THE CHASE OF PILAR
Gregorio Del Pilar, the picturesque Filipino leader, about whom
so much has been written in praise, by the war correspondents, was
leading his men back into the dangerfields, inviting the American
pursuers into every trap which his crafty brain could devise.
History tells of Pilar's call to arms. He was attending a great
ball in Dagupan, given in honour of his approaching nuptials. In
the midst of the festivities a messenger dashed in with the news
that the American troops were closing in on Tarlac, the insurgents'
seat of government. Pilar rushed from the ballroom and made his
way to the head of his command. His parting from the bride-to-be
is pathetically described by many of the writers who were in the
islands at the time. There was no more daring, romantic character
in all the Philippines than young Pilar. Educated, refined, clever
and attractive, he was a favourite with all, admired by friend and
foe alike.
Captain Groce, with a company of infantry, was following him closely
and doggedly into the fastnesses far to the north. Village after
village was devastated by the white troops, always a few hours after
the wily Pilar had evacuated. Amigos laughed in their deceptive
sleeves at the Americans and misdirected them with impunity. In
eight cases out of ten the amigo wore arms underneath his garment
of friendship and slew in the dark whenever opportunity arose.
Graydon Bansemer was one of this doughty, eager company which blazed
the way into the hills. Close behind came the bigger and stronger
forces, with guns and horse, and the hospital corps. It was the
hunt of death for Aguinaldo and Pilar.
Shortly after daybreak, one morning, a slim, black figure crept out
from among the trees and gave the countersign to the challenging
sentry. He was soon on his way to the Captain's headquarters
bearing news of importance. The brown-skinned scout had travelled
all night over a hazardous route, and he was more than welcome. He
brought news that Pilar's men were off to the east and the north,
well intrenched and prepared to fall upon the Americans when
they advanced blindly into the trap laid for them. The newspaper
men pricked up their ears, and at once looked to a box of carrier
pigeons which formed a most important part of their pilgrimage. A
fight was at hand, doubtless an important meeting of the clashing
forces. The whole army was waiting for intelligence of Pilar--waiting
with little less anxiety than that which attached itself to the
pursuit of Aguinaldo.
Captain Groce ordered Sergeant Gonnell with a picked squad
to reconnoitre. They scurried off in advance of the company with
instructions to locate the elusive enemy, and open up the secret of
his position. Supposedly, Pilar was ten miles off among the rocky
foothills which guarded the pass through the mountains. As usual,
Bansemer was one of the scouts. He snatched his rations with the
others and went forth eagerly to court the danger and the excitement
that was promised. For days they had had no fighting worthy the name.
Amigos everywhere, villages peopled only by women and children,
treacherous peacefulness on every side; this had been their encounter:
an occasional rifle shot from the rice fields, a crackle of guns
far ahead, a prisoner or two who had not been quick enough in
transforming himself from combatant to friend, that was all. Now,
there seemed to be real fighting ahead.
Pilar was known to have many men--good soldiers all of them. The
native scout gave close and accurate directions as to his position;
it remained for Connell's men to draw him out, if possible. Captain
Groce and the remainder of his eager company did not march until
long after the scouts were on their precarious way.
Two hours after the party of eleven left the village, a Mauser
bullet from the clump of trees far to the right cut through the
hat of one of the scouts who was some distance in advance of his
fellows. As he saw the scout stoop to pick up his hat, Rogers turned
to the man nearest him and remarked:
"They'll get him sure as shootin' some day if he hikes along in
that damn fool way."
It was no new experience for the scouts to find the quarry gone
when they reached the place where they expected to find him. Pilar's
own scouts had found that the ambuscade was destined to fail of
its purpose, and the wily leader drew back into the more accessible
country. The scouting party did not come in sight of the little
brown soldiers. The occasional crack of a Mauser broke the silence
of the advance, keeping the Americans in active touch with the
dangers that surrounded them.
They found the deserted trenches and signs of recent occupation.
The insurgents had been gone from the position less than two hours.
Treachery faced the little squad of Americans on every side,
but they did not falter. Connell scattered his men and they stole
carefully into the fastnesses, finding on all sides evidences of hasty
departure. Before noon they were far up in the hills, everywhere
met by the physical assurance that the enemy was not far ahead
of them. Behind them came Captain Groce and his men and the two
correspondents.
Amigos along the mountain road gave information that was not worth
having. A deserted village showed signs of the passage and finally
there was proof ahead that Pilar had stopped to give battle. He
had reached his vantage ground. Connell and his men drew back and
waited. Nightfall came and with it the spiteful crack of the Mauser
rifle. A brawny trooper toppled over with a great hole in his head.
Pilar's pickets could see like cats in the night. The native scout
reported that the big village of Concepcion was not far ahead;
Pilar's men were making their stand before this rather important
stronghold.
"We'll get a scrap that is a scrap, boys," said Connell, exultingly.
"These fellows are going to put up a fight, at last. They're like
bees up yonder. We've got to fall back on the company; if we don't,
they'll chew us up before the little captain can get to us."
Too well did the men know the bellicose temperament of the big
Irishman to think of grumbling at such a command; yet, it was with
a certain reluctance which invariably accompanies a backward step
that the men retired to meet the advancing company.
Young Bansemer in his khaki uniform was not the immaculate, debonnaire
man of the drawing-room. Service, though short, had been hard and
gruelling. His face was even handsomer with its rugged lines and
set features. He was thinner and browner; his eyes were clearer
and a darker grey; his hair seemed thicker and fairer than before;
his figure more erect and sinewy. The wistful look in his eyes
seemed to betray hunger for action; his ever-ready eagerness to be
on the move told of his strength and of his weakness. He had the
lean, active bearing of the panther and the restless daring of that
lithe animal.
No man in the company had stood fire as valiantly as he. He courted
the whiz of the bullet, scoffed at the rigours of the march, and
instinctively was a good shot with the rifle. He bore no grudge
against the department at home; he had no grievance.
The officers recognised in him a man of parts, a man of station far
above the position which he had chosen in the army. He was a source
of mystery to the men of his own rank in the line-the ploughboys,
the teamsters, the roustabouts, and the ne'erdowells who had gone
into the army from choice or discretion. At first they had called
him the "dude," and had laughed at his white hands and clean jaws.
His indifference to their taunts annoyed them. One day he knocked
down the biggest bully of the lot and walked away without even
waiting to see whether he could arise after the blow. He simply
glared at the next man who chaffed. It was enough. The company held
him in a new respect that forbade the reporting of the incident to
the officer of the day.
Every night before he lay down to sleep, In the rice field or the
barrios, he took from his pocket a leather case and gazed at the
small portrait it sheltered. No one had been permitted to see him
in his devotions, for that was what he called these sacred moments.
His lean face, full of fierce energy all day long, softened as his
eyes devoured the dainty miniature.
On meeting their company, Connell reported the situation ahead,
to his superior officer; orders were given for the men to bivouac
for the night in a small village close at hand. That evening Bansemer
was discovered leaning against the corner of a nipa shack some
distance from his comrades, smoking silently while they talked and
made merry behind him. He seldom joined in the ribald but suppressed
conversations of the men.
"Have you fellows ever noticed that he don't get any letters from
the States-never seems to expect any?" asked Johnny Rogers, the
one-time foundry man, who sat watching him. Graydon had not been the
subject of conversation, but all knew whom Johnny meant by "he."
"I've noticed that, too," said Joe Adams.
"I got him sized up all right," said one of the Spurrier boys. "His
people don't know where he's at. That feller's a swell at home an'
he's had to skip out. I'll bet my breakfast his name ain't Bansemer.
An' if his people don't know where he's at, how in thunder can they
write to him? See what I mean?"
"Think he's a bank cashier?" asked Sim Relander.
"Naw; it ain't money, it's some girl. I know these swell guys,"
said Rogers. "You're right about his people not knowin' where to
write. He's a mystery, that feller is. I'll tell what I think:
his folks have fired him out--won't recognise him. See? Disgraced
'em, an' all that. That's why he ain't expectin' nothin' from home.
He knows he won't get it."
"I feel kind o' sorry for a feller like that," mused Tom Reagan.
"I had a brother that had to skip once."
"That so? Did he ever come back?"
"I s'd say not. He ducked for good. Mother had a letter from him
couple o' months before I left home. He was in Milwaukee."
"Aw, this Bansemer's not that sort. He's made o' different stuff.
Milwaukee? Holy Moses, it's only eighty mile from Chicago!"
"Gee, I'd like to have a glass o' the goods that made Milwaukee
famous," sighed Joe Adams.
"I'd like a keg," said Jim Spurrier, with a wistful look in his
eyes.
"S'pose we'll ever see a glass o' beer again?" asked the other
Spurrier, solemnly.
"I'll bet Bansemer's wonderin' if he'll ever taste champagne again."
"Ask him, Johnny."
"Hey, Bansemer. I've got a riddle for you. What 'u'd you sooner
have right now than a bottle of champagne?"
Graydon turned and sauntered slowly over to the group. He paused
for a moment in passing, a broad smile on his face.
"A pail of beer," said he.
"Good fer you!" shouted two or three vociferously. He strode off
to make ready for bed.
"He's all right," exclaimed Sim Relander feelingly, as if that
laconic reply had been the only thing necessary to establish the
young man's social standing.
"That feller's been out here only four months, an' I'll bet they
ain't any ten men in the Philippines what's had as many clost calls
as he's had," said Johnny Rogers. "I was thinkin' about it to-day.
He's had more narrow escapes in tight places than---"
"Well, the darned fool rushes right into 'em, don't he? He ain't
got no sense. Nobody ought to git out where he can be shot at when
there ain't no need. Take that blamed fool trick o' his'n there
at Tarlac. When he went back all alone after the papers that Cap
Groce dropped. I'll bet he was shot at two hundred times."
"Well, he didn't get hit, did he? If he gets hit good 'n' proper
once he won't be so keen about showin' off," growled one of the
men.
"Depends on where he's hit. Then, there was that time when he dumb
the hill back yonder and turned the fire o' the gugus so's we could
get up into the pass. He makes me think o' Lawton. There's the boy
for me. If we had a few more generals like Lawton we'd put a crimp
in these niggers so quick it would look like a spasm." Having
delivered himself of this safe prophecy, Mr. Rogers glared about
him for opposition. None forthcoming, he proceeded, with a satisfied
snort, to refill his pipe.
"Lawton's makin' history, and don't you forget it," observed Luke
Hardy.
"He's from Indiana," piped up a homesick ploughboy from the Hoosier
State.
"Then, it'll be a historical novel," said the gaunt young recruit
from Grand Rapids. He was a cynic who had tried newspaper work,
and who still maintained that the generals did not have as much
intelligence as the privates.
"I'll never forget Bansemer when he first enlisted," reflected Joe
Adams. "He wanted to go out for a cold plunge and a morning stroll,
and then asked the sergeant where he could get a good riding horse.
He's not so keen about strolls these days."
"He don't turn up his nose at things like he used to, either."
"I don't see why the devil he keeps so clean," grumbled Adams. "I
can't."
"I'll bet one thing," mused Rogers. "He'll be a captain or something
before this scrap is over."
"He'll be a corpse, that's what he'll be."
"It's my opinion he'd just as lief be shot as not," said Relander.
"The only trouble is that these measly niggers can't hit anything
they shoot at. If the darned fools would only try to miss him,
they'd get him sure. The devil and Tom Walker--what's that?"