Wade stirred, then turned toward her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I came for the trap. There might be a rabbit in the garden.”
He sat up slowly, his expression dull.
“If we catch him, we could make stew.”
“Oh? How so?”
She patted his face, her touch more hard than it was tender. “Wade, perk up.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, I fade out sometimes.”
She worried about this once-vital man, whom she was growing to care for so much. She didn’t want him to lose his fortitude; he simply couldn’t give up and die. She had seen that happen on the wards—a patient’s will to live ebbing, his spirit slipping away. Stored in the hospital morgue, dead bodies bloated in the heat and attracted rats that feasted on the fingers and toes. The corpses got carted away in filthy coffins too short for most American bodies. There was no dignity in death here.
“Come with me,” Ruth Ann said. She led Margie down a long hallway and showed her the unlocked door and staircase that led to the cupola that sat high over the main entrance of Santo Tomas. “Do we dare?” she said, pointing up the stairs and speaking loudly over the noise of the war raging outside the confines of the camp.
“I don’t know,” Margie said. “This door’s always locked. It’s dangerous. Where’s the guard?”
“Beats me. Don’t you want to see what’s going on?”
Margie’s curiosity won over her fear. Closing the door behind them, she followed Ruth Ann up the stairs that were steeper than she thought.
“Ten more steps. Can you do it?” Ruth Ann asked.
“Think so,” Margie shouted over the growl of aircraft engines. She scooted up the last few stairs backward and found the view from the top made the effort worth it. They joined Tildy and other internees watching the show. The bay area to the south roiled as American planes crisscrossing the sky dropped bombs on Japanese ships. Gray and gritty, the air smelled of burning fuel. Wherever Margie looked, fires roared and columns of black smoke spewed upward. Tremendous explosions rocked the building.
Over the constant drone of planes and shrill whistles of the antiaircraft artillery, Tildy shouted, “I counted eighty-four Allied planes this pass, and each dumped a full load. They just keep coming. Can’t be much left out there.”
Margie pointed to a dogfight just to the east between a Nip Zero and an American Hellcat. “Take the bastard out!” she screamed as the planes looped and rolled around the dreary sky. When an engine sputtered, she crossed her fingers. The Zero spiraled down, trailing fire, and she had to refrain from dancing a jig.
“Feels like I’m watching a newsreel!” she shouted.
“You are the newsreel!” Tildy said, laughing.
Every day Margie listened to and watched the sounds and sights of the war, but as January turned into February, liberation seemed as far off as ever. Fear for the lives of her and her friends intensified as each Allied victory brought more restrictions and humiliations, less food, and sometimes death to the beaten-down citizens of Santo Tomas.
Hope stirred again in February as the sky swelled with a tremendous reverberation. Margie counted seven B-24s flying in formation low over the camp. Just the sight of all that friendly power gave her goose bumps. The internees craned their necks to watch the lead plane circle. When directly overhead, the pilot tossed an object out of the cockpit. A hundred starving souls dove for it as a swarm of Japanese guards attacked. One of the prisoners prevailed. He waved goggles and a note.
“Roll out the barrel! We’ll be back today or tomorrow!” he shouted to the excited crowd just before the guards beat him down and dragged him away.
Margie felt the point of a bayonet on her back. She stumbled forward with the rest of the crowd, which was crazed with joy and fear as they were herded back into the campus buildings. “Stay away from the windows or I’ll shoot you,” a guard growled as he locked the door.
The prisoners listened at doors and cautiously peeked out windows the rest of the day, praying for the return of the American planes. The only activity they could see, however, took place inside the camp. Skittish Japanese soldiers burned reams of records in massive bonfires and loaded trucks with guns and equipment. Acrid smoke from the fires and quarrelsome enemy voices filtered into the rooms.
Ruth Ann nudged Tildy. “What’re they saying?”
“Shh!” Tildy whispered, straining to hear the words. “They’re talking too fast. Wait—something about trucks and gasoline. They sound scared.”
“I hope they’re so scared they’re choking on it,” Gracie said, sitting on her cot and hugging a pillow.
Ruth Ann snuck a quick peek outside. “Holy Mother of God! Those shit-faced devils! Look!”
Margie edged forward. She saw trucks filled with Japanese officers and their armed guards speeding out of the camp. A guard standing on the ground below her looked up, and she quickly ducked back. “So the rats are leaving the sinking ship, the yellow-bellied bastards.”
“Christ, no! Not that. Stand here and look again.” Ruth Ann pointed to the right. “That truck over there.”
After trading places with Ruth Ann, Margie could see Japanese soldiers not far from her window unloading a truck full of red barrels. They rolled each barrel cautiously down a ramp and stacked it with the others into a niche under the building’s main staircase. “What is it?”
“Gasoline storage barrels,” Ruth Ann said. “I bet those fucking turds plan on torching this place before our guys arrive.”
Thunderstruck, Margie watched the preparations for her demise. “They wouldn’t do that, would they?”
“What’s to stop them?”
As day turned to night, the flurry of Japanese activity ceased. The last truckload of officers disappeared through the gate, leaving behind a company of guards to keep the internees caged in their rooms. During the long hours without food or news, all they could do in the stifling darkness was wait and listen to the muffled sobs and whispered prayers of their fellow prisoners. Helen, who had slept through the day, struggled to breathe, and Margie pushed a thin pillow under her shoulders to ease her discomfort. She didn’t like what she felt when she lifted her friend. Helen’s body was swelling.
“Use this too,” Tildy whispered, offering her own ragged pillow. “She doesn’t sound good at all.”
“She’s not. She can’t wait much longer.” Margie stifled a sob and prayed. Please give Helen the will to live and the strength to survive.
From beyond the walls of the campus came the unremitting blasts of a raging war.
“There’s machine-gun fire out there tonight,” Ruth Ann said.
Margie listened to the staccato reports. There were other new sounds too—the rumblings and grindings of heavy machinery. “Sounds like there’s fighting on the ground.”
They felt a resonating thud, followed by a clunk.
“That sounded close.” Ruth Ann climbed over several beds to return to the window.
They heard another thud, another clunk, and then a screech. A great resounding crash shook the building, drawing every woman in the room to the window. A light suddenly shone so brightly that Margie shielded her eyes. She rasped, “Oh Jesus, Mother of God! This is it!”
A few women returned to their cots, curling into fetal positions, heads buried under their pillows. Some dropped to their knees to pray, while others huddled tightly together for comfort. Despite the fear and horror, the room stayed as silent as a graveyard. Margie stayed at the window, mesmerized.
The bright light slowly advanced from the front gate to the main building. As it drew closer, Margie made out the long barrel of a howitzer mounted on a tank. She grabbed Tildy’s hand, and Tildy reached for Ruth Ann, each needing a human touch. So this was the end. After all she had endured, this was how she would die—blown away in the middle of the night by a blast from a Japanese tank, then cremated in a gasoline firestorm. Margie hoped it would be quick.
The tank clanked to a stop i
n front of the main building, a time bomb ticking off their last minutes. No one dared breathe. The hatch on the tank creaked open, and two figures jumped nimbly to the ground. They peered around. Margie cringed, waiting for the detonation, but instead she heard a voice call out in English, “Hey, folks, are there any Americans inside?”
Ruth Ann flung the window open wide and screamed, “You better friggin’ believe there’re Americans in here!” The roomful of women stormed the window to get a look at their saviors. Then they kicked down the locked door and stampeded down the stairs.
Word spread like lightning and pandemonium reigned on the front lawn as prisoners poured out of buildings. More tanks lumbered through the shattered front gate, their lights illuminating thousands of bawling faces as the captives collectively roared out their relief and elation. A soldier unfurled an American flag over the entrance of the main building, and for a moment the throng fell silent. Gracie began to sing “God Bless America” in her clear voice, and everyone joined in. The air was electrified by the pulse of four thousand joyous hearts.
Truckloads of well-muscled American soldiers followed the tanks. GIs, they said they were called.
“What’s a GI?” Margie asked the soldier standing beside her.
“Government issue. We’re just regular army.”
“I beg to differ,” she laughed. “There’s nothing regular about you guys.” She reached out and touched his arm—no, this wasn’t a cruel dream.
Margie pressed through the crowd, inebriated with joy. As she neared the front gate, she saw wounded soldiers lying on the ground and more being carried from trucks. Gracie tended to one, applying a field dressing. Margie hurried to help.
Gracie whispered, “What I’m hearing from these soldiers is pretty scary.”
A medic gave Margie a bag of plasma, and she started the IV.
Gracie said, “General MacArthur sent these guys in without securing the area first. He told them to blast their way through enemy lines and get us out of here.”
“General MacArthur? He came back?”
“Yes, with the big guns. They’re saying the Japanese were about to annihilate the prisoners of war. Not just us—in all the camps.”
As they went from soldier to soldier, they heard more of the story. Guerrillas had helped, meeting the American troops at the city line and escorting them through the streets, past nests of Japanese resistance, and all the way to Santo Tomas.
“That’s the machine-gun fire we heard,” Gracie said.
One wounded soldier proudly announced, “We call ourselves the Flying Columns. We barreled right through that Jap fuckin’ line . . .” His gaze became unfocused, and he passed out. Gracie applied a pressure bandage to stem his bleeding, then moved him to the front of the line for surgery.
Trucks kept rolling through the front gate. Amid the noisy disorder, Margie thought she heard a voice from the past. Glancing up from what she was doing, she saw Max Renaldo. He looked impeccable, muscled and tan, his hair flowing, and his dancer’s body moving with grace. She felt first fear and then revulsion for this man who had assaulted her years ago: her ear still carried the scar from his bite. When their eyes met, confusion flickered across his face, then recognition, and finally—hatred.
A shiver crawled up the back of her neck. She said to Gracie, “I need to check on Helen.”
The dark passageways of the main building felt eerily deserted, and Margie feared lurking guards as she hurried past open doors. The clamor of celebration combined with the more distant sounds of battle filtered through the open window of her room, coalescing into disharmonic noise. She wondered how Helen managed to sleep through it, but a quick check confirmed her condition had worsened—her body more swollen, her skin taut and too pink. Margie patted her shoulder lightly.
“Helen, wake up. We’ve been rescued, Helen. Wake up. We’re going to go home.” Margie caressed her cheek. “Helen, honey, wake up. You have to wake up now. I have something important to tell you.”
Helen’s eyelids fluttered. “Margie,” she whispered. “What’s all the noise?”
“It’s a celebration. We’ve been rescued. American soldiers broke through. Can you hear them? The singing? The cheering? More are coming, and they’re going to take us home. You’re going to see your mum and pop again, and your cousin Mabel. Remember, Helen? You want me to meet Mabel. You can’t go back on your word, now.”
Helen smiled. “You’ll like Mabel. She’s a real stitch.” She shivered. “I’m so cold.”
Margie gathered thin blankets from the other beds and piled them on Helen, checking her slowing pulse before tucking her arms under the covers. She stroked Helen’s brow, crying inside her head, Don’t die. Please don’t die. She needed an infusion of plasma. Plasma! The soldiers had plasma!
She jiggled Helen’s shoulder again, excited this time. “Helen, listen. I’m going downstairs to get you some plasma. I’ll be right back. It will make you feel better, I promise, honey! Hang on for me!” She adjusted the pillows under Helen’s head and ran out of the room.
Moving as fast as her weakened condition allowed, she sped through the empty corridors, where the smell of smoke mingled with musk, dirt, and urine. Nearing the stairwell, she sensed someone else moving and flattened herself against the wall.
A familiar voice came from the shadows. “So we meet again, Margie. I must say, you’re not the pretty little thing you were when I last saw you.”
Acutely aware of her jutting bones, Margie crossed her arms over her chest. Her mouth went sticky dry. “What are you doing here, Max?”
“Are you addle-brained? I came in with the troops. Where’s your little blond friend?”
“Evelyn? She went home three years ago. You know that. She said you arranged it.”
He belched and took a long swig from a flask. “Now, why would I do that?”
Margie slid her foot sideways, a step closer to the stairwell. “Why? Weren’t you two getting married?”
“Ha!” He swayed on his feet. “I guess I said a few things. She could’ve taken it that way. You see—” He hiccupped. “You see, I wanted to keep her around for a while. She was a cute little cunt. She’d do anything for me. You two talked a lot. Did she tell you that? Anything for me. I have a particular appetite.”
Margie took another step sideways, hoping Max wouldn’t notice, but he followed her movement with his head.
He said, “Royce and I talked too. He told me all these, um . . . intimate things. What he did . . . what you did.”
Margie forced herself not to listen.
“Wonder what he’d think of you now? Scrawny. Gray-faced. Hollow-eyed.” Max snickered. “But then, he’s no prize himself by now.” He stepped closer, waving the flask in front of her face. “When’s the last time you ate anything but weevils?”
She smelled the liquor. She willed herself to remain detached, but her mouth watered, and she gaped at it hungrily.
He laughed with gurgling contempt, then drank the remaining contents of the flask and tossed it aside. It clattered on the floor.
“You always were a mean drunk, Max.”
“So the gray ghost’s still got fight!” He grabbed her arm, and she writhed in his grasp. From down the stairs came a grinding of machinery, a thump, and a wild hurrah.
“You should be with your troops.” She fought against him.
“They’ll keep,” he growled. “You’re unfinished business.” Gripping her arm, he propelled her, stumbling, from the dark hallway into an empty room. She twisted away, but he grabbed her by the hair, yanking her back and spinning her around. She gasped at seeing his one milky, sightless eye. She lowered her gaze to the cleft in his chin.
He jerked her head back, forcing her gaze upward. “Look at me, you bitch! You did this!” Spittle sprayed her face. “You ruined my life. You owe me, and I’ve come for payment.”
She thrashed, trying to free herself, but she couldn’t match his weight, strength, and thirst for revenge. He pinned her to
the floor, one hand so tight to her throat it cut off her breathing. He ripped off her cotton dress, laughing at the crocheted G-string as he tossed it aside. Lowering his pants, he drove into her, each thrust like a knife slicing into her—brutal, hard, deep, again and again. He convulsed, spent but not done. He flipped her over, forcing her legs apart. Choking, she screamed as he thrust his penis painfully into her rectum while pinching her nonexistent breasts and fondling her burning vagina. Frenzied, he pounded away at her, while her chin and jutting hip bones bounced on the floor. Licking her ear, he whispered, “When you see your friend, tell her I miss that flicky little thing she did with her tongue.” He rolled away. Straightening his clothes, he nudged her with his foot before he left to join the festivities outside.
Dizzy from pain and terror, Margie pulled on her torn dress and found her G-string in a corner, then limped back to her room. Sitting on her cot, she tried to sip some water, but each tiny swallow hurt her crushed throat. Blood seeped from between her legs; she couldn’t tell from where, because everything down there burned. Then she saw Helen lying immobile on her cot and remembered the plasma. Oh my God! She had been on her way to get plasma for Helen when Max attacked her. She hobbled over to her friend.
“Helen, honey,” she croaked painfully. “I was delayed a bit. I’ll be right back with the plasma. I won’t be but a minute.” She touched her friend’s cheek, but she was too late. Helen had neither breath in her body nor life in her eyes.
Margie collapsed onto Helen’s chest, feeling herself shrivel inside, the howling void filling with numbness, desolation, and darkness.
That was how Gracie found her some time later, battered and weak, blood and urine soaking her dress. “Who did this? A guard?” Her gaze raked the room. She closed the door, shoved a cot in front of it, and helped Margie stumble onto it. She assessed Margie all over, muttering obscenities when seeing the bloodied perineum. Gracie placed a folded blanket under Margie’s feet and wrapped her in another. “You’re in shock. Keep your head down, okay?”
A Pledge of Silence Page 18