The Rough Rider (27 page)

The regiment moved out, led by Roosevelt riding on a large horse. Soon the sound of artillery began to reach their ears, a low, ominous rumble off in the distance. They approached a steep conical hill that was one hundred feet in front of them, and almost at once came the now-hated sound of the Mauser rifles with their sharp cracks followed by “zzzzzz” sounds.

Aaron looked back over his shoulder and blinked. “What’s that thing?” he demanded. “Look at that, Lewis!” said Aaron, pointing up.

Lewis was moving forward cautiously down the narrow path, his eyes darting back and forth trying to spot the enemy. When he looked up over his shoulder, he exclaimed, “Why, it’s one of those blasted balloons! Just like they used in the Civil War.”

“Yeah!” one of the troopers said. “Belongs to a fellow called Maxwell. It’s supposed to spot the position of the Spaniards for us.”

That had been the idea, but it worked just exactly the opposite. As the balloon slowly floated above the treetops, it did offer the observers a good view of the enemy troops up ahead—but it offered an even better target for the Spanish
riflemen. Soon the clicking and buzzing noises of bullets became thicker, and Lieutenant Baines, over to Lewis’s left, said, “I wish they’d hit that balloon! They’re zeroing in on us!”

They had not gone too far when men began to drop all around them. The Mauser bullets from the Spaniards tore through the jungle almost at random, killing and wounding men.

Roosevelt sat atop his mount, caught up in the thrill of the battle. At one point he acted as if he were riding in a park. He even commented once, “This flora is different from that in the States.” He bent over and stared with his nearsighted eyes at an orchid, saying, “Beautiful, isn’t it!”

Lewis and Aaron, who were sticking close to the colonel, said, “You’ve got to give it to him—he’s got nerve!”

“I hope he’s got sense!” said the colonel. “Our men are getting shot to pieces.”

The rifle fire increased, and for a time, it seemed that each bullet was finding its mark, killing or wounding every other man. There was no hiding from the barrage of bullets that ripped through the jungle. The gunfire seemed to come from every side. The smoke from the rifles floated like low-lying clouds amidst the trees, creating a shield for the Spanish. And with the incessant cry of shrapnel and the spit of the Mausers, it was impossible for the Rough Riders to locate them to return fire. The Spaniards had no compunction about killing the men who had come to bear the wounded away; they even killed the wounded men on the litters.

By now, the Americans were pinned down, and Captain William O’Neil stood up and strode back and forth, puffing on a cigarette.

“Get down, Captain!” a sergeant cried. “You’ll get hit for sure!”

“Sergeant, there’s not a Spanish bullet made to kill me,” O’Neil answered. He smiled and resumed his strolling, looking up the trail. Suddenly he turned on his heel and a bullet
struck him in the mouth and came out the back of his head. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Finally, they reached a hill and Roosevelt said, “We can’t stay here. What’s the name of that hill?”

Lieutenant Baines looked at his map. “Kettle Hill, sir.”

Roosevelt looked around and realized that his troops could not retreat. He hesitated one moment, then said loudly, “We’ve got to get up that hill! We’ll lose all the men if we stay here.”

“But, sir, that’s open ground,” the lieutenant objected. “We’d be sitting ducks if we tried to cross that.”

But Roosevelt would not be deterred; they had to press forward. “Come along, boys!” he called, and urged his horse into a gallop.

Lewis and Aaron were caught up in the charge. They moved across a fairly level spot, and then the ground began to rise rapidly. Roosevelt was galloping ahead, urging his horse up the hill. He stopped when he ran into a wire fence some forty yards from the top, then jumped off his horse, which was called Little Texas. Almost immediately, he found himself in the center of a group of the Rough Riders. “Look up there, boys!” he shouted above the noise of the battle. “Can we do it?”

“We can do it, Colonel!” Lewis cried out. Roosevelt flashed his famous toothy grin and yelled out to his troops, “Bully! Let’s go!”

At the top of the hill sat a huge iron kettle used for sugar refining. It became a target for the men, and a cry went up as the Rough Riders surged forward. It was at this point that Lieutenant Baines, who had almost reached the crest of the hill, was struck down by a bullet.

“They got the lieutenant!” a sergeant yelled. “And Massey’s down—and Conrad—!”

Lewis saw bullets kicking up dust around the wounded officer. Without a thought for himself, he threw his rifle down and ran forward.

“Lewis, keep down!” Aaron shouted where he lay as a bullet kicked up dust in his eyes.

To Lewis the bullets sounded like a swarm of angry bees buzzing around his head. He made a perfect target, and more than once he felt a bullet tug at his uniform. He reached Lieutenant Baines, who was holding his side, blood running through his fingers. “Get out of here! You can’t help me!” Baines gasped.

“Come on, Sarge! We can make it!” Lewis reached down and jerked the officer to his feet. Seeing that Baines could not walk, Lewis threw him over his shoulder. Baines was a slight man, fortunately, and Lewis moved forward in the strength of desperation.

Roosevelt was staring at the pair. “Throw down fire!” he yelled, and all along the line the Rough Riders began firing all their ammunition, trying to shield the two men in the open as they made for cover.

Lewis reached the huge iron kettle and managed to lay Lieutenant Baines down. He whirled and ran back into the open, yanked another man to his shoulders, and staggered back. He was gasping for breath, but seeing Sergeant Massey squirming in the dust, he ran back and picked up the wounded man. He had just made it to the kettle, when a bullet caught him in the back. He uttered a surprised grunt, and then found that he was lying on the ground. There was no pain, but it seemed as though the world was suddenly hollow. The sounds faded and he tried to say, “It’s all right—” But even as he tried to speak, the words died in his throat. The air turned thick, and he seemed to be drawn into a tremendous black whirlpool that sucked him down into a hollow silence. . . .

****

Aaron saw the bullet strike Lewis, and it was as though he himself had been shot. The smell of burning gunpowder scorched his nostrils, and the buzzing of bullets sang all around. Sergeant Bateman was screaming something, but
Aaron could not understand what it was he wanted. Bateman’s voice seemed thin and weak, like a cry coming from an enormous distance, and Aaron wished he would shut up.

Once while pitching in a baseball game he had been struck in the pit of the stomach by a line drive. He had felt no pain, but the ball had delivered such a blow that he could not move. He had stood there unable to breathe or speak as his teammates had come rushing to him. For one flickering moment the image of that vanished time flashed through his mind—the coach begging him to talk, asking if he was all right. He remembered how he’d tried to say something, but he couldn’t utter a word. For that instant he’d become so paralyzed that he was dead to all except the need to breathe—to suck life-giving oxygen into his burning lungs.

Now as the bullets continued to sing a deadly symphony, and the small brown men with straw sombreros moved from tree to tree in a deadly sort of minuet, he was as powerless as he had been on that baseball field a decade ago. He was aware of his hands clutching the Krag rifle tightly, and of the men around him screaming as they fired. Bateman had come over and was clutching his shoulder, shouting in his ear—but he shook his head mutely, unable to frame a single syllable.

And then—despite the scorching heat—a scene of ice and snow flashed across Aaron’s mind. A shiver ran through him as the image of the snow-white face of a mountain rampart lifted against an iron gray sky rose before him.

The Chilkoot Pass!

It all came back then, that day in the Yukon when Jubal had died. He could see himself and Jubal fighting the blinding snow, frozen and numb as the icy wind whipped around them. As if he were watching a motion picture, he saw the scene that had risen in his dreams so many times—

A natural break in the pass, a flat saucerlike depression. Four dark figures outlined like specters against the blinding snowbanks that rose ahead. Snow whirled around the
climbers, slanting at impossible angles, blinding the eyes and freezing the face.

And then—Aaron saw himself move to the edge of the chasm and stare down. He wanted to shout a warning, but could neither move nor speak. He felt himself carried down until he was the figure peering into the dizzying depths of the pass, and he heard the popping sound—not unlike the explosion of a Mauser rifle.

As he looked up, the walls of the mountain seemed to be moving, and someone was shouting. He stared at the moving mass thinking,
Those are mountains—they can’t be moving—it’s impossible!

But it was a wall of snow forty feet high, an avalanche that was racing down the mountainside with the force of a thousand steam locomotives—a relentless juggernaut!

No time to run and no place to hide—! A feeling of absolute helplessness and terror froze him to the spot.

Then Jubal was there, seizing his arm, shouting his name and throwing him aside so that he sprawled on the ice. He struggled to his feet in time to see Jubal lose his balance, caught by the edge of the monstrous slide.

“Jubal—!”

And then abruptly the vision faded and he was back in the steaming jungle of Cuba, crouched on the ground in a fetal position, weeping and crying out Jubal’s name.

“Get up, Winslow!”

Aaron snapped his head, rolled over, and saw Lieutenant Miller standing over him, his face contorted with anger. “We’ve got to get up this hill.”

“They killed Lewis!”

“You don’t know that,” Miller snapped. “If he’s alive, he needs a doctor—but we can’t go against those guns!”

Aaron had never once thought that Lewis might be alive. He had lived with the pain of Jubal’s death cutting into his memory. And when Lewis had gone down, he’d assumed he was dead. Now a sudden gust of hope shot through him.
Scrambling to his feet, he lifted his head and saw that the Spanish had thrown up a solid line of riflemen across the crest. Snatching up his rifle, he started forward, but Lieutenant Miller grabbed him and wrestled him back. Miller was a huge man, a regular from Tennessee.

“Keep down, you fool! You can’t go out into that fire!” Aaron struggled wildly, but the officer kept him pinioned, shouting, “You won’t help him by getting yourself killed!”

The buzzing sound of Mauser bullets filled the air, and as Aaron stopped fighting to free himself, he knew that Miller was right. The fire was steady, lacing the ground, kicking up mounds of dirt in small geysers. “Okay, Lieutenant,” he said, taking deep breaths. “I’m all right.”

Miller released his grip and pulled his service revolver from a leather holster. His hazel eyes searched the terrain, and he grunted, “We need artillery—but we’re not going to get it.”

The thought of Lewis bleeding to death was a torture to Aaron. “We’ve got to take that hill!” he gasped.

“Sure—but how?”

All up and down the line, the troops were firing steadily at the hidden Spanish riflemen. It was only a matter of time before they’d exhaust their ammunition. Aaron thought frantically, rejecting several plans—then he looked down the line to his left and at once said, “Lieutenant—if we could get to that little ridge—see it? We could filter around behind them.”

Miller swiveled around and studied the terrain, then shook his head. “Not enough cover, Winslow. If they spotted a squad, they’d be waiting for them.”

“So what we have to do is keep them from looking that way,” Aaron said.

“You going to do some kind of song and dance?”

“Look, if we hit them from the right with everything we’ve got, they won’t be worried about that ridge.”

Miller studied the situation, balancing the odds. Finally he shook his head dubiously. “It’s a long shot—but it might be the only chance we have.” He scanned the American line,
then turned to Winslow. “No other officers around. You think you could get behind that ridge with a squad if I lead a bunch over there to draw their attention?”

“No, you take the ridge, Lieutenant,” Aaron said. “I think I can get our fellows to hit them on the right.”

Miller had little confidence in the “thirty-day wonders,” as he called the volunteers who had flooded into the regular army. He was a hard-bitten individual who only put his faith in the men who had joined the regular army and been drilled the way a good soldier should be. But men were dying, and the hill had to be taken, so he nodded grimly, weighing Winslow with his hard blue eyes. “All right—we’ll try it.”

Aaron loaded his Krag as the lieutenant shouted out orders, then moved to his right and said, “When we draw their fire, Lieutenant, don’t waste any time—!” The men that Miller had ordered to advance began to filter out from cover, and he nodded, “Come on—we’ll get into the coulee over there.”

As Aaron led the men into the cupped depression no more than four feet deep, he heard the firing of the Mauser rifles crackle. One man went down with a leg wound, but there was no time to stop. Falling into the ditch, Aaron rolled over and fired at the hidden marksmen, giving all the protection he could to cover the others. When they were all hidden in the gully, he leaned back and loaded his rifle, saying, “Everybody load up.”

“What’s up, Winslow?” asked a tall, yellow-haired Texan named Sam Jones. He had a pair of pale blue eyes and had been a Texas Ranger at one point. “You tryin’ out for a rank?”

“Nope, I just want to take that hill, Sam.” Aaron shoved the last shell into the rifle, then stared at the Texan, saying, “Miller’s going to sneak around and get behind the enemy. We’ve got to draw the attention of those guys up there while he does it.”

Jones shaded his eyes and peered to his left, then up the hill. “Looks like we’re gonna have us a right lively party, don’t it, now?”