A room on the first floor contained a slightly rusty metal tub which the women filled with water from a stream that flowed into the bay, but only after first ascertaining that no military latrines were upstream. It was not luxurious bathing, and, in keeping with custom, they kept their shifts on and bathed around them. It was awkward, but it sufficed. It and the limited and bland food the army provided were a far cry from the luxury they’d both been accustomed to. To complete the picture, there was a stinking outhouse a few yards away from the kitchen.
Ruth laughed. “This reminds me of my life as a young girl trying to escape from Poland, only it wasn’t this hot.”
“If you’re going to reminisce, should I call you Ruta?”
Ruth shook her head sadly. “Ruth Holden is who and what I am now. Unless, of course, I change my mind once more and again decide to be Ruta Jasinski. If I didn’t think it would confuse people, I would.” She brightened. “Perhaps I’ll call myself Ruta Jasinski Holden.
Sara would not argue or tease her friend. She’d been told all about Ruth’s life before coming to the U.S. and it wasn’t pretty. The only part that was even a bit whimsical was Ruth’s selection of Holden as a last name. It was that of a British embassy staffer in Paris whom she found odious and boring.
“Have you heard from Haney?” Sarah asked.
Ruth, now Ruta, grinned. “It’s not that far from the top of his mountain to here. Sometimes he manages to slip away.”
“And where do you manage to find privacy?”
“In storage areas and warehouses,” she said with a knowing smile. “There are many places if you know where to look. He knows a lot of other sergeants and they make sure to look away when we wish to be alone. Making love on a pile of tenting isn’t the worst thing in the world. You and your colonel should give it a try, at least before he becomes a general.”
“General? Where did you hear that?” Sarah asked, astonished. It was the first she’d heard of any possible promotion for Martin.
“Some sergeants gossip like old ladies,” Ruta answered. “It does seem that the higher ranking generals are displeased with the efforts of some other high ranking officers. It also seems that Washington might not be all that thrilled with the way General Miles is leading the army and that General Terry might be very ill. Changes could come soon, and kindly recall that your paramour has gotten a lot of very favorable publicity recently.
Sarah decided to send Martin a note asking about the rumored promotion. She thought about delivering it herself, but he had made it abundantly plain that he did not want her up on Mount Haney, which some were calling Haney’s Hill after belatedly realizing that it wasn’t all that high. Regardless, she yearned to be with him, to feel his arms around her and his hands caressing her body. She would have to figure some way to be discreetly and totally alone with him. Just a few hours would be delicious and wonderful. However, it would not be on a stack of tenting.
Sarah’s thoughts were interrupted by commotion coming from outside. She and Ruta looked through a window and saw men running towards the waterfront. Someone said an American warship was coming in and it was in bad shape.
The women dressed quickly and looked through another window that faced the bay. A large warship that someone in the crowd said was the Chicago was steaming slowly into the bay. She was escorted by a number of other transports. The Chicago was listing to starboard and, as she got closer, heavy damage and evidence of fires could be seen.
Clara Barton ran to each of the women informing them of the obvious and telling them to get to the hospital. There had been a battle and there were casualties, many casualties.
* * *
Kendrick watched as the Chicago anchored as close to the makeshift docking facilities as it possibly could. Beside him, Pywell took pictures of the wounded battleship. Lifeboats and other small vessels began the task of getting the wounded to the hospitals. As he walked among the wounded it occurred to him that the mutilations suffered in land warfare were the same as in a naval battle. Despite having seen it so many times before, the human suffering was terribly depressing and the stench from torn and infected flesh and ripped bowels was almost overwhelming.
He watched as doctors and nurses went about their grim task. That some of them were women who looked like lovely and genteel ladies no longer surprised him. Women were constantly disabusing the idea that they were a frail sex that needed to be sheltered from the world. He wondered if Juana would be able to handle an emergency like this and decided that she would. Not surprisingly, he hadn’t heard from her. He would have to figure out a way to get a message to her.
Clara Barton stood in front of him. “Either be helpful or get out of the way,” she demanded sternly.
Kendrick quickly decided that he would be no use as a medico and stepped away. A civilian transport was also disgorging wounded and unhurt and some of each category were Spanish. The Spanish prisoners looked confused and dispirited. They also looked harmless. Whatever fight that had been in them was no longer there.
Someone grabbed his arm. “Hey, pal. You got any idea where I can find an officer named Ryder?”
“Sure. He’s up on that snow-covered peak called Mount Haney. Who wants to know?”
“Jesse Lang, that’s who and if that peak’s snow-covered I’m a mountain goat.”
The two men introduced themselves. Kendrick quickly realized that Lang had been an eye witness to the battle that saw the sinking of the Baltimore and the damaging of the Chicago. He also realized that he probably wouldn’t get access to senior navy personnel for a while. The commanders would like to keep their losses to themselves. Too bad. He would use whatever sources he could and the hell with the navy’s secrets. Right now it looked like the ships of the small United States Navy had been mauled.
“Lang, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll take you up the fearsome slopes of Mount Haney and introduce you to Colonel Ryder if you will tell me all you know about the battle that just took place.”
“Sounds fair, although it might cost you a couple of drinks,” Lang said. “I might just bring along the captain of the ship I came on, a man named Janson. You’ll find his observations interesting as well since he actually knows which end of a ship is up.”
“Excellent,” said Kendrick. “Maybe the good captain can help me figure out if the United States still has a navy.”
* * *
Custer was drunk, a condition that was becoming increasingly normal and a source of concern to most of his inner circle. While he had been told he should not leave the United States, there was no prohibition on his leaving the increasingly hostile confines of Washington where he was being held to account for the slow progress of the war. Thus, he had chosen to go to St. Augustine, Florida. There he could see for himself many of the efforts to maintain the army and navy.
For his stay, he had commandeered the elegant Markland House in St. Augustine. There, he and Libbie sought to get closer to the action and farther away from his critics. He brought with him his secretaries of war and the navy, as well as his secretary of state. Neither man was pleased to be in a steamy Florida backwater. They felt they should be in the nation’s capital where the action was and it didn’t matter if they were connected to Washington by telegraph or not.
All four men sat on the veranda and sipped whisky. It was understood that Libbie Custer was just inside and would listen to everything through an open window. It served to maintain the fiction that President Custer was totally in charge instead of having a partner who might just be more than an equal. Many men, including most of those in the room, thought it was unseemly, unladylike, for a woman to be involved in the affairs of government.