‘McGann?’
‘I think the Merrimac will do admirably, sir.’
‘Well, it’s a hazardous mission. How many men will you need?’
‘Two in the engine room, say four on deck, and a skipper,’ Hobson said.
‘They will all have to be volunteers. Lieutenant McGann, you will hand over command of the Dahlgren to Ensign Cotter, pending your return. I take it you intend to volunteer to lead the expedition?’
‘With respect, sir, I must decline,’ Joe said. Sampson raised his eyebrows, and Schley pulled his moustache.
‘I will volunteer to accompany the expedition, sir, as a pilot,’ Joe said. ‘But it was Mr Hobson’s idea. I think he should command, if he wishes to do so.’
‘Why, I suppose he should. Mr Hobson?’
‘I will be happy to volunteer, sir.’
‘And are you willing to serve under Mr Hobson, Mr McGann?’
Joe of course had several years of seniority in rank. ‘I should be very happy to serve under Mr Hobson,’ he said.
Hobson held out his hand. ‘Thank you, Mr McGann.’
‘Then let’s get to it,’ Joe said. ‘With your permission, sir.’
Sampson nodded. ‘Carry on, and smartly as you can, gentlemen. However, I intend to send a despatch boat to Florida requesting General Miles to send us at least a brigade of regulars to carry out a land investment just as quickly as possible. With them, and the aid of your friends in the mountains, McGann, we’ll get Santiago one way or the other. Good luck, gentlemen. Remember the Maine.’
‘And the hell with Spain,’ Joe and Hobson replied together.
*
Hobson proved to be a bundle of activity and mental as well as physical energy. The first task was to visit the Merrimac and decide what needed doing to her, and how best to equip her. Unfortunately they discovered that her engines needed a thorough overhaul if they were going to get the speed they required. Engineers were immediately summoned from the other ships in the fleet and got to work. Meanwhile Hobson fitted a row of ten small explosive charges, mini-torpedoes, he called them, along the port side of the steamer. These were connected by a wire to a battery on the deck, and could thus be fired simultaneously. ‘We’ll tow a dinghy astern,’ he told Joe, ‘and aim to get into that when the ship goes up. If we can get back outside the harbour while the Dons are still trying to work out what happened, I reckon our launch will be able to pick us up. But I guess we’ll all have to be prepared to do a little swimming. So, no volunteers who can’t swim. Now, where is the best place to put her down?’ ‘There,’ Joe said, indicating the chart. ‘Right beyond the Estrella Point battery. That’s the very narrowest part of the channel.’
‘Right. So here’s what we do. We’ll get as close as we can, then the moment we’re spotted, we’ll rush the entrance at full speed. They won’t even guess what we’re at until we get inside. As soon as we reach the right place, we’ll swing her broadside on, stop engines, drop our anchors, open the sea cocks, and fire the charges. She’ll go down so fast they won’t have a chance to stop her.’
‘May I suggest that you cat both your anchors,’ Joe said. He meant, to take them from their hawses, and strap them to the hull with light line, so that, once the line was severed, they would go down that much faster, and with absolutely no chance the cables might foul. ‘Then, if they’re secured by a single line, they can be released simultaneously by a single man.’
‘Brilliant,’ Hobson agreed. ‘That’ll be a dangerous post, mind.’
‘Mine,’ Joe grinned. ‘I was brought up on a farm, and know how to swing an axe. I’m also a very good swimmer, so the moment I let them go, I’ll go myself, over the side, to fetch the dinghy up alongside. The starboard side.’
‘Yeah, don’t forget that,’ Hobson said. ‘Now, we want six volunteers.’
As might have been expected, the difficulty was in refusing all the men who wanted to go, but some were eliminated immediately as being unable to swim well enough. Finally the crew was made up of Lieutenant Richmond P Hobson, commanding, George Charette, John Kelly, H Clausen, Daniel Montague, Oscar Dignan, John Murphy, and John P Phillips, with Lieutenant Joseph H McGann to act as pilot. Admiral Sampson decided that the New York’s own steam launch, commanded by Midshipman JW Powell, with a volunteer crew, would be the rescue tender; she would be equipped with bandages, splints, and hot drinks to restore the returning crew of the Merrimac.
They worked all that day, Wednesday, 1 June, getting the ship ready, and rehearsing each man in exactly what he had to do, but the engines took longer than they had anticipated to be put into shape and it was well into Thursday morning before they were ready. ‘What do you reckon?’ Hobson asked Joe.
Joe looked around at the fleet. Late as it was, every deck was crowded with men, as word of the desperate venture had got about. ‘I think we should go,’ he said.
‘Right.’ Hobson gave the command, and the engine commenced issuing steam, while the artificers hastily went over the side into the waiting tender. The crew of the New York alongside which the Merrimac had been moored, gave a cheer, and the launch fell into line behind the collier, although it would take its own course when the larger ship put on speed. But they had not travelled a mile when a fast launch overtook them, commanding them to return. The admiral had decided it was too near dawn to risk it. Both Hobson and Joe hesitated, but there was no way they could disobey a direct order, and in the event Sampson was proved right. It was broad daylight by the time they regained the flagship, and they would have been blown out of the water long before they could even reach the narrows.
‘Try again tomorrow, gentlemen,’ Sampson said, entertaining them to breakfast. ‘There is always tomorrow.’
It was another nerve-wracking twenty-four hours, perhaps even worse than sitting on the beach below Obrigar. There was nothing left to be done, save brood on everything that might go wrong, and sit staring at each other. Of course it was a dangerous mission, the most dangerous he had ever undertaken, Joe realised. But it would end the war that much sooner, and enable him to return to Obrigar … he had to keep that thought firmly before his eyes at all times.
At three o’clock on the morning of Friday, 3rd, the go ahead was given. That should allow an hour of total darkness for the ship to be placed in position and scuttled, and the survivors would then be easily spotted by the launch, which would, of course, be covered by the entire fleet, once day broke. All the Merrimac’s lights were doused, and she moved steadily forward, keeping her reserve of speed for when she was sighted, or when the entrance was reached. They were still half a mile from the land, however, when a gun on the cliff exploded. They had been sighted, and now they could see there was actually a Spanish torpedo boat in the centre of the channel, immediately in front of them.
‘Full speed ahead,’ Hobson shouted down the tube to the engine room, and the Merrimac raced forward, while the launch fell astern and veered off, which was just as well, because the collier was now enveloped in the most tremendous fire as everything on the shore opened up, while Joe even made out the telltale white streaks of the two torpedoes fired by the Spanish boat. These missed, but the ship herself only just got out of the way in time to avoid a collision as the Merrimac raced straight at her. She kept firing her own gun, and the collier was hit several times, giving a convulsive shudder as each shell struck, but never slackening speed.
‘Hot work,’ Hobson shouted, but he was clearly in his element, himself helming the ship, and now they were into the entrance and below where the Spanish guns could reach, while the torpedo boat had gone racing into the inner harbour as if pursued by the devil. She thus cleared the channel for the guns of the fleet anchored beyond, and these too now opened up, smothering the collier with shot and foam.
‘If this keeps up you won’t have to scuttle her,’ Joe bawled above the racket, but now they were very nearly in position. He left the wheel-house, which amazingly had remained intact through all the fire, and ran forward with his ax
e. ‘Now,’ he bellowed.
Hobson rang down for stop, and put the helm hard to port. To Joe’s horror, nothing happened, and although losing way as power was lost, the steamer continued on her course, through the narrows and towards the deeper water by Smith Cay. Hobson leaned out of the bridge window, his face a picture of dismay. ‘She’s not answering,’ he yelled.
Obviously a shot had damaged the rudder. Desperately Joe swung his axe, and with a single blow severed the line holding the anchors. The iron flukes plunged into the water fore and aft as the cables raced through the hawsepipes. Joe went to the rail, and saw that their mission was already a failure, for the ship had not lost sufficient way, as the flood tide was pushing them onwards, and the anchors were not holding; they were already beyond the point where they could block the channel, even if she would now turn. He looked forward again, trying to think of anything he could do to retrieve the situation, and was overwhelmed by a tremendous explosion. For a moment he thought he lost consciousness, and then discovered himself in the water, instinctively swimming, mind clouded by the memory of those last terrible seconds on board the Maine. But the Merrimac had not blown up. She had been struck by a torpedo fired from the cruiser Reina Mercedes, which, although unable to put to sea because of her damaged engine, was still a very formidable floating battery, and was now sinking rapidly by the head.
There was no time to reach the dinghy. Joe watched the remainder of the crew rushing on deck and throwing themselves over the side just before the ship went down. By now he was swimming strongly himself, attempting to breast the tide. He fought his way to the far side of the channel, and there clung to a rock, gasping and shuddering as he regained his breath and his strength, but out of the worst of the current, and away too, from the beams of the searchlights which were sweeping to and fro. The rest of the crew were lost to sight on the far side of the ship, which had now sunk, although her masts remained poking out of the water. And now Spanish patrol boats were coming out of the inner harbour to investigate what had happened. Joe realised he could do nothing to help the others, on the far side of the channel. Even if they got ashore they were certain to be taken prisoner. But he had no intention of surrendering himself. Slowly he worked his way against the current, from rock to rock, keeping always in against the side of the narrow channel to escape the worst of the tide, and to save himself from being seen. There was little chance of this, however, although he was splashing vigorously as he swam; there was too much noise and excitement coming from the other side of the harbour. He heard shots as well as shouts, and was sorely tempted to return and see what he could do. But there was nothing he could do, he reminded himself; eight men could not take on an entire garrison.
It was rapidly growing light when he at last reached the entrance, which, although only two hundred yards from where the ship had gone down had seemed like a hundred miles against the tide. He swam into the deeper and less turbulent waters outside the cliffs, and saw, to his enormous relief, that Midshipman Powell and his steam launch was still sheltering beneath the overhang, waiting for some information as to what had happened. The lookouts spotted him quickly enough, and a few minutes later he was being hauled on board. One look at his face told Powell what had happened. ‘Will anyone else get out, sir?’
‘No,’ Joe said. ‘Take me to the flagship.’
*
‘Brave men,’ Admiral Sampson said. ‘Brave men. Not more so than yourself, Mr McGann.
Well, we must hope and pray that they have been taken prisoner, and that they will be well treated. Now … we must wait for the army.’
The Admiral now had just about the whole American fleet, save for the Pacific Squadron under Commodore Dewey, concentrated off Santiago, as the battleship Oregon had at last come up, having rounded Cape Horn, and he was determined that here the decisive naval battle of the war would be fought. The men were keener than ever to get at their enemy, not only to avenge Hobson and his gallant men, but because news had arrived that Dewey and his men had accomplished their task, destroyed the Spanish Pacific fleet in Cavite Bay, and were only awaiting the arrival of sufficient soldiers from the States to take Manila itself; the city itself lay helpless under their guns.
But the problem of bringing Cervera to battle remained. He was not in an open anchorage as outside Manila, and it appeared that nothing the Americans could do was going to force him to leave shelter. The battleships kept up a steady bombardment of the port, to the delight of the correspondents, who every day sent despatches back to Florida claiming that the Spanish defences had been reduced to rubble — only to have the guns open up again an hour or two later. The fact was, as the Navy was now realising, that sea borne guns, necessarily fired from a considerable distance, could simply make no great impression upon earthworks, which merely went up into the air and then down again, roughly in the same place and behind which the Spanish cannon were perfectly safe. Nor was there any indication that the ships in the harbour were suffering any damage from those shells which went right over the top; the Americans were naturally somewhat cautious about raising their trajectories too high because of the city full of non-combatants just beyond.
But now at last a message was received from General Miles that although his plans were far from complete, he would be despatching as many men as were actually immediately available, at least a division, to invest and if possible force the surrender of Santiago. The division would consist of two brigades of regular infantry, complementary artillery, and also a contingent of volunteers raised by a certain Theodore Roosevelt, a wealthy man who had done a great deal of travelling in the west of the United States, and had formed this regiment of his own from amongst the cowboys and frontiersmen he had encountered. Called the Rough Riders, they would supply the cavalry which the regular army entirely lacked in Florida.
‘Things are moving at last,’ Admiral Sampson told the officers he had called to a conference on board New York. ‘However, General Miles points out that it was never his intention to begin his campaign until after the summer, which is necessarily the sick season, and he is therefore anxious that every possible facility is extended to prevent his men from being cooped up on their transports for any length of time. So our first duty must be to seize a port which we can hold, and at which the army can be landed. Your friend Garcia recommends Daiquiri, Mr McGann.’
Joe, who had been included in the conference of senior officers because of his local knowledge, said, ‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you know the harbour?’
‘I do, sir.’
‘Is there deep water close by the shore?’
‘Close enough.’
‘That garrison?’
‘About three hundred men.’
‘We can drive them out easily enough by bombardment,’ Commodore Schley said, ‘and then land the marines. But what about counter attacks from Santiago?’
‘That is a risk, sir, certainly. There is a railroad from Daiquiri to the city. While that will be very useful to General Miles once his army is ashore, it will equally facilitate a Spanish advance upon our position while they outnumber us.’
‘What about the irregulars?’ asked another officer. ‘Couldn’t they be used as part of the garrison?’
‘How many men did Garcia say he would put into the field?’ Sampson asked.
‘At least a thousand.’
‘Well, there’s our answer. A thousand Cubans, and five hundred marines should be able to cope with any Spanish counter attack. Captain Knowles?’
The marine captain blew his nose, loudly. ‘You don’t like the idea, captain?’
‘I’ll have to be convinced these bandits are capable of fighting alongside my boys, sir.’
‘Well, hopefully you will be. Now, we wish to surprise the Dons, so the operation will commence at dawn tomorrow morning. Once our bombardment has driven the enemy from their fortifications, Mr McGann will act as pilot to get the marines ashore. You will then make contact with the guerrillas as rapidly as possible, Mr M
cGann, and tell them that it is my wish they bring their men down to the port to form a defensive perimeter pending the arrival of US troops. Do you think they will do that?’
‘I have no doubt of it,’ Joe said. At last, he thought. All the frustrations of the past month were forgotten, as just before dawn Joe and Cotter led the big ships along the coast. How proud Christina would be to see them, and Toni, supposing she had by now joined her sister-in-law. He could only hope that they would keep out of trouble until the landing had been completed.
The bombardment was a total success, as after only half an hour they could make out a column of soldiers withdrawing from the town and into the hills beyond, in the direction of Santiago. Admiral Sampson had himself come down to supervise the landing, and now he gave the go ahead for the marines to be put ashore. Even during the bombardment men had been seen on the hills to the north east of the little town, and these now came rushing down the slopes, before the regulars had withdrawn out of range. Quite a brisk exchange of fire took place, several casualties being suffered on both sides, before the marines gained the beach, and in their pale blue shirts and breeches, their doughboy hats and brown leggings and boots, moved smartly through the town, watched from behind half-closed shutters by the terrified inhabitants, opening a brisk rifle fire as they gained the railway track. For a while the Spanish returned fire, but the landing of two Hotchkiss machine guns settled the matter, and the defenders regrouped out of range on the next hill, from where they could oversee the town, the harbour, and the railroad.
‘They must have sent to Santiago for reinforcements, and maybe a mortar or two,’ Captain Knowles told Joe. ‘Which could make life pretty uncomfortable down here. We need to push forward and extend the perimeter at least to those hills over there, beyond mortar range from the beach. Where are your friends?’
‘I think these are them now,’ Joe said, pointing at the ragged collection of barefooted peons approaching them.
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