Chapter 30 : Battle of the Bagbag River (Part 4)
Luna's POV
The dust of Guagua, Pampanga, was thick and suffocating, kicked up by the iron wheels of the locomotive and the rhythmic, aggressive trudge of boots.
Heneral Antonio Luna stepped down from the train platform like a force of nature, his dark uniform immaculate, his face a contorted mask of barely contained fury. Behind him marched the elite Tiradores de la Muerte—their deep indigo-blue uniforms dark against the pale dust, their Mauser rifles held at a rigid, menacing port arms. Beside Luna, Mayor Manuel Bernal walked with a sharp, vigilant gaze, his hand resting on the hilt of his sidearm.
Luna didn't walk; he stormed through the streets toward the provincial headquarters, the heavy clatter of his saber against his boot echoing like a countdown to an execution. Townspeople scrambled out of the way, shutting their capiz-shell shutters tight as the black-uniformed column swept past.
Standing on the wide wooden veranda of the municipal building is Heneral Tomás Mascardo. He was dressed in a pristine, tailored rayadillo tunic, surrounded by his own provincial officers and a detachment of loyal Pampango guards. Mascardo held a half-smoked cigar between his fingers, watching Luna's approach with a cool, arrogant smirk that only fueled the inferno raging inside the Generalissimo.
Luna stopped at the foot of the stone steps, his boots planted wide, his hand resting heavy on his saber hilt. His voice boomed through the town plaza, sharp enough to cut glass.
"Mascardo!"
Heneral Mascardo took a slow, deliberate puff from his cigar, blowing a thin plume of blue smoke into the humid air before looking down from the balcony. "Heneral Luna. To what do I owe the honor of this sudden... military parade in my province?"
"You know damn well why I am here!" Luna roared, taking two heavy steps up the stairs, his eyes burning with a terrifying, manic light. "I sent you a direct military dispatch from the Department of War! I ordered you to mobilize your reserve companies and reinforce the center line at the Bagbag River! And you had the audacity—the utter insolence—to reply that you were attending a fiesta?!"
Mascardo's smirk faltered slightly, but his pride held firm. He straightened his posture, leaning against the carved wooden railing. "I answer to the Presidente of this Republic, Heneral. Not to a man who thinks shouting louder makes him a dictator. Guagua is under my jurisdiction. My men were resting."
"Resting?!" Luna's voice cracked like a whip. "The Republic is being strangled at Calumpit! Our men are bleeding in the mud along the riverbank while you sit here sipping wine and eating roasted pig! You breached direct military hierarchy! That is insubordination! That is treason!"
"Careful with your words, Antonio," Mascardo sneered, flicking the ash off his cigar into the dirt below. "You command the Department of War, but you do not own the henerals of Cavite and Pampanga. I told your messenger: if Heneral Luna wants me in Calumpit, he can bring a coffin, because that is the only way I am leaving this province under his orders."
The insult hung in the air, heavy and lethal.
A sharp, violent wave of tension snapped across the plaza. Before Mascardo could even take another breath, the guards on the veranda reacted.
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!
Over a dozen of Mascardo's personal guards unslung their Remington rifles, cycling the bolts in a ragged, panicked rush and leveling the barrels directly down at Luna's chest. The local officers drew their revolvers, their faces pale but set.
Inside Luna's column, there was no panic. There was only the terrifying, mechanical precision of true regulars.
CLICK.
In a single, synchronized heartbeat, the Tiradores de la Muerte raised their Mausers. The dark blue line shifted into a flawless firing arc, thirty high-velocity barrels zeroing in directly on Mascardo and his officers at point-blank range. Kapitan Bernal drew his sidearm with a swift, fluid motion, stepping up to cover Luna's flank.
"DOWN! LOWER YOUR WEAPONS!" Bernal barked, his voice vibrating with absolute lethality.
"TOUCH THAT TRIGGER AND NOT A SINGLE MAN ON THAT BALCONY LEAVES THIS PLAZA ALIVE!" a veteran Tirador corporal shouted from the front rank.
For five suffocating, agonizing seconds, nobody breathed. The plaza descended into a dead, terrifying standoff. A single nervous finger tightening on a trigger would have transformed the town square into an absolute bloodbath between brothers-in-arms.
Heneral Luna didn't even flinch at the dozen rifles pointed at his heart. He didn't step back. Instead, a dark, terrifying laugh bubbled up from his chest—a dry, rasping sound that sent a chill down the spines of the men on the balcony.
"You said you required a coffin, Tomás?" Luna whispered, his voice dropping into a deadly, gravelly register that carried across the silent plaza.
He raised his left hand and gave a sharp, single flick of his wrist.
From the rear of the Tirador column, four soldiers stepped forward. They weren't carrying rifles. Shoulder-high between them rested a long, heavy wooden box—a rough-hewn, pine funeral coffin, painted stark, terrifying black.
The soldiers marched forward in dead silence and slammed the heavy black coffin down onto the bottom step of the municipal building with a dull, hollow thud that echoed through the entire town.
Mascardo's face drained of color. The cigar slipped from his fingers, falling onto the wooden floorboards.
"I brought your coffin, Heneral," Luna snarled, his eyes drilling into Mascardo's soul. "Now... step down from that balcony and surrender your sword for insubordination, or by Almighty God, I will personally lay you inside it before the sun hits the horizon!"
The sheer, terrifying weight of Luna's iron will crushed the room. Mascardo's guards looked at the dark blue uniforms of the Tiradores, then at the black coffin sitting at their feet, their hands trembling against their rifle stocks. They knew the Tiradores wouldn't miss. They knew Luna was mad enough to do it.
Also, Rusca rushes and gave the letter to Luna. He read the the letter and gave to Manuel to read it aloud. Its the arrest order of General Tomas Mascardo, signed by the president Emilio Aguinaldo.
As Mascardo heard the name, he swallowed hard, his throat dry, his mouth opening to speak—
THUD! THUD! THUD!
The frantic, desperate pounding of horse hooves shattered the standoff. A rider in a sweat-stained Rayadillo uniform came galloping wildly into the plaza, his horse skidding to a violent halt against the cobbles, throwing up a cloud of dust.
"GENERAL! GENERAL LUNA!" the courier screamed, tumbling off his saddle and falling to his knees in the dirt at Luna's feet. He was gasping for air, mud-splattered from head to toe, holding a crumpled telegraph dispatch in his shaking hand.
Luna didn't take his eyes off Mascardo immediately. "Speak, orderly!"
"It's Bagbag, sir!" the messenger choked out, his voice cracking with sheer panic. "The Americans... the Americans launched their offensive at dawn! Their field artillery opened fire on the center line! Three full companies of blue coats crossed the river!"
Luna froze. The burning rage in his eyes instantly snapped into a cold, terrifying shock.
"The center..." Luna whispered, the reality of his decision crashing down on him like an avalanche. He had stripped the bridgehead. He had taken his best shooters, the cavalry, and the primary locomotive away from Calumpit to chase a petty political insult in Pampanga. " Román... did the line break?!"
"We don't know, Heneral!" the runner cried out. "The telegraph wire near the station went dead right after the preliminary bombardment started! The whole sector is engulfed in smoke!"
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the plaza.
Luna stood on the steps, looking at the black coffin, then at Mascardo, then back toward the eastern road where the faint, rolling thunder of distant artillery seemed to echo through the humid air. The absurdity of the standoff—the wasted hours, the political pride, the petty squabbling while his men were potentially getting slaughtered in the mud—hit him with the force of a bullet.
"God damn it..." Luna hissed through clenched teeth, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his saber hilt.
He spun on his heel, turning his back on Mascardo and the balcony. The feud was instantly eclipsed by the cold, brutal reality of the front line.
"Kapitan Bernal!" Luna barked, his voice snapping back into command authority.
"Sir!" Manuel Bernal answered, sheathing his sidearm.
"Take half of the detachment and secure this town," Luna ordered, gesturing toward Mascardo, who was still standing paralyzed on the balcony. "Teniente Garcia! You take charge of the Tiradores left behind. Keep General Mascardo under house arrest until the Department of War processes his court-martial. If he moves a single company without my written seal, shoot him."
"Understood, General!" Garcia acknowledged, gesturing for his sharpshooters to form a perimeter around the municipal building.
Luna didn't wait to see the order executed. He strode wildly back down the dusty street toward the railway platform, his cape billowing behind him like a storm cloud.
"The rest of you, with me! TO THE TRAIN!" Luna bellowed.
The remaining half of the Tiradores broke formation and sprinted after their commander. They boarded the iron cars in a flurry of clattering rifles and heavy boots. Steam hissed violently from the locomotive's valves as the engineer, seeing the General's terrifying expression, opened the throttle wide.
CHUG... CHUG... CHUG...
The iron wheels shrieked against the rails, throwing up sparks as the train lurched violently forward, accelerating out of the Guagua station at breakneck speed.
Inside the primary passenger car, General Antonio Luna stood by the open window, his hand resting on the frame, his eyes fixed on the eastern horizon where dark columns of smoke were rising into the pale blue sky over Bulacan. Beside him, Mayor Manuel Bernal adjusted his belt, his face grim.
Luna's chest heaved with heavy, ragged breaths. For the first time since the war began, the Iron General felt a cold, sharp knot of dread tightening in his stomach. He had left a low-ranking Sergeant—a boy named Valerian—and sixty-three men to hold the mouth of a meat grinder against a thousand Americans.
"Faster!" Luna screamed toward the engine cab, slamming his fist against the wooden wall of the train car. "DRIVE THIS DAMN TRAIN FASTER!"
As the locomotive thundered down the tracks toward the Bagbag River, Luna clutched his sidearm, desperately praying that the center line hadn't turned into a mass grave before his return.