Devil's Causeway by Matthew Westfall

Author:Matthew Westfall [WESTFALL, MATTHEW]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780762787463
Publisher: Lyons Press

Provisions from a US Navy warship at anchor in Baler Bay were stored in the church. As the only secure, stone structure in the town, the church became the commissary and storehouse for the new American garrison.

As the Americans kept up pressure to ferret out the truth about past events, a town-wide ruse began to falter. Several weeks after Novicio’s parole, in the middle of the night, a visibly shaken Rubio appeared at Carr’s residence to relate a stunning tale. All of the residents of Baler, Rubio included, had been lying about the absence of insurgents and prisoners in the valley. On February 19, the day before the Americans had arrived, Novicio had been in command of forty armed insurgents stationed in Baler. At one time or another, he had held two Spanish priests, a Spanish schoolteacher, a Spanish hospital orderly, and an American sailor named Venville. The American, badly crippled as the result of wounds incurred during the ambush of the Yorktown’s cutter, had not been sent across the mountains with the other prisoners. He had since partly recovered, and, along with two Spanish priests, was being held in the jungle outside Baler. Insurgent soldiers were still acting under the directions of Novicio, whose oath of allegiance to the United States had been a farce.

What triggered Rubio’s change of heart? Earlier that same night, Novicio’s men had come to his house to place him under arrest for collaborating with the Americans and escort him to the location where the other prisoners were being held for a court-martial. Realizing that Novicio intended to have him killed, Rubio knew he needed to escape. Prior to departing, he asked if he could first get his hat and coat, and was allowed to do so. Once inside his house, Rubio had jumped out the back window and hotfooted it to town. Now, he’d need protection.

The Americans quietly took Rubio into custody, but Shunk did not feel the information was actionable; in his opinion, running after loose, unconfirmed leads would only endanger any captives. He would first need to know where the prisoners were being held, and by whom. Hearing this, Rubio tasked his girlfriend to help. Weeks later, in late May, new information trickled in: a list of Novicio’s alleged crimes with names, dates, and locations.

According to reports, during his control of the town, Novicio had been behind the murders of several suspected collaborators for the Spaniards, including Manuel Rodriguez, a former Spanish Army medic; Lucio Quezon, a Spanish schoolteacher and former colonel in the Spanish Army; and the schoolteacher’s son, Pedro. The sailor Venville and the two priests, Juan Lopez and Felix Minaya, were still very much alive and were being held near the town of San Jose, about eight miles away. Most importantly, sources gave up the name of the lieutenant in command of the squad of Filipino soldiers holding the prisoners. The time had come to act.

On June 1, 1900, Captain Carr sent five groups of four men on hunting expeditions, a normal routine, with instructions to meet at the river at sundown for further orders.

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