Casca 52- the Rough Rider by Tony Roberts

Casca 52- the Rough Rider by Tony Roberts

Author:Tony Roberts [Roberts, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781513660066
Published: 2020-03-18T04:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER EIGHT

The next day Casey packed up with the rest of the unit and they moved out of camp and made their way along the dirt track over a mile down towards Santiago to a low hill called El Pozo – the fountain. His mind was on Maria, that steamy Latin lady, and he hoped to hell she would come through this war unscathed and return to Santiago once this matter was cleared up.

But that was for her to do, not him, and he was now on one knee, peering over the lip of El Pozo hill and across to the ridges that formed the final defenses of Santiago de Cuba. He knew that if they managed to secure that ridge, then the city would be at their mercy and their artillery would be able to pound Santiago at their leisure.

He hoped young Billy Root would recover from his illness. He would by now be in the hospital on the coast and hopefully getting proper treatment. More soldiers were showing signs of one or other of the diseases that wracked these parts, and it wouldn’t be all that long before the army started to be weakened badly by the number of men falling ill.

To his left, the south, the sea glittered temptingly in the distance, over the canopies of the trees that stood between their position on the hill and the shore. Off in the other direction were a series of higher peaks, some low mountains or so, and a village could be seen nestled in the foothills over there, some four miles or so distant. What was of more interest was what was in front of them. The hill they were on dropped away into a valley, and through this flowed the small San Juan river. The road that they had followed from Sevilla crossed the river ahead of them on a small stone bridge and climbed the ridge beyond, then passed into Santiago.

The ridge had a blockhouse on it, and they could see Spanish soldiers digging in on the top.

“Puttin’ up a load of wire,” Corrigan said dourly. “Gonna be tough gettin’ up that hill.”

“Aye,” Casey nodded. He glanced to the north-west. Just across the river another, smaller hill rose, isolated. There appeared to be some kind of factory on top of that, and more Spanish soldiers were there, digging pits. “That’ll have to be taken first,” he pointed to the isolated hill.

“Oh?”

Casey nodded. “Or else when the main ridge is attacked, they’ll be able to pour enfilading fire onto our flanks. It’d be a slaughter.”

Corrigan surveyed the hill thoughtfully. “Guess that’ll be us then.”

Casey grinned. “You’re getting the idea. Roosevelt will want us in the thick of the action to make him look good in the newspapers, so he’ll be already begging at master’s table for a go at it.”

He took another good look at the hill. Although the jungle covered the ground below their position, it had been cleared on the other side of the river so that anyone crossing the river was instantly visible to the Spanish on the hill.



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