The transport occupied by the 307th was commanded by some sort of a
Scandinavian, who was afraid of the shadows of his own topmasts. He
would have run his steamer away from a floating Gainsborough hat, and,
in fact, he ran her away from less on some occasions. The officers,
wishing to arrive with the other transports, sometimes remonstrated,
and to them he talked of his owners. Every officer in the convoying
warships loathed him, for in case any hostile vessel should appear they
did not see how they were going to protect this rabbit, who would
probably manage during a fight to be in about a hundred places on the
broad, broad sea, and all of them offensive to the navy's plan. When he
was not talking of his owners he was remarking to the officers of the
regiment that a steamer really was not like a valise, and that he was
unable to take his ship under his arm and climb trees with it. He
further said that "them naval fellows" were not near so smart as they
thought they were.
From an indigo sea arose the lonely shore of Cuba. Ultimately, the
fleet was near Santiago, and most of the transports were bidden to wait
a minute while the leaders found out their minds. The skipper, to whom
the 307th were prisoners, waited for thirty hours half way between
Jamaica and Cuba. He explained that the Spanish fleet might emerge from
Santiago Harbour at any time, and he did not propose to be caught. His
owners---- Whereupon the colonel arose as one having nine hundred men at
his back, and he passed up to the bridge and he spake with the captain.
He explained indirectly that each individual of his nine hundred men
had decided to be the first American soldier to land for this campaign,
and that in order to accomplish the marvel it was necessary for the
transport to be nearer than forty-five miles from the Cuban coast. If
the skipper would only land the regiment the colonel would consent to
his then taking his interesting old ship and going to h---- with it.
And the skipper spake with the colonel. He pointed out that as far as
he officially was concerned, the United States Government did not
exist. He was responsible solely to his owners. The colonel pondered
these sayings. He perceived that the skipper meant that he was running
his ship as he deemed best, in consideration of the capital invested by
his owners, and that he was not at all concerned with the feelings of a
certain American military expedition to Cuba. He was a free son of the
sea--he was a sovereign citizen of the republic of the waves. He was
like Lige.
However, the skipper ultimately incurred the danger of taking his
ship under the terrible guns of the _New York_, _Iowa_, _Oregon_,
_Massachusetts_, _Indiana_, _Brooklyn_, _Texas_ and a score of cruisers
and gunboats. It was a brave act for the captain of a United States
transport, and he was visibly nervous until he could again get to sea,
where he offered praises that the accursed 307th was no longer sitting
on his head. For almost a week he rambled at his cheerful will over the
adjacent high seas, having in his hold a great quantity of military
stores as successfully secreted as if they had been buried in a copper
box in the cornerstone of a new public building in Boston. He had had
his master's certificate for twenty-one years, and those people
couldn't tell a marlin-spike from the starboard side of the ship.
The 307th was landed in Cuba, but to their disgust they found that
about ten thousand regulars were ahead of them. They got immediate
orders to move out from the base on the road to Santiago. Gates was
interested to note that the only delay was caused by the fact that many
men of the other battalions strayed off sight-seeing. In time the long
regiment wound slowly among hills that shut them from sight of the sea.
For the men to admire, there were palm-trees, little brown huts,
passive, uninterested Cuban soldiers much worn from carrying American
rations inside and outside. The weather was not oppressively warm, and
the journey was said to be only about seven miles. There were no
rumours save that there had been one short fight and the army had
advanced to within sight of Santiago. Having a peculiar faculty for the
derision of the romantic, the 307th began to laugh. Actually there was
not _anything_ in the world which turned out to be as books describe
it. Here they had landed from the transport expecting to be at once
flung into line of battle and sent on some kind of furious charge, and
now they were trudging along a quiet trail lined with somnolent trees
and grass. The whole business so far struck them as being a highly
tedious burlesque.
After a time they came to where the camps of regular regiments marked
the sides of the road--little villages of tents no higher than a man's
waist. The colonel found his brigade commander and the 307th was sent
off into a field of long grass, where the men grew suddenly solemn with
the importance of getting their supper.
In the early evening some regulars told one of Gates's companies that
at daybreak this division would move to an attack upon something.
"How d'you know?" said the company, deeply awed.
"Heard it."
"Well, what are we to attack?"
"Dunno."
The 307th was not at all afraid, but each man began to imagine the
morrow. The regulars seemed to have as much interest in the morrow as
they did in the last Christmas. It was none of their affair,
apparently.
"Look here," said Lige Wigram, to a man in the 17th Regular Infantry,
"whereabouts are we goin' ter-morrow an' who do we run up against--do
ye know?"
The 17th soldier replied, truculently: "If I ketch th' ---- ---- ----
what stole my terbaccer, I'll whirl in an' break every ---- ---- bone
in his body."
Gates's friends in the regular regiments asked him numerous questions
as to the reliability of his organisation. Would the 307th stand the
racket? They were certainly not contemptuous; they simply did not seem
to consider it important whether the 307th would or whether it would
not.
"Well," said Gates, "they won't run the length of a tent-peg if they
can gain any idea of what they're fighting; they won't bunch if they've
about six acres of open ground to move in; they won't get rattled at
all if they see you fellows taking it easy, and they'll fight like the
devil as long as they thoroughly, completely, absolutely,
satisfactorily, exhaustively understand what the business is. They're
lawyers. All excepting my battalion."