LUKBAN
Months earlier in mid-August, Lukban had narrowly escaped a raid by troops of the U. S. 1 st Infantry Regiment against his headquarters in the village of Rosario. By a stroke of luck. Captain Jackson, the apprehending officer, chanced upon the sitio of Rosario, said to be the hideout of Lukban and his family. Not being acquainted with Lukban, he did not realize until one of his native guides pointed to a woman in one of the houses and announced that it was“ Mrs. Lukban.” On reflex, his men opened fire on fleeing people, one of whom was Lukban himself. The three who were with him were killed and his two military secretaries were captured, and one of them slightly wounded. Lukban’ s wife and child were taken to Calbayog. Jackson also seized important documents. 19
After that, Lukban, with a small contingent of men, sought refuge in the remote Yava River Valley, moving around constantly to avoid discovery from Army or Scout patrols. No word on his location was heard for several months. Then, on February 11, 1902, native spies reported to the Army’ s Laguan garrison Lukban’ s position at the village of Tamay. The garrison’ s commander, Captain George Bell, Jr., wanted to act quickly on the intelligence before Lukban shifted his location yet again.
Nominally, Bell possessed enough troops from the two companies based in Laguan, Company B, 1st Infantry and the 39th Philippine Scouts. Unfortunately, the majority of these forces were conducting patrols elsewhere. Only half of the 39th’ s strength remained on base. Command of the remaining Scouts from Leyte and Samar fell to 1st Lieutenant Alphonse Strebler, formerly a soldier in the Prussian army. Bell ordered Lt. Strebler out into the field to locate and capture Lukban. 20
Strebler’ s hunting party
The next day after receiving the intelligence report on Lukban’ s location, Lt. Strebler started from Laguan at 6:30 early morning with 40 men composed of native scouts, a corporal and 8 privates, a medical officer, 4 white scouts and 70 native couriers carrying 15 days’ ration – on a launch, steaming up the Catubig to Tagabiran, where they arrived at 10 p. m. that same day. They disembarked the next day at daybreak and started on a trail leading to a sitio called Sag-od along Sag-od River. After two hours on the trek, one of his privates fell into a trap, incapacitating his left foot, so that he had to be brought back to the launch.
They made camp on the right bank of Jopili River, and resumed their march at daybreak of the 13 th, arriving at the right bank of the Sag-
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