When Santiago Fell: or, The War Adventures of Two Chums

CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE FALL OF THE SPANISH STRONGHOLD

“Wha – what does this mean?” I managed to gasp at last.

“The dungeon has been struck by a shell!” answered Mr. Raymond, breathing with difficulty. “There is a bombardment going on!”

“But we may be killed!”

“Let us trust not, Mark. Are you hurt much?”

“I have a cut in my cheek, and another in my left arm.”

“And I have a bad bruise in the right leg,” answered my fellow prisoner. “But still – Oh, Mark, look! The sunshine!”

Mr. Raymond broke off short and pointed upward. He was right. The shell which had torn up the sidewalk above us had left a hole in the dungeon ceiling nearly a foot in diameter.

“Can we get out?” I burst out eagerly.

“Perhaps – but the city is in the hands of our enemies.”

“I don’t care,” I went on recklessly. “Anything is better than staying here.”

“That is true.” Mr. Raymond arose and measured the distance from the hole to the cell floor. “It’s all of ten feet, Mark.”

“Let me balance myself on your shoulders,” I said, and now my athletic training at the military school stood me in good stead. Mr. Raymond raised me up into the air, and I caught the edge of the hole with ease.

Yet to pull myself up was no mean task. But I worked desperately, and finally found myself on the pavement. Crowds of people were rushing hither and thither, and no one paid any attention to me. Slipping off my jacket, I let down one sleeve.

“Take hold of that, and I’ll pull you up!” I cried to Mr. Raymond; and he did as bidden, and soon stood beside me.

A guard was now running toward us, and as he came on he discharged his Mauser rifle, but the bullet flew wide of its mark. “Halte!” he yelled, but we did nothing of the sort, but took to our heels and ran as if the very Old Nick was after us. Our course soon took us into a crowd of Cubans, and leaving these we made our way into a street which was little better than an alleyway for width. Finding the door of a house wide open, we slipped into the building and hid ourselves in an apartment in the rear.

All day long the tumult continued, but we could not learn what it was about, excepting that a force of American soldiers were advancing upon El Caney and San Juan. “If our forces take those hills,” said Mr. Raymond, “Santiago is doomed, for the heavy artillery and siege guns can knock down every building here.”

“Then I hope we get out before the hills are taken,” I answered.

We remained in the building all day, and during that time I managed to scrape up a loaf of bread and the larger part of a knuckle of ham, besides several cocoanuts. On these we lived for the next twenty-four hours, and we had more than many starving Cubans still staying in the doomed city.

As we waited for nightfall I wondered how my father was faring. It was not likely that the prison had been struck more than once. Probably he was still in his dungeon cell. Oh, if only I could get to him and liberate him!

But Mr. Raymond shook his head at the idea. “You would only be captured yourself, Mark. Better try to escape with me to the American camp. If Santiago is taken, your father will be sure to be liberated sooner or later.”

I thought it over, and decided to accept his advice. We left the building at eleven o’clock. The moon was shining, but it had been raining and the clouds were still heavy in the sky.

As silently as possible we stole along one street and then another until the outskirts of Santiago were reached. Once we met a detachment of Spanish soldiery, but avoided them by crouching behind an abandoned barricade until they had passed.

The hardest part of our task was still before us – that of getting beyond the Spanish picket line. On and on we went, but now much slower, for we felt that we were running not only the risk of capture but the risk of being shot down without warning.

At four o’clock in the morning we felt we could go no further for the present and climbed into the limbs of a mahogany tree. We had been sitting here several hours when suddenly a fierce rattle of musketry rang out. It was the attack of General Lawton’s infantry upon El Caney. The attack had but fairly opened, when we saw the pickets around us ordered forward and then to the right. The way was now open for us to escape, and, descending to the ground, we hurried on, through the brush and over the rocks, carefully to avoid any well-defined trail which the Spaniards might be covering.

An hour of hard traveling brought us to a valley to the north of El Caney, and here we encountered a body of several hundred Cuban soldiers.

“Mark!” came the cry, and a moment later I found myself confronted by Alano, while Captain Guerez sat on horseback but a short distance away.

Now was no time to compare notes, and soon both Mr. Raymond and myself were supplied with guns taken from several of the enemy that had died on the field of battle. Then, with a good-by to Alano, I set off for the American forces, accompanied by Mr. Raymond.

The gallant attacks upon El Caney and San Juan hills are now matters of history. All know how the brave boys of the American army were repulsed several times, only to dash to the very tops of the hills at last, carrying all before them, and causing the Spaniards to fall back to the intrenchments before Santiago.

We had fallen in with a body of Regulars sent to Cuba from the West, and I think I can safely say that I never fought harder in my life than on that day, and on the day following, when the Spaniards tried to drive us from the position we had gained on the top of El Caney Hill. I was in the very front in the final attack, and when it was all over discovered that I had received a severe wound in the left arm, one from which I have not fully recovered to the present time.

The hills were now ours, and everywhere along the American lines it was felt that Santiago was doomed. This was on the 2d of July. On the 3d, early in the morning, Admiral Cervera attempted to escape with his fleet from Santiago Bay by running the gantlet of United States warships stationed outside. It was Sunday, and in less than fifteen minutes after his first vessel appeared around the rocks of Morro Castle, one of the fiercest naval battles of history was on. The Spanish admiral had four powerful fighting ships and two torpedo-boat destroyers, but they were no match for the warships under gallant Commodore Schley, who was in command during Admiral Sampson’s absence. The enemy tried to escape by running along the shore westward, but the fire from our side was too heavy; and in less than three hours the battle was over, and all of the Spanish ships were either sunk or run ashore, and over seven hundred men were taken prisoner. The loss to the Americans was but one man killed and no ship seriously injured!

What a cheer went up when the news of the Spanish fleet’s destruction reached the soldier boys! The hooraying lasted the best part of the day, and many of the soldiers cut up like a lot of schoolboys just out of school. It was a scene I shall never forget.

Admiral Cervera had aided the Spanish army in the attack on our forces, by throwing shells over Santiago into our ranks. Now he was gone, Santiago was even more defenseless than ever, and General Shafter immediately sent word to General Toral that unless he surrendered the American artillery would bombard the city.

There were several days of delay, and finally the Spanish general, seeing how useless it would be to continue the fight, agreed to surrender under certain conditions. These conditions were not accepted, and another wait of several days took place – a time that to me seemed an age, so anxious was I to get word concerning my father’s welfare.

At last, on the 14th of July, General Toral gave up the struggle, and three days later the American troops marched into the city and hoisted the glorious Stars and Stripes over the civic-government building.

It was a grand time, never to be forgotten. As our boys came in the soldiers of Spain went out, giving up their arms as they left. Twenty-four hours later, I received an order which permitted me to call upon my father and Burnham.

“Mark! alive and well!” burst from my parent’s lips on seeing me. “They said you were dead – that a shell had killed you.”

“That shell did not kill me; it gave me my liberty,” I answered, and told my story, to which my father and Burnham listened with keen interest. My father was much broken in health, and as soon as I could I had him removed to a hotel, where care and good food soon restored him to his accustomed vitality.

The Cuban troops, as a body, were not permitted to come into Santiago at once, the authorities fearing a riot between them and the Spaniards, but Alano and his father visited us, and a joyous reunion was had all around.

“Cuba will be free now,” said Captain Guerez. “If Spain knows when she has enough, she will now bring this war to a close.”

Alano’s father was right; the Santiago campaign was the first and last to be fought by the American troops on Cuban soil, and soon after Spain asked that a peace commission be appointed to settle the matter without further appeal to arms. This was done; and the war ceased. Cuba was granted her absolute freedom, with the United States to protect her until all internal difficulties were settled and she was fully able to manage her own affairs.

Alano and his father remained in the Cuban army, and were later on stationed but a short distance away from the plantation owned by Captain Guerez. Thus they were near their home and able to visit constantly the other members of the family, who at that time returned to the plantation. Burnham remained in Santiago, reporting constantly for the newspaper he represented.

Two months after my father was released from prison we set sail for the United States. Mr. Raymond accompanied us, and we made the trip in the Rosemary, under our former friend Captain Brownley, who had succeeded, though not without much difficulty, in having both himself and his vessel released.

“How good to be back home again!” I cried, as we stepped ashore. “Foreign countries are all well enough, but as for me – give me our own United States every time!”

“You are right, Mark,” answered my father. “There is no better place on earth to live than in our own dear native land.”

Here I bring to a close my story of adventures in Cuba during the Cuban-Spanish conflict and the Spanish-American campaign. I had seen many startling happenings, and was, as told above, heartily glad to sail away and leave the Queen of the Antilles to carve out her future without my aid.

During my confinement with Mr. Raymond I had become much interested in that gentleman and what he had to say concerning his son Oliver, then supposed to be at Manila, where the first naval battle of our war with the Dons had occurred. As a matter of fact, Oliver Raymond had been with the Asiatic squadron when the fight came off, and the news he sent to his father was truly interesting. But I will let him tell his own tale in another volume, to be entitled “A Sailor Boy with Dewey; or, Afloat in the Philippines,” after which I will expect to be with my readers again in still another story to be called “Off for Hawaii; or, the Mystery of a Great Volcano.”

And now for the present, kind reader, good-by and good luck to you.

THE END