Chapter IX.
The American Prisoners
Those of the Americans who were alive and able to help themselves were ordered to go ashore on the sand bar, where the Filipinos robbed them of their personal effects and then lined them up preparatory to shooting them all down in a body. Gilmore, being an officer, protested against having his hands tied. He claimed, according to the accepted rules of warfare, that on account of his rank he had a right to die honorably with his hands free. The Filipinos have great superstitions about “rank” in military affairs. Marie knew the significance of Gilmore’s request; she respected it.
The Filipinos had loaded their rifles, cocked them, raised the same to their shoulders, had taken aim, and Marie was about to give the fatal command, “Fire!”, when a shout from the bank stopped her and for a moment engaged the attention of both the Americans and the Filipinos. It came from a Filipino officer, running down to the shore. He ordered them to stop. One second longer would have been too late.
This Tagalo officer ordered the Americans to get back into their boat and to row across to the opposite shore. After bailing the water out of the boat and plugging up the holes in it made by the enemy’s rifle balls, they obeyed his command.
When they went ashore, Lieutenant Gilmore asked permission to bury his dead comrades. This privilege was emphatically denied. What was done with their bodies by the Filipinos is hard to tell, but in all probability, as was customary with the natives, they cut them into fragments and threw them away.
The ones who were mortally wounded, but who were still alive, were placed under a tree by Gilmore and his comrades, and left to die. The Lieutenant asked that a native doctor be summoned to give them aid, but it was not done. What their fate was Eternity alone will reveal.
Gilmore and his comrades picked up the lesser wounded and carried them, and together the whole procession was marched inland about a mile to the Filipino Commandante’s headquarters.