The members of the Havana Yacht Club, the waiters, cooks and hall porters eyed each other bitterly last week.
"Judas!" they hissed at each other. "Judas!"
The Yacht Club has been a hotbed of anti-Machado intrigue ever since a member of Dictator Machado's Cabinet was snubbed by a Yacht Club member last December and President Gerardo Machado, El Gallo ("The Rooster"), pad locked the clubhouse in retaliation. Fort night ago Julio Cadena's yacht Coral slipped away from the yacht club pier with Cuba's onetime President, bearded Mario Garcia Menocal on board, also Colonel Carlos Mendieta and a shipload of other insurgents. Their plan was to go down the coast, land, take charge of revo lutionary forces that had already taken the field, sweep into Havana in triumph. There was some traitor in the club. The Coral was scarcely free of the pier before Cuban gunboats started in pursuit. Seventeen men, including onetime President Menocal's two brothers Fausto and Guatimon slipped ashore to sidetrack the pursuers. They were promptly arrested and clapped into Cabana fortress. The Coral disappeared in the direction of Cuba's western tip, Pinar del Rio. Three days later the puffing gunboat Baire found the yacht loafing along the coast. It was captured without a shot. A crew of three sailors were on board who knew nothing, had seen nothing. They were brought back as prisoners in high good humor.
Wherever the two leaders were, revolution did not wait for them. From Pinar del Rio to Oriente violence broke out all over the island. There was skirmishing outside Santiago de Cuba (centre of U. S. action in the Spanish-American War, see map), at Artemisa, Sancti Spiritus, Sierra Morena. The Machado Government issued a slightly contradictory bulletin to say that the situation was well in hand but that fighting had broken out at 49 points.
At Tacomino just outside Havana, insurgents swooped down, burned the telegraph station, killed ten soldiers, kidnapped 15 more.
At Ceja del Negro, Government troops accounted for 15 of the enemy.
At Artemisa in Pinar del Rio eight young student insurrectos were ambushed by Government troops.
Rebels made a grand raid on Santa Clara city, seized food and stores, killed 30 men, then withdrew to the mountains. Santa Clara is the heart of the sugar district. With sugar at 2¢ a pound it is now the heart of unemployment and hunger. The province gave the anti-Machado leaders their fiercest recruits. President Machado rushed there from Havana to take charge of operations and keep an eye on his own generals to be sure that none of them went over to the rebels.
Nesbitt E. Allen, U. S. citizen, rancher of Santa Clara province, put in the first claim for damages. Insurrectos had swept down on him, seized his horses, provisions and a stock of dynamite he kept for stone quarrying. Nesbitt E. Allen added it all up and forwarded a bill to President Machado for $5,257.
At Yateras, Oriente Province, a band of insurrectos galloped into town, raided a cafe, stole all the liquor and provisions, smashed the crockery, rode away.