Part 10 (1/2)
Three times in the first week I went over those terrible roads from the front to Siboney and return. Arriving at Siboney late one night, there was no way I could get on board the State of Texas and I was obliged to remain on sh.o.r.e. The Postmaster insisted that I occupy a room in the building used for a post-office. Such a courtesy could not be refused, and against all feeling of acquiescence, and with a dread as if there were something wrong about it, I allowed myself to be helped out of the wagon and entered the house. The Postmaster sat down and talked with me a little while. I thought he seemed ill. I had never met him before, but my heart went out in sympathy for him. I feared I was taking his room, although he did not admit it.
I was shown into a room where there was a cot, a table, and a candle without a stick, burning upon the table. The men went outside and laid down upon the steps for the night. I laid down upon the cot, but it was impossible for me to remain there. Something constantly warned me to leave it. I got up, went to the door, looked out upon the night and darkness, and waited for the gray of the morning. I went out and stood upon the beach beside the sea and waited more and more, until finally some of the men appeared, and I went with them down to the water.
Six days later they told me that the rightful occupant of the cot--the Postmaster, who had seemed so ill--had died of a fever raging here that they called ”yellow fever.” I had occupied his cot. I wonder who it was that so continually warned me that night to keep away from that room, away from the cot, away from all connected with it? ”Yellow fever” was not then talked of. Did some one tell me? I do not know--but something told me.
The negotiations between General Shafter and the Spanish army at Santiago were going on. The flag of truce, that threatened every day to come down, still floated. The Spanish soldiers had been led by their officers to believe that every man who surrendered--and the people as well--would be butchered whenever the city should fall and the American troops should come in. But when General Shafter commenced to send back convoys of captured Spanish officers, their wounds dressed, and carefully placed on stretchers, borne under flags of truce to the Spanish lines at Santiago, and set down at the feet of General Toral, and when in astonishment that officer learned the object of the flag of truce and sent companies of his soldiers to form in line and present arms, while the cortege of wounded were borne through by American troops, a lesson was learned that went far toward the surrender of that city.
I happen to know that it was not without some very natural home criticism that General Shafter persisted in his course in the face of the time-honored custom of ”hostages.” One can readily understand that the voluntary giving up of prisoners--officers at that--in view of an impending battle, might seem in the light of old-time army usages a waste, to characterize it by no harder term. It is possible that none of the officers in that field had ever read the Articles of the Treaty of Geneva, or fully recalled that the treaty had become a law, or that their commander was acting in full accord with its wise and humane principles.
By this time the main talk of the camp was ”yellow fever.” It was soon discovered by the medical authorities that, from there having been at first one case of fever, there were now one hundred and sixteen, and that a fever camp would probably be made there, and the wounded gotten away. It was advisable then that we return to our s.h.i.+p and attempt, as far as possible, to hold that free from contagion. I was earnestly solicited to do this, in view of what was expected of our s.h.i.+p, and of what was expected of us, that we not only protect ourselves but our cargo and s.h.i.+p from all contamination and even suspicion.
I faithfully promised to do so, and again called for an army wagon, leaving all supplies that were useful for the men in camp--sending to El Caney what was most needed there--and taking only our personal effects, started for Siboney. In less than twenty minutes the rain was pouring on us and for two hours it fell as if from buckets. The water was from a foot and a half to two feet deep in the road as we pa.s.sed along. At one time our wagon careened, the mules were held up, and we waited to see whether it should go over or could be brought out, the water a few inches only from the top of the lower side. It was scarcely possible for us to stir, hemmed in as we were, but the men from the other wagons sprang to our wheels, hanging in the air on the upper side, and we were simply saved by an inch.
But like other things, this cleared away. We came into Siboney about three o'clock, in a bright glare of suns.h.i.+ne, to find the town entirely burned--all buildings gone or smoking--and a ”yellow fever” hospital established a mile and a half out from Siboney.
All effort was made to hold our s.h.i.+p free from suspicion. The process of reasoning leading to the conclusion that a solid cargo, packed in tight boxes in the hold of a s.h.i.+p, anch.o.r.ed at sea, could become infected in a day from the land or a pa.s.sing individual, is indeed an intricate process. But we had some experience in this direction. Captain McCalla, in his repeated humane attempts to feed the refugees around Guantanamo, had called again for a hundred thousand rations, saying that if we could bring them to him soon he could get them to the starving people in the woods. We lost no time, but got the food out and started with it in the night. On reaching Guantanamo we were met some distance out, called to, and asked if any one on our s.h.i.+p had been on sh.o.r.e at Siboney within four days; if so, our supplies could not be received. We took them away, leaving the starving to perish.
The constantly recurring news of the surrender of Santiago was so well established that we drew anchor, came up to the flag-s.h.i.+p, and sent the following letter to Admiral Sampson:
”State of Texas,
”_July 16, 1898_.
”ADMIRAL SAMPSON, Commanding U. S. Fleet off Santiago, Flag-s.h.i.+p New York.
”Admiral: It is not necessary for me to explain to you my errand, nor its necessity; both your good head and heart divine it more clearly than any words of mine can represent.
”I send this to you by one of our men who can tell all you wish to know.
Mr. John Elwell has resided and done mercantile and s.h.i.+pping business in Santiago for the last seven years; is favorably known to all its people; has in his possession the keys of the best warehouses and residences in the city, to which he is given welcome by the owners. He is the person appointed four months ago to help distribute this food, and did so with me until the blockade. There seems to be nothing in the way of getting our twelve hundred tons of food into a Santiago warehouse and giving it intelligently to the thousands who _need_ and _own_ it. I have twenty good helpers with me. The New York committee is urging the discharge of the State of Texas, which has been raised in price to four hundred dollars a day.
”If there is still more explanation needed, I pray you, Admiral, let me see you.
”Respectfuly and cordially,
”CLARA BARTON.”
These were anxious days. While the world outside was making up war history, we thought of little beyond the terrible needs about us; if Santiago had any people left, they must be in sore distress; and El Caney, with its thirty thousand homeless, peris.h.i.+ng sufferers, how could they be reached?
On that Sunday morning, never to be forgotten, the Spanish fleet came out of Santiago Harbor, to meet death and capture. That afternoon Lieutenant Capehart, of the flag-s.h.i.+p, came on board with the courteous reply of Admiral Sampson, that if we would come alongside the New York he would put a pilot on board. This was done, and we moved on through waters we had never traversed; past Morro Castle, long, low, silent, and grim; past the wrecks of the Spanish s.h.i.+ps on the right; past the Merrimac in the channel. We began to realize that we were alone, of all the s.h.i.+ps about the harbor there were none with us. The stillness of the Sabbath was over all. The gulls sailed and flapped and dipped about us.
The lowering summer sun shot long golden rays athwart the green hills on either side and tinged the water calm and still. The silence grew oppressive as we glided along with scarce a ripple. We saw on the right as the only moving thing, a long, slim yacht dart out from among the bushes and steal its way up half-hidden in the shadows. Suddenly it was overtaken by either message or messenger, and like a collared hound glided back as if it had never been.
Leaning on the rail, half lost in reverie over the strange, quiet beauty of the scene, the thought suddenly burst upon me--are we really going into Santiago, and alone? Are we not to be run out, and wait aside, and salute with dipping colors, while the great battle-s.h.i.+ps come up with music and banners and lead the way?
As far as the eye could reach no s.h.i.+p was in sight. Was this to remain so? Could it be possible that the commander who had captured a city declined to be the first to enter, that he would hold back his flag-s.h.i.+p and himself, and send forward and first a cargo of food on a plain s.h.i.+p, under direction of a woman? Did our commands, military or naval, hold men great enough of soul for such action? It must be true, for the spires of Santiago rise before us, and turning to the score of companions beside me I ask: ”Is there any one here who will lead the Doxology?” In an instant the full rich voice of Enola Gardner rang out: ”Praise G.o.d from whom all blessings flow.” By that time the chorus was full, and the tears on many a face told more plainly than words how genuine was that praise, and when in response to a second suggestion ”My Country 'Tis of Thee” swelled out on the evening air in the farewell rays of the setting sun, the State of Texas was nearing the dock, and quietly dropping her anchor she lay there through the silence of the night in undisputed possession, facing a bare wind-swept wharf and the deserted city of Santiago.
Daybreak brought quiet to an end. The silence was no longer oppressive.
A hundred and twenty stevedores lined up on the wharf for work and breakfast. The dock had tracks, and trucks running to its open warehouses. Boxes, barrels, and bales, pitched out of that s.h.i.+p, thrown onto the trucks and wheeled away, told the story of better days to come.