Brave Hearts (15 page)

Just as the boat began to move, a disreputable yellow Ford convertible pulled up and the door was flung open.

She began to smile even as tears blurred her eyes. Jack had found out she was leaving. She didn't know how. Perhaps he'd received her message. Perhaps the news had burned across Manila like a grass fire that the American leaders were fleeing to Corregidor. Somehow, he'd known and here he was. She raised her hand and waved.

Jack waved back.

She clung to the railing of the bucketing boat and waved until she could see him no longer.

Once past the breakwater, the PT boats idled and the escaping VIPs transferred to an interisland steamer, the Mayon, for the three-hour trip across the bay. Catharine was standing amidship when MacArthur, his wife, and little Arthur went down the central stairway. She watched curiously. She'd seen MacArthur before but never so near. He was imposing, his posture ramrod straight, his uniform impeccable. She'd seen so many unshaven, exhausted officers these past weeks. MacArthur might have stepped from a July Fourth reviewing stand. He walked briskly, his wife and child following; then he was out of sight down the stairs.

A steward brought around sandwiches and Coca-Cola. Catharine shook her head. She put her suitcase with the others in the main lounge, then returned to the deck. The steamer was passing by the burning ruin that had once been Cavite Naval Base. The smell of burning oil overlay the scent of the sea.

Catharine stood by the railing and stared across the water. She was cold, but she didn't want to go below decks. She stayed by the railing and watched the dark blur of Corregidor grow larger and take shape. She thought how odd it was that she should be on a steamer in the middle of Manila Bay, fleeing from the Japanese. War caused such strange things. It took lives that had been planned and tossed the plans to pieces. What a peculiar twist her life had taken. During her childhood years in Pasadena, she had never even heard of the Philippines. All those long years ago, life had seemed reasonable, a happy equation. She'd discovered when Reggie's plane nosed down into rolling English hills that equations sometimes didn't prove out. She'd learned that reality more bitterly when Charles, breathing stertorously, lay heavily in her arms and slipped beyond recall. Now Jack was in Manila and the Japanese were coming.

The steamer slowed. Two PT boats from Corregidor nosed closer, and the passengers gathered up their belongings. The MacArthur party made the first transfer. Arthur MacArthur laughed as his mother swung him up to carry. Catharine's heart ached for the MacArthurs. How dreadful to hold your child, your only son, in your arms and know that death and destruction lay ahead. At least Charles was safe now. Nothing ever again could hurt or frighten Charles.

“Catharine, come along.”

Catharine managed to turn and smile at Amea. As they walked together toward the crosswalk, Catharine looked beyond the PT at Corregidor. Back in Manila, when all she could see was a dark dot on the horizon, Catharine had imagined a cattish, rounded island, but Corregidor flung itself out of the water, an enormous chunk of volcanic rock with sheer five-hundred-foot cliffs at its head. The island glistened with lush vegetation, including thickly branched fir trees that covered the rugged terrain in green.

Amea pointed at the middle hill. “That's where we're going.”

“Are there quarters there?”

Amea didn't answer directly. “Woody and I came over to visit once. We played golf and lunched at the Officers' Club; then they took us on a tour.” She took a deep breath. “We saw Malinta Tunnel.”

Tunnel. Catharine thought of a subway tunnel; rounded brick walls, narrow, constricting, dark space.

She followed Amea across the plank to the PT boat. As soon as they were aboard, the PT roared to life. A few minutes later, the boat docked at a concrete pier. They were herded off, this time to board a rickety bus. Spencer and Woody stayed behind to supervise the unloading of the gold and silver.

The bus chugged and wheezed up a narrow dirt road that clung to the edge of Malinta Hill. It stopped in front of what Catharine would come to know as the east entrance.

Once again, the refugees gathered up their belongings and slowly filed off the bus, then walked toward the huge mouth of the tunnel.

Malinta Tunnel.

It was like nothing Catharine had ever seen before.

The enormous mouth of the tunnel arched twenty feet high and was wide enough for four cars to drive abreast. Railroad tracks ran down the middle of the tunnel. As far as the eye could see, wooden crates and boxes lined the concrete walls in stacks six to seven feet tall. Men in uniform moved in and out of the tunnel in a constant stream.

Catharine felt very aware of her sex. Men were everywhere. Then, with a feeling of relief, she saw two army nurses in khaki pants and combat boots. The nurses looked surprised at the straggling group of women in civilian dress.

Catharine immediately disliked the tunnel. The air was unpleasantly damp, the kind of damp found in cellars or mausoleums. There was a graveyard smell of wet rock and other unpleasant smells, too: diesel oil fumes, urine, sweat, creosote, medicine, disinfectant.

She followed her group into the main tunnel. A black-and-white sign announced “Hospital,” and the group turned right into a smaller tunnel. The smells of medicine, blood, and disinfectant grew stronger. Smaller tunnels opened to the left and right off the hospital lateral. The women were taken to tunnel number 11, which housed the medical detachment. They walked down a narrow aisle between neatly made cots for the doctors. Midway down this side passage, sheets were draped over a rusty metal screen which marked off the nurses' sleeping area. This was to be their new home.

“Home sweet home,” Amea said drily.

The three Quezon children giggled and laughed as they dumped their things on their cots. Mrs. Quezon looked around the cramped, bleak, smelly quarters, then smiled brightly. Mrs. MacArthur and Arthur weren't included in the group of women and children to be quartered with the nurses.

Catharine and Amea chose neighboring cots. They tucked their suitcases beneath the cots, then looked at each other.

“Shall we explore?” Catharine asked.

“Of course.”

The hospital lateral was about half the diameter of the main tunnel. As they walked back through it, they passed the laterals opening off to each side, each marked by a sign: Surgical, Respiratory, Dental, Clerical, Dispensary. For privacy, sheets were draped over the lateral entrances. The main hospital corridor was about one hundred yards in length and broken by two slight bends. Double-decker beds were lined up on each side of the main corridor for the patients. Their passage created a wash of silence as the men—officers, soldiers, patients—watched them walk by.

“I feel rather conspicuous,” Amea murmured.

Everyone noticed them. The glances were apparently interested, but always polite.

The main tunnel swarmed with activity. Keeping close to the crate-stacked wall, Catharine and Amea walked the length of the tunnel. Every glimpse and sound reinforced the reality of war. Soldiers sweated as they maneuvered handcars along the rails. Men hunched over desks or clustered by map boards. Telephones buzzed. The overhead neon lights bathed everything in faintly blue light. Catharine had never thought of all the paperwork and logistics involved in men killing one another.

“Let's go outside,” Catharine urged. The noise and the penetrating, heavy smell sickened her.

They walked back down the main tunnel to the east entrance and came out onto a narrow road. Trucks climbed up in low gear and exhaust fumes choked them, but there was also the sweet scent of frangipani and hibiscus. They followed a narrow path and struggled up the steep side of Malinta Hill until they stood at the crest and looked back across the bay at Manila.

Catharine knew she should be happy to have reached the island safely. She was safe here, at least for now. Manila would fall quite soon. MacArthur intended to declare Manila an Open City to save it from further bombing, but that didn't mean the inhabitants would be safe when the Japanese took over. The smoke that hung over the city looked dark and sooty like rain clouds. Catharine turned and looked to the north at Bataan, the mountainous and vividly green peninsula just across the channel from Corregidor. That was where the American and Filipino troops were going to make their stand. It looked wild and forbidding. She turned to look again in the direction of Manila. Whitecaps glittered on the bay. Jack was across the bay. He was somewhere in Manila, somewhere beneath that thick and ugly pall of smoke. Perhaps he'd already left Manila. Perhaps he was covering the withdrawal and was on his way to Bataan.

God, please don't let Jack be hurt, she prayed.

Bullets and bombs didn't discriminate between soldiers and civilians. There was no safety for Jack and no safety for the soldiers he was covering.

But she said her little prayer over and over again.

The acrid smoke curled into the sky, eddied near the ground. Flames crackled in every quarter of Manila. Heated clouds of smoke dumped occasional swaths of artificial rain, leaving oily black smudges on everything it touched. Every so often. Jack took a grimy cotton cloth and reached over the windshield to wipe a clear space. It was late on New Year's Eve when he reached the INS office; not surprisingly, it was deserted. He wondered briefly what had happened to Logan, then he sat down at his desk and began to pound out the story. He could have written for hours, but he knew he only had minutes. When he completed the story on the withdrawal of the southern troops toward Bataan, he dialed Western Union. The telephone rang and rang.

Artillery fire rumbled from the south.

Jack stuffed the copy into his canvas pack. He was on his way to the door when an enormous explosion rocked the room. He was lifted from his feet and flung backwards. As he came up against the cracking wall, he knew this was more than bombs or artillery shells. He scrambled to his feet, ran outside, and stared up at the roiling columns of black smoke. Flames danced in great blazing sheets. He knew the army had blown up the Pandacan oil storage tanks. Even from the distance of several miles, he could hear the roar and whistle of the fire. Explosions erupted to the east as the fuel supplies at Fort McKinley were fired. What was left of Nichols Field went up in smoke and fire. Flames ringed the city.

The Japanese troops must be near, Jack thought. He had to move fast, for they would intern any Americans they found in Manila. He damn well didn't intend to spend the rest of the war in a Japanese prison. He ran to the convertible, gunned it to life, and swung the wheel toward the harbor. If he could find a boat, any kind of boat, he'd head for Bataan.

When he reached the deserted yacht club, he swung his flashlight across the basin and spotted a rusty motorboat. He scrambled down the ladder and climbed aboard. The motor sputtered to life, but it almost immediately died. It was out of gasoline. No wonder the owner had left it when almost anything that could move or be moved was being utilized by those escaping from Manila. Gasoline. He hit the pier running, hoping the little yellow convertible was still parked in front of the club.

He found the car and searched the glove compartment and the trunk, but there was no rubber tubing. He ran back to the club and looked in a storage shed which no one had locked. The garden hoses were too big and heavy. He moved to the back door of the club, grabbed up a loose brick, and broke in. It was ghostly inside, the tables set for dining and no one there. He found the kitchen and rummaged through the drawers. He picked up a siphon bottle and a length of rubber tubing attached to a sink.

Back at the car, his improvised siphon worked beautifully. He filled the bottle and, returning to the kitchen, searched until he found several gallon-size empty jars, which he filled, too. When he'd emptied the car's tank, he grabbed some food from the kitchen and transferred his precious fuel supplies to the motorboat.

Gunfire rattled on Dewey Boulevard. The militia or the Japanese?

Jack jumped into the boat. He pulled the cord, and the engine came to life. He maneuvered the boat slowly out of the yacht basin. He moved cautiously, skirting the masts and funnels of sunken ships.

Another explosion erupted; Jack twisted to look back at Manila. The city lay silhouetted against the brilliant orange-red fires that glowed around her.

As the sounds and smells of the burning city faded behind him, Jack sprawled on the seat, his hand steady on the tiller. He fished a cigarette and lighter from his jacket pocket. The cigarette tasted sharp and fresh. This was his last pack of Lucky Strikes. As he smoked, his eyes skimmed the dark water. Occasionally, he looked up at the night sky, with its incredibly bright, shimmering stars. The dark and soft night reminded him of the lovely sweep of Catharine's hair. The first night he ever saw her in London he'd seen her face reflected in the bright sheen of a pillar, and nothing was ever the same again.

Catharine. Her eyes were the deepest violet, richer and deeper than amethyst, eyes fringed magically by long, soft, dark lashes.

He'd wanted to know what she was truly like. She was so aloof that night in the River Room, so far from him and his world. Was that what drew him? Perhaps, but it wasn't what held him now. He knew her now; he knew how she loved and how she cared. He knew the feel of her lips, how her hands touched him, how her dark hair felt against his face. He knew her touch, her body, soft and rounded, straining to him, but he knew so much more. He knew the gentleness of her spirit. He knew the darkness in her heart, the pain and anguish she'd suffered. He knew that she'd lost hope, that she didn't believe in happiness. More than anything in his life, he wanted to be the man who gave Catharine the faith that life could be good.

He lit another cigarette, drew deeply on it, and smiled. Love was wonderful, wasn't it? Here he was, on his own, somewhere in Manila Bay, aiming for Bataan. He raced against the night to make landfall before daylight exposed him to attack from Japanese planes. Yet, he felt a great sense of peace and contentment, and it was all because of Catharine, because of his memory of her, because she loved him and he loved her. All his life, he'd struggled and fought, never really knowing why. He'd battled through loneliness, despair, and discouragement, keeping on in a world filled with cruelty and horror. He'd done it all on his own, no one to look deep into his eyes and smile for no other reason than his existence. None of that was true now. It didn't matter that Catharine was isolated on a volcanic island he couldn't reach. It wouldn't even matter if she were still in London or he were in Chicago, because their love was independent of time or place. It existed so long as they both lived, and it was strong enough to carry them through anything.

Jack lounged against the seat, steered the little boat to the west, and remembered their happy hours. The contentment stayed with him through the night. About three hours out of Manila, hard, choppy waves slapped into the boat. He shook his head wearily and peered into the darkness. He turned into the wind and headed for the tip of Bataan to avoid the minefields around Corregidor. The first streaks of dawn appeared ahead of him. Directly ahead, looming high against the sky, was the purple peak of Mount Mariveles.

Bataan lay dead ahead.