The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1898-10-29
AT SANTIAGO.
Hxporience Of . boy lieutenant under hre Tor
the first time.
BY CLEVELAND MoFFETT.
THERE were two men in the room.

THERE were two men in the room,
stretched on cots. One was tall
and wore gray pajamas. the other was
of medium height and slender and
wore pajamas checked with white and
blue. The tall man had been shot
through the head with a Mauser bull
let; he had pains and fever, but would
recover. The other had been shot
through the knee and his leg was stiff
In q plaster cast; it would stay SO.
They were both lieutenants, regulars,
and had been in the game before San
tiago on the LIST of July.
This was at Bellevue hospital, in the
soldiers pavilion. Out In tho sunshine
some convalescents with clutches
were chatting and smoking. Some
were joking. Down the long ward in
side were dozens of soldiers unable
to leave their cots. And some of them
were joking, too. There were nurses
and doctors moving about, and few
sympathetic ladies.
want to tell now the story of the
young lieutenant, the one with his leg
in the plaster cast, as he told it to me.
asked him questions and he answered
them in short, business-like sentences
much better than adjectives. Now
and then he put in picturesque touch
which might not have suited in Sum
day-school address, but did not seem
out of place in a battlefield narrative.
He began with the breaking of camp
that famous day of July 1, at about
four o'clock in the morning, two miles
back of Ell Pozo. His regiment, the
Sixth infantry, had been up the whole
night before, making roads. They
went forward over the rough trail
In columns of four, marching slowly.
The shells from both sides sang over
them, and now and then man went
down from bursting shrapnel. This
young lieutenant, with so men of COM
pany c, was going into action for the
first time.
Iasked him II he was afraid.
II don't know as I was afraid" he
said, "but didn't enjoy it. 1t wasn't
exactly like being up here In New
York. didn't want to be hit. But q
man knows he's got to go ahead and
do his work; that's what he's been
taught, and he does 1t. Itwasn't spe.
cially pleasant, though, passing lot
of bleeding, yelling Cubans being car.
ried to the rear. They looked like dew
lis with their brown faces twisted up
They'd been loafing about watching
the artillery fire and staring at the
balloon, and some of them got hit
Say, we hated that balloon, for II
didn't do thing but draw the Span
ish fire on to us.
When we were about quarter Of q
mile from San Juan the order came te
turn OF the road to the left and be.
gin the charge on the block-house
That took us through thickets and
over fields. We left all our stuff here
--blankets and impedimenta-unde,
charge OF sentry, and went ahead
with rifles and cartridge belts and can
teens. The Lord knows what becam,
of that sentry, but we never saw oul
stuff again. am betting those Cuban,
got some of II.
Anyhow, we knew the time hat
como to show what sort of men ",
were, and most of us thought . few
things as we went across a stream
there, then on through more thicket
and out again into the road to Santi
ago. There were COO yards Of leve
fields ahead of us, and then the mali
block-house on top Of slope $50 fee
high. The bullets were coming taste
now. and we were In the open. IT.
funny how you dodge when you &c
the whix Of bullet by your head. Tn
docking doeent do any good, but yo'
do0Ge III tie same lat least the ney
fellows do; They can't help It.
- m 4 Vim hence dpst sbov