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Updated: October 11, 2025
It was strange to me to be marching with arms in my hands, powder-stained and dirty, along streets I had so often trodden gay, careless, and in search of pleasure. "On the march we passed the Carmelite Convent, where my sister was at school; and as we halted, I was able to run in a moment and see her. Only an hour or two before; the nuns had had a Communist picket in their yard.
But at 3.50 A. M. the battle was resumed at longer range, Spanish sharpshooters firing from the trees, and the batteries working constantly, using brass-coated bullets. The Americans, smoked and powder-stained, stuck to their guns for fourteen hours without relief, and shortly after sunrise the Spanish retreated. The American loss was eight killed, ten seriously and thirty-eight slightly wounded.
In another, a party of working-men were dancing a quadrille, while a gentleman played for them upon a piano. At every chimney-piece and before every work of art stood a guard, generally ragged and powder-stained, bearing a placard, "Death to Robbers!" while at the head of the Grand Staircase others stood, crying, "Enter, messieurs! Enter! We don't have cards of admission to this house every day!"
The cylinder slowly revolved. The barrel-chamber swung as slowly into view, black, powder-stained, and empty. One shot, then, had been fired and very recently. Who could have had it all this time but 'Tonio? Who else could have fired it? Turner and his men were gone all night, all the next day, and much of the night that followed. Then they began drifting back in squads of three or four.
"Close on the flag! Back to the flag!" The three standards reeled backwards, and the seething square strove for a clearer space where they could form their shattered ranks; but C Company, grim and powder-stained, choked with enemies and falling fast, still closed in on the little rebel ensign that flapped from the mimosa bush.
Tommy found Smithers by his side, powder-stained and sweat-streaked. "Miss Evelyn's all right?" Smithers asked in a great calm. "She is," growled Tommy. "On the top floor of a tower, with a hundred men to guard her." "You didn't look at the Tube I made," said Smithers impassively; "but I turned on the steam. Looks like it worked. It's ready to go through, anyways.
Then wounded men, powder-stained, came straggling back men with shattered arms and gashed faces and garments soaked with blood from bleeding wounds. "Hurrah, boys!" each shouted with weakened voice, as his eyes lighted up at sight of the regiment, "We're whipping them; but hurry forward! You're needed."
"He came a-runnin' from over at Block House 12 with a note from division headquarters just as we went in," said a veteran sergeant, drawing the back of a powder-stained hand across his dripping forehead, then respectfully stepping back as a young officer bent down and glanced at Gray. "Much hurt, Billy, old man? No? Thank God for that! Look at who? Where? Why, God of heaven, it's Pat Latrobe!
I wish," he said, with a gulping sob, "that I, too, lay dead with those brave fellows in the ruins of our ancient capital." He raised his face, all powder-stained, as he searched the room with eyes that glowed with a desire for righteous vengeance. No countenance present wore the insignia of guilt. "Where is the traitor?" he asked. For the first time Josef's absence was noted.
She had attracted my attention almost immediately, the brilliant colours of her display, and her pink and white complexion, standing out so fresh and clear against the background of powder-stained stones and chalky ruin heaps. The next day, after an extra heavy nocturnal bombardment, we went out in search of a melon.
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