The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles

Chapter 11-1

Chapter 11With Eichel now a bad memory and no longer a threat,

the voyage to Manila Bay was fast and uneventful. The China

arrived on a Sunday morning, and Katharina and I agreed to leave

the ship together. Pacific cable communication service between the

United States and the Far East wouldn’t be established until some

nine years later. So there had been no way to alert her brother

that she had left San Francisco and was on her way.

Before we disembarked, we met with Captain

Kreitz and Deputy Captain Partington. They wondered about Eichel

and why he had decided to leave the ship in Hong Kong. Katharina

said she assumed he decided his mission on behalf of the German

government had failed, and he was going to return to San

Francisco.

I didn’t know if the two men were satisfied

with that explanation. Partington informed us that the China

would remain in Manila another five days, taking on supplies,

adding some crew, conducting some engine work, and repairing

whatever damage had been done while riding out the typhoon.

We said our good-byes to Kreitz and

Partington, and Potts agreed to have Katharina’s trunks sent to her

brother’s residence in Manila’s affluent Santa Cruz district. Potts

refused to take another five-dollar bonus from me, insisting that

he hadn’t earned it. Of course, as far as I was concerned he had

more than earned the money I had given him during the voyage.

After leaving the ship, Katharina and I

flagged down a carromata, one of Manila’s ubiquitous horse-drawn,

two-wheeled carts. We sat in the rear seat, protected from the hot

Philippine sun by a retractable canvas top, while the driver sat

exposed in the front.

Ten minutes later, we pulled up in front of

Manfred Messner’s house. It was a sprawling two-story Spanish style

building with cream-colored adobe walls. An upper story of

varnished wood projected far over the lower floor with a broadly

covered balcony and large ornamental dormer windows that opened to

let in the ocean breezes.

A wide covered veranda encircled three sides

of the house, which was surrounded by a forest of magnolia, acacia,

and palms trees. Behind the house were banana and pomelo trees

heavy with fruit. A ten-foot-high stucco wall implanted along its

top with shards of broken glass surrounded the property—an addition

that was apparently de rigueur for wealthy Filipino and foreign

residents of Manila.

We walked through a wrought-iron gate and up

a few steps to the veranda and stood before a heavy ten-foot-high

teakwood door affixed with a heavy iron knocker. Katharina lifted

it and let it fall. A few seconds later, the door opened, and a

Filipino man in a white barong and black trousers stood facing

us.

He looked us over carefully. Before he could

say anything, Katharina spoke up.

“I am Katharina Schreiber, Manfred Messner’s

sister from the United States, and this is Mr. William Battles from

Kansas. We have come to visit my brother.”

The Filipino man stepped quickly aside,

bowed slightly, and ushered us into a large living room.

“Por favor, espera aquí… voy a llegar el

señor Messner,” the man said. I hadn’t heard Spanish in quite a

while, but I understood that much. We were to wait where he had

taken us, and he would find Katharina’s brother.

“Muchas gracias,” I said.

“So among your other legendary

accomplishments, you are also a Spanish linguist?” Katharina asked

in her uniquely facetious way.

“Hardly, but I picked up a bit here and

there.”

“Uh huh… Well, it will come in handy here. I

am not sure how many people here speak English, and I am sure

barely a handful can speak German.”

The two of us settled onto a wicker settee.

I looked around the room, which was a good forty by fifty feet

square. Its walls were finished in molave hardwood with shelves

laden with blue and white oriental vases, small statues of bronze

and wood, and a plethora of other knick-knacks. The floors were

polished mahogany, covered here and there by lush multicolored

oriental carpets. Bamboo and rattan furniture was distributed

throughout the room along with ornate native wood cabinets and a

Bösendorfer grand piano. Manfred Messner was obviously doing quite

well with his trading company and lumber business.

I was about to remark on that when an

angular, long-limbed man who looked to be about six feet tall

walked in and stopped in his tracks.

“I don’t believe it… Katharina, Carlos told

me it was you, but I didn’t believe it.”

Katharina stood up, rushed toward her

brother, and threw her arms around him.

“Oh, Manfred, you will not believe the

improbable journey I have had from San Francisco.”

He looked from Katharina to me. “I see.”

Manfred was a hatchet-faced man who looked

to be in his late thirties. He had flashing steely blue eyes that

were wide set above a bladelike nose and a thin-lipped mouth. Along

the right side of his face was a noticeable liverish scar that ran

from the lobe of his ear almost to his mouth.

Katharina laughed. “No, no, it’s nothing

like that. This is William Battles from Kansas on his way to

Saigon. He was kind enough to help me when things got complicated

during the journey.”

“Complicated,” Manfred repeated.

“How?”

Before Katharina could answer, he walked

over and extended his hand. “Happy to meet you, Mr. Battles.

Welcome to Manila.”

We shook hands, and then we all settled into

large rattan armchairs, and Katharina spent the next half hour

describing the voyage from San Francisco, including the encounter

with Oskar Eichel and the eventual resolution of that

predicament.

“Poor bugger… I can imagine nothing worse

than being shanghaied,” he said. “Still, Mr. Battles, I must thank

you for looking out for my sister… even though she usually does

pretty well on her own… except when it comes to husbands.”

Katharina shot me a sheepish glance at that

comment. “Husband, Manfred, please… I only had one… and as far as I

am concerned, one was enough.”

“Now, now, Katharina. Not all men are cut

from the same cloth that Rupert was… right, Mr. Battles?”

“I have known a few like him… but I would

say he and others like him are the exception.”

Katharina laughed. “You men do stick

together, don’t you? By the way, Mr. Battles here is a famous

Kansas lawman who consorted with any number of famous and infamous

galoots.”

Manfred looked at me and smiled. “You have

to forgive my sister… She has a vivid imagination.”

Katharina’s eyes focused on Manfred’s face

and the prominent scar. “It looks like that wound is healing

nicely.”

“As well as can be expected,” Manfred

interrupted.

“Well, I think it makes you look quite the

German aristocrat… like you have a Schmiss..”

I had heard that term before. Translated

into English, it meant “fencing scar.” In Germany, it was

considered almost obligatory among upper-class university students

who often belonged to fencing clubs. They intentionally allowed

themselves to be cut on the cheek with a foil or saber as a sign of

character and courage.

“I could do without it,” Manfred said.

“And I could do with a scorching bath,”

Katharina replied.

“Right. Let’s get you both settled. Mr.

Battles, I hope you will be my guest as long as you are in

Manila.”

“Of course he will,” Katharina said before I

could reply. “We can’t have a Kansas sand cutter wandering the

streets of Manila by himself. He might get shanghaied.”

Manfred Messner’s house was enormous. In

addition to the living room, there was a dining room with a table

that could accommodate fourteen people. There was also a library

with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and several overstuffed chairs.

Near the library was a sitting room for informal occasions, a

sizeable office, a billiard room, an indoor bathroom, and a large

kitchen outfitted with the latest appliances.

There were eight bedrooms upstairs,

including the master suite. A large semi-enclosed roofed porch

replete with chairs and settees was accessible from every bedroom.

There were three more indoor bathrooms and another large room in

the rear that was locked.

Carlos showed me to my room while a woman

named Grace took Katharina to hers—a room next door to her

brother’s that was connected by a common door.

I could get used to living in Asia, I

thought to myself. Of course, I had no job, no prospects, or any

idea what I would find once I arrived in Saigon. Signore Difranco

didn’t even know I was coming. What would I do if he were no longer

in Saigon and gone back to France or Italy? If that were the case,

it would be a long trip back to the United States. I shuddered at

the thought of another three weeks or so on a ship.

Like Katharina, I decided to take a long hot

bath. Bathing aboard the SS China had been limited to an

undersized bathtub in my cabin’s water closet, and I must admit I

used it only occasionally. The bathrooms in Manfred Messner’s house

were bigger than some dwellings I had been in on the Kansas plains.

Most impressive was the running water, which was pumped up from a

four-hundred-gallon water heater located behind the house. It was

piping hot.

The three of us had a leisurely dinner that

night, and the next morning, after breakfast, Manfred took the day

off to show us around Manila.

As we rode through the city in his stylish

French Victoria carriage, Manfred explained that the Pasig River

divided Manila into two sections. On the south side of the old

walled city were the large districts of Malate, Ermita, and Paco.

On the north side was the principal retail business street, the

Calle de la Escolta—a narrow street barely four blocks long in the

Binondo district that ran east-west parallel to the Pasig

River.

“Hard to believe, but the Escolta has been

here since 1594, and this year is its three-hundredth birthday,”

Manfred said. “It is the center of life in Manila.”

The Escolta was lined by two and three-story

buildings housing small shops and other businesses. Manfred’s M. K.

Trading and Lumber Co. was one of them. Men in white cotton pants

and jackets and straw hats strolled past shops that were filled

with merchandise from Europe. The street itself was choked with

horse drawn trams, carromata, and dozens of slow-moving carabao

carts hauling freight, vegetables, and fruit for sale at the

markets.

“Carabaos are the water buffalo of the

Philippines,” Manfred said. “They are slow, lumbering beasts that

are obedient so long as they get a daily swim in the river. And you

don’t want to be in front of one when it is angry.”

From the Escolta, we moved over the heavily

traveled Puente de España or the Bridge of Spain that spanned the

Pasig River and connected the old walled city to the Binondo

business district. The gray stone bridge was put up in the early

seventeenth century and was one of the oldest structures in

Manila.

We then drove through the Puerta Real gate

into the old walled city known as the Intramuros. High stone walls

that were built by the Spanish in the early sixteenth century to

protect the city from Chinese pirates surrounded the old town. They

were impressive—forty feet thick at some points. Fort Santiago,

which forms the northwest corner of the wall facing Manila Bay, was

later built into the wall.

Touring Manila was an eye-opening experience

for me. For one thing, I had never seen structures so old in my

life. Back in Kansas, buildings that were fifty or sixty years old

were considered ancient. For another, I had no idea that a city

like Manila existed in Asia. It reminded me of Mexico.

Katharina seemed to sense my amazement.

“Rather marvelous, isn’t it?” she said.

Then looking at Manfred, she added, “No

wonder you choose to live here… It is much more charming than

Chicago.”

“Yes, but it has its faults too,” Manfred

said. Then looking around carefully, he added, “Not the least of

which are the Spanish masters who have generally enslaved the

Filipino people for the last 350 years.”

It occurred to me that what Manfred said

seemed to be a recurring theme in Asia.

Two days later, that subject became a heated

topic of discussion at a dinner Manfred gave for a few Spanish,

German, English, and Filipino friends—including the Filipino

novelist, poet, journalist, ophthalmologist, and nationalist, Dr.

José Rizal.

As we gathered in Manfred’s spacious living

room, Manfred introduced me to Rizal—a clean-shaven, slim man with

black wavy hair, and dark, intense eyes. He looked to be just about

the same age as I was.

“Mr. Battles, I would like to introduce you

to another journalist, Dr. José Rizal.” Katharina and I were

standing together, and instead of taking my hand, Rizal extended

his hand to her.