Page:Fighting in Cuban Waters.djvu/312



" I ain't hot and tired, Walter. I could sleep standing up and go in an ice-house and do it."

It was Si who spoke, as he was washing himself in a bucket of water set on the gun-track. The water had been fresh when Si began his ablutions and was now dirty, but the Yankee youth was still far from clean, for gun smoke and gun dirt have a disagreeable knack of getting into the pores of one s skin.

The bombardment had lasted over an hour and every land battery had been silenced. Yet, as the American ships drew away, one or two guns spat out spitefully after them.

"You'll feel all right in an hour or two, Si, answered Walter. "Oh, but wasn't it glorious! I could stand such bombarding for a week. What a sight it was when that powder magazine went up."