A Pledge of Silence (16 page)

Putting Abe’s letter in her pocket, she hurried to the records shack. She wanted to find the pilot; maybe he knew more about the convoy. Maybe he knew Abe. The clerk rifled through papers. “That’s Lieutenant Gilbert Zybecki. He’s in Ward 6. Took a bullet in his foot and had surgery yesterday.”

She found Lt. Zybecki lying on a cot with his foot elevated in a sling. From what she could tell, he was a little shorter than the average pilot, but well muscled, like a wrestler. He looked better fed than most of the men who showed up at the hospital. He was staring into the trees as Margie approached. She said, “Lt. Zybecki?”

He looked her way. “Hi, call me Gil.”

“I’m Margie Bauer. I was the anesthetist when you had your surgery.”

Gil cracked a wide smile. “My sleepy-time gal. Hey, sweetheart, you know where I can get some jungle juice?”

“Some what?”

“Raisinjack. Booze. The docs make it out of raisins and prunes.”

She knew exactly what he meant. She had downed a slug of the burning liquid herself on occasion, but didn’t care to admit it. “I don’t know. I can ask. Mind if I sit down?”

He gestured. “Pull up the golden throne.”

She perched on a bamboo stool. “Thanks for bringing the mail. I got two letters.”

“My pleasure.”

“How’d you get shot? I mean, if you don’t mind talking about it.”

“I don’t mind at all. It’s not the first bullet I’ve taken. It’s a hazard of the job. I was patrolling the forward areas. Windy that day. So rough the air shot me up 900 feet then dropped me down 800. Ever been on a roller coaster? You know that stomach feeling? Then, I ran into this hive of Zeros. I counted six. Shit! Pardon my French. They dart around like hummingbirds. All you can do is loop and try to stay out of their sights.”

Margie nodded. “I’ve seen them in action.”

“I peeled away to the right at 190 knots … uh, that’s 220 miles per hour. I was descending 5,000 feet per minute. You can’t keep that up for more than a few seconds. The plane starts vibrating. Those Zeros couldn’t keep up. See, their controls get heavy at high speeds. They don’t roll well to the right. I know. I’ve watched enough of them. I got one in my sights—just long enough. Bam! I saw smoke. I’m pretty sure that bastard’s history.” Gil paused, reliving the moment. “Then something knocked out my rudder and got me in the foot. I think it was our AA. It probably saved my life.”

“Getting hit by anti-aircraft fire saved your life? Is that ironic, or what?” Margie said.

“Yeah. A real knee-slapper.”

She inspected the wrapped appendage for bleeding and felt his uncovered toes, checking for warmth. “Looks like your foot’s going to be all right.”

“It has to. I have to get back to my unit.”

“Are many of you here? Pilots, I mean. I thought most of the planes were destroyed.”

“Right. F-U-B-A-R.” He pronounced each letter slowly and with disgust. “Now, we’re the Bamboo Fleet. Mostly reconnaissance. All 15 of us.”

“Fifteen is all? Not great odds.”

“No, but we’re cunning fools.”

She had no doubts about that. Pilots had nerves of steel, or at least pretended they did. “I have a friend who’s a pilot. He’s in Australia right now. I was wondering if you might know him. His name’s Abe Carson.”

“Abe Carson. Never heard of him. Sorry, can’t help you.”

“You did, though. You brought me his letter. He got shot down while escorting a convoy from Australia. He lost his plane, but he’s okay. By the way, do you know anything about a supply convoy?”

“I heard about it.”

“Do you think they’ll get through?”

“Not a chance in a thousand. It doesn’t have the backup, and we’re pretty low priority over here. The big guns are going after Hitler. Hey! Find me some of that jungle juice, will you?”

Margie stood to leave. “I’ll do that.”

“You’re a doll. Margie, is it? Soon as I get back in the air, I’ll bring you a treat. What do you want? A lipstick?”

She laughed. “I’d kill for a bottle of shampoo.”

“Shampoo. You got it.”

Margie never got her shampoo, nor did she ever see Gil again, but the message he left her with played in her head:
we’re pretty low priority over here
.

Gathered together in Miss Kermit’s shack, Margie and her friends listened to President Roosevelt’s Fireside Chat, straining to hear his words through the static. He spoke of aid provided to China, and the importance of Australia, New Zealand, and the Dutch Indies. He talked about munitions sent to the British, the Russians, and the Mediterranean countries to help them fight off the Nazis.

Speaking of the Philippines, Roosevelt restated his long-held strategy of winning by attrition—how, with our greater resources, we could ultimately out-build and overwhelm Japan on sea, on land, and in the air. He pointed out the difficulty of defending the Philippines since the enemy had the islands surrounded with their superior air and naval power. He mentioned the vast Pacific Ocean that complicated sending substantial reinforcements.

Just days after the broadcast—with soldiers dressed in rags and barely holding their positions; with rations down to one meal per day; with malaria, dysentery, and nutritional edema reaching epidemic proportions; and with medical supplies depleted—General MacArthur fled the dangerous battleground of the Philippines to the relative safety of Australia.

Feeling abandoned by their country as well as their supreme commander, the troops fought on, because there was nothing else they could do. A journalist caught their mood in a ditty:

We’re the Battling Bastards of Bataan,

No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam,

No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces,

No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces,

And nobody gives a damn!

By the end of March, General Homma’s reinforced and well-fed army slammed through the country with renewed vengeance, reopening the floodgates of wounded. Bombs pelted the hospital, killing scores of injured men as they lay on their cots along with the workers attending them. Fear and anger levels rose. Margie remained stoical, working to calm her patients’ nightmares while struggling to come to terms with her own.

The soldier occupying the operating table resembled a kid she’d known in high school.
What was his name? He was a whiz at math
.

Miss Kermit approached her. “Miss Bauer, the medics will take over here. Go to your quarters and pack what you can carry in your hands. Meet me in front of the records shack in 30 minutes.”

Margie balked. She cradled the man’s chin to keep his airway open. “Thirty minutes? I can’t leave him like this.”

“Thirty minutes, Miss Bauer. I kept you here as long as I could.” Miss Kermit continued through the room, gathering her girls.

Margie transferred her sedated patient to a medic, giving him a five-minute tutorial on anesthesiology. Fighting tears, she apologized to the surgeon. Removing her gown and pitching it in the laundry hamper, she dashed to the nurses’ quarters. It rumbled with confusion as the women stuffed their belongings in duffels or pillowcases. “Does anybody know what’s going on?” she asked.

Evelyn said, “The Nips broke through the front line this morning. They’re evacuating the women.”

“Just the women? What about the men? I left one on the table!” Margie protested. She grabbed her stomach and bent over with a cramp, her dysentery a constant plague.

In a high-pitched voice Gracie protested, “We can’t abandon them! We can’t leave them on the ground! I’m not going!”

Evelyn retrieved Gracie’s duffel. “Pack, Gracie! On the double! There’s no choice.”

Gracie sat on her cot, her expression determined, arms folded defiantly across her chest.

“Come
on
, Gracie,” Margie said, tugging at her arm, but Gracie resisted. Giving up, Margie hefted her own duffel and sprinted out the door with Evelyn at her heels, mumbling, “I feel like a dirty dog leaving like this.”

A bus was parked in front of the records shack, its engine running and tailpipe spewing exhaust. Margie tossed her bag in the back, then climbed aboard.

Miss Kermit said, “Girls. We’re going to Mariveles. A boat is waiting to take us to Corregidor where it’s safer.” She took count. “Thirty-four. Who’s missing?”

“Gracie Hall,” Margie said, and Miss Kermit sent soldiers to fetch her.

While they waited, an explosion shook the ground, filling the sky with white lights and curls of black smoke. Margie peered through the mud-plastered window, looking for Nip bombers. She couldn’t see any.

After Gracie got hustled onto the bus, the driver jumped into his seat. “We’re out of here,” he yelled as he cranked the gears and got up to speed.

The bus made its way down a road jammed with dazed soldiers retreating from the front, and locals on oxen, bicycles, or pulling cumbersome carts filled with old folks and children. Everyone sought escape from the oncoming enemy. The going was achingly slow, and soon forward movement stopped altogether. The bus driver left to confer with a soldier. He came back with the news that the army was destroying ammunition dumps, and had closed the road until the job was done. They sat idle while the hours ticked away. Periodically, a blast filled the sky with the most amazing fireworks that turned the atmosphere purple-green.

The constant rumble from the north heightened the refugees’ fear. Filipino men banged on the bus, demanding rides for their wives, children, and aging parents. Hunkering down in her seat, Margie avoided looking at the panicky, pitiful faces with their open, yelling mouths.
How secure was the bus door?

The door buckled. Ruth Ann leaped up and shouldered the driver’s Springfield bolt-action rifle. Aiming it at the intruders, she hollered, “One more step and you’re dog meat.”

Reluctantly, the men backed away.

Shortly after that incident, the bus pulled forward.

The women arrived at Mariveles in the inky early-morning hours. Nearing the waterfront, the bus sputtered to a stop, out of gas. The driver kicked the tire and looked as if he might break down and cry. “The docks are two miles ahead,” he said.

“All right, girls, get your things. Let’s get walking.” Miss Kermit wobbled when she tried to stand, and Evelyn took her arm.

Tildy found a lantern in the back of the bus.

“Follow the light,” Miss Kermit ordered, and the women joined the crowd of pedestrians on the winding mountain road. The two-mile trek felt more like ten to the careworn band of women.

Gracie started a hymn, “
I come to the garden alone …”
and they all sang along softly.

Down at the docks, chaos reigned as masses of people crowded the shore, desperately seeking transport to safer islands. The brown, oil-slicked water churned with debris. Everything that floated got pressed into service. The nurses pushed their way down to the water’s edge to look for their boat.

“The boat’s gone,” Tildy said.

“It can’t be. They wouldn’t leave us here.”

Tildy’s voice turned sharp. “Then show me the damn boat! What does the army care about a handful of women? They just sacrificed thousands of men to the Japanese!”

Her words hung unchallenged in the air.

They found shelter in a copse of trees. Suffering from exhaustion, Miss Kermit lay in the sand. The others, keyed-up and afraid, held quiet conversations.

“It smells like someone is broiling a steak.”

“I smell cheese. What I’d give for a chunk of sharp cheddar.”

“Please don’t talk about food,” Margie said. “It makes my stomach cramp.”

Evelyn appraised Margie, then reached over and slapped Ruth Ann on the knee. “Ruth Annie Oakley, where’d you learn to shoot a rifle?”

“My daddy had me shooting those old Springfields before I lost my first baby tooth. I grew up on a ranch in Wyoming.”

“Are you good?”

“Snakes are my specialty, but let’s just say no one was going to get through that bus door.”

Gracie, who hadn’t said a word since boarding the bus, sat apart from the other women. Margie went to her. “You okay?”

She shrugged and looked away.

“We all feel guilty about leaving the men. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“That’s only part of it. What I did was so stupid. Now—” She waved her hand in the air.

“Come on, Gracie. No one’s blaming you.”

The sky lightened from black to pale gray. Hearing a roar in the distance, the crowd on the beach panicked and scattered. Margie watched the Zero approach like a ghost in the sky, and knew a slaughter of innocent people loomed. Leaves whipped off the trees, and water swirled in great arcs as the yellow devil strafed the shoreline. The staccato rat-a-tat of discharging guns battered their ears and bullets sought out their bodies. Everyone cowered by the piers, mothers hovering over children, husbands shielding wives. After the roar faded to a drone, Margie lifted her head. Gracie lay crumpled in a heap, her blood seeping into the sand.

“Gracie,” she whispered. Carefully rolling her over, she opened her blouse. A messy hole showed near her left shoulder. “Oh, Gracie!”

Evelyn appeared with a medical kit. “Hey, kid,” she rasped, tears in her throat. “You got in the way of a bullet.” She inspected the wound and opened a morphine styrette. “I’m giving you morphine. I don’t want you going into shock on me. You hear me, kid? Okay?”

Gracie nodded, and her eyelids fluttered shut.

Frenzied by the attack, the crowd keened, women wailing and children howling. Men shook angry fists at the sky. “Bastards!” they shouted. “You dirty bastards!”

Out of the confusion, a boat appeared, tumbling and pitching in the waves. Its engine slowed to a putter as it eased its way to the shore. The captain yelled, “I’m looking for the nurses.”

The women scrambled aboard, four of them carrying Gracie. Ruth Ann assisted Miss Kermit, who was so dizzy she tumbled onto the deck. The captain fended off aggressive Filipinos clamoring to board. He glanced upward. “Anchor yourselves, company’s coming!” he shouted over the blub-blub-blub of the idling motor. Rapidly maneuvering away from the dock, he pressed the throttle to full, and the engine roared to life. The Japanese plane closed in overhead. Just as the pilot released his load, the boat sped away. On the shore behind them, the dock disappeared in a geyser of fire and water.