The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1898-06-16
START FROM TAMPA PICTURED.
Richard Harding Davis Describes the
Scene as the Invading Army Gets
Under Way.

Under Way.
TAMPA, FLA, June 12.-The censor
says we can tell what we saw last
Wednesday. We cannot tell what
happened before or after that day.
We can only raise the curtain for
twenty-four hours and drop it again
quickly. Nor must we say why it
happened or what it meant.
1t is as though you came into the
theatre late, left again in ten minutes,
saw well set scene and some good
! actors and a stage crowded with
| supers, but were told nothing of the
plot or the climax or whether it all
came out well in the end. 1t is like
cutting a strip of photographs from
a cinematograph and showing then
without beginning or end, leavin..S
your'audience to guess the county,
the place and the people and what
they were doing. If | can have TWEEN
tyfour hours | will begin when the
period did, at midnight on Tuesday
The scene set like the third act of
the play Secret Service" There are
two officers in a railroad station on
the end of long pier. The pier runs
down into a bay, and is blocked with
long lines of cars. Some of the cars
are marked" powder" Others are filled
with food
Parallel with the long pier are great
passenger steamers, looming up
blacker than the night And beyond
them in the moonlight are many more,
with lights showing the sentries on
their decks.
The two officers in the railroad sta
tion have not slept in three days.
They sit at desks and make out orders
for cars, orders to move horses. orders
for ratiOns, orders to go on board
transports, orders to bring transports
to the end of the long pier Other
officers of every rank come into the
station, ask impossible questions and
make impossible demands.
Outside, men are marching to the
tune of a drum and cars are blowing
whistles. At the end of the long pier
trucks are rolling over the loose
boards loaded with boxes of ammuni-
tion and rifles. Whenever they pass,
the soldiers sleeping on the loose
boards are shaken a half inch or so
and groan in their sleep. Other
sleepy and hungry soldiers fall out of
army transports and walk over the
bodies of the men asleep on the boards.
There is no light except the light
of the moon and the tawdry lamps of
the station, and under these thous-
ands of men are sleeping on the
boards by their stacked arms. They
sleep until o'clock and then more
transports arrive.
The day has begun, and the water
is covered with boats loaded with
baggage and men. The transports
hIt tIONut Will luell DIT llle DOTU-
holes and shoulder to shoulder on the
decks. The sun comes out fierce and
brazen. There is not enough wind
to raise the flags on the halyards.
The bay is like a mirror with the
quicksilver on fire. Over this lake
of blazing quicksilver the great trans
ports move slowly out into mid
stream, and as each stirs and feels
the first pull of the towing line the
hundreds of American soldiers hang
ing to her sides take off their sombre-
ros and cheer. The bands on the
decks play The Star Spangled Ban
ner." As they pass the other trans
ports at anchor the soldiers cheer
each other, the crowds on the pier
cheer them, and the hot air is torn
with their voices and famed with the
thousands of hats beating it and
raised in relief and rejoicing.
That is where the scene halts for
the present. But you can guess that
it is. a war. Acts follow each other
and when the curtain falls you will
know that it all ends well.
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.