The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-07-21
VIVA LOS ANER|CAN)S
Why Cervera's Rescued
ScarecroWS Yelled This.
SPAIN'S AWFULEST CRIME
Was the Sending Forth of
Cervera's Squadron.

~-AiACAANdA Sh4l4e- NT4fE me more IOO0i
A Spanish gunner with one arm hang
ing by shreds of skin and his blistereC
body showing through where his rag:
mad been burned away, rolled around or
the deck of the torpedo boat Ericsson
He had been found hanging to a davit
on the blazing wreck of the Vizcaya.
The ruin was red hot; the American shells
had set fire to everything infamable on
| board the Spanish cruiser, her guns lef;
shotted when she ran aground were fir
ing her death salute. AS the flames reach
ed the ammunition the crazed Spaniards
| had scattered all about the cartridges
! burst sometimes in a single discharge,
| sometimes with rattle as if giant fire
! crackers.
| The steel decks were bubbling with boil
ing blood. Below men were burning
| alive, for the matches had been battened
| down TO keep them at their work Around
the ship the triangular knife-like fins of
thousand sharks, cut the surface of the
water; above thousand vuitures lowered
kept from their feast by the flames that
licked around the wreck. Ashore the re-
vengeful Cubans lurked, anxious to kill
all that escaped the flames, the shells,
the waves and the sharks.
This man hung 10 a rope from the davit
end When the waves rolled the stranded
huh he was thrown against the hot side
and his clothes were burned from his body
as he swung scattering a thin rain Of
blood that crazed the sharks
The torpedo boat that mad run IN 70
n 10 fzDo !
survivors Of her crew, dared to come no
nearer to the ponderous rolling hulk.
The man at the davits, and he was only
one of many. dared not let go as the
Ericcson's crew cried to him to do He
hung on until the Americans, with life
lines about them, jumped in among the
sharks and called to him from the water.
Then he dropped and was hauled on
board the torpedo boat.
He was crazy drunk, like many of his
fellows. A seaman gave him food. and he
bOlted it like the starved beast he was,
and drunkenly raved for more, cheering
meanwhile for Tito Sam"
While they roughly operated on his
shredded limb he sang with maudlin
obscenity, and only ceased this to curse
There were many like him among those
saved from the wrecks. On every Span
ish ship it was the same. When It came
to the last, the wine kegs and brandy
stores were preached and drink made the
crews careless of death, and they fought
on with drunken fury, none the less fierce
because il was futile.
Never were scenes Of greater horror
than those which marked the destruction
Of Spain's magnificent feet.
There was one point toward which the
men on the Ericsson did not dare TO look.
Everyone got one glance into this frag-
ment of the pit and turned away sick and
almost swooning.
A great wound had been torn in the side
Of the Vizcaya. The port beam CAPPED,
and through the fame-lipped gashes the
engines and fire rooms of the wreck were
visible. Pistons still plunged, and wheels
went around, for the engines still throb-
bed like the heart Of man wounded unto
death, but still alive. The wheels astern
still churned up the water, but the ship
was hard aground.
Amid the thrashing machinery the dead
were thick. The plunging beams racked
and crushed the dead and dying. In the
basement of this inferno firemen-some of
them We're still alive-wrthed amid the
furious flames. Some were dead, and the
fire danced over their torn bodies. wreath
ing the naked shapes with fire. and Civ
ing their features look that no human
being ought to gaze upon and live.
These poor wretches We're doomed from
the start. Others had a chance for their
lives, even in the event of the expected
defeat, but these poor devils shut in by
bolced matches had TO die They were
kept to their work by officers who stood
over them with pistols and shot them
down when they f1inched from the furnace
doors It was a blessed thing that they
were allowed to drink themselves to mad
mes.
The officers who shot them down. died
with them, of course. These were the
real heroes of the Spanish side. Hideous.
appalling heroism it was. too awful 10
recount in its detail. There are men who
know it, for a few hung on 10 life and
escaped desperately wounded. through the
breaches made by the laundering Ameri
can shells; but those who were saved
out Of tina, volcano will not or cannot
describe how it went with them during the
time
Perhaps they speak truly when they
say that the fire and the fighting got into
their brains and instead Of memory there
is only A lurid blur to record that tine.
The story is outlined by the caIcined
corpses Of the naked men and the charred
bodies with rags of epaulettes and the
skeletons of revolvers still clutched in
the burned bones OF their hands. Faca
mus fill out the story for himself No
imagination can exceed the reality No
Dante or Poe or other nigh priest Of hor-
Tor ever dreamed such Oh ep sode.
there were SIX Of tnese floating bells
wallowing over the tropic sea on that
beautiful SABBATH morning.
The TWO torpedo destroyers hardly lasted
long enough to count. Their experience
was more like the career of an ordinary
defeated ship. The greater part OF Their
officers and crews died but they died
c.ean'y. from wounds, as men may ex-
pect 10 die in battle
The his cruisers. however. staggered %
their end through longer time and with
board.
Il waS wonderful journey these span
iards started on. They have none Of the
Northern hardness that enables A man to
charge up San Juan H.u. in which il
was known many must fail. the bands ~
the American regiments played Therein
Be Hot Time in Old Town Tonight"
The Spaniards before Cervera made his
dash had prayers for those about to die.
The Americans. choking with the heat.
jeeungly comforted each other with
promise that hotter station vas IN store
The Spanish officers embraced each other
and bade eternal farewelIs.