Spanish-American War Part 2
Mystery Solved! Plus, Killing One's Darlings
Last week I wrote about the Spanish-American War (April 21, 1898 – December 10, 1898) and my great granduncle Frederick (né Friedrich) Preuer (1878 - 1906), a veteran of that brief, bloody conflict. Yellow fever and malaria felled far more soldiers than bullets, but Frederick was most definitely wounded — at the Battle of El Caney.12
Frederick was also an immigrant, husband, father (a four-month-old son, Elmer predeceased him in January 1906), Freemason, and employee at the National Brewery in Baltimore, Maryland where he met his tragic end at the young age of 28. If you missed that post, you can catch up here.
Huge thanks to subscriber Denise whose savvy sleuthing settled my question on why Frederick would have sued his Masonic lodge (Harmony Lodge No. 4, Sons of Liberty) for “sick benefits” in the aftermath of his war wounding. According to the Atlantic Reporter, Vol. 51, at the Turn-of-the-Century as today, IRS-recognized “fraternal beneficiary societies” must offer death and disability insurance to their members.3
But there’s MORE!
Inspired by Denise, I kept digging. And came across this gem.
Like my scrappy Great Granduncle Frederick, Adam Blakely, Rose’s love interest in IRISH EYES (Dec 2023) also enlists in the Spanish-American War and also is wounded. Adam doesn’t lose his life at the Battle of San Juan Heights, but he does lose his best friend, Danny. Along with a nasty leg wound and a raging case of malaria, he’s left with major survivor’s guilt. The experience, which ultimately leads him to Ireland, and Rose, leaves deep scars, physical and emotional.
Though IRISH EYES is very much Rose’s journey, originally I wrote a short prologue set during the battle, a scene I still like a lot despite cutting it from the final book. I don’t want to say, or think, about the hours (days, weeks) I spent deep down the Research Rabbit Hole in prep for writing pages that would ultimately end up on the chopping block. But when you’re a writer, what you choose to take out can be as important as what you choose to leave in.
“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Below is the deleted prologue to IRISH EYES. Was I right to nix it? I’ll leave it for you fine folks to decide. Either way, enjoy!
July 1, 1898, Battle for San Juan Heights, Cuba
Krag rifle cocked, Adam lay on his belly, straining to see through the dust and smoke to the summit they’d been ordered to seize. Hidden amidst that hillside of scrubby trees and sunburnt brush, tucked into trenches and rifle pits were the Spanish regulars, their smokeless Mausers making their position almost impossible to discern beyond the sing-song whistling of their bullets. In contrast, every shot Adam and his fellow infantrymen fired let off a bullseye of black powder. Caught between the enemy riflemen above and the snipers secreted in the tall coconut trees flanking the narrow ribbon of roadway, they were as good as sitting ducks.
Until General Lawton and his Second Division arrived from El Caney, their hopes were pinned upon Lieutenant John Henry Parker and his Gatling Gun Detachment. Parker had three of his four Gatlings positioned six hundred or so yards from the Spanish-occupied San Juan Hill blockhouse. The mobile cannons’ swivel mountings should enable the gunners to rake the Spanish defensive lines with a continuous hail of bullets. The lives of Adam and his men depended upon it.
“Jesus, Joseph and Mary, I could do with a drink.”
Beside him, Private Danny O’Neill tore off his broad-brimmed campaign hat and swiped his sleeve across his streaming forehead, his close-cropped chestnut colored curls slicked to his scalp, his face blackened from gun smoke as well as mud from the stream they’d forded earlier, stopping just long enough to scrub the muck on their skin as a screen against the searing sun.
Barring the stray scraggly shrub, the upper side of the hillside where they were stationed was without shade. The heat, hovering above one hundred degrees, had driven more than one recruit to shed his fatigues and fight in his skivvies. Tempted though Adam was, he kept fully clothed. The brown cotton canvas uniform, far too stiff and thick for the tropical climate, at least provided protection from frying like an egg.
“Is that an offer?” Adam quipped, resisting the urge to scratch. Like everyone else, he was crawling with lice and digging at himself only made his skin that much rawer.
Between the bugs and vermin, drenching skies and searing sun, the Cuban climate was showing itself to be an even more formidable foe than the Spaniards.
Danny grinned, the gap between his front teeth giving him the look of a friendly Jack o’ Lantern. “Drank my stash on the ship over same as yourself. Once we’re safe home, I’ll stand for a round or two at McSorley’s.”
“McSorley’s?” Adam repeated, reckoning that his friend was a good deal more optimistic about their odds of surviving than he was.
Dipping into his cartridge belt, Danny said, “Serves the best beer in New York City, does McSorley’s though mind it’s shite compared to the Guinness we pour back home.” He put his cap back on and, rifle at the ready, rose to a half-crouch.
“What are you doing?” Adam demanded, hoping he was wrong, knowing he wasn’t.
Danny didn’t blink. “The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can all go home.”
“Danny, no! It’s too dangerous.”
Stubborn as ever, Danny inched his way out into the open. “No guts, no glory, Blakely—mind you said so yourself on the transport out.”
True enough but Adam had been stupid then, stupid and almost criminally naïve.
He tried again, taking a different tack. “Our orders are to hold here.”
Looking back, Danny rolled his eyes. “And let the regulars have all the fun, no thank you!”
“Danny, I mean it, get back here—now! That’s an order!”
“Feck it, Blakely, you pick a fine time for pulling rank, now don’t you? You can recommend me for court marshal or disciplinary action or whatever the army does to us volunteers—after I get back. For now, cover me!”
Adam raised his rifle. “You’re off your rocker.”
Danny snorted. “Maybe but then I’ve the luck of the Irish or hadn’t you heard?”
Before Adam could answer that, Danny bolted for the firing line. Reaching it, he sank upon his knees, raised his rifle—and fired.
Crack, crack, crack… Crack, crack, crack…
“Got one!” Danny crowed, lowering his emptied firearm.
Danny was crazy to spend his entire clip, and Adam wasn’t shy of saying so. Before he could, a barrage of bullets hissed over their heads.
“Hit the ground!”
Adam slammed to the ground. A bullet cut through the crown of his hat, smacking it off. Another whizzed by, so close he felt the burn of it upon his brow. Minutes or maybe only seconds later, the salvo subsided. Panting, he counted silently to ten and then lifted his head. He touched his forehead. Wet with blood but, miraculously, no hole.
Lowering his bloodied fingers, he blew out a breath. “Christ, that was close.” He pushed upright, tore the sweat-sodden kerchief from his throat and used it to mop the spillage.
Danny still didn’t answer.
“Cat got your tongue, O’Neill?”
Adam finished tying the cloth about his brow. Wiping the blood from his eyes, he squinted through the shield of shimmering heat. Farther up the knoll, a crumpled bundle of dirty, canvas-colored rags lay in a heap. More shed clothing? Gradually the bundle took the form of a fallen man. A soldier.
“Dan-nyyyyyyyyyyyy!”
Adam grabbed his gun. Like the sand crab that had crawled into camp the night before, he skittered forward on all fours, scarcely feeling the shell casings slicing his skin.
Danny lay sprawled upon his back. Reaching him, Adam dropped his gun and bent over his fallen friend. “Jesus, Dan.”
A scarlet stain soaked the lower half of his friend’s shirt, turning the burn of the bullet hole to inky black. A gut wound—the very worst. Adam pressed his palm to the rapidly spreading pool.
Face swimming in sweat, Danny stared up at him. “Guess I should ha’ stayed p-put after all, huh?”
“Don’t worry about that now. Just hold on, buddy. I’m going to get you some help.”
There were no hospital corps men in the vicinity, but a makeshift resting area for the wounded was set up on the embankment of the stream they’d earlier crossed where the lesser wounded tended to their fallen fellows. If he could get Danny there before he bled out, if the bullet had passed cleanly through rather than lodged within, maybe there was a chance.
“Ready? One, two, three.” He slipped an arm beneath Danny’s torso, but Danny’s scream stayed him.
Danny winced. “S’ no use, college boy. I’m…d-done for.”
“Don’t talk that way,” Adam answered, fear roughening his voice. “You’re gonna pull through. You’re gonna make it. Come Christmastime, we’ll be knocking back beers at…” What was the name of that saloon Danny was always going on about?
“McSorley’s,” Danny supplied with a weak smile.
Feeling the warmth bubbling between his fingers, he locked his gaze on Danny’s. “Right, McSorley’s. We’ll be boozing it up, boring everybody to tears with our war stories.”
Danny drew a wheezing breath. “D-do something for me?” Blood slipped from the side of his mouth, dribbling down his chin.
“Anything, pal, name it.”
“The wood b-box in…my pack. The rosary inside…once I’m…gone, s-see it safe home to my s-sister…to Rose.”
“Give it to her yourself once we’re out of here and you’re back on your feet.” Even knowing it was pointless, Adam couldn’t bring himself to draw his hand away.
Danny winced, his breathing shallow, ragged. “Swear you’ll…p-put it in her…hands y-yourself?” A sudden smile lifted the corners of his blue-tinged lips. “After all this, a s-seaside h-holiday to the Arans w-will do you a world of g-good.”
Health advice from a dying man, the irony was too piercingly painful. Past caring for his own safety, Adam rose up onto his knees, scouring the vicinity in vain for a stretcher bearer. “Medic!!! Somebody, anybody, we need help over here!”
A tug upon his sleeve drew him back down to earth. Glassy-gazed and gasping, Danny held fast to the fabric. “S-swear…on my…g-grave.”
“Danny, for the love of God—”
“S-swear.”
Eyes streaming, Adam gave up and lifted his hand away. “All right, Dan, all right. I swear.”
Copyright © 2023 Hope C. Tarr. All rights reserved.
Until next week…
Happy History-ing!
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IRISH EYES (releasing December 2023) spans twenty-five years of Gilded Age through the Jazz Age Manhattan, as seen through the eyes of spirited Irish-born Rose O’Neill. Read more here.
https://armyhistory.org/major-walter-reed-and-the-eradication-of-yellow-fever/
“A SOLDIER LIES in a tent hospital in Siboney, Cuba, in July 1898, a victim of yellow fever. That month, senior U.S. Army officers fresh from victories at San Juan Hill and Santiago proposed immediate evacuation: “The army is disabled by malarial fever to such an extent. … that it is in a condition to be practically entirely destroyed by the epidemic of yellow fever sure to come. …” Spain surrendered before President McKinley had to weigh the risks of an epidemic against the humiliation of withdrawal. Even so, losses were severe: in the combined theaters of the war, fourteen times as many men died of tropical diseases as from enemy action.” https://www.americanheritage.com/spanish-american-war-conquering-yellow-fever
Fraternal life insurance is a contract where a fraternal benefit society insures the life of a member who, in exchange, pays monthly contributions to the group. A Fraternal Benefit Society is a special form of insurance company, owned not by stockholders, but by the members (the insured). https://www.wsalife.com/about-fraternals and https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/Chapters%2021-25.pdf
I'm so glad you found the answer!
Loved the prologue, but I totally understand killing your darlings.