Chapter 74: Copra

    What Pedro said was true. The storehouses hadn’t even been emptied, with mounds of copra hugging the walls.

    Copra was an abundant resource found everywhere on the island. It’s the dried kernel of the coconut, used to extract coconut oil. A landowner who knew little about agriculture could still grow rich if he had coconut trees on his property, since they barely needed tending.

    But copra reeked—it smelled earthy, oily, musky, and smoky all at once. The scent clung stubbornly to fabric, which must’ve been why I’d been smelling it the whole way and assumed it was coming from somewhere else.

    To its credit, copra made for a soft cushion.

    "What are you doing?" Madrigal asked in alarm.

    "Come on now, you know you don’t have to be careful around copra," I replied. Copra wasn’t delicate and was usually handled with little care. All it needed was basic protection from the elements. My body weight pressing on it wouldn’t cause any damage.

    He shook his head. "No... why are you here?"

    I kept laying on the bed of copra and shrugged. "You’re all sleeping here. Why can’t I?"

    Pedro chuckled. "No... you don’t have to. You’re the governor and the general. We wouldn’t mind if you slept somewhere else. You’d be breaking the morale of the troops."

    "Do they look like their morale is breaking?" I said, gesturing to the soldiers. Some were giggling and following my example.

    "Do you remember what I told you during our first lesson?" I asked him. "The men eat first. A good officer ensures his soldiers are fed, cared for, and rested before himself. And you’ve done just that, Capitan Madrigal. You’ve made me proud."

    "Now... let me walk my talk. I am, after all, also an officer, bound by the officer’s code."

    His expression—a mix of perplexed and amused—was the last thing I saw before I laid my head down and closed my eyes.

    Then I remembered something and suddenly sat up. I scanned for Lorenzo and saw him trying to imitate me and the soldiers, awkwardly kneeling down at the foot of a copra mound.

    I wondered how his parents back in Boac would react to seeing their son so atrociously accommodated. To his credit, I had yet to hear him whine since they arrived in Kasily, or even see him scowl. And the fact that he’d followed his uncle to this horrid place was, to say the least, surprising. The training had really changed him.

    "Lorenzo!" I called.

    "Heneral!" he snapped to his feet and briskly walked toward me.

    "I want you to have a few men set up a blockade outside," I told him. "And if anyone comes looking for me, even if it’s the gobernadorcillo, tell them I am not to be disturbed."

    ---

    The next morning, I heard what I’d expected from the soldiers who had stood guard. They had erected a makeshift barricade out of leftover coco lumber and fallen coconut leaves, placing it across the road.

    "Don Suarez came last night, Heneral. He insisted on speaking with you, but as you instructed, we told him you were not to be disturbed," one soldier reported.

    "He tried to push through... so we had to raise our rifles to threaten him," said another, struggling to meet my gaze and glancing nervously at his companions.

    "You’ve done well," I assured them with a nod. "But who is he?"

    I pointed at a young man slumped asleep against the barricades on the other side.

    "He’s a servant of the gobernadorcillo," I was told. "I think he was left behind to speak with you the moment you showed yourself."

    I chuckled. "Well, he’s doing a poor job. Wake him up."

    A soldier walked around the barricade and started shaking the young man’s shoulders.

    The boy grunted for a moment, then suddenly sprang to his feet as he remembered where he was and what he’d been tasked to do. Horrified, his eyes widened when he saw me.

    "Sen?or Gobernador... the don... the gobernadorcillo... Don Suarez... he... he wants to apologize and would like to talk to—" the young man blurted out, stammering.

    "If your master is truly sincere in his apology," I said, "he will bring enough coffee and bread for all the soldiers here."

    The young servant nodded eagerly. "I shall tell him that at onc—"

    "I’m not finished," I interrupted. "I also want a meeting arranged with all the oficiales and the principales early in the afternoon."

    ---

    The coffee and bread were delivered—and in generous amounts. Before noon, several townsmen, likely at the gobernadorcillo’s urging, brought food to our makeshift barracks.

    From them, I heard quiet thank-yous, and they asked about a certain Heneral who led the battle against the pirates yesterday.

    The eyewitnesses must have begun spreading the accurate version of events: that my men had done the real fighting, and that Don Suarez and his militia had arrived late.

    Sta. Cruz was growing more welcoming by the second.

    But what impressed me more was that my request for a meeting was granted—and on time.

    I still reeked of abaca when I entered Don Suarez’s house, where the meeting was being held. At the long table in the sala

    sat several old men in a mix of suits and barongs, all watching me curiously.

    The seat at the head of the table had been reserved for me, while Don Suarez sat at the opposite end.

    The moment the gobernadorcillo saw me, he scrambled to his feet. The rest quickly followed suit.

    I kept my expression stern as I took my seat. I let them stand for nearly a minute before they slowly sat back down, unsure, in the silence broken only by the low murmur of the crowd gathered outside.

    "I understand... you are terribly upset, Gobernador," Don Suarez was the first to speak.

    "I am, indeed, gobernadorcillo," I replied. "Is this how you treat the servants of the Republic? You threw them into a filthy bodega without even blankets to fend off the cold?And would you have let them starve if they didn’t have money to buy their own food?"

    I glanced at Pedro, who stood at attention by the door. "Among them is my brother-in-law. If they had been your prisoners instead, I suspect they would have been treated better."

    All of them were silent. None of them met my eyes—except one.

    Pedro’s maternal grandfather, a terribly old man—older than I had been in my past life—spoke up with a quivering but defiant voice.

    "You must understand, Gobernador. We have yet to confirm if there truly is a war in Manila. What you ask of us... through your declaration of martial law, is heavy."

    Pedro had failed to mention that his mother’s side of the family in Sta. Cruz wasn’t fond of him. But to be fair, I hadn’t asked before sending him. It was only this morning I learned that Pedro’s father was never forgiven after eloping with the old man’s daughter.

    "That is reason enough for this maltreatment?" I huffed. No answer.

    "Well, I am here now," I continued. "And I will not wait for one of you to personally travel to Manila and hear bullets whizzing past your ears before you comply."

    "If I do not get your approval today, then the military will fully take control of this town." I snarled. "And if you resist, may I remind you how quickly we dealt with the pirates yesterday? Ten. Ten minutes."

    My words were met with more silence. Several men glanced toward the gobernadorcillo, until at last, he spoke.

    "We had actually already decided to follow your demands and fully comply with your declaration of martial law—before you arrived," Don Suarez said.

    "We only ask for one very small request."