Part 2 (2/2)
despatch-boat, Mr. Chamberlain said to Admiral Sampson: ”Can you give me any directions or instructions, admiral, with regard to approaching your fleet in hostile waters? I don't want to be in your way or to do anything that would imperil my own vessel or inconvenience yours.”
”Where do you propose to go?” inquired the admiral.
”Anywhere,” replied the war correspondent, ”or rather everywhere, that you do.”
The admiral smiled dryly and said: ”I can't give you any definite instructions except, generally, to keep away from the fleet--especially at night. You may approach and hail us in the daytime if you have occasion to do so, but if you come within five miles of the fleet at night there is likely to be trouble.”
This was all that Mr. Chamberlain could get from the admiral; but the officer of the deck, whose name I did not learn, had no hesitation in explaining fully to us the nature of the ”trouble” that would ensue if, through design or inadvertence, a newspaper despatch-boat should get within five miles of the fleet at night. ”We can't afford to take any chances,” he said, ”of torpedo-boats. If you show up at night in the neighborhood of this s.h.i.+p, we shall fire on you first and ask questions afterward.”
”But how are we to know where you are?” inquired the correspondent.
”That's your business,” replied the officer; ”but if you approach us at night, you do it at your own peril.”
When we had returned to the despatch-boat, Mr. Chamberlain said to me: ”Of course that's all right from their point of view. I appreciate their situation, and if I were in their places I should doubtless act precisely as they do; but it's my business to watch that fleet, and I can't do it if I keep five miles away at night. I think I'll go within two miles and take the chances. Some of us will probably lose the numbers of our mess down here,” he added coolly, ”if this thing lasts, but I don't see how it can be helped.”
The difficulty of keeping five miles away, or any specified distance away, from a blockading fleet of war-s.h.i.+ps at night can be fully realized only by those who have experienced it. Except on Morro Castle at Havana there were no lights on the northern coast of Cuba; if it was cloudy and there happened to be no moon, the darkness was impenetrable; the war-s.h.i.+ps did not allow even so much as the glimmer of a binnacle lamp to escape from their lead-colored, almost invisible hulls, as they cruised noiselessly back and forth; and the correspondent on the despatch-boat not only did not know where they were, but had no means whatever of ascertaining where he himself was. Meanwhile, at any moment, there might come out of the impenetrable darkness ahead the thunder of a six-pounder gun, followed by the blinding glare of a search-light.
Unquestionably the correspondents were to be believed when they said privately to one another that it was nervous, hara.s.sing work.
But the list of difficulties and embarra.s.sments which confronted the correspondent in his quest of news is not yet at an end. If he escaped the danger of being sunk or disabled by a sh.e.l.l or a solid projectile at night, and succeeded in following a fleet like that of Admiral Sampson, he had to take into serious consideration the question of coal. Fuel is quite as essential to a despatch-boat as to a battle-s.h.i.+p. The commander of the battle-s.h.i.+p, however, had a great advantage over the correspondent on the despatch-boat, for the reason that he always knew exactly where he was going and where he could recoal; while the unfortunate newspaper man was ignorant of his own destination, was compelled to follow the fleet blindly, and did not know whether his limited supply of coal would last to the end of the cruise or not. When Mr. Chamberlain sailed from Key West at night with the fleet of Admiral Sampson, he believed that the latter was bound for Santiago, on the southeastern coast of Cuba. The _Hercules_ could not possibly carry coal enough for a voyage there and back; in fact, she would reach that port with only one day's supply of fuel in her bunkers. What should be done then? The nearest available source of coal-supply would be Kingston, Jamaica, and whether he could get there from Santiago before his fuel should be wholly exhausted Mr. Chamberlain did not know. However, he was ready, like Ladislaw in ”Middlemarch,” to ”place himself in an att.i.tude of receptivity toward all sublime chances,” and away he went. Nothing can be more exasperating to a war correspondent than to have a fight take place while he is absent from the scene of action looking for coal; but many newspaper men in Cuban waters had that unpleasant and humiliating experience.
The life of the war correspondent who landed, or attempted to land, on the island of Cuba, in the early weeks of the war, was not so wearing and hara.s.sing, perhaps, as the life of the men on the despatch-boats, but it was quite as full of risk. After the 1st of May the patrol of the Cuban coast by the Spanish troops between Havana and Cardenas became so careful and thorough that a safe landing could hardly be made there even at night. Jones and Thrall were both captured before they could open communications with the insurgents; and the English correspondents, Whigham and Robinson, who followed their example, met the same fate.
Even Mr. Knight, the war correspondent of the London ”Times,” who landed from a small boat in the harbor of Havana with the express permission of the government at Madrid and under a guaranty of protection, was seized and thrown into Cabanas fortress.
If a war correspondent succeeded in making a safe landing and in joining the insurgents, he had still to suffer many hards.h.i.+ps and run many risks. Mr. Archibald, the correspondent of a San Francisco paper, was wounded on the Cuban coast early in May, in a fight resulting from an attempt to land arms and ammunition for the insurgents; and a correspondent of the Chicago ”Record” was killed after he had actually succeeded in reaching General Gomez's camp. He was sitting on his horse, at the summit of a little hill, with Gomez and the latter's chief of staff, watching a skirmish which was taking place at a distance of a quarter of a mile or more, between a detachment of insurgents and a column of Spanish troops. One of the few sharp-shooters in the enemy's army got the range of the little group on the hill, and almost the first ball which he sent in that direction struck the ”Record” correspondent in the forehead between and just above the eyes. As he reeled in the saddle Gomez's chief of staff sprang to catch him and break his fall.
The next Mauser bullet from the hidden marksman pierced the pommel of the saddle that the staff-officer had just vacated; and the third shot killed Gomez's horse. The general and his aide then hastily escaped from the dangerous position, carrying the ”Record” correspondent with them; but he was dead. In the first two months of the war the corps of field correspondents, in proportion to its numerical strength, lost almost as many men from death and casualty as did the army and navy of the United States. The letters and telegrams which they wrote on their knees, in the saddle, and on the rocking, swaying cabin tables of despatch-boats while hurrying to West Indian cable-stations were not always models of English composition, nor were they always precisely accurate; but if the patrons of their respective papers had been placed in the field and compelled to write under similar conditions, they would be surprised, perhaps, not at the occasional imperfection of the correspondents' work, but at the fact that in so unfavorable and discouraging an environment good work could be done at all.
CHAPTER V
OFF FOR SANTIAGO
The most important event in the early history of the war, and the event that controlled the movements of the Red Cross steamer _State of Texas_, as well as the movements of General Shafter's army, was the arrival of the Spanish fleet of cruisers and torpedo-boats at Santiago de Cuba on May 19. There had been skirmishes and bombardments before that time, at Matanzas, Cardenas, and various other points on the Cuban coast; but none of them had any strategic importance, or any particular bearing upon the course or the conduct of the war. It was the appearance of Admiral Cervera at Santiago which determined the field of action, and, to some extent, the plan of campaign. The invasion of eastern Cuba had already been under consideration, and when the Spanish fleet took refuge in Santiago harbor the President and his counselors decided, definitely and finally, to begin operations at that end of the island, and to leave the western provinces unmolested until fall. The regular army, it was thought, would be strong enough, with the aid and cooperation of Admiral Sampson's fleet, to reduce the defenses of Santiago, and the volunteers might be left in camp at Chickamauga, Tampa, and Jacksonville, to get in training for an attack upon Havana at the end of the rainy season.
The preparations for the invasion of Cuba seemed, at that time, to be nearly, if not quite, complete. The whole regular army, consisting of seven regiments of cavalry, twenty-two regiments of infantry, and fourteen batteries of artillery, had been mobilized and transported to the Gulf coast; the quartermaster's department had, under charter, twenty-seven steamers, with a carrying capacity of about twenty thousand men; immense quant.i.ties of food and munitions of war had been bought and sent to Tampa, and there seemed to be no good reason why General Shafter's command should not embark for Cuba, if necessary, at twenty-four hours' notice.
On May 26, just a week after the appearance of Admiral Cervera and his fleet at Santiago, the President held a consultation at the Executive Mansion with the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the members of the Board of Strategy, and decided to begin the invasion of Cuba at once. Orders were presumably sent to General Shafter to prepare for an immediate movement, and Secretary Long telegraphed Admiral Sampson as follows:
WAs.h.i.+NGTON, May 27, 1898.
_Sampson, Care Naval Base, Key West:_
If Spanish division is proved to be at Santiago, it is the intention of the department to make a descent immediately upon that port with ten thousand United States troops, landing about eight nautical miles east of the port. You will be expected to convoy transports....
[Signed] LONG.
Three days later General Shafter was directed, in the following order, to embark his command and proceed at once to Santiago:
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