THE STORY OF THE DESERTER OF THE PHILIPPINES
I don’t exactly know why I married Maxie Morrow, except that I’ve always been a fool about women. The thing came so sudden, I just jumped and caught her on the fly. When she left me, I went pretty much to the bad. Then Harry Maidslow disappeared, because of debts and one thing or another, and I turned up as Harry Roberts in St. Louis. That was just about when the Spanish war broke out. It was too good a chance to lose, and I decided to begin all over again. So I enlisted in the regulars, joining the One Hundred and Fourteenth Infantry. I was hardly more than through the goose step when we were sent to the Philippines.
I was no slouch nor shirk, either, but I knew more about eating than anything else, and I naturally gravitated to the cook’s tent and put him on to a lot of things the boys liked. I got to be rather popular with the company in this way, and when the Commissary Sergeant was appointed in Manila, I managed to get the place, though I was only a rookie. Perhaps the Captain’s wife helped me out some. She, being an officer’s lady, wasn’t supposed to know I was on earth, but somehow she noticed me and fixed it up easy.
Commissary work was a snap—little drill, no guard mount, leave of absence occasionally, and the run of the town in a little pony cart. You see each company had its quota of rations. We could draw them, or leave them and get credit. There was maple syrup and candy, canned fruit, and chocolate, and all sorts of good stuff in the storehouse that we could get at wholesale rates. By cutting down on fresh meat and pinching on bacon, I managed the company’s accounts so that we could have hot griddle-cakes and maple syrup every day. That’s the way I held my job. If I ever become famous it will be for having introduced Pie in the Philippines.
Every morning I drove around Manila, visiting the markets with a man to help me, exchanging sacks of flour for fresh baker’s bread and cakes, getting chickens, and so on, besides making friends right and left. About two nights every week I was dancing or flirting with the half-breed women; Mestizas they called them. That’s how I got into trouble.
Her name was Senorita Maria del Pilar Assompcion Aguilar, and nothing that ever I saw could touch her for looks. She was the kind of woman that makes you forget everything else that ever happened before. She and her brother owned about the whole of a province in the middle of the island of Luzon. When she came into the room it was all over with me. There was more of the Spanish than the Filipino in her, enough to give her the style and air of a lady, but she got her beauty from the tropics. Her hair was like one of those hot black nights they have down there—silky and soft, drifting around her face—but it was her eyes that made you lose sleep. They were blue-black, not melting, but wide-awake and piercing. They were just a bit crossed, hardly a hairbreadth out, but that little cast seemed to make her even prettier than if they were straight. A Kansas sergeant told me that the family was in from their country place, and that the Secret Service people were watching her. She and her brother were suspected of knowing a good deal about Aguinaldo’s plans.
You remember that after the battle of Manila the American troops lay in town for months, just drilling and waiting to see what the insurgents were going to do. There were all sorts of rumours afloat, and nobody knew which way the cat would jump. The Filipinos were camped in a semi-circle outside the city and growing uglier every day. Our sentries were watching them close enough to see every nigger that stuck his finger to his nose at us.
I saw more and more of Maria, danced with her, or went to her house every night I could get off. It wasn’t long before I saw that I had her going. Her brother looked as if he’d like to bolo me in the back, and never left us alone for a moment. I didn’t care. I was too far gone myself to be afraid of him. I’ve seen one or two women in my time, but she could put it over them all.
Love goes pretty fast in hot countries. One night I happened to find her alone. Her brother was away on some Katipunan conspiracy business, most likely, or perhaps dodging our spies. She was dressed like a queen, all ready for me. I had no more than come in when she threw herself into my arms and lay there crying. I had gone too far, and I was in for it.
I let her stay there a little while, kissing her and trying to get her quiet, and then I looked away, and told her what I should have told her long before—that I had a wife and couldn’t marry. She took it pretty hard at first.