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Wounded men from the front continued to come into the hospital camp on Saturday until long after midnight, and the exhausted surgeons worked at the operating-tables by candlelight until 3 A. M. I noticed, carrying stretchers and looking after the wounded, two or three volunteer assistants from civil life, among them Mr. Brewer of Pittsburg, who died of yellow fever a few days later at Siboney.
"If that isn't a budget of news! Spence Cuthbert here in Cuba nursing wounded soldiers! But it is just like the dear girl to do such a thing. If I had only known of it sooner, though, I might have found a chance to run down to Siboney and see her. Now it is too late, for the Nun has gone again. She will discover Rollo, though, and take care of him. Lucky fellow! Wish I was in his place!
We reached Siboney after dark on Sunday evening, and found the little cove and the neighboring roadstead filled with transport steamers, whose twinkling anchor-lights or rather adrift lights, for there was no anchorage swung slowly back and forth in long curves as the vessels rolled and wallowed in the trough of the sea.
"I believe I can, sir." "Then come in with me and give it to Major-General Wheeler, who is at present in command." Within half an hour the young scout had been complimented by both Generals on the success of his recent undertaking, and had furnished them with information of the utmost value concerning the obstacles to be encountered between Siboney and Santiago.
There is no possible reason for not shipping practically the entire command North at once. Yellow-fever cases are very few in the cavalry division, where I command one of the two brigades, and not one true case of yellow fever has occurred in this division, except among the men sent to the hospital at Siboney, where they have, I believe, contracted it.
Any one who had seen our men at Montauk Point or in the fever camp at Siboney needed no hospital list to tell him of the pitiful condition of the garrison. The skin on their faces was yellow, and drawn sharply over the brow and cheekbones; their teeth protruded, and they shambled along like old men, their voices ranging from a feeble pipe to a deep whisper.
At my request the two correspondents went on board the State of Texas and repeated their statement to Miss Barton, who, after consultation with the officers of her staff, decided to take the steamer back at once to Siboney.
Rollo Van Kyp, carefully lifted from the bloody trench in which he had fought and suffered so cheerfully, was borne to the rear, and the assistant surgeon of his regiment accompanied him to the hospital at Siboney.
Calling again upon Captain McCalla, I explained to him the reasons for our sudden change of plan, and told him that, although we had decided to go to Siboney, we should try to get back in time to meet the pack-train and escort to be furnished by General Perez. I then returned to the State of Texas, and we sailed for Siboney at two o'clock.
Although this valley heads in the mountains of the Cobre range, and opens on the sea through the Siboney notch, its atmosphere seems hot and close, and is pervaded by a foul, rank odor of decaying vegetation, which is unpleasantly suggestive of malaria and Cuban fever, and makes one wish that one could carry air as one carries water, and breathe, as well as drink, out of a canteen.
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