Captain Macklin: His MemoirsDavis, Richard Harding
General
Captain Macklin: His Memoirs
Davis, Richard Harding
Adventure stories; Central America -- Fiction; Soldiers -- Fiction; United States Military Academy -- Fiction; War stories
But on the sixth day, just at sunset, as we had dragged ourselves to
the top of a wooded hill we saw below us, beyond a league of unbroken
jungle, a great, shining sheet of water, like a cloud on the horizon,
and someone cried: “The Pacific!” and we all stumbled forward, and some
dropped on their knees, and some wept, and some swung their hats and
tried to cheer.
And then one of them, I never knew which, started singing, “Praise God,
from whom all blessings flow,” and we stood up, the last of the Legion,
shaken with fever, starving, wounded, and hunted by our fellow-men, and
gave praise to God, as we had never praised Him before.
That night the fever took hold of me, and in my tossings and turnings
I burst open the sword-wound at the back of my head. I remember someone
exclaiming “He’s bled to death!” and a torch held to my eyes, and then
darkness, and the sense that I was being carried and bumped about on
men’s shoulders.
The next thing I knew I was lying in a hammock, a lot of naked, brown
children were playing in the dirt beside me, the sun was shining, great
palms were bending in the wind above me, and the strong, sweet air of
the salt sea was blowing in my face.
I lay for a long time trying to guess where I was, and how I had come
there. But I found no explanation for it, so I gave up guessing, and
gazed contentedly at the bending palms until one of the children found
my eyes upon him, and gave a scream, and they all pattered off like
frightened partridges.
That brought a native woman from behind me, smiling, and murmuring
prayers in Spanish. She handed me a gourd filled with water.
I asked where I was, and she said, “San Lorenzo.”
I could have jumped out of the hammock at that, but when I tried to do
so I found I could hardly raise my body. But I had gained the coast. I
knew I would find strength enough to leave it.
“Where are my friends?” I asked. “Where are the Gringoes?”
But she raised her hands, and threw them wide apart.
“They have gone,” she said, “three, four days from now, they sailed away
in the white ship. There was a great fighting,” she said, raising her
eyes and shaking her head, “and they carried you here, and told me to
hide you. You have been very ill, and you are still very ill.” She gave
a little exclamation and disappeared, and returned at once with a piece
of folded paper. “For you,” she said.
On the outside of the paper was written in Spanish: “This paper will
be found on the body of Royal Macklin. Let the priest bury him and send
word to the Military Academy, West Point, U. S. A., asking that his
family be informed of his place of burial. They will reward you well.”
Inside, in English, was the following letter in Aiken’s handwriting:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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