The Cruise of the Thetis: A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

  A GALLANT DEFENCE.

  It is not to be supposed that so momentous a decision as that mentionedat the close of the last chapter could be arrived at without bringingthe occupants of the hacienda face to face with many anxieties, one ofthe most serious of which was, undoubtedly, the question whether theammunition for which they had sent would arrive ere the appearance uponthe scene of General Valeriano y Nicolan Weyler, with his devastatingarmy of sixty thousand men. If it did, all might possibly be well; butif it did not--well, in that case disaster was practically certain. Fornearly a week they hung painfully upon the tenterhooks of suspense,waiting for news; and the only news which reached them was to the effectthat the new Capitan-General, with characteristic vigour, had issued themost rigorous instructions for a vigilant patrol of the entire coastline of the island to be maintained, with the express object ofpreventing any further landing of munitions of war of any descriptionwhatsoever, the obvious conclusion at which he had arrived being that ifsuch supplies could be effectually stopped the rebellion must eventuallybe starved out of existence for want of them. But, after a long week ofkeenest anxiety, intelligence arrived that Milsom had succeeded ineluding the _guardacostas_, and had landed his cargo in a small coveunder the lee of San Domingo Point, on the south coast; and that themoiety of that cargo asked for by Don Hermoso was even then well on itsway to the estate. The next day it arrived, and was safely stored, tothe great relief of the defenders, who now found themselves possessed ofa supply of ammunition ample enough to enable them, with care, towithstand a siege of a month's duration, if need be; while they doubtedvery much whether General Weyler would be disposed to devote even halfthat amount of time to their subjugation.

  But the ammunition came to hand only just in the nick of time: for onthe very day of its arrival the anxious watchers became aware of a faintodour of burning on the breeze; and when at length darkness closed downupon them, the sky to the eastward glowed red, showing that Weyler andhis destroyers were at hand. With the dawn the smell of burning becamemore pronounced; the hitherto crystalline clearness of the air was seento be dimmed by a thin veil of brownish-blue vapour; and the lookout inhis eyrie far up the mountain-side signalled that flames and thick smokewere visible in the direction of Consolacion del Sur. As the dayprogressed the haze with which the air was charged grew thicker, thetaint of fire and smoke more pungent, and an occasional vibration of theatmosphere suggested to those who became conscious of it the boom ofdistant artillery; while with the approach of nightfall the whole of theeastern sky became suffused with a flickering, ruddy light, the lookoutup the mountain signalling that the entire country to the eastward, asfar as the eye could see, seemed to be in flames.

  On the morrow all these signs of destruction became very greatlyaccentuated: with the passage of every hour the atmosphere became morethickly charged with smoke, more pungent with the smell of burning;clouds of black ash darkened the sky from time to time, as they wereswept along upon the wings of the strong breeze; dense columns of smokerising here and there showed where the spoilers were at work uponproperties so near at hand that they could now be identified and named;while the frequent rattle and crash of rifle fire seemed to indicatethat there were others who, like Don Hermoso, were not prepared to standsupinely by and see their entire possessions destroyed. Work was stillbeing carried on by Don Hermoso's _employes_, but they had been turned-to that morning with the injunction that at the sound of the alarm bellthey were to instantly drop their tools and muster before the shed inwhich the arms were stored. As for Singleton and Carlos Montijo, theyhad jumped into the saddle at daybreak, and were maintaining a ceaselesspatrol of the boundaries of the estate, riding in opposite directions,and encountering each other from time to time, when they would exchangesuch items of information as they might happen to have gleaned in theinterim.

  All through the morning the work of destruction proceeded apace: theatmosphere became hourly thicker and more suffocating with smoke; greattongues of flame could occasionally be seen leaping skyward here andthere above the tops of trees; dull boomings from time to time told ofthe blowing up of buildings; intermittent crashes of volley firing,mingled with shouts and yells and shrieks, told that desperate fightswere raging--or that, perchance, some ruthless and summary execution wastaking place; and by and by, shortly after mid-day, a solitary horseman,mounted upon a steed in a lather of sweat and recognised by Carlos astheir next neighbour to the eastward, came galloping over the temporarydrawbridge with a warning to Don Hermoso to fly, with all his family anddependents, since Weyler, with his army of butchers, was alreadyapproaching in such overpowering strength that nothing could possiblystand before him. The poor fellow gasped out a breathless story ofruthlessly savage murder and destruction, telling how he had seen everyatom of his property looted and burnt, every member of his family shotdown; and how he had at the last moment escaped by the skin of histeeth, with the horse he rode and the clothes that he stood up in as hissole remaining possessions in the world. He had effected his escapewith some mad idea of flying for his life somewhere, he knew notwhither; but upon learning that Don Hermoso was resolved to defend hisproperty to the last, the poor fellow--a certain Don Luis Enrile--beggedpermission to be allowed to remain and assist in the defence, since hewas now a ruined man and had nothing left to live for save revenge.Naturally, Don Hermoso readily acceded to his request.

  The unhappy Don Luis, having drawn, in broken, gasping sentences, themain outlines of his tragical story, was still filling in some of themore lurid details of that morning's happenings upon his farm, when thelookout perched aloft on the hillside signalled the approach of theenemy; and while Carlos dashed off in one direction to sound the alarmbell and occupy his former defence post, Jack rushed off in the other toraise the temporary drawbridge which had been constructed to take theplace of the wrecked stone bridge, and which was now the only means ofentering upon and leaving the estate. Having raised the bridge, andcarefully secured it against any possibility of becoming lowered byaccident, Jack climbed the structure to its uplifted extremity, and fromthence looked out over the wide plain that gently sloped away toward theeast, south, and west of him; and presently he became aware of a loud,confused, rumbling jumble of sound which, when he was presently able todissect it, resolved itself into a mingled trampling of multitudinousfeet and hoofs, a rumbling and creaking of many wheels, the combinedmurmur of many human voices, the occasional low, deep, protesting bellowof overdriven animals, the crack of whips, and the continuous shouts ofmen. The air was still thick with acrid smoke, rendering it difficultto see anything clearly at a distance greater than half a mile; butpresently it thickened still more, and Jack recognised that thethickening was produced by a great cloud of dun-coloured dust, out ofthe midst of which there presently cantered into view a number ofSpanish cavalry scouts, a dozen of whom, upon reaching the main road,wheeled to their right and dashed along it toward the point of itsjunction with the private road leading to Don Hermoso's estate.

  Jack considered that the moment had now arrived for him to quit his postof observation, and he accordingly slid down the rail of the bridgeuntil he reached the ground, where he was almost immediately joined bythe contingent of labourers which was to operate under him, as before,for the defence of the estate at that point. The wood away to the left,and the bamboo coppice, afforded perfect cover and shelter for the wholeof his party; and since each man now knew to an inch where he wasrequired to post himself, everybody was in position and entirely hiddenfrom sight a full minute before the leading couple of the cavalry cameinto view round the bend of the road leading to the ruined bridge. Butno sooner did that leading couple appear than two whiplike rifle reportssnapped out from somewhere in front of them, and while one rider droppedforward and collapsed on his horse's neck, the other flung up his arms,tossed away the carbine which he was carrying in his right hand, andreeled out of the saddle to the ground with a crash, while his horse,tossing up his head, wheeled sharply roun
d and dashed off to the rear,dragging his dead rider by the left stirrup. The next instant anotherpair of scouts swung into view, when again out snapped that ominous,double, whiplike crack. This time one of the two riders, dropping hiscarbine to the ground, clapped his right hand convulsively to his breastas he swiftly wheeled his horse and galloped off; while the horse of hiscompanion, rearing upright and pawing the air furiously for a momentwith his fore hoofs, fell backward with a crash and lay dead, pinninghis helpless rider beneath him: whereupon the remainder of the partywheeled their horses, and, dashing in their spurs, took to precipitateflight.

  Shortly afterwards, doubtless in consequence of the report of those men,another reconnoitring party, consisting of half a dozen brilliantly-garbed officers, approached, evidently with the idea of inspecting thenature of the defences of the estate, and ascertaining its weak points.But Jack would have none of it; the moment that they came within point-blank rifle range he opened fire upon them with his sharpshooters, andonly three of the half-dozen were able to make good their retreat.

  Meanwhile the main body of troops gradually debouched into view upon theplain--a motley crowd of infantry clad in rags so effectually bleachedand discoloured by exposure to rain and sun that it would probably havepuzzled their own officers to name the various regiments to which theybelonged; about one hundred cavalry; and three batteries of fieldartillery: the whole accompanied by an enormous number of baggage,ambulance, and ammunition wagons, water carts, and nondescript vehiclesof every imaginable description, and an immense lowing, bellowing, andbleating herd of captured cattle, sheep, and goats, many of which seemedto be half-mad with terror. Mounted officers in scores dashedfrantically to and fro among this medley of men, vehicles, and animals;and finally, when the herd of cattle was at length separated from themain body and driven off, a detachment of some three thousand men, andone battery of guns, with a proportion of the wagons and other vehicles,halted on the plain, with the evident intention of attacking the estate,while the remainder of the body went forward.

  The attack began immediately. A puff or two of white smoke had revealedto the reconnoitring parties the lurking-place of those who had firedupon them, and they had of course pointed out the spot to theartillerymen as that upon which they were to concentrate their fire;with the result that immediately the guns were wheeled to action front,they opened a hot fire upon the bamboo coppice. But, as on the occasionof the previous attack, no sooner had the reconnoitring partieswithdrawn than Jack moved his sharpshooters from their cover of bambooto that of a line of artfully constructed earthworks, which, while farenough removed from the bamboos to be perfectly safe from the artilleryfire which he felt certain would be immediately opened upon them,equally commanded the road leading to the ruined bridge, and enabled himto effectually check all endeavours to reconnoitre that point ofapproach. The result was that after the bamboos had been fiercelyshelled for some ten minutes, without producing a single casualty amongthe defenders, another reconnoitring party, believing that thatparticular patch of cover had been pretty effectually cleared, boldlygalloped forward, under cover of the continued shell fire, to examinethe spot which, from the resolution with which it had been defended,they felt convinced must be one of the keys of the position. And thereis little doubt that they were as much surprised as disgusted to bereceived with a volley, from a totally different and not easilydiscernible point, which caused them to again retire precipitately,leaving nearly two-thirds of their number behind them.

  Finding himself thus persistently foiled, the officer in commandslightly altered his tactics; and, while instructing his artillery topersistently shell every bit of timber or other cover that couldpossibly afford concealment to the defenders, deployed his infantry intoa column of open order and threw out a strong firing line, withinstructions to them to advance, taking advantage of every bit of coverthat they could find, and shoot at every puff of smoke that they couldsee. As on the occasion of the previous attack, many of the Spanishshells failed to burst; but, notwithstanding this, a few casualties nowbegan to occur among Jack's party of defenders, and he therefore decidedthat the moment had arrived for bringing his twelve-pounder into action.This gun, accordingly, which Jack had by this time got mounted on acleverly-constructed and carefully-masked earth battery, now opened fireupon the enemy's artillery; and as Singleton had personally laid thepiece, and knew the exact range to practically an inch, he was luckyenough to dismount and put out of action one of the Spanish guns withhis first shot, while his second swept away every one of theartillerymen from the gun next to it. His third and fourth shots didcomparatively little damage; but his fifth shell struck one of the gunsfair upon the muzzle, at the precise moment when it was being fired,with the result that both shells burst simultaneously, completelyshattering the fore part of the gun, as far back as the trunnions, andscattering death and destruction broadcast among the rest of theartillerymen. But by this time the Spanish gunners had managed tolocate the position of the weapon that was punishing them so fearfully,and from that moment they devoted their attention exclusively to it,with the result that shells began to drop thick and fast about Jack'sears, smothering and half-blinding him with dust, and occasionallypeppering him pretty smartly with the pebbles and fragments of stonethat were mingled with the earth of which his battery was composed.Still he gallantly maintained the unequal fight, and actually succeededin disabling four out of the six guns ere a splinter of shell struck himon the temple and knocked him senseless. When he recovered, he foundthat darkness was closing down; that he was in his own room and on hisown bed, whither he had been brought by an ambulance party of his men;and that Mama Faquita, poor Senorita Isolda's nurse, had taken him incharge, cleaned and dressed his wound, and was looking after himgenerally. An intermittent crackle of rifle fire told him that theattack was still being pressed, but Faquita informed him that there hadbeen very few serious casualties thus far, and that all was going well.The old woman would fain have kept him confined to his room; but Jackknew that with the darkness would come the real danger, and despite hisnurse's vehement protests he not only rose from his bed, but returned tothe spot which his contingent of men were still defending.

  Arrived there, he soon found that events had been happening during hisabsence. In the first place, it appeared that the remainder of thegun's crew had continued to work the twelve-pounder, and, after firingaway a perfectly ruinous quantity of ammunition, had actually succeededin disabling one of the two remaining Spanish guns; soon afteraccomplishing which feat, the twelve-pounder itself had been dismountedand put out of action by a shell which had completely destroyed thecarriage and at the same time had slain four of the gunners. Whereupona little party of sharpshooters, remembering the tactics that Jack hadadopted during the previous attack upon the estate, had exclusivelydevoted themselves to a repetition of them, by first of allexterminating the entire crew of the remaining Spanish gun, and thenrendering it impossible for anyone else to approach the gun to work it.Meanwhile, the officer in command, finding it useless to try to doanything with his men, exposed as they were upon the open plain, hadwithdrawn them out of gunshot and gone into camp. It was clear that heproposed to wait until the darkness came to veil his movements.

  Jack quite anticipated that the first thing which the Spaniards wouldattempt would be to reconnoitre the entire position, with the object offinding a way to get across the river; and he knew that there were onlytwo points at which this feat of crossing was possible, namely, thosewhich Carlos and he were defending. He therefore scribbled a littlenote to his friend, warning the latter what to guard against, anddispatched it by a negro messenger, whom he also instructed toafterwards call at the house and bring from thence a pair of binocularglasses which were to be found on a table in his (Jack's) bedroom.

  By the time that the messenger returned with the glasses it had grownintensely dark: for to the natural obscurity of night there was addedthe further obscuration caused by the smoke with which the atmospherewas laden; while, to still fu
rther intensify the blackness, a heavythunderstorm was working up against the wind, the combined result beinga darkness in which it was literally impossible to see one's hand beforeone's face. Jack was at first inclined to anathematise the darkness;but when at length he was enabled to fully realise the intensity of ithe felt much more disposed to bless it, for, having moved about half adozen paces away from his post, and experienced some difficulty infinding his way back, he began to comfort himself with the reflectionthat the enemy, utterly strange to the country as they were, could donothing until light enough should come to at least enable them to seewhere to put their feet.

  Yet Jack was mistaken in so supposing, for as the time went on he becameaware of certain sounds out there on the plain which seemed to indicatepretty unmistakably that, despite the darkness, the Spaniards werebusily employed. When the moaning and sighing of the night wind amongthe branches of the trees, the rustle of the bamboos, and the clash ofthe palm leaves subsided for an instant, allowing more distant sounds toreach his ears, he intermittently caught what seemed to be the sounds ofpicks and shovels at work at no very great distance; moreover, therewere lights flitting about the distant camp, and much movement there,though what it portended Jack was quite unable to discover, even withthe help of his night glasses. At length, however, the period ofdarkness came to an end, for sheet lightning began to flicker and quiveramong the densely packed clouds low down on the western horizon, atfirst for an instant only and at comparatively long intervals, but soonincreasing greatly in vividness and rapidity: and then the youngEnglishman perceived, to his disgust and alarm, that the Spanishsoldiers had availed themselves of the obscurity not only to entrench astrong body of riflemen to right and left of their own end of the ruinedbridge, but also to advance a long, light platform, or gangway, mountedon the wheels of one of the disabled field pieces, which they seemed tobe preparing to throw across the gap in the bridge as soon as they couldget sufficient light to enable them to run it into position; indeed,they were actually engaged in moving it forward at the very moment whenJack discovered its existence.

  To bring up his men, and place them in a position among the bambooswhich would enable them to frustrate this bold attempt to span the riverwas the work of but a minute or two for Jack; then he immediately openeda hot fire upon the working party who were engaged in moving forward thegangway. But no sooner had he done this than he found how seriously theconditions had changed for the worse during those two hours of totaldarkness; for now the Spaniards who had established themselves in thetrenches were so close at hand that the cover of the bamboos was nolonger an efficient defence, and casualties among the defenders becamedisconcertingly frequent. Furthermore, it soon appeared that theSpaniards had got two strong hauling parties sheltered behind a coupleof low earthworks, and that these people, by means of two stout ropesattached to the gangway, were steadily and with much skill hauling thething toward the required position. Jack soon saw, however, that itwould be quite impossible for the hauling parties to haul it far enoughforward to enable it to be dropped into position across the gap in theruined bridge: a moment must come, sooner or later, when the concealedmen who were dragging upon the ropes would be obliged to leave theircover and push the platform the remaining portion of the distance; andhe quickly determined to reserve his energies and his ammunition untilthat moment.

  The time quickly arrived. A single bugle blast appeared to be thesignal for the entrenched Spanish riflemen to concentrate their fireupon the clump of bamboo brake wherein Jack had hidden his men, and atthe same instant about a hundred infantry-men sprang from behind theirsheltering earthwork and made a dash at the platform, their everymovement being clearly visible by the light of the vivid electricdischarges which had by this time become practically continuous. Withthe utmost resolution they seized the light structure and started to runit forward toward the gap in the bridge; but--Jack having by this timeinstilled into his dusky troops the virtue of coolness and deliberationin fighting--the next moment they were swept back to cover by aperfectly withering fire that placed nearly half of them _hors decombat_.

  Meanwhile sounds of hot and sustained firing had gradually breezed up inthe direction of the position which Carlos was defending, and ere longit became evident that there also the attack was being pressed; andalthough the sounds of strife thitherward were soon almost swallowed upin the long, continuous crash and crackle of the rifle fire that wasbeing maintained by the entrenched troops upon Jack's party, the youngEnglishman could not avoid the suspicion that his friend was beingsomewhat hardly pressed; for whenever a momentary lull occurred in thefiring in front of him, Jack could not only hear that the volume offiring in Carlos' direction was fully maintained, but it seemed to himthat it was steadily increasing! And presently a breathless messengerarrived from Carlos, begging Jack to spare the former as many men as hepossibly could, to help in driving back a body of Spanish troops who hadactually succeeded in forcing a passage across the river! In responseto this request Jack of course instantly detached every man he couldpossibly spare, retaining less than fifty to aid him in defending hisown position: but the news which he had just received made it perfectlyclear to him that the defence was practically at an end; for if Carloshad been unable to prevent the Spaniards from forcing the passage of theriver, it was in the highest degree unlikely that he would be able tostem the rush, much less drive it back. Jack at once began to considerwhat was the best course to pursue under the new conditions; and, as hethought, a plan began to gradually unfold itself in his mind. Theestate, he felt, was lost, for if only a sufficient number of theSpaniards could once get across the river to hold Carlos' force at bayfor five minutes, by the end of that time a reinforcement would havecrossed strong enough to sweep the defenders out of existence: nothing,therefore, in that case could save the estate from destruction, but itmight be possible to visit upon the destroyers a heavy retribution.

  Jack's mind was thus occupied when another messenger arrived from Carlosto tell him that all was lost, and that Carlos, with the remnant of hisparty--with whom were Don Hermoso and his wife--was retreating up thevalley, hotly pursued by a strong party of Spanish soldiers; while otherSpaniards were in possession of the house and the several outbuildings,which they were obviously preparing to set on fire: and the messageconcluded by requesting Jack to follow with his party, and join thefugitives, if possible.

  Now it happened that Carlos' retreat up the valley chimed in excellentlywell with the scheme which was beginning to take shape within Jack'sbrain; the latter therefore lost no time in collecting together hislittle band of riflemen and leading them through the wood, round by therear of the house and outbuildings, and along a bush path, to a spot atwhich he could intercept and join the retreating party, and at which,moreover, owing to the nature of the ground, he believed he could prettyeffectually check the pursuit, and cover the retreat of the main body ofthe defenders. As he pressed forward at the head of his own scantycontingent the sounds of occasional shots told him that Carlos was stillmaintaining a good running fight: but, as the path which he wasfollowing constituted a short cut to the spot which he desired to reach,he soon left those sounds in his rear, and, pressing rapidly forward, atlength arrived at the main path; and, aided by the lightning, which wasnow flashing incessantly, contrived to place his men in ambush behind anumber of big boulders that studded the almost perpendicular sides ofthe bush-clad hill, just as the leading files of the retreating partycame into view round a bend of the path.

  Jack saw with satisfaction that the retreat was being conducted in goodorder. First came a body of some fifty well-armed negroes, who werekeeping a wary eye about them, to guard against the possibility of beingambuscaded by some portion of the enemy who might have pushed on and gotin front of them--although such a thing was scarcely likely to havehappened; then came the Senora, in a hammock suspended from a pole borneon the shoulders of two stout negroes, with Don Hermoso and SenorCalderon walking, one on either side of her; and behind these again camethe main
body of the retreating defenders, with the two Maxim guns intheir midst, and with Carlos bringing up the rear in charge of a partyof about twenty riflemen, who were covering the retreat by frequentlyfacing round and exchanging shots with the pursuers. As these last cameinto view, Jack rose from his place of ambush--at the imminent risk ofbeing shot by his friends before they could recognise him--and made thefact of his presence and that of his party known, bidding the otherspass on and leave the heaviest of the covering work to him. Theirlosses, Jack could see, had been terribly heavy, and they looked wearyto death with their long hours of fighting: yet he was gratified toobserve that, with very few exceptions, the men carried themselves asresolutely as ever, and displayed the effect of his training by takingthe fullest advantage of every particle of cover, dodging behind rocks,boulders, trunks of trees, and clumps of bush; taking as careful aim asthough they were shooting in a match; re-loading, and then flitting fromcover to cover to take up a fresh position.

  The rear-guard under Carlos had not passed much more than a hundredyards ahead when the leading files of the pursuers appeared round thebend of the path, breathless, from the fact that the retreating partyhad no sooner disappeared round the elbow than the Spaniards had brokeninto a run, taking advantage of the circumstance that they were for amoment out of sight of the enemy to shorten the distance betweenthemselves and the pursued. As the vanguard of some twenty pursuingSpaniards dashed round the bend they dropped on one knee and raisedtheir rifles to their shoulders, availing themselves of the lightningflashes to take aim at the little crowd of retreating figuresimperfectly seen here and there through the overhanging and swayingbranches.

  The Cruise of the Thetis--by Harry Collingwood