Catedral de San Cristofo
Plaza de la Catedral
Havana, Cuba
1:19 p.m., Saturday
29 September 1888
Marrón wasn’t alone. A dozen O.P. troops rushed in past him, their bayoneted rifles aimed at our torsos. The lieutenant in charge nervously pointed his revolver at my face from two feet away.
Marrón stepped forward into our midst, enjoying the moment, drawing it out until finally speaking to me in British English.
“Good day, sir. It has been far too long since our last encounter, and I am delighted to see you again, Commander Wake. I must admit, you certainly provide me with both a professional challenge and some wonderful opportunities for amusement, like right now. Monks, and then circus jesters? How do you ever think these things up? I really must remember this scene . . .”
Regarding his other captives with self-satisfaction, he added, “Humor like this is so regrettably rare in our line of work, is it not? Ah, yes, I will be dining out on this story for a long time.”
Marrón’s eyes returned to their usual hooded aspect as he narrowed his gaze to Casas and the other Cubans, who visibly wilted. Then he addressed me again. “And, of course, I must thank you for finally supplying the absolute evidence I have long needed to arrest and prosecute you as a yanqui spy. Oh, the charges are endless. We will start out with murder, assault, kidnapping, theft, and espionage, of course, and then I will consider appending some of the other crimes you have committed. I so greatly appreciate finding you—as they say in your United States—red-handed. This will be of substantial assistance in proving yanqui treachery to those in Havana and Madrid who are timid and weak in the defense of the empire.”
A thin finger wagged at me. “But, I fear that your new friend, Captain-General Don Sabas Marín Gonzalez, will not share my joy for this occasion, Commander. No, no, His Excellency will be most disappointed in your behavior today. He tried to befriend you and refused to authorize your arrest for killing that thug in the barroom—said I had no conclusive proof it was not self-defense. What a naïve notion. His real reason? He has been scared of war with the norteamericanos for some time now. He is a weakling who does nothing to defend our empire from the foreigners who covet it. But now even he cannot refuse to do his duty, for I will present evidence he cannot ignore, evidence that others above his station in Madrid will soon learn.
“You may not know, Commander, that the office of Captain-General of Cuba has long possessed extra-judicial authority to impose quick adjudication and punishment on those charged with treason and espionage against the crown of Spain. While that decision will be swift, I think your personal penalty, however, will not be so quick. Oh, no, for the chair awaits you, my friend. Remember the chair? You saw it two years ago, but you did not get to truly savor the experience of it. After a few minutes in the chair, I will enjoy hearing how you managed to get this far in your plan. If your American comrades are smart and cooperate fully, their ends will be mercifully quick and painless.”
He looked back at the Cubans. “As for our fellow subjects of the crown, these worms who turned their backs upon His Most Gracious Majesty, well, I think they will be useful for the first time in their lives. My interrogators need constant practice in the subtleties of anatomical reflexes.”
My civilian American friends, having never faced a similar situation or met a man like Marrón, were instantly distraught. Pots had seen a bit of legal trouble over the years but nothing as final as this. Red-faced, with sweat rolling off him and trembling hands, he looked as if his heart would fail at any second. Mena was at a loss for words, probably for the first time in his life. Folger just stood there pie-eyed, gaping at the bayonet leveled at his heart. The Cubans, who knew full well what Marrón was going to do to them, went numb and stood there in abject resignation, staring at the floor, silently mouthing their last prayers.
This state of affairs, however, was not new for Rork and me. We’d faced comparable fiends in Africa and Asia and the Caribbean—and survived. We’d emerged bloodied and battered and scarred all over—as the Spanish doctor saw—but most definitely alive. Looking at Marrón relishing our position, I wasn’t afraid and knew that Rork wasn’t either.
Maybe to those reading this account, our reaction seems an impossible display of bravado, but it is true. Please allow me to digress for a moment and explain.
Rork and I have discussed our reaction to these types of apparently life-ending encounters over the years. We have come to the conclusion that the sort of experiences we have endured lend a sense of perspective to our psyches, giving us the certain knowledge that the fight isn’t over—and hope isn’t lost—until that very last second of our very last breath. This has provided Rork and me a distinct advantage over adversaries who believe they have established total dominion over our bodies and minds. That, naturally, is precisely what Colonel Marrón believed.
While he was gloating over our capture, I studied Isidro Marrón closely. His hands, face, and mannerisms indicated to me that the most feared man in Havana had never been on the receiving end of the kind of physical cruelty he enjoyed dispensing in the dungeon of the Audiencia. Therefore, Marrón was vulnerable. He didn’t know that a man with nothing of apparent value left, but still possessing some strength of muscle and mind, is absolutely the most dangerous kind of opponent there is, for he has reached that final threshold of desperation where he is no longer a human but an animal. The inhibitions of societal rules or spiritual taboos or personal fears no longer apply to him. Rork and I had arrived at that threshold, a place we both knew well, but a place Marrón had never yet visited.
I held my hands out from my sides in a gesture of surrender and said what he expected me to say, a ridiculous alibi. “Colonel, I think you’re very mistaken here. We were just visiting the circus, where they allowed us to have the fun of being jesters for a while. Then we came here to attend the church service. Don Sabas himself knew I was going to the circus and the Mass. So please tell your men to lower those rifles, before one of them accidentally goes off and someone gets hurt. That will be difficult to explain to Don Sabas.”
We hadn’t been searched thus far, for the soldiers hadn’t approached close enough to us yet. Marrón listened to my comment with open disdain, then tightened his jaw. He ordered his men to examine us for weapons, then bind us. Half the soldiers stacked their rifles against the wall, several paces out of our reach, and moved in to carry out the colonel’s orders. The other half raised their muzzles slightly to allow their mates to pass in front of them and accomplish their task.
This was the precise moment Rork and I instinctively knew would be our opportunity. No communication transpired between us, just a natural understanding of the strengths and liabilities of each other and a situational awareness of how they could be applied to unfolding events.
The astute reader may realize that Rork had twelve rounds in his two Colt revolvers, and I had six in my Merwin-Hewlitt revolver. All three of these pistols were stuffed into the tunics of our bizarre costumes. In addition, we had the two shotguns in the nondescript black bag leaned against the wall six feet away. From the way the soldiers approached us, I could tell they naturally thought us unarmed, jesters’ costumes seldom being associated with lethal weapons.
There is a multiple-target pistol-shooting technique known as double-tapping. This is where the shooter rapidly fires twice into a target, puts two rounds into the next target, and then repeats the action a last time. Rork and I knew our present positions—about seven feet apart from each other, with the enemy circled around us—were conducive to such a technique. We’d practiced it before at our island on the Gulf coast, calling it a ring shoot, with me shooting clockwise and Rork counterclockwise, the ultimate effect being the elimination of an enemy ringed around us.
By mutual instinct, based upon two decades of working and fighting alongside each other, we both understood I would initiate the maneuver, the Spanish army lieutenant being the primary threat and my first target. Rork, having the advantage of two pistols, could make even more havoc among the enemy soldiers. Marrón was not an initial target since he did not have his pistol drawn. I would deal with him once the immediate threats were eliminated.
A soldier stepped up to me, careful to stay out of the line of fire from the lieutenant’s pistol. As he put out a hand toward me, I smiled weakly and pleaded, “No, please don’t hurt me . . .” He huffed in superiority over the sniveling gringo and laughed cynically, just as I thought he would.
Most of all, he lowered his estimation of me—a fatal mistake.
I grabbed that extended hand and yanked it toward me, pulling his body across my front just as the lieutenant instinctively fired. The round hit the soldier’s head instead of mine, exploding the back of it into a mist as I ducked and drew my Merlin-Hewlitt, then put two rounds into the officer’s face. I heard Rork’s Colt discharge as I turned to the right and put two more into the next soldier, then another.
Our rounds were fired so fast they became one massively thundering blast, echoing around the cathedral. Thus, in the space of less than seven seconds, Rork and I dispatched eight of the soldiers. The other four O.P. men fired but missed both of us, one round hitting Folger in his left arm and the remainder ricocheting off the ancient coral stone walls.
My companions, not being privy beforehand to the sudden attack, were caught by surprise and stood there completely catatonic as chaos erupted around them. Marrón was far too slow on the draw for my lunge in his direction. Rork and I had expended all of our ammunition, but, of course, we had other weapons in hand. He had his spike, and I, my pistol’s frame, which is not called the skull-crusher for nothing.
Leaving the last four soldiers to Rork, I quickly strode the three paces to Marrón as he struggled to get his pistol out of the holster. Swinging my revolver high in the air, I brought the heel of it down with all my might, resulting in a most satisfying thump right in the center of his forehead. He collapsed where he stood.
With Marrón down for the count and Rork and Mena chasing the last soldier along a side passage, I checked Folger’s upper left arm and found the wound had not opened his brachial artery or cephalic vein, missing each by no more than two inches. After assuring young Folger that he would live and ordering him to put pressure on the wound to help staunch the bleeding, I then set about to get our Cuban survivors moving toward the door. Time was most surely of the essence. We had to make a run for the boat, no matter what, for already I could hear screaming inside the main cathedral turning into angry shouts. Spanish reinforcements would be bursting in at any moment.
Rork and Mena, shotguns in hand, returned to report that the soldier had escaped.
“Forget it,” said I. “Run for the boat!”
That is when our missing man, Marco, suddenly appeared in the doorway, out of breath and astonished at the ghastly scene around him. Not all the Spanish were dead. Several were convulsing and whimpering, and their blood and gore were everywhere, the whole effect making an incongruous scene in a cathedral. Marco didn’t say anything at first, then lifelessly reported the results of his reconnaissance.
“There is no boat . . .”