Produced by Greg Bergquist and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) [Illustration] THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO AN ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORIC SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO TO GENERAL SHAFTER JULY 17, 1898 BY FRANK NORRIS SAN FRANCISCO PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY NINETEEN SEVENTEEN Copyright, 1913, 1917 by Otis F. Wood THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO For two days we had been at the headquarters of the Second Brigade (General McKibben's), so blissfully contented because at last we had a real wooden and tiled roof over our heads that even the tarantulas--Archibald shook two of them from his blanket in one night--had no terrors for us. The headquarters were in an abandoned country seat, a little six-roomed villa, all on one floor, called the Hacienda San Pablo. To the left of us along the crest of hills, in a mighty crescent that reached almost to the sea, lay the army, panting from the effort of the first, second and third days of the month, resting on its arms, its eyes to its sights, Maxim, Hotchkiss and Krag-Jorgenson held ready, alert, watchful, straining in the leash, waiting the expiration of the last truce that had now been on for twenty-four hours. That night we sat up very late on the porch of the hacienda, singing "The Spanish Cavalier"--if you will recollect the words, singularly appropriate--"The Star-Spangled Banner," and 'Tis a way we had at Caney, sir, 'Tis a way we had at Caney, sir, 'Tis a way we had at Caney, sir, To drive the Dons away, an adaptation by one of the General's aides, which had a great success. Inside, the General himself lay on his spread blankets, his hands clasped under his head, a pipe in his teeth, feebly applauding us at intervals and trying to pretend that we sang out of tune. The night was fine and very still. The wonderful Cuban fireflies, that are like little electric lights gone somehow adrift, glowed and faded in the mango and bamboo trees, and after a while a whip-poor-will began his lamentable little plaint somewhere in the branches of the gorgeous vermilion Flamboyana that overhung the hacienda. The air was heavy with smells, smells that inevitable afternoon downpours had distilled from the vast jungle of bush and vine and thicket all up and down the valley. In Cuba everything, the very mud and water, has a smell. After every rain, as soon as the red-hot sun is out again, vegetation reeks and smokes and sweats, and these smells steam off into the air all night, thick and stupefying, like the interior of a cathedral after high mass.