by Liz Tolsma
A momentary lull allowed him to reach the window. He flung it open and hung out. “Stop. Stop. We have a casualty.” A shell whistled passed his ear, and he ducked. His heart stopped, then began pounding at an alarming rate. He rose and waved his arms to get the Americans’ attention. “Cease fire. Cease fire.”
Those in the Battlin’ Basic heard his message. The firing stopped. The guns fell silent.
Sounds of jubilation wafted on the evening air. People sang and danced and cried.
How he wanted to be in the midst of them. Not cooped up in here.
For well over three thousand of the internees, the war had ended. But not for the couple of hundred in here. Why hadn’t he gone to the shanty? He would have been safe there. He could be out dancing on the lawn with Irene in his arms, convincing her to become his wife.
The Manila sky glowed red with fires that burned in every part of the city.
Would this nightmare ever end?
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Irene watched from her window in the Main Building with tears in her eyes as the American tank crashed through Santo Tomas’s iron gate, the gate that had held them in for the past thirty-seven months.
Their captivity was over.
It was finally over.
“Tessa, do you see that?”
Her friend whooped like an Indian. “We’re free. Let’s go. We have to find the men. I want to kiss Bruce. Come on, love.” She tugged on Irene’s arm and pulled her from the room.
On weak, swollen, shaky legs, she made her way through the third-floor hall, down the stairs, and out to the lawn. The lawn where Rand had proposed a few weeks ago.
Now a great, hulking tank stood on the pathway, and it was the most beautiful sight she had seen in her entire life. She ran her hands over the warm metal.
She had heard about hearts bursting for joy. She felt the sensation now. Her chest couldn’t contain her happiness.
If only Anita had held on for a few more months, she could have been here too. She could have witnessed God’s deliverance, as she had predicted. As He had promised.
Rand. She had to find him. She turned around and around, searching for his light-brown head above the others. By now he should have located her. Where could he be?
“I don’t see Bruce.” Tessa’s voice was laced with concern. She bit her pale-pink lip.
“I can’t find Rand either. We must have passed each other. They’re probably at the Main Building looking for us.” Though Irene stood on her tiptoes and surveyed the crowd, the bright lights on the tank illuminating the scene, she didn’t see him. And Tessa couldn’t find Bruce.
“Let’s look at the Education Building. Rand said he was going to spend the night there.” Holding hands so they didn’t get separated, the girls swam upstream against the surge toward the Education Building.
“Stop right there, ladies.” A lanky, redheaded kid not much more than twenty stood in her way.
“I have to get to my … to Rand. I can’t find him.”
“The Japanese are holed up in there. You have to stay back in case of any shooting. If he’s in there, he’s not coming out for a while.”
Her stomach fell clean out of her body.
“Shooting? Not coming out?” Tessa just about screeched.
“That’s what I said. It’s best if you go back to where you’ve been. We’ll get him free as soon as we can, and then he’ll find you.”
“But—”
“I don’t want you to get hurt. Not now.”
Irene stared up at the third-floor window, the one Rand had pointed out as his. She thought she made out shapes by the glass, men moving around. Was Rand one of them?
Tessa squeezed her hand. “Bangers and mash, they have to be at their shanties. They must have changed their minds about sleeping here tonight.”
With her heart racing faster than Rand’s little convertible, Irene nodded and pulled her friend in the direction of Glamourville.
God, let him be at their shanties. Either one.
Rapid gunfire cut through the joyous celebrations. Irene came to a sudden standstill. Her green eyes round in her face, Tessa pulled to a halt beside Irene. “The Education Building.”
Irene spun on her heel and headed in the opposite direction. “Those are gunshots.”
With each heavy step, she prayed, “God, keep him safe. Watch over him. Don’t let anything happen to him. Protect him. Deliver him.”
“Keep praying, love. I’m so afraid for Bruce.”
As she approached the building, Irene saw a figure hanging out of a third-floor window. Not any window, but the one in Rand’s room.
“Cease fire.”
She would know the sound of that voice in a sea of a thousand voices. “Rand!”
“Cease fire.”
One more shell. Then the guns fell silent.
She shrieked, “Rand, Rand.”
Silence. Eerie silence.
“Rand! I need you.” What happened to him? Why wasn’t he in the window anymore?
“Get out of here, ladies.” A soldier pulled her away.
She fell to her knees in the dirt, sobs tearing at her chest. “Rand, Rand.”
Had they come this far, this close, for God to rip him away from her now? “God, I need him. I need him so.”
Tessa knelt on the ground beside her, tears also pouring down her cheeks. “Bruce must be in there too.”
“Ladies, you have to move.” The American soldier was insistent. They staggered to their feet.
“What are we going to do?” Tessa swiped at the wetness on her face.
Irene did the same. “Pray for them.” It didn’t seem like enough, but what else could they do?
Around them, the celebration continued. People wept, opened any canned goods they had left, and lit fires with chairs.
“Bangers and mash, I can’t watch this. All of the joy has gone out of the evening. I’m going back to our room.”
Irene went with her, but instead of going inside, she sat on the front step of the building.
Why, God, why? She was free, but the man she loved wasn’t. Even in this happy time, they couldn’t rejoice together. “Will it ever end?”
Then she remembered words she had seen underlined in Anita’s Bible, ones she had memorized. From Psalm 37. The salvation of the righteous is of the LORD: he is their strength in the time of trouble. And the LORD shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.
The Lord shall help them.
Rand had been so good to her, had been there when she needed him the most.
The LORD shall help them … deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust him.
She brushed the dirt from her knees, even as tears coursed down her face.
Hordes of former prisoners milled around, talking to the American soldiers, sitting on the tanks, accepting any food offered to them, especially chocolate bars.
Her merriment had fled. “God, You have to keep Rand safe. Don’t let him die. Bring him out of there. I’ve told You I need him.”
He shall deliver them and save them. Tears ran on either side of her nose. “Is that what I’ve been doing, Lord? Relying too much on Anita and Rand and myself and not enough on You?”
Her heart knew the answer. Yes, she had been. She had lived the past three years as if she could take care of herself. And when she couldn’t, she turned to fallible, weak human beings to take care of her. Ever since her father had deserted her, she had been looking for someone to be there for her. To watch over her. To provide for her. She looked to everyone but God.
In the end, when it came right down to it, only God could help her. He used Rand and Anita and the US Army 1st Cavalry Division, but He came to her aid. All the while, when she had been longing for a Father the most, she already had one.
How foolish for her to have spent her life thinking otherwise.
She gazed at the Education Building, at Rand’s w
indow.
The mighty tank stood silent in the yard, its guns pointed toward the Japanese inside. How long until the Lord delivered those prisoners?
She had to believe Rand would come out alive. Her mind refused to allow her to think the worst. She wanted him out here, to experience freedom with her. It was amazing and frightening and strange all at the same time.
“Good night, Rand. God be with you. God deliver you.”
A vise tightened around her heart. How long would it be before the Lord came to his aid?
February 5, 1945
Rand sat on the end of his bed. The Japanese had kept the men confined here for two days. The rest of the internees enjoyed their second day of freedom. Not yet him, nor the couple of hundred held hostage here.
He heard the shouts of the crowd as the American flag was draped from a window in the Main Building. The Rising Sun had set. The Stars and Stripes again flew high.
And he could do nothing.
The hours passed with maddening slowness. From time to time he peered through the window. He imagined the woman with the hair the color of foam on the waves was Irene. She stood out in the crowd.
And then she turned her head, and by the angle of her cheek and the curve of her neck, he knew it was her.
Even from this distance, she took his breath away.
Every bit of him wanted to jump from the window and run to her. But he didn’t relish a barrage of Japanese bullets.
He wanted to shout to her, tell her how much he loved her. Again, he thought better of it. She knew he was here. She knew how he felt about her.
“Have a piece of chocolate.” One of the guards held out a piece of candy that must have come from the Red Cross boxes the internees had never received.
Rand struggled. This young man spoke perfect English, much as the soldier at Fort Santiago. But the Japanese were their enemies, those who had kept them locked in here all of this time, those who were starving them to death.
A Japanese soldier had attacked Irene. Had hurt her and would have raped her if given the chance. He clenched his fists.
The chocolate looked delicious. He imagined the creamy sweetness on his tongue. His mouth watered and his stomach grumbled.
Why would this soldier be kind to him now? A week ago this man would have slapped him if he hadn’t bowed properly or shot him if he’d found out about the rice smuggling. Rand narrowed his eyes and gazed long and hard at the man’s round face, dark eyes, flat nose.
“No. Leave me alone.” Acid ate at his stomach.
The soldier continued to hold out the sweet treat. “My peace offering.”
“You think you can buy me with candy? That one square of chocolate will make me forget what your people did to me?” He held up his right hand. “To us?” Ludicrous. Rand’s body shook.
“No, it can’t. But it’s a start. I’m asking for your forgiveness.”
Rand exploded like a pom-pom. “Forgiveness? You want forgiveness? After the deplorable living conditions, the starvation, the disease? We have lived little better than animals. For thirty-seven months, you have kept us caged. And you expect me to walk away and forget about it? To become your friend?”
The hopeful light in the man’s eyes darkened. “It is a hard thing, yes. I know this. I have no right to ask so much of you. But we have to make a start. I have seen you and watched you. You are a good man. And I have seen you read that book about your God. In America, I went to church with a friend. They talked about forgiveness.”
“It is one thing for God to forgive you. Quite another for me.”
“Why?” Furrows marred the man’s brow.
“Well …” Rand had no answer for that. He knew of God’s forgiveness firsthand. He stood before the holy Lord with his slate wiped clean. But he hadn’t detained innocent civilians and starved them to death.
And conviction hit him between the eyes. He was just as guilty in God’s eyes as that soldier. His hands were as much bloodstained. His heart equally corrupt.
Yet when he’d come to God, begging for forgiveness, his heavenly Father had granted his request.
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
God had forgiven him. And now He expected Rand to forgive this man before him.
But it was so hard. He had carried this anger and hatred with him for thirty-seven months. For that long, it had harbored and festered inside of him.
He forced himself to relax his fists. Could he let it go? He took a deep breath. Let me mean it, Lord. “I forgive you.”
Angel choirs didn’t exactly begin singing at those words, but relief flooded Rand in that moment. A smile, at first tentative, then growing stronger, spread across the soldier’s face.
And what Rand saw in his face was a man, just like him. Perhaps with a wife and children at home. He fought because his country required that he do so. If Rand hadn’t been caught in Manila, he would have been on the front lines doing much the same for his country.
In the end, wasn’t that what they all were? Just men and women? The war had blurred class distinctions. The Japanese had stripped them of their funds, reduced them all to the same pitiful state. And when rich and poor went away, you were left with people. Extraordinary people. People who lived their lives with grace and dignity despite their circumstances. Or maybe because of them. People who had been poor, who had more dignity than any of those who had been his friends and acquaintances before the war.
And this Japanese man before him, just a man with hopes and dreams and aspirations. Longing to get home to his family. To love. To live.
Like any other man on the planet.
Rand took the square the guard held out to him. “Thank you.” He had never tasted anything so wonderful in all of his life. He ate just a little bit and very slowly. His shrunken stomach would allow him no more. The last thing he needed now was worse dysentery.
“You’re welcome. We are waiting until the Americans will let us out without killing us. You saw what they did to our commander?”
Rand shook his head. He had heard nothing about the captain of the guards.
“They shot him, and then your countrymen gloated over his body. They refused to let him rest in honor.”
“I’m sorry about that.” And Rand truly was. “I understand your desire to survive. You have to understand that we have that same desire. We want to be free. How long do you plan to keep us here?”
“As I said, until we are allowed to leave peaceably. I don’t know how long. Would you like a cigarette too?” The soldier now held out a good-quality American cigarette. Rand could only guess it also came from a Red Cross box.
He shook his head. “I don’t smoke. But thank you.”
The day wore on. The soldier offered him a few more squares of chocolate. They didn’t provide the nourishment he needed, but they helped with the gnawing hunger pains. More than that, the burning in his chest, with him for far more thirty-seven months, subsided.
Rand noticed Covey in his bed, fever-induced sweat dotting his brow. The wound he received the night of their boys’ arrival had become infected.
He should talk to Covey before it was too late.
It was time to let go.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
With surprising peace, Rand wound his way through the mass of men toward Covey. He was about to give up what he had wanted and fought for and dreamed about the entire internment.
And he was happy.
Happier than he remembered being for a long time. Maybe ever.
“How’s the pain?”
“Getting on my good side won’t earn you points with my daughter.” His voice was weak and raspy.
“That’s not why I asked. I want to know how you’re feeling.”
“Why?”
“I don’t wish you ill.”
“I already am. What do you want?”
“As soon as we’re released and life returns to normal—”
“You’re going to turn me in.” Covey ran a shaky han
d over his partially bald head. “I won’t be here.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Your generosity won’t make a difference with Irene.”
“I want to change the terms of our deal.”
Covey tried to move but winced with the effort. Instead, he narrowed his eyes. “Because you see that I’m dying.”
Rand licked his lips, his mouth dry. “If you want the clubs, they are yours. I will hand them over to you.”
The man’s shrunken cheeks blazed. “This is a trick.”
“No trick. The Monarch and the Azure are yours. You control them. Do with them what you wish. I’m getting out of the nightclub business.”
“You can tell Irene after I’m gone that you did this.”
“No. I plan to work with orphans and street children here in Manila.”
“Why?”
“The life of glittery high society holds no appeal for me anymore. Not since I’ve become a follower of Christ. I thought I was somebody. He reduced me to a nobody, then made me a somebody in Him. He saved me. Now I want to save the most forgotten victims—the nobodies—of this war. They’re humans, just like us, who want joy and happiness and peace.”
“You are … Out of your … Mind.” He struggled for breath.
Rand shrugged. “Maybe. But I’ve forgiven you for stealing from me. That is the only way I could do this.”
The man’s breathing became more labored. “Do. Me. A favor?”
“Is this a trick of yours?”
“No.” Covey swallowed. “Irene. I loved her. I did it. All. For her.” Then he closed his eyes.
“Covey? Covey. Reynolds?” Rand shook the man but didn’t get a response. He checked Covey’s pulse in his neck.
None.
Irene’s father had died.
Irene was dozing on her bed when a buzz ran through her room in the Main Building. “They’re leaving. Look at them go.”
“Who? What?”
Tessa called to Irene and the others. “Bangers and mash, the Japanese are walking out of the Education Building. Just surrendering. Bruce and Rand are free.”