The Lonely War (23 page)

While Andrew carried the mess-cans to the showers, Hudson and Grady passed the cigarette between them until it was so short that it scorched their fingers. Grady pinched off the end and placed the smidgen of unburned tobacco in his shirt pocket.

“I’ll find us a tobacco box today,” Grady said.

W
ALKING
back from the showers, Andrew ran into Moyer, who was returning from the camp hospital. Moyer looked tired, but his eyes carried a soft glow.

“Morning, sir. You look happy,” Andrew said.

“I suppose I am. Last night I helped some boys at the hospital. They’re so desperate for comfort. You should see their faces when I lead them in prayer.”

“Did you see Lieutenant Mitchell?”

“He’s in bad shape, and they had to amputate Cocoa’s leg below the knee. Gangrene. Nasty stuff. They don’t have any anesthetic, so poor old Cocoa went through some kind of hell. I held his hand through the operation, and I can tell you he’s the bravest man I’ve ever met.”

“Can I visit them?”

Moyer nodded. “I need to catch a few winks, but after lunch I’ll take you there.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll wake you for lunch.”

T
HE
latrines were simply boreholes in the earth, twelve feet deep, three feet wide. Each hole had a wooden cover with a removable lid. From the prison’s west wall, thirty rows marched up the hillside, twenty-five holes to a row, which were spaced five feet apart. With no screens between the holes, everyone did their business in full view of everyone else.

Scanning the orderly field of hole-covers and the forty or so men squatting, Andrew noticed that all the men faced the same direction, downhill toward the prison wall, as if they were all seated in a cinema watching a movie being shown on the bone-white wall.

Andrew used a front-row hole. He didn’t feel comfortable relieving himself with everyone behind him watching, but that seemed a better option than watching others in front of him doing their business.

Andrew removed his combat boots, marine fatigue pants, and underwear, and squatted native-style with one foot on each side of the hole. He cleared his mind while his bodily functions took over, listening to the whispering breeze as it caressed his face, groans from nearby men, and, from below the wooden cover, the faint clicking of cockroaches. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them running over each other to get to his droppings. He smiled, knowing that they kept the holes from filling up.

When he finished, he lifted his water bottle, poured water into his cupped left hand, and used that to clean any traces of feces from his bum. There was no toilet paper in camp, but using water with the left hand was something that he had done many times growing up in Asia. In Indochina, people used the right hand for eating and the left hand for washing.

He climbed into his clothes and ambled to Hut Twenty-nine to wait for the afternoon, when he would see Cocoa and Mitchell.

A
NDREW
, Grady, and Hudson ate their lunch inside the hut. The room felt like a sauna, but outside there was no shade and the sun was relentless. Lunch was a billycan of rice, a billycan of fish soup, and a mug of weak tea. The soup had no chunks of fish, although it did taste fishy. No doubt the fillets fed the guards and the rest of the fish—head, guts, fins—was dumped into a vat of water to make broth. Still, it added a minuscule amount of nutrition to the rice.

Grady snapped his fingers. “I forgot.” He pulled a blue toothbrush from his pocket and handed it to Andrew. It was well-used but still had a few months of life left.

“Where did you get it?”

“Found it.”

Andrew shot him a sideways look.

“Give it back if you don’t want it, but don’t go askin’ how I got it.”

Andrew leaned toward his bunk and slid the brush under his pillow.

Stokes glided through the door, carrying his lunch. His shirt bulged in front, making him look eight months pregnant. He placed his mess-cans on the floorboards and winked. “Today’s our lucky day,” he said as he unbuttoned his shirt and extracted a coconut. “The wood detail is hard-ass work, but look what I found.”

“Mary and Joseph, that’s fantastic,” Hudson said. He took the coconut and swished it back and forth next to his ear. “There’s milk sloshing inside, but how do we open it?”

Stokes grinned as he pulled up the pant on his left leg. Tied to his calf with a strip of bamboo cord was a parang machete.

“Holy moly!” Hudson shouted.

“The Jappos don’t count the tools. It was easy to tie it under my pants. I was afraid they would search me coming in, but I decided to chance it.”

While Stokes polished off his lunch, Grady used water from his bottle to clean four billycans. Andrew took the coconut in his left hand and the machete in his right. With three swift strokes, he severed the crown. He measured equal portions of milk into each billycan, raised the parang again, and split the coconut into perfect halves.

The sound of the shell slicing open had a riveting quality, like the scream of a newborn baby. It captured the attention of every man in Hut Twenty-nine.

“Hey Hud, where the fuck did you get that?”

“You got to be light on your feet and smart as a whip to get these kind of extras. That leaves you bums out,” Hudson said with a chuckle.

With his spoon, Andrew scraped the tender meat from inside the fruit, letting it fall into the cans holding the milk, an equal measure in each.

“Say,” Stokes said, “you’re pretty handy with that blade.”

“I’ve done this a thousand times.”

Andrew was sorry he had already finished his lunch, because the coconut meat would have added a rich flavor to the steamed rice. As it was, milk over meat was a sweet, protein-rich dessert. Andrew couldn’t help smiling as he passed a billycan to each man.

They all dug in.

Andrew felt the protein surge though his system. He finished his dessert, tipped the cup over his mouth, trickled the last drops onto his tongue, and licked the inside of the billycan.

The four men leaned against Andrew’s bunk, smiling. Sweat poured over them as Andrew idly scratched at bed bug bites while wondering where to hide the parang so no one would steal it.

“That hit the spot!” Stokes said. “Now if we only had a butt.”

Grady extracted a half-smoked cigarette and a match from his shirt pocket. He scratched the match on the floorboards and lit the butt, inhaled, and passed it to Stokes.

Chaplain Moyer ambled up and invited Andrew to accompany him to the hospital. Andrew climbed to his feet.

“Think I’ll tag along,” Hudson said with a wink. “No telling what we can dig up there.” 

Chapter Twenty

May 26, 1942—1300 hours

T
HE
hospital was situated on the first two floors of a concrete blockhouse inside the walls. Andrew and Hudson trailed Moyer across a blistering courtyard and ducked inside the door.

The rectangular ward had prison cells lining both long walls. Each cell was six feet wide, ten feet long, and twelve feet high. The bars had been removed so that they were open to the center aisle.  An iron bed with a kapok mattress sat in each cell. Every bed was occupied. The familiar hospital smells of cleaning fluids and drugs were overpowered by the stench of vomit, rotting flesh, and the musty odor of death.

Moyer led Andrew and Hudson to a cell marked Bed 24. On top of a bare mattress and wearing only his skivvies, Cocoa lay propped up by four pillows, brushing flies away with languid sweeps of his arm. His haggard face showed dark circles under his protruding eyes, deep lines engraved his forehead, and a blood-soaked rag covered the stump below his left knee.

“Cocoa,” Moyer said, using a lighthearted tone. “Look who I brought.” He patted Andrew on the shoulder and smiled at Cocoa. “Say, I nearly forgot.” He pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket. “Met a British colonel who had an extra, so we cut cards for it.”

Cocoa’s eyes bulged, his mouth lifting into a grin. “Bless you, Chaplain. You’re a saint. And the fact that you won it at cards will make it taste even sweeter. Keep this up, and I’ll turn religious.”

“That would be miraculous. Pardon me if I don’t stand around with bated breath, but I want to check with the doc about your leg.” Moyer strolled down the line of cells.

Andrew took hold of Cocoa’s hand. “How are you feeling?”

“Andy, they didn’t even put me to sleep, for God sakes. They strapped me to a table and hacked away like I was a Goddamned Thanksgiving turkey. What the hell am I supposed to do now? What the hell am I good for? They cut away my life.”

Andrew squeezed his hand.

Hudson said, “I guess this means you won’t be kicking my ass anymore.”

Cocoa flinched, snorted. “You got that right. My ass-kicking days are done.”

Hudson stepped closer. The two men clasped hands.

“That was a beautiful fight,” Cocoa chuckled. “I’m damn glad it was Mitchell who took that right hook and not me. I don’t have much left, but I’ll always have that.”

“Once you’re on your feet, I mean foot, we’ll have some grand times again. An old salt like you won’t let this slow you down. You’ll strap on a peg leg and strut around like Blackbeard himself.”

“All I want is to crawl under a palm tree in Papeete with a case of beer and a bottle of sippin’ whiskey, and I’ll watch the world wag on.” Cocoa paused. “The funny thing is, even though my leg is burning, I can still feel my toes on the foot that ain’t there. It’s the damnedest thing.” He held up the cigar. “Say, if you’ve got a match, let’s fire this up.”

Hudson’s face lifted. “You bet.” He took the cigar, snapped it into two pieces, and handed the larger half to Cocoa. He struck a match on the bedpost and they lit up.

Cocoa groaned, blowing a smoke ring at the swarm of flies.

“Man oh man, that’s grand.” Hudson said. “I guess our padre is good for something after all.”

“Don’t you say anything against Moyer or I’ll jump up and whip you again. He held my hand through the operation. Don’t know what I would have done without him.”

“Never thought I’d hear you talk like that,” Andrew said.

“Me neither… but life has a way of surprising you.”

Two men carried a stretcher down the aisle, followed by a young man with long blond hair who wore a full-length sarong around his slim waist and a white, sleeveless medical smock cut low at the neckline. In that atmosphere of suffering and death, the young man looked perennially fresh and carried a gentle dignity. His sarong was made of pure silk, threadbare to the point of being nearly transparent, and it had the sepia color that silk takes on with age.

They sauntered to the bed across the aisle from Cocoa and began loading a corpse onto the stretcher. Before they could remove the body, a doctor strolled up, dressed in a butcher’s apron speckled with blood. He stood erect with grave formality, frowning at the young orderly’s wavy hair, shaved armpits, and milky skin. “Clifford,” he said, “collect the bedpans from twelve and twenty-three.” A shade of venom permeated his voice. “And for God sakes, Clifford, you’re a man, act like one.”

“Y-y-y-yes, Doctor,” Clifford said tartly with a swish of his head.

Andrew peered across the aisle, seeing a severely effeminate Clifford Baldrich looking as graceful as a stalk of bamboo gently swaying in the breeze. His face was unmarked and still carried a boy’s equine beauty.

Clifford removed a clean handkerchief from a small purse hanging on his shoulder. He patted the perspiration from his forehead. “S-s-s-so many dead, and for what? I simply can’t understand.” He pulled a mirror and a powder-puff from his purse, made a few passes at his face, and re-defined his lips with lipstick.

“Wow,” Hudson said, his eyes following Andrew’s gaze. “Ain’t she a livin’ doll?”

Andrew swallowed, fighting the bile coming up his throat. “She’s a he.”

“Sure she is, but she’s still prettier than most the real women I’ve seen.”

The blond glanced across the aisle and his eyes flew open. He took a hesitant step forward. “A-A-A-Andy? M-m-my God, Baby, is it really you?”

“Jesus, rookie. You know her?”

Clifford shrieked and ran to Andrew, throwing his arms around Andrew’s neck. “O-o-o-h my sweetheart, what are you doing here? And what’s happened to your head? My poor baby!”

“My ship sank and the Japanese Navy brought me here. How did you get here?”

“P-p-p-poppa and I were traveling to England, but we only got this far. Poppa thought the Japs would never take Singapore, but that sad mistake cost the dear man his life, poor thing.”

“I’m sorry, Clifford, really.”

Clifford nodded.

“What’s happened to you? You’re so….” Andrew couldn’t finish. He flushed until he felt his face glow with heat. Clifford wore natural-colored powder to camouflage his freckles. The faint scent of eau de cologne hung in the air.
Where the hell did he get makeup in a place where you can scarcely find food?
Andrew wondered. His head throbbed with confusion.

“S-s-s-so girlish? I’ve changed, Andy. O-o-o-once I came here, I blossomed into a woman. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. The men seem to like me this way. I suppose I was always like this inside, but being here let it come out, like a butterfly from a cocoon.”

Andrew wanted to grab hold of his friend and shake this new Clifford until the old one reappeared. Fear ascended his spine, but he was not quite sure why.

“My name’s Joe Hudson, but you can call me Hud.” Hudson stared at the low cut of Clifford’s white smock, obviously fascinated with the silky pale skin that showed a whisper of cleavage.

Clifford glanced at Hudson and smiled with his eyes, causing Hudson to blush. Clifford daintily took his hand. “P-p-pleased to meet you. I’m Clifford. A-a-any friend of Andy’s is a friend of mine.”

He turned to Andrew and scrutinized the brown-yellowish bruises covering Andrew’s face and the soiled bandage wrapped around his head. “P-poor baby. Come with me. I’ll clean your wound and change that filthy rag.” Clifford glanced at Hudson. His eyelashes fluttered and his voice dropped. “I’ll bring him back in a few minutes, Mr. Hud.”