Chapter 1

One early morning, 13^th of April 1899, in Zamboanga, a peninsula south of Manila, the villagers, the early risers, were walking leisurely along the river Rio Hondo. Along the bank, and they must have seen it almost all together, they saw the carcasses of dead fowls and animals.

            ‘What do you think?’ said the first villager, who awoke before el sol…the sun.

            ‘Maybe the fowls and animals drowned last night,’ said another, standing by the sandy bank, whose house was only a few meters from the river.

‘There was no flood last night,’ a third said. His mind going back to last night: he

did not recall hearing the river rumble and roar, as it does when it floods.

            ‘Verdad,’ said the first, ‘neither did I, ‘pare.’

            ‘Let’s go and find out why the animals and fowls died,’ said the second villager.

The three villagers walked slowly along the sandy bank, on their side of the river, in single file, as village folks do, looking aqui y alla…here and there for carcasses.

            Minutes later, other villagers appeared on a slight slope bordering the riverbank.

            They called at the three villagers, as they pointed toward a slight incline in their village before the hills.

            ‘There are more dead animals and fowls by the water wells,’ they shouted down the slope.

            ‘Have you folks just been there?’ said one of the three villagers, turning his head halfway over his shoulders but kept walking with his two companions, side by side downriver.

            ‘Hó, o, we just came from there….’

            ‘And what did you see?’

            ‘Saw fowls and pigs, there are even dead goats,’ said one running down the slope. He joined the three men. ‘--- must belong to ‘Ñor ‘Tacio. He has the biggest herd there.’   

            ‘That is true.’

            Later walking off some paces, the one, he that had spoken to one of those who had come from the water wells and had joined their company, said, ‘There are goats here too … hó, o, over there.’ Quickly he walked to where he had pointed, hastening his pace past his two other companions.

            Those left on the slope also ran down to join the original trio. Slowing down their running down the slope, to avoid tumbling and rolling down the hill. One said to the first villager, ‘Hoy, Luis … compadre, qué tal?’

            And the others greeted the same villager Luis.

            “How is your cassava growing?” one of them in the new group shouted. “Bigger than comadre’s thighs? Haha ha.”

            Smiles and laughter were exchanged among them.  Obviously, villager Luis who had just come from the water wells on the other side of the hill was an amiable person, and he greeted the group familiarly.

            Indeed, it was true, that there were pigs and goats there, too. But, not one showed signs of drowning: their stomach was not bloated or were the carcasses blackened and full of boils, which did not burst or break out, none truly.

            ‘You’re right, hombre,’ said the second villager to the one who told them there was no flood. ‘.… did not hear the river rumble or roar. The dead animals or fowls definitely did not drown.”

            On the sandy beach there were now nearly a dozen men, and looking in confusion at the carcasses. Someone said, ‘Dios mio, ampara ya lang!   My God, protect us!’

            And the others repeated what he said,‘Hó, o, ampara ya lang…!’

            Later, satisfied with what they had seen, all went back to their houses, of nipa palms, shaking their heads and still wondering if the animals, dogs, goats, and pigs, and chickens and ducks really had not drowned. Then what caused their death?

            So, with this mystery on their minds, and very much puzzled and dithered, they told their wives and children not to bathe in the river nor drink from the pozos.

            The women complained that it was their washday. It cannot be just put aside, like that. And, also, the kids did not want to dismiss their swimming in the river. The very hard-headed ones were the young boys, who bitterly complained against giving up their fishing-day.

            ‘But mama,’ one said, ‘… we had planned to go fishing a long time already, there at the promontory of  the rio, where it’s quite deep. Saw plenty of capalo and mudfish there the other day.”

            One woman told her marido that she had to fill their water jars. “I wasn’t able to fill our water jar yesterday, since I was doing a lot of other things. Really, should have done it yesterday.    

            Concerned and cautious, her husband warned her the water might be unsafe. “But get water for washing only, not for drinking.”

            But she had no intention doing what her husband warned her. “Maybe,” she told herself, “if I just get a little for drinking…it won’t do much harm to anyone. If only a little…” she would just get enough for today’s drinking water.

            So, that was what she did, she got water for washing and little drinking water.

            Nothing bad happened to the working animals in the mountain. There the kaingineros …swidden farmers sowed and plowed their corn field. No one in the family got sick of the “up and down” sickness, unlike those living near the rivers and took their water from the water wells.

            Before midday of that same day, from the houses near the river could be heard shouts and screams, “Ay, my son. What is happening to you?”

            From the next house, a mother shrieks, “Why is my son’s eyes rolling up in their sockets? Is my baby dying? Dead already!”

            “What’s happening with the children?” their husbands queried.

            Only one reply the mothers had for their husband: “They’re moving-moving their bowels…and vomiting, it’s ‘up and down.’”

            About this time, too, the villagers saw some rice-field workers and farmers coming home. They were not the swidden  farmers, but those from the savanna and plains near the plaza of Zamboanga and its Fortaleza. There most had their rice fields to take care of.

            They had only one complain: unbearable stomach ache, uncontrollable discharge of feces and vomiting, “arriba y abajo” gastro-enteritis. Thus they were running home, or else discharge fluids into the bottom of their pants.

            The “arriba y abajo” sickness was worse. especially in the sitios and barrios near the Fort Pilar, like Santa Barbara and Santa Catalina and down in Magay. There was so much suffering in these barrios.

            What surprised the townsfolks was why in Tetuan barrio, which bordered Santa Barbara, actually an invisible pencil-thin line separating them, no folks were sick.  

            After one week, the barrios of Magay and Santa Catalina and Santa Barbara---we forgot mentioning earlier the barrio of Rio Hondo, which was the closest to the Fortaleza, started to smell and stink. As the carcasses of animals and fowls were rotting already. And there were villagers dying, the least two kids and a young man who was boasting his virility, macho, the day previous. All were from Rio Hondo.

            A curious worker in the salt mines of Talon-Talon, about a kilometer away of the plaza, asked if there were reports of dying in the Spanish camps.

            “There are sick ones,” the woman replied, who washed the uniforms of the Spanish soldiers. “But there are no dead in the Fort.”

            “Why is that maybe?”

            “Maybe the Spaniards are protected by he Virgin of the Pillar.”

            “That’s all foolishness. We’re all the same in the eyes of God.” Then, “What did you hear, washerwoman?”

            “That there was a message. I just don’t know from whom. That the soldiers there shouldn’t drink water from wells outside the Fort or river.”

            “What?”

            “Not to drink water from water wells in the barrios…”

            “Na, where will they get water for drinking?”

            “Ay, you didn’t know, ‘sir.” A little laughter deepened the furrows in her face.

            “I don’t know.”

            “The Spaniards have their own water well in the Fort; before the chapel. And there only should they get water para beber…for drinking “

            “Ay.”

            “Indeed, that’s what I heard,” said the washerwoman.

            “They’re just talks. Nothing but rumors.”

            “You were the one who asked me, sir. I just replied to you.”

            “Oo, o.”

            After the villagers around the fortified area and the Fort counted the dead and the sick of “arriba y abajo,” and examined them, discovering that some boils covering the bodies did not burst and the carcasses were piling up along the sandy beach --- they assumed it was not just ‘arriba y abajo’ gastro-enteritis. It could be even worse. Indeed, suspected that it was not just dysentery. With those signs, nothing else but the cholera plague.

            The plague was not a stranger in the Zamboanga Peninsula. Once every six-eight cyclical years the grim death visited the town of Zamboanga and its plaza. The most recent, in which hundreds died inside a few weeks.

            So, if you compare with that of the past cholera plague, there, really, was no comparison.

            But there were some of them who did not completely agree.

            “If that is indeed la plaga…the plague, why are the animals and fowls dying, too?”

            “Oo,o,” said the man whose little daughter died just a few days past.

            “And my son, God have mercy on his soul!  no marks, which you could say are those of the plague. That’s not my observation, neighbors, but my grandfather’s. He survived the last one.”

            “And that’s also what my father said,” another villager consented. “From the beginning yet, you can already see that it is not la plaga of 1893. Because, he said, that time so many had died quickly, everywhere were the dead in the village. They had not finished burning the mounds of corpses, another new mound waited to be burnt.”

            “You’re saying, and you too, mister, that now we can’t yet tell convincingly what this sickness is…if dysentery only or the plague, indeed.”

            “That is the truth.”

            Since there was no definite conclusion the cause of the deaths of people and animals and fowls, the folks decided they would just pray to their saints, especially the patron saint of the town, La Immaculada Concepcion,  and to the pagan gods, too, of their ancestors.    

            “Take care of us, Virgin Mary,” they implored. “All the saints in heaven pray for us. And gulay, our ancestors’ god, protect us from the evil spirits.”  

Chapter 2

            On the night of April 6, 1899, Samal fishermen spotted over a dozen steam gunboats and a merchant vessel at Basilan Straight. These vessels were remnants of Admiral Montojo’s Spanish Armada the American Commodore George Dewey destroyed in Manila Bay, December of last year.

            The steam gunboats and a merchant vessel Butuan were waiting for theu.s. ship Pietrol to take them to Manila, where vanquished Spanish forces waited for expatriation to Spain.

            More frightened than awed, one of the Samal fishermen ran quick-legged to General Tenorio and told him of the presence of the steam gunboats, who right away formed a raiding team. He placed field commander Major Melanio Marquez head of the raiding team, with Don Eduardo Salas, secretary general, the highest civil official of the revolution, second in command.

            And so, in broad daylight the major and Don Salas snatched the Spanish steam gunboats and merchant vessel Butuan from Basilan Straight and towed them to the rebel port of Masinloc, where their entire cargos of ordnance were unloaded. Since the rebels did not have any petrol and a crew to operate them, they towed the  empty gunboats and merchant vessel back to Basilan Straight. In the afternoon of that same day, on rebel sailing canoes, the hijacked ordnance was taken from Masinloc through Tumaga river and down its tributary Tugbungan to the rebel headquarters in Santa Maria.

            The captured cargo and ordnance were being unloaded on the riverbank of the barrio, and at the same time covered with canvasses to protect them from the weather. General Tenorio himself had supervised the unloading. Besides Major Marquez, two other officials, Don Salas and administrator Salvador Noche, were assisting. Briefly, he checked that the ordnance was all perfectly covered with the canvasses. He said to them:

            ‘In the meanwhile, we will keep the ordnance here, before moving them to our advance headquarters in Santa Barbara. Here they will be safe from the warships Ohio and Cavite.’ The two u.s. warships were patrolling the waters from Tictauan Channel, to Masinloc Anchorage and the bocana of Masinloc and the interior village of Mulumuluan.

            Marquez lowered his head toward the captured ordnance; a sort of pleasant expression arced in the corners of his mouth. He was particularly elated, for nowhere in the entire country had Filipino rebels captured a single Spanish steam gunboat. Yet, here they were with thirteen, not three or four, gunboats, with its incredible loot of ordnance. He did not even lose a single insurrecto in the hijacking. Although, we could not say the same buen suerte with the Spaniards, who lost one of their Spanish navy men shot dead with the bullet going right through his chest.  One of our regular troopers from the Zamboangueño Voluntarios had shot him at point-blank range.

            While Marquez was reporting the morning’s hijacking, the General gazed at the newly unloaded ordnance along the riverbank. He could feel his chest heave and swell with pride, uncontrollable joy.

            ‘I can see why you are so… so exhilarated, major,’ said Tenorio, as pleats of rapture twinkled outwardly from the corners of his eyes like cobwebs. ‘Haha-ha. This is just what we need: all these guns and ammo. I am even thinking that with these so many captured weapons, not just because of those threateningu.s. warships along our coasts … maybe, just maybe we should advance the schedule of our main assault; attack the Fort, say, first week of May?’

            Nobody gave an immediate reply. Such serious change needed more time to decide. Instead, Major Marquez said:

            ‘The Voluntario soldier, General, the one who shot the Spanish marine ... perhaps we should, sabes tu    you know---’

            ‘Ah, of course. Let us give the soldier a medal for valor … as an excellent example to boast the morale of our men,’ said General Tenorio. ‘Si, si, sin duda     without doubt … he should be honored and awarded.’

            Abruptly, the General walked back to his old headquarters, with the secretary general right behind him. This left the administrative officer Noche with Major Marquez. On the wet bank, some soldiers were going about checking if they had missed anything, a rifle or a box of ammo which they had missed covering with canvasses.

            Seconds passed after the pair left, and suddenly Noche perked up as one jolted and wakes up in an unfamiliar place. Right away, he rushed toward his office; so fast that he quickly overtook the secretary general and General Tenorio himself. Before either man reached the steps of the headquarters, Noche was entering his office.

            Inside Noche found what he was looking for, the form for commendation and award. Just as he was emerging from its door, a plumed pen in one hand and the commendation form in the other, General Tenorio and Don Salas, having stepped into the headquarters, crossed the narrow hall. Noche halted before the pair. 

            ‘---the Voluntario told us he had no “intention” to shoot at the Spanish marine,’ Salas was confidentially saying to the general.

            Noche handed the award form to General Tenorio.

            ‘Exactly what he also told me ...’ said Noche. ‘He said he would get the soldier’s name from his commander later, that would be Major Marquez himself.’

            General Tenorio pressed the paper under his palm against the wall of the hall, signed somewhere below the form, and returned it to Noche. 

            ‘... objected when his companions called him “un héroe”    “a hero,”’ Salas was saying. ‘Nobody would think he was serious, recounting the incident; saying the Spanish sailor just happened to be standing at end of his gun barrel.’ 

            A brief laughter from both, Haha-ha.

            ‘Must be a humble man,’ said Don Tenorio.

            ‘A mere farmer up north in barrio Bolong,’ said Don Salas.

            ‘Did you say he told you he had “nuay intención”…?’

            ‘Perdón, General …’ said Noche, glancing at the commendation form. Indeed, the General had signed it.

            ‘Muy bien, muy bien,’ General Tenorio said to Don Salas, but Noche thought the General was dismissing him, and started back to his office. 

            A silent lapse as General Tenorio reflected on the Voluntario’s shooting dead the Spanish marine. Along his upper lip he ran the tip of his tongue, musing, and like an afterthought, went on, ‘It does not matter … give him a medal, as … a model for our men --- un heroé, sin duda     a hero, no doubt.’

            In his office, Noche completed the commendation form. General Tenorio alone went back to the riverbank.

            He examined the captured ordnance again, in awe of their beauty, reveling their devastating power and capacity, and destructive muscle in war. The rifles and high-caliber guns were now covered with canvasses; although he noticed some half-covered protruding barrels and exposed wheels of the machine guns and cannons. There was a lack of big canvasses to cover all the hijacked weapons. At the foreground were maybe a dozen boxes of ammunition and unlike the ordnance canvasses entirely covered them. You could only tell something was under them by the swelling they made underneath them.

            ‘There is enough artillery here to take the plaza and the Fort of Zamboanga ... thrice their sizes,’ said General Tenorio, looking up a bit at Major Marquez. Although slightly over the regular height of the mestizos in the island, the General was some two-three inches shorter than the major was, a man so tall at an age when six-footers were rare that the natives had to raise their chin when speaking to him. ‘Hó, o; and stop even the Norte Americano forces, si, si.’

            ‘Excluding those cannons, repeat rifles, and ammunition boxes,’ said Major Marquez, ‘there were two boxes of money, in paper bills, very few coins ...’

‘---And you also…’ General Tenorio said; his eyes widened, heavy eyelids sliding upward.

            ‘No-no, General, we did not take ni un centimes ... told ourselves that we were not thieves but insurrectos fighting for freedom and liberty against oppressive Spanish masters.’

            ‘I see …’

            ‘There were some boxes of medicine, too,’ said Don Salas, who had followed the General a minute later. He went to the spot where they were and tapped a hand over the lump of boxes. ‘The usual first-aid issued to soldiers in the battle field … what we need, surely.’

            ‘And you took them, of course …’

            ‘Si, si, General Tenorio.’ Major Marquez responded, without hesitation. ‘No military general would have resisted the temptation … if he is concerned with his wounded.’

            ‘I see … well done, gentlemen.’

            Instead of returning to his headquarters as the officers and his suite expected, General Tenorio once more walked to the half-covered ordnance. Uncovering two artillery pieces with a flap of the canvass, he rubbed his hands gently over their barrels. He pressed his lips shut, as his eyes were. A pleasant and happy countenance shone above them; just like a triumphant kid with the other boys’ stolen toys This will make a big difference, he thought, and may decide finally the outcome of our war. I do not doubt it.

....

            For the first months of that year, starting January, the Zamboanga Indio (a terrible geographical slip-up of the Portuguese explorer Magellan, who thought was in India, not weighing anchor in a southeast string of islands dubbed Las Islas de Felipenas by the Spanish colonists later) rebels had been harassing the Spaniards in the plaza and the Fort. General Gueremon Tenorio y Imbing led the Zamboanga Indios. He was a second- generation progeny in the union of Roberto Tenorio and Aurora Torres, the first official marriage between a native Zamboangueña mestiza and a Spanish official: about past mid-19^th century. Don Roberto was the governor and commander of the fort of La Fuerza Real de Santa Catalina. Half a century later, the Spaniards rebuilt it and renamed the fort Nuestra Señora dela Immaculada Concepción. They closed east gate permanently. To honor her intervention against the forces of nature and a Moro pirate assault, old folks say, the garrison commandant placed an icon of our Lady of the Immaculate Conception on top of wall of the gate.

            For close to four centuries Spain ruled these some 7,000 Southeast Asia islands in the Pacific, named after the king of Spain of that name, Islas de Felipenas. She ruled with a mighty hard and cruel hand, no less despotic than the other European colonial powers in other parts of the world then. But her most tyrannical and autocratic rulers were the friars. In fact, Zamboanga, like other Filipino pueblos, would not have revolted so fiercely and urgently, said a rebel officer. If not for those cabritos friars, quién sabe   who knows? Perhaps another half century would come and go before we rose in rebellion against mother Spain.

            The Spanish colonials would severely punish an Indio for a very small infraction. Very soon after his offense, civil guards would confiscate all his crops, leaving nothing for his family. In addition, he had to pay compulsory tribute in the cruelest form, and, of course, an annual forced labor service, called polo, to the Church.

            The Indio must always be alerto    alert for any Spanish personages he might meet along the way to his work or farm. Because if he missed taking off his hat, and kneeling on the ground on one knee, kissed the friar’s or a minor official’s ring or hand, asking for his blessing, the Indio was threatened with a life-time punishment: as rower of a Spanish galley ship, or to a Christian a worse one, excommunication. For, in spite of it all, the dull, lazy Indio was bien religioso    very religious.

            Without the hijacked ordnance, the heavy-caliber guns, hundreds of repeat rifles, and lots and lots of ammunition --- Don Gueremon would not attempt, even think of attempting to crush the fortified area and capture the Fort. How he knew, through the course of his own ancestors’ history, that no Moslem pirates or foreign power, like the Dutch, German, or British had ever succeeded in seizing the Fort. Only twice, really, was it threatened and nearly overran: first, by local infidel forces of over 4,000 Moro pirates, who had stormed it from the sea with hundreds and hundreds of their native war canoes, the fast salisipans and many-tiered garays, in 1720. Second, in 1798 by a British naval force, which actually took it, but could not hold it for the next hour and had abandoned the Fort reluctantly.

            But with the new captured ordnance, ay, General Tenorio was confident things would be different. He was going to change the status of Spanish invincibility. It would be an irony if he succeeded. His ancestors, on both sides, after all, Indio and Spanish nobles, were builders and defenders of the Fort, the citadel of Christianity in the south.

             Jesús, Mariá, y José! but freedom and equality are more precious possessions than a pile of coral rocks and limestones.

Chapter 3

            Before the end of April, the malodorous smell of rotting flesh of animals and fowls became unbearable. The fetid odor and putrefaction stormed the villages around the Spanish fortified area and the Fort, but the number of deaths of villagers had neither tapered nor fortunately ballooned.

            Still Tenorio decided to find out the cause: was it dysentery, cholera, cosa    what?

            The General had waved off taking any bodyguards, but Don Salas insisted. ‘It is only appropriate, not just for security reasons,’ he said.

            ‘Coño to what’s “appropriate,”’ said Tenorio, much more heatedly than he intended.

            ‘For your safety… it’s only normal for a dignitary, no less the highest in Zamboanga,’ said Salas, and realizing he was repeating himself to this stubborn and selfless man, lowered his voice; he did not wish to  sound brusque, to this man he respected most, more than anyone.

            General Tenorio stood silent before his desk, uncertain whether to wear his uniform for the inspection trip. Thus, he unfolded his uniform on the back of the chair, then folded it back carefully, and taking more time the next, he hang it over his armless chair.

            ‘No security is going to hound us in all our movements,’ said General Tenorio. ‘If I had many times walked without bodyguards in this land before, under several Spanish fort commanders, how do you think it would look now with a scrap of soldiers eagerly following us behind? … everywhere!’ He did not add, nor say this How proud and honorable were my uncles and grandfather Don Roberto Tenorio, the fort commander, who saw not the color of grandmother Aurora’s pigmentation ... or had her beauty dazzled his eyes and made him color blind?  Hahaha.

            When he married her, the second Spanish noble to do so here, the first being great-grandfather General Innocencio Torres to Sigbe Gumabon, there was no prouder woman in Mindanao.  Indeed, how proud great-grandmother was that when the sultan of Lobon called her ‘sultana’… she said: ‘I am sorry my Uncle, but I have to refuse your offer as “sultana,” because the good Jesuit fathers will not wish that I give up my new Christian faith....’ How proudly she had responded.

            Now, Secretary General Salas said,’ I am not being finicky or nervous, Don Tenorio. ‘But I smell something foul, more foul than the rotting odor of carcasses.’ 

            ‘I will look like a scared old spinster afraid of her own shadow, Don Salas. Do you not think so, hah?’

            ‘Ah, General, not your shadow,’ said Don Salas. ‘Other shadows are lurking that you do not wish to meet, in broad daylight or in the dark.’

            ‘You are becoming paranoid, querido, suspicious of everyone and everything,’ said General Tenorio. ‘We will be inutile if we listen to all these intrigues, chismes, which always infest any organization, be it civil or military. Ah, especially great movements like our own revolution.’

            ‘But at least take a dozen, half a dozen men, from  your own special unit or from Major Marquez’ Zamboangueño Voluntario company,’ insisted Don Salas.  ‘If that alcalde from Cabonegro could go about with scores of security tagging along, no less like the king of Mexico, I do not see why the overall commander of this revolution cannot take half a dozen bodyguards along, ay!’

            He of course was right, was not just being nervioso or paranoid.

            Don Salas took a step toward the back of the chair, on which the General’s uniform was folded still. A strong impulse swept through him to unfold and put it on the General, but instinct told him Don Tenorio would refuse, might even resent it. Would he not think he was being too presumptuous?

            ‘Will you not wear your uniform, Don Tenorio?’ he asked.

            ‘We are going to inspect civilian barrios to find out the real cause of the deaths of animals and villagers,’ he replied; ‘not the same thing like military inspection of our troops, no?’

            ‘But you are putting yourself in danger of ... you know. And the people need you,’ said Don Salas. ‘You are the only one who they believe can free them from Spanish tyrannical rule …and free them from the friars’ whims and caprices. Indeed, make them free men again.’

            ‘No one is indispensable,’ said General Tenorio. ‘If I cannot feel safe among them, Don Salas, I may as well resign as their leader.’

            Don Salas made no reply, retreated to his table, and remained silent a long while. He was sulking and was not speaking with his general, staring blankly at the tabletop.  

            ‘All right, all right, if you insist,’ the General finally relented. ‘Take half a dozen guards from the Zamboangueño Voluntarios … si si, muy bien    yes, all right.’

            So, now, the two of them rode to the southern part of Santa Barbara, called ‘lower’ Santa Barbara by old folk. As usual, General Gueremon rode on his favorite caballo blanco    white horse. Voluntario guards accompanied them.

            In an hour, they were on its sandy bank waiting for a passing sailing-vinta    canoe. They saw one on its way downriver, which they took.

            All by himself on the stern was the vinta-owner, who took off his wide-brimmed buri straw hat upon recognizing General Tenorio and Don Salas, but did not say a word. In place of greeting ‘buenas dias, señores’ ... for it was not noon yet ... he bowed his head and placed the buri hat over his chest. Don Salas nodded, and the vinta-owner continued to paddle down river.

            One of the three bodyguards picked up an extra paddle by his feet and started rowing, while the other two kept their rifles across their laps. There was little wind, not enough even to slap the sail. It remained wrapped tight around its bamboo mast. It was the last month of the dry season, when there was hardly any rain and wind.

            Before long they sailed into the mangrove swamps, and a wee bit beyond was the marshland, since they could now see land, instead of water all around them.

            On each side of the banks, spidery-like mangrove prop roots grew taller than two men. Not a few twisted and deformed prop roots grew tall as a Samal’s nipa   palm-thatched hut, which stood on stilts of spindly sticks along the southern and eastern coastlines. Fugitives and escapees from the Spanish Fort and penal colony, north-west of the island, hid inside the giant prop roots from pursuing Spanish civil guards and naval patrol.

            Farther down was a phalanx of tall trees with gnarled straight trunks, which were almost bare of hanging branches. Like matted walls, they screened the woods and the forest behind them and in some parts downriver, the straight tree trunks completely hid the green woodland from view. A little way back of the riverbank, aqui y alla     here and there, were thick vines and endless climbers. From the branches of the trees, they fell massive and unbroken, like an enormous natural curtain. Sometimes, as the canoe sailed on, they would catch a glimpse of bunches of wild orchids clinging to the wet, moss-carpeted, gnarled branches. In the dense and morbid atmosphere, the wild orchids bloomed amidst the climbers and under the canopy of wild foliage.

            Once they reached the spot where the river became wide and deep, coming closer to the bocana    mouth of a river, the sailing-canoe abruptly lurched forward and gained speed. Here the current grew strong and swift and when it slowed down they saw several houses along the riverbanks; they did not see a single villager still. The houses looked empty.      

            They went on. It was not until half past one in the afternoon when they saw their first villager, a woman fetching water from a well, not too far from the orchard, where General Tenorio and his party had taken shelter from the caliente sol    hot sun.

            At first, the woman would not take them to her house. She was hiding something but would not tell them what it was. The small child with her kept pulling at her skirt, all the while she shook her head and was hesitant to show them the way to her home. Until General Tenorio himself spoke, she remained adamant.

            She explained that she had not right away recognized him: perdón, mucho perdón, General Tenorio … since she had expected to see him in a military uniform. Before her house, she further explained why she had refused to take them to her house.

            ‘I was afraid you may also catch la plaga,’ she said.

            ‘La plaga?’

            ‘Si, si, honorable General.’

            ‘Wait, wait,’ said Don Tenorio; ‘we are not too sure yet?’

            ‘Mi marido and the children…’ she said. ‘They have not stopped vomiting “up and down.”’

            ‘Let us see … come, mujer, and take us into your house,’ said General Tenorio.

            Inside, they saw a man, likely her husband, and several children between the ages of five to ten years of age. They lay on the bamboo floor, in the midst of their own vomit and loose excrement, exhibiting different paroxysms of unrelieved excruciating pain. Apparently, the woman had not swept the vomit and feces away before leaving the house.

            With keen eyes, but without overt signs what he was doing, General Tenorio examined the waste and vomit: boiled rice, watercress vegetables, and pieces of dried fish, all undigested. Air around fouled of food in the first stage of fermentation, and globules and froth on the surface of the undigested food coño    cunt!

            At one end of the room, a small body, the size of a child of four, but with the features of a ten-year-old, wrapped tight in an old rag. Through a small opening, his small head protruded with a mop of hair, wet and dark, was plastered on it with his own vomit.

            Is the child already dead? Who has the stomach to do this estrago   horror? General Tenorio noticed there were no telltale signs of cholera    la plaga: the rice-like vomit, the arms and legs unblackened or unbluish, and most assuring there was no presence of boils, boils that would not break.

            Before they left, the General warned the woman to stop fetching water from the posoz    water wells or any other source of drinking water hole along the riverbank.

            ‘Si, si, General; pero por qué?

            ‘Pues, you and your neighbors … is it in the same water well where they got their drinking water?’

            ‘Indeed, honorable General, everyone drinks from it, from the pozo.’

            ‘We suspect the water is foul,’ said General Tenorio, ‘...  contaminated.  It is not the dreaded plague, woman, if that is a consolation.’

….

            Down farther they crossed a bridge into barrio Santa Barbara. The farther away they got from Rio Hondo and the Fort and closer to Cabonegro barrio of Aldalde Artang --- less and less malodorous was the decaying smell and putrefaction. In addition, they now rarely saw even decaying carcasses along the riverbanks. Farther up north, the foul smell diminished and no folk wee reported stricken with the ‘arriba y abajo’ vomiting at the border of barrio Cabonegro.

            Now General Tenorio was certain what caused the ‘arriba y abajo’ vomiting. ‘Let us return to our headquarters, Don Salas. I have seen enough, more than enough ….’ and he shuddered recalling the odiousness he saw in Rio Hondo, and rotten carcasses along the riverbanks of Santa Barbara.

            ‘Yes, yes; General Tenorio. I think it is something else; definitely not la plaga … gracias a Dios    thank the Lord.’

            The General ran the tip of his tongue round his lips. He believed he knew the person responsible for it, the doer of this cruel, hideous thing. For only one man, he knew was so ambitious and heartless.

            ‘Have you not noticed that only at the border of Cabonegro and its neighboring sitios that there was not a single victim of the ‘arriba y abajo’ vomiting? And definitely the next barrio, of Alcalde Artang’s … barrio Tugbungan?’

            ‘You think, Don Tenorio, the river and pozos have been poisoned, polluted!’

            ‘Not only do I think … of course, there could be no other conclusion,’ said General Tenorio. ‘The thing is who did it?’ General Tenorio drew back the tip of his tongue from his lips, and was silent. Then he went on: ‘... Not the Spaniards, definitely, only a stupid and suicidal person will do that to himself. And General Grado is neither stupid nor suicidal … are you able to follow what I am saying, Don Salas?’

            ‘You mean, you suspect Mayor Laureano Artang of poisoning the waters?’ said Don Salas.

‘---Well, you have said it,’ Tenorio broke off.

Chapter 4

            The Zamboangueño rebel advance headquarters was in Santa Barbara, which bordered the swamps and marshland of Rio Hondo, south, and Santa Catalina, to the east, and farther on still eastward the salt works of Talon-Talon, and up northeast was a long, wide border of the barrio of Tugbungan. Down southwest was Magay, a coastline ancestral Moro village of Rajah Muda Hassan, on his maternal side. Finally, down south were the palisade, fortified area and the Fort. 

            General Tenorio stood before the window, the one facing the Fort. His eyes darted toward it, although it was too far for bare eyes to see clearly. What is more, between the advance headquarters and the Fort were the cluster of Samal and Subanon houses, not as large as the Old Community of the Subanons and Lutaos in the barrio of Magay. Orchards and woods extended westward through Santa Barbara The Fort itself and the fortified area lay on a declivity on the southern coast which expanded toward the east and the wet lands of Rio Hondo.

            The horror and abomination of the foulness, and ‘arriba y abajo’ vomit and defecation afflicting the barrios and sitios, mostly in the south and east, was still fresh on his mind, just three days after their inspection on April 23.

            He believed only one man was capable of doing it …. Thus, he called this conference of both the revolutionary military and civil staffs. 

            At this moment, he heard voices and footsteps approaching the head of the stairs, and growing louder and louder now. Quickly, he turned and walked away from the window, halting in the middle of the room. It seemed he had changed his mind to meet the military officers and civil officials at the door. Instead, he sat at the conference table, where he would rather wait for them.

            First to enter was Major Melanio Marquez and his staff, followed by Captain Macario Morales, Don Salas, secretary general, administrator Salvador Noche, and members of his cabinet Luis Macrohon, Vicente Rivera, Manuel Tarroza, and other minor officers and officials. The last to enter the conference room was Laureano Artang, alcalde of barrio Cabonegro, prime suspect of poisoning the rivers and pozos.

            A week before, to be sure of Alcalde Artang’s attendance, the General personally wrote informing him that his presence was vital and important. Now that he was here and found out why he had to come, what por Dios y por santo would be his reaction?  Truly, he would feel he had been tricked to come.

            At this point, he suspected nothing, nada y nada … why the conference was called, which we know had to do with the dead fowls and animals, and deaths of two-three villagers, and of course the ‘arriba y abajo’ vomiting.

            They sat around a wooden table, its mahogany planks, wide as a big man’s broad shoulders, taken from Don Tenorio’s land. Mayor Artang sat alone opposite General Tenorio at the other end of the table; with him was Administrator Noche holding a plumed pen with both hands on the tabletop.  A sheet of paper lay flat in front of him on the wooden plank, ready to receive pen and ink, so he would not miss anything in the conference.

            In the meanwhile, Alcalde Artang was restless. Somehow, he sensed something was not right. He was neither sitting nor standing at the table, like one undecided whether to leave or stay behind. Had he made a mistake coming here? he must be thinking. He should have remained in his barrio.

            Slowly, General Tenorio swiveled his head from one to the other side of the table, until his gaze fell on Mayor Artang quite abruptly I may as well say it, thought General Tenorio. I gain nothing by wasting time. Artang in a while might then suspect why I had written him a personal letter and sending not just one adjutant, but several ... as if it was not just a letter they were taking to him but a proclamation.

            Si, si; Don Artang may now ask himself why so much importance was given to his attending this conference. For that is what the Cabonegro alcalde will call it, an ‘attendance’ ... always manifests, when you tweaked his vanity, that he does not take orders from anyone, not even from the General himself. Pues, he said, fast, without hesitation:

            ‘You do not have to deny or admit it, Alcalde Don Laureano Artang. But only you can have the callousness and unfeeling of poisoning the rivers, the pozos    water wells, and even canals of our barrios in Rio Hondo, and Santa Catalina and the sitios around them,’ said General Tenorio. ‘As well as the canals and moat of the fortified area and the Fort. Unfortunately, they flow into the old community … and into Magay, too, through the river of Santa Maria. But why, Mayor Artang?’ he asked. ‘Do you want to poison our people, too … not just the Spaniards?’

            Obviously surprised and dithered, his face flushing, since Don Artang had not expected such brusque rebuke, much less delivered before the other officials and General Tenorio’s suite. He rolled the balls of his elbows on the tabletop, unable to speak a while, but recovering fast he ceased rolling them on the mahogany plank. Gradually the flush color disappeared from his dark face.

            ‘It had to be done, Don Gueremon,’ said the mayor of barrio Cabonegro; addressing the General by his first name What is he trying to do, thought General Tenorio, show his disrespect? ‘The Spaniards, in spite of months of skirmishes and our harassing their breastworks and the fortified area have not grown weaker,’ said Alcalde Artang ‘… just the opposite. They have grown stronger every day. On the other hand, our men are restless, unmotivated, and some had abandoned their detachments and returned to their farms and villages.’ 

            Mayor Artang withdrew his elbows from the tabletop, and standing up straightened his back stiffly like a rod. ‘I heard there were not a few Deportados and Zamboangueño Voluntarios, who returned to the Fort, to join their former company again and fight us,’ he went on. ‘They have lost heart … in particular the artillery. They are grumbling. Until we captured the pieces of artillery and repeat-rifles from the Spanish steam gunboats’ --- lifting his eyes and sweeping them toward Captain Morales --- ‘all the artillery we had were Moro lantakas and a few heavy-caliber guns that General Sophez himself gave us … ironically to defend the Fort from Moro pirates and the Norte Americano forces, not from us ....’  A pause. ‘We all know that those lantakas as cannons are nothing but noisemakers.’

            There was no love lost between Morales and the mayor, who thought the former was uncultured, vulgar, being a former convict in San Ramon penal colony and later at the Fort itself. To him whether Morales was a common criminal or a political prisoner did not make a difference. With his prejudice against the captain, it made no difference. In fact, he long before concluded that Captain Morales was not just an impulsive petty criminal but also a sadistic murderer.

            Furthermore, just quite recently, Alcalde Artang took it as personal affront when Morales objected openly to the mayor’s demand that a part of the hijacked ordnance, particularly the cannons, and swivel guns, and Remington repeat-rifles should be placed in his barrio. ‘For strategic reason,’ he had said.

            Captain Morales had argued. ‘You did not even lift a finger for those captured repeat-rifles and cannons. Now you want them as if part of your loot ...? Madre de Dios! As chief of our artillery, I strongly object to the transfer of single cannon to barrio Cabonegro.’

            ‘If you think you do not need me,’ Alcalde Artang had responded, ‘very well … keep those guns and cannons, and fight the Spaniards alone!’ At the same time, the mayor had stood up from the table and rushed to the door to leave. Don Salas had restrained him by putting an arm round the mayor’s shoulder.

            To appease him and preserve their solidness, other officers reminded Alcalde Artang that their alliance was vital to the victory of the Zamboangueño revolution against Spanish colonists. Moreover, General Tenorio’s suite poured more praises and adulations at him. They knew that the vain and proud alcalde had a weakness for them: his insatiable love for parades and the sounds of cymbals and bugles blowing.

            Captain Morales, now, half stood from his chair, glancing around. It was just as if he were seeking the support of his fellow-officers to face his accuser, him that moved away a few paces from his end of the table but no farther than the next officer there. But  those who knew the captain were aware that he would say what was on his mind, with or without anyone’s support or encouragement. Having a mind of his own, he often showed it that he was called ‘un viejo cabrito’    ‘an old goat,’ though in his early thirties. ‘Speak for yourself and your men, alcalde,’ said Captain Morales sternly; ‘you have no right flinging unfounded, groundless accusations. You have insulted my men so unjustly.  Hó, o, unless you have proof … I suggest that the honorable alcalde from barrio Cabonegro cease wagging his tongue. Or like a snake, draw it in …’

            ‘Culebra!   Snake!’ screamed Mayor Artang, stung.

            Its sly insidious insinuation not lost to him, not at all. Uncontrollably, he quaked in everyone’s presence.  His hands shook so much he had to clench them into fists. In that instant they thought he was going to strike the captain, or demand an apology from him or else.... But he did neither. Unclenching his fists, he shouted, ‘Are you eluding that …’

            Captain Morales said nothing. He had no proof that the mayor was a treacherous man, snake-like; though, indeed, none of the General’s officers and his suite trusted him. Indeed, thought of him being a snake in their midst, so the allusion to the treacherous reptile.

            ‘Rayo!’ cried Alcalde Artang, restraining himself from completely releasing his wrath, thinking to himself: Hijo de grand puta madre!   Son of the biggest mother-whore! Who does this ex-convict think he is? If it were not for General Sophez who pardoned him and made him captain of the Deportados to fight the Moros and to keep ’peace and order’ in the plaza ... and, irony of all ironies, against outlaws and rebels --- the braggart will still be languishing in a cell at the Fort!

            ‘When the morale of the our troops is affected,’ Alcalde Artang said then, ‘and the enemy’s forces are getting stronger, anyone can criticize and speak his mind … para bien de la revolución,’ said he in the native tongue Chabacano, crude Spanish, seldom used in public. For Castellano was the first language of the oppressed colonials as it was of the Spanish colonists and the aristocracy.

            In all the digression, General Tenorio had not forgotten the poisoning of the river and pozos    water wells.  He recalled the fetid odor and the recent deaths of one-two children, and a villager, and his anger and loathing of the alcalde of Cabonegro returned swift as flash flood; a hand involuntarily raised and jabbed the air, and before falling back to his side, he was already saying:

            ‘Criticizing and faultfinding of our troops is what is “demoralizing”! I vehemently differ with your uncalled for denunciations, Don Laureano. Your saying that our artillery has no more will to fight, that the men are discontent and grumbling, and have returned to their former units under Spanish command. With what weapons they had during our campaign early this year, and before the hijacking of the thirteen Spanish steam gunboats with all its ordnance, with all those “noise-makers” as you call them,’ he reminded Alcalde Artang, ‘I’d say they had done quite well, no, excellently well! For those “noise makers” had discouraged the Spanish troopers from leaping out of their trenches and launching a full blown assault against us,  our men in Santa Barbara, Santa Catalina, and barrio Magay, as well as your barrio of Cabonegro,’ he said, ‘would have been in deep trouble and in constant risk of being overrun by the Spaniards.’ He spoke as if in one single breath he wished to empty his whole anger and aversion of this man. General Tenorio heaved his chest and breathed heavily: indeed, he was trying to say so much all at one time.

            ‘Coño, “noise-makers,” indeed!’ General Tenorio cried. ‘But I don’t discount the two iron cannons and a dozen repeat-rifles Major Marquez here received from General Adolfo Sophez himself.’ Here a wry smile marked his face before he went on: ‘... Received from Sophez himself to defend the plaza from the infidel Moros, and I recall him saying that he organized the Deportados and the Voluntarios in order to keep ‘public order’… his exact words.  I believe that was second week of January. What irony, do you not think so gentlemen?’

            Here he turned slightly toward Alcalde Artang, just as if he wished to draw the other’s confirmation. But he was of course unaware, that Don Artang not a minute ago had thought to himself of the same matter. But he did not comment on it, so as not to give it dignity --- this was how he reasoned and convinced himself --- to the General’s observation.

            ‘Si, si, es verdad!’ the officers and el General’s suite agreed.

            As quickly as it appeared, the thin, wry smile melted in General Tenorio’s lips. He walked off a little way, and his suite imagined he would approach Don Laureano Artang and inject a physical facet to their confrontation. Instead, he halted past the middle-length of the wooden conference table.

            ‘And, jefe local Laureano Artang, stop using the name of the revolution as an excuse for poisoning our river and pozos    water wells,’ said General Tenorio. You have poisoned not only the fowls, pigs, goats, working animals ... but listen, and listen very closely:  you have poisoned our own people, too. Ay, remember this, not to you, nor to me, nor to anyone here does the revolution belong --- it belongs to the people.’   

            ‘Pero, General ...’

            ‘Bastante ya!    Enough already! Too much harm has already been done.’ He walked back to where he had stood before, the other end of the table.  There he let his eyes fall listlessly on the paper before Don Noche, who had not written much, only a page or two of the notepad he had hurriedly scribbled with meaningless scrawls. The alcalde is the kind you have to pound the truth into his head. Yet do not expect him to grasp even half of it. Once again directing his eyes at Mayor Artang, he said:

            ‘Indeed, you cannot undo your estrago    outrageous deed. Nor can you bring back to life that pitiful child. Did you know that at first they thought it was la plaga    the plague? So, even after we warned the villagers, not a few continued to fill their water jars with drinking water from their pozos. The children continued to bathe in the rivers of Rio Hondo and Santa Barbara. Dios mio, amparad nos … at least you had the sense to keep the poison only in those areas around the Spanish plaza and the Fort, and not to poison our own water here, in Santa Barbara. And of course, your own barrio of Cabonegro, too.’

            At the wooden table, where nearly all seated there had turned their heads accusingly toward Mayor Artang, they saw him quiver and shake with anger, again. His chest fell and rose, his chin shook, until it looked like his whole frame was trembling with a very high fever. Because never, never had he been insulted, and before the other officers and officials of the revolution, too. But he recovered quickly, even a bit faster than before, and able to say harshly:

            ‘I strongly disagree with the General. I believe that instead, I should have been credited and acknowledged... And I do not wish to be spoken to as though I were a child. I resent this gravely...’ and his voice rose and did not break.

            At the table, the staff became more restless and bothered. It showed in the twitches on their faces, how nervous they were. Even the skin there stretched taut and the veins stood on their brows.

            General Tenorio flung both hands before him in desperation. ‘“Credit” … “acknowledgment!”’ he cried, disbelief in his face. Both hands wrung in the air, clenching and unclenching them. He was unable to restrain himself, as a pair of hard fists came down hard as rock on the tabletop. ‘Credit for what? For murder and sickness of our own people ...!’

            There was a scrambling of chairs. Several officers sprung up from them. Simultaneously, Major Marquez and Don Salas called for calmness and restraint. Other staff and officials interposed by placing themselves like a stone wall between General Tenorio and Alcalde Artang, whose face took the color of dark-red undried coffee seeds. His eyes looked like they would pop out of their sockets in a second, if he would not clamp down their heavy, swollen lids.

            Mute seconds past … then silence.  In that maleficent time, irrevocable, in tangent,  Administrator Don Noche made a lot of bustle and unwanted noise, overtly tearing a sheet from his notepad. Jerking up a hand, he waved the sheet in front of the staff and civil officials there, just as if the sheet was an ancient Egyptian scroll or a treasure map. Then he pretended to read aloud a reminder to himself from the General.

            ‘Earlier this morning,’ he said, ‘a request for more men and guns was made by Captain Morales ... accordingly, in anticipation of a planned attack by General Sophez with his marines. Attack there on the captain’s southwest coast, the town of Magay.’

            It somehow rather stopped either from whatever one was about to do or say, in the same force and in no lesser way. For suddenly both became transfixed on the floor, immobile and undecided. Were they about to come to blows?            That was how both men, el General and the alcalde, looked until the former bent his neck, head hanging impermeable over Administrator Noche and the note pad in the latter’s hands.

            Abruptly, what obviously was unrelated to the scene --- General Tenorio jerked his jaw toward Major Marquez and ordered him, in a quiet and sober voice to check the request of the captain. Already standing by the middle length of the wooden table, Major Marquez then retreated toward Don Noche, requesting to see the note. Noche turned toward Major Marquez, looked into his face, his eyes, unblinking, saying in their dumb, mute profundity, that there actually was not any note; he had not written any, truly, believe you me. But, with a flair, without the quality of deepness extracted in his eyes, he waved the note again in front of the table.

            ‘I scribbled something down here… below on my note,’  he said; ‘but it was supposed to be for my own, you know, my own consumption only ... a sort of reminder. However, if the General would excuse me … I could maybe read the personal comment I put on the note.’ He paused, fixed his eyes on the paper, but still did not read anything.

            ‘It is something like a joke, sabes tu,’ he said instead, ‘to remind me not to forget the request of Captain Morales.’

            ‘Pues, what have you … scribbled there, there on that piece of paper, Don Noche?’

            From the either side of the table, they directed their eyes at Noche and his note. Even Alcalde Artang, who was not an excessively curious man, became intrigued and it distracted him. On the other hand, unable to hold their own inquisitiveness any longer, General Tenorio’s suite, the army staff and officials urged Don Noche, ‘Are you going to keep us waiting forever, Don Noche? What did you write there as a joke? a reminder? Come on, show us!’

            Noche lowered his head over the notepad and raised it once toward General Tenorio and lowered it, again, the corners of his mouth twitching, quivering, and reminding them it was a personal thing and meant only for ‘my consumption’ --- but since they insisted, he read:

            ‘El niño que no llora, no mama.’    ‘The baby, who doesn’t cry, does not get fed.’

            And, in spite of all, a laugh suddenly broke from everyone, not excluding General Tenorio and Alcalde Artang himself.

            Quickly, taking opportunity of the distraction of the note reading, Don Salas prudently called for the closing of the conference. 

....

            How long can he tolerate Alcalde Artang? His top officers and staff had warned him several times about the doubtful loyalty of love-of-parades the jefe local Artang and the distrustful Rajah Muda Hassan. When General Tenorio had conferences with his staff, they reported, the two would clandestinely meet in the datu’s islands of Lokas and Nipa-an. What could they talk about which needed so much secrecy? ‘Nada bien    nothing good, I assure you, General Tenorio,’ Secretary General Don Salas had said. ‘Both men are up to some evil doings; I can swear to that.… What else can we expect, when March of this year, the Moros began smuggling guns to us as well as to the enemy, the Spaniards. Datu Hassan himself, not unlike the other Moro datus, was seen at least twice delivering canoe-loads of smuggled guns to the Spaniards at the Fort.’

            It had hurt General Tenorio very much to hear of this disloyalty, treachery, since he and the datu had shared many pleasant and adventurous moments together. And, the General even slept in his house when darkness caught him in the datu’s islands. How he recalled, out of their childhood friendship --- it seemed ages before the revolution though it was just several years back --- Hassan, the rajah muda, had offered him his most beautiful of his maiden slaves. Jokingly, Hassan told him that since he was after all going to free his slaves to oblige the Spaniards, ‘I am now freeing this one of my favorites to you! To do with her what pleases you, my friend.’ He had thanked him, suddenly turning his eyes toward the carpeted, raised platform, where stood a young slave El pillostron   the rascal Hassan indeed knows my weakness for beautiful, strong-limbed, young maidens, he thought now. Her name was Amina, from Nipa-an island Ay, even now how beautiful is the sound of her name: Aahh mi na.

            He turned deaf ear to the report, thinking Someone must have mistaken the Moros for Hassan’s  tribesmen Thus, no action was taken then, even after Artang was seen on a Moro salisipan    fast low-bottomed canoe, with full-blown sail, going toward Nipa-an island … was it to divide the profit of the sale of the smuggled guns to the Spanish colonists?

            Everyone had left, save for Noche, Marquez, and Morales. In deep thoughts was General Tenorio; he had sat back in his chair. If anyone could guess them, his thoughts, it was Don Salas: with whom in his youth he had played mock war games against Moro pirates. Ironically, at that time, he as a cavalry officer on the Spanish side.

            ‘Shall we keep those cannons in Cabonegro, or withdraw them across the river?’ Don Salas asked. ‘We can place them just before our trenches.’

            General Tenorio got up from his chair, must have performed a number of times since, quite unconsciously, and sat on it before the long wooden table; half-empty now after the military and civil officers and his cabinet men had gone. 

            ‘No, no. Keep them there, Don Salas,’ he said. ‘Where else can you put those cannons? Before the trenches … General Sophez could take them if we have to withdraw, God forbid! But in barrio Cabonegro … General Sophez would have to send his men across the river, exposing themselves to those same cannons. With the artillery pieces there, we know we have something to back us up if our attack fails.’ With much urgency, he cried, ‘We must take the fort of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception this time!  We cannot fail!’

            At this instant, he reminded his officers and staff that they, more than ever, needed the support and cooperation of Alcalde Artang. ‘We don’t want to anger or displease him,’ he said. ‘I am thankful to you’ --- he was particularly referring to Don Salas and Marquez --- ‘and, of course, Don Noche with his joke ... broke in before it became an unpleasant scene with that impertinent, orgulloso alcalde --- you understand, do you not, mi compoblanos?’

            How he recalled that just a quarter of an hour ago, he had done his best to displease the jefe local. In fact, got him so reeled he turned almost dark mahogany color in the face. Recalling this scene, one corner of his mouth lifted toward its cheek, a protracted smile.

            And so, ten pieces of the hijacked artillery and about a hundred of the rifles and some machine guns remained in Artang’s barrio of Cabonegro.

            Will he regret it?  He asked himself again.  There is no other place to put them in order to protect his northeastern flank from General Sophez, ay.

Chapter 5

            Sparse scrubby thickets flanked each side of the river of Santa Barbara, a tributary of Tumaga river, a branch of the river of Masinloc. For always when you referred to it, you recalled the river by the barrio the river crosses, even to this day, not its main source of Masinloc, the mother lode, not even Tumaga River: it fed the canals and moats of the Fortaleza dela Nuestra Señora Immaculada Concepciòn.

            Behind the scrubby thickets was small woodland, where tall trees with thick gnarled barks grew in straight rows, shoulder-wide from each other. Swarms of cicadas infested their thick barks, creating a sort of a ring with ulcerous furuncles and a very hard crust you cannot dent even with a rock in your fist. Here in the woods both dead and green fallen leaves covered its uneven floor, thus the soil was invisible to the naked eye and was always wet and moist. But in places where rose uneven mounts of anthills and an incline one could see wet, dark earth through the carpet of leaves.

            Morning sunrays filtered through the boughs of those tall trees. Dappled shadows lay on the floor. A week ago on April 16, a day after thecss Ohio andUSS Cavite threw a blockade round the port of Zamboanga; some 150 Zamboangueño Voluntarios had camped here waiting for orders from their commanding officer to attack the Fort. Now a week had come and gone, yet no order had come down the line.

            Below the camp was the river, and in the current floated a few dead fishes; not so many as before, white bellies upturned, eyes reddish, bulging from their tearful sockets.

            A slight northeasterly wind was blowing a foul odor of rotting dead animals. It came from the lower sitios and barrio of Santa Barbara. When the northerly wind was strong, a malodorous smell of putrescence puffed from as far as Rio Hondo.

            Close to the fringe of the woods were four Zamboangueño Voluntarios. Quite desolate and lonely place, with no nipa-palm huts in sight. Not one of them had once seen another human face but their own comrades since they got here. But less than a kilometer, or even half, away, there were human beings like themselves, but their faces they would not want to see. Because they were the enemy’s faces, dark and sinister, peeping over the rim of their trenches, with Remington rifles in their hands to blow out their brains,  me cago    I defecate.

            Thus, for a week or so now the four, and their comrades, slept on the leaf-carpeted wood floor, always damp and wet. They rationed the drinking water, although there was water all around; it could still be polluted and poisoned. Chinga.    Fuck. At noon, though it was never hot, the sunrays barely filtering through the boughs, they ate lunch with their bare hands under the cicada-imbedded tree-trunks.

            Earlier in April, even early mid-March, when it rained muddy water filled the trenches. Soggy and cold the Voluntarios trembled, their teeth clacking like castanets.

            Now they were bored, bored with themselves, their officers, y madre de Dios el mismo insurrecciòn    and mother of God the insurrection itself.

            As if the boredom and waiting were not enough, they had to contend with Severino Lumalocdoc of barrio Bolong since camping here, him that was always crabbing. To Severino there was never a thing that had no flaw that would wholly please him. He was always grumbling como un utud     like an asphyxiated fart.

            ‘Ay, bigger than your toes are the mosquitoes here,’ he was saying to his comrades. ‘The whole night long we cannot sleep even a minute, or a second, and those cicadas drive you crazy with their non-stop creak creak creak. And, the foul smell of rotting fowls and animals and fishes too there, there, in the river, look! dead fishes floating with their stomach bloated and eye-less.’

            ‘It is natural,’ said Tiburcio Brocales, the filòsofo    philosopher, ‘when things turn bad, they tend to become worse.’

            ‘Be thankful to the Lord you are alive. You could be among the dead in lower Santa Barbara, dead of  la plaga     the plague,’ said Ambrocio Almazen, one of Major Marquez’s men who had hijacked the ordnance from the thirteen Spanish steam gunboats off Basilan Straight, below Masinloc Anchorage to the old pueblo which gave the anchorage its name.

            ‘Is it true that you and some other Zamboangueño Voluntarios led by Major Marquez captured thirteen Spanish gunboats?’ asked Margarito Singalon, good-natured, anxious to please everyone. A fisherman from the coastal village of Labuan, he knew the sea more than the land. ‘... took all the machine guns, they said, and dozens of artillery pieces, is it not?’

            ‘I was only doing my duty,’ was the humble reply from the heroic Almazen.

            ‘Tell us now, ‘Ñor Almazen, that el General believes it is not the plague,’ said Brocales the filòsofo, ‘but the poison in the river and water wells, which is killing everything. You were there recently with the General to receive your medal, yes? Pues, what did you hear?’

            ‘Indeed, it is not the plague causing all these sickness and deaths, both of humans and animals,’ said Almazen. ‘I heard General Tenorio say to Don Salas, “Only the alcalde of Cabonegro can do such a beastly thing.” I was in his office then, waiting whatever one waits for to get his medal. Quite close to either men, not more than three paces away, not to hear it.’

            ‘It is true then,’ said the filòsofo Brocales, not just talks.’

            ‘Hò, o, indeed, hombre … heard it from el General himself; oy, no mistaking it,’ said the hero Almazen.

            ‘So, there is no plague after all,’ said Singalon, the simple fisherman from Labuan. ‘We were only made to look like fools, but then for what?  Does anyone have anything to gain by hiding the truth from us, no-no, by making fools of us, hah?’

            ‘That is very obvious, is it not?’ said Brocales the filòsofo. ‘Although everything is fair in love and war as they say, but times there are when you should not show your hand.’ He paused and then silently choking with laughter, said,

            ‘Especially when your hand is in a woman’s “forest”!’

            ‘Maybe the alcalde has his reason,’ said the fisherman Singalon, not quick enough to catch the allusion to the symbolical sexual image, since he was just a simple farmer. He had no intention whatsoever to offend, especially a proud high official like the alcalde of Cabonegro, Don Artang. Everyone knew of the alcalde’s very short temper, and sharp tongue. His constituent Cabonegros criticized and complained only behind his back, fearing he would hear and ventilate his anger at them.

            ‘--- Hombre, for good or bad reason does not justify the poisoning of innocent people,’ abruptly interrupted the filòsofo Brocales. ‘Y oi, nor does it absolve, justify the poisoner for the dishonorable, evil deed, hò, o ... even done against his mortal enemy, entiendes?’

            ‘No no,’ said Singalon hastily in a nervous tone. ‘I am not saying Alcalde Artang is right. I do not mean to justify him if he had done it, I mean, that kuan    blank … poisoning the river and pozos is justified since there is war.’

            Severino Lumalocdoc bit his under lip.

            ‘All the fault of that overbearing, boastful alcalde of Cabonegro,’ he said, ‘this poisoning of the river and wells and canals. Look, who is suffering? Not him who is safe in his barrio, his water coming from Tumaga River crystal clear and tasty. He rules his town, folk there say, worse than a Spanish aristocrat, can you imagine! It is poor soldiers like us, enclavos    slaves always to the rich and powerful, us who have to suffer this rotting foulness and thirst.’

            A faint smile arched in filòsofo Tiburcio Brocales’s face. ‘For the first time you of Bolong, si, usted hombre, Seňor Lumalocdoc,’ he said, ‘I can tolerate your loud-mouthing and crabbing.’

            The new knowledge and assurance that it was no plague which was causing all this sickness and foul smell, but rather the poisoning of the river and water wells, all this did not make any difference, oo, no, not to Lumalocdoc --- as to change his character and temper. For he continued to grumble and crab. It rather even magnified it, goading him on endlessly, now encouraged by el filòsofo’s tolerance, if not approval. Had Brocales not said, ‘“Tolerate your crabbing?”’ To unknown and imagined listeners, he swore:

            ‘Cabròn!    Cuckold! Hijo de puta!     Son of a whore!’

            His three other comrades plugged their ears, ostensibly, cupping their hands over them. They hoped that seeing this unmistakable gesture of annoyance would for the last time stop Lumalocdoc: no more of his crabbing, threatening, cursing at invisible officers for this and that    este y aquel kuan    here and there blank pettiness and offences.

            Almazen rose slowly from squatting on the forest floor, and without a word, went to the nearby thickets. He unbuttoned his trousers, pissed into a brush, and jerked up his pants when finished. He walked back, shoed feet padding the carpet of damp leaves. On his way back, he met Singalon, or rather, Singalon intercepted him midway between the thickets and the riverbank.

            With much apology for his rashness, the fisherman Singalon poured out the concern of a fellow villager of Labuan. 

            ‘Since the last two weeks,’ said Singalon, my fellow-villager has been trying to see General Tenorio. He told me he had very important information that the General should know.’

            ‘And what is it? what is this very urgent information?’ Almazen said, walking on with Singalon beside him. Suddenly, the simple fisherman Singalon looked very nervous. He gazed toward their two comrades, though the pair was out of hearing. He swallowed his saliva, gulping down a nonexistent morsel of food.

            ‘Sabes tu,’ said he hardly above a whisper, ‘my fellow villager overheard lieutenants Pascual and Lamon talking about Alcalde Artang’s kuan    blank plan to assassinate el General.’ 

            ‘Sus-mario-sep!     Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’

            ‘... afterwards, the alcalde himself would take the plaza from the Spanish colonists.’  He was breathing hard, just as if he had ran uphill to the crest. ‘The lieutenants were to keep Alcalde Artang informed of the movements of Captain Morales and the Deportados company in the coastal village of Magay. Then the datu Hassan’s Moros could sneak in from behind.’

            ‘Datu Hassan, you mean, rajah muda Hassan?’

            ‘Si, si, Señor Almazen.’

            ‘What has the datu to do…?’

            ‘They are in connivance,’ he replied. ‘The attack will come when Captain Morales begins his siege of the western wall of the Fort. Even Captain Morales cannot survive when besieged on both sides, the Spanish in the front and in his rear Rajah Muda Hassan’s Moros.’

            Dithered, and intrigued by his information, the humble hero Almazen slowed his pace to match that of the shorter fisherman Singalon.      

            ‘Ah, but you and your fellow villager have forgotten Major Marquez?’ he said. ‘Or rather the traitors I mean, who should fear him most, since he it was that had fearlessly led the hijacking of the those thirteen Spanish steam gunboats. What may I ask are the cowards’ plan for him, ha?’

            There was no respond from the humble fisherman. After a while, Singalon, going back to his compoblano’s story, said:

            ‘Pues, every time he could slip away from his company, the artillery, si kuan blank would try to go to the general headquarters. Maybe twice already he slipped away, my compoblano I mean, but failed both times: the first time he did not even reach beyond the border of Santa Barbara,  and the second even got lost and returned to his company quite late that the artillery officer noticed his absence. Sabes tu, Señor Almazen, he has a terrible sense of direction ... always loses his way. He cannot tell his right from his left: emitting a pretentious laugh, Haha-ha-ha.’

            It was on his fellow-villager’s return to his company, the second failure, that he met his compoblano. By this time, the latter felt quite hopeless. He dared not leave his company again to seek General Tenorio, fearing he would get lost again, and Lieutenant Lamon might become suspicious and question his whereabouts. What was he doing disappearing like that? So, the compoblano was despairing, he feared he would never be able see General Tenorio and tell to him about the hideous and treacherous plot.

            So,  having given up, his chance meeting with his town mate Singalon he believed was not just accidental ... believed, truly, it was predestined, no less than God-sent, a stroke of luck. After making Singalon swear not to speak  ni un palabra    even a word and hope to die, to anyone --- he told Singalon everything he overheard.

            Now the pair walked back to their comrades by the riverbank, the simple fisherman Singalon breathing fast and harder. Out of the bushes and thickets, they were now going through the cicada-imbedded tree trunks. Silently they walked down a trail or kuan    blank like a mere track through the rows between the trees. It lay before them straight as a plumb line past the middle of the woods.

            Almazen himself started to breath heavily, too. Was not from walking, since both had actually slowed down their pace then --- so either would have more time to speak on the matter if there was more to say.

            ‘Pues, how about Major Marquez?’ continued Almazen.

            ‘They must have plans for the major also,’ the simple fisherman said. ‘But that my town mate Centeno … that’s his name, señor, did not hear. He had to leave already before the lieutenants spoke on that matter, if indeed they had. He was afraid, he told me, that he might be caught eavesdropping.’

            Some dried twigs and leaves nearer to the river broke under their feet, making swishing sounds on the forest floor. Strangely, though, as they passed the woods not a single cicada detached itself from the scared, imbedded ring round the tree-trunks and flew away. On the other hand, made that annoying squeaking-sounds with their transparent wings.

            ‘And when is this to happen, the assassination, Singalon? Do you know?’  Almazen asked, his curiosity and alarm now more than aroused.

            ‘I am sorry … but Centeno did not mention it,’ replied the simple fisherman. ‘Maybe he doesn’t know himself. Or he just forgot to tell me. At this point, he wanted only to rush back to his company in Magay.’ He stopped, laughing briefly before he said his compoblano even begged him to go back with him to his company.

            ‘Go back?’ Almazen said, puzzled.

            ‘Si, si; “go back,”’ said Singalon, a trace of his laughter trailing in his throat still.

            ‘Why would he …?’ said Almazen, pausing a while the moment he guessed the reason. ‘Did he fear that he would again … ?’

            ‘Si, si. He was afraid he might not find his way back, ‘Ñor Almazen ... might get lost again. He told me that being nervous and fearful worsened the condition. Could not tell if he should go this or that way.’

            Almazen shook his head, thinking Probably lieutenants Lamon and Pascual themselves; they themselves have no inkling when this treacherous deed is to be done. Surely Mayor Artang and Datu Hassan won’t confide it just with anyone but themselves, hó, o.

            ‘Maybe Alcalde Artang will not say it aloud, even alone by himself,’ he said to Singalon. ‘The kuan    blank date he had set for the assassination. Hó, o, to say the word even to himself. You understand what I mean, Singalon.’ Pause. ‘And what did you say was your friend’s name?’

            ‘Simon ...,’ said Singalon. ‘Simon, his Christian name.’

            Singalon then told Almazen that, indeed, immediately after their meeting he tried to see General Tenorio, but failed. The guards or the officer upon seeing he was just a mere pescador    fisherman from the last fishing barrio of Labuan, shoed him away. ‘Go back to your company, pescador,’ they told him. He did not attempt again to see el General. He felt it was useless. He was just a simple fisherman from Labuan, as they told him; they might not even believe him.

            ‘So, you see, ‘Ñor Almazen, why you must do it yourself,’ he explained to the hero Almazen. ‘While the guards and the aides will think I am just a pest, not unlike my compoblano Centeno, it will not be like that with you the moment they recognize you as the be medaled hero. Only you can go past those imbecile guards and the arrogant aides.’ His voice begun to break into a plea, saying, ‘What then, Señor Almazen … will you do what my compoblano and I cannot do, hah?’

            As if to verify the existence of the simple fisherman and his tale, Almazen turned his head toward Singalon, who was walking beside him between the rows of cicada-imbedded tree trunks.

            If the pescador’s    fisherman’s fellow villager Centeno is telling the truth, or even half-truth, and the same with Singalon himself…?  he thought, this is very serious and should be reported immediately Before reaching their companions, Singalon slowed down his pace allowing Almazen to be the first to walk up to the river bank; the latter still thinking But  if, what is his kuan    blank name? … Centeno had invented the whole story, I will be in trouble myself. Alcalde Artang will cut off my cojones   balls and make me eat them too.

            Madre de Dios! Everyone will be laughing at me: a hero today, a fool tomorrow … ‘Congratulations, Ambrocio Almazen, you have done a great job,’ they will say, this time not in praise but derision. Ay, crashing an enemy with flesh and blood, like hijacking those thirteen Spanish gunboats, is not the same thing: no, the story told by Singalon’s fellow villager is faceless! This faceless object I do not know how to deal with. Maybe I will take the story seriously, very seriously, and again, maybe not.

            When the two  were near the place where they had their campsite, Almazen, more to himself than to the simple fisherman Singalon, said, ‘We will see ... will see, hombre…’ as the pair approached coming from the thickets, faces lifted toward them.

            The crabby Voluntario Lumalocdoc immediately addressed ‘Ñor Almazen, just as if he and the simple fisherman had not left their company at all, saying --- ‘At least there in the trenches we had three regular meals a day. But here sometimes we eat, sometimes we do not have anything … you tell me, our hero Almazen, if this is the way to fight a war?’

            Almazen did not answer. He and Singalon squatted on the ground, the latter leaning his back against a small tree-trunk; in a while, the hero Almazen stood up from squatting and joined the others on a patch of grass. Slowly, he crossed his legs, and wished he were back in the woods, and wondering how the cicadas had imbedded themselves in a series of multitudinous but barely visible compartments and crust-hard rings into the thick trunk-barks. Hardly did the cicadas make a squeaking-sound during the day, not bothering any other creatures. But not during the night. Somehow, he was thankful even for that, rather than hear all this endless carping and crabbing of his comrade-at-arms Lumalocdoc.

Chapter 6

            El General and Don Salas were coming down a hillock overlooking Major Marquez’s camp, maybe only a hundred meters away from it. The hillock gave the best view of the camp of Major Marquez and his forces. Both men were satisfied at what they had seen so far: the well-placed artillery pieces and the trenches before the woods below and some distance from the cluster of nipa   palm-thatched houses. There at the foot of the hillock they tethered horses, with Zamboangueño Voluntario troops left to guard them.

            After General Tenorio examined the position of his forces and the landscape of the land, and quite satisfied with both, back to their horses he and Don Salas directed themselves.

            Behind followed the Zamboangueño Voluntario security, aqui y alla they looked, but were not really too concerned and nervous, for their main headquarters was only some 300 meters away.

            A date he could not or would not forget: April 27, just before midday, a clear day. Hardly a cloud cast down patches of shadow on the slope and patch of grass … with a terrific blue sky. Because, all of a sudden, a crazed man with a kris   serrated long knife dashed toward el General, the man’s eyes wild, popping, and mouth foaming. Just behind the crazed man two more half-naked men waved their barungs    long knifes in the air.

            Drawing his pistol, General Tenorio shouted, ‘Coño.  Puta madre!    Cunt. Mother whore!’ thinking I can shoot down the crazed man but how about the two others? could I stop them on time? Then, he saw the Zamboangueño Voluntarios, who had tended the horses, sort of plunging right behind the two half-naked Moros, like an onrushing tide, their rifles raised as riflemen do when ready to fire.

            But there were no shots fired. Why are they not firing? What is the matter?  Ay, am I in the line of fire? Si-si! But I am not going to be un cabrón    a cuckold and wait for those chinga ‘vos nana   fuck your mother soldiers to fire; quickly firing his own pistol, two rapid explosions. Nevertheless, the crazed Moro with the kris did not fall. Again he fired, and again … the crazed Moro did not drop, he the Moro assassin plummeting on although struck by bullets, tearing forward not by his own volition, no-no, but driven by the inertia that had started him in his unstoppable on-rushing mad charge.

            Where is Don Salas…? He knew he did not have the pleasure to look back. The crazed assassin would be on top of him if he even turned just a second. But at that moment, suddenly, he heard rifle shots from behind going boom boom boom and Don Salas shouting screaming at the top of his lungs:

            ‘Duck, duck, coño! Get your head down, Don Tenorio!’

            Which he did. Instantly, he heard the ping-ing ping-ing whizzing past and then thud thud as the rifle slugs struck home and the crazed would-be-assassin was halted right in his track, and then sort of floated in the air in slow motion. And the next second, the crazed man disappeared from sight, did not even float away; he just disappeared in front of his eyes, as say a vision. Because Don Salas, in spite of his huge body, had unobtrusively slipped in front of him, sheltering him, becoming his human shield from further harm.

            In the background, now, rapid-firing shots exploded, as the Zamboangueño Voluntarios, the ones guarding the trussed horses in the orchard, were firing freely.

            At this point, actually two sets of rifle firing were in full progress, the one in front by the orchard and the other behind him on the slope of the hillocks: he thinking Coño, I hope the fools can shoot straight! May miss the cabròn    cuckold Moros and hit me instead. Ay, rather Don Salas, my human shield thinking still Poor fellow if that should, hoy happen! He felt Don Salas’s right shoulder abruptly jerk back, and a shiver ran through him. Has Don Salas been struck by a bullet? His eardrums seemed to burst by several rapid explosions high over his head. He realized that Don Salas himself was also firing his gun at the pair of half-naked assassins. Thank God, the assassins had not shot him: the shiver receding, a wide blanket thrown over his shoulders.

            But why does the pair of half-naked Moros keep sprinting forward, still swinging their barungs? ... dreadfully closer and closer, thinking rapidly Are they also juramentados     suicide assassins? Chinga vos nana!    Fuck your mother!

            He raised his head and the sky was inexplicably cloudless underneath the pointed dome, overhead el sol blazing, and the boughs and leaves shimmering in the glare. Even the ground swooshed up underneath his feet. Have I been hit now! Unconsciously his hands swept over his body, touching here and there for wounds or wetness of blood ... none, no blood, gracias a Dios    thank you Lord.

            Then, before him, in a split second, the face of one Moro turned into a bloody mass of flesh and shattered bones. Bits of brains splattering all over, even on his face.  The other would-be-assassin, the second one jerked to one side, as when you slam a wooden stool hard on someone’s shoulder and he wrenches to that stricken side in terrible excruciating pain and agony.

            Clamping his bleeding left shoulder with his right hand, he flung away his barung and fled into the woods. He made for the marshes. At his heel, not quite close, were the ZamboangueñoVoluntario troopers who had guarded the General’s horses, running after the would-be-assassin, but in a second, the Moro disappeared into the woods.

            Everything became quiet, even the wind stopped, el sol ceased blazing upon the tops of the trees and down on the boughs and leaves.... Yet a moment before? Was it fear, or courage? Still his human shield, having not given up the selfless role, Secretary General Salas broke the hiatus, the silence, with his swearing:

            ‘Curses, curses, Moros! Hijo de grand puta Moros! Ay, Datu Hassan, you traitor!’

            ‘Hassan?’ ... was all the General could say when he heard his childhood friend’s name being cursed and damned.

            Minutes later, the Zamboangueño Voluntarios returned empty-handed. Promptly, they went straight to the two Moro corpses and raising their boots, with all the strength in their legs, they brought them down hard upon the corpse’s faces; smashing them.

            Over there, where the two guards had stood, the crest of the mount was austere and empty. For at the first bursts of gunfire, the pair had rushed down the decline firing their rifles.

            On their way back to the camp, they exchanged few words. Both General Tenorio and Don Salas, who usually enjoyed lively conversations between themselves, were quiet, saying very little.

            Riding toward the main rebels’ camp, General Tenorio realized he had not thanked the secretary general at all for risking his life to protecting him: as his human shield. As they neared their camp, General Tenorio leaned on his horse and was about to mutter his thanks when abruptly, once again, el sol burst blazing through the foliage. They were alive and none had been hurt, not even scratched. Bien suerte, gayot!  Very lucky, indeed! A sense of well-being overwhelmed them. Thus, they rode on in silence, as lucky men do given a second chance to live.

¡§Philippine Copyright "¶ 2006 by A. R.  Enriquez¡