“Captain, the colonel directs that you open sharp fire on the woods in your front and occupy the enemy there. He is about to charge with the third battalion and drive them out of the trenches we’ve located over yonder;” and Billy pointed eagerly to the left front—the southeast.
The captain’s grizzled face took on a look of keen disappointment. “You mean we’ve got to stay here, and see you fellows go in?”
“Only for a few minutes, sir. The colonel says that for you to charge before he’s got onto their flank would cost too many men. You’ll get the word as soon as he’s got the works.”
“Well said, Billy boy! That sounds almost epigrammatic. Hullo! You hit? Stoop down here, man. Don’t try to get perforated.”
“My hat only,” was the answer, as the boy stooped quickly to hide the irrepressible twitching about the muscles of his lips. A Remington had ripped from side to side, tearing a way through the curly hair at the top of his head and almost scoring the scalp. To save his soul he could not quite suppress the trembling of his knees; but, steadying himself by a great effort, he continued: “The colonel says to commence firing by volley the moment our bugles sound the charge. Now I must get back.”
“All right, youngster. Tell the colonel I savey, and we’ll do our level best—only, let us into it as quick as you can.”
But Gray heard only the first part of the sentence. He was panting when he reached his placid, gray-mustached chief, and could only gasp out: “The captain understands, sir.” And then the regimental commander simply turned to the battalion leader, standing silent at his left in a little clump of timber—another veteran captain grown gray as himself in long, long years of service:
“Now’s our time, old man! Pitch in! Gray, we’ll go with him.”
All along the line from right to left there ran the cross-country road connecting the broader highway, from Malate to San Rafael and Parañaque on the west, and from West Paco by way of Singalon to Pasay. In front of the right wing all was swamp, morass or rice fields. In front of the left wing all was close, dense bamboo and jungle, save where the broad, straight roadway led on past Block House 13, or the narrower cart track stretched southward, overarched in places by spreading branches, and commanded at its narrowest path by the swarm of dusky fighters in Block House 14. A year before the blue-shirts stormed these forest strongholds from the south, and took them from the troops of Spain. Now they were compelled to turn and storm them from the north; for, just as Stanley Armstrong said at San Francisco, the Filipinos had turned upon their ally and would-be friend. Aguinaldo had bearded Uncle Sam.
And while the volunteers and regulars to the right could only remain in support, it fell to the lot of the left wing of this brave brigade to assault in almost impenetrable position an enemy armed with magazine rifles or breech-loaders, and entirely at home. The bugles rang the signal; the officers in silence took their stations, and, stepping into the narrow pathways through the jungle, crouching along the road-ways or crashing through the stiff bamboo, the blue-shirts drove ahead. Two, three minutes, and their purpose seemed undiscovered. Then suddenly Block House 14 blazed with fire and a storm of bullets swept the road. The earthworks in the thickets to the right and left seemed to be crowded with a running flame; and down on their faces fell the foremost soldiers, their gallant leader shot through and through, plunging headlong, yet in his dying agony waving his surviving men to get to cover. Vengefully now the “Krags” opened in reply to Remington and Mauser. The blue-shirts struggled on inch by inch through the network of bamboo. Still the storm swept up the roadway, and no man could hope to face it and live. But, little by little, the low-aimed, steady volleys, driven in by squad and section through the canebreak, or by company and platoon across the westward swamps, told on the nerve and discipline of the little brown men in the bamboo. Their shots flew swift, but wild and higher. Then a daring lad, in the rough field uniform of a subaltern of infantry, sprang like a cat into the fire-flashing lane, and, revolver in hand and a squad of devoted fellows at his heels, dashed straight at the wooden walls ahead. In frantic haste the occupants blazed shot after shot upon him and his heroic followers. One after another three went down; but, in another instant, the lieutenant leading, they reached the block house and darted through the open doorway, the last of its garrison fleeing in panic before such unheard-of daring and determination. And then came the rush of comrades cheering down the lane, tumbling over the earthworks and the luckless gang that, still crouching there, held to their position, and all the southward leading road was ours.