by Liz Tolsma
“I’m coming with you.”
“A little scared?”
“More like scared of you getting into trouble with the guards again.” They were under strict orders from the commandant not to watch the fight over the city. Yet she noticed many eyes peeping from the shanties.
“The guards just like to get under my skin. They’re as harmless as a cobra’s bite.”
“Very reassuring.”
Planes peeled off from their formation and dove toward the earth, releasing their cargo over the city and zooming high into the sky again. It was a dance so amazing to watch. Black clouds from the antiaircraft fire puffed upward.
“Can you believe it, Irene? There is our hope. There is our liberation.”
A short while later, the explosions came closer, and shells and shrapnel showered the camp. Rand and Irene dove back under the bed. The ground rocked. She jumped and scooted closer to him. “What were those? Are the Americans bombing the camp?”
Rand rubbed her back. “No, those must be Japanese pompoms. From what I’ve heard, they only explode on impact.”
With his words, another detonation rocked the ground. “What if we take a direct hit?”
“Pray. That’s all I can say. If one of those pompoms did hit this hut, we have no real protection.”
Irene’s body went limp.
Chapter Thirty
With pompoms detonating around them, Irene sat quivering on the bamboo floor, Rand beside her, and pleaded with God. “Dear Father, please keep us safe from this shelling. We thank You that You have sent the Americans to free us. We pray that You would watch over the pilots and all of those on the ground. Protect us, Lord, and keep us in the palm of Your hand. Be our shelter from the stormy blast. We ask this all in Your Son’s precious name. Amen.”
Rand shifted positions, holding Irene’s tiny, trembling hand in his. “Do you believe what you pray?”
“Of course.”
“I wish I could.” He did too. He’d been watching Anita and Irene. They didn’t have the aching emptiness he did. They were full. Like he wanted to be. “But what if a pom-pom falls on us and we die? God will have failed you.”
“He may choose to answer my prayer in a different way than I intend. I want to be kept safe on this earth to live another day. He might choose to keep me safe by taking me to be home with Him where no harm will ever come to me again.”
He shivered. “But you’re afraid.”
“Not afraid of death, but yes, dying scares me. Does that make sense?”
“I suppose it does. I wish I had the assurance you do, that when I die I will go to heaven. When that guard caught me—”
“The Lord watched over you, even in Fort Santiago.”
Why had he opened his mouth? He hadn’t wanted her to know this. “No, when he caught me last week, smuggling rice.”
“He what?” She tried to sit up and smacked her head on the bed frame.
Ack-ack-ack-ack.
The shelling continued unabated.
“On the day Anita died, I watched a guard chase a teenage boy. Who knows what the kid had done. When the soldier caught the boy, he hauled him out of camp and killed him. When the guard caught me with that sack of rice, I thought for sure my time had come. You can only be lucky so many times. I was terrified. Petrified.”
“You’re the one who injured that guard.”
“I never meant to get anyone else into trouble. I’m sorry the camp is suffering because of me. So you see, God won’t forgive me. I’ll never have what you have.” He had failed to earn God’s favor. In fact, he had brought His wrath on himself.
“All you have to do is believe. It is that simple. Nothing is too much for God to forgive. Don’t make it more complicated or intellectual than it has to be. Just have faith.”
Just have faith. So easy to say. But wanting faith and having it were two different things.
The day wore on, planes droned overhead, and bombs whistled to the ground. As they sat huddled in the shelter, Rand wondered what would be left of the city he loved by the time the Americans arrived. He thought of the millions of people who called Manila home. Many of them were very poor, and they had no shelters to run to when the shelling began.
A pom-pom hit nearby. Dirt sprayed the side of the shanty. Irene grabbed his hand. “Is this hut going to hold?”
He didn’t know what to tell her. Though the bombs weren’t falling here, the shrapnel and Japanese pompoms were. Would the little bit of bamboo and sawali protect them? He fingered the picture of Melanie in his pocket.
Another ground-shaking hit.
What about Armando and Ramon? Were they safe? Where were they hiding?
“You’re worried about Armando.”
“How did you know?”
“You get this crease across your forehead when you’re concerned. There is just enough light for me to see it. I took a guess as to why.”
“I remember when I was about five, there was a terrible thunderstorm. My parents were out and my amah was asleep, which was fine with me. I would rather spend my time with Armando.
“As the lightning brightened the nursery, I scurried downstairs to the servants’ quarters and found Armando sitting in bed. He lifted the sheet and I crawled beneath it.”
Rand drifted to that day. He could almost smell the rain.
“I don’t like the storm.” The little hairs on his arms stood at attention.
Armando pulled him close, like a father would. Like a father should. “I don’t like them much myself.”
“So what do we do?”
“We trust God to take care of us and we pray to Him.” Armando bowed his dark head.
“How?” Another great crash shook the house. Rand’s heart beat fast as he snuggled against Armando’s solid frame. He just wished Armando would make the thunder go away.
“We pray like this. Dear heavenly Father, please take care of us. Protect us from the storm. Help us not to be afraid. Amen.”
Maybe praying would stop the storm. It was worth a try. Another low rumble came, and it felt like an earthquake. Rand closed his eyes and folded his trembling hands the way Armando did. He bowed his head and prayed, “Dear heavenly Father, take care of me and Armando. Keep the storm away and help us not to be afraid. Amen.”
A great peace washed over him. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t afraid of the thunder or the lightning or the pouring rain. He fell asleep next to Armando.
The thunder of an exploding pom-pom jarred him back to the present day. Irene quaked beside him. “That was close.”
He pulled her to himself, relishing the way she fit in the crook of his arm. “Let’s hope they don’t get any closer.”
They listened to the battle as it raged outside. He held Irene’s hand and squeezed it. “And what if one of those pompoms explodes over our heads?”
“What about it?”
“I want the assurance you have.”
“I told you how you can get it. Armando told you how to get it.”
Could he surrender control like that? Give everything over to the Lord—all of his fears, his worries, his sins? The fighting in the skies above him frightened him much the same way the thunderstorm had all those years ago. He remembered the peace that flooded him at that time. He wanted that peace again. That feeling of fullness. Completeness.
“I can’t kneel in here.”
“You don’t have to. You can pray anytime, anywhere, in any position.” She slid her arm around his shoulders and pushed a strand of hair away from his face.
He took a deep breath, knowing that his life was about to change forever. He was about to change. God was about to change him. “Dear heavenly Father, I pray that You would take away all of my sins. Help me put my faith and trust in You. Protect us here, Lord, and keep those shells away. And if they come, take us to heaven with You. Amen.”
He knew it wouldn’t go down in the annals of history as the greatest prayer of all time, but that peace that he had so longed
for since he was a child once again filled his soul. It seeped in and covered him completely.
He was full to overflowing.
He knew every sin he had ever committed, even his sin with Catherine, was covered by Jesus’ blood. He knew he was clean, a new creature in Christ.
And he knew what awaited him after this life.
And then the loudest explosion he had ever heard rocked the shelter.
Chapter Thirty-One
The pom-pom struck mere feet from where Rand and Irene huddled under the bed. The rocks and twigs it pummeled against the shanty tore a hole in the sawali wall right beside Irene. Sand filled the air, stinging Irene’s eyes, making them water. Dirt choked her and she coughed. The acetone-like odor of cordite hung in the air.
Rand rubbed her back. “Are you hurt? Let me look at you.”
He helped her crawl from under the bed and sit, stroking her cheek with his misshapen fingers. “Your face has been gashed. You’re bleeding.”
It wasn’t until that moment that she felt the pain across her forehead and the stickiness of blood running down her temple.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Shrapnel continued to rain around the shanty. Another pompom exploded about twenty or thirty feet away, sending a shower of dirt into the air.
She shuddered.
Rand sat her on the chair and went for a bowl of water and a washcloth. As gentle as any nurse, he washed her wound and wiped her face. He dabbed and dabbed at the area. “I can’t get the bleeding to stop. You need stitches.”
The rat-a-tat-tat of antiaircraft fire continued around them. “We can’t go out now. Just bandage it the best you can, and I’ll go once this is over. Maybe by then the bleeding will stop on its own.” She couldn’t bear the thought of needle and thread being pulled through her skin.
“Let me see what I can do.” He left the room, and she heard him ripping cloth. When he came back, he no longer wore a T-shirt but carried strips of material.
She sat back in horror. Horror at his bony frame, his ribs and collar bones protruding, his stomach shrunken, more so than when she’d seen him bare-chested a few weeks ago. And horror at the thought that he had torn up his last T-shirt for her.
He turned sideways and flexed his muscles. But skin hung from his bony arm. “One hundred twenty-nine pounds this morning. What do you think?”
“You have no more shirts.”
He came and wrapped the soft cotton material around her head. “I have more. This is my last T-shirt, true, but I have two dress shirts. Don’t ask me why I brought them with me, but I did. One I’m saving for when our boys get here. The other I can wear in the meantime.”
He tugged and tied a knot in the back. “There you are. You look like a warrior.”
“Just call me Alexander the Great.”
The shelling raged on. His voice softened as did his golden eyes. “You are a warrior.”
They rode out the remainder of the air raid huddled under Irene’s bed. At about five o’clock, the all-clear was sounded at last.
As they left the shanty to walk to the hospital, Rand pointed to the sky in the direction of the harbor. The heavens glowed red and smoke smudged the sky all around the city. “The bombing must have been heavy.”
O Lord, let this be over soon. Bring us peace quickly.
Rand squeezed her hand. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“We’re all thinking it tonight. But don’t say it. Please don’t say a word. If we talk about it, it won’t happen.”
Rand nodded, understanding in his eyes. “The entire camp is holding its breath and won’t release it until our boys walk through those gates.” He licked his lips. “I hope the hospital won’t be too crowded, that not too many were injured.”
Or killed. “Let’s hope not. We had enough practice leading up to this day. We knew what to do.”
With relief, Irene and Rand entered the clinic and found only a handful of people waiting to be seen. Most of them were suffering from dysentery. The rest had minor cuts or bumps.
Dr. Young had a chance to see her at last. He numbed the area around her gash, the pain of the needle worse than the pain of her injury. She closed her eyes while he worked so she wouldn’t have to watch him sewing her back together. Rand held her hand the entire time.
What would she have done without him? He could never know about her father. More than ever, she wanted to preserve that secret.
Once the doctor finished, he laid aside his work. “I’ve been meaning to come and see you, Irene. Wait here. I have a package for you.”
He disappeared, and she turned to Rand. “What do you suppose it is?”
He rubbed his square chin and shrugged.
The doctor returned in a few minutes with a small box tied with brown string. “I saw your aunt every day she was in the hospital. We spent much time talking about many different subjects. At one point, when she spoke to me about the Lord, she gave me a Bible so I could read it. She changed my life. I’m not the same man I was when I first met her. I wanted you to know that. God brought good from her illness, at least for me.”
He handed her the box. She bit her lip, not wanting to make a public scene. Tears, however, rolled down Dr. Young’s face, and she allowed hers to flow. “Thank you.”
Rand held her hand, and a sad smile crossed his angular face.
“Your aunt was an extraordinary woman,” the doctor said. “Remember that. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help her.”
“I understand. You did everything possible under the circumstances.”
Rand saw her back to her shanty and brushed a good-night kiss across her cheek. “Are you going to be okay?”
She managed to nod. “I have something to remember her by.”
For a long time Irene sat in the dark, the package unopened on the table in front of her as she wondered what it contained. The hole left in her heart by Anita’s disappearance hadn’t shrunk. She missed her as much today as a month ago.
With her stomach tied in knots, Irene pulled the twine loose. She slipped it from the box and opened the flap. She withdrew her aunt’s watch, her most expensive and prized possession. Her parents had given it to her when she left for the mission field. Irene didn’t have to turn it over to know the inscription on the back. Look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.
She set the watch aside and reached into the box again. The only other thing her fingers brushed was Anita’s Bible. The small one she had before she went blind. Irene retrieved it.
The markings in the front indicated that her parents gave Anita this Bible on her wedding day. Anita had underlined scores of passages throughout the book and had written a plethora of notes in the margins before scarlet fever robbed her of her sight.
She turned to Jeremiah 46:27, the verse Anita had read to her the day after she had been attacked. “But fear not thou, O my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel: for, behold, I will save thee from afar off, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid.”
Off to the side, Irene saw a note written in a hand other than her aunt’s. This is for you, Irene. Cling to it and don’t lose hope. Your salvation is near.
Irene picked up the book and pressed it to her chest. She wondered who Anita had recruited to write the words for her and when. Had it been some time ago or just before she passed away? The Americans were making their presence known, and Irene’s salvation was near.
Either their boys would come riding into camp in the next couple of weeks or months, or Irene would starve to death.
The sun was barely over the horizon when Frank Covey stood on Rand’s step. Rand’s mouth went dry as he opened the door.
It was as if his conversation with Irene yesterday morning had made Covey appear. Strange coincidence?
Excitement shone in Covey’s bright-blue eyes. His mustache twitched, and he practically danced as Rand ushered him in. “Mr.
Sterling, good morning.”
In that moment, Rand was convinced this wasn’t a coincidence. Had Irene been up to something? Her concern for Catherine’s and Melanie’s lives came out of nowhere. And suddenly Covey was here.
“I need to talk to you.” The man was downright gleeful.
Rand pulled out a kitchen chair and motioned for Covey to sit.
Rand himself remained standing, his instincts screaming caution. “I have something to say to you first. I think you’re blackmailing Irene Reynolds.”
Covey’s eyebrows rose. “Why on earth would you say that?”
“Because suddenly she wants me to make a deal with you.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m blackmailing her. She’s a shrewd woman who has your best interests at heart. Now let’s sit down and draw up paperwork to seal the deal. I believe we were at seventy percent before you had your little tantrum?” He smiled, the scar across his cheek bunching as he did so.
“You hold no sway over me, Covey.” Rand’s mind raced. The man denied having anything on Irene, but Rand would bet his nightclubs on it. And he was about to. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
Rand leaned on the rickety table. “I have no reason to give you any part of my business.”
“Do you want the world to find out about your daughter? Do you want your daughter to find out about you? Do you want her to have an accident?”
The new threat made Rand stand up. Covey now had his attention. Irene had been right.
“That’s correct. I know where the little angel lives. I know where she goes to school and to church.”
“You wouldn’t involve a child in this.”
“Do you want to take the chance? And what about Irene?”
Rand went numb. This wasn’t money or his clubs on the line. This was his daughter’s life. And the life of the woman he loved. Did he want to gamble with them? Did he dare?
He didn’t want to do this. It would be easier for him to stab a knife into his heart than to let this man into his business. But Irene was right. It had to be done.
The only way to protect his child was to keep Covey on a very short leash. Right in front of him.