American Vanguard Encampment – North of Manila
Major General Arthur MacArthur Jr. stood over the field desk, his hands resting heavily on the edges of a hand-drawn topographical map of the Bulacan lowlands. The humid tropical heat hung thick inside the command tent, but MacArthur carried himself with the rigid, unyielding posture of a man who treated war as an exact science.
Surrounding the table were his key brigade commanders: Brigadier General Loyd Wheaton, Brigadier General Irving Hale, and the lean, aggressive commander of the 20th Kansas Volunteers, Colonel Frederick Funston.
Outside, the distant rumble of the Utah Light Artillery test-firing their pieces shook the damp earth.
"Gentlemen, the President and Major General Otis want this campaign concluded before the monsoon season locks us into the mud," MacArthur began, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that cut through the hum of the camp. "The insurgent forces under Antonio Luna have consolidated their main line along the Bagbag and Pampanga rivers. They consider Calumpit their impregnable fortress."
Brigadier General Wheaton snorted, flicking the ash from his cigar onto the dirt floor. "They said the same about Malolos, Arthur. Yet we took their capital without losing a single regiment's momentum."
"Do not underestimate them, Loyd," Irving Hale chimed in, adjusting his spectacles as he leaned over the map. "Luna isn't the usual provincial militia leader. He's built earthworks along the riverbank, and his men are digging in. The intelligence from our advance scouts indicates they intend to make us bleed for every yard of the railway line."
"Let them dig," Colonel Funston interjected with a cold, eager smirk. His 20th Kansas boys were itching for a fight. "A trench is just a ditch if you don't have the discipline to hold it when the shrapnel starts flying. Give my Kansas boys two artillery batteries and a green light, and we'll swim that river and clear those earthworks before noon."
MacArthur raised a hand, silencing the table. His eyes narrowed as he traced the winding path of the Bagbag River.
"Brashness won't cross a blown railway bridge, Colonel," MacArthur warned. "We advance in two primary columns. Wheaton, your brigade will hold the right flank near the marshes. Hale, you push straight down the center toward the main railway bridgehead. We soften their positions with a sustained artillery bombardment from the Utah light battery, induce panic in their forward trenches, and then send the infantry across under heavy covering fire."
A quiet fell over the tent, but Wheaton's jaw tightened as he looked out toward the supply lines.
"Speaking of ammunition for that sustained bombardment, Arthur..." Wheaton muttered, his tone dropping into a frustrated grumble. "Our forward haul is still running behind schedule."
Funston scoffed. "Still feeling the aftershocks of that supply depot disaster weeks ago, General?"
"It's no laughing matter, Fred," Wheaton shot back, glaring at the younger officer. "It's been nearly two months since that forward outpost near the northern creek was blown to hell. We lost eight thousand rounds of .30-40 Krag, our field medical chests, and a whole wagon team. Eight thousand rounds doesn't sound like much to a division, but when you're trying to stockpile enough lead for a three-day offensive, that missing wagon chain bleeds your logistics dry."
Hale nodded slowly in agreement. "The division quartermaster has been rationing crate distributions ever since. That single sabotage delayed our advance toward Malolos by nearly two weeks. It gave Luna the exact window he needed to fall back, regroup, and fortify this damn riverbank."
MacArthur listened in grim silence. The raid on the forward supply post had been a thorn in his side for weeks. The official reports had initially blamed a stray cooking fire or a lucky mortar round, but MacArthur was no fool. The charge placements had been too precise, the extraction too clean.
"Whoever pulled off that raid knew our supply rhythms better than some of our own lieutenants," MacArthur said quietly, his eyes fixed on the map. "It was surgical. It wasn't the work of a panicked mob throwing rocks. It was calculated attrition."
He looked up, scanning the faces of his officers.
"That is precisely why we cannot afford another delay," MacArthur declared, slamming his hand onto the table. "The insurgents are bleeding us through small, invisible bites. A stolen crate here, a blown wagon there, a sniper picking off our machine gunners. If we let this war drag on into a series of endless, costly skirmishes, the public back in Washington will lose their stomach for this territory."
"Then we end it at Bagbag," Funston said, his voice dropping into a hard, determined edge. "We hit them with everything we have left in the caissons. No subtle maneuvers. We crush their center, cross the river, and force Luna into the open."
"Tomorrow at dawn," MacArthur ordered, his decision final. "The Utah battery opens fire at first light. Hale, move your Kansas and Montana regiments into position along the treeline. If there are ghosts in those trenches who think they can bleed the United States Army one bullet at a time... we will bury them under three hundred rounds of high explosive shrapnel."
~~
As the time passed, Kabo Del Vamos somehow was nearby, managing to get across to the enemy lines up ahead..
He lay pressed flat against the damp, rotting roots of a mangrove tree, the stagnant swamp water soaking through his faded rayadillo tunic. The midnight air was heavy with the reek of coal smoke, damp canvas, and the metallic tang of an invading army setting up camp across the creek.
Behind him, his four soldados moved with the fluid, mechanical quiet of veteran hunters. Del Vamos didn't need to speak; with a single, subtle hand gesture, he signaled his team to disperse. The four men split into a wide, semi-circular screen, melting into the nipa palms to observe the perimeter from multiple angles without leaving a trace.
The Americans were arrogant. Their sentries walked their beats with lazy, predictable strides, convinced that the "insurgents" were too disorganized to venture across the swampy left flank.
Del Vamos parted a cluster of tall elephant grass with two fingers, bringing his eyes to the edge of the clearing.
There, unhitched on elevated wooden carriage blocks, sat three American artillery pieces, their dark steel barrels aimed squarely at the heart of the Bagbag bridgehead.
Del Vamos pulled his small, sweat-stained ledger from his breast pocket and made a quick notation. Three field pieces. Trajectory seems to be fixed. He just did it in short.
He shifted his gaze past the battery, and his breath hitched.
Sprawled across the cleared fields was a vast city of white canvas tents. Stacked supply wagons lined the company thoroughfares, flanked by dozens of roasting fires and endless rows of stacked rifles. Del Vamos systematically counted the cooking tripods, the officer marquees, and the density of the picket lines.
This isn't a mere probing force, he realized, his pencil scratching lightly in the dark. This camp easily accommodates a thousand men... and by my estimation, likely far more. A full tactical vanguard poised to crush the center line.
Having gathered the crucial intelligence, Del Vamos let out a low, three-note whistle—the mimicry of a local night heron. Shadows shifted in the brush as his four soldados fell back into formation. Without snapping a single dry twig, the scouting element turned on their heels and slipped back toward the Filipino lines.
~~
As I wait for Del Vamos, I take some time to train some men that are on rest, teaching one or two on rifles they use. I ran them through quick rifle drills—focusing on smooth bolt cycling, proper cheek welds, and controlled breathing. Fortunately, most of these remaining soldados already knew the fundamentals of their rifles; at least they weren't complete greenhorns who closed their eyes when they pulled the trigger.
Leaving Sanchez and Macario to oversee the ongoing physical drills, I made my way back to the command dugout.
Anya was leaning against a support beam, watching me with an amused glint in her eyes. "Look at you," she teased softly, her tone carrying a rare, light touch. "It seems you've become quite the schoolmaster, Sarhento."
I offered a calm, tired smile, setting my cap on the wooden table. "Well, at least it gives Sanchez and Macario a solid foundation to work with once the firing starts."
Before she could reply, the heavy bamboo curtain rustled, and Kabo Del Vamos stepped into the lantern light, mud dripping from his uniform but his eyes sharp with fresh data.
"Three guns," I muttered, the tip of my spent Mauser casing tapping heavily against the dirt table inside our command dugout. "And expecting an amount of at least a thousands boots waiting for the signal to march."
Del Vamos wiped a streak of black river silt from his jaw, catching his breath as he stood before Anya and me. "They are staging heavily near the main road, Sarhento. The sentries are relaxed because they think we are still huddled in the same shallow, leaderless ditches their officers mapped out two days ago. They have no idea we're deepening the line."
Anya leaned over the rough map, her icy gaze locked onto the coordinates Del Vamos had marked. "A force that size, backed by three field pieces, will advance in heavy, supported columns the moment the preliminary barrage stops. If our forty-two regulars see a thousand Americans charging through the smoke, they will break and run—official paper orders or not."
"They won't break," I said, a cold, calculated smile touching my lips as my modern strategic processing clicked into place. "Because the Americans are going to waste their hammer on empty air."
Anya raised an eyebrow, her hand resting naturally on the hilt of her sidearm. "Somehow I dont even understand what you talking about, Sarhento."
"Trench geometry and misdirection," I said, drawing a series of jagged, intersecting lines in the loose soil with the Mauser casing. "Del Vamos's intel proves their guns are zeroed in on our current parapet. Tomorrow, hours before dawn, I want Macario's work shifts to halt work on our main line. Instead, we are going to build dummy trenches fifty meters to our left flank. Use loose brush, rotted logs, and torn canvas rags to make it look like fresh earthworks."
Vicente, who was leaning against the dugout frame, blinked in confusion. "You want us to build a fake target?"
"Yes," I countered, looking him dead in the eye. "American artillery commanders often rely on mechanical precision. Their spotters will see the freshly turned earth of the dummy trenches, calibrate their fuses, and spend the first hour of the battle blowing empty dirt to hell. Meanwhile, our active rifles will be sitting three meters deep in our actual, braced traverse lines, completely safe from the shrapnel."
Anya's strict features softened into a grim, appreciative smirk. "They will march their infantry forward expecting to find a field of shattered, dead farmers... only to walk right into an undamaged, disciplined wall of crossfire."
"Exactly," I said, sliding my hand back to the cold iron of my hidden sidearm. "Del Vamos, get your boys some food. Vicente, double the pickets. Tomorrow morning, we show these thousand Americans that a modern army isn't measured by the size of its tents—it's measured by the depth of its trenches."
I turned to Del Vamos as he reached for a tin cup of water. "How far are they from our forward trench line?"
Del Vamos paused, mentally calculating the terrain markers along the creek. "Roughly two kilometres out from the riverbank, Sarhento. Far enough that they think they're completely invisible behind the high brush, but well within range for those field pieces once they open up."
I nodded slowly, my eyes fixing on the map coordinates. "Two kilometres... far enough to give them a false sense of security, and plenty of distance for their infantry to march blindly right into our trap."