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Updated: May 24, 2025
The first fighting was done by the men under Lieutenant Magill with the second platoon of Company E. These parted from the others, going over the first hill to the second one. They had advanced but a short distance when they came to a heliograph station guarded by a company of Spaniards. Shooting began on both sides, the Mausers of the Spanish and the guns of the Americans snapping in unison.
Spaniards of intelligence are aware that they have little that is desirable to anticipate in case the country is restored to them along with their Mausers and other firearms, great and small, according to the terms of capitulation. They get their guns whether we go and leave them or we stay and they go.
At half-past seven they arrived, and immediately opened fire on the English. When the enemy had been under the fire of three guns and eighty Mausers for an hour, they thought it best to hoist the white flag. We accordingly ceased firing, and I rode out towards the station. Before I had reached it, I was met by two of the officers.
They retained their weapons by burying them, pacifying the confiding British officer in charge of the district by handing in rusty and obsolete Martini-Henris or a venerable blunderbuss which nobody had used since ancestral Boer shot lions with it in the mediæval days of the first great trek. The buried Mausers came in very useful afterwards.
They evidently made some preparations for resisting us at first, and stored away such arms as they could obtain, for later I saw twenty-eight new Mauser rifles hidden in an abandoned house on the beach. Another soldier and I secured a pass and went, at the risk of our lives, beyond the limit of our pass, and on this outing discovered the hidden Mausers.
It had just reached the new position when Spanish infantry reinforcements filed into the trenches and began a deadly fire upon the Americans, compelling the battery to retire at a gallop. Then both the enemy’s howitzers reopened, the shrapnel screamed, and Mausers sang. Another gun galloped from the rear, but the American ammunition was exhausted.
The other pickets all rushed back and opened fire as swiftly as they could handle their Mausers. This brought the enemy to a standstill, for they, too, were surprised. In the Boer camp below some of us were still peacefully sleeping, while others were enjoying their first cup of coffee. With the rifle reports came wakefulness and bustle.
In most cases they are Lee-Metfords, and not Mausers. The Boers have, of course, captured quantities of our rifles and ammunition in convoy "mishaps" of various dates. Spent the evening in trying cooking experiments with mealy flour and some Neave's Food, which one of us had. One longs for a change of diet from biscuit and plain meat, which, without vegetables, never seem to satisfy.
"Great Csesar, there's a thousand of them!" cried Rogers. Instantly every man made for the position assigned to him. The gun was in readiness. Outside, the Mausers rattled, bullets coming from all quarters and thumping sharply against the opposite walls with a patter that warned the Americans against standing erect.
There was a level spot, slightly open, beyond the ford of the Aguadores, which offered a place for going into battery; from this place the enemy's works on San Juan were visible, a faint streak along the crest of the hill illumined from time to time by the flash of Mausers.
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