They wanted to know where I was going, and when I
explained, they declared that when Coamo surrendered they also were
going to be among those present.
So we slipped away from the main body and rode off as an independent
organization. But from the bald ridge, where the artillery was still
hammering the town, the three correspondents and Captain Alfred
Paget, Her Majesty's naval attache, observed our attempt to steal a
march on General Wilson's forces, and pursued us and soon overtook
us.
We now were seven, or to be exact, eight, for with Mr. Millard was
"Jimmy," who in times of peace sells papers in Herald Square, and in
times of war carries Mr. Millard's copy to the press post. We were
much nearer the ford than the bridge, so we waded the "drift" and
started on a gallop along the mile of military road that lay between
us and Coamo. The firing from the Sixteenth Pennsylvania had
slackened, but as we advanced it became sharper, more insistent, and
seemed to urge us to greater speed. Across the road were dug rough
rifle-pits which had the look of having been but that moment
abandoned. What had been intended for the breakfast of the enemy was
burning in pots over tiny fires, little heaps of cartridges lay in
readiness upon the edges of each pit, and an arm-chair, in which a
sentry had kept a comfortable lookout, lay sprawling in the middle of
the road. The huts that faced it were empty. The only living things
we saw were the chickens and pigs in the kitchen-gardens. On either
hand was every evidence of hasty and panic-stricken flight. We
rejoiced at these evidences of the fact that the Wisconsin Volunteers
had swept all before them. Our rejoicings were not entirely
unselfish. It was so quiet ahead that some one suggested the town
had already surrendered. But that would have been too bitter a
disappointment, and as the firing from the further side of Coamo
still continued, we refused to believe it, and whipped the ponies
into greater haste. We were now only a quarter of a mile distant
from the built-up portion of Coamo, where the road turned sharply
into the main street of the town.
Captain Paget, who in the absence of the British military attache on
account of sickness, accompanied the army as a guest of General
Wilson, gave way to thoughts of etiquette.
"Will General Wilson think I should have waited for him?" he shouted.
The words were jolted out of him as he rose in the saddle. The noise
of the ponies' hoofs made conversation difficult. I shouted back
that the presence of General Ernst in the town made it quite proper
for a foreign attache to enter it.
"It must have surrendered by now," I shouted. "It's been half an
hour since Ernst crossed the bridge."
At these innocent words, all my companions tugged violently at their
bridles and shouted "Whoa!"
"Crossed the bridge?" they yelled. "There is no bridge! The bridge
is blown up! If he hasn't crossed by the ford, he isn't in the
town!"
Then, in my turn, I shouted "Whoa!"
But by now the Porto Rican ponies had decided that this was the race
of their lives, and each had made up his mind that, Mexican bit or no
Mexican bit, until he had carried his rider first into the town of
Coamo, he would not be halted. As I tugged helplessly at my Mexican
bit, I saw how I had made my mistake. The volunteers, on finding the
bridge destroyed, instead of marching upon Coamo had turned to the
ford, the same ford which we had crossed half an hour before they
reached it. They now were behind us. Instead of a town which had
surrendered to a thousand American soldiers, we, seven unarmed men
and Jimmy, were being swept into a hostile city as fast as the
enemy's ponies could take us there.
Breckenridge and Titus hastily put the blame upon me.
"If we get into trouble with the General for this," they shouted, "it
will be your fault. You told us Ernst was in the town with a
thousand men."
I shouted back that no one regretted the fact that he was not more
keenly than I did myself.
Titus and Breckenridge each glanced at a new, full-dress sword.
"We might as well go in," they shouted, "and take it anyway!" I
decided that Titus and Breckenridge were wasted in the Commissariat
Department.
The three correspondents looked more comfortable.
"If you officers go in," they cried, "the General can't blame us,"
and they dug their spurs into the ponies.
"Wait!" shouted Her Majesty's representative. "That's all very well
for you chaps, but what protects me if the Admiralty finds out I have
led a charge on a Spanish garrison?"
But Paget's pony refused to consider the feelings of the Lords of the
Admiralty. As successfully Paget might have tried to pull back a
row-boat from the edge of Niagara. And, moreover, Millard, in order
that Jimmy might be the first to reach Ponce with despatches, had
mounted him on the fastest pony in the bunch, and he already was far
in the lead. His sporting instincts, nursed in the pool-rooms of the
Tenderloin and at Guttenburg, had sent him three lengths to the good.
It never would do to have a newsboy tell in New York that he had
beaten the correspondents of the papers he sold in the streets; nor
to permit commissioned officers to take the dust of one who never
before had ridden on anything but a cable car. So we all raced
forward and, bunched together, swept into the main street of Coamo.
It was gratefully empty.
