The White Admiral asks if the exiled General will not soon return to his country and lead his people against the Spanish forces still occupying it.
“My people are willing,” replies the General, “but lack arms with which to demonstrate their patriotism.”
The White Admiral and the exiled General discuss details of bringing arms into the country. A quantity of Mausers and ammunition are already here, carried up from Corregidor Island, and many more can certainly be purchased and shipped from Hongkong with the help of the U.S. Consul. An aide to the White Admiral, standing discretely to one side and speaking as if it is a somewhat insignificant consideration, mentions the sum of seven American dollars per rifle, of thirty-three dollars and fifty cents for a thousand rounds.
The exiled General is soft-spoken and polite as always, his expression guileless. Did his face look like this, wonders Diosdado, when the Bonifacios were led away to be slaughtered?
“I must tell you,” says the General to the White Admiral, “that there is some uneasiness among my fellow patriots, men who worry that once the Spaniard is vanquished and we are weakened by the struggle, your country may decide to replace them as our masters.”
The White Admiral nods pleasantly. The floor of his stateroom is littered with wicker baskets overflowing with congratulatory cables and letters and gifts. There is a rumor that his cook travels into the blockaded city by launch every day, to buy fresh fruit. He answers slowly in English, as if reassuring a child frightened by a storm.
“America is wealthy in both land and resources,” he says. “It has no need of colonies.”
Pepito Leyba, younger even than Diosdado, translates for the General, managing to transmit both the White Admiral’s condescending yet friendly demeanor and his lack of specificity.
“This is reassuring for me to hear,” responds the exiled General. “My colleagues, however, will be more reassured, more likely to rally to our cause, if they could read of your intentions in an official statement.”
“An official statement like the one you signed with Spain,” counters the Admiral, sitting back on his wicker throne, “that stipulated your permanent exile?”
There are men, friends of Diosdado’s, who will never forgive the General for the Treaty of Biak-na-Bato. To accept money from the Spaniards, to accept amnesty and exile, even if—
The General appears unperturbed. “The Spaniards did not honor the Treaty,” he says flatly.
“And so you will see,” smiles the White Admiral, “that the word of honor of an American is more positive, more irrevocable, than any piece of paper.”
The exiled General flicks his eyes to Diosdado when Leyba says the word irrevocable.
“Manatili,” Diosdado translates. Leyba speaks Spanish, French, English, Tagalog, and who knows what else, but perhaps the General is asking for more than a word here. Do not trust these people, Diosdado thinks, and hopes the thought is transmitted through his eyes.
The General’s expression does not change. The White Admiral either will not or has not the power to promise their independence if Filipinos lead the fight to expel the Spaniards. If they do not fight, however, do not show their willingness to kill and be killed, how much more likely, with German warships hovering in the bay, with the Japanese so rapidly building up their own navy, that the yanquis will choose to stay?
“We must proceed with the liberation of the islands,” says the White Admiral, “and must act toward each other as friends and allies.”
On being introduced, Diosdado feigned that he had never before met the General or Pepito Leyba, had shaken hands formally and stepped back into his place. After the General is gone the Americans will ask him for his impressions, and he will say “I think he believes everything he said.” And then later he will report to the General and be questioned and say he thinks the Americans have not yet made up their minds. And though both statements are obvious and true he will be a spy, and neither side will give him their complete trust. The Americans have destroyed the Spanish fleet, the dreaded gunboats that precluded any chance of Filipinos attacking Manila, their blackened hulks still visible in the shallows off of Sangley Point. The Americans have taken the Cavite Arsenal and have their big guns trained on the Spanish garrison within the Walled City of Manila. There is no saying how they will fare in Cuba, the liberation force as yet to leave American shores, but here, here they have been godlike in the speed of their devastation. If the White Admiral lacks guile, it is because up to this moment he has not required it. Whereas Aguinaldo—
“I am willing to sacrifice my own life in this great undertaking,” says the exiled General, “as is every true patriot in our nation.”
In the pilot boat on the way out the American ensign who came for him was much amused by the crowd of lanchas being poled back and forth with their loads of zacate fodder and piled stems of bananas.
“Look,” he winked to Diosdado, “it’s the Filipino Navy.”
The White Admiral rises above them, an avuncular smile on his face, and offers his hand.
“Go and start your army,” he says.
THE LOST WORLD
Tampa is a fever dream.
They wake to a fusillade of noise, every regiment on the Heights with its own drummer up and driving the sticks, men cursing on their ponchos before the bugle’s first assaulting note. The chigger bites along Royal’s ribs remind him where he is. The scramble for socks, the insult of the woolen pants and he’s out with the others, the canvas of the tents whiter than the sand, ghostly rows like headstones in the failing wisp of moonlight. There is no warning of the heat to come. Royal pulls the flannel shirt on, sits to wrestle with his boots. Junior crawls out from the tent, then Little Earl, looking surprised, as he always does, to find himself awake at this hour. No one speaks. The air is bitter with the coffee Stewpot Sims has begun to boil on his cookfire, one of a half-dozen glowing throughout the camp. The 25th stumble forward to be counted.
Sergeant Jacks knows his book and expects the same from you. His eyes remain calm, even when chewing on some rookie who does not know his left from his right or his bunghole from a bayonet. He allows them to drill without their blouses due to the heat, except for the one day the company dogged it so bad during the morning close-order routine the lieutenant let him lead them on a five-mile jaunt around the camp weighed down with full kit, Merriam packs, and three days’ provisions.
“You think this is bad,” he said during one of their pauses to see if a fallen man was dead or just resting with his face in the sand, “wait till we get to Cuba. They got your steam heat.”
There is a rumor that their winter-issue uniforms will be replaced soon, but that seems the unlikeliest of all the many stories contaminating the Heights. Yes, the Army might load them into their transports tomorrow or send them to China to pacify the yellow hordes or make peace with the Dons and call off the whole Cuba invasion, but the idea of Supply, in this fly-ridden dump of men and munitions, coming up with anything to make a common soldier’s burden lighter is unimaginable.
Sergeant Jacks wears his blouse though, all day long, service stripes halfway down to his wrists. No one has ever seen him take a drink of water, or step away to relieve himself, through Coop won a two-dollar bet the day the sergeant allowed himself to squash a mosquito crawling up his neck.
“Man eat bricks and shit gravel,” Coop will say when the sergeant is out of earshot. “Probly kilt more nigger privates than he ever did Indians.”