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  THE SURRENDER
  OF SANTIAGO

  AN ACCOUNT OF THE
  HISTORIC SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO
  TO GENERAL SHAFTER
  JULY 17, 1898

  BY FRANK NORRIS

  SAN FRANCISCO
  PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
  NINETEEN SEVENTEEN




  Copyright, 1913, 1917
  by Otis F. Wood




THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO


For two days we had been at the headquarters of the Second Brigade
(General McKibben's), so blissfully contented because at last we had a
real wooden and tiled roof over our heads that even the
tarantulas--Archibald shook two of them from his blanket in one
night--had no terrors for us.

The headquarters were in an abandoned country seat, a little six-roomed
villa, all on one floor, called the Hacienda San Pablo. To the left of
us along the crest of hills, in a mighty crescent that reached almost to
the sea, lay the army, panting from the effort of the first, second and
third days of the month, resting on its arms, its eyes to its sights,
Maxim, Hotchkiss and Krag-Jorgenson held ready, alert, watchful,
straining in the leash, waiting the expiration of the last truce that
had now been on for twenty-four hours.

That night we sat up very late on the porch of the hacienda, singing
"The Spanish Cavalier"--if you will recollect the words, singularly
appropriate--"The Star-Spangled Banner," and

  'Tis a way we had at Caney, sir,
  'Tis a way we had at Caney, sir,
  'Tis a way we had at Caney, sir,
      To drive the Dons away,

an adaptation by one of the General's aides, which had a great success.

Inside, the General himself lay on his spread blankets, his hands
clasped under his head, a pipe in his teeth, feebly applauding us at
intervals and trying to pretend that we sang out of tune. The night was
fine and very still. The wonderful Cuban fireflies, that are like little
electric lights gone somehow adrift, glowed and faded in the mango and
bamboo trees, and after a while a whip-poor-will began his lamentable
little plaint somewhere in the branches of the gorgeous vermilion
Flamboyana that overhung the hacienda.

The air was heavy with smells, smells that inevitable afternoon
downpours had distilled from the vast jungle of bush and vine and
thicket all up and down the valley. In Cuba everything, the very mud and
water, has a smell. After every rain, as soon as the red-hot sun is out
again, vegetation reeks and smokes and sweats, and these smells steam
off into the air all night, thick and stupefying, like the interior of a
cathedral after high mass.

The orderly who brought the despatch should have dashed up at a gallop,
clicked his spurs, saluted and begun with "The commanding General's
compliments, sir," et cetera. Instead, he dragged a very tired horse up
the trail, knee-deep in mud, brought to, standing with a gasp of relief,
and said, as he pushed his hat back from his forehead:

"Say, is here where General McKibben is?"

We stopped singing and took our feet down from the railing of the
veranda. In the room back of us we heard the General raise on an elbow
and tell his orderly to light a candle. The orderly went inside, drawing
a paper from his pocket, and the aides followed. Through the open window
we could plainly hear what followed, and see, too, for that matter, by
twisting a bit on our chairs.

The General had mislaid his eyeglasses and so passed the despatch to one
of his aides, saying: "I'll get you to read this for me, Nolan." On one
knee, and holding the despatch to the candle-light, Nolan read it aloud.

It began tamely enough with the usual military formulas, and the first
thirty words might have been part of any one of the many despatches the
General had been receiving during the last three days. And then "to
accompany the commanding General to a point midway between the Spanish
and American lines and there to receive the surrender of General Toral.
At noon, precisely, the American flag will be raised over the Governor's
Palace in the city of Santiago. A salute of twenty-one guns will be
fired from Captain Capron's battery. The regimental bands will play 'The
Star-Spangled Banner' and the