corner of the rectangle. Closer to the main line, a siding had been laid. There were half a dozen cattle cars on it, but no other rolling stock. A line of prefabricated wooden buildings screened the open space from the main line. The guards, at least, rated roofs over their heads. The guardhouse, administration building, and kitchen had to be in the bigger frame building near the gate facing the railroad siding. It was easy to see they had no opera house. A couple of dozen uniformed men were grouped outside the gate to watch the choo-choo go by. It seemed unlikely a garrison much larger would be needed to ride herd on unarmed, semi-starved civilians. Captain Gringo waited until his own train passed the parked cattle cars. Then he told the engineer to hit the brakes and opened up with both Maxims.
He concentrated on the large group massed near the gate first, lest they reach cover while he was gunning more distant targets. It was of course impossible to sight along both barrels at once. So he fired a bit wide to either side, then shoved the breech blocks wider to swing the death-spitting muzzles together, his withering automatic fire acting as a deadly pair of giant shears. Behind him he heard the rattle of small arms as his own men hit the ground pumping lead. Beside him he heard two skeletons fucking on a tin roof as a machine gunner threw a burst, full automatic, at the boiler-plate side of the tender. Lest the clown get the message he was firing low, Captain Gringo dismounted the Maxim on his right, fed it another belt, and blew the nearest guard tower to kindling wood and crimson mist.
By this time Pancho and the others had reached the gate, bayonets ready to deal with anyone down who was dumb enough to move if he still could.
Captain Gringo shouted, “No, Pancho! Not yet!” but he might as well have been baying at the moon as the burly sergeant charged through, shouting, “¡Cuba Libre!”
Then the guard tower to the east opened up with its machine gun. Captain Gringo couldn’t see what was going on beyond the line of frame buildings. But he could do something about that prick in the tower shooting down at them. So as Churchill handed him another belt, he did.
The range was tricky. He had to aim high and hit the tower shack with plunging fire. But he deserved his reputation as a machine gunner. So that was that. As the tower ceased fire, he grabbed another belt and rolled off the coal, Maxim cradled in his arms. As his boot heels hit the gritty steel floor of the cab, he saw Churchill was following with the ammo boxes, one in each pudgy fist. They both leaped to the ground. As Captain Gringo ran for the gate, leaping over bodies, the English kid asked where they were going. The big Yank said, “Got to take care of those last two towers. They’re out of range from the tracks, but they’re both shooting at some damned body now!”
They dashed through the opening. Pancho was down, along with three others. The rest had taken cover in the buildings to either side, judging from the sounds of gunplay. The scene ahead was utter confusion and total terror as a thousand men, women, and children ran in screaming circles, swept by machine gun fire!
A little girl ran right into a burst and flew ass over teakettle like a rag doll thrown across the room by a willful child. A fat woman ahead of them didn’t fly so far, but she flew far enough, with at least a dozen rounds in her at once. Churchill was shouting, “Kill him! Kill the bloody bastard!” as Captain Gringo crouched over the dead woman to fire up at the tower from the hip. He emptied the belt into it and asked the reporter for another. He got it. Then Churchill said, “Look, that other chap’s had enough!’’
The last tower, at the southeast corner of the compound, had ceased fire and someone was waving a white kerchief. Captain Gringo growled low in his throat and headed that way with the long ammo belt lashing behind him like the tail of an angry cat. He had to step over lots of bodies to get close enough to talk. He tried not to look down at them. It was hard to aim a gun and vomit at the same time. He kept the muzzle trained on the shed atop the stilts as he called out, “Throw down your guns, all of them!”
A German Spandau 9mm came whirling down from the tower, tripod and all. It crashed in a cloud of dust near the corpse of a little boy. Captain Gringo yelled, “You can do better than that!” and a couple of pistols followed. A pale face appeared in the opening above and called down, “We surrender under the rules of honorable warfare, señor.”
Captain Gringo said, “Sure you do,” and emptied the whole belt up through the wooden floor under them. As the Maxim choked on the last round, blood was streaming down like rain between the legs of the tower. Captain Gringo turned in the cloud of blue gun smoke and told Churchill, “Print that in the London Times. But give me another belt first.”
Churchill handed him the ammunition, saying, “I’d have done the same thing. This is ghastly. How many of these unarmed civilians would you say they machine gunned, Dick?”
“Who counts the dead? We’ve got enough on our hands now with the survivors. We can’t leave them here, and we need them like we need yellow jack.”
“Don’t you imagine they can shift for themselves, now that you’ve liberated them?”
“Oh, hell, yes, there must be food and water within a day’s ride, and anyone can see they’re in shape to outrun Spanish cavalry on open range. Liberating people is easy. It’s what you do with them afterward that can be a pain in everyone’s ass.”
The boxcars helped. The liberated Cubans said some of them had just arrived in them. It would have been crude to say so, but the attempted massacre had helped too. Only about seven hundred prisoners had lived through the guard’s temper tantrum. Naturally, there were no guards at all to worry about. Pancho’s comrades had seen to that, once they were in the barracks with surprise and bayonets on their side.
While some of his men remade the train with the boxcars between the cargo flats and crane, Captain Gringo ordered others to loot the camp for supplies, guns, ammo, and anything else that might come in handy. Gaston found a half dozen telephone sets and the wire the Dons had used for the camp’s internal communications net. He put the big storage cells in the passenger car’s orderly-room end and soon had telephones installed everywhere at all important. A few hours later they were ready to leave. Captain Gringo told his own men Suarez was now top kick and told the still-bewildered prisoners to behave them
selves in the crowded boxcars. He said, “I know it will be hot and stuffy. I know you’ll be thirsty again before we can stop to issue you more water and rations. Anyone who doesn’t think he or she can take it had best get out right now. My engine crew tells me there’s a triple fork in the tracks at the provincial capital of Camaguey. When we get there, if we get there, you people can drop off and run for it, following the tracks north or south. Either spur leads to fairly settled farm and ranchland where you may be able to hide out in small scattered groups. Are there any questions?”
A woman nursing a baby at her breast sobbed, “What if they catch us again, señor?”
He shrugged and said, “You’ll be in no worse a fix than we just got you out of, señora. Nobody in Cuba will be safe for sure until Cuba’s free. Meanwhile, my main mission is to get supplies to Garcia in hopes of speeding that process. We have done, we will do, all we can for you noncombatants. You’re going to have to do the rest for yourselves. Liberty comes neither cheap nor easy, as you may have just noticed.”
He turned away and headed up the line to board the engine. He heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see a vaguely familiar girl with Indian cheekbones and a widow’s peak to her jet-black hair. He said, “Sorry, señorita. You’ll have to ride in the boxcars with the others.”
She pleaded, “Do you not remember me, Captain Gringo? It was only a few hours ago, it seems, since I helped you unload that schooner!”
He kept walking, with her in tow, as he said, “Right, you were with Nopalita’s band. It seems more like a million years to me. How the hell did you wind up in that reconcentrado?”
“Aboard the same boxcar, of course. We were jumped by a Spanish patrol just after we left you. It was just after sundown. We had just made camp at a rancho we thought was in patriotic hands. Alas, we were betrayed and—”
“Tell me about it later, uh …?”
“I am called Ciboney. My soldado was Joaquin. He was killed before you joined us in those woods, Captain Gringo. Oh, I wish people would not betray us so often!”
He helped her up into the cab and climbed after her. The engine crew and Churchill looked surprised, but nobody was about to object to such pretty company. Captain Gringo found her a seat on the coal. Her once maroon skirt and white blouse were already as dirty as they could get. He picked up the phone Gaston had wired to the top rail of the tender and alerted everyone they were pulling out. Once they were, he told the engineer to build up to at least forty and phoned Gaston to drop the rail wolf once they did. So a few minutes later it got noisy, even up front, as they sped east, tearing up the tracks behind them. They were still in wide-open country. The engineer said they’d see more trees past a place called Cascorro. Captain Gringo asked what was there and was told, “The line forks there, señor. The north branch serves the north slope of Cuba, and the south, of course, was laid for to serve the ranchos and haciendas of the valley between the main ridge of the island and the Sierra Maestra along the Caribbean.”
“Bueno, that’s the route we want. Do you think we’ll have trouble getting through the switch point?”
“Of course. Pero to reach Cascorro, we shall first have to pass through Camaguey, and that is, of course, impossible. I was about to mention the yards in Camaguey. I am beginning to think it is pointless to mention matters to you, however. No matter what I say, you still intend to push on through Camaguey, no?”
“You’re learning, pal. But tell me what we’re up against in Camaguey anyhow.”
The engineer sighed and said, “I told you before. Is the provincial capital and a city of some size. Is also region headquarters of the Spanish Army. Since this railroad is being run on a wartime emergency footing, will be many guards on duty in and around the railyards. I know this because I pass through there on every run.”
Young Churchill said, “I say, he’s right, you know. We were stopped in the dark by a mob of chaps who insisted on seeing our identification and all that rot. Didn’t think much of it at the time, of course. In those dear dead days I didn’t worry about showing my flaming passport to a Spanish officer.”
Captain Gringo thought and finally decided, “Okay, we’d better not drop our liberated prisoners off there after all. If we can’t bluff our way through, we could be dropping them off in a hornet’s nest. What’s the next town we’ll be passing through?”
The engineer said, “Florida. Is a switch there too. Pero we have the right-of-way, and the line should be left open ahead. Last night in the dark we ran the switches at Ciego de Avila without incident.”
Captain Gringo frowned and said, “We did? How come I didn’t notice?”
“You were in the rear, playing with the crane, señor. The town was blacked out. There was no switchman there, so I thought it best to just keep going, as you said to. See?”
Captain Gringo nodded thoughtfully and said, “I see you had a chance to fuck us up and didn’t take it too. I’m sorry I’ve been keeping you guys on such a tight rein, amigo. Finding guys you can trust ain’t easy on such short notice.”
That reminded him of other treachery. So he turned to the mestiza and asked, “Have you any idea who called the law on you and the others, Ciboney? The Spanish can’t always be lucky so far behind the fighting front. Was there a telephone at that rancho you were talking about?”
She thought and said, “I do not know. I saw no wires as we rode in at sundown, and they arrested the people there as well. A vaquero from the rancho is back in the boxcars if you wish for to ask him.”
“I don’t think I have to. Cops hardly ever arrest a snitch. Let’s take it from the top. You all rode in. You were welcomed by rancheros who had to be on the rebel side. Then what?”
She shrugged and said, “Nopalita and some of the others rode into a nearby village for to see if they could buy supplies. The rest of us made camp in an arroyo maybe half a kilometer from the ranch house. We had just eaten when the soldados appeared out of nowhere. They had the drop on us. Some of the men fought anyway, and died. I was knocked down and kicked a few times, but at least I was not killed, or, thank God, worse.”
“There’s nothing worse than being killed. But if they didn’t rape you it means we’re talking about regulars, not bounty hunters. What about Nopalita and the others who went to town with her?”
Ciboney said, “I do not know. They were not sent to that camp with the rest of us. So with God’s help, she may have gotten away again.”
He frowned and said, “Yeah, she seems to do that a lot, and I’m not sure God had anything to do with it. She’s pure Spanish, knows a lot about military matters for an adelita, and while she’s quick enough to take command, she doesn’t seem too interested in making any moves that would really help the side she claims she’s on. So add it up.”
Ciboney shook her head wilder than she had to, and protested, “Oh, no, what you suggest is monstrous! Nopalita was our chosen leader. It was thanks to her we lasted as long as we did, Captain Gringo!”
“Call me Dick. It still adds up, and I should be horsewhipped for sheer stupidity. She signed for guns for Garcia, got them piled up in the middle of no place, where they’d be no good to anyone, then bugged out on helping us deliver them to Garcia. She said something about raiding neutrals as she led her guerrilla band no place in particular too! Yeah, Butcher Weyler played sneaky with double agents on me before and I still bought the dame’s story. I don’t know what it is about me and pretty dames. You’d think by now a guy would learn!”
Ciboney looked worried and asked, “Does that mean you do not trust me either, Dick? How can I convince you I can be trusted? Go ahead and test me! Give me any command and see how fast I obey!”
He was aware of the sardonic look young Churchill was giving him over the brunette’s shoulder. He grinned sheepishly and said, “Hold the thought. Maybe we’ll work something out later.”
They got to Florida at what should have been the siesta hour. But as they crept slowly into town, watching for the switch signals, i
t seemed more like fiesta time. Guns and firecrackers were going off all around. As they approached the switch tower, they could see a body hanging from it by the heels. It was a Spanish officer. As they were spotted, a band of white-clad figures formed a skirmish line across the tracks. One was waving a red, white, and blue flag. The Spanish colors, of course, were red and gold. As the train hissed to a stop, Captain Gringo stood up and waved his hat, yelling, “¡Viva Cuba Libre!”
It worked to the extent that nobody shot the hat from his hand. A delegation came forward warily, guns at port. Their leader called up, “Who the fuck are you, and where the fuck do you think you are going? We have seized this switch point in the name of the Republico, and by the beard of Christ, we mean to block all rail traffic!”
Captain Gringo announced, “We are on our way to Garcia with a load of guns and ammo. You don’t have to worry about any rail traffic from the west for a while. We’ve tom up the track behind us.”
That seemed to make him a lot more popular. The guerrilla leader grinned, exposing some nice gold choppers, and said, “I knew the candles my woman has been burning lately would do some good! Come down and join us, amigo. We are having a swell time in Florida today. The Spaniards had a lot of mm on hand for such a small garrison.”
Captain Gringo smiled and said, “Thanks but no thanks, we’re in a hurry. If you’ll have your guys stand clear, we’ll be moving on.”
The gold-toothed liberator of Florida shook his head and said, “Not just yet. We got things to talk about if you got guns and ammo. I will come up and join you, eh?”
Captain Gringo didn’t argue. He picked up the phone, cranked the signal for pickup at all stations, and had time to murmur, “Lock all doors and grab all guns. Nobody on or off. Hold your fire if you can, but don’t be sissies. This looks like a shakedown.”
He hung up and gave the guerrilla leader a hand up into the cab. Gold Tooth looked around as if he owned the place and said, “Hey, this ain’t bad. Nice-looking woman. Two nice-looking machine guns. I got a woman, but I ain’t got no machine guns, companero. You wouldn’t want the bastards taking back this town, would you?”
