The blue sea, stretching out into the hazy9 distance, sparkled around the little nipa-covered dock where commissary stores and sacks of rice were piled. The native women, squatting10 on the [224]ground, were selling mangoes and bananas to the boys. “Cagayan Mag,” who vended11 the hot bottled beer for “jawbone,” digging her toes into the dust, was entertaining the surrounding crowd with her coarse witticisms12. The corporal of the guard, reclining in an easy steamer-chair, under his tent extension, was perusing13 the news columns from the States, by this time three months old. A sunburnt soldier, with his Krag upon his shoulder, paced the dock, wearily doing the last hour of his guard.
“Do you-all like hawg-jowl and black-eyed peas?” drawled “Tennessee Bill,” shifting his bony form to a more comfortable position on the rice-sack.
“Reckon I ort ter; I wuz bo’n in Geo’gy,” said his comrade, as he rolled a rice-straw paper cigarette.
After an interval14 of several minutes the same conversation was repeated. Suddenly a sharp toot sent the echoes scudding15 back and forth16 among the hills. A moment later the small transport, with the usual blur17 of khaki in her bows, came swinging around the promontory18. [225]
“Pshaw! I thought it wuz the pay boat comin’” grumbled19 Bill.
Then, as the Trenton pulled up to the dock, signs of activity began to animate21 that place. The guard, with leveled bayonet, began to shoo the “Gugus” off the landing. Down the hot road, invested in a cloud of dust, an ambulance was coming, drawn22 by a team of army mules24 and bringing the lieutenant25 quartermaster and his sergeants26.
“Why, hello!” said Bill; “if here ain’t little Wantz a-comin’. Got his discharge an’ gone married a babay.”
The soldiers crowded around the ex-hospital corps28 man, who, still in his khaki suit, was standing29 on the shore with a sad-looking Filipino girl in tow. Her feet were bare and dusty, and she wore a turkey-red skirt caught up on one side, and a gauze camisa with a pi?a yoke30, and the stiff, flaring31 sleeves. Her head was bare, and her black hair was combed uncompromisingly back on her head. Her worldly goods were done up in a straw mat and a soiled bandana handkerchief, and were deposited before her on the ground. [226]
“This is the gal32,” said Wantz; “old Justice de Laguna’s daughter, and the same what uster sell beer to the Twenty-eighth over at Tagaloan. She ain’t no beauty, but she’s a good steady trotter; ain’t you, Dell?” The girl looked stupid and embarrassed, and did not reply.
A “rooky,” who had joined the company, stood on the dock disconsolately33. His blanket roll and locker34 had been put off the boat. This was his first appearance in the provinces. He was a stranger in a strange land, a fish out of water, and a raw recruit.
The men were set to work immediately landing the commissary stores. They stripped their shoes and socks off, rolled up their trousers to the knee, and waded35 through the shallow water, carrying the bales and boxes on their shoulders to the shore.
The road up to the town was lined with nipa houses, shaded with banana-trees and bonga palms. This was the road that was almost impassable during the rainy season. As the ambulance rolled heavily along, scores of half-naked babies, shaped like peanuts, shouted after you a [227]“Hello, baby!” and the pigs, with snouts like coal-scuttles, scattered36 on either side the thoroughfare. This was the famous “Bolo alley,” down which, only a few months before, the Insurrecto army had come shouting, “A la! á la!” firing as they ran.
You passed the market-place, an open hall filled with the native stalls, where soldiers loafed around, chatting with the Visayan girls—for a freemasonry exists between the Filipino and the soldier—dickering with one for a few dhobie cigarettes, sold “jawbone,” to be paid for when the pay-boat comes.
The troops were quartered in old Spanish buildings, where the sliding windows of the upper floors disclosed the lanes of white mosquito-bar. Back in the courtyard, where the cook was busily preparing mess, a mangy and round-shouldered monkey from the bamboo fence was looking on approvingly. The cook was not in a good humor. All that the mess had had for three weeks was the regulation beans and bacon, without a taste of fresh meat or fresh vegetables.
Things were as bad, however, at the officers’ [228]mess, where the rule was that the first complaint should sentence its author to conduct the mess himself until relieved in a like manner. As might be imagined, such a system naturally discouraged an improvement of affairs. Exasperated37, finally, beyond his limit, Lieutenant Breck came out with—“If this isn’t the rottenest apology of an old mess”—saving himself by quickly adding, “But I like it; O, I like it; nobody can tell how much I like this mess!”
There was an officer’s club in a frame building near the headquarters. Here, in the afternoon, the clan38 would gather for a round of “whisky poker” for the drinks. There was a strapping39 young Kentuckian whose ancestors had all been army men. “The profession of arms,” said he, “is the noblest profession in the world. And that is the profession that we follow.” It was a rather sad sight, though, a few weeks later, after his wife, a little Southern girl, had gone back to the “States,” to see this giant soldier playing cards and drinking whisky with the teamsters, bar-keeps, and camp-followers, threatening to shoot the man who [229]tried to interfere40, and finally being taken down in irons for a court-martial.
The only one of all his friends who did not fall away from him was one, a little, catlike cavalry41 lieutenant, booted and spurred, and always dressed in khaki riding-breeches, never saying much, but generally considered the most popular young officer in all the service. And there was one other faithful one, but not an officer. The “striker,” who had followed him in many a hard hike, and had learned to admire his courage and to consider him infallible, tried for the sake of the young Southern girl, to keep his master from the wretched drink.
The post of Cagayan that winter was a busy one. On Sunday mornings the stern-visaged officers would go the round of all the barracks on inspection42 duty. There was still a remnant of the Insurrecto army operating in the hills, and an attack upon the town was threatened nightly. Once a month, when pay-day came around, a reign43 of terror, which began with early afternoon, lasted until almost a company of miscellaneous marauders [230]could have been recruited from the guard-house. A dozen saloons and poker games were running the night long, and in those days little money was deposited in the paymaster’s bank.
A number of detachments had been left in different towns around the bay in charge of second lieutenants44 or first sergeants. Here, while the discipline was more relaxed, the pandemonium45 of pay-day was avoided. But the two best poker-players in the company corraling all the money, either would proceed to narrow the financial distribution further, or would shake hands and agree to make deposits on the next disbursing-day. Some of the men on their discharge would have a thousand dollars, or enough to set them up in business in the States.
These “outfits” differ greatly in their character. Some are composed of sociable47, kind-hearted fellows, while others may contain a large percentage of professional “bad men” and rowdies. Each company will have its own traditions and a reputation which is guarded jealously. There was the “fighting Twenty-eighth,” the regiment48 invincible49. The soldiers grow attached to their outfit46. [231]On their discharge, which they have eagerly looked forward to, after a day or two of Frisco, when the money has been spent to the last dollar of the “finals,” more than one chop-fallen soldier, looking up the first recruiting sergeant27, will “take on” again.
The “company fund” is a great institution, and an “outfit” with a good fund is considered prosperous. This money goes for extras at the table, for baseball equipments, or for company mascots50. The sergeant-major usually has charge of this disbursement51, and the soldiers, though they grumble20 at his orders, can not help respecting him. The sergeant-major has been seasoned in the service. He is a ripe old fellow, and a warrior52 to the core. The company cook is also an important personage. It was the old cook at Balingasag—I think that he had served for twenty years—who fed me in the convent courtyard on camotes, egg-plant, and a chicken which he had stolen from a native. According to his theory, a soldier was a licensed53 robber, and the chicken should be classed as forage—not as plunder54. He was a favorite among the officers, who used to [232]get him started on his favorite grievance,—the condemnation55 by a board of survey of a certain army mule23. “I liked that mule,” he used to say. “He was the best mule that the service ever had.”
The nightly “argument,” or “chewing the rag,” is a favorite pastime in an isolated56 camp. Sitting around upon the army cots or chests, the soldiers will discuss some unimportant topic until “taps” sounds.
I will admit that “Company M” was a disreputable lot. They never dressed up; frequently they went without their footgear; and they drank much tuba with the natives. They took delight in teaching the small boys profanity, and they would shock the Filipinos by omitting bathing-suits when in the surf. They used to frighten the poor “niggers” half to death by trying to break through their houses on a dark night. Yet I believe that every Filipino was the soldier’s friend, and I am sure I noticed not a few heart-broken se?oritas gathered at the shore when they departed. For my own part, I have always found the soldier generous, respectful, and polite.
There was a great wag in the company, who, [233]in some former walk of life, had figured as a circus clown. He also claimed to have been upon the stage in vaudeville57. He had enlisted58 in the regimental band, but, through some change, had come to be bugler59 of M Company. He owned a mandolin, called the “potato bug”—a name suggested by the inlaid bowl. He had brought back to life a cracked guitar, which he had strung with copper60 wire obtained by “jawbone” at the Chino store. It was an inspiration when he sang to the guitar accompaniment, “Ma Filipino Babe,” or in a rich and melancholy61 voice, with the professional innuendo62, “just to jolly the game along,” a song entitled “Little Rosewood Casket.”
It is a sorry company that doesn’t number in its roll a poet. Company M had a good poet. Local customs and the local atmosphere appealed to him, and he has thus recorded his impression of the Philippines:
“There once was a Philippine hombre;
Ate guinimos, rice, and legombre;
His pants they were wide,
And his shirt hung outside;
But this, you must know, is costombre.
[234]
He lived in a nipa balay
That served as a stable and sty.
He slept on a mat
With the dog and the cat,
And the rest of the family near by.
He once owned a bueno manoc,
With a haughty63 and valorous look,
Who lost him amain
And mil pesos tambien,
And now he plays monté for luck.
This poem was received so favorably that the following effort of the realistic school escaped:
“In this land of dhobie dreams,
Happy, smiling Philippines,
Where the bolo man is hiking all day long,
Where the natives steal and lie,
And Americanos die,
The soldier sings his evening song.
Social wants are small and few;
All the ladies smoke and chew,
And do other things they ought to know are wrong.
Presidentes cut no ice,
For they live on fish and rice,
And the soldier sings his evening song.”
There is another stanza64, but the song about the “Brown Tagalog Girl” demands attention:
“I’ve a babay, in a balay,
Down in the province of Rizal.
She’s nice and neat, dainty and sweet;
She’s ma little brown Tagalog gal.”
The army officers and their families still form the aristocracy of the Philippines. While army life is not all like Camp Wallace and the gay Luneta, in the larger posts throughout the provinces, both the officers and soldiers are housed very comfortably. The clubhouse down at Zamboanga has a pavilion running out over the water, where the ladies sit at night, or where refreshments65 are served after the concert by the band. Although their ways are not the ways of the civilian66; although to them the possibilities of Jones’s promotion67 from the bottom of the list seems of a paramount68 importance, you will not find anywhere so loyal and hospitable69 a class of people as the army officers. Whatever little jealousies70 they entertain among themselves are overshadowed by the fact that “he” or “she” is of the “service.” And the soldiers, rough as they are, and slovenly71 compared to the red-coated soldiers of Great Britain, or the gray-coated troopers of the German army, are beyond doubt the finest fighting men in all the world.
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1
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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2
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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bugles
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| 妙脆角，一种类似薯片但做成尖角或喇叭状的零食； 号角( bugle的名词复数 )； 喇叭； 匍匐筋骨草； （装饰女服用的）柱状玻璃（或塑料）小珠 | |
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tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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5
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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rations
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| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
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poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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sentries
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| 哨兵，步兵( sentry的名词复数 ) | |
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hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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11
vended
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| v.出售（尤指土地等财产）( vend的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指在公共场所）贩卖；发表（意见，言论）；声明 | |
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12
witticisms
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| n.妙语，俏皮话( witticism的名词复数 ) | |
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13
perusing
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的现在分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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14
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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15
scudding
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| n.刮面v.（尤指船、舰或云彩）笔直、高速而平稳地移动( scud的现在分词 ) | |
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16
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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promontory
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| n.海角；岬 | |
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grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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grumble
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| vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声 | |
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21
animate
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| v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的 | |
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22
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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mule
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| n.骡子，杂种，执拗的人 | |
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mules
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| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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26
sergeants
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| 警官( sergeant的名词复数 )； （美国警察）警佐； （英国警察）巡佐； 陆军（或空军）中士 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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28
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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flaring
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| a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的 | |
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gal
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| n.姑娘，少女 | |
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disconsolately
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| adv.悲伤地，愁闷地；哭丧着脸 | |
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locker
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| n.更衣箱，储物柜，冷藏室，上锁的人 | |
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waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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36
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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37
exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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38
clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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39
strapping
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| adj. 魁伟的, 身材高大健壮的 n. 皮绳或皮带的材料, 裹伤胶带, 皮鞭 动词strap的现在分词形式 | |
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40
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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41
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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42
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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43
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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44
lieutenants
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| n.陆军中尉( lieutenant的名词复数 )；副职官员；空军；仅低于…官阶的官员 | |
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45
pandemonium
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| n.喧嚣，大混乱 | |
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46
outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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47
sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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48
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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49
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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50
mascots
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| n.吉祥物( mascot的名词复数 ) | |
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51
disbursement
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| n.支付，付款 | |
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52
warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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53
licensed
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| adj.得到许可的v.许可，颁发执照(license的过去式和过去分词) | |
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54
plunder
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| vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠 | |
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55
condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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56
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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57
vaudeville
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| n.歌舞杂耍表演 | |
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58
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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59
bugler
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| 喇叭手； 号兵； 吹鼓手； 司号员 | |
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60
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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61
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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62
innuendo
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| n.暗指，讽刺 | |
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63
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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64
stanza
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| n.（诗）节，段 | |
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65
refreshments
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| n.点心,便餐;(会议后的)简单茶点招 待 | |
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66
civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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67
promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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68
paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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69
hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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70
jealousies
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| n.妒忌( jealousy的名词复数 )；妒羡 | |
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71
slovenly
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| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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