Philippines -- History -- Philippine American War, 1899-1902 -- Fiction
And so the remains of Private Willard Benton, that had been viewed by
many a genuinely sorrowing comrade and stowed away with solemn military
honors in a vault at Paco Cemetery, were sealed up as best they could do
it at Manila, and, though unconvinced as to their identity despite the
convictions of others in authority, the commanding general yielded to
cables from the War Department and ordered their shipment to San
Francisco. They were out of sight of all signals from Corregidor when
Martindale's cable came suggesting search for Private Benton Willard.
Zenobia Perkins sniffed contemptuously and scoffed malignantly when told
that the doubting Thomases were gaining ground and numbers, that though
Mr. Stuyvesant might be brought to trial for killing a man, it would not
be for killing Foster until more was ascertained regarding the actual
victim. Private Connelly, recovered from his fever, was forever hunting
up Farnham, the brakeman, and devising schemes for the capture of that
blackguard Murray. Day and night, he maintained that Murray was the man
who had accosted Clarke and Hunter at the battery, that it was probably
he who, with his pals, had waylaid and robbed the lone recruit returning
from his quest in East Paco, that it was he who must have struggled with
him again before firing the fatal shot; but not a trace of Murray or his
sailor mates could the secret service agents find, and matters were in
this most unsatisfactory state when at the end of November came the
Queen of the Fleet, despatched several weeks before to fetch along the
troops "sidetracked" at Honolulu, just as the commanding general and his
chief surgeon were in consultation as to what on earth to do with
Zenobia Perkins--the woman had become a public nuisance.
It seems that the Patriotic Daughters of America were now out of
patience and the vice-president out of funds. It seemed that her brief
ascendancy had carried the lady to such an altitude as to dizzy her
brain and rob her of all sense of proportion. It seems that the surgeons
in charge of three hospitals had complained of her meddling, that
colonels of several regiments had discovered her to be the author of
letters to the home papers setting forth that neglect, abuse, and
starvation were driving their men to desertion or the grave. It seems
that the Red Cross had protested against her as the originator of
malignant stories at their expense, and it was evidently high time to
get rid of her, yet how could they if that case was to be tried? Zenobia
Perkins knew they could not and conducted herself accordingly. She came
this day to the Ayuntamiento to demand pay for what she termed her long
detention at Manila.
"You compel me to remain against my will because I'm an indispensable
witness," said she to the saturnine adjutant-general, beyond whom she
never now succeeded in passing. She was volubly berating him, to his
grim amusement, when the lattice doors from the corridor swung open and
two officers entered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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