“What is the army going to do?” Blaine asked of Secretary of War Robert Lincoln.
“Right now, they are waiting for the next Spanish attack,” Lincoln answered. “General Miles is of the opinion that it will come soon and will be a repeat of the attacks on the entrance to the bay and that hill called Mount Haney. I do know that all of his generals do not agree with him. They feel it will come between those two points in an attempt to split the army.”
“And Miles has decided otherwise?” Arthur asked.
“Yes.”
“Jesus,” said the Vice President. “I can only hope he’s right. What is the navy doing, Mr. Hunt?”
Navy Secretary Hunt was not happy. “Havana is blockaded, but the three Spanish cruisers that escaped have not been located. They could be in any one or more of hundreds of coves and bays. I do not, however, think that they have sailed far or towards the United States. For one thing, they don’t carry enough coal. For another, they just aren’t all that big and dangerous. Nor can they risk incurring even the slightest damage since there is no place they can be repaired. Even so, their existence is scaring the bejeezus out of everyone on the East Coast. We have several dozen armed and hastily armored converted merchant ships outside our major ports. The navy is confident that they will not be needed, but their presence helps keep the population happy.”
Blaine shook his head sadly. “In short, we have the makings of a stalemate.”
Lincoln disagreed. “Not really. Our army cannot sit there forever. It has to be supplied and reinforced and, all the while, the fever season will be coming. All the Spanish have to do is wait and our army might just be destroyed by sickness.”
“Jesus,” said Arthur. “We have got to get Miles and the army moving.”
“And I don’t know if Miles is the man to do it,” said Lincoln and the others nodded agreement, even a solemn Libbie Custer.
The heavy-set Arthur stood and walked ponderously to a window overlooking the lawn. “If Miles cannot drive the army to Havana, we must find a general who can, even if that means thinking the unthinkable.”
Libbie Custer paled. “No. You can’t be serious. It’s bad enough that George is a prisoner of the Spanish, but now you would kill him?”
* * *
Ryder’s headquarters bunker had become a very substantial dwelling. He now had a solid roof and gutters for drainage. Of course, he made sure that all of his men had similar amenities before his was completed. The amount of barbed wire surrounding the hill had more than tripled. Ships from New Orleans and Galveston had brought in miles of it. He was confident that the wire and the other improvements that had been made to the defenses on Mount Haney would make a Spanish assault a very bloody one. Curiously, not all the other senior officers were supporters of using barbed wire because they thought it might detract from their soldier’s offensive fighting spirit. Their loss, Ryder thought and he commandeered their share of the wire. If they wouldn’t use it, he would.
Many of the same officers who hated wire also hated machine guns because they encouraged soldiers to use up too much ammunition too quickly. Ryder wondered if they’d forgotten that the purpose of a war was to kill the enemy.
He hated the thought of his men becoming stagnant, but they had done pretty much all they could do without unduly endangering themselves. War against Spain had become exceedingly boring. Now he could sneak down and see Sarah on a reasonably regular basis, confident that he would be informed in plenty of time to react against anything the Spaniards might try. They could even go for walks. Other nurses had also established relationships and Haney was still seeing Ruth who had begun calling herself Ruta. Some of the soldiers were clearly envious, but there was nothing he could do about that. He was not going to ignore Sarah.
A few civilians had tried to return to Matanzas, but the army was discouraging their presence. Too many of them could be spies, was the thought.
His regimental commanders were good, and Sarah’s brother was settling in his true position as a staff officer. Ryder sometimes mentally kicked himself for thinking that Jack Barnes had been ready to command a regiment.
If he needed someone to do some fighting, he always had Lang and Haney, along with the Cuban leader, Diego Valdez. The Cuban had at least a thousand men under his command and seemed content to place himself more or less under Ryder’s leadership. Leadership, Ryder thought, not command. No one commanded Valdez, not even the vivacious young lady who was now his mistress, a young widow named Maria Vasquez.
Haney entered and sat down, “Anything new on Custer, general?”
“Of course not, sergeant, and stop asking silly questions. When something happens, you’ll know it well before anyone else.”
Haney ignored the jab. “And that means that Nelson Miles is paralyzed, doesn’t it. The army isn’t going to move. We’re just going to sit here until either the Spanish overwhelm us or the fevers kill us or both. I thought that Custer had stiffened his spine, but I guess getting captured put a stop to all that.”
Ryder laughed harshly. “It might be getting worse. My scouts say that the Spanish are really building up their strength something fierce and will be ready to attack us in a manner of days.”
“And Miles still won’t reinforce the center? That’s crazy.”
“Don’t call your commanding general crazy. He might be, but you just don’t say it, especially where somebody might hear you. According to Benteen, Miles feels he doesn’t have enough men to cover everything. It’s about five miles from the opening of the bay to where we are sitting and he feels that’s too far, especially when you consider that he’d have to defend both sides of the bay.”
“Makes sense,” the sergeant admitted reluctantly.
“So, Benteen has decided that this moldy lump of mud that’s been named after your worthless ass shall be transformed into a citadel. He just informed me that he wants storerooms for food and ammunition and more bunkers for additional soldiers. If we’re pushed away from the bay, he doesn’t want us starving to death or having to throw rocks at the Spaniards. He feels another two thousand men can strengthen this place. He also said he wants a fresh water well dug and seemed shocked when I told him we’d already done it.”
“What about nurses?” Haney asked softly. Ryder was about to say something when he recalled that the sergeant was still very close to Ruta Holden, perhaps just as close as he was to Sarah. No, he thought; they weren’t just as close. He hadn’t gotten Sarah to bed yet, much less made love on a stack of dusty and uncomfortable tents.
“When the time comes, sergeant, we will do what we have to, even if that includes sending you down the hill on an errand of mercy to save the wounded and the people who take care of them.”
Haney nodded and then grinned. “That works fine for me.”
* * *
Kendrick felt incredibly nervous. Not only was the house where Custer was being kept surrounded by Spanish soldiers, but it was less than a mile from the massive Castillo del Principe, the ominous fortification that had been built nearly a century before. The Principe was the anchor in the reconstructed fortifications protecting Havana and one of several similar but smaller forts in a loose ring around Havana. Kendrick quietly wondered just how the American Army would storm these forts assuming, of course, that the army ever got off its butts and made it to Havana.
Dunfield lived in a Mediterranean style villa that was not unusual for the Caribbean. Square outer walls built with stone and with few windows made it look like a fortress and Kendrick realized that’s what it could become in a matter of minutes. At the moment, it was a prison as well as a home. The four walls surrounded an inner courtyard in which fountains sprayed water and colorful flowers brightened the scene. It was as if the outer world didn’t exist.