Prisoner of War

by Michael P. Spradlin

  I tried not to let my excitement get the best of me. Knowing where Gunny was and getting him out were two completely different things. And the truth of it was I had no idea how to rescue him. It wasn’t like we could mount a frontal assault on the building.

  Sergeant Martin rubbed his chin. Then his eyes lit up, and he grabbed Willy by the shoulders.

  “How much we got in the stash?” Martin asked.

  “Fifteen pounds and a few shillings, plus two packs of cigs the guards didn’t get their hands on when they searched us,” Willy answered.

  “All right, here’s what we’re gonna do. You, Smitty, and Davis work out a schedule and watch that building for the rest of the day and into the evening. Find out how many guards they’ve got, when and how often they change watch, and if they’re paying close attention to what they’re doing. Take turns and switch it up often so nobody notices you watching. We don’t need anybody guessing what we’re up to.”

  “Right you are,” Willy said, running off to find Davis and Smitty.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “I’m not quite sure yet,” said Sergeant Martin. “Our information is limited and only halfway reliable. But for now, we’ll wait until lights-out, and then we’ll go and see what we can see. If we can sneak in and get Gunny out with a fair chance of not losing our heads—and I mean that literally, mate—we’ll do that. If not, we’ll see if we can bribe us a guard to look the other way.”

  “Do you think that’ll work? From what I’ve seen, these guards are pretty mean.”

  “You’re right about that, Henry. No Japanese soldier wants to be babysitting a bunch of surrendering allies. They all want to be out on the battlefield, dying a glorious death for their bloody emperor. So we’re stuck with the worst soldiers that the Imperial Japanese Army has got. If they were any good at fighting, they’d be out actually doing it instead of guarding a bunch of dirty captives who they consider less than human.”

  “The Bushido,” I said.

  “You know about that, do you?”

  “Yeah. Gunny explained it to me. No honor in surrender and all that.”

  “Exactly right. A Japanese soldier would rather commit suicide than surrender. But every army, all over this wide world of ours, has got its share of screwups and malcontents. Even the Japanese, who are always boasting about how tough and efficient they are. They think the absolute worst Japanese soldier is still ten times better than the very best Yank or Aussie or Brit. Which is a laugh—everybody knows the Brits, with all their boarding schools and afternoon teas, are a bunch of lightweights. Wouldn’t last a day in the outback.”

  “I still don’t understand. What’s that got do with us?”

  “What it does is make us lucky, Henry. Because maybe the guards we’ve got here are the dregs. They ain’t happy at all to be here, and right now they’re taking it out on all of us. But the commanders are a little smarter. They know these jokers they’ve got guarding us ain’t gonna do ’em a lick of good on the battlefield. So they get assigned prison duty. Most of ’em are mean because while they may not know how to tie their shoes, they do know the reason they got assigned here is on account of them being screwups. Most of ’em are stupid. That’s the reason why they’re here in the first place. And them being stupid works to our advantage. They know there isn’t any glory for them here. So why not line their pockets while they can? One of them blokes might even think he can collect enough hard coin to bribe somebody higher up the food chain. Get himself assigned somewhere else. That means if we can’t sneak Gunny out, we might be able to bribe the guard to let us bring him back.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  Seargeant Martin looked at me with a bemused expression on his face.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, our entire current situation is dangerous. We don’t have many options. Nobody’s coming to rescue us. This is about our only chance of saving Gunny. Saints be, you really are a young’n, aren’t you?”

  My cheeks colored as Sergeant Martin gave me a poke on the shoulder. “So what do we do now?” I asked.

  Sergeant Martin lay his big body down on a mat on the barracks floor and yawned. “I got a feeling it’s gonna be a long night. So if I were you, I’d try and get some shut-eye.”

  It was amazing how fast he fell asleep. Sleep was the last thing on my mind. I was a nervous wreck. But I found a space on the crowded barracks floor next to Sergeant Martin, stretched out, and closed my eyes. The next thing I knew Smitty was shaking me awake.

  “It’s time,” he said as Sergeant Martin and I stood and stretched.

  Willy gave us a quick briefing, but my mind was elsewhere. It was dark outside, and my stomach was rumbling. We’d been at the camp almost three days, and as far as I knew, the Japanese had yet to feed anyone. I’d even heard soldiers whispering that they were just going to let us starve. I couldn’t believe that was true. But right now my stomach told me different.

  “All right, listen up, blokes. Smitty and Willy will go first. Cut through the camp and come up on those officers’ quarters from the east. Me, Davis, and Henry here will skirt the western fence. We’ll meet up in the center of the last row of huts. It’s open ground between them and the quarters, so we gotta see what the guards are up to first. Once we get there we’ll decide who goes in. Davis, you’ll definitely be on rescue duty—you’re the only one of us strong enough to carry the bloke. Any questions?”

  I had a million. But I didn’t ask any of them. Sergeant Martin, Smitty, Willy, and Davis were good soldiers. And they were putting their lives on the line to help out somebody they barely knew, strictly on my say so. What kind of men did that?

  Smitty and Willy left the barracks and disappeared from sight in seconds.

  “All right, mates, let’s go,” Sergeant Martin said.

  Making sure there were no guards about, we left the barracks and cut to our right around the building, heading for the western edge of camp. Davis took the lead, I followed, and Martin brought up the rear. I was amazed at how a big man like Davis could move as quietly as a cat. And Sergeant Martin, despite his injuries, made very little noise as we scurried along. Practically every step I took was a labor for me.

  Davis stopped without warning and put up his right hand in a fist. We burrowed up against the side of one of the barracks, and a few seconds later two guards with rifles walked by, heading south, away from us. When they had disappeared into the darkness we took off again, finally reaching the last row of tents and barracks. Davis waited. He reminded me of a hunting dog. I imagined him sniffing the air to make sure there were no guards about. When he decided it was safe, he waved us forward, and we cut north toward the officers’ quarters. Before long we reached the end of the barracks row and could see a cluster of small buildings near the camp’s northernmost fence.

  The night was nearly pitch-black. No fires were allowed after lights-out, and the Japanese quarters were at the other end of camp, near the kitchen. I had to strain to see anything.

  “Do you suppose Willy and Smitty made it okay?” I whispered.

  Davis whistled. It sounded like a birdcall, but not one I’d ever heard before. The same whistle came back from the other side of the camp a few seconds later. They’d made it.

  We moved to meet in the center. Before long a couple of shadowy figures appeared.

  “Who goes there?” Smitty whispered.

  “My boot is gonna go there, Private, if you don’t knock it off with the chatter,” Martin whispered back. Smitty quietly chuckled.

  “We’ve only seen one guard patrolling in front of the quarters so far,” Willy reported, his voice barely audible. “If we time it right, me, Smitty, and Davis should be able to get inside without being seen. The hard part will be hustling Gunny back out. We gotta make sure he doesn’t cry out. And we’re for sure gonna need to help Davis carry him. As strong as he is, he won’t be able to move as quickly with the extra load, and speed is our friend here.”

  In the s
hadows, I saw Davis shrug, as if carrying Gunny would be as easy as hoisting up a sack of barley. I’d still never heard him utter a word. When this was all over, I’d have to ask Smitty, Willy, or Sergeant Martin if he ever talked.

  “All right,” Sergeant Martin said. “Henry and I will stay here and keep watch. If anything looks funny, we’ll give a whistle. That means you hunker down. Another whistle means the coast is clear. But if things turn batty, Willy, it’s your call. You wait until it’s safe and abort. Are we clear?”

  “Abort,” I interrupted. “But Gunny—”

  Sergeant Martin put his hand up and stopped me. “Just because we might not get him tonight doesn’t mean we ain’t gonna get him. But we’re going in blind. Something goes wrong, the main thing is to get out and live to fight another day. Everybody clear?”

  No one raised any objections. We all watched silently as the guard moved past the building’s entrance. When he was thirty yards away, Davis, Smitty, and Willy sprinted toward the door.

  I never heard them move.

  The three men were invisible in the darkness. I tried to keep one eye on their general location and the other on the patrolling guard. He was approaching the end of the line of buildings, and before he turned around, I saw a sliver of light under the door of the officers’ quarters flash on and off. The three of them had made it inside. So far, so good.

  The heat and the humidity were oppressive, and I was sweating heavily. My heart was thundering like a thoroughbred on a racetrack. Blood roared in my ears, making it hard to hear anything around me. I wondered if I should have told Jams what we planned to do, but decided the fewer people who knew about our rescue mission the better.

  Sergeant Martin squatted next to me in the darkness, still as a statue.

  Suddenly, a thought hit me like a gut punch.

  “Sergeant Martin,” I whispered. “What if there are guards or doctors inside keeping an eye on Gunny? Willy, Smitty, and Davis could be walking right into a trap!”

  Martin didn’t move a muscle. “Nah,” he finally said. “Don’t worry, mate. Any prisoner inside that building is probably in the same shape as Gunny or worse. Much as it pains me to say it. They ain’t gonna have any doctors in there because they ain’t gonna treat anybody. And the Japanese won’t waste resources keeping guards inside, since they don’t think anyone will be escaping in their present condition. And if someone tries to make a run for it, they got a guard outside to either gun him down or sound the alarm.”

  It made sense. The Japanese still weren’t organized yet. They’d have to be careful about how they allocated their details, since for all we knew there could be more captured troops coming in from other parts of Bataan. Although I didn’t have a clue how they could fit any more men into this camp. I felt a little bit of relief. If we could avoid this one single guard, we could get Gunny out and hide him among the other prisoners of the camp. Then we could worry about getting him healed up.

  The guard was on his way back toward us. He shambled by with his rifle perched on his shoulder, looking bored enough to fall asleep standing up.

  When he’d gotten a dozen yards past the main door, it opened, and Smitty and Willy popped out without a sound. Next came Davis, with Gunny over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Willy and Smitty kept their eyes on the guard. Davis, unbelievably, was moving across the ground at a trot. He was moving faster than I thought possible. Sergeant Martin and I watched helplessly, hoping they would make it across the darkened ground to us before the guard reached the end of his march.

  It was going to be close.

  “Come on, Davis, boy,” Martin muttered. “You can make it. Hustle, laddie,”

  They were twenty yards away, almost here.

  Then everything went bad. Instead of going all the way to the edge of the hut, the guard turned around early. And despite his disinterest in his duty, he noticed movement in the shadows. He leveled his rifle in their direction and shouted, “Yameru!” The guard ran toward the four men, though he hadn’t yet spotted me or Sergeant Martin waiting in the shadows.

  Incredibly, Davis started running toward us, even with the added weight of Gunny across his shoulders.

  “Willy, Smitty, lead him away!” Sergeant Martin called. “Don’t get yourself shot. Henry, Davis, you’re with me.”

  Smitty and Willy took off toward the east side of the camp. The guard stopped and hesitated, unsure what to do. Davis had reached us, with Gunny slung over his shoulders. We tried to press ourselves even further into the shadows.

  The guard fired his rifle in the direction that Willy and Smitty had run. I cringed. If one of them was shot … I didn’t have to wait long for my answer.

  “Missed me!” I heard Willy shout. All of us breathed a sigh of relief. The guard took off in their direction and began blowing short, sharp blasts on a whistle. As if the gunshot wouldn’t have roused every other guard anyway.

  I was caught completely off guard when Davis spoke for the first time since I’d met him. “Willy says to tell you your animal is alive but unconscious. We didn’t know how bad his injuries were, but we carried him out anyway. We best get him back to our barracks. Howard can check him out.” He gave me a grim smile and started back the way we had come.

  “What about Smitty and Willy?” I asked Sergeant Martin. “Shouldn’t we try to help them?”

  “Don’t worry about them two. You ain’t gonna find a slicker, more slippery pair than ole Smitty and Willy. If I know them, they’re probably back at the barracks already wondering what took us so long. If they don’t want to get caught, no guard’s gonna catch them. Two of the cleverest blokes you’ll ever find. They’ll be fine. Now let’s get going, before Davis leaves us in the dust and we get separated.”

  All around us the camp was coming alive. Guards were shouting, lights were turning on, and the sound of running feet was everywhere. Somehow Davis kept going, with Sergeant Martin and me following right behind.

  We darted from dark space to dark space, shadow to shadow. Once we almost ran directly into a squad of Japanese guards. But Davis had a sixth sense about where we needed to go to avoid detection. I could barely keep up.

  Finally, after weaving our way back and forth through the camp, we arrived back at the Aussie barracks. Davis carried Gunny inside and laid him on a mat. Gunny let out a groan, and though I knew he must have been in awful pain, it was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. He was alive, and I had him back.

  “Get a blanket!” Sergeant Martin ordered a few of his men. From out of the crowd of Aussies a tattered blanket appeared. Despite the heat, he covered Gunny up with it. He also took Gunny’s dog tags and put them in his pocket.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked.

  “The Japanese know his name. If they see him in his dog tags, he’s going right back. This way, if they search us, I might be able to convince them he’s just another Aussie. There’s a lot of men still beat up and recovering from the march. They can’t tell us apart yet.” He turned to his men. “Everyone hit the sack. Act like you’ve been sleeping and you don’t know what all the fuss is about.”

  His men complied quickly. Everyone hit the floor and curled up or stretched out. Just then Smitty and Willy burst into the barracks.

  “How close are they?” Martin demanded.

  “Not very,” Willy answered, catching his breath. “But I suspect they’ll be here soon.”

  Sergeant Martin looked at me. “You think you can make it back to your barracks?”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” I said.

  “Good. I think it’s best you not be here when they arrive. Leave Gunny to us for now.”

  I knew he was probably right. It was hard to leave Gunny behind when we’d only just been reunited, but I trusted these men. I left their barracks and carefully avoided the guards on my way back. Everyone there was awake and wondering what all the commotion was about. I said nothing as I tiptoed back to our corner and lay down on the mat next to a sleeping Jamison.

  I had d
one it. Gunny was out. They couldn’t hurt him anymore—at least not for now. And I had the Aussies to thank. I felt like I had scored a small victory.

  Until the next morning, when everything fell apart.

  At sunrise the camp was awakened by guards running through each barracks and tent, pulling every man able to stand outside to a large open area near the front gate. We were pushed and prodded until they finally had us formed into rough, staggered ranks. It took a while because there were a lot of us. Somehow I lost sight of Jams in all the commotion. By the time the guards had everyone in place it was already midmorning. The sun was relentless, and several men were already wobbling from the heat. A couple of them passed out.

  When they regained consciousness, they were dragged forward and forced to their knees with their hands bound behind them. Even then, some were unable to remain upright and keeled over in the dirt.

  I wondered what was happening. A few minutes later Major Sato appeared. He walked up and down the line of bound, kneeling prisoners, staring at them with contempt.

  Guards surrounded us with their rifles at the ready. Major Sato studied us. I remembered what Sergeant Martin had said about the Imperial Japanese Army putting their worst soldiers in charge of the prison camps. Was Major Sato a horrible officer? Had he been given this command because he was bad at his job?

  “Last night a rule was broken. A prisoner being held in our secure facility was removed without permission,” Sato said.

  “Can’t be too secure if somebody got out,” a tall, skinny Marine standing next to me said under his breath.

  This brought snickers to those standing close enough to hear him.

  Major Sato went on. “All of you were given a very clear explanation of the rules. Now someone has chosen to violate them. If those responsible come forward, there will be no repercussions. If not … we will have to resort to extreme measures. You have one minute to comply.”