A Pledge of Silence (24 page)

Wade stirred, then turned toward her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I came for the trap. There might be a rabbit in the garden.”

He sat up slowly, his expression melancholy and dull.

“If we catch him, we could make stew.”

“Oh? How so?”

She patted his face, a little harder than tenderly. “Wade, perk up.”

He shook his head. “Sorry, I fade out sometimes.”

She worried about him. She didn’t want him to lose his fortitude; he simply couldn’t give up and die. She had seen that happen on the wards—a patient’s will to live ebbing, his spirit slipping away. Stored in the hospital’s morgue, dead bodies bloated in the heat and attracted rats that feasted on the fingers and toes. The corpses got carted away in filthy coffins too short for most American bodies. There was no dignity in death here.

Ruth Ann coaxed, “Ten more steps. Can you do it?”

“Think so,” Margie shouted over the growl of aircraft engines. She struggled up the last few stairs on her backside, but the view from the top made the effort worth it. Along with Tildy, they settled themselves on the roof of the building to watch the show. The bay area to the south roiled as American planes crisscrossing the sky dropped bombs on Japanese ships. Gray and gritty, the air smelled of burning fuel. Wherever Margie looked, fires roared and columns of black smoke rose. Tremendous explosions rocked the building.

Over the constant drone of planes and shrill whistles of the anti-aircraft artillery, Tildy shouted, “I counted 84 Allied planes this pass, and each dumped a full load. They just keep coming. Can’t be much left out there.”

Margie pointed to a dogfight just to the east between a Nip Zero and an American Hellcat. “Take the bastard out!” she screamed as the planes looped and rolled around the dreary sky. When an engine sputtered, she crossed her fingers. The Zero spiraled down trailing fire, and she had to refrain from dancing a jig.

“Feels like I’m watching a newsreel!” she shouted.

“You
are
the newsreel!” Tildy said, laughing.

Every day the internees listened to and watched the sounds and sights of the war, but as January turned into February, liberation seemed as far off as ever. Fear for their lives intensified as each Allied victory brought more restrictions and humiliations, less food, and sometimes death to the beaten-down citizens of Santo Tomas.

Hope stirred again in February as the sky swelled with a tremendous reverberation. Margie counted seven B-24s flying in formation low over the camp. Just the sight of all that friendly power gave her goose bumps. The internees craned their necks to watch the lead plane circle. When directly overhead, the pilot tossed an object out of the cockpit. A hundred starving souls dove for it as a swarm of Japanese guards attacked. One of the prisoners prevailed. He waved goggles and a note.

“Roll out the barrel. We’ll be back today or tomorrow,” he shouted to the excited crowd just before the guards beat him down and dragged him away.

Margie felt the point of a bayonet on her back. She stumbled forward with the rest of the crowd crazed with joy and fear as they were herded back into the campus buildings. “Stay away from the windows or I’ll shoot you,” a guard growled as he locked the door.

The prisoners listened at doors and cautiously peeked out windows the rest of the day, praying for the return of the American planes. The only activity they could see, however, took place inside the camp. Skittish Japanese soldiers burned reams of records in massive bonfires and loaded trucks with guns and equipment. Acrid smoke from the fires and quarrelsome enemy voices filtered into the rooms.

Ruth Ann nudged Tildy. “What’re they saying?”

“Shh!” Tildy whispered, straining to hear the words. “They’re talking too fast. Wait—something about trucks and gasoline. They sound scared.”

“I hope they’re so scared they’re choking on it,” Gracie said, sitting on her cot and hugging a pillow.

Ruth Ann snuck a quick peek outside. “Holy Mother of God! Those shit-faced devils! Look!”

Margie edged forward. She saw trucks filled with Japanese officers and their armed guards lumbering toward the front gate. A guard standing on the ground below her looked up, and she quickly ducked back. “So the rats are leaving the sinking ship, the yellow-bellied bastards.”

“Christ, no! Not that. Stand here and look again.” Ruth Ann pointed to the right. “That truck over there.”

If she leaned sideways, Margie could see Japanese soldiers unloading a truck full of red barrels. They rolled each one cautiously down a ramp and stacked it with the others into a niche under the main staircase. “What is it?”

“Gasoline storage barrels,” Ruth Ann said. “I bet those fucking turds plan on torching this place before our guys arrive.”

Thunderstruck, Margie watched the preparations for her demise. “They wouldn’t do that, would they?”

“What’s to stop them?”

As day turned to night, the flurry of Japanese activity ceased. The last truckload of officers disappeared through the gate, leaving behind a company of guards to keep the internees caged in their rooms. During the long hours without food or news, all they could do in the stifling darkness was wait and listen to others’ muffled sobs and whispered prayers. Helen, who had slept through the day, struggled to breathe, so Margie pushed a thin pillow under her shoulders to ease her discomfort. She didn’t like what she felt when she lifted her friend. Helen’s body was swelling.

“Use this too,” Tildy whispered, offering her own ragged pillow. “She doesn’t sound good at all.”

“She’s not. She can’t wait much longer.” Margie stifled a sob and whispered a prayer.
Dear Lord, Please give Helen the will to live and the strength to survive this.

From beyond the walls of the campus came the unremitting blasts of a raging war.

“There’s machine-gun fire out there tonight,” Ruth Ann said.

Margie listened to the staccato reports. There were other new sounds too, the rumblings and grindings of heavy machinery. “Sounds like there’s fighting on the ground.”

They felt a resonating thud, followed by a clunk.

“That sounded close.” Ruth Ann climbed over several beds to return to the window.

They heard another thud, another clunk, then a screech. A great resounding crash shook the building, drawing every woman in the room to the window. A light suddenly shone so brightly that Margie shielded her eyes. She rasped, “Oh Jesus, Mother of God! This is it!”

A few women returned to their cots, curling into fetal positions, heads buried under their pillows; some dropped to their knees to pray; others huddled tightly together for comfort. Despite the fear and horror, the room stayed as silent as a graveyard. Margie stayed at the window, mesmerized.

The bright light slowly advanced from the front gate to the main building. As it drew closer, Margie made out the long barrel of a howitzer mounted on a tank. She grabbed Tildy’s hand, and Tildy reached for Ruth Ann, each needing a human touch. So this was the end. After all she had endured, this was how she would die—blown away in the middle of the night by a blast from a Japanese tank, then cremated in a gasoline firestorm. Margie hoped it would be quick.

The tank clanked to a stop in front of the main building, a time bomb ticking off their last minutes. No one dared breathe. The hatch on the tank creaked open, and two figures jumped nimbly to the ground. They peered around. Margie cringed, waiting for the detonation, but, instead, she heard a voice call out in English, “Hey, folks, are there any Americans inside?”

Ruth Ann flung the window open wide and screamed, “You better friggin’ believe there’re Americans in here!” The roomful of women stormed the window to get a look at their saviors, then kicked down the locked door and stampeded down the stairs.

Word spread like lightning and pandemonium reigned on the front lawn as prisoners poured out of buildings. More tanks lumbered through the shattered front gate, their lights illuminating thousands of bawling faces as the captives collectively roared out their relief and elation. A soldier unfurled an American flag over the entrance of the main building, and, for a moment, the throng fell silent. Gracie began to sing “God Bless America” in her clear voice, and everyone joined in. The air was electrified by the pulse of 4,000 joyous hearts.

Truckloads of well-muscled American soldiers followed the tanks in. GIs, they said they were called.

“What’s a GI?” Margie asked the soldier standing beside her.

“Government Issue. We’re just regular army.”

“I beg to differ,” she laughed. “There’s nothing
regular
about you guys.” She reached out and touched his arm—no, this wasn’t a cruel dream.

Margie pressed through the crowd inebriated with joy. As she neared the front gate, she saw wounded soldiers lying on the ground and more being carried from trucks. Gracie tended to one, applying a field dressing. Margie hurried to help.

Gracie whispered, “What I’m hearing from these soldiers is pretty scary.”

A medic gave Margie a bag of plasma, and she started the IV.

Gracie said, “General MacArthur sent these guys in without securing the area first. He told them to blast their way through enemy lines and get us out of here.”

“General MacArthur? He came back?”

“Yes, with the big guns. They’re saying the Japanese were about to annihilate the prisoners of war. Not just us, in all the camps.”

As they went from soldier to soldier, they heard more of the story. Guerrillas had helped, meeting the American troops at the city line and escorting them through the streets, past nests of Japanese resistance, all the way to Santo Tomas.

“That’s the machine-gun fire we heard,” Gracie said.

One wounded soldier proudly announced, “We’re the Flying Columns,” before his gaze unfocused, and he passed out. Gracie applied a pressure bandage to stem his bleeding, and moved him to the front of the line for surgery.

Trucks kept rolling through the front gate. Amid the noisy disorder, Margie thought she heard a voice from the past. Glancing up from what she was doing, she saw Max Renaldo. He looked impeccable, muscled and tan, his hair flowing, and his dancer’s body moving with grace. She felt first fear, then revulsion for this man who had assaulted her years ago: her ear still carried the scar from his bite. When their eyes met, confusion flickered across his face, then recognition, and finally—hatred.

A shiver crawled up the back of her neck. She said to Gracie, “I need to check on Helen.”

The dark passageways of the main building felt eerily deserted, and Margie feared lurking guards as she hurried past open doors. The clamor of celebration combined with more distant sounds of battle filtered through the open window of her room, coalescing into disharmonic noise. She wondered how Helen managed to sleep through it, but a quick check confirmed her condition had worsened, her body more swollen, her skin taut and too pink. Margie patted her shoulder lightly.

“Helen, wake up. We’ve been rescued, Helen. Wake up. We’re going to go home.” Margie caressed her cheek. “Helen, honey, wake up. You have to wake up now. I have something important to tell you.”

Helen’s eyelids fluttered. “Margie,” she whispered. “What’s all the noise?”

“It’s a celebration. We’ve been rescued. American soldiers broke through. Can you hear them? The singing? The cheering? More are coming, and they’re going to take us home. You’re going to see your mum and pop again, and your cousin Mabel. Remember, Helen? You want me to meet Mabel. You can’t go back on your word now.”

Helen smiled. “You’ll like Mabel. She’s a real stitch.” She shivered. “I’m so cold.”

Margie gathered thin blankets from the other beds and piled them on Helen, checking her slowing pulse before tucking her arms under the covers. She stroked Helen’s brow, crying inside her head,
“Don’t die. Please don’t die.”
She needed an infusion of plasma—
plasma
! The soldiers had plasma!

She jiggled Helen’s shoulder again, excited this time. “Helen, listen. I’m going downstairs to get you some plasma. I’ll be right back. It will make you feel better, I promise, honey! Hang on for me!” She adjusted the pillows under Helen’s head and ran out of the room.

Moving as fast as her weakened condition allowed, she sped through the empty corridors where the smell of smoke mingled with musk, dirt and urine. Nearing the stairwell, she sensed someone else moving, and flattened herself against the wall.

A familiar voice came from the shadows. “So we meet again, Margie. I must say, you’re not the pretty little thing you were when I last saw you.”

Acutely aware of her jutting bones, Margie crossed her arms over her chest. Her mouth went sticky dry. “What are you doing here, Max?”

“Are you addle-brained? I came in with the troops. Where’s your little blonde friend?”

“Evelyn? She went home three years ago. You know that. She said you arranged it.”

He belched and took a long swig from a flask. “Now why would I do that?”

Margie slid her foot sideways, a step closer to the stairwell. “Why? Weren’t you two getting married?”

“Ha!” He swayed on his feet. “I guess I said a few things. She could’ve taken it that way. You see,” he hiccupped. “You see, I wanted to keep her around for a while. She was a cute little cunt. She’d do anything for me. You two talked a lot. Did she tell you that? Anything for me. I have a particular appetite.”

Margie took another step sideways, hoping Max wouldn’t notice, but he followed her movement with his head.

He said, “Royce and I talked, too. He told me all these, umm … intimate things. What he did … what you did.”

Margie forced herself not to listen.

“Wonder what he’d think of you now? Scrawny. Gray-faced. Hollow-eyed.” Max snickered. “But then, he’s no prize himself by now.” He stepped closer, waving the flask in front of her face. “When’s the last time you ate anything but weevils?”

She smelled the liquor. She willed herself to remain detached, but her mouth watered, and she gaped at it hungrily.