“Here it is,” Sigsbee said when he returned and handed me the envelope. “Want me to leave you in privacy?”
“No, you don’t need to leave, but another mug of this coffee would go down nicely while I do some deciphering. Won’t take long from what I see.”
It was a short message, using sets of numbers which would be translated into Biblical text, the same as before. From inside my coat, I pulled out the small Danish Bible and Danish-English dictionary which Rork had saved in his sea bag. Unwrapping them from their protective oilskin waterproofing, I laid everything out on the coffee table before me and commenced to deduce the message.
There were only five sets of numbers, spread out on three sheets of different shades of blue paper. Arranging them lighter to darker with the lightest first, they read:
0364921291306
0120341675503
0063003365106
0107244483203
1001484500701
Removing the false numbers inserted into each set, left me with:
0361206
0121603
0063306
0104403
1004501
They pointed toward certain words in Matthew 12:4, Matthew 4:22, Matthew 1:20, Matthew 4:3, and Mark 4:36.
In Danish it said: Tilbagevenden straks tage bestilling skibe
The process was the same as earlier, but this time I had a hindrance. The fourth word caused me trouble. I uttered a curse directed toward the assistant secretary of the navy, because it was the Danish word to “order,” as in telling someone to do something. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sigsbee’s eyebrow rise in reaction to my insubordination.
“Trouble?”
“Roosevelt can be difficult at times,” I explained. He laughed, for every officer in the navy knew that.
Literally translated, the message was: Return immediately take order ships
That didn’t make sense. I presumed Biblical Danish was different than conversational Danish, just as it is in English. Theodore had used the closest thing he could find in the copy of the Bible he possessed. I would have to infer what he really meant, by trying several synonyms in the message.
One of them did make sense: Return immediately—take command ships
In late December, Roosevelt and I discussed how to quickly increase the size and capabilities of the navy when war came. We came up with a novel way to increase the navy’s inshore operational capacity, but I hadn’t heard anything more about it. This message indicated he had proceeded with our novel idea, a special squadron of small ships brought into the navy to work the onshore waters of Cuba.
I had no desire to be involved in the project, only suggesting it based on my own experiences against the Confederates three decades earlier. To the contrary, if war came, I wanted command of a cruiser in the battle fleet. Roosevelt was giving me the job no one else wanted.
Sigsbee saw my expression. “Bad news? Can I help?”
“No, not bad news at all—just surprising. I’m ordered to return immediately. When are you scheduled to depart Havana?”
“I’m not, Captain Wake. Maine is to remain here until further orders from Washington. The City of Washington is departing early tomorrow morning for New York. You could go in her if you get passage and a cabin tonight, if there’s one left. Get that bath and shave, too.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I’ll go aboard her tonight. I think the defense plans should stay here, though. They’ll be far more secure in your safe. There is something important you can do to help. Can you write me out an endorsement I can show the steamer’s captain, so he’ll let Rork and me aboard? The dinghy will be coming back alongside any minute now and we’ve got to get away before the Spanish guard boat comes back around and sees us.”
Sigsbee beamed in response. “More skullduggery!”
Sixteen minutes later, as the duty quartermaster’s mate struck three bells in the first watch, or nine-thirty p.m., I stepped into the dinghy, my rummy crew being right on time. We shoved off for Regla. My shoes and ankles were soaked due to the water in the bilges being even higher than before, and I felt around in the dark for something to bail with.
Fortunately, our departure was without interruption from the Spanish guard boat, the officer of the deck having conveniently engaged them in conversation on the other side of the ship. The only problem I saw was the dinghy sinking. As we headed across the harbor in the sultry night, I found a small bucket and started emptying the dinghy. Perro saw me and giggled again, never missing a stroke of his oar.
Despite the condition of our craft, I was feeling pretty good. Rork and I were going home, and on a passenger liner, no less. He’d be delighted. After a perilous month in Cuba, things were finally looking up.
33
Just Lollygagging Around
Havana Harbor
Tuesday night
15 February 1898
That was when it happened. Two hundred feet from Maine, I heard a muffled thud behind me. It rumbled from below, in the water instead of the air. I turned to see what had happened.
Everything erupted into a mass of light and noise. Maine had turned into an inferno. The screams of the wounded filled the air.
As the reader of this memoir has already seen at the beginning of the story, the next hours were agony and terror for me as I tried to swim across the harbor while evaluating what had happened and what I should do. I cannot give precise times for this period, for my pocket watch disappeared. I do know it was several hours later when I reached the Regla side of the harbor.
The place was jammed with people. Emerging from the water in front of the crowd of Spanish military and police at the ship docks was out of the question, so I swam east through the harbor toward the dark shoreline of Ensenada Marimelena. Much later, my feet touched bottom in front of a beach. I saw a small group of people, the distant firelight from Maine reflecting in the faces. I was about to try to wade ashore and take my chances with them when I heard an Irish brogue behind me.
“There’s one, over there. Por ahí! Remar el friggin’ barco like men, ye damned sons o’ bitches! Them Spaniardo bastards behind us’re headin’ our way!”
Relief filled me as I watched a boat get closer. Rork was standing in the stern sheets of a six-oared launch, silhouetted by the shore and ship lights behind him. His false hand steered the tiller, and in the other I saw his Navy Colt at the ready, quite an incongruous sight in his priest’s rig. Farther astern, another launch was heading toward us.
I tried yelling to him, but it came out as a croaking sound. My arms were too useless to wave above me.
Rork’s launch closed to within fifty feet. “Ship yer oars!”
The launch glided up to me and three pairs of arms reached out. They were rough-looking waterfront men, and quickly pulled me up and over the gunwale. I was passed aft like a bag of potatoes, collapsing in the bilge at the stern.
Rork and I hugged. I tried to say thank you, but ended up rasping out something unintelligible instead.
“Were you on her when she blew up?” he exclaimed, as he gave me a swig of grog from a flask. I took three more, washing the salt out of my mouth, enabling me to speak more normally.
“No, no . . . I was in the dinghy, heading back to you.”
“Bloody friggin’ damnation, Peter Wake, then just what the hell’re you doin’ lollygaggin’ around over here in the middle o’ nowhere? Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph, I’ve been worried sick while you were takin’ a leisurely swim around the damned harbor. Hell, I had to pressgang this bunch o’ evil-eyed buggers at gunpoint an’ steal a boat, an’ we’ve been searchin’ all over this friggin’ harbor to find your carcass for over two bloody hours!”
Over two hours? I wracked my mind for the time I’d left Maine—about nine-thirty. That made it almost midnight now.
I took another drink. R
ork stopped for a moment and looked back at the Spanish boat, gauging their course, speed, and intent. To the “evil-eyed buggers” in his crew, he barked, “Row, damn you!”
Rork steered a course further east, heading for a point near the mouth of a creek. Turning his attention back down to me in the bilge, he sighed and, his voice trembling with emotion, whispered, “As the Lord above knows, I thought you were dead an’ gone, Peter. Made me ol’ heart crazy scared when we couldn’t find you. Don’t ever friggin’ do that to me again.”
“Wasn’t my idea, Sean. I thought they got you too. Decided to swim somewhere else so I wouldn’t get captured. Thank you for not giving up.”
My aching body gave up at that point, every muscle ceasing to do anything but lay limp. My mind, on the other hand, was charged up with a swirl of questions.
“Did you see how they sank Maine?” I asked. “I only heard one blast. My God, we must’ve lost hundreds of men, she’s completely gone.”
“Aye, she is. I was keepin’ a watch o’ the harbor after you shoved off from the dock, an’ there twarn’t any firing from the shore forts, before or after the explosion. ’Twas only a single huge blast, as you say, sir. Methinks it must’a been a bloody great mine, or maybe a lucky torpedo shot from that old Spaniardo cruiser anchored nearby.”
Rork glanced aft. The Spanish boat had veered off toward the docks at Havana. “Good, she’s headin’ away from us, sir. We’ll go ashore at the creek dead ahead an’ get out o’ sight. These bastards can have the boat an’ some coins.”
I looked over at the still flaming wreck on the west side of the harbor. The rum helped my voice return. “The cruiser had her torpedo tubes removed last year. Maine’s been anchored in the same spot for three weeks, and it’s a Spanish naval mooring. So, if it was a mine, it must’ve already been there, as an electrically command-detonated mine. Maybe that’s why they directed Maine to that mooring. The mines’re controlled from the mine room at Cabaña Fortress, remember?”
“Ah, where Colonel Marrón has his office an’ dungeon these days. Do you think that slimy bastard could’ve done it, to start the war he always wanted with us?”
“Not sure, but I don’t think so. The mine field is controlled by the Spanish Navy, and I don’t think Marrón has much sway over them. Most of their senior naval officers don’t want a war with us. I know Admiral Manterola doesn’t. Of course, I suppose it could’ve been a disgruntled junior officer on the duty watch, or possibly one of Marrón’s men somehow got inside the control room and set it off.”
Another possibility came to mind. “Do you suppose it might’ve been an accidental explosion in the magazine? I did hear an odd little thump a fraction of a second before the explosion. It seemed to come from Maine, and I was turning around to see when the blast hit us. Coal bunker, maybe? Spontaneous combustion there, which lit off the magazine next to the bunker? That would be enough to destroy the ship in one blast.”
Rork shook his head. “Nay, Maine’s a well-run ship. No heat could build in the bunker or the magazine without ’em knowin’ o’ it on the regular temperature inspections. Me own money’s on Marrón somehow settin’ off a mine from that control room at Cabaña Fortress.”
We were getting close to shore, and I noticed the crew was casting stealthy glances at each other. I felt for my revolver. Somehow, it was still in its holster. I pointed it forward toward the men, propping my hand on my knee. The ones closest to me pulled harder.
Rork asked, “Did you get our orders and money from Washington, sir? Is it homeward bound, or back to Sagua?”
“No money. Roosevelt’s ordered us home. Looks like they’re forming the new squadron we discussed with him a while back, and I’m supposed to command it. But after tonight, who knows.”
Rork didn’t like that notion. “That special squadron you an’ young Theodore hatched is a commander’s billet. You’re too senior for the likes o’ that. The main battle fleet’s where you should be—in command o’ a cruiser, with me as your petty officer aide.”
I locked eyes with the man pulling the bow oars. He started pulling stronger. Not taking my eyes off him, I replied to Rork. “I don’t think so, my friend. Now the war’s come, all the senior officers with academy diplomas and Congressional connections will get those commands. You know how the politics works. But it doesn’t matter right now. I’ve got an idea on what we can do while we’re still in Havana tonight.”
Rork cast me a quick guarded look. “Oh, no, not another o’ your wild ideas. Usually it means somebody’s gonna be shootin’ at us—an’ these days me ol’ hull is a bigger an’ slower target than yours! An’ in case you forgot, your ownself’s in no shape to be doin’ anythin’ strenuous tonight.”
He swung his gaze forward, snapping, “Row, you cabrones! Row your evil hearts out!”
“Rork, it’s just a simple matter of deviousness, really,” I said calmly. “Nothing too strenuous.”
He groaned. “Jaysus, help me. Me boyo Peter’s bein’ devious again. An’ that always gets me shot.”
“Just listen to me and stop being so dramatic, Rork. We’re still heading back home, but when I was in the water I did some thinking. I was last seen onboard Maine, then I disappeared when she exploded. In all the confusion around here, we’ll both be included on the official list of missing, presumed dead. The Spanish will see that list. Everybody on both sides’ll think we’re dead, including Colonel Marrón. Therefore, nobody will be looking for us anymore, right?”
“Aye . . .”
“And that gives us some freedom of action to get something done before we leave Havana. Something that’s been needed to be done since I failed back in eighty-eight.”
He caught on immediately. “Sendin’ Colonel Isidro Marrón back down into hell.”
“Precisely, Rork—it’s time.”
“Hell, why didn’t ye say that up front? Count me in, sir,” he said as the boat’s hull grounded near the mouth of the creek. “There’s nary time to dawdle, so let’s strike while this bloody iron’s hot.”
“We will. Tonight we’ll get him out of the fortress by laying a trap—with bait he can’t resist.”
“An’ just who or what would that be, sir?”
“Maria.”
34
The Trap
Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña
Havana, Cuba
4 a.m., Wednesday morning
16 February 1898
The plan was simple and the trap was ready, for the bait had been dangled right in front of the predator as he reposed in the heart of his lair.
Marrón, was lying on a cot in his office deep inside Cabaña Fortress, two layers below ground level, when he received the following note at four in the morning from a messenger. Rendered into English for the reader, it said:
Colonel Isidro Marrón
Special Section, Orden Publico
Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña
Havana, Cuba
2:30 a.m., 16 February 1898
My Dear Colonel Marrón,
It is my honor to report to you the traitorous Spanish woman Maria Maura Wake, wife of the nefarious American spy, was recognized last night on the docks of Cojímar by myself and Lieutenant Mateo Rodrigues, both on temporary duty with the Second Battalion of the Cuerpo Militar de Orden Publico. Obviously, previous reports of her leaving Havana were false, and she was in Cojímar trying to escape the island on a fishing boat and get to Key West. This endeavor on her part was unsuccessful, thanks to the patriotism of our islanders, who saw through her many deceits. Having identified her, we immediately captured her and took her away before anyone else knew and could warn her fellow conspirators. We are holding her at a tool shed on the Garcia Plantation, just off the road which runs through the hills from Casablanca to Cojímar.
Due to Maria Maura Wake’s influential name and connections in Spain and in the United
States, we thought it was more prudent to hold her in the isolated shed, where no one in authority would recognize her, than to bring her to Cabaña Fortress, especially since the explosion of the arrogant yanqui warship. Our interrogation has convinced her to be cooperative, and she has provided us valuable information about the American naval plans for the invasion of Cuba, details about the spy Wake, and a list of her fellow traitors in Havana.
All of this we have kept secret from everyone, for the information is of such importance that few can be trusted with it.
We respectfully request you come here, sir, for we are in need of your skills in these matters. She says she knows no more, but we are convinced she does by her arrogant attitude. Delivering this message is our aide, Sergeant Poyo. He will take you here immediately.
With respect and admiration for your long service and leadership to our beloved Empire, and may God preserve our gracious King and Country, we are . . .
Lieutenant Manuel Bolita
Lieutenant Mateo Rodrigues
Second Battalion, Cuerpo Militar de Orden Publico
Of course, the lieutenants were fictional, but the sergeant wasn’t. Poyo was very real, the very same devout and troubled soldier who had recognized Father Francisco’s body in peasant rags at the trench of Cabaña Fortress. He was ready to help when approached at his barracks near Casablanca at two in the morning by an Irish priest named Rork. Good man that he was, Poyo naturally assumed the encounter was by Divine instigation. The “priest” did nothing to dissuade his impression.
“Thank you, my son,” said Rork. “Your assistance on this mission of justice will be your atonement for being in the regiment which was a part of this tragedy. It is your way of making sure your friend Father Francisco did not die in vain.”
Even though the priest spoke terrible Spanish, Sergeant Poyo understood his meaning. The sergeant’s duty would be simple, but crucial to justice being served.
“Deliver this note to the colonel. Tell him how beautiful the woman prisoner is, and then lead him to the shed,” Rork told him gently in Spanish. “Once he goes inside, return to your barracks. No one will ever know of your involvement, my son.”
An Honorable War Page 16
