Few realize what it means to plunge a raw volunteer regiment from
a temperate climate into tropic wilds infested with a foe that
recognizes no rule in warfare save implacable, relentless murder of the
enemy, by hook or by crook, by fair means or foul. A foe that fights
manfully and fairly, whether at long range or close quarters, is bad
enough for “raw ones” to face, even though they be the best in the
world--the which is stenographic for American boys.
Bullets and bayonets are integral parts of the soldier’s life.
Familiarity breeds contempt for these--they are his own tools, the
tools with which he blazes his own road to glory or to a hero’s death.
But those terrible bolos, and the Moro swords--those cruel knives that
shear a man from crown to waist, or lop off heads or limbs as though
they were chalk, wielded by little brown fiends who care naught for
rules of fence and are willing to mix it when you compel them to close
with you, just as a rat will set his fangs in your flesh when you
corner him--they are different, quite. And when your soldier boy thinks
of the newspapers that are preaching the milk of human kindness at home
and watching like so many harpies for the slightest mishap from which
political capital may be made, whilst he is wallowing in the blood of
comrades upon whom nameless mutilations have been inflicted, he has
hard work to keep his courage up to the fighting pitch.
Then the dread plasmodium-bearing mosquito of the swamps, with its
trail of death dealing chill and hemorrhage, the hellish amœba of the
foul tropic streams, that are so often the soldier’s only source of
water supply, and that awful typhoid, hovering like a somber-hued,
gigantic bat over an army camp--selecting as its victims the very
flower of the soldiery--these be things, not of glory, but of death,
with no sublimity save that of noble self-sacrifice. And that dreadful
nostalgia, that sickening yearning for home, which so often kills,
or, aided by the pitiless torrid sun, beating down upon devoted heads
unused to a foretaste of hell, sends men with brains awry back to
Frisco by the ship load. Were not these terrors an awful crucible in
which to try the metal of men whom their friends, at home, who do not
know gold when they see it, are wont to call “tin soldiers?”
What a lot of maudlin sentiment the home papers and builders of
political issues lavished upon those Filipino fiends who, it was
alleged, were given more water than was good for them! The soldier
at the front knew the mockery of it all. He had felt the bolo of the
treacherous “amigo” at his back, the while he parleyed, friendly-wise,
with the aforesaid amigo’s snaky comrade in front. He had seen the
pitiful remnant of what were once white human forms, the forms of
his own comrades and friends, still living, perhaps, fresh from
the torturings inflicted by their savage captors. He had seen the
dismembered bodies of children and old men who had been slain in
cold blood because they or their friends had been friendly to the
Americans, and he had heard the wailing of women who had suffered
shameful outrage, aye, a living death, at the hands of our “little
brown brother.” What wonder that the boy in khaki grew tired of making
prisoners of fiends from hell, who deserved nothing better than a short
shrift and a merry trip back to their father, the devil, and drove his
bayonet a little deeper or emptied his magazine a bit faster than would
permit him to see or heed a signal of surrender?
Of all the regiments who were sent to those far away islands, none bore
itself more gallantly, none was more pertinaciously put to the fore
than the --th Montana. A history of the thin, khaki-clad firing line
in the Philippines that did not give more than a modest share of honor
to that gallant regiment would be but a false and biased chronicle.
Johnny, the boy of the slums, may not have been so patriotically
inspired as some of his comrades, but he was a fighter by instinct,
and a soldier by profession. He knew his duty, fear was a thing apart
from him, and he attended strictly to “business” as he understood
it, namely, to obeying orders, shooting true, and keeping tab of the
Filipinos he potted. There be those who say that his game bags were
not only large, but of select contents. He had a keen eye for brown
officers, and, as he said, there were so many Filipino generals and
such folk, that there were enough for everybody, even after he had
taken his multitudinous pick.
It was not long before the mighty ones at staff headquarters became
quite familiar with Johnny’s ways. Our soldier soon found himself
in demand, a demand which, from details of special and hazardous
duty, occasional at first, but finally very frequent, won for him
a sergeant’s stripes, and regrets at headquarters that it was not
possible to immediately decorate his shoulders with strap and bar.
Never did better man wear non-com’s stripes.
The sergeant is the pivot around which, as upon an axis, revolves the
discipline and efficiency of the rank and file. He is the key-stone
of both the individual and company arch of courage. Johnny was all
that a disciplinarian should be, and more, he was idolized by the men.
Twice was he wounded by a ball that smashed several ribs and narrowly
missed taking out so much of his chest wall that, as he said, his
heart and lungs would have been subject to indecent exposure. Again
did the little “brown bellies” get him,--with a bolo this time. But
Johnny’s bayonet was a fraction of a second too quick for the luckless
Filipino who wielded the “chopper” and the heavy blade missed the
vitals by a hair. A siege of typhoid followed, but Johnny said, when
the surgeon wanted to have him sick-leaved home. “Hell! no. It wouldn’t
be business, an’ besides, I’m at home now--anyhow, as near as I’ll ever
be. Shootin’, cuttin’ and typhoid never was calculated to kill gutter
snipes, an’ so long as I keep away from water, which is the only thing
that I hain’t tried, I reckon I’ll pull through. Then there’s old
Miss Krag, here,” and he tenderly patted his rifle, “she can’t get
any furlough, cause she hain’t had any pluggin’ or boloin’, or fever,
an’ she’d be lonesome.” And so Johnny stayed at the front, and shot
Filipinos, swore great oaths and--got well.
The Filipinos were “pacified,” so all the home papers said, save
those few that were politically favorable to the democratic “outs”
and opposed to the republican “ins.” A few boloed soldiers or native
women and children were not evidences of war, they were mere “local
disturbances, occasional manifestations of unrest, etc.” The men at
the front and the friendly brown ones thought differently, but who
cares what the pig under the knife thinks? Uncle Sam didn’t seem quite
so certain of himself as the papers would have us believe he was.
Whilst egging the eagle on to scream peans of victory as a soothing
embrocation for such as might be restive under the war tax, he kept his
weather eye open just the same. To clinch the matter of pacification,
troops were ordered here and there into the towns adjacent to the
swamps and rocky fastnesses where lurked the more troublesome of the
ladrones. Small detachments were often sent, much smaller in some
instances than was safe, as the government learned to its sorrow.
Much of the outpost duty fell upon the --th Montana. K company was
ordered to duty in the province of Zambales, island of Luzon, and took
up its quarters at Poombato, a place which could be called a town by
courtesy only. It was nothing more than a handful of palm thatched
huts, inhabited chiefly by old men, women and children who couldn’t
become enrolled with their “pacified” brethren who, bolo in hand, were
lurking in the neighboring hills and thickets, awaiting a chance for
a sudden dash upon the enemy and a merry boloing in the camp of the
Americanos. The men of K company were no “kickers,” as they were wont
to express it, but the idea of rotting in the wilds while trying to
protect a few miserable natives from possible outlaws who were their
own kith and kin, and with whom the protected ones kept in pretty close
and friendly touch, was not the pleasantest.
The men of K company knew the Filipino--knew him root and branch--they
had fought him long enough, the Lord knows, and had discovered that
caution was the price of sound throats. Their commander, Captain
Benning, was ever a discreet officer and careful of his men, above
all he knew that somewhere in the vicinity hovered the worst of
all the brigands and cut throats the Philippines had yet produced,
“Captain” Agramonte, but the deadly monotony of their daily duties
was more than the men could stand. Despite warnings and, it must be
confessed, not infrequently despite strict orders, the men would stray
away into the jungle, often in quest of a scrap with stray Filipinos,
sometimes seeking such excitement as shooting wild game affords. These
little excursions were apparently safe enough at first. No accidents
happening, however, the men grew bolder, and roamed about almost at
will, and then the trouble came. Man after man was found boloed, or
disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him up. On one occasion a
small searching party, in quest of a missing comrade, was ambushed and
narrowly escaped annihilation. Captain Benning was not left long in
doubt as to whom he was indebted for the loss of his men. The ghastly,
recently severed head of one of his men was hurled from the brake one
night into camp, rolling, as chance would have it, its bloody way to
the very door of the captain’s own tent. Affixed to the awful thing
was a scurrilous note signed, “Agramonte.”
Captain Benning was a brave officer, with just enough revenge
corpuscles in his blood to make the possession of Agramonte’s person
the one thing in all the world to be desired. This last atrocity was
more than he could endure. Agramonte’s life he must and would have.
He knew well enough that there was but one way to kill or capture the
outlaw. Having but one company at his command he could not well send a
large party against the enemy. Indeed, the entire company was scarcely
large enough to make a punitive expedition safe. Whatever was done must
of necessity be done by strategy, and by a small party. A set plan
was impossible. What was wanted was a “man,” and the captain thought
that he knew where to find him. Turning to his orderly he said, “Tell
Sergeant Blank that I want him to report to me at once.”
Johnny promptly appeared at the captain’s quarters and stood
respectfully at attention, awaiting his commander’s pleasure.
“Sergeant,” said the captain, pointing to the outlaw’s grim token of
defiance, “do you know Agramonte when you see him?”
“I think I do, sir,” replied Johnny.
“Well, Sergeant, I want him, and I want him badly. If anybody can get
him, you can. You have done plenty of scouting. What do you think about
it?”
Johnny glanced at the gory head of his comrade, lying at the captain’s
feet, and his jaws set ominously. He answered through his teeth:
“I think I’ll get him sir, or he’ll get me.”
“Very well, then,” said the captain, “go after him, and be sure you get
him.”
“Alive, sir?”
“Alive if you can; I wish to make an example of him, for the benefit
of those cut-throats of his, but don’t take a chance of losing him. I
want to see him at my tent door, and a few holes more or less in his
miserable carcass will not mar his beauty much in my eyes.”
“All right, sir; any instructions?”
“None whatever, Sergeant, except to get him, get him sure and as quick
as the Lord’ll let you.”
The captain rose, and with a total disregard of military etiquette held
out his hand and said,
“Good luck to you Johnny, and don’t forget that you are worth more to
me than that d--d renegade. If you don’t land him, be sure to bring
yourself back. We are old comrades, you know.”
“Don’t bother your head about me, Captain,” replied Johnny, his eyes
glistening, as he grasped his commander’s hand; “I’ll come back all
right, and I’ll bring that d--d renegade with me. We may neither of us
be pretty to look at when we drop in on you, but you can bet we’ll get
here together,” and Johnny disappeared in the darkness.
* * * * *
An army scout travels “light” and when he is about to set out on an
expedition, his preparations are a marvel of speed and simplicity.
Johnny was even speedier than usual in getting ready for his perilous
mission. He had little to do save to strap on a brace of navies, his
canteen and haversack and say goodbye to his “bunky.” The latter, as
his friend was leaving, handed him an enormous bowie knife, saying,
“Here’s a western lancet that I want you to take with you, just for
luck. We like ’em out our way. They don’t miss fire, nor go off half
cocked, and they can’t be beat for tickling the solar plexus.” The
bunky forgot to mention the bowie’s chief merit, that it wasn’t noisy.
This was left for Johnny’s own exploitation.
Johnny loosened his belt, slipped the bowie upon it and said, “Thanks,
and speakin’ of the West reminds me of a little trick one of the boys
taught me when we was cooped up in Manila. I almost forgot this,” and
reaching up he took down a coil of rope that hung at the side of the
tent. This he slung over his shoulder, sash-wise.
In less than half an hour after his interview with his captain, our
soldier slipped through the picket lines and plunged into the jungle.
He knew that he must get beyond the outskirts of the town under cover
of darkness if he would elude the watchful eyes of the Filipinos who
hung about in the surrounding hills and jungles. Had he not started
before dawn it would have been necessary to await the coming of the
next night, in order to leave the camp unobserved by the enemy.
Agramonte’s base of operation was so well known that the uninitiated
may naturally wonder why he had not been captured long before. It
requires only a moderate knowledge of the native character and of the
nature of the country to understand why Captain Benning with the small
force at his command, had hitherto refrained from attempts at the
outlaw’s capture. A formal campaign against him would have necessitated
beating up the Filipinos precisely as game is beaten up in a battue.
This would have required a very large and powerful force. Agramonte,
fully cognizant of the situation, had established himself at Masillo,
a little village in the foot hills less than five miles from the camp
of the Americans, where he conducted himself precisely as if there was
no such thing existing as the United States of America or a hostile
army. The Batolan river lay between him and his enemies in khaki. This
was a turbulent mountain stream of considerable width, with no ford
nearer than some seven or eight miles from the renegade’s headquarters.
Granting that his enemies succeeded in crossing the stream, which was
not an easy thing for a small force such as he believed would probably
be sent against him to do under fire, he had but to hide himself amid
his native rocks and ravines and he could snap his brown fingers at the
hated Americanos.
Knowing the outlaw’s lair, and the character of the country, Johnny
had evolved his plans of campaign before leaving camp, while he was
hastily preparing for the expedition. From his experience in scouting
expeditions he knew that the only way to succeed in his mission was to
beat the Filipino chief at his own game, by taking him completely by
surprise at such time as he might be found separated from his companion
ladrones. The lariat which Johnny had slung over his shoulder was
perhaps the most methodic and pertinent of his preparations.
Travelling through the Luzon brake is neither easy nor comfortable,
even in broad daylight, but at night it is practically impossible to
the inexperienced traveller. But Johnny was no novice at the business
in which he was engaged, and seemed to instinctively know the weak
spots in the wild tangle of trees and brake. He was apprised from
time to time that he was an intruder in the jungle. Troops of monkeys
chattered at him saucily as they swung down from limb to limb of the
trees to get a nearer view of the strange object that had disturbed
their sleep. Having seen him, they screamed affrighted warnings to the
other jungle folk and fled back to the topmost boughs, there to hurl
defiant challenges at the intruder. Enormous bats beat their foul wings
fiercely against his face as he toiled on, their whizzing, whirling
flight sending the heavy, strangely perfumed night mist of the tropic
wood pulsing against his face in dank waves. Once, as he crept through
the brake, almost on his hands and knees, he nearly fell face down
upon a huge creature of some kind. Johnny never knew the nature of it,
for startled as he was, the beast was more so. It sprang up with a
frightened yelp and crashed off through the jungle, snarling back at
the strange thing that had roused him from his peaceful slumbers.
Again, as our soldier, breathing more freely as he emerged from the
brake into the open, was skirting a little glade in the forest, a
monster serpent dangling its death dealing loops downward from a bough
struck him fairly upon the chest, with a resounding whack that almost
knocked the breath out of him. A man less nervy and experienced would
have been entangled in the cruel coils of the gigantic reptile, but
with a quick push of his powerful arm against the cold, clammy folds of
the awful thing and a cat-like spring aside he was free. Courageous as
he was, this encounter made his flesh creep. But none the less, he saw
a ludicrous side to the incident, and muttered to himself, “Major Brice
used to say somethin’ to me about the early bird catchin’ the worm. I’m
the early bird, all right, all right, but that worm’s a little too big
for Johnny’s craw. Wonder what the dear old major’d think o’ that chap,
anyhow. I suppose he’d like to bottle him.”
And there were other things, less pretentious relatives of the giant
snake who so nearly did for Johnny. As his feet stumbled on through
the luxuriant tangle of tropic weeds and grasses, he heard certain
rustlings and hissings that warned him of the nearness of reptiles of
lesser bulk, whose fangs were carriers of liquid death, relentless and
sudden, yet slow enough for the victim to suffer the agonies of the
damned ere he died.
But Johnny pulled through the night without mishap and, worn and
haggard, as morning dawned, he found himself upon the banks of the
Batolan. Here he knew he must stop until nightfall. A white man’s head
bobbing up and down in the stream would have made too good a target
for even Filipino marksmen, wretched shots though they are, to miss
at such easy range. It would have been suicidal to attempt to swim the
river in broad day light, besides, at that point the current was too
swift for a tired man to breast. Johnny was nearly exhausted, so after
a bite from the small store in his haversack and a pull at his canteen
he laid down amid the bamboos that fringed the river bank to await
nightfall with what patience he could.
Tired as Johnny was, he did not dare sleep. The day was excessively
warm and it was not easy to keep awake, but under the stimulus of
several parties of Filipinos of whom he caught a glimpse at various
times as they passed to and fro on the hill sides upon the opposite
side of the stream, he managed to fight off the drowsiness with which
his fatigue and the tropic heat combined to overpower him. He did not
dare to even light his pipe, the soldier’s consolation, lest he attract
the attention of the enemy, and with nothing to help him while away the
hours the day seemed almost interminable.
But the fiercely glowing red ball of the sun finally sank behind the
hills to westward, and the tropic twilight mist began to rise from
brake and stream. Not far from the bank opposite the spot where Johnny
lay concealed, he noted through the gathering shadows the twinkle of
lights upon the opposite hillside and the glow of what appeared to be
a camp fire, and said to himself, “I reckon that must be Masillo, an’
if it is I’m pretty close to that d--d brown belly’s headquarters. It
won’t do to let him see me first. We hain’t been introduced and he
might cut me.”
Rising to his feet and pulling himself together, “just to get the kinks
out,” Johnny crept cautiously through the brake up stream, with the
intention of crossing at a point which would be safer from detection
by the enemy. He had traversed the river bank about a mile, when he
noticed that the river had widened out considerably and was dotted here
and there by a number of broad, low lying, bamboo covered islands,
their outlines being clearly discernible in the light of the gorgeous
moon which was just rising. “This ought to be a good place to get
across,” he thought. “I’m likely to find bottom part of the way, an’
the walkin’ must be purty fair on them islands.”
Divesting himself of all his clothing and accouterments save his
belt and lariat, Johnny rolled his effects into as compact a form as
possible, and with his bundle under his arm waded out toward the
nearest island. The water rose only to his waist, and although it was
hard to keep his footing in the swift running current, he was not long
in reaching his destination. The brake was so dense upon the island
that he found it easier to traverse its lower shore to the opposite
side. Between the first island and the next one, a little further down
stream, the water was deeper and swifter than before, and our soldier
had to swim for it. When he reached the second island he was pretty
well blown and was compelled to take a breathing spell. From the second
island to the opposite bank the water was very shallow and easily
forded, a circumstance of which, as the sequel proved, the Filipinos
themselves were fully cognizant, and of which they had showed their
appreciation by stationing a reception committee for possible invaders
at that point.
Johnny clambered up the bank and pausing in a diminutive clearing near
the water, proceeded to leisurely dress himself. He was just stooping
to lace his leggings when two forms sprang upon him from the brake, one
of them landing upon his back. As he went down under the sudden rush,
he was dimly conscious of a heavy cutting blow upon his head. As
he struggled with his foes he felt the hot blood streaming down from
his temple and into his eyes. He managed to turn face upward as the
Filipino bore him to the earth, but for a few seconds he could do no
more than grip his man tightly by the body and prevent his striking
him with the bolo with which he was armed. The other Filipino tried
frantically to land a blow upon the Americano, but without success, as
his comrade was most persistently and unwillingly in the way. As soon
as his wits returned Johnny, suddenly letting go of his adversary’s
body, got a strangle hold on the Filipino’s throat with his left arm,
while with his right hand he drew his bowie. Two quick jabs with the
knife, and the soldier knew that this part of the drama was over.
Practiced wrestler that he was, it was an easy matter to slip from
under the limp body, and spring to his feet and bound away to the edge
of the little clearing.
[Illustration: “JOHNNY GOT A STRANGLE HOLD ON THE FILIPINO’S THROAT
WITH HIS LEFT HAND, WHILE WITH HIS RIGHT HE DREW HIS KNIFE”]
Running away was farthest from Johnny’s mind. He wheeled about and
faced the second Filipino who, having recovered from his astonishment
at the denouement of the struggle in which he had taken a subordinate
part, rushed toward the soldier, swinging his terrible bolo with the
evident intention of bisecting him post haste. Johnny, nothing loth,
awaited the rush, bowie in hand, as calmly as if he were on parade.
And then came a dodging and cutting match that was as unfair as a two
foot bolo wielded by an uninjured Filipino, opposed to a ten inch blade
in the hands of a wounded soldier could make it. But Johnny was an
athlete, and his pugilistic training was not lost in such a contest.