Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1898-11-10
BURIAL UNDER FIRE.
A Striking Episode of the War, on the Shore
of Guantanamo Bay.

High on the ridge where the marines
pitched their tents on the shore Of
Guantanamo Bay, the first Cuban soil
taken by American troops, are the
graves of the men who were killed III
the first land fighting of our war with
Spain. They were buried under fire
by men who overlooked no 1.-THE of the
solemn ceremony, although the singing
Of Spanish bullets rose clear above the
voice of the chaplain.
The burial squad was composed Of
marines from the Texas. Wrapped in
flags, the honorable winding sheet Of
soldiers killed in battle, the bodies
were borne from a tent in which they
had lain to a trench dug by men who
made it deep because their fear that
the drenching Cuban rains would give
their comrades to the buZZards was
greater than their fear of the death
they risked as they piled pick and
shovel.
Chaplain Jones, Of the Texas, the
firing squad, few officers and some
correspondents stood bareheaded about
the grave. From the thick cover be-
yond there came the irregular putt,
putt putt of skirmish fire and the
regular sputter of the machine guns.
There marines and Spanish guerrillas
were fighting from thicket to thicket.
Soon there would be more dead to bury
we thought.
Gently the men Of the Texas lower
ed the playground ''jollies' Soldier
and sailor, too," as Kipling has it
into the earth. The chaplain stood
with his back to the cover from which
came the rattle Of musketry, and be-
gan the solemn service. Slow and de-
liberately fell the words, and seldom
has their import been realized more
fully than it was there at the edge OF
the bullet threshed jungle.
"Man that is born of woman
A bullet pecked the earth at his feet
and sent it flying. Others sang over
head. Some leaves and tWigs fell
from the nearest trees. A man or two
dropped behind the earth thrown out
of the grave. The Spanish were firing
on the burial party
The marines of the Texas raised
their heads for second and bowed
them again. They made no other mo-
ton. The officers in command, pale
ordinarily, flushed red as if angered
by the enemy's sacrilege.
The chaplain moved a pace from
where he was standing and turned his
face toward the thicket from which
the bullets were coming. Then the
words fell slowly and gravely, MAN
that is born of woman and so on to
the end.
AS he faced the fire those who had
sought shelter stood up instantly and
bowed their heads reverently- The
fire slackened, ceased. The earth fell
on the flags and covered them and the
heroes wrapped within. A man or two
dropped tear and a tender, parting
word to his comrades, and the burial
party, it's duty fittingly done, moved
seward over the crest of the ridge
out of range.
Half way down the crooked path
which led to the landing two OF the
men who had stood steadily at the
grave were marked by a Spanish
sharpshooter, and a Mauser bullet
"pinged' above them. They ran for
cover like startled game, for the fu-
neral was over and they had no desire
to make another.
But the men who were at the grave
that day will remember long and with
a solemn sense of their great lesson
the words, ''AIan that is born of wo-
man."-New York Herald.