Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-06-24
Hot Work for the Marines at Guam
tanamo Bay.
ORDEAL FOR RECRUITS
Graphic Story of the Heroic De-
Tense of Camp McCalla.
NAVAL HERO

!sh fertilization that has been made Ameri-
can, one feels today a strange elation and
apprehension. There is only short stretc
of beach, a scrubby hill thick with prickly
cacti and bald and unshaded on top. and
Spain's native guerrillas hiding with cooked
rifles in all the wooded valleys on three
sides and the hills beyond. But here is
shelter to think of in a hurricane and hare
is bit Of land in a hostile part of the
earth where our flag floats. To put it there
and keep 1t three days has cost the navy
more blood and ammunition than the VIC
tory of Manila Bay.
This morning, after three days and nights
of fighting an enemy which can't be seen,
ell are unstrung with watching and OK
hausted for want of food, drink and Sleep
Correspondents Take a Hand.
Field pieces are being taken up the steep
hill to the camp top. The correspond
ents grasp mold of the lines and pull with
the rest. 1t is hot work; at the top the
colonel greets US. His brown uniform is
saturated with perspiration. Bullets are fly
ing, and the tents are being struck and
hurried to the lee of the ridge, and as one
worn suard-line is relieved by another not
Yet rested, men drop. utterly played out,
face upward On the bare hill, ana, imlna.
as IL SlilchtU, ldll deeply asleep.
Some ask for cigarettes; some eagerly tell
OF mutations practiced upon American
dead by the ambushed guerrillas-the Gu
ban niggers" who side with Spain. Pub
llsh that they say, land let the world
know the sort of men we are fighting" 1t
is too horrible for print; sympathies are ex-
cited, however, before the word of the col
onel and Of the surgeon testifies that there
We're no mutilations.
There is funeral presently. Four bodies
are sewn in canvas and placed in a trench
on the hillside, ard over the open grave.
the first for our men in Cuban soil. the
chaplain reads the brief commitment, and
a full company fires two volleys in final
leave-taking. Then that afternoon the
place all around is clamorous with volleys
not religious, but discharged with bias
phemous signs of anger.
Where is the Army.
Where is the army?' the officers would
ask.
Twenty-seven thousand regulars will be
here tonight or tomorrow" is the answer
and 1t is repeated to the wan-eyed, hungry
men for their encouragement. They are in
credulous and will not cheer But to
night arrives, and still no transports on
the horizon no reinforcements from insur-
gents, although they, too. are hourly ex-
pected. Darkness settles down upon the
hills and ambushed hollows. From three
sides and seven places come shots from the
indistinguishable enemy, and the Colt
Quick-fires, which have no stop mechanism
but pour in their hose stream of nickel
coated bullets until their chambers are
emptied, play upon every spot lighted by
searchlight of the Marblehead; twice we
have to wigwag to her that she Is reveal
ing the American position, and, however
lovely the stars and stripes on Camp Nc
Gala appear everybody knows that the
pleasure is not equal to its possible cost.
Suddenly, near the central earthworks
man tumbles forward. My Godr is all he
says. and when his features are made out
Goode, the sergeant major, blood flowing
from a mortal hurt in the abdomen. Some
men get wounded-the enemy is farther
away and the Mauser bullets do not tear
much the night before.
What Morning Reveals.
Skies turn pale; on the face of the men
crouched in rim around the hill crest,
rifles covering every approach, there is u
SIliiyJ uOIt-up iOOh AHOtHtE
guard is changed; the young officers chorus
oh Promise Me- and inquire: Did you
say we had an army? Show it," In comes
Neville with his scouts-one missing, three
wounded. OF the missing one it is said
that he was only slightly hurt, but that,
still believing Spain's guerrillas had visited
strange cruelties upon men disabled, he
had jumped over the cliff into the sea, cry
ms he1liopS q N
did not get him, but his "own people" did
at last, and there was again an open grave
and prayers and two blank volleys and
flags in the bay sunk to half mast. 1t did
not seem that the camp could be held I'M
less relief came soon. IF We only had the
Sd, or the 9Th, or the 25th,' said the officers
on the ships of war, I'VE could clean out
those woods in no time. This is plain In
dian fighting, and marines are not trained
to such duty"
Fremont Asks for Help.
Capt. Fremont went in his torpedo boat
Porter to the admiral at Santiago, forty
miles away, with request for immediate
relnforcements, as news had arrived that
1000 Spanish troops were at Guantanamo
station preparing to assist the guerrillas in
rushing the marines from their foothold
The admiral does not see the necessity.
Luckily, that afternoon some insurgents
signal from point of land to be taken off
They are very ragged and very dirty, and
armed with remarkable variousness Off
GERS and men regard them obviously, but in
new linen clothes and with some solid food
in their stomachs they wear a more taking
appearance. Some perfunctory cheers greet
them when they land Their colonel sug-
gests that they be ordered to outpost duty,
relieving the worn and nervous marines
This is done-and that night not shot is
fired by either side. From the moment the
Cubans arrive to assist in the way they
best knew, the fortunes of Camp McCaIla
changed; it began to seem as If this was
just what had been wanted, forces that
were familiar with bushwhacking.
Less Talk Of the Army.
Less is heard about the slowness and stu
pidity of the army, and when the news
comes that the army started, but turned
back because somebody said that the Viz
caya was still at large, the men only laugh
ed. Tuesday morning the condition of the
men is SO improved and the work of the