1882: Custer in Chains (35 page)

In a few seconds, her twitching stopped and his nose told him that her bowels had released. Damn it, he thought, was the bitch dead? Had he killed her? He bent down and checked her pulse. It fluttered and stopped. He cursed silently. He hadn’t planned to kill the old whore, but she had provoked him beyond reason. He looked around. None of the servants was present. Good. He straightened up and walked out with as much dignity as he could manage. He wanted to leave before Rojas returned. Salazar was armed, but Rojas was a killer.

As he stepped outside and into the sunlight, he realized that he might escape any scrutiny or suspicion if there was to be an investigation into the death of Mercedes de la Pena. He had hit her where no one would easily discover a mark. With only a little luck, the servants and Rojas would think the evil old woman had suffered a fatal heart attack.

* * *

Rojas was led into Mercedes’ bedroom only a few minutes later. Ironically, he had seen Salazar walking down the street without a care in the world and had thought nothing of it. They’d even nodded greetings. Between sobs, the servants told him that Salazar had been alone with their mistress and that he had punched her in the chest and killed her. When Salazar had struck the fatal blow, they’d been watching through a hole in the wall designed by Mercedes for just such surveillance. Terrified, they’d kept quiet, and Salazar had left thinking his assault was a secret.

Rojas shifted Mercedes’ clothing so he could see the dark blotch on her chest. Yes, he thought, such a blow could be fatal, especially to a frail old woman. He’d inflicted such blows himself with his heavy hammer and seen his younger, healthier victims die gasping for breaths that would never come. Such a blow would even stop a person’s heart. Perhaps that was what happened to Mercedes.

Rojas decided that he had to leave. Even though he was innocent, he couldn’t take a chance that the authorities might want a scapegoat. He went to Mercedes’ room and took all the money she had in her purse and in the wall safe hidden behind an ugly painting of a bunch of flowers. He had memorized the combination after watching his mistress open it several times. He had never opened it himself until now and had no idea what he might find. To his delight he found almost twenty thousand dollars in American money and several hundred British pound notes.

Excellent, he thought. He did not want to have to take and sell jewelry that would go for a fraction of its worth and likely be identified as having belonged to his deceased mistress. He turned to the servants and told them that they could have whatever they wished and they began a mad scramble to grab anything of value including the jewelry he didn’t want.

He smiled to himself. If anyone became suspicious and the servants were caught with the precious items, they would be suspected of stealing from a dead woman and not him.

But now he had a problem and it was called justice. Mercedes de la Pena had been very good to Hector Rojas. She had not deserved to be killed like Salazar had done. She should still be alive and teasing him and perhaps inviting him into her bed where he would convince her that she was still young. He would have to think what to do about Diego Salazar. Whatever he decided would be painful and permanent. Salazar would suffer.

* * *

Martin had to yell to make himself heard by the five hundred men in the battalion. They were all standing casually and looking at him curiously. Nothing good ever came from being addressed en masse by a senior officer and even less so by a general.

“Congratulations, men. You all look like hell. Back home you would be arrested on sight and thrown into jail as vagrants.”

The men were all wearing what a Cuban peasant revolutionary soldier would wear—ragged pants, torn shirt, sandals, and big, floppy hats.

The soldiers roared with laughter and one asked just when they would be going home so this happy event could happen. He ignored the comment. A soldier whom he knew to be a sergeant under his rags waved his hand. “General, I know you’ve got us wearing this stinking shit for a good reason and I know you ain’t gonna tell us that reason today, but will we be able to take our real uniforms with us when we go out and do whatever you want us to do?”

“Sergeant Kelly, that is a real good and real long question,” he answered. “And are all the sergeants in this man’s army from Ireland?”

Kelly was a small, wiry man and he grinned impudently. “Only the good ones,” he responded and was greeted with a chorus of good-natured jeers and boos. The sergeant’s brogue was thick enough to cut with a knife. It told Martin that Kelly, along with so many Irishmen, had arrived fairly recently in the U.S.

Ryder held up his hands for silence and quickly got it. “Despite my rank I can say with confidence that I don’t know all that is going to happen. When I do and can tell you, I will. In the meantime, don’t lose the rags you’ve been issued today. They could wind up being very important. Oh yes, don’t advertise the fact that you have them.”

* * *

As the men dispersed to go back to their quarters and change into their regular uniforms, Sergeant Kelly turned to his companion and cousin from County Cork, Corporal Ryan. “Does his generalship actually expect five hundred men to keep this nonsense a secret?”

Ryan shook his head. “Not a chance,” he said thoughtfully. “All this does is tell us that whatever is going to happen is going to occur soon.”

“Can’t argue with that reasoning,” Kelly said. “And it also points out that we’re going to be in disguise and try to fool the goddamn Spanish into thinking we’re a bunch of raggedy-ass Cuban rebels.”

“And that means we’re going to be close to the front, where there is likely to be a lot of shooting. Shit.”

“Ryan, do you have any of your Bushmills left? I think we’re going to be in need of a drink.”

“Sergeant, we finished it a long time ago. Don’t you remember?”

“Of course I do. I was just hoping I was wrong. I guess we’ll have to make do with that shit they call rum.”

The comments about Bushmills were a joke. It and other Irish brands like Jameson were too pricy for them. They’d talked about pooling their money and buying a bottle when they got back to Baltimore. The two men had arrived from Ireland a dozen years earlier as kids and were poorer than dirt. They had been trying to work their way to respectability since then. Joining the Maryland militia a few years before had seemed like a good idea and volunteering to fight in Cuba an even better one. Hell, they were even able to shoot at people. Too bad their targets were Spanish and not English.

In the distance, the American artillery again began to fire. Ryan shook his head. “Either we attack soon or we’re gonna run out of ammunition. My money’s on soon. I suggest we concentrate on just how the hell we’re going to drag our Gatling guns through the streets of Havana.”

* * *

Lieutenant Hugo Torres watched with dismay and horror as the black fingers of smoke on the horizon separated and became warships, many warships. Soon they could see the white water at the ships’ bows as they bulled their way through the sea.

As a result of surviving the sinking of the
Vitorio
, he was now second in command of the cruiser
Aragon
. It was a dubious honor at best. The ship was rusty and totally ill-maintained. Her engines sounded like they were gasping for life and he wondered if they would have to rig sails. There was little coal left in her bunkers and what they had was of poor quality. She was rated at fourteen knots, but she barely made ten during the flight from Havana. The
Aragon
was supposed to have a crew of nearly four hundred, but fewer than half that had left Havana with them. Had the others deserted?

Only if they were wise, Torres thought.

The ship carried eight eight-inch guns, which sounded impressive, but they were not in good shape and he wondered if they would even fire. No one seemed to know when they were last used. It came as no surprise to find that the ammunition was of poor quality as well.

At just over three thousand tons, the
Aragon
was the largest Spanish ship in the small squadron. As a result, she was the flagship. She was half the size of the larger American warships and totally outgunned. A battle would end in a slaughter. Even so, the newly appointed captain had just finished haranguing the crew on the virtues of dying well. At least that’s what Torres thought of the speech. He said they would fight the Yankees for the glory of Spain. The previous captain had claimed he was too ill to make the escape from Havana. Torres thought their flight at night from Havana was cowardly and stupid. They had no place to go and were short on food and water as well as fuel and ammunition.

Nor could they scuttle their ships and try to make it on foot to somewhere safe. There was no safe haven. Scores of rebels were visible on the shore. He could hear their jeers and curses. They would chop to pieces anyone who came ashore.

They were doomed.

The captain waved his sword. When he stopped, Torres noticed flecks of rust on the blade. “For Spain, for King Alfonso, and for Holy Mother Church. Let us go and fight and, if need be, die as heroes.”

A burly sailor stepped forward. “I do not wish to die and I certainly do not wish to die in a foolish battle that we cannot win. Today I refuse to fight.”

Several junior officers moved towards the man to arrest him, but he was quickly surrounded by a several dozen other sailors who protected and cheered him. “Surrender, surrender,” they chanted.

In seconds, the rest of the crew was chanting as well. The captain looked stricken. “We must fight for our honor. Look, the enemy is almost upon us.”

Torres looked in the direction of the approaching Americans. They were indeed much closer and forming up to run parallel to the Spanish squadron. There was a puff of smoke from the lead warship and the shell splashed well short of the
Aragon
. It was a literal shot across their bows. In a very short while the Americans would commence firing for real and the slaughter would begin.

“Fuck our honor,” yelled the sailor who was the ringleader. “Take the officers.”

It happened so quickly Torres realized it must have been planned. He was grabbed and his arms pinned to his side. They took his sword and pistol.

Torres turned to the ringleader. “If you want to surrender, then someone must tell the Americans. Otherwise they will start shelling us.”

“Will you do it?” asked the ringleader, suddenly concerned that the battle might start despite his fervent wishes.

Torres shook off his captors. “You may keep the pistol, but give me back my sword. It was a gift from my mother and, besides, I may have to pretend to surrender it to the Americans.”

“Bastard, traitor,” said the captain as Torres’ sword was returned. The other officers looked away.

“He needs a swim,” laughed the ringleader. Other mutineers grabbed the captain and threw him overboard. Several other officers followed.

“Don’t let them drown,” said Torres. “We’re doing this to stop any killing.”

The sailors growled, then laughed as they pulled their bedraggled skipper and the others from the drink.

Torres gave orders to the crew to lower the colors and turn the guns either down or away from the Americans. He realized that his fate had just been decided for him. He would never be able to return to Spain. He wondered if some other Spanish-speaking country in the New World could use a good naval officer.

* * *

“The
Orion
does not belong in a line of battle,” Janson said. “She is not a battleship. Hell, she isn’t even a real cruiser, despite what her papers say. So here we are, ready to go and fight the remnants of the Spanish Navy.”

The
Orion
was the seventh in the line of American warships. Ahead of her were the heavy cruisers
Atlanta
and
Chicago
and four Civil War vintage steam sloops. The
Atlanta
was the flagship and Admiral Porter was on board her. The steam sloops were followed by a dozen auxiliary cruisers of all shapes and sizes. They were en route to the small Cuban port of Playa Colorada to the west and south of Havana. Credible intelligence said that the mere handful of Spanish ships remaining in Cuban waters were riding there at anchor. That the Spanish hadn’t steamed farther away was explained by the fact that they couldn’t get additional coal, or even wood to burn as fuel. To make matters worse, the friendly port of Santiago was out of their limited range. Playa Colorada was a day’s worth of steaming from Havana. The Spanish squadron had gone as far as it could. The dash from Havana was over.

The Spanish ships were the cruisers
Aragon
and
Navarra
and the light cruiser
Velasco
. Two small and useless monitors were also with the cruisers. The Spanish were heavily outgunned and outnumbered. It was rumored by some that Admiral Porter wanted to destroy them in one last and glorious fleet action, while others felt that he wanted to overawe them into surrendering. Janson and Prentice hoped that inducing them to give up was the goal. Both men had seen enough death and destruction to last a lifetime.

“Spanish honor might demand a battle,” mused Janson, “even if it means useless bloodshed. People get killed even in a symbolic battle.”

There would be no secret arrival for the American fleet. Black smoke from burning coal poured from their stacks, signaling their presence for many miles. The two men wondered if the Spaniards would still be at Playa Colorada or if they would have fled as far as their limited supply of fuel would take them.

Signal flags flew from the
Atlanta
—enemy in sight. The crew of the
Orion
cheered. Soon the Spanish squadron—they refused to call it a fleet—was visible. At first the enemy ships looked grim and dangerous, but Prentice and Janson quickly changed their minds. The Spanish vessels were small and as they drew closer, rust could be seen on their hulls. A sailor commented that it looked like either American capital ship could swallow the Spanish ones.

“My God,” said Prentice. “Is this the end of the Spanish empire in North America, a handful of small and obsolete warships? Is this pitiful remnant of a navy what is left of the nation that conquered half the world and launched the Armada against England?”