Jams let out a laugh. “Sick? Really? Like I ain’t sick already? And you think you’re still in charge of me? You woulda died of malaria if it hadn’t been for me. You don’t give me orders no more, Gunny.”
Gunny jerked him away from the wall. “Dad gum it, Jamison, you are still a Marine. You’ll obey my orders, am I clear?”
This time Jams snorted. “Marine? I’m still a Marine? Are you serious? I ain’t been a Marine since they gave us up on that stupid hunk of lava. And neither have you, Gunny. I hate to break it to ya, but we ain’t Marines no more. We’re walkin’ corpses. Probably gonna die anyway. I ain’t goin’ thirsty.”
Gunny grabbed hold of Jams and jerked him away from the wall.
“Jams, I said—”
He never got to finish, because Jamison hit him hard in the nose. Gunny nearly went down. “You son of a—” Gunny said.
I stepped between them. “Jams, Gunny. Stop it. Just stop it. Don’t do this.” I tried to push Jams against the wall, but he was wild with madness. His eyes were bloodshot and bugging out of his head.
“Turn me loose, Tree! Let me go or I swear I’ll kill ya,” he shouted.
“No, you won’t, Jams. You don’t mean it,” I said.
“You don’t know nothin’, you dumb country hick. Let go of me or I swear I will choke you to death.” He wiggled and squirmed, until finally Gunny stepped in and helped me pin him to the wall.
Jams let loose with a string of curses, calling both of us every name he could think of. Gunny spoke quietly, trying to calm him.
“It’s okay, Jams. I understand. Let it out. Ain’t nothin’ a squared away Marine like Billy Jamison can’t take. Let it go, boy. Ya been proppin’ up me and Tree since this dung storm started. It’s our turn to take care of you now. So just let ’er go, son.”
Jams started sobbing. He cried for a long time. He just collapsed into Gunny’s arms and bawled. Gunny patted his back like he was burping a baby.
“It’s okay. It’s gonna be all right, son. I swear. We’re goin’ to get out of this. You’ll see. Before long—”
He never got to finish.
A giant explosion rocked the ship.
At first, no one understood what was happening. Gunny finally figured it out.
“We’re under attack. Dang if we ain’t under attack! Hang on, boys!”
According to the Geneva Convention, POW ships and medical transports were supposed to have big red crosses painted on the sides of the hull and across the deck. Of course the Japanese didn’t do that because they had no interest in whether we lived or died. The Allied forces had no idea their soldiers were aboard this freighter, and so they were attacking it with everything they had.
Another bomb collided with the side of the ship and blew a hole in the port side. The freighter was already an old rust bucket—it wasn’t built to survive the kind of damage inflicted by bombers.
Dozens of men were killed in the explosion, and the ship started taking on water.
A couple more bombs went off nearby. Misses, but they still rocked the freighter mightily.
“We gotta get our hind parts topside,” Gunny said. “Hurry!”
He plowed through the crowd, with me and Jams at his heels. But every soldier in the hold had the same idea. We were all headed for the ladder. There were men clambering up it, while others pulled and pushed to take their spots. Meanwhile the hold was filling with water.
“Listen up!” Gunny barked. “One at a time!” He shoved a couple of men away from the ladder, and those already on it continued topside. Then he started sending guys up. As skinny and sickly as he was, Gunny still had a presence that made men listen to him.
One after the other, men climbed the ladder. As we waited, the water rose to our ankles, then our knees. Hundreds stood anxiously until it was their turn to climb.
“Let’s go! Move! Move! Move!” Gunny hollered.
The order Gunny had put in place fell apart when another bomb hit the side of the ship. The freighter was not a cruiser or a battleship. It had no infrastructure to stand up to this kind of assault. With just a few posts to support the deck, it was made to haul cargo.
As the ship rent in two, the ladder became irrelevant. We were going into the water.
Gunny, Jams, and I hooked elbows. We didn’t want to become separated.
“Hold on!” Gunny shouted.
The freighter split apart, and we were sucked into the swirling ocean waves. We could barely hold on to each other as the raging force of an angry sea washed over us. I took a deep breath and held it. The ship fell away from us, sinking like a stone, and we kicked upward toward the light.
We broke the surface, and it felt like we had entered Armageddon. The freighter was part of a convoy, and the sky was filled with American planes exacting a heavy toll on the other ships surrounding us. Fuel burned on the surface of the ocean. As I treaded water, my heart leapt at the sight of those planes with the stars on the wings wreaking havoc on the cruisers escorting the convoy.
“Look, Gunny!” I shouted over the noise. “They’re here! They’re finally here!”
“Yeah. That’s great an’ all, Tree,” he said. “But let’s focus. Ain’t a one of those planes gonna land and pick us up. We gotta swim toward shore.”
We’d been sailing along the coast, so land wasn’t too far off. But I wasn’t much of a swimmer. Not after growing up in Minnesota. Even with all the lakes. I dog-paddled after Gunny and Jams. We weren’t going very fast. We were malnourished and weak, and had to stop every few yards to gasp for breath. As the waves battered us about, I could see several heads above the water, paddling toward shore like we were. There were not nearly as many as I knew had been in the hold. I said a silent prayer. What a horrible way for those men to die.
We kept pushing along, but the shore didn’t seem to get much closer. The planes had sunk two more of the Japanese ships and zoomed off. They were probably running low on fuel and ammo. It was strange not to see Japanese aircraft in the skies, defending the convoy. Maybe our side really was winning. The glimmer of potential victory gave me a jolt of strength, and I paddled harder.
As we swam, I thought about what would happen when we got to shore. What would we do? Was there a chance the American pilots had spotted us and would send help?
A small Japanese cruiser that survived the attack came sailing into view. It looked like we wouldn’t even make it to shore before they picked us up. But then we heard their engines stop. I heard what sounded like machine gun fire.
The ship was firing on the prisoners in the water. To the north of us, they swept through the crowd of swimmers, and the guns chewed men up.
“What the—” Gunny said.
Everyone around us started swimming for shore as fast as they could. But the ship had multiple guns, and we were all easy targets inside their field of fire. Bullets flew our way.
“Deep breath! Go under!” Gunny barked.
We sucked in air and plunged below the surface. Bullets spiraled into the water around us. Whenever they struck someone, red clouds of blood bloomed around them. Bodies flopped and danced as they were riddled with bullets. And when the bullets moved on, the dead men hung motionless in the water.
My lungs were ready to burst. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I pushed toward the surface. Gunny grabbed my ankle. I tried to shake free, but somehow he held on to me. I looked down at him, and he shook his head. Bullets were still darting through the water like tiny sharks looking to feed. Dark spots swirled in my vision. After what felt like hours, Gunny let go of my foot and we kicked to the surface. I sucked in a huge, gasping breath.
Finally the shooting had stopped. But something was wrong.
“Gunny,” I sputtered. “Where’s Jams?”
We spun around, treading water and calling his name.
No answer.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know, Tree,” he said. “Jams! Jams! Jamison!”
Still no answer.
“Jams!” I gave him a shake. He wasn’t breathing, and his lips were turning blue. I turned his head to the side and pried open his mouth. Water poured out, and he coughed and groaned.
He’d been shot. Several times. In the shoulder and the side just below and to the right of his stomach.
“Gunny!”
A few moments later he paddled up to us. Gunny felt his neck.
“He’s still alive, but barely. We gotta get him to shore.”
We each hooked one of our arms under Jamison’s shoulders and paddled as hard as we could. It was awkward and slow. He cried out as we pulled him through the water.
“Hang in there, Jams,” Gunny said. “We’ll get you patched up soon.”
Finally our feet hit sand and we could walk. As gently as we could, we pulled Jams across the surf to the shore. A handful of men were already there, milling about. We had no idea where we were. Gunny shouted at them to help, and several dashed toward us. Somehow we managed to carry Jams farther up the shore and lay him down on the sand.
He looked worse. He was turning white, and his wounds were seeping blood.
“Put pressure on his shoulder,” Gunny said. I pressed down, trying to staunch the bleeding. Gunny was looking at the wound in Jamison’s gut. Blood gurgled out of it like water out of a backed-up drain. He twisted Jams over on his side to look at his back.
“Blast it! No exit wound. Bullet’s still in him. Ain’t no way to stop the bleedin’.” Gunny pounded the sand in frustration. He sat back on his knees and took Jams by the hand.
“No, Gunny,” I cried. “It can’t be. Not Jams. He took care of us.”
“I know he did, son. Now we gotta be there for him.”
“No. No. You’re wrong.” I stopped putting pressure on Jamison’s shoulder, which immediately started seeping blood again. With both hands I took hold of his face.
“Jams. Jams. It’s me. Tree. You got to wake up. You can’t die. You can’t. Me and Gunny won’t make it without you. Come on, buddy. Please wake up.”
But he didn’t.
He died right there in the sand. He had no last words. No message for us to give his family. No last wisecrack.
The friend who’d made me laugh through two years of torture died in my arms that day.
A few hours later, small boats carrying Japanese soldiers came ashore. They climbed out with their rifles at the ready. Gunny and I sat in the sand next to Jamison’s body. I couldn’t hide the hatred in my eyes.
“Tree. I’m orderin’ ya right now. Don’t do it,” Gunny said.
“What?” I said, my eyes never leaving the approaching soldiers with their rifles pointed at us. What were they afraid of? That we might throw a handful of sand in their eyes?
“I know what you’re thinkin’. Ya wanna rush one of them, wrestle his rifle from him, and go down shootin’. Do that and they’ll end us all.”
“They killed Jams,” I muttered.
“They did. It’s what happens in war, son. Folks die. Ain’t nobody sorrier than me that ole Jams is gone. But if Jams was here he’d tell ya the same thing. Don’t get yourself killed on his account. You know it’s true.”
I didn’t know how much more I could take. Gunny was always telling me to dig deep. How much deeper could I dig? There was nothing left in me.
“And get that thought of just givin’ in outta yer mind.”
“Leave me alone, Gunny.”
“Listen to me, boy. You’re a Marine until ya die or are officially discharged from the Unites States Marine Corps. Until then yer gonna listen an’ obey. Understand?”
I didn’t answer. Gunny wouldn’t let it rest.
“Marine, do you understand me?”
“Yeah. I understand you. Loud and clear. And now I’m officially requesting you leave me alone.”
Gunny knew how far to push things, so he turned his attention to the Japanese soldiers on the beach, studying them silently for several minutes. They had clustered in a group, and an officer was chattering away with his men. It was an animated discussion. My curiosity got the best of me.
“What do you think they’re talking about?”
“I expect they’re tryin’ to decide whether to keep us or shoot us. You see them start raisin’ them rifles, get ready to run.”
They didn’t shoot us. At that point, I think I would have preferred it. We had to leave poor Jams lying on the beach. We had nothing to dig a grave with, and they wouldn’t have let us anyway. The Japanese were in a big hurry. They rounded us up, loaded us in their boats, and hauled us to another ship. It didn’t take long. There were a lot less of us now.
A few days later we were in Japan. We landed in Tokyo Bay. As they marched us through the town of Chiba, the civilians watching the procession cursed at us. They were motley looking, and I suspect would have thrown rotten fruit if they had any. But I recognized the look. They were hungry. They were low on food as well.
In a strange way, I felt sorry for them. Yet I was also exhilarated. It gave me hope that the good old United States might actually be winning the war. If only I could listen for news on the Aussie’s radio. But they got put on another ship. I never saw them again. Didn’t even get a chance to tell them goodbye.
We were exhausted when we finally staggered into a camp not far from the city center. It was maybe two acres. The barracks were smaller than the ones at Camp O’Donnell, but they had bunk beds. And the weather was getting cooler. It would be winter soon. At least it wasn’t hot.
Inside our barracks, Gunny and I claimed a bunk bed. I climbed up on top, since as Gunny pointed out, “Yer younger.”
For dinner that night—and for the first time since we’d surrendered—we didn’t have rice. They gave us a cup of boiled barley. It tasted like paste. I almost preferred the wormy rice.
The next day we were assigned to our new work detail. The Japanese were putting us to work at a steel mill belonging to Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The camp was close to the plant’s entrance. My assignment was to shovel coal into a blast furnace, which melted iron ore. The molten ore flowed down a sluice and disappeared from view. It was hot and dirty work. I wore my T-shirt pulled over my nose to keep from breathing in coal dust.
Hot sparks would fly around from the burning coal. They landed on my skin and burned like a thousand fire ants crawling all over me. I brushed them off quickly, but any exposed skin on my body was pockmarked with burns in a matter of weeks.
I hadn’t thought it possible, but the guards here were worse than any we’d seen so far. One day, after shoveling coal for two weeks, twelve hours a day, I passed out. Crumpled to the floor right there by the furnace. I came to with a guard I called Dr. Jekyll pounding on me with a wooden rod. It wasn’t exactly an efficient way to bring someone back to consciousness. I finally climbed back to my feet. He got in my face and began yelling and screaming. I was woozy and wobbling on my feet. But I managed to roll my eyes at him, which got me another whack. I vowed I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing the pain I was in or how much I’d come to hate the men who abused us. Losing Jams had been the last straw. Every night, I lay in my bunk and plotted elaborate revenge scenarios on the lot of them. But for now talking back was the only act of defiance I could muster. I’d think about Jams and wonder what kind of earful he’d give them. I could never come up with anything as good as I imagined he would say.
“One day I’m going to have the stick. And I’m going to enjoy testing it out on your hide. And by the way, if you have a toothbrush, you might want to use it at least once a week. Your breath smells like horse manure.”
He had no idea what I was saying, so he shoved me. My shovel clattered to the floor, and my head spun when I bent to pick it up. I didn’t want to, but I went back to work. What else could I do? At the end of the day I got another beating from Dr. Jekyll for not meeting my quota.
“Gunny. I don’t think I can go on,” I said one night.
“That ain’t true. Notice how all these Japanese is acting lately? Getting meaner, all nervous and jittery? That tells me things ain’t goin’ so well for the Japanese Empire. We don’t ever see any Japanese planes fly over. I don’t think they have many left. And they ain’t got enough workforce or materials left to make new ones. I think they’re gettin’ their hind parts kicked by Uncle Sam.”
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t share his enthusiasm. I was exhausted. And the winter was brutal. Finally the Japanese figured out they couldn’t have their workforce freezing to death, so some of us got pants. And they let us build small fires in the barracks at night in cutoff steel barrels. My pants burned up quick in the coal room. Before long they seemed more like a grass skirt, but I never got another pair.
That wasn’t my biggest problem, though. Gunny was getting weaker. I started sharing some of my food with him. At first he wouldn’t take it. But sometimes we’d just sit on his bunk with our cups of mush and he’d go into this trancelike state. When he did that, I’d scoop a spoonful of my food into his cup. He never noticed.
“Gunny. You need to eat up.”
“Huh?” he’d murmur.
“I said you need to eat up. The grueled barley is especially good tonight.”
“Oh. Yeah. Gotta keep up my strength.” He’d finally wolf down his food.
The fact that Gunny might be losing his will bothered me almost as much as losing Jams. Gunny had been a pillar through this entire ordeal. Now he was quiet and stared off into space all the time.
The truth of it was all of us were feeling a lot like Gunny. We were turning into nothing more than walking skeletons. Each day of that long, cold winter was just a repetition of the day before.
Prisoner of War Page 13