When they reached the gap through which the expedition had passed, they
fled out upon the road like scared wild-fowl tracking along a
sea-beach. A cloud of blue figures far up this dignified shaded avenue,
fired at once. The men already had begun to laugh as they shied one by
one across the road. "Segue! Segue!" The hard part for the nerves had
been the lack of information of the amount of danger. Now that they
could see it, they accounted it all the more lightly for their previous
anxiety.
Over in the other field, Bas and the young lieutenant found Rodriguez,
his machete in one hand, his revolver in the other, smoky, dirty,
sweating. He shrugged his shoulders when he saw them and pointed
disconsolately to the brown thread of carriers moving toward the
foot-hills. His own men were crouched in line just in front of him
blazing like a prairie fire.
Now began the fight of a scant rear-guard to hold back the pressing
Spaniards until the carriers could reach the top of the ridge, a mile
away. This ridge by the way was more steep than any roof; it conformed,
more, to the sides of a French war-ship. Trees grew vertically from it,
however, and a man burdened only with his rifle usually pulled himself
wheezingly up in a sort of ladder-climbing process, grabbing the slim
trunks above him. How the loaded carriers were to conquer it in a
hurry, no one knew. Rodriguez shrugged his shoulders as one who would
say with philosophy, smiles, tears, courage: "Isn't this a mess!"
At an order, the men scattered back for four hundred yards with the
rapidity and mystery of a handful of pebbles flung in the night. They
left one behind who cried out, but it was now a game in which some were
sure to be left behind to cry out.
The Spaniards deployed on the road and for twenty minutes remained
there pouring into the field such a fire from their magazines as was
hardly heard at Gettysburg. As a matter of truth the insurgents were at
this time doing very little shooting, being chary of ammunition. But it
is possible for the soldier to confuse himself with his own noise and
undoubtedly the Spanish troops thought throughout their din that they
were being fiercely engaged. Moreover, a firing-line--particularly at
night or when opposed to a hidden foe--is nothing less than an
emotional chord, a chord of a harp that sings because a puff of air
arrives or when a bit of down touches it. This is always true of new
troops or stupid troops and these troops were rather stupid troops.
But, the way in which they mowed the verdure in the distance was a
sight for a farmer.
Presently the insurgents slunk back to another position where they
fired enough shots to stir again the Spaniards into an opinion that
they were in a heavy fight. But such a misconception could only endure
for a number of minutes. Presently it was plain that the Spaniards were
about to advance and, moreover, word was brought to Rodriguez that a
small band of guerillas were already making an attempt to worm around
the right flank. Rodriguez cursed despairingly; he sent both Bas and
the young lieutenant to that end of the line to hold the men to their
work as long as possible.
In reality the men barely needed the presence of their officers. The
kind of fighting left practically everything to the discretion of the
individual and they arrived at concert of action mainly because of the
equality of experience, in the wisdoms of bushwhacking.
The yells of the guerillas could plainly be heard and the insurgents
answered in kind. The young lieutenant found desperate work on the
right flank. The men were raving mad with it, babbling, tearful, almost
frothing at the mouth. Two terrible bloody creatures passed him,
creeping on all fours, and one in a whimper was calling upon God, his
mother, and a saint. The guerillas, as effectually concealed as the
insurgents, were driving their bullets low through the smoke at sight
of a flame, a movement of the grass or sight of a patch of dirty brown
coat. They were no column-o'-four soldiers; they were as slinky and
snaky and quick as so many Indians. They were, moreover, native Cubans
and because of their treachery to the one-star flag, they never by any
chance received quarter if they fell into the hands of the insurgents.
Nor, if the case was reversed, did they ever give quarter. It was life
and life, death and death; there was no middle ground, no compromise.
If a man's crowd was rapidly retreating and he was tumbled over by a
slight hit, he should curse the sacred graves that the wound was not
through the precise centre of his heart. The machete is a fine broad
blade but it is not so nice as a drilled hole in the chest; no man
wants his death-bed to be a shambles. The men fighting on the
insurgents' right knew that if they fell they were lost.
On the extreme right, the young lieutenant found five men in a little
saucer-like hollow. Two were dead, one was wounded and staring blankly
at the sky and two were emptying hot rifles furiously. Some of the
guerillas had snaked into positions only a hundred yards away.
The young man rolled in among the men in the saucer. He could hear the
barking of the guerillas and the screams of the two insurgents. The
rifles were popping and spitting in his face, it seemed, while the
whole land was alive with a noise of rolling and drumming. Men could
have gone drunken in all this flashing and flying and snarling and din,
but at this time he was very deliberate. He knew that he was thrusting
himself into a trap whose door, once closed, opened only when the black
hand knocked and every part of him seemed to be in panic-stricken
revolt. But something controlled him; something moved him inexorably in
one direction; he perfectly understood but he was only sad, sad with a
serene dignity, with the countenance of a mournful young prince. He was
of a kind--that seemed to be it--and the men of his kind, on peak or
plain, from the dark northern ice-fields to the hot wet jungles,
through all wine and want, through all lies and unfamiliar truth, dark
or light, the men of his kind were governed by their gods, and each man
knew the law and yet could not give tongue to it, but it was the law
and if the spirits of the men of his kind were all sitting in critical
judgment upon him even then in the sky, he could not have bettered his
conduct; he needs must obey the law and always with the law there is
only one way. But from peak and plain, from dark northern ice-fields
and hot wet jungles, through wine and want, through all lies and
unfamiliar truth, dark or light, he heard breathed to him the approval
and the benediction of his brethren.
He stooped and gently took a dead man's rifle and some cartridges. The
battle was hurrying, hurrying, hurrying, but he was in no haste. His
glance caught the staring eye of the wounded soldier, and he smiled at
him quietly. The man--simple doomed peasant--was not of his kind, but
the law on fidelity was clear.
He thrust a cartridge into the Remington and crept up beside the two
unhurt men. Even as he did so, three or four bullets cut so close to
him that all his flesh tingled. He fired carefully into the smoke. The
guerillas were certainly not now more than fifty yards away.
He raised him coolly for his second shot, and almost instantly it was
as if some giant had struck him in the chest with a beam. It whirled
him in a great spasm back into the saucer. As he put his two hands to
his breast, he could hear the guerillas screeching exultantly, every
throat vomiting forth all the infamy of a language prolific in the
phrasing of infamy.
One of the other men came rolling slowly down the slope, while his
rifle followed him, and, striking another rifle, clanged out. Almost
immediately the survivor howled and fled wildly. A whole volley missed
him and then one or more shots caught him as a bird is caught on the
wing.
The young lieutenant's body seemed galvanised from head to foot. He
concluded that he was not hurt very badly, but when he tried to move he
found that he could not lift his hands from his breast. He had turned
to lead. He had had a plan of taking a photograph from his pocket and
looking at it.
There was a stir in the grass at the edge of the saucer, and a man
appeared there, looking where lay the four insurgents. His negro face
was not an eminently ferocious one in its lines, but now it was lit
with an illimitable blood-greed. He and the young lieutenant exchanged
a singular glance; then he came stepping eagerly down. The young
lieutenant closed his eyes, for he did not want to see the flash of the
machete.