Merline Lovelace (11 page)

“Yes, it has.”

In more ways than Victoria would ever admit, least of all to this woman.

“But I didn’t seek you out to talk about myself. I should like to do a story about the nursing corps. If you have a few moments to spare, perhaps you could tell me about some of the other women in your unit and what you expect to encounter when you arrive in Cuba.”

Mary’s smile faded. A question came into her eyes.

“Are you sure you want to know? The citizens of Cheyenne may not wish to read the gruesome details of how a field hospital operates during and after a battle.”

For the first time, Victoria faced the challenge of balancing accuracy with compassion. Too much de
tail, and she’d strike terror into the hearts of women who’d sent husbands and sons off to war. Too little, and she’d write a story with no soul.

“Tell me whatever you wish and I’ll include what I consider appropriate for my readers.”

“Fair enough.”

When Victoria descended the gangplank some hours later, she carried with her another filled notebook and profound respect for the women who’d volunteered for such grim service. She also carried a letter of introduction from Mary to Miss Clara Barton, who was overseeing the outfitting of the ship she’d chartered in the name of the American Red Cross.

Victoria searched out Miss Barton the very next day. Already she’d heard stories about the amazing woman who’d recruited her own corps of Red Cross volunteers, purchased tons of supplies and equipment—including four horseless carriage ambulances—and chartered the
Star of Texas
to convey them all to Cuba.

Miss Barton proved even more amazing in person than in rumor. When Victoria asked permission to do a story about her, however, the gray-haired dynamo shook her head.

“I would rather you write about my volunteers. They’re quite a fascinating group, you know, and
run the gamut from wealthy socialites to a one-time vaudeville dancer.”

The twinkle in her eyes told Victoria that Miss Barton knew exactly what she was doing. She’d reeled the reporter in with that fascinating tidbit.

“They lack the formal medical training to qualify for the army’s nursing corps, but more than make up for that shortfall in courage and determination to serve. Come, let me introduce you to a few.”

To Victoria’s mind, no one summed up that selflessness better than Callie May Morgan. She interviewed the tall, big-boned New Orleans native down in the bowels of the
Texas.
Swiping her sweat-streaked forehead with a beefy forearm, the laundress slapped a wet sheet on a washboard.

“I don’t know why Miss Barton sent you to speak with me, miss. I never been to school. I got no particular skills. All I ever done is scrub floors in a flophouse and have babies.”

“You’re married?” Surprised, Victoria blinked away the salty sting of sweat.

“No, ma’m, me ’n’ my Jake never got around to standin’ before a preacher. Didn’t see the need, not when God looked down on us every day.”

“Is your Jake in the army? Are you following him to Cuba?”

“Jake took sick with the yellow fever some years back and passed on.” Patiently, she bent over the
washboard. “Same fever claimed my little ones, too. All four of them.”

“I’m so sorry!”

“The Good Lord gives and the Good Lord takes,” she said with stoic acceptance. “No, ma’m, I joined up with Miss Clara because I’m an immune.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I had a touch of Yellow Jack, too, but it didn’t take me like it did Jake ’n’ my little ones. So they classified me as immune. When Miss Clara put out the call for volunteers, I decided to go along to Cuba to help take care of our soldier boys. Word is, they’re more likely to catch a fever in them jungles than a bullet.”

Since both Mary and Miss Barton had voiced the same opinion, Victoria didn’t argue the point.

“So here I am,” Callie May said, her muscular arms bulging as she wrung out the wet sheet. “God done gave me a gift and it would go against His will not to use it.”

Her simple faith and obvious dedication humbled Victoria. She wrote furiously, trying to capture the essence of the woman. The laundress paused to watch her pencil fly across the green-ruled lines.

“Looks like He gave you a gift, too.”

“What? Yes, I suppose He did. Words come easy to me.”

“Easy or not, you’re doing His work.”

Startled, Victoria demurred. “I don’t know if I’d describe my stories in quite those terms.”

“I would, miss. Not many women would have the gumption to come down here to Tampa and write about all this. No, miss, you’re doing what God planned for you to do, just like the rest of us.”

Her quiet words lingered in Victoria’s mind long after she’d left the
Texas.

Afterward, she would always marvel at the simple events that seemed to bring about the greatest changes in one’s life.

If Mary hadn’t written that note of introduction…

If Miss Barton hadn’t sent her down to interview Callie May…

If Dan Powdry hadn’t growled irritably that the captain wasn’t going to like his woman diddling about Tampa so long and thoroughly set up Victoria’s back…

If any one of those inconsequential events had not occurred, she might not have found herself aboard the
Star of Texas,
bound for Cuba a mere two days after the troop transports had steamed out of port.

“I
t’s so green,” Callie May Morgan murmured. “Like the Garden of Eden.”

Propping her elbows on the ship’s rail, the laundress stared at the tropical island some hundred yards away. Beside her, Victoria gripped the teak rail with hands gone white at the knuckles. Like Callie May, her glance was riveted on the green-blanketed mountains rising above the port of Siboney.

“Wonder what my Jake would say if he knew I’d left New Orleans,” Callie May mused. “I can’t hardly believe I come so far from home.”

Nor could Victoria. The evidence was right there, before her eyes, yet she had to force herself to accept that she was indeed here. In Cuba. Accompanying an invading army. With only one small valise, a purse filled with banknotes pinned securely
to her petticoat, her gold locket tucked away for safety and her notebook clutched in a sweaty fist.

It had all happened so fast. She’d actually begun packing her trunk for the trip back to Cheyenne when Miss Barton sent word the
Star of Texas
was loaded and would steam out of port within the next few hours. If Miss Parker had indeed been serious when she expressed a desire to accompany the Red Cross volunteers to Cuba and record their story, she’d best get down to Port Tampa immediately.

Victoria had paced the floor of her sitting room in an agony of indecision. Sam had insisted she go home. Common sense told her that was the best course. The only course. Yet Callie May Morgan’s words kept tugging at her mind. She had a gift. A God-given gift. According to her papa’s cables, her stories had already boosted the
Tribune
’s circulation significantly.

Trembling with a combination of excitement and nervous bravado, she finally threw a few things into a carpetbag, deposited her leather-bound trunk with the concierge, composed a hurried cable to her papa and rushed down to the port before she could change her mind. She’d departed Tampa so quickly she’d left behind her faithful watchdog, Dan Powdry.

Now she stood at the ship’s rail, a mere hundred yards or so off shore, so sick with trepidation at what she’d encounter when her feet touched dry
land again that she could barely put pencil to notepaper.

Gulping, Victoria dropped her gaze to the longboats bobbing on the waves. There were hundreds and hundreds of them, all ferrying men and supplies ashore. The convoy that included the
Star of Texas
had dropped anchor in this palm-fringed bay just after dawn. Six thousand men were now struggling ashore, laden with weapons and heavy backpacks.

These six thousand followed on the heels of the first wave of U.S. troops, which had landed two days ago at Daiquirí, some seven miles to the east. That wave had established a beachhead, captured this port of Siboney and trekked into the hills where they defeated the Spanish at Las Guásimas in the first battle of the war. Signalmen using colorful flags had wigwagged the news from ship to ship just minutes after the first anchor dropped at Siboney.

Her stomach churning, Victoria once again lifted her anxious gaze to the mountains ringing the seaside town. Sam was up there in that dense green jungle. The Rough Riders had participated in the Battle of Las Guásimas. Casualties were reportedly light, with only sixteen Americans killed and fifty-two wounded, but the mere thought that Sam might be among them made Victoria feel ill.

The queasy feeling stayed with her all that long, hot morning. Not until almost noon did Miss Barton
receive permission to go ashore. Hiring a mule, the indomitable woman made an arduous five-mile trek into the jungle to meet with General Shafter at his field headquarters. Shafter confirmed that casualties from Las Guásimas were, indeed, light and that his medical staff at Siboney appeared to have matters well in hand.

“He suggested we set up operations at Daiquirí,” Miss Barton informed her volunteers when she returned to the ship. “I’m to consult with the commander there as to facilities.”

Drawing Victoria aside, she shared news of a more personal sort. “While in town, I met a reporter who was with the First Volunteer Cavalry at Las Guásimas. He says he knows you. A Mr. Richard Harding Davis.”

“I met him in Tampa,” she confirmed, her heart thumping. “Did he say whether or not the First had suffered casualties?”

Gravely, Miss Barton nodded. “Eight men killed and thirty-four wounded.”

“Eight of the sixteen American dead are Rough Riders?” Victoria gasped.

“So Mr. Davis indicated. Captain Garrett wasn’t among them,” she hastened to add.

“Thank God!”

“But he was among the wounded. Davis says he took a Mauser bullet.”

Victoria’s stomach dropped clear to her boots. The deck reeled under her. Clucking, Miss Barton reached out a steadying hand.

“Wounds made by Mausers are usually either immediately fatal or rather trivial. If the bullet hits no vital organ, it often goes right through, perforating bone and muscle cleanly. The entry and exit wounds soon scab over and heal quite nicely. According to Mr. Davis, the captain refused to leave the battlefield until the fight was over. You must take heart from that, my dear.”

Victoria barely heard one word in three. Her one thought, her only thought, was to get to Sam.

“I must go ashore.”

“Yes, of course you must. Mr. Davis said he’d escort you to the hospital. You’re to search him out at the cable office in Siboney. Once you’re ashore, though, I must warn you that you’ll be on your own. You’re not one of my volunteers. I can’t guarantee your safety.”

Her warning fell on deaf ears. Victoria was already running for her valise. Mere minutes later she stumbled down a long set of folding metal stairs. With the
Star of Texas
riding the swells, she took a deep breath and leaped into the bobbing ship’s boat.

Siboney. The name was so musical, hinting at gaily painted stucco buildings, trickling tile foun
tains and tall palms rustling in the breeze. As Victoria stepped onto a rickety wooden quay, her first glimpse of the town proved anything but gay or musical.

The first wave of the Expeditionary Army had launched a heavy bombardment to drive out its garrison of Spanish troops. Many of Siboney’s buildings now gaped open to the broiling sun. Craters pockmocked the pale-yellow-and-ochre walls. Red-clay roof tiles had tumbled into the street, creating piles of debris. An artillery shell had shattered the fountain in the center of the main square.

The residents who’d fled the bombardment were only now straggling back. The men were grim-faced, the women tearful as they surveyed what was left of their homes. They edged past long lines of U.S. troops whose ranks had swelled with the addition of hundreds of Cuban rebels, all marching out to join up with the force that had landed at Daiquirí two days before.

Victoria registered only vague details of the grim scene as she made for the cable office at one end of the plaza. There she found a jam of reporters offering outrageous bribes to get their dispatches sent, each one grumbling about the one-hundred-word limit General Shafter had imposed to keep reporters from clogging the telegraph lines. Richard Harding Davis wasn’t among them. One of the correspondents suggested she try the taverna next door.

When Victoria spotted the three men hunched around a table, their heads wreathed in a cloud of cigar smoke, she almost didn’t recognize Davis. He looked nothing like the dapper adventurer in tropical white linens and cork pith helmet she’d met in Tampa. Several days of scraggly growth stubbled his chin and cheeks, and his once pristine linen suit was now mud brown. A leather cross belt supported his binoculars, notebooks and canteen, giving him the appearance of a
bandido.

“Miss Parker. There you are!”

Setting down his jigger of rum, he rose and introduced his companions. “Do you know Freddie Remington and Steve Crane?”

At any other time, Victoria would have been thrilled to meet the world-renowned author of
The Red Badge of Courage
and an artist of Frederick Remington’s international stature. But at that moment, the best she could manage was a distracted nod.

“How do you do. Mr. Davis, Miss Barton said you were with the First Volunteer Cavalry during the battle at Las Guásimas and spoke with my fiancé afterward.”

“Right. Captain Garrett, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Is his…? Is his injury serious?”

“Not to hear him describe it. ‘Damned nuisance,’ I believe his words were. Colonel Roosevelt was
forced to issue him a direct order before he’d take himself to the field hospital.”

Giddy with relief, Victoria barely refrained from flinging her arms around his neck. “Would you be so kind as to direct me to the hospital?”

“I’ll do better than that,” he said gallantly. “I’ll escort you there myself. Freddie, old man, will you loan the lady your mule?”

“Of course.”

With a shrill whistle, Davis summoned the Cuban the reporters had hired to protect their property.

“We have to keep the animals under armed guard,” he confided to Victoria as she climbed somewhat awkwardly into a wooden saddle. “Transport is more precious than gold right now.”

She soon discovered why. Once outside the town, the road narrowed to a dirt lane hedged on both sides by an impenetrable jungle of banana trees, spiky palmettos and all manner of vegetation she’d never seen before. In several spots the path plunged down slopes so steep the mules tucked their hind legs under them and skittered down on their haunches. At the bottom of the ravines, they’d plow through muddy streams and start up again.

As uncomfortable and precarious as the mule ride was, navigating the dirt track was even more of a chore for the troops who slogged through the mud. Sliding and slipping, the soldiers panted up and down the steep slopes.

Davis, who’d spent the better part of the past two years in Cuba, cheerfully identified the unit insignia of the troops they passed. Victoria closed her ears to their muttered curses and acknowledged with a nod their apologies when they noticed a lady among them. Sweat and mud soon stained her tan traveling suit, and she lost all pretensions to neatness when dark clouds suddenly rolled over the mountains and dumped their contents in a thick, torrential deluge.

The storm passed within minutes, leaving Victoria as wet and odorous as her mule. She had just lifted a hand to swat at the gnats that reappeared after the deluge when the brush rustled and a scaly creature the size of a small dog scuttled right between her mule’s legs.

Braying, the animal humped and hopped and stomped at the spidery crustacean. Victoria grabbed the pommel with both hands and managed to keep from being tossed into the mud. Stunned, she watched the creature disappear into the brush on the other side of the track.

“What on
earth
was that?”

“Don’t know the exact name for them,” Davis replied. “We call them land crabs.”

“Do…? Do they bite?”

“Not anything bigger than themselves, I’m told. But the blasted things feed at night and have caused more than one trigger-happy sentry to discharge his weapon. Then the nervous soldier walking the post
next to him thinks it’s an attack and, before you know it, we’ve got a whole fusillade going. Hard for a fellow to sleep, I can tell you.”

“I would imagine,” Victoria said faintly.

“They make for decent eating, though, should you find yourself stranded in the mountains without rations. A solid whack with a stone will crack their shells.”

Sincerely hoping she never found herself in such dire circumstances, she nodded.

The journey to the field hospital seemed to last forever, but in fact they had covered less than a mile and a half when they reached a cleared cane field on a hillside above Siboney. The temporary hospital had been situated there to catch the breezes, Davis explained, but elements of it would move with the army when it pushed on to Santiago.

Victoria barely heard him. The sight of stretchers lying outside the long rows of tents held her horrified gaze. At least a hundred men lay sweating in the steamy heat while they awaited medical attention.

“I thought the battle casualties were light!”

“They were. Most of these fellows are down with fever. Doesn’t take long in the tropics. Shafter will be lucky if he takes Santiago before he loses half his army.”

Swinging down from his saddle, he offered a hand to Victoria.

“Let’s see if we can find Teddy’s Terrors. Did you hear Roosevelt now has command of the regiment?”

“No, I didn’t,” Victoria murmured, stricken by the difference between her hazy mental image of the field conditions Mary had described and the stark reality of this camp.

“Brigadier General Young, Second Brigade commander, also went down with fever, so Wood has moved up to his command. Roosevelt in turn was promoted to take over the regiment from Wood.”

At that moment, Victoria couldn’t have cared less who commanded what. She’d spotted several men wearing brown canvas pants and familiar, blue polka-dot neckerchiefs. Her heart thumping, she lifted her skirts and rushed down the cane-strewn path between the tents.

“Are you men with the First Volunteer Cavalry?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Can you tell me where I might find Captain Garrett?”

A tall, lanky trooper tanned to the color of saddle leather hooked a thumb toward a Shelby tent a little farther down the row. “He’s in there.”

“Thank you.”

When she went to brush by the man, his curious
gaze swept her from the tip of her sodden hat to her muddy boots.

“Hey! Aren’t you the captain’s lady? The one who came out to our bivouac area in Tampa?”

“I, er, yes.”

“Well, I’ll be danged!”

Davis saw the astonished looks the men gave Victoria as she hurried past. A frown settled over his handsome, square-jawed face.

“I say. Garrett does know you took ship to Cuba, doesn’t he?”

“No.”

“Hmm. Perhaps I’d better wait for you outside.”

“Perhaps you had.”

He dropped back, leaving Victoria to duck inside the opening of the Shelby tent. After the bright glare outside, the gloom inside blinded her. Desperately, she tried not to gag at the stench of vomit and urine while she waited for her eyes to adjust.