Prisoner of War

by Michael P. Spradlin

  Without drawing attention to myself, I glanced around, looking for any of the Aussies. But the crowd was too dense, and I couldn’t see them. The seconds ticked by. Major Sato looked at his watch.

  “Very well,” he said. He drew the samurai sword he wore at his belt. Before anyone could react, he stepped forward and with a mighty swing decapitated the prisoner on the end of the line. The man’s headless body folded into the dirt.

  At first the crowd stood in stunned silence. Then the prisoners began to murmur, which gave way to shouts and curses. The din grew louder as their anger swelled. Three men rushed toward the major and received a bayonet in the stomach from the guards for their troubles.

  Someone fired a rifle into the air, and finally the crowd quieted.

  “A prisoner will be killed each minute until the perpetrators of this offense come forward,” Major Sato said. I froze. If only Gunny or Jams were here to tell me what to do. Or even Sergeant Martin or Willy or Davis. There were plenty of prisoners for the Japanese to beat on. Why would they miss one? What difference did it make when many of us were already sick and likely to die anyway?

  “Time is up,” Major Sato said. He raised the sword and stepped toward the next prisoner, who flopped over on his side, trying to get away.

  The crowd began to shout again, calling Major Sato all kinds of names.

  Two guards lifted the unlucky man back up. He kicked at them, screaming and cursing. It took the guards a few moments, but they finally got him back on his knees. He wouldn’t hold still, so one of the guards grabbed his hair, holding his head straight up. Then the major raised the sword.

  “Stop!” I shouted as loud as I could over the noise. I forced my way through the crowd to get to the front. “Stop! I did it! It was me! Don’t kill that man!” The prisoners parted, and I made my way to the front of the group to face Major Sato.

  He glared at me, his sword still poised. I held up my hands. I wasn’t sure if he would kill the man just for spite.

  Finally he sheathed the sword. I tried very hard not to look at the body of the dead man lying in the dust. He was just a poor soul killed for no reason. How could anybody be filled with so much hatred? War was one thing. Politicians made wars, and soldiers fought them. A fair fight was a fair fight. But killing an innocent, defenseless human being was entirely different.

  “You are the one?” Major Sato said to me.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “And you had help?” he asked.

  “No. I snuck in by myself,” I said.

  “You, an American private, hobbled and injured, snuck into the guard shack and removed a prisoner all by yourself?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How?”

  “It wasn’t hard. I just timed it so the guard wouldn’t see me.”

  “And you carried the prisoner. By yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “I do not believe you.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “The guard reported seeing two figures running away. He shot at them but missed in the darkness.”

  “He must have seen somebody else. I’d run too if somebody was shooting at me.”

  “Where is the man you removed from our custody?”

  “I don’t know for certain. I snuck into one of the barracks. Most of the men in it were sick and injured, sleeping on the floor. I don’t think anybody saw me. But it was dark. I left him there. I don’t know where it was or where he is.”

  Major Sato sighed. “That might be the worst lie I have ever heard.”

  I shrugged. “Can’t help if you don’t believe me. It’s the truth.”

  “Perhaps if I kill this man, you will tell me where the missing prisoner is and who helped you.”

  For a moment I saw Gunny’s face in my mind. He was telling me to dig deep again. To stand up. I owed it to him to try.

  “No, you won’t.”

  “What?” Major Sato seemed startled. “Why would you think I would not?”

  “You may think I’m lying. But you aren’t going to kill anybody else. You already made your point about how tough you are. So you’re going to take me instead.”

  “Take you?” Major Sato looked at me, confused.

  “Yes, sir. You’re going to take me to that guard shack and ‘interrogate’ me. Do whatever it is you need to do. Beat me. Starve me. That’s how you’ll set your example. Because you know I won’t tell you anything more. Neither will any of the men behind me.”

  Major Sato looked puzzled. Why was he being vexed by a lowly American private? The question was practically written across his face.

  “I could kill all of you. No one would care,” he declared.

  “I think a lot of people would care. We’re going to start coming back. We’ll be back on Guam and the Philippines within a year. So go ahead, kill all of us. The United States military isn’t going to take kindly to you butchering defenseless POWs.” I tried to remember the map that Gunny had looked at every night. If I could recall the names of islands and battles in the South Pacific, I might be able to bluff my way out of this. But news was hard to get even before the surrender. I didn’t want to blurt out anything that the major knew was wrong.

  “Your military?” Major Sato threw back his head and laughed.

  “Yep. Our military. You got us good at Pearl Harbor, I’ll give you that. But we’ve got men and factories and ships and tanks and bombs and fuel and food, and we’ll just keep coming at you until you’re all done. You went to Harvard. You know we outnumber you. And you know we won’t stop. So I think your best option is to take me into that shack. Do what you have to do to prove that you’re in charge. I hope I’ll survive it. But if I don’t, well, somebody once told me that nobody lives forever.”

  Major Sato stared at me. “All of you look at him,” he shouted to the crowd. “This man is a coward and a liar. He will be taken for interrogation. We will break him. I would suggest that those who helped him step forward now. You will be spared.”

  An incredible thing happened. The crowd of prisoners surged forward. It alarmed the guards enough to make them raise their rifles.

  “I helped.” All of a sudden Sully was standing next to me. I couldn’t believe it.

  “Me, too,” said Worthy. He hardly ever spoke, but his voice was loud and clear now.

  “I was there,” said Martinez, the Marine we’d helped carry on the march. He was still pretty beat up and he hardly made a convincing accomplice, but he shuffled forward until he flanked me. One by one the other men from our barracks followed suit.

  Before long every prisoner was hollering, “I did it!” “Take me!” “I was the one.” The rumble grew louder as hundreds of voices shouted out in defiance.

  Major Sato’s face grew as red as a stoplight. His eyes were wide and his breathing ragged.

  “Take him,” he growled, pointing at me.

  Two guards grabbed my arms and led me toward the guard shacks. As they pulled me along, I pretended not to hear Sato’s samurai sword whistling through the air behind me.

  Hours later, I stood inside the shack, beaten and bleeding, and I thought about my mother. Through all the torture and abuse, I’d done like Gunny said. I dug deep and endured it. Memories of her were the most pleasant ones I had, so I concentrated on them. I remembered her reading to me every night. How she made gingerbread at Christmas. When I was five she took me by train to Minneapolis. We walked all over the city, and she bought me a toy train to remember the trip.

  She always insisted that I use proper speech. She’d spoken English with a slight Norwegian accent, and she would tell me, “Right or wrong, people will judge you by how you speak, Henry. You must do your reading and lessons and learn the right way to pronounce words and practice your vocabulary.” I always tried to do what I could to please her.

  I recalled how different my dad had been when she was alive. We were almost like a normal family. And I never thought about the car accident that had taken her. That night everything chang
ed, but I couldn’t dwell on it. Only the happy memories would see me through now.

  The Japanese were enthusiastic and inventive in their cruelty toward me. At first it was simple beatings. They used four-foot lengths of bamboo about an inch in diameter. They hit me in the stomach, the chest, back, sides, neck, and shoulders—everywhere except my legs and head, because they wanted me conscious and able to stand. A couple of times I passed out from the pain. When that happened I got buckets of water in the face until I was awake. Then the beatings started again.

  Scarface volunteered to work me over when he found out it was me in the guardhouse. Pleasure danced in his eyes as he stood back and leered at me. He would take a swing, stepping into it with all his weight and force behind it, then stand back and smile at me, his crooked teeth and scar mocking me.

  “Didn’t eat your oatmeal this morning, did you, Scarface? I hardly felt that one,” I said.

  He’d stare at me with narrow eyes. As if he didn’t understand. Then he’d wind up and take another whack.

  “Now you’re getting it, buddy. Maybe you need to warm up a little before you start. Do some calisthenics. Get good and stretched out.”

  My back talk drove him crazy. My hands were bound to a rafter over my head, giving him full access to my midsection. He stepped into position and swung the bamboo repeatedly into my right side. I thought I would die, and I tried to bend away from each blow to lessen the impact. But after a while my strength failed and I couldn’t move. So he just kept hitting me over and over.

  Another bucket of water washed over my head. The water was actually a relief from the heat and the pain, but I kept that information to myself. I wondered where the water had come from and if it would make me sick. Knowing Scarface, he probably brought it from the latrine. I hung from the rafter while he worked me over until the rope made my wrists raw and my legs could not support my weight.

  Scarface threw the bucket in the corner of the room and walked out, muttering to himself.

  “You have yourself a real nice day now, Scarface,” I sputtered.

  I’m not sure how long I hung there. I drifted in and out of consciousness. Eventually someone jerked me awake. It was another guard—I called him Big Ears—who cut my hands loose. I fell to the ground.

  He was having none of that. Big Ears pulled me to my feet. Then he dumped a can of dry rice on the floor. I had no idea what was happening. Was he going to make me eat rice off the floor? It turned out to be much worse than that. He hit me in the back of the legs with his bamboo club, and I crumpled to my knees. Landing on the rice kernels hurt more than I could possibly imagine. Big Ears poked at me with his stick until I was kneeling straight up on my knees. He tied my hands behind my back. Hundreds of rice kernels dug into my skin. I tried to sit back on my haunches to relieve some of the pressure, but he blasted me in the lower back with the bamboo. A few minutes later I collapsed backward again, and he hit me much harder this time. Apparently sitting back on my lower legs was not allowed. Kneeling straight up put all of my weight on my knees. And it was torture.

  “Are we going to have a tea party?” I wheezed.

  Big Ears was not the talker Scarface was. Whenever I started to waver and sink to my haunches, he would spring forward brandishing the big stick. I usually rose up before he could hit me.

  “I don’t suppose this hotel has a room service menu, does it? A fellow gets awful hungry enjoying all the activities at this resort,” I asked. He said nothing. His face was frozen in a surly, impassive mask.

  “If there is room service, I’d love a club sandwich and iced tea,” I said, mostly trying to keep myself awake, and my focus off the pain. He just stared at me.

  “No? How about some bread and water?”

  Big Ears leaned in the corner watching me. Eventually he fell asleep. When he did I sat back on my haunches. It helped a little. But by then the grains of rice had burrowed into my skin like leeches. I tried to think of a way I could rise up and clear a space on the floor. If Big Ears didn’t wake up, I could get the rice off my knees, sweep away a spot with my feet, and kneel on the floor. He’d be none the wiser.

  I raised myself up, but with my hands bound behind me, and probably a dozen broken or bruised ribs, I couldn’t get myself into the right position. When I tried to stand I let out a yelp of pain, and Big Ears jerked awake. I tried to recover, but I couldn’t move fast enough, and he caught me.

  “Sorry to wake you, Mr. Ears. I had a cramp,” I said. He crossed the small space in a heartbeat and the bamboo cane whistled through the air, connecting with the top of my shoulder. There was no bearing that one. I crumpled to the ground, screaming. I was sure he’d broken my shoulder or my collarbone. I faded in and out as he jerked me back to my knees, then returned to the corner.

  The sun told me that twilight would be here soon. I was starving, but there were worse things to worry about.

  An announcement came over the camp’s loudspeaker. I didn’t know what was said, but with a glare Big Ears abruptly left the room. As soon as he did, I keeled over on my side. My knees nearly screamed in relief. But there was still rice all over the floor, and it dug into every part of me. I tried to move, to roll over or stand. But I couldn’t. The damp floor had puffed up some of the rice kernels. I licked them off the floor like a dog. It was the first food I’d had in my stomach since the mango the Aussies had given me. I figured it wasn’t going to be nearly enough. I’ll never leave this room alive, I thought to myself.

  But that night I got my first indication that the world wasn’t finished with me yet.

  It was pitch-black when the creaking door caused me to open my eyes. A Japanese guard walked in, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could barely see anything, except that he wasn’t carrying a bamboo pole.

  He knelt beside me, lit a candle, and stuck it to a small tin plate. In the pale light I could tell he was very young. Maybe a teenager. It didn’t matter. His presence still frightened me. He reached into the bucket he carried, and I steeled myself for whatever he might pull out of it.

  To my surprise it was a tin cup. He held it to my lips, and I gulped the water down. He gave me another, and that was gone just as quickly. “Slow down, Yank,” he said in heavily accented English. “Too much too fast make you sick.” He filled the cup again and set it to the side. From somewhere he produced a cloth, which he dipped in the water and used to wash off my face.

  “Can’t clean you up too much. Figure out,” he said. I guessed he meant the other guards would notice that someone had tended to me. Which would probably make my treatment worse.

  “It’s all right,” I said.

  Heaven came next in the form of a banana, which he broke up into small bits and helped me eat. It felt like the best meal I ever had. I didn’t care if I got sick. Bite after bite, I swallowed it like a snake swallowing a mouse.

  He held up a piece of paper in the dim light. It was hard to read the writing in the flickering candlelight. But when I recognized the handwriting, my heart nearly leapt out of my chest.

  Tree,

  This is a guy whose name don’t matter. He’s been bribed to look after ya at night. Hold strong. Me and your Aussie pals is workin on a plan to get yer sorry butt out of there. They told me what ya did to get me out. And we’s gonna have a long discussion about that when we get ya outta there and I guarantee ya, ya ain’t gonna like it. Until then. You. Do. Not. Have. My. Permission. To. Die. If you do, I’ll kill ya a second time. Be ready.

  Gunny

  I couldn’t believe it. Gunny! Just the thought that he was okay made me feel better. I read it quickly one more time.

  “Done?” the young kid asked.

  I nodded, and he held the note over the candle flame until it began to burn. He dropped it on the floor and then blew away the ashes.

  “Yank, you need sit up. Ribs gonna hurt. Don’t make no noise. Lie down, get sick.”

  He was deceptively strong. Reaching under my arms, he lifted me up. I must have passed out,
because I woke with a groan sitting in the corner of the room. He put his hand over my mouth.

  “You make noise, they come. Beat you more. Sit up. Try to breathe.” He brushed a few of the rice kernels off my chest and arms and gave me one more sip of water.

  As quickly as he’d come, he was gone, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.

  I sat in the dark, wondering what Gunny and the others were planning. It also made me wonder how long I’d been in here. We’d taken Gunny a few days after we arrived. But with all the beatings and passing out, I had no idea how long they’d held me.

  It must have been a while, because the note sounded exactly like the old Gunny. I must have spent enough time in here for him to heal up. And he was working on a plan. The thought of it gave me hope. For the first time since I entered this room, it felt like I could make it through this.

  The kid had told me to breathe. I figured the guards had broken nearly all of my ribs. But I’d try to follow his advice.

  I took a deep breath and felt like someone had shoved a red-hot steel rod down my throat and into my lungs. My mother taught me to never curse, but I couldn’t help it. I whispered a long string of words so foul she’d have washed my mouth out with soap. I didn’t want to attract attention. I could hear a prisoner in another room being beaten. He was begging and pleading for them to stop. The poor man made the most awful sounds; they pierced me right to the center of my soul. I wasn’t going to draw attention to myself and get the same. But I was going to breathe no matter how much it hurt.

  Off and on all night long, I practiced taking deep breaths. I lost consciousness from the pain a few times, but whenever I came too, I kept breathing deep until I grew too tired and fell asleep, my head hitting my chest.

  The opening door woke me. Scarface walked inside, smiling and holding his length of bamboo in one hand. He looked well rested and refreshed. He also carried a length of rope over his shoulder.