The Surrender of Santiago

sea, lay the army, panting from the effort of the first, second andthird days of the month, resting on its arms, its eyes to its sights,Maxim, Hotchkiss and Krag-Jorgenson held ready, alert, watchful,straining in the leash, waiting the expiration of the last truce thathad now been on for twenty-four hours.That night we sat up very late on the porch of the hacienda, singing"The Spanish Cavalier"--if you will recollect the words, singularlyappropriate--"The Star-Spangled Banner," and 'Tis a way we had at Caney, sir, 'Tis a way we had at Caney, sir, 'Tis a way we had at Caney, sir, To drive the Dons away,an adaptation by one of the General's aides, which had a great success.Inside, the General himself lay on his spread blankets, his handsclasped under his head, a pipe in his teeth, feebly applauding us atintervals and trying to pretend that we sang out of tune. The night wasfine and very still. The wonderful Cuban fireflies, that are like littleelectric lights gone somehow adrift, glowed and faded in the mango andbamboo trees, and after a while a whip-poor-will began his lamentablelittle plaint somewhere in the branches of the gorgeous vermilionFlamboyana that overhung the hacienda.The air was heavy with smells, smells that inevitable afternoondownpours had distilled from the vast jungle of bush and vine andthicket all up and down the valley. In Cuba everything, the very mud andwater, has a smell. After every rain, as soon as the red-hot sun is outagain, vegetation reeks and smokes and sweats, and these smells steamoff into the air all night, thick and stupefying, like the interior of acathedral after high mass.The orderly who brought the despatch should have dashed up at a gallop,clicked his spurs, saluted and begun with "The commanding General'scompliments, sir," et cetera. Instead, he dragged a very tired horse upthe trail, knee-deep in mud, brought to, standing with a gasp of relief,and said, as he pushed his hat back from his forehead:"Say, is here where General McKibben is?"We stopped singing and took our feet down from the railing of theveranda. In the room back of us we heard the General raise on an elbowand tell his orderly to light a candle. The orderly went inside, drawinga paper from his pocket, and the aides followed. Through the open windowwe could plainly hear what followed, and see, too, for that matter, bytwisting a bit on our chairs.The General had mislaid his eyeglasses and so passed the despatch to oneof his aides, saying: "I'll get you to read this for me, Nolan." On oneknee, and holding the despatch to the candle-light, Nolan read it aloud.