Their small steamer moved into the calm blue waters of Matanzas Bay and anchored. It was plainly marked as a Red Cross vessel and its arrival clearly stirred up a lot of curiosity. The regular military establishment medical personnel resented the presence of the Red Cross. They considered it an insult to their skills and that the Red Cross was saying that their abilities were somehow inadequate. Miss Barton seemed to agree with that assessment, although she did not quite say it.
The doctors and nurses disembarked onto a handful of lifeboats and small sailboats. Thus, Sarah, Ruth, and the other nurses found themselves all together. A couple of sailors had commenced rowing them to the shore only fifty yards away when one of the nurses shrieked and laughed. Sarah turned and laughed herself. A throng of soldiers was swimming and bathing in the water and every last one was buck naked.
“Ladies, don’t look,” commanded Barton.
“It’s a little too late, besides,” said Ruth, “we’ll see much more of the male anatomy when we start treating them.”
“True enough,” said Barton. Sarah thought her eyes were twinkling with uncharacteristic humor.
The men noticed them and most ran howling and laughing to the shore like little kids caught doing something naughty. A few, however, stood proudly and displayed themselves until they were yelled at by their officers.
“Recognize Martin in that mob?” Ruth asked and this time Clara Barton did smile. Sarah simply stuck out her tongue in response.
Moments after landing, they were met by a thoroughly upset and embarrassed Major General Nelson Miles. “Please accept my apologies, ladies, I had no idea you were coming. If I had I would have had my men behave themselves.”
“I assure you no one was hurt, either physically or emotionally,” Barton responded, “so let us get on with our work.”
Miles assigned a captain to find them a place to erect their tents and sent a detail to help them. Sarah smiled at the captain. “I have relatives and friends with the First Maryland; can you tell me where they are?”
He paused and thought for a moment before pointing to a hill a couple of miles away. “I believe they are up there, ma’am. That is what is called Mount Haney.”
The hill, or mount, was largely covered with lush foliage. She could see places where it had been cleared and indentations in the ground that she assumed were trenches. Martin Ryder was up there, only a few miles away, a decent walk on a pleasant afternoon. Perhaps she could get word to him or her brother that they had arrived.
Something boomed and they froze. The captain was perplexed. “It would appear that the boys up there on the hill have found something worth shooting at,” he said genially.
* * *
Diego Valdez and a score of Cuban insurgents lay in the thick brush that lined the narrow dirt road from Havana. They were several miles inland from the American perimeter and only a few yards from the road. Concealed by the shadows and the foliage, they were invisible. Diego had more men close by, but these were the only ones with rifles, and many of those were relics from wars gone by. A couple of his men had flintlocks that had been used against the English more than a century past. The lack of weapons was a problem that had to be solved.
The Spanish column was long and thin, and moved very slowly. The Spanish troops looked worn down by the heat and disinterested in the whole venture. They slouched and held their rifles any way they wished and few officers were in view. Invariably, breaks in the column occurred and Valdez watched for an opportunity. There. A squad was sauntering along as if they were on the way to Sunday Mass. For just a moment, no other Spaniards could be seen.
“Now!” he screamed and his men surged forward, shooting and howling. Several of the Spaniards fell and their screams added to the din. With their rifles empty, the rebels fell on the survivors with machetes, hacking and chopping. A couple of the Spaniards fought back, but most fell in the first wave. Then it was the turn of the survivors to fall and die in bloody piles. It was over in a few seconds. A couple of Spaniards had managed to run and Diego could hear orders being given to the rest of the column, still invisible from around the turn in the road.
“Take their rifles and ammunition, and you have ten seconds to strip off their uniforms.”
His men went to it with a will. It took less than ten seconds to get rifles, ammunition, and uniforms from the dead and wounded. The boots they left. It would take too much time to pull them off. Most of them had spent their lives barefoot and the soles of their feet were like stones. They gathered their plunder and ran into the brush. In seconds, they were hidden and safe. The Spanish might send a patrol, but it would find nothing. Diego’s men played this game far too well and for far too long. Now, they not only had more weapons, but a number of useable Spanish uniforms. He laughed. They would not become truly useable until his soldiers managed to get the blood off.
* * *
A heavily sweating soldier gave Ryder the envelope with his name written on it. The soldier was one of a number who delivered food and other items from headquarters down below the hill. Thus, it wasn’t at all unusual for Ryder to get handwritten messages. There’d been talk of connecting the telegraph line to the men on Mount Haney, but it hadn’t happened yet. Instead, heliographs, which reflected light and could send Morse code messages, were used to send urgent information. Clearly then, this was not urgent.
The handwriting looked vaguely familiar, but he was too tired to make any connection.
“Get yourself some water and take a ten second break, soldier.”
The trooper laughed, nodded and stepped away. Ryder noticed that he was heading directly to their small mess tent. Good man. Eat every chance you can. He looked at the envelope.
“Why don’t you open it, colonel dearest?”
“Then I won’t have anything to look forward to, Sergeant Major Haney.”
He tore the envelope open and gasped. It was a note from Sarah. Jesus Christ, he thought as he read it, she was here. How the devil had she managed that trick? He read further. She and Ruth were part of a contingent of Red Cross nurses that had just arrived. He wholeheartedly welcomed the medical aid they didn’t quite need yet. The sporadic gunfire from enemy lines was proof that there would be a compelling need in the not too distant future.
As happy as he was that she was just down from the hill, he was very concerned that she was in a very dangerous position. When the Spaniards attacked, she might be in the middle of it. Would the Spaniards honor the Red Cross emblazoned on their hospital? He walked to the other side of the hill and looked down onto the bay. Yes, he could see several tents with the Red Cross vividly displayed. All right, if he could see it, so could the Spaniards. But would they honor it?
Damn it. As much as he wanted to hold her in his arms and feel her warm and clean breath on his neck, he desperately wanted her to be safe.
“Colonel Sir.”
“Yes Haney.”
“Did I hear you say that Miss Holden is with Mrs. Damon?”
“I must have been thinking out loud, sergeant major, and yes, the two women have connived their way to Cuba.”
Haney smiled happily. “And isn’t that truly amazing, sir?”
* * *
Juana Salazar was quite pleased with herself. It was entirely possible that she had struck a blow for Cuban freedom. Better, it had been safe and easy, easy as pie as her American lover would have said.
She could not help but wonder what James Kendrick was up to and whether or not they actually were lovers after only one night of passion together. Kendrick was doubtless a hundred times more experienced than she. Would she ever see him again? She had mentally relived their night of torrid passion a hundred times since he’d left only a few days prior. He had awakened her like she’d always dreamed in a way that a lover, a knight errant, would. Of course, she’d never dreamed that her knight in shining armor would be starting to go bald and have a little paunch, but then she’d never thought she’d be thirty before even beginning to have a fulfilling sex life. On the other hand, many of her women friends admitted to not having a satisfying physical side of marriage with their husbands. She decided that she would count her blessings. It Kendrick was going to be a part of her life; well, they were going to have to deal with the fact that she was both married and a Catholic.