Along the Broken Bay

by Flora J. Solomon

  Vivian’s voice rose to a higher pitch. “Are you kidding? You left out one little detail. Didn’t you hear the word strafing? Bullets go right through foliage. The general put the devil in me, Gina. I’m not staying anywhere the Japs are within spitting distance. I’m taking my girls and going higher up the mountain, even if we have to walk.”

  Gina objected. “How will Ray and Theo find us?”

  “My hope, darlin’, is alive.”

  Arturo was pacing on the porch when the women returned from the main road. “Señoras, my cousin just came from Manila. He say the Japanese army moving fast. Bad for Americans. Mama say you go to Señor Ramos’s ranch, or you be trapped here.”

  Vivian jumped on the information. “Whose ranch? Where?”

  “Señor Ramos. He owns a big ranch in the mountains. You go. I show you the way.”

  “We can’t. The car is gone, and the road’s blocked by the army.” Vivian grabbed onto Arturo’s arm. “Can you take us tonight in your cart on the back trails—”

  “Viv, no . . . in a cart, on a narrow trail, in the dark. You could fall off a cliff.”

  “I’ll take that chance. By hell, high water, or oxcart, I’m leaving.”

  “I sorry, Señora. The back trail too steep for my cart.”

  Vivian’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, we’re trapped on this peninsula.”

  “We’ll be okay, Mom,” Maggie said, but her voice sounded tiny.

  Without a radio news was hard to get, but Arturo kept Gina and Vivian informed of what he knew. Battles raged on the north end of the peninsula, the stronger Japanese army pushing the American and Filipino troops farther south. Field hospitals swelled and then overflowed with wounded and sick soldiers, and graveyards were quickly filling with the dead. With the ports blocked and one hundred thousand soldiers and migrant civilians needing food, hunger and disease were as much of a threat as the Japanese soldiers. Rice fields soon lay barren, and vegetation was stripped of anything edible; animals of all sizes became scarce as both armies and civilians slaughtered them for food. Water supplies dried up or became polluted, and malaria, typhus, and beriberi took hold.

  At the cottage, the families endured. Mrs. Flores shared her supply of tea and jerky and showed Vivian where to find persimmon-like fruit and sour rattan berries.

  Looking skeptical, Vivian asked, “What should I do with them?”

  “Cook them into your broths. They give a good flavor.”

  Arturo supplied the families with rabbits, pigeons, and once a hunk of wild pig that kept them fed for a week.

  Maggie searched the forest for edible weeds and fruits. Tickled at her find one day, she trotted home. “I found a patch of native corn. There’s a lot there. Enough to share it with Mrs. Flores.”

  Isabella did her best to make the mismatched and scrounged food edible and kept their drinking water potable. The little girls did their share by helping with the cleanup.

  It was Gina’s job to shop at the local markets, calling for treks along hilly mountain trails to whatever market was open that day. She savored her time away from the tensions always present in the cottage brought on by fear of what lay ahead, barely edible food, and too much togetherness. She had learned to pay attention to the sounds and sights around her, as she had been followed one day and had her parcels stolen by a shrunken soldier. She’d handed them over without a whimper but cursed his skinny bones when he was out of earshot. Now she carried a stout stick and was always ready to use it.

  Today’s market was a meager affair, with only a few stalls set up and many locals purchasing the stringy meats and underripe vegetables. The little money she had was disappearing too quickly, and Gina shopped frugally, buying a rabbit that was killed, skinned, and gutted while she waited; a bag of okra; and a jug of carabao milk, wondering how she was going to carry it. Stepping back from a stall, she bumped into a man wearing a tattered army uniform. “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “My pleasure,” he answered.

  Gina stopped short. She recognized the voice. “Theo?” She squinted in disbelief. A belt cinched up his khaki shorts, and his shirt fell off his shoulders, but it was blond-haired, green-eyed Theo. Never had anybody looked so good to her.

  Theo flashed an open-mouth grin. “My lord, Gina, you’re so dark I thought you were a local. Is Vivian with you?”

  Gina felt tickled to give him good news. “She’s at my cottage, and so are Maggie and Leah. They’re fine. We’re all fine.” She saw worry drain from his face. “Where did you come from?”

  “I’m at the Ninety-First Field Hospital about ten minutes from here by jeep. Been there a couple weeks. I knew you had a cottage around here someplace. I’ve been looking . . . I was hoping . . .” His eyes twinkled, and he laughed for the first time in a long while, Gina suspected. He asked, “Have you heard from Ray?”

  “No. Last I knew he was on Corregidor.”

  Something flickered in Theo’s eyes that made her feel weak kneed. Her purchases suddenly too heavy, she dropped them on the ground. “What do you know about Corregidor?”

  “Nothing, really. It’s heavily fortified. MacArthur and his wife and son are there holed up in those tunnels. Ray’s probably eating better than we are.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  He shrugged and offered her a cigarette. They both lit up. “Can you take me to Vivian?”

  Leah spotted them first, and she let out a shriek: “Daddy’s here! Mama! Mama! Come quick! Daddy’s here!” Vivian and Maggie emerged from the cottage and ran to Theo’s open arms. The three enclosed him in a circle of love, kisses, and happy tears.

  Cheryl ran to the jeep, clapping her hands, her eyes wild with anticipation. “Where’s my daddy?” Her head snapped left and right.

  Gina knelt down to Cheryl’s height and took her hand. “Honey—”

  Cheryl jerked her hand away and balled it into a fist, her face contorted with anger. “Where’s my daddy?” she shouted while stepping away. “Why didn’t you bring him too?” Wailing, she turned and ran into the cottage with Gina right behind her, but there was no consoling the little girl, who wanted her daddy more than anything in the world.

  She lay with Cheryl until her cries turned to whimpers and then sleep, not knowing what else to do but hold her close.

  Theo’s visits to the cottage were determined by his workload. Days would go by with no sign of him, and then he’d arrive weary, smelling faintly of ether, and his boots so mucky he’d leave them outside. Often he’d sleep so soundly that Vivian would poke him to see if he responded.

  When awake and fed, he told how makeshift medical units were moved around as needed and set up in minutes, with tents affording cover and generators supplying power for the lights strung over the surgical tables. Patients arrived by bus, jeep, or mule, and doctors performed surgeries around the clock.

  “Take me back with you,” Maggie said. “I hate just sitting and waiting. I can work. I’ll do anything.”

  Theo growled his displeasure. “It’s not like our clinic in Manila. It’s no place for a young woman.”

  “You have nurses,” Maggie argued. “How am I any different?”

  Theo looked at his daughter as though he were contemplating that question.

  Gina agreed with Maggie. “I’ll volunteer too. I’ve got two strong hands and time to spare. I need to feel useful.”

  “We all feel that way,” Vivian added.

  “You don’t know what you’re getting into,” Theo argued. “It’s not what you think. It’s not what you can even imagine.”

  The three women stared him down until he acquiesced.

  Theo was right: they had no idea what they were getting into, and when they returned to the cottage after a shift, not one word was said about the drippy gray ugliness they’d witnessed or the sour smells of the miserable place or dying men lying on the ground for lack of a cot, the surgeries without anesthesia, the screams, the shrieks, the severed limbs, the buckets of blood, the vomit, the shit, the go
re—

  Word that a convoy of fresh Japanese troops had landed at Lingayen Gulf north of Manila Bay came through the bamboo telegraph, a loosely constructed communications network of priests, shopkeepers, itinerant workers, guerrillas, and gossips that permeated the islands. Within days, the stronger, well-armed enemy blasted their way through the American and Filipino defenses, and Bataan was surrendered to the Japanese. All American and Filipino forces, including medical personnel and patients in the field hospitals, were taken prisoners of war.

  The news felt like a punch to Gina’s gut, and she couldn’t keep a meal down. Maggie retreated into her medical book, the girls squabbled over a game of go fish, Isabella clung to her amulet and mumbled prayers, and Vivian, her body hunched and arms crossed, paced the room’s perimeters.

  “What now?” Vivian asked. “The Japs will have free run of the islands.”

  Gina didn’t know. “We stay hidden and sit it out.”

  “But Theo . . .”

  The look on Viv’s face made Gina wonder if her friend, this once-sheltered debutante, would break under the weight of the happenings.

  Chapter 5

  THE DEATH MARCH

  Our leaders abandon seventy thousand American and Filipino soldiers to Japanese cruelties. I don’t believe. But then, I believe. And then I despair.

  —Ray Thorpe, Corregidor, December 1941–May 1942

  April 9, 1942, US Army major general Edward P. King surrendered Bataan to General Masaharu Homma. Under pressure to rid the peninsula of the American-Filipino army, Homma ordered the seventy thousand soldiers to be marched sixty-five miles to prison camps in northern Luzon. The news sent Gina to her bedroom to privately deal with her sorrow. She heard a soft knock on the door.

  “It’s me,” Vivian whispered.

  “Don’t let the girls in,” Gina instructed and swiped her hand across her teary eyes.

  Vivian opened the door a few inches, slid through, and closed it. She turned toward Gina, her back against the door as if she needed support. “Mrs. Flores just left. She said our soldiers are marching along the main road. The Jap guards aren’t giving them food or water. Theo—”

  Vivian’s body began to slide down the door, and Gina helped her into a chair and rubbed her back. “We’ll take food to the men. Rice balls and coconut. There are canteens in the cupboard we can fill and hand to them as they walk by.”

  The morning sun had just begun to peek through the dense hinterland growth, and the dew-heavy air shimmered silver, forecasting a blistering-hot day. Bees buzzed around flowering hibiscus, and birds chirped; however, their love calls were eclipsed by the raspy caws of circling crows. Carrying canteens and as much food as they could spare, Vivian and Gina started their downward trek. Near the main road, the quality of the air changed, and Gina breathed through her mouth to block an acrid stench.

  The main road was rutted by heavy footfalls and tire tracks, and at intervals were splotches of black goo covered with flies that swarmed when they walked by. Gina bent and picked up a gold wedding ring half obscured in a rut. The inscription on the inside of the band read, Love forever. M & L. 1939. She showed it to Vivian. “Someone must be heartbroken about losing this.” Nearby, she uncovered a picture that had been stomped by a hobnailed boot. The writing on the back gave names to the faces: Martin and Lynette, he looking smart in his uniform and she young and pretty in a frilly wedding dress. Scavenging along the edge of the road, she found a trove of rings, fountain pens, watches, and rosaries. “Why would the men be dropping these?”

  Vivian muttered, “To keep them out of the Jap pockets is my guess.” She stirred through the orphaned objects as if she were searching for something of her own, before wrapping them in a banana leaf and hiding them behind a rock.

  They filled the canteens with water from an artesian well. Nearby a bamboo bridge crossed a ravine thick with weeds and grasses. Gina pointed out a stream that ran along the bottom. “Ray says the fishing is good here. He brought Cheryl with him sometimes.”

  Stepping a few feet off the road, Vivian picked up a white undershirt attached to the end of a disabled American rifle. She held it up. “Looks like a flag of surrender. The poor guy. God help him.” She threw the makeshift flag down.

  Gina found a single boot, a crutch, and then a bloodied hand snagged on a bush. She flinched back, and a wave of acid welled up from her stomach. What had gone on here?

  A wizened Filipino woman came out of the brush and left a sack of bananas by the well. Gina recognized the rheumy-eyed laundress who did washing for the cottage. “Ma’am,” Gina said, signaling her, needing to tell her what she’d seen, but her voice failed.

  The woman’s eyes widened when she saw Gina. “No stay here,” she said in a crackly voice. She flipped her hands in a shooing motion. “Bad here. Dangerous for you.” She turned and scurried away.

  “Wait,” Gina called, but it came out as a croak. She considered Vivian, who was scrounging in the weeds picking up rings and watches and intently inspecting each one. They could be of no help here. She sipped from the canteen still in her hand. “We should go back, Viv. We can leave the food and water. It’s dangerous for us. It’s worse than I thought.”

  “All the more reason to stay,” Vivian snapped. “I need to see Theo with my own eyes. You go back if you want, but first show me where I can hide.”

  Gina deliberated the worst of scenarios for Vivian: seeing Theo at the mercy of a cruel enemy, or not seeing him at all. There was no good choice. Whatever the outcome, her best friend couldn’t be left alone. She pointed out the dry place where she used to sit while Ray and Cheryl caught perch in the stream, the bamboo now grown thick around it. “We can hide here.”

  Hundreds of birds flocked out of the trees, their flapping wings stirring the air like an approaching storm. Monkeys stopped hooting, and tarsiers silenced their high-pitched squeals.

  “The men are coming,” Vivian whispered.

  Sunlight dimmed under the flocked birds, and finding it hard to take a full breath, Gina felt as if in a surreal world. A rattle in the distance turned into the squeaks and pings of bicycles. The women scrambled into their lair.

  Vivian slightly parted the camouflaging vegetation to view the Japanese soldiers, whose rifles were strapped to their backs. Fat bundles were tied behind the seats of their bicycles. Following the bikes were the captured American and Filipino soldiers. They marched five across in long columns, a procession of the weariest, most pitiful-looking men Gina had ever seen—their faces gray from caked-on dirt and days-old stubble, their hair greasy, and their bodies bone skinny under what was left of their tattered, filthy uniforms. Some hobbled on crutches, while others leaned on friends. An almost imperceptible murmur of moans, epithets, and prayers accompanied them along with that sour stench. Tears flooded Gina’s eyes and left a trail down her face.

  Vivian, holding back a moan, leaned forward to see. “Is Theo with them?”

  Gina was certain a familiar face in this horde of downcast eyes would be impossible to identify, and a known gait in this mass of shuffling feet would be distorted. Vivian would learn nothing of Theo’s fate here.

  Peeking through the foliage, the women studied the guards, who stopped to smoke, drink from the well, and compare the American watches that lined their arms from wrist to elbow. Their thirst and nicotine craving sated, they returned to prodding the prisoners with sticks and switches past the well, denying them the water their dehydrated bodies craved. When one man stumbled, a guard stabbed him in the buttocks.

  Vivian gasped and stood in the blind, poised to run to the stabbed soldier, but Gina pulled her down and clasped a hand over Vivian’s mouth. Vivian pushed the hand away and swiped at blinding tears.

  All morning and into the afternoon, trapped in their jungle jail, Gina and Vivian gaped in horror at the urine and shit stains on the soldiers’ trousers and the blood and sweat that drenched their shirts. Gina cringed and covered her ears to block out the pitiful cries of the injured and g
ritted her teeth when a guard barking, “Speedo, speedo,” tripped a soldier tottering on crutches.

  A half-crazed prisoner broke ranks and wobbled toward the well, his tongue lolling and his resolve obvious. “Halt,” a guard bellowed, and when the prisoner didn’t stop, the guard raised his sword and severed the prisoner’s head with one practiced chop. Blood spurted like a fountain as the prisoner’s body crumpled, and his head rolled in the opposite direction.

  In a surge of rebellion, other prisoners roared, trampled the guards, and swarmed the well for a gulp of the life-giving water that flowed so freshly and freely. During the fray, some brave or demented prisoners hurled themselves into the ravine, and a contingent of guards opened fire. Allied blood turned the water in the stream crimson. Gina pulled her legs up to a fetal curl as the scenario unfolded, her eyes squeezed tight and her hands over her ears to block out what she couldn’t possibly process.

  The parade of marchers ended as it had started, with the rattle of bicycles. When the clatter and clank faded, Gina and Vivian crawled out of their hiding place. Bodies lay in a heap by the well, and others were sprawled on the road, some beaten so severely that pulp replaced their faces. As they searched, hoping to find some men alive, circling crows swooped down, screeching and pecking in a mad head-to-head competition for a piece of the booty. Screaming obscenities, Gina threw fist-size rocks at the black-feathered birds that caused them to contemptuously flutter a few feet away, but they soon returned to their feasting.

  Panting at the exertion, Gina picked up a stick and sat beside a lone soldier who lay sprawled in the dirt. A blond kid, like Ray, she noted. A blue eye peeked out from a half-closed eyelid, and when she reached over and closed it, she saw a Saint Christopher medal hidden under his khaki shirt. Overlooked, she figured. Lucky guy. She guessed her humor was as dark as the world around her. His class ring read, St. Michaels HS, 1941, and ink scrawled on the back of his hand read, Carolyn.