134 The Rough Riders 



and then the drumming ceased for a moment; then 

 it would resound again, always closer to San Juan 

 hill, which Parker, like ourselves, was hammering 

 to assist the infantry attack. Our men cheered lus- 

 tily. We saw much of Parker after that, and there 

 was never a more welcome sound than his Catlings 

 as they opened. It was the only sound which I ever 

 heard my men cheer in battle. 



The infantry got nearer and nearer the crest of 

 the hill. At last we could see the Spaniards run- 

 ning from the rifle-pits as the Americans came on 

 in their final rush. Then I stopped my men for 

 fear they should injure their comrades, and called 

 to them to charge the next line of trenches, on the 

 hills in our front, from which we had been under- 

 going a good deal of punishment. Thinking that 

 the men would all come, I jumped over the wire 

 fence in front of us and started at the double; but, 

 as a matter of fact, the troopers were so excited, 

 what with shooting and being shot, and shouting 

 and cheering, that they did not hear, or did not heed 

 me; and after running about a hundred yards I 

 found I had only five men along with me. Bullets 

 were ripping the grass all around us, and one of the 

 men, Clay Green, was mortally wounded; another, 

 Winslow Clark, a Harvard man, was shot first in 

 the leg and then through the body. He made not 

 the slightest murmur, only asking me to put his 



