face of the enemy, standing squarely upright on his legs instead of crouching, as the others called to him to do, until he fell like a column across the trail.  “God gives,” was the motto on the watch I took from his blouse, and God could not have given him a nobler end; to die, in the fore-front of the first fight of the war, quickly, painlessly, with a bullet through the heart, with his regiment behind him, and facing the enemies of his country.

The line at this time was divided by the trail into two wings.  The right wing, composed of K and A Troops, was advancing through the valley, returning the fire from the ridge as it did so, and the left wing, which was much the longer of the two, was swinging around on the enemy’s right flank, with its own right resting on the barbed-wire fence.  I borrowed a carbine from a wounded man, and joined the remnant of L Troop which was close to the trail.

This troop was then commanded by Second Lieutenant Day, who on account of his conduct that morning and at the battle of San Juan later, when he was shot through the arm, was promoted to be captain of L Troop, or, as it was later officially designated, Capron’s troop.  He was walking up and down the line as unconcernedly as though we were at target practice, and an Irish sergeant, Byrne, was assisting him by keeping up a continuous flow of comments and criticisms that showed the keenest enjoyment of the situation.  Byrne was the only man I noticed who seemed to regard the fight as in any way humorous.  For at Guasimas, no one had time to be flippant, or to exhibit any signs of braggadocio.  It was for all of them, from the moment it started, through the hot, exhausting hour and a half that it lasted, a most serious proposition.  The conditions were exceptional.  The men had made a night march the evening before, had been given but three hours’ troubled sleep on the wet sand, and had then been marched in full equipment uphill and under a cruelly hot sun, directly into action.  And eighty per cent. of them had never before been under fire.  Nor had one man in the regiment ever fired a Krag-Jorgensen carbine until he fired it at a Spaniard, for their arms had been issued to them so soon before sailing that they had only drilled with them without using cartridges.  To this handicap was also added the nature of the ground and the fact that our men could not see their opponents.  Their own men fell or rolled over on every side, shot down by an invisible enemy, with no one upon whom they could retaliate, with no sign that the attack might not go on indefinitely.  Yet they never once took a step backward, but advanced grimly, cleaning a bush or thicket of its occupants before charging it, and securing its cover for themselves, and answering each volley with one that sounded like an echo of the first.  The men were panting for breath; the sweat ran so readily into their eyes that they could not see the sights of their guns; their limbs unused to such exertion after seven days of cramped idleness on the troop-ship, trembled with weakness and the sun blinded and dazzled them; but time after time they rose and staggered forward through the high grass, or beat their way with their carbines against the tangle of vines and creepers.  A mile and a half of territory was gained foot by foot in this fashion, the three Spanish positions carried in that distance being marked by the thousands of Mauser cartridges that lay shining and glittering in the grass and behind the barricades of bushes.  But this distance had not been gained without many losses, for every one in the regiment was engaged.  Even those who, on account of the heat, had dropped out along the trail, as soon as the sound of the fight reached them, came limping to the front—and plunged into the firing-line.  It was the only place they could go—there was no other line.  With the exception of Church’s dressing station and its wounded there were no reserves.