The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba(89)
If Hearst has had news of him, I haven’t heard it, and I can’t bear to ask for fear that he’ll see me as some silly, lovesick girl rather than the respected journalist I hope to be.
“Who is going on this trip with you?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady, the possibility contained in such an opportunity too great to be ignored. Hearst’s war correspondents are legends.
“Creelman for one. One of my friends—Jack Follansbee. The Wilson sisters are going to be there, too. Several others.”
I blink, convinced I’ve misheard him.
“The Wilson sisters?”
The Wilson sisters are infamous Florodora Girls, their presence more suited to a Broadway stage than the battlefield. They are favorites of Hearst’s, rumors swirling that he is dating one or both of them, given the frequency in which he is seen out and about town with them on his arms and the extravagant gifts he has bestowed upon them.
“Should be a jolly time,” Hearst adds.
It takes a moment for me to realize he is absolutely serious.
It’ll be dangerous. I have no illusions about that.
When Sylvester Scovel was imprisoned over a year ago in Cuba, he was released after a month, but the threat toward journalists is still real.
Many would balk at the idea of taking a woman with them, but then again, Hearst is already taking two, even if their presence is designed to satisfy his needs for companionship and entertainment. And if Pulitzer was ready to send Nellie Bly to Cuba, why should I be different?
I open my mouth to ask him to allow me to accompany the party when he looks at me, a gleam in his eyes, and says—
“Care to join us?”
* * *
—
If someone had told me my journalistic career would lead to me sailing around Cuba dressed in men’s clothing in a convoy of chartered vessels with William Randolph Hearst and a pair of chorus girls who regularly break into song and dance, I wouldn’t have believed them.
But here we are.
We traveled down to the Caribbean on Hearst’s hired ship and started the last leg of our journey in Kingston, Jamaica, in mid-June where we docked and disembarked, the party checking into the luxurious Crystal Spring Hotel. Hearst went to a nearby racecourse where he bought some polo ponies to ride onto the battlefield before we embarked for Santiago, Cuba, the next morning. The American censors in Key West control the information, making it difficult to get stories out, so Jamaica has become our best option, and a convenient place to stock up on supplies.
I can’t fathom the amount of money that is being spent on personnel, dispatch boats, and telegraph companies, but for all of his wealth, at the rate he’s spending it, I have to think even Hearst might run out of money if this conflict continues on. He’s sent an army of thirty-five correspondents to Cuba and has created his own newsroom and printing press aboard the Sylvia.
We sail around Cuba, rendezvousing with the American navy, waiting for the battle to start. Initially, I think Hearst was worried that he’d miss it entirely, but it’s taken the United States some time to marshal our forces and prepare for war. There’s been fighting in Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam, but so far Cuba has been silent.
We make our way to Las Guasimas at the end of June, leaving the Wilson sisters behind on the Sylvia as we take the horses ashore.
The woods are dense, the ride more grueling than I had envisioned. I haven’t ridden in years, since I was a young girl, and I spend as much time trying to maintain my seat as I do taking in my surroundings.
The reports we’ve received about the destruction of the countryside have been accurate. It is starkly barren, and I do not think I see one living animal native to the area. The war between the United States and Spain might be starting, but it’s obvious the conflict has already ravaged this land.
In contrast to the destruction around us, the men riding to war do so joyously, whooping and hollering with little care for the enemy hearing their movements. It’s as if there’s been so much pent-up energy geared to the effort that now that the fighting is here, they are ready to greet it with gusto.
At eight in the morning, the first land engagement begins as fifteen hundred Spanish soldiers under the command of General Antero Rubin start firing their rifles. The air fills with the sounds of their short pops, followed by the heavier reports of the American guns.
Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders are here, and Richard Harding Davis, Edward Marshall, and other journalists from the Journal throw themselves into the fray as though daring the Spanish to shoot at them alongside the American soldiers.
Is Rafael somewhere in this throng?
I hang back with some of the party, watching from a safe distance, not close enough to the direct fighting to be on the front lines. I haven’t quite decided what I’m going to report on here. War doesn’t fill me with the same level of excitement with which it seems to infuse the men, but after spending so much time writing about Cuba from the comfort of my newsroom in New York City, I wanted to see the real people we wrote about from a distance. There’s a story here. I’m just not sure this is the one I want to be reporting on.
The air fills with smoke from the German rifles, making it difficult to see anything. The sounds emerging from the battle are ominous, yells and cries mixing with the firing of weapons. My horse dances uneasily beneath me; the polo ponies Hearst procured hardly have temperaments suited for this sort of thing.