by Dean Hughes
“Yes. She finally did.”
“Did she explain why her family moved away from Frankfurt?”
Alex began to walk again, but slowly, and Bobbi caught up. “Well . . . not really. She was careful in her wording. She said, ‘We moved very quickly one day,’ and I think that could mean they were in trouble—maybe with the Gestapo. I have the feeling she and her family are in hiding, because she didn’t say where they were. But at least I know she’s alive.”
“She said something more than that, or you wouldn’t look like the cat who ate the canary.”
“Well, yes.” He looked toward Bobbi and grinned. Alex was wearing a white shirt, but he had taken off his coat and tie. “She said she loved me, and she wants to marry me. We’re committed now. We’ve both promised to wait for each other—no matter how long this stupid war lasts.”
“Oh, Alex, that’s wonderful. It’s what you’ve hoped for, isn’t it?”
“Sure. But it’s pretty awful, too. I’m really worried that she’s in danger. And a lot of things could happen between now and the time I get to see her again. It’s one thing to feel that way now, and another to keep feeling that way for years.”
“I think it’s beautiful, Alex. Somehow, this whole thing is going to work out.” Bobbi’s eyes were filling with tears, and she knew she was feeling joy for Alex but also some envy.
“Well, we’re caught in a strange situation, but at least there’s a harmony between us. We’re thinking alike. We still love each other.”
“The Lord is helping you, Alex.”
“Yeah. I think that’s right.”
Bobbi heard the huskiness in her brother’s voice. “I wish we could hear from Wally now,” she said. “That would be the other thing that would make me happy.”
Bobbi wished immediately that she hadn’t said it. It was just too painful to bring up when Alex had finally had something good happen. The two walked in silence for a time. The trees in the avenues were budding out now, and Bobbi could detect the sweet smell of blossoms.
“Bobbi, I’ve got something else on my mind.” Alex shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t feel good about staying out of the war.”
“I thought that was all settled—you’re helping the effort here at home.”
“I know. But I feel like a draft dodger. Most of the guys I know from high school have already signed up—and I read every day about some movie star or athlete going in to volunteer. Bob Feller said he couldn’t stay home and play baseball when there was a war to be won.”
“What about the things President Clark told you?”
“Mostly, he was saying that nothing good comes from war, and I agree with him there. But we didn’t choose to get involved. The Japanese made that choice for us.”
“The way things are looking, though, you’re more likely to end up fighting Germans than Japanese.”
“I know. And President Clark warned me what could happen—that I’d end up full of hate for them—but I don’t know what else to do.”
“Can you shoot people and love them at the same time?”
“I don’t know. But I keep thinking about Wally. How would I be able to look him in the eye when this is all over?”
“It might sound strange to you, Alex, but I’m thinking somewhat the same.”
“What do you mean?”
Bobbi heard the electric trolley rattling along down on Third Avenue. The sound had become so much a part of her life since she had moved to the avenues, where trolley lines ran along Third, Sixth and Ninth avenues. “I’ve made up my mind to join the navy,” she said. “My life may not ever be in danger, but at least I’ll be part of the effort.” Bobbi was feeling chilly now. She folded her arms around her middle. “It’s like our family is in the war now, and we have to come to Wally’s aid. It’s the only way I know how to do it.”
“When would you go?”
“Right after I graduate. I’ve applied, and I’ve been accepted. The only thing I haven’t done is sign my name. Once I do, I’ll have to deal with Dad.”
In the subtle moonlight, Bobbi could see the big Victorian homes looming above her, and something in the civility of those homes seemed to suggest that the world had no right to change. The war was such an ugly intrusion into everything that was orderly and right. “Are you scared?” Bobbi asked.
“I’m terrified. I don’t want to spend years of my life doing things I hate. And I don’t want to die before I see Anna—before I’m sealed to her. That’s the worst thought of all.”
“At least you know she feels the same as you do.”
“But that only adds to the worry.” He walked for a time, but then he seemed to recognize what Bobbi must be feeling. He put his arm around her shoulders. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“No, come on. Tell me what’s going on. Are you feeling all right about the way things have worked out for you?”
“I think so. Sometimes I wish I were the sort of person who could have fallen for Phil—and accepted life on his terms—or taken the leap and married David. But either way I would have given up some part of who I am. I’m pleased with myself that I didn’t do that.”
“I’ll say this. I’m glad you didn’t marry Phil. I never did like the guy. He was too slick for me.”
“Oh, Alex, thank you. I’ve needed someone from the family to tell me that.” She leaned in closer to him.
“Good things are going to happen to you, Bobbi. I’m sure of that. You deserve better than you’ve gotten so far.”
“Thanks, Alex. I needed you to come by tonight.” She turned and kissed him on the cheek. “Let’s be happy. It’s the only way to fight back against this stupid war.”
“Not the only way. I’ve got to get some things straightened out at the plant; then I’m going to break the news to Mom and Dad; and then I’m going to sign up.”
Bobbi hated to think of it: another brother in danger, one more terrible fear to live with, the family split further apart. “Alex,” she said, “how are we going to get through this?”
“I’ve thought a lot about that lately. Dad always makes the early Saints sound so brave, but I doubt they were any braver than we are. They just did what they had to do. And that’s what we’re going to do now.”
That sounded right. But Great Grandmother Thomas, during her trek to Utah, had buried two of her children out on the plains. Bobbi felt sure she could deal with hardship, but what if she had to deal with death? How could she give up one of her brothers?
Chapter 36
Wally’s squadron set up camp on the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula. Wally and Warren had driven ahead and located a site near a stream, under the heavy tropical canopy. The men all dug foxholes, and that’s where they slept, with a single blanket for bedding. Each day they hiked three miles to Mariveles Field, an airstrip close to the beach and across Manila Bay from the fortress island of Corregidor, where MacArthur had set up his headquarters. The men worked in the tropical heat to clear revetments for airplanes they expected from America. Rumor had it that a squadron of fighters would soon be on its way, and the men had to work hard to be ready for them.
Nights were frightening now that the Japanese had begun nighttime bomber raids, and the days were hot and exhausting. That would have been difficult enough had the troops had adequate food. Somehow, there had been a disastrous lack of preparation in putting “Plan Orange” into operation. No food, medicine, or weaponry had been moved with the troops. The G.I.s were aware of huge reserves of food near Manila, but almost none of it had gotten to the peninsula, and now that food was probably feeding the enemy.
The men ate only twice a day, and Wally, as supply sergeant, drove his truck about ten miles every evening to a supply station farther up the peninsula. At first he received ten round loaves of bread each day, along with rice and canned goods. But before long the men were forced to live on rice and whatever they could scrounge for themselves. Teams hunted monkeys or searched for carabao—a
native water buffalo—which were rumored to live in the jungles. Others fished or searched for edible plants: banana stalks, bamboo shoots, roots. But the carabao were not to be found, and the fishing was difficult. Monkey hunting did supply some meat, and Wally soon found that he didn’t mind it, although he tried not to think about what he was eating.
Through January the work on revetments had continued, but no airplanes arrived, and from radio reports the men knew that Japan was moving through the islands of the Pacific without difficulty. As the Japanese pushed to Northern Australia and then west into Indochina, Borneo, Malaysia, Burma, and on toward Singapore, the soldiers listened to Singapore radio broadcasts. The promise was that the British would never let Singapore fall, but then word came that two of England’s great battleships had been sunk, and Singapore had been taken.
It was unnerving. By then, Wally’s squadron had moved into abandoned Marine barracks near Mariveles Field. That made the men sitting ducks, and air raids often sent them flying for cover. What was worse, the truth was becoming obvious: airplanes were not coming, and neither were ships. These mechanics, cooks, and support personnel were now infantrymen, and their assignment was to defend the southern end of the peninsula. The heavy fighting was coming from the north, as Japanese troops drove the Filipino Scouts and American troops deeper into the peninsula. For now, because of the power of Corregidor, the southern beaches were not so threatened, but the Japanese constantly landed teams of guerrillas, who moved into the caves in the bluffs along the bay. From there they sneaked out to snipe and harass.
The G.I.s, in squads, combed the forests and tried to flush out the guerrillas. Wally sometimes led a squad on night patrols. His men had been provided with nothing better than ancient Enfield rifles for weapons, and their aged hand grenades didn’t always explode. Snipers fired at Wally on a couple of occasions, and he found himself about as brave as the next guy. But he was scared. He never slept well, and because of the watch schedule—six hours on, six off—he was always tired. He hardly remembered what it was like to sleep a night through.
Constantly, the news to the north was disturbing. The troops fought valiantly and, at times, pushed the Japanese back temporarily, but by late February, a great deal of ground had been lost. Wally’s squadron eventually moved out of the barracks and back to the bivouac area, so they were under better cover, but food was getting more scarce and foraging more difficult. A horse or a domestic carabao sometimes died in an air attack, and the squadron would get some of the meat. For a day the men would feast, which helped get some strength back, but everyone talked constantly about the time when all food lines might be cut, even the daily ration of rice. Then what would they do?
So far, supplies of powdered quinine were holding out, and that kept the men from getting malaria, but the lack of nutrition was causing many of them to come down with beriberi, which caused their feet and legs to swell and ache. Others suffered from almost constant diarrhea, which led to dehydration. So far, Wally had avoided any serious illnesses, but he felt weak and tired almost all the time.
Wally’s squadron had once dressed like dandies. The same men had now turned into a rough-looking bunch. They tried to stay clean and to shave, but they were losing weight, and the lack of sleep, the illness, the heat, the fear, were causing a numbness that Wally could see in everyone’s eyes. Still, the men told each other they could hold out, and reinforcements would eventually come. They cursed MacArthur. “Dugout Doug,” they called him. And they cursed the politicians who had allowed the country to become so weak and unprepared, but they continued to believe that America would not let them down.
On April 8, Wally made his daily trip to the supply station. It seemed stupid to make the trip so often and to bring back such a little bit of food, but that’s the only way he could obtain the squadron’s ration of rice. Harvey Opdike, one of the cooks, said he would ride along. Harvey had the ability to laugh no matter what happened, so Wally liked to have him around.
This night, when Wally pulled the truck off the dirt road into the rendezvous site, no supply truck had arrived. That wasn’t all that unusual, but Wally and Harvey waited for more than an hour and the truck still didn’t show. By then, American and Filipino troops, not far away, had begun a barrage of artillery fire. When return fire started coming in, Wally knew he was in a bad spot. The truck was parked under dense foliage, but heavy stuff was crashing into the forest around them. The trees stopped the shrapnel, so only a direct hit would get them, but the noise was thunderous—really shattering to the nerves.
By about ten o’clock, the firing slowed and then died out. For a time the jungle was strangely still, not even any birds singing. But the quiet gradually became almost as nerve-racking as the noise had been. “I don’t think the truck is coming,” Wally finally told Harvey. He hated to return without food, but he was anxious to get away from the front line.
Harvey laughed. “We spend most of our time talking about hating rice,” he said. “Now, a little rice sounds mighty good.”
“If we go back without any, the guys might boil us for dinner.”
“I doubt that. We ain’t nothing more than stew bones about now.” He pinched at his ribs. Actually, Harvey still had a layer of fat over his ribs, but he had been a heavy man at one time. He was a country boy from Alabama, but he was knowledgeable on an amazing variety of topics.
“So what do we do?”
“There ain’t no use sitting here. That truck is probably blown sky high. Either that or those boys heard all that artillery and just decided to forget it for tonight.”
And so Wally backed out, got the truck turned around in a tight spot, and headed toward the main road. But he was shocked by what he saw when he got there. Earlier, on the way up the peninsula, he had seen a few Filipino troops heading south, but now the road was clogged with men and trucks.
Wally swung down from his truck and approached a Filipino officer who was marching south with the others. “What’s going on?” Wally shouted.
“The lines have broken. We have surrendered.” The officer was an older man in a tattered, filthy uniform, and he looked broken, his eyes like empty caverns.
“What are you talking about?”
“The Japs have overrun us. It’s all over.” The man pushed on past Wally and continued down the road.
Wally climbed back in the truck. “That guy—that officer—said we’ve surrendered.”
“What? Maybe the Filipinos, but Americans wouldn’t surrender—not to a bunch of Japs. That’s just bull. Let’s get back to our squadron.”
Wally edged the truck forward, into the crowd of troops, but the movement was extremely slow. The trucks ahead were hardly moving, and men were streaming around them, moving faster on foot than in the vehicles. An hour passed and Wally hadn’t moved ahead much more than a mile. Then an enormous explosion rocked the truck. For a moment Wally thought a bomb had dropped. He was about to jump from the truck when Harvey grabbed his arm. A concussion from another explosion whistled through the trees and rattled the truck, and the whole sky lit up again.
“We’re destroying our ammo,” Harvey said. “Those big ammo dumps are going up.” He slammed his fist against the dashboard. “I don’t believe this. We’re giving up.”
It was really happening. And here were Wally and Harvey stuck in a traffic jam, hardly moving. “This is a mess,” Wally said. “What do we do?”
Harvey could make a joke out of almost anything, but he found nothing funny in this. “I don’t know. We’ll be all night at this rate—and then some. We’ve gotta get back to the squadron.”
For the next couple of hours, Wally kept hoping that things would start moving better. But it didn’t happen, so he and Harvey decided the truck had lost its value. Wally found a place to pull it off the road, and he and Harvey left on foot, cutting off through the jungle and over a mountain.
Wally was still trying to get used to the idea of a surrender. “What’ll the Japs do to us?” he asked Harvey. “A
ren’t there rules they have to follow?”
“Japan didn’t sign the Geneva convention agreement,” Harvey said. “I don’t know what to expect from them.”
Wally wondered. Maybe if the Japanese set up some sort of prison camp and fed the prisoners, it wouldn’t be all that bad. “They won’t just march in and kill us off, will they?”
“I don’t know. I don’t trust ‘em—I know that.”
Wally didn’t ask again. But all during the night he wondered what was coming. It was almost morning when he and Harvey finally walked into the bivouac site. They spread the word about the surrender, but most of the men didn’t want to believe it. Major Teuscher had flown out in one of the few remaining P-40s a few days before. He was part of a plan to escort some supply ships into Manila Bay. But that meant Wally’s squadron was directed by an acting commander, a lieutenant named Russell Dark.
Wally found Warren and Jack and pulled them aside. “It’s a mess up there,” he told them. “Everyone is on the run. We don’t have that much time until the Japs get here.”
Wally saw the confusion, the panic, in Warren’s face, but Jack was trying to act tough. He raised his rifle to his side, as if to fire from the hip. “I say we keep fighting,” he said. “Everyone knows what Japs do to prisoners. Let’s die fighting.”
“What do you mean? What do they do?” Warren asked.
“In China, they lined people up and shot them. When they did take prisoners, they starved them to death.”
“That’s just talk,” Wally said. “You heard that from Barney and all those guys. They don’t know.”
“I don’t want to be no prisoner of war—I know that.”
Jack sounded brave, but Wally could see how scared he was. Warren was absolutely white with fear. For the first time, the full reality of the situation was settling in on Wally, and he felt his chest locking up, but he said, “Look, we’ll get each other through. At least we’ll be alive. We can last them out until Uncle Sam gets some troops in here to clear the Japs back out. Maybe that won’t take too long.”