Broken Jewel - [World War II 05]

by David L. Robbins

  Kenji sat up. “Don’t do this. Carmen, the war is going to end soon. I swear, when it’s over, I’ll take you home to Japan. I’ll marry you. Everything will be all right.”

  Carmen did not pull her eyes from the ceiling, finally touched by the rising box of light.

  She said, “When this is over, so many will be dead. Maybe you or me. It’s hard to tell. Let’s wait. Will you talk to Yumi for me?”

  “Who is your contact in the guerrillas?”

  “I will never tell you that, Kenji-sama.”

  “I could involve the Kempeitai. They would ask you.”

  “I would tell them. Two or three more people will die, that’s all. I don’t think it would affect the outcome. And I could not marry you in Japan.”

  Kenji rose to his knees on the tatami, a beseeching pose. “Don’t do this. It’s not safe.”

  “Safe?” Carmen sat up to laugh loud enough for Mama to hear, perhaps Yumi in the faraway hall. She gestured to her small room. “Do you think this is worth keeping safe?”

  Carmen left the mattress. She collected her spilled robe off the floor, informing Kenji by donning it that he should dress, too.

  He had much to put on, from socks and boots to cap. When he was belted and buttoned inside his khaki uniform, he drew himself up, to leave like any crying boy, with a flimsy show of dignity.

  “Is that why you brought me up here, for free? To persuade me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I won t do it.”

  She asked, “Will you turn me in?”

  Kenji shoved aside the drape to leave.

  “No.”

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Eleven

  R

  EMY SAT in the bottom of the grave. The hole needed another twelve inches. He wanted Mac to have all the depth that was rightly his, all six feet.

  Clem, Topsy, and a half dozen others from No. 12 stared down from around the lip of the hole.

  “Climb out, man,” Clem called. “I’ll finish up.”

  “I need a minute. I’m all right.”

  “Christ,” Clem groused.

  Remy rested. He questioned himself for insisting on finishing the last measure of Mac’s grave alone. These others had volunteered to help, they respected and mourned Mac, too. Remy supposed his need for a last gesture, some repayment for Macs friendship and bravery, was greater than theirs. He couldn’t tell the men starving and looking down at him about the times the old negro had shared his trouble, or kept Remy out of it. The two had developed a trust that would have cost both their lives if breached. Before the war in Manila, Remy had snubbed the old piano player the times they’d crossed paths. These things created a debt that Remy struggled to settle up now, even as he realized he could not.

  While he rested, Mac’s body stiffened in the bamboo coffin inside the ice house. Remy gazed up out of the grave, saddened by the view. He left the shovel in the pit and climbed the ladder to sit on the edge, dangling his feet. Clem clambered to the bottom and with a reddish fury dug away more inches of earth. Remy’s hands ached and his chin fell to his chest. He was filthy and wished he were a stronger man.

  Remy sat for tired minutes while Clem flung dirt clods. The others said nothing over the scrape of the shovel. The grave neared a proper depth. Clem slowed, then stabbed the blade into the bottom to mop his brow. Before the Scotsman could lift the spade again, the shout of an approaching guard turned the heads of the men around the hole.

  The guard, pint-sized in ragged shorts and gartered socks, hustled up. Without a word, he set his boots on the rungs of the ladder. The soldier descended enough to grab the handle of the shovel. Clem, with newfound energy, latched on and tugged back.

  “No, no, no, pal. I need this. Grave. See? Digging grave. Got to finish.”

  The Japanese dropped off the ladder. Landing, he unshouldered his rifle to make his point. Clem released the handle. Remy and the others cast down shadow from the low-slung sun.

  The little soldier climbed out with the shovel and hastened off. Puzzled, Clem could dig no more without a tool.

  “What the hell?” he asked, ascending the ladder.

  With the sun touching Makiling, Remy went in search of another shovel and an answer. Clem waited for Remy’s return, the others drained away.

  Remy made his way toward his barracks, to find Tal. His son would have an idea of what was happening in the camp. Along the way Remy walked past a dozen guards, all with picks and shovels. At the commandants office, five Japanese—one of them Nagata—burned papers in trash cans.

  Remy found Tal on the steps of No. 11, smoking a rolled cigarette. The boy sat with a bunch of others and one teenage girl watching the Japanese scurry around the camp. Remy reached for a drag on the cigarette. His tongue picked up the tang of dried eggplant leaves used to stretch the tobacco in the camp.

  The girl, one of the missionaries’ daughters, was sweet on Tal’s roommate Santana. Her preacher father disapproved, as Santana was half Filipino. She slid aside on the steps to make room for Remy.

  “You done?” Tal asked. “You look done.”

  “There’s about six inches left. Clem was finishing the hole, but one of the guards snagged the shovel. Anyone know what that’s about?”

  Santana answered. “An hour ago the Japs went through the whole camp grabbing every pick and shovel they could find.”

  “All of ‘em?”

  “Far as I know.”

  Remy told the boys he’d seen Nagata burning documents.

  Bascom, a young Irish trumpet player at the Army Navy Club before the war, piped up. “MacArthur must have landed. The Jappos are getting ready for a brawl.”

  “No,” Tal said. “MacArthur’s not on Luzon yet.”

  “How d you know?”

  Tal said cryptically, “That’s just the word.”

  Remy grinned at his boy. He made up his mind. Mac would just have to accept a hole close to six feet deep. He likely would; Mac wasn’t fancy.

  “Bascom?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Go to the cemetery. Tell Clem all the shovels are gone and there’s nothin’ we can do about it. Then fetch Father Corrigan there.”

  “This for old Mac?”

  “It is, son. Thank you.”

  The boy lit out for the cemetery.

  Remy stood from the steps to address the five remaining. He knew each of them to be strong-willed and clever. He was proud that young men and girls like these were his son’s friends. What a loss, he thought, if even one of them did not survive. The Japanese were lucky these kids were locked up behind barbed wire. If they were on the outside in army uniforms, they’d be hell. The Japanese better dig deep with those shovels and picks, Remy thought, because other American boys were not far off.

  “You all knew Mac. He was one of a kind. He thought highly of each of you, as I do. I can’t think of better folks to help me carry him to his reward. You game?”

  All agreed.

  Soon, Mac’s green casket was carted through the camp. Remy asked Lucas to play over the loudspeaker two of the records he’d found in Mac’s trunk, Fats Waller’s “Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now” and Art Tatum playing “Over the Rainbow.” Two hundred internees followed the green casket to the cemetery. Remy figured there would have been more if they’d known what the quiet old man had been doing for them with his homemade radio, and if the camp wasn’t buzzing over the Japanese trenches and flurrying about. Those folks who did come out to say so long spoke well of Mac, and that was enough. They circled the grave with heads bowed while Father Corrigan talked about redemption. Remy wondered if that was what Mac was looking for on the other side, or if he still had a hankering for a woman.

  When Corrigan wrapped it up, the boys from No. 11, without shovels, pushed dirt over the coffin with their hands. Remy did not stay to watch. He lurched back to his barracks, dog tired.

  ~ * ~

  “Tuck.”

  Someone jostled his shoulder. Remy popped open his eyes.


  “What?”

  “It’s Marcus. Wake up.”

  Blurry, Remy set his bare feet on the bamboo floor. He made out the silhouette of Marcus Lazenby, an easygoing Luzon banker, North Carolina bred. Marcus served on the executive committee.

  “What time is it?”

  “A little after one. Come outside with me.”

  “What for?”

  Lazenby spread his hands, affable even in an agitated state. “Come outside first.”

  Remy slid into his sandals. He grabbed his fedora off its nail and left his son and the others snoring behind, or at least pretending so they wouldn’t be disturbed. He followed Lazenby, shaking off sleep. On the bottom step of the barracks, under the stars, he asked what was the big deal.

  The banker clapped, excited but muffled.

  “The Japs are leaving.”

  “What?”

  Lazenby shushed him. “Keep it down. We can’t spread the word just yet. But the Japs are heading out, sure as shooting.”

  “How d’you know this?”

  “Toshiwara sent for some of the committeemen. Told ‘em they had to gather up the rest of the shovels in the camp, cause the guards been ordered to go dig trenches down south. The Japs are afraid MacArthur’s gonna land any day now.”

  “I’ve gotta wake up Tal.”

  Lazenby extended a hand. “Lucas says to let folks sleep. It ain’t a good idea to have two thousand folks cheering while the Japs pull out. Let ‘em go quiet. We’ll holler in the morning after they’re gone.”

  Remy held his ground. “Then why’d you wake me up?”

  “We need help bringin’ in the shovels. We’ve got to go through the whole camp. And when folks ask you what’s up, just say you don’t know. One word, Remy, and it could get out of control.”

  Remy joined ten executive committee members and a handful of volunteers to visit every barracks. They roused sleeping bachelors, married couples, and children to inquire for their shovels and picks. Each reclaimed tool was stacked at the guards’ barracks. In an hour, another four dozen shovels were located. Every internee Remy awakened, from Vatican City north, asked what was going on. Remy only shrugged and said, “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  When the chore was completed, Remy did not return to his barracks. He made his way to the main gate, where what looked to be the entire Japanese garrison, all two hundred guards, milled around a dozen trucks. Toshiwara’s 1939 Oldsmobile stood in front of his office with the trunk open.

  Remy joined two dozen committee members, volunteers, and a few men who couldn’t sleep, gathered outside the commandant’s office.

  Lucas emerged from Toshiwara’s door. He came down the porch steps to speak to the small, edgy crowd of internees.

  He reported, “Nagata’s in there. The man’s wearing a towel wrapped around his head. He’s got a half-empty bottle of Johnnie Walker in front of him and he’s counting Jap pesos.”

  Lazenby asked, “What’d he say?”

  “Get out.”

  The internees waited outside Toshiwara’s office while guards loaded all the picks and shovels into the trucks, then climbed onto the truck beds after them. The entire camp was ablaze with more electricity than Remy had seen in the place.

  Once the guards and tools were loaded up, the commandant arrived to climb onto the porch with his tall interpreter. Nagata weaved out of the office. He’d doffed the towel and looked bleary. Toshiwara addressed the internees. The interpreter spoke:

  “We are leaving. We have been called to join the defense of Luzon. Your Internee Committee is now in charge of the camp. We leave you two months of rations.”

  Hearing it from Toshiwara himself, Remy wanted to grab Lazenby and dance a jig. He kept his poker face.

  Toshiwara continued to speak through the translator. “You will see soldiers from another unit guarding the gates. It is your responsibility to feed them. Understand, you must exercise your own discipline. The soldiers will not be many, and they are here only to protect you. I recommend you stay inside the camp. We cannot guarantee your safety if anyone goes outside the fence.”

  Lucas raised a hand to ask a question but Nagata stepped in front of the commandant. He waved the men away. “Finish! Go!” Toshiwara disappeared into his office. Nagata stayed behind to glower until the internees moved off.

  Lucas led the men to gather beside the kitchen.

  “Look,” he said. “Let ‘em go. Let’s keep everybody in their barracks for another few hours. This is great news but were not out of the woods. We’re still in Jap territory and we’re still defenseless. But...”

  Lucas paused, flummoxed for how to describe the event. Remy couldn’t contain himself. “But holy shit.”

  “Perfect. Thank you, Tuck. All right, committee members, we’ve got work to do. The rest of you, lay low, stay mum. We’ll see how this all shakes out at sunup.”

  Remy went to sit on the steps of No. 12. The electric lights knocked out the stars; even the birds and animals in the ravine and jungle kept still at the activity inside the wire. Remy ached to go inside to wake Tal with the news. The boy would find it hard to contain himself. The smartest play right now was just like Lucas said, sit still and let the camp wake up to the guards gone.

  Remy gazed through the waning dark to the dao tree, ancient and impassive. He studied it, tried to emulate it, and, to no surprise, found he could not do so. His curiosity lifted him from the steps, to walk beside his long barracks to the side facing the fence.

  Reaching the path there, he looked to the girl’s third-floor window. An electric bulb blazed inside. She, too, was awake and waiting.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Twelve

  T

  AL LANDED like a cat on all fours on the bamboo floor. He checked Remy’s bunk, but his father was already gone. Tal jumped into his ragged shorts, crammed his feet into his sneakers, and beat it out the door behind Donnelly, who’d come to No. 12 to wake him. The others in their bunks stirred, but the two were away before they could ask what was going on.

  Outside in the dawn, the camp was turned upside down. People ran in every direction with no destination. Tal took his own first steps in this new world Donnelly had wakened him to, without guards patrolling the wire or manning the pillboxes and towers. The notion of freedom, fresh with having just tumbled out of bed, left Tal frenetic and speechless.

  He jogged behind Donnelly, dodging people bustling out of barracks, clogging the paths. He slowed at his first sight of the girl’s window. She did not appear in her crimson robe. Where was she? Wasn’t this her liberation, too? Had she come down, finally? Was she in the camp looking for him? With a clutch in his gut, he wondered: What if she had gone? What if the Japanese took her with them?

  “Come on, mate!” Donnelly halted to wait for him.

  Tal waved Donnelly on; he’d catch up later.

  The Aussie disappeared into the waking and jubilant internees. Tal walked to the road and fence below her window. He didn’t know her name, what could he call out? Others ran past, telling him to come along. Tal stayed in place, fingers hooked between the barbs.

  The camp’s excitement swirled around him. People headed for the open grass in front of the commandant’s office. Tal felt a pull to join them, a leap in his heart at today’s long-awaited freedom. His legs would not turn from the fence and the high, silent wall on the other side.

  “That’s why I didn’t wake you.”

  Remy crossed onto the tarmac.

  Tal asked, “You think she’s gone?”

  His father took off his fedora to rub his graying pate. “I got no idea. But I do know the Japs are. Let’s go find out what the deal is. After that, I’ll walk outside the gate with you. We’ll have a look, see if the lady’s in.”

  “I want to go now.”

  “I said we’ll go together, boy.”

  With a hand on Tal’s shoulder, Remy turned him from the fence. They followed the crowd to Toshiwara’s abandoned office.

  The whole
camp population, even wobbly ones from the infirmary, pressed together on the weedy lawn. Lucas stood on the commandant’s porch with the Internee Committee, raising hands for quiet. A microphone and amplifier had been set up. The elated mob hushed with great effort.

  Lucas nodded to Bascom, who raised his trumpet and blew reveille. Families held hands. Remy linked his arm through Tal’s.