“I know,” said Lang. He looked like a wolf wanting to pounce.
Ryder suddenly realized that Lang was correct. The Texans should be in on the killing. “Bring your men forward now. Have them shoot into that mob but tell them to concentrate on officers and anybody who looks like he’s getting through the wire.”
Lang had been right. He should have used the Texans sooner and he should have had some men specializing in killing officers shooting at them in the first place. He swore at himself. He still had a lot to learn.
Soldiers in the American lines were beginning to fall. With only their heads and shoulders generally exposed, the wounds were hideous and often fatal. A couple of men broke and ran screaming for the rear. Haney shot one of them in the leg and the other got away. Ryder desperately wanted to see what was happening behind and below him with the rest of the army and Sarah, but he dared not. He had to be a strong leader for his men. He could not turn his back on the enemy no matter how badly he wanted to.
Through gaps in the growing clouds of white smoke he could see some enemy soldiers had sneaked their way through or under the wire. Next time the wire would have to be thicker, he told himself, and then wondered if there would be a next time, and if there was, where the hell would he get the additional wire?
Several Spanish soldiers appeared before him, only a few yards away from the first trench line. “Some dumb son of a bitch always gets through,” snarled Haney as he shot a man.
Ryder laughed almost crazily and emptied his pistol in the direction of the attackers. He didn’t hit anything, but he felt that it was the right thing to do.
Then the Spanish were gone. They had endured more than men should have to. As the firing died down, the defenders of Mount Haney could see a landscape carpeted with uniforms that had once been white and now were smeared with blood and stained with urine and feces. Already the stench was beginning to grow.
No order to cease fire was given. It was just understood. A few Spaniards cautiously stood up with their hands in the air. Some of the more lightly wounded called for help, while others just lay there and moaned. American medical personnel would care for them as soon as American soldiers were treated.
“You gonna allow for a cease fire?” asked Haney. A couple of white flags were waving from the Spanish lines, and a handful of unarmed Spanish soldiers were moving tentatively forward with palms outstretched.
Ryder checked his watch. “Give them four hours to gather their dead and wounded and only those on the other side of the wire. I want men watching the Spanish to make sure they don’t try to cut the wire.”
“Are you concerned that they’ll find any secrets?”
“About the wire?” he said grimly. “I think they’ve already found out all they need to.”
* * *
“Hold,” said Sergeant Kelly. “Hold until I tell you to fire.”
“Why don’t you wait until they are in our fucking laps, sergeant? Or do you want us to see the whites of their eyes?”
“Why don’t you just shut up, Corporal Ryan.”
The howling mob of Spanish soldiers was only a couple of hundred yards away and coming fast. Ryan and Kelly were cousins who’d emigrated from Ireland a decade earlier and, even thought they’d served in the army, this was their first real combat. A handful of skirmishes with Indians didn’t matter, in their opinion. It was also the first time they would use the Gatling gun since that day on the Little Big Horn when they’d helped save the man who was now President of the United States from a terrible death.
They also found it amusing that the lieutenant who’d led them in their mad dash to save Custer was now their brigade leader. It was a small world, they thought every time the topic came up. It pleased them that the young general himself had recognized them and even said a few kind words with them, even laughed about shared memories.
The two cousins had left the army shortly after the Sioux had been defeated and tried several means of making a living, including working on the railroad. They’d quickly decided that building the railroads was just too damn much work. A new war, chances of promotion, and steady money had induced them to enlist in the First Maryland.
Then they had volunteered to work a Gatling gun when a couple of them were assigned to the regiment. They’d had the mistaken notion that it might keep them out of close-quarters fighting. They hadn’t realized that the gun’s crew was exposed to enemy artillery or sniper fire. And now a screaming horde of Spanish soldiers was only a couple of hundred yards away. Rifles and cannon were killing them and it was time for the machine guns.
“Fire!” Kelly screamed.
“About fucking time,” said Ryan as he cranked the handle that fired the gun. Another soldier was in charge of feeding stick magazines filled with bullets into the gun where gravity put one in each of the revolving barrels. Another soldier was to reload the magazines as quickly as possible, thus keeping up a continuous rate of fire.
Kelly’s job was to aim the beast and, along with a fourth soldier, manhandle it to where the torrent of bullets could do the most harm to an enemy.
Lead rained on the approaching Spaniards, knocking them and ripping into them. Screams from the wounded and the terrified filled the air, while smoke clouds enveloped them. Bodies piled up. Some had reached the barbed wire only to find that there was little chance of getting through. Getting tangled in the wire meant death. The Spanish attack faltered and they began to fall back. Still, the bullets chased them and found them and more were killed and wounded. The Spanish did not understand their tormentors new way of war and the retreat became a rout with wounded being trampled by the unharmed. Smoke now almost fully obscured the battlefield, so they simply fired where they thought the enemy would be. Soon, there was no enemy.
“Cease fire,” Kelly ordered. The smoke thinned and then disappeared. The hillside was blanketed with dead and wounded.
“Holy Mary,” said a stunned Ryan, “what the bloody hell have we gone and done. This isn’t war. This is a massacre.”
He gagged as the stench from torn flesh and bowels wafted towards them and others were becoming ill as well. They had forgotten just what a large bullet could do to the human body, smashing chests and ripping off limbs. And why men who were called wounded often never returned to battle or were able to lead useful lives.
* * *
Carlos Menendez looked up at the hill and could barely see the heads and shoulders of dug in riflemen staring down at him. He was as brave a man as any Spanish soldier, but the sight shook him. After two decades in the armies of Spain and having fought in many skirmishes and a number of battles, this left him very uneasy. Yes, the army commanded by General Weyler greatly outnumbered the Yankees, but these were not the Moslem tribesmen of North Africa nor were they the Moslem Moros of the Philippines. The Moros and the tribesmen were barbarians, savages. They would castrate and flay and then burn alive anyone they caught. The Americans generated a sense of quiet and deadly efficiency, rather than the shrieking and howling of the savages who would never dream of fighting a real battle.
He’d managed to avoid fighting his fellow Spaniards in the last civil war so he had never yet fought anyone European or American. These were the feared Americans. The Yankees had beaten England and Mexico along with the savages who’d once dominated the Americas. They had even fought an incredibly brutal civil war against themselves. They were tough and hardened soldiers and, worse, held the high ground.
The Americans were in trenches and well protected while his men would be attacking in the open. Many would die and he might be one of them.
For the first time since he’d enlisted, he wondered just why Spain was fighting in Cuba. It was clear that the majority of the Cubans he’d met and talked to wanted nothing to do with Spain and how could he blame them. From what he’d seen since arriving, the Spanish government in Cuba was corrupt and incompetent and incredibly brutal towards its own citizens.