Wind of Destiny

by Christopher Nicole

The field command had therefore devolved on General Wheeler, and both he and Shafter were determined to attack the next day, before their sick list grew to too imposing dimensions. When Joe told him that Garcia had promised to support any advance he was delighted. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Here’s what we’ll do. General Lawton, you will take your brigade and assault El Caney. I can give you your eight battalions of regulars, and one of volunteers, as well as one battery of artillery. General Kent, your task will to be to reduce San Juan hill. Colonel Roosevelt, I’ll be obliged if your men would support General Kent. However, it seems to me that El Caney is the key position. The attack on San Juan will therefore not commence until it can be seen that El Caney is going to fall. Understood?’

  The general officers nodded. ‘What about the irregulars?’ someone asked.

  ‘We must use them to our best advantage. Lieutenant McGann, can you remain ashore for one more day?’

  ‘Willingly, sir, if you will signal the request to Admiral Sampson.’

  ‘I will do that. I’d like you to get back to Garcia first thing tomorrow morning and ask him to hold his people until the Spanish defenders at El Caney are thoroughly engaged with my men, or in full retreat … ’ he smiled. ‘Which is the more likely. I would be grateful if you would remain with the irregulars to make sure they comply.’

  ‘I will do that, sir.’

  ‘Very good. Well, take as your marker the moment my men get to within six hundred yards of the fortifications. Then bring the guerrillas down in a sweep between El Caney and Santiago itself. That will either take the Spaniards in the rear if they are holding their positions, or in the flank if they are already in retreat. Understood.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Joe said.

  Everyone was in the very highest spirits at the thought of the battle tomorrow, and no one seemed to doubt that the Spanish infantry, no matter how bold they might have proved themselves in skirmishing, would cut and run at the sight of advancing American bayonets. Joe hoped they were right. Since witnessing the way the Dons had stood up to the bombardment of the fleet, and having heard Jack Lisle speak of their defensive qualities, he was a little more respectful of their quality as soldiers. But he did not doubt that tomorrow would be the moment of decision.

  The army was roused at dawn, on a dull, overcast morning, and prepared to march off. Joe was lent one of the very few horses available, and rode away to the north, this time, well to the west of Obrigar, however firmly his heart might be at the plantation. On the high ground behind Santiago he drew rein, and looked back through his binoculars, to watch the khaki clad columns winding their way through the scrub and pine trees, moving very slowly as the guns of the artillery battery had to be hauled by hand.

  He could also look down on El Caney itself, the earthworks and the houses, even the church, all of which had been loopholed and turned into miniature fortresses. And the Spanish were awake. Behind the earth embankments he could see rows of the straw hats which all the Spanish soldiers wore, very sensibly, to keep the sun off their heads.

  It was time to hurry, and he urged his mount into a canter, but had not ridden a mile when he heard the sound of gunfire, and another check of the situation showed that the American artillery had opened fire. Soon the guns on both El Caney and San Juan were replying, and the shell bursts dotted the sky, which was now clearing very rapidly to reveal the promise of a typically brilliant Caribbean day.

  He went on, losing sight of the looming battle as he rode into the next shallow valley, and was mightily relieved to see Jack Lisle sitting on a mule in front of him, on the next rise. ‘Your people here?’ he shouted.

  Lisle nodded.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘We have better than five hundred.’

  ‘Well, that’s a whole lot better than the last time.’

  ‘Ah,’ Jack said. ‘Every man of them intends to be the first into Santiago.’

  ‘God damn,’ Joe said. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ He wondered if either Shafter or Wheeler had considered the prospect either.

  ‘And they’re not only thinking of looting the place,’ Jack said. ‘They have a lot of old scores to settle.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, we’ll have to do something about that,’ Joe said. ‘But let’s win the battle first.’

  Jack swung his mule alongside the horse. ‘What’s the plan?’

  Joe told him. ‘You in command?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Garcia. With Diaz second. I’m just a fighting man nowadays.’ Joe glanced at him. ‘That’s not what I heard.’

  ‘It wasn’t always like that.’

  ‘And you don’t resent that?’

  ‘Funny, that’s exactly what your sister said. No, I don’t resent it. I came here to fight the Spanish, and I’m doing that. If I think I know more about the business than the Cubans, that is a private opinion.’

  Joe drew rein. ‘And just what about you and my sister, Lisle?’

  Lisle also stopped. ‘We seem to love each other. I should remind you that she is over twenty-one.’

  ‘Then maybe I should remind you that she is a married woman.’

  ‘We’re both aware of that. Let’s say all three of us who matter are aware of that.’ ‘Meaning I don’t matter.’

  ‘No,’ Lisle told him. ‘You don’t, Mr McGann. This is a situation we have to work out for ourselves.’

  They stared at each other, but Lisle wasn’t going to lower his gaze, and Joe suddenly realised that he was right. He had no business playing the big brother, when Toni had survived what she had without any aid from him. ‘I guess it’s all going to be sorted out when the shooting stops.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then let’s move.’

  *

  To Joe’s relief, Toni was not with the guerrilla force. Even she had apparently realised that a pitched battle was not the place for a woman. Briefly he outlined what Wheeler wanted them to do, and Garcia and Rafael seemed contented enough. The men moved forward to a valley immediately adjacent to El Caney, although some two miles distant, and the four officers stood on the top of the rise and waited for the fighting at the fort to intensify, but it took some time to do so. The guns could still be seen firing, and bodies of Americans could be seen moving forward, or attempting to do so, but the steady ripple of fire from the white-clad Spanish infantry behind the earthworks and the barbed wire continued, and the Americans could not venture on to the open ground before the fortifications without risking heavy casualties.

  Beyond, they could also make out San Juan, and there was fighting down there as well, as the American left wing had obviously grown tired of waiting for the assault on El Caney to develop. While beyond them again was the sea, and the American warships, also spectators of the scene.

  But their interest was concentrated on the force between El Caney, as it inched its way forward, seeking what shelter it could. In fact, several units were making quite good progress, as the Spanish were concentrating most of their fire on one section of the attacking force which was constantly enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke, and whose whereabouts was therefore easy to establish. That it was suffering heavy casualties could be gathered from the steady stream of men who were either limping or being carried to the rear.

  ‘That has to be a volunteer regiment,’ Lisle observed, after studying them through Joe’s binoculars.

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Because I would say they are using old-fashioned Springfield rifles, which don’t fire smokeless powder. They are more of a liability than a help in modem warfare.’

  And indeed, shortly afterwards, the entire force could be seen withdrawing; obviously General Lawton had come to the same conclusion as Jack.

  Then it was a matter of again waiting, and it was not until mid afternoon that the Americans had crawled painfully forward to within what Joe estimated to be six hundred yards of the earthworks, while all the time the fire from both defenders and attackers had never slackened.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Joe
said.

  ‘You mean you are coming with us?’ Rafael enquired.

  ‘You’re damned right,’ Joe said. He didn’t tell his brother-in-law that it was at least as much because he didn’t trust them out of his sight as any desire to take part in the fight.

  He dismounted, tethered his horse to a tree, drew his revolver, and waved the guerrillas forward. He would have preferred their advance to be quiet, at least until they were seen by the enemy, but that was impossible, and shouting and yelling bloodcurdling threats the Cubans flooded down the hill, running where they should have been walking, and firing their rifles when they had no targets at which to aim. Their appearance, however, did have an effect on the defenders of El Caney, who began to look over their shoulders, while the Americans cheered and renewed their assault on the slope. But the Spanish were well commanded and behaved with exemplary coolness. A company was withdrawn from the earthworks and wheeled to fire a volley into the advancing insurgents. The two sides exchanged shots at a distance of about a thousand yards, and several men in each force fell. Then the Spanish captain ordered the charge, and the infantry surged forward behind a line of glittering bayonets.

  ‘Form line,’ Joe bawled. ‘Garcia, Rafael, form your men up and keep firing.’

  But the sight of the bayonets had been too much for the guerrillas; several had already taken to their heels, and in a moment it became a general rout. They fled every which way, and Joe, after emptying his revolver at the advancing troops, had no option but to go with them — he had not come out here to die uselessly. But as he reloaded his revolver while he was running backwards, he tripped and fell, heavily, losing his gun, which spun out of his hand with the jar of the blow. He attempted to get up, and found that his ankle was almost too painful to bear his weight. He turned to face the infantry, gritting his teeth, and thinking how absurd it was for a naval officer to die in battle in a field in Cuba, then heard a series of shots, and realised that he was being straddled by Jack Lisle, who was firing his revolver with the utmost coolness and accuracy, choosing his targets and hitting his man each time, so that those Spaniards in front of them went to ground while they reloaded their rifles.

  ‘Lean on me,’ the Englishman said. ‘And let’s get the hell out of here.’

  Joe didn’t argue; the bayonets were only a hundred yards distant. Together he and Lisle hobbled from the field, the last to reach the relative safety of the hillside, where Garcia and Rafael had at last rallied their men, and were getting them to lie down and open fire.

  ‘I owe you my life, I think,’ Joe said.

  Jack gave one of his twisted smiles. ‘I don’t think Toni would have forgiven me if I had just left you there to die,’ he said.

  ‘As for these scum,’ Joe said disgustedly.

  But Garcia was grinning good naturedly. ‘We did what we had to, senor lieutenant. Look there.’

  For the momentary distraction of the garrison of El Caney had succeeded. The Americans had got close enough to launch their assault and the Spanish were falling back, while the men engaged with the guerrillas had also begun to retreat.

  ‘You see?’ Rafael asked. ‘It is a great triumph.’

  ‘I very much doubt we had all that much to do with it,’ Joe said. ‘But I’d better get back down there and see what General Wheeler means to do next. Help me to my horse.’

  They lifted him into the saddle. ‘Sure you can make it?’ Lisle asked.

  ‘Sure I’m sure,’ Joe said. ‘Just maintain your men here until you get further orders.’

  He set his jaw against the pain, and rode into El Caney itself, where the doughboys were busily throwing up reverse defences against a possible counter attack, and counting the cost of their victory, which was severe. Further down San Juan had also fallen to the impetuous attack of the Rough Riders — determined to belie the nickname bestowed on them by the regulars who, contemptuous of their lack of horses, had called them Roosevelt’s Weary Walkers — but there too the casualties had been heavy. And no one could doubt that the battle for Santiago had only just begun. Before Joe had regained the American lines, General Wheeler had attempted to capitalise on his tactical victory by sending a flag of truce into Santiago, requesting General Linares to surrender as his position was now hopeless, and General Linares had refused, compounding the American difficulties by reminding them that there were a large number of non-combatants in the city whose lives would be at risk in the event of a storming attack.

  General Shafter had by now come ashore, and he was even more concerned by what he had been told by the prisoners his troops had taken, that General Linares was expecting reinforcements of several thousand men down from Havana. ‘Can your guerrilla friends stop several thousand regulars?’ he demanded of Joe.

  ‘I don’t think they can, sir,’ Joe had to admit.

  ‘So there we are. Oh, you’ve done the best you could, Lieutenant. I intend to mention that in my despatches. Now you’d better get back to your ship and rest that ankle.’

  Joe was happy to do this. His ankle was really very painful, and he felt a whole lot safer on board the Dahlgren than lying amidst the fever-ridden casualties in Daiquiri. ‘Glad to have you back, sir,’ Cotter said. ‘What’s it like ashore. We saw a lot of firing.’

  ‘It’s grim,’ Joe told him. ‘And going to get grimmer. I’m for bed.’

  But he stayed on the bridge to watch the sunset. Now that the firing had ceased it was an intensely pleasant evening. The fleet had now entirely returned to its watching position off the harbour mouth, with the exception of the New York, which had gone down to Daiquiri at the urgent request of General Shafter, so that the General could confer on the latest situation with Admiral Sampson. The other big ships lay some five miles off the land, and fairly widely dispersed, most with just wisps of smoke coming from their funnels to indicate that they had even let their boilers run down, to save fuel, as there seemed no doubt now that the fleet action they all wanted was not going to happen, at least until Santiago was ready to surrender. The Dahlgren and the other torpedo boats, which lay nearer the harbour mouth, and were also being used as despatch boats, kept up steam all night, but they too merely drifted to and fro on the tide and in the gentle swell, while Joe, retiring, could only feel how lucky he was to be a sailor and thus be able to separate himself from the heat and the bugs and the wounded and the stench of death. And wonder how Christina and Toni were faring. But they had to be better off now than at any time in the past three years.

  Christina, and his child! His son, he did not doubt at all. They were as much married now as they would ever be. How he longed to hold her in his arms, and stroke that luxurious hair, and be able to promise her that from here on life was going to be nothing but roses, all the way.

  He slept heavily, despite the pain in his ankle, because he was so totally relaxed. He knew he would have to admit even that Jack Lisle had turned out one hundred per cent better than he had thought possible, and if he and Toni and Rafael could work things out — although he didn’t have any idea how they were going to, within either a moral or a religious framework — then he would be as pleased as anyone.

  The next day was Sunday, and he conducted the interdenominational service as usual just after dawn, then returned to his cabin to rest his leg and write his weekly letter to his parents, chewing his pen as he was not at all sure how much to tell them, either about himself or about Toni, and was disturbed by an excited Ensign Cotter banging on his door. ‘Lieutenant McGann, sir, Lieutenant McGann, you won’t believe this … but I think the Spanish fleet is coming out.’

  Chapter 15

  Santiago — 1898

  Joe was on deck in a moment, to find that most of his men had beaten him to it. He leaned on the bridge rail doing his best to forget his swollen ankle, and stared at the shore. Nothing had changed, save that clouds of black smoke were billowing above the cliffs; there were clearly several big ships on the move in there and burning an inordinate amount of fuel, and even as he watched, he ma
de out the shape of the Infanta Maria Teresa, which was known to be Admiral Cervera’s flagship, emerging through the narrows.

  ‘This is it,’ he snapped, and hastily looked over his shoulder to see what the rest of the fleet was doing. The Spaniards had chosen as good a time as they could to emerge, not only because Admiral Sampson and the New York had not yet returned from Daiquiri, but because most of the American battleships were still low on steam. But that the lookouts on board the Brooklyn, which was acting flagship, had seen the emerging vessels was clear. Flags were climbing up her rigging, and her funnel was starting to puff as her stokers got to work.

  ‘Engage the enemy,’ Cotter said, reading the signals.

  ‘Yippee,’ shouted Midshipman Lucas.

  Joe looked at the other torpedo boats. Both were underway, closing the coast, but with some caution. ‘Make steam, Chief,’ he snapped down the tube. ‘Prepare to launch a torpedo attack, Mr Cotter.’

  By now the whole Spanish squadron could be seen, in line ahead, the Infanta Maria Teresa in the lead, then the Vizcaya, then the Cristobal Colon, and lastly the Admiral Oquendo. Following the big ships there were two torpedo boat destroyers, four-hundred-tonners reputed to be quite as fast as the Dahlgren or any of her sisters, and of course much more powerful; their names were Pluton and Furor.

  Each ship, as she emerged from the entrance, began firing, and with the forts on the cliff top also coming into action, the sea became dotted with plumes of water and visibility was obscured by the flying spray. But now the American battleships had opened fire as well, their shells screaming overhead with a remarkable accuracy to hit the larger Spanish vessels. Cervera had turned away to the west immediately on clearing the land, and he also now engaged in a gunnery duel with the larger American vessels leaving the smaller ships caught in the middle. Joe could hardly see for spray and it seemed a miracle that the Dahlgren was not yet hit. He was now within a mile of one of the Spanish cruisers, and turned broadside on to loose his torpedoes. All four went off, but to the chagrin of Ensign Cotter, and indeed everyone on board, they all missed and careered harmlessly towards the shore another mile further away.