Kendrick pretended to be shocked, “You too?”
* * *
Lang walked around the Gatling gun. It was one of two additional brought up to the top of the hill. Until joining up with Ryder, Lang had heard of them but hadn’t seen one. “What is it, fish or fowl?”
Ryder laughed softly and concurred. “I don’t think anybody quite knows. The Gatling doesn’t have the range of a cannon, but it’s on a carriage just like it was one. Placed too far back from the fighting, it’s useless. Move it too close to an enemy and their riflemen can kill the men operating the Gatling.”
“Yet you used them to kill hundreds of Sioux.”
Ryder rolled his eyes, “My how the legend has grown. It was nowhere near that many. Perhaps a couple of score both killed and wounded, but that’s it. If the Sioux had wanted to take down my little detachment they could easily have spread out and overwhelmed it. I think they left because they were confused and because they didn’t want to take too many casualties.”
Lang nodded. “And you would have had a hell of a time swiveling the guns to meet a moving target like a bunch of Sioux on horseback.”
“That’s a big weakness. I think the gun should either be mounted higher and on a swivel so it can turn without chopping down the carriage’s own wheels, or maybe the wheels should be smaller.”
Lang continued to examine the gun. It was the first time he’d really had a chance to do so since arriving and he found it fascinating. Along with his ranch, he owned a combination blacksmith and machine shop where he loved to tinker.
“My vote is for the smaller wheels, even though that would make it necessary to carry the gun on a wagon instead of behind pulled by horses,” Lang said. “It’s amazing that this damn thing has been around for twenty years and there’ve been no major improvements to it.”
“I wouldn’t say that. It’s a lot better than the half dozen that General Butler bought and paid for out of his own wallet during the closing days of the Civil War, and they are certainly more reliable than what I used at the Little Big Horn. Those had a tendency to jam at the drop of a hat. Thank God they didn’t or we wouldn’t be standing here. These won’t do that. The navy’s using them a lot because they work well on a warship, like I found out on the way here. But the army really doesn’t know what to do with them.”
“The army has a point. They are so damn big and clumsy.”
“So design one that isn’t. Look, I’ll even give you one to work with if I think your ideas have merit. If I were you I’d hurry. I’ve heard through the grapevine that people like Hiram Maxim and even some inventors in Europe are working on just such a thing-a more compact and mobile machine gun.”
Land thought for a second. “And if you let me work on it and I get it patented, maybe you and I can form a company and get ourselves rich. We could call it Lang and Martin Arms. What do you think?”
Sometimes Ryder thought that he wished the Texans paid more attention to military discipline. But the men from the Lone Star State had proven themselves to be excellent fighters. One old man bragged that he had ridden with Sam Houston at the battle of San Jacinto. Martin doubted it, but hell, the guy looked old enough.
“Great idea, captain, but first we have to defeat the damned Spaniards who are down there in plain sight. One of these days, either we or they are going to decide that we’re strong enough to take on the other. This status quo situation where we’re not quite at war with each other can’t go on forever.”
Martin took a periscope from a soldier and looked over the rampart. There was nothing to be seen. Maybe the damned Spanish snipers had taken the day off. Or maybe it was some saint’s feast day. Regardless, he thought it was a hell of a way to run a war.
* * *
Major General Nelson Miles was a vain and proud man. He’d risen to the rank of brevet general in the Civil War while still a very young man and had been awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism in battle. Since the end of the Civil War, he’d distinguished himself fighting the Indians and had even supported Custer with troops after the Little Big Horn. He’d married well. His bride was related to both Senator John Sherman and General William Tecumseh Sherman.
In his early forties, he was still a young and ambitious man. He saw the invasion of Cuba with him in command as a stepping stone to greatness. The White House would be in his sights. Unfortunately, he was now assailed by personal doubts. The war was not going as hoped and there had been no great American victories.
He hated councils of war but felt the need to call one. Such councils often indicated indecisiveness on the part of the man calling it.
It was a small group that gathered in the main dining room of the Palacio de Junco in Matanzas. Until the American invasion the del Junco family had lived there. They had fled to Havana and now it was the headquarters of Nelson Miles and the American army. The room was filled with smoke. The family had left behind a number of excellent cigars that the senior officers were enjoying immensely.
Miles had divided the army into three divisions. Their commanders were John Gibbon, Alfred Terry, and George Crook. All had performed well on the frontier but Miles wasn’t so sure that their successes against the Indians were transferring to success against the far more numerous and better armed Spanish. It also didn’t help that all three were also major generals and ambitious as well. While Miles’ orders said that he was in command of the force, he felt that the others were waiting for him to stumble.
Miles glared at them. “President Custer wants us to attack. He doesn’t seem to care that we are greatly outnumbered and that half our army still can’t tell one end of a rifle from another. It doesn’t seem to matter to him that our three divisions have never worked together, nor have the brigades and regiments within them. I predict that an attack before we are ready would result in disaster.”
Gibbon glared at him. “You’re sounding a lot like McClellan in the past war. He kept seeing Confederate shadows and believed that the rebels had twice as many men as we later found out that they did.”
Terry laughed harshly. “Are you saying those are phantoms and shadows camped around us? We have roughly twenty-five thousand men and it is clear that the Spanish have somewhere between fifty and seventy-five thousand with more dribbling down those miserable and muddy excuses for roads that lead here from Havana.”
Gibbon responded. “Oh, I agree that we are outnumbered but those are Spaniards and Cubans, gentlemen, not Confederates who were real men and real soldiers. The Spaniards are corrupt and poorly trained while the Cubans in their army want nothing to do with a war against us. Custer may be right. If we attack, they might just crumble.”
“Or they might not,” said a glum Crook. “If we attack what appear to be strong positions and fail, our army its morale will be seriously damaged and we might be forced to withdraw from this miserable island.”
“Custer would never allow it,” said Miles. “He would order us to fight to the last man, just like he almost did against the Sioux.“
“Too bad it didn’t work out that way,” said Terry to laughter.
“Which we just might have to,” said Gibbon. “We know that our navy was badly mauled by the Spanish. Admiral Bunce says the US fleet is in control and that the Spanish are bottled up in Havana. I’ll be blunt-I don’t totally believe him. Should it become necessary to evacuate us, who would do it? We cannot count on the navy to get us out of here. We might have to surrender,” he said with a shudder. They all recognized that such a calamity would spell an end to their careers as well as any political ambitions. That it would be a disaster for the United States was a given.