Broken Jewel - [World War II 05]

by David L. Robbins

  Kraft announced their presence. “Sir.”

  The major glanced up. From his balding pate, Remy had guessed him to be a man in his forties. The young face beaming behind glasses, approaching with hand extended, couldn’t have been older than mid-twenties. Remy held tight to his confidence, even though all the men who would save the camp were hardly older than his impetuous and petulant son.

  Kraft did the introduction. “Major Willcox, CO of First Battalion, 511th Parachute Infantry, Eleventh Airborne. This is Mr. Tuck, fresh out of Los Baños.”

  Remy accepted the eager handshake. “Remy,” he said, removing his fedora.

  “Thank you so much for coming. I can’t guess what you’ve been through.”

  Kraft said, “Excuse me, Major. I’ve got to let the guerrillas know Mr. Tuck made it safe.”

  “Come back when you’re done, Lieutenant.” With Kraft gone, Willcox offered Remy a cigarette. He declined.

  “I could use something to eat. Maybe a chair.”

  Willcox sat Remy beside the broad map table. He strode to the hall, gave some orders, and returned to sit on the other side of the map.

  “Chow’s on the way. Can I jump right into some questions? Time seems to be of the essence.”

  Remy dug into his vest pocket for the map Bascom had drawn. The journey to bring it here from the barbed wire to this chair seemed a decade ago.

  He spread the map. Willcox stood above it, planting hands on either side of the wrinkled paper in the same stance he’d been in when Remy entered.

  “Very detailed.” Willcox adjusted his glasses. “What do you know about the defenses around the camp?”

  “Everything.”

  Remy pointed out the locations and firing angles of all the emplaced guns at Los Baños. Because of his regular stints outside the camp on the logging detail, time spent in every corner of the camp playing poker or rolling dice, and his two years of internment in a space no bigger than ten acres, Remy knew Los Baños like a long-borne malady.

  Willcox whistled at his familiarity with the camp.

  “Hell,” Remy drawled, “me and my son built the damn place.”

  Willcox brought Remy around the table to stand over the large map he’d been working with.

  “We put this together from aerial photos and guerrilla info.” Willcox handed Remy a blue pencil. “Correct it.”

  Remy set to making notations on Willcox’s map. He indicated the locations and heights of every guard tower around the fence, plus his guesses about the field of vision from each platform. Of the six dirt pillboxes built on the east and south perimeter of the camp, all but one faced inward, to mow down escaping internees instead of defend the grounds from outside assault. The large bunkers at the main gate had firing slits so narrow they could likely cover only the road and nothing of the fields on either side.

  Remy identified every building, first by residents: bachelors, married, nuns, priests; then by purpose: chapels, butcher shop, ice plant, garage, kitchen. He marked Toshiwara’s office, the guards’ quarters, the infirmary. He made no mention of the animal husbandry building just outside the wire.

  Kraft returned with a tray of food. He set in front of Remy a steaming bowl of soup stuffed with chicken, slick with yellow fat bubbles, and a loaf of brown Philippine bread. Remy sat, tore into the bread, and dunked. He ate without haste, not wanting the soldiers to see his hunger, to have none of their sympathy. Remy pulled off a bit of the loaf and offered it to Kraft, who accepted.

  Willcox continued his questions, not dropping his urgency.

  “What can you tell me about the guards?”

  Remy answered around the wad of bread in his cheek. “Maybe two hundred of ‘em. Never more than eighty at a time on duty.”

  Taking the chair beside Remy, Willcox asked, “What’s their attitude, as best you can tell?”

  “I don’t think the commandant’s very strong, and his second in command is a first-class tyrannical son of a bitch. The way the guards cheat and trade all day long, my guess is they’re all out for themselves. Most of them boys have served somewhere else, got the crap shot out of ‘em, and got assigned to Los Baños cause the Japs couldn’t use ‘em anywhere else. To be honest, I don’t see a lot of fightin’ spirit.”

  Kraft answered, “In my experience, Mr. Tuck, there aren’t any Japanese soldiers without fighting spirit. Not alive ones, anyway.”

  Remy paused. Kraft looked like he knew what he was talking about. For his own part, Remy thought of the dead in Los Baños over the past two months: Donnelly, Clem, Mac, the body count rising daily from disease and starvation.

  “Well, Lieutenant, you might be right. Certainly where we’re concerned, the Japs are in a murderous mood.”

  Remy finished his soup and the bread. The two soldiers let moments pass without queries, as though out of respect for the camp’s dead and dying.

  When he slid aside the tray, Willcox said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too. What else you got?”

  The intel officer patted Remy’s shoulder. “What about the camp routine? Anything there?”

  Remy related the roll calls, morning and afternoon, and mealtimes. He described the likely reaction to him, Tal, and Bascom going missing, patrols in the villages, cutbacks on rice. At night the Japanese carried lanterns to walk the fence since the electricity failed. The 7:00 p.m. curfew for the internees; violators used to get a binta, now they would be shot. The ban on Filipinos inside the wire. Again, Remy chose to say nothing of Carmen, Yumi, and what role they played in the Japanese soldiers’ day. He mentioned the guards’ daily calisthenics.

  Willcox slid forward in his chair.

  “They exercise?”

  “Yeah. Never made sense to me.”

  “How many?”

  “All the ones not on duty. A hundred and twenty or so.”

  “When?”

  “They get going around six thirty in the morning. Finish up by seven fifteen.” Remy described the lines of guards leaping around in nothing but loincloths, Nagata screaming.

  Willcox asked, “Where are they when they exercise?”

  Remy circled the spot on Bascom’s map. “Right here, what used to be the garden.”

  “Where are their guns while they’re doing this?”

  Remy stabbed a finger onto Willcox’s big map, over the narrow breeze-way connecting the guards’ quarters with the commandant’s office, near the main gate.

  “Right here.”

  Kraft seemed amazed. “You’re saying two thirds of the camp’s guards are basically buck naked every morning?”

  “Yep. And trust me, bare-ass jumpin’ jacks ain’t pretty when you’re trying to eat weeds for breakfast.”

  “And their weapons are seventy yards away?”

  “Thereabouts.”

  The two soldiers exchanged looks. The big lieutenant folded arms across his bearish chest. Willcox rapped knuckles on the map table.

  “Remy,” the intel officer said, “you just could be our good-luck charm. You know that?”

  “I’m tickled to be somebody’s.”

  Willcox stood to conclude the meeting. Kraft reached a hand to Remy. “Mr. Tuck, it’s been a pleasure, sir.”

  The lieutenant headed for the door. Remy asked, “Where you going?”

  “Back to Los Baños. I’ve got to find a drop zone close to the camp.”

  Remy grabbed his hat. I’m comin’ with you.”

  Willcox held up a hand. “Stay put.”

  Remy tugged on the dirty old fedora. “Boys, I got two-thousand-odd friends in that camp, though there’s a few I like more’n others. I know that place with my eyes closed. If Kraft here is going to Los Baños, I’m goin’ with him. I can be right handy. That’s why I came here in the first place. And that’s why I’m goin’”

  Willcox pointed at the chair behind Remy. “Sit. Please.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Remy, you’re on your last legs. Stay, eat some more, rest up.”

 
“I’m fine.”

  “All right.” Willcox took his own seat. “Fact is, I can’t let you go right now. Lieutenant Kraft has to move fast and I don’t believe you can keep up with him. I can’t have you slowing him down, and I won’t risk you being caught by the Japs. Not with what you know. So take a load off, Remy. I’m sure there’s more you can tell me.”

  Kraft moved behind Remy’s chair to pull it backward like a maitre d’.

  Remy said, “One condition.”

  Willcox answered, “All due respect, but you know I don’t have to listen to conditions.”

  “When you attack the camp, I want to be there. Please.”

  Willcox looked at his recon officer. Kraft bobbed his stubbled chin.

  Willcox said, “Deal.”

  Remy removed his fedora.

  The big lieutenant came to a quick attention, said “Sir” to Willcox, and headed out of the room. At the door, he almost bumped into a messenger. He took from the soldier a yellow sheet, then walked it to Willcox without reading it.

  The major scanned the page quickly. “It’s from Bolick.” He handed the page to Kraft. The recon man read, also without reaction.

  Willcox pointed to Remy, for Kraft to give him the message. Remy took the flimsy paper. He read:

  ROMEO TO KRAFT. HAVE RECEIVED RELIABLE

  INFORMATION THAT JAPS HAVE LOS BANOS SCHEDULED

  FOR MASSACRE PD SUGGEST THAT ENEMY POSITIONS IN

  LOS BANOS PROPER BE BOMBED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE PD

  W.C. ROMEO

  Col. GSC (Guer)

  Chief of Staff

  Remy, Tal, Lucas—they’d all believed this could happen. But the execution of the camp had been supposition, a spectral possibility like death itself. This message made the massacre real, “scheduled.”

  The warning was the work of Carmen. He handed the page back to Kraft. Remy considered telling the officers he knew the source, and that she was reliable.

  He held his tongue. He didn’t expect Willcox or Kraft to put much stock in intelligence from what they would likely consider a Filipina whore, even if Remy could explain what she was, what the girl had undergone to get this information.

  It wasn’t vital that the army knew about Carmen. Let them imagine where the guerrillas got their intel; they’d concoct someone more convincing than her, anyway. She’d be safer if Remy stayed mum. The fewer who knew she was an informant, the better, until they were all out of Los Baños for good.

  “Clock’s running,” Willcox said to Kraft. Without ceremony, the lieutenant took his leave.

  The major spun the yellow message onto the map table. He asked Remy, “You still want to go back?”

  Remy pushed aside the sheet to clear the map. He stood the way Willcox had, with hands buttressed on the table, gazing at the blue lines depicting Los Baños.

  “Yeah, I do. With a fuckin’ army.”

  ~ * ~

  ichioku gyokusai—One hundred million broken jewels

  In early 1945, this slogan appeared throughout Japan, expressing that the nations entire population was prepared to be “shattered,” or exterminated, together in a final, absolute commitment to the war and the emperor

  §

  the ravine, a race, and a choice

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Thirty-two

  B

  OLICK PLANTED his boots in the dirt. The boy bull rushed him, face flushed in the campfire light. Bolick couldn’t tell if the kid was angry, but he’d knocked him down twice already. The Tuck boy didn’t sound mad, he didn’t make a noise at all. He just came.

  Bolick had side-stepped Tal’s first charge and tripped him, sending him flying out of the ring with a shove in the back. After that, they’d grappled. Bolick let Tal test his strength until he flipped him with a hip toss. The boy landed hard with no training in how to fall, to rotate to his side and slap the ground, exhale to keep from having his wind knocked out. Tal jumped up quickly. If he was hurt he hid it. In the circle around them, twenty guerillas and the Irishman, Bascom, egged the boy on. Bolick doubted if any of them would get in the ring with him barehanded like Tuck did. Five chickens roasted on spits across the flames, sizzling beneath the cheers. Tal barreled in, shoulder lowered. Bolick took him head-on.

  Tal rammed him in the abdomen, driving his legs to topple Bolick over. He came in too low, Bolick’s center of gravity held. Bolick wrapped the boy’s rib cage, leaving Tuck to heave as hard as he could. The boy was so emaciated, Bolick could have lifted him like a sack, held him upside down and pile-driven his head into the earth. But the boy was no Jap. Bolick held his ground and waited for Tal to tire.

  The boy did not weaken. Instead he made his first sound, a growl. Bolick’s heels skidded backwards, the force of Tuck’s attack grew. Impressed, Bolick figured he’d best end it before the boy lost his temper and got hurt.

  Bolick relaxed his legs, giving way for Tal to shove with all his power. Bolick kept his balance, riding backward, still latched around the boy’s chest. With a sudden collapse, he fell to his right shoulder, using the boy’s momentum to yank him sideways and down. Bolick landed on his back with Tal on top, wrapped in his arms. On the ground, Bolick spun to put the boy under him, facedown. Bolick opened his knees around the kids head to snare him in a vise grip. Like a boa constrictor, Bolick crushed.

  “Say uncle.”

  The boy struggled but had no chance. The guerrillas and the Irishman booed.

  “Uncle.”

  Bolick released his squeeze. He rolled off the boy to accept a hand up from the man who’d spoken, Lieutenant Kraft.

  “Lieutenant.” Bolick worked to catch his breath.

  “Sergeant.” Kraft surveyed the boy in the dirt. “Is that the Tuck kid?”

  “Yes, sir, it is.”

  Tal dragged his hands beside his shoulders to push himself up. He muttered something angry. Kraft set a big boot in the middle of Tal’s back, shoving him down again.

  Ignoring the boy’s wriggling and curses, the lieutenant asked, “What were you doing, Sergeant?”

  “Hand-to-hand training. The boy asked if I’d show him a few things.”

  “Can he fight?”

  “He’s tough, but not a lick.”

  “Tough’s enough.”

  Kraft spoke to the boy squirming under his foot.

  “Tuck. Calm down.”

  The kid finally gave out.

  “I met your old man in Parañaque. He says you know the camp like the back of your hand. This true?”

  “I know it better. Get off me.”

  Kraft; pulled his foot from the boy’s spine.

  “Get him up, Sergeant.”

  Kraft walked to the fire pit. The guerrillas stood to greet him. The Filipinos admired the recon officer, who knew the jungle as well as any of them. Kraft could appear anywhere like a spirit, the way he had tonight.

  “You okay?” Bolick checked the boys temper before hauling him off the ground.

  Tal reached up a hand. Bolick put the kid on his feet. The Tuck boy dusted off his front and the dirt bits on his cheek. He didn’t appear ready to go again, but did not look defeated. Facing Bolick, he bent at the waist and lowered his head, bowing. Bolick returned the gesture, feeling foreign imitating a Japanese. The boy did it naturally.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Thirty-three

  T

  AL LAY beside Kraft in the middle of a dried-up rice paddy. The small square of land was bounded on the west by the barbed wire of the camp; a thick stand of trees held the opposite side. Across the northern edge ran railroad tracks that had been a target of American bombers for the past month. A high-voltage line marked the southern limit of the open ground.

  Kraft grumbled. “Is this the best you got?”

  “It is if you want to land close to the camp.”

  The soldier made marks in a battered notebook.

  “Jesus. Some drop zone. It’s a bandbox.” He put the booklet away. In the northwest, the night sky continued to jump from the bomb
ardment of Manila. “All right, let’s check out the camp.”

  Tal led the way out of the field, down into Boot Creek. On the rocky bed, he moved in front, stepping stone to stone, never ruffling the pools or trickling waters. Many times he glanced over his shoulder to see if Kraft was still behind him, the soldier walked so silently. Kraft was always there in the pitch black, a broad, scribbling silhouette.