John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

“Pry it open,” says Niles, pacing and pulling out his fancy new British pistol. “Let’s put this show on the road.”

Sergeant LaDuke, who even without the heat is no great thinker, tries to ram the sun-heated barrel of his Krag down the suspect’s throat, busting a couple of teeth in, which the man proceeds to swallow and then choke on.

“Jesus Hiram Christ,” sighs Manigault. “Flip him over.”

Hod and the others roll off and Sergeant LaDuke and Corporal Grissom yank the man onto his belly and dig their heels into his back till he coughs out the teeth in a gout of blood. It is the Monadnock doing the shelling, Hod able to recognize the pitch of its ordnance whistling in from the sea, and they struggle to get the suspect pinned again, just some poor googoo in a field who waved and called out “ Amigo ” and Lieutenant Manigault said The hell with this amigo business, grab the yellow son of a bitch. Vásquez, who interprets from Spanish for the Macabebe scout, just stares down the road, and the Macabebe, looking disgusted with them all, kneels beside the man’s head and works the tip of the buffalo horn he carries into his blood-smeared mouth.

“Let it pour,” says Manigault, and Corporal Grissom carefully tips the kerosene can, filled with muddy water at the creek they just crossed, into the wide end of the horn. The suspect’s arm begins to jerk underneath Hod, the man making strangling noises and arching his back, and Hod looks away trying to concentrate either on his plans for Mei when they get back to Manila or how to shoot Manigault the first chance he gets, anything but thinking about the heat that cooks off all the air before you can breathe it, that is like a hot poker down your nose and into your throat, that the Spanish and the natives are smart enough to hide out from and only volunteer lieutenants and the half-wits above them would expect you to march or fight in. They said in the clap shack how if you have the pox and let it go you might look almost normal as you get older but your head will never be right, which goes a long way to explain the folks running this army.

A good deal of the five gallons gurgle out before Sergeant LaDuke says stop and has the Macabebe pull out the horn so he can stomp hard on the googoo’s distended belly. Hod lets the arm go so the suspect can half roll and puke up water, pink with blood, mostly onto Neely.

“What the hell you doing?” asks Neely, offended.

“He’s got to get it out or he’ll drown.”

“Well he don’t have to get it out all over me .”

“You pin this suspect down, Private,” the Lieutenant growls to Hod. “And keep him down.”

Manigault has always been shit, a card-cheat and an errand boy and a faker, and he knows that Hod has him pegged, all the way back to Skaguay. But there is a different look in his eye today, wild and fry-brained, and there is that pistol—

The Macabebe says something to Vásquez, who turns to the Lieutenant.

“What do you wish to ask this man?”

“Ask him?”

Vásquez sighs. He seems like an educated man who, for whatever reason, is not so welcome back home. “The suspected one. You wish to ask him something. That is the reason for this—” he indicates the writhing, choking googoo.

Manigault stares at the Spaniard for a long moment, having clearly forgotten what he wanted to know, if in fact he ever had anything in mind.

“Ask him if they got as many pin-head officers in their outfit as we do in ours,” says Big Ten.

Manigault glares at the Indian, then makes sure the suspect is back to his senses before sticking the barrel of his pistol to the man’s forehead.

“Ask him how many troops they have waiting for us in Las Piñas,” he says.

Vásquez says this to the Macabebe in Spanish and the Macabebe repeats it in whatever lingo he thinks the suspect talks and the suspect manages to croak out a few words before the scout slaps him and barks something to Vásquez.

“This man asks who would still be in Las Piñas,” Vásquez reports to Lieutenant Manigault, “when your navy has been shelling it for six hours?”

Blam! Manigault fires the pistol into the baked dirt just to the side of the suspect’s ear, causing him to urinate in his trousers and startling Neely so bad he rolls onto his side and covers his head.

“Jesus, Lieutenant,” he complains, rolling back onto the man’s arm. “How bout a little warning?”

“Ask him something else,” says the Lieutenant.

“If they are going to make a stand,” the Spaniard explains, “it will be at the Zapote Bridge. We fought them there many times before you arrived.”

“Ask him about that, then.”

“But if we know this already—”

Manigault points the pistol at Vásquez. “Ask him!”

Vásquez does not take his eyes off the shrill-voiced Lieutenant as he speaks to the Macabebe scout. The scout shouts into the ear of the suspect, who sobs something back. Hod doesn’t want to look in the suspect’s face. The Macabebe says something to Vásquez in Spanish.

“He says he has not been across the Zapote Bridge for many days.”

“Well — that is very unfortunate for Mr. Nig.” Manigault nods to the Macabebe scout. “Give him another drink.”

The scout pinches the suspect’s nose shut till he opens his mouth to breathe and then pushes the tip of the buffalo horn back in. The Macabebes don’t look so much like the other natives here, the rumor going that they’re Mexican Indians brought long ago by the Spaniards to work the crops, and of course the fellas expect Big Ten to be able to palaver with them.

“C’mon, Chief,” they say. “You’re holdin out on us.”

“You know how many Indin languages they got back home I can’t say a word of?” he tells them. “I barely remember any Ojibwe after a year with you people.”

Corporal Grissom yanks the suspect’s head to the side so he sees, then pisses loudly into the mouth of the kerosene can while Sergeant LaDuke giggles. After I shoot Manly Goat, Hod thinks, these two will have to be next. And maybe the Macabebe too, though this is his country after all and he is entitled to play his cards the way he wants. Corporal Grissom, who has been on the warpath since his monkey disappeared, convinced that the Chinese porters ate it, rebuttons his fly and begins to dump the liquid into the buffalo horn, splashing far too much of it onto Hod.

Shoot him in the belly, thinks Hod, wiping sweat from his eyes, and leave him in a ditch.

The suspect makes more strangling noises and tries to jerk himself out from under them and the barrage continues to the south, whump! whump! whump! and when the can is empty Sergeant LaDuke drops with both knees on the googoo’s belly and what comes up smells like bile. There is a series of words between Vásquez and the Macabebe and the half-dead suspect, with Manigault pacing back and forth, back and forth.

“Let’s hear it.”

Vásquez turns to him. “He will admit to anything you wish.”

“Very prudent of him.”

“But you must first say what it is. He confesses that he can no longer reason.”

“I don’t understand.”

The Spaniard speaks slowly, softly, as if to a small and not very clever child. “If you wish there to be an ambuscade waiting at the Zapote Bridge, he will confess to it and we may return with this information.”

“So they are waiting—”

“And if you accuse him of being a general of the insurrectos , he will not deny it.”

Again it takes a long moment for the meaning to penetrate the Lieu-tenant’s overheated skull.

“You’re saying the man is lying.”

“I am saying nothing,” Vásquez replies. “I am merely translating his words, as passed on by this indio , to the best of my ability.”