CHAPTER IX.
THE AMERICAN PRISONERS
Those of the Americans who were alive and able to help themselveswere ordered to go ashore on the sand bar, where the Filipinos robbedthem of their personal effects and then lined them up preparatoryto shooting them all down in a body. Gilmore, being an officer,protested against having his hands tied. He claimed, according tothe accepted rules of warfare, that on account of his rank he hada right to die honorably with his hands free. The Filipinos havegreat superstitions about "rank" in military affairs. Marie knew thesignificance of Gilmore's request; she respected it.
The Filipinos had loaded their rifles, cocked them, raised the sameto their shoulders, had taken aim, and Marie was about to give thefatal command, "Fire!", when a shout from the bank stopped her andfor a moment engaged the attention of both the Americans and theFilipinos. It came from a Filipino officer, running down to theshore. He ordered them to stop. One second longer would have beentoo late.
This Tagalo officer ordered the Americans to get back into their boatand to row across to the opposite shore. After bailing the water outof the boat and plugging up the holes in it made by the enemy's rifleballs, they obeyed his command.
When they went ashore, Lieutenant Gilmore asked permission to buryhis dead comrades. This privilege was emphatically denied. What wasdone with their bodies by the Filipinos is hard to tell, but in allprobability, as was customary with the natives, they cut them intofragments and threw them away.
The ones who were mortally wounded, but who were still alive, wereplaced under a tree by Gilmore and his comrades, and left to die. TheLieutenant 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 carriedthem, and together the whole procession was marched inland about amile to the Filipino Commandante's headquarters.
Here they were questioned at length. Gilmore asked permission towrite a note to the commander of the Yorktown telling him of theirfate. Permission was granted, but the note was never delivered. Thetwo scouts who went ashore, returned to the Yorktown in the afternoonand reported that they had heard heavy firing up the river.
After waiting several days for news of some kind for them, and finallyconcluding that they were either captured or killed, the crew ofthe 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 churchin the northern outskirts of the little town of Baler, a mile anda half farther on. By this time the wounded men were sufferingterribly. Little Venville's ankle had swollen badly. From his fourwounds he had bled so much that he had grown faint. Therefore, heand several of the others had to be carried.
En route to their new destination, the Americans passed in sight ofthe old stone church being used as a fortress by the Spanish garrisonwhom they had originally set out to relieve. The Americans had goneto the Philippines to fight the Spaniards. They were now sacrificingtheir lives to save them.
At the bamboo church, an old Filipino with a kindly face and a mannerthat elevated him above his fellow tribesmen, came in to see them. Heexamined the wounded and then disappeared. Presently he returned withsome large leaves that resembled rhubarb, under his arm. Out of thebig stems of these native herbs he squeezed a milky secretion which hepermitted to drop into the gaping wounds of the Americans. The tortureof the wounded occasioned by this liquid was damnable. The men grewdeathly pale. They rolled and screamed and begged to be shot. Butit did not last long. In ten minutes the torture had ceased, the menbecame quiet, the swelling around their wounds was gradually reduced,and their temperatures soon lowered. The herb doctor evidently knewhis business.
The next day the Filipinos received orders from Aguinaldo, who,with his appointed congress, was now at San Isidro, to march thecaptured Americans to his headquarters. Accordingly, the tripwas undertaken. But the apprentice lad, Venville, was unable togo along. Obeying the stubborn orders of the rapacious Filipinoshis comrades left him lying on the floor of the old rickety bamboochurch,--wounded--uncared for--suffering--hungry--thirsty--dying. Ayear later the assistance of the entire naval organization in thePhilippines was given to the task of trying to ascertain from theFilipinos in the neighborhood of Baler some information concerningthe 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 andthe fertile plains on the opposite side, to the city of San Isidro. Itwas heralded in advance that the Americans were coming through thecountry. Obeying their greatest national instinct--curiosity--thenatives assembled by thousands in the villages along the road. Everyone of them kept crowding forward to get to touch the Americans to seewhat their skins felt like. Others were looking for the long feathersin their hair, which they had heard so much about. It was all theFilipino guards could do to restrain their own people. The latter,like monkeys, jabbered incessantly. Gilmore's men hurled back at themdefiant epithets. They realized that involuntarily they had becomethe chief actors in a new moving circus.
Again, when they reached San Isidro, a great throng of curious nativeshad come to town to see them. These fellows were very hostile to theAmericans. It was all the native guard could do to keep the Filipinosfrom doing violence to them. Gilmore was again questioned at lengthand then he was separated from his comrades and all were hurried offto jail.
In a few days it was rumored that the American army was approaching thecity. Aguinaldo and his associates hurriedly prepared to leave. Orderswere given to march the prisoners overland north and then westwardacross another range of high mountains to Arancay, on the westerncoast of Luzon,--a distance of 100 miles.
This time the crowd of prisoners was greatly increased. At SanIsidro there were added 600 Spaniards; a small tribe of mountainNegritos whom Aguinaldo had originally sent to fight the Americans,but who, being armed only with spears and bolos, soon got tired ofseeing their number decrease so rapidly before American riflemen,and refused to fight, and who were later imprisoned and terriblymisused by Aguinaldo's selected guards; and eighteen Americans inaddition to Gilmore's party (total twenty-six Americans), who hadbeen captured in as many different ways around Manila by the crafty,cunning Filipinos. Among them was Frank Stone, of the U. S. SignalCorps, captured by some "amigos" (friendly natives) on the railroadtrack near Manila, while out strolling one Sunday afternoon; PrivateCurran, of the 16th U.S. Infantry who was grabbed within fifty feetof his own outpost, gagged and dragged into captivity; also a civilianwho had gone to the Philippines to sell liquor.
This fellow was captured by the Filipinos in the outskirts of Manilawhile he was searching for a small boatload of stolen beer. He was thelife of the expedition. He took his captivity as a joke, told storiesto keep the prisoners good natured, and painted on ever boulder thathe passed the seemingly sacrilegious words, "Drink Blank's beer onthe road to H----." It was, however, this harmless practice that lateron enabled the American relief party to follow the prisoners' trail.
After reaching the western shore of Luzon, the party was marchednorthward along the beach, another 100 miles, to the city ofVigan. Here they were imprisoned for three months longer. The suddenpresence of an American war-ship in the harbor, off Vigan, caused thenatives to abandon that city and start inland with their prisonersfor some mountain fastness. The Americans were separated from therest of the prisoners whom they never saw again.
High up in the mountains of northern Luzon, two of the American boyswere taken sick with fever and fell down, exhausted. The Filipinolieutenant who had charge of the prisoners, ordered them to go on;they could not. He threatened to shoot them. Gilmore interceded forthem
without avail. The Americans refused to leave their Anglo-Saxoncomrades and prepared to fight. At this moment the Filipino officerhimself 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 cameupon the headwaters of a beautiful mountain torrent dancing down therocky ledges in its onward course to the sea. At a widened place inthe canon, the Filipinos withdrew from the Americans, and with gunsin hand took their positions on the rocks round-about and above them.
"Prepare to die," said Gilmore to his companions; "they are going toshoot us." Calling the Filipino lieutenant to his side Gilmore askedhim 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 ofyou when I got you up in the mountains, where, in all probability,your bodies would be destroyed by wild animals and no trace of themever be found by your countrymen; but a few nights ago when you showedme that crucifix tattooed on your chest while you were a midshipmanin America, I decided not to carry out my order, but to let you allgo free. I may be punished for disobedience of orders; but we areboth bound together by the great Catholic church, and my conscienceforbids that I should kill you."
Gilmore replied: "You might as well shoot us as to set us free awayup here in the mountains in our weakened condition with nothing todefend ourselves with against the savages whose territory we will haveto cross in order to get to the sea. Can't you spare us at least tworifles and some ammunition? If you will do this, I will give you aletter which, should you fall into the hands of the Americans, willmake 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 reliefparty, seeking your liberation, is close on our heels. They willprotect 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 MarieSampalit's depredations,--sick, nearly starved, practically nude, withnothing but two battle axes and a bolo for both weapons of defenseand for tools--the Americans at last found themselves free men inthe wilds of northern Luzon, with positive death left behind, andwith possible life and all of its happy associations still before them.
Their first day of liberty was spent in preparing bamboo rafts onwhich to float down the tortuous, winding river to the sea. The nextnight they all slept well; and on the following morning, just afterthey had gotten up and begun to saunter around, everybody present wassuddenly shocked by the shrill yell of a strong American voice. Theyall looked up, and while their hearts for a moment seemingly stoppedbeating and fairly rose in their throats, the liberated prisonersbeheld the blue shirts and khaki trousers of Colonel Hare's rescueparty that for several weeks had been on their trail.
What rejoicing! The bony, ill-clad prisoners fell on the strong bosomsof their rescuers and wept.
Colonel Hare's father, Judge Hare, of Washington, D.C., knew Gilmorepersonally. He had seen the military reports of his captivity amongthe natives. When his son bade him goodby as he started for thePhilippines, Judge Hare said, "My boy, God bless you; find Gilmoreand bring him home!" Colonel Hare had remained true to his trust.
The party could not retrace their steps over the mountains, owing tothe weakened condition of the prisoners and the lack of food. Theironly chance for self-preservation and a possible return to civilizationlay in carrying out Gilmore's designs to build bamboo rafts and floatdown the river to the sea. This was done. In going over rapids andwater-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 hewas thrown into the water. He took cold and died the next day. Hiscomrades took his body with them and did not bury it until they finallyreached the little town of Ambulug, at the mouth of the stream theyhad been following, on the northern coast of Luzon. There, amid asimple but impressive ceremony, it was buried in the church-yard ofthe cathedral to await the resurrection morn.
At Ambulug the Americans secured ox-carts drawn by caribous and drovealong the beach to the city of Aparri, at the mouth of the Cagayanriver. Here they were met by a detachment of American Marines whotook them aboard a war-ship, lying out to sea, which carried themaround the northwest promontory of Luzon to the city of Vigan on thewestern 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.