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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