BOUGH' 
 
 SAGE EN 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
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Cornell University Library 
 
 DS 679.C41 1909 
 
 Under the red and gpld:being notes and r 
 
 3 1924 023 263 035 
 
TI-IE AUTHOR. 
 
UNDER THE RED AND GOLD 
 
 Being Notes and Recollections of 
 
 The Siege of Baler, 
 
 BY 
 
 CAPTAIN DON SATURNINO MARTIN CEREZO, 
 Commanding the Detachment. 
 
 .Translated and Edited by 
 
 F. L. DODDS, 
 
 Major, U*. S. Army. 
 
 PtTBLZSHED BY 
 
 FRANKLIN HUDSON PUBLISHING CO., 
 Kanias Citt, Mo., 
 
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Copyright 1909 
 
 By Franklin Hudson Puelishinq Co. 
 
 Kansas City, Mo. 
 
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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023263035 
 
Translator's Foreword. 
 
 While stationed in Manila^ three years ago, I read one 
 day in a local Spanish daily paper. El Mercantil, an editorial 
 in which the editor announced that he had received from Spaia 
 a book ia which was recorded the notes and recollections of 
 Captain Martia Cerezo, the only surviving officer of a detach- 
 ment of Spanish soldiers who sustained a remarkable siege, 
 the story of which is here translated. 
 
 The editor of El Mercantil was deeply impressed by the 
 tale of suffering and heroism; and, not content with a review 
 of the bookj or extracts from it, announced that it would be 
 reproduced in his paper from day to day. 
 
 The translator was also impressed when the installments 
 began, and saved the papers as the story appeared. Having 
 returned to the States, I made arrangements to have the pa- 
 per sent on, but several numbers failed to reach me. It was 
 not until a long time afterwards that I was able to ascertain 
 where the book was published, and to get a copy of it from 
 
 Spain. 
 
 As it is now presented, the introductory part, Cerezo's ac- 
 count of the events following the siege, and the appendices 
 are very much condensed, but the story of the siege itself is 
 given almost entirely in the words of the author. 
 
 8t. Paul February 5, 1908. 
 
To the Reader. 
 
 Living yet ia my soul, as though of yesterday, those eleven 
 months of anguish that we suffered in the church of Baler, I 
 believe I owe to my country the story of the happenings with- 
 in those four walls, the last remnant of its domiaion in the 
 Philippines. 
 
 Content with the gratitude and rewards I have received, 
 I do not attempt to bring myself forward; my only desire be- 
 ing to preserve from oblivion that which merits a place in our 
 Golden Legend, to-day, unhappily, so doubted and tarnished; 
 to record those glorious deeds which doubtless would have been 
 multiplied throughout the whole theater of war if circum- 
 stances and means had been other than they were. 
 
 A small detachment of soldiers there proved that our mil- 
 itary virtues have not decayed. It is well to record it, if it 
 be only to reanimate that saving faith of which we so sorely 
 stand in need. 
 
 Cast down as we were by misfortune, fallen into abjectness 
 and discredit, I consider most opportune these pages, a humble 
 summary of those sad days and a tribute due to my valorous 
 companions. Free as I am from bitterness, and desiring neither 
 censure nor criticism, they have, to make them worthy, only 
 my sincerity in writing them. 
 
 And — ^nothing more. Peace to the dead; reflection for 
 the living; and a prayer to God that He will enlighten and 
 protect us. 
 
 Satuenino Maetin Ceeezo. 
 
 Madrid, September 30, 1904. 
 
Introductory. 
 
 In a remote corner of the Philippine Archipelago, on the 
 east coast of the island of Luzon, stands the little town of 
 Baler. It is a desolate and lonely spot, with stern mountain 
 walls enclosing it upon the landward side, the vast Pacifia 
 spread before it, and an exposed and dangerous coast stretch- 
 ing away to north and south. 
 
 Its oldest and most substantial building, the universal hall- 
 mark of Spanish conquest, is its church. It is a rude stone 
 edifice, gaunt and bare and neglected; yet this desolate sanctu- 
 ary is the shrine of the noblest epic of Spanish sovereignty in 
 those ill-starred islands. For within the shelter of its walls a 
 company of Spanish soldiers, starving, forgotten, yet uncon- 
 querable, withstood a siege of eleven long months, under cir- 
 cumstances of suffering and heroism, during the last days of 
 the Spanish and the early days of the American dominion in 
 the Philippines. 
 
 There is probably no stranger anomaly in all history than 
 the picture of that forsaken band of heroes, fighting their des- 
 perate fight and winning immortal laurels in a cause which had 
 ceased to exist, in defense of property which their own country 
 had ceded to aliens, and against the ancient enemy which Spain 
 had transferred to the newer foe with the land itself. 
 
 The story is one of patient endurance, of bitter suffering 
 from hunger, disease, and wounds, of death bravely met, of 
 heroic deeds, and of sublime devotion to the flag under which 
 those men were serving. They deserved a closer sympathy and 
 better support, a worthier foe, a more conspicuous field. But 
 the obscurity of their pitiful fortress cannot- dim the luster of 
 theiB heroic story, nor render it less worthy to form' the latest 
 chapter in the Golden Legend of romantic Spain. 
 
6 Undek the Bed and Gold. 
 
 The little town stands upon a point of land jutting out 
 from the south shore of a small bay or cove of the same name, 
 and is nearly encircled by a tidal stream, which at times con- 
 verts it into an island. It consisted, in Spanish days, of the 
 aforesaid church, with its convent or priest's residence ; a f rame- 
 and-eoncrete house for the Governor; barracks for the troops; 
 and a dingy tribunal for the admiaistration of what was of- 
 ficially known as justice. These outward and visible signs of 
 Spanish dominion, grouped about the inevitable plaza, formed 
 the strong nucleus, around which, along straight roads shad- 
 owed by a luxuriant growth of palm and bamboo, were clustered 
 the frail native houses, well typifying, by their lightness and 
 insecurity, the restless and unstable character of the inhabitants. 
 
 Although Manila is only about one hundred and twenty 
 miles from Baler, communication with it, over the mountains, 
 was always difficult and uncertain; by sea, almost equally so, 
 for lack of safe anchorage or harbors. Yet, cut off as it was 
 from the outside world, it was the most important town in the 
 region, and under Spanish rule was the capital of the District 
 of El Principe. 
 
 The only other town of any importance in the District is 
 Casiguran, a place of particular interest to Americans because 
 it was near here that General Funston landed with his force 
 on his way to capture Aguinaldo. 
 
 The Governor of El Principe, who was usually a captain 
 of the Army, also filled the offices of judge of first instance, 
 Treasury deputy, and director of posts, performing his func- 
 tions and collecting the tribute of his savage domain as best 
 he could. His authority was, however, ill-supported and ques- 
 tionable. The natives, and especially the more civilized of the 
 Tagdlogs, had no love for their masters, and a widespread dis- 
 affection was continually at work, undermining what little 
 power he could boast. 
 
Undee the Red and Gold. 7 
 
 For a year before the opening of Baler's disastrous story 
 the Filipinos had been in insurrection against the Spanish Gov- 
 ernment. Manila and its neighboriag provinces were the center 
 of the disturbance; and El Principe was considered a tranquil 
 district until, toward the end of August^, 1897, rumors began to 
 be whivspered about that the insurgents were taking advantage of 
 its isolated and imguarded coasts to smuggle in arms and 
 ammunition. 
 
 The Governor was ordered to investigate the matter, but, 
 as may be imagined, he could verify nothiag; his only source 
 of information being in the wild aborigines, who could scarcely 
 be bribed or cajoled within reach even to sell their venison, 
 and whose testimony was practically valueless when it could be 
 obtained. Yet such use of the territory was a menace to more 
 important regions; and a cruiser, the Maria Cristina, later not 
 unknown to fame, was dispatched thither to patrol its waters 
 and restore tranquillity to the alarmed towns along the coast. 
 
 Baler had been garrisoned up to this time by a corporal 
 and four men of the veteran Guardia Civil; but, in response to 
 the urgent request of the Governor, a detachment of fifty men 
 from the battalion of cazadores, under Lieutenant Don Jose 
 Mota, was dispatched to their relief. They arrived in Baler on 
 September 20th, after a daring and difficult march through 
 the savage mountains, where the enemy was most dangerous 
 and powerful. 
 
 Mota was brave and able; but, once in the town, he relied 
 too confidently upon his seeming security, making the mistake 
 which has been the undoing of many a brave man before him — 
 and, alas! of many a one since. Ten men of his scanty force 
 he stationed in the barracks of the Guardia Civil, eighteen 
 others in the schoolmaster's house, and the rest in the Coman- 
 dancia. He selected his own quarters in the schoolmaster's 
 
8 Undee the Eed and Gold. 
 
 house, as being centrally located; and limited his precautions 
 to posting one sentinel in the plaza, to keep guard for the en- 
 tire garrison. 
 
 A letter from the local priest to a colleague, dated at this 
 time, contains these caustic and significant words: 
 
 "We have had here some war-yessels to reconnoiter the 
 country. You may imagine how much they have discovered. 
 Besides, we have fifty cazadores, commanded by a very young 
 lieutenant. These are calamities which God orders for us, and 
 which we have to endure." 
 
 The garrisoning of Baler by so insuiSeient a force was 
 merely iuviting disaster. The very weakness of its former con- 
 dition might have saved it; but it now took rank as an obstacle, 
 not strong enough to be feared, but worth gettiag rid of. 
 
 Very early on the morning of October 5, 1897, a large band 
 of the insurgents, stealing in through the foresf s trails and 
 the dusky palm groves, as silently as the mists and shadows of 
 dawn, fell upon the sleeping garrison, killed and wounded a 
 score of their number, including Mota himself, and retired as 
 quickly as they had come, bearing away with them fifteen pris- 
 oners, among whom was the parish priest, and a valuable booty 
 of arms and aimmunition. 
 
 Two days later the captain of the Manila, steaming leisurely 
 into the little harbor, and landing with the neighborly intention 
 of exchanging news with Mota and the priest, was confronted 
 with the shocking spectacle of a number of dead bodies lying 
 unburied on the plaza. The survivors of the massacre had forti- 
 fied themselves in the church ; and, after reinforcing them with 
 twelve men from his ship and a doctor to care for the wounded, 
 the captain of the Manila, re-embarked and steamed away for 
 Casiguran, to communicate the news of the disaster to Army 
 headquarters. 
 
Under the Red and Gold. 9 
 
 His telegram produced imimense astonishment among the 
 ofi&cials in Manila; but they so far recovered from their surprise 
 as to dispatch to Baler, by the transport Cebu, one hundred men, 
 under Captain Don Jesus Eoldan Maizonada — a force propor- 
 tionately even more inadequate than the first company of fifty, 
 to cope with the swelling forces of the insurgents, rendered 
 doubly dangerous by their recent success. 
 
 After two days of delay and a sharp brush with the insurg- 
 ents, who had returned and entrenched themselves strongly 
 along the shore, Eoldan succeeded in landing his force, October 
 17th. He had no alternative than to take up his quarters in 
 the church and fortify his position to the best of the scanty 
 means at his disposal. The troops which he had relieved em- 
 barked two days later ; the Manila, leaving with him all the pro- 
 visions she could spare, weighed anchor: and "when this vessel 
 and the Cebu steamed away," in the words of Baler's heroic 
 chronicler, "the capital of the district of El Principe was left 
 reduced to the church, defended by a scanty force, cut ofE from 
 all communication, by land, with help by way of the sea uncer- 
 tain and difficult, and surrounded by a silent and deserted town 
 — a sad presage of that which was so soon to follow." 
 
 Only a few hours after the vessels steamed away the rebels 
 returned to the attack. We shall not follow all the events of 
 tbis earlier and lesser siege. It lasted three months, during 
 which the garrison suffered many privations. Eations were scarce 
 and in bad condition. The firing was incessant and the duties 
 laborious. There were many sick and wounded. In the fighting 
 of January 11th alone, the day when the besiegers had com- 
 pletely invested the church, there were seventeen persons (in- 
 cluding an officer) wounded. There were no medicines, nor 
 surgical attendance. 
 
 But relief came at last when, January 33, 1898, a force of 
 
10 TJndee the Red and Gold. 
 
 four hundred men, under Major Genova, and the news of the 
 peace of Biac-na-Bat6 reached Baler within a few hours of 
 each other. 
 
 Eoldan was now ordered to receive the surrender of his late 
 antagonists. But there were very few who availed themselves 
 of this opportunity to '^bury the hatchet"; "and it was a sig- 
 nificant fact/' adds the historian^ "that they all came in with- 
 out arms, a clear indication that the peace was not likely to last." 
 
 The authorities in Manila now determtaed to withdraw 
 Genova's battalion and to replace Eoldan's company. The re- 
 lieving force was limited to a detachment of fifty men, com- 
 manded by lieutenants Don Alonso Zayas and Don Saturnine 
 Martia Cerezo. 
 
 The Detachment set out from Manila on February 7, 1898. 
 Its members little thought that it would be nearly a year and a 
 half before they would return to Manila; that they were to un- 
 dergo hardships and suffering almost unheard of; and that when 
 they returned, it would be to find that the sovereignty of their 
 country over the Philippines had passed to another nation. The 
 only ofiieer of the Detachment to survive was Lieutenant Martin 
 Cerezo, and it is his story that will now be given. 
 
TJndee the Bed and Gold. 11 
 
 THE SIEGE. 
 
 FIRST PERIOD. 
 
 From February to November, 1898. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE RELIEF. 
 
 Captain Las Moeenas. — ^Scarcity op rations.— Incidents. — 
 
 Peeliminaey dispositions. — Policy of attraction. — The 
 
 SCHOOLMASTER LUCIO. ^In DARKNESS AND BAREFOOTED. 
 
 Requests disregarded. 
 
 The appointment of Don Enrique de las Morenas y Fossi, 
 Captain of Infantry, as Politico-Military Governor of El Prin- 
 cipe was coincident vrith our departure, and we made the jour- 
 ney together. It took us five days to make it; and I deem it 
 opportune to briefly notice the itinerary, in order to show what, 
 even in profound peace, were the means of communication be- 
 tween this District and the capital of the Archipelago. 
 
 By way of the Pasig, a beautiful river, whose poetic shores 
 furnish abundant examples, although only beginnings, of what 
 can be done by labor and civilization in the Philippines, the ves- 
 sel carried us as far as Santa Cruz on the Laguna de Bay, where 
 we stayed that night, setting out for Mauban the next day. 
 
 It took us two days to make this short Journey (twenty-five 
 miles), passing through Magdalena, Majayjay, Lumban, and Al- 
 fonso. Las Morenas was suffering from neuralgia. He could 
 travel on horseback the first day, but he had to be carried in a 
 hammock during the second day's march. 
 
 Arriving at Mauban, we had to undergo another delay while 
 awaiting the arrival of a transport which left Manila three days 
 
12 Under the Eed and G-ou). 
 
 before our departure. Having embarked on this, we reached our 
 destination on the evening of the 13th (February, 1898). 
 
 On board this same transport were also Friar Candido 
 Gomez Carreno, who had been made prisoner at the time of the 
 surprise of Mota's detachment, and who was goiug back to his 
 parish, and the then provisional surgeon of the Medical Corps, 
 Don Eogelio Yigil de Qtiinones y Alf arc, who was under orders 
 to organize and direct the hospital service, which had been for- 
 merly totally neglected. Accompanying him for this purpose 
 were a corporal and an attendant of the Hospital Corps, both 
 natives, and a European attendant; a personnel that was ap- 
 parently regarded as sufficient. 
 
 The river, which was now overflowed to within a few feet 
 of the church, presented the first difficulty on our arrival, since 
 some rations which our men landed on the beach had to remaia 
 there more than three days, deteriorating in the iuclement 
 weather. 
 
 That river was always, for us, an obstacle to communication 
 with the outside world. Under other circumstances it might have 
 been of some use to us, or even served as a means of security; 
 but, with its risiQg and faUiug with the tides and rains, unford- 
 able for the greater part of the time, it was in fact only a net 
 that held and isolated us. 
 
 There had been a bridge, but it had been destroyed by the 
 floods, and there remained of it only the well-built piers of ma- 
 sonry. They would have served very well for its reconstruction 
 without much effort, but they were allowed to stand in the stream 
 useless, while, it is worth notirig, there was within a short dis- 
 tance plenty of timber, already cut, to rebuild it. 
 
 The problem was considered solved by using a boat which 
 the boatman pulled across by cliagiag to a bejuco (a sort of rat- 
 tan) stretched from one bank to the other, after the manner of 
 some ferries in Spain. Las Morenas undertook to appoiut a 
 
TJndkr the Eed awd Gold. 13 
 
 native every day for this service, but the latter took himself off 
 whenever he felt like it; and, as passengers were not wanting, 
 siace almost all the people lived by fishing and salt-making, par- 
 ties were always waiting on one side for someone to bring ba«k 
 the boat which had been left on the other. 
 
 It was a means of reminding those people of our isolation 
 when they deprived ns of this means of crossiag. 
 
 The change in the politico-military governorship and of the 
 garrison (the two commands were independent) having been 
 effected, Geneva, with his troops, and Eoldan, with his company, 
 embarked on the same ship that had brought us, the vessel sail- 
 ing for Manila as soon (the sea having become calm) as the 
 anchor could be raised for the departure from the roadstead. 
 
 The departure of the transport is in reality the first scene, 
 as it were, of the tragedy, the story of which I am going to 
 write. 
 
 Those rations that had been left for us on the beach were 
 the last we were to receive. With these and those stored in the 
 church we were to face a long siege. Who could have believed 
 that not one man, not one cartridge, not one sack of biscuit were 
 we to receive from our army? 
 
 Our supply of ammunition was not scanty, but the same 
 could not be said of the rations. When all had been brought in, 
 we could see how greatly damaged they were; not only on ac- 
 count of the circumstances under which they had been landed 
 and brought in, but also because of the place of storage, which 
 was exceedingly damp and cramped, and which lacked ventilation 
 and sunlight. Besides, we did not bring a great many with us, 
 and Geneva's force, with its daily consumption of rations for 
 four hundred men, had about used up the best articles, leaving 
 us only the damaged and unserviceable. 
 
 In a few days the state of decomposition of the rations and 
 
14 TJndee the Eed and Gold. 
 
 the impossibility of utilizing some of them made it necessary to 
 take stock, as it were, and to reject a large part of them. In 
 seeking to make up the deficiency that now threatened us on this 
 account, we sought to obtain the good-will of the people by buy- 
 ing from them all the meat and fish they offered us, paying them 
 usually at prices fixed by themselves, and consequently stimulat- 
 ing their cupidity. By this proceeding we succeeded in causing 
 the absent to come back into the town and to turn again to their 
 ordinary pursuits, and at the same time reduced the expenditure 
 of our available food supplies. 
 
 But this saving of our rations could not continue very long. 
 Incited by Corporal Vicente Gonzalez Toca, a man of undisci- 
 plined mind, whom I had to put to death later, the soldiers pro- 
 tested that neither the carabao meat nor the venison should be 
 considered a part of the ration. It was necessary to listen to 
 them, and information of the protest was communicated to the 
 Captain-General in Manila for a decision, which turned out to be 
 in favor of the claims of the troops. 
 
 Moreover, as if Baler were a prosperous trading-post, easy 
 to supply, it was further ordered that, in consideration of the 
 want of means of livelihood among the people of the town, such 
 provisions or rations as they might ask for should be sold to them. 
 Following this was a list of prices and one of the articles com- 
 posing each class of the rations ; but not even any intimation that 
 we should have opportune supply. 
 
 The Detachment was at first lodged in the church, the place 
 that events had demonstrated to be the most suitable. There we 
 were at least in position for avoiding a surprise; there was our 
 ammunition ; there was the place of deposit for our rations, good 
 or bad, few or many; and there was our last refuge in ease of 
 any impleasant contingency. 
 
 But Captain Las Morenas, wishing to impress upon the na- 
 
iITndee the Bed and Gold. 15 
 
 fives his lively desire for intimacy and confidence, suggested to 
 Lieutenant Alonso, now commanding the Detachment, the desir- 
 ability of acconimodatiag the troops in the Comandancia, where 
 the Captain had his ofiicial residence and offices, leaving as a 
 guard for the church only a small detail under the orders of 
 a corporal. All this was done; and when the post of the 
 Guardia Civil, which watched the beach every day to see that 
 no arms were landed, was withdrawn, one or two files of sol- 
 diers were ordered for that service. 
 
 Captain Las Morenas desired especially the repopulation 
 of the town, the administrative regeneration of the District, 
 and the unity and concord of the people. He was an optim- 
 ist, and he proposed to himself to convert them morally and 
 socially. He did, in fact, succeed to a certain extent, owing to 
 the commercial relations already spoken of ; because, on account 
 of the desire for gain, and believing that the past was com- 
 pletely forgotten, • the people were already returning to their 
 habitations. 
 
 It is true that the return to normal conditions, which was 
 going on all over the islands, contributed powerfully to this 
 repopulation of the town; but the return to nonnal conditions 
 was more apparent than real, and, according to the "voice 
 of the people," temporary — "until June." It did, however, 
 greatly serve to tranquilize the minds of the people. 
 
 Because of the Captain's undue confidence, we had soon 
 to bewail a misfortune. In seeking, perhaps, the good-will 
 of the people, he had taken as his adviser or counselor (at 
 least, so it was thought from his intimate intercourse) the 
 schoolmaster, one Lucio, and had devoted himself assiduously 
 to the cultivation of the lands pertaining to the Comandancia, 
 making use for that purpose of the gratuitous services of the 
 people. This method of farming, a proof of his confidence in 
 
16 Under the Eed and Goid. 
 
 the genuineness of the peace, he committed to the charge of 
 the schoolmaster, who was not long in gaining the enmity of 
 all the inhabitants. 
 
 The people, in fact, complied in this service very unwill- 
 ingly, claiming that, owing to the private nature of the ob- 
 ject of the service, their labor ought not to be devoted to it 
 without compensation, even though it were ordered under the 
 letter of the law; that it was prejudicial to their interests; 
 and that it was an abuse. So, while the Captain supposed that, 
 on account of his attractive manner toward the people, what- 
 ever he ordered would be cheerfully received and obeyed, they, 
 on the contrary, were objecting; and, in their eagerness to get 
 satisfaction out of somebody, they blamed the schoolmaster for 
 having advised such a disagreeable servitude. The labor and 
 the murmuring went on until finally the poor schoolmaster 
 was murdered by the people. 
 
 It is certain also that it was this individual we had to 
 thank, on our part, that there was not done at this time and 
 under favorable conditions that which soon became so neces- 
 sary to the preserving of our lives, and which was so simple 
 and easy to do. 
 
 As Baler had no water supply except from a watercourse 
 which flowed around its south and west, on the opposite bank 
 of which the dense woods began, and as the whisperings of the 
 revolution were constantly spreading, it occurred to me that 
 the situation would be critical if, having to confront a new 
 siege, we should find ourselves without water; either because 
 the enemy would deprive us of it by diverting the stream, 
 which would be an easy matter, or else, by hiding themselves 
 in the woods, they could render it impossible for us to obtain 
 it, since, safely screened by the dense thickets, they could 
 easily drive us away or shoot us at will. 
 
Undee the Eed and Gou). 17 
 
 The very slight elevation of the land and the nearness of 
 the sea conviaced me that it would be a simple matter to dig 
 a well. I indicated this to Las Morenas, pointing oxit that the 
 plaza was the place most suitable to the purpose, and explain- 
 ing to him, judiciously, my suspicions. He heard the propo- 
 sition somewhat carelessly, saying that we would talk it over 
 with the schoolmaster. And so he did; but as the latter, sure- 
 ly wanting in truthfulness, argued that already, on other oc- 
 casions, efforts had been made to open wells, but without 
 success, my project was abandoned. 
 
 Struggling along, therefore, against adversity and aban- 
 donment, the time came when the troops had nothing with 
 which they could make a light at night; the rations, as I have 
 already said, were not abundant; material for repairing the 
 clothing was wanting, and we began to need it badly; we did 
 not have in store even one poor pair of shoes, and those un- 
 fortunate boys of ours had soon to go barefoot. 
 
 We asked for all this, and urged it with insistency, with 
 the plain, logical, inexorable insistency of necessity; but (bit- 
 ter it is to say it) we were not even listened to. 
 
 There were powerful reasons, I since believe, for this neg- 
 lect. I do not inquire what they were, nor examine them, nor 
 judge them; but the fact is, and it is well to point it out, that 
 from the 12th of February, 1898, the day of our arrival at 
 Baler, until the 2d of June, 1899, the day of our memorable 
 capitulation, we received, as I have said before, not one cent, 
 not one biscuit, not one cartridge. 
 
18 Undee the Eeo and Gold. 
 
 II. 
 
 BEGMNING OP THE SIEGE. 
 
 ITHE INSUEKECTION- IS EENBWED.^COMMUNICATION SHUT OFF. 
 
 — Escape of a pkisopter. — ^Notices of attack. — ^Pmght 
 OF the inhabitants. — ^Without clothing. — ^Measures 
 
 of PEECAUTION. ^MOEE DESERTIONS. — ^BVBEYBODT TO THE 
 
 CHUECH. — ^ElEST COMBAT. ^BESIEGED. 
 
 That desire to establish a principle, already referred to 
 in connection with the murder of the schoolmaster; those 
 ■whisperings of another and much more vigorous rebellion, 
 which went so far even as to appoint the month of June as 
 the date for the kindling of the fire, were increasing with 
 alarming rapidity, like the rumbling of thunder, which, burst- 
 ing in the heights, seems to roll along among the peaks and 
 precipices of the range. 
 
 In April, 1898, I learned that recruiting was going on 
 in Carranglan, Pantabangan, and Bongabon for a party which 
 had its rendezvous in San Jose de Lupao. I tried to find out 
 secretly whether the rumor had any foundation in fact; and, 
 through some inhabitants of Baler itself, who had gone out 
 to procure rice in the puehlos named, I succeeded in verifying 
 it. "They tried also to enlist us," my informants said, "and 
 they offered us good pay." I immediately informed the 
 Politico-Military Governor and the commander of the troops, 
 who answered me, the former that he would advise the Captain- 
 General, and the latter that he would make it known in writ- 
 ing to the commanding officer of the post of Pantabangdn, in 
 order that he might adopt suitable measures. 
 
 During the latter half of May the situation continued to 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 19 
 
 groi7 more and more alarming.* The force just referred to 
 had now become numerous enough to take the field, and it 
 did so. It took possession of the towns named, where it had 
 been recruited, and shut us ofi from all communication with 
 the rest of the Island. 
 
 VYe soon found how strict was the vigilance employed to 
 shut us in. On the 1st of June we remitted to Manila the 
 muster-rolls and returns for May. The mail was seized and 
 the bearers made prisoners; but after five days they succeeded 
 in getting away and returning to us, bringing warning of the 
 new dangers that were threatening Baler. 
 
 It was undoubtedly true that our little Detachment con- 
 tinually excited the cupidity and anxious desire of the enemy. 
 Xothing more natural. Emboldened by the easy surprise of 
 October, which yielded them their first supply of Mauser rifles; 
 their victory at the time of the disembarkation from the Ma- 
 nila; and the corraling of Eoldan's company : knowing, as they 
 must have known, our situation and resources in detail, our 
 practical isolation from the side of the sea; and eager to gain 
 renown by capturing us — it was logical, I say, for them to look 
 longingly upon Baler. 
 
 They were sure of the complicity and assistance of the 
 people of the town. They believed in their ability and that 
 awaiting only for them to come and take possession were fifty 
 rifles with abundant ammunition. And above all was that de- 
 sire of cutting ofE the Detachment; a desire not fully satisfied 
 in the former cases, and which, as a consequence, must have 
 stimulated their vanity extremely; a desire, moreover, which 
 they could regard then as of very easy realization, because on 
 
 *By one of tlhe last mails we (had from Manila overland we 
 received the Gazette, with the new^s of the rupture with the United 
 States and the catastrophe at Cavite. 
 
20 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 their side were overwhelming numberSj and on ours excessive 
 discouragement and helplessness. 
 
 Seeing the impossibility of communicating information 
 of the situation to the Captain-General directly. Las Morenas 
 sent for the ex-leader and resident of the town, Teodorieo 
 Novicio Luna, a relative of the celebrated author of "Spoli- 
 arium/' Luna Novicio, whom Spain favored with the reward 
 of honor at the Exhibition of Fine Arts at Madrid in the 
 year 1884. 
 
 Las Morenas asked Luna if there was a reliable person 
 who would bear a message to the Governor of San Isidro, in 
 order to have it transmitted to Manila. He replied affirma- 
 tively, and presented one Eamillo, for whom he said he would 
 toe responsible. To this man was delivered a message in cipher, 
 which he attached to his thigh, so as to prevent its discovery 
 in case of capture. He soon returned, saying that the enemy 
 had in fact detained him, stripped him, and found the mes- 
 sage, which they were unable to read and the origin of which 
 he would not tell; that they had finally torn the paper to 
 pieces; and that they would not permit him to go further. 
 They and God know whether all this was true or false. For 
 my part, this tying of the dispatch to the leg, which was 
 more likely to arouse suspicion, in case they should strip him, 
 than anything else, has always appeared to me a very silly 
 proceeding. 
 
 About this time there arrived from Binangonan two pon- 
 tines bringing palay (unhulled rice) to sell to us in Baler. The 
 opportunity to transmit the rolls and returns was one not 
 to be lost, and we seized it, entrusting the papers to the man 
 in charge of the vessels for the purpose of delivery to the com- 
 mander of the garrison at Binangonan. They very obligingly 
 accepted the commission, and departed, leaving us naturally 
 hopeful that our returns would reach Manila. 
 
Undee the Eed and Gold. 21 
 
 But our hopes ended very shortly in bitter disappoint- 
 ment; since no sooner had the vessels departed, after having 
 completed the sale of their merchandise (and carried out the 
 secret mission which undoubtedly was the cause of their com- 
 ing), than the news was spread, founded on the informa- 
 tion brought by the crews, that Binangonan was already in 
 insurrection. 
 
 It was one more proof of the little confidence that could 
 be placed in the inhabitants, so reserved when they could give 
 us information and so communicative afterwards when they 
 thought to annoy us with the news. 
 
 On St. John's Day we had still another bad omen to note. 
 For some time before that there had been two men confmed 
 in the jail. This had been burned during the occurrences of 
 October; and it became necessary to remove themi to the Tri- 
 hunal, as the municipal building was called there, and there 
 they had remained, serving their sentence or awaiting the re- 
 sult of their trial. I do not know what the crimes may have 
 been for which they were incarcerated — ^not very grave, per- 
 haps; but both were natives of the country; they were being 
 detained by us; and, in spite of the opportunities presented, 
 the fact is, that their "fellow-citizens" had not liberated them. 
 This fact deserves careful consideration. 
 
 The Captain, nevertheless, took one of them, who said his 
 name was Alejo, to act as his servant, the Politico-Military 
 Governor not having any right to take one of the men from 
 the Detachment for such duty. 
 
 As Alejo's behavior was good, he was allowed to go about 
 everywhere; and, needless to say, had plenty of opportunity 
 for prying and observing. He it was who gave, so to speak, 
 the signal for the abandonment of the town, taking himself 
 off on the 24th of June, and taking with him the saber belong- 
 ing to Senor Vigil, our doctor. 
 
22 Under the Red and Gold. 
 
 Las Morenas assigned the duty of capturing Alejo to one 
 Moises, a leader in the former insurrection, who soon returned, 
 saying that Alejo had joined the Insurrectos at Pantabangan, 
 and that a numerous party was coming against us on the 37th 
 ia order to inflict death on Novicio Luna, 'Taecause he had paid 
 no attention to their invitation to join the uprising." 
 
 JSTovieio was sent for, under the supposition, perhaps, that 
 he was ignorant of the news that had been brought; but, as 
 the whole thing was nothing more than deception, since they 
 were only getting ready for the surprise, the said N"ovicio was, 
 of course, not found in his house. "He has gone to the 
 fields," said his family; "he will not be back for some days." 
 
 Teodorico Novicio Luna was, in fact, "Chief of all the 
 Insurrecto forces in the District of El Principe," and where he 
 had gone was to procure arms for the band that, under his or- 
 ders and in conjunction with that from Pantabangan, was to 
 return against the post of Baler. 
 
 Everything was now becoming plain. On the 26th deser- 
 tions from the town were observed; which indicated an early 
 attack, just as the flight of certain birds often indicates the 
 proximity of the tornado. It was necessary to take energetic 
 measures, and promptly. 
 
 We were made to understand this by the action of the 
 whole population the following morning, while we had still 
 been hesitating. At daybreak there no longer remained a 
 single inhabitant in the town; all was silent and deserted. 
 
 But this was not the worst; for, after all, it was better 
 for it to be deserted than for us to have bad neighbors; the 
 gravest losses, and those we most felt, occurred in their carry- 
 ing away Friar Carreno's trunk, with three hundred and fifty 
 pesos in ready money, and, above all, in their taking away all 
 the inner and outer clothing that our soldiers had sent out to 
 
Under the Eed and Goid. 23 
 
 be washed. I have already told how scantily 6ur poor boys 
 were supplied with clothing. 
 
 Since it was now necessary for us to recognize and yield 
 to the inevitable, we were ordered to prepare to defend our- 
 selves in the church. During the day (the 27th) we moved to 
 that place some provisions that had been taken to the Coman- 
 dancia because of the better ventilation of that building; and 
 also about seventy cavanes (a cavan contains seventy-five liters) 
 of palay, which the priest had bought from the pontines that 
 had come from Binangonan, with a view to selling it at a prof- 
 it not prohibited by the canons. 
 
 That afternoon we had to note the disappearance of the 
 native Hospital Corps men, Corporal Alfonso Sus Fojas and 
 Private Tomas Paladio Paredes, and of my servant Villadiego 
 and a Peninsular private, Felipe Herrero Lopez. That night we 
 shut ourselves up in the church, with Vigil, Friar Gomez Car- 
 reno, and the Politico-Military Governor, whose authority was 
 vanishing like smoke. 
 
 The same was happening with all our enthusiasm. It 
 was undeniable that the situation was very critical, the enemy 
 arrogant and numerous, those walls weak, the elements of 
 defense slender, treason possible, and help by no means cer- 
 tain. The moment, in short, had arrived, a moment always 
 agonizing, in which the voice of honor rises impelling the con- 
 summation of the sacrifice, and when death is probable, im- 
 minent, without other glory than that of our own consciences. 
 
 That lonely ocean, the river an unfordable moat, the town 
 deserted and silent, the forest and mountains which must be 
 regarded as completely shutting us off, and the abandonment 
 which was becoming plain to us, were surely not circumstances 
 to inspire us with courage and fortitude. 
 
 On the morning of the 28th I made a reconnaissance with 
 fourteen mea, without incident; and during the day those of 
 
24 TJndee the Eed and Goto. 
 
 us who were off guard duty occupied ourselves in bringing a 
 supply of water into the church, filling twenty odd tinajas 
 (earthenware water-jars), which we got out of some of the 
 houses of the town. 
 
 On the 39th the commander of the Detachment, my com- 
 rade Alonso, made the reconnaissance with the same number 
 of men; and we had no misfortune to lament except the deser- 
 tion of a soldier. Felts Garcia Torres, who fled, it seems, from 
 the "crash," as do rats from 'falling ruins. After all, it was 
 not the first desertion, nor was it to be the last. 
 
 We next occupied ourselves in demolishing the so-called 
 convent, which was ia fact only the residence of the parish 
 priest, at the side of the church. We stored ia its basement 
 all the wood obtained in its demolition; and, intendtag to use 
 it as a corral, we lift the basement wall intact to serve as a 
 fence. This wall was of stone, and about two meters high. 
 
 I also had three or four horses caught, so that, in case of 
 necessity, we might kill them and eat their flesh. But, some 
 of the soldiers having protested, saying that they would not 
 eat it, and Alonso saying the same, and the others not appear- 
 ing to take very kindly to the idea, there was nothing for me 
 to do but to submit to what the Captain told me, and to order 
 the horses turned loose. 
 
 It was the will of God that the date of June 30, 1898, 
 should be signalized with blood. Up to that time we had to 
 record only menaces, presages, and fears, disheartening treach- 
 ery and mocking villainy; but that morning the cloud closed 
 in on us, and (I say it without boasting) with the relief of a 
 sensation desired, yet feared. The cloud closed down and we 
 breathed it in with relief. 
 
 I had gone out on the daily reconnaissance with only four- 
 teen men, the same number as on former days. All was si- 
 
Hi 
 
 o 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 §m 
 
 imp 
 

 PLAN OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 1. Door. 
 
 2. Baptistery with three loopholes. 
 
 3. Door opening on the road to the river, 
 
 4. Entrance to the trenches. 
 
 5. Pepper and tomato beds. 
 
 6. Projection of the Choir, 
 
 7. High altar. 
 
 8. Door opening into the sacristy. 
 
 9. Sacristy. 
 
 10. Door from the sacristy to the corraJ. 
 
 11. Sm.aU opening to the ditch of the 
 
 Trench of the sacristy. ~* 
 
 12. Opening from the first enclosure to 
 
 the second enclosure or corral. 
 
 13. Well. 
 
 14. Closet. 
 
 15. Urinal. 
 
 16. Tiled platform. 
 
 17. Trench with its ditch, 
 
 18. Loopholed windows. 
 
 19. Oven that we built. 
 
 20. Railing of the presbytery, 
 
 21. Parapets constructed on the walls of 
 
 the church. 
 Cess-pool. 
 Entrance to the convent, the door of 
 
 which was fortified. 
 Entrenchment to cover the door of 
 
 the sacristy, 
 25. Ditch and trench of the sacristy. 
 
 22. 
 23. 
 
 24. 
 
Undek the Red and Gouj. 25 
 
 lence. We were marching with the ordinary precautions, but 
 without noticing anything that could cause us uneasiness; 
 when, on reaching the Bridge of Spain, on the west of the 
 town, suddenly the enemy, posted along the stream which 
 flows under the bridge, began a heavy fire and at once rushed 
 upon us, attempting to surround us. 
 
 Comprehending their design, there was nothing we could 
 do but fall back upon the church. It was necessary for us to 
 get to shelter in all haste, and we accomplished it with some 
 difficulty, carrying with us Corporal Jesiis Garcia Quijano, who 
 was wounded severely in the foot. 
 
 It had fallen to my lot to reply to the first shots, and I 
 was to reply to the last. 
 
 "We were besieged. 
 
26 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 III. 
 
 FEOM THE 1st TO THE 19th OF JULY. 
 
 First letter from the enemy. — ^Preparing foe resistance. 
 — ^Second letter. — 'Eeplt oe Las Morbnas. — ^Construc- 
 tion OP TRENCHES. — ^GREGORIO CATALAN SETS EIRE TO 
 SEVERAL HOUSES. NaVARRO LeON REPEATS THE ENTER- 
 PRISE. — ^Defense against assault. — Suspension of 
 HOSTILITIES. — Sedition. — ' Letter of Friar Gomez. — 
 Warning from Villacorta. — No surrender. 
 
 At daybreak the following morning we found a letter 
 which the enemy had left near the church. In it they told us 
 that we ought to lay down our arms in order to avoid the use- 
 less shedding of blood, seeing that almost all the Spanish 
 troops had done so, and that further resistance was rash. 
 They added that their force present consisted of three com- 
 panies overwhelmingly numerous and prepared to capture us. 
 This letter produced no great impression. 
 
 As to the capitulation of almost all the Spanish forces, 
 we thought the story nothing more than a stupid artifice on 
 the part of the enemy. But as the manifestations of force were 
 incontestable, and as the facts that we had been able to gather 
 showed that the situation was critical and the peril very real, 
 we understood that it was going to be a long story. We there- 
 fore exerted ourselves to prepare for it with every means that 
 we could reach. Suspicion and hesitation had given way to 
 certainty and decision, and something great had awakened in 
 our souls. 
 
 On my part, I began again to insist upon the well; be- 
 cause, if we should be closely besieged and should be unable 
 
TJndek the Red and Gold. 27 
 
 to leave the church, as happened afterwards, there would be 
 nothing left for us but surrender at discretion. Las Morenas 
 continued to believe stubbornly in what the dead schoolmaster 
 had said; but he finally gave me authorit}'', and, with five sol- 
 diers, we put our hands to the work. 
 
 The result showed very soon that I had not suggested an 
 impossibility. At a depth of four meters we found water in 
 abundance, enough for all the necessities of life. We now had 
 nothing to fear on account of thirst; but the soil below was 
 very sandy, the subterranean current very strong, and the 
 opening was soon stopped up. It was necessary to line the 
 well, and for that purpose we took to pieces a pillar of stones, 
 which was in the corral. This not sufficing, we sunk a half of a 
 wine-barrel in the bottom. My comrade Alonso, with the rest 
 of the available iorce, occupied himself meanwhile in filling 
 up the doors and windows; the admirable warlike preparations 
 of the enemy demanding no less on our part. 
 
 The following day (in the morning also, since the en- 
 emy did not come near us except under cover of darlmess) we 
 found a second message about ten paces from the church, and 
 surely they had left it in a manner so strange as to give us 
 rather a pleasant shock. It was found placed in the hollow of 
 a piece of bamboo, one end of which was stuck in the ground, 
 while the other was covered with a banana leaf, for the pur- 
 pose, no doubt, of keeping the rain from wetting its contents. 
 Apparently they did not wish to give us an opportunity to call 
 their messages mere "paper sops." 
 
 The second letter consisted merely of complaints because 
 we did not reply to the first; which, they said, "was not com- 
 plying with our obligations as gentlemen." They then enlarged 
 upon what they had already said in the first concerning the 
 victorious progress of the insurrection, assuring us that they 
 
28 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 had mastered the greater number of the provinces of Luzon; 
 that the capital itself, Manila, was besieged by 23,000 Tagal- 
 ogs, who had succeeded in cutting ofE its water-supply; and 
 that it was in imminent peril of succumbing to thirst unless 
 it should capitulate. 
 
 They no doubt informed us of this situation in Manila 
 because of the similar plight in which they thought they had 
 placed us by cutting off the canal, thinking that our water- 
 supply was limited and that we therefore were threatened with 
 immediate deprivation of an element so necessary. 
 
 The reply of Las Morenas was suitable and conciliating. 
 "Manila wUl not surrender for want of water," he told them, 
 "while it is possible to utilize the water of the sea, which offers 
 itself in abundance." He went on advising them' that they 
 ought not to be deluded; that they should return to the obedi- 
 ence they owed to Spain; and that he, their Politico-Military 
 Governor, would receive them with open arms. 
 
 He finished by recommending that they leave no more 
 letters in the vicinity of the church; that in order to send them 
 they should sound the "attention"; and that if we should an- 
 swer by the same signal, they should send a bearer with the 
 message, but only one man, and with a white flag. He also 
 pointed out the manner in which an answer would be returned 
 to them. We would raise a white flag and sound the "atten- 
 tion," and they could then send someone to receive the answer. 
 
 It had been decided that we would not send any soldier, 
 for fear that the deserters might catechise him or lure him 
 away. One of those wretches, Felipe Herrero Lopez, who had 
 been my servant, had the impudence to present himself to re- 
 ceive this answer. I went out myself to give it to him, and 
 tried with the fairest words I could command to persuade him to 
 return to his allegiance; but, seizing the message, he answered 
 
UlTOER THE EeD AKD GoU). 29 
 
 not a single word, and returned at a run to his companions, a 
 camp, to him^ of treachery and shame. 
 
 On the 3d they sent us another letter by a deserter, Felix 
 Garcia Torres, whom we would not receive'; telling him that he 
 should make the enemy understand that if, in 'future, they con- 
 tinued to select emissaries of that class, we would receive them 
 with bullets. I suppose they had done this because they knew 
 that such persons would be more likely to understand us; per- 
 haps, also, because if such persons were lost, if something hap- 
 pened to them, it would not be of very great moment; perhaps, 
 also, they wished thus to annoy us. But we could not receive 
 them. Their presence with the message calling upon us to lower 
 the flag, the same that their traitorous lips had touched, was a 
 cowardly outrage which we would in no wise tolerate. 
 
 The same day, it having become impossible to go out of 
 the church, on account of the constant firing kept up by the 
 enemy, it was necessary to take up some flagstones in order to 
 construct an oven in the corral, since we had no bread in store 
 when we shut ourselves up in the church, and it was seventy- 
 two hours since the last morsel was consumed. 
 
 The oven, with all the defects that can be well imagined, 
 but useful for the immediate supply of so precious an article, 
 was finished that afternoon. To facilitate the washing of the 
 few articles of clothing that still remained to us (thanks to 
 the honest inhabitants, who could not carry it all away), we 
 sawed in two another empty wine-barrel, like the one sunk in 
 the well, and thus provided ourselves with two fine wooden 
 tubs. Two tia cans that had held Australian meat served as 
 buckets to fill these tubs. We now needed only a better supply 
 of dothing to make our washing arrangements more complete, 
 since some of us had to go naked, or little less than naked, if 
 we wished to indulge in the luxury of clean clothing. 
 
30 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 Wiile we omitted no precautions necessary to prolonged 
 resistance, neither was the enemy wanting in diligence. Re- 
 duced to the narrow inclosure of that humble church, where 
 nothing appeared more remote than divine worship, and where 
 surely never was God more earnestly invoked and reverenced 
 than in those days so bitter, we had to look on, day after day, 
 without power to prevent it, while the trenches of the siege 
 were stretching out, belting about and shutting us in, forming 
 somethiag very like the web that the spider so skillfully weaves 
 to make secure against the writhings and attempts to escape 
 of his victim. 
 
 We could not neutralize those labors because the numer- 
 ical superiority of the enemy was great, and any attempt on 
 our part would have caused useless loss, a disaster, material 
 and moral, which we could not afford to risk. 
 
 Neither was the enemy exposing himself while construct- 
 ing the approaches. He very well knew the danger of expos- 
 ure and took advantage of the cover afforded by the darkness 
 of the night. We were on the alert to fire toward the point 
 where we heard a noise, but the sound of the waves of the near- 
 by sea helped also to protect the enemy. Thus they were able 
 to bring their trenches to within fifty paces of us at some 
 points, and even within twenty paces at others, traeiug a line, 
 rather irregular, but covered and protected at various points 
 by the houses nearest the church. 
 
 In approaching the latter at the points that seemed to be 
 the most vulnerable they leveled some of those habitations, 
 transforming them into regular field-works, which gave excel- 
 lent protection against our projectiles and from which they 
 could annoy us at will, thanks to a kind of parapet that they 
 raised in each one, the parapet being loopholed and perfectly 
 disposed and revetted. 
 
Undeh the Red and Gold. 31 
 
 Up to the present I had been obliged to record more than 
 one instance of that most infamous and detestable crime that 
 a soldier can commit — ^desertion. As a contrast to such cow- 
 ardly acts, it is now a pleasure to record a deed of self- 
 abnegation and heroism worthy of encomium;, by a most modest 
 individual, Gregorio Catalan. Valero. It is the first of those 
 made memorable by the siege and it is, as well, among those 
 that deserve special mention. 
 
 Little was wanting now to the completion of that girdle 
 of trenches, and we saw that, to obtain a strong support, they 
 were directing it towards the barracks of the Guardia Civil, 
 situated less than fifteen paces from the church, near the 
 northeast comer. From there it was plain that they could do 
 us much damage because of the proximity and condition of the 
 building, and of the command it gave them against us. 
 
 It was necessary to destroy it at all hazard, and Gregorio 
 did it with a serenity and boldness truly admirable. He dashed 
 out of the church, and under a heavy fire kindled not only the 
 barracks but also the school buildings, and with such skill and 
 deliberation that they were completely destroyed, in spite of 
 the swarm of Insurrectos who, although so numerous, did not 
 dare to defy our bullets and expose themselves openly to pre- 
 vent the realization of that undertaking. 
 
 Gregorio Catalan may still be living.* If he should read 
 these pages, I hope he may regard it as a modest recompense 
 that I can in this way give him praise. 
 
 As our soldier needs only an example, the initiative, for 
 him to go wherever we will lead him, a few days later another 
 boy, Manuel Navarro Leon, a victim later of the epidemic that 
 
 *It has come to my •notice, since writing the above, that Catalan 
 died in great jKiverty, a victim of the disabilities incurred during 
 the siege. ' 
 
32 Under the Red and Gold. 
 
 we suffered, succeeded in setting fire to another near-by house, 
 from which the enemy had been firing at us. 
 
 This display of stubborn resistance, united to our constant 
 vigilance, which we showed in taking advantage of any care- 
 lessness on the enemy's side and not allowing him to show 
 himself with impunity, caused the enemy, naturally, to become 
 impatient ; with the result that it was not long before we noticed 
 that he was preparing to make an assault. 
 
 Meanwhile we also made suitable preparations, filling in 
 the lower half of each door and covering the upper half with 
 bundles of blankets or boxes filled with earth. The windows 
 were treated in the same way, so that no one could enter that 
 way, and loopholes were made. 
 
 In order that we might get out should any reason for do- 
 ing so offer itself, we left a small opening in the door in the 
 east wall of the church. We were thus locked in so tightly 
 that only one terrible intruder could make his way into our 
 refuge, his way becoming, for this same reason, every moment 
 more easy: Death. 
 
 On the 8th of July the leader, Cirilo Gr6mez Ortiz, sent 
 us a letter, asking for a suspension of hostilities, in order that 
 the people might have a rest from continual fightiag. The 
 man affected the generous rolej and, saying that he had learned 
 from deserters that we were suffering in the matter of subsist- 
 ence, he offered us whatever we might need, and proposed that 
 we send two imarmed men for it. As an earnest of the offer, 
 he sent with the letter a small box of cigarettes for the Captain 
 and a trifle for each of the soldiers. 
 
 The suspension was agreed upon (and nobody needed it 
 more than we did) until nightfall, at which time it was agreed 
 that the firing might begin again. We thanked Ortiz for his 
 kind offer, and informed him that we had an abundance of aU 
 
Undek the Eed and Goijj. 33 
 
 kinds of provisions; and, in return for his civilities, sent him 
 a bottle of sherry, in order that he might drink our health, and 
 a handful of regalias. 
 
 At the time agreed upon hostilities were renewed, and 
 were not agaia interrupted during the whole siege. 
 
 Those people resorted to every kind of expedient to ac- 
 complish our surrender. Seeing that the news of their victo- 
 ries throughout the Island had no effect upon us, they tried 
 to intimidate us with the network of trenches they had drawn 
 around us; they then resorted, as just related, to polite ofEers; 
 and, not gainiag anything by this, they tried to alarm us by a 
 theatrical arrangement of trumpets, which, by sounding and re- 
 peating calls at various distances, were intended to indicate the 
 presence of a very large force. This is a device which has been 
 recorded in the military history of more than one campaign, 
 and which did not succeed in its object. 
 
 They also added the most tremendous threats and (it is 
 painful to record it) the vile impudence of a pack of traitors 
 from our own army, who continually cried out that we had 
 deceived the Detachment, that we were going to cause its ruin, 
 that we were lost, and so on to the same effect; calling to the 
 soldiers also that they should escape, that they should not per- 
 persist in their folly, that they would only miserably perish in 
 the church, that (leaving the officers to defend themselves if 
 they wished) they should save their own lives, that they would 
 be well treated, and that they would gain every advantage by 
 deserting to the enemy's camp. Against this iire of words, 
 strong walls and loopholes were, on the whole, useless; there 
 was nothing for it but constant vigilance. 
 
 On the 18th a private, Julian Galvete Iturmendi, was se- 
 verely wounded, and died on the 31st, in consequence of the 
 wound. The Christian duties we owed to his remains necessi- 
 
34 Under the Red and Gold. 
 
 tated the devotion of that enclosure to one more sad purpose — 
 that of a cemetery. 
 
 On the 18th also we received a letter for the Politico- 
 Military Governor and Priar Gomez Carreno. It was signed 
 by a colleague of the latter^ Friar Leoncio Gomez Platero. He 
 advised us to surrender, urging us to give up our arms to the 
 leader, Calixto Villacorta, to accept cheerfully the Katipunan; 
 adding that we would he treated with all manner of consider- 
 ation and embarked immediately for Spain, as had already 
 been the case with the rest of the detachments, almost all of 
 which had surrendered without a fight. The letter was kindly 
 written, with a certain eloquence of the kind used by death-bed 
 confessors. It was not answered. 
 
 But the urgent communication that we received the fol- 
 lowing day, the 19th of July, from Vniacorta, could not be 
 treated in the same way. He said: 
 
 "I have just arrived, with the three columns of my com- 
 mand; and, aware of the useless resistance you are keeping up, 
 I inform you that if you will lay down your arms within 
 twenty-four hours, I shall respect your lives and property, treat- 
 ing you with every consideration. Otherwise, I shall force you 
 to deliver them; I shall have compassion on no one; and shall 
 hold the officers responsible for every fatality that may occur. 
 
 "Given at my headquarters, the 19th of July, 1898. 
 
 "Calixto Villacorta." 
 
 The following morning he was answered as follows: 
 
 "At midday to-day terminates the period fixed in your 
 threat. The officers cannot be held responsible for the fatal- 
 ities that occur. We are united in the determination to do our 
 duty, and you are to understand that if you get possession of 
 the church, it will be only when there is left in it nothing but 
 dead bodies; death being preferable to dishonor." 
 
 And it was indeed true that we preferred death. 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 35 
 
 IV. 
 
 FEOM THE 20th OP JULY TO THE 30th OP 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 The fieing increases. — Artillery of the defense. — Let- 
 ters FROM THE ENEMY.— Artillery of the siege. — An- 
 other DESERTER. — ^ATTEMPTED ASSAULT. RELIGIOUS MES- 
 SENGERS. — ' Providential chastisement. — Casualties 
 
 INCREASE. ^THE BERI-BERI. — ' DeATH OF PRIAR CaRRENO. 
 
 — Heroism of Roviro. — Letter from Dupuy de Lome. — 
 More proofs op the disaster. — It cannot be! 
 
 The constant fire of the enemy, at times furiously general 
 and sustained, as though they were trying to suddenly annihi- 
 late us, to blot us out; and at other times slow and deliberate, 
 as though they desired only to remind us of the extremity we 
 had reached; the increasing casualties; the appearance of dis- 
 ease, the symptoms of which were very alarming; the annoying 
 affliction of letters, warnings, and counsel; treason which never 
 sleeps; and the melancholy situation of the Mother Country, 
 which was becoming more and more clear to our eyes — ^make 
 up the picture, so to speak, of the seventy-two days of the siege 
 of which I shall treat ia this chapter. 
 
 At twelve o'clock midday of the 30th the time fixed by 
 Villacorta expired, and at that hour there broke forth from the 
 whole of the enemy's line a most furious firing, which lasted 
 until the followiag morning. 
 
 In order to economize in the expenditure of cartridges as 
 well as to incite the enemy to assault, we had determined not 
 to reply to his fire; but, observing our silence, Villacorta, in- 
 stead of sendiag those "columns under his command," sent us 
 
36 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 another message, saying that he would not expend any more 
 powder to no purpose, and that he would not raise the siege, 
 even though it should be prolonged for three years. "I shall 
 not leave Baler," he said, "until I have made you surrender." 
 It is proper to observe that while we were reading about his 
 purpose not to expend any more powder in vain, the firing was 
 going on undiminished. 
 
 On our part, while we were firmly determined to econ- 
 omize ammimition, we did make an effort to furnish an ac- 
 companiment for that noise. We found in the church several 
 old cannon. I do not know how old they were nor by what 
 chain of cireumstances they happened to be there. There were 
 no vestiges of a gun-carriage nor any accessories. A singular 
 expedient occurred to us; and since there was no powder for 
 the cannon, it may be affirmed that we invented a kind of 
 artillery. 
 
 We took some rockets to pieces and emptied some Reming- 
 ton cartridges; we mixed the explosives thus obtained; and, se- 
 lecting one of the smallest guns, we put in it more than a suf- 
 ficient quantity of the mixture and filled it to the muzzle with 
 balls. 
 
 Carrying the gun thus prepared, by hand, to one of the 
 loopholes we had made in the foundation wall of the convent 
 (now our corral), we supported the muzzle in the loophole; and, 
 using a strong rope for the purpose, we suspended the othei 
 end, by the cascabel, from one of the floor-beams that we had 
 left in place. This allowed us to incline the plane of fire, af- 
 ter a fashion, and to that extent to get some sort of aim. 
 
 The piece being in place and our ears well stopped, we 
 selected a bamboo from the longest we had, tied a piece of fuse 
 to the end of it, set fire to it carefully, got as far away as we 
 could, and then came surprise and noise enough! The result 
 
Under the Red and Gold. 37 
 
 ■was something like the formidable blow of a battering-ram, the 
 recoil of the piece being such that, darting from the loophole 
 like a projectile, it struck the opposite wall, about eight feet 
 away, with a blow that made the foundations tremble. "Fire! 
 fire!" cried the Insurrectosj "but just wait until we get our 
 cannon !" 
 
 Among the numerous messages, and we received them al- 
 most daily, it is proper to now mention one that was brought 
 to us by two Spaniards. One of them was recognized by some 
 of the soldiers who had belonged to Mota's detachment. "That 
 one," they told us, "was a corporal in the veteran Guardia Civil 
 and commanded the post at Carranglan. We saw him there 
 when we passed through there in September on our way to 
 Baler." 
 
 My comrade Alonso's servant, Jaime Caldentey, added that 
 the man was a countryman and friend of his from Mallorca. 
 
 With him came another man, a very tall one, called "the 
 standard-bearer." The Mallorean probably did not have the 
 enemy's full confidence, and for that reason the other was sent 
 with him, to avoid indiscretions. Alonso ordered Jaime that, 
 speaking Mallorean, he should invite "the standard-bearer" to 
 join us, telling him that we had an abundance of supplies and 
 means of defense. 
 
 The servant obeyed; but the other, pretending that he did 
 not understand the Mallorean dialect, replied in a loud voice 
 that he had parents, brothers, and great love for his country; 
 that he did not abandon hope of seeing them; and that he was 
 very sure that if we persisted in the defense, we should all per- 
 ish, because, all the Peninsular forces having surrendered, we 
 eoidd receive no help and were lost. 
 
 On hearing these words I could not contain myself, and 
 said to him angrily: "You are the one that is lost; and now 
 
38 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 take yourself away from here." Perhaps I should have re- 
 mained silent; but I leave it to anyone to judge whether or 
 not his answers were enough to arouse indignation, although 
 they may have been made only for the sound or for the way 
 they might strike the ears of the soldiers. 
 
 On the 31st Villaeorta wrote us again, saying that if by 
 the following day (August 1st) we did not surrender, he 
 would resort to cannon fire and would bring our refuge to the 
 ground, showing mercy to no one. They had, it seems, re- 
 ceived some guns; but we soon discovered that they were prob- 
 ably of the same types as those we had. 
 
 It is needless to say that they were enabled^ to do great 
 damage to the walls of the church. This fact may well serve 
 as a commentary on those who have affirmed, surely talking at 
 random, that we in the church at Baler had no serious attacks 
 to withstand. 
 
 As Villaeorta threatened so he did. Ko sooner had twelve 
 o'clock arrived that same night than from three directions at 
 the same time, from the south, east, and west, the cannonade 
 commenced; although, fortunately, without other damage than 
 the destruction visited on the doors and roof. The doors were 
 not splintered, but the bundles of blankets that we had used in 
 covering them were sent flying through the air, opening a free 
 passage for the balls and canister which, from aU sides, were 
 rained against the doors. The damage done to the roof left us 
 aU but completely exposed to the weather. 
 
 On August 3d we lost another man by desertion, the serv- 
 ant Jaime, who carried away with him his arms, ammunition, 
 and equipments. He accomplished this while he was a sentry at 
 the window to the right of the altar, from which he jumped to 
 the ground; and it was supposed that he deserted because of a 
 reprimand he had recently received from Alonso, who had found 
 
TJndee the Eed and Gold. 39 
 
 him playing cards. That may have been the reason, but it is 
 as likely that he conceived the idea, and perhaps said so, at the 
 time he had the conversation in Mallorcan. 
 
 This occurrence came very near being the occasion of a 
 catastrophe. Alonso had an idea that the enemy could easily 
 set fire to the church from the north side, where there was only 
 one sentinel posted on the wall, and he was not careful to keep 
 that idea to himself. Taking possession of his mind as it did, 
 and not without reason, it was frequently the theme of conver- 
 sation between us. 
 
 His rascally servant, as it soon appeared, did not forget 
 to communicate it to someone who could make use of the in- 
 formation. The result, as we very soon experienced, was an 
 attack, four days later, on that north wall. 
 
 The enemy tried to surprise us and brought with him ev- 
 erything necessary for setting fire to the building. There was 
 a heavy increase in the firing on the north side of the church, 
 while a party were raising a ladder and trpng to gain the wall. 
 Their success would have been the beginning of our ruin. 
 
 Fortunately, they placed the ladder right next to where 
 the sentry was posted. The cry of alarm rang out. Hurrying 
 to the point of danger, we had a lively little fight on our hands, 
 the enemy displaying a tenacity of purpose that was quite 
 unexpected. 
 
 As the enemy's obstinacy was great, and as the assault 
 gave signs of continuing longer than was desirable, it occurred 
 to us to feign a sally. The trumpeter was ordered to sound 
 the attack vigorously. Lieutenant Alonso, his voice ringing 
 above the tumult, cried, "To Hernandez' house!" (one of the 
 fortified houses) ; and then, by delivering a very rapid fire, we 
 succeeded in intimidating the rebels, who betook themselves to 
 flight in such haste that some of them threw themselves from 
 
40 Undee the Eed and Gold. 
 
 the top of the ladder, abandoning it and leaving behind the 
 rags and petroleum with which they had provided themselves 
 for the conflagration. 
 
 The attack was repulsed, but the camion and rifle flre con- 
 tinued from the enem/s trenches. They left us the ladder; 
 but, as we could not leave the church to get it, we could do 
 nothing with it but suspend it securely from a roof-beam, so 
 that they could neither utilize it nor carry it away. 
 
 On the 15th, the Assumption of Our Lady, Private Pedro 
 Planas Basagaiias was wounded. On the 30th Villacorta asked 
 us for a short parley, sending to us the priest of Casiguran, 
 Friar Juan Lopez Guillen, who was followed in a short time 
 by another curate, of the same parish, Friar Felix Minaya. 
 
 Both of these priests did all they could to incline us to 
 surrender, without adding any new arguments to those we had 
 already heard so often, but strengthening them with all the 
 coloring their eloquence could supply. 
 
 They were not at all successful, and Las Morenas agreed to 
 allow them to remain with us. I ami ignorant of the motives 
 that prompted this resolution, but I must suppose that they 
 were not merely capricious; because, on account of the scarcity 
 of rations in our possession, we were not in position for an in- 
 crease of useless mouths to feed. 
 
 These two priests remained with us until the capitulation. 
 After the latter had been concluded, the Tagalogs said that 
 they needed the priests for religion. The priests accordingly 
 remained with them, to the great satisfaction of all concerned. 
 
 A pleasing piece of news, if the chastisement of a criminal 
 can be a pleasure, reached us through these priests. Jaime Cal- 
 dentey, whose treachery must have incited the assault that 
 came so near putting an end to the defense, had been killed; 
 and this had happened at a moment when he was showing his 
 animosity toward us. 
 
Undee the Eed and Gold. 41 
 
 On the day following his desertion to the enemy he wished 
 to fire a cannon against us, and in attempting to do so he fell, 
 shot through by one of our projectiles. 
 
 In the course of human events there are often coincidences 
 so strange that they cause even the least believing, the most 
 skeptical, to reflect upon the supreme judgments of an inex- 
 orable justice, the justice of Divine Providence. 
 
 From the 20th of August to the 25th of September there 
 were no extraordinary events to record. The firing continued 
 and we had some wounded, but none seriously. 
 
 On September 35th the "intruder" of which I have before 
 spoken, and of which I said that the more we attempted to pre- 
 vent all entrance the more we facilitated his ravages, made 
 known, by claiming his first victim, his inevitable appearance 
 among us. 
 
 The fatigues of the siege, the scarcity and bad condition 
 of our rations, the persistent and ever-present anxiety, the viti- 
 ated air and the other very bad hygienic conditions to which we 
 were subjected, the constant firing, the insufBeient policing and 
 cleaning, were bound to produce, under that burning sky and 
 those humid winds, the fatal epidemic against which we had 
 no defense. 
 
 The disease which now attacked us is a terrible one, not 
 only in its termination, but also on account of the steady ad- 
 vance it makes as it goes on devouring, so to speak, and anni- 
 hilating its victim. It is called beri-beri. It begins its inva- 
 sions through the lower extremities, which it swells and ren- 
 ders useless, covering them with loathsome tumefactions. The 
 attack is preceded by excessive debility and convulsive trem- 
 blings. It goes on rising and rising until, when in its devel- 
 opment it reaches certain organs, it produces death with fright- 
 ful sufferings. 
 
42 Undek the Eed and Gold. 
 
 The former priest of Baler, Friar Cdndido Gomez Car- 
 reno, was its first victim. He died September 35th, the sev- 
 enty-seventh day of the siege, and the day when we had the 
 first definite news of the surrender of Manila, which we learned 
 through an artifice of the enemy. 
 
 While Carreno was dying a parley sounded, and there pre- 
 sented himself one Pedro Aragon, an inhabitant of Baler and 
 known as "the husband of Cenaida," begging to be allowed to 
 speak to the priest. He informed us that he had been a pris- 
 oner at Manila, having been implicated in the attack on Mota's 
 detachment; but that he had been set at liberty on the surren- 
 der of the city, and that he was ordered to tell about it, and 
 other important matters, to the priest, in order to see if he 
 could convince us, and if we would surrender. 
 
 He was told that Friar Candido was ill and could not 
 see him, but that he could wait and could speak to the priest 
 Juan Lopez. He said, "Very well," and waited a short time, 
 during which he began to weep; and, the priest not appear- 
 ing, the man began to suspect something wrong, and went 
 away at a tur. 
 
 On September 30th the dysentery killed another soldier, 
 Francisco Eovira Mompo, who, for his bravery and excellence 
 of character, was deserving of a better fate. 
 
 This valiant man was grievously ill, with his legs useless 
 because he was also suffering with beri-beri, when, on one oc- 
 casion, the firing of the enemy became so heavy that we all 
 thought an assault was impending. He attempted to rise, but 
 could not stand. He then dragged himself along the ground 
 and placed himself near a hole in one of the doors. There he 
 fixed his bayonet and, stretched on the ground, waited for the 
 adversary to present himself. 
 
 All this time proofs of the misfortunes that had come to 
 
Undee the Eed and Goid. 43 
 
 the Mother Country continued to multiply. On this same day, 
 the 30th, we received a letter from the Civil Governor of Fueva 
 Ecija, Senor Dupuy de Lome, in which he informed us of the 
 loss of the Philippines. Las Morenas himself, who said he 
 knew Senor de Lome, could do no less than aclmowledge that if 
 he had, under other circumstances, received such a letter ask- 
 ing him for money, he would have sent it without hesitating a 
 single moment; because the writing, with which he said he 
 was acquainted, was no doubt genuine. 
 
 Following this came rumors of the surrender of Major 
 Don Juan Geneva Iturbide, of Captain Don Federico Eamiro 
 de Toledo, and of others whom I do not now recall. A little 
 while later they informed us that Major Ceballos, stationed at 
 Dagupan, had surrendered with fifty rifles; that General Au- 
 gust! had surrendered in Manila because his wife was a pris- 
 oner in the hands of the Tagalogs; and of other events of this 
 kind. 
 
 The series closed with a letter from the curate of Palanan, 
 Friar Mariano Gil Atienza, summing up and confirming all, 
 and telling us that the Archipelago was lost; that there was 
 now no reason for our further defense; and that we ought im- 
 mediately to lay down our arms, without fear or suspicion, be- 
 cause we would be treated with every consideration. 
 
 It must be confessed that so much and such diverse testi- 
 mony might have been more than enough to convince anybody 
 of the truth of the stories. But we knew that the enemy, be- 
 cause of their self-conceit, were eager to bring about our sur- 
 render; and this idea confirmed us in the belief that all we 
 had heard was imagiaary, falsified, concocted to deceive us. 
 
 For this reason, when they told us that they had with 
 them a number of those who had surrendered, we replied that 
 those persons should be brought out so that we might see them; 
 
44 TJndee the Eed and Gold. 
 
 which they refused, saying that what we wished was to shut 
 up our friends with us, as we had the friars. On this account 
 we gave credit neither to the letter from the GoTernor of 
 l^Tueva Ecija, nor to ofBcial reports, nor to anything else. We 
 could not conceive that our dominion could be so easily lost. 
 We were unable to admit even the possibility of a fall so rapid 
 and so astounding as that. 
 
Unbee the Eed and Gold. 45 
 
 V. 
 
 FEOM THE 1st OF OCTOBBE TO THE 22d OP 
 NOVEMBEE. 
 
 The wounded. — Death op mt comrade Alonso. — I take 
 
 COMMAND of THE DETACHMENT. ^HYGIENIC MEASURES. — ' 
 
 Nocturnal rounds. — • Few wajrnings. — Casualties. — 
 Wooden- shoes. — Death oe Captain Don Enrique Las 
 jVIorenas. — ^The situation. 
 
 The beguming of the autumn of 1898 was a sad one for 
 us. Nature, which in those lands displays generous luxuriance, 
 could not present itself to our sight with those golden tints 
 which in other lands are precursors of the melancholy days of 
 November; not a single leaf fell from the trees that had not 
 been cut off by the bullets we were exchanging with the enemy 
 — the firing heavy at times and deliberate at others, but always 
 kept up; not a single bird of the kinds that announce the wia- 
 ter migration was to be seen flyiag through the air; but there, 
 among ourselves, coincident, though sadly, with the autumn 
 of other lands, began another kind of decay, a decay most 
 distressing. 
 
 A corpse-like pallor, the consequence of fatigue and hun- 
 ger, was beginning to mark us all, the symptom of a certain 
 decay that would soon mean the grave; the inexplicable chill 
 that benumbed us passed over us at times ; and in action, speech, 
 and look it was plain that the few sparks of hope which had 
 sustained us were expiring. 
 
 On the 9th of October Corporal Jose Olivares Conejero, 
 and on the 10th his comrade. Corporal Jose Chaves Martin, 
 and Private Eam6n Donant Pastor, died of beri-beri, passing 
 
46 Undee the Eed and Gold. 
 
 to the better life sanctified by the sufferings of martyrs. On 
 the 13th the doctor, Senor Vigil, was seriously woimded. I 
 also was slightly wounded, as was Private Eamon Mir Brils, 
 who thus a second time attained this sacrifice for his country. 
 
 But the 18th was still more melancholy and sad for us 
 all. The second lieutenant, Don Juan Alonso Zayas, suc- 
 cumbed to the epidemic, which had now, with this never-to-be- 
 forgotten comrade, taken the fourth part of its victims. Alon- 
 so was an excellent soldier, cast in the mold of heroes, a good 
 comrade, and his loss oppressed us bitterly. 
 
 It now fell to me to take command of the force, a com- 
 mand which I retained until the first of September, 1899, when 
 we disembarked at Barcelona. 
 
 Tlie enemy, always on the lookout for any signs of negli- 
 gence, required much attention; but the beri-beri developed so 
 alarmingly that there remained of us only a half-dozen who 
 were not infected. It was necessary to combat it, and to do 
 so without delay, with the urgency demanded by a question 
 of life or death. I turned, therefore, and immediately, to the 
 sanitation of the church. 
 
 The principal need was ventilation, to carry oil the infec- 
 tion deposited in the lower strata of that air little less than 
 irrespirable, corrupted as it was by so many pernicious emana- 
 tions; and it was necessary to secure ventilation without prej- 
 udicing the security of the defense. 
 
 To this end I caused the barricade to be cleared away from 
 the south door; and behind this, at the distance of half a me- 
 ter, forming a passageway, we placed three wine-casks on top 
 of a thick board, and on top of these a row of chests filled 
 with earth, as were also the casks. On these, and quite cover- 
 ing the opening, we placed bundles of blankets, solidly propped. 
 Two holes made in the door, near the ground and opposite the 
 
Undeb the Red akd Gold. 47 
 
 openings left purposely between the caskSj permitted ventila- 
 tion from beloWj and others opened at a suitable height served 
 the same purpose from above, as vrell as for the no less im- 
 portant loopholes. In order to remove as far away as possible 
 the various accumulations of filth, the decomposition of which 
 was extremely dangerous to health, I caused a small opening 
 to be made in the wall of the corral and arranged a urinal to 
 carry oil the excreta. 
 
 These and other measures were not much, but they were 
 of pressing necessity. Such was the extremity to which we had 
 been reduced that we were obliged for the needs of the defense 
 to make use of those even who were suffering from the epi- 
 demic; and, since none of them could stand, to carry them in 
 our arms to their respective posts as sentinels. There we placed 
 them on chairs, or something as a substitute, and left them 
 for six hours, in order to economize reliefs. We managed the 
 reliefs in the same way, carrying the old reliefs, one by one, 
 from their posts to the bed. 
 
 Years have passed, and I have again become surrounded 
 with the ordinary circumstances of life where exertion is com- 
 mensurate with ordinary human conditions, limited as they 
 are; and I must confess that I, although day after day a wit- 
 ness, an actor, a stimulator of such effort, have very often 
 doubted whether it was all a dream of knightly fiction instead 
 of a positive reality. Six long hours with the rifle ready, the 
 legs useless, the sxifferingj acute and constantly increasing, and 
 those men appeared to be contented ! 
 
 While Lieutenant Alonso was yet able, we took turns in 
 watching at night; he taking one night with Las Morenas and 
 I the next with the doctor, Senor Vigil, who devoted himself 
 to everything and»was everywhere, setting an example of self- 
 abnegation and bravery. But when Alonso died, and I saw that 
 
48 Undee the Bed aitd Goid. 
 
 Las Morenas must succumb to the weakness lie was suffering, 
 I abandoned this kind of watch and established the following, 
 which was much more practical and which gave better results: 
 One of the three remained always on watch, relieving each 
 other as we conveniently could; and it was not always that we 
 could get sleep, because if Las Morenas was very ill, so was Vigil 
 sufEering from a severe wound. The corporal of the relief al- 
 ternating with the soldiers on duty made the rounds of the 
 sentiaels every five minutes, or, rather, in turn, one after the 
 other, each when the other had returned. 
 
 As the sentiaels were almost all posted in elevated posi- 
 tions, and as it was necessary to avoid making their positions 
 known to the enemy, their posts were called in a low tone, thus : 
 to the one that was on the wall behind the altar, "Altar" ; to 
 the one at its right, "Eight"; and so on. Each sentry replied 
 in a low tone and bending over, so as not to be heard from the 
 outside, and so as to prevent his position from being discov- 
 ered and thus making known the weak places proper for as- 
 sault. This was necessary also to guard against the enemy's 
 approaching cautiously for the purpose of finding out who was 
 on guard and where posted, which could have been very easily 
 done for the simple reason that the deserters knew us all by our 
 voices. 
 
 For these reasons there was maintained throughout the 
 night a silence that was truly sepulchral, and absolute dark- 
 ness. It seemed like a stage filled with phantoms, the stillness 
 broken only by the movements of the one who was making the 
 roimds, his suppressed questions, and the kind of convulsive 
 sobs which served as answers. 
 
 It is to be borne in mind that the thing that troubled 
 most was the work of seduction which the enemy tried in every 
 way to accomplish. I have already noted the cries' and induce- 
 
Undee the Eed and Gold. 49 
 
 ments by means of which they had tried to lure away our sol- 
 diers, who, after all, were only men, and as such had their 
 moments of wealaiess. I had therefore to forbid all personal 
 communication that the enemy might seek, and this was one of 
 the powerful reasons impelling us to such extreme vigilance. 
 
 During these same days the deserters were announcting 
 that Villacorta had appointed as secretary our Hospital Corps 
 corporal, and that he had made my former servant, Felipe Her- 
 rero Lopez, a captain. All this might be true or false; but, 
 although it was more likely the latter, it was very dangerous 
 to have it reach our soldiers by way of private confidence. 
 
 It was not long before the Insurrectos again wrote to us, 
 laying great stress on the end of our dominion in the Philip- 
 pines and trying to attract us with the promise of embarking 
 us immediately for Spain. We replied that, according to the 
 laws and usages of war in cases like the present, the vanquished 
 were allowed six months for the evacuation of the territory; 
 that they should be patient; apparently, we were left to be 
 among the last to be concentrated, the Captain-General know- 
 ing, as he surely must know, "the large amount of provisions, 
 ammunition, and supplies" that we had at our disposal. 
 
 To this they replied that we could not hope for any con- 
 centration by our generals, because, since the breaking out of 
 hostilities with the Americans, they had no longer looked after 
 the detachments; and that there was nothing left for us but 
 immediate surrender. It was indeed feared that this might be 
 so; but we replied, as we should have replied, that "no army 
 on abandoning a territory could forget its forces that were com- 
 promised in the field." 
 
 Two more deaths from beri-beri (one, that of Private Jose 
 Lafarga, on the 32d, and the other, that of Private Eoman 
 L6pez Lozano, on the 35th) completed our list for that sad 
 
50 Under the Eed and Goto. 
 
 month, of October, with the addition of the wounding of Private 
 Miguel Perez Leal, which occurred on the 23 d. 
 
 By this time the force had become shoeless. If some indi- 
 viduals, very few, had not reached the point of going about 
 with bare feet, covering them only with rags, the remains of 
 the soles being persistently sewn together again and again, what 
 they wore, if it served for anything, it was certainly not 
 for what shoes usually serve, but rather to accentuate their 
 wretchedness. 
 
 Believing that this condition might contribute to the 
 progress of the epidemic, through the humidity of the ground, 
 they conceived the idea of making a kind of clog, not very 
 beautiful, but quickly made and sufficiently serviceable. They 
 were fashioned out of pieces of wood, and fastened to the foot 
 as well as might be with packthread or cord. They were not 
 very comfortable, but they kept the feet from contact with 
 the soil. 
 
 And now came the month of ISTovember, consecrated to the 
 dead by its iaitial -fiesta and its sorrows, and which we also 
 were to consecrate almost exclusively to the dead. In its first 
 half alone four more soldiers died of beri-beri. In the second 
 half we had to lament another and more grievous loss, which 
 left in my hands as a matter of duty and right what I had al- 
 ready exercised for some days through necessity and misfortune. 
 
 On the 8th the mournful filing off began with the death 
 of Private Juan Fuentes Damian, followed the next day by his 
 companions, Baldomero Larrode Paraciiellos and Manuel Nav- 
 arro Leon; and after these, on the 14th, died Pedro Izquierdo 
 y Arnaiz; all passing through horrible agonies, having no other 
 consolation than that of dying under the Spanish flag, which, 
 dirty and in rags, was fluttering in the breeze from the bell- 
 tower of the church. 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 51 
 
 None of them were buried with ecclesiastical ceremonies, 
 but to none was wanting the merit of patient suffering. Keither 
 the temple nor the men were clothed in black for the departed; 
 but even yet my soul is afflicted with the supreme mourning 
 which oppressed us in the ceremonies, without ceremony, of 
 interment. 
 
 The gloomy impression, apart from the natural sadness, 
 was increased by the thought, which we could not shake off, 
 that there, in these same graves where we were placing the 
 mortal remains of our companions, we might ourselves, one by 
 one, soon Join them in very close assembly. 
 
 As the month advanced the sufferings of Las Morenas, ag- 
 gravated by the hardships we were undergoing, began to take 
 on an alarming gravity, with the presence and complication of 
 beri-beri. He continued, however, to authenticate with his sig- 
 nature the replies that we gave to the messages and threats of 
 the besiegers. "It diverts me," he said; and, respecting his de- 
 sire, we continued to receive and read the messages and to an- 
 swer them. 
 
 That this proeeediug was a mistake, seeing that it was our 
 resolve not to surrender, was each time more evident, because 
 of the evil effect that it produced on the troops, and because 
 the enemy could not fail to observe the sore plight we were in. 
 
 Precaution could avail little to prevent this last, and yet 
 it was important to avoid it. We had already determined that 
 we would not go out to the trenches to receive papers or deliver 
 replies unless dressed in the little best that we had. Our bod- 
 ies testified to hunger, but it was not glaringly evident, since 
 our emaciation could be caused by the close confinement in 
 which we were living. They could not actually know what were 
 our casualties, although they might guess them; but there was 
 some difference between knowing and guessing. 
 
52 Under the Red and Gold. 
 
 When the death of Captain Las Morenas became inevitable 
 and imminent ; when I realized that very soon he would not be 
 able to write, and that the substitution of another name for his 
 would probably lead to grave consequences: wishing, moreover, 
 to not make my signature known, since they might, perchance, 
 by imitating it, give it out that we had surrendered* — I sought 
 to find a pretext that would put an end to every kind of par- 
 leys and messages. 
 
 This was, in fact, the object of the message we directed 
 to the Insurrectos on the 20th of November, and which was the 
 last one signed by the almost dying Captain. Feigning in this 
 letter the greatest generosity and clemency, and imitating to a 
 certain extent a vulgar scene from the Italian farce, we offered 
 them complete amnesty of their rebellion and lawless acts. "In 
 order to make it clear to you onoe more," we said, "that the 
 Spaniards are actuated by philanthropic sentiments, if you will 
 abandon your attitude and lay down your arms, everything will 
 remain in oblivion and the inhabitants will be allowed to return 
 to the town at once." 
 
 *And I was not mistaken. Afterwards I learned that in Decem- 
 ber, 1898, an expedition was fitted out in Manila for the purpose of 
 relieving us. It was all ready prepared to set out when the arri- 
 val of Corporal Alfonso gus Fojas, Medical Corps, prevented its 
 departure. 
 
 This miserable deserter had the effrontery to go In and claim 
 his pay, declaring that we had surrendered some tdme before, 
 naming the place to which we had been taken, stating that we were 
 all cared for, and giving many details that gave credit to his in- 
 ventive faculty. Naturally, he did not say that he had deserted to the 
 enemy, abandoning us June 28th, taking with him the hospital man 
 under his orders, and I do not Ijnow how he explained his being at 
 liberty; but it is a fact that bis story was believed — ^and the column 
 did not depart. 
 
 Some days lafer it became known that we were stdll defending 
 ourselves ; the man was sougiht for in vain, the said Pojas did not 
 appear, but the sending of help remained in the air. 
 
 Even this did not prevent credit being giiven afterwards to 
 another of our deserters, Jos6 Alcftide Bayona, wbo even went so 
 far as to accuse us of assassination and mutiny. 
 
Undee the Eed and QotD. 53 
 
 This message was, I repeat, neither the fantastic preten- 
 sions of vain boasting, nor an exalted flight of the imagination; 
 much less, as the facts have shown, an attempt to get an oppor- 
 tunity to reply to them: "If you will not surrender to us, we, 
 more generous, will surrender to you." It was written solely 
 and simply for the purpose of receiving the answer they sent us. 
 
 They had taken us in earnest, and their reply was a litany 
 of insults which need not be reproduced in these pages. It was 
 natural for them to give vent to their spleen. "Las Morenas," 
 they said finally, "what inhabitants are left to return to the 
 town? Do you wish the Igorrotes to come to occupy it? Why 
 this pardon and amnesty? There is nothing for you to do but 
 to surrender." These people did not realize when they wrote 
 those lines that they were a sad statement of the condition of 
 the unfortunate Las Morenas and of the critical pass we had 
 come to. 
 
 The poor Captain was leaving us fast, a victim, as were 
 the others, of beri-beri. His agony was horrible; he had not 
 lost consciousness completely; he was still conscious of the fact 
 that he was iu a siege; constantly, which increased his anguish, 
 he thought he was with his own people, but with the enemy in 
 sight. Once he began to cry out, trembling and frightened, 
 "Little Henry! Little Henry!" (one of his sons), and, tumiug 
 to me sobbing, "Order them to go back and look for the child. 
 Quickly! The Insurrectos are going to take him." 
 
 He died on the 22d, during the afternoon. He had a good 
 heart, too simple perhaps; and the Country has been just to 
 him. His memory wiU never be blotted from mine. God keep 
 him in peace. 
 
 As there was now no other lieutenant left, I had immedi- 
 ately and officially to assume the command, with all its inci- 
 dents and dangers. For some days the command had practically 
 
54 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 been minej but now the circumstances could not but be aggra- 
 vated and the difficulties seriously iacreased by our recent loss. 
 I well knew what was expected of me in the future, if I grew 
 not disheartened on the way, which was yet very long and 
 thorny. But I was still in good health, and I did not falter 
 in my determination for a single instant. 
 
 It was now the one hundred and forty-fifth day of the 
 siege. There remained under my command thirty-five privates, 
 a trumpeter, and three corporals, almost all of them ill. To 
 care for these sick men, I had only one doctor and one Hospital 
 Corps man. To feed themi, I had a few sacks of flour, all fer- 
 mented and forming a tough mass, and a few other sacks that 
 had contained chick peas, but now had nothing in them but 
 dust and weevil; not a scrap of beef, that from' Australia hav- 
 ing been used up during the first week in July; a few pieces 
 of bacon, swarming with maggots and, moreover, repugnant to 
 the taste ; a very little very bad cofiee ; of wine, which had been 
 finished in August, only the casks; of beans, a very few, and 
 bad; plenty of sugar, but not a grain of salt (which we could, 
 however, have easily had while we were yet trading with the 
 people of the town), which we had been in want of ever since 
 we shut ourselves up in the church; and some tins of badly 
 damaged sardines. 
 
 This was all very little, considering the progress of the 
 epidemic, the fatigues of the siege, and the remoteness of any 
 possible relief. But we still had enough ammunition, a flag to 
 defend while there was a cartridge left, and a sacred depos- 
 itory, that of the remains of our dead comrades, to guard 
 against profanation by the enemy. It was possible for us to 
 resist, and we resisted. 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 55 
 
 SECOND PERIOD. 
 
 -From November 23, 1898, to June 2, 1899. 
 
 I. 
 
 FEOM NOVBMBEE 23d TO DECEMBER 13th. 
 No parleys. — ^Dailt mekey-maxings. — ^Chamizo Lucas. — Fi- 
 esta OE THE PATRON SAINT. E"OCTURNAL GRAZINGS. — FIR- 
 ING AND STONE-THROWING. PRECAUTIONS. THE DOCTOR 
 
 ILL. Foe SOMETHING GREEN. PRELUDE TO THE OTHER 
 
 WORLD. — Precautions. 
 
 On the 23 d the enemy again sought a parley. Not wishing 
 
 to receive it, I ordered the "retreat" to be sounded; but, in 
 case they might not understand this answer, or did not wish to 
 understand it, I went up into the choir to warn the sentinels 
 not to fire in case anyone should present himself. 
 
 It was not long before a native appeared with a white flag 
 in one hand and a message in the other. I cried out to him from 
 above to go away, that we would not receive any more messages ; 
 and my words frightened him so much that he darted away, 
 throwing himself head first into the trench and pitching the 
 rejected letter and the despised white flag in ahead of him. 
 
 I continued to refuse to receive flags of truoe. But since 
 this might cause the enemy to suspect that it was due to the 
 discouragement of the soldiers, and as these same communica- 
 tions, dangerous as they might be, often brought us something 
 from the outside, and always something new, which relieved 
 the tedium that was oppressing and consuming us, I thought 
 to deceive the enemy and at the same time to raise our spirits 
 and divert our minds by devoting some portion of the time to 
 merry-makings, which, although forced, might cover up the 
 
56 Under the Ebd and Gold. 
 
 real situation to those both within and without the church, 
 and also enliven our minds and hide our anguish. 
 
 These so-called merry-makings consisted of hand-clappings, 
 merry cries, and snatches of song, which angered the enemy and 
 made him cry out, "Sing away! you will soon have to weep"; 
 and which kindled in us the recollection of other and happy 
 days, and of that Country to which perhaps we would never 
 return. 
 
 EecoUections so bitter! Comedy! pure comedy! in which 
 we forced ourselves to be actors in spite of our wills, which op- 
 posed it. Painful recollections! but which, nevertheless, truly 
 strengthened us. 
 
 In order to celebrate those merry-makings, those masks of 
 laughter with which we tried to cover our faces, corroded al- 
 ready as with cancer, I ordered out into the corral every after- 
 noon all persons not on duty, whether sick or well, as long as 
 they could move their hands, sing a verse, or contribute in any 
 way to the hilarity. 
 
 As already said, this maddened the enemy, who exhausted 
 his repertory of insults and threats, and tried to reduce us to 
 silence by redoubling his fire. But he only succeeded in stim- 
 ulating us, for the simple reason that all his vociferation and 
 firing acted on us as a sort of provocation, a sort of stimulant, 
 like the excitement that warms one up, in a contest of skill. 
 
 Meanwhile the completion of the enemy's trenches and the 
 advantage gained by him in fortifying some houses near the 
 church were putting us in serious plight, especially on the west- 
 ern side, where some of the houses just referred to were not 
 more than forty paces away. 
 
 We were running out of wood also; and, although it was 
 close at hand, since only the walls of the corral separated us 
 from the place where it had fallen when we tore down the 
 walls of the convent, we could not go out to gather it. 
 
TJndee the Eed and Gold. 57 
 
 The need of wood and the advantage gained by the enemy, 
 as just explained, urgently demanded the adoption of some 
 measure of relief. To conceive it was easy, the destruction of 
 those houses would afEord it. But is was a dangerous under- 
 taking. A private soldier whose name deserves a high place, 
 Juan Chamizo Lucas, conquered this difficulty by his heroism. 
 
 Taking advantage of one of those rare moments of truce 
 or lassitude, when the enemy appeared to be careless, that brave 
 boy cautiously stole out, and with incredible coolness and delib- 
 eration set fire to the houses through the very loopholes from 
 which projected the enemy's rifles. 
 
 Before he went out, I took the precaution to post the most 
 skillful marksmen that could be spared, so as to cover all the 
 western front, in case the enemy should try to capture him or 
 to mutilate his body in the very probable event of misfortune 
 overtaking him. But, fortunately, when they discovered that 
 the houses were burning, Chamizo had already returned and 
 was covered by the trench of the sacristy, and it was necessary 
 to oppose them only to keep them from putting out the fire. 
 
 They were unable to prevent the spread of the fire, which, 
 reaching other houses, completely destroyed that of Hernandez. 
 The latter was the same house that we pretended we were go- 
 ing to make use of on the night of the assault, and was one of 
 those they had fortified and in which they had placed some 
 cannon. With these guns they had easily been able to ruin the 
 sacristy, which was built entirely of wood. 
 
 Owing to this exploit, we succeeded in weakening that 
 part of the attack where Nature itself appeared eager to guard 
 us from the enemy's vigilance. There was no moving about 
 in the space lying between the church and the enemy's line of 
 trenches. The whole was a thicket of banana plants and other 
 trees, jalaps, gourd vines, and other plants of paradisiacal ex- 
 
58 Ukdee the Eed and Gotjd. 
 
 uberance and foliage. That marvelous soil, made fruitful by 
 the continuous rains of the season through which we were pass- 
 ing, had gone on raising up before our eyes a beautiful picture 
 on a delicate carpet of appetizing small herbs. 
 
 I say "appetizing" because we so fared with the provisions 
 we had, and they were so repugnant to us, that those plants, 
 offering themselves so near at hand, shining fruits and varied 
 flowers, the herbs with their adornment of dew, their abundance 
 of oxygen, and the freshness with which they appeared to be 
 saturated, presented themselves in our present necessity with 
 all the seduction of a most coveted dainty. 
 
 This boscage was very abundant in the belt of the burned 
 fortified houses and on the north side of the church; but, al- 
 though the growth was somewhat close and sufficient to conceal 
 a man, it was not desirable to authorize the soldiers to gather 
 any of it. And this because not only of the enemy's fire, but 
 also to guard against happenings of another kind. Only Vigil 
 and I, secretly because it appeared a shame to thus gratify our 
 own wants, occasionally slipped through the opening in the 
 door, silently and furtively stole out of the trench, and — ate 
 grass ! 
 
 This banquet of ruminants might have been of heavy cost 
 to us; because, such was the readiness of the enemy that, hav- 
 ing at last discovered us, they sent after us a charge of canister 
 that, if it had not been for their stupidity, would have put an 
 end to our digestion. The fact that the rammer stuck in the 
 tower of the church indicates how precipitate they were in 
 firing. 
 
 On the 8th of December we had another death from beri- 
 beri, that of Private Eafael Alonso Medero. Nevertheless, as 
 it was the day so generally observed by the Spanish Infantry, 
 and as it was desirable to dissipate the evil effect of the new 
 
Undee the Bed and Gold. 59 
 
 loss, I ordered pancakes and coffee made for the troops, giving, 
 besides, a tin of sardines to each man. This modest repast 
 was of much value. I have already described the bad state of 
 the rations, but anything that interrupted the daily monotony 
 with an appearance of novelty and alleviation comforted our 
 souls. Henoe, even though the lunuelos (pancakes) turned 
 out to be veritable "Bunuelos" (nothings), the coffee a poor 
 substitute for wine, and each tin of sardines a mere serviceable 
 trifle, everything was taken as extraordinarily tempting, as ev- 
 erything in this world is relative; and the garrison of Baler 
 worthily celebrated the festival of its Immaculate Patroness 
 in a religious way, by the sepulture of the dead comrade and 
 prayers for the repose of his soul; in a secular way, by the 
 simulacrum of a banquet; and in a military way, by a stolid 
 resignation to everything. 
 
 In the Insurrecto camp they must have, evidently, been 
 devising, not a serious, open, and determiaed attack, which 
 would undoubtedly have annihilated us, but a plan whereby, 
 while they sailed to the windward of the danger of a frontal 
 attack, we should be brought to terms by means of intimidation 
 and discouragement. Hence the noise with which they then 
 began to accompany their attacks. The noise of their cannon, 
 which was already loud enough, not being enough for them, 
 they adopted the plan of accompanying it with terrific howls 
 and showers of stones, which, falling on the roof, covered with 
 zinc and not very firm, deafened us with their hellish pounding. 
 
 The shameful thing about that incessant hammering, that 
 continual dropping of artifices and tricks and insults and of- 
 ferings and promises, was the conspicuous part that our in- 
 famous deserters took in it all. There was no yelling in which 
 the voices of those wretches did not stand out; no enterprise 
 in which, before our very eyes, they were not eager to display 
 
60 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 their villainy, trying to gain merit, to gain reward and the con- 
 sideration of the enemy, which, apparently, was not showered 
 upon them. 
 
 We would have preferred the open assault, with all its 
 dangerous chances, because we were anxious to "make a kill- 
 ing," to satiate our anger, our wrath, which was perforce re- 
 pressed day after day, without relief other than by a desultory 
 fire, vv'hich was not always without result, but was of no per- 
 ceptible efficacy. Although the effect of our fire was concealed 
 by the undergrowth and by the trenches, yet we knew by the 
 quiclaiess of the response that we had made good; but we were 
 in such a state of desperation from our imprisonment, and from 
 continual worry and vexation, that we should have liked to see 
 the eflect, the casualties caused by our bullets, more closely, as 
 we saw our friends dying and heard their lamentations and 
 anguish. 
 
 To this end I ordered that after each meal the troops 
 should post themselves, well concealed, at the loopholes, and 
 that tJie mess call should then be sounded. Up to that time we 
 had not used the trumpet except to sound the "parley" and the 
 "attack"; but, although they might consider the mess call as a 
 useless formality, it seemed to me that it might also occur to 
 them, on hearing the call, that they would be able to eflect a 
 surprise while we were occupied with the duties to which it 
 summoned us. This artifice gave me no result, since it served 
 them more as a caution, and we did not get the satisfaction we 
 so ardently desired. 
 
 I have already described the manner in which we per- 
 Lormed the night watch, and I now must add that neither did 
 the enemy neglect similar precautions. Instead of the watch- 
 word for the sentries, a whistle was used and repeated hj one 
 sentinel after the other; and, as it was very brief, we could not 
 locate it for a shot. 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 61 
 
 Our low state, the failure of my stratagem, and the abso- 
 lute necessity of rescuing the Detachment from, the terrible 
 marasmus into which I saw them sinking, induced me to plan 
 a sallj', which, iu addition to animating our people, would allow 
 us to gather some of those beautiful pumpkins hanging so near 
 and in such tantalizing abundance. But I deferred my plan, 
 deciding to carry it out and have the pumpkins on Christ- 
 mas Eve. 
 
 My object was to set fire to the whole town, to profit by 
 the confusion and seize the fruits, to show that we were alive, 
 and to get up a hunting party after Insurredos. 
 
 The enterprise having been determined upon, the 33d of 
 of December was fixed upon as the day for carrying it out. 
 But I had to anticipate that date. The fatal epidemic, con- 
 tinuing to spread, attacked the Doctor, who was now prostrated 
 and awaiting death seated in a chair, in order to care for his 
 sick until the last moment. On the 13th he said to me : "Mar- 
 tin, I am dying; I am very ill. If someone could get me some- 
 thing green, perhaps I would get better, and so would these 
 other sick men." 'TTou know," I replied, "that I had planned 
 a sally for the day before Christmas Eve; but since we cannot 
 wait until then, I wish to say that I shall attempt it at once." 
 
 He generously tried to dissuade me, fearing disaster in 
 our eagerness. But I saw that he was failing steadily, and, in 
 spite of his strong protests, I answered that there was nothing 
 else to do and that it would be done, come what would; be- 
 cause if we did not do something, the epidemic would de- 
 vour us. 
 
 So true was this, so certain the ravages of the epidemic, 
 that the soldiers were already making lists which they called 
 "expeditions to the other world." In these they placed, first 
 the names of those who were already about to die, then those 
 
62 TJndee the Eed asd Gold. 
 
 less seriously ill, and so on in this order. When any one 
 reached a crisis, his comrades would say to him, "It is your 
 turn to be buried in such a place," and he with cool and mar- 
 velous resignation would bequeath five pesos to those who would 
 make his grave. 
 
 It was frightful to hear them, there in the gloomy shades, 
 half clad in rags, dirty, hungry, with so many memories of the 
 kind that moisten the eyes with the tears of the spirit, and yet 
 with so much of greatness in their prostration and wretchedness. 
 
 Many of those men must be still living. What has become 
 of them? Perhaps again they find themselves in poverty and 
 rags, with their strength gone, because they were not succored, 
 and do not have in their misery even the right to the shelter 
 of some asylum! 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 63 
 
 II. 
 
 FEOM THE 14th TO THE 34th OF DECEMBER. 
 
 The sally. — Oaining eoom, — ^Peovisions. — ^Sowing and 
 
 eeaping. — I Stopping holes and avoiding floods. — A 
 
 I TEMPEST. — New lines op trenches. — 1 Christmas Eve. 
 
 The sally which I had promised Vigil, come what would, 
 and at once, presented its troubles and difficulties in the high- 
 est degree dangerous, and I was fully alive to them. My peo- 
 ple available for the enterprise did not amount to twenty per- 
 sons, the enemy being out of all proportion more numerous. 
 Our men must expose themselves openly, while the enemy 
 could wait for them under the cover of trenches. My men were 
 weak and torpid, the Insurrectos in the best of condition. It 
 seemed truly a piece of madness, but in the sacrifice I could 
 see a ray of hope made certain by the very rashness of the 
 undertaking. 
 
 In all circumstances of life surprise is of immense effect, 
 the effect being the more powerful as it is accompanied by the 
 extraordinary and the unexpected, the boldness displayed. To 
 surprise I trusted the attainment of my purposes, and to it I 
 owed their complete realization. 
 
 On the day following my conversation with the Doctor, 
 December 14th, at half past ten or eleven in the morning, a 
 most unusual hour for such an enterprise, I called Corporal 
 Jose Olivares Conejeros, a man of great courage and complete- 
 ly in my confidence, and ordered him to take fourteen of the 
 most suitable men; to go out with them secretly, crawling one 
 by one, the only way possible, through the opening that led in- 
 to the trench of the sacristy; and, when all were ready, the 
 
64 Under the Eed aot) Gold. 
 
 bayonets being fixed without noise, to make a sudden rush, 
 deployed as skirmishers, and surround the house that was on 
 the north side of the church. 
 
 One of the men, carrying long pieces of bamboo and some 
 rags well soaked in petroleum, was to set fire to the house; the 
 others to fight desperately and resolutely. The rest of the 
 force, which I posted at the loopholes, were to support the at- 
 tack, to increase the confusion by their firing, to cause as many 
 losses as possible, and to prevent the putting out of the fires. 
 
 Everything was carried out as planned, and with results 
 that were so necessary to us. I tried to pick off the sentry 
 who was on post at the house referred to, and was well en- 
 trenched; but he very soon saw my men and fled, blind with 
 fear and spreading consternation among his own people. 
 
 The flames themselves, the rapidity with which they spread 
 through the town, the impetuosity of the charge, the precision 
 of the fire which we poured into them from the church (al- 
 though we tried to avoid the useless expenditure of ammuni- 
 tion), and the irresistible terror that was communicated from 
 one to another, promptly decided a general flight, which cleared 
 the field in less time than it takes to tell the story. 
 
 Apart from the surprise, which had just produced one of 
 those miracles such as are related in the military history of all 
 time, there were two powerful reasons, two fixed notions, latent 
 in the Pilipino mind, which no doubt contributed to the result : 
 one was the traditional one of Spanish superiority, which we 
 had just demonstrated; the other was the violence, the fury, 
 with which they must have considered us possessed. 
 
 It is proper to note what we have just said; because it may 
 be asserted that if, in other places, and on other occasions, care 
 had been taken to encourage these notions, care not to foresee 
 unfortunate occurrences, care to avoid wea;kness, to proceed 
 
TTnder the Red and Gold. 65 
 
 with energetic resolution, other and very different from those 
 we now have to lament would have been the results obtained. 
 
 Those people had formed a very superior conception of 
 the Castila (Spaniard) ; and this conception, of which we ought 
 never to have been careless, would have been worth much to us. 
 In the instance of which I am speaking it decided that precip- 
 itate flight, which did not stop even at the forest. Think, now, 
 what it would have logically meant in other and more favor- 
 able circumstances, with greater forces and resources, and with 
 objects of much greater moment and transcendency. 
 
 On account of the great confusion, we could not estimate 
 the enemy's losses, but I suppose they were not wanting. I 
 have since heard that one of their leaders, Gomez Ortiz, he of 
 the time of the suspension of hostilities, was killed. One of 
 their sentries, stationed on the south, was killed and remained 
 where he fell, abandoned by his friends. The flames of the fire, 
 passing over him, destroyed his body in a short time. 
 
 The town was destroyed, except a few of the more distant 
 houses, which we left standing, so that in case any troops 
 should come to relieve us, the necessary lodgings for them 
 would not be wanting. 
 
 We proceeded at once to destroy the trenches that sur- 
 rounded us so near at hand; and, as the fire had razed the forti- 
 fied houses which served as flanks and points of support, we 
 soon cleared a regular military zone of sufficient width to allow 
 us to open the doors in the south face of the church, which 
 had been closed since the 'beginning of the siege. 
 
 A fringe of woods had intervened to shut us ofE from view 
 and command of the inlet, or river, which cut the road to the 
 beach. This way was of great use to the enemy, who at all 
 hours were ascending and descending the stream, bringing food 
 and reinforcements. 
 
66 Undee the Eed and Gold. 
 
 It was necessary to make such traffic difficult at least; 
 and to this end we cut a clearing which opened the river to our 
 view and, while it did not hinder the traffic completely, yet sub- 
 jected it to risks from our fire. i 
 
 To this advantageous expansion, which, aside from better- 
 ing our local condition^ afforded us freedom for offensive re- 
 turns, we had the satisfaction of adding a good supply of 
 pumpkins, pumpkin leaves, and all the savory fruit of the 
 orange trees in the plaza — whatever might be, or appeared to 
 us to be, edible. Neither did we overlook the boards and beams 
 that we could carry to the church, in which we also stored the 
 ladder that had been left behind the night of the assault and 
 the iron material that could be picked up amono- the ruins of 
 the Comandancia. This building having been of wood, we -found 
 a goodly supply of spikes, some of them a half-meter long, 
 which were afterwards of much use to us, and which, had they 
 been left to the enemy, would have served him for charging 
 his cannon. 
 
 If to all this it be added that we did not have even one 
 man woimded, I do not think it an exaggeration to regard that 
 rash, mad enterprise as a fruitful and victorious feat of arms. 
 The importance of it should be measured by the evils it rem- 
 edied. A mine of diamonds is not worth as much to a ship- 
 wrecked and famished man as a small concavity that offers 
 him a supply of water. All the trophies that an army might 
 conquer could not be compared with the significance to us of 
 that terrified enemy; that burned town; the felling of that 
 wood which had prevented our vigilance over the river; the 
 poor leaves and wild fruits which we would have scorned at 
 other times and now so eagerly gathered; the spikes and boards; 
 the leveled trenches; the cleared field; and, above all, those 
 doors in the south face of the church opened to the air after 
 
Undee the Eed and Gold. 67 
 
 having been closed for five and a half months^ giving entrance 
 to the ventilation that healed and escape for the miasms that 
 destroyed. 
 
 Yes, that memorable sally, in which all who could stand 
 performed prodigies of valor, was, for the Detachment of Baler, 
 like a breath of oxygen to one that is being asphyxiated. 
 
 With the airing of the church, the new eatables so fresh 
 and green, as the Doctor had craved them, and the hope which 
 our success could not fail to inspire, it was soon apparent that 
 the epidemic was abating. 
 
 The vigilant enemy iDcing farther away, it was now pos- 
 sible, when the firing was not too severe, to allow two men to 
 go out daily and bring in sackfuls of pumpkin leaves, plantain 
 shoots, and various herbs; with which was increased and im- 
 proved the already scanty ration that we could deal out from 
 our provisions. Foreseeing that if the siege should become 
 formal again, it would not be possible to secure this store, I 
 arranged to provide a supply more nearly at hand. Finally, 
 taking advantage of the time given me by the stupefaction of 
 the enemy, I succeeded in clearing the corral of all the filth it 
 contained. 
 
 This last was extremely important. The refuse, sweep- 
 ings, and fecal m^atter had there formed such a mass of foul 
 slime that its stench was unbearable. I therefore ordered a pit 
 to be dug four or five meters outside of the wall, and, by means 
 of a sloping ditch, we drained into it all of the pestilent mat- 
 ter. We thus obtained in a short time, with the help of the 
 rains, an easy conduit for the preservation of cleanliness, and 
 an insulated depository capacious enough and at a sufficient 
 distance to take away all fear of danger from it. 
 
 The question of edible vegetables made it necessary for us 
 to utilize as a garden all the available ground, having in view 
 
68 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 the possibility of gathering them even though we should again 
 be hemmed in closely. For this purpose we worked a small 
 piece next to the entrance to our trench^ and in it we planted 
 peppers and wild tomatoes, which are abundant in those coun- 
 tries. The trench itself and its ditches were covered with 
 pumpkin vines, which in a short time gave them the appear- 
 ance of a green field. 
 
 All bore promptly; but the pumpkins, much deteriorated, 
 were no bigger than hen's eggs, partly due also to the thick- 
 ness of the sowing. We had to pull them up when they had 
 reached this stage, because otherwise they would fall of them- 
 selves and it would not be possible to eat them. 
 
 I believe that I have pointed out that the church was sol- 
 idly built, except the annex designed as a sacristy. Its walls 
 were thick and strong, of a kind of cement, and with heavy 
 foundations. So thick were they that I had placed along the 
 top, at intervals, rows of boxes filled with earth, behind which 
 there was still left a space half a meter in width. These served 
 as an excellent parapet for our firing and for our watching. 
 Of course, it may be said in passing, the famous ladder of the 
 assault was of good service to us in defending that parapet and 
 relieving its sentries. 
 
 But if the walls were not wanting in strength, if they were 
 firm and thick, it was not so with the roof. It was covered with 
 zinc, forming two slopes as in ordinary roof-coverings, but not 
 very well supported in the cornice, as is the case with all coverings 
 when the drainage is in the support itself. When the besieg- 
 ers saw the risks and difficulties another attempt at assault 
 would present, they preferred to forego it. But, seeking some 
 efficacious means to bring about our surrender, they resolved, 
 apparently, to expose us to the weather, to leave us without a 
 roof; being confident that the continual rain would soon spoil 
 
Under the Bed and Gold. 69 
 
 the few (or many) rations that we had stored, would cover the 
 floor with water, would deprive us of rest, and would render 
 the continuation of the defense impossible. 
 
 To this end, they not only continued to throw showers of 
 stones, which, as I have said, fell upon it like hailstorms, but 
 they fired volleys against our poor roof, which soon rendered 
 it little better than a sieve. Through the numerous holes we 
 could see the firmament as through lattice-work, the aspect of 
 which, on a clear night, recalled that of the starry heavens. 
 But the service of the roof when it rained was more to be feared 
 than desired; because the water, besides passing freely through 
 the many holes, also poured down against the uncovered cor- 
 nices, where it was retained, rotting them so that they threat- 
 ened to fall and crush us. 
 
 To provide against this danger, a great effort was neces- 
 sary. To nail the cornices, using the large spikes of which I 
 have spoken, was an undertaking not at all easy, on account 
 of the dangerous conditions under which it had to be done and 
 the insuflBciency of the materials employed. 
 
 Then the wooden quizame (false work), which, under the 
 roof covering and supported against the inner border of the 
 cornices, formed an imitation of a vaulted ceiling, had to be 
 fastened securely to the roof-beams. 
 
 We attempted also to stop up, one by one, the numerous 
 holes in the roof zinc. For this we improvised a sort of paste 
 made of flour and plaster, which stopped the holes quickly 
 enough; but the rains were always followed by stifling heat, 
 which withered everything; they became loose and our labor 
 was lost. 
 
 Then we tried to stop the holes with pieces of tin, which 
 we so placed as to form channels to carry off the water. This 
 gave us better results, because the remedy was at least more 
 
70 UinjER THE Eed and Gold. 
 
 lasting; but when the rain was very heavy, there was no place 
 where we could all take refuge, and each one had to look out 
 for himself as God gave him understanding. I sheltered my 
 bed under a covering that appeared to be a wagon-awning, and 
 the others contrived for themselves as best they could. 
 
 But nothing availed us on a certain night. A frightful 
 tempest, common to those climes, in which the earth trembles 
 while the elements rage with fury; a veritable deluge, which 
 came down as if threatening the end of the world — completely 
 inundated us. Nine or ten meters of that cornice which had 
 cost us so much labor to secure with spikes fell to the ground. 
 It was truly a miracle that no one was killed. Satisfied with 
 this escape, there was nothing for us to do but to possess our- 
 selves in patience, and on the following day to commence the 
 repairs again. 
 
 The enemy meanwhile had returned to the siege. The 
 part of the town we had not burned served as supports to the 
 trenches with which they again surrounded us. But this Itue 
 was much farther away than the first one, and, for want of the 
 former shelters, was more exposed. In order to protect them- 
 selves, the enemy had to construct head-coverings, and in the 
 bottom of the trenches a sort of platform, because they were 
 flooded, at times in consequence of the rains, and at others by 
 the tides, which ebbed and flowed daily in the various branches 
 of the river. 
 
 All this increased the discomforts of the besieger, and with 
 them his eagerness for our surrender, which was noticeable in 
 the ceaseless hostilities by which he tried to annoy us. What 
 a quantity of ammunition he expended uselessly in spite of 
 Villacorta's announcement ! 
 
 On our part, we sought to avoid carelessness, to constantly 
 lie in wait for the enemy, and not to fire except when we con- 
 sidered it necessary. 
 
Undee the Eed and Gold. 71 
 
 Christmas Eve came, that festival of intimacy which evokes 
 so many memories at all Christian firesides; and we prepared 
 to celebrate it noisily. 
 
 I ordered that the troops be served an extra allowance of 
 pumpkin, some preserve made of the orange skins, and cofEee. 
 We had found in the church a number of musical instruments 
 belonging to the town band, and I ordered them distributed to 
 all the men off duty; to one a flute, to another the bass drum, 
 to others the snare drum, clarinets, etc., and to the rest, be- 
 cause we did not have enough to go around, petroleum tins. 
 
 It is not necessary to try to describe the noise we made 
 that night. 
 
 They also made themselves hoarse in the enemy's trenches 
 by shouting at us all kinds of vituperation, saying that it would 
 soon be over and then would come the tears, that there we had 
 to die; while we, redoubling the noisy discord, tried to drive 
 away the sadness in our souls by thinking that we were still 
 able to infuriate the enemy, that we still had cartridges left for 
 our defense, and that there still waved over the tower, in spite 
 of tempests and rains, the banner of our unfortunate Country. 
 
72 TJndee THE Eed and Gold. 
 
 III. 
 
 FROM DEOEMBER 25, 1898, TO FEBEUARY, 1899. 
 
 An episode. — A paeiiEY.— Letters.— Vain hopes.— The. ou) 
 
 TEAE AND THE NEW. PALAY. OBTAIN OlMEDO. — ^An 
 
 II«TEEVIEW. INEOEMALITIES. — ^REASON FOE OUE DOUBT. 
 
 During one of the last days of December there occurred a 
 small incident, a simple episode, which, of no importance in 
 itself, induced me, so to speak, to renew the flag of truce. I 
 have not been able to explain to myself the logic of it; but the 
 fact is that the one was derived immediately from the other, 
 and it may well be that the renewal was a yielding to the curi- 
 osity excited by the trifling episode. 
 
 Along in the middle of the afternoon we saw running 
 through the enemy's trenches, jumping and screaming, a boy, 
 apparently about twelve years old. "Do you wish me to kill 
 him, my Lieutenant?" said the sentinel to me. "No," I re- 
 plied; "call to him to see if he wishes anything of us." The 
 soldier did so, but the boy paid no attention to him; and, with- 
 out ceasing his cries or stopping as he leaped along, he disap- 
 peared through the woods. 
 
 On the following day one of the party stationed in the 
 town sounded the call for a parley. We had learned only by 
 hearing to know the enemy's trumpeters apart. This was one 
 of those that sounded the poorest calls, and he had been lodged 
 opposite the church. On hearing him, I said to myself: "Can 
 the others have marched away? Are there left only the peo- 
 ple of Baler, and do they wish to say to us sometliing worth 
 while ?" I ordered the "attention" to be sounded and the white 
 flag raised. 
 
Undek the Red and Gold. 73 
 
 A man presented himself, and delivered to us a package 
 containing three letters. One was from Villacorta, telling us 
 that Captain Bellota had arrived at the camp ; that he had come 
 to confer with us, and that for this purpose hostilities were 
 suspended until the termination of the conference, which would 
 take place at such hour and in such manner as we might de- 
 termine. Another letter was from the said Captaia, inform- 
 ing us that he had been sent to Baler for the conference. The 
 third was from the curate, Friar Mariano Gil Atienza, begging 
 us for God's sake to hear and give credit to what Bellota would 
 tell us. 
 
 I answered the bearer that he might tell the Captain that 
 I was waiting for him right there ia the plaza. I was impru- 
 dent enough to wait in the plaza, and it might have cost me 
 my life. But no one presented himself; and as it began to 
 grow dark I ordered the white flag to be lowered, and that any 
 Insurrecto that might be seen should be fired at, because every- 
 thing indicated that all this had been nothing more than a 
 ruse. They had feigned the mediation of a person who might 
 find no difficulty in presenting himself to us simply to see if 
 we would consent to receive him. 
 
 Consideriag our situation, it is easy to imagine that this 
 event woidd set me to thinking. Assuming it as a fact that 
 the Spanish domination had ceased in the Archipelago, as we 
 had been assured, why not wait for the ofiicial notification of 
 such an occurrence ? If the war were going badly and we must 
 withdraw from Baler, how was it that notice in due form was 
 wanting? If there were so many capitulations, why not show 
 us some of the surrendered commanders? 
 
 The news of the presence of Bellota led me to hope that 
 our doubts would come to an end. For this reason I went out 
 myself, risking everything, to the promised conference. I was, 
 
74 Undee the Eed and Gold. 
 
 no doubt, carried away by perfectly natural impatience; and 
 on finding myself deceived^ my mistrust was necessarily in- 
 creased. The danger risked on that occasion, the seriousness 
 of which I quickly appreciated, made me more cautious and 
 suspicious. Bear in mind — ^think, I repeat, of the series of 
 traps with which they had tried to ensnare me, and my bearing 
 thereafter will be appreciated. 
 
 And now came the night of December 31st, the last of the 
 year, the first of 1899, the one hundred and eighty-fourth of 
 the siege. The last page of the American calendar disclosed 
 to my eyes the now useless piece of pasteboard to which it had 
 been glued, and on tearing it off I had a feeling, painful, in- 
 definable, which might well be called romantic, but — ^what 
 more romantic, after all, than that same tenacity in defending 
 ourselves ? Eegard it as you will ; but I, who, starving for sleep 
 and without hope of succor, had gone on tearing oS those 
 leaves, seeing them disappear like dead comrades — I, who with 
 the dwindling of that calendar saw also the disappearance of 
 our carefully doled out ammunition and rations — I could not 
 regard with indifference the disappearance from its place of 
 that which left exposed traces of the past with all its bitterness 
 and sadness. 
 
 The new year appeared to come sinister and dark, with 
 despair at its end; and I felt an irresistible faintness, an op- 
 pression that was suffocating me, the want of some one in 
 whom I could confide my anxieties and the heaviness of the 
 duty which was crushing me; and I had to shut myself up in 
 silence. 
 
 I must say it. One of the things that most weighed upon 
 my spirits during those interminable days and in those nights 
 of wakeful apprehension was the secrecy with which I had to 
 guard my purposes, the want of consultation and advice. To 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 75 
 
 no one could I confide my perplexities; since, in order not to 
 discourage my men, I had to appear confident and resolute 
 and to share with no one my belief in. our most serious situ- 
 ation. Vigil was the only one who, by reason of his education 
 and class, could be of use to me as a companion and confidant. 
 But Vigil, whose uprightness of soul and great patriotism I 
 cannot find words to praise as they should be, was wanting in 
 military Imowledge. His appointment in the Army was tem- 
 porary. And, if he was our good angel in many things, our 
 constant help, he could not be my adviser in those most diffi- 
 cult circumstances. I was compelled, therefore, to judge for 
 myself alone, on all occasions; a thing ia truth more crushing 
 than it would seem. 
 
 In order not to lose track of the days, we substituted a 
 written calendar for the one that had run out, of similar form 
 and with leaves in which we wrote the month, the date, the 
 day of the week. Before each monthly bunch had run out, we 
 prepared another for the next month. 
 
 But the rice was all gone by this time, and we had to de- 
 vote ourselves to hulling the seventy cavanes of palay (imhulled 
 rice) that the deceased Padre Carreno had bought. The task 
 is wearisome and always difficult to those unaccustomed to it; 
 exasperatingly slow and at that time with results little gratify- 
 ing; since, in consequence of the very bad manner in which 
 we were obliged to store it, and our inability to properly ex- 
 pose it to the sun, it cost a great deal of labor to separate the 
 hull grain by grain. In doing so all delicacy and care was used, 
 all the care demanded by, I shall not say necessity, but hunger ; 
 and even then not a grain came out whole, which caused a great 
 deal of loss. 
 
 As the condition of the troops did not warrant calling up- 
 on them for unnecessary labor, I had to reduce the time de- 
 
76 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 voted to this work to so many hours daily, to get out only what 
 was indispensable for the ration, and this of rice that was dirty, 
 powdery, unfit. I leave it to any one to imagine how tempting 
 it was, seasoned, in such a condition, with tinned sardines half 
 unserviceable, intolerable bacon, or pumpkin leaves, and with- 
 out salt. To give it something of a flavor, we mixed it with 
 some small wild peppers, very sharp (red peppers might be 
 considered sweet as compared with them), which are very 
 abundant in that country. 
 
 iJTevertheless this was the best the garrison of Baler had 
 daily from the beginning of the year 1899, when it had already 
 sustained one hundred and eighty-four days of siege, when 
 forty had passed since we lost our commandant, when the ra- 
 tion of flour, which ought to have been 500 grams, had to be 
 reduced to 200, and when I found myself under the necessity 
 of cutting off the small advance of five cents every three days, 
 which, in order to compensate for the deficiency of rations, had 
 been given to each man since the beginning of the siege. 
 
 On the 13th of January Private Marcos Jose Petana was 
 wounded. During one of these nights the enemy, under cover 
 of darkness, left near the door of the church a package contain- 
 ing seven or eight Filipino newspapers, which we were surprised 
 to find the following day. I ought not to have read them. Their 
 items gave no information of anything. They might be called 
 a froth of insults, or filthy, disgusting vituperation against 
 Spain and her sons; against that generous Nation which had 
 brought to such distant lands, and at the cost of Spanish blood, 
 the light of the Gospel; and against her sons, from whom those 
 swarms of wretched aborigines had received their first notions 
 of humanity and culture. 
 
 I remember that one of those caterpillar secretions, not 
 calling them news, related that in Manila a Castila disguised 
 
TJndee the Eed and Gold. 77 
 
 as an Indio (native) had robbed a lady (a native woman, per- 
 haps, disguised as a Casiila) of her portemonnaie, and that the 
 Americans had seized him to put him in prison. 
 
 Another shameless item published an instance of the par- 
 ish priest of Albulug (Cagayan), Friar Jose Brugues, begging 
 a Filipino general to allow him to remain in the pueblo named, 
 in order to look after the coffee plantations that the priest 
 owned there. The article affirmed that this action showed that 
 the priest was favorably disposed to the iasurrection, as he had 
 demonstrated, it added, by often furnishing all kinds of aid 
 to the Tagalogs. 
 
 The effect produced upon me by this unfortunate reading 
 could not be worse. I tore the paper in pieces, vowing not to 
 touch another one even though they should put it on the tower 
 itself. 
 
 The month of February came without anything to note 
 other than the already described firings and the increasing pov- 
 erty of our supplies. The epidemic carried away another 
 victim on the 13th, causing the death of Private Jose Saus 
 Meramendi. 
 
 On the 14th, becoming annoyed by hearing the enemy's 
 trumpets sounding a parley, I went up into the tower to ob- 
 serve what was going on about us. ISTear one of the fortified 
 houses, marked on the map, I discovered the trumpeter, and 
 with him another man ready to raise the white flag. Noting 
 our silence, this individual went, after a few moments, toward 
 the so-called "Bridge of Spain." It was there that we believed 
 the enemy's headquarters was located, because they had fortified 
 it, closing both ends and strengthening it against any attack, 
 with truly noteworthy skill. 
 
 I continued my observation. The man with the flag had 
 no sooner disappeared than he appeared again and returned 
 
78 Under the Red and Gold. 
 
 to his former place. "They must have beaten you," I thought 
 on seeing this, "or you would not have come back in such a 
 hurry;" and from the brevity of his stay I might well have 
 thought this. Twice again the trumpet sounded the "atten- 
 tion," without any reply from us. I remained on watch to see 
 how all this would end, puzzled, not by the strangeness of the 
 proceeding itself, which offered nothing in particular, but by 
 its insistency, and especially by the rapid coming and goiug of 
 the man who was carrying, the flag. 
 
 It generally happened, as I have already had occasion to 
 note, that if, instead of replying to a call for a parley, we re- 
 mained silent, they would become timid and withdraw for fear 
 of our firing upon them. Judge of my surprise, then, when I 
 saw the individual, or, rather, the flag he carried, dart into 
 Cardinal Cisneros Street and move in our direction. I cried 
 out to him to halt and to go back to the trenches at once. 
 
 "Are you Captain Las Morenas?" he said on seeing me. 
 
 "'So" I replied; "I am one of the officers of the Detach- 
 ment. Wliy do you come here?" 
 
 "I am Captain Don Miguel Olmedo, and I come on the 
 part of the Captain-General to speak with Senor Las Morenas." 
 
 "Captain Las Morenas does not speak to anyone, nor does 
 he wish to receive anyone. He has already been deceived many 
 times, and he is determined that they shall not deceive him 
 again. Tell me what you wish to say and I shall tell it to him." 
 
 He replied that the General knew very well that attempts 
 had been made to deceive us; but that now there was no, dan- 
 ger, because everything he now had to say was true; and that 
 he was bringing an official paper from our chief authority in 
 the Archipelago. 
 
 We were holding this dialogue, I from the trench and he 
 about forty paces away. On hearing that he brought an official 
 
Undee the Eed and Gold. 79 
 
 commimicatioiij I ordered out a soldier to bring it to me; but 
 the bearer refused to deliver it for some time, saying that he 
 had positive orders to deliver it in person. But when I hinted, 
 in order to put an end to the argument, that if he did not wish 
 to deliver it, he must withdraw with it at once, he gave way to 
 my ultimatum and sent the message to me by the soldier. 
 
 Then I said to him: "You may wait. I am going to see 
 what the Captain determines." And I went in as if I were 
 going for the purpose named, and read the following: 
 
 "The treaty of peace between Spain and the United States 
 having been signed, and the sovereignty of these Islands having 
 been ceded to the latter nation, you will evacuate the place, 
 bringing away with you armament, munitions, and the treasure- 
 chests, beiug guided by the verbal instructions that, by my or- 
 der, will be communicated to you by Don Miguel Olmedo y 
 Calve. God keep you many years. 
 
 "Diego de los Bios. 
 
 "Manila, February 1st, 1899." 
 
 And at the bottom: 
 
 "Senor Commandante politico-militar of the District of 
 Bl Principe, Don Enrique de las Morenas, Captain of Infantry." 
 
 Wondering at such a personal command, I again read over 
 the paper with all the mistrust that may be imagined. I ob- 
 served that it did not appear to have been recorded anywhere. 
 "Come," I thought, "it has not occurred to them to number 
 the communication, and yet, besides naming at the foot the 
 official title of the person to whom it is directed, they have not 
 forgotten to write, with care, the name and surname, a redund- 
 ancy entirely unnecessary. And they bother themselves about 
 the treasure-chests, something we Imow nothing about here, not 
 even remotely." I turned to the soldiers and said: "It is 
 nothing; the same old song." I then went out to the trench and 
 
80 Undee the Eed and Gold. 
 
 said to the so-called Captain Olmedo: "Captain Las Morenas 
 has said, Wery well. You may withdraw.'" 
 
 Instead of withdrawing, he answered that he would like to 
 remain in the church, because he was wet through. I refused 
 this, and he asked me where he was going to sleep that night. 
 ''Where you slept the other nights," I replied. 
 
 He then began to complain, arguing that it could not be 
 true that Las Morenas would behave in that way toward him, 
 since they were fellow-countrymen, had gone to school together, 
 and claiming I do not know how many bonds of intimacy be- 
 tween them, "^'^ell," he exclaimed finally, "when' must I re- 
 turn for the answer?" "When we sound the 'attention' and 
 raise the white flag," I said; "and if we fail to do so, you need 
 not trouble yourself, because there will then be no answer." He 
 then went away, and I did not see him again. 
 
 For several nights after this we could hear him talking in 
 the hahay, or house, of the under Governor, which house was 
 also fortified; from which we inferred that he must have been 
 some Insurrecto chief. 
 
 Who could suppose anything else? Who could imagine 
 that any captain of the Army would have presented himself, 
 with a message of so much importance, dressed as a country- 
 man, making use of the enemy's trumpets, asking for a parley 
 in the identical way in which it had been asked for so many 
 times before, and without displaying any Spanish insignia, any 
 .outward sign which would indicate that he was one of our own? 
 
 I also considered that if he had been a schoolmate of our 
 dead Captain, he would not have failed to notice at once that 
 I was not the Captain, and therefore would not have asked me 
 if I were Las Morenas. ISTeither was it a detail to pass un- 
 noticed that he claimed to be wet through and that he had no 
 place to stay, while his clothing did not appear to be wet at 
 
Under the Eed AxTO Gold. 81 
 
 allj and when it was a natural thing that, enemy or no enemy, 
 he could count on the assistance and tolerance of our besiegers. 
 Moreover, there was the very recent occurrence of Belloto, who 
 announced himself as a captain of the Army, and who after- 
 wards did not find it convenient to show himself. 
 
 It might very well be that an ingenious ruse was intended ; 
 that on the former occasion their resolution to carry it out had 
 failed at the critical moment ; and that, having knowledge later, 
 through some treachery, of the death of the Military Governor, 
 they had planned this deception, forging the communication 
 without considering the matter of the treasure-chests, nor the 
 want of a record number, nor the superfluity in the personal 
 direction. And, confiding in the favorable reception of the doc- 
 ument, they thought to bring about our surrender. 
 
 It is very certain that the delights of Baler could not have 
 been the cause of my doubts and delays. !N"obody more than 
 ourselves desired to put an end to it all, to change those scenes, 
 to finish it at once, if the circumstances had warranted it. But 
 then, I had to bear in mind Article 748 of the Field Eegulations, 
 which says: "Eemembering that in war all kinds of deceptions 
 and ruses are resorted to, even when a written order from su- 
 perior authority is received to surrender the place, its execution 
 wiU be suspended until its complete authenticity is made cer- 
 tain, sending, if possible, a person of confidence to verify it 
 verbally." It was unequivocal and I was not in position to as- 
 certain the authenticity of that order; I could not quit that 
 post of honor without satisfying myself that I was not the vic- 
 tim of a ruse; that afterwards my credulity could not be im- 
 puted to my desire ; that I was, in fact, obeying orders. All these 
 were considerations which, apparently, in the general subver- 
 sion of things, were not borne in mind by those by whom they 
 should have been taken into account. 
 
82 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 IV. 
 
 FKOM PEBRUAEY 25th TO APEIL 8th. 
 
 CONSPIEACT DISCOVERED. — ■ UNEXPECTED GAME. IMITATING 
 
 EoBiNSON Crusoe. — Ambuscade. — Eeprisais. — Modern 
 CANNON. — Attacks repelled. — The bacon gives out. 
 
 During the time I had been in command of the radivid- 
 uals that composed the Detachment there had been abundant 
 opportunity to know each one thoroughly. If there be a time 
 when our souls are laid bare, so to speak, when are made evi- 
 dent the vices and virtues, the strength or weakness that we all 
 bear in the most hidden recesses of our nature, it is when 
 danger afflicts and oppresses us, when sufEering discourages us, 
 and when the mysterious change of death is presented close at 
 hand, with the cutting off of hope and life. 
 
 Then are shown in a powerful light the faith and enthu- 
 siasm that deify us, or the selfishness that brutalizes us; and 
 a man makes himself a martyr, attains the heights of heroism, 
 or descends into the wretchedness of crime, falls completely in- 
 to the cowardice that makes him infamous. 
 
 Among the defenders of that far-away church of Baler 
 this phenomenon had perforce to prove true; and I, who enter- 
 tained no illusions, who was fully aware of the strong temp- 
 tations that might seduce my men, whether by the inducements 
 and threats uttered with loud cries, day after day, from the 
 enemy's trenches, or whether by the sufferings we were under- 
 going, left unnoticed no indications, no detail, which would 
 enable me to know the true character of each man. I knew, 
 then, that in that place were hearts of extraordinary excellence, 
 men of fiber, ard hearts pusillanimous; souls capable of every 
 
Undeb the Eed and Gold. 83 
 
 kind of initiative; and irresolute souls, of the kind that allow 
 themselves to be led passively in any direction; honorable dis- 
 positions and dishonorable dispositions. 
 
 I did not attempt to hide from myself the danger. I loiew, 
 therefore, that if without there were aiubuscade, within there 
 could be treason; that the smallest weakness or vacillation on 
 my part might precipitate our ruin; and that there was noth- 
 ing for me but the exercise of continual vigilance and extreme 
 rigor, the former the more difficult and the latter the more se- 
 vere because I was the only person there with authority to act. 
 
 I was, therefore, not very much surprised at the informa- 
 tion that was laid before me on the 35th of February, nor did 
 I hesitate a moment in coming to a decision. The matter which 
 at first seemed to be only an attempt at desertion, turned out 
 later to be something much more serious. 
 
 I had determined upon my line of conduct. It was based 
 on the common safety of all, regulated by the demands of 
 duty, and I had to follow it. There was no room for any 
 other course than to be pitilessly inexorable. 
 
 Private Loreto Gallego Garcia informed me that his com- 
 panion, Antonio Menaehe Sanchez, intended to desert to the 
 enemy. This belief was founded on the declaration of Men- 
 ache himself. Gallego had been keeping a small sum of 
 money belonging to Menaehe, a not uncommon thing among 
 comrades, and about two months before this the latter had 
 asked for it, confessing that he had the intention of joining 
 the Tagdlogs, 'Taecause he had taken it into his head to do it." 
 
 His companion had taken it as a joke or had mildly cen- 
 sured it. He had not again referred to it, and it appeared to 
 have been forgotten; when, on the night of February 24th, at 
 about ten o'clock, Menaehe was seen to climb secretly, well 
 wrapped in his blanket, up the little stairway from the closet; 
 
84 Under the Bed autd Gold. 
 
 to closely observe the enemy's camp; and then to crawl on all 
 fotire to the right, where, at a short distance, was a window 
 which, although loopholed as they all were, offered an easy 
 exit. 
 
 All this being observed by the nearest sentry, he had twice 
 called upon Menaehe to halt; but the latter, without replying 
 and still on all fours, had gone back hastily by the same way. 
 It wap seen, when he came down the little stairs, that he was 
 carrying his rifle in his right hand. Menaehe was a vagabond 
 who had been taken up and then, like many others, sent to the 
 Army in the Philippines. He had, therefore a suspicious past, 
 which, added to his indiscretion of two months before, and the 
 occurrence just stated, justified Gallego's suspicion. 
 
 I called Menaehe and asked him what he had intended 
 to do. He began by denying most positively, resorting to all 
 sorts of oaths, weeping and grieving bitterly. But I, who for 
 my own part had been observing certain strange whisperings 
 and certain negligences, pressed him closely and , in such a 
 way, being eertaia of his guilt on account of his con- 
 tradictions and blunderings, that he finished by telling me 
 everything. 
 
 It was something more serious than I had supposed, but 
 something also that might have been conceived. It was a mat- 
 ter of veritable conspiracy; and if it had not gone further, it 
 was not for want of will in the culprits, but of opportunity; 
 and I must say to the honor of their brave companions, for 
 want of "atmosphere." 
 
 The said Menaehe had, a long time before, conspired 
 with another soldier, Jos6 Alcaide Bayona, whose name, of 
 execrable memory, I shall have occasion to repeat later on; 
 and the two having agreed with one of the corporals, Vicente 
 Gonzales Toca, the escape had been prepared. 
 
TJndee the Bed and Gold. 85 
 
 It was undeniable that if they had not realized their pur- 
 pose, it must have been because they wished to extend the con- 
 spiracy and to accomplish it on some occasion when they might 
 gain the good-will of the enemy. Everything appeared to in- 
 dicate this, because otherwise it was not understood why these 
 men remained and suffered the privations of the siege. Sep- 
 arately they could have escaped at almost any time; but now 
 the attempt of Menache, leaving his companions in the church, 
 gave reason to suspect many things. "\¥hat had they been 
 plottiag? Were the others to have followed him one after 
 another; Were they to remain planning some abominable 
 treachery that he was to communicate to the enemy? Well 
 might this be so. 
 
 I proceeded to institute proper inquiries, because in more 
 than one way the offense was serious, and I had to take pre- 
 cautions. I found out that they had decided only to go over 
 to the Tagalogs, each taking his rifle, two knapsacks, and the 
 cartridge-box from his equipments, filled with ammunition; 
 that they had no accomplices; and that it had all been spoiled 
 by the irresolution of Menache. The last was evident; the 
 want of accomplices probable; the rest is not very clear. 
 
 1 persisted in my inquiries, but could find them guilty 
 only of other acts which were serious enough, but yet foreign 
 to their military obligations. There was no other course but 
 to make sure of them by placing them at once in close con- 
 finement. In the situation in which I found myself I could 
 legally have ordered them shot summarily, since, after all, the 
 circumstances seemed to demand it, in order to prevent great- 
 er evils; but I did not wish to do so, I ordered them shut up 
 in the baptistery; and although I placed irons on them, it 
 was because of the little security afforded by the door, or grat- 
 ing, of that room, and of the alarming perversity exhibited 
 by these men. 
 
86 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 Consider the impression that this occurrence made on 
 me. I was becoming suspicious of my own shadow. From 
 the beginniag of the siege I had not enjoyed the luxury of 
 a quiet sleep, and since everything had come into my hands 
 I had scarcely any opportunity for sleep. I slept when I was 
 walking, when I was watching, and when I was eating; on 
 foot and when I was seated; when I was speakiug and when 
 I was silent; my state was a perpetual vigilance, my head a 
 vexation, my body that of an automaton. 
 
 In this condition the incident of the conspiracy had su- 
 pervened, proving the insufSciency of my efforts, and in the 
 face of that I could not but feel desperate. My nerves reached 
 such a state that a light murmur, the slightest noise, kept me 
 awake in racking agitation. I seemed to find alarming appear- 
 ances in everything; and in everything cause for suspicion 
 and dread. It is difficult to imagine the despair and suffer- 
 ing produced by a failure of physiological powers when an 
 ardent will demands their exercise. I sought in vain for light 
 for my brain, which was becoming stupefied, vigor for my 
 arms, resistance against the overpowering heaviness of lassi- 
 tude. God will put it to my account. Eeealling it now, I 
 doubt if it were not all a frightful nightmare. 
 
 It is happily so that after the blackest night may come 
 a most joyous morning. In the miserably poor condition to 
 which our ration supply had now been reduced, nothing so 
 grateful could have been offered to us as fresh meat, and at 
 the same time there was nothing apparently more impossible 
 to have. How often had we regretted those three or four 
 horses which I had kept as a matter of foresight at the time 
 we shut ourselves up; and which, on account of the aversion 
 of the rest, I had been obliged to turn loose! How much we 
 would have given for those pieces of venison that we had not 
 
TJndee the Ebd and Gold. 87 
 
 cared for at first! But no one thought of really having meat, 
 because it was considered an impossibility, as unlikely as it 
 would have been to see the manna and quail such as the Is- 
 raelites gathered in the Exodus. But Heaven itself caused the 
 realization of the miracle^ and we had a good supply of meat, 
 thanks to an unexpected hunting-party. 
 
 On a certain nighT towards the end of February our sen- 
 tinels gave notice that some carabao were approaching the 
 church. The latter being surrounded by the enemy's trenches, 
 which, judging from the constant firing, could not have been 
 abandoned, the presence of the carabao was rather strange. 
 Ordinarily it was necessary to go to the forest to find this 
 species of animal, wild, timid, afraid of man; and now they 
 had come even into the enemy's bivouacs without being fright- 
 ened by his presence or by the fires; had cleared the trenches, 
 aad were circulating freely on our side. 
 
 The thing was, however, easily explained. The Tagalogs, 
 notwithstanding their frugality, were unwilling to deprive 
 themselves of meat; and, in order to have it at hand when they 
 wished it, they had gotten together a small herd of those nu- 
 tritive ruminants, and had turned them loose to graze between 
 their possessions and ours. Perhaps they thought that even 
 though we might kill one of them, it would be the Tagalogs 
 who would profit by the chase. 
 
 On the night in question, owing to the singularity of the 
 visit, which took us by surprise, we succeeded only in driving 
 the carabao away. One of the sentinels fired hastily, but did 
 not make a hit. But on the following night I went to the 
 trench with five of the best marksmen, first warning them 
 not to fire except as I ordered; and all to aim behind the 
 shoulder-blade of the same animal. 
 
 After a short time. Fortune favored us. We killed one 
 
88 Under the Eed and Goisd. 
 
 of those big animals, and before daylight we had already skin- 
 ned and quartered it. 
 
 We had a protracted feast. It was useless to attempt to 
 restrain the soldiers. So great was their hunger that they 
 became almost insane, and it was necessary to allow them to 
 do as they pleased in cutting off pieces of the meat, which they 
 roasted and devoured. For this reason the meat lasted only 
 three days; and it is hardly necessary to say that the men ate 
 so much the first day that their stomachs suffered. When this 
 supply was all gone, we repeated the chase, killing another 
 carabao; but this time we were compelled to get it in under 
 the enemy's fire. 
 
 As there was no salt, nothing could be preserved, and af- 
 ter two days the meat became totally unfit to eat. We had 
 to lie ia wait again, and a third carabao served to replenish 
 the provisions, although very transitorily. On this occasion 
 we hit two of the animals; but when, on the followiag day, we 
 tried to get the second one in, it was already swollen and be- 
 ginning to decompose. 
 
 With this the unexpected hunting came to an end; be- 
 cause the besiegers, seeing that they made nothing of it and 
 that they could not keep us from it, drove the cattle away. 
 We had already felt the need of salt; but now we found it 
 even more grievous not to have it, on account of the service 
 it might have been to us by making it possible to preserve 
 the meat. 
 
 But the benefit we derived from the visit of the carabao 
 was not all confined to the nine or ten days that we had a 
 supply of meat. The hides also of the three animals, after 
 being well dried and stretched, were very useful to us in our 
 barefoot condition, in making leather pads for the soles of the 
 feet. In order that there should be no waste or pilfering, I 
 
Under the Red and Gold. 89 
 
 kept the sHns myself, from which I cut the pieces as needed 
 by each man. Something of the same thing was done by that 
 sovereign of Aragon who thus protected the feet of his war- 
 riors from the stony paths of the Pyrenees. 
 
 March was beginning, and the troops were almost without 
 clothing. At first they had persevered in mending their trou- 
 sers, finally converting them into mere breech-clouts, and in 
 using the sleeves of their blouses to patch those same blouses, 
 or, rather, the sleeveless garments to which they had been re- 
 duced. But when there was no longer anything from which 
 they could make patches and the tattered garments again pre- 
 sented new rents; when the thread had given out and one 
 after another the needles had disappeared — each man was 
 going about clothed as best he could devise. 
 
 To remedy this state of nudity, I issued, March Ist, some 
 sheets, drawers, and shirts from the hospital supplies. This 
 gave them something wherewith to clothe themselves; and 
 then, imitating Robinson Crusoe on his desert isle, they drew 
 out the threads from a piece of the cloth, and, with needles 
 improvised from a piece of wire, it was not long before they 
 had made for themselves the garments most demanded by 
 modesty. 
 
 In the frontispiece of this book, a reproduction of the 
 picture taken when we arrived at the capital of the Archipel- 
 ago, will be seen some who still wore those garments. The 
 others had thrown them aside on the road as fast as they 
 could substitute others, because they were ashamed of their 
 appearance. 
 
 On the 25th, the festival of the Incarnation, the last palay 
 was hulled. Everything was giving out, and on the follow- 
 ing day, in order to distract the soldiers, I ordered a trench 
 opened cutting the Street of Spain, at the end of which was 
 
90 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 the bridge of the same name. I have already said that the 
 latter was covered and completely fortified. 
 
 ITear the bridge, to the right of the street, rose the house 
 of the Gobernadorcillo, and to the left, next to the street called 
 Cardinal Cisneros, was another house, also fortified (the pho- 
 tograph of which is shown), in which were cannon. The re- 
 sult was, therefore, that from the trench we could fire upon 
 the entrance to the bridge and prevent communication with 
 the two houses. 
 
 The work was completed without attracting the enem/s 
 attention, and was arranged so that we could occupy it or re- 
 tire from it without my men being seen. On the 38th I coti- 
 cealed a few men there, who soon surprised the enemy with 
 their fire, causing him to abandon three men in the street, 
 two killed and one badly wounded. In this way, besides oc- 
 cupying and animating my men, I proposed to show that we 
 were neither discouraged nor asleep, exasperating the enemy 
 at the same time so that they would become impatient and 
 attack us openly. 
 
 And attack us they did, but at a distance and protected 
 by their shelters; the attack being a sustained fire, which com- 
 menced at five o'clock on the morning of the 30th and lasted 
 until dark, with, nothing noteworthy except the appearance 
 of a modern gun, one of those that we had at Cavite. Its 
 projectiles shook the church, but produced no considerable 
 damage. 
 
 Afterwards I learned that Aguinaldo, hearing of our pro- 
 longed resistance, had sent TiiiO:, one of his generals, with 
 particular instructions and numerous forces, among whom, it 
 appears, we caused some fifty casualties the day they arrived; 
 that Tino had had to withdraw in a short time, informing the 
 leader of the insurrection that the church of Baler could not 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 91 
 
 be taken by assault; and that Aguinaldo had replied, "You 
 will see that it can be taken/' and had sent this modern ^m 
 for that purpose, with a full supply of shell and canister 
 which — caused nothing to be seen except our firm tenacity in 
 the defense. 
 
 Imagining, perhaps, that the presence of the gun and its 
 discharges might have broken our spirit, they demanded, dur- 
 ing the late hours of that same night, a parley, with repeated 
 trumpet-calls; and, seeing that we remained silent, they again 
 commenced firing, about four o'clock, along the whole line. 
 The consumption of ammunition by rifles as well as cannon 
 must have been very great tliat fine morning; and I say "fine" 
 because not only did it have no bloody result, as far as we 
 were concerned, but it served .actually to increase our enthu- 
 siasm and ardor. 
 
 When day broke, they insisted on demanding a parley, 
 thrusting out of their trenches a ^'ery long bamboo, to the 
 end of which were fastened a letter and a package of news- 
 papers. We replied by deliberately firing at the point where 
 it seemed to us we might find a target, and they then renewed 
 the attack. This diminished somewhat at midday, but in the 
 early hours of the afternoon, the enemy being now furious 
 because we had not received their message, it again took on 
 formidable proportions. 
 
 A great crowd of people must have filled the enemy's 
 trenches, and they broke, with the beginning of the firing, in- 
 to frightful yelling. The voices of a multitude of women 
 were joined to those of our ordinary adversaries, as if the 
 whole population of the Island, without distinction of sex or 
 age, had come together, anxious to finish us by a definitive 
 assault. It did not come to this; on the contrary, we obliged 
 them, by our fire, to cease using their cannon. 
 
92 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 During the first eight days of April the firing ceased only 
 for short intervals^ but they used the new gun with evident 
 reluctance, from which we inferred that we must have suc- 
 ceeded in inflicting punishment on their cannoneers. Need- 
 less to say how much we would have rejoiced to know it. 
 
 And now came the 8th, of sad memory, because on that 
 day we finished, I shall not say the remains, but the last filth- 
 iness of the bacon. 
 
 I have already said that the palay had given out; the 
 beans were now about finished, and the coffee was going. 
 There was nothing for it but a resort to a repugnant extrem- 
 ity, of which I shall speak presently, to allay the fierce hun- 
 ger that tormented us; to have recourse to it or to surrender 
 to the Tagalogs. 
 
 The situation could not have been more difiicult. We had 
 sustained the siege for a matter of two hundred and eighty- 
 two days, and it was now one hundred and thirty-seven since 
 the command devolved on me by the death of Las Morenas. 
 Our military honor was safe, perfectly safe; our necessities, 
 however, were great; but by surrendering we should have to 
 humble the flag, to trust our lives to the furious rabble that 
 surrounded us, to expose ourselves to the derision of our in- 
 famous deserters — I had not the courage to do it, and I de- 
 termined that the defense should be continued. 
 
TJndee the Eed and Gold. 93 
 
 V. 
 
 APEIL. 
 
 Hopes of succoe. — ^A vessel iisr the roadstead. — Fighting! 
 
 AND deception. CONTINUOUS PARLEYS. — ' We WAIT. — 
 
 Attempted buiusting. — Exploit of Vigil. — Without 
 coffee. 
 
 A phenomenon of the imagination, born of the similarity 
 of circumstances, caused me daily to reflect upon what an im- 
 mense joy must be the appearance of a hospitable island to 
 the crew of a helpless ship, when destitute of food and with- 
 out resources for the repair of their vessel. Our church might 
 be regarded as lost in the. solitude of the ocean, ours as a for- 
 gotten expedition. Without subsistence, with no means of 
 breaking that line of angry enemies who day after day were 
 fighting us without ceasing, well could we compare ourselves 
 with the dismasted and lonely ship, the plaything of the waves, 
 surrounded by the cruel seas, which is slowly sinking, mock- 
 ing in its destruction the faith and devotion of its brave 
 mariners. 
 
 To complete the illusion, there was not even wanting the 
 wash of the waves, which becomes so irritating in very long 
 voyages. The proximity of the shore brought it to us plainly. 
 Especially in the silence of the night did that peculiar roar- 
 ing of the angry surf reach us, that awful moaning ending 
 with a menace, which seems to rise from the depths to reach 
 into the infinity of space. 
 
 During the night watches, when in solitude I meditated, 
 looking our helpless state in the face; when, thinking of the 
 sufferings we had undergone, of the long period during which 
 
94 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 the defense had been sustained, I considered that meantime so 
 much could have been done for us from Manila, from the head- 
 quarters of the Army, from Spain itself; when to all my cal- 
 culations there responded, in fine, no other conclusion than 
 that of manifest abandonment and sure destruction, I confess 
 that the voice of the sea, lugubrious and oppressive, afflicted 
 me in an indefinable manner. It appeared to answer my 
 thoughts by the announcement of mysterious calamities. 
 
 In such manner did all this possess me that, I confess it, 
 that voice, sad at times, angry at others, became to me one 
 of the most terrible things of the night. 
 
 On April 17th, between two and three o'clock in the after- 
 noon, we thought we heard ten cannon-shots in the direction 
 of San Jose de Casignan. They sounded far away, and ap- 
 peared to be from guns of large caliber. 
 
 My men went almost mad with joy, believing that it 
 could mean nothing but the arrival of a strong column of re- 
 lief. And this joy rose to the highest pitch, almost to frenzy, 
 when at night we saw the searchlight directed from the bay 
 upon the church, as though searching us out to protect and 
 support us. 
 
 Out there was the salvation for a sight of which we had 
 so longingly turned our eyes to the ocean solitudes; and the 
 joy we felt can be compared only to that which must be felt 
 by unhappy wretches who, as they are about to siuk, suddenly 
 behold the mist torn asunder and, close to the bow of their 
 ship, the smooth beach covered with trees and smiling with 
 promises. 
 
 We could not doubt. There must be a land force, and a 
 vessel of war with another force to disembark and rescue us. 
 As soon as it is day they will begin the movement, and before 
 ten we shall have them with us, we victorious, the siege raised, 
 and this almost unsupportable resistance at an end. 
 
Under the Red and Gold. 95 
 
 I think it can be asserted that during the night there 
 was not an individual in that church who was not a volunteer 
 sentry, peering through the darkness, listening for and com- 
 menting upon the slightest sounds that reached us from the 
 enemy, and waiting for dawn with all the impatience that may 
 be imagined. 
 
 At first it was as we had hoped. In the early hours we 
 heard firing close at hand in the direction of the sea, which 
 indicated the disembarkation. Nothing was heard from the 
 direction of San Jose, which troubled me somewhat; but this 
 might be owing to the want of a well-considered plan of co- 
 operation, and, as it was not long before the firing ceased, we 
 figured that it was only a matter of reconnaissance made by 
 the marines. 
 
 When the afternoon came, it seemed as though the thing 
 were now going on in earnest, as the ship's guns, which must 
 have been of great power, began firing, and we could see the 
 Tagalogs in confused flight, loaded with their equipments and 
 petates (sleeping-mats). The crash of the guns was so great 
 that our church trembled to its foundations. We were trem- 
 bling also; not from fear, but from eagerness and pleasure. 
 
 Up to six we counted the shots, one after another, at reg- 
 ular intervals; and then, noticing that the series was discon- 
 tinued, and supposing that it was all over, since the Indians 
 continued their flight, I directed all my men to take their 
 rifles to the loopholes, and then I ordered three consecutive 
 volleys, in order to show the rescuing party that we were still 
 alive and were still defending ourselves. 
 
 Night closed in without anything to indicate that they 
 had heard us. In case this might be so, and in case they had 
 not, by chance, seen the flag, which was always kept raised and 
 flying, I ordered two soldiers to go up into the tower, providing 
 
96 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 themselves with a very long bamboo, to the end of which was 
 ■fastened a rag well soaked in kerosene, and directed them to 
 wave it lighted when the ship again turned her searchlight 
 on us. 
 
 This was done, but we had only silence for an answer. 
 At four o'clock in the morning the searchlight was extin- 
 guished; soon afterwards the lights of the vessel passed by the 
 Confites, doubled Point Enchantment, and disappeared on the 
 route to Manila. 
 
 It is impossible to exaggerate the eilect that such a with- 
 drawal could not fail to produce on our minds. Even if I 
 should try to do so, I could not find adequate words. Let any- 
 one imagine the despair we must have felt, the dejection that 
 weighed upon us like lead, and he will understand the little 
 less than insuperable difficulty under which I now labored 
 in my efforts to reanimate my soldiers. 
 
 That vessel was the American Yorktown. Its mission was 
 to rescue us; but instead of doing so, it was going away, leav- 
 ing as victims of the enemy's fury fourteen enlisted men and 
 one officer, who, under the protection of its powerful guns, 
 and provided with a Gatling gun, had succeeded in disem- 
 barking to their ruin. 
 
 Not one was left to tell the tale,* as we afterwards learned. 
 
 *Tliis is a mistake. The party, seventeen in number, including 
 two guides, were attacked wliile still in the boat, a short time after 
 they entered the river. At the first volley one man was killed, and 
 one mortally and one seriously wounded. The second volley wounded 
 two mortally and three seriously. One lad was hit four times. 
 
 The oars being badly shattered and the survivors being im- 
 peided in their movements by the dead and wounded, the boat 
 drifted ashore up the river, where another man was wounded. The 
 rest, being overwhelmed by numbers, surrendered. 
 
 The unhurt, eight in number, were first taken to San Isidro. 
 From there they were taken to the west coast, where they, with 
 other Americans and Spaniards, were confined in various towns for 
 eight months. They were finally abandoned in the mountains of 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 97 
 
 Their arms and the gim became the spoils of the Tagalogr, 
 who, well iatrenched along the river and favored by the 
 ground, had undoubtedly taken them by surprisie and promptly 
 defeated them. The cannon-shots of the afternoon had been 
 directed against an old fortification situated at the mouth of 
 the river, where the besiegers had sheltered themselves strongly. 
 
 Let me now once more record the very bad conditions un- 
 der which it had been thought proper to keep the Detachment 
 at Baler. The ease with which it could be cut off was already 
 evident, notorious, when we were sent there. That, consider- 
 ing its strength, it could do nothing towards the tranquillitv 
 of the territory, was also evident. To what end, therefore, 
 was it kept there condemned to a useless sacrifice? 
 
 I confess my dullness, but I am yet unable to explain it 
 to myself satisfactorily. I do not attempt to blame anyone, 
 and I make this observation with all due respect. But, after 
 all, considering the great sufferings we underwent there, I be- 
 lieve I have a certain right to make it. 
 
 Pardon the digression and let us proceed. In a very 
 short time, by calling upon all the resources of my scanty elo- 
 quence, I was enabled to tranquilize the others and even my- 
 self, arguing that it was only a matter of putting off our 
 rescue for a few days. The ship had not brought enough 
 force to make the disembarkation a success, and it was sure 
 to be sent back. 
 
 All this seemed very natural. We were then ignorant of 
 
 northern Luzon, their guard running away at the approach of an 
 American force. 
 
 The united party made its way to a point about ten miles from 
 Aparri, on the northeast coast, where it was picked up by a Navy 
 vessel and taken to Manila. 
 
 The story of their wanderings and rescue is told in a most 
 interesting manner by Lieutenant Commander Gilmore, in McClure's 
 Magazine for August and Seirtember, 1900. 
 
98 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 what had happened to fifteen of its cxew, and we thought we 
 were reasoning logically in supposing that it was not really 
 a desistance from the mission of rescue that had undoubtedly 
 brought it there. We were ignorant of its nationality (we 
 supposed it to be Spanish). Even if we had known, and had 
 been aware of its misfortune in carrying out its enterprise, its 
 return would have appeared to us certain, if for nothing more 
 than the honor of revenge. 
 
 That same evening, April 13th, they hoisted in the enemy's 
 trenches the North American banner (taken, evidently, from 
 the Yorhtown's men, but then something inexplicable to us), 
 and sent to us a certain person, in sailor's uniform, who, on 
 approaching, asked if there was anyone among us who could 
 speak French. 
 
 As soon as the soldiers saw him, they began to declare 
 that it was Captain Olmedo. He appeared to me to be the 
 same; and he, observing that he had been taken for Olmedo 
 (probably he had known him), pretended to inform us, speak- 
 ing gibberish, that the captain of the American ship, anchored 
 in the roads, placed the vessel at our disposal to take us to 
 Spain, in view of the fact that peace between the two coun- 
 tries had been signed. I answered him that it was very well, 
 and that he could withdraw; which did not have to be re- 
 peated, he showing by his speed that he understood our lan- 
 guage perfectly. 
 
 From that day it was truly a rosary of flags of truce from 
 those trenches. We refused to receive them, threatening them 
 with our fire; while they, placing themselves under cover, cried 
 out that we ought to receive the letter they were presentiag, 
 and that it was our liberty, "our liberty which the town of 
 Baler was offering us." 
 
 One afternoon, finally, they sent out to us a small boy, 
 
Under the Red and Gold. 99 
 
 who might have been six years old. Once, twice, three times 
 he came out with that letter in one hand and a white flag in 
 the other. We made him go back, and as he again tried to 
 approach one of the best shots in the Detachment said to me, 
 "Do you wish me to shoot the letter out of his hand?" "Yes," 
 I said; "but take care not to wound him." "Don't be alarmed," 
 he replied. He fired, and the letter flew through the air as 
 though impelled by magic art. The youngster disappeared 
 screaming, and the incident put an end, serving as a cross, to 
 the rosary. 
 
 It may be imagined that we now took account of time, 
 and how we went on counting the hours since the incident of 
 the Yorhtownj the waiting and watching; the insupportable 
 excitement that dominated us. When the days passed and, 
 even making allowance for every sort of obstacle, there were 
 already more than enough for, not only the voyage to the cap- 
 ital of the Archipelago and return, but for the circumnaviga- 
 tion of the Island, I found myself under the necessity of forc- 
 ing the machine once more, inventing new reasons that might 
 afford an explanation for the delay. There was nothing else 
 to do. I must be the first to be reanimated and I was the one 
 to again comfort my soldiers. I exercised my imagination in 
 finding or inventing some pretext, one which would prolong the 
 hope on which we were living, which would appear to be gen- 
 uine, and which, in tranquilizing my men, would also satisfy 
 me and animate me as well. 
 
 Here is the argument with which, for this once, God in- 
 spired me, and by means of which I succeeded in getting over 
 the difficulty: "Look," I said, "in the struggle that we are 
 sustaining against the United States it is no doubt true that 
 we are gaining the upper hand; if not, where would we be? 
 what would have become of us by this time? But this strug- 
 
100 Under the Red and Gold. 
 
 gle must be a severe one, long sustained, because it is with a 
 most powerful nation; and, since there are in the Philippines 
 not enough forces to spare any for our rescue, since they wiH 
 have enough to do in confronting the Americans and Tagalogs. 
 it is evident that we must wait until reinforcements arrive 
 from the Peninsula. They must be already on the way. Let 
 us wait, therefore, and let us fulfill our duty where Fate has 
 placed us. To surrender now, when we have plainly seen that 
 they have not forgotten us, would be to blot out at one stroke 
 the months of meritorious deeds and the hardships that w° 
 have borne." 
 
 Meanwhile an attempt had been made to give us a neat 
 toasting. On the night of April 30th the sentry in the sacristy 
 fired a shot. I ran to find out what was going on. The sentry 
 informed me that he had shot at something which was ap- 
 proaching, and which, to judge from its size, appeared too big 
 for a dog, and which he thought must be a small carabao. He 
 thought it must have been wounded and that it remained in 
 the same place it was when he fired at it, because from time 
 to time he could see the grass moving. 
 
 A little later the sentrj^ at the window to the left of the 
 altar warned me that under the window and next to the wall 
 he thought he heard some men, because he heard the empty 
 tins rattling. It is proper to explain that we had scattered 
 around the building a considerable number of empty cans, in 
 order that we might have, by this means, some warning of the 
 proximity of the enemy. 
 
 "Are you sure," I said, "that they are not snails, as on 
 other nights?" (There are a great many snails in that re- 
 gion.) "No, sir," he answered; "the snails go on moving even 
 though the tins rattle, but those that are moving now stop 
 when they make a noise, and it is evident that they are trying 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 101 
 
 to avoid the tins. I am sure that they are men and that there 
 are several next to the wall." 
 
 From the sacristy we could make out with certainty that 
 there were men under the window of the altar; but they could 
 not be attacked from any direction, because on one side the 
 corner did not permit, and on the other there was a dead angle. 
 There was therefore no means of flanking them and the dan- 
 ger was increasing, with the enemy evidently assembling at the 
 threatened point. 
 
 My men were getting uneasy and we were about to run 
 the dangerous risk of a sally, when Vigil, in a moment of in- 
 spiration, seized a revolver and, thrusting his arm through 
 the altar window, at the risk of having them lop it off for 
 him, commenced to fire straight down upon the men assem- 
 bled there. They fled in terror. As they exposed themselves 
 we began firing on them from the sacristy window, and forced 
 them to withdraw completely. 
 
 This impulsive act, bom of despair and heroism, might 
 have been costly for our companion, since the window was 
 very low; but to him we owed our salvation that night. 
 
 The following day, when we proceeded to reconnoiter the 
 place, we found plain indications that several persons had been 
 there crawling along the ground. We also found two fascines 
 that they had already placed on the parapet of the sacristy, 
 twelve others near by, and some heavy sticks, like canes, each 
 marked at one end, the utility of which we were unable to ex- 
 plain to ourselves. All this we appropriated, getting it into 
 the church as best we could. It is certain that, since we were 
 getting short of combustibles, this wood came in very handy 
 in cooking our wretched food. 
 
 The importunately urged series of parleys in which I had 
 been engaged just before and this late unlooked-for attempt 
 
102 Under the Red and Gold. 
 
 led me to believe that our liberation could not appear to our 
 adversaries a very difBcult matter, when they were in such a 
 hurry to bring about our surrender. The supposition was not 
 without foundation, and it induced me to persevere in the de- 
 fense. But the struggle was, unfortunately, already reaching 
 beyond the limit that could be sustained by human will; and 
 if relief did not come very soon, I saw no end to the affair 
 but death. 
 
 On the 34th the beans and coffee gave out. I mean the 
 last remains of them. There was now nothing left to eat but 
 a few handfuls of rioe flour, the dust of the palay we had 
 hulled, and a few dozen tins of sardines, problematically ed- 
 ible. Our food, besides being scant, was now reduced to i 
 kind of poultice of pumpkin leaves mixed with sardines and 
 a little rice; but we had to reduce even these articles. Those 
 same men who at first would not eat the leaves because, as they 
 said, they lay like a lump in the stomach, soon had to be re- 
 strained to prevent them from going out to the trenches and 
 devouring those leaves raw, sprouts and all, without waiting for 
 them to grow. 
 
 For the mornings we had in place of coffee a decoction 
 of orange leaves, which we gathered from the trees that were 
 in front of the church. So great was our hunger, in fact, that 
 if a dog came within our reach, a dog was eaten; if a cat, a 
 cat; if reptiles, reptiles; if crows, crows. A certain kind of 
 snail was abundant. The natives loathed them, but it was 
 soon apparent that they were disappearing. All around the 
 church there was an abundance of leafy shrubbery, and it was 
 all stripped, the men not being deterred by the risk, not im- 
 probable, of eating some poisonous plant. 
 
 And the sea, as the days passed, remained relentlessly 
 desolate. 
 
Undek the Ebd and Gold. 103 
 
 VI. 
 
 TO THE 27th OF MAY. 
 Squad of sharpshoothes. — ^Artillertmejst as targets. — An 
 
 EXTRAOEDINAKY SHOT. TRAITORS WOUNDED. — ^ ONE ES- 
 CAPES. In THE STOCKS. — ' INSULTS AT LONG RANGE. — A 
 
 CANNON-SHOT. — MeECIFUL COUNSELS. — IF THE TOWER 
 SHOULD FALL. — ^IMPROVISED STAIRWAYS. — ^THB FLAG STILL 
 WAVES. 
 
 In the preceding chapter I have told of a most remarkable 
 shot made by one of the soldiers, which knocked from the hand 
 of a little boy a letter which he was insisting upon delivering 
 to us. The skill shown was indeed a thing to be marveled at, 
 but it has its explanation. The necessity, and for such a long 
 time, for keeping close watch on the enemy, the desire for 
 a good target, the eagerness to "make a killing" which spurred 
 us constantly, and the deliberation enjoined in firing, had re- 
 sulted in making some of my men excellent sharpshooters, and 
 to their skill we owed, in large measure, the impotence of the 
 enemy's artillery. 
 
 Eight of the best of them performed no night duties, br' 
 as soon as it began to grow light, would station themselves in 
 pairs, one pair in the tower, the others below, with no other 
 orders than to watch the batteries closely. The besiegers cov- 
 ered the guns with rush mats. In order to intimidate us, they 
 would also move the modern gun, already referred to, from 
 one place to another. 
 
 This proceeding was not without cunning; but, as their 
 cannon were never fired simultaneously, and as it was neces- 
 sary, in order to sight the guns, to raise the curtains, we soon 
 
104 UiirDER THE Eed and Gold. 
 
 discovered the trick, and promptly succeeded in spreadins 
 panic among the artillerists. 
 
 We afterwards learned that the panic reached such a 
 pitch that no one was willing to undertake this service; and 
 the fact is, that only by preparing their shots imder cover of 
 darkness could they harm us, except in peculiar and rare cases. 
 Such, indeed, was the certainty with which my men fired that 
 to raise the curtain and to at once roll over on the ground was 
 all one thing for anyone attempting to approach the cannon. 
 
 After our capitulation, they told us that they had attrib- 
 uted this precision in firing to the fact that we must have fas- 
 tened our rifles to the loopholes! Beati pauperes spiriiu, as 
 the Scripture mercifully says. 
 
 Among the men wounded, all but slightly, during these 
 days I recall only one, Pedro Planas Basagenas, who was hit 
 for the second time. But on the 7th of May we had to lament 
 one gravely wounded, Salvator Santa Maria Aparicio, who 
 passed away in a few days and whose loss produced on us not 
 only grief, since he was a good soldier, but also wonder on ac- 
 count of the provoking way in which the shot happened im- 
 luckily to produce it. 
 
 This boy was at the window of the choir which overlooked 
 the corral, and the bullet entered through another window to 
 the right and below. Glancing from the wall and tracing an 
 acute angle, it hit him in the side, touching the medulla. It 
 may be said that prejectiles seek their intended victims, while 
 they appear to avoid others, whom they pass by in their peril- 
 ous flight. 
 
 The enemy now settled down to a daily fight, their firing 
 beginning very early in the morning and at the sound of the 
 trumpet, as though it were a matter of stated fatigue duty. 
 They wished, apparently, to keep us constantly in a state of 
 
Unber the Eed and Gold. 105 
 
 anxiety; to waste amrminition in the hope of inflicting on us 
 some damage. And the truth is, that, in spite of the precau- 
 tions adopted, the cramped situation in which it kept us was 
 very trying. 
 
 There was not a crevice, a crack, or a hole free from that 
 annoying fire, constantly and patiently sustained. The object, 
 no doubt, was to prevent my sharpshooters from picking off 
 their artillerists; and for this reason, finding that they did not 
 succeed in their purpose, they reached the conclusion that we 
 must have our rifles aimed and fastened to the walls. Ap- 
 parently it had not occurred to their warlike imagination that 
 we might have men capable of watching tranquilly in the midst 
 of danger. 
 
 Nor was it any small danger that we encountered from 
 one of their shells on the 8th. It pierced the wall of the bap- 
 tistery, where, prisoners and in irons, were the three men who 
 had planned to desert to the enemy — ^Vicente Gonzalez Toca, 
 Antonio Menache Sanchez, and the miserable Jose Alcaide 
 Bayona. It exploded inside and the three men were wounded, 
 though not seriously, being saved from certain death by the 
 rubbish in which they had half buried themselves. 
 
 As the baptistery was only a;bout two meters wide by about 
 two and a half in length, and the place was left in very bad 
 condition, it was necessary to bring the men out in the church, 
 in the center of which beds were arranged for them, and their 
 wounds were looked after as Christianity demanded. I di- 
 rected that they should remain there until the rubbish could 
 be cleared out of the place where they had been confined, and 
 the hole made by the shell stopped up as well as might be. 
 
 The effects of that shell might have been fatal to us, as 
 we shall presently see, but certainly not on account of the 
 damage done by its fragments. 
 
106 Undbe the Eed and Gold. 
 
 After the men had been cared for, they appeared to be 
 completely exhausted; which, added to the commiseration that 
 the occurrence could not but produce in us, and the labor of 
 clearing out the rubbish, caused us to be somewhat careless in 
 guarding them. The distraction was brief, a matter of only 
 a few minutes, but it was enough to enable Alcdide to get rid 
 of his irons, breaking them under the bed-covering. Then, 
 suddenly jumping through a near-by window in the east wall, 
 he ran like a deer toward the enemy's trenches. 
 
 The sentry who was at the door in the south wall ran 
 around the comer and aimed two shots at him, but did not 
 touch him. Another sentry also fired twice, crying out at the 
 second shot that he had killed him, because he saw him totter as 
 though aibout to fall. Part of the men started in pursuit at 
 a run; but it was all useless, since, gaining the trenches of the 
 Insurrectos, who increased their fire, he succeeded in saving 
 himself, while my men had to fall back, giving way before the 
 energy of the attack. 
 
 In order that an idea may be conceived of the boldness 
 and temper of this wretch, whom God may have pardoned, it 
 is enough for the present to say that the window through 
 which he succeeded in making his escape reached a total height 
 of three meters and twenty-five centimeters; and that if the 
 inside platform, which was one and a half meters high, served 
 him as a kind of step, he had to attempt the jump to the 
 outside when wounded, a short time after being apparent] t 
 stretched out at the point of death, and when, besides being 
 weakened as he was by the poor quality of the rations, his legs 
 must have been bruised and swollen by the irons from which 
 he had just freed himself. 
 
 To prevent his companions from attempting to imitate 
 him, we proceeded to construct a kind of stocks, in which we 
 
UlTOER THE EbD AND GoLD. 107 
 
 fastened them, each by one foot. Our doing this was indeed 
 timely, since, on examination, we saw that they also had loos- 
 ened their irons. 
 
 On the 9th another cannon-shot broke through at a cer- 
 tain point, where we had contrived a sort of cupboard, which 
 served as a place for storage of records. The projectile broke 
 three beams of the floor of the choir, and in exploding smashed 
 the chorister's desk to pieces and wounded and bruised several 
 soldiers, among whom I recall Pedro Villa Gargante and Fran- 
 cisco Eeal Yuste. 
 
 After the capitulation, Alcaide boasted of being the one 
 who fired the shot, profiting thus by the instruction he had 
 received in the artillery arm, in which he had formerly served. 
 We also learned that he had told the Insurrecto chief how we 
 were suffering from scarcity of subsistence, informing him in 
 detail of the misery which alone was left to us and of our firm 
 purpose to take refuge in the forest, rather than surrender, 
 when we had reached a point where nothing more remained. 
 The fact that this man could know all these details, shut 
 up as he had been in the baptistery those two long months, 
 comdnced me that some other Judas was keeping the enemy 
 well informed of all that was going on in the Detachment. 
 Fortunately, I became aware of all this when it was no time 
 to make disagreeable inquiries; when everything had been re- 
 deemed by the visible deeds that had crowned our efforts ; when 
 I could, without danger, avoid the knowledge as to who it 
 might be. But it proved to me once more the uncertainty of 
 the ground that sustained me in the defense, and how much I 
 owed to God and to the loyalty of the majority of my people. 
 
 The fact that Alcaide had betrayed my resolution to take 
 to the forest did not surprise me when I learned it after the 
 
108 Under the Eed and Goid. 
 
 capitulation, as I have already said. I could not but know 
 that he had betrayed me, because from the night following his 
 escape those trenches, instead of remaining silent, were cor- 
 verted into a pulpit from which from time to time they 
 preached to us that we ought not to attempt such a rash thing; 
 that we should ask for a parley; that their Lieutenant-Colonel 
 desired to talk to me; and that he would accept such terms as 
 I might ask. 
 
 At other times, and always insisting that it was madness 
 for us to think of taking refuge in the forest, they told us that 
 we had again become one in order to fight the Americans, who 
 had betrayed them; that General Rios was their Secretary of 
 War; that we ought to fraternize; and so on after this man- 
 ner. I should add that they were preaching all this to us in 
 Spanish and arguing with convincing reasons; but so per- 
 suaded were we of their tricks and lies that we gave it all no 
 credit whatever. 
 
 As something more worthy of attention appeared to us 
 the threatened destruction of the tower. A couple of cannon- 
 shots had broken to pieces three of its four bells and dis- 
 mounted the fourth, with the shaking crash that may be im- 
 agined, and a small breastwork we had prepared in the belfry 
 had all its parapet destroyed. The tower was all made of v/ood, 
 of moderate height, and it is needless to say or guess how many 
 shots it would stand or why its foundations were shaken. It 
 was only by the use of props that we were able to sustain it, 
 and these props did not now give any assurance of its safety; 
 because, at the first giving way of any one of them (an easy 
 thing, considering the directions Alcaide could furnish the en- 
 emy's gunners), there was no room for doubt that its down- 
 fall would be certain. 
 
 This would be dangerous for the rest of the building. But, 
 
Undee the Ebd and Gold. 109 
 
 as circumstances did not warrant extensive calculations, since 
 in one way or another our stay in the church must be a mat- 
 ter of only a few days, and since the most important thing for 
 us was to utilize the command of the belfry for vigilance, we 
 made effort particularly to re-establish its defensive condition 
 by placing a large box filled with earth to strengthen its shat- 
 tered parapet. This had to be done under cover of darkness, 
 and with care at the same time to do so without the enemy's 
 discovering the operation. 
 
 To this end, I ordered a noise to be made as though we 
 were enjoying a fiesta, and the sentry in the choir to sing as 
 though he were joining in the merriment; the latter in order 
 to direct attention to the choir end of the church. The box 
 was put in place without molestation, and we were congratulat- 
 ing ourselves on our cunning, when, on the following day, we 
 discovered that, naturally, neither had the enemy been wastina: 
 their time. 
 
 They had, in fact, profited, as we had profited, by the 
 darlaiess of the night and the noise, and had constructed two 
 trenches at only about twenty paces from the corral. The worst 
 of it was that one of the trenches, the one at the right, com- 
 manded the stairway of the tower, which had been uncovered 
 when we tore down the convent. 
 
 Imitating, after a fashion, the expedient adopted by the 
 defenders of Sevastopol, I directed some bedding to be fas- 
 tened up in order to conceal the opening. But even then we 
 could relieve the sentinels only at night, on account of the 
 continual firing that rained upon the screen. It happened 
 more than once that a cannon-shot broke down our stairway 
 and we had to improvise others, making use of some long and 
 stout bamboos that we had carried away from the Tagalogs, 
 who had used them for reveting their approaches. 
 
110 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 On the 19th of May died, of dysentery, Private Mdrcos 
 Jose Petana, another of the martyrs whose remains should 
 sanctify those few handbreadths of soil so earnestly, so furi- 
 ously contested. Bearing in mind the means of subsistence 
 we had, and the want of salt, from which we sufEered during 
 the siege, the truth is that it seems miraculous (laugh if you 
 will) that we did not all die of the same disease. 
 
 The weather, the enemy's bullets, and the hurricane had 
 badly torn the flag which was always flying at the top of the 
 tower. To put it in good condition was one of our greatest 
 desires, which some might perhaps call Quixotic; but to do so 
 I had to sharpen my ingenuity. Fortunately, the cassocks 
 that had been used by the acolytes of the church and some of 
 the curtains that had been used to cover the images were red. 
 I had a yellow mosquito bar. All this served perfectly in mak- 
 ing the substitute. And one night, when we thought the time 
 had come to renew it, we went up into the tower, and with 
 real enthusiasm (God knows, indeed, that I say it without 
 boasting) we changed that venerable banner, which, on the 
 next day, waved still more proudly, appearing to challenge the 
 besiegers and at the same time to bless us. 
 
 Certain it is that we did not add thus a handful of rice 
 to our stores, nor one cartridge more to our ammunition; but 
 it is no less certain that the change warmed up our spirits, 
 and that the sight of that venerable banner waving over u<; 
 under the vault of heaven inspired us with the thought that 
 all Spain was regarding us and was encouragiag us with 
 the promise of its gratitude, if we should do our duty as good 
 men. I say it so seemed to us, because I remember the feeling 
 for myself, and it shone m the eyes, filled at times, of those 
 men who were dying under my orders. 
 
Undee the Eed and Gold. HI 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE END OF MAY. 
 
 Plan foe a sally. — ^Night laboes. — ^Utility of hot water. 
 — Eighteen dead. — A paelby. — ■ Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Aguilae. — Natueal misteust. — ^Steamee oe lightee? 
 — Taking a siesta. — ^Let them withdeaw. 
 
 In eagerly watching the lonely ocean we passed the hours 
 of that bitter period when we felt all hope leaving us like the 
 mists of the morning. Each twilight carried away with it 
 something of our vigor and spirit. Bach night left us more 
 gloomy. The steamer did not appear, and the situation was 
 critical. We saw that the end was already at hand, an end 
 as sad as it was inevitable, and in vain we tried to put it off: 
 everything had its limit, and our strength was fast giving out. 
 
 When the crisis should come, therefore, there would not 
 be a single moment to lose. If the longed-for ship should ap- 
 pear, we would have to hazard, on the spot, everything on one 
 play; to reach the ship or die, and this, I repeat, without any 
 delay. Otherwise there remained no course but to take to the 
 forest, to go there or surrender. 
 
 On the 28th, it might have been about eleven o'clock at 
 night, the corporal of the relief warned me that people were 
 heard moving about the corral. 
 
 I ordered the troops to get up and place themselves, very 
 silently, at the loopholes. When all were at their posts, I went 
 to the top of the wall overlooking the place pointed out and 
 tried to see if anyone were there. 
 
 There was nothing to be seen, but the sound was unmis- 
 takable, as though they were scraping a wall; and I figured 
 
112 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 it out that someone must be hidden behind the wall that di- 
 vided the corral into two parts, or else, from the outside and 
 very close to the wall, they were trying to pierce it. 
 
 I continued to listen until, after some time, everything 
 was silent. The clearness and stillness of the night left no 
 room for any idea that I might have been mistaken. But I coulrl 
 not make out whether or not the wall had actually been pierced. 
 Supposing the worst (that is, that they had made holes in or- 
 der to command the place where we had dug the well), I or- 
 dered those not on guard to retire to rest, and that the guard 
 should warn me of the slightest suspicious occurrence. I pos- 
 itively prohibited anyone from going into the corral in the 
 morning until I, as I did daily, had made a careful examiaa- 
 tion all around the church. 
 
 While the nights were all bad, that night was one of the 
 most agonizing of the whole siege. I had the conviction that 
 if, in a very few days, we should receive no help, we were lost. 
 The desperate recourse of taking to the forest offered me no 
 other attraction than a tragic change in the climax of that 
 drama. I was, in fact, almost jBjsed in the idea that all was 
 lost for us, and this was almost reduced to that vague hope 
 that comforts the dying in his last agonies. 
 
 We wished to end it once for all; and yet that dread of 
 being annihilated by force of numbers, under the feet of our 
 odious enemies, hearing the insults of our vile deserters, was 
 a thing that hammered, so to speak, my brain, froze my blood, 
 and deprived me of the serenity that I so greatly needed in 
 those difficult circumstances. 
 
 It was hardly light before I could see the certainty of my 
 conjectures of the night. A window that we had closed in 
 the west wall of the corral had been completely loopholed, and, 
 besides, they had torn away our urinal in order to fire at us 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 113 
 
 from the breach thus made. Their purpose was^ as I had 
 feared, to prevent us from approaching the well, so that thirst 
 would compel our surrender. 
 
 Well had they been instructed by the disclosures of the 
 m;iserable Alcaide Bayona. And yet we could congratulate 
 ourselves that our foresight had prevented something still 
 more serious — their rendering the well of no use. Fortunatelj, 
 we had closed it in and covered it with a trap-door, upon which 
 we had put some empty tins, so that a noise would be made if 
 anyone should attempt to interfere with the well. Stationed 
 opposite was the sentry in the choir, with positive orders to 
 fire in case he should hear anything suspicious. They must 
 have known this, and therefore did not dare attempt any- 
 thing more. 
 
 When it was broad daylight, their trumpets sounded the 
 "attention" and our counter-signal, and one of them yelled 
 "Oranges!" We saw that they were preparing for a fight. 
 Supposing that we could not draw water for cooking the orange 
 leaves which we had substituted for coffee, they had called out 
 to us as they did. 
 
 I immediately ordered the best shots to occupy the trenches 
 that were on that side, so that those of the enemy who were 
 under the shelter of the wall would be well looked after if they 
 tried to get away. I posted others at the wall which divided 
 the corral, in order to neutralize the enemy's command of the 
 interior; and I rushed out with some soldiers with shovels and 
 other tools to close up the openings. 
 
 I succeeded in this; and while those without were trying 
 to pierce the wall again, I ordered water to be heated in some 
 iron pots that we had, as large as cauldrons. When we got it 
 boiling, we fastened to the end of a stick one of the tins that 
 had contained Australian beef, and used this to pour the boil- 
 ing water on the men on the other side of the wall. 
 
114 Undee the Ebd and Gold. 
 
 The result could not have been more satisfactory; and, 
 although it seems unbecoming to the sentiments of humanity, 
 which are always beclouded in such situations as the one we 
 were in, I must add that the sensation felt by us could not 
 have been more pleasing. 
 
 As the adversaries were almost naked, they must have felt 
 their flesh cooking when the water fell on them, and their rat- 
 like squeaks greatly excited our mirth. They ran from side to 
 side, but always sticking close to the wall, trying to keep out 
 of our fire, while we on our side followed them up, prescribing 
 for them our seasonable showers of bullets. They cried out 
 that we were trying to scald them, like chickens (manog in 
 Tagalog), while we jokingly asked them if they found the 
 coffee too hot. At the same time, from the bench inside the 
 wall, we pursued them with revolver-shots. 
 
 One man, wounded in the thigh, began to shriek loudly, 
 and, feigning a kindly interest, we asked him if he was hurt. 
 It was a moment not to be forgotten, in which desperation gave 
 us courage and the damage we caused acted as a tonic in our 
 afBietions. 
 
 Not being able longer to do anything for themselves, they 
 begged those in the nearest trenches to fire, in order to cover 
 their retreat. On hearing this, I sent word to my sharpshoot- 
 ers that they must see to it that none should be allowed to 
 escape. The result was completely satisfactory to us, since 
 only two were able to rejoin their comrades, who had their 
 trench, as I have said, only about twenty paces from the church. 
 
 Eighteen were left dead, as their companions afterwards 
 told us; and as this victory was the last of the feats of arms 
 that the siege afforded, it may well be claimed that we closed 
 it worthily. 
 
 I shall now tell the story of the last but one of the par- 
 
Under the Bed and Gold. 115 
 
 leys we held. In all the former ones they had ofEered us an 
 honorable withdrawal, but we had rejected them all in spite 
 of the misery in which we were living; but in this one the 
 measure had become filled to the brim. 
 
 A chief of the Army who, so they told us, brought docu- 
 ments in proof of his personality and authority, guaranteed 
 us a safe departure and a comfortable journey to the capital 
 of the Archipelago. Nothing more could be asked; and our 
 situation had reached a most lamentable extreme. 
 
 But why did we not agree to it? It would be somewhat 
 difficult for me to explain; principally, I believe, through mis- 
 trust and obstinacy, then also on account of a certain kind of 
 auto-suggestion that had grown up in us by force of thinking 
 day after day and month after month that we ought not on 
 any account to surrender; in a certain sense, because of the 
 intoxication of national enthusiasm; without doubt influenced 
 by the attractive illusion of glory; much on account of self- 
 love; and certainly, as I have observed at one time and an- 
 other, on account of the sufferings we had undergone, on ac- 
 count of that treasury of sacrifice and heroism which in our 
 own eyes exalted us, and which, in some way, without our be- 
 ing conscious of so exalted a sentiment, by instinct, no more, 
 made us feel that we would be putting an unworthy end i to 
 it all. 
 
 An hour, more or less, having passed since the fight was 
 over, the sounding of the "attention" assailed our ears, and 
 we saw that they were displayinsr the Spanish flag. As it had 
 never occurred to them before to raise it, I imagined it was 
 simply another artifice to entertain us, so that they could car- 
 ry away their dead that had been left near the walls of the 
 corral. But, as it suited us for them to do this, and as the 
 incident excited my curiosity, I cried out to them that I would 
 
116 TJndek the Eed and Gold. 
 
 accept a conference provided that only one came forward with 
 the flag. They indicated that they agreed, and a "-entleman 
 advanced dressed in the uniform of a lieutenant-colonel of the 
 General Staff. He said that he was Don Cristobal Aguilar y 
 Castaneda, commissioned by General Don Diego de los EIos 
 to bring in the Detachment. 
 
 The long period during which we had been cut off from 
 communication must be borne in mind; the tricks and artifices 
 by which they had tried to entrap us; and, in particular, those 
 recent speeches they had shouted at us duriag the night, affirm- 
 ing that Eios was their Minister of War. It must all be borne 
 in mind, because it all justified my natural mistrust on this 
 occasion. 
 
 It appeared to us at once an impossible thing that a Span- 
 ish general should become a part of the Insurrecto Govern- 
 ment; but we were ignorant of the events that had taken place. 
 The coincidence of conferring on this same individual the 
 authority to withdraw us with his attempt to do so right on 
 the heels of the occurrences of the morning was hardly com- 
 patible with such orders, of which they must have already had 
 knowledge iu the enemy's camp before their frustrated attempt. 
 I believe, therefore, that reasons were not wanting for me to 
 doubt the emissary's veracity, doubts that could not but in- 
 crease my suspicions with regard to the proofs and documents 
 which, proceeding from that General, were to be offered to me. 
 
 They had before told us also that their Lieutenant-Colonel 
 wished to speak to us; and this was enough for me, on seeing 
 Senor Aguilar with his two gilt straps, to take him for that 
 same officer decked out in the uniform he was displaying. 
 
 As soon as we began to talk and he had iaformed me of 
 the commission he bore, he asked me if there was in the De- 
 tachment any soldier who, by reason of having been in Mia- 
 
Under the Eed akd Gold. 117 
 
 danao, could recognize him. I answered in the negative, and 
 added that there on the outside, in the trenches from which he 
 had come, was certainly the place where there were plenty of 
 his personal acquaintances. 
 
 "If," he said, "you doubt that I am Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Aguilar, I can show you papers that identify me." And he drew 
 out a large envelope. "It is not necessary," I replied, "for you 
 to trouble j-ourself." 
 
 He kept the papers and continued, saying that he had a 
 steamer at his disposal (we had not seen any) to take us to 
 Manila; that if we desired to see it, we could indicate the part 
 of the sea that was visible from the tower, so that he could or- 
 der it to cruise in that vicinity, making such signals as would 
 suit us in order to convince us. 
 
 I accepted his offer that they would make it sail past the 
 Confites, and fire a couple of cannon-stots toward the moun- 
 taias; to which he made some objection about alarming th'- 
 besiegers, and averred that the vessel carried only one small 
 gun. "Yes," I replied, smiling; "the one you have yonder" 
 (pointing to the one the enemy had). "Is it not so?" 
 
 After a few more words, we finally agreed that the steam- 
 er should show herself the following morning where I had lq- 
 dicated (near the Confites), and that it would let go two 
 cannon-shots. 
 
 I was really perplexed. The manner and language of 
 Senor Aguilar showed him to be a person of distinction. The 
 ease with which he wore the uniform denoted that he was ac- 
 customed to it. But when, even considering all this, I consid- 
 ered also certain other details, such as his presenting himself 
 immediately after the enemy's repulse, and the quiet way in 
 which those same people who had not allowed the disembarka- 
 tion of the former succoriug party now allowed him to come 
 
118 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 to us, I could not but hesitate, in the confusion of my vague 
 suspicions. 
 
 Eecalling, on the other hand, the matter of General Eios, 
 it all appeared to explain to me why Agailar might have gone 
 over to the Tagalogs, if he had gone over; since it was clear 
 that some others would have followed Eios, and perhaps Agui- 
 lar might have been one of them. 
 
 In order to satisfy myself as to whether he had really be- 
 longed to the General Staif, judging by the effect that a ques- 
 tion might have upon him, I thought of asking him, when I 
 should see him again, if it was no longer regulation to wear 
 the sash tied as it formerly was; but I refrained from the ex- 
 periment, through fear that it might turn out futile and puerile. 
 
 Being of the opinion that the whole thin" was a farce, 
 and assured that they would do something towards carrying it 
 out, I cautioned those in the tower to notify me if they heard 
 any cannon-shot or saw the vessel. 
 
 It was perhaps about ten o'clock in the morning of the 
 30th when the first report sounded. I hurried up into the 
 tower, provided with field-glasses, and had no more than ar- 
 rived when we heard the second one, and so distinctly that we 
 believed it came from the beach. 
 
 It was not long before the steamer appeared. It pro- 
 ceeded toward the locality agreed upon, drawing farther and 
 farther away, and, apparently, into the shore waters. It tacked 
 then toward the coast, and very soon turned again, goiag back 
 over the course. 
 
 Being deceived at first by an optical illusion, a thing easy 
 to understand if we take into consideration the distance that 
 separated us from the sea and the boscage that covered this 
 distance, we then began to reflect that it was navigating in 
 water where it was hardly deep enough to reach to a man's 
 
Under the Bed and Gold. 119 
 
 waist. We had bathed there many times and those places were 
 well known to us. This, added to the ease with which it 
 changed its course, caused us to suspect that it must have been 
 propelled by native hands; and, in the obsession that dominated 
 us, we concluded- certainly that all this was a comedy, and that 
 the alleged steamer was nothing but a lighter theatrically 
 dressed up and rigged for the purpose of mocking us. So true 
 was this that some of the soldiers were betting that the funnel 
 was made of nipa^ and others were sure that they could see 
 those who were towing the contrivance. 
 
 Twelve o'clock came, and, seeing that Senor Aguilar had 
 not appeared, I said to my companions: "The enemy proposes 
 that we shall not rest during the siesta hour, so that we shall 
 be overcome by sleep at night and they will be able to surprise 
 us. You will see that this Lieutenant-Colonel will not come 
 until we close the door." (We closed it every afternoon.) I 
 gave orders to the sentinels that if he should appear, they 
 should tell him to come back at half past three, because I had 
 gone to sleep. So it was. I had just lain down when he came. 
 
 They informed him as I directed; and, although he in- 
 sisted vehemently that they should call me, he had to withdraw. 
 But at three o'clock they notified me that he was already in 
 sight again. Ordering the Corporal not to open the door, I 
 went up into the choir to again take up the conference from 
 one of the windows in the same manner as I had done the even- 
 ing before, without sticking out my head. 
 
 He began by asking me if we had seen the steamer. "Yes, 
 sir," I replied; "but who would imagine that we could go in 
 that vessel, having to take with us the quantity of subsistence 
 stores we have left, the ammunition, the artillery, and the 
 large amount of hospital and other supplies that are stored 
 here." 
 
120 TJndee the Bed and Gold. 
 
 'TVEan, no/' he replied; "it does not have to be taken 
 away." 
 
 "Then what shall we do with it?" 
 
 "Deliver it to this family" (the besiegers). 
 
 "Deliver it to this family!" I said in astonishment. 
 
 "Yes, man, yes. Are you surprised? Why, if you had 
 seen what we gave up in Zamboanga — " 
 
 I turned to the soldiers who were around me and said in 
 a low tone: "You see, it is the same old song. What they are 
 after is our arms." 
 
 "Shall I kill him, my Lieutenant?" asked one of the men. 
 examining his rifle. 
 
 "By no means," I hastened to say, restraining him; "we 
 may refuse to receive flags of truce, but we cannot com- 
 mit assassination, which, besides, might entail very serious 
 consequences." 
 
 Senor Aguilar continued, trying to persuade me to his 
 wishes, and doing so, I must confess, in such terms that I could 
 not help saying to my hearers as soon as he had gone away, 
 "It is a pity that a man like that should have gone over to 
 the Insurrectos." 
 
 He asked me if I would allow him to have a look at the 
 church (and the Detachment), because he had seen a photo- 
 graph of it in Manila. I refused this, as beiag prohibited, 
 and he agreed with me, but added with some impatience that 
 our obstinacy was wrong, and that such madness could only 
 result in a catastrophe. 
 
 "And is it right," I asked in conclusion, "does it appear lo 
 you proper for us to allow the Insurrectos to enter here in or- 
 der that they may cut our throats? They have attacked me 
 and they keep on attacking me. I, for my part, restrict my- 
 self to the defense. If peace has been made, let them set the 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 121 
 
 example by withdrawing first. Tell the General that I still 
 have rations enough for three months." 
 
 The night before the rice-dust had completely given out, 
 and there were only a few cans of sardines left. 
 
 I then added: "If the three months should pass without 
 a war-vessel or Spanish forces coming for us, I shall go to 
 Manila and present myself with the people I can save, how- 
 ever long I may be in getting there in the roundabout ways by 
 which I may have to go." 
 
 He concluded by asking me if, in case General Eios should 
 come, I would obey his orders. I said, "Yes; I should obey 
 them without hesitation." And he went away, leaving a bun- 
 dle of newspapers on the ground. 
 
 There, in one of those papers, involved in a brief notice, 
 which was of a kind least to be looked for, was at last the end 
 of that Calvary. 
 
122 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 VIII. 
 LAST DAYS. 
 
 To THE FOREST. PeEPARATIONS. — UNAVOIDABLE EIRING.^THI! 
 
 BESIEGERS CARRY THEIR VIGILANCE TO EXTREMES. — Wb 
 
 MAKE A SALLY IN FORCE. ^UNEXPECTED NEWS. SHALL WE 
 
 CAPITULATE? — ^VOTE OF CONFIDENCE. — ^A PARLEY. — DICTAT- 
 ING TERMS. — 'Act of capitulation. 
 
 In saying that I would obey the orders of General Eios, 
 if he should come personally to give them to me, I was in- 
 spired by no other idea than that of gaining a few days. I 
 had been fully convinced that they were trying to deceive me; 
 but now the miserable notion that had been working in my 
 brain was affirmed by hearing the friars who had been taken 
 in by the dead Las Morenas say that the Minister of War mat- 
 ter might be so, since they thought they had heard that the 
 General had married a Filipina. 
 
 I reflected that while they were getting advice to the Gen- 
 eral and he was journeying to us, a week would pass during 
 which these people would let us alone. Taking advantage of 
 the calm, we would make for the forest, and, when they would 
 least expect it, they would find the church empty; because, if 
 they thought we were deceived, and were resolved to surrender, 
 it was not unlikely that they would relax their vigilance, and 
 we could make our escape without difficulty. 
 
 As soon as Senor Aguilar withdrew, I ordered the bundle 
 of papers to be brought in, and we began to compare them 
 critically with others we had. I remember that the most im- 
 portant of our comparisons was among several copies of El 
 Imparcial, in which we could not find any differences other 
 
Under the Bed and Gold. 123 
 
 than those natural in editing. We marveled greatly at the 
 similarity in typography, the exactness as to size, and even 
 as to the quality of the paper. But remembering the wonder- 
 ful dexterity of those Island people in imitating, I said, after 
 taking everythinor into consideration: "It is nothing; as these 
 people have the material for the purpose, they have devoted 
 themselves to copying our daily papers in their eagerness for 
 us to swallow their hook." 
 
 It is with suspicion as it is ordinarily with enthusiasm 
 or fear: it is contagious, and none of my men were induced 
 to wish to surrender. We ended then, in a way least to be 
 expected in reason, by regarding all those papers as apocryphal, 
 disdaining to read them, making no account of them, and in 
 getting ready for our contemplated flight. 
 
 In the first place, I ordered all the lamps that were hang- 
 ing before som.e of the altars taken down and the ropes by 
 which they were suspended to be carefully prepared so as to 
 serve us in crossing the many rivers that we should certainly 
 find on our way. Some of the men did not Imow how to swim, 
 and I planned that on arriving at a stream that could not be 
 forded, a good swimmer would cross, taking one end of a rope, 
 and, on reaching the opposite bank, would tie it to a tree or rock 
 that would afford sufficient resistance; fastened on our side in 
 the same manner and made properly taut, the men would pass 
 over by clinging to the rope. Another swimmer would bring 
 up the rear, and, when all had safely passed the obstacle, would 
 undo the fastening, and we would all reassemble. 
 
 I ordered also that leather slippers should be made to re- 
 place the worn-out ones, and that the men who were still with- 
 out should be shod by using the cartridge-boxes and leather 
 equipments taken from the dead. 
 
 I fixed the date for the night of the 1st of June, and on 
 
124 Under the Red and Gold. 
 
 the morning of that day I proceeded to burn the superfluous 
 rifles, as well as a Remington and another rifle which we 
 had found in the Comandancia. I distributed the ammuni- 
 tion that yet remained and issued to each man a new blanlcet; 
 and, in accordance with powers conferred on me by Articles 35. 
 and 36 of the Code of Military Justice, yielding, much against 
 my will, to the force of circumstances, I ordered to be shot at 
 once Corporal Vicente Gonzalez Toca and Private Antonio 
 Menache Sanchez, guilty, and confessedly so, of the crime of 
 treason at a besieged post, and liable, moreover, to the punish- 
 ment of death ordered by the Captain-General of the Archi- 
 pelago, Don Basilio Augustl, in his solemn proclamation of 
 April 28, 1898. 
 
 The execution took place without legal formalities, which 
 were utterly impossible, but not without the justification of 
 the crime. It was a terrible and painful measure, which I 
 could have taken immediately on discovering the facts, and 
 which I ought to have imposed without further delay when 
 the desertion was attempted; which I had continued to delay 
 with the desire and hope tliat someone else would decide it 
 and end it, but which was now, unfortunately, indispensably 
 necessary. 
 
 It grieved me much to come to this determination, and I 
 sought for a subterfuge by which I could free myself from the 
 responsibility. But I could not find it without myself being 
 chargeable with laxity in command, and, above all, with com- 
 promising our safety during the withdrawal. It was very bitter, 
 but it was very necessary. I proceeded serenely, fulfilling my 
 duty. For that reason, no doubt, the tranquillity of my con- 
 science has never been disturbed. 
 
 In order to prevent the enemy from making use of any 
 of the remains of the arms destroyed, I had the barrels placed 
 
Undee the Eed and Gold. 125 
 
 in the pit that had been prepared for the bodies of the exe- 
 cuted men, before they were buried, and the small parts were 
 scattered around the outside of the church. This done, we 
 waited for the night to come. 
 
 During the day my men, such was their need, stripped off 
 everything edible, leaves and shoots, that was still left in our 
 little plantations; and, although our proposed undertaking 
 was one of those that only extreme desperation could counsel, 
 they all showed their impatient joy that the hour was now 
 coming when they would abandon that gloomy place, where 
 was not wanting, to give it that character, even the horror of 
 a sad cemetery of executed men. 
 
 At length it grew dark, but in the quiet of the night we 
 noticed that vigilance was increasing in an extraordinary man- 
 ner throughout the Insurrecto trenches. There was no moon, 
 but the sky was so clear that we could not get away without 
 being discovered immediately. There was nothing for us to 
 do, therefore, except to hide our disappointment and to put 
 off our march until the following night, in the hope that we 
 might be favored by some carelessness on the part of the en- 
 emy, and with the determination that if we could not succeed 
 in getting out without discovery, we would charge at once on 
 the strongest part of the works — that is, where it might be sup- 
 posed we would be least likely to attempt a sally. To this end, 
 I made all swear that if anyone shoiild, unfortunately, remain 
 in the hands of the enemy, he would not say a word nor make 
 a sign that would indicate the direction in which we might go. 
 
 On the following morning, when it was scarcely light, I 
 picked up the newspapers again. Throughout the night the 
 strange fact that they had been made to resemble the genuine 
 ones in a most remarkable manner liad possessed my mind, and 
 something instinctively counselled me to read them. Without 
 
126 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 any expectation, then, that my suspicions would disappear, I 
 began to glance over their columns, marveling at the ingenuity 
 that had been wasted in the attempt to deceive us and to make 
 us surrender. 
 
 I was still admiring, my mind more and more struck 
 with the skillfulness of the work, when a small article of only 
 two lines caused me to tremble with astonishment. It was the 
 simple notice that a lieutenant of the Infantry Reserve, Don 
 Francisco Diaz Navarro, was ordered to take station at Mala- 
 ga. But that officer had been my companion and intimate 
 friend in the Bourbon Regiment; it had fallen to his lot to go 
 to Cuba; and I knew very well that he had resolved to ask 
 for station at Malaga, where his family and his sweetheart 
 lived. 
 
 That could not have been invented. Those papers were 
 therefore Spanish, and all they said was true. It was then 
 not false that the colonies had been lost, that we had been 
 rudely despoiled, that this little bit of the earth that we had 
 defended even to madness was not now our own; and, as Senor 
 Aguilar said, there was no reason for our obstinacy in defend- 
 ing it. 
 
 It was, to me, the ray of light that suddenly illumined 
 the pit in which we were about to fall headlong. In with- 
 drawing to the forest it had not been my purpose to remain 
 in it like Igorrote savages, and as to reaching Manila, I knew 
 that it was an undertaking about as impossible as an ascent 
 to the Mountains of the Moon. But I expected to gain the 
 coast; to remain there in some secluded refuge, waiting for 
 the passing of our war-ships, which, since the Torhtown inci- 
 dent, I thought were navigating freely; and, by firing and rais- 
 ing a large flag that we had made of the available material, to 
 attract the attention of the first one that might pass, so that 
 
Unbee the Red and Gold. 127 
 
 we could be picked up and saved. The disaster to Spain hav- 
 ing occurred, as I now no longer doubted, this last hope disap- 
 peared, and to take my soldiers into the depths of the forest 
 would be to deliver them miserably to death. 
 
 I could see nothing for it, therefore, but surrender. I at 
 once assembled my command and announced that the moment 
 had come to treat with the enemy. Some of those brave men, 
 their eyes filled with tears, did not appear to be convinced, 
 and others argued that "the boiling water incident was verv 
 recent," and that "the enemy would bum us alive." 
 
 Choking with tears and passion, I persisted in convinc- 
 ing the former that there was no other door of safety open to 
 us; and, in order to dissipate the fears that influenced the lat- 
 ter (well-founded ones certainly), I replied to them somewhat 
 as follows: 
 
 "Lieutenant-Colonel Aguilar is undoubtedly the command- 
 ing officer of the forces that surround us. You noticed at once 
 that he appeared to be a distinguished person and very well 
 experienced in military matters. I thought so, and I am sure 
 that he would not permit the maltreatment of those who de- 
 serve, as in our case, the title of meritorious soldiers, victims 
 of the love of country. The tenacity of our defense was 
 based on the strict carrying out of the provisions of the Field 
 Eegulations, the Code of Military Justice, the Code of Honor, 
 our Ordinances, and, finally, the Proclamation of the Captain- 
 General of the Archipelago, Senor August!. We have done, 
 then, only our duty loyally, giving an example worthy rather 
 of admiration than of punishment. And, finally, although 
 they might not so consider it, I am, after all, the only one 
 responsible for all that has happened, and I alone can be the 
 one who might have to pay, principally for having ordered 
 the arms buried." 
 
l28 Undee the Eed and Gold. 
 
 "Do as it seems best to you," they answered; "you are 
 the one who understands it." 
 
 I immediately wrote a very short statement of the condi- 
 tions under which we would surrender, and proposed to the 
 men that if they were not accepted, we should sally forth to 
 death or life as God willed. All this was approved unani- 
 mously, and I at once ordered the white flag to be raised and 
 the tru.mpeter to sound the "attention." Unforgetable moment! 
 
 Immediately an Insurrecto sentinel advanced, and I called 
 to him to summon Lieutenant-Colonel Aguilar. After a short 
 time, a major, a native also, advanced and told us that just 
 then that officer was not with them, but that their Lieutenant- 
 Colonel, who was in command and who was dressing, would 
 come at once. Nor did the latter keep us waiting. WTien he 
 had come within easy speaking distance, I informed him of 
 our wishes, but warned him with these final words: 
 
 "Do not imagine that I am in the water up to my neck. 
 I still have rations for several days, and if you do not accede 
 to the terms I think of proposing, you may be certain that, 
 rather than surrender, I shall march with my men to the 
 forest, assaulting your trenches." 
 
 He replied that I might draw up the capitulation ia such 
 terms as I thought best, provided always that they were not 
 in calumniation of the Insurrectos. He also volunteered the 
 assurance that we should be permitted to retain our arms as 
 far as the limit of their jurisdiction, where we would give 
 them up. 
 
 Such a generous offer, which indicates the most distin- 
 guished honor that can be paid on such occasions, dissipated 
 in great measure our distrust, and it goes witliout saying that 
 we would have accepted it with enthusiasm; but I saw that 
 my men were becoming weaker and weaker and their strength 
 
Under the Bed and Gold. 129 
 
 seemed to be leaving them entirely as we saw the end of all 
 our troubles. I understood that it was entirely impossible for 
 us to make a single da^s march carrying those arms; which, 
 moreover, might serve as a pretext for some vexation. 
 
 I therefore drew up the following agreement, which was 
 accepted without changes or discussion: 
 
 "In Baler, on the second day of June, eighteen ninety- 
 nine, 2d Lieutenant Don Saturnino Martin Cerezo, command- 
 ing Spanish Detachment; ordered the trumpeter to sound the 
 'attention' and 'parley,' raising the white flag as a signal of 
 capitulation; being answered at once by the trumpeter of the 
 besieging force. And the commanders and officers of both 
 forces being assembled, they agreed upon the following terms: 
 
 "First. From this date hostilities on both sides are sus- 
 pended. 
 
 "Second. The besieged lay down their arms, delivering 
 them to the Commander of the besieging force, together with 
 the military equipments and other effects belonging to the 
 Spanish Government. 
 
 'Third. The besieged force do not become prisoners of 
 war, but shall be escorted by the Eepublican troops to a point 
 where Spanish troops may be found, or to a place from which 
 they may safely join the latter. 
 
 "Fourth. Private property to be respected, and no injury 
 to be done to individuals. 
 
 "And, for the purpose of carrying it into effect, this 
 agreement is executed in duplicate, being signed by the follow- 
 ing gentlemen: Lieutenant-Colonel Simon Tecson, command- 
 ing the besieging force; Major Xemesio Bartolome; Captain 
 Francisco T. Ponce; Second Lieutenant, commanding the be- 
 sieged force, Saturnino Martin; Doctor Eogelio Vigil." 
 
 Thus terminated the Siege of the Church of Baler, on the 
 three hundred and thirty-seventh day from its beginning, when 
 we now had nothing edible to put in our mouths, nor was it 
 humanly possible to sustain it a single day longer. 
 
130 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 There was no affliction that had been wanting to us in 
 that humble spot, designed only for religious supplications; 
 neither the inclemencies of the weather, nor the rigor of the 
 siege, nor the blows of treason, nor the pestilence. Hunger 
 with its irresistible pangs, death without help, isolation with 
 its crushing weight, deception that overwhelms the most vie- 
 orous powers of the soul, and the maddening helplessness that 
 afflicts it, all contributed to harass and overcome us. 
 
 There is much to sustain a man's resolution in the assault 
 of the enemy's battery, in crossing bayonets with him duriag 
 the tumult of battle. But it is a thing most difficult for him 
 to struggle, day after day and week after week, against the ob- 
 session that pursues him, to sustain himself behind walls that 
 the enemy is demolishing, and not to give way to the languor 
 of utter weariness. 
 
 Such is the merit of the defenders of Baler, of that poor 
 church where, for ten months after the loss of our sovereignty 
 in the Philippines, the Spanish flag continued to wave. 
 
 END OP CEKEZO'S NAEEATIVE. 
 
Under the Red and Gold. 131 
 
 AFTER THE SIEGE. 
 
 Lieutenant Cerezo's narrative of the events following the 
 surrender, of the march over the mountains and across the 
 low central plain to Tarlak, of the treatment of the survivors 
 there, of the journey down the railroad to Manila, and of the 
 reception there and in the Homeland, will be given very brieflv. 
 After the story of the siege itself, the later happenings are, 
 with few exceptions, of comparatively little interest to the 
 general reader, although we can easily understand how much 
 it all meant to the ragged, emaciated survivors themselves. 
 
 When, the capitulation having been signed, the time came 
 to throw open the doors of the church, the survivors were 
 somewhat apprehensive, not only because of the irregular char- 
 acter of the besieging force, which had been severely punished 
 by the besieged, but also because there were among them some 
 vile deserters, from whom everything was to be feared at the 
 first opportunity. 
 
 As the shooting of the two deserters, in the church, might 
 cause some violence, the Doctor stood ready to certify that the 
 deaths of Gonzalez Toca and Menache were due to dysentery, 
 and on different dates, while the men were cautioned that they 
 should asseverate the same thing until they were safely among 
 their own people. 
 
 The Detachment set out from Baler during the afternoon 
 of June 7th. The first night was spent at San Jose de Casig- 
 n4n, and the next day the command passed over the Caraballos. 
 The fatiguing nature of this march can be imagined from 
 Cerezo's statement that they crossed one river seventy-two 
 
132 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 times, such were the confused windings it described in its 
 course; and that it had to be forded by men in groups, because 
 the current would have swept away individuals alone. 
 S The march to Tarlak, where the Filipino Government 
 was then established, took the party through Pantabangan, 
 Bongabon, Cabanatuan, Aliaga, and La Paz. During the first 
 half of the journey, in spite of repeated messages from Aguin- 
 aldo directing that the Detachment should be treated with the 
 greatest consideration, Cerezo was subjected to no little annoy- 
 ance, and even suffering, brought about by the vindictiveness 
 of Gregorio Exposito and Alcalde Bayona, and, as Cerezo be- 
 lieved, by the cupidity of the Filipino officers who commanded 
 the escort. 
 
 At Pantabangan an attempt was made during the night 
 to rob and kill Cerezo and Doctor Vigil, who had been lodged 
 in one of the best houses, which the officers of the escort had 
 been "kind" enough to reserve. The only sufferer in this at- 
 tack was Cerezo, who, in jumping from a window, sustained 
 a painful dislocation of an ankle, which caused great delay in 
 the march and from which he did not recover until after the 
 survivors had left Manila for home. 
 
 The very next day, on nearing Bongabon, a carabao, on 
 which was loaded the effects, official papers, etc., of Cerezo and 
 Vigil, was forcibly taken from the Spanish soldier who had 
 it in charge. Although complaint was made to two Filipino 
 officers, who had formerly belonged to the Spanish Army, and 
 they admitted that the tuUsanes (robbers) were probably some 
 of the escort, and promised that search would be made for the 
 effects, they staid lost. 
 
 At Cabanatuan a hospital had been established by the na- 
 tives for sick and wounded Spaniards, where Cerezo was taken, 
 in order that he might receive treatment for his ankle, which. 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 133 
 
 for lack of facilities, had been neglected, and did not give him 
 a moment's ease. 
 
 The Spanish from Baler, with the escort, now continued 
 their march. "With them," says Cerezo, "disappeared forever 
 from my sight the villainous Alcaide Bayona. Here is an ac- 
 count of his death: On April 1, 1900, Captain Don Inocencio 
 Lafuente Peiro disembarked at Barcelona, bringing a detach- 
 ment of repatriated men, among whom figured my old deserter 
 orderly, Felipe Herrero Lopez, and the said Alcalde, locked in 
 the brig. Very lilack must have been the thoughts of Alcaide, 
 since he absolutely refused food or drink. In vain were the 
 efforts, thfi man's mouth even being forced open with a key, 
 to make him receive sustenance. Stubborn in his purpose, the 
 wretched man allowed himself to die of starvation." 
 
 Two weeks passed and Cerezo was still unable to use his 
 foot, when, early in the morning of the 29th, a telegram was 
 received from Aguinaldo, directing the Spaniards who might 
 be able to proceed at once to Tarlak, in order that, taking ad- 
 vantage of the passing through there of the Spanish Commis- 
 sion which was arranging for the liberation of Spanish prison- 
 ers, they could go with it to Manila. All but Cerezo set out, 
 and the Military Governor so telegraphed to the General, who 
 replied that, using all means proper to Cerezo's condition, they 
 shoald send him on without delay, since it was necessary for 
 him to accompany the troops to Manila. 
 
 As it was impossible for Cerezo to ride a horse, a canga 
 was furnished, in which, for greater comfort, a large arm- 
 chair was placed. A canga is a sort of wheel] ess cart, which 
 is dragged along the ground, and which must have been in- 
 vented in prehistoric times. This primitive affair was, how- 
 ever, well suited to the muddy roads, and by means of it Cerezo 
 finally arrived, July 3d, at Tarlak. 
 
134 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 It was here that Cerezo and his men began to receive the 
 rewards and honors that were extended to them in abundance 
 until long after they reached Spain. Aguirialdo not only or- 
 dered everything necessary for their comfort, but he furnished 
 them (and for this they were more grateful than for anything 
 else) copies of newspapers in which was published a decree of 
 his, declaring them "worthy of the admiration of the world for the 
 valor, constancy, and heroism^ with which that handful of men, 
 cut off and without hope of any aid, has defended their flag 
 for the space of a year, realizing an epic so glorious and so 
 worthy of the legendary valor of the Cid." 
 
 The railroad being interrupted for some distance north of 
 San Fernando, which was occupied by the Americans under 
 General MacArthur, the party left the train at Angeles, and 
 Cerezo and some others were lodged in the house of the Fil- 
 ipino General Mascardo, whose name will have a familiar sound 
 to some of the military readers of this book. Mascardo enter- 
 tained them with a banquet in the afternoon and a dance at 
 night, at which were present the most distinguished senoritas 
 of the town. 
 
 On the following day the party proceeded towards San 
 Fernando in quilezes and carromatas, the vehicles common in 
 that country. After sustaining an upset, by which the quilez 
 in which Cerezo was riding was reduced to a skeleton, they ar- 
 rived at Bacolor, three or four miles from San Fernando, where 
 it was necessary to have a parley with the Americans for per- 
 mission to pass. Orders had already been given for the train 
 to start for Manila, but it was held for the party, and by it 
 they proceeded to the capital, where Cerezo was lodged in the 
 palace of Santa Potenciana. 
 
 While in Manila the survivors were showered with finan- 
 cial aid, congratulations, entertainments, and civilities of all 
 
Undek the Bed and Gold. 135 
 
 kinds, in such profusion that Cerezo says: "Perhaps if, some- 
 times, in my hours of frightful dejection, I may have dreamed 
 a phantasm of rewards and glory, certain it is that I never 
 could have imagined that I should gain them so abundantly." 
 
 But there was a fly in the ointment. There had been se- 
 vere criticism concemiug the motives that impelled the defend- 
 ers of Baler to prolong the siege; hints that there was some- 
 thing that prevented them from wishing to return to Spain, 
 for fear of punishment; that because Las Morenas and Alonso 
 wished to surrender, their deaths had been by violence. As to 
 these iraputations our author says: "I refrain from staining 
 these pages with a relation of that stupid invention, made in 
 a cowardly manner to vilify the defenders of Baler, iu the be- 
 lief, perhaps, that no one would be left alive. Nevertheless, I 
 must not conceal the fact that often, in thinking of it, I have 
 a feeling of horror; because it has occurred to me, naturally, 
 that if the church had been taken by assault and we had all 
 met death, that infamous calumny would have been spread 
 abroad to blacken our memory." 
 
 On July 20th the survivors embarked on the steamer Ali- 
 cante, and on September 1st they reached Barcelona. 
 
 The Detachment now being broken up, Cerezo, after clear- 
 ing his accounts at Tarragona, proceeded to Madrid, and final- 
 ly, on the 1st, to his native town Miajades, in the Province of 
 Caceres. 
 
 All Spain had been stirred by the accounts concerning our 
 little band of resolute men, and all stood ready to do them 
 honor. 
 
 On reaching Barcelona they were met by the principal 
 authorities of the city, who afterwards transmitted the congrat- 
 ulations of Barcelona to Cerezo, and through him to the indi- 
 viduals of the Detachment, who, "in the midst of the disasters 
 
136 Unbee the Eed and Gold. 
 
 that have afflicted Spain, knew how to add one more page to 
 the Golden Book of her history." 
 
 At Madrid Cerezo was met and entertained by an officer 
 of His Majesty's Household Troops, by the Minister of War, 
 and committees from the garrison; and when he reached his 
 own town, the people illuminated and decorated the streets, 
 conducted him in procession to the church — in fact, "threw the 
 house out of the window" in celebration of his return. 
 
 The cities of Caceres and Trujillo also honored Cerezo by 
 declaring him, by resolution of their corporations, "the adopt- 
 ive son" of those cities. 
 
 More substantial rewards came, of course, from the Gov- 
 ernment itself. Under date of September 4, 1899, there was 
 published a royal order, in which each member of the Detach- 
 ment was thanked in His Majesty's name, and in which it was 
 decreed that general orders of the Army be published express- 
 ing "the satisfaction with which the country had learned of 
 their glorious conduct, in order that it might serve as an ex- 
 ample to those who wear the military uniform"; by royal or- 
 ders of a later date there was granted to each officer, living and 
 dead, increased rank; to Doctor Vigil was granted the cross 
 of the first class of Maria Cristina; and to each of the thirty- 
 one men of the Detachment the silver cross of military merit, 
 with a small monthly pension for life; and, the proper pro- 
 ceedings having been had before the Supreme Council of War 
 and Marine, there was conceded to Major Las Morenas and to 
 Captain Cerezo, each, the Cross-Laureate of San Fernando, and 
 annual pensions to Cerezo and to the widow of Las Morenas. 
 
 Finally, in Cerezo's own town, the Corporation had an ex- 
 traordinary session, at which, besides the Councillors, were 
 present Cerezo himself and the local military and ecclesiastical 
 authorities; and resolutions were adopted, that the street in 
 
Under the Eed and Gold. 137 
 
 which the gallant defender of Baler was born should be here- 
 after known as Martin Cerezo Street; that a tablet should be 
 placed on the house in which he was born; and that a popular 
 fund should be raised^ having for its object the presentation 
 of a sword of honor to Captain Don Saturnino Martin Cerezo, 
 as a remembrance from his countrymen. 
 
 THE END. 
 
138 Under the Eed and Gold. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 LIST OF THE BESIEGED. 
 
 Politico-Military Commandant op El Peinoipb. 
 Bon Enrique de las Morenos y Fossi, Captain of Infantry. 
 
 Detachment of Baler^ Belonging to the Second Expe- 
 ditionary Battalion. 
 
 Second Lieutenant Don Juan Alonso Zayas. Died October 
 18, 1898, of disease. 
 
 Second Lieutenant Don Saturnino Martin Cerezo. 
 
 Corporal Vicente Gonzalez Toea. Shot June 1, 1899. 
 
 Corporal Jose Chaves Martin. Died October 10, 1898, of 
 disease. 
 
 Corporal Jesus Garcia Quijano. 
 
 Corporal Jose Olivares Conejero. 
 
 Trumpeter Santos Gonzalez Eoncal. 
 
 Private Felipe Herrero Lopez. Deserted June 27, 1898. 
 
 Private Felix Garcia Torres. Deserted June 39, 1898. 
 
 Private Julian Galvete Iturmendi. Died July 31, 1898, 
 of wounds. 
 
 Private Juan Chamizo Lucas. 
 
 Private Jose Hernandez Arocha. 
 
 Private Jose Lafarga Abad. Died October 23, 1898, of 
 disease. 
 
 Private Luis Cervantes Dato. 
 
 Private Manuel Menor Ortega. 
 
 Private Vicente Pedrosa Carballeda. 
 
 Private Antonio Bauza Fullana. 
 
^ Under the Eed and Gold. 139 
 
 Private Antonio Menache Sdnchez. Shot June 1, 1899. 
 
 Private Baldomero Larrode Paracuello. Died November 
 9, 1898, of disease. 
 
 Private Domingo Castro Camarena. 
 
 Private Enstaquio Gopar Hernandez. 
 
 Private Eufemio Sanchez Martinez. 
 
 Private Emilio Pabregat Fabregat. 
 
 Private Felipe Castillo Castillo. 
 
 Private Francisco Roviro Mompo. Died September 30, 
 1898, of disease. 
 
 Private Francisco Real Yuste. 
 
 Private Juan Fuentes Damian. Died November 8, 1898. 
 of disease. 
 
 Private Jose Pineda Turan. 
 
 Private Jose Sanz Meramendi. Died February 13, 1899, 
 of disease. 
 
 Private Jose Jimenez Berro. 
 
 Private Jose Alcaide Bayona. Deserted May 8, 1899. 
 
 Private Jose Martinez Santos. 
 
 Private Jaime Caldentey Nadal. Deserted August 3, 1898. 
 
 Private Loreto Gallego Garcia. 
 
 Private Marcos Mateo Conesa. 
 
 Private Miguel Perez Leal. 
 
 Private Miguel Mendez Exposito. 
 
 Private Manuel Navarro Leon. Died November 9, 1898, 
 of disease. 
 
 Private Marcos Jose Petanas. Died May 9, 1899, of 
 disease. 
 
 Private Pedro Izquierdo Arnaiz. Died November 14, 1898, 
 of disease. 
 
 Private Pedro Vila Gargante. 
 
 Private Pedro Planas Basaganas. 
 
140 Under the Ebd and Gold. 
 
 Private Eamon Donat Pastor. Died October 14, 1898, of 
 disease. 
 
 Private Eamon Mir Brils. 
 Private Eamon Boades Tormo. 
 
 Private Eoman L6pez Lozano. Died October 25, 1898, of 
 disease. 
 
 Private Eamon EipoUes Cardona. 
 
 Private Salvador Santa Maria Aparicio. Died May 12, 
 1899, of wounds. 
 
 Private Timoteo Lopez Larios. 
 
 Private Gregorio Catalan Valero. 
 
 Private Eafael Alonso Medero. Died December 8, 1898, 
 of disease. 
 
 Private Marcelo Adrian Obregon. 
 
 Hospital Servioe. 
 
 Contract Surgeon D. Eogelio Vigil de Quinones Alfaro. 
 
 Corporal (Native) Alfonso Sus Pojas. Deserted June 
 37, 1898. 
 
 Private (Spanish) Tomas Paladio Paredes. Deserted 
 June 27, 1898. 
 
 Private (Spanish) Bernardiao Sanchez Cainzo. 
 
 Priest of Baler. 
 Friar Candido Gomez Carreno. 
 
Undee the Bed and Gold. 141 
 
 II. 
 
 It is thought not inappropriate to reprint here an article 
 that appeared in a Spanish paper while the wonderful story 
 of Baler was yet of thrilling interest to the Spanish reader. 
 It was published in the Eeraldo de Madrid of October 5, 1900. 
 In spite of the fact that the report of the surrender of Baler 
 was baseless, the article is rather interesting to Americans. The 
 italics are the translator's. 
 
 "A Eemindee. 
 
 "A telegram from the Philippines states that the North 
 American forces stationed in Baler have surrendered to the 
 Insurrectos. 
 
 "The surrender of these forces in the same place where 
 a poor Spanish Detachment^ without munitions, without ra- 
 tions, without hope of succor, withstood an enormous force of 
 the enemy for many months, is a consoling contrast for Spain. 
 
 "The Spartan abnegation of that handful of heroes, al- 
 most naked, hungry, but indomitable, inspiring forces a hun- 
 dred times more numerous with terror and respect, writing in 
 the history of the country one of its most wonderful pages, 
 now appears doubly great, doubly glorious. 
 
 "Baler was consecrated by the blood of martyrs and heroes, 
 and such achievements as theirs are not to be paralleled, can- 
 not be boasted of by any other nation. Haughty North Amer- 
 ica may have immense riches, extensive possessions, hut she 
 has no Siege of Baler, and she never will have one. 
 
 "After long months of fierce strife, of resistance to the 
 climate, to the aflfiietions of fever and hunger, and of re- 
 
142 Undeh the Eed and Gold. 
 
 pelling Tigorous and terrible attacks, the Spanish Detachment 
 came out of Baler with colors flying, victorious, invincible. 
 
 "It vi^as a Detachment of djdng men, of cadaverous faces, 
 of bodies devoured by fever. But under those ragged uniforms, 
 in those breasts trembling with the fever-cold, the heart of the 
 Mother Cbuntry was beating, formidable and unconquerable, 
 capable, as always, of astonishing the world by its supreme 
 valor. 
 
 "They have despoiled us of lands and blood. It is fitting 
 that this reminder, revived by the surrender of the North 
 Americans at Baler, cause us to turn our eyes, still filled with 
 tears, from defeat to those sons who yonder accomplished so 
 gallant a defense. 
 
 "That can never be torn from Spain. She may suffer 
 calamity, but her Sieges of Baler have gained for her and wi'' 
 gain for her the respect of the world." 
 
INDEX. 
 FiBST Pebiod — 
 
 Prom February to November, 1898 11 
 
 Beginning of tbe Sieig© 18 
 
 From the 1st to the 19th of July 26 
 
 From the 2ath ot July to the 30th of September 35 
 
 From the Ist of October to the 22d of November 45 
 
 Second PBaiioD — 
 
 From November 23, 1898, to June 2, 1839 55 
 
 From the 14th to the 24th of December 63 
 
 Plrom December 25, 1898, to February, 1899 72 
 
 From February 25th to April 8th 82 
 
 April 93 
 
 To the 27th of May 10? 
 
 The EiUd of May HI 
 
 Last Days 122 
 
 Aftee the Siege 131 
 
 Appendix 138 
 
l^-^:s