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The Cubans were still too sick to speak, but Boatman Carey was more communicative. He had taken his five passengers far out to sea in a speed boat, searching for a mysterious ship that was to carry them on to Havana. They never found it. After hours upon hours of tumbling about in a heavy fog, the retching Cubans cried that if they must die, they wanted to die on land. Two days later the schooner Harold put in loaded to the gunwales with more seasick conspirators, 52 of them this time, 39 Cubans, the rest Negro, Chinese, Mexican. Only one was a U. S. citizen. They were hiding under nets and in the lifeboats but to all questions they insisted that they had just been out for a fishing trip. Several could not speak English, but nervously parroted ''fishing trip, fishing trip."
The scene shifted again, to Havana.
Horn-spectacled Gerardo Machado took the "fishing trip" stories so seriously that martial law was declared in the provinces of Havana and Pinar del Rio. At Luyano, Havana suburb, there took place the Battle of the Stocking Factory.
Police approached the building and attempted to search it on a report that quantities of arms and munitions were hidden there. Its embattled proprietor refused and opened fire. A machine gun squad came out from town on the run. At the end of an hour firing ceased. Police rushed the doors and found inside only the bodies of two dead men, the caretaker and the proprietor. In the cellar was an arsenal of rifles, revolvers, hand grenades, shotguns.
Off the coast the yacht Coral hovered, disembarked 17 prominent revolutionists, and put hurriedly out to sea again. A Cuban police boat spotted her, set out in pursuit. Among the 17 were Fausto and Guatimon Menocal, brothers of one-time President Mario Garcia Menocal, and his son Mayito. They were arrested, clapped into Cabanas Fortress. Their friends had little hope of ever seeing them again. These arrests were the clues that wily President Machado was looking for. They showed him who was back of the attempted revolution. Orders flashed out: "Get the Coral. General Mario Menocal is on board!"
Cuba's entire navy put to sea. Army planes roared off from Havana Field to join the chase, but the Coral was too sly for them, slipped away in the haze.
The Cuban Congress hurriedly authorized President Machado to put the entire island under martial law.