THE EXECUTION OF RODRIGUEZ
From "Cuba in War Time," with the author's permission
BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
Adolfo Rodriguez was the only son of a Cuban farmer. When the revolution broke out, young Rodriguez joined the insurgents, leaving his father and mother and two sisters at the farm. He was taken by the Spanish, was tried by a military court for bearing arms against the government, and sentenced to be shot by a fusillade some morning before sunrise. His execution took place a half mile distant from the city, on the great plain that stretches from the forts out to the hills, beyond which Rodriguez had lived for nineteen years.
There had been a full moon the night preceding the execution, and when the squad of soldiers marched out from town, it was still shining brightly through the mists. It lighted a plain two miles in extent broken by ridges and gullies and covered with thick, high grass and with bunches of cactus and palmetto.
The execution was quickly finished with rough, and, but for one frightful blunder, with merciful swiftness. The crowd fell back when it came to the square of soldiery, and the condemned man, the priests, and the firing squad of six young volunteers passed in and the lines closed behind them.
Rodriguez bent and kissed the cross which the priest held up before him. He then walked to where the officer directed him to stand, and turned his back to the square and faced the hills and the road across them which led to his father's farm. As the officer gave the first command he straightened himself as far as the cords would allow, and held up his head and fixed his eyes immovably on the morning light which had just begun to show above the hills.
The officer had given the order, the men had raised their pieces, and the condemned man had heard the clicks of the triggers as they were pulled back, and he had not moved. And then happened one of the most cruelly refined, though unintentional, acts of torture that one can very well imagine. As the officer slowly raised his sword, preparatory to giving the signal, one of the mounted officers rode up to him and pointed out silently—the firing squad were so placed that when they fired they would shoot several of the soldiers stationed on the extreme end of the square.
Their captain motioned his men to lower their pieces, and then walked across the grass and laid his hand on the shoulder of the waiting prisoner. It is not pleasant to think what that shock must have been. The man had steeled himself to receive a volley of bullets in the back. He believed that in the next instant he would be in another world; he had heard the command given, had heard the click of the Mausers as the locks caught—and then, at that supreme moment, a human hand had been laid upon his shoulder and a voice spoke in his ear.
You would expect that any man who had been snatched back to life in such a fashion would start and tremble at the reprieve, or would break down altogether, but this boy turned his head steadily, and followed with his eyes the direction of the officer's sword, then nodded his head gravely, and with his shoulders squared, took up a new position, straightened his back again, and once more held himself erect. As an exhibition of self-control this should surely rank above feats of heroism performed in battle, where there are thousands of comrades to give inspiration. This man was alone, in sight of the hills he knew, with only enemies about him, with no source to draw on for strength but that which lay within himself.