"Pozo, as a position for our battery, was ill chosen. The Spaniards had
formerly occupied it as a fort, and they knew precisely the distance to it
from their guns, and so began their fight with the advantage of a perfect
knowledge of the range.

"Their first shell spattered shrapnel in a very unpleasant way all over
the tiled roof of the white house at the back of the ridge. It was the
doors of this house which we were approaching for shelter, and later, when
we came to take our luncheon, we found that a shrapnel ball had passed
clean through one of our cans of pressed beef which our pack-mule was
carrying.

"We turned here to the right toward our battery on the ridge. When we were
half-way between the white house and the battery, the second shell which
the Spaniards fired burst above the American battery, not ten feet over
the heads of our men. Six of our fellows were killed, and sixteen wounded.

"The men in the battery wavered for a minute; then rallied and returned to
their guns, and the firing went on. We passed from there to the right
again, where General Shafter's war balloon was ascending. Six shells fell
in this vicinity, and then our batteries ceased firing.

"The smoke clouds from our guns were forming altogether too plain a target
for the Spaniards. There was no trace to be seen of the enemy's batteries,
by reason of their use of smokeless powder.

"Off to the far right of our line of formation, Captain Capron's
artillery, which had come through from Daiquiri without rest, could be
heard banging away at Caney. We had started with a view of getting where
we could observe artillery operations, so we directed our force thither.

"We found Captain Capron blazing away with four guns, where he should have
had a dozen. He had begun shelling Caney at four o'clock in the morning.
It was now noon, and he was still firing. He was aiming to reduce the
large stone fort which stood on the hill above the town and commanded it.
Captain O'Connell had laid a wager that the first shot of some one of the
four guns would hit the fort, and he had won his bet. Since that time
dozens of shells had struck the fort, but it was not yet reduced. It had
been much weakened, however.

"Through glasses our infantry could be seen advancing toward this fort. As
the cannon at our side would bang, and the shell would swish through the
air with its querulous, vicious, whining note, we would watch its
explosion, and then turn our atten