AN ACCOUNT OF THE
HISTORIC SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO
TO GENERAL SHAFTER
JULY 17, 1898
by FRANK NORRIS
SAN FRANCISCO
PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
NINETEEN SEVENTEEN
Copyright, 1913, 1917
by Otis F. Wood
or two days we had been at the headquarters of the Second Brigade(General McKibben's), so blissfully contented because at last we had areal wooden and tiled roof over our heads that even thetarantulas—Archibald shook two of them from his blanket in onenight—had no terrors for us.
The headquarters were in an abandoned country seat, a little six-roomedvilla, all on one floor, called the Hacienda San Pablo. To the left ofus along the crest of hills, in a mighty crescent that reached almost tothe sea, lay the army, panting from the effort of the first, second andthird days of the month, resting on its arms, its eyes to its sights,Maxim, Hotchkiss and Krag-Jorgenson held ready, alert, watchful,straining in the leash, waiting the expiration of the last truce thathad now been on for twenty-four hours.
That night we sat up very late on the porch of the hacienda, singing"The Spanish Cavalier"—if you will recollect the words, singularlyappropriate—"The Star-Spangled Banner," and
'Tis a way we had at Caney, sir,
'Tis a way we had at Caney, sir,
'Tis a way we had at Caney, sir,
To drive the Dons away,
an adaptation by one of the General's aides, which had a great success.
Inside, the General himself lay on his spread blankets, his handsclasped under his head, a pipe in his teeth, feebly applauding us atintervals and trying to pretend that we sang out of tune. The night wasfine and very still. The wonderful Cuban fireflies, that are like littleelectric lights gone somehow adrift, glowed and faded in the mango andbamboo trees, and after a while a whip-poor-will began his lamentablelittle plaint somewhere in the branches of the gorgeous vermilionFlamboyana that overhung the hacienda.
The air was heavy with smells, smells that inevitable afternoondownpours had distilled from the vast jungle of bush and vine and[Pg 5]thicket all up and down the valley. In Cuba everything, the very mud andwater, has a smell. After every rain, as soon as the red-hot sun is outagain, vegetation reeks and smokes and sweats, and these smells steamoff into the air all night, thick and stupefying, like the interior of acathedral after high mass.
The orderly who brought the despatch should h