I let that point sink in, then continued. “The regular soldiers are disciplined professionals experienced by fighting in Africa, the Philippines, and Cuba. They don’t get rattled. If outnumbered they will withdraw in good order and make you pay for every foot of your advance. Forget what the American press says about them. Do not underestimate the Spanish army, gentlemen. Their regulars are deadly. All of their troops—regulars and militia—know the jungle and how to fight in it. Our troops don’t.”
“What’s the best way to beat them?” asked Wood.
“Bait them to attack you over open ground, if you find any. Hit them with artillery and machine guns as they approach.”
“Like you did at Isabela?” asked Roosevelt. He saw my surprise and added, “I heard about it from Woodgerd the day before I left to join the regiment.”
A former Army officer turned mercenary, Michael Woodgerd was an old mutual friend who’d turned up at the battle in a new role: correspondent for William Hearst’s newspapers. He’d been alongside me in the battle.
“Yes, but I was lucky. We weren’t in the jungle. It was a coastal town with open ground. We were able to withdraw the men onto the ships at the dock before the Spaniards overwhelmed us. Then we escaped under the covering fire of the squadron.
“You won’t have naval gunfire support once you move a couple of miles inland from the beach,” I warned. “And moving artillery along jungle paths will be slow, if not impossible. Keep your machine guns well maintained and always ready. Forget your cavalry horses. They aren’t used to the Cuban heat and forage, and there’ll be no room for large cavalry formations to maneuver in the forests.”
“No horses? Our boys won’t like that at all,” said Roosevelt. “Woodgerd told me the same thing, though. By the bye, he also informed me about the official government and press reaction to your victory at Isabela. To say I was angry is an understatement, but I was gone from power by then.”
Because of the controversial tactics I was forced to employ to save my men against an enemy outnumbering us ten to one, the official reaction to the victory at Isabela a month earlier was to simply ignore the battle. Washington and New York considered my actions dishonorable atrocities unworthy of an American and worried what the public would think of my decisions. The entire affair was downplayed into a minor raid and skirmish with minimal comment, no mention of the tactics, and no accolades. The press also ignored what had happened, for it didn’t fit in with their propaganda. Woodgerd, who had written a factual account supporting my decisions and tactics, quit the Hearst newspaper in a rage the day his editor refused to publish it.
“Don’t worry about it, Theodore. The important thing is we accomplished the mission and got the Cuban exile battalion with its artillery into Cuba.”
“And your new mission?” Roosevelt asked, with a noticeable tinge of hesitancy.
I took a moment to look each man in the eye before replying. I’d joined the Navy thirty-five years earlier to stay out of the Army. Now I was working for the Army because of these two men.
“You two damn well know what my mission is. You both recommended me for it. Without my consent or knowledge, I might add. I found out last Friday evening during dinner, from a drunken fool on the Army staff who let it slip. Shafter confirmed it a few minutes ago when I reported into V Corps Headquarters.”
Wood looked worried. “Peter, we didn’t mean—”
I held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t say a word, either of you. I’ve had three days to calm the hell down. I’ve already arranged transport to Cuba for tonight. I just wish I had Rork with me.”
Chief Boatswain’s Mate Sean Rork was my best friend and thirty-five-year comrade in arms, the one man I trusted completely in perilous situations. We’d worked intelligence missions around the world and saved each other’s life many times.
Roosevelt shook his head. “Blasted bad luck. Edith told me about Rork’s fiancée marrying another man while you two were fighting the Spanish at Isabela. He’s far better off without her, of course. I understand why he needed to go back to sea rather than face his old friends.”
From a life filled with tragedy, Theodore knew grief well. He lightened his tone. “But I understand Rork’s joined Oregon, right? A bully ship! And if I recall correctly, isn’t your son Sean with her also?”
My son was a lieutenant and the assistant gunnery officer in the battleship Oregon. She was steaming with Admiral Sampson’s blockade fleet off Santiago de Cuba.
“Yes, Theodore, they are both with Oregon waiting to battle the Spanish fleet, which is where I should be as well.” I changed the subject. “Enough of me and the Navy. What about you two? What’s happening with your regiment?”
Wood answered. “Our train got in Friday night after four days of travel. They originally told us it would be two days. When we finally arrived, we found total confusion. Nobody knew where we were to camp. Eventually we bivouacked a quarter mile west of the hotel.”
He lowered his voice. “We’re keeping the men busy with training and maintaining the camp conditions as sanitary as we can here. So far, only a few have succumbed to the various detrimental influences that seem to abound in Tampa. Haven’t yet gotten word when we’re loading on the ships or where in Cuba we’re heading.”
“In my opinion, this inaction degrades efficiency, sir,” piped up Roosevelt. “Our boys are raring to go down there and show the world what an American fighting man can do!”
I didn’t comment, for I knew they’d find out soon enough when they were shipping out, probably later that day. Instead, seeing an hour of my precious time had somehow quickly gone by, I stood to leave. “Gentlemen, I’m behind schedule and have to go. I’ll see you next in Cuba. Theodore, your children need you, so don’t do something stupid when you get into combat thinking you’re being heroic. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!” he answered with a grin, but we both knew he would likely do just that.
4
The Spreading of Joy
208 Lafayette Street, Tampa, Florida
9 a.m., Monday, 6 June 1898
AFTER CHANGING MY UNIFORM for a rumpled tan suit, I dashed out the back verandah of the hotel. Leaving the resort’s idyllic gardens behind, I turned left on Lafayette Street and walked east on the iron bridge over the Hillsborough River to the center of town. Tampa was no longer the quiet, pleasant southern community it had been for many years, for the lure of government war money had transformed it from charming lethargy to cynical chaos. The results were vividly apparent to the senses.
Making my way along Lafayette past the locomotives at the South Florida Railroad Depot belching their dense, toxic clouds, I tried to ignore the competing stench from horse manure in the streets, leakage from overflowing regimental latrines, and the overworked sewer system designed for far fewer people. The city reeked of human and animal waste. The sights and sounds were no better.
At the intersection of Lafayette and Tampa Streets, traffic was in a state of bedlam. Four vehicles had just collided, one of which was completely capsized. Its horses had run off, and the cargo of bananas, strewn everywhere, was turning into a sea of brown mush and rotting quickly in the sun. A long line of Army commissary wagons waited on Tampa Street, the drivers half asleep, having given up hope of moving anytime soon. In contrast to the drivers, three dozen people of all colors and classes stood amid the wreckage, squabbling about who was at fault in Tampa’s primary languages: English, Spanish, and Italian. Two frustrated policemen were issuing orders to which no one in the angry mob paid any attention.
On the crowded sidewalk it was no better. Wandering soldiers, some still drunk from the night before, swaggered or tottered along. Smug merchants and dapper government functionaries sidled through as disgusted young women tried to ignore the rude comments soldiers cast their way. It was only midmorning, but in the alleyways I saw thieves coldly searching the crowds for unwary souls. They could afford to wait. The day’s incoming troop trains hadn’t arrived yet.
&n
bsp; After passing a bookbinder’s shop, I came to my destination next door, a seedy-looking saloon. Half a dozen sullen soldiers were loitering outside waiting for it to open. They took no notice of me as I ducked into a narrow alley beside the saloon and climbed a rickety exterior stairway to the second floor. The door at the upper landing was unlocked, and I walked inside. It was pitch black compared with the sun’s white glare outside.
“You are late. Rare for you,” said a deep, disembodied voice somewhere to my left. I recognized the refined Creole drawl with its Gallic accent. “Unforeseen interruptions, Professor.”
“Understandable. There have been a lot of those for everyone lately. I have the information you needed, but as usual it is not written down. Too many eyes and ears around here. Some of them belong to your enemy.”
My eyes began to adjust to the gloom, registering a tiny candle providing a dim glow from a café table in the far corner. It was oppressively hot and rank in the room. Sweat poured off me. The room’s only other occupant, a dark-skinned older man practically invisible except for his white hair, goatee, and gleaming eyes, lounged in a simple chair at the table. He wasn’t actually a professor. The sophisticated manner was a practiced façade he enjoyed. I was one of the few who knew his real name—or at least I thought I did—though I always used the common moniker by which he was known in the Caribbean.
As he gestured to the other chair, smoke from a Cuban cigar wafted over me. His left hand was on a bottle. I could smell the sweet scent of rum on his breath.
“Thought you might want a taste of Dupré Barbancourt’s very best, Peter. Might steady your nerves for what lies ahead—as it did for us in Haiti a decade ago.”
When I didn’t reply, he laughed disdainfully. “Too early in the day for you, Peter? Oh yes, you Americans have strict religious rules about such indulgences in the morning.”
I ignored the bait. I also remained standing. This wasn’t a social call. “No rum for me. I don’t have much time and need a clear head, so just let me know the code names of my contact with the rendezvous location, date, and time.”
He seemed disappointed there would be no discussion of societal mores. The Professor could be quite mercurial when he’d been drinking. I’d seen him shoot a man for being impolite to a dog.
“As you wish. We shall concentrate on the business at hand. There is only one contact, Peter. No secondary contact or contingency plan is available. Times are perilous. Willing collaborators are few, and your enemies are many. The code name for your contact is Isidro.”
“Isidro?”
He took a long pull from the bottle, then chuckled softly. “Ah, I knew you would appreciate the poetic justice of such a nom de guerre, not to mention the additional layer of anonymity it provides. Really, who among your considerable list of personal adversaries would think you’d use that particular name for the complete stranger who controls your destiny?”
His sarcasm did have a valid point. Isidro was the name of my nemesis, the Spanish secret policeman I’d killed in Cuba four months earlier, before war was declared. The bastard had been trying to kill me and my family for twelve years.
“Very funny. Where do I meet this Isidro? What does he look like?”
“Your rendezvous with Isidro is at Tánamo, on Cuba’s northern coast. No specific time, but a very specific day. Just get yourself there. Isidro will know you have arrived and will contact you. You know the place?”
“Know of it. Never been there. What day?”
“On the twelfth of this month, no earlier and no later, for Isidro has other commitments. Which means you have only six days. Can you make it in time?”
“Seems I’ll have to, won’t I?”
He sensed my disapproval of the loose arrangements. His apology rang a little hollow. “Je suis désolé. It was the best I could do since you gave me such short notice.”
I’d cabled him my request late on the previous Friday night, after the drunk let slip my mission. “You did well to get all this done in three days. No one else could’ve done it. Merci. So, what’s your fee?”
He’d refused to discuss a fee earlier, though I’d asked in the cable. The Professor shrugged and took another pull of rum. “In this particular endeavor I had to be especially innovative. Called in some long-ago promised favors, of which certain people needed to be reminded. I also had to spread some joy to facilitate the rental of loyalty among the locals at your destination. One hundred British sterling pounds of joy, to be precise. That makes my total fee twelve hundred U.S. dollars. I presume I shall be reimbursed in the standard way?”
He knew $1,200 was more than triple the highest amount I’d paid in the past to get people into or out of Cuba. It was to be expected in the current situation, however, for war has a precipitous effect on prices.
I knew he wasn’t lying to me. He wouldn’t, for he literally owed his life to me. The Professor had a lot of mortal enemies of his own. He knew if he ever cheated me or I suddenly disappeared, his identity and last known location would be sent to those enemies. His life would be instantly forfeit, measured in hours.
“Yes,” I replied. “Your fee will be deposited in the Nassau account at the beginning of next month, like the old days. Anything else?”
“Yes, a warning. The Oriente province is vastly different from Havana, Peter. Its people and culture are more like Haiti in many ways. This, naturally, means it is much like Africa.”
“I’m well aware of the cultural similarities, Professor.”
He chuckled again, this time with a touch of evil. “Yes, you have been in Oriente, but in the white cities, not in the remote, un-Christian, uncivilized areas. And this time you will not be so fortunate as to have me with you, Peter.”
After a brief pause for dramatic effect, he continued. “Isidro is a curious character who possesses some highly unusual acquaintances who will be your guides across the mountains to the south coast. I am afraid they are of the type who will remind you of your painful experiences in Haiti.”
Haiti—the one place in the world that would always haunt me. I couldn’t forget my terrifying time there, though I’d tried for years. Poisoned surreptitiously by Vodoun sorcerers, I was thought dead by everyone, even though I was still conscious. My body was about to be buried when Rork saved me with an antidote made from bush medicines. I knew exactly the hazards to which the Professor alluded. A chill went through me.
He leaned forward in the chair. “You must remember this point very well, Peter: my money bought you an entrée with Isidro’s entourage and further contacts, but you are the one who must cement that entrée into a bond. This is an absolute necessity, for those strange people will be your only protection in the wild mountains of Oriente on your journey to General García.”
He knows about García?
He leaned back, taking another gulp, letting the rum swirl in his mouth as he watched my reaction closely. After a couple of seconds he leered through the gloom at me. “Oh, don’t look so surprised, my friend. Of course, you are headed for García. Why else would any American go to Oriente these days? Just remember what I said. Do not antagonize your guides.”
Using every ounce of willpower, I merely uttered, “I’ll try to remember that.”
His reply was equally nonchalant, rendered partly in in his native Haitian Creole. “Then it is time to say bòn chans, zanmi mwen …”
That last phrase, “good luck, my friend,” he uttered with obvious insincerity. I responded with a standard line in the same lingo, another recollection from that sinister time of my life. “Volonte BonDye.” God willing.
With that said, I walked out the door into the brilliant sunlight. Heading back through the pandemonium of the streets to the grand hotel, I walked more quickly than before. Maria was waiting for me in the cool, clean, gentle quiet of our room. I needed to hold her. I needed to feel her love. To feel normal.
I also had to purge those memories of Haiti from my mind.
5
Au Revoir, Not
Adieu
Tampa Bay Hotel, Tampa, Florida
10 a.m., Monday, 6 June 1898
OUR CORNER ROOM ON the third floor was one of the hotel’s finest, certainly the equal of General Shafter’s at the other end of the quarter-mile-long building. It was spacious and lavishly appointed with the latest in amenities, and Maria and I had resided there quite comfortably for the previous month while I recovered from the flesh wounds on my face, chest, and torso.
This entirely agreeable convalescence was courtesy of my wife’s wealth, for I could not have paid for it on my naval salary. This is not to say that our usual living arrangements were as opulent. Quite the contrary, for we both preferred a simple home life. Up in Alexandria, Virginia, we lived in a small cottage. Our retreat down at Patricio Island in Florida was an even smaller bungalow.
When I finally reached the posh room, my suit was drenched with perspiration and I was ready for a cool drink. But our room wasn’t the refuge I’d hoped for. Far more important worries awaited me there.
Maria had tried to be supportive since I’d told her the previous Friday night about the general aspects of my new assignment. “Admitted to her” would be a more accurate description, for she had intuitively known I was returning to the war in Cuba—a war against her native Spain. She’d confronted me about it before I could figure out a way to bring it up.
When I entered the room, she was sitting in a chair by the window, crying. In the garden below, soldiers were going through the ritual of changing the guard. Standing behind her, I held her shoulders and kissed her neck. She was trembling as the sergeant of the guard bellowed his commands, putting on a show for the staff officers and reporters assembled on the verandah.
Honoring the Enemy Page 3