A Moment in the Sun (59 page)

“If the Dagoes haven’t shot me by now,” says Big Ten, walking big as a house just behind Manigault, “they aint even trying.”

The barrage is a brief one, followed by much wig-wagging of signal flags on board the
Olympia
and atop the wall of the Spanish fort, and then there is only the sound of the waves spilling out over the sand. The fort looks something like a beached stone vessel, triangular in shape, with cannon on the parapet walks and poking out from holes in its walls, several of them, it seems to Hod, pointing directly at him. Major Moses organizes them, Hod’s 2nd Battalion spreading out on the sand in support of the firing line before them, and then it begins. Rifle fire from the Spanish trenches in the sand in front of the fort now, a thin whining of Mauser balls overhead, and now and then a Dago running frantically to get the fort between him and the advancing volunteers. Hod holds his rifle ready but does not fire as they walk forward. He feels very calm. Not me, he thinks. Not today. If they’re really shooting at us, why aren’t rounds kicking up the sand?

There is a hatless correspondent scampering ahead of the firing line, pausing here and there to snap with his Kodak—now toward the fort, now turning back to photograph the approaching Coloradans.

“Get the hell out of there, you stupid son of a bitch!”

It is Colonel Hale himself, shouting over a megaphone, advancing along with the reserve line.

“I’ll have you thrown in the brig!”

The correspondent, looking sheepish, stops to allow the firing line to pass him.

Three dead Spaniards have been left like rags, tangled in the sand, when they enter the first of the trenches. Some officer, thinks Hod, some boss told them to sit there and put up a fight or go to jail or maybe be shot if they didn’t. Big Ten turns to look at the reserve line behind them, still advancing.

“I could hit those stiffs from here with my eyes closed.”

“What did I say?” Niles waves his walking stick toward the fort. “More of a foregone conclusion than a test of arms.”

“You don’t think it’s a trap? Drawing us in?”

“I think,” says Lieutenant Manigault, strolling ahead, “they’re all back in the city by now, packing their valises.”

The fort is unmanned by the time they enter. A few dead left from the naval barrage, a boy soldier who has shot himself in the foot so he won’t have to flee and be killed somewhere farther up the beach.

“Check inside,” says Niles as men scatter in groups to search the structure. Hod and Big Ten flank the doorway to one of the low stone buildings, one corner of it collapsed from the bombardment.

“I’ll throw it open,” says Big Ten, “and you shoot anybody who makes a fuss.”

Hod positions himself on one knee, sighting down his rifle, and Big Ten yanks the door. Inside the room is packed with soldiers sitting or lying down, covered in blood. A man with a Red Cross band on his arm turns to look at Hod and says something in Spanish. He does not seem grateful to have been saved from the Filipinos.

Diosdado now regrets the uniform. The old Chinaman wrapped strips torn from the margin of a newspaper around his arms and legs, penciling measurements and mumbling to himself. It fits perfectly, white cotton drill for the jacket and pants, sturdy canton for his shirt, and looks not unlike the other officers’ dress, but the
taos
they have assigned to him regard it with a mixture of awe and resentment. Sargento Bayani, who they turn to for confirmation every time Diosdado issues an order, seems only amused.

“If I were a
fusilero
,” says Bayani, “I would forget all the others and aim at the one in the pretty suit.”

Diosdado has them spread out along the puddle-filled trenches left by the retreating Spaniards a week before, a defense line of earthworks now and then reinforced with logs and topped with sandbags that stretches the full mile from here out to Fort San Antonio on the coast. When the
yanqui
ships began their shelling he sent runners to bring the remainder of his platoon from their homes, but none have come back yet. General Luna throws a daily tirade against this practice of treating the army like any other job and walking back to your family at the end of a shift, but the Tagalog officers only make faces behind his back and tell their men to be prompt in returning.

“
Bahala na
,” shrugs Bayani with seeming indifference. “As long as they leave their rifles at the front, it’s probably better to have them out of the way.”

And now the sun has broken through the clouds and the
yanquis
seem to be marching north to Manila.

A thick column of them stumble out of the inland swamps behind the line and spread out along the muddy entrenchments, big men like all Americans, each one with his own new-looking rifle, glancing with curiosity and mistrust at Diosdado’s cheering platoon. Caught up in the moment, several of his men stand and begin to shoot into the trees in the general direction of the Spanish. A sweat-soaked officer, seeing the uniform, walks directly toward Diosdado.

“You people are not supposed to be here.”

Diosdado salutes the American. “We await orders, Captain.”

The captain does not seem surprised that Diosdado speaks his language. “Your orders are to clear the hell out of here. And stop those men from firing!”

Gunfire is coming back from the Spanish position now, twigs and leaves falling from above, clipped by bullets. The captain stands a full head taller than Diosdado.

“I am sorry if there is confusion, but our orders must come from our own commanders—”

It is not so much a directive as a wave of the hand and suddenly the entire company of
yanquis
has taken a knee, pointing their weapons at his handful of men.

“Sargento,” Diosdado calls in Zambal, which apparently this Bayani speaks, voice as calm as he can muster, “tell the platoon to hold their fire.” He turns back to the captain. “May I ask you to identify yourself?”

“This is the 13th Minnesota,” answers the American. “You people are slowing us down.”

“There is more difficult terrain ahead of you. Wire fences, forests of bamboo, flooded fields of rice—and your naval guns cannot reach this far inland. If you were to move to the west—”

“We’ve already got another column coming up the beach parallel to us. How many more of your outfit along this line?”

“There is a blockhouse lying ahead,” says Diosdado, “that commands the Pasai Road. If we were to guide you—”

“All you need to do,” interrupts the American captain, poking Diosdado in the chest with a finger, “is have your men put their weapons down and stand aside.”

The men are looking to Sargento Bayani and Bayani is looking at Diosdado. The Americans seem carved in stone, the barrels of their rifles unwavering, at least three of them to every one of his own. He turns and gives the order. The men, grumbling and looking sideways at each other, lower their rifles, stick the tips of their bolos angrily into the mud.

“We’ll be back in no time, fellas,” winks one mud-splattered Minnesota private as he clambers over the sandbags. “After we’ve whipped them Dons for you.”

“What are they doing?” asks Sargento Ramos, who is a Kawit from Bacoor.

“They’re doing what we should be doing,” Bayani answers him in Taga-log. “They’re going to the Walled City to kill the Spanish.”

“We can’t let that happen!”

There has been no warning of this attack, only the long siege and the knowledge that without proper artillery the walls of the Intramuros cannot be breached. The Americans have promised that
insurrectos
who try to enter Manila will be shot, though up to now it has seemed an idle threat.

“We will not advance until ordered,” Diosdado tells the sergeants. “Pass the word.”

The
yanquis
form into lines just ahead of the earthworks, each man stretching one arm out to touch another to establish their spacing, then move forward in a great wave through the woods. The gunfire from the Spanish positions thickens, crackling uninterruptedly now, and the
yanquis
return it in a seemingly haphazard, random way, barely pausing to aim.

Diosdado’s men begin to pour out of the trench around him.

“Halt! Come back here! There is no order to advance!” he shouts, but each word sounds weaker and more ridiculous than the last. Bayani is by his side again, with his customary hint of a grin, speaking in Spanish as he does to emphasize his contempt.

“Our nation is about to be liberated,
mi teniente
,” he says, “and our loyal soldiers wish to have a part in it.”

Diosdado raises the field glasses he bought second-hand in Hongkong and can see smoke through the trees, smoke coming from the loopholes in the blockhouse, the hornets’ nest awakened now and responding as the
yanqui
line approaches it, a hail of rifle fire and the sound of at least one Hotchkiss gun and his own men firing their sorry mix of Enfields and Metfords and old Mausers captured from the enemy and the
yanquis
seem confused, caught in between, looking behind and then throwing themselves on their bellies to join in the fight. Diosdado, almost alone in the ditch behind the earthworks, climbs over and strides forward to join his men. He has been given the leftovers to command, Tagalos and Ilocanos and Pampangans and even a few Zambals who volunteered late in the struggle, men who, except for Bayani and Ramos, have never been in combat before. There has been very little shooting in their engagements with the Spanish so far, one starved garrison of fuzz-faced conscripts after another surrendering with only token resistance, the best of their officers and soldiers sent to Cuba. But now there are more bullets flying through the air than he has ever experienced, buzzing and whining and thwacking against the trees and Diosdado breathes deeply and wills himself to appear calm, unconcerned even, as he steps into the lethal, buzzing air in front of the earthworks. His uniform is a target, of course, an officer honor-bound to be the most visible and least intimidated man in any troop, willing to take a greater risk than the private soldiers. He reaches the spot where his men have paused, kneeling behind trees for cover, firing over the
yanquis
at the blockhouse, intently struggling to reload their antiquated weapons, and stands with his hands clasped behind his back as if judging a competition, gazing this way and that as the forest splinters apart around him.

“I’ll remember that pose,” laughs Bayani, sitting on the ground just to his left, leaning his back casually against the thick trunk of a
narra
. “For when they carve your statue.”

Teniente Diosdado Concepción calls out to his troops, trying to keep the anger from shaking in his voice.

“Do not waste your ammunition,” he shouts to them over the rattle and whine of the fight, “and attempt to avoid shooting the
yanquis
in the back!”

There are Spanish firing at them from a thicket of bamboo across from the dirt road that runs parallel to the shore, probably the same men who just abandoned the fort, and Hod is thankful for the trenches they’ve left along the west side of it. He squats with the others, bullets thapping against the low earthworks, and turns when he hears a band playing
Dixie
. Big Ten raises himself up slightly to look.

“It’s our outfit, all right,” he says, ducking back down. “Couple hundred yards back, out in front of the fort.”

“Somebody ought to tell them this isn’t over yet.”

“I’d aim at the tuba, I was them,” says Big Ten, nodding toward the bamboo thicket. “Knock out the heavy artillery first.”

By the time the order comes to eat, the band has retreated back behind the shelter of the fort walls, playing
Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight
. There is only hardtack and canned goldfish that has to be hacked with bayonets out of the tin and whatever is left in their canteens. The salmon stinks like something left on the beach for a week.

“It’s said that the Dagoes holed up in the city all these weeks have been dining on rats,” says Donovan, who is from Lake City by way of Sligo. “And there’s come to be a shortage of those.”

“Maybe we could trade them some of this,” says Thorogood, who was a timberman in the Thespian Mine back in Leadville.

“The divil that ye know,” says Donovan, mashing some of the oily fish onto a slab of sea biscuit and trying to chew it down, “is to be preferred over the divil ye don’t.”

The artillery boys bring up their one-pounders then, wheeled behind a trio of the enormous water buffalo they’ve borrowed from the natives, and begin to blast the thicket. Niles, scanning the bamboo through his binoculars, orders the platoon to fix bayonets and prepare to advance.

“I thought this was in the bag,” says Hod.

The lieutenant puts the field glasses down and turns to address them. “Your Spanish Don is, above all things, a man of honor,” he explains. “Despite the odds, one must keep up appearances.”

“We’ve got to slaughter each other just so’s the Spanish brass don’t get their medals tarnished?”

Manigault smiles. “ ‘Ours is not to reason why.’ ”

The Captain calls down the line, “Skirmish formation, in rushes—move out!” and they are back into it.

Hod scrambles over the wall of dirt and joins the others, nearly trotting now, bayonet catching a glint from the mid-morning sun. The one-pounders are still firing, bamboo shaking and splintering ahead as the shells rip through it and only a few scattered shots coming back at them. Shit, shit, shit, thinks Hod as he hurries toward the thicket, my feet are going to stay wet all day.

There are only a handful of dead men left in the bamboo when they get there, one man missing his head, and the band catches up, playing behind them as they move over the open ground and into the wood-and-thatch buildings at the outskirts of Malate, spreading out five abreast on the Calle Real, turning every few steps to look up at windows and roofs. A few dogs trot away from them, looking back over their shoulders and yipping nervously, and a startled young native girl, pregnant, stands frozen on the steps of a large stone church. They pass a building that from the wall of sandbags out front appears to be the Spanish headquarters in the neighborhood and Major Moses orders the color bearers to decorate it, halting their advance for everybody to watch and cheer. The boys hang the regimental flag out the second-story window and then the Stars and Stripes and the whole 1st Colorado hurrahs together, nearly covering the sound of the sniper fire, bullets whanging in from at least three directions. Phenix, a sharpshooter in Company I who is still wrestling with the banner in the window, takes one in the neck and is carried, writhing and blood-soaked on a stretcher, to the rear.