The Reckoning

by John Grisham

  At each grave, a registration officer handled the paperwork and recorded the name and exact location of each man as he was laid to rest. However, some of the dead had no dog tags and were unknown. Each grave held twenty or more men. When one was filled, the gravediggers went about the glum business of covering their comrades.

  The cemetery was nicknamed the Boneyard, and how fitting that became. Pete could count the ribs on virtually every corpse he buried, and he never failed to utter a curse at the Japanese as he covered each American soldier.

  Day after day, he and Clay volunteered to dig graves. For Pete, it was a way to hang on to his humanity. Someone had to make sure each soldier received a proper burial, or at least the best under the circumstances. If Pete died, he would do so with the assurance that some kind soul had dug a real grave for him.

  As the casualties mounted, the digging became more intense. And with lousy tools and straining energy, the work was difficult. The Boneyard expanded as more graves were necessary. The pallbearers arrived in a steady stream.

  A grave was filled and an officer ordered it closed. Pete and Clay and four others began the chore of backfilling, of covering the men. As Pete did so he stopped cold. Below him, just a few feet away, was a face he recognized, even with its closed eyes and thick black whiskers. He asked the registration officer for the name. Salvadore Moreno, of the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry.

  Pete closed his eyes and stood motionless. “You okay, Pete?” Clay asked. Pete backed away from the grave and stumbled a few feet to a fence post. He sat down, covered his face with his hands, and wept bitterly.

  Chapter 29

  As things developed, the grave digging was not such a good idea after all. The Japanese were watching from a distance. They needed some of the “healthier” Americans to ship back to Japan to work as slave laborers in coal mines. Pete and Clay were chosen in a group of about a thousand. The first hint of change came after breakfast in late June when a guard appeared and ordered five men from their barracks to follow him. At the parade ground, they formed lines and stood at attention. A convoy of trucks arrived, and as each man boarded he was given a rice ball, a banana, and a can of water.

  Pete and Clay knew that this was not a normal work detail, and as they rode for more than an hour some excitement crept into the conversations around them. Could it be possible they were leaving O’Donnell for good? The Japanese were constantly moving prisoners around, and wherever they were going had to be an improvement over O’Donnell.

  Soon they were entering the busy streets of Manila, and speculation ran wild about their destination. When they stopped at the harbor, the men were confused. Should they be delighted that O’Donnell was behind them, or terrified of being shipped to Japan? Before long, all excitement vanished.

  They were herded onto a dock and began waiting. A group of prisoners from another camp arrived and spread the gossip that the Red Cross had negotiated a prisoner exchange and that they were headed to Australia, and freedom. By that time, though, Pete and the men from O’Donnell believed nothing. As they waited, Pete stared at the freighter, an ancient, rusting vessel with no markings whatsoever. No name, no registration, no nationality.

  Finally, they queued up in a long line and began to slowly climb the gangway. On board, they passed the forward bulkhead and came to an open hatch with a ladder down to the hold. Guards were nervous and barking commands. As Pete began to step down into the hold, he was hit with a vile odor from below. As he descended farther, he saw the sweaty faces of hundreds of prisoners already on board. As he would learn, about twelve hundred men had been loaded from a prison north of Manila. And they had been informed by the guards that they were headed to Japan to work in the coal mines.

  As more prisoners were stuffed into the hold, the men began to suffocate. They were shoulder to shoulder, body to body, with no room to sit, lie, or even move about. They began shouting and cursing and all order broke down. The guards kept stuffing more men below, beating the reluctant ones with rifle butts. The temperature rose to a hundred degrees and men began fainting, but there was no room to fall. Soon, they were dying.

  * * *

  —

  The emperor Hirohito refused to ratify the Geneva Convention, and from the beginning of its war in Asia his imperial army treated its captured prisoners as slaves. With a severe shortage of labor at home, the Japanese devised a grand scheme to ship American POWs to the coal mines on their mainland. To do so, they used every available cargo vessel, regardless of age and seaworthiness. All ships were commissioned and stuffed with soldiers bound for the Philippines and then restuffed with sick and dying American boys bound for the labor camps.

  Throughout the war, 125,000 Allied prisoners were shipped to Japan, with 21,000 dying on board or going down with the ships. On August 6, 1945, four hundred American POWs were underground digging for coal in a mine near Omine, only fifty miles from Hiroshima. When the first atomic bomb landed, the ground rolled and shook and they knew it was something far beyond the usual daily bombings. They fervently prayed it was the beginning of the end.

  Among their many great miscalculations in the war, the Japanese failed to build enough boats to haul troops and supplies. Added to this was their failure to eliminate the U.S. submarine fleet at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere during the early days of the war. By the summer of 1942, U.S. subs were roaming like lone wolves in the South Pacific and feasting on Japanese merchant ships. To overcompensate, the Japanese simply crammed more of their soldiers onto their ships to go fight, and more of their POWs to bring home to work. Their freighters were perpetually overloaded, slow, outdated, easily stalked, and unmarked.

  They were known as hellships. Between January of 1942 and July of 1945, the Japanese hauled 156 loads of war prisoners to the mainland to work in labor camps, and the voyages were worse than any abuse the Americans had yet to encounter. Locked below deck with no food, water, lights, toilets, or breathable air, the men succumbed to fainting, madness, and death.

  And torpedoes. Because the Japanese did not mark their troop carriers, they were fair game for Allied submarines. An estimated five thousand American POWs crammed into the holds of Japanese freighters were killed by American torpedoes.

  Pete’s ship left Manila Bay six hours after he boarded, and men around him were already suffocating and screaming. The guards mercifully opened the portholes and a whiff of air spread through the hold. A colonel managed to convince a guard that men were dying, and what good was a slave if he arrived dead? The hatches were opened and the prisoners were allowed to climb to the deck, where they could at least breathe and see the moon. Fresh air was plentiful. Food and water were not mentioned. Guards stood gun to gun, waiting to shoot any poor prisoner who tried to vault into the sea. Though suicide was a constant thought, no one had the energy.

  Pete and Clay spent the night on the deck with hundreds of others, under a brilliant sky that back home would have been admired. Now, though, it was just another reminder of how far they were from freedom.

  Evidently, the guards had been instructed to kill only when necessary. Slave labor was now deemed valuable, and the fact that men were dying below was unacceptable. At dawn, dead bodies were lifted from the hold and shoved up the ladder and buried unceremoniously at sea. Pete watched them hit the water, then float for a moment before disappearing, and with each one he thought of the mother and father and young wife back home in Oregon or Minnesota or Florida who were at that moment saying their prayers and waiting for a letter. How long would it be before a man in a uniform knocked on the door and shattered their world?

  The sun was up and there was no shade on the deck. No shade, no food, no water, and the prisoners complained to the guards more and more with each passing hour. The guards kept their fingers on their triggers and returned the curses in their language. As the day wore on, so did the nerves and tension. Finally, a prisoner ran for the railing, took a flying leap, and dove f
or the ocean, eighty feet below. He landed with a splash and in a hail of gunfire. The Japs, while proficient with swords and bayonets, were notoriously bad shots, and it was not possible to know if the prisoner was hit. However, the prolonged volley that followed him down was enough to discourage more diving.

  Hours passed as the men baked in the sun. To escape it, they went below for brief respites, but the stench was so overwhelming they could not last. Most were still suffering from dysentery, and the guards allowed them to hang by ropes off the stern and bow to discharge their bloody diarrhea. Anything to keep it off board.

  Mercifully, some clouds arrived late in the afternoon of the second day and blocked the sun. The prisoners were ordered below and were promised that food would be served before long. They loitered in long lines to avoid the descent into hell, and the guards seemed somewhat sympathetic and didn’t push them. Darkness came, with no hint of food. Suddenly there was a panic among the guards. Some were running from the bow, yakking in extreme agitation for no apparent reason.

  The first torpedo hit in the rear by the engine room. The second hit perfectly in the middle. Both explosions rocked the ship. Its steel frame echoed and vibrated. It was an old boat that wouldn’t last long, and even Pete, a cavalry guy who’d grown up landlocked, knew they would sink fast. He and Clay squatted on the deck and watched as the panicked guards slammed the hatches, sealing over eighteen hundred Americans below. About a hundred remained on deck, and the guards were suddenly unconcerned with them. The ship was going down. It was every man for himself.

  A prisoner, one braver than the others, ran forward and attempted to open a hatch. A guard shot him in the back of the head and kicked his body aside. So much for heroism.

  A third torpedo knocked the men off their feet and total chaos ensued. The guards frantically unhitched rubber rafts and tossed life vests into the sea. Prisoners vaulted over the sides and into a black ocean with no idea where they might land. As Pete and Clay scurried to a railing, they passed a guard who had laid down his rifle while he struggled with a raft. Pete instinctively grabbed it, shot the son of a bitch in the face, tossed the rifle over the side, then jumped and followed it to the water, laughing as he fell.

  The landing was hard but the water was warm. Clay fell nearby and they began dog-paddling and looking for something to hold on to. The sea was pitch-black and everywhere men were crying for help, both in English and in Japanese. The ship began exploding and Pete could hear the anguished cries of those trapped. He swam away from it as fast as his fatigued and depleted limbs could take him. For a second, he lost Clay, and he called for him.

  “Over here,” Clay called back. “I’ve got a raft.”

  They scrambled into what appeared to be a six-man raft, and as soon as they caught their breath Clay said, “You shot that son of a bitch!”

  “I did,” Pete said proudly. “And with his own gun.”

  They heard Japanese voices on the water and went silent. Using the small oars they found in a pocket—along with a flare but no food or water—they paddled furiously away while watching the ship list and begin to sink. The distant screams were sickening.

  For ten, fifteen, twenty minutes they paddled, and when their escape was certain they stopped and rested. A thousand yards away, the ship tilted abruptly on its stern and sank in a matter of seconds. By locking the hatches, the guards had killed another eighteen hundred sick and starving American boys.

  From the blackness of the sea, a voice called out, and it was not in English. Pete and Clay slid down into the raft and waited. Before long they heard a thump against the raft, then a head popped up. They grabbed the guard and pulled him into their raft. Like most Japs, he was tiny, five feet five max, 120 pounds, and without a bayonet or sword or rifle he looked much smaller. He had no canteen, no backpack, no food or water, so he was a worthless Jap who only minutes earlier had been tormenting his prisoners. Clay punched him so hard his jaw cracked. They took turns punching and strangling him, and when the Jap stopped breathing they tossed him into the ocean, where he would rest forever with their brothers he had just killed.

  And they felt good. In spite of their dehydration and hunger, and in spite of drifting in a raft and having no idea where they were, they felt an immense satisfaction. They had finally struck back, drawn blood, killed the enemy, turned the tide in favor of the Allies. For the first time in weeks, they were free. There were no brutal guards with guns or bayonets watching them. They were not digging burial trenches. There were no dead bodies stacked around them.

  They were adrift under a clear, star-filled sky, with no idea which direction held the most promise. So they laid down the paddles and rested on a calm sea. The South China Sea was a busy place, and tomorrow someone would find them.

  * * *

  —

  The first boat was a Japanese frigate, and as soon as Pete recognized the flag he and Clay slid out of the raft and hid under it. The ship seemed unconcerned with the empty raft and never slowed down. It appeared to be going in the direction of the wreck, probably searching for Japanese survivors. Pete and Clay had vowed to drown themselves before being captured again.

  The second boat was a forty-foot Filipino fishing rig owned by a man named Amato and manned by him and his two sons, three of the nicest people on the face of the earth. When they realized that Pete and Clay were Americans, they pulled them aboard, wrapped them in blankets, and handed them water at first, then hot black coffee, a delicacy they had not had in months. As Teofilo partially deflated the raft and hid it, Tomas captained the boat while Amato peppered the Americans with questions. Where were they from? Where were they imprisoned? For how long? He had a cousin in California and loved America. His brother was a Filipino Scout who was hiding in the mountains. Amato hated the Japanese even more than Pete and Clay did.

  Where were they headed? Since they had no idea where they were, they certainly had no destination. Amato said they were about twenty miles from land. He said that last week the Americans had torpedoed another ship filled with their own soldiers. Why were they doing this? Pete explained that the troopships were unmarked.

  Teofilo served them bowls of hot rice with pandesal, a fluffy roll that was the national bread. They had eaten it before the war and thought little of it. Now, though, it was manna from heaven, with a little butter added. While they ate, and Amato cautioned them to eat slowly because it was easy to overwhelm their fragile systems, Teofilo grilled small fillets of mackerel and milkfish in a skillet on a portable gas grill. Pete and Clay knew to eat slowly. Starvation had been a way of life for the past six months and they had learned too much about it. But, they struggled to control their desire to stuff their mouths. With his first bite of the warm fish, Pete hardly chewed, and he smiled as it descended wonderfully to his stomach.

  Amato was under contract to the Japanese army to deliver his catch each day, so it was important that they go about their business. They worked their lines, catching yellowfin tuna, salmon, and ruby snapper, while Pete and Clay slept for hours in the cabin. When they awoke, they ate more rice and fish, and drank water by the gallon. At dusk, as Tomas mopped the deck and put away the rods, Amato opened a fruit jar filled with a fermented rice home brew and poured it into their empty coffee cups. It was bitter and tasteless and not something Pete would ever find at the Peabody bar, but it was potent, and the alcohol hit fast and hard.

  By the second serving, Pete and Clay were giddy. They were free, well fed for the first time since Christmas, and happily getting buzzed on a home brew that improved with each sip.

  Amato’s home was the small fishing village of San Narciso on the west coast of the Luzon peninsula. By land, Manila was four hours away, or five or six depending on the roads, mountain paths, and ferries. By sea, it was three hours and the route curved around Bataan, the last place they wanted to see. Amato said Manila was crawling with Japanese and they should stay away. He would not ta
ke his boat there.

  Late in the day, when San Narciso came into view, Tomas reduced the engine to an idle. It was time for a serious discussion. There would be Japanese at the harbor waiting for their fish, but they were cooks, not soldiers, and they would not inspect the boat. Pete and Clay would be safe to sleep on the boat that night, but tomorrow they must move on. If they were seen or caught, Amato and his sons would lose their boat and probably their heads.

  Their first option was to escape, and Amato had a friend they could talk to. But escape meant a long voyage across open seas in a bad boat, and Amato didn’t like the odds. Since the war started, he knew of several Americans who had tried it. No one knew if they were successful. Plus, there was the issue of compensation, and most of the prisoners were penniless. Pete assured him that they were too.

  The second option was to fight. Amato had contacts who could take the men into the mountains where the guerrillas were operating. There were a lot of Americans and Filipino Scouts organized in the dense jungles of Luzon. They were hitting the enemy from all directions, at times seriously disrupting the movements of troops and supplies. The imperial army had declared war on the guerrillas and was offering bounties. The situation was beyond dangerous.

  “We’re not running away,” Pete said. “We came here to fight.”

  “And we have some scores to settle,” Clay added.

  Amato smiled and nodded his agreement. He was a proud Filipino and sickened by the Japanese invasion. If he could somehow poison his fish to kill enemy soldiers he would gladly do so. He prayed that the Americans would one day prevail and free his country, and he longed for that moment.

  With the harbor in sight, Pete and Clay went below deck and hid in the cabin. At the pier, Tomas and Teofilo removed the heavy tin crates filled with their catch and waited for their only customer. A short, fat Japanese man in a bloodied apron approached without a hello or any greeting and inspected their fish. He made an offer, one that Amato laughed at. His counteroffer was rejected outright, and this went on, back and forth, the same ritual every afternoon. The cook was in too much of a hurry to weigh the fish. He made his final offer, one that Amato really could not reject, and the deal was done. Money changed hands, and from the look on Amato’s face he had been shortchanged again. Two privates arrived with a wagon, loaded the fish, and left while the cook was bargaining with the captain of the next fishing boat.