GLIMPSE INTO A TROOP SHIP.
Sergeant Martin and Corporal Wagner, stripped to the waist, were at the bottom of what looked like a deep well. The atmosphere was stifling, and in order to enable the men at the bottom to stand the heat, their comrades kept pouring water down upon their heads and bodies. As fast as pails could be filled from the bottom they were passed up along a long line of men composed of details from the various commands aboard.
It was exhausting labor, but of all the men on board the City Troopers stood the work best. The water thus brought up was of a kind absolutely dangerous for a human being to drink, and all through the day's trying struggle the Troopers silently endured the added pangs of thirst. There was more real suffering for twenty-four hours than any man in the Troop will admit, but when the pumps resumed operations in the morning, the thankful air with which the formerly despised yellowish warm water was accepted spoke volumes.
The days passed along slowly. No extremely rough weather was encountered, but on several occasions the old transport reeled sufficiently to send a few of the Troopers to their hammocks with slight attacks of mal de mer.
The motion of the vessel was sufficient, however, to completely disarrange each night the outfit of the Troopers, and it was their duty each morning to gather together their equipments for inspection, the same as though they were in camp. This constant readiness was in marked contrast with the arrangements among other commands aboard.
Many of the Troopers will never forget the first time the alarm of fire was given aboard the ship. It was the third morning out that a guard discovered smoke slowly curling from between the crevices of the baled hay piled high on deck. The guard was startled, and his call for the corporal and statement of the discovery of the fire was given in a loud tone, which instantly caused the alarm to spread throughout the ship. It was no pleasant thought for the men, who knew so well the inflammable nature of the cargo and the crowded condition aboard, and there was a rush for the point from which the alarm had come. Fortunately the blaze was a trivial affair easily extinguished, and the excitement was speedily at an end. Three other times, however, during the trip the same alarm was given, but the careful watch kept prevented the fire, in a single instance, from gaining any headway.
Although the "Massachusetts" was supposed to be one of the fastest transports, she found the entire flotilla, which had left Newport News about the same time she did, awaiting her arrival off Guayama. A despatch boat came puffing down to meet her, flying the signal, "Follow me," and Troopers in the bow saw a man armed with a megaphone mount the bridge of the despatch boat and shout: "'The Massachusetts' will lead the way, landing at Ponce."
These instructions as to the exact landing place were somewhat contrary to those before given Captain Pitcher, who was in charge of the transport, so he shouted back, "By whose authority do you give those orders?" and the reply promptly came, "By the authority of Major General Nelson A. Miles, commanding."
This was at three o'clock, and the "Massachusetts" at once went ahead. At 4.30 the harbor of Ponce was sighted, and several of the Philadelphia cavalrymen in the bow saw that the transport was steering directly into shoal water, at the bottom of which a coral reef could be plainly seen. They shouted to the man at the wheel, but too late—the great transport drove bow on into the reef, and at last, on the afternoon of August 4th, the Troopers were upon hostile soil, hard and fast.