Months in the isolation of a tropic garrison bring to the minds of men
strange vagaries. When the work is that of hunting down elusive little
traitors, who present faces of friendship by day and develop ingenious
and atrocious deviltries at night, the effects are neither softening nor
humanizing.
The presence of Mrs. Henry Falkins was to the men of the battalion like
the steady freshening of a clean and fragrant breeze into a miasma. Had
they had their way, they would have set her up, a living image, in the
place of the patron saint above the bullet-scarred altar of the church.
But even saints have defects, virtuous and noble defects perhaps, such
as erring on the side of too great faith in humanity, when humanity is
treacherous.
One native woman, whose face bore more strongly the characteristics of
some far-off Castilian ancestor than of immediate forbears and mixed
race, came to headquarters, and ingratiated herself with the commander's
lady. When she brought in the week's washing, her smile was a dazzling
flash of milky teeth and lips touched with Spanish carmine.
And it fell to pass that, though he had always been an immune to
feminine blandishments, the tall sergeant-major was seen frequently
strolling between the _nipa_ houses with the _mestiza_ girl.
The Deacon, who had always been reserved, even melancholy in the
thoughtfulness of his expression, was in these days more deeply somber
than before.
Newt Spooner, alone in the command, recognized that there was some
secret gnawing within his kinsman and that it was not a pleasant secret.
Deaths in the battalion had claimed several lieutenants, and left
vacancies which carried commissions. Sergeant-major Spooner felt the
time ripe for him to cross the line from non-com to commissioned
officer. He could, in the old militia days, have had captain's bars for
the taking. Now it would need the mandate of Washington, but the fact
that nothing was said about it secretly grieved him. His officers from
major down had bragged endlessly of his efficiency, yet the thought that
was constantly in his mind never seemed to occur to them, and he
doggedly refused to suggest it. It should not be inferred that the
non-commissioned giant went sulking about his work. On the contrary,
whatever rancor he felt was inward and unworded, and for that reason the
more dangerous.
Newt, too, was feeling the influences of marrow-pinching days and
jungle-burrowing and mountain-climbing on chases that came to nothing.
More and more prominently, the haunting presence of his private grudge
thrust itself to the front of his brain and grew sinister.
The boy held his peace, though he knew that Sergeant-Major Spooner had
received a letter from one of the Insurgent "generals" offering him a
captain's commission "in the service and just cause of the Republic."
Black Pete himself believed that this proffer was in reality an effort
to lure him into the power of the enemy for torture and death, and he
mentioned the incident only to his major.
Then, one morning, the _mestiza_ girl bade a smiling farewell, which was
also tearful, and was kissed by the major's lady. She was going away,
she explained, to relatives who dwelt in the mountains. She waved her
hand vaguely toward the Cordilleras: "_Mucho_ distance away. No longer
could she see the beautiful senora, or"--and here her dark lashes
drooped and her olive cheeks flushed--"or the tall, brave _soldado
Americano_."
Sergeant-Major Peter Spooner walked with her, as far as the outskirts of
the town, and the two talked in low voices, in Spanish. So the Deacon
was the last to bid her farewell, as befitted the man who had most
impressed her heart.
If the sergeant-major was cast down, he only devoted himself more
industriously to the service, and gave no sign.
And the service had need of him, for a few days later came word of a
sizeable force of the enemy camped in the mountains, and bent on
mischief. In one of the few loyal villages the _presidente_ had been
murdered and many _Americanista_ houses put to the torch. Swiftly enough
the battalion prepared for pursuit and punishment. Yet to go out in
force would mean failure, so several scouting parties left in advance
of the column. One went under the command of Lieutenant Sperry, and
Sergeant-Major Peter Spooner was included at his own request.
It was thought natural that the sergeant-major should wish to be one of
the avengers. The native girl had gone that way; might be in that region
where _amigos_ were being slaughtered, and it was perhaps known to the
guerillas that she had loved an American soldier whom they blackly
hated.
The detail embraced only twelve men, one of whom returned. But even that
one did not return to the town by the church.
At a considerable native village, some ten miles away and lying at the
edge of the mountains, was garrisoned a platoon of the battalion under
the command of _Teniente_ Barlow. The road between the town with the
church and this subsidiary station was, for that country, good, and the
garrisoned village itself was as safe as a fortress. It was beyond that
the work lay.
When Mrs. Falkins learned that a company from headquarters would march
at once to follow up what news the scouts brought in, she promptly
announced that as far as the village she would accompany the expedition.
The major raised no objection. It was a pleasant thought that he could
defer his farewell with his wife until he left the edge of the
safety-zone, and meet her there on his return. Mrs. Falkins rode her
native pony along that ten mile-march with a feeling of exhilaration and
pride. These men who marched and fought behind her husband, were to her
all members of a great family, of which he was the head. They were no
longer raw men, "unmade, unhandled, unmeet," but seasoned and tempered
veterans, and her young heart thrilled with pride as she drank in the
morning air, and gazed with fascination at the vivid colors of the
forests and the weird picturesqueness of the thatched hamlets by the
way.
For five days after their arrival in the village, they awaited news from
the hills. They had hoped for definite tidings before that time, but as
yet the delay had caused no anxiety. The scouts might have found the
reconnaissance a larger enterprise than they had anticipated. So those
at the village invoked the philosophy of patience--and waited.
It had been some time since Lieutenant Barlow had seen a woman from
God's country. He was one of the men who had come to the regiment with
its reorganization, and now he was glad that he had turned a native
bungalow into a fairly comfortable place for the quartering of his
superior and his superior's wife. There was a small thatched porch,
shaded against the mid-day glare by a grass curtain. From this verandah
when the moonlight flooded the village, one had a view not to be
despised. Across a bare space of so-called plaza stood the house
occupied as headquarters, and now, on the fourth evening after their
arrival, its office stood open-doored and vacant, save for the musician
of the guard, who must remain on duty there until tattoo.
Everywhere about the village was the ordered quiet of a town well
guarded. The girl sat in a deep wicker chair, while the two officers
nursed their khaki-clad knees on the steps--and all talked of the
States. The moonlight seemed to gush and flow over the face of the
world, and to throw walls and roofs and palms into the fantastic
picture-shapes of a fairy tale. Off between the houses, she could see
the pacing figure of a sentry. Overhead from the nipa roof came the
occasional stirring of a house-snake, and in the long silences, which
the night stillness fostered, they heard tiny sounds of delicate
scurrying footfalls as the lizards scampered across the walls.
One of them darted out into the yellow light of the open door, and
halted near the lieutenant's knee. There, flashing like luminous jade
and inflating his small crimson throat, he shrilled out his small,
strident voice, and others answered.
It all seemed very unreal and far away and strangely beautiful. Then to
their ears drifted a call from the sentry line for the corporal of the
guard.
Athwart the front of the headquarters building lay an unbroken space,
which the moonlight dyed with the deep blue-green radiance of a black
opal. Shortly there appeared into this space two figures, carrying
something which seemed heavy. They moved slowly as though their burden
were a thing that required much care and, as they came nearer and made
their way slowly toward the open door of the headquarters office, it
became obvious that what they bore between them was a very limp human
being. At first, it seemed unconscious and hung sagging in their arms;
but, before they had disappeared through the doorway, it came to life
with a nerve-rasping jargon of delirious sounds and lashed out
inconsiderately with its arms and legs at the men who were giving it
assistance.
Major Falkins and Lieutenant Barlow rose hastily, and crossed the space
of moonlight. The girl rose, too, but she went into the house with that
sound of raving still in her ears--and sat down, suddenly unnerved.
In the office, the major and lieutenant found the creature which had,
several days ago, been a private soldier of the headquarters scouts,
lying on the floor in the lemon-colored lamplight. It was mumbling
inarticulate things through parched and cracking lips, and gazing wildly
out of a couple of red embers that had formerly been eyes. Its clothing
hung on it in tatters, and the exposed flesh was bolo-gashed and
briar-torn. This was the one man of the twelve who came back to
report--and came back decorated from torture. The surgeon was already
kneeling on the floor, doing what human skill could do--which was too
little.
The raving man made tortured efforts to speak, as though the eternal
peace of his soul required it; but, of those bending over him, none
could construe the hoarse gibberish of his swollen tongue and
unbalanced brain.
Sergeant Newton Spooner had silently entered the office in response to
the major's summons. Now, he stood at attention just within the
threshold, and his eyes were not pleasant eyes as he gazed on the
threshing, disfigured thing, and recognized in him a kinsman. But, if
his face was hard-set and lustful for vengeance, it was hardly more so
than that of the battalion commander, standing by as the surgeon forced
brandy between the teeth of the wrecked face. The physician finally rose
with a shake of his head.
"It's no use," he announced briefly. "He can't last two hours."
But to the object of erstwhile human shape came a momentary flash of
revival. He tried to prop himself on one elbow and waved his torn
fingers toward the mountains. From his mouth came incoherent sounds, and
in his eyes burned the desperation of a final effort to rid himself of
some message. Then he reached his hand around to his neck, and they saw
that he bore, pinned to his belt, a package wrapped in the red calico of
which _tao_ breeches are fashioned.
They removed it, and opened the covering, to find inside a communication
of the sort that scrapes the civilization from men as a coarse cloth
scrapes the tender blush from a peach.
"This memento we return with compliments," ran the screed in neatly
penned Spanish. "The rest will be dealt with as befits foes of the
Republic. If you follow you will find at Santa Rosa another memento.
"_Adios, con mucho felicidad_, General Jose Rosario."
Major Falkins wheeled to Sergeant Newton Spooner. His face was very
white and stony. "Have your company ready to hike--quick!" His words
were snapped out like the cracks of a mule-whip; but Sergeant Newton
Spooner had saluted and disappeared before the final syllable was
uttered.
Within the hour, Mrs. Henry Falkins stood at the shell-paned window of
the bungalow and saw the company swinging toward the edge of town with a
step that argued coming events. At their head, guiding them into the
blind trails of the _bosque_, went a native from the village, but he
went with a rope around his shoulders, which was held by a sturdy
private of the advance guard. There was no intention that he should
abruptly disappear into the jungle and carry warning, instead of giving
service as guide.
At noon the next day, the column had proof that thus far at least they
were following the right trail. The overhead wheeling of buzzards would
have guided them now, even had the native failed of loyalty.
In the gulch of a stream that ran between tall and tangled banks, the
advance came upon the bodies of the two men who had comprised the
"point," and who had first run into the ambuscade. What the other ten
had done was plain enough. At that first outbreak, they had scattered
into a second slough, running at right angles with the dipping trail.
There they had lain down and taken cover among the scattered rocks, and
there eight of them still lay. It was the only thing they could do, also
it was what the enemy had planned they should do. Major, lieutenant, and
sergeant went over the ground and read the signs. It was quite easy.
They could tell the approximate order in which each had died, by
counting the litter of empty cartridge-hulls about the bodies.
Then they found one pile of these spent souvenirs in a place where there
was no corpse, and it was perhaps the largest pile of all. That should
be the spot where Sergeant-Major Peter Spooner had come to bay for his
last stand. Probably he had lost consciousness from blood-letting at the
end. Otherwise, he would hardly have been taken alive.
The bodies were hurriedly buried, and the graves marked; then the column
pushed on, a little grimmer and a little more silent and a little
faster, toward Santa Rosa.
At dawn, the men of the 26th Volunteers filed into empty streets which
echoed their marching tread. It was like a village of the dead, a place
of empty houses and open doors. No one had waited to explain to the
wrathful avengers. But they found, nailed conspicuously to the front of
a nipa shack in the principal street, a large white sheet of paper,
bearing another note of satiric directions.
"On the trail which leads from this street, the _bosque_ will, at the
distance of one league, contain one more memento.
"_Adios, con mucho felicidad_, General Jose Rosario."
There was no spoken word, as Falkins, turning from the message, nodded
to the company commander, and the column swung forward. There was no
sound as they marched through the deserted street, except the rattle of
cup and canteen on haversack and the purposeful thud of their own feet
on the hard-beaten earth.
And beyond the edge of the town, where a sullen-looking carabao bull,
sole occupant, gazed after them, there was still grim silence as they
plunged into the thick growth of the _bosque_ and bored their way into
the country, which at every mile was growing wilder and more impassable.
The eight bodies they had buried, and the one which had doubtless been,
by this time, buried back at the garrison, accounted for seventy-five
per cent. of the detachment which had gone ahead. The three others
included Lieutenant Sperry, of Jackson, and Sergeant-Major Peter
Spooner, and those two had been taken alive. The column was so grim in
its purpose now that it needed no more orders than blood-hounds would
have required.