Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
He fell at the first volley, riddled. Oh, I know that trocha!" "Damn the trocha!" O'Reilly exclaimed. "At last I've got a chance to DO something. GOD! How long I've waited." Esteban drew O'Reilly's tense form down and embraced his friend, after the fashion of his people. "She has been waiting, too," he said, huskily. "We Varonas are good waiters, O'Reilly.
I had gotten rid of them at Cienfuegos by purchasing a ticket on the steamer to Santiago, three days further down the coast, and then dropping off in the night at the trocha, so while I was visiting it I expected to find that my non-arrival at Santiago had been reported, and word sent to the trocha that I was a newspaper correspondent.
The jungle on either side of the right-of-way had been cleared, and from the remaining stumps and posts and fallen tree-trunks hung a maze of barbed wire through which a man could scarcely crawl, even in daylight. Eyes were keen, rifles were ready, challenges were sharp, and countersigns were quickly given on the Jucaro-Moron trocha.
So at five the following morning a box car, with wooden planks stretched across it for seats, carried me along the line of the trocha from Jucaro to Ciego, the chief military port on the fortifications, and consumed five hot and stifling hours in covering twenty-five miles.
The moon is young; I must cross the trocha before " "That trocha!" Esteban was up on his elbow again. "Be careful there, O'Reilly. They keep a sharp lookout, and it's guarded with barbed wire. Be sure you cut every strand. Yes, and muffle your horse's hoofs, too, in crossing the railroad track. That's how we were detected. Pablo's horse struck a rail, and they fired at the sound.
Having won his point, Jacket regained his composure with suspicious suddenness and raced away to triumph over his beloved O'Reilly. Fifty miles of hard riding brought the party to the trocha; they neared it on the second morning after leaving Cubitas, and sought a secluded camping-spot. Later in the day Hilario, the old Camagueyan, slipped away to reconnoiter.
It is made of stone and adobe, and is painted a glaring white. One of these is placed at intervals of every half mile along the trocha, and on a clear day the sentry in the watch tower of each can see three forts on either side.
The chief engineer in charge of the trocha detailed a captain to take me over it and to show me all that there was to see. The officers of the infantry and cavalry stationed at Ciego objected to his doing this, but he said: "He has a pass from General Weyler. I am not responsible."
In October of 1897 the Spanish hope to have calcium lights placed in the watch towers of the forts with sufficient power to throw a searchlight over a quarter of a mile, or to the next block house, and so keep the trocha as well lighted as Broadway from one end to the other.
Hilario returned with word that all was well, and each man dismounted to muffle the feet of his horse with rags and strips of gunny-sack provided for the purpose. Then, one by one, they moved forward to the edge of the clearing. The trocha lay before them.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking