In the beam of light, Law’s face reflected disbelief, but he loyally said, “Aye, aye, sir.”
Rork thumped Law on the shoulder, a gross breach of naval discipline. “Aye, nothin’ like a wee bit o’ piracy to get the ol’ blood pumpin’! Right, Mr. Law?”
Law wasn’t as enthusiastic. He kept his eye on the gunboat and absentmindedly answered, “Ah, right, Chief. My blood’s definitely pumping now.”
We headed southeast toward the pier. By the time we reached it, the searchlight’s illumination had diminished, for we were now well over a mile from it. The gunboat was only half a mile away, however, and I expected that bow gun to open up on us at any moment. I was sure they could make us out against the shoreline.
As we closed with the pier, Rork suddenly brought out his shotgun, saying he’d seen someone up on the pier. A young voice called out a challenge in Spanish from the deck of the pier.
“Wait!” I urged. “Don’t shoot, Rork. He might think we’re only Cuban fishermen and let us go by. We’ll just have to find a boat somewhere else.”
We watched the pier closely, waiting for the flash of gunshots, but none came. I guessed the sentry hadn’t gotten the word on our escape and actually did think we were fishermen. Then I realized something else. The tide was ebbing fast. I gauged it at over a knot. We’d arrived at the pier much quicker than I’d anticipated, making about six knots over the bottom. The gunboat was approaching fast and would be on us in only a couple of minutes.
It was too late to slow down. We were swept past the dinghies tied up at the end of the pier, which was soon behind us. I surveyed the shore ahead for some small boat pulled up on the rocky shoreline. At last, only fifty yards off our bow, near Cocos Cove, I spied the outline of several fishing smacks clustered around the outer end of a small dock. A couple of them had dinghies. No sentry challenged us, and I saw no fishermen. I steered for the closest dinghy.
Belatedly, I realized my intended target was a sorry excuse for a watercraft, but beggars can’t be choosers. In one impressively smooth movement, Rork hopped across into the boat, slashed its painter line with the rigging knife from the seabag, and grabbed our gunwale before we sped past. In another two seconds, Law and our seabag went over into the dinghy. Only I remained on board the steam launch.
The new acquisition dragged alongside the launch’s port gunwale—the side hidden from our pursuers—as I put the helm down hard and veered the little steamer over to starboard. I settled her on a westerly course for the far side of the bay, lashed the tiller in place, and clambered on board the dinghy. Rork shoved us away.
The launch proceeded onward toward the middle of the bay, the opposite direction from our new course. We headed southeast, toward shore.
The Spanish sailors in charge of that menacing beam of light never noticed our switch, keeping it glued to the steam launch. The gunboat followed the light beam, altering course to starboard to cut off the launch somewhere to the west of us.
Pooom … pooom … pooom … pooom—the 42-millimeter bow gun fired its rounds at the launch, which had become merely a gray form since it was beyond the maximum intensity of the searchlight. Though the gunboat was less than three hundred yards from the launch, none of the shots scored a direct hit, although they were close. The Spanish had taken the bait, but once they went on board the launch and realized we were gone, they’d backtrack and search our area.
My new command—all twelve feet of her—was dangerously overloaded, with only a few inches of freeboard showing, and the southerly wind was kicking up a chop against the ebb tide. The worst problem, however, was inside the boat. The bilge was ankle deep in sloshing oily water, threatening our stability. I felt around for something to bail with but found nothing that would hold water. Up in the bow, Law was pulling hard on our only pair of oars, trying to get us going faster. Rork and I paddled with our hands.
I felt water rising around my calves and realized the dinghy was sinking. Obviously there was a leak, and with so much weight in the boat it had gone from a trickle to a torrent. Rork and I began feeling along the inside of the planking, trying to find and plug the leak before it sank us. Our efforts were to no avail. Soon the tiny boat was completely swamped, ready to capsize at any moment. There was only one choice.
I told my crew, “We’ll have to go overboard and swim alongside the boat. Even swamped, I think she’ll carry the seabag with our stuff on the center thwart.”
We removed all extraneous items from the seabag—there weren’t many left—then put our shotguns, pistols, and my waterproof-wrapped pocket watch inside. We secured the bag atop the main thwart amidships, the highest and only relatively dry place left in the boat. I led the way into the warm water, and we hung on the gunwale with me aft, Rork on the port side, and Law starboard. With our weight gone, the boat rose in the water a bit. The seabag rode just above the water level.
“Aye, now there’s a wee bit o’ flotsam we could use quite nicely,” said Rork as he pushed off toward a large, leafy mass of tree branches the ebb tide had brought out from some creek ashore. He struggled to bring it back—Rork can’t swim well because of his false hand, plus we were all still in our shoes. Law swam over to help. Together they camouflaged the boat into a clump of drifting storm debris.
“Well done,” I told them. “Now, let’s start kicking. The ebb tide will help us. We’ve only got a couple of miles ’til we see our ships. Then it’s a decent breakfast with Uncle Sam, boys.”
To our right I saw two dark forms merge into one. The gunboat had come alongside the launch at the center of the bay. Even above the wind and waves we could hear the excited discussion drift across the water as the Spanish sailors searched the launch. The two forms parted. The smaller one headed north toward the naval station. The larger headed in our direction.
None of us said a word, mesmerized by the growing bow wave of the gunboat.
Suddenly, the warm southwesterly wind off the Caribbean shifted 180 degrees, becoming a strong, cool breeze off the mountains. I smelled moisture in it and almost wept with relief. Seconds later a curtain of dense rain roared across the water, blotting everything from sight. We could hear the gunboat circling nearby, the sound diminishing until the rumble of her engine was gone. The tropical rain shower, the cursed bane of our existence in Cuba, had become our protector. It rained and rained. No one complained.
In the wave action generated by the squall, several braces in the decrepit dinghy’s frame worked loose and the little boat began to bend out of shape. It didn’t take long for the hull to separate from the thwarts and forepeak. A few minutes later the entire boat fell apart. Law and I perched the seabag precariously within the clump of tree branches, which became our sole source of flotation. Too exhausted to kick and paddle any more after that, the three of us clung to the branches and drifted south down the bay in the deluge.
Our situation was precarious, but I felt we just might make it.
42
Sunrise
Santiago Bay, Cuba
Sunday Morning, 3 July 1898
IT WAS THE STINGING sensation that first woke me. Then Rork completed the job by prodding my shoulder. “Sun’s risin’ an’ the weather’s clear, sir. We’re doin’ fine, exceptin’ these damned jellyfish.”
“What?” I mumbled. My hands and face hurt, as if burned by a hot iron.
“Drifted into some jellyfish in the night. Sorry to say we all nodded off, sir. An’ there’s worse news. You won’t be fancyin’ where we’ve ended up.”
The pain was worse when my face was completely out of the water. Jellyfish, or aguamala as the Cubans call them, had stung every inch of my exposed skin, which was now covered with a burning red rash. Rork and Law had it too.
As Rork woke up Law on the other side of the raft of branches, I cautiously and with some difficulty opened my eyes wider. Saltwater, slumber, and swelling from the stings had glued them shut. Once I took my bearings, I realized I was facing east. The sky was light, clear of clouds. But
the sun itself was still hidden behind Gran Piedra Mountain far to the east, behind the American lines.
A quarter mile away on the bay’s eastern shore lay the Punta Gorda fortress, one of the Spanish forts armed with modern heavy artillery. Rork’s prediction of my reaction was accurate—I didn’t like sitting in the water right off the fortress. I mentally pictured the chart of the harbor. We floated for several hours and are only about a mile and a half from where the dinghy fell apart?
Abruptly, big engines rumbled close behind me—so close I could feel the vibration through the water as well as the air. Startled, I twisted around to see their source.
“Oh, hell.”
“Precisely, sir,” said Rork. “That’s where we are.”
We were in the middle of the Spanish fleet.
Law jerked fully awake, quietly letting loose an oath as he registered first the pain and then our location. Rork was a sad sight indeed with his long gray hair, complete with antiquated queue, plastered down around his enflamed face.
“Should’a kept a proper watch as we drifted last night. Damn sorry, sir,” he admitted with a weary sigh. “Got weak an’ shut me eyes. On top’uv every bloody thing else, we get nailed by friggin’ jellyfish. Can ye believe it? It was my watch …”
“Nobody’s fault, Rork. It was just too much for all of us. Our bodies and brains shut down.”
To make the dilemma even more interesting, or perhaps I should say depressing, the tidal current rushing past a nearby channel buoy indicated we were about halfway through a flood tide. That meant we hadn’t floated two miles since the dinghy sank; we’d probably floated much farther on the last of the strong ebb. Evidently, fatigue had made us oblivious to what was happening as we floated right through the anchored enemy warships and all the way to the mouth of the bay. In fact, when the ebb tide finally turned and became a flood, we’d probably been only three or four miles from the inshore night positions of the American fleet, but we never knew it.
The flood tide had brought us a couple miles back up into the bay to the Spanish fleet. All six ships were busy weighing anchor, smoke pouring from their funnels and capstans clanking. Men were stowing everything that could be an impediment in battle and bringing up ready ammunition for the secondary and tertiary guns. Officers were shouting commands through speaking trumpets. Boatswains’ whistles twittered. Sailors cursed. A bugle blared. Over on the parapets of the fortress I made out a line of uniforms—the army was watching the navy prepare for battle.
The lead ships were already steaming slowly in tight circles near Cayo Smith, the round island just inside the mouth of the bay, their anchors streaming water and mud as they came up to the hawse pipes in the bows. The closest of the Spanish warships was only fifty yards away from us—and was nothing less than a large armored cruiser.
I recognized her at once. Cristóbal Colón was a heavily gunned and speedy cruiser built in Italy. In April and May she had been one of Spain’s most feared warships along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts, where they expected to see her any day, destroying shipping, docks, and factories. They had good reason to fear her.
Colón was a state-of-the-art warship, in service for only a year. Everything about her was intimidating. At 8,000 tons she was larger than our exploded battleship Maine. Colón’s speed was twenty knots, and 5-inch armor plating covered her waterline, deck, and conning tower. Even her main turrets had nearly two inches of armor. And inside those main turrets she had a 10-inch and two 8-inch guns. The secondary battery consisted of no fewer than fourteen 6-inch guns, ten 3-inch guns, and four torpedo tubes. The third set of weapons on board was an array of six 47-millimeter rapid-fire guns and at least two Maxim machine guns.
But then I spotted a glaring—and potentially disastrous—defect in her armament. Her heaviest gun, the 10-inch in the forward turret, which had an effective range of seven miles and enough explosive power to sink any American ship smaller than an armored cruiser, was missing from her foredeck.
I had read intelligence reports stating the Spanish navy had faulted the original Italian-designed mounting and had refused acceptance until it was changed. The reports concluded that the gun and mount would be ready in May 1898. Many American naval officers, myself included, thought the Spanish might have accomplished this installation at a secret rendezvous while Colón was en route to Santiago. Since her arrival at Santiago Bay she’d been hiding behind headlands and islands, and our Navy hadn’t gotten a good look her.
From my current vantage point, however, there was no doubt she was still missing that gun. In its place was a Quaker gun, as the Americans and British called them—a fake wooden gun barrel that couldn’t hurt anyone. The significance of this was enormous: Colón could be outranged by smaller American ships if they came at her from ahead.
As I assimilated this information, the sun emerged above the mountaintop, illuminating the bay in shades of aqua and jade. Several sailors on Colón paused to look east at the sunrise—and right toward us. I held my breath, wondering how they could miss us. There couldn’t be many clumps of tree branches floating in the bay. Fortunately, we were in our blues, and our jungle-stained seabag was various shades of black and brown. Maybe they wouldn’t notice us.
“Get as far down into the water as you can,” I told the others. “We’ll paddle slowly west away from here, toward the opposite shore. This flood current will take us astern of the cruiser and toward the northwest part of the bay. There are some isolated coves over there with far fewer Spanish soldiers, I think. Once we get ashore we’ll make our way to General García’s forces in the Sierra Maestra west of the city.”
Rork spit out some saltwater. “Could fancy a wee squall for some cover right about now. It’ll be a long swim past that bloody big cruiser. I’m feelin’ like a friggin’ strumpet tryin’ to sneak past the abbot.”
“Hell, Rork,” I retorted, trying to improve the mood, “you’d just offer the abbot a tot of whiskey and charm the wrath right out of him.”
He laughed. “Well, there was that one time …”
We began kicking our feet and paddling with our hands. Between the tide and our efforts we got the branches started moving in the right direction. Behind us, the sun rose quickly, turning the water translucent. I guessed the time to be somewhere between 8:30 and 9 a.m.
Colón’s anchor was up and almost secured. She altered course to make a wide circle to starboard. We’d been heading away from her, but the new turn would take her back around toward us, right across our escape course.
I recognized the irony of all this. The great battle for which both navies had prepared for years was about to begin. My only son was out there in Oregon waiting for these very ships to emerge. Soon he’d be in the thick of it all. But here I was, his father and a senior naval officer, ridiculously clinging to a tree branch as the tide floated me away from the scene of the impending battle.
“Hell’uva way to fight the bloody war, ain’t it?” said Rork as he retightened his loosened false hand. “If me mates could only see me now.”
Law bobbed his head toward the cruiser. “Ah, Captain, I think those fellows are pointing at us.”
43
Men in a Tree
Santiago Bay
Sunday Morning, 3 July 1898
LAW WAS RIGHT. Spanish sailors on the cruiser’s foredeck were pointing at us. One of them shouted aft to officers on the bridge about men in the floating tree.
“Right enough, Mr. Law,” said Rork. “The little buggers’re indeed talkin’ about us, an’ none too kindly, I’m thinkin’.”
The Spanish didn’t waste any time. Colón’s steam launch was halfway up on its davits being squared away for battle when it was stopped, quickly raised to the main deck, manned with a crew, and lowered back to the water. There was still steam in the boiler, and they set out immediately for us. I noted the crew wasn’t armed with rifles. Maybe there was a chance we could take the boat.
As the boat came up to us I heard the coxswain tell the oth
ers in Spanish, “Get those traitorous dogs on board so they can go out and die for their country like everyone else.”
Then it dawned on me. Carlito had told the sentries at the naval shore station that we were drunken Spanish officers. The launch crew we’d dumped in the water hadn’t heard us speak, and in the dark probably hadn’t had enough time to recognize our uniforms as American Navy rather than Spanish. So naturally they concluded that we were Spanish naval officers who had deserted to avoid battle, very much a capital offense. Evidently, the Spanish army hadn’t told the Spanish navy of their own embarrassment—our escape from army custody.
The boat arrived at our branches. I was about to explain to Rork and Law my realization of this humorous but potentially fatal twist when a Spanish sailor leaned down and grabbed me by the collar. He yanked me up and over into the launch. It took two of them for Rork, who also got a solid thump on the head with a belaying pin for being perceived as uncooperative. Such a hit would’ve rendered me unconscious, but Rork has had more than his share of thumps on the head during his thirty-seven years in the Navy. He weathered it without obvious trauma, replying with a stream of invective.
Our Marine tried to swim away to fight another day but was harpooned by a boathook and dragged back. He wasn’t impaled—it was a dull-pointed boathook—but he was bruised badly. The lieutenant uttered some very ungentlemanly comments at the Spanish sailor who got him, then got his own thump on the head in return.
The all-important seabag containing our gear was lifted on board far more gently than any of us and put aft. The Spanish coxswain briefly poked through its contents and got quite a surprise. Then he looked at me again, focusing on the four gold stripes on the cuff of my sleeve. I could see his mind working. Clearly, we weren’t the deserters he’d assumed we were. He ordered us herded to the forward bilge, where we were held at pistol point by a nervous youth with a trembling gun hand. It was the coxswain’s pistol, the only firearm in the boat.
Honoring the Enemy Page 26