John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

“Spears even, like your African headhunters use. Oh, it’s a primitive type of conflict they’ll be wagerin on thim islands, what the Royal British who’s fightin the Boors in Praetoria are callin gorilla war.”

“Gorillas, too! A turrible thing.” O’Malley ponders. “What exactly is a Boor, then? I’ve hoord iv the thing, but I don’t have me finger on it—”

“It’s a type of Dutchman,” says Gilhooley, “that’s gone wild on the African felt.”

“That’s a soberin thought, that is — a salvage Dutchman. The worst iv two wurrulds.”

“Spakin iv red Injins,” says Gilhooley, “me own opinion is that what’s needed over there is Ginral Miles, late iv the gggreat victhry of Sandago Cuba, him that injuiced Geronnymo and his haythen band to come back on the riservation. He’s the bye fer the job.”

“Aye,” the policeman nods, “he’d make short work iv this Aggy fella.” He taps his stick absently against the wheel of Gilhooley’s wagon, thinking. “So — whin the Fillypeenys have bin subjude, d’ye think we’ll have another star on the flag?”

“Not on yer life. The Fillypeeny himself is somethin between a Hottentot and a Chinaman — with none of the positive attrybutes iv ayther race, whatsoivver as those might be. Them islands is more likely to become a Turritory, like this Porta Reeky or Oklahoma. As such they injoy some of the bennyfits iv citizenship, but kape their noses out of trouble come Illiction Day.”

“It seems like a great deal iv bother to go to,” opines the lawman, “to sell a few chape suits.”

“Tis the white man’s burthen,” replies Gilhooley, bending once again to his task. “And we’ll all need to buck up and carry our portion iv it.”

There are roosters at the front. It has been quiet along the line all day, even with the Americans setting up their artillery on the heights across the river, quiet enough for General Ricarte and Colonel San Miguel to join Aguinaldo and the rest of the general staff in Malolos for a ball to celebrate the new Constitution.

“Keep a third at the outposts,” the colonel called down to Diosdado from his rented barouche. “But there’s no reason the rest of the boys can’t have some fun.” And then was gone.

So there are roosters in the long pit dug just behind the sentry posts, at least three sets of birds preparing to tear each other apart, and torches stuck below ground level to light their battles. Diosdado’s men crowd around, betting coins and cigarettes, using old lottery tickets as promissory notes, bantering about the relative merits of Cubans versus Jolos, feathery birds versus sinewy, orange versus black. Gambling has been outlawed by General Aguinaldo, of course, but like many of his orders this one seems to be understood in principle and ignored in practice. The boys at the outposts turn to call back their observations to those in the pit, feeling persecuted to have drawn sentry duty on this night of celebration, the war over and Manila beckoning from behind the American lines on the other side of the San Juan River.

“I’m holding the Death of all Chickens in my hands,” sings out the one they call Kalaw because of his big nose. “You bet against him, you bet against fate.” Kalaw holds his champion, a squirming bundle of rage, within inches of the beak of the other combatant still pegged to the trench floor while his friend, Joselito, yanks the bird’s tailfeathers to anger it even more.

Nicanor from Cavite squats behind the pegged gamecock. “My Butcher will cut him up,” he states calmly. “Anybody who doesn’t think so can show me their money, ba ?”

Locsin, the chino from Botolan, is serving as the sentensyador , mentally recording bets shouted out by the soldiers crammed down in the pit or kneeling just above it. Kalaw’s bird, hackles up, whips its snakelike neck forward, beak snapping just short of Nicanor’s stocky half-breed. Nicanor pulls the cock back into his lap and his second, Corporal Pelaez, straps the razor-edged gaffs, still in their leather sheaths, onto its feet. Joselito is waving a cookpot from the mess at them.

“This is where your kawawa Butcher is going,” he taunts, “after we tenderize him a little!”

Diosdado pulls himself away from the fight and walks along the outposts, fully exposed to the other side. Providing an easy target and pretending not to care is part of being an officer. They had started a full hundred yards back from the river, like the Americans on the other side, but after San Miguel took over Third Zone both parties began to creep up, and now each is dug in at the foot of the bridge itself, more convenient for shouting drunken insults at each other. Diosdado has been pulled in to translate, standing with San Miguel at the center of the bridge to parley with the American officers, a volunteer general from the mountains of Colorado and a Colonel Stotsenberg.

“Encroachments,” the volunteer general stated in the direct, seemingly affectless American way, “will not be tolerated.”

Diosdado pauses to kick one of the boys who has fallen asleep face-down on his rifle.

“Wa—?”

“This isn’t a dream, soldier. What if the Americans decide to attack right now?”

The soldier looks over the lazy San Juan, the bridge paralleled by the water pipeline from El Depósito, as if the possibility has never occurred to him. Diosdado can smell that the soldier has already celebrated the Constitution.

“Then they will be very stupid.”

It is probably good, this confidence, this cockiness. Spirited. When Luna suggested digging trenches, one of the Caviteño generals retorted, in Spanish, that “true men fight with open breast.” Only Sargento Bayani seems to doubt that the Americans, most of them volunteers and soft from inactivity, will be no match if it comes to open hostilities.

“And what if General Luna were to appear and find you sleeping at your post?”

The private sobers visibly. “You speak the truth, Teniente. I will try to stay awake.”

Luna is the boogeyman, the aswang who all the officers use to frighten the troops when they don’t want to risk their own popularity. Luna has already sentenced two poor Manila boys to be executed for sneaking home while on sentry duty, has screamed at and slapped men of every rank below colonel. He is regarded as an Ilocano phantom, likely to materialize in three different places at once, implacable in his mania for discipline, fingers eagerly caressing his pearl-handled pistol. He is known as El Furioso, El Martillo de Dios, El Loco—

“Did you know,” the men whisper to each other as Luna struts past them, eyes searching for the next junior officer to be humiliated, “that his brother, the painter, murdered his own wife and mother-in-law? And got away with it?” The whole family are locos , go the stories, locos Ilocanos , and all you can do is hope that when he explodes you are somewhere else.

But Luna is the one who knew they should have taken Manila before the yanquis strolled in, no matter what the cost in lives.

Sargento Bayani sits on the slope of the riverbank at the end of the outposts, smoking, smiling his private smile. Diosdado stops by him to gaze across the water.

“You’re not interested in the sabong ?”

Bayani shrugs. “I’ll have some stew tomorrow.” He jerks his head toward the American lines. “They had a busy day.”

Diosdado watched it all through his binoculars, reporting constantly on their progress till Capitán Grey y Formentos told him to leave him alone and put it in writing. Artillery positions dug and leveled and sandbagged, the pieces rolled into place, painstakingly sighted on the San Juan del Monte hill. If it starts in earnest it will be there — the Americans will try to capture the old Spanish blockhouses and push on to take El Depósito where Bonifacio’s uprising floundered not so many years ago. The powder magazine and the waterworks will be their objectives, and to take them they must pass straight over Diosdado’s celebrating patriots. It has been a week of incidents, escalating each day, insults called back and forth, rumors of American sentries taking liberties with Filipino women passing through their lines, stories of the Spanish garrison back in the Walled City acting more like conquerors on leave than prisoners, stray bullets winging in one direction or the other with greater frequency each night. But orders, from Aguinaldo himself, are to avoid engagement, to accommodate their “allies” wherever possible. To wait.