Chapter 39: Calle Real
It wasn’t until we were actually traveling—no longer just planning—that it fully dawned on me how arduous a workaround the rising tensions with the Americans had forced us to take.
Had we access to the port of Manila, we could’ve boarded Alcantara’s ship and reached Marinduque within a fortnight.
But because we would almost certainly be apprehended the moment we set foot in the city, and because the Americans likely had eyes on Manila Bay and nearby ports through their navy, we had to go further south.
Three days—that was the estimated travel time from our disembarkation point in Caloocan to the remote town of Ternate, Cavite. With the crates and the twenty-six-man escort detail, including Vicente, we could only move at marching pace.
If Isidro managed to convince Señor Alcantara, and if all went as planned, we would arrive in Ternate on the 26th with the ship already waiting for us.
After disembarking in Caloocan and acquiring a horse from the soldiers working the trenchworks around the town, we continued our journey southward.
Our pace was hampered by the traffic. It wasn’t just columns of uniformed men dragging their supplies who crowded the dirt roads—some civilians living around Manila had begun evacuating, like flocks of birds fleeing ahead of an oncoming storm.
We reached another trench line under construction in La Loma, which made it the closest entrenchment to the American positions. It was there we learned that Heneral Luna was in the area, though we couldn’t readily find him—he was off somewhere along the stretch, instructing troops.
Instead, we found Colonel Bugallon again. We spoke briefly, and by the end of the conversation, he had secured for me two carabao-pulled carts for the crates. He offered additional men for my escort, but I declined. More men would only slow us down.