Courage in a White Coat

by Mary Schwaner

Fred patted her arm. “It’s...good news then.”

  Dorothy’s smile faded. “Yes, darling, very good news, don’t you think?”

  He turned his attention back to the man he’d been studying throughout the evening meal. The man who sat quietly smoking a cigarette hand-rolled in a scrap of fine, thin parchment.

  “Maybe MacArthur can get my Bible back,” was all he said.

  . . . .

  Dorothy knew how much it had pained Fred to lose his Bible. He’d guarded it so carefully, particularly in recent months, when the very thin scritta paper used for the printing of bibles had become a surprisingly popular toilet tissue. With dysentery rampant throughout the camp, and thievery at its highest point ever, every personal bit of paper was at risk of being ‘borrowed’.

  So it was no great surprise that his Bible had gone missing.

  Now Fred leveled the finger that had been propping up his chin and pointed it at the other table where the man, who Dorothy knew lived in the gym where Fred bunked, was just exhaling from another drag on his cigarette.

  It seemed the height of disrespect. Fred had been without tobacco for his pipe for months. Now he’d lost his special Bible—possibly to this man who not only had tobacco, but now had paper in which to roll it.

  He sighed. “It’s not like he stole the words, is it? It’s just paper.”

  Dorothy huffed. “Pilfered paper.”

  Fred cocked his head to the side and managed a smile. “Possibly pilfered paper.”

  She grasped his hand and squeezed it, loving him for finding humor where there seemed to be none. She knew her husband well. He would never confront this man. He would probably pray that the man might accidentally read a verse or two before he set fire to it. But Fred would never challenge the man.

  Never in a million years.

  . . . .

  By November, things were little different, except for the fact that now there was no firewood in camp so the mush was almost always cold. The rice was mostly husks and dysentery was at an all-time high. Curfew had been moved up to 7 P.M., and due to the air raids and falling bombs, school had been permanently suspended.

  A cruel rumor sped through camp that American Red Cross boxes were on the way. When nothing materialized, Dorothy tended to agree with those who said it was a morbid hoax intended to further demoralize the camp.

  On a particularly sultry morning Dorothy was headed back to the clinic after delivering Carol and Bobby into Fred’s keeping for the day. Morning had come much too soon. Three children who had eaten the poisonous leaves of an hibiscus bush had needed watching through a long and worrisome night.

  She knew where the hibiscus bush was now, and needed to send someone to cut it down. They’d removed all the poisonous plants early on, but somehow this one had escaped notice when it began to grow back and had nearly cost the lives of three small children. She would set Fred to the task of removing it. It would be the kind of chore that would help him work out his frustration.

  Like the entire camp, Fred had been on tenterhooks since General MacArthur had landed on Leyte in October.

  1944 was going to be the year of their liberation. They’d been so sure.

  But it was late November now, and they’d heard nothing further. Nothing remotely encouraging had come over the wall by way of the bamboo telegraph.

  Everyone knew that it had taken only ninety days for the Japanese to seize the islands. And since the Americans did everything so much better and faster than the Japanese, they should surely be at the gates of Santo Tomás by now.

  But they were not. And depression was setting in.

  Dorothy jumped a bit at the mechanical clatter of the loudspeaker lashed in the top of the palm tree she was passing as it came to life. She had been deeply absorbed in what she could do to help three poisoned children with her limited supplies when, from fifteen feet overhead, the camp loudspeaker began to blare.

  Good mornin’, good mornin’!

  We’ve danced the whole night through,

  Good mornin’, good mornin’ to you!

  In some misguided attempt to wake folks up thinking the world was a happy-clappy-place-today, the song had become the morning ritual. And it never failed to grate upon her nerves.

  The unwelcome bleating jolted her heart and slammed at her brain. How dare they. There was nothing good about this morning. Not for those three innocent babies who had writhed in pain through a tortured night. Not for those little ones who had seen their salvation from starvation in the form of a few poisoned leaves.

  Dorothy bent down and grabbed the three closest stones piled around the base of the tree that hosted the offending speaker. In a rage she threw the first stone at the tin villain, but on it blared. She stepped back, aimed, and threw the second stone. Still the ridiculous tune spewed forth.

  She put her entire body into the effort as she hurled the third stone. But her aim was poor, her arm was weak, and the speaker blared on and on. She couldn’t even avenge three innocent kiddies.

  Dorothy shrank back onto the walk. Her behavior was at once humiliating, horrifying, and supremely satisfying. She swept a guilty look over her shoulder as she straightened her white coat. Had she been seen?

  Nervous now, she walked on to the clinic, forcibly calming her skittering pulse. If they’d seen her, she’d be on her way to jail at this very moment.

  At the hospital’s entryway she stopped, still gathering herself. She would never again let them rob her of her serenity. It was simply too risky.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  THE LITTLEST HERO

  Bobby swayed where he stood, just a few yards from the Main Gate, contemplating the laughter coming from the Japanese open-air mess tent that sat just inside the forbidding fence. He’d never been here by himself before. There were always a bunch of kids hanging around.

  But tonight they all were staying inside, out of the driving rain. He wiped his lip where the water was running in great rivers. He had to do this.

  Mom and Dad were out finding food to trade. He wanted to do the same. But he had nothing to trade. So he slipped away from Jeanne and Carol and the room monitor who kept track of them when his mother was doctoring.

  He’d been here with the kids a hundred times before, hanging onto the thick posts that supported the roof, watching the Japanese guards eat. It wasn’t scary. Not with all those kids around. And some of the guards seemed to really like the kids, as long as the kids followed the rules. The men would try out some of their American words on their audience. And once in a while they’d end up tossing them some food scraps.

  He shouldn’t be here, though. Mom would throttle him if she knew. If the air raid siren started again, he’d never get back to the room in time. He could still run, but it sort of hurt. And he could only run short distances at a time.

  Excerpt from Manila Goodbye by Robin Prising

  © 1975 by Robin Prising. pp 157, 159

  Starvation is taking its slow toll. Seeds of fear are sprouting quickly now: We know that we are near the beginning of the end—will the end be massacre or liberation? In the last week of 1944 I discover that I can no longer run; that whenever I begin to hurry my knees knock together and my legs sag under the weight of my fragile body. I can count my bones from the collarbone down—each joint, each jutting rib. Waiting under the hot sun in the hunger lines, I break into cold sweats. Unable to keep my knees straight I grow faint, struggling against the terror that I may black out and spill the food on the ground.

  The slop is more wormy and watery now and almost tasteless. By New Year’s Day I have developed a habit of vomiting up, and swallowing again, a mouthful of food for an hour or so after the two scoops of gruel each day. Even the vomit tastes good. I go to the latrine as seldom as possible, trying to hold everything inside me, stingily preserving it for two or three days. And without any pity, but in cold disgust, I notice that many prisoners are losing their minds and furtively devour imaginary meals, slurpi
ng and eating the air. Men suck their thumbs, gnaw at their hands.

  The entire morning of January seventeenth is spent in roll call. We stand famished and exhausted while the whole camp is counted, recounted and counted again. Last night a man called Eisenberg escaped. The Japanese threaten to inflict severe punishment on the Internee Committee, the room monitors and the rest of the prisoners. But their threats are plainly bombast. I keep wondering how Eisenberg had the physical strength to escape when I could not even manage to run.

  No, if the siren went off like it had almost every day for the last month, he’d never get past Main Building, around the Ed Building, across the commons to the Annex in time. But he could hide if he needed to. In places no adult could possibly follow. And then he’d slip home.

  Bobby plowed through the mud and stopped just behind one of the thick outer posts. Unconsciously, he wiped a hand across his mouth. They had meat. He could smell it. The boys could always identify each smell, and through them he’d learned of foods he’d never eaten. How incredible it would taste.

  He leaned forward, trying to get a better look at their plates. But his foot slipped in the stupid mud, and his grip slipped on the rain-soaked beam. He stumbled two steps before he caught his balance. And suddenly, there he was, in the light, just below the tent platform.

  The guards looked over, startled. He knew what he had to do now, so, very slowly, Bobby dropped his arms straight to his sides and began to bend.

  No halfway bow would do tonight. He needed a favor from these guys, so Bobby didn’t stop bending until he was parallel to the ground. He held the bow for a moment longer than necessary, then straightened.

  The guards hooted and nodded, and some of them stood up from the benches and returned the bow, while others gave a nodding bow from where they sat. Others spat words that sounded pretty naughty to Bobby. That wasn’t very nice.

  One guy had a biscuit in one hand, another had a fork piled with greens, and still another had what the boys called a drumstick in one hand. And Bobby began to drool.

  He couldn’t help it. His mouth just started running with saliva, and he swallowed over and over, trying to get rid of it. Rain dripped from his hair. His clothes were soaked as if they’d just been in the laundry tub, and his shoes each dragged a clump of mud along with them. He was a mess.

  Bobby ran his tongue across his lips, and heard a quiet “Ah” off to his right. One of the guards that he knew always threw food to the kids got up from his place and carried his plate to the edge of the platform. He hunkered down and held his plate out to Bobby.

  Was he supposed to just take something? Was he supposed to accept the plate? Bobby stared at it, then risked a glance at the guard’s face. The man nodded, held the plate farther toward him.

  So Bobby snatched the whole tin plate.

  A roar of laughter filled the soggy space, but Bobby didn’t hear it. He had grabbed the one bite of greens that was left on the plate and shoved it into his mouth, then snatched the remains of a biscuit and dragged it through some kind of juice. He chewed and swallowed as fast as he could and then swept up a small piece of meat, the only other thing left on the plate, a sad little piece of gristle. And it was heavenly.

  He looked up at the guard and signaled for a drink. The guard laughed and cracked some kind of joke that made the men laugh again. But he turned to the table behind him and grabbed a cup.

  Bobby didn’t even look in it. He dumped the contents, then set the cup down on the edge of the platform and ever so carefully poured the juices left on the plate into the cup. He used his fingers to scrape down every bit of the saucy substance until the plate was clean enough to put back on the shelf.

  Then he picked up the cup, closed his eyes, whispered “Sweet Jesus, Amen”, and drank the small portion of meat and vegetable juices.

  He felt so satisfied that he knew this must be what it feels like when your soul gets to leave your body and fly up to heaven.

  And then he almost threw up.

  He was a bad brother. The worst! He’d come here to get food for Carol and he’d eaten it all! A tear trembled beneath his eyelid, then slid down his cheek. He had to ask for more. He couldn’t go home without food for Carol.

  So Bobby gave a bobbing head-bow toward the guard, picked up the plate, put the cup on it, and held it out toward the guard. But when the man reached for it, instead of letting go, Bobby hung onto it. He released one hand and pointed his finger at the plate, and at the same time wrinkled up his brow in the most pleading expression he knew how to render. It almost always worked on Mom. Maybe—

  The guard laughed his head off, grabbed the plate and walked through the dining hall holding the plate high overhead, showing all the men how clean Bobby had licked it.

  Bobby sniffled. He’d messed up. They weren’t going to give him any more food. He couldn’t go home now. He’d blown it.

  He took a tiny step backward, still haunted by all the food still strewn across the table. The guard was coming back. And he didn’t have a plate in his hand. Bobby gulped. The man was coming back to chase him away! He’d made him mad now!

  And then the guard smiled. Like an angel reaching down from the clouds, the man leaned off the edge of the platform and handed Bobby a small packet. Food wrapped in a soiled napkin.

  Bobby’s heart began to hammer in his chest. His face broke into a grin so big it hurt his cheeks. He flung his torso into a wild bow, then spun around as fast as his muddy feet could manage and headed back to the room.

  He’d done it! He’d found some food for Carol.

  Mom was going to be so happy.

  . . . .

  Dorothy scraped the mud from the bottom of her shoes. Bending was the worst, but there was no way to accomplish the task without bending. She turned to fling a handful of mud into the darkness and saw two small shoes stuck in the unforgiving muck just inches from the Annex door.

  They looked like Bobby’s. The little imp. He wasn’t even to be out in the rain, much less leave his one and only pair of shoes out here for anyone to help themselves to.

  She wrestled them out of the mire and hurled a glob of mud as far as she could toss it. Dollops of sludge and debris broke away and landed on her arm and peppered her skirt. She gasped, looking at the mess she’d made of herself. In an instant it turned her pristine white coat into prison garb.

  Thoughts as dark as her dirty coat simmered up from her empty belly, and she suddenly lashed out.

  I hate this!

  The words she hissed into the night seemed thrown back into her face by the pelting rain. They stung her ears and bruised her heart.

  She muttered, striving to dispel the harsh thoughts as she swiped another fistful of mud and cast it angrily to the ground. Rain dripped across her face, mingling with the tears that had somehow exploded from her eyes.

  Leave it, Dorothy...just get on with it!

  She slammed the soles of Bobby’s shoes together, doing a great deal to shed mud from the shoes and a great deal more to soil herself and the annex wall. But if anything, the little shoes looked worse than before.

  Again and again she clapped the soles together.

  Harder. Harder.

  Her muscles shrieked louder with each vicious thrust, until at last her shoulders fell in exhaustion and her mind slipped into darker territory.

  This is all my fault.

  As the words slid from the shadowy place where she’d confined them these many months, the stone that was lodged in her throat finally moved, letting out the cry she’d stifled for so long.

  I did this.

  The condemning words seemed to scorch the darkness around her, at the same time bleeding her of anger as she released them into the rain. Her breast heaved, forcing long, rasping gulps of air to rush from her with the guttural sounds of a woman whose mind was threatening to abandon her.

  God help me!

  The words echoed in her mind. Once. Twice. Then suddenly the self-vilifi
cation was gone. Just like that. Dissipated into the molecules of wetness that still pummeled her face.

  Resignation slowed her hand as she swept away the worst of the mud from herself and from Bobby’s shoes and carried them with her into the Annex.

  Step by trembling step she moved away from the scene of her momentary madness. It was time for her to get a grip. She could do it. She had to do it. She’d done it countless times before. She could do it again. She was a problem solver. A healer. A saver of lives. A clever creator of ingenious tools. She was a visionary, a devoted Christian, a champion of the underdog, a servant. She was a mother. A parent. A warrior.

  She was a failure.

  The thought stopped her in her tracks, and with the greatest effort she struggled to find words that would banish that horrible thought. But it refused to release her.

  She couldn’t protect her children. She couldn’t find the food to sustain them another day. She couldn’t even clean a muddy pair of shoes.

  Dorothy had never in her life accepted failure. But she had never in her life felt so tired. Thank God for the rain, because if the air raid sirens had gone off again she didn’t think she had the strength to gather the children and crawl under the bed.

  It must be the fatigue that got the best of her tonight. She wasn’t the sort to rail at the wind. God had every right to expect better from her. She’d have strongly admonished any of her student nurses who spoke to themselves the way she had tonight. She might even have lectured her own children had they dared show such weakness.

  Yes, that was it. Fatigue. It had to be the fatigue. It seemed to quadruple each day. Since they’d moved the children’s ward to the Main Building it was twice as far from her room now, and she had to stop and rest at least three times every time she walked to or from the clinic. Needing to stop twice in an eight-minute walk was nothing short of shocking.

  She paused a moment before entering the room, and begged her God to clear her mind, to let her creative spirit flow so she could craft a solution to getting food for her children.

  In the unusual quiet she felt a tiny portion of her burden fall away. Somehow it was going to be all right. That thought encircled her mind and calmed the tremor in her stomach.