Found in The
PHILIPPINES
The Story of a Woman’s Letters
BY
CAPTAIN CHARLES KING
GROSSET & DUNLAP Publishers
Eleven East Sixteenth Street New York
Copyrighted 1899, by
F. Tennyson Neely.
Copyrighted 1901, by
The Hobart Company.
FOUND IN THE PHILIPPINES.
CHAPTER I.
Something unusual was going on at divisionheadquarters. The men in the nearestregimental camps, regular and volunteer, were“lined up” along the sentry posts and silently,eagerly watching and waiting. For a weekrumor had been rife that orders for a movewere coming and the brigades hailed it withdelight. For a month, shivering at night inthe dripping, drenching fogs drifting in fromthe Pacific, or drilling for hours each day onthe bleak slopes of the Presidio Heights, theyhad been praying for something to break themonotony of the routine. They were enviousof the comrades who had been shipped toManila, emulous of those who had stormedSantiago, and would have welcomed withunreasoning enthusiasm any mandate that borepromise of change of scene—or duty. The afternoon6was raw and chilly; the wet wind blewsalt and strong from the westward sea, and themist rolled in, thick and fleecy, hiding fromview the familiar landmarks of the neighborhoodand forcing a display of lamplights inthe row of gaudy saloons across the street thatbounded the camp ground toward the settingsun, though that invisible luminary was stillan hour high and afternoon drill only just over.
Company after company in their campaignhats and flannel shirts, in worn blue trousersand brown canvas leggings, the men had comeswinging in from the broad driveways of thebeautiful park to the south and, as they passedthe tents of the commanding general, eventhough they kept their heads erect and noses tothe front, their wary eyes glanced quickly atthe unusual array of saddled horses, of carriagesand Concord wagons halted along the curbstone,and noted the number of officers groupedabout the gate. Ponchos and overcoat capeswere much in evidence on every side asthe men broke ranks, scattered to their tents tostow away their dripping arms and belts, and7then came streaming out to stare, unrebuked,at headquarters. It was still early in the wardays, and, among the volunteers and, indeed,among regiments of the regulars whose rankswere sprinkled with college men who hadrubbed shoulders but a few months earlier withcertain subalterns, the military line of demarcationwas a dead letter when “the boys” wereout of sight and hearing of their seniors, and so ithappened that when a young officer came hurryingdown the pathway that led from the tentsof the general to those of the field officers of theTenth California, he was hailed by more thanone gr