We started just as the sky began to turn a deep red in the east, and the “chuck me” chameleon, the harbinger of the early dawn, began his morning challenge. Our progress was very cautiously made through the cane-fields, banana groves, and bamboo jungles, halting and investigating the slightest noise, the rustling of a leaf or the breaking of a twig not escaping our attention. First, I would take the advance and then the Sergeant. When we passed through cane-fields we found the plowed grounds but little less than marshes, for the rainy season had just begun with torrential showers. Our bodies were soon soaked to the skin, for the leaves of the cane and banana stalks were burdened with water. The cane was a trifle higher than our heads, and the wide-spreading leaves of the banana hid the sky from view.
After wading and splashing along toward the Filipino lines for about 1400 yards, we suddenly and very unexpectedly came upon a well-traveled road, fringed with bamboo on either side, with quite a stretch of open ground beyond, in which was lying at the farther edge, the trenches of our enemies, which seemed to be at the time swarming with dusky soldiers preparing their morning meal.
Believing ourselves not have been observed, we withdraw a short distance from the bamboo fringe into a banana grove, a position that afforded us concealment as well as an opportunity to make observations of the position of the trenches and location of the outposts of the rebels.
I was busy making copious notes and my maps, while the Sergeant, with my field-glasses, was making most wonderful discoveries of masked batteries and gas-pipe cannon, when, all of a sudden, a cavalcade of insurgent officers, followed closely by a large body of foot soldiers, appeared down the road to our left, where there was a slight curve, not more than 200 yards away.
What were we to do? At that short distance from our open-eared and alert rebellious fellow-citizens, we could not beat a precipitate retreat, or an orderly one, without disclosing our presence; and that fact once known to this body of armed men meant almost certain death, or worse, to be taken prisoners by this half-savage band. We held a hasty council of war in whispered tones, and decided to hold our ground till the danger passed.
It was but a moment till the little steeds and their haughty riders were directly in front of us, not fifty paces away, and, to our intense surprise and discomfort, halted. There they stood, with the first ray of the rising sun resting full upon them, seventeen horsemen, officers, and just back of them about 5,000 infantrymen, all within a stone’s throw of us. What made our position all the more precarious, the infantry was standing at a “rest,” and were, as all soldiers do when first halted, looking in every direction in search of something—an enemy, fruit, a stray porker or a fowl. Our chances of being discovered were becoming momentarily greater. We could plainly see them, so naturally, if they would but look in the right direction, they could see us. What may not five hundred busy eyes discover?
The danger of the mounted men seeing us was not so great, for they had discovered something interesting in our lines and were active with their glasses looking over our heads.
Sixteen of these officers were dressed in light blue uniforms of some thin cloth, wide-brimmed sombreros, russet leather leggings, and clanking sabers dangling by their left sides, almost trailing the ground, while the trappings of their horses were enough to make the eyes of a militia major snap with envy. The other officer, who rode at the head, and the recipient of the most obsequious attentions, a man about middle age, with close-cropped hair, small restless eyes, and somewhat lighter complexioned than the average inhabitant of those far-away tropical islands, wore a neat-fitting uniform of khaki cloth over his diminutive body, and a helmet of the same color upon his well-shaped head. His mount was a beautiful dapple gray Filipino stallion, some larger than the average-sized native animal, and much more gorgeously caparisoned than the charges of the other officers. This pompously equipped commander wore at his left side a most handsome saber, and on his right he carried a revolver and field-glass case.
The foot soldiers were of the famous Corps d’Elite, Aguinaldo’s body-guard. We knew them by their bright red uniforms. Where Aguinaldo goes, there they go also. They are his constant attendants. They were, of course, all armed with Mauser rifles and laden with ammunition.
We were so interested at the sight of this picked regiment of Tagalos, of which we had heard so much, that we almost forgot our danger, and actually raised our heads higher in order that we might have a better view of them. Just as we were craning our necks and straining our eyes to their utmost capacity, we were suddenly brought to a realization of our terrible danger by the officer in khaki dismounting, throwing the reins to an orderly, and advancing to the edge of the bamboo just in front of us. Like a flash the others followed him, and stood at attention just in his rear, gawking and peering in our direction. This was a trying moment for us. There stood the flower of the Filipino Army, facing two almost helpless servants of Uncle Sam, and, for all we knew, were deciding our fate, for they were discussing some important subject in the Tagalog tongue, all of which was Sanscrit to us. Our hearts were in our throats and kept up an increased throbbing in their new positions. Had we been discovered? Were those snapping, half-savage eyes now resting on us, and was the mode of our death being discussed? We knew not. Our faces were being pushed in the mud till our ears were begrimed in our mad efforts to conceal ourselves. We felt it would be but a matter of seconds till our hides would be perforated with Mauser bullets, or we would be bound, hand and foot, prisoners of a revengeful enemy.