Broken Jewel - [World War II 05]

by David L. Robbins

  Remy had no answers and too much pain. He couldn’t think clearly, clouded by the ache in his torso, the wreckage of his right shoulder. The first tendrils of panic wrapped around his throat; his breath grew shorter. He glanced around for his boy, knowing he wasn’t there. He jumbled his legs under him to stand.

  Wordlessly, Yumi put her arms around Remy’s rib cage, easing him back to the ground. She knelt in front of him, laying her head to his chest, putting her small ear over the bullet protruding inside him. She held him and listened to him breathe. “Okay,” she whispered, “okay.”

  The soldier hustled back with a stretcher and another trooper. Yumi removed Remy’s fedora. Once he lay back, his view fixed on the sky. Planes circled, smoke from the burning soldiers’ barracks hazed the blue. Exhaustion heaped on Remy like shovels of dirt, catching up to him after days of motion, nights of the unknown, finishing with a bullet hole and a wheezing spout in his back. Two soldiers lifted the stretcher. Remy tried to sit up against being off his feet and carted away. Where was his son? He wouldn’t leave without Tal. Yumi, with only the weight of one hand, held him down.

  The stretcher jostled his shoulder blade. A whimper slipped through his teeth. The moan convinced Remy to surrender. No reserve was left to him, on his back was how he would leave Los Baños. He considered his luck and the ill omen of the tenth game. Was being shot his price for losing, had he paid in full? Remy closed his eyes and asked his fortune to let this be it, collect no more, and not touch Tal. The boy had his own luck, judge him by that and not mine, asked Remy.

  His eyes stayed closed. He was surprised to find his left hand clutching Yumi and that he was crying. Voices along the way through the camp called “Remy” and “Tuck.” He opened his eyes for none, did not let go of Yumi to acknowledge them with his good arm. She wiped the tears off his cheek, allowing Remy to leave the camp with a brave face. The last of Los Baños slid away behind his lids. He opened them only when the stretcher was rested in the baseball field outside the north gate. Remy raised his head. On all sides, amtracs blocked his view. His stretcher lay at the steel rear of one, in line with many stretchers, with more being delivered across the trampled field. Faces bloated by beriberi or emaciated grinned at him, flat on their own backs, borne out of the infirmary in time to save their lives. Maybe a hundred others milled about, all of them elderly and frail, holding suitcases or bundles tied to sticks like hobos. None of the tailgates had been dropped, though the engines cranked for departure.

  “You’re gonna be all right, sir,” said the soldier who’d been in the stairwell and stayed with Remy until now. “Hang in there.” The trooper patted Remy’s good side.

  “Do me a favor, son?” Remy regretted how weak he sounded.

  “Sure thing.”

  “Check on my boy. Talbot Tuck. Make sure he got out of that building. Get him on a ride out of here.”

  “Will do, sir. Rest easy.”

  The soldier turned away. Yumi rapped knuckles on Remy’s chest, drawing a wince.

  “Carmen,” she called to the troopers. “Carmen okay.”

  “The girl,” Remy added, smarting, “the Filipina. Her names Carmen. Her, too.”

  Both soldiers gave a thumbs-up. They waded into the sea of internees gathering around the idling amtracs.

  Remy lay back. He wished for the deck of cards he’d long carried in his vest pocket. He would play another game of solitaire, and another. Maybe peel some poker with the others on stretchers waiting for deliverance, or the codgers shambling around. He’d make the right arm work, and he’d win. This would summon Tal out of the crowd, safe. He could rest.

  Yumi put on Remy’s fedora. The battered felt hat swallowed her head to the tip of her nose. She did this for slapstick, to lift his spirits. Remy coughed, air bubbled out his back. He said to Yumi, “Okay,” so she would stop trying to amuse him.

  Soldiers moved among the amtracs, shouting orders to the internees. “One piece of luggage. Only one! You throw the rest away or we’ll have to do it for you!” Complaints rose but not above the engines, the squeal of tailgates lowering. The field became littered with leather bags and woven tampipis set aside by the internees or tossed off the amtracs by soldiers. Finally, Remy was hefted up the ramp by two able-bodied internees. Yumi walked alongside, holding Remy’s hand. “Who’s she?” they asked. Remy answered, “She’s coming with me.” They did not object more.

  Seven more stretchers were loaded on before the tailgate slammed shut. Yumi joined the driver and his gunner as the only ones on board sitting upright. The amtracs engine shuddered under them. Remy and the other stretcher cases waited.

  He lay gazing up, sniffing smoke. Were the amtracs overheating from idling so long? Far overhead, gray puffs rode past on a strong wind. Not the amtracs. The camp was on fire.

  At last, the column lurched forward. Branches slid by overhead as the amtracs ratcheted up speed. Remy considered sitting up to glance over the gunwales, to say goodbye to the old dao tree in the distance, the only good and protective thing in the camp. He kept himself flat. Nothing in Los Baños, not even the old dao, was worth the effort. Instead, he watched Yumi. The others on their stretchers did not sit up either, like Remy, seeing enough glee on the face of the girl to satisfy their own leave-taking.

  The convoy powered onto the dirt track leading to San Antonio. Palms shaded the way, exhaust fumes and roiled dust swept over Remy from the amtracs in front. Cheers from villagers popped up beside the road. A bouquet flew in over the gunwales, landing on the chest of the old woman on the stretcher beside Remy. She held the flowers to her nose with a shrunken, happy face. Yumi waved to the villagers like a beauty queen.

  The tractors rolled into a forested stretch. Remy pulled his hand from Yumi’s to rub at the film of dust settling in his sockets. A different sound, sharper than the squeak of treads or the rumble of engines, made the little girl duck beside his stretcher. Another ping struck the armored flank of the amtrac.

  The gunner heaved himself behind the big .50-caliber up front. He swung the machine gun into play but did not fire. The die-hard Japanese in the hills taking potshots at the convoy quieted down. Yumi slipped her hand back into Remy’s. She sat tall under the brim of his fedora for the other internees on their stretchers to see and be assured.

  At the bay, the amtracs slid into the water with little hesitation. Yumi stood amazed and pointing, chattering in Korean to the driver, probably warning him they were driving into the water. The ride changed immediately from bouncing on land to a softened glide, the engine growl became a burble. One by one, the internees on stretchers sat up; some looked as if this was their first time upright in days. Every misshapen face, swollen or drawn, grew enthralled with their floating tank. The woman clutching the bouquet said, “Oh, my.” Yumi would not let Remy lie flat. She tugged him to a sitting position.

  The amtracs plowed into the water three abreast, Remy’s vehicle in the center of the second rank. Behind him, guerrillas and soldiers on San Antonio beach raised bolos and rifles to the rescued internees. The sight swelled Remy’s hurting chest. He coughed again. When he wiped his chin, blood marred the back of his hand. He wanted to lie back. He fought for every breath against the fluid leaking into his damaged lung. He lowered to his elbows. Yumi caught him, careful of the hole in his back. She climbed on the stretcher to prop him up. Remy leaned against the girl.

  The rest of the amtracs dunked themselves; the defenders of the point cheered them into the water. Three miles south, behind the trees, the burning camp belched smoke into the morning. A few hours ago, these fifteen hundred internees bobbing on the bay with Remy were slated to be annihilated. Some of them knew it, some suspected, all feared it. Now they paddled away together on a slow steel flotilla. For the sick folks in the amtrac with Remy, the whirlwind of their rescue had not faded. They beamed at one another, at Remy, and at the distancing land as though it might never fade.

  The convoy churned in its long procession away from the shoreline. Another
ninety minutes to Mamatid lay ahead. Remy considered himself finished. He did not know where Tal was. He could not do nor influence anything. Instead, he hoped, a sensation he’d not had in years, and felt it oddly satisfying.

  He said to Yumi, “Let me lie down.”

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Forty-nine

  F

  IRE ENGULFED the southern third of the camp. All of Vatican City was burning. A wind whipped up by the heat carried sparks to neighboring structures, igniting them in turn. Flames sprouted in the nipa roofs of the butcher shop, the garage, and No. 11.

  The camp was being deserted ahead of the fire. Internees crowded through the main gate, hauling what belongings they could carry. Soldiers walked alongside or hurried through the last buildings calling for stragglers. Guerrillas were now nowhere to be seen; they’d vanished to their barrios soon after the initial assault on the wire.

  Barracks 12 would go up in a few more minutes. Tal hurried to his room. He heaved aside the bunk where Mac had died, where he’d slept above his father. Tal dug up the floor plank and scooped the crystal radio from its hole. Ignoring his trunk and every scant possession, he left the barracks beneath smoke ghosting in the rafters.

  Outside, a soldier approached, no older than Tal. He was the one who’d helped Remy down the stairwell.

  “Hey. I been lookin for you. Your old man’s gonna be all right.”

  “Where is he?”

  The trooper pointed beyond the fence, at the immense convoy of amtracs pulling away from the ball fields. “There he goes. He had that little cutie with him.”

  “Yumi.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, he said for me to make sure you’re good. You good?”

  “Fine.”

  “He mentioned another gal. Filipina.”

  Tal bit his lip.

  “I’ll leave that one to you,” the soldier said. “Get out of here, pal. The sooner the better.” The soldier grinned at him like an equal, for Tal wore a weapon. He hurried off to other duties.

  Tal did not join the exodus from the camp, but went to stand below Carmen’s window. He had no reason to be here other than this spot was close to her and he wanted the last minutes, the dregs of time with her. He considered shouting up to her, but for what? She’d made her choice to stay behind. Calling her name through the smoke would not change her mind. He’d said what he could already.

  Let him die.

  Behind him, the sawali of No. 11 began to crackle and lift. Embers drizzled around Tal.

  “Tuck!”

  Bolick approached. The sergeant raised a meaty hand in greeting, the field radio across his back.

  “You still here?” Bolick called.

  “Yeah.”

  The big sergeant ambled up. “What’re you standin’ around for? Everything okay?” Bolick looked in Tal’s hands and distracted himself. “Hey, what you got there?”

  Tal showed him the radio.

  “That’s a crystal set. You make that? Does it work?”

  “My father made it with a friend. It works.”

  “All that time, you hid this from the Japs.” Bolick whistled when he took the set to examine it. “How ‘bout that, we’re both radiomen. Hey, you said you had to get to someone when the raid started. How’d that go?”

  Tal unbuckled the harness of the Colt. While he was grateful for the gun—it had saved his life—he could not hand back to Bolick the memory of shooting it.

  “Here.”

  Bolick swapped Tal the radio. He dropped the magazine out of the pistol’s grip.

  “You fired two rounds.”

  Tal nodded.

  “You hit anything?”

  “With one.”

  “Kill him?”

  “No.”

  Bolick slid in the magazine. He stuffed the Colt in his web belt and tossed the holster over his shoulder. “He didn’t get far with a forty-five round in him. How’re you feelin’?”

  “I’m thinking on it. How long ‘til the army comes back here?”

  Bolick wiped a sleeve across his brow. “Don’t know, kiddo. Could be a couple of days, maybe weeks. Depends on the Japs. Right now, we gotta go.”

  “Weeks?”

  “I said I don’t know. Come on. Say goodbye.”

  Tal glanced at the flaring camp. He gauged the destruction, the force of the place’s emptiness. He did not look up to Carmen’s window, and did not say goodbye.

  Beside Bolick, he walked to the main gate. Around him, the last internees filed out. Soldiers showed off Japanese flags, guns, caps, personal items, any plunder they could nab before leaving Los Baños. Two priests carried chalices and ciboria they’d salvaged from the chapel. One large soldier lugged a bundle wrapped in a white sheet, a corpse from the infirmary.

  Outside the gate, at the spot where Mr. Clemmons had been gunned down, Tal turned for a final look. He was familiar with every inch of the camp, every barb in the fence. He wished he could stand in Carmen’s high window to watch the camp burn to the ground. He would hold her in the glow and heat, and later wash the smell of smoke from her hair.

  The interpreter would die. Or he would not. Either way, Carmen said she’d stay with him until it was decided, then go to the jungle with the guerrillas. She’d be safe, and wait for Tal to come back. She told him, Go now.

  Let him die.

  No.

  Why not?

  Because he did not let me die.

  She held Tal on the landing. Behind them in the hall, the interpreter moaned.

  Finally they kissed. Carmen retreated into the hall. When she turned away from him in his memory, Tal turned on the road to go from the camp.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Fifty

  T

  HE TUCK kid seemed a little spooked over shooting a Japanese.

  Bolick patted the boys shoulder, complimented the clever crystal radio again. He slowed to let the boy walk ahead, to give him some space for his thoughts.

  A quarter mile out of the camp, a pair of diced-up Japanese corpses lay beside the road. The bodies had been shot, then boloed in a grisly fashion. All the limbs on each plus the heads hung by tendons. Most of the marching internees averted their gaze. A few strode right up to take a closer look. The ones who turned away, Bolick thought, they’re missing the point. The others got it. Those two Japanese were dead long before the last cut. For a while to come in the Philippines, this was what healing was going to look like.

  The road ran past a railroad station bombed to bits, then hamlets of bamboo and concrete block. Locals handed out fruit and vegetables. Some provided latrines for the scrawny internees whose stomachs weren’t dealing well with the surge of rations and chocolate given them by the raiders.

  Many of the internees wore items of clothing that stood out against their tatters and sun-bleached outfits. Polished shoes, a white skirt or blouse, a fresh shirt, an unbattered straw hat, some bit of frippery they’d kept tucked away over the years just for this moment. They were so thin, even though these were the strongest ones, who’d let the others ride out while they legged it to San Antonio.

  On the edge of a village one mile from the camp, an old man and woman were roped to a coconut tree. A crowd of Filipinos flung tomatoes and mangoes at them. The woman’s head had been shaved, the symbol for sleeping with the enemy, but she was too old for this. The man, gray and limp against his bonds, wore a sign around his neck, “makipili” His splattered face drooped. He was mortified, ill, or both. The old woman howled in Tagalog at the flingers and jeerers. The Tuck boy stopped to gaze before moving on. Bolick thought this a waste of food.

  Soldiers pitched in to help the internees carry their parcels and luggage. The long procession drew isolated fire from high caves and headlands but no one was hit. The paratroopers trained their guns when passing these hot spots, firing once in a while to keep the Japanese heads down. When a bullet cut through the leaves over Bolick’s head, a nun in front of him ditched her bags and executed a perfect drop and roll into the weeds. No o
ne else twitched. The Tuck boy helped the sister to her feet.

  By 1100 hours, the internees and soldiers reached San Antonio. The spit of land was treeless, exposed to sun and the warm bay breeze. The sandy soil had been mashed by the fifty-four amtracs. A hill of luggage and packages mounted at the water’s edge; these possessions would be loaded last, after every internee was safely on board an amtrac. The people complained at being separated from their belongings. None of the soldiers took notice. They had other issues.

  The two hours on San Antonio beach were going to be the most vulnerable time of the raid. Even with fighter planes circling overhead, if the Japanese counterattacked before the amtracs returned from Mamatid, the result would be a bloodbath. Four hundred soldiers couldn’t hope to defend this open beachhead with their backs to the bay against an onslaught from the Tiger Division. Add to that the chaos and panic from six hundred civilian internees.