Along the Broken Bay
Page 4
“It shiny. The Japs see it from the sky. I paint it green. We not want Japs to see we are here. Mom said to tell you we turn lights out at night too.”
It hadn’t occurred to Gina that retreating to her cottage could put the local people in danger. “Of course. We’ll be cautious. Please paint the roof for me.” Gina handed him money for the green paint. “Tell your mom thank you for the vegetables and that I’ll stop by to visit soon.”
Days lazily came and went. Gina and Vivian lay on a large, flat, sun-heated rock beside a waterfall that created a crystal-clear pool. Water lotus grew thick at the pool’s edge, and Gina plucked a fist-size purple flower off its tall, willowy stem and tucked it behind her ear, thinking the fragrance more exotic than any perfume she had in her collection.
Her gaze went beyond the girls playing in the waterfall to the far side of the pool, where the tops of the bamboo formed lacy patterns against the cloudless sky. She lay back on her towel, feeling secure enough to let her vision go out of focus.
“Mommy, are you sleeping?” Gina felt a pat, pat on her face.
She half opened her eyes to see Cheryl, whose arm was bandaged from her fingertips to her elbow. Gina bounded up, every fear of the last weeks rushing back to her. Leah appeared with her head wrapped mummylike in gauze. Both little girls were giggling.
“Maggie did it.” Cheryl pointed to Maggie, who sat with a medical book on her lap and a roll of gauze in her hand.
Maggie grinned and gave Gina a little wave. “Just practicing.”
Gina heaved a sigh of relief. “Anyone else getting hungry?”
Three women and two bandaged little girls walked back to the cottage, on the way meeting the laundress, who was carrying a bag of dirty clothing and linens that Isabella had gathered up. The old lady’s rheumy eyes widened when she saw the girls. “Okay? Okay?” she jabbered.
Gina assured her, “Yes. Okay. Just play.”
The old woman shook her head and smiled. “Nice girls. No want them hurting.”
The families had been at the cottage for almost three weeks. The Japanese continued to bomb the islands, and General MacArthur seemed to have no way to stop them. Gina said, “Maybe this is going to drag on longer than we thought.”
She hadn’t heard from Ray since the one phone call, and that seemed so long ago. She had no idea what was happening on Corregidor or if Ray was safe inside its massive system of tunnels. She craved information, and what little she heard on the radio was always bad . . . the Japanese ruled the air and sea.
Vivian received a letter from Theo stating he was back in Manila and working at the hospital, a madhouse, in his words. He was glad she was with Gina and safe in a small village away from devastation. He hoped to see her soon but didn’t know when.
In the evening Gina turned on the radio, and when the announcer mentioned General MacArthur, Vivian and Maggie stepped closer to listen.
“In a defensive measure today, the US Far East forces destroyed interisland steamers and hundreds of smaller vessels in Manila Bay and the Pasig River, paralyzing domestic shipping, including mail and newspaper deliveries.
“Explosions are being reported in northern Luzon, the result of US Far East forces blowing up railroad bridges. Communications equipment are also being rendered inoperable. This is Michael Camp at KZRH, broadcasting from Manila. Stay tuned for updates.”
“Destroying interisland steamers,” Gina mumbled. “This is worse than I thought. We’re being isolated, Viv. My lord, what’s MacArthur up to?” Cheryl leaned against her, and Gina lifted her into her arms.
“Sounds like he’s preparing for a Japanese invasion.” Vivian reached for a cigarette, and then Maggie lit one too.
“You don’t smoke,” Vivian said.
“I do now,” the teen answered.
Leah wrapped her arms around Vivian’s waist. “Is Ruthie going to be all right?” she asked about her friend who’d had her red hair shorn.
Gina and Vivian shared a worried glance.
Viv said, “We’ll pray for Ruthie and her family, honey. They have their shelter, and General MacArthur is working hard to keep them safe.” She snubbed out the cigarette, turned off the radio, and took her daughter’s hand. “Anybody up for a game of go fish?”
Gina had no interest in celebrating Christmas. However, on Christmas Eve Arturo brought over a small pine tree he had dug up and planted in a bucket. Isabella found craft supplies in the cupboard and showed the girls how to make paper chains and parols. Maggie baked ginger cookies, and Vivian opened a bottle of brandy.
Gina found her guitar in the back of the closet, and after a few minutes of tuning and strumming, she had the group singing “Jingle Bells,” the music lifting everyone’s spirits.
Cheryl cheerily said to Leah, “My daddy’s coming home. Mama got a new red dress, and they’re going to a dance.”
Gina stopped strumming the guitar, and the room became quiet. She’d taken for granted that Cheryl knew plans had changed, and there was to be no dance, no red dress, and no Daddy for Christmas.
Leah said snottily, “He’s not coming home. There’s a war. Daddies have to stay at work.”
Cheryl’s face crumpled. “My daddy is too coming home. You’re an old poopy head, Leah.” She ran to Gina and buried her teary face in her lap.
Gina carried her sobbing child to the bedroom, feeling like a horrible mother. How could she have neglected to inform Cheryl of this most basic information? “Honey, I’m sorry. I should have told you. General MacArthur needs Daddy to stay on Corregidor. He has very important work to do.” She rubbed Cheryl’s back and dried her tears while trying to control her own. “I have something special for you. You want to see what it is?”
Cheryl sniffed and nodded.
Gina retrieved Ray’s shirt from a drawer, the scent of Old Spice still lingering.
Cheryl held it against her cheek. “It smells like Daddy.”
“You can sleep with it if you’d like to.”
Cheryl scurried onto the bed and laid her head on the pillow with Ray’s shirt against her cheek and her thumb in her mouth.
Gina gently pulled the thumb out, and Cheryl grunted, “Umm!” and popped it back in.
“All right, baby. You win.” Blinking back tears, she kissed her daughter on her forehead and left her alone with her thumb and her daddy’s shirt, thinking it a poor substitute for his loving arms.
After both little girls were asleep, Vivian shooed Maggie away too. “You know the rules. Santa won’t come until all kids are asleep, and this Santa is getting very tired.”
“All right,” Maggie grumbled behind a grin.
Gina and Vivian retrieved the Christmas gifts and wrapping paper from a closet where they were hidden. Gina held up a Shirley Temple doll with its golden curls, polka-dot dress, and Mary Jane shoes. “I hope this perks Cheryl up. She’s always on the edge of tears, even when she’s laughing.”
“Leah too. Kids feel these things more than we think. My dad was away for months during the Great War. I was about six. I remember crying myself to sleep. I’d be more worried if Leah wasn’t touchy.” She opened a box and showed Gina a pair of boots.
“For Maggie?” Gina asked of the rhinestone-and-mesh ankle boots.
Vivian shrugged. “What can I say? She has a taste for the exotic. She gets it from Theo’s mother. What did you get Ray this year?”
“A watch with a calendar. He hinted about it for weeks. I left it in the safe with my jewelry. Do you think it will be there when we get back?”
Vivian nudged her glasses up. “Who knows? It’s beginning to look like if we get back. We’ll stick together, right? You and me. We’ll help each other through this?”
“All the way.”
Together they finished wrapping the few packages: a child’s tea set for Leah, a few games and books for the girls, and extra money and a pocketbook for Isabella. Seeing wrapped presents under the small decorated tree brought a feeling of warmth to Gina. “Merry Christmas,” sh
e said to Vivian.
“As merry as it can be.”
That night an acrid smell seeped into the cottage, and Gina checked outside for evidence of a fire. A strange light glowed on the horizon, and dogs in the nearby village howled. “Manila looks like it’s on fire. Do you think the Japs bombed it off the map?”
Vivian joined her on the porch. “Pray not.”
Gina prayed not, too, and wondered if her house that overlooked the bay was being consumed along with irreplaceable letters, albums of priceless photographs, and artifacts that nudged memories of her and Ray foraging for treasures in backstreet galleries and bookshops, a pastime they enjoyed together. She rubbed the back of her neck with both of her hands, massaging the tops of her tight shoulders. Would the bad dream never stop? She cursed General MacArthur’s incompetence.
Gina went to bed with worry on her mind and entered a dream state, seeing her eighteen-year-old self working at the Follies—hard muscled from hours of dancing, voluptuous from a generous diet, jeweled, oiled, and fringed—while she whirled like a dervish, struggling to keep up with the frantic plucking of zithers and mad beating of percussion on a stinking stage, in the blazing spotlight, and under the watchful gaze of her nemesis, a fiery-eyed sheikh.
She heard howling first, and dread caused her to pant as her head twisted and turned on the pillow. A horde of big-booted Japanese soldiers swarmed the stage. She smelled their sour, hissing breaths and felt their rough hands rooting like mad dogs’ snouts under her jeweled brassiere and fringed hip skirt until it ripped and fell away. Pushed to the floor, she landed on a mesh ankle boot, and she heard Maggie scream. The terror of it woke her in a sweaty panic, and she bolted upright, heaving to breathe.
She was safe in her cottage, but her heart wouldn’t stop pounding. Turning the kerosene lamp on its lowest setting, she carried it to the loft, her shadow following her up the stairs. The girls were safely asleep. It was just a bad dream. But the terror of it lingered.
Downstairs she poured two fingers of bourbon into a glass, extinguished the light, and stepped out to the porch. The glow on the horizon had grown brighter and now reached higher in the sky. Something is going on. Still sweaty, she shivered while hugging herself and sipping the bourbon. Ray, I’m frightened. I need you.
In the morning she found Vivian pacing in the kitchen, her body held tight as a coiled spring and one hand massaging the back of her neck. “What’s going on, Viv?”
Vivian’s voice trembled. “It’s on the radio. The Japanese troops landed north and south of Manila. They say fifty thousand soldiers with tanks and artillery are advancing toward the city.”
Gina’s insides turned icy. Japanese troops were just three hours away. She sank into a chair.
Vivian’s hand shook as she lit a cigarette. “What do you think we should do?”
“Stay put. We’re hidden here. MacArthur will clear the Japs out soon enough.”
“Maybe not. Seems his troops threw down the weapons and ran away.”
“Viv, that isn’t funny.”
“No, but it’s true.”
Chapter 4
TRAPPED ON BATAAN
Bataan is surrendered to the Japanese. What next, I wonder? Corregidor, I’m certain, but I resist accepting the unthinkable eventuality.
—Ray Thorpe, Corregidor, December 1941–May 1942
To save the population from further ravages of war, General MacArthur declared Manila an open city, thus announcing he had abandoned all defensive efforts. Behind his evacuating troops, warehouses were burned and ammunition dumps ignited. The city lit up with the fireworks.
That strange glow, Gina remembered.
Over one hundred thousand soldiers and civilians poured into the Bataan Peninsula, a small jut of land thirty miles long and fifteen miles across its widest point. A single road snaked down the east perimeter through several small towns, including Pilar, near Gina’s cottage, and then halfway up the west edge. The craggy peaks of the Zambales Mountains covered most of the interior. Corregidor Island, where Ray was stationed, lay off the southern tip.
Soon the grinds, grates, and whines of convoys moving the vast populations along the road reverberated to Gina’s cottage a mile above. Vivian and Gina stayed close to the radio to follow every scrap of news. “Just in,” the announcer shouted—
Then nothing.
Vivian rotated the dial, turned the radio off and on, unplugged it, and plugged it in again. She slapped the top with the flat of her hand, and still, there was no response. Irritated at the loss, she snapped, “Nothing! It’s dead. Shit.” She looked around to see if the girls were within hearing distance.
The afternoon dragged on with no information. Gina paced, and Vivian smoked. The families played a half-hearted game of Parcheesi, but nothing held their interest. Late in the day, Gina said, “Viv, let’s drive down to the main road. Maybe somebody can tell us something.”
“Let me come too,” Maggie said. “I’m going crazy here.”
On the way out, the three women each grabbed a canteen of water and a pack of cigarettes. Gina parked the car at the main road to watch the American-Filipino army passing by in an eerie, dark parade—mile after mile of tanks, buses, trucks, jeeps, and every conceivable make of car commandeered from civilians. Filipino families rode in rickety oxcarts or walked with their worldly possessions tied to their bodies. The air reeked of acrid fumes, and the setting sun was clouded by roiling dust, causing Gina’s eyes to water and Maggie to sneeze. Some soldiers waved and whistled, and a few pulled over to chat with the three pretty women sitting in a Cadillac offering cigarettes and drinks of water.
Gina handed the canteen to a soldier. “Our radio’s out. What’s going on?” His blue eyes and blond hair reminded her of Ray, and a sudden longing arose. The insignia on his uniform identified him as a medic.
He took a long gulp of water. “Stars and Stripes are down; the Rising Sun’s flying over Manila. Goddamn. MacArthur pulled us out. Said he wanted to save the city. A little too late, in my opinion.”
“Only the city?” Gina asked, wondering what was happening to Ray on Corregidor, just a stone’s throw across the North Channel.
“Yes, ma’am. Far as I know.”
Vivian offered him a cigarette. “Where were you stationed, medic?” She had to shout to be heard.
“All around, but mostly Philippine General.”
“Do you know my husband? Dr. Theo Parker?”
“Yeah. He went to Clark when they asked for volunteers.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
The medic shrugged. “He could be here. Or he could be in Manila with patients too sick to be moved. In which case . . .” He took a long drag on his cigarette. “Not to be the bearer of bad news, ma’am, but if he’s in Manila, he’s probably been taken prisoner by now.”
Gina saw Vivian’s smile disappear and the corners of her mouth twitch, and she wished to comfort her, but words had to be shouted.
Maggie folded her arms. “But he’ll be all right?”
Her question went unanswered.
Three other soldiers joined them, and Gina offered the canteen and cigarettes. “Any of you boys been to Corregidor?”
“Where?”
“No.”
“Never heard of it,” the last one said while smiling at Maggie.
Never heard of it. Gina’s jaw clenched. How could he not? It was the island protecting their precious Manila Bay. Somebody must know something. Had it been bombed? Were soldiers still stationed there? Where was her husband?
A jeep screeched to a stop, and the soldiers scuttled away.
Vivian bit her lip. “Don’t look now, but a big honcho’s coming this way. He’s got a driver, and look how he walks.”
The gray-haired general, dressed in wrinkled khaki and chomping on a smoldering pipe, approached and hollered over the rumble of a passing tank. “What are you women doing here?”
Vivian answered, “We’re watching for our husbands, sir.”
Dust churned from the road, stinging Gina’s eyes. She pointed. “About a mile that way. I have a cottage. We thought we’d be safer here than in Manila.”
The general scowled, every line in his weary face sagging. He continued to holler. “No place on this godforsaken island is safe. Nip fighters will be strafing this area before you know it, and the artillery forces are right behind the planes. Get yourselves hidden and stay put, the higher up the better.” Jamming his pipe between his teeth, he held his hand out. “I’m taking this car. Give me the keys.”
Gina, stunned at this turn of events, stuttered, “Y-you can’t.”
“Yes, I can,” he growled. “My injured men need a ride. Give me your keys.”
There was no disobeying that order, and Gina held out the keys, but her fingers wouldn’t loosen on them.
Vivian nudged her and hissed, “Give him the keys, Gina.”
She forced open her hand, and the general grabbed the keys and tossed them to an aide. As he strode back to his jeep, he shouted over his shoulder, “Don’t wait! Not another hour! Get yourselves hidden!” With that, he sped away with Ray’s car right behind him.
“Shit! You damn bastard!” Gina screeched as she watched Ray’s car disappear. In anger, she flipped the general’s back a double bird.
Vivian slapped her hands down. “You want us thrown in the brig?”
“Right now I don’t give a damn shit. I feel like I’ve been mugged. How . . . ?” She gulped air. “How are we supposed to”—she mimicked the general—“get ourselves hidden?”
With no other option, Gina stewing, Vivian angry, and Maggie bewildered, they hiked back to the cottage.
After a time, Gina said, “I think the cottage is hidden well enough by the foliage. It can’t be seen from the road or the sky. Everything we need is here, and who knows what we’d find higher up. I think it’s best we stay.”