Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1898-09-18
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 aIauser bQl- let; he had pains and fever. but would recover. The other had been shot through the knee and his leg was stiff in a plaster east; il would stay SO. They were both lieutenants. regulars, and had been in the game before San tiago on the 1st of July.
 This was at Bellevue hospital, in the soldiers pavilion Out in the sunshine some eonvalescerts with orufehes 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.
 1 want to tell now the story of the young lieutenant. the one with his leg in the plaster cast, as he told 1t to me. I asked him questions and ke answered them in short, businesS-like sentences much better than adjectiTes. Now and then he put in picturesque touch which might not have suited in Sun day-sehool address, but did not seem out of place in battlefield narrative.
 He began with the breaking of camp that famous day of July l, at about four o'clock in the morning. two miles back of Fl Pogo. 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 50 men of com pany C. was going into action for the first time.
 I asked him if he was afraid
 "I don't know as l was afraid, he said, but didn't enjoy it. It wasn't exactly like being up here in New York I didn't want to be hit But a man knows he's got to go ahead and do his work; that's what he's been taught, and he does it. It wasn't spe- cially pleasant, though. passing lot of bleeding, yelling Cubans being car ried to the rear. They looked like dew ils with their brown faces twisted up. They'd been loafng about watching the artillery fire and staring at the balloon, and some of them got hit Say, we hated that balloon. for it didn't do thing but draw the Span ish fire on to us.
 When We were about quarter of mile from San Juan the order came to turn off 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-u under charge Of a sentry, and went ahead with rifles and cartridge belts and can teens. The Lord knows what became of that sentry. but we never saw our stuff again. I am betting those Cubans got some of it.
 Anyhow. we knew the time had come to show what sort of men we were, and most of Us thought few things as we went across stream there. then on through more thiekets and out again into the road to Santi- ago. There were eco yards of level fields ahead of Us, and then the main block-house on top of slope l50 feet high. The bullets were coming faster now, and we were in the open It's funny how you dodge when you get ahe whiz of bullet by your head. The lodging doesn't do any good. but you dodge all the same at least the new fellows do; they can't help it.