Show THE EL CANEY CHARGE C E hands cuban correspondent of the london daily mail was fortunate enough to see the splendid storming of el caney trie ore balaclava of cuba he gives the following graphic account when the afternoon came I 1 lost t exact count of time there was still a lumble jumble of volleying over by caney but in front our men were away out of bight behind a ridge far ahead beyond there arose a long ascent crowned by the blockhouse upon which the artillery had opened fire irr the morning suddenly as we looked through our glasses we saw a little black wit ant go 90 scrambling quickly up the hill and au an inch or two behind him a ragged line of other little ants and then aroler au oler line of ants at another part of the hill bill and then another until it seamed as if somebody had dug a stick into a great ants nest neat down in the valley and all the ants were scrambling away up MIL then the volley firing began ten times more furiously than before from the right beyond the top of the ridge burst buist upon the ants a terrific fire of shells from the blockhouse in front of them machine guns sounded thol thir continuous rattle but ahti th ants swept up the hill they seemed to us to thin out as they went forward it was incredible but it was grand the boys were storming the hill the military authorities were most surprised they were not surprised at thea theeb i splendid athletic dare devils of ours doing it but that a military comma ider should have allowed a fortified and entrenched position to be assailed by an infantry charge up the side of a ong exposed hill swept by a terrible artillery fire frightened them not so much by its audacity as by its terrible cost in human life As they nearest ceareo the top the different lines nes came nearer together one moment they went a little more slowly saw sam the ants come scrambling down the went on again faster than ever and then all of us sitting there on the top of the battery cried with excitement for the ants were scrambling all around the blockhouse on an the ridge and in a moment or two we saw them inside it but them our hearts swelled up to our throats for a fearful fire came from somewhere to the right of it and somewhere ome where to the left i of it then we saw aw the ants cam scrambling down the hill again they had taken a position which they had not the force to hold but a moment or two and up they scrambled again of them and more quickly than before and up th taft 1 other face of the hill to the left w went other lines and the ridge wasta keen the blockhouse was ours and the trenches were full of dead arft it was a grand achievement tot fot ane soldiers who shared it this i t of the hill leading up from the nasr S juan river to the ridge before the matter fort we could tell so much at 2 yards but we also knew that it hafl cost them dear i later on we knew only too well haw heavy the cost was As I 1 was trying I 1 toni make myself comfortable for the night in some meadow grass as wet with isit dew as if there had been a thu ll storm I 1 saw a man I 1 knew in sixteenth who had come back the front on some errand is hows the sixteenth I 1 ask I 1 him good left of it if he majd theres fifteen men left out of my com pany fifteen out of a huldred hur dred 1 i we have fought a great battle butt we have not taken santago yet but bit besides mhd wagons there ther along from the front men borne 0 on n h hafe litters some lying face dow down n writhing at intervals in awful co coha hv others lying motionless on flat of their backs with their hass placed over their faces for shade sh there also came men dozens of th thel afoot painfully limping with one a thrown over the shoulder of a co comra and the other arm helplessly dangl 11 how much further to the hoane hos neighbor they would despairingly only a quarter of a mile otle of neighbor I 1 would answer and atti smile of hope al aa the thought that al all they ther would be able to achieve journey they would hobble along but the ammunition wagons a the few ambulance wagons did i earry carry them all for hobbling down steep bank from frani the hospital ca bandaged men on foot they down for awhile on the bank as far they could get from the jumble mules and wagons in the lane and th setting their faces toward Si siboney boxLey ith commenced to walk it they afi the men whose injuries were too 81 all f for or wagon room to be given taj there was enough wagon ae abec dation for the mo men whose wa won rendered them helplessly prostrate let the men who had mere arn arm i shoulder wounds simply flesh wa WOUL or only one injured leg or foot foo walk siboney was only eight miles a away wap true it ws a fearfully bad tt but then the plain fact was that U wass was not enough wagons for all an aja was better for these men to be itt at paso hospital and better that should make room at ait the division 1 pital even it if they had to make journey on foot there was one man on the whose left foot was heavily banda band and drawn up from the ground had provided himself with a a ort rough crutch made of the forked 11 of a tree which he had padded vi alti bundle of o f clothes clo thes with the ass assaf of this and a short stick he was ming briskly along when I 1 ay avei him 11 where did they get you de I 1 asked him 11 oh durn their skins he said the cheerful ohe est way turning to wl with th a smile they got gob me twit twice t splinter of a shell in the foott foot and bullet through the calf of the same game when I 1 was being carried back the firing line 11 A sharpshooter the fellow was up in a tree and youre walking bacer Sl boney aan t there room for bidet ride I 1 expected an angry 0 of 0 indignation in reply to ahls quest but I 1 was mistaken in a p blaito te ter r ot of fact way he h said eaid s Gue giness not they wanted all the room lor for worse oases in n mine k mine thank god my two wounds are Is both in the same leg so I 1 can walk I 1 mite grood good and spry they told me id x lae be better off down dow n at the landin yon yo n P der so I 1 got these crutches and made f lr break eak fe and d how bow are you getting along I 1 if afkend ked I 1 I 1 goed and well he sald said as cheer it fehy famy as might be just good and easy p T and his one sund sound leg and his two ticks he went cheerfully padding laar 7 ft wa just the same with other wounded men and not meret y cheerful they were all absolutely luscious that they were undergoing unnecessary hardships or suffer aay Y CR 9 they knew now that war was no and they were not c complaining aft the absence of picnic fare some of at them had lain out all night with the dew daw falling on them where the bullets had dropped croppe d them before their turn I 1 gme came with the overworked field sur t S r there here was only sixty doctors deoto ra wi with tb die outfit they explained land and any they aliey tend everybody art ke i that seemed to them quite sufficient t 5 explanation it did not occur to them sr there ought to have been more t sectors more ambulances some of aff agn seemed to have a faint glimmer ff SW ot of a notion motion that there might per have been fewer wounded but S was so obvious to everybody ahe e conditions subsequent to the battle aay ussy accepted as the conditions proper F ud nd natural to the circumstances the 1 ae erful fellow with the improvised awu watches itches was so filled with thankful v at the poe session of his tree branch that it never occurred to him eliat lie he had reason mason too bo complain of the of proper crutches I 1 hap waed by chance to know that packed awl away ty in the hold of one ane of the tans verts lying out in siboney bay there were hitre cases full of crutches and I 1 was on the paint of blurting out an indig aane statement of the fact when I 1 re that the knowledge would mot tbt make his walk casiero so I 1 said thang about it I 1 1 I iya toad d to make the journey to sib myself naya elf there wats was nothing more fitta then a desultory firing going on at the and I 1 had telegrams to try to at away so I 1 passed a good many of 1 tw walking wounded and heard a many groans from pawn awn AM wagons the men were all the e bravely and uncomplainingly d ing along through the mud As themselves put it they were up it and that was all about it |