Commitment

The first minutes of the journey home were filled with suspenseful silence. With a smirk that deepened the dimple on her right cheek, Isabela quietly stared at me. I tried to look straight ahead and keep a smile from spilling onto my face, but I couldn't hold it in and finally chuckled.

"What?" I asked her.

"How—when… where did you learn to shoot like that, Papa?" she asked, her hazel irises seeming to glow as she stared at me.

"You were impressed?" I raised my eyebrows, asking the obvious.

"You were like… pew, pew, pew." To the best of her acting abilities, she mimicked me firing the rifle. "You hit all the cans with a single shot, didn't he, Teniente?"

"He sure did, Señorita. And each of them, squarely hit," Vicente answered from the driver's seat as he reined the pony in, taking a sharp turn as we left the narrow trail for the main town street.

"You too, Vicente?" I asked, thoroughly amused.

"Yes, I was, Señor. Unlike you, I'm not too prideful to give credit where it's due," he replied.

I was in such a good mood that I didn't mind his smart mouth. I shamelessly, thirstily drank in the praise.

"You can't do something like that unless someone trained you to be a tirador," Isabela added.

"That wasn't what impressed me most, though." To my surprise, the lieutenant wasn't done with his compliments. "The way you drilled them… the way you taught… Were you not an officer before, Gobernador? You really know what you're doing. You made them better marksmen with just a few of your inputs."

Isabela pouted and stared at the roof of the carriage as she thought deeply. "I'm quite sure you were never a military officer."

"Oh ho… How old are you, young lady? Do tell me again?" I asked.

"I'm seventeen… Don't you know that?" she tilted her head.

"I do know it, which means I lived… hmm, exactly thirty-three years before you were born. How would you know what I did in the past?" I said.

"So, you were a Spanish officer?" she asked, her bushy eyebrows clashing.

I only sighed and stared outside the carriage. We had yet to enter the town proper, and nothing blocked the view of the vibrant blue sea. "Something like that."

For a brief moment, all I heard was the creaking of the wheels until Vicente's annoying chuckle broke the silence.

"No need to get too hung up on it, Gobernador. Several Filipino officers in Luzon also served as officers in the Spanish Army. I met Major José Torres Bugallón two months ago, and he was a second lieutenant in the Spanish Army before."

"We are products of our time. You might have done things you regret in the past under the banner of Spain, thinking it was for the greater good. But what matters is that you've recognized the error of your ways, that you're a Filipino, and your allegiance is to the Filipinos, not to any foreign power."

The smartass was right. I was a Filipino now. But had I really switched allegiances?

"You should stop reading too much, Vicente."

---

The training continued in the following days, with me as the instructor. The Coronel and his officers were nothing but thankful, seeing the rapid improvement among their recruits, many of whom had fought in the revolution but learned little in combat. The meager Spanish forces in the islands had been defeated simply because of overwhelming numbers.

But to their credit, I found eager learners in the young men. They thirstily absorbed my instructions and looked at me as if I were a messiah sent from above. Because of this, volley after volley, I saw improvement in their marksmanship and rifle handling.

During the first meeting, they had mastered firing while prone, the most stable firing position and the easiest to learn the fundamentals with. By the second meeting, I started instructing them on firing from their knees, and they had mastered it by the third. By the fourth, we returned to the standing position, and having learned the foundations, it did not take long for them to excel at it as well.

"You really are the real deal, Don Lardizabal. I heard the Americanos are a different enemy than the Spanish. Our boys need all the proper training they can get," Maximo said to me as we watched the last batch of recruits in the firing line eviscerate the targets from twenty yards away.

"It's nothing," I said, and I meant it. I quite enjoyed being praised and feeling needed. I never thought I would be of use again.

And I could have enjoyed it more, were it not for the glaring fact that a lack of training was not the only issue.

The Rolling Block Rifles were likely outdated by the standards of the time. I had several rifles in my gun collection from the late 19th to early 20th century, and most of them were bolt-action and clip-fed. Whatever rifles the Americans in Manila were using, they would be better than a single-shot breechloader.

Their plain white uniforms, aside from being uninspired, might as well have had red dots painted on them. They provided no camouflage outside a field of cotton or a bed of daisies. And of course, most of the recruits did not have boots, having been barefoot the whole time.

All they had were obsolete rifles and overwhelming patriotism.

For these young men to have a chance, we needed to go all out. The recruits must be taught not only marksmanship but other aspects of soldiery. The officers needed education in tactics, logistics, and military strategy. Most of all, I would need to mobilize the resources and manpower of the entire province to build a competent fighting force.

But that would require another level of commitment, one that I could not give with the lingering doubts and questions in my mind.

"Is there something on your mind, Don Martin? Anything I could help you with?" Coronel Abad asked after a while. His ability to read faces was something he had learned in his previous occupation as a schoolteacher.

I sighed as I glanced at his perplexed face. In both the Coronel and his recruits, I was dealing with sincere and passionate patriots. They did not deserve my half-hearted efforts.

Not to mention, I was the governor. I enjoyed the privileges of the station and the respect of the people. Even though I knew they didn't expect much from me, it would be shameless not to respond with proper leadership.

I needed to make up my mind.

I must go to Manila.