John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hod and Big Ten hug the buildings on the west side as they advance again, watching the rooftops across the street.

“Somebody runs up a flag,” says Big Ten, “you best hustle your hindquarters clear of it.”

It is late afternoon before they loop around and face the bridge over the flat, lazily curving Pasig River that leads to the north walls of the city. The band, following only a few hundred yards behind their lines all day, strikes up Marching Through Georgia . Some of the boys begin to sing along as they form up in flying columns to cross—

How the darkies shouted when they heard the joyful sound