He could not distinguish between a five-inch quick-firing gun and a
nickle-plated ice-pick, and so, naturally, he had been elected to fill
the position of war-correspondent. The responsible party was the editor
of the "Minnesota Herald." Perkins had no information of war, and no
particular rapidity of mind for acquiring it, but he had that rank and
fibrous quality of courage which springs from the thick soil of Western
America.
It was morning in Guantanamo Bay. If the marines encamped on the hill
had had time to turn their gaze seaward, they might have seen a small
newspaper despatch-boat wending its way toward the entrance of the
harbour over the blue, sunlit waters of the Caribbean. In the stern of
this tug Perkins was seated upon some coal bags, while the breeze
gently ruffled his greasy pajamas. He was staring at a brown line of
entrenchments surmounted by a flag, which was Camp McCalla. In the
harbour were anchored two or three grim, grey cruisers and a transport.
As the tug steamed up the radiant channel, Perkins could see men moving
on shore near the charred ruins of a village. Perkins was deeply moved;
here already was more war than he had ever known in Minnesota.
Presently he, clothed in the essential garments of a war-correspondent,
was rowed to the sandy beach. Marines in yellow linen were handling an
ammunition supply. They paid no attention to the visitor, being morose
from the inconveniences of two days and nights of fighting. Perkins
toiled up the zigzag path to the top of the hill, and looked with eager
eyes at the trenches, the field-pieces, the funny little Colts, the
flag, the grim marines lying wearily on their arms. And still more, he
looked through the clear air over 1,000 yards of mysterious woods from
which emanated at inopportune times repeated flocks of Mauser bullets.
Perkins was delighted. He was filled with admiration for these jaded
and smoky men who lay so quietly in the trenches waiting for a
resumption of guerilla enterprise. But he wished they would heed him.
He wanted to talk about it. Save for sharp inquiring glances, no one
acknowledged his existence.
Finally he approached two young lieutenants, and in his innocent
Western way he asked them if they would like a drink. The effect on the
two young lieutenants was immediate and astonishing. With one voice
they answered, "Yes, we would." Perkins almost wept with joy at this
amiable response, and he exclaimed that he would immediately board the
tug and bring off a bottle of Scotch. This attracted the officers, and
in a burst of confidence one explained that there had not been a drop
in camp. Perkins lunged down the hill, and fled to his boat, where in
his exuberance he engaged in a preliminary altercation with some
whisky. Consequently he toiled again up the hill in the blasting sun
with his enthusiasm in no ways abated. The parched officers were very
gracious, and such was the state of mind of Perkins that he did not
note properly how serious and solemn was his engagement with the
whisky. And because of this fact, and because of his antecedents, there
happened the lone charge of William B. Perkins.
Now, as Perkins went down the hill, something happened. A private in
those high trenches found that a cartridge was clogged in his rifle. It
then becomes necessary with most kinds of rifles to explode the
cartridge. The private took the rifle to his captain, and explained the
case. But it would not do in that camp to fire a rifle for mechanical
purposes and without warning, because the eloquent sound would bring
six hundred tired marines to tension and high expectancy. So the
captain turned, and in a loud voice announced to the camp that he found
it necessary to shoot into the air. The communication rang sharply from
voice to voice. Then the captain raised the weapon and fired.
Whereupon--and whereupon--a large line of guerillas lying in the bushes
decided swiftly that their presence and position were discovered, and
swiftly they volleyed.
In a moment the woods and the hills were alive with the crack and
sputter of rifles. Men on the warships in the harbour heard the old
familiar flut-flut-fluttery-fluttery-flut-flut-flut from the
entrenchments. Incidentally the launch of the "Marblehead," commanded
by one of our headlong American ensigns, streaked for the strategic
woods like a galloping marine dragoon, peppering away with its
blunderbuss in the bow.
Perkins had arrived at the foot of the hill, where began the arrangement
of 150 marines that protected the short line of communication between the
main body and the beach. These men had all swarmed into line behind
fortifications improvised from the boxes of provisions. And to them were
gathering naked men who had been bathing, naked men who arrayed themselves
speedily in cartridge belts and rifles. The woods and the hills went
flut-flut-flut-fluttery-fluttery-flut-fllllluttery-flut. Under the
boughs of a beautiful tree lay five wounded men thinking vividly.
And now it befell Perkins to discover a Spaniard in the bush. The
distance was some five hundred yards. In a loud voice he announced his
perception. He also declared hoarsely, that if he only had a rifle, he
would go and possess himself of this particular enemy. Immediately an
amiable lad shot in the arm said: "Well, take mine." Perkins thus
acquired a rifle and a clip of five cartridges.
"Come on!" he shouted. This part of the battalion was lying very tight,
not yet being engaged, but not knowing when the business would swirl
around to them.
To Perkins they replied with a roar. "Come back here, you ---- fool. Do
you want to get shot by your own crowd? Come back, ---- ----!" As a
detail, it might be mentioned that the fire from a part of the hill
swept the journey upon which Perkins had started.
Now behold the solitary Perkins adrift in the storm of fighting, even
as a champagne jacket of straw is lost in a great surf. He found it out
quickly. Four seconds elapsed before he discovered that he was an
almshouse idiot plunging through hot, crackling thickets on a June
morning in Cuba. Sss-s-swing-sing-ing-pop went the lightning-swift
metal grasshoppers over him and beside him. The beauties of rural
Minnesota illuminated his conscience with the gold of lazy corn, with
the sleeping green of meadows, with the cathedral gloom of pine
forests. Sshsh-swing-pop! Perkins decided that if he cared to extract
himself from a tangle of imbecility he must shoot. The entire situation
was that he must shoot. It was necessary that he should shoot. Nothing
would save him but shooting. It is a law that men thus decide when the
waters of battle close over their minds. So with a prayer that the
Americans would not hit him in the back nor the left side, and that the
Spaniards would not hit him in the front, he knelt like a supplicant
alone in the desert of chaparral, and emptied his magazine at his
Spaniard before he discovered that his Spaniard was a bit of dried palm
branch.
Then Perkins flurried like a fish. His reason for being was a Spaniard
in the bush. When the Spaniard turned into a dried palm branch, he
could no longer furnish himself with one adequate reason.
Then did he dream frantically of some anthracite hiding-place, some
profound dungeon of peace where blind mules live placidly chewing the
far-gathered hay.
"Sss-swing-win-pop! Prut-prut-prrrut!" Then a field-gun spoke.
"_Boom_-ra-swow-ow-ow-ow-_pum_." Then a Colt automatic began to bark.
"Crack-crk-crk-crk-crk-crk" endlessly. Raked, enfiladed, flanked,
surrounded, and overwhelmed, what hope was there for William B. Perkins
of the "Minnesota Herald?"
But war is a spirit. War provides for those that it loves. It provides
sometimes death and sometimes a singular and incredible safety. There
were few ways in which it was possible to preserve Perkins. One way was
by means of a steam-boiler.
Perkins espied near him an old, rusty steam-boiler lying in the bushes.
War only knows how it was there, but there it was, a temple shining
resplendent with safety. With a moan of haste, Perkins flung himself
through that hole which expressed the absence of the steam-pipe.
Then ensconced in his boiler, Perkins comfortably listened to the ring
of a fight which seemed to be in the air above him. Sometimes bullets
struck their strong, swift blow against the boiler's sides, but none
entered to interfere with Perkins's rest.
Time passed. The fight, short anyhow, dwindled to prut ... prut ...
prut-prut ... prut. And when the silence came, Perkins might have been
seen cautiously protruding from the boiler. Presently he strolled back
toward the marine lines with his hat not able to fit his head for the
new bumps of wisdom that were on it.
The marines, with an annoyed air, were settling down again when an
apparitional figure came from the bushes. There was great excitement.
"It's that crazy man," they shouted, and as he drew near they gathered
tumultuously about him and demanded to know how he had accomplished it.
Perkins made a gesture, the gesture of a man escaping from an
unintentional mud-bath, the gesture of a man coming out of battle, and
then he told them.
The incredulity was immediate and general. "Yes, you did! What? In an
old boiler? An old boiler? Out in that brush? Well, we guess not." They
did not believe him until two days later, when a patrol happened to
find the rusty boiler, relic of some curious transaction in the ruin of
the Cuban sugar industry. The patrol then marvelled at the truthfulness
of war-correspondents until they were almost blind.
Soon after his adventure Perkins boarded the tug, wearing a countenance
of poignant thoughtfulness.