A Bright Tomorrow Read online

  O’Dell, an undersized product of New York, grinned and winked at Amos. “Hey, this sure beats workin’, don’t it, Amos?” He snatched a chubby girl, kissed her noisily, then as the call from the sergeant came, reluctantly let her go. As the two of them climbed back onto the coach, he said regretfully, “Sure wisht this war had come along sooner, Amos. I been wastin’ my life up till now!”

  But O’Dell wasn’t so exuberant after a few days in Tampa, a small, dusty, Gulf Coast town. As Amos wrote in a story:

  Life in camp is worse than any of the soldiers had imagined. Only one small railroad line leads to the camp, and the lack of water makes life miserable. Supplies clog up, and many go without food and equipment. With inadequate sanitary systems and the lack of clean water, dysentery and typhus are laying many low. Accommodations are so bad, many are sleeping on cement floors with newspapers for covering. The refuse from thousands of animals not only stinks to heaven, but pollutes the water supplies. To die for one’s country in battle is one thing–but to die in squalor because of insufficient or corrupt leadership is tragedy!

  As Amos half-expected, Hearst sent back a biting comment on his piece: “Stuart, either tell the story of this glorious war in a positive manner, or don’t bother to send any more stories!”

  Amos showed the wire to Colonel Roosevelt, who was always interested in the public relations of the war. “Hearst doesn’t give a continental for this country!” Teddy snapped, his smallish eyes blazing with anger. “All he wants is to sell more newspapers.” But then he grinned at Amos. “You write it as you see it, Sergeant! When we swing into action, you’ll be the most famous correspondent in the country!”

  But Amos knew he could not afford to write it as he saw it, not if he wanted to keep his job as a reporter for the Journal. Hearst was a tyrant, firing men for far less than that.

  As the days rolled on, Amos grew glum, not only because of the tight-rope he was walking with his news stories, but because of the disturbing letters he was receiving from Rose…or not receiving. At first she had written regularly, but after a letter in which she told him that Eddy Sparks had left Charlie’s and she was out of a job, she wrote less often. Two weeks later, he heard from her again. “I’ve got a job with a stage company,” she reported. “It means going on the road—like Lylah. The manager agreed to give me a trial, so I’ll have to do good to stay with the company—” From that point on, her letters almost stopped.

  He got only three more before leaving for Cuba—one from Detroit, one from Cleveland, and one from Atlanta. All were brief and factual, giving only the bare details of her travels and her work. In the last one Amos received, she wrote:

  “Amos, I am not sure about our getting married. We haven’t known each other very long, and we’re both young. You may be gone a long time…though I hope not. Let’s think about it and when you get back, we’ll see.”

  It was a blow to Amos, and Faye O’Dell took note. “What’s wrong with you, Amos?” he asked a few days later. “You look like you lost your best friend.”

  “Oh, just worried about the war, I guess,” Amos replied, not wanting to share his news with anyone.

  “Well, looks like we’ll see the elephant pretty soon,” Faye said, his homely face aglow with excitement. “Everybody says we’ll ship out this week.”

  The rumors, for once, were right. While inspecting the horses, Roosevelt told Amos personally, “Stuart, get the animals ready for a sea voyage.” His big teeth gleamed as he grinned. “We’ll ship out on Saturday—and about time, I say!”

  Amos worked hard preparing the stock and seeing to the food and equipment necessary to care for so many animals. But on the day before they boarded ship and cleared the harbor, he got a letter from Nick which troubled him. Nick wrote in his atrocious hand:

  Hey, Soldier Boy! I guess you’ll be mowing those bean-eaters down pretty soon, so be sure and get one for me! Sometimes I wish I was there with you, but then I wake up and know it’s not for me. We’re all doing fine. Mama says to tell you she says fifty Hail Mary’s for you every day, so you ought to be safe, right?

  Haven’t seen Rose since she left for her tour, but a guy came into the bar the other day—fellow I know named Danny Beers. He’s an actor, and he’s just left the bunch Rose is with. Said he couldn’t stand the star—a guy named Hackett. Well, while we was talking, he mentioned Rose. Didn’t know I even knew her, and I didn’t let on. Didn’t sound too good, Amos, to tell the truth. He said the manager of the troop she’s with is pretty bad—likes to chase women. I asked him if Rose had fallen for him, and he said it looked like it. Way he put it was, “This guy Hackett don’t keep his actresses around unless they come across. He said Rose was drinking some, too, which is a shocker, ain’t it? Don’t sound like our Rosie. But when a girl is all alone in the world, she’s a pigeon for a good-looking guy.

  I hate to tell you this, but you’ve got a right to know. I’ll see if I can get in touch with Rose. Do what I can to wise her up. Take care of yourself. Don’t get killed on me! Get that thing over and hurry back home.

  Amos wrote at once to Rose, but he had no time to do more than scribble a few lines, for the army was on the move. Everything was confusion. The ships would hold only sixteen thousand of the twenty-seven thousand men, so entire regiments had to stay behind, and there was a scramble for places among those who did go.

  The Rough Riders, not to be denied their chance at glory, simply hijacked a steam launch. Tired and hungry, to them the ship seemed like heaven. And when an officer from another regiment came along a few minutes later to claim it, Roosevelt flashed his best Toothadore smile. “Yours, you say? Do tell. Well, we seem to have it, don’t we?”

  On the evening of June 14, thirty-two transports blew their whistles, weighed anchor, and began to move. They carried the largest military force that had ever left American shores. Once clear of the harbor, they were joined by fourteen warships, where the flotilla formed three columns and steamed southward under a canopy of stars.

  “I don’t care if I get shot by a greaser,” Faye O’Dell moaned. “That couldn’t be no worse than this blasted boat!”

  Amos was inclined to agree. The two of them had come topside to lean on the rail, sick of the stifling hold where they slept in bunks three levels high. Most of the men had been sick since leaving America, and there was no way to clean anything. “It’s like living in a heated sewer,” Amos had written in one of his stories. There were twelve toilets for twelve hundred men, no water for drinking and none for washing. Richard Harding Davis, the most famous correspondent of the day had reported, “The ship’s water smells like a frog pond or a stable yard, and it tastes like it smells!”

  Amos tried to comfort O’Dell. “We’ll land day after tomorrow. It’ll be better then.”

  But it was not, for on June 22, the landing at Daiouirí, eighteen miles east of Santiago, proved to be as unpleasant as the voyage.

  Amos scrambled over the side of the transport into a waiting longboat. Like bucking broncos, the small boats bounded and rolled in the waves. Several men jumped too soon and crashed when the boat lurched upward, while others waited too long and dropped into the trough between the waves.

  When they were fully loaded, several of the longboats were roped in line and towed by a Navy steam launch. The journey was wet and choppy, and the wind-tossed spray soaked Amos and O’Dell to the skin. O’Dell turned gray, and vomited all over himself, and he was not alone.

  Upon reaching the shore, they had to wait for a wave to lift the boat level with the rotting wooden pier, then leap across. It was dangerous business, and Amos saw two black cavalrymen drown when they missed the wharf. Horses and mules were pushed overboard to find their own way ashore, and the first thing Amos did when he landed was to gather Roosevelt’s mounts, Prince and Little Texas before they followed the lead of several others who swam out to sea and drowned.

  For two days Roosevelt and the other officers of the Rough Riders worked to pull the men together.
The overall commander of cavalry, General “Fighting Joe” Wheeler, had commanded Confederate cavalry in the Civil War. General Wheeler was no less hot-headed and ready for trouble when he led the men out on June 24, than when he’d led his gray-clad troops against Grant. The strike force would be heading for a pass in the mountains called Las Guasimas, which lay between the army and Santiago, the ultimate objective.

  When Captain Bucky O’Neill, former mayor of Prescott, Arizona, came by and spoke with Roosevelt just before the assault, Amos was standing close enough to hear their conversation. “Colonel, we’ll get our chance today! Fighting Joe won’t be able to resist a chance to hit the garlics.”

  “Capital!” Roosevelt grinned, and he turned to Amos. “I’ll ride Prince today, but bring Little Texas along in case he goes down.” He looked at the men and nodded approvingly, and when the column moved out, the men followed the narrow jungle trail joking, laughing, and arguing at the top of their lungs.

  O’Dell was eager. He poked Amos in the ribs with a sharp elbow. “Bet I get more of ’em than you, buddy!”

  But Amos had considerably more imagination than the little soldier. “What if they get you, Faye?”

  O’Dell stared at Stuart, then laughed. “One of them get me? Not a chance!”

  “It could happen.”

  “Nah! We’re gonna whip ’em, Amos!”

  Amos licked his lips, for he knew that any of them could go down. “Wish I’d paid more attention to my ma. She’s a Christian. If I die, I’ll be in hell right off, Faye.”

  O’Dell stared at Amos. “Hey, you’re fighting for your country. Anybody who dies fighting for his country goes to heaven. Didn’t you know that?”

  Amos shook his head. “Those fellows waiting for us up there…they’re fighting for their country, too. Everybody dies, Faye. But Ma says it’s only saved people who go to heaven.”

  “Saved? What’s that mean?”

  Amos stared at Faye, surprised. He’d grown up listening to revivalists, and his mother had read to him from the Bible all his life. “Why…saved is believing in Jesus.”

  “Well, I’m saved then.” O’Dell shrugged. “I’ve always believed in Jesus.”

  “No, it’s more than that, I think,” Amos said. He was searching the terrain in front, watching for the glint of sunlight on steel barrels. His nerves were tense, and he saw that General Wheeler was sending out more scouts. “What Ma says is that a fellow has to give up his bad ways and do what God says. But she says, too, that you got to be converted.” Just talking about it took some of his fear away, and he told O’Dell what he could remember of the sermons he’d heard. The small man seemed intrigued by the one on being born again.

  “Born again?” Faye mused. “I guess it’d take something like starting all over to get me ready to meet God. I’ve done some pretty bad things—”

  Suddenly there was a shrill z-z-z-z-eu overhead, followed by a sharp crack.

  “Mausers!” Roosevelt yelled.

  The hidden Spaniards opened fire, and a man five feet in front of Amos grabbed his face, which exploded like a red flower, and he dropped to the ground. Others were falling. But Roosevelt was so excited that he jumped up and down. Amos saw a bullet hit a tree inches from his head, sending splinters everywhere.

  “Look at that!” O’Dell said in wonder. “He likes it!”

  The Rough Riders were pinned down, the Mauser bullets bowling them over. The Mauser packed a terrific punch. The force of a bullet striking an outstretched arm was enough to spin a man around in his tracks before he hit the ground. Amos heard the chugging sound made by the slugs as they plowed into the flesh of his companions.

  It was Fighting Joe Wheeler who saved the day. The feisty little cavalryman could contain himself no longer. The Civil War never far from his mind, he loosed the rebel yell and shouted, “Come on, men! We’ll put the Yankees on the run!”

  With a wild cry, the Rough Riders charged. The Spaniards broke and fled down the trail to Santiago. One of them who was taken prisoner said, “These gringos…muy loco! When we shoot them, they scream and run at us! They even try to catch us with their hands!”

  Amos and Faye had joined in the wild charge, and when it was over, they collapsed, winded and drained. Amos looked back over the ground they’d covered. It was strewn with bodies, both Spanish and American.

  Faye caught his breath, then shook his head. “Lots of our guys didn’t make it, Amos,” he said soberly. The slaughter had done something to him, and he muttered, “Wonder if they were born again, like you said?” When Amos didn’t answer, he studied the faces of the dead and wounded. “Makes a guy feel funny, don’t it?”

  All day the work of burying the dead and treating the wounded went on, but the way lay open to Santiago. It was rough going, Amos and Faye discovered, for the trail could not handle the wagon and mule trains hauling their supplies. They were forced to eat “embalmed” beef and beans soaked in hog fat, and when opened, the cans smelled like garbage pails in the damp heat.

  At night the land crabs sought them out—ugly creatures that moved about noisily in search of food. Amos came awake with a wild scream when one of them crawled over his face that night, and he was not the only one. The red ants, too, had a bite like an electric needle, so that Amos finally climbed a tree to escape the vermin.

  As they marched on, Amos listened to the officers as they talked about what lay ahead. Captain O’Neill, a tall, good-looking man with black hair, took time to explain it to a small group of the soldiers as they cooked supper on the last night of June.

  “There are two hills—San Juan and Kettle—surrounded by trenches and barbed wire. The Spaniards’ main defense runs along the crest of San Juan Ridge. Then there’s a village called El Caney, with wire and trenches and a fort with loopholes. Here’s what we’ve got to do to get through to Santiago—” He pulled a rough map from his pocket, and the men crowded around to take a look.

  O’Neill frowned. “It’s uphill, and will be tough going.”

  That night Amos wrote his mother and Rose. He waited until the next morning, then gave the letters to Faye, saying with a casual shrug, “If I drop, Faye, see that these get back, will you?”

  O’Dell stared at him. “Oh, blast it, Amos!” he snapped. “Nothing’s going to happen to us!” He jammed the letters into his pocket, muttering, “You and your talk about hell! Gives me the willies!”

  Amos wanted to ask if he could carry any message for O’Dell, but saw that his friend didn’t want to talk about dying.

  The two of them moved out with the regiment, and soon discovered that before attacking the hills, they would have to march down a narrow jungle trail. “Every Spaniard in the country will zero in on us,” Amos whispered. “They can pick us off like sitting ducks.”

  At that moment he and the rest of his fellow soldiers looked up to see a horseman in a black business suit, watching them as they set out. Amos stared, not quite able to believe his eyes. It was William Randolph Hearst! He was recognized by a soldier, who yelled, “Hi, there, Willie!” and the cry was taken up and shouted from one end of the column to the other.

  “Guess he came out to see his war in person,” Amos said grimly, knowing that in one sense, it really was Hearst’s war. But he saw, too, that the publisher wasn’t so arrogant for once. His long face was pale, and he looked sick. Maybe he sees what his “nice little war” really means, Amos thought. He made no attempt to speak to Hearst, for the line was moving rapidly now.

  Ten thousand men crowded the jungle trail, with the Spaniards waiting for them. As Amos pressed forward, the air suddenly vibrated with the screech of Mauser bullets. Amos felt his mouth go dry and his stomach tie up in knots.

  The Rough Riders were not riders at all now, for the territory was too rough for cavalry. They fought their way through, finally coming to the foot of Kettle Hill. As they lay down, taking cover, Captain O’Neill stood up straight, ignoring the rain of fire and smoking a cigarette.

  “Sir, better get
down!” Amos called out.

  O’Neill laughed and blew a cloud of smoke. “Sergeant,” he began with a smile, looking down at Amos, “the Spanish bullet isn’t made that will kill me!” But he was wrong. At that instant a slug struck him in the mouth and came out the back of his head. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  One of the men next to Amos began to retch, while the firing from the Spanish line grew more intense. Just then, Lieutenant Jules Ord, who was at the apex of the enemy fire, stood up and yelled, “Good-bye, if I don’t come back!”

  Holding a pistol in one hand and a bayonet in the other, he led the attack. “Come on! We can’t stay here!” and shouting like lunatics, fifty men leapt up and raced toward San Juan Hill. Ord reached it first and was shot dead at once.

  Theodore Roosevelt was right behind. “Bugler, sound the charge!”

  The bugle sounded, and all but one man moved forward. Roosevelt saw him, and ordered him to his feet. “What? Are you afraid to stand up when I am on horseback?” he raged. Just then a bullet ripped into the man, narrowly missing Colonel Roosevelt. “Come on, Rough Riders!” Roosevelt screamed, and drove his horse up the hill.

  Amos rose with the rest, almost mindlessly, for the battle-madness had taken them all. He stayed as close to Roosevelt as he could, and when a Spanish officer appeared, he saw Roosevelt drop him with one shot.

  A cry went up, and the regiment surged forward, Amos with them. He saw Faye O’Dell go down, clutching at his stomach. Amos dropped beside him, and saw at once that there was no hope. The bullet had torn the boy’s stomach wide open, and blood flowed from the wound, gushing redly.

  “Amos!” Faye gasped, lifting one bloody hand to clutch at Amos.

  “You’ll be all right,” Amos lied. “I’ll get some help—”

  “No–too late—” Faye’s eyes were wide, and a trickle of blood dribbled from his mouth. “Amos…not ready to die—!” The little soldier arched his back, but he could not speak. He kicked his feet wildly, then he went limp.