Adventures and Letters [139]
which jutted out into the ocean and suggested roughly the five knuckles of a giant's hand clenched and lying flat upon the surface of the water.' That formation of the sea wall is just outside of Santiago. `The waves tunnelled their way easily enough until they ran up against those five mountains and then they had to fall back.' How natural for one of us to be unimpressed by such a feature of the landscape and yet how characteristic of Dick Davis to see the elemental fight that it recorded and get the hint for the whole of the engineering struggle that is so much of his book.
"We went over those mountains together, where two decades before he had planted his banner of romance. We visited the mines and the railroads and everywhere found some superintendent or foreman or engineer who remembered Davis. He had guessed at nothing. Everywhere he had overlaid the facts with adventure and with beauty, but he had been on sure footing all the time. His prototype of MacWilliams was dead. Together we visited the wooden cross with which the miners had marked his grave.
CHAPTER XIX VERA CRUZ AND THE GREAT WAR
Late in April, 1914, when war between the United States and Mexico seemed inevitable Richard once more left the peace and content of Crossroads and started for Vera Cruz, arriving there on April 29. He had arranged to act as correspondent for a syndicate of newspapers, and as he had for long been opposed to the administration's policy of "watchful waiting" was greatly disappointed on his arrival at the border to learn of the President's plan of mediation. He wrote to his wife:
CRUZ, April 24, 1914. DEAREST ONE:
We left today at 5.30. It was a splendid scene, except for the children crying, and the wives of the officers and enlisted men trying not to cry. I got a stateroom to myself. With the electric fan on and the airport open, it is about as cool as a blast furnace. But I was given a seat on the left of General Funston, who is commanding this brigade, and the other officers at the table are all good fellows. As long as I was going, I certainly had luck in getting away as sharply as I did. One day's delay would have made me miss this transport, which will be the first to land troops.
April 25th.
A dreadnaught joined us today, the Louisiana. I wirelessed the Admiral asking permission to send a press despatch via his battleship, and he was polite in reply, but firm. He said "No." There are four transports and three torpedo boats and the battleship. We go very slowly, because we must keep up with one of the troop ships with broken engines. At night it is very pretty seeing the ships in line, and the torpedo boats winking their signals at each other. I am writing all the time or reading up things about the army I forget and getting the new dope. Also I am brushing up my Spanish. Jack London is on board, and three other correspondents, two of whom I have met on other trips, and one "cub" correspondent. He was sitting beside London and me busily turning out copy, and I asked him what he found to write about. He said, "Well, maybe I see things you fellows don't see." What he meant was that what was old to us was new to him, but he got guyed unmercifully.
April 27, 1914.
The censor reads all I write, and so do some half-dozen Mexican cable clerks and 60 (sixty) correspondents. So when I cable "love," it MEANS devotion, adoration, and worship; loyalty, fidelity and truth, wanting you, needing you, unhappy for you. It means ALL that.
RICHARD.
VERA CRUZ, April 30, 1914.
This heat--humid and moist--would sweat water out of a chilled steel safe; so imagine what it does to me with all the awful winter's accumulation of fat. I hate to say it, but I LIKE these Mexicans--much better than Cubans, or Central Americans. They are human, kindly; it is only the politicians and bandits like Villa who give them a bad name. But, though they ought to hate us, whenever I stop to ask my way they invite me to come in and have "coffee" and say, "My house is yours, senor," which certainly
"We went over those mountains together, where two decades before he had planted his banner of romance. We visited the mines and the railroads and everywhere found some superintendent or foreman or engineer who remembered Davis. He had guessed at nothing. Everywhere he had overlaid the facts with adventure and with beauty, but he had been on sure footing all the time. His prototype of MacWilliams was dead. Together we visited the wooden cross with which the miners had marked his grave.
CHAPTER XIX VERA CRUZ AND THE GREAT WAR
Late in April, 1914, when war between the United States and Mexico seemed inevitable Richard once more left the peace and content of Crossroads and started for Vera Cruz, arriving there on April 29. He had arranged to act as correspondent for a syndicate of newspapers, and as he had for long been opposed to the administration's policy of "watchful waiting" was greatly disappointed on his arrival at the border to learn of the President's plan of mediation. He wrote to his wife:
CRUZ, April 24, 1914. DEAREST ONE:
We left today at 5.30. It was a splendid scene, except for the children crying, and the wives of the officers and enlisted men trying not to cry. I got a stateroom to myself. With the electric fan on and the airport open, it is about as cool as a blast furnace. But I was given a seat on the left of General Funston, who is commanding this brigade, and the other officers at the table are all good fellows. As long as I was going, I certainly had luck in getting away as sharply as I did. One day's delay would have made me miss this transport, which will be the first to land troops.
April 25th.
A dreadnaught joined us today, the Louisiana. I wirelessed the Admiral asking permission to send a press despatch via his battleship, and he was polite in reply, but firm. He said "No." There are four transports and three torpedo boats and the battleship. We go very slowly, because we must keep up with one of the troop ships with broken engines. At night it is very pretty seeing the ships in line, and the torpedo boats winking their signals at each other. I am writing all the time or reading up things about the army I forget and getting the new dope. Also I am brushing up my Spanish. Jack London is on board, and three other correspondents, two of whom I have met on other trips, and one "cub" correspondent. He was sitting beside London and me busily turning out copy, and I asked him what he found to write about. He said, "Well, maybe I see things you fellows don't see." What he meant was that what was old to us was new to him, but he got guyed unmercifully.
April 27, 1914.
The censor reads all I write, and so do some half-dozen Mexican cable clerks and 60 (sixty) correspondents. So when I cable "love," it MEANS devotion, adoration, and worship; loyalty, fidelity and truth, wanting you, needing you, unhappy for you. It means ALL that.
RICHARD.
VERA CRUZ, April 30, 1914.
This heat--humid and moist--would sweat water out of a chilled steel safe; so imagine what it does to me with all the awful winter's accumulation of fat. I hate to say it, but I LIKE these Mexicans--much better than Cubans, or Central Americans. They are human, kindly; it is only the politicians and bandits like Villa who give them a bad name. But, though they ought to hate us, whenever I stop to ask my way they invite me to come in and have "coffee" and say, "My house is yours, senor," which certainly