Soothing the savage Sulu breast

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Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: Soothing the savage Sulu breast
Language: English
Source: The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume 7 (Issue No. 10) October 1927
Year: 1927
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Fulltext: October, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 19 Soothing the Savage Sulu Breast <§> <®> <§> Finnegan and Considine Say It With Music By Percy A. Hill The colonel of the United States regiment that had relieved the Spanish garrison in Sulu and taken up headquarters at Jolo was really worried. He wasn’t getting enough fighting out of the Moros, who preferred to welcome Uncle Sam with a treaty proposal; and his “single men in barracks” were not growing into plaster saints. Not exactly; Kipling says they never do. Goodness knows he had issued enough stem orders, spread enough official taboos around; but his men were honing for a fight, in the absence of which life in walled-in Jolo re sembled very much the prosaic round of exist ence in a medieval monastery. The colonel’s men were no monks, none of them—not even the regimental chaplain. Now, to crown the bitterness of the weary grind during several months that could only be distinguished from one another on the calendar, Finnegan and Considine were gone. The dregs of the cup were indeed many, the colonel’s cup was full and overflowing with impotent woe. Chinese bootleggers had been trying, the wiles of femi nine Jolo had perhaps been worse, but Finnegan and Considine’s disappearance was the breaking INDESTRUCTO TRUNKS Are the Best Trunks made Why Buy Others? SQUIRES BINGHAM Company Sportsmen’s Headquarters 15 Plaza Goitl Manila Phone 300 WELCH - FAIRCHILD, Ltd. SUGAR FACTORS AND EXPORTERS Agents Hawaiian - Philippine Company Operating Sugar Central Silay, Occ. Negros, P. I. Mindoro Sugar Company San Jos6, Mindoro, P. I. MANILA, P. I. Cable Address: WEHALD, Manila Standard Codes point. The colonel expressed his frank opinion of the situation, but this opinion will not be printed—not in the colonel’s language. Suffice it to say that the colonel was an old Indian cam paigner. With Finnegan and Considine, it had happened this way. Attached to headquarters was, of course, the regimental band, to officiate at guard mount and occasional parades and concerts. Now the trade of an army bandsman seems to excite an inordinate thirst. To know why, try the piccolo for half an hour. Finnegan and Con sidine were not immune to this thirst. Finnegan blew the trombone and Considine the cornet. Bunkies and comrades, they were acknowledged by common acclaim to be the chief ornaments of a band that prided itself on being the best in the Philippines. Finnegan, naturally, had an unquenchable thirst, even without the aggra vating circumstance of winding the trombone. Considine’s thirst was hardly less than Finne gan’s. Their mutual opinion of Volstead, had he then been active in the vineyard of the Lord, could have been best expressed by heaving a brick. The simultaneous visits of the army paymaster and a popular, though reticent, whiskey mer chant to Jolo, eventuated in an impromptu and unofficial holiday for the musicians. Fin negan and Considine not only fuddled them selves with copious and frequent draughts of old Mount Vernon, they invited the entire band to the seashore for a picnic. By sunset, every man was so happily and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the picnic that none could have played Annie Laurie on a bet. Fortunately, they had not brought along their instruments. Once before, when they had brought them along, eluding the eye of the German bandmaster, they had closed their festal program with a free-for-all fight in which Finnegan waded into the mSlee armed with a clarionet and a cymbal— much in the manner of a Roman gladiator. What little discretion the men cared to take account of, had since advised leaving the instru ments behind. This time there was no battle. Night came on anon, after a gorgeous sunset over the opalescent seas of Sulu; but the band lay hors de combat on the sandy beach, in total oblivion of retreat and call to quarters, blown by unsteady buglers green at the task. It was full nine of the clock before Finnegan and Considine, true authors of this military delinquency, awoke. Whereupon they put their wits together. They decided to return to bar racks, get out the trombone and the cornet, return to the beach and serenade their snoring fellow-bandsmen, and perhaps extend the un expected pleasure to the whole vicinity. A generous remnant of the picnic stock helped them to screw up courage enough to raid the barracks. They did this successfully and re turned to the beach. There they began their unholy duo. The music not only had the effect intended, of getting the others awake; it showed the guard New York Agents: Welch, Fairchild 8a Co., Inc. 135 Front Street San Francisco Agents: Welch & Co., 215 Market Street that the bandsmen were out of bounds, and brought that force and the officer-of-the-day on the run. Considine’s wits would have been too slow for this situation. Finnegan’s were not. Hearing the guards’ footsteps pounding behind him, Finnegan grasped his dismayed bunkie by the arm and took summary command. With their instruments and sundry squat bottles of what was left of the picnic, the two trouba dours beat a hasty retreat down the Jolo shore and left their comrades to face the sentence o “a month and a month’s” alone. They came upon a light vinta, drawn up on shore out of reach of the tide, and sheltered by a clump of bamboo. Finnegan knew what to do. Placing their plunder aboard without further ado, with a mighty heave they launched this craft, and, finding paddles on her, drew off some few hun dred feet into a depth of water that was too much for the v/n fa-less guard. Tipping a bottle, Finnegan and Considine congratulated them selves. Then they took up their instruments and blew forth a lusty blast that at last resolved itself into Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep! For the moment, Finnegan and Considine were ace-high with themselves. But not with the guard, who were frantic. No other craft was available, to pursue the minNEW NAVY JOB OPEN Sealed proposals, indorsed “Proposals for three Officers’ Quarters, Sangley Point, P. I., Specification No. 5395,’’ will be received at the Office of the Commandant, 16th Naval District, U. S. Naval Station, Cavite, P. I., until 11:00 a. m., October 28, 1927, and then and there publicly opened for three new Officers’ Quarters complete at the U. S. Naval Reservation, Sangley Point, P. I. 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Pinpin Phone 113 IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 20 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL October, 19V strels; coaxing and abjurgations alike fell upon deaf ears. For a full half-hour Finnegan and Considine roused the echoes in the adjacent town and the jungle-cumbered beach with excruciat ing strains of many melodies—with none to say them nay. Suluanos paid no attention. Under the urge of alak the crazy Americanos were likely to do anything. But the colonel, interrupted at his evening poker game, vowed the pair to a speedy courtmartial and a stiff sentence of posthole digging when they should be finally rounded up. They at last laid down their instruments, to return to the principal business of the day. Getting to their feet for their bibulous purpose, they promptly tumbled down again. They saw that the vinta rocked too much in the groundswell, so they hoisted sail to steady her a bit. Then they cuddled up and went to sleep—not only truly, but most peril ously, rocked in the cradle of the Sulu deep. Deus affiavit. God sent His wind. During the remainder of the night, a gentle breeze from the south blew the vinta along. When morning came “up like thunder,” as morning does come in the Far East, the vinta was approaching the Pangutarang islands—a good 50 miles from Jolo and the irate colonel. A pick-me-up helped the men’s headaches. After it they took in sail, for the blue combers were breaking on a steep forbidding shore only a little distance ahead. Finnegan and Consi dine were worried, not knowing where they were nor how they came to be there. For the moment they were as little children, but not of the king dom of heaven. They were, in fact, two des perate men whose picnic was over but whose troubles had just begun. On drifted the vinta, the anger of the breakers intensified. Again Finnegan acted, with Considine follow ing suit. They seized the oars, and with lugu brious efforts and copious perspiration they managed to steer the vinta toward a point where the breakers seemed lowest. Either by lucky chance or the faithful dispensation of a merciful providence, the vinta, settling low in the water at the stem, where her cargo of men, Mount Vernon and brass was stowed, was caught up by a groundswell circling the shore and hoisted bodily into a lagoon of comparatively quiet waters. Finnegan, Considine and the horns were none the worse for the experience, save for a generous splashing which did no real harm to any. A few moments’ paddling and the men were able to beach the vinta on a shore of microscopic shells and sand of dazzling whiteness. It was a beauteous shore. But it seemed to be also a deserted shore, and Finnegan and Considine were consumed with hunger. They likewise had a burning desire for water—cool, fresh water. A nearby spring eventually furnished them the water. But against all the canons, and despite the fact that the region is really and justly famed for its luscious and abundant fruits, the shore where our heroes landed was bare of any verdure whose leaves, flowers or tubercles even a famished man would dare to eat. The sail was dragged ashore and a rude awning made of it. Hungry as they were, Finnegan and Considine slept the tropic day away. To ward sundown they awoke, the gnawing at their middles unabated. Hardtack would have been angelfood to them then. In this extremity Finnegan again labored and brought forth an idea. No thought of returning to Jolo, even if they might guess within 90 points of the compass the direction they had come; and they might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb; so they set off on an adventure inland, carrying along their instruments. They happened to have landed on the main island of the Pangutarangs. It is a long rugged ridge, heavily forested. After prodigious strug gles through the lush vegetation, spiny creepers and thick virgin jungle, they emerged into a half-obliterated path. They followed this some distance, meeting no signs of habitation, for the principal settlements of the island are on the north shore. Exhausted at last and equally discouraged, they flung themselves down in a little clearing at the foot of a balete tree. Here Finnegan fathered another wonderful idea. If the moun tain would not come to Mohammed, then Mo hammed would go to the mountain. If they could find nobody to give them a meal, why not call somebody? So on the still jungle air rose the plaintive sentiment, Home, Sweet Home— an intuitive selection of Considine’s, most ap propriate for the occasion. Warming to their task, they put full force into the good old anthem and sent its reverberations well over the wooded ridge. After a solemn libation, they indulged themselves with an encore of the same appealing melody. This was rubbing the lamp to some purpose. A man, evidently a chief, with three others following, presently appeared at the rim of the clearing. This chief was dressed in pantaloons of what had once been white cotton drill. He sported a blue jacket with tarnished gold trim mings. His headgear was a red cundiman arranged like an Indian potong. For arms he carried a filigreed spear and a serpentine kris, balanced off with an old-fashioned pistol. His followers were more modestly arrayed, but still well armed with kris and spear. It would be difficult to say which of the two parties Was the most astonished, the Moros, to see the white Christians in their bailiwick, or the minstrels, to behold the genii called up by their music. But in spite of his fierce aspect, the old datu seemed a benevolent chap. He pointed out to' sea and tried the bewildered Americanos in Spanish. Their vocabulary in this noble medium being limited, they fell back upon the universal sign language—which seemed to get over with the datu well enough. Approaching them, he gingerly tapped the trombone. Considine countered with a grin from ear to ear, and, pointing pathetically to his mouth and midriff, signified a complete vacuum by tightening his belt. The trio of followers got this quickly, they began murmuring to the datu. Finnegan, seeing it was his move next, gave the preliminary tap. Once more he and Considine raised their instruments to their parching lips. The heart-stirring prophecy of a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight rolled over the hill, with all the variations of the period. At the first enthusiastic blast the datu and his retainers stepped back, involuntarily placing themselves on guard and poising their weapons. But as the concert proceeded its hilarity restored their confidence, they broke down into uncon trollable fits of laughter. 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Box 150 Now Filipinos are musically inclined, there is hardly a Christian community in the islands that does not have its band and orchestra. But it must be remembered that the brass horn, the hoarse tuba, the hautboy and the mellow bombardino were all introduced by the Spaniards and adopted by the natives who yielded to conversion by the evangelizing friars. The usual method was for the padre to arrange a velada, in which the fairest daughters of his flock took star concert parts and for which he could make an admission charge. With a fund thus in hand, the instruments for the parish band would be bought in Manila. Pending their arrival the good padre would make judi cious selection among the young men of his village, and when the instruments came an immediate distribution was made of them. At the same time the announcement was made that the first band practice would take place the next week. Pandemonium naturally reigned in that as piring village for the intervening seven days, but at the very first practice some semblance of harmony, for which the Filipino has a re markable talent, was always achieved. Within a few weeks the padre’s new band could play anything it could get the notes for, while at least some of its members would be composing marches dreamed out of the ancient legends of the race. However, these innovations were not ac cepted by the Mohammedans, the Moros of the south. They knew the guitar, the flute, the wardrum and the clashing gongs and cymbals. The datu of Pangutarang and his men knew these. But the blare of the trombone and th d piercing arias of the modern cornet were new to them, and doubly appreciated from the American strangers. The concert over at last, Datu Akob and his men led the way along a path that the visitors gratefully followed. An hour’s hiking ended at a bamboo stockade around a cluster of spider legged thatched huts, over which a grove of coconuts waved their rustling fronds. Toward the shore stretched a line of other huts, and along a creek another—all on stilts, partly over the land and partly over the water. Entering the compound at the invitation of Akob, Finnegan and Considine were greeted with the yelping of numerous mongrel hounds and the spicy garlic smells of the evening meal, already in the course of preparation. Lights were soon produced, Datu Akob led his guests into the largest and most imposing of the huts and bade them be seated. He proffered cigars, which were accepted with gusto, and he hastened with many hand-clap commands the serving of supper. This was boiled rice, chicken fried in coconut oil—since the Moslem everywhere IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL October, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 21 Advertising Pays Good advertising has become a pretty general habit. Advertisers have caught the new spirit in business presen tation; advertisements are read with greater interest and are really a guide as to what should and should not be bought. There seems to be very small space left in the world for business men who do not advertise in some form or other. People feel there must be something seriously wrong with a business that does not advertise: they fight shy of it. As shrewd observers of what is going on in the ad vertising world, you, readers, have surely noticed how invitingly, intelligently, advertisers present their message to you in the columns of the ESTABLISHED IN 1900 ttW, ^p<CFH^PpiNE COMMEW^S^--- ____ ---- ----.BULLETIN £ MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS 28 YEARS OF FAITHFUL SERVICE UNDER ONE MANAGEMENT IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 22 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL October, 1927 spurns pork and its fat—and half a dozen varieties of native fruits. Finnegan and Considine did ample justice to the culinary art sf Datu Akob’s wives and women. Meanwhile a hundred curious spectators foregathered in the house, awaiting the soiree promised them. Some squatted on their hunk ers, Malay fashion; others huddled together, standing, and gossiped in whispers; while in the background the women and slaves were silent and busy with serving and clearing away. On the outskirts of the assemblage lingered the pangulo of Laparan, an outlander to Akob’s tribe, whose gaudy jacket and business-like kris comported with the general demeanor and furtive eye of the fanatic. After the postprandial cigarettes, Datu Akob tapped upon Finnegan's trombone as a signal for a little entertainment. Lifting the instru ments to position, Finnegan and Considine gave the three harmonious blares which are indispensable preliminaries to concerts by army bands. They are a survival of the first military bands of Wallenstein, handed formally down the years: an acknowledgment of the invincible trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Then Finnegan and Considine burst into Sousa’s El Capitan! If the house was crowded before, it now became packed to the limit. Its posts and joists creaked with the increasing weight of delighted humanity. With the first notes the crowd had shrunk back in fear, just as Akob and his men' had done in the clearing. As the march proceeded, the crowd prepared for flight; then the listeners reassured one another and resolved to hold their ground, come what might. They soon burst into mirth. They yelled and laughed and shrieked with merriment, and evidenced the unrestrained emotion that the Malay always does evidence—when he evidences any at all. Datu Akob was fairly convulsed. One moment he would feebly signal Finnegan and Considine to stop, and the next he would wave frantically for them to keep it up. The tiiumph surpassed that in the clearing by the greater audience it had. Sacops in finery, slaves in shorts, women in loose trousers and sarongs, and children in the apparel of nature, congregated in a dense hilarious mass. Loud demonstrations of pleasure followed the first number; Finnegan and Considine responded with My Coal-Black Lady and I Guess I’ll Have to Telegraph My Baby. They, like Tupper himself, were singing for their supper, or at least giving the nearest substitute for song they had in stock. That night’s concert in Pangutarang was a howling success in more ways than one. When the Americanos would rest, shells of tuba would be passed around: there was no want of appreciation of this juice of the coconut, nor the proof of appreciation. Laparan gazed on the exhibition with unut terable envy. He too desired court minstrels. For more than an hour Finnegan and Considine smoked and drank and played, played, drank and smoked, amid a continual hubbub of ex cited palaver and comment. At last the hour grew late and the audience slunk away; the musicians congratulated themselves upon the happy outcome of their adventure. They were now provided with sleeping mats. Under the soporific influence of the tuba, they sunk into the dreamless sleep that rewards toil well done. After breakfast next morning Datu Akob proposed that they settle down and marry in his village, their position to be that of permanent court minstrels. Finnegan, whose eye had been roving among the many winsome young Moras the evening before, embraced the pro posal eagerly; but Considine’s thoughts were upon the ultimate consequences of their escapade. For the next few days they were well fed and lodged, but an armed young Moro, lent to them as a guide, assumed the role of a sentry rather than that of a helpful mentor. This care on Datu Akob’s part annoyed the men greatly. They thought every day of making their escape from Pangutarang and trying to get back to Jolo, but this feat required more than the mere desire to risk it, and their trombone and cornet might now better have been good Krag rifles. Under different circumstances the life might have had its appeal: the tuba, the attention of not uncomely women, and the plentiful meals. But the knowledge that they were, after all, quasi-prisoners, turned them against their worthy host and the easy alliances of his nu merous court. They lounged and loafed, not without pleasure, it is true, but also not without anxiety; and soon they could no longer put the wonted zest into their nightly concerts. At last Laparan invited them for a sail in his vinta. No sooner were they safely in the craft than loud calls and protestations from shore told them something was amiss. But their auda cious abductor’s men hastily raised the matting sails on the twin shears of the vinta and stood out to the west, for Laparan—pursued, of course, by Akob and a force of his cursing, nonplussed warriors. Here was adventure indeed. Finnegan and Considine lay low in the belly of the vinta, to escape random bullets and shots from the clumsy lantakas mounted in the bows of Akob’s warcraft; and Laparan’s vinta soon distanced the boats from Pangutarang. Instead, however, of going to Laparan, Pangulo Laparan took the kidnapped minstrels to Kap, a smaller settlement, ruled by Laparan’s uncle, Hadji Assan. Here again the concert of victory was staged, and again universal approval and the rabid envy of possession followed. Finnegan and Considine were as famous as harem beauties designed for a Moro holiday. They were soon in the toils of the mutual jealousies of the two bands, Pangulo Laparan’s and Hadji Assan’s. The upshot was that the partisans of the hadji fell upon those of the pangulo and forced them to sail away to meet the kindled wrath of Datu Akob. So at last they did, bowing to the inevit able, and with both fear and envy in their hearts; such is the volatility of Moro character. Yet it was not Akob’s men they feared, it was the auspices; their luck with Finnegan and Considine told them a spell was working. To be troubadours to the hadji of Kab was a welcome change from Pangutarang for Finnegan and Considine. The tuba was headier, the food better, and the women, rated virgins all, far prettier. All was merry enough for a time, but the causes of anxiety were not removed. From Laparan the sacop of still another island learned of the situation. ' He made a surprise landing one night at Kap, and the hadji’s men, repulsed, were forced to turn over the American minstrels to him as their new master. Another saltwater voyage through the night, concerts at a new court, and more entangl ing alliances—in accordance with the practice, if not the creed, of the datus, who encourage widespread paternity. Where the wandering minstrels would finally have brought up, Heaven alone knows. How ever, Datu Akob, smarting under Laparan’s treachery and his ill appreciation of Pangu tarang hospitality, took his swiftest vinta, winged his way over the seas to Jolo, and re ported the whole affair to His Highness Jamalul Kiram II, the Sultan. In turn the Sultan communicated with the fuming colonel of the —th U. S. Foot, who was still petulant over the disappearance of his star musicians and the stagnation of the regimental band. Learning how Finnegan and Considine were being period ically abducted from court to court among the lesser Sulu chieftains, the colonel loaded Com pany B into two commodious vintas and dis patched them under orders to fetch the musicians back to headquarters. With this expedition Datu Akob went along as guide. In due time Finnegan and Considine were apprehended. The surprise came just at the moment, between national hymns and ragtime, in which they were looking a shell of tuba in the face and daring the stuff to do its worst. A bevy of Moras were looking admiringly on. They abode by the Koran themselves, but it was jolly that their friends the America nos did not. At this felicitous interval, arrived the captain and men of Company B. Nothing could have been more inconsiderate. Finnegan and Considine were summarily degraded from their envied posts, bundled off, with their precious instruments, to the vintas and taken to Jolo and the colonel. This was satisfactory to the colonel, and not, indeed, lacking in compensations for Finnegan and Considine. But it by no means gave’ Datu Akob assurance that the adventure might not later be repeated—and possibly not at Pangu tarang. He proposed to make matters certain, and did so by bottling up the horns. When nobody was looking, he filled the necks of the trombone and the cornet with liberal plugs of beeswax. If he could not have American min strels at his own court, then no other chieftain could have them at his. Whether a paler progeny in certain northern Sulu hamlets has, in this day, an unwonted predilection for the slide trombone and the cornet, deponent saith not. He does say that Finnegan’s and Consid ine’s immediate occupation upon their return to Jolo was the digging of many postholes. 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