The Reckoning

by John Grisham

  He kept talking, kept encouraging the others to take another step, climb the next hill, endure another hour. Surely, at some point, they would be fed and allowed to drink water. At sundown, they were led off the road into a clearing where they were allowed to sit and lie down. There was no sign of food or water, but it was refreshing to rest for a spell. Their feet were covered with blisters and their legs were cramping. Many collapsed and fell asleep. As Pete was nodding off, a ruckus broke out as a fresh supply of guards arrived and began kicking the prisoners. They were ordered to their feet and into a column. The march resumed in the darkness, and for two hours they limped along, never at a pace fast enough to satisfy the guards.

  Throughout the first day, Pete and those close to him counted three hundred prisoners in their column, but the number changed constantly. Some men collapsed and died, others were murdered, stragglers joined them, and their column often merged with others. At some point in the night, and since they had been robbed of their watches they had no idea of the hour, they were led to a clearing and told to sit. Evidently, the Japs were hungry too and it was time for dinner. After they ate, they moved through the prisoners with buckets of water and offered one small ladleful to each. The water was warm and chalky but delicious nonetheless. Each prisoner was given a ball of sticky rice. A thick steak with fried potatoes could not have been more delicious.

  As they savored their food, they heard small-arms fire down the road and it soon became apparent what was happening. The “buzzard squads” were behind them, calmly finishing off those who had been unable to keep up.

  The food had revived Pete’s senses, if only briefly, and he was once again stunned at the wanton murder of American prisoners of war. His ordeal on the death march would last for six days, and each night he and others listened in horror at the work of the buzzard squads.

  After sleeping in a rice paddy for a few hours, the men were awakened again, scolded back into formation, and forced to march. After the idleness, many found it difficult to walk, but they were encouraged by the ever present bayonets. The highway was packed with American and Filipino prisoners.

  At sunrise, they were met by another massive caravan of Japanese troops and artillery. The road was too crowded for the prisoners and they were led to a field next to a small farmhouse. Behind a shed was a creek with what appeared to be clear water bubbling over the rocks. The sound of water chattering about was maddening. Their thirst was torturous and was more than some could stand. A colonel stood bravely, pointed to the creek, and asked if his men could have a drink. A guard knocked him out cold with a rifle butt.

  For at least an hour, the prisoners squatted and listened to the creek as the sun rose. They watched the convoy roll past, stirring up clouds of dust. The guards drifted away and gathered by the road to enjoy a breakfast of rice cakes and mangoes. As they ate, three Filipino Scouts belly crawled to the creek and buried their faces in the cool water. A guard glanced around, saw them, and alerted the other Japanese. Without a word, they moved to within twenty feet of the creek, formed an impromptu firing line, and murdered the Filipinos.

  When the traffic slowed, the prisoners were hurried back into formation and the march continued. “Soon there will be food,” a guard said to Pete, who almost thanked him. As badly as his stomach ached, his thirst was far worse. By midmorning, his mouth and throat were so dry he could no longer talk. No one could, and a grim silence fell over the prisoners. They were halted near a swamp and told to squat in the sun. A guard allowed them to walk to the edge of a stagnant wallow and fill their canteens with a brown brackish liquid that had been contaminated with seawater. If not lethal it would certainly cause dysentery or worse, but the men drank it nonetheless.

  At midday, they stopped near a compound and were ordered to sit in the sun. The unmistakable aroma of something cooking wafted over the prisoners, most of whom had eaten only one rice ball in the past thirty hours. Under a makeshift tent, cooks were boiling rice in cauldrons over fires. The prisoners watched as the cooks added pounds of sausage links and fresh chickens to the rice and stirred their mix with long wooden spatulas. Beyond the tent was a makeshift pen secured by barbed wire, and inside it there were about a hundred bedraggled and starving Philippine citizens, support staff who had worked for the army. More guards arrived and it became apparent that this would be a lunch site. When it was served, the Japanese ate from their mess kits and enjoyed a nice meal. One walked to the pen, held up a thick link sausage, and tossed it through the barbed wire. A mob descended upon it, squealing, scratching, clawing, fighting. The guard bent double laughing, as did his buddies. It was too much fun to pass up, so several of them walked to the barbed wire and held up chicken legs and sausages. The prisoners reached and begged and then fought viciously when the food hit the ground.

  Nothing was tossed to the Americans. There was no lunch, only the putrid water and an hour in the sun. The march continued through the long afternoon with more men falling and being left behind.

  Around midnight on April 12, the second day of the march, the men arrived at the town of Orani, some thirty miles from where they had started. Such a hike would have been challenging for healthy soldiers. For the survivors, it was a miracle they had made it so far. Near the center of town they were led off the highway and into a barbed-wire compound hastily built to house five hundred prisoners. There were at least a thousand already there when Pete’s column arrived. There was no food or water and no latrines. Many of the men suffered from dysentery, and human waste, blood, mucus, and urine covered the ground and stuck to their boots. Maggots were everywhere. There was no room to lie down, so the men tried to sleep sitting back to back, but their cramped muscles made it impossible. The screams of the deranged did not help. Sick, dehydrated, exhausted, and starving, many of the men lost all sense of where they were and what they were doing. Many were delirious, half or fully crazed, and others were catatonic and stood about in a stupor, zombielike.

  And they were dying. Many lapsed into comas and did not wake up. By sunrise, the camp was filled with dead bodies. When the Japanese officers realized this, they did not order food and water. Instead, they ordered shovels and instructed the “healthier” prisoners to start digging shallow graves along the edges of the fencing. Pete, Sal, and Ewing were still functioning and thus chosen as gravediggers.

  Those who were merely delirious were stuck in a wooden shed and told to be quiet. A few of the comatose were buried alive, not that it made much difference. Death was only hours away. Instead of resting, those with shovels labored through the night as the casualties mounted and bodies were piled next to the barbed wire.

  At dawn, the gates opened and guards dragged in sacks of boiled rice. The prisoners were told to sit in neat rows and hold out their cupped hands. Each received a ladleful of sticky rice, their first “meal” in days. After breakfast, they were walked in small groups to an artesian well and allowed to fill their canteens. The food and water calmed the men for a few hours, but the sun was back. By midmorning, the crazed shouting and shrieking was at full chorus. Half the prisoners were ordered out of the compound and back onto the road. The march continued.

  Chapter 26

  Anticipating the fall of Bataan, the Japanese planned to use the peninsula as a staging area to attack the nearby island of Corregidor, the last American stronghold. To do so, it was necessary to quickly clear the area of American and Filipino prisoners. The plan was to march them sixty-six miles along the Old National Road to the rail yards at San Fernando, and from there they would be taken by train to their destinations at various prisons, including Camp O’Donnell, an old Philippine fort the Japanese had converted into a POW camp. The plans called for the quick removal of about fifty thousand.

  However, within hours of the surrender, the Japanese realized that they had grossly underestimated. There were seventy-six thousand American and Filipino soldiers, along with twenty-six thousand civilians. Everywhere t
he Japanese looked there were prisoners, all hungry and in need of food and water. How could the enemy surrender with so many soldiers? Where was their will to fight? They could not contain their contempt and hatred for their captives.

  As the march dragged on, and the ranks of the prisoners continued to rise, the Japanese guards were pressured to speed it along. There was no time to eat or drink, no time to rest, no time to stop and assist those who had fallen. There was no time to bury the dead, and no time to worry about stragglers. The generals were yelling at the officers to hurry. The officers were physically abusing the privates, and they in turn released their frustrations on their prisoners. As the columns swelled and slowed, the pressure wound even tighter and the march became even more chaotic. Dead bodies littered the ditches and fields and decomposed in the blistering sun. Black clouds of flies swarmed the rotting flesh and were joined by hungry pigs and dogs. Packs of black crows waited patiently on fences, and some began following the columns, tormenting the prisoners.

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  —

  Pete had lost track of the men of the Twenty-Sixth. He, Sal, and Ewing were still together, but it was impossible to keep up with anyone else. Groups of emaciated prisoners were added to one column one day and left behind at the camps the next day. Men were falling, dying, and being killed by the hundreds. He stopped thinking about anyone but himself.

  On the fourth day, they entered the city of Lubao. The once busy town of thirty thousand was deserted, or at least the streets were. But from the windows upstairs, the residents were watching. When the column stopped, the windows were raised and the people began tossing bread and fruits to the prisoners. The Japanese went into a frenzy and ordered them to ignore the food. When a teenage boy darted from behind a tree and tossed a loaf of bread, a guard shot him on the spot. Prisoners who had managed to eat a bite or two were pulled from the column and beaten. One was bayoneted in the stomach and hung from a lamppost as a warning.

  They marched on, somehow mustering the will to take another step, notch another mile. So many men were dying from dehydration and exhaustion that the Japanese relented somewhat and allowed them to fill their canteens, usually at a roadside ditch or a pond used by livestock.

  On the fifth day, the column of prisoners ran into another long convoy of heavy trucks packed with soldiers. The stretch of road was narrower, and the guards ordered the men into single file along both shoulders. Being so close to the filthy and unshaven Americans inspired the soldiers in the trucks. For some, it was their first sighting of the hated enemy. They taunted the captives, threw rocks at them, spat on them, and cursed them. Occasionally, a truck driver would spot a prisoner a step or two out of line and ram him with the heavy bumper. If he fell under the truck, he would soon be dead. If he landed in a ditch, the buzzard squads would take care of him later. If he knocked over other prisoners, then the soldiers had a big laugh as they rode away.

  Pete was choking on a face full of dust when a soldier leaning from a truck swung his rifle and made perfect contact. The stock crashed into the back of Pete’s head and knocked him unconscious. He fell into a muddy ditch and landed on a tire next to a fire-gutted wagon. Sal and Ewing were ahead of him and did not see it happen.

  The highway became a traffic jam and the prisoners were led to a rice paddy for another sun treatment. When Sal and Ewing couldn’t find their comrade, they began whispering around. Someone told them what had happened. Their first instinct was to go find him, but their second instinct kept them in place. The mere act of standing without permission would draw a beating. Any effort to look for Pete would be suicidal. They grieved for their friend in silence, hating the Japanese even more, if that was even possible. By then, though, they had seen so many dead bodies that their senses were numb, their emotions subdued or nonexistent.

  They marched until after dark, then were given the luxury of sleeping in a rice paddy. There was no makeshift compound nearby. The guards passed out filthy rice balls and gave them water, and as they tried to rest they waited to hear the unmistakable sounds of the small-arms fire from the buzzard squads. Soon enough they heard them, and they wondered which bullet had found Pete Banning.

  * * *

  —

  He regained consciousness and, still stunned and groggy, had the presence of mind to simply play dead. His head ached mightily and he could feel blood oozing down his neck. The column was endless and he listened to the sounds of the miserable men as they lumbered past him. He heard the trucks roll by, with the soldiers laughing, sometimes singing. He heard the guards yell their commands and curses. After dark, he crawled through the dirt and hid under the gutted wagon. The convoys finally went away but the prisoners continued coming. Late into the night, there was finally a break. The road was empty and quiet, at least for a moment. He heard pistol fire approaching and could soon see the orange flashes as the buzzard squads finished off those who were dying or already dead. He pulled himself tighter into a ball and didn’t breathe. They moved on.

  Pete decided to crawl into a thicket of trees and try to escape. Escape to where? He had no idea. He was certain he would not get far, but he was a dead man anyway, so what the hell? He waited and waited. Hours passed and he fell into a deep sleep.

  A bayonet interrupted his slumber. A Japanese private pressed it into his chest deep enough to wake him, but not to break skin. The sun was up and it glistened off the bayonet, which seemed ten feet long. The private smiled and motioned for him to get up. He shoved Pete back to the road, where he fell into another endless column of suffering ghosts. He was marching again. The first few steps were painful as his cramped legs tried to limber up, but he managed to keep pace. He recognized none of the other prisoners, but by then they all looked the same.

  After six days, they arrived at their first destination, the city of San Fernando. They were placed in another makeshift camp with barbed wire and given nothing to eat. They were beyond starvation and convinced they were indeed on a march to death. The conditions were the worst so far. The camp had been used by hundreds of other prisoners and the ground was covered with human waste and blood. Rotting and decomposing bodies attracted maggots and flies by the millions.

  San Fernando marked the end of the Bataan Death March. Seventy thousand prisoners were forcibly transferred, 60,000 Filipinos and 10,000 Americans. For Pete, the ordeal lasted six days. For many others, it took more than a week. Along the sixty-six-mile trail, an estimated 650 American and 11,000 Filipino prisoners died from disease or exhaustion, or were outright murdered. Countless Philippine civilians died. Only a fraction were buried.

  And the worst was yet to come.

  * * *

  —

  During his first night in the San Fernando camp, Pete managed to find a spot away from the shit and scum and rested with his back against barbed wire. The men were packed in so tight that sitting was not possible. The lucky ones who found a spot like Pete were constantly badgered to move over and make room. All semblance of discipline was long gone. A few officers tried to establish order but it was impossible. Fistfighting was out of the question because the men were too weary, so they simply cursed each other and made idle threats. The deranged ones roamed about, stepping on others while begging for food and water. Most of the men had dysentery, and with no latrines and no room to relieve themselves, they had no choice but to soil themselves where they stood.

  At dawn, the gates opened and the guards spilled in. They barked orders, kicked men out of the way, and managed to organize the prisoners in rows of squatting skeletons. Three large pots of rice arrived and the guards began dishing it out into cupped hands. Those closest to the gates were fed, and when the pots were empty the guards left and locked the gates. Fewer than half the prisoners received anything, and there was precious little sharing.

  Through the fence the guards promised more food and water, but the prisoners knew better. Pete was too far back to get a handful o
f rice. He could not remember his last bite of food. He withdrew into his shell and sat in a stupor as the morning sun arrived with all its fury. From time to time, he looked at the gaunt faces of those around him, looked in vain for Sal and Ewing or anyone he might recognize, but saw nothing familiar. He cursed himself for falling asleep under the wagon and losing his chance to escape. His head wound was bleeding but not badly. He feared infection but considered it just another affliction on a growing list of ways he might die. And what was he supposed to do about it? If he found a doctor the poor guy was probably worse off than he was.

  Around midday, the gates were opened and the guards began removing prisoners one by one. They segregated them into groups of a hundred, and when there were five units, they marched them away and through the town. Pete was in the last unit.

  By now, the residents were accustomed to the gaunt, filthy, and unshaven Americans being herded through their town. They hated the Japanese with as much venom as the prisoners, and they were determined to help. They tossed bread, cookies, and fruits from windows, and for some reason the guards did not intervene. Pete picked up a banana and ate it in two bites. Then he found a large broken cookie in the dirt. When it became apparent that the guards were indifferent, more food rained down upon the prisoners, who scooped up everything and ate on the march without breaking stride. From an alley, an old woman tossed a mango to Pete and he devoured it skin and all. Like before, he was amazed at how quickly his body was reenergized with the nourishment.

  They stopped at the train station, where five ramshackle boxcars were waiting. They were known as “Forty and Eights,” narrow freight cars twenty feet long and just large enough for either forty people or eight horses, mules, or cows. The guards were stuffing a hundred men into each one and then slamming the doors, leaving the prisoners in total darkness. Crammed shoulder to shoulder, they immediately felt suffocated and had trouble breathing. They began beating on the wooden side walls and screaming for relief. As they waited, the temperature rose dramatically and men began fainting. There was no ventilation, only a few cracks in the walls, and men fought to stick their noses into the openings.