HE could not
distinguish between a five-inch quick-firing gun and a nickel-plated ice-pick,
and so, naturally, he had been elected to fill the position of war
correspondent. The responsible party was the editor of the "Minnesota
Herald." Perkins had no information of war, and no particular rapidity of
mind for acquiring it, but he had that rank and fibrous quality of courage
which springs from the thick soil of Western America.
It was morning in
Guantanamo Bay. If the marines encamped on the hill had had time to turn their
gaze seaward, they might have seen a small newspaper despatch-boat wending its
way toward the entrance of the harbor over the blue, sunlit waters of the
Caribbean. In the stern of this tug Perkins was seated upon some coal bags,
while the breeze gently ruffled his greasy pajamas. He was staring at a brown
line of entrenchments surmounted by a flag, which was Camp McCalla. In the
harbor were anchored two or three grim, gray cruisers and a transport. As the
tug steamed up the radiant channel, Perkins could see men moving on shore near
the charred ruins of a village. Perkins was deeply moved; here already was more
war than he had ever known in Minnesota. Presently he, clothed in the essential
garments of a war correspondent, was rowed to the sandy beach. Marines in yellow
linen were handling an ammunition supply. They paid no attention to the
visitor, being morose from the inconveniences of two days and nights of
fighting. Perkins toiled up the zig-zag path to the top of the hill, and looked
with eager eyes at the trenches, the field-pieces, the funny little Colts, the
flag, the grim marines lying wearily on their arms. And still more, he looked
through the clear air over 1,000 yards of mysterious woods from which emanated
at inopportune times repeated flocks of Mauser bullets.
Perkins was delighted.
He was filled with admiration for these jaded and smoky men who lay so quietly
in the trenches waiting for a resumption of guerrilla enterprise. But he wished
they would heed him. He wanted to talk about it. Save for sharp inquiring
glances, no one acknowledged his existence.
Finally he approached
two young lieutenants, and in his innocent Western way he asked them if they
would like a drink. The effect on the two young lieutenants was immediate and
astonishing. With one voice they answered, "Yes, we would." Perkins
almost wept with joy at this amiable response, and he exclaimed that he would
immediately board the tug and bring off a bottle of Scotch. This attracted the
officers, and in a burst of confidence one explained that there had not been a
drop in camp. Perkins lunged down the hill, and fled to his boat, where in his
exuberance he engaged in a preliminary altercation with some whisky.
Consequently he toiled again up the hill in the blasting sun with his enthusiasm
in no ways abated. The parched officers were very gracious, and such was the
state of mind of Perkins that he did not note properly how serious and solemn
was his engagement with the whisky. And because of this fact, and because of
his antecedents, there happened the lone charge of William B. Perkins.
Now, as Perkins went
down the hill, something happened. A private in those high trenches found that
a cartridge was clogged in his rifle. It then becomes necessary with most kinds
of rifles to explode the cartridge. The private took the rifle to his captain,
and explained the case. But it would not do in that camp to fire a rifle for
mechanical purposes and without warning, because the eloquent sound would bring
six hundred tired marines to tension and high expectancy. So the captain
turned, and in a loud voice announced to the camp that he found it necessary to
shoot into the air. The communication rang sharply from voice to voice. Then
the captain raised the weapon and fired. Whereupon--and whereupon--a large line
of guerrillas lying in the bushes decided swiftly that their presence and
position were discovered, and swiftly they volleyed.
In a moment the woods
and the hills were alive with the crack and sputter of rifles. Men on the
warships in the harbor heard the old familiar
flut-flut-fluttery-fluttery-flut-flut-flut from the entrenchments. Incidentally
the launch of the "Marblehead," commanded by one of our headlong
American ensigns, streaked for the strategic woods like a galloping marine dragoon,
peppering away with its blunderbuss in the box.
Perkins had arrived at
the foot of the hill, where began the arrangement of 150 marines that protected
the short line of communication between the main body and the beach. These men
had all swarmed into line behind fortifications improvised from the boxes of
provisions. And to them were gathering naked men who had been bathing, naked
men who arrayed themselves speedily in cartridge belts and rifles. The woods
and the hills went flut- flut-flut-fluttery-fluttery-flut-fllllluttery-flut.
Under the boughs of a beautiful tree lay five wounded men thinking vividly.
And now it befell
Perkins to discover a Spaniard in the bush. The distance was some five hundred
yards. In a loud voice he announced his perception. He also declared hoarsely,
that if he only had a rifle, he would go and possess himself of this particular
enemy. Immediately an amiable lad shot in the arm said: "Well, take
mine." Perkins thus acquired a rifle and a clip of five cartridges.
"Come on!" he
shouted. This part of the battalion was lying very tight, not yet being
engaged, but not knowing when the business would swirl around to them.
To Perkins they replied
with a roar. "Come back here, you ----- ----- fool. Do you want to get
shot by your own crowd? Come back, ----- -----!" As a detail, it might be
mentioned that the fire from a part of the hill swept the journey upon which
Perkins had started.
Now behold the solitary
Perkins adrift in the storm of fighting, even as a champagne jacket of straw is
lost in a great surf. He found it out quickly. Four seconds elapsed before he
discovered that he was an alms-house idiot plunging through hot, crackling
thickets on a June morning in Cuba. Sss-s-s-swing-sing- ing-pop went the
lightning-swift metal grass-hoppers over him and beside him. The beauties of
rural Minnesota illuminated his conscience with the gold of lazy corn, with the
sleeping green of meadows, with the cathedral gloom of pine forests.
Sshsh-swing- pop! Perkins decided that if he cared to extract himself from a
tangle of imbecility he must shoot. It was necessary that he should shoot.
Nothing would save him but shooting. It is a law that men thus decide when the
waters of battle close over their minds. So with a prayer that the Americans
would not hit him in the back nor the left side, and that the Spaniards would
not hit him in the front, he knelt like a supplicant alone in the desert of
chaparral, and emptied his magazine at his Spaniard before he discovered that
his Spaniard was a bit of dried palm branch.
Then Perkins flurried
like a fish. His reason for being was a Spaniard in the bush. When the Spaniard
turned into a dried palm branch, he could no longer furnish himself with one
adequate reason.
Then did he dream
frantically of some anthracite hiding-place, some profound dungeon of peace
where blind mules live placidly chewing the far-gathered hay.
"Sss-swing-win-pop!
Prut-prut-prrrut!" Then a field-gun spoke.
"Boom-ra-swow-ow-ow-ow-pum." Then a Colt automatic began to bark.
"Crack-crk-crk-crk-crk-crk" endlessly. Raked, enfiladed, flanked,
surrounded, and overwhelmed, what hope was there for William B. Perkins of the
"Minnesota Herald"?
But war is a spirit.
War provides for those that it loves. It provides sometimes death and sometimes
a singular and incredible safety. There were few ways in which it was possible
to preserve Perkins. One way was by means of a steam-boiler.
Perkins espied near him
an old, rusty steam-boiler lying in the bushes. War only knows how it was
there, but there it was, a temple shining resplendent with safety. With a moan
of haste, Perkins flung himself through that hole which expressed the absence
of the steam-pipe.
Then ensconced in his
boiler, Perkins comfortably listened to the ring of a fight which seemed to be
in the air above him. Sometimes bullets struck their strong, swift blow against
the boiler's sides, but none entered to interfere with Perkins's rest.
Time passed. The fight,
short anyhow, dwindled to prut . . . prut . . . prut-prut . . . prut. And when
the silence came, Perkins might have been seen cautiously protruding from the
boiler. Presently he strolled back toward the marine lines with his hat not
able to fit his head for the new lumps of wisdom that were on it.
The marines, with an
annoyed air, were settling down again when an apparitional figure came from the
bushes. There was great excitement.
"It's that crazy
man," they shouted, and as he drew near they gathered tumultuously about
him and demanded to know how he had accomplished it.
Perkins made a gesture,
the gesture of a man escaping from an unintentional mud-bath, the gesture of a
man coming out of battle, and then he told them.
The incredulity was
immediate and general. "Yes, you did! What? In an old boiler? An old
boiler? Out in that brush? Well, we guess not." They did not believe him
until two days later, when a patrol happened to find the rusty boiler, relic of
some curious transaction in the ruin of the Cuban sugar industry. The patrol
then marveled at the truthfulness of war correspondents until they were almost
blind.
Soon after his
adventure Perkins boarded the tug, wearing a countenance of poignant
thoughtfulness.