To Cuba 59 



while Wood and I and various other officers wan- 

 dered about in search of information which no one 

 could give. We now and then came across a Briga- 

 dier-General, or even a Major-General; but nobody 

 knew anything. Some regiments got aboard the 

 trains and some did not, but as none of the trains 

 started this made little difference. At three o'clock 

 we received orders to march over to an entirely dif- 

 ferent track, and away we went. No train appeared 

 on this track either; but at six o'clock some coal- 

 cars came by, and these we seized. By various argu- 

 ments we persuaded the engineer in charge of the 

 train to back us down the nine miles to Port Tampa, 

 where we arrived covered with coal-dust, but with 

 all our belongings. 



The railway tracks ran out on the quay, and the 

 transports, which had been anchored in midstream, 

 were gradually being brought up alongside the quay 

 and loaded. The trains were unloading wherever 

 they happened to be, no attention whatever being 

 paid to the possible position of the transport on 

 which the soldiers were to go. Colonel Wood and 

 I jumped off and started on a hunt, which soon con- 

 vinced us that we had our work cut out if we were to 

 get a transport at all. From the highest General 

 down, nobody could tell us where to go to find out 

 what transport we were to have. At last we were in- 

 formed that we were to hunt up the depot quarter- 



