It was a mountainous country covered with thick jungle, a most confusing country, and I had an awful time trying to get into the fight and trying to do what was right when in it; and all the while I was thinking that I was the only man who did not know what I was about, and that all the others did—whereas, as I found out later, pretty much everybody else was as much in the dark as I was. There was no surprise; we struck the Spaniards exactly where we had expected; then Wood halted us and put us into the fight deliberately and in order. He ordered us to deploy alternately by troops to the right and left of the trail, giving our senior major, Brodie, a West Pointer and as good a soldier as ever wore a uniform, the left wing, while I took the right wing. I was told if possible to connect with the regulars who were on the right. In theory this was excellent, but as the jungle was very dense the first troop that deployed to the right vanished forthwith, and I never saw it again until the fight was over—having a frightful feeling meanwhile that I might be court-martialed for losing it. The next troop deployed to the left under Brodie. Then the third came along, and I started to deploy it to the right as before.
By the time the first platoon had gotten into the jungle I realized that it likewise would disappear unless I kept hold of it. I managed to keep possession of the last platoon. One learns fast in a fight, and I marched this platoon and my next two troops in column through the jungle without any attempt to deploy until we got on the firing line. This sounds simple. But it was not. I did not know when I had gotten on the firing line! I could hear a good deal of firing, some over to my right at a good distance, and the rest to the left and ahead. I pushed on, expecting to strike the enemy somewhere between.
Soon we came to the brink of a deep valley. There was a good deal of cracking of rifles way off in front of us, but as they used smokeless powder we had no idea as to exactly where they were, or who they were shooting at. Then it dawned on us that we were the target. The bullets began to come overhead, making a sound like the ripping of a silk dress, with sometimes a kind of pop; a few of my men fell, and I deployed the rest, making them lie down and get behind trees. Richard Harding Davis was with us, and as we scanned the landscape with our glasses it was he who first pointed out to us some Spaniards in a trench some three-quarters of a mile off. It was difficult to make them out. There were not many of them. However, we finally did make them out, and we could see their conical hats, for the trench was a poor one. We advanced, firing at them, and drove them off.
What to do then I had not an idea. The country in front fell away into a very difficult jungle-filled valley. There was nothing but jungle all around, and if I advanced I was afraid I might get out of touch with everybody and not be going in the right direction. Moreover, as far as I could see, there was now nobody in front who was shooting at us, although some of the men on my left insisted that our own men had fired into us—an allegation which I soon found was almost always made in such a fight, and which in this case was not true. At this moment some of the regulars appeared across the ravine on our right. The first thing they did was to fire a volley at us, but one of our first sergeants went up a tree and waved a guidon at them and they stopped. Firing was still going on to our left, however, and I was never more puzzled to know what to do. I did not wish to take my men out of their position without orders, for fear that I might thereby be leaving a gap if there was a Spanish force which meditated an offensive return. On the other hand, it did not seem to me that I had been doing enough fighting to justify my existence, and there was obviously fighting going on to the left. I remember that I kept thinking of the refrain of the foxhunting song, “Here’s to every friend who struggled to the end”; in the hunting field I had always acted on this theory, and, no matter how discouraging appearances might be, had never stopped trying to get in at the death until the hunt was actually over; and now that there was work, and not play, on hand, I intended to struggle as hard as I knew how not to be left out of any fighting into which I could, with any possible propriety, get.
So I left my men where they were and started off at a trot toward where the firing was, with a couple of orderlies to send back for the men in case that proved advisable. Like most tyros, I was wearing my sword, which in thick jungle now and then got between my legs—from that day on it always went corded in the baggage. I struck the trail, and began
