The White Admiral sits in a wicker chair in his quarters on the flagship of the victorious Fleet. He is dressed in white, with a white head of hair and a thick white moustache, resplendent against the stateroom’s dark, polished wood. This could be a room in a grand hotel, the Olympia so huge that they are barely rocked by the waters of the Bay. The White Admiral crosses his hands and rests them against his middle, while the smaller brown men sit facing him with their hats in their laps, afternoon rays slanting into their eyes from the skylight above. One of them, the exiled General, ventures to speak in careful Spanish.
He congratulates the White Admiral on his great naval victory.
The White Admiral smiles and nods when this is translated for him.
“We have come,” the Admiral says in English, looking the exiled General directly in the eye, “to lift the yoke of Spanish rule from the backs of the Philippine people.”
Diosdado sits behind and to the side of the White Admiral, hired by the Americans to help if the exiled General cannot say what he wishes in Spanish and needs to revert to Tagalog. But Aguinaldo’s Spanish is adequate if not elegant, and Diosdado only listens.
The exiled General expresses his admiration for the grandeur and beneficence of the American nation. It is a courtly dance, between partners who have been only recently introduced.
The White Admiral asks if the exiled General will not soon return to his country and lead his people against the Spanish forces still occupying it.
“My people are willing,” replies the General, “but lack arms with which to demonstrate their patriotism.”
The White Admiral and the exiled General discuss details of bringing arms into the country. A quantity of Mausers and ammunition are already here, carried up from Corregidor Island, and many more can certainly be purchased and shipped from Hongkong with the help of the U.S. Consul. An aide to the White Admiral, standing discretely to one side and speaking as if it is a somewhat insignificant consideration, mentions the sum of seven American dollars per rifle, of thirty-three dollars and fifty cents for a thousand rounds.
The exiled General is soft-spoken and polite as always, his expression guileless. Did his face look like this, wonders Diosdado, when the Bonifacios were led away to be slaughtered?
“I must tell you,” says the General to the White Admiral, “that there is some uneasiness among my fellow patriots, men who worry that once the Spaniard is vanquished and we are weakened by the struggle, your country may decide to replace them as our masters.”
The White Admiral nods pleasantly. The floor of his stateroom is littered with wicker baskets overflowing with congratulatory cables and letters and gifts. There is a rumor that his cook travels into the blockaded city by launch every day, to buy fresh fruit. He answers slowly in English, as if reassuring a child frightened by a storm.
“America is wealthy in both land and resources,” he says. “It has no need of colonies.”
Pepito Leyba, younger even than Diosdado, translates for the General, managing to transmit both the White Admiral’s condescending yet friendly demeanor and his lack of specificity.
“This is reassuring for me to hear,” responds the exiled General. “My colleagues, however, will be more reassured, more likely to rally to our cause, if they could read of your intentions in an official statement.”
“An official statement like the one you signed with Spain,” counters the Admiral, sitting back on his wicker throne, “that stipulated your permanent exile?”
There are men, friends of Diosdado’s, who will never forgive the General for the Treaty of Biak-na-Bato. To accept money from the Spaniards, to accept amnesty and exile, even if—
The General appears unperturbed. “The Spaniards did not honor the Treaty,” he says flatly.
“And so you will see,” smiles the White Admiral, “that the word of honor of an American is more positive, more irrevocable, than any piece of paper.”
The exiled General flicks his eyes to Diosdado when Leyba says the word irrevocable.
“Manatili,” Diosdado translates. Leyba speaks Spanish, French, English, Tagalog, and who knows what else, but perhaps the General is asking for more than a word here. Do not trust these people, Diosdado thinks, and hopes the thought is transmitted through his eyes.
The General’s expression does not change. The White Admiral either will not or has not the power to promise their independence if Filipinos lead the fight to expel the Spaniards. If they do not fight, however, do not show their willingness to kill and be killed, how much more likely, with German warships hovering in the bay, with the Japanese so rapidly building up their own navy, that the yanquis will choose to stay?
“We must proceed with the liberation of the islands,” says the White Admiral, “and must act toward each other as friends and allies.”
On being introduced, Diosdado feigned that he had never before met the General or Pepito Leyba, had shaken hands formally and stepped back into his place. After the General is gone the Americans will ask him for his impressions, and he will say “I think he believes everything he said.” And then later he will report to the General and be questioned and say he thinks the Americans have not yet made up their minds. And though both statements are obvious and true he will be a spy, and neither side will give him their complete trust. The Americans have destroyed the Spanish fleet, the dreaded gunboats that precluded any chance of Filipinos attacking Manila, their blackened hulks still visible in the shallows off of Sangley Point. The Americans have taken the Cavite Arsenal and have their big guns trained on the Spanish garrison within the Walled City of Manila. There is no saying how they will fare in Cuba, the liberation force as yet to leave American shores, but here, here they have been godlike in the speed of their devastation. If the White Admiral lacks guile, it is because up to this moment he has not required it. Whereas Aguinaldo—
“I am willing to sacrifice my own life in this great undertaking,” says the exiled General, “as is every true patriot in our nation.”
In the pilot boat on the way out the American ensign who came for him was much amused by the crowd of lanchas being poled back and forth with their loads of zacate fodder and piled stems of bananas.
“Look,” he winked to Diosdado, “it’s the Filipino Navy.”
The White Admiral rises above them, an avuncular smile on his face, and offers his hand.
“Go and start your army,” he says.