There is a line of trenches and block-houses around the city of Manila, the average distance being about two miles out from the suburbs. This was called the “firing-line.” On first arriving from the United States, regiments were sent out to occupy a part of this position, to recuperate from the long sea voyage aboard crowded transports, and at the same time help maintain the line of defense around the city. Most of the newly arrived regiments were filled up with recruits with but a few months’ service; so this position afforded the opportunity to get these men in shape for field-service.
This line of defense was the theater in which was acted the comedy of the war. Here is where occurred the most foolish alarms and at the same time some serious ones.
There is one famous charge (?) that occurred in a newly arrived regiment, which was spending its first night on the Island of Luzon in these trenches. It is known as the “Charge of the Hospital Corps,” and promises to be handed down in army tradition. The gallant leader of this daring advance was a young surgeon, recently appointed to the regular establishment as a battalion pill-dispenser. His command consisted of three privates and an acting steward of the Hospital Corps.
Arguing that he was fighting a savage enemy, not a party to the Geneva Convention, and consequently would not recognize as non-combatants the wearers of the red cross, he succeeded in having a requisition honored by the ordnance officer for five big forty-five caliber “six-shooters,” with which he armed himself and command.
This embryo warrior and his gallant following were tickled with their toys, and flourished them most dangerously during the day, vowing death and destruction to any thousand Filipinos who would dare to face them and their death-dealing weapons.
The doctor, or “Pills,” as the men called him, established his battalion hospital in a ravine in a break in the trenches. It was a lonesome place. Night came on, and the corps men retired to sleep their first night on Luzon’s soil; but their sleep was not easy. Visions of gore and midnight slaughter passed in review before their drowsy eyes; and just as a black-faced little rebel had them by the throat and was plunging a great long knife into their vitals, they would awaken with a start, feel under their heads for their fire-arms, to reassure themselves, pat the trusty weapon a time or two, call it “good old Bets,” and again doze off to sleep, only to repeat the performance.
One hungry, gaunt-looking fellow, who his comrades said had a head that would fit in a regulation full-dress helmet, could stand the nervous strain no longer. The noises that came from the little thickets of bamboo and cogonales into his little “tepee” were more than he could stand. He had listened to them in his mind, enlarged, multiplied, and magnified them in his own imagination, till he was sure the whole insurrectionist army was quietly, inch by inch and foot by foot, slipping down upon him. Up he jumped, revolver in hand, gripping the handle and gritting his teeth, and proceeded to investigate the sounds. Approaching within a few yards of a thick bunch of trees not far in front of the hospital tent, he halted to listen. Yes, they were there beyond all doubt. He could almost see them crawling toward him; a hundred dusky demons upon all fours, with long, glistening, razor-edged knives held between their shining teeth. They must be stopped. With a loud voice, trembling with fear, he challenged: “If you’re an American, for God’s sake say so, or I’ll shoot.” The noise made no reply, and the shooting began promptly as promised.
The valiant “Pills” landed on his feet in the middle of his tent, rallying his men, and was soon leading them to the attack. Bang! bang! biff! bang! rang out the loud-mouthed Colt’s revolvers. A moment later the Krags began to pop to the right and left, the alarm traveling up and down the line with lightning-like rapidity. Soon six miles of grim-looking rifle muzzles were pointing toward the innocent nothing to the front, a volley occasionally resounding through the midnight air at an imaginary enemy.
Dawn found “Pills” searching the field of battle for dead and wounded. He discovered numerous bullet-holes in his tent and medicine chests, made by 45-caliber balls; and, lying near the place where the gaunt, hungry-looking corps man first fired upon the enemy, he found poor “Paterno,” Company E’s monkey mascot, with a short and bloody tail, that member having been lost in the battle—a penalty for his nocturnal perambulations.