“What a shame!” said one of the other nurses. “After all the care you gave that man, Mrs. Smith. It does seem as if he might have had a little more gratitude.”
Mrs. Smith said nothing aloud. But to herself, when she was alone, she said: “Well, I suppose some folks would say that I wasn’t acting right, but I guess I’ve saved the lives of enough of those men since I’ve been here so that I’m entitled to one of them if I want him.”
Then she went on with her work, and waited; and the waiting was harder than the work.
An American expedition was slowly toiling across the island of Luzon to locate and occupy a post in the north. Four companies of men marched in advance, with a guard in the rear. Between them were the mule teams with the camp luggage and the ever present hospital corps. No trace of the enemy had been seen in that part of the island for weeks. Scouts who had gone on in advance had reported the way to be clear, and the force was being hurried up to get through a ravine which it was approaching, so it could go into camp for the night on high, level ground just beyond the valley.
Suddenly a man’s voice rang out upon the hot air; an English, speaking voice, strong and clear, and coming, so it seemed at first to the troops when they heard it, from the air above them:
“Halt! Halt!” the voice cried.
“Go back! There is an ambush on both sides! Save yourselves! Be—”
The warning was unfinished. Those of the Americans who had located the sound of the words and had looked in the direction from which they came, had seen a white man standing on the rocky side of the ravine above them and in front of them. They had seen him throw up his arms and fall backward out of sight, leaving his last sentence unfinished. Then there had come the report of a gun, and then an attack, with scores of shouting Tagalogs swarming down the sides of the ravine.