She had never seen him shed tears, become as drawn out in turmoil as in this past month. But then he had buried the war, had asked her to never bring it up. He had shut it out for so long. Perhaps opening that door to those memories for the first time let the deep, uncontrollable emotions surface. And perhaps that was natural after all, she posed to herself in silence.
But now she faced her own struggle with the past. She hadn’t meant to deceive him, to allow him to deceive himself. Why couldn’t she just hold her arms open and say what her heart and mind knew to be true? Instead she embraced something she desperately wanted to believe.
The trouble was, the longer they had lived the ruse the easier it was to believe. And somehow she even thought it had its own life. Lucian was Lucian, Norman was Norman, just like before the war. The man who kissed her, loved her, was the man she married. That was that.
But nagging in the background was the thought … No! She would not allow herself to finish the thought. She never had.
She arose and wiped at the streams of dampness on her cheeks with the palms of a wrinkled hand. She held them up and looked at them thoughtfully, wondering how they had gotten that way. She was nineteen but days ago, or so it seemed.
She walked to the bathroom and stared at the note taped to the mirror. She didn’t have to focus her eyes or get her reading glasses. She knew where her sweetheart of fifty-five years had gone. He was where he should be and there was no stopping that man once he made his mind up. Both brothers were just as stubborn. Now both Lucian and Norman needed to be alone together, even at this hour.
She closed her eyes and mouthed a simple plea: “Dear God, Please allow me the courage to talk to him. To tell my beloved that I am so very sorry. Please forgive me for the falsehood I have built and the pain I have caused my sweetheart. Give me strength, oh Lord.”
She wiped at her eyes and went to the dresser and pulled out the well-worn envelope marked April 25, 1945. It had been a letter from her to her newly-returned-from-war husband. She never had the will or courage to give it to him when he returned to the States. He wouldn’t talk about the war, the past, or the death of his brother. It simply made it all the harder to give it to him.
She knew what she must do. The night would be given to her darling lover to do what he had to do in reconciliation with his brother. The morning would be given to her to do what she should have done fifty-five years ago.
CHAPTER 33
The American and Filipino stood respectfully before the marker, a white cross illuminated by a full moon. Lucian took his coat off and laid it upon the uncut grass to shield him from its moisture. He sat upon it and brushed at the wetness upon the fungusblackened cross of his brother’s grave.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said quietly.
“I understand, Senor Parker.”
He eyed his new Filipino friend as if looking through him. “You are your father to me this night. Now I know …” His voice trailed off plaintively. “I thought I was … and you were … Now I know,” he repeated softly.
“Know what, Senor Parker?”
“This is how it should end. You want to sit? Maybe I could tell you more,” he offered as one gentleman would a chair to another.
“No, thanks. Maybe I should leave you alone?”
“I suppose so. I could tell you some real stories, stories of our fight to survive, how we almost made it back. We’d all be alive today if … Manuelito, my brother, and me, that is.” Lucian stumbled with his words and again quietly voiced, “if … ,” leaving it at that.
“I go get my poncho. In the trunk. If you know some things about my father, maybe you share them. That would maybe never happen again.”
“Maybe. I want to talk tonight, though. I surely do,” the man from Warm Springs replied.
Vincente returned and spread his poncho on the ground. “I never spend time at cemeteries. Too spooky. Your stories better be good.” He grinned.
“Well, good or not, they are about us—my brother, your father, and me. You still want to hear?”
The Filipino nodded. “Can the dead hear us, you think?”
He sighed, head bent toward the headstone of his twin brother’s resting place. “I hope so,” he breathed.
“It was before the war. I was angry as hell at my brother for something he had done. Riding the rails home from Los Angeles to National Guard training at Fort Bliss, Texas, I met a stranger. His name was Skully. I was pretty angry. Angry at my brother.”
He went on to tell the younger Filipino about the rail bum who had wisely given him a gift of understanding how to direct his anger. Then he explained all that had happened between himself and his brother that brought them to join the New Mexico National Guard and finally find themselves in the Philippines in 1941.
CHAPTER 34
September 1941, Manila, the Philippines
After eight weeks at sea the men of the 200th Coastal Artillery had landed in a verdant tropical garden city of wide avenues lined with palm trees. It was a stark contrast to earth-colored New Mexico and other parts of the country they had known.
“Look at them pretty señoritas will ya? Man, if we haven’t landed in paradise. I’ve never seen so much green mixed with so many contented people in all my life. Sure got more green than all of New Mexico,” Johnny Mead remarked as they rode through Manila in the back of the carriers forming a long column for their new assignment.
“Sure does, cousin,” Norman replied. “Wonder how Lucian’s doing,” he added.
“He’ll be ahead of us with the HQ Battery. I saw them taking off and loading the fifty-calibers first. They’ll be waitin’ at that Fort—what’s its name?” Johnny asked.
“Stotsenberg. Fort Stotsenberg. Next door to Clark Airfield where they got a bunch of them P-40 fighter planes and B-17 bombers they want us to protect,” Norman answered dryly.
“Yeah. Anyway, it’s a few miles up the road north, they say. Maybe an hour, one fella who’s already been and back says.”
“Guess so,” Norman replied, eyeing the steam engine pulling out from the station off to their right. “We ought to get our regiment one of them,” he pointed.
“One of what?” Johnny Mead asked.
“One of them,” he grunted and pointed. Wouldn’t need fifty trucks. Just one of them babies and maybe ten boxcars, some trucks for loading and unloading is all.”
“Yeah, I guess you’d like that.”
“You bet I’d like to run one. I’ll bet I could make that iron horse purr. They ought to take better care. Look at the rust on the boiler. One of these days she’s gonna bust wide open. Get somebody killed.”
“Say, you guys …” Johnny started in his friendly talkative way with the other men riding in the back of the army duce-and-a-half. “What do ya think of them Filipinos?”
“Who?” Julio Martinez from Gallup questioned as he looked in the direction Johnny pointed. “Those are women, knothead! Women are Filipinas. Filipinos are men. Get the ‘a’ and ‘o’ right. Put an ‘a’ on the end for women, an ‘o’ for the men. Good thing I’m along with you, hombres,” he laughed, shaking his head.
“Look! They’re waving at us,” Johnny added gleefully, shouting and whistling. “Viva las Filipinos!” Johnny shouted, hands cupped to his mouth.
Martinez and the other Spanish-speaking New Mexicans roared loudly at the innocence of the ignorant white boy’s mixand-match efforts. Norman grinned.
Norman’s mind wandered as they passed through the ample palm tree-lined boulevards of the Philippine port and capital. Filipino natives, mestizos, Spaniards, Orientals, Europeans, Americans, all seemed to mix and blend easily as the business of commerce was carried on in a careful sort of drowsiness.
Colorful pambusco buses full of riders from all classes, horse-drawn calesas, the newest Packards driven by business elites, chauffeured limos, and old pieced-together clunkers from the early 1900s mingled freely together, adding a managed sense of disorder to the laid-back rhythm of the city. Any
hint of a war was belied by the languid yet prosperous scene.
They were soon on the outskirts of Manila, a long caravan of men and equipment ten thousand miles from the dry Southwest and home. They passed through the narrower streets of the Inturmuros, a three-century-old fortress port city built by the Spaniards to ward off pirates during colonial times.
The army seemed to enjoy offering the citizens any parade they could to add a sense of stability absent from the rest of Southeast Asia. The Japanese warlords had been stepping up their collection of conquered lands, and anyone familiar with maps could see the Philippines lay in the path of conquering Australia, if the Japanese had a mind to do it.
It was good to get away from the bad feelings that had lingered so long back home, Norman thought. The hard feelings against Lucian and feeling his heart crushed and losing purpose was washing away with this new adventure. He wanted to be glad for Lucian’s sake. He would get a year to put Mary Jane’s face out of his mind and try to replace the image with that of the pretty and fair-skinned Mexican-American girl, Luisa.
“WELCOME TO FORT STOTSENBERG,” the sign read as the first trucks arrived near dusk at the sprawling compound. From Lucian’s vantage point he could see nothing worth defending, just a pleasant, easy-going army camp full of neat barracks, a few Quonset huts, and some near naked Negrito natives ambling by.
His first order of business was to try a transfer again. He felt the need to look out for Norman. He had always felt his twin was the more innocent one, the less worldly. And though exactly the same in age, looks, and background, he, Lucian, had so often played the part of older brother.
The 200th was a pretty easy-going outfit as the army went. Officers mingled easily with the enlisted men, and the men respected them for it. Everyone pulled together. The Parkers weren’t the only family members in the regiment, either. There was a father and son, several cousins, and brothers, although the Parkers were the only identical twins. These men were all family and extremely motivated to be the best.
“I want those fifty-caliber machine gun crates and that ammo dispersed immediately,” the platoon staff sergeant bellowed at Lucian and his crew as they unloaded the equipment from the back of the truck. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes with our orders and location, and then you’ll stow your personal gear in the barracks.”
“Hey … Psst, Parker,” Bogan, the Navajo private in the crew called. “Stand back real careful like.” He took out a long shiny new bolo knife from his pack—a native Filipino bolo knife he had purchased earlier in the day from a street vendor in Manila.
“What?” Lucian questioned. He looked around him to see the frozen expressions of six men staring down toward his feet in the ankle-deep grass.
Woosh! The sound of the blade sliced through the air as the knife flew effortlessly from Bogan’s hand, pinning the head of a ten-foot python to the ground.
Lucian stood there frozen stiff, legs spread, snake stuck to the ground between them, as he realized how close he had come to a different kind of danger his first night in the new country.
Bogan picked up the snake by the neck as it still writhed. “Killed me a lot of rattlers in my day, but this beats ’em all. This snake’s skin would bring me a small fortune back home. Think I’ll keep him.”
The gun crew gathered around, jokingly congratulating Lucian on not becoming dinner.
“This ain’t Kansas anymore,” laughed Martin.
“Yeah. That mother of all snakes would’ve eaten Parker and Toto too!” Jensen ribbed.
“Yeah, but they say there’s another one in the outfit that looks just like Private Parker here.”
“What, the snake or Parker?” Bogan asked dryly to loud whoops and laughter.
“Now if one of us here had been eaten, that wouldn’t be right. But Parker has a replacement!” Martinez chimed in.
“That’s a helluva smart snake, knowing he had a choice of twins for dinner. What a shame.” Bogan smiled as he held his prize up for others to see. Together they manhandled the snake and carried it out to the passing trucks entering the gate. “Welcome to Fort Stotsenberg,” they howled as each wide-eyed load of entering soldiers stared in amazement at the bulky snake.
Lucian thought about the light moment, the teasing. They were right. He could be replaced. Norman could play him, he could play Norman. They could keep up the confusion all they wanted. It could come in handy someday.
CHAPTER 35
December 8, 1941, the Philippines
“We’re at war!” Johnny Mead shouted. “Hey you guys! No joke! The Japs. They’ve gone and done it. They attacked Hawaii. Just heard on the radio.”
“So maybe there is another radio joker like that guy who created the Martian invasion back in the thirties. Who was that guy?” Tom Stinson asked.
“Orson Welles,” Julio Martinez yelled, lounging on a cot reading a comic book.
“Yeah, well, anyway, he got the whole country tuning in to his show. Got everybody all riled up,” Stinson yawned. “It’s too early in the morning for a war anyway,” he chuckled, falling back into his bunk.
“Norm, I just heard it in the mess hall. Where’s the radio? Who’s got the damn radio?” Johnny repeated in a voice wound tight with urgency.
“That’s our radio over in the mess hall. Cory Martin took it over last night for background music during the poker game,” Hank Chambers offered. “I say we go over there and get it back,” he complained and dashed out the barracks to retrieve the squad’s personal radio.
Norman inspected Johnny carefully to detect any trace of a practical joke.
“I’m not kiddin’, Norm. Come on.”
“Well hell-fire, you guys are all bent out of shape for nothing,” Stinson groused, pulling his trousers up and slipping into his boots to follow the others.
“You fellas get to your stations pronto,” Platoon Sergeant Winters called above the bustle of men scrambling in all directions. “And go back in there and grab your damn rifles and helmets first! We just might be at war! I’m headed to the CO’s hut to check this out. Move!”
“I gotta find Lucian,” Norman called out to his cousin. “He’s just across the way. Cover for me until I get back!”
The hundred yard run put him into a sandbagged emplacement protecting the .50-caliber machine gun Lucian and two other men handled.
“Anybody seen my brother?” he called above the excited noise coming from the command hut nearby.
“He went to Manila yesterday. Took a ride with Sergeant Riley for some more supplies,” the Native American, Jimmy Bogan answered.
“When you see him, tell him I’m at my gun,” Norman called above the noise of aircraft engines warming up.
“Sure thing, Norm,” called back the friendly Bogan as he calmly loaded the ammunition box onto the heavy machine gun.
He ran in the direction of the company command hut. Formalities were being overlooked. The spirit of the 200th Coastal Artillery was high. Officers and enlisted men surrounded a table set in the center of the room. He figured he could ask a favor of Lieutenant Kerns, Lucian’s platoon commander.
“What are you doing over here, Norman? I already got one of you Parker brothers to worry about,” Kerns turned his head as he sat at a table with the company commander and staff officers listening to a radio broadcast.
“Sorry, sir. It’s Lucian and …”
“Yeah, I know. I sent him down to Manila yesterday to get us some extra parts and ammo for the guns. Good thing too. Listen to this,” he said, adjusting the table radio to KMZH, the powerful English-speaking station broadcasting from Manila.
“That radio guy in Manila, Don Bell, was just giving an update on the rumor of Japs bombing Pearl Harbor,” interjected one of the men standing next to Norman.
Static played noisily as the lieutenant adjusted the tuning knob. The room filled with eager soldiers wanting to hear confirmation of the rumor. It was still December 7, Sunday in Hawaii, but Monday morning December 8 in the Philippines. The
announcer’s voice suddenly surged from the static:
This is Don Bell at KMZH with a breaking news flash from our sister station in Honolulu. I am listening to reports at this very instant as they are relayed to me. This is what I am hearing:
The Japanese fighters and dive bombers have finally cleared the skies over the island of Oahu. Extensive damage to ships on battleship row. Several sunk. Most ships on fire or damaged.
It isn’t clear whether another wave of enemy planes is to be expected or if the Japanese plan an invasion. The scene is one of complete and utter chaos. No one is waiting for orders as they fight the burning flames on ships, planes, barracks, buildings, docks, and rescue men and women trapped in the rubble.
Hickam Field bombed. Planes destroyed on the ground. Dozens on fire. Death and destruction, smoke and explosions as we speak. General panic as civilians are just realizing that this was no naval exercise or accident.
The people are in stunned disbelief to know Japanese aircraft have attacked in waves a territory of the United States. Sirens, ambulances, general mayhem, as rescue efforts organize and the realization sets in that this is war! Thousands perhaps dead and injured in preliminary estimates as reports coming in that one or more entire battleships with full crew have been sunk!
Wait, here we go. Our source tells us the battleships Arizona, California, West Virginia heavily damaged or sunk! The carriers were at sea. No carriers hit. Destroyers, cruisers badly damaged.
Our communication line to Honolulu just went dead. I’m sure this is only a temporary delay in transmission.
Ticket Home Page 14