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McCalla, too, was always talking of Jellicoe, who was wounded on the expedition; and Sir John's face lighted at mention of McCalla's name. He recalled how McCalla had painted on the superstructure of the little Newark that saying of Farragut's, "The best protection against an enemy's fire is a well-directed fire of your own"; which has been said in other ways and cannot be said too often.
We were feeding refugees at several points on a line extending east and west nearly sixty miles from the right wing of our army at Caney to the naval station at Guantanamo Bay, and at the latter place we had landed fifteen thousand rations to be distributed under the general direction of Captain McCalla, of the cruiser Marblehead, and General Perez, commanding the Cuban forces in the Guantanamo district.
When it was decided to clear everything Spanish out of the bay, so our ships could use it, McCalla and Brownson were sent down there to do the work; but first I will tell you a story about Brownson, so you can see that he was just the right kind of a man to go along with McCalla. In the early part of 1894 there was a civil war in Brazil.
When the burning city seemed doomed and the flames lit the sky farther and farther to the west, Admiral McCalla sent a trio of his most trusted men from Mare Island with orders to check the conflagration at any cost of property. With them they brought a ton and a half of guncotton. The terrific power of the explosive was equal to the maniac determination of the fire.
"We called McCalla Mr. Lead," said Sir John; "he had been wounded so many times and yet was able to hobble along and keep on fighting. We corresponded regularly until his death." Beatty, too, was on that expedition; and he, too, was another personality one kept hearing about.
Pretty soon they were attacked by a large body of Spaniards, but they drove them off after having several men killed and quite a number wounded. The place of encampment was named Camp McCalla, in honor of the gallant commander of the Marblehead. Before the marines were reinforced they were fighting nearly all the time.
So I did as I did with McCalla, I rebuked the man with becoming severity; I contradicted his statements in the plainest and strongest way I could; I also offered to arrange for a discussion of personal matters, if he wished it, after we had gone through our discussion of principles, and engaged to prove every discreditable story he told of me to be false, and then went on with the discussion.
It was a great help to have a coaling place at Guantanamo, but our sailors had much hard work to take the place. Now I will tell you about some of this hard work, and something about two men who made it possible to land the marines and establish a coaling station in Guantanamo Bay. The men were Commander McCalla, of the Marblehead, and Captain Brownson, of the Yankee.
It was to continue five nights, but ended on the fourth. We met first in the Chinese Assembly Room; but the place proving too small for the crowds which were anxious to hear the debate, we adjourned to the large hall. Dr. McCalla was very abusive. He was so intent on calling me bad names, and on saying savage and provoking things, that he forgot his argument. I kept to the subject.
Captain McCalla, in his repeated humane attempts to feed the refugees around Guantanamo, had called again for a hundred thousand rations, saying that if we could bring them to him soon he could get them to the starving people in the woods. We lost no time, but got the food out and started with it in the night.
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