Cuban War (1895–1898)

The Cuban War (1895–1898) appears here through the naval disaster at Santiago on July 3, 1898, and especially through the fate of the merchant captain Manuel Xaloc Ortega. A folder of period journalism gives the battle its scale, but its account of Xaloc’s last sortie supplies its intimate center: as the Spanish squadron burned and sank, he took the armed yacht Manigua out of the harbor and toward the American guns rather than leave it to be captured.

Historical Record and Recovered Portrait

The episode comes to light when Lorenzo Quart examines a folder of old press clippings and illustrated magazines assembled after Carlota’s death. The materials concern the end of the Cuban War and the naval catastrophe of July 3, 1898. Among them are an illustrated cover reconstructing the destruction of Admiral Cervera’s squadron, a battle narrative, a chart of the coast at Santiago de Cuba, and portraits of officers killed in the fighting.

One portrait identifies Manuel Xaloc Ortega as a merchant-marine captain and commander of the Manigua. The illustration, explicitly described as based on reliable testimony, distinguishes him from the naval officers: he alone wears civilian clothes. His jacket is buttoned to the neck over a white scarf; short hair, a broad mustache, and full side-whiskers frame a melancholy expression. He looks beyond Quart’s shoulder, apparently indifferent to being included among Cuba’s heroes. The period account first presents him as a figure in an archive; its description of the sortie explains what his gaze had been fixed upon.

The Battle at Santiago

The report depicts the Spanish fleet emerging from Santiago harbor under overwhelming American fire. The flagship Infanta María Teresa, after nearly an hour under concentrated fire, runs aground in flames. The other ships pass through the harbor mouth between El Morro and Socapa forts into the guns of Sampson’s force, whose armor and artillery are superior. The Oquendo, its commander dead and its guns disabled, beaches itself rather than fall into enemy hands.

The Vizcaya and Cristóbal Colón attempt to race along the coast, passing wrecked ships as survivors swim ashore. The Vizcaya burns and runs aground under fire; the Colón, pursued and without its heavy guns, is driven ashore and sunk by its own crew. The account then turns to the smaller vessels, whose position is even more hopeless: the destroyers Plutón and Furor, joined in the final hours by the Manigua, leave one after another despite the near certainty that they cannot escape.

The Manigua’s Last Sortie

The Manigua’s commander refuses to remain under the harbor’s protection when capture seems imminent with the city about to fall. The yacht leaves last, after the Spanish ships have become a line of burning wrecks along the coast. It flies an extraordinary black flag beside the national ensign, rounds the Diamante shoal under enemy fire, and steers directly toward the nearest American vessel, the battleship Indiana.

The report gives the attack a precise and uncompromising course: the light, fast yacht zigzags across three miles toward the Indiana, takes intense fire, and sinks at 1:20 p.m. Its deck is devastated and the vessel burns from bow to stern; even then, Xaloc is still trying to ram the enemy. The account does not present the sortie as a means of escape or victory. Its significance lies in the decision to leave a harbor where the yacht would have been captured and to meet destruction at sea on its own course.

Memory and the Battle’s Afterimage

After reading the clipping, Quart returns it to the folder and places the folder back in the trunk. He now understands the direction of Xaloc’s indifferent gaze in the magazine portrait: it was toward the guns of the Indiana. The archival image and the written report converge, letting Quart imagine the captain gripping the bridge rail amid gunfire and smoke, intent on completing a long journey toward nowhere.

The battle therefore enters the story not only as a historical defeat but as a belatedly recovered personal ending. The magazine preserves Xaloc among the dead officers; the account of the Manigua supplies the act that makes the portrait legible. Its final image joins public catastrophe to private memory: a civilian-dressed captain, separated from the naval command he has joined, steering a small burning yacht toward a vastly stronger ship.