In regulation form, I announced myself. “Captain Peter Wake, U.S. Navy, Fifth Corps liaison to the Cuban Liberation Army, reporting in as ordered, sir.”
“Wake, I called for you yesterday evening and expected you to be with General García when he arrived at the commanders’ conference several hours ago. Where exactly have you been? He said he hasn’t seen you for days.”
The general didn’t offer me the small camp chair on my side of the table. The omission was intentional, a pointed sign of his displeasure. I didn’t care.
“Sir, yesterday morning I was at El Pozo, on my way from this headquarters to General García’s staff, when the attack on El Caney began. Since I couldn’t catch up with General García’s staff where they had been before beginning their attack on El Caney, I headed for where they were supposed to end up, over on the right flank of the cavalry division at San Juan Heights. That course put me with Colonel Roosevelt’s cavalrymen during the attack at Kettle Hill and San Juan Heights.”
His brow furrowed. “Roosevelt, eh? Hmm.”
“Yes, sir. As you know, General Lawton’s and General García’s divisions didn’t capture El Caney until the afternoon. They didn’t join the main army on San Juan Heights until last evening. I got word then that you wanted me to report to you during the divisional commanders’ conference at El Pozo and set out immediately. Upon arrival after a three-hour march, I discovered the conference was over and was told to wait because you would be returning. An hour ago, they told me to see you here, at Los Mangos.”
“Confounded miscommunications.” The general’s face tightened, and he let out a disgusted harrumph. “And yes, that El Caney attack took far longer than anyone thought it would.”
He exhaled while wearily shaking his head. “The commanders’ conference ended hours ago. They’re heading back to their divisions now. Wake, I wanted you at that meeting so you would know the overall situation before embarking on your next task.”
“My next task, sir? With the Cubans?”
He looked at me nervously. “No, I’ve reassigned you from García to me. I’ve got a job for you to do. To do it correctly, you need to understand my plan. We’re going to reinforce our existing lines to hold the line we’ve already got along the heights. Then we’re going to extend our lines to completely encircle Santiago. García’s Cubans will handle the northern and western sides of the city while we hold down the eastern side. The Cubans are also going to try to stop a column of five thousand Spanish reinforcements coming toward Santiago right now from Manzanillo, though I have doubts they’re up to it.”
I thought that plan remarkably ignorant. Did Shafter really not have a basic understanding of the terrain and order of battle of both his allies and his enemies?
“General, the Cubans don’t have enough men or artillery to stop a 5,000-man enemy force. Especially if they’re also trying to hold down a 12- or 15-mile-long section of the perimeter around Santiago. General García only has about 6,000 men available to him at Santiago. His other regiments are holding down positions—and Spanish units—all over the eastern end of Cuba while our army has at least 17,000 men ashore to hold only 5 miles of the perimeter.”
Shafter wasn’t impressed. “Yes, well, the Cuban side of the perimeter is a temporary stopgap measure. As the siege unfolds, we’ll get more of our men ashore to expand American control of the perimeter to include the Cubans’ current segments. General Miles is arriving soon with another seven thousand men and some heavy siege artillery.”
I could not control my anger—or my tongue. “Siege? General, if you convert this offensive campaign into a siege it’ll take months to starve the Spanish out of the city. And the rising rate of fever sickness will be at 50 percent of this army by the end of the month—at the very latest.”
He bridled. “Captain, I fully realize the fever factor. Some officers are suggesting the alternative to a siege—another attack on the enemy’s defenses.”
“No, sir! A frontal assault would be suicidal. Their defenses are too damned strong and layered in depth. We don’t have enough men for any more days like today. The casualty rate was nothing compared to what it’ll be if we try that again against the main Spanish defenses on San Juan Heights. I was there.”
As my last comment came out, I realized I’d gone too far. Shafter hadn’t gotten closer than a mile to the front line. His face went from blotchy to solidly enflamed. I heard someone’s boots scuff the planks outside the doorway. The guards and staff were getting an earful.
Pounding the table, Shafter spat out, “Damn you, sir, I am sick of your continued impudence! I don’t need some discarded sailor who couldn’t get his own ship to tell me how to run my 23,000-man military campaign on land!
“Wake, your only assignment was to be a liaison for us with the Cuban general and his staff, and you haven’t even been able to carry out that minor responsibility. So get this crystal clear and adjust your insolent attitude right here and now—you have no authority here. You have no advisory capacity in my staff, you are not commanding any of my troops, and you were not asked your opinion of anything regarding strategy. Is that completely understood, Captain?”
It was. Regarding my position and authority, General Shafter was absolutely correct. I was nothing but a glorified lackey, and not even a good one. I heard more boots on the planks. I had no doubt the tirade would be spread all over the army by mouth, telephone, and telegraph within the hour—if those devices even worked. I could hear it now. Ooo-whee, the general really laid into some Navy officer who told him off about the campaign. Damn, I thought Ol’ Pecos Bill was gonna shoot the poor bastard.
I came to attention, feeling humiliated in my unprofessional dishevelment. It had been awhile since I’d been dressed down by a superior officer, but I still knew the automatic response.
“Aye, aye, sir. Understood completely.”
He deflated a bit, leaning back in his chair with a loud exhale. After wiping away the sweat covering his face, he lowered his voice. “Very well, then. Let’s get back to what I was about to say before you began lecturing me. I need solid information about the enemy’s dispositions, and I need it fast. You are going to provide it.”
Shafter paused to catch his breath. I remained silent, though I did relax from the position of attention, for I felt absurd being braced up at my age. He leaned forward with a frown, as if what he was about to utter was distasteful to even consider, much less say.
31
The Secret Option
V Corps Headquarters, Los Mangos, Cuba
Saturday before Dawn, 2 July 1898
“UNFORTUNATELY, WAKE, you are the only American officer who has seen the entire Spanish defensive line around Santiago. Plus, you know the lingo and how to survive on your own in this dreadful place. So, since you are still under my authority, you are released from your liaison posting with General García’s staff. A note regarding that will be sent to him. It is now 3:16. When you leave here you will return to the front line. After sunset tonight you are going to execute a special reconnaissance mission for me, to be completed by midnight.”
Shafter turned in his chair and pulled one of the maps from a pile on the bed behind him. He spread it out on the table, flattening it with a thud. It was an 1895 Spanish topographical map, stained and crumpled but showing the terrain, roads, and major fortresses around the city. Probably captured at San Juan Heights, I surmised.
The general put a finger on the map at Santiago. “You and your assistants will scout out the area on the southern outskirts of the city. That is, between Santiago Bay on the west, the city’s inner defenses to the north, the southern end of our lines to the east, and the coastal forts at Morro in the south. It’s an area of four miles east to west, three miles south to north. Specifically, I want to know if there is any weakness we can exploit somewhere between Fort Cañadas on the southeast side of the city and the inland side of the Morro fortifications at the entrance to the bay.” The general’s finger slid from Santiago t
o the area south of General Kent’s infantry division on the left, or southern, flank of the American line, which had been penciled along San Juan Heights. Someone coughed outside. Shafter glanced at the door and lowered his voice as he continued.
“I am moving some of our reinforcements under General Bates to the far left of General Kent, which will be the new southern flank of V Corps’ lines. They’ll be opposite Fort Cañadas and in position by late afternoon today. That will give us a continuous line from El Caney to San Juan Heights and most of the way down to the coast.”
He looked up at me expectantly, so I nodded my acknowledgment. He continued.
“I repeat that I need to know what you discover by midnight tonight. If you find a place weak enough for us to cross, then Bates will attack through that area and assault the coastal forts from behind. That will be at dawn on the morning after I receive your report. The timing of that report is crucial. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“His success will secure the entrance to the harbor. The Navy, as you surely know, can’t do anything about the Spanish fleet hiding up in the bay until the mines at the harbor’s entrance are removed. The mines can’t be removed until the forts are destroyed or captured. Our capture of the Morro forts would enable the Navy to remove the mines, enter the bay, destroy the Spanish fleet, and then compel the city to surrender.
“If this possible opportunity can be successfully exploited, we can end this entire campaign without a frontal assault on the city’s main defenses and without a protracted siege during the fever season.”
He paused and cast me a defiant look, daring me to dispute his brilliant and bold plan. It was all I could do not to laugh. Capturing the coastal forts to enable the Navy to enter the bay was the original campaign plan, before Shafter decided on his own to approach Santiago through the inland jungle and hill country, away from the covering fire of our warships at sea.
The forts had to be captured because the minefield at the entrance of the bay was electrically controlled from inside El Morro Fortress. In addition to the mines, the heavy shore batteries from half a dozen forts would wreak havoc on any warship assaying the narrow entrance to the bay. But the coastal forts did have a weakness: their landward sides had no heavy guns.
I hadn’t seen any large formations in that area when I’d circumnavigated Santiago a week earlier. The enemy troops I’d seen were concentrated on the northern and eastern perimeters of the city itself. The southern flank was patrolled but empty of significant formations. Once the American invasion had landed, however, the Spanish would certainly have placed troops out in the open countryside between the city’s perimeter forts and the coastal forts to prevent an attacking land force from capturing El Morro and its subordinate fortifications from the landward side. I was amazed Shafter hadn’t already conducted a reconnaissance.
Shafter added an ominous condition to his orders. “Wake, no one, including the division commanders, knows of my idea on this. Do not tell anyone, not even your own assistants. This secret option must remain secret until I choose to employ it.”
“Aye, sir,” I parroted, “keep it secret.”
“Good. You should start now. The colonel outside will arrange provisions and supplies for you and your men. Remember, it is imperative that I have this information by midnight so I can decide whether to attack. We’ve strung telephone wire to the front line, so call me immediately upon returning from your mission.”
“The line is down, sir. I heard someone on your staff report that minutes ago, on my way in.”
His faced tensed again. “It will be fixed. Just get me that information.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” I said as neutrally as I could. His instruction about secrecy worried me. I’d heard the same sort of thing before in my career. When a superior says no one else knows what you’re doing, it means he won’t be blamed if things go badly. If the mission ends in victory, he grabs the credit and brags about it to the press.
Incredibly, at this point he tried to boost my morale. “Wake, with the Cubans that you have attached to you and your personal knowledge of Cuba and the Spanish defenses, I know you’re the best man for this important job. Your mission could mean the difference between ultimate victory or defeat.”
That sounded rather lame considering his earlier estimation of me. I kept my sentiments out of my reply. “The Cubans assigned to me are dead, sir. They were killed in the assault today. It’ll just be Chief Rork, Lieutenant Law of the Marines, and me.”
I expected a reply, but the general was acting as if I’d already left. He was leaning over the map, intently studying the area around El Morro. The colonel came in, wordlessly handed me a signed provisions requisition form, then put another report in front of Shafter.
The general quickly perused it and started a discussion with the colonel about the number and type of available flatbed wagons at Siboney. Obviously, my presence was no longer needed, so without the usual farewell respects to my commander and his adjutant I walked out into the dark.
Neither of them seemed to notice.
32
The Actor
U.S. Army Field Hospital, Siboney, Cuba
Saturday Morning, 2 July 1898
“WELL, IS IT BACK TO the Cubans or back to the Navy?” asked Rork, his voice giving the latter possibility a hopeful lift.
“Neither, Rork. It’s back to doing another little job for the U.S. Army. But first, we’re going to make a little unauthorized detour.”
It was late morning and already hot when we got to the coast. I smelled the sea before I saw it—a fresh, crisp tang of salt air that blew the jungle’s miasma of death and decomposition out of my lungs. We crossed the Siboney River on a newly built bridge, courtesy of U.S. Army engineers, and crested a small knoll overlooking Siboney village. The Caribbean Sea was an azure expanse of clean freedom, a stark contrast to the slimy confines of the tropical forest. It was filled with American ships of every type, a sight to gladden the heart of any sailor.
Once down in the village I sent my men on their assignments: Rork to find decent food and drink and Law to find some replacement uniforms. Our clothing had become unrecognizable as American uniforms, a potentially mortal liability should any friendly forces mistake our identity.
The scene at Siboney shocked me. Everything had changed in the eight days since I’d last been there. The sleepy village of a few dozen Cuban peasants was now a city swarming with a thousand American soldiers. Greasy cook tents, bulging supply tents, old staff tents from the Civil War, and soldiers’ tiny half tents covered every possible space of high ground from the riverbanks to the hills behind the village.
Amidst the rows of tents were muddy thoroughfares and side streets. Wheel ruts in the main streets had turned into miniature streams, and makeshift walkways of planks or tree limbs meandered about the side streets. I went through the tent town and down to the pier.
Dozens of boats, barges, and lighters competed for docking space on the pier’s leeward side, for the surf was up, and landing a heavily laden boat on the beach was impossible. On the narrow pier itself, wagon drivers, stevedores, and supply sergeants argued over the destinations of the cargo, artillery, and livestock being landed. A bespectacled lieutenant was sitting on a bollard swearing aloud to no one in particular.
On the western side of the village the coastal railroad line sat unused. I kept walking. Offshore, troop transports, hospital ships, freighters, and gunboats rolled on the long Caribbean swells waiting for their turn to unload cargo or take on the sick and wounded. I knew their captains were eager for orders to do anything other than sit there wallowing in the shimmering heat.
Siboney was the dreary side of war, that unsung but crucial part that supports the men fighting on the front lines. No medals or fame would be garnered at Siboney, just day after day of hard decisions on impossible dilemmas.
After getting directions from a sergeant, I walked toward the worst of the entire place—the corps’ general hospital. E
ven a thousand feet away I could distinguish the odors of quinine, iodine antiseptic, ether, sewage, and vomit. As I got closer I heard the anguish of those undergoing surgery.
I’d seen it all before. Rork and I had been patients in such places several times. The horror returns when you see it again. At the hospital’s front tent, a fresh-faced young medical sergeant with tired eyes stopped berating an orderly to answer my inquiry.
No, he’d never heard of Maria Wake of the Red Cross. But, he hurriedly added, most of the Red Cross nurses were over in the “sickness section” treating soldiers with diseases. He pointed toward a group of tents located farther up the hill, separated from the “wounded section” to prevent the spread of contagion. I headed up the hillside.
Maria was in the third tent I entered. The sign at the entrance labeled it the “Dysentery Ward.” A row of cots lined each side, and it was beastly hot inside. Every one of the cots had a soldier in it, and a few more sick men lay on blankets on the ground. Most were naked except for a towel covering their torso. She was at the far end, bent over a soldier curled up on his side on a cot.
I barely recognized her. She was in a white smock with a red cross stitched to the upper left front. A brownish-yellow stain was smeared across her waist. Her silky dark hair, which she usually maintained in an elegant French braid, was a tangled mass pulled up in a bun. In her hands was a white enamel tub, which she began carrying toward the doorway. Her expression was listless, her eyes cast downward as she walked.
“Maria,” I said gently to get her attention.
She looked up and stopped five feet from me. Now I could tell what was in the tub, the stench even more awful than the sight. Her hands trembled. I stepped forward and took the tub from her, placing it down on the dirt floor. Then I wiped away the tears that began running down her face. She said not a word as I held her in my arms, the quiet weeping turning to sobs as her last barrier of strength burst. The tent grew quiet, every man watching us.
Honoring the Enemy Page 20