The Cubans
were at a distance of two hundred and fifty yards; the "point" of
five picked men under Sergeant Byrne and duty-Sergeant Fish followed
them at a distance of a hundred yards, and then came Capron's troop
of sixty men strung out in single file. No flankers were placed for
the reason that the dense undergrowth and the tangle of vines that
stretched from the branches of the trees to the bushes below made it
a physical impossibility for man or beast to move forward except
along the single trail.
Colonel Wood rode at the head of the column, followed by two regular
army officers who were members of General Wheeler's staff, a Cuban
officer, and Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt. They rode slowly in
consideration of the troopers on foot, who under a cruelly hot sun
carried heavy burdens. To those who did not have to walk, it was not
unlike a hunting excursion in our West; the scenery was beautiful and
the view down the valley one of luxuriant peace. Roosevelt had never
been in the tropics and Captain McCormick and I were talking back at
him over our shoulders and at each other, pointing out unfamiliar
trees and birds. Roosevelt thought it looked like a good deer
country, as it once was; it reminded McCormick of Southern
California; it looked to me like the trails in Central America. We
advanced, talking in that fashion and in high spirits, and
congratulating ourselves in being shut of the transport and on
breathing fine mountain air again, and on the fact that we were on
horseback. We agreed it was impossible to appreciate that we were
really at war - that we were in the enemy's country. We had been
riding in this pleasant fashion for an hour and a half with brief
halts for rest, when Wood stopped the head of the column, and rode
down the trail to meet Capron, who was coming back. Wood returned
immediately, leading his horse, and said to Roosevelt:
"Pass the word back to keep silence in the ranks."
The place at which we had halted was where the trail narrowed, and
proceeded sharply downward. There was on one side of it a stout
barbed-wire fence of five strands. By some fortunate accident this
fence had been cut just where the head of the column halted. On the
left of the trail it shut off fields of high grass blocked at every
fifty yards with great barricades of undergrowth and tangled trees
and chapparal. On the other side of the trail there was not a foot
of free ground; the bushes seemed absolutely impenetrable, as indeed
they were later found to be.
When we halted, the men sat down beside the trail and chewed the long
blades of grass, or fanned the air with their hats. They had no
knowledge of the situation such as their leaders possessed, and their
only emotion was one of satisfaction at the chance the halt gave them
to rest and to shift their packs.
