Hidden In The Trees Above The Streams, And Above The Trail, Sharp-
Shooters And Guerillas Added A Fresh Terror To The Wounded.
There
was no hiding from them.
Their bullets came from every side. Their
invisible smoke helped to keep their hiding-places secret, and in the
incessant shriek of shrapnel and the spit of the Mausers, it was
difficult to locate the reports of their rifles. They spared neither
the wounded nor recognized the Red Cross; they killed the surgeons
and the stewards carrying the litters, and killed the wounded men on
the litters. A guerilla in a tree above us shot one of the Rough
Riders in the breast while I was helping him carry Captain Morton
Henry to the dressing-station, the ball passing down through him, and
a second shot, from the same tree, barely missed Henry as he lay on
the ground where we had dropped him. He was already twice wounded
and so covered with blood that no one could have mistaken his
condition. The surgeons at work along the stream dressed the wounds
with one eye cast aloft at the trees. It was not the Mauser bullets
they feared, though they passed continuously, but too high to do
their patients further harm, but the bullets of the sharp-shooters
which struck fairly in among them, splashing in the water and
scattering the pebbles. The sounds of the two bullets were as
different as is the sharp pop of a soda-water bottle from the buzzing
of an angry wasp.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 68 of 202
Words from 18525 to 18780
of 55169
