“I also had Fuller check something else, dear wife,” he said smugly. “Did you know that a U.S. Navy warship is considered United States territory? No? Well it is. Thus, if I travel by warship to Cuba, technically I will still be in the United States.”
“Sometimes you surprise me, George.”
“I could be on, say the Atlanta and be just a short distance off Cuba and talk with Miles about whatever the hell he is planning on doing and I can do so without ever leaving American soil, or, more precisely, territory.”
Libbie scowled. “It could be dangerous.”
“Fighting a war is dangerous. Losing one is even more dangerous. I have to know what the devil is going on and what Miles is planning to do about it. Everyone says we won a great victory. Wonderful, but why haven’t we followed up on it?”
“What instructions will you leave for Mr. Arthur?”
“Nothing,” he laughed. “I don’t plan on telling him or anyone else. Vice President Chester Arthur and Secretary of State Blaine will be pissed, but I won’t care. It won’t take me long to go from Florida to Matanzas and back. I just want to get the measure of Miles before I make a decision. Maybe all Miles needs to know is that he has my support. On the other hand, maybe he just needs a good kick in the ass to get him started.”
Libbie stood and looked out the window. She was clearly troubled and that was unusual for her. “Why then am I feeling so uncomfortable?”
“Maybe women are meant to worry. It’s their nature. What could happen, Libbie? Hell, I’ll be on a warship and surrounded by a score of cannon and a couple of hundred sailors to protect me. Like I said, what the hell could go wrong?”
* * *
Manuel Garcia loved school and learning. What he didn’t like was the scrawny and opinionated old man who was their teacher. Manuel had the sneaky feeling that he now knew as much as Professor Sanchez, the old goat who tormented the students and smacked them with his ruler when they gave wrong answers. Or when they asked questions he couldn’t answer. Sometimes he thought that Sanchez was a fraud. Sanchez was also in love with anything Spanish and worshipped King Alfonso. He hated the Cuban rebels and the United States with equal burning passion.
He thought it would be wonderful if the king’s recruiters grabbed every young man in Cuba to fight the rebels. Saying this could have been dangerous in a village where most of the people thought it would be nice if Alfonso was trampled by a herd of pigs. Lucky for him, the villagers thought of the professor as eccentric, not harmful.
Manuel sometimes thought of complaining to his mother, but he was afraid that she would yank him from the school and the pleasures it still gave him despite Senor Sanchez’ attempts to humble him. He loved learning and was confident he would outlive and outlast Professor Sanchez.
For him to fail at school would also humiliate his mother, a woman he loved dearly and who was trying so hard to raise him and educate him the right way. His father was gone, disappeared into the unforgiving ocean one day when he went fishing, so they were on their own. Manuel’s mother supported them by working the fields and tending other people’s houses. She had hopes that his life would be better than hers had turned out. Some days she was too exhausted to talk. No, he would not burden her with his problems. He would deal with Senor Sanchez in his own way.
Lessons were over and he walked barefoot along the dirt roads. He had one pair of shoes that were starting to pinch him. His mother laughingly despaired. “When will you ever stop growing, you naughty boy,” she would say before hugging him and kissing him on the top of his head. He thought his mother was beautiful and, apparently, so did some of the men in the village. Some of the older men who’d either never married or had lost their wives would come to their home and pay court. Or at least they tried to. She always rebuffed them. She said she would consider re-marrying when Manuel was grown and gone. He had mixed emotions about that. He did not want to share her, but he did not want her to waist what remained of her youth. After all, she was nearly thirty.
Right now, his main goals were to protect his mother and stay out of the Spanish Army. It was beginning to look like neither goal was achievable and that depressed him.
Chapter 13
A raid? Ryder was intrigued. It sure sounded good to him. It would enable his men to strike at the Spanish instead of waiting to be attacked the next time. “Exactly what sort of raid do you have in mind, Captain?”
Lang grinned happily. He was bored. The great battle was now several days ago and he was getting antsy. The victory had been intoxicating and he wanted to drink some more.
“Exactly what we’ll raid remains to be seen, general. What I propose is to go out with a couple of dozen of my best men and actually see what there is to raid. Hell, our patrols have been non-existent. All of our intelligence comes from our Cuban buddies and we should see things through our own eyes, not theirs.”
“So you don’t trust the Cubans?”
“Oh, some of them I trust a lot, like that Valdez fellow. If I can, I’d like to take him or at least some of his boys with me. It’d be kind of like when we’d go out chasing renegade Indians in Texas and we’d have some tame Apaches or Comanches working with us.”
Ryder wasn’t certain any of the Apache or Comanche warriors would have liked being referred to as tame, and definitely not the Cubans. “Don’t call Valdez or any of his friends tame. They’re likely to slice you with their tame machetes.”
Lang continued, “Wouldn’t think of it, general. I like my testicles right where they are. At any rate, it’d be easier to hide from the Spanish in this jungle crap that surrounds everything here. Back in Texas, anything larger than a coffee cup could be seen for miles on the barren ground.”
“I seem to recall that,” Ryder said, thinking of his days in the American west. “Will you be taking some of your Spanish speaking soldiers?”
Lang nodded vigorously. “All of my men speak Spanish at least as well as I do.”
Martin laughed. Lang’s Spanish was very basic and largely involved food, liquor, and getting laid. “Where will you go?”
“I thought I’d try to ride parallel to that goat path that passes for a road along the coast from Matanzas to Havana, at least for a while. First, though, I’d like to make a wide patrol around the Spanish camps and see what’s happening.”
“When will you leave?”
Lang stood. “Do you have to ask permission from Benteen or Miles?”
“Why? Benteen would go along, but I’m not so sure about Miles. I get the feeling that he doesn’t want to offend the Spanish. So we won’t tell him until you come back. It’s always easier to ask forgiveness than permission. By the way, please make sure to come back.”
* * *
It took several days for Diego Salazar to get in to see General Weyler. The general was far too busy writing letters to Governor General Villate in Havana. When received, the letters would be either re-written by Villate or simply forwarded to Madrid, with or without comment. Weyler was also exhausted and had only managed to get a good sleep the night before. There had been real concern that the Americans would counter-attack. He would not relax until he’d been certain that no such effort by the damned Americans was planned.
“So what did you find on your foray up the hill?” Weyler asked. His face looked puffy, like he’d just gotten out of bed. “And by the way, relax and have a seat.”
Salazar sat down stiffly on a camp chair, wincing from the pain in his groin. He’d aggravated it climbing up the hill. To his annoyance, the German colonel was also present and smiling his superior smile. “As we all suspected, the Americans used barbed wire to control the attack and their Gatling Guns to slaughter our men. I think it is safe to say that both came as a surprise.”
“Yet neither should have. We’ve known all along that the Americans had Gatlings although we didn’t realize they had so many up on that damned hill. Worse, none of our troops, including officers, have ever faced them. We’ve also known of the existence of barbed wire, although its use as a military weapon had not occurred to us. From what others have told me, our men did not know what to do when confronted with this terrible wire that not only stopped them but sliced their skin.”