Chapter 89: Cluttering
Boac had grown very busy. The quaintness I once loved about it was gone. I could no longer hear the birds, drowned out by the shouting and the thumping boots of the recruits in the plaza, and the sound of sawing and hammering from the buildings being constructed.
The town streets had been taken over by roving bands of civilian patrolmen and supply carts cluttering in and out of town.
Nor could I smell the scent of the sea anymore, with all the carabao droppings littering the streets. Someone had paid the town kids to deal with it, but the kids, being kids, weren’t exactly efficient.
It reminded me of Malolos. And perhaps we were the only place in the Philippines, far from the frontlines, that was this busy. I don’t think the other generals had been as aggressive as I was.
Behind all the activity was the spillover of the recruits. Knowing that we couldn’t train all the men who were willing to sign up, we had temporarily stopped accepting new ones. Instead, they were redirected to work for the civilian officers—especially for Señor Grimaldo as collectors, and Señor Madrigal as movers.
"How has it been?" I asked Señor Alcantara as we stood on the same balcony where I had once made my speech.
We watched Rodrigo scold a group of kids below, tasked with removing the carabao droppings right in front of the Casa Real. They didn’t have shovels, so they tried scooping the large turds with scrap planks—and ended up spreading crap all over the place.
With Colonel Abad, Dimalanta, and the cadets on their break, and with me soon leaving for Santa Cruz, I had asked the teniente de navío to take over military command in Boac.
Dimalanta had just finished training the 200 new Boac recruits. Aside from a platoon I had sent with Sargento Tolentino to assist Isidro in Gasan, Señor Alcantara would have the rest under his command to oversee the provincial capital.