THE AMERICAN PRISONERS
Those of the Americans who were alive and able to help themselves
were ordered to go ashore on the sand bar, where the Filipinos robbed
them of their personal effects and then lined them up preparatory
to shooting them all down in a body. Gilmore, being an officer,
protested against having his hands tied. He claimed, according to
the accepted rules of warfare, that on account of his rank he had
a right to die honorably with his hands free. The Filipinos have
great superstitions about "rank" in military affairs. Marie knew the
significance of Gilmore's request; she respected it.
The Filipinos had loaded their rifles, cocked them, raised the same
to their shoulders, had taken aim, and Marie was about to give the
fatal command, "Fire!", when a shout from the bank stopped her and
for a moment engaged the attention of both the Americans and the
Filipinos. It came from a Filipino officer, running down to the
shore. He ordered them to stop. One second longer would have been
too late.
This Tagalo officer ordered the Americans to get back into their boat
and to row across to the opposite shore. After bailing the water out
of the boat and plugging up the holes in it made by the enemy's rifle
balls, they obeyed his command.
When they went ashore, Lieutenant Gilmore asked permission to bury
his dead comrades. This privilege was emphatically denied. What was
done with their bodies by the Filipinos is hard to tell, but in all
probability, as was customary with the natives, they cut them into
fragments and threw them away.
The ones who were mortally wounded, but who were still alive, were
placed under a tree by Gilmore and his comrades, and left to die. The
Lieutenant asked that a native doctor be summoned to give them aid,
but it was not done. What their fate was Eternity alone will reveal.
Gilmore and his comrades picked up the lesser wounded and carried
them, and together the whole procession was marched inland about a
mile to the Filipino Commandante's headquarters.
Here they were questioned at length. Gilmore asked permission to
write a note to the commander of the Yorktown telling him of their
fate. Permission was granted, but the note was never delivered. The
two scouts who went ashore, returned to the Yorktown in the afternoon
and reported that they had heard heavy firing up the river.
After waiting several days for news of some kind for them, and finally
concluding that they were either captured or killed, the crew of
the Yorktown, heavy-hearted over their failure and their sacrifice,
steamed back to Manila.
During the afternoon of the same day that the battle took place,
the American prisoners were ordered to march to an old bamboo church
in the northern outskirts of the little town of Baler, a mile and
a half farther on. By this time the wounded men were suffering
terribly. Little Venville's ankle had swollen badly. From his four
wounds he had bled so much that he had grown faint. Therefore, he
and several of the others had to be carried.
En route to their new destination, the Americans passed in sight of
the old stone church being used as a fortress by the Spanish garrison
whom they had originally set out to relieve. The Americans had gone
to the Philippines to fight the Spaniards. They were now sacrificing
their lives to save them.
At the bamboo church, an old Filipino with a kindly face and a manner
that elevated him above his fellow tribesmen, came in to see them. He
examined the wounded and then disappeared. Presently he returned with
some large leaves that resembled rhubarb, under his arm. Out of the
big stems of these native herbs he squeezed a milky secretion which he
permitted to drop into the gaping wounds of the Americans. The torture
of the wounded occasioned by this liquid was damnable. The men grew
deathly pale. They rolled and screamed and begged to be shot. But
it did not last long. In ten minutes the torture had ceased, the men
became quiet, the swelling around their wounds was gradually reduced,
and their temperatures soon lowered. The herb doctor evidently knew
his business.
The next day the Filipinos received orders from Aguinaldo, who,
with his appointed congress, was now at San Isidro, to march the
captured Americans to his headquarters. Accordingly, the trip
was undertaken. But the apprentice lad, Venville, was unable to
go along. Obeying the stubborn orders of the rapacious Filipinos
his comrades left him lying on the floor of the old rickety bamboo
church,--wounded--uncared for--suffering--hungry--thirsty--dying. A
year later the assistance of the entire naval organization in the
Philippines was given to the task of trying to ascertain from the
Filipinos in the neighborhood of Baler some information concerning
the lad's whereabouts or his burial place, but no trace of him,
dead or alive, could ever be found.
An aged mother, ill and bowed,
Keeps asking, "Where's my boy?"
But zephyrs from the Orient
Refuse to bring the joy.
Amid great privations the marching column crossed the mountains and
the fertile plains on the opposite side, to the city of San Isidro. It
was heralded in advance that the Americans were coming through the
country. Obeying their greatest national instinct--curiosity--the
natives assembled by thousands in the villages along the road. Every
one of them kept crowding forward to get to touch the Americans to see
what their skins felt like. Others were looking for the long feathers
in their hair, which they had heard so much about. It was all the
Filipino guards could do to restrain their own people. The latter,
like monkeys, jabbered incessantly. Gilmore's men hurled back at them
defiant epithets. They realized that involuntarily they had become
the chief actors in a new moving circus.
Again, when they reached San Isidro, a great throng of curious natives
had come to town to see them. These fellows were very hostile to the
Americans. It was all the native guard could do to keep the Filipinos
from doing violence to them. Gilmore was again questioned at length
and then he was separated from his comrades and all were hurried off
to jail.
In a few days it was rumored that the American army was approaching the
city. Aguinaldo and his associates hurriedly prepared to leave. Orders
were given to march the prisoners overland north and then westward
across another range of high mountains to Arancay, on the western
coast of Luzon,--a distance of 100 miles.
This time the crowd of prisoners was greatly increased. At San
Isidro there were added 600 Spaniards; a small tribe of mountain
Negritos whom Aguinaldo had originally sent to fight the Americans,
but who, being armed only with spears and bolos, soon got tired of
seeing their number decrease so rapidly before American riflemen,
and refused to fight, and who were later imprisoned and terribly
misused by Aguinaldo's selected guards; and eighteen Americans in
addition to Gilmore's party (total twenty-six Americans), who had
been captured in as many different ways around Manila by the crafty,
cunning Filipinos. Among them was Frank Stone, of the U. S. Signal
Corps, captured by some "amigos" (friendly natives) on the railroad
track near Manila, while out strolling one Sunday afternoon; Private
Curran, of the 16th U.S. Infantry who was grabbed within fifty feet
of his own outpost, gagged and dragged into captivity; also a civilian
who had gone to the Philippines to sell liquor.
This fellow was captured by the Filipinos in the outskirts of Manila
while he was searching for a small boatload of stolen beer. He was the
life of the expedition. He took his captivity as a joke, told stories
to keep the prisoners good natured, and painted on ever boulder that
he passed the seemingly sacrilegious words, "Drink Blank's beer on
the road to H----." It was, however, this harmless practice that later
on enabled the American relief party to follow the prisoners' trail.
After reaching the western shore of Luzon, the party was marched
northward along the beach, another 100 miles, to the city of
Vigan. Here they were imprisoned for three months longer. The sudden
presence of an American war-ship in the harbor, off Vigan, caused the
natives to abandon that city and start inland with their prisoners
for some mountain fastness. The Americans were separated from the
rest of the prisoners whom they never saw again.
High up in the mountains of northern Luzon, two of the American boys
were taken sick with fever and fell down, exhausted. The Filipino
lieutenant who had charge of the prisoners, ordered them to go on;
they could not. He threatened to shoot them. Gilmore interceded for
them without avail. The Americans refused to leave their Anglo-Saxon
comrades and prepared to fight. At this moment the Filipino officer
himself was suddenly taken ill, and by the time he was able to advance,
the sick Americans were able to go along.
A few days later they struggled over the crest of the divide and came
upon the headwaters of a beautiful mountain torrent dancing down the
rocky ledges in its onward course to the sea. At a widened place in
the canon, the Filipinos withdrew from the Americans, and with guns
in hand took their positions on the rocks round-about and above them.
"Prepare to die," said Gilmore to his companions; "they are going to
shoot us." Calling the Filipino lieutenant to his side Gilmore asked
him why he did not shoot them on the opposite side of the mountains,
and not have made them make all of that hard climb for nothing.
The native officer said in reply: "My orders were to shoot all of
you when I got you up in the mountains, where, in all probability,
your bodies would be destroyed by wild animals and no trace of them
ever be found by your countrymen; but a few nights ago when you showed
me that crucifix tattooed on your chest while you were a midshipman
in America, I decided not to carry out my order, but to let you all
go free. I may be punished for disobedience of orders; but we are
both bound together by the great Catholic church, and my conscience
forbids that I should kill you."
Gilmore replied: "You might as well shoot us as to set us free away
up here in the mountains in our weakened condition with nothing to
defend ourselves with against the savages whose territory we will have
to cross in order to get to the sea. Can't you spare us at least two
rifles and some ammunition? If you will do this, I will give you a
letter which, should you fall into the hands of the Americans, will
make you safe and bring you ample reward."
The Filipino looked meditatingly at the ground for several moments,
then he calmly said, "I shall not dare to do it. An American relief
party, seeking your liberation, is close on our heels. They will
protect and care for you. Goodby!"
Gilmore did not believe him.
Under cover of the night the Filipinos disappeared. In the morning,
after nine long, tedious months of captivity resulting from Marie
Sampalit's depredations,--sick, nearly starved, practically nude, with
nothing but two battle axes and a bolo for both weapons of defense
and for tools--the Americans at last found themselves free men in
the wilds of northern Luzon, with positive death left behind, and
with possible life and all of its happy associations still before them.
Their first day of liberty was spent in preparing bamboo rafts on
which to float down the tortuous, winding river to the sea. The next
night they all slept well; and on the following morning, just after
they had gotten up and begun to saunter around, everybody present was
suddenly shocked by the shrill yell of a strong American voice. They
all looked up, and while their hearts for a moment seemingly stopped
beating and fairly rose in their throats, the liberated prisoners
beheld the blue shirts and khaki trousers of Colonel Hare's rescue
party that for several weeks had been on their trail.
What rejoicing! The bony, ill-clad prisoners fell on the strong bosoms
of their rescuers and wept.
Colonel Hare's father, Judge Hare, of Washington, D.C., knew Gilmore
personally. He had seen the military reports of his captivity among
the natives. When his son bade him goodby as he started for the
Philippines, Judge Hare said, "My boy, God bless you; find Gilmore
and bring him home!" Colonel Hare had remained true to his trust.
The party could not retrace their steps over the mountains, owing to
the weakened condition of the prisoners and the lack of food. Their
only chance for self-preservation and a possible return to civilization
lay in carrying out Gilmore's designs to build bamboo rafts and float
down the river to the sea. This was done. In going over rapids and
water-falls, many rafts were destroyed and new ones had to be built.
Two of the boys got the measles. The raft on which one of them,
Private Day, was being transported, got smashed on the rocks and he
was thrown into the water. He took cold and died the next day. His
comrades took his body with them and did not bury it until they finally
reached the little town of Ambulug, at the mouth of the stream they
had been following, on the northern coast of Luzon. There, amid a
simple but impressive ceremony, it was buried in the church-yard of
the cathedral to await the resurrection morn.
At Ambulug the Americans secured ox-carts drawn by caribous and drove
along the beach to the city of Aparri, at the mouth of the Cagayan
river. Here they were met by a detachment of American Marines who
took them aboard a war-ship, lying out to sea, which carried them
around the northwest promontory of Luzon to the city of Vigan on the
western coast, at which place they had been imprisoned for so long.
Here they met General Young who shook hands with each of them;
congratulated the rescued and complimented the rescuers.