CHAPTER IX
MALABANAN STRIKES
Next morning Terry rose as the first sleepy cock challenged the pink-streaked day. Shaving in the dim light, he watched the plaza merge out of its darkness and fill with the natives passing listlessly to field or waterfront. A few short minutes and the day arrived hot and still: hens sauntered forth to begin their tireless, day-long, scratching search: bony curs, sleepy after their instinctive vigils through the night, made couches in the dusty road: across from where Terry stood at his bedroom window, the four daughters of his Tagalog neighbor sat in a little circle on a sunny bamboo porch structure, each intently examining another's loosened hair in a community search for—well, for whatever might be found.
By nine o'clock he had snapped the company through a sharp drill and by noon had finished the weekly inspection. The afternoon passed in preparation of monthly reports scheduled to go on the mailboat expected in that evening. It is the function of the Constabulary to know everything that transpires: health conditions, state of crops, appearance of any strangers, activities of native demagogues, movements of suspicious characters, morale of the people. Everything is observed and reported, and summarized at headquarters to form the basis for intelligent handling of a difficult problem.
Of the epidemic he wrote: "A disease identified as a particularly virulent form of pernicious malaria appeared last week among the Bogobos in the barrio of Dalag. The Health Officer is on the scene and in conference with the undersigned decided that the use of our troops for quarantine duty was not necessary. It appears that he has the disease under control."
Under the heading "Recommendations" he set down: "Request that the old provincial archives be searched to ascertain if a Spanish family living in this Gulf during the last months of Spanish occupation suffered the loss, by abduction, of a female infant. An interesting story to this effect has been communicated to me by Bogobos, who attribute the crime to the Hill People."
The mailboat limped in early in the afternoon, waking the torpid town into semblance of interested activity during the brief duration of its stay. But before she had disappeared over the horizon native Davao had relapsed into stupid placidity, and the Chinos had stored the meager cargoes dropped for them—print goods, cigarettes, matches, rice, a few small agongs, and, probably, a little opium. The lethargy of the tropics during the hot hours is entire and complete: the angel Gabriel himself will fail of unanimous native response unless he toots his cheerful summons during the cool hours between dusk to dawn.
Terry still sat in the cool orderly room at the cuartel, energetically clearing his desk of the last accumulations of the paper work he found a chore, when the dapper sergeant entered with his mail. Sorting quickly through the dozen official envelopes in anxious search for one addressed in the neat hand that always quickened his pulses, he discovered, miserably, that there was none from her. Fighting off the discouraged feeling that accompanied lapses in her correspondence with him, he slowly opened a letter from Ellis. Ellis' letters, few in number, had always been cheerful but brief statements of how matters went on at home, usually business affairs. He put Ellis' letter in his blouse pocket to read after dinner, then attacked the pile of official mail: he wanted no unfinished office work to keep him in the morrow, as he planned another quiet look at Malabanan's place. When the Sergeant bore in the lighted lamp Terry ordered him to have the launch ready at daylight.