Maria’s tears grew into wracking sobs when she looked up at me. I could see she needed to unload the burden weighing on her heart. It started slowly in a whisper, rapidly increasing to a torrent of despondency. She reached up and clutched my hands.
“Peter, I am trying to be brave for you, but it is so impossibly difficult to smile when I must cry—when any sane person would cry. Everyone and everything around us has become insane. The world is insane. All because of this war madness over something called national honor. I have lost so much. My darling son Francisco, a priest who never hurt anyone, is dead, murdered by a monster who called himself a proud Spaniard. My other son, my little Juanito, is a prisoner of war languishing in a filthy camp a thousand miles north of here.”
She paused, but I said nothing. She had to let it all out.
“And you, my husband, the center of my being, who came so close to dying from Spanish guns, are now scarred by them for life. Our very best friend, Rork, is somewhere out there on the ocean with our young Sean, waiting to fight the Spanish navy. And last night our well-meaning but stupidly naïve friend Theodore actually told Edith he needed to face the enemy to prove himself a good American man. I just spoke with her. She is sick with fear he will die or be maimed. All of this misery, and why? Because some Spanish idiot sank a warship? Or even worse, maybe it was an accident caused by some American idiot?”
Maria knew I doubted the official U.S. explanation that a Spanish mine had destroyed Maine at Havana back in February. I thought it might have been a spontaneous combustion in the coal bunker, which had been filled with notoriously unstable bituminous coal. The bunker was adjacent to the ship’s forward magazine, which then exploded. Many naval officers had thought and said the same thing at first; now they all echoed the official conclusion.
In her anger, Maria’s fingers dug into my hands. “Every day I see more and more sick boys in the Army hospital, Peter. Now we have wounded sailors coming in from the small battles around the Cuban coast. Soon the big battles will be fought, and then it will be thousands of boys coming into the hospital. No one is prepared. We are so short of nurses, even someone useless like me is needed to tend to the patients.”
Maria was not a trained nurse. In an effort to do something positive after Francisco was killed she had volunteered to help organize Red Cross hospitals in Washington and Tampa while I was away at war. Since there weren’t enough trained nurses, she’d pitched in to help, learning by doing. By all accounts she was good at it, but the work had taken a fearful toll on her heart.
“I can’t do it anymore, Peter. I keep seeing your face, or Sean’s, or Rork’s, or Theodore’s, on each one who arrives. I am so frightened …”
Her anguish overcame her. She was unable to speak or even look at me. I wasn’t sure what to say or do. I knelt beside her chair. Turning her to face me, I pulled her close, gently suggesting, “Perhaps some time away would be good. You could go home to Alexandria.”
She shook her head wearily. “No. It is too near to Washington, where the most truly insane are urging all this on. On the street, people stare at me with contempt, for my Spanish blood stands out. At least down here in Florida there are so many with Spanish blood that I am not a curiosity. Here, I am busy helping the sick and wounded who bear the consequences of this insanity and ignorance.”
Her anger had stopped the tears. Suddenly, she seemed emptied of ire as well, asking in a small voice, “How much time do we have left before you go?”
“A little less than two hours, dear.”
Her hand lightly touched my face. “Promise me you will come back, Peter. You promised before and came back. So, I need to hear you promise me again, right now.”
I kissed her, lingering on her lips, savoring her taste, her scent, everything about her. I followed with a vow from my heart. “Maria, I promise to come back to you. I promise we will get through this and be stronger for it. I love you. No outside insanity can ever part us. We have a lifetime ahead of us. And someday soon we’ll be able to tell our new grandchild our wonderful love story.”
I was rewarded by a smile. “Oh, it would be wonderful if you are back in time for Useppa’s baby in November. I am looking forward to having a new little life to love and guide. We will be good grandparents, won’t we? Oh, how I cling to that future joy, Peter. It is the only pleasant part of my life these days.”
I saw by the clock on the dresser that it was half past ten. “I know it’s early, but why don’t we have something to eat, and perhaps a glass of wine. Then we can rest a bit in our big bed over there. What do you think?”
She favored me with one of her delicious laughs, part innocent and part naughty.
“Sailors! Do all of you think like this?”
“I have no idea whatever you mean, my darling,” I replied. “Are you suggesting we do something other than rest in that big bed?”
“Yes, I am, and I suggest we do it now,” she giggled. “I shocked the hotel by requesting our luncheon food and wine be here at eleven-fifteen. Until then you, my dearest husband, will get a reminder of why you should come back to me.”
“I love your reminders.”
“Thank you. Here is another. When you walk out of this door later, we will say au revoir, not adieu, and the next time we see each other we will immediately run right back into this bed, as if we never left. Those are my orders, Captain Peter Wake, of the famous United States Navy.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am!”
For the next ninety minutes the insanity of war, Maria’s fears about me in Cuba, and my nightmarish memories of Haiti disappeared from the luxurious corner room on the third floor of the elegant Tampa Bay Hotel. There was only our gentle love.
6
Back in Cuba
Tánamo Bay, Cuba
Sunday, 12 June 1898
SIX LONG, HOT, TENSE DAYS later I arrived just after dawn. It wasn’t a triumphant return for me. The freighter captain had no wish to tarry an extra moment while transporting a spy in a war zone, so I was quickly dumped from the dinghy like trash on the rough shell-and-coral beach at Tánamo Bay. Five minutes after the dinghy returned, the ship was gone.
It was oppressively hot and humid on the beach, with not a ripple of wind on the water. The mangrove jungle behind the beach stank of rotting vegetation and some dead animal. My clothing—the faded tan cotton suit of a humble Cuban merchant—was already soaked with sweat.
Fifty feet away, the head of a seven-foot-long crocodile protruded from the mangroves, its narrow, toothy jaws slightly open, as if having a private laugh at my expense. It slowly turned to watch me, an intruder in its domain. Cuban crocodiles can be very aggressive, as I remembered well from back in February, so I slowly backed away from the reptile’s part of the shoreline.
I found a muddy path leading from Punta Gitana inland through the dense tangle of mangroves. As I headed southeast on the pathway, a cloud of mosquitos and no-see-ums emerged to plague every exposed part of my body. My destination was the village of Tánamo, which my rudimentary map indicated was about three miles away. Once there, it was my intention to keep a lookout for any enemy Spanish or friendly Cuban forces and scout out a secure place to hide for the day while I waited for Isidro to find me.
Trudging along, I put away memories of the past six weeks of marital affections, soft beds, good food, decent libations, and intriguing conversations. They needed to be forgotten, not lamented or dwelled upon. I was in the jungle in enemy territory, and I needed to focus on my mission. From harsh experience, I knew that tomorrow, and each damned day afterward, conditions would get only worse.
At this particularly demoralized moment a squall line arrived. I’d been watching it come down a hill in the interior. This was not simply a heavy shower, as happens in northern climes. In the tropics, rain is a deluge. The cascade had enough weight in it to make me bend over with the strain of fighting my way through it as I slogged through the mud it churned up.
Visibility was cut to fifty feet ahead on
the path. My ears, mouth, eyes, pockets, and shoes were filled with water. The sound, sight, feel, and smell of pounding rain drowned out all other sensations. Even the bugs fled. Behind the first squall was another, then another and another. No respite, no sun, no end in sight.
Nothing on my person or carefully stowed in my seabag escaped the penetrating rain. I could predict the results. None of my possessions would be dry again for the duration of my time on the island. Mold and fungus would be apparent on everything by tomorrow. My weapons would rust in two days if not cleaned and oiled carefully. Within three days the fabric of my clothing would begin to deteriorate. In a week or two I’d be in filthy rags, able to carry less and less on my shoulders as the skin sores spread.
I was back in Cuba.
7
Isidro
Tánamo, Cuba
Sunday, 12 June 1898
AS ALL ARMCHAIR STRATEGIES inevitably do when they meet reality in Cuba, mine soon fell apart. It happened only a mile from the beach where I landed.
Sloshing through ankle-deep mud, the incessant rain having succeeded in beating down my stamina, I moved in a trancelike state, my eyes staring down at the mud just in front of me. My senses thus diminished, I literally ran into the man blocking the path.
Charcoal black and slit-eyed, his skinny body barely attired in tattered underwear, he stood with arms akimbo holding a long machete. His countenance was decidedly unfriendly.
I offered my apologies in rough Spanish, but he said nothing. He only stood there, mutely glowering at me. The reply came from someone right behind me.
“Norteamericano?”
Turning around, I found the speaker to be like the other man in physique and attire. But this fellow clearly had some status, for he brandished a large revolver, which was leveled at my face. It was a Model 1884 Obrea Hermanos .44 caliber, the standard pistol for Spanish army officers. The custom-made pearl grips and gold retainer cord marked it as the former sidearm of a wealthy senior officer. Unlike everything else about these two scoundrels, the revolver was clean and in good shape. I judged it to be a recent addition to his other weapon—a large cane knife wedged in his rope belt.
My response to his question would be full of consequence, depending on the man’s alliance of the moment. Obviously he was of African Cuban origin, and I guessed him not to be in the regular Spanish army. But was he a guerilla in the pro-Spanish militia, and thus in possession of a valuable pistol presented to him by a grateful commander? Or was he one of the famous Mambi peasant warriors in the Cuban Revolutionary Army with a revolver “liberated” from a dead enemy?
If he belonged in the former category, I would shortly be joining the many dead of the island, after an excruciating interview to extract whatever information my brain contained. But he didn’t look the part. The guerillas generally wore faded blue cotton uniforms, and most of their officers and sergeants were of a higher social standing than the peasant before me. I decided he wasn’t in the Spanish side of the equation. He looked and acted like a Mambi. If I could convince him I was an ally, I would be rescued. Maybe he even knew Isidro.
I presented my most genuine smile. “Sí, señor. Soy norteamericano.”
No reaction. He simply stared back at me.
It was then I realized my assessment was completely wrong. These fellows weren’t affiliated with either political camp. With incredibly bad timing, I’d managed to stumble upon a gang of bandits whose only allegiance was to themselves.
His bland expression morphed into a sadistic sneer as he cocked the big revolver’s hammer. In crude rural Cuban Spanish he demanded all I had.
I heard others coming out of the mangroves behind me. Their words, in the same grumbled patois, were indiscernible in the noise of the downpour, but their tone was unmistakable—an eager debate on what type of loot was inside the seabag slung on my left shoulder. Knowing my future was limited whether I volunteered my property or not, I decided to demonstrate to the boys a ruse de guerre.
Portraying abject fear was not hard to do under the circumstances. With terror-struck eyes and sobbing pleas for my life, I held up both hands in the universal gesture of surrender. Someone behind me muttered something uncomplimentary. Everyone but me laughed. Even Revolver Man’s sneer softened a bit, since it was readily apparent I was only a sniveling old gringo lost in the wilds. No menace to anybody. I could tell he was looking forward to the fun of stretching out my demise.
Their smug complacency provided the right moment for me to employ a maneuver taught to me by an ex-penitentiary inmate whose forgery skills I sometimes utilized as well. Speed was crucial.
With my left hand, the closest to the revolver, I seized the barrel and pushed it up in an arc away from me. At the same time, my right hand also grabbed it, completing the arc so that it was now pointed at the brute’s face. My movement was so unexpected that he had no chance to make the conscious effort to stop his involuntary reflex to pull the trigger as his hand was jerked up. That failure led to his instantaneous death from the face wound he’d wanted to give me.
Spinning around, I confronted his companions with their former leader’s weapon. Evidently, they’d never seen anyone actually fight back in a robbery and didn’t know quite what to do at first. Fortunately, I did. Three of them holding firearms—two revolvers and an ancient shotgun—received a bullet each. My initial acquaintance among them got a bullet too. The others decided discretion was the better part of valor and hastily retreated back into the jungle before the gun smoke cleared.
Before they could regroup I headed up the path at the double-quick. I needed to reach an area where high ground would afford me some concealment and rest, and hopefully some respite from bandits and the damned insects. Half-walking, half-running up that meandering path, I spent the next hour cursing Cuba, the Cubans, the Spanish, politicians of every breed in Washington, the U.S. Army, and most especially the man who’d sent me on this insane endeavor, Maj. Gen. William Rufus Shafter.
No one followed. At long last the thick mangrove forest gave way to fields of young sugarcane. Altering course to cross the field on the right, I headed toward a copse of banana and mango trees. With the last of my strength, I climbed the tallest mango. Stretching my body precariously across three sturdy branches, I pulled several rain-soaked branches over me for camouflage. Every muscle protested until I could finally stretch out and relax, intending a catnap of an hour. The moment my head rested on the largest limb, however, I fell into the slumber of the dead, not caring what might happen next.
I awoke to find someone throwing mangoes at me. It was still raining. Four young men who looked to be in their early twenties stood in a half circle looking up at me, conversing among themselves. Their skin color varied from ivory to ebony, they looked well fed, and their language had the slower pace of eastern Cuba, but with proper grammar. They weren’t peasants or bandits, for they were outfitted in the clothing of the tradesman class in a town.
The fellow who’d thrown the mangoes had a nascent beard trying to cover his round face. None of them had weapons showing or even appeared threatening, but I’ve been fooled before. Besides, they were the right type to be in the pro-Spanish militia.
I waved at them, smiling innocently, as my right hand inched toward my trusted Merwin-Hulbert revolver.
The bearded fellow became my chief inquisitor, asking the obvious question of why exactly I was up in the tree. Though asked pleasantly, his question had no plausible answer on my part. How exactly do you explain being a foreigner hiding up in a tree in a country at war unless you are a spy?
To gain time to come up with an explanation, I decided to play dumb, an admittedly natural talent of mine. Making a pleasant “Uh?” sound, I put my head down on my hands on a tree limb to pantomime sleeping. Then I waved for them to go away. My dramatic efforts got a chuckle from others in the audience, which I thought a good beginning.
Just as my brain began fabricating a lame lie about being a British tourist, my interrogator had
another question. This one stopped me cold.
“Why didn’t you bury them?”
Then one of the other young men surprised me with a perturbed comment in good English. “We had to stop and take time to bury your mess so the Spanish would not find the bodies and know you are here. It was a waste of our time.”
My alibi thus evaporated, I warily asked, “Are you Isidro?”
“Who is that?” the young man replied.
Not the right answer. I put my finger on the trigger.
At that moment the youngest-looking of the bunch, who had been silently watching all this while leaning against a banana tree, stepped forward. He took off a wide-brimmed straw hat, unleashing a cascade of long, shiny, dark hair, then looked up at me. I was stunned yet again. He was actually a she, a beautiful young lady of perhaps twenty years. She was clad in the same rumpled cotton trousers, shirt, and coat as the others. Her garments were loose fitting, but now that I saw her face, I recognized the shape of her gender.
“I am Isidro,” she said brusquely in flawless English. “Do not tell me your real name. I will not tell you mine.”
“How did you know I was here?” I asked, still trying to make sense of this development.
“We have watched you the entire time since we first saw your ship enter the bay.”
“Then why didn’t you meet me on the beach?”
“We expected you to come by small boat so you could get past the Spanish lookout post at the mouth of the bay in the darkness. But you came in by large ship in the daylight, so we had to eliminate the Spanish lookout post first so they could not alert their commander in the town. That is why we were late in getting to this side of the bay. Then we found the bodies and had to hide them, which took more time. We followed your footprints to this tree. You made it easy to find you.”
Damn. I hadn’t known anything about a lookout post. The Professor’s words came back to me: Just get there and Isidro will know it. He will contact you when you arrive.
Honoring the Enemy Page 4