Here they were questioned at length. Gilmore asked permission to write a note to the commander of the Yorktown telling him of their fate. Permission was granted, but the note was never delivered. The two scouts who went ashore, returned to the Yorktown in the afternoon and reported that they had heard heavy firing up the river.
After waiting several days for news of some kind for them, and finally concluding that they were either captured or killed, the crew of the Yorktown, heavy-hearted over their failure and their sacrifice, steamed back to Manila.
During the afternoon of the same day that the battle took place, the American prisoners were ordered to march to an old bamboo church in the northern outskirts of the little town of Baler, a mile and a half farther on. By this time the wounded men were suffering terribly. Little Venville’s ankle had swollen badly. From his four wounds he had bled so much that he had grown faint. Therefore, he and several of the others had to be carried.
En route to their new destination, the Americans passed in sight of the old stone church being used as a fortress by the Spanish garrison whom they had originally set out to relieve. The Americans had gone to the Philippines to fight the Spaniards. They were now sacrificing their lives to save them.
At the bamboo church, an old Filipino with a kindly face and a manner that elevated him above his fellow tribesmen, came in to see them. He examined the wounded and then disappeared. Presently he returned with some large leaves that resembled rhubarb, under his arm. Out of the big stems of these native herbs he squeezed a milky secretion which he permitted to drop into the gaping wounds of the Americans. The torture of the wounded occasioned by this liquid was damnable. The men grew deathly pale. They rolled and screamed and begged to be shot. But it did not last long. In ten minutes the torture had ceased, the men became quiet, the swelling around their wounds was gradually reduced, and their temperatures soon lowered. The herb doctor evidently knew his business.
The next day the Filipinos received orders from Aguinaldo, who, with his appointed congress, was now at San Isidro, to march the captured Americans to his headquarters. Accordingly, the trip was undertaken. But the apprentice lad, Venville, was unable to go along. Obeying the stubborn orders of the rapacious Filipinos his comrades left him lying on the floor of the old rickety bamboo church,—wounded—uncared for—suffering—hungry—thirsty—dying. A year later the assistance of the entire naval organization in the Philippines was given to the task of trying to ascertain from the Filipinos in the neighborhood of Baler some information concerning the lad’s whereabouts or his burial place, but no trace of him, dead or alive, could ever be found.
An aged mother, ill and bowed,
Keeps asking, “Where’s my boy?”
But zephyrs from the Orient
Refuse to bring the joy.