Broken Jewel - [World War II 05]

by David L. Robbins

  Big Lieutenant Kraft took over. He dispersed the troops into the surrounding terrain to thicken the perimeter already guarded by Markings Fil-American guerrillas. The internees sat on the sand in clumps, searching the lake. Jubilant and protesting, they were plainly oblivious to their peril.

  Before Bolick could join the defenses around the point, Major Willcox beckoned him and his radio over.

  “No word from the task force, I assume,” the major said.

  “Not a peep, sir.”

  “All right. Crank it up. I want to make contact.”

  Bolick slid the heavy radio off his back. “Shorty Soule’s not an easy man to get hold of, Major.”

  “Not him.” Willcox aimed a finger west over the brown shoreline. An L-4 artillery aircraft, a two-seater Cub, puttered along the coast. “Him.”

  Bolick set the radio in the sand to open the metal face. The battery was good, he charged it every night with the hand generator. He extended the antenna. Willcox removed his helmet to slip on the headset. The radio’s tubes warmed.

  “Go ahead, sir.”

  “Lima Four, Lima Four,” Willcox intoned into the mike. “This is Jackpot One. Do you read?”

  Willcox repeated this call while Bolick flipped through the frequencies the L-4 would likely be monitoring.

  The major raised a finger. “Loud and clear, Lima Four. Over.”

  Something drastic on the other side of the conversation made Willcox almost come to attention.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Willcox waved at the passing spotter plane. In response, the plane waggled its wings.

  The major listened. The plane banked to stay in range. Then Willcox summed up the situation on the ground. The internees had all been evacuated from the camp. Three quarters of them were already on the bay, headed for Mamatid. The amtracs were expected back in San Antonio by 1300 hours. At that time, he’d bring out the rest of the internees, the remainder of his battalion, and the recon platoon. His men had suffered four minor wounded. The internees seemed in good shape, none seriously hurt.

  Willcox said, “Over.”

  Clearly that was a superior officer in the spotter plane. Willcox watched the Cub arch around for another sluggish pass over the beachhead. The major nodded under the headset. Then, with eyes wide on Bolick, he drew a finger under his throat fast, twice more, until Bolick cut the reception.

  Willcox handed the headset back to Bolick.

  “Stow the radio, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir. Major?”

  Willcox picked his helmet off the sand. He cleaned it before topping his bald head with it.

  “You keep a secret, Sergeant?”

  “I just spent two weeks behind enemy lines, sir. I reckon I can stay quiet enough.”

  The slow L-4 flew past, steady, as though suspicious, eyeing Bolick and the major.

  “Who is that, sir?”

  “General Swing. Come to check on us.” Swing was the commanding officer of the 11th Airborne Division.

  Bolick had not met the general but like every soldier in the 11th knew the legend: classmate of Eisenhower’s at West Point, fought under Black Jack Pershing in Mexico, in France in the Great War. Many called Swing the father of Airborne. Iron-willed, hard-charging, cared just as much for results as he did for his soldiers.

  “Did we just hang up on General Swing?”

  “That we did.”

  Bolick snapped the radios faceplate into place. He slung the big box onto his back.

  “Can t wait to hear why, sir.”

  The major trailed a hand over his lips, considering his words. The Cub did not turn for another pass but continued north, turning its tail to the beachhead.

  “This goes nowhere, until I handle it later. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “General Swing wants us to stay here.”

  “What?” Bolick forgot to say “sir.”

  “He figures we already took a chunk of Jap territory, so why not put the internees on the amtracs, then hang on to it. He asked if we could take the town of Los Baños, then meet up with Shorty Soule. Problem is, I have no idea where the task force is, or what the Tiger Division is up to. I got four hundred men running on no sleep and now no rations because they gave ‘em all away. He wants me to lead an eight-hour forced march through enemy positions to an unknown location. I was so surprised, I didn’t know what to say.”

  “No would’ve been good. Sir.”

  “You haven’t met the general. The radio died before I could answer. You’ll back me on that.”

  “Damn useless radio, sir. Piece of crap.”

  “Don’t get carried away, Sergeant. As you were.”

  ~ * ~

  When the amtracs returned, the Japanese lobbed mortar rounds to greet them on the beach. The internees needed no urging to climb on board. None doubled back for their baggage or parcels. No soldier had to shout, “Go, go!” The folks scrambled for seats.

  The enemy shells landed short, raising geysers of empty sand, snapping branches in the woods. The more the paratroopers on the perimeter pulled back to evacuate, the closer the Japanese crept. The better their aim became.

  Bolick found Tuck sitting on a driftwood log with a half dozen other young men, none of them in a hurry. He told them to get moving. Bascom said they’d like to be in the last group off the point, just to say they were. All of the boys held on to something from the camp, a signpost, a Japanese bayonet, Tucks radio. Bascom clutched a porcelain rice bowl.

  “Stay low another twenty minutes,” Bolick said. “Well ride out together.”

  Out on the bay, the leading amtracs took a zigzag course, dodging falling artillery shells. The vehicles and explosions churned the water white in a vast swath. Bolick helped load as much of the luggage as possible into four empty tractors. The Japanese mortars were getting the range. After the second shower of sand and concussion, one of the skippers yelled, “Let the locals have it!” and raised his gate. The other three amtracs followed his example. All four squealed away, leaving half the pile behind.

  The final paratroopers arrived on the beach. Kraft showed up with his recon boys covered in leaves and dirt. Willcox shouted and twirled a finger in the air. Atop six amtracs, each driver stood at his throttle, waving his hands for the boys, the soldiers, and finally Major Willcox, to move it.

  The last amtracs rumbled into the shallows just after 1500 hours. On San Antonio point, fifty guerrillas raised their bolos in tribute, then vanished into the landscape. Another Japanese shell erupted on the abandoned beach, empty of all but the internees’ suitcases.

  The six amtracs formed the tail of the long procession on the riled-up bay. All fifty-four vehicles plowed at top speed to gain distance from the shore. Their slow pace would keep them in range of mortars and small-arms fire for long minutes. A bullet ricocheted off the water behind Bolick’s amtrac with an evil zing. Another banged off the armored flank. Every head ducked below the gunwales. The skipper bellowed over the engine at Bolick.

  “Man the fifty!”

  Bolick set aside his radio. Stumbling over the boys knees and laps, he leaped to the gun, not sure why until he noticed the amtrac changing course, chugging closer to the jungle.

  The other five amtracs in formation did the same. They strung themselves out into a firing line, aiming their machine guns at the jungle to suppress those Japanese taking shots at the departing amtracs.

  Bolick charged the weapon and laid open the ammo box. The six amtracs powered within a hundred yards of shore. Far behind them, on either side of the fleeing flotilla, columns of water blew. Bolick, an artilleryman, knew how hard it was to hit a moving target, and how often it happened anyway. He eyed the shoreline for movement. One of the gunners in another amtrac loosed a burst into the brush. Bolick fisted the grips, then thumbed the trigger. He swept the long barrel across the emerald face of the shoreline, slamming ten slugs per second at nothing in particular. Palm fronds snapped, branches shivered, earth spewed until Bolick let
off the trigger and another gunner in line took over.

  The six amtracs prowled the shoreline, blasting at random while the rest steamed farther from shore. After ten minutes, Bolick’s knuckles had gone white on the big .50’s handles. He stripped away his tunic and stood bare-chested and sweating. Far behind them, the escaping fleet had at last scuttled out of range. Bolick and the other amtracs close to shore had done their duty. Before he could shout this to the driver, a stitch of automatic fire zipped below the waterline. Bolick jerked in reflex, cursed, then gathered himself at the trigger. He opened up blindly on the shore, blasting foliage and saw grass. The other five gunners did the same. Bolick’s driver concluded that they’d done the brave and selfless thing; the time was ripe to retreat. He turned the amtrac sharply, pivoting its steel ramp to face shore while they forged toward open water. The boys around Bolick were pie-faced, excited at being fired on.

  Bolick ducked while Japanese bullets beat on the heavy gate. What a crazy thing this was to do, he thought. Not just motoring close to the shoreline looking for Japanese, but the whole enterprise. The rescue by sea, air, land; a thousand soldiers, five hundred guerrillas, two thousand civilians. Split-second timing under the nose of ten thousand Japanese. It should not have worked so well, but it did, and no one could have predicted that. War redefined what was crazy.

  The automatic fire from shore quit. Bolick took his seat on the bench. The flight of fighter planes that had been monitoring the raid swooped low over the six amtracs; their prop wash tousled the boys’ hair. One P-40 executed a barrel roll fifty feet above the water.

  Bolick left his shirt off to pick up some sun. The ride to Mamatid still had an hour to go on the bay.

  The boys looked at him with admiration. Their fight was done. The weight they’d lost would be regained, the stolen years would turn into stories and lessons for their own children someday. Bolick’s war had more left in it. The Japanese weren’t close to surrendering. Bolick had this to look forward to.

  The Tuck boy seemed melancholy. He dropped his head with an inward gaze. Tuck’s war wasn’t finished, either. Something he did in the camp, or didn’t do, had yet to cut him loose.

  Bolick had no idea how long the war would endure for him or the kid. That would depend first on the Japanese, then on nightmares and memory. He could think of nothing he might do to shorten his own. Maybe he could do something for Tuck.

  He drew the Colt from his shoulder holster, popped out the magazine.

  “Tuck.”

  Bolick set the pistol in the boy’s lap.

  “The army’ll get me another one. Toss it.”

  The other boys reached, telling him no. They wanted the pistol. Tuck put his finger on the trigger where it had been that morning. He examined the metal, loading it up with some baggage out of his head or heart that he wanted to leave behind.

  With a flick over his shoulder, not watching it go, Tal flipped the gun into the water.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter fifty-one

  C

  ARMEN DRAGGED Kenji by his bare feet, through his blood, into her room. She sat beside him on the tatami, tearing with her teeth at her red silk robe. She could not start a rip to make bandages and strips. She had nothing sharp in her room and could not leave to find something to cut with. Kenji might faint, then his thumb and middle finger could slip out of the holes in his chest and armpit. Carmen yanked down the black curtain that had covered her door for a year. This she could gnaw and shred.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Cold.”

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  Carmen spread the haori over Kenji’s legs to warm him. He groaned with every breath. Scarlet dribbled down his ribs. She stopped tearing at the curtain to stuff his thumb and fingertip in deeper. Kenji would not look at her.

  He said, “I should have known. In Toshiwara’s office, he had your tag in his pocket.”

  Carmen kept focus on her hands and teeth. She spat bits of thread off her lips.

  “I gave it to him.”

  “You hid him from me.”

  “I did many things, Kenji.”

  When she had torn several strips, she ripped patches until the curtain was all in pieces. Carefully, she plucked his hand away from the holes and laid his arm out wide, startled at how light the limb was. Carmen wiped at the two wounds.

  The bullet had burrowed a neat tunnel through Kenji’s chest. A scarlet trickle pulsed out with every heartbeat. Inches away, in the meat of the armpit, the jagged exit hole wept steadily. Carmen poked with tacky fingers, looking for nothing particular beyond what the Tuck boy’s gun had done. She needed to close Kenji’s wounds or he would bleed to death. Carmen was neither afraid nor nauseated, but did not anticipate the copper stench. It made her lift her nose to the open window for a clear breath.

  He said, “You lied to me.”

  “You have to sit up.”

  Carmen slid hands under Kenji to lift. He bit his lower lip to keep himself quiet.

  “Raise your arms.”

  “Dizzy,” he mumbled. Carmen worked fast. Holding Kenji upright, she pressed cloth squares over both punctures. Elevating his arms, she tied the silk haori belt around his sunken chest to hold the bandages in place. Quickly, she swathed him with the strips from the curtain, circling his torso and shoulder, pulling the black wrapping tight until Kenji gasped. He wavered, his arms grew lax. Carmen knotted the last length, holding him up by the strip because he had passed out.

  She settled him on the mattress and waited, rubbing slick thumbs and fingers, to see if the bandage would halt the bleeding.

  When the wrapping did not soak, she left the room to find a mop and water. She used the bowl from which she had cleaned herself daily to swab the hall and the floor of her room. Again the bowl held red water.

  She went to Yumi’s room to search for food. The girl had been Toshiwara’s pet; the commandant would have brought her treats. Carmen found a small box of candies and a tin of yams. She didn’t mind that Yumi had not shared. Yumi had earned these and it was her right to survive.

  On the landing, in Mamas desk, Carmen found a claw hammer, an odd thing to find lying alone, a reminder that Papa was the old woman’s husband, the man who fixed things. Carmen drove the claws into the tin of yams. She sucked down the juice first, then pried a hole big enough to pick out the potatoes. She ate all of them and threw the tin down the stairwell, pleased at the clatter and the freedom to make it.

  In her room, Carmen sat against the wall, waiting for Kenji to become conscious. She stayed away from her window, did not want to see Tal in the camp. She ran a hand through Kenji’s black hair, hoping this might rouse him. She wanted to talk, because even a halting talk through Kenji’s pain would distract her from the boy. Smoke drifted in her window and the sound of crackling. The American soldiers had torched the camp. That would drive the Tuck boy away.

  She was not afraid. She thought of her parents and brothers in Manila. They would all be alive, because Carmen had been spared. They would embrace her, forgive her, and thank her quietly for bearing the brunt of tragedy in their family. They would love Tal. As an American he would lead them to better times after the war. He was a lucky boy, like his father. He was loyal, hardheaded as any Filipino.

  She gazed down on Kenji. The color that had drained from his face sitting up had returned during his faint.

  For a long time, Carmen traced fingertips over his yellow forehead. She was stealing Kenji from the war. He was supposed to die, be one more of the millions war fed on. Kenji had done this for her. She was meant to be dead like Hua, or mad like Yumi. Kenji had not allowed it. She and Kenji and the Tuck boy were the same. All three tried to save themselves by saving another.

  Under her hand, Kenji’s brow creased.

  She smiled down on him. He was her defiance, her act in the face of the war. She knew why Kenji loved her.

  He drew a long breath like a man waking in his own bed.

  “Are yo
u waiting for me to die?”

  “Yes. Though I think you might live.”

  Kenji raised his left hand to his chest. Without looking, he probed the wraps as if he did not remember Carmen putting them there.

  “I know that boy. He’s a troublemaker.”