MALABANAN STRIKES
Next morning Terry rose as the first sleepy cock challenged the
pink-streaked day. Shaving in the dim light, he watched the plaza
merge out of its darkness and fill with the natives passing listlessly
to field or waterfront. A few short minutes and the day arrived hot
and still: hens sauntered forth to begin their tireless, day-long,
scratching search: bony curs, sleepy after their instinctive vigils
through the night, made couches in the dusty road: across from where
Terry stood at his bedroom window, the four daughters of his Tagalog
neighbor sat in a little circle on a sunny bamboo porch structure,
each intently examining another's loosened hair in a community search
for--well, for whatever might be found.
By nine o'clock he had snapped the company through a sharp drill and
by noon had finished the weekly inspection. The afternoon passed in
preparation of monthly reports scheduled to go on the mailboat
expected in that evening. It is the function of the Constabulary to
know everything that transpires: health conditions, state of crops,
appearance of any strangers, activities of native demagogues,
movements of suspicious characters, morale of the people. Everything
is observed and reported, and summarized at headquarters to form the
basis for intelligent handling of a difficult problem.
Of the epidemic he wrote: "A disease identified as a particularly
virulent form of pernicious malaria appeared last week among the
Bogobos in the barrio of Dalag. The Health Officer is on the scene and
in conference with the undersigned decided that the use of our troops
for quarantine duty was not necessary. It appears that he has the
disease under control."
Under the heading "Recommendations" he set down: "Request that the old
provincial archives be searched to ascertain if a Spanish family
living in this Gulf during the last months of Spanish occupation
suffered the loss, by abduction, of a female infant. An interesting
story to this effect has been communicated to me by Bogobos, who
attribute the crime to the Hill People."
The mailboat limped in early in the afternoon, waking the torpid town
into semblance of interested activity during the brief duration of its
stay. But before she had disappeared over the horizon native Davao had
relapsed into stupid placidity, and the Chinos had stored the meager
cargoes dropped for them--print goods, cigarettes, matches, rice, a
few small agongs, and, probably, a little opium. The lethargy of the
tropics during the hot hours is entire and complete: the angel Gabriel
himself will fail of unanimous native response unless he toots his
cheerful summons during the cool hours between dusk to dawn.
Terry still sat in the cool orderly room at the cuartel, energetically
clearing his desk of the last accumulations of the paper work he found
a chore, when the dapper sergeant entered with his mail. Sorting
quickly through the dozen official envelopes in anxious search for one
addressed in the neat hand that always quickened his pulses, he
discovered, miserably, that there was none from her. Fighting off the
discouraged feeling that accompanied lapses in her correspondence with
him, he slowly opened a letter from Ellis. Ellis' letters, few in
number, had always been cheerful but brief statements of how matters
went on at home, usually business affairs. He put Ellis' letter in his
blouse pocket to read after dinner, then attacked the pile of official
mail: he wanted no unfinished office work to keep him in the morrow,
as he planned another quiet look at Malabanan's place. When the
Sergeant bore in the lighted lamp Terry ordered him to have the launch
ready at daylight.
Night had wrapped the town when he crossed the plaza to his quarters.
Matak, silent as ever but of more cheerful countenance, set the table.
At his second laconic announcement Terry rose and crossed to the
dinner table, and as he seated himself a white missile was tossed
through the open window by an unseen hand and landed with a thud on
the bare floor. Matak brought it to him, and unwrapping the paper from
about the pebble Terry read the note. It was from the secreto whom he
had planted near Malabanan's plantation.
Sir:
At eight o'clock last night Malabanan left here with a
newcomer named Sakay and 22 of his "laborers."
From my post I could not see if they were armed.
They have not yet returned. (9 A.M.)
I will follow in banca. They sailed south in a large lorcha.
Will report further when I return.
"47"
Leaving his unfinished dinner, he paced the floor. The midnight
departure of Malabanan with his chief lieutenant and a majority of his
followers might mark the beginning of outlawry, or it might be a
legitimate excursion into the deepsea fisheries. Yet the secreto had
said nothing of nets, and a party of twenty-four men would be in each
others' way. Terry hastened over to the cuartel, checked up the patrol
chart, then called the Sergeant, who verified the position and route
of each of the two-man patrols who were covering the countryside.
Satisfied that his men would discover and report the landing of any
strangers within a few hours after they touched soil, Terry returned
to the house.
He sat on the wide ledge of the window, thinking. The night seemed
unusually warm despite the stiffening breeze which blew off the Gulf;
he opened the collar of his blouse.... Where was Malabanan--what was
he doing? He saw a man's form outlined against the bright Club window
and answered the arm waved at him: it looked like Lindsey, he
thought.... "Give 'em plenty of rope and if they make a break--Smash
'em!" He shivered at the thought of sighting a gun against a fellow
man, and again in sudden rush of memory of the night in Zamboanga....
He saw Lindsey appear again at the Club window to peer in his
direction, then turn abruptly. In a moment he saw him leave the Club
and cross the plaza, hatless.... Deane--why had no letter come--he had
expected one, wanted one....
He slid off the window ledge as Lindsey came in, sincere and direct as
usual.
"Terry," he began, "I saw you sitting here alone and came over to ask
you to join us at the Club."
"I can't, Lindsey."
Lindsey studied the unusually pallid skin: "Why not?" he demanded.
"You're working too hard, Terry, and worrying too hard. Let's forget
it all for an hour or two!"
"I'm much obliged, Lindsey, but I can't come to-night."
"The fellows asked me to get you, Terry. They think it is queer you
come so seldom."
Understanding something of Terry's weariness of spirit he strove hard
to persuade him to spend the evening in the pleasant Club, but was
unsuccessful. Desisting, he talked a few minutes with Terry and then
left, a little embarrassed, wholly disappointed.
Alone again, Terry slumped into a big cane chair drawn up by the
table. His cheeks burned; he thought, vaguely, that he must have
shaved too closely. Loosening his stiffly starched blouse, he crackled
the letter from Ellis, opened it without much interest: then his whole
being tensed.
Crampville, Nov. 23, 191-.
Dear Dick:
Everything lovely here--and things are going to pick up with
you when you read this!
Yesterday Deane's father came in the bank and asked to see
me confidentially. Thinking he had come on bank business I
took him into my private office. Well, he just sat there
facing me for several minutes, not knowing how to begin. You
would have thought he had been robbing a train or something,
he looked so absurdly guilty!
I just sat there watching him, taking a most unchristian joy
in his trouble, whatever it was: I have had it in for him
ever since--since you know what. I liked the way his Adam's
apple chased up and down his throat.
Finally he swallowed hard and began: "Ellis, I came over
to--to ask you to--to send over that fox skin that Terry
gave Deane last Christmas."
Just like that! It sure was a pill for the old boy to
swallow but he went the whole hog like the old Puritan he
is. Once started he kept going, though still phased. Said
that he was glad that you had found something worth doing
and were doing it well, that he took a lot of interest in
your goings-on--as he called it--and that Deane always read
your letters aloud. And the last thing he said before he
went out was that he hoped you would soon get spunk enough
to write her some letters she "wouldn't dast read out loud!"
He said THAT about my brother-in-law! Great leaping frogs!
What is the matter with you?
Get busy! Write--and make 'em sizzle!
ELLIS.
P.S.--I forgot to say that I am sure she made him come to
see me. Also that Sue took the skin over last night. And
also that Bruce is more than professionally interested in
the nurse he imported from Albany to look after his office.
It has been some time since he hung around Hunter's--and as
to why, I do not know, but I sure am some little guesser!
Terry had never questioned the decision he thought she had made that
Christmas eve in returning the fox skin, had thought it hers, and
final. As the burden of a year fell from him he sat quietly, smoothing
at his stubborn, crown lock, the wistful twist of mouth ironed out by
a faint smile. He bent to read the letter again but after a few lines
the words were blurred out by a salty rush to his steady gray eyes.
Rising, he went into his bedroom and closed the door quietly behind
him, emerging in a few minutes. Perfect peace lay in his eyes and they
shone with the light that will never die in this world as long as men
live, and women.
Two days to Christmas, he thought, and he had sent her no remembrance.
He stood at the window, tasting the cool thickness of the evening,
breathing the fragrance of ylang-ylang: leaf and frond, stirred by the
monsoon, purred in gentle contact. In the starlight the old stone
church outlined its old-world, old-time architecture in friendly
shadows which veiled the pitiful scars and age-stains: the bamboo
shacks across the square--wry, flimsy, smutted by a hotly jealous
sun--had yielded to the magic of the night to become little golden
houses in which the fairies abode till the morning stars should fade.
A present for her ... he pondered long, the while he stifled his
desire to go outside and shout the joy that tugged at his restraint.
Suddenly he started, tightened as the idea fastened upon him, then
fairly ran to his desk. A hurried search for cable blanks and he wrote
in desperate haste that consumed four misused forms before he
accomplished an intelligible message:
Miss Deane Hunter, Crampville, Vermont.
Christmas greetings from palmed coast to snowy shore. Please
cable will you accept so humble a Christmas offering as an
equal share in the future of one
RICHARD TERRY.
Buttoning his blouse as he ran, he raced down out of the house and
over to his orderly room, where he typed the message and sent it out
by a soldier. The dozen Macabebes lounging in the _cuartel_, who had
sprung to attention when he passed, stared at him and then at each
other--this joyous, whistling boy was new to them! He crossed the dark
plaza: natives, looking out of raised windows, wondered who that
Americano was who walked in and out of the shadows of the great
acacias, singing:
When in thy dreaming
Moons like these shall shine again:
Being natives they did not understand the English words, but being
natives and instinctively attuned to the most ancient of emotions that
throbbed in the low baritone, they listened silently and stared out
into the night long after the singer had passed.
He reached the house, hesitated. Lindsey had said that the fellows
wanted him to come over to the Club ... he had neglected
opportunities to be with these good friends. He sailed his cap up
through an open window and crossing a corner of the square went up
into the gayly lighted building.
That night at the Club became a sort of tradition in the Gulf. They
still tell, wonderingly, of how he entered--a laughing, mischievous,
fun-loving boy, and of how the crowd welcomed this new Terry that none
of them had ever known before. They talk, still, of his deviltries,
the clean jests and keen wit he whetted--always at his own expense,
and as rough old Burns put it the next morning when they talked it
over: "And he niver took a drink and he niver cussed once, I'll be
---- if he did!" As the story of Terry's night at Club spread over the
Gulf all of the planters found excuses to bring them into town
afternoons in the hope of being present when he came again. They rode
in by pony or launch every night for two weeks, and then they ceased
coming.
For two hours he held them in the spell of his infectious deviltries.
Irrepressibly gay, impish, it seemed as if he vented all of the stored
up boyishness in him, spilled it in one heaping measure. Story
followed story, in quickly shifting brogues that rocked the building
with the sidesore laughter of the transported audience; they followed
him through a seemingly inexhaustible series of anecdote, through a
dozen ridiculous parodies he sang to a one-handed accompaniment
chorded on the battered piano the while he pantomimed with free hand
and roguish face.
"Why," whispered the astonished Cochran, "the--the--son of a gun!"
The uproar stilled suddenly as, seated at the old piano, he forgot
them for a moment, saw a vision on the white wall that was not visible
to the others. A few deep chords from knowing fingers, then his low
voice, rich with the depth of his happiness:
Love, to share again those winged scented days,
Those starry skies:
To see once more your joyous face,
Your tender eyes ...
The song, or something in the deep voice, pulled at the heart-strings
of those lonely men, who, womenless, never discussed women. Burns
sniffled, then glared belligerently at the others.
Cochran whispered to Lindsey: "Just what is there about--about that
boy? Is it because he's so pale?"
"Yes, that's it--you poor fish! But it's about time you quit pinching
my arm--it's getting numb!"
Flushing slightly in realization of his lapse, Terry had sprung
astraddle the corner of the billiard table, where, absurdly solemn, he
declaimed tragically, combing the classics for sepulchral passages,
plunging the intent listeners into deepest melancholy but concluding
with a droll extemporization that swept them from verge of tears to
convulsed mirth.
Lindsey, flinging a laughter-helpless arm across a call-bell, rang an
inadvertent summons to the steward that cost him the price of the
drinks and gave Terry a breathing spell. He sat astride the billiard
table under the acetylene lights, vainly trying to smooth down his
scalplock, his eyes dancing in eager enjoyment of the hour and of the
friends who crowded around him in affectionate amazement, laughing and
shouting at each other and at him.
Cochran's voice rose above the clamor of the room in a raucous whoop.
They all turned toward where he stood near the bulletin board reading
a message he had just torn down.
He waved the sheet joyously: "I saw the steward tacking it up a minute
ago--it just arrived--from Casey. He couldn't wait to tell us--the
long awaited day has come for Casey!"
He bent with laughter, then straightened and sobered to read it aloud.
"Casey talks like the Congressional Record but he sure minces his
written words. Listen.
Davao Club, Davao.
Horray! American mare had a filly colt last night. Also
sixteen pigs by Berkshire boar.
CASEY.
A roar of merriment greeted the phraseology in which Casey had
hurriedly couched the double event of his day of days. The terse--too
terse--message passed from hand to hand till it reached Terry. He
studied it, his head cocked to one side like a puppy's and with
something of a puppy's quizzical expression. A moment and he slid
slowly from the billiard table and crossed to the corner of the room
where a typewriter had been placed for the convenience of club
members.
They watched him, glancing uncertainly at each other, as he inserted a
sheet of paper, spelled out a few hesitating words, then jerked it
out, crumpled it in his hand. Slipping in a fresh sheet he started
slowly, pausing, rapt, after each few works. As line followed line the
room became quiet save for the click of the machine, the planters
eyeing each other, waiting impatiently for disclosure of the new
deviltry his whole attitude betokened. Pausing after each few lines to
seek inspiration at the roots of his thick tumbled hair, he wrote for
about fifteen minutes.
Then, tearing out the sheet, he mounted the chair and with a face
owlish in its affectation of heavy wisdom, he thrust his hand in his
blouse in classic barnstorming attitude and read his creation.
"CASEY"
The palm-fringed gulf of fair Davao--
The garden-spot of Mindanao--
Has been the Theater where Surprise
Has pried apart our mouth and eyes.
But bounteous Nature, in her last,
Has all her former deeds surpassed!
What now are Burbank's grafting deeds
Marconi's stunts, whose genius speeds
A message on a wireless tack
And makes of space a jumping-jack?
Where now does Edison hold sway?
Or radium's finder, Pierre Curié?
Does not this deed alone suffice
To render all that men or mice
Have wrought since days of Tubal Cain
Infinitesimal, and vain?
No man before has seen a dam
Provide the rudiments for a ham.
And not content with razor-backs
Produce a quota for the tracks.
It seems like thistles yielding figs--
A blooded mare with sixteen pigs!
And Truth receives a serious jolt
To find the seventeenth a colt!
Can anything on earth compare
With this performance of a mare?
But hold! For while I eulogize,
There is another claims a prize
And puts to shame all gone before;
I mean this humble Yankee boar!
What lowly hog did yet aspire
To ribboned fame as race-track sire?
Consult the annals of all time,
Great deeds extolled in prose and rhyme,
Delve deep in Clio's treasured store,
Exhaust encyclopedic lore--
You will not find in one edition
A hint of such high pig-ambition!
Had he but lived in days gone by
When Richard raised his voice on high
And offered Kingdom for a Horse,
To him he might have had recourse....
Imagine bristly Berkshire swine
Upon the throne of Coeur de Lion!!
But, while we give our meed of praise
To those who would these isles upraise,
Forget not him who planned all that--
For it was Casey at the bat!
Forget not him whose Celtic head
Outdid, when all is done or said,
That classic stunt--the herculean
Minerva sprung from Jovian bean!
Where else but in the Philippines
Amid these sunny tropic scenes
That lull the senses into rest,
Could come this genius of the West?
For, not content with colt and swine,
He must produce domestic kine--
To heap the brimming measure full
He perpetrates an Irish Bull!
Finished, he still stood on the chair, frankly happy in the uproarious
response to his effort to amuse them.
The clamor subsided in a sudden and almost incredulous appreciation of
his swift composing: and in the momentary silence during which they
gazed at the happy, laughing boy, a pair of heavy shod feet sounded on
the bare stairway--loud, hurried.
All eyes shifted from where Terry stood on the chair to the stern
visaged Macabebe sergeant who had stopped in the open doorway. He
hesitated a moment, then urgency overbore his instinct against
violation of the white man's domain, and he stepped toward his chief.
Terry met him in the center of the room. The Macabebe saluted, then
reported in a savage grating voice that carried clear to every
startled ear.
"Sir, Patrol Number Seven reports that ladrones raided Ledesma's
plantation at one o'clock last night: killed one servant, stole all of
Ledesma's carabaos and money, and stole his daughter."
Malabanan had dared! The ladrones had struck!