Of all the military measures employed by the Spaniards in their wars against Cuban independence, perhaps the most unique was the trocha—trench or traverse. Martinez Campos during the Ten Years' War built the first trocha just west of the Cubitas Mountains where the waist of the island is narrowest. It was Campos's hope, by means of this artificial barrier, to confine the operations of the insurgents1 to the eastern end of Cuba, but in that he failed, as likewise he failed in the results gained by his efforts to concentrate the rural population in the cities. Not until Weyler's time were these two methods of pacification2, the trocha and the concentration camp, developed to their fullest extent. Under the rule of the Butcher several trochas were constructed at selected points, and he carried to its logical conclusion the policy of concentration, with results sufficiently3 frightful4 to shock the world and to satisfy even Weyler's monstrous5 appetite for cruelty. Although his trochas hindered the free movement of Cuban troops and his prison camps decimated the peaceful population of several provinces, the Spanish cause gained little. Both trenches6 and prison camps became Spanish graveyards7.
Weyler's intrenchments cost millions and were elaborately constructed, belted with barbed wire, bristling8 with blockhouses and forts. In both the digging and the manning, however, they cost uncounted lives. Spanish spades turned up fevers with the soil, and, so long as raw Spanish troops were compelled to toil9 in the steaming morasses10 or to lie inactive under the sun and the rain, those traitor11 generals—June, July, and August—continued to pile up the bodies in rotting heaps and to timber the trenches with their bones. So long as the cities were overcrowded with pacificos and their streets were putrid12 with disease, so long did the Spanish garrisons13 sicken and die, as flies perish upon poisoned carrion14.
Out on the cool, clean hills and the windy savannas15 where the Insurrectos dwelt there was health. Poorly armed, ragged16, gaunt, these Insurrectos were kept moving by hunger, always moving like cattle on a barren range. But they were healthy, for disease, which is soft-footed and tender-bellied, could not keep up.
At the time Johnnie O'Reilly set out for Matanzas the war—a war without battle, without victory, without defeat—had settled into a grim contest of endurance. In the east, where the Insurrectos were practically supreme17, there was food of a sort, but beyond the Jucaro-Moron trocha—the old one of Campos's building—the country was sick. Immediately west of it, in that district which the Cubans called Las Villas18, the land lay dying, while the entire provinces of Matanzas, Habana, and Pinar del Rio were practically dead. These three were skeletons, picked bare of flesh by Weyler's beak19.
The Jucaro-Moron trocha had been greatly strengthened since Campos's day. It followed the line of the transinsular railway. Dotted at every quarter of a mile along the grade were little forts connected by telephone and telegraph lines. Between these fortinas were sentry20 stations of logs or railroad ties. The jungle on either side of the right-of-way had been cleared, and from the remaining stumps21 and posts and fallen tree-trunks hung a maze22 of barbed wire through which a man could scarcely crawl, even in daylight. Eyes were keen, rifles were ready, challenges were sharp, and countersigns23 were quickly given on the Jucaro-Moron trocha.
In O'Reilly's party there were three men besides himself—the ever-faithful Jacket, a wrinkled old Camagueyan who knew the bridle24 trails of his province as a fox knows the tracks to its lair25, and a silent guajiro from farther west, detailed26 to accompany the expedition because of his wide acquaintance with the devastated27 districts. Both guides, having crossed the trocha more than once, affected28 to scorn its terrors, and their easy confidence reassured29 O'Reilly in spite of Esteban's parting admonition.
The American had not dreamed of taking Jacket along, but when he came to announce his departure the boy had flatly refused to be left behind. Jacket, in fact, had taken the matter entirely30 into his own hands and had appealed directly to General Gomez. To his general the boy had explained tearfully that patriotism32 was a rare and an admirable quality, but that his love of country was not half so strong or so sacred as his affection for Johnnie O'Reilly. Having attached himself to the American for better or for worse, no human power could serve to detach him, so he asserted. He threatened, moreover, that if he were compelled to suffer his benefactor33 to go alone into the west he would lay down his arms and permit General Gomez to free Cuba as best he could. Cuba could go to Hades, so far as Jacket was concerned—he would not lift a finger to save it. Strangely enough, Jacket's threat of defection had not appalled34 General Gomez. In fact, with a dyspeptic gruffness characteristic of him Gomez had ordered the boy off, under penalty of a sound spanking35. But Jacket had a will of his own, likewise a temper. He greeted this unfeeling refusal with a noisy outburst of mingled36 rage, grief, and defiance37. Stamping his bare feet, sobbing38, and screaming, the boy finally flung himself upon the ground and smote39 it with his fists, while tears streamed from his eyes. Nor could he be silenced. He maintained such a hideous40 and surprising uproar41, answering Gomez's stern commands to be silent with such maniacal42 howls, that the old soldier was finally glad to yield his consent, incidentally consigning43 the rebellious44 youth to that perdition with which he had threatened Cuba.
Having won his point, Jacket regained45 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 secluded46 camping-spot. Later in the day Hilario, the old Camagueyan, slipped away to reconnoiter. He returned at twilight47, but volunteered no report of what he had discovered. After an insistent48 cross-examination O'Reilly wrung49 from him the reluctant admission that everything seemed favorable for a crossing some time that night, and that he had selected a promising50 point. Beyond that the old man would say nothing. Johnnie asked himself uneasily if this reticence51 was not really due to apprehension52 rather than to sullenness53. Whatever the cause, it was not particularly reassuring54, and as evening came on Johnnie found himself growing decidedly nervous.
Supper, a simple meal, was quickly disposed of. Then followed a long, dispiriting wait, for a gibbous moon rode high in the sky and the guides refused to stir so long as it remained there. It was a still night; in the jungle no air was stirring, and darkness brought forth55 a torment56 of mosquitoes. As day died, the woods awoke to sounds of bird and insect life; strange, raucous57 calls pealed31 forth, some familiar, others strange and unaccustomed. There were thin whistlings, hoarse58 grunts59 and harsh cacklings, high-pitched elfin laughter. Moving bodies disturbed the leaves overhead; from all sides came the rustle60 and stir of unseen creatures; sudden disputations were followed by startled silences. Sitting there in the dark, bedeviled by a pest of insects, mocked at by these mysterious voices, and looking forward to a hazardous61 enterprise, O'Reilly began to curse his vivid imagination and to envy the impassiveness of his companions. Even Jacket, he noted62, endured the strain better; the boy was cheerful, philosophical63, quite unimpressed by his surroundings. When the mosquitoes became unbearable64 he put on his trousers, with some reluctance65 and much ceremony.
It seemed to O'Reilly that the moon floated motionless in the sky, and more than once he was upon the point of ordering a start, but he reflected that its radiance out in the open must be far greater than it seemed here under the dense66 tropical foliage67. After a time he began to wonder if his guides were as loyal as they should be, if Hilario's strange reticence was caused by sullenness, by apprehension, or by something altogether different. Both of the men were strangers to him; of their fidelity68 he had no guarantee. Now that his mind had become engaged with thoughts of treachery, a determined69 effort was necessary to keep himself in hand and O'Reilly fell back finally upon his elemental trust in the Cuban character—scant consolation70 under the circumstances.
Midnight brought a moist, war............