Road to Purgatory

by Max Allan Collins

  The sight of the boy standing in the midst of the corpse-strewn battlefield, Wermuth would not soon forget—unless, of course, the captain died right there in the foxhole. Corporal Satariano made a slow circle, while his machine-gun barrel traced a smoky question mark in the air, and—as casual and methodical as a merchant auditing his inventory—he again threaded through looking for fakers.

  Then the corporal trotted over to his captain’s position, checked the wound, said, “You’ll live,” and hoisted the bigger man up onto his shoulders and hauled him into the thickness of jungle.

  “I’ll…I’ll put you up for the Medal of Honor for this, lad,” Wermuth said.

  “Let’s get back alive, first,” the boy said.

  Wermuth passed out shortly thereafter, but he learned from his Scouts that un Demonio Angelico had refused to let any of them relieve him, personally carrying his captain to the aid station.

  The next morning—a blistering, muggy replica of the day before—Major General Jonathan Wainwright, commander of the US Army Forces on Bataan, paid a visit to the recuperating Captain Arthur Wermuth at Base Hospital #2.

  A tall, lanky fifty-nine (his friends called him “Skinny”), the general ought to have cut an unprepossessing figure—weak-chinned, beady-eyed, jug-eared, long-necked, stoop-shouldered, cueball-bald. His khaki uniform had long since faded and shrunk, the pants of the high-water variety, his knobby knees bulging. An old knee injury from falling off a horse prompted the use of a cane—in Bataan, a carved bamboo stick.

  And yet the impression this man gave his troops was one of cool strength—strength of character, and even physical power.

  An old-school cavalryman, Major General Wainwright of Walla Walla, Washington, never ordered his men to do anything he would not himself attempt. His near-daily trips to the front had made him beloved among the troops (though stationed on nearby Corregidor, General MacArthur had set foot on Bataan exactly once, and was widely known among the men as “Dugout Doug”). Wainwright fought side by side with the enlisted men, and he and Marco, his trusty Filipino driver, had once rushed and knocked out a Japanese rifle position.

  But the soft-spoken general did not consider himself in any way a hero. He had the same job as his men: to fight.

  Wainwright’s field headquarters were concentrated in Little Baguio, a flat area in the hills bordered by otherworldly trees with enormous trunks and vines extending from their tops to the earth. From Little Baguio, supplies, munitions, clothes, and food (such as there was) were distributed to the front line. The nearby small town of Cabcaben consisted of two palm-lined dusty streets leading to a bay-front stone jetty frequented by supply barges; this was the southeastern tip of Bataan, the beach smooth and low, barbed wire stretching out into the shallow water like nasty seaweed.

  The laying of this barbed wire Wainwright had personally supervised; for all his apparent reserve, the general within himself was a restless, anxious commander who felt the need to check on every detail of his defensive position. He preferred to be at the front with his men, not weighed down under reports and memos behind the lines.

  The general made the short trip—the hospital was just behind Cabcaben—in his command car driven by a temporary driver, a Filipino who drove so timidly, so slowly, Wainwright thought he would go mad.

  The hospital was a mammoth open-air ward of some three thousand beds under a tin roof; foxholes had been dug under most of the beds, a practical notion Wainwright applauded—on two occasions, bombs had fallen nearby. The patients ranged from the badly wounded—arms and legs missing, one man with half his face gone—to sufferers of malaria and malnutrition…though many a man with either (or both) of those maladies remained at the front.

  A hatchet-faced fortyish nurse in regular army khaki shirt and pants led the general to the captain’s bedside; the scent of disinfectant in the open-air ward made Wainwright’s nostrils twitch. The general took his time, acknowledging every solider he passed with a smile and a comment. Finally, midward, he was deposited at Captain Wermuth’s bedside.

  His chest heavily bandaged, the gauze spotted scarlet, Wermuth was prone—the beds did not allow a sitting position, nor for that matter did the captain’s wound; but the dapperly mustached patient managed a chipper salute just the same.

  “I hear you’re a lucky man,” Wainwright said, pulling up a metal chair, taking off his cap to reveal the brown egg of his skull. “If you have an extra rabbit’s foot, I’ll take it.”

  “Skinny,” Wermuth said to his old friend, “if there was one spare rabbit’s foot in this hellhole, it’d be eaten.”

  Wainwright smiled slightly, then said, “What’s the prognosis?”

  “Well, as I guess you know, slug missed my lung and went out the back, clean as a whistle. Should be getting my boys in mischief again in a week, maybe less.”

  “That your opinion or the medic’s?”

  “We’re still…haggling.”

  Wainwright let out air in what was part laugh, part sigh. “Quite a story going around, you and your corporal in that clearing. Never thought you fellas would top your antisniper-detail score.”

  Last month Wermuth and his Scouts had cleaned out three hundred Nips who’d infiltrated the lines.

  “Afraid we only got fifty-eight this time, Skinny. Personally, I only got eight. But my corporal bagged an even fifty his own self.”

  “Fifty? Who is this boy—Jack the Giant Killer?”

  “Michael the avenging angel’s more like it,” Wermuth said, and told the tale, which required no embellishment.

  Wainwright whistled long and low. “He deserves a DSC.”

  “Distinguished service doesn’t cover it, Skinny. I want to put the lad in for a Medal of Honor.”

  Wainwright’s eyes tightened. “Perhaps we should, at that. That might well prove the first of this war, if it goes through.”

  Wermuth smiled, savoring the favorable response. “Can I ask another favor, sir?”

  “I get nervous when you don’t call me ‘Skinny’…but, of course. Ask away.”

  “Don’t send the boy out without me. I’ll only be a few days. Find something for him to do, till then.”

  Wainwright chuckled. “Arthur, this boy sounds like he can take of himself.”

  “I know. Better than two old gravel crunchers like us. Just that…kid and me’ve been together through this whole damn campaign. We’re kind of each other’s rabbit foots. Feet.”

  After a moment, the general said, “Despite it all, ill-advised as it is, you do form bonds in a war.” He nodded across the ward. “My next stop’s my driver.”

  “Marco? He’s checked into this hotel, too?”

  “Yes. And no, we didn’t crash or wind up in a ditch—simple dysentery.” Wainwright reached out and patted the patient’s arm. “Tell you what, Captain—I’ll take Corporal Satariano on as my driver for the next few days. My current replacement’s a Nervous Nellie whose goal seems to be driving slow enough to make a good target.”

  Wermuth chuckled, but his face was quite serious as he said, “I appreciate this, Skinny. Owe you one.”

  Arching an eyebrow, the general said, “Who’s counting?”

  With some effort, Wermuth rolled to his side. His voice soft, to keep the conversation private, he asked, “What do you hear?”

  All of the implications of those four simple words were immensely clear to Wainwright. A few weeks before, he’d been confident of victory; but now his command was running out of food, medicine, and even bullets—so hope was in short supply, as well.

  The general said, sotto voce, “There’s a strong sentiment stateside that MacArthur should not be permitted to remain on the Rock.”

  Wermuth’s face retained its bland expression, but his eyes died a little.

  Wainwright chose his words carefully. “If America’s greatest hero were to be captured or killed, the home front would take a terrible hit.”

  The propaganda value of a defeated MacArthur would be enormous—another
indication, post-Pearl Harbor, that the Japanese were indeed invincible.

  “But if he withdraws…” Wermuth began.

  The captain did not complete the thought; he didn’t have to—both men knew that MacArthur leaving would be a clear signal to the Philippines garrison…and to the entire world…that the USA’s commitment to the islands was over.

  “We’ll know more soon,” Wainwright said, rising. “The Old Man wants to see me tomorrow.”

  “Tell him we can still win this.”

  “You know I will…Now, where can I find this corporal of yours?”

  The following morning—clear and hot, typical March Bataan weather—General Wainwright broke in his new driver, who’d been summoned to him from the bivouac of the Scouts.

  “You come highly recommended by Captain Wermuth,” the general told the corporal, as they stood beside the open scout car. “And you’ll be back in action as soon as he is.”

  “Good to hear, sir,” the boy said in a clear second tenor.

  So this was the one the Filipino Scouts called un Demonio Angelico. My God but he was young-looking! Satariano—what was that, Sicilian?

  “This isn’t a tommy gun,” the general said, handing his personal Garand rifle to the boy, “but I know it will be in good hands. And so will I.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Accompanying the general were his aides, Lieutenant Colonel John Pugh and Major Tom Dooley. Pugh, black-haired with close-set eyes and a spade-shaped face with perpetual five o’clock shadow, rode in back with Wainwright. Dooley—whose keen dark eyes in his narrow handsome face seemed to miss nothing—rode in front with the young driver. The Garand rifle leaned between them.

  Dooley said to Satariano, “Keep an eye on the sky. It’s a perfect day for strafing.”

  “Yes, sir,” the corporal said, and slipped on sunglasses.

  In back, Pugh said to the general, “Do we know what MacArthur wants?”

  “No clue.”

  The drive to Mariveles—home to the naval base, or anyway the remnants thereof—should take an hour and a half, or would with a driver not afraid of his own shadow. The general was pleased the boy, taking the trip at a good clip, seemed an experienced wheelman.

  The first leg took them along a single-track road down the rather bare hillside, and the lower they went, the thicker the underbrush, which seemed to swallow the great naked trees. Before long the command car pulled onto the main road.

  As usual, Wainwright passed the time quizzing his two aides on cavalry tactics and military strategy. The war felt far away, distant firing punctuating the conversation, and giving weight to the points the general made.

  The last leg of the journey took the open vehicle under a cooling canopy of foliage so thick, the sun was blotted out. Military traffic was light this morning, but the leaves nonetheless wore a coating of dust, as did the vines and bushes, reflecting the heavy use this main highway received.

  “I will speak frankly,” the general was saying, “if I may have all of your discretion.”

  Everyone but the driver, apparently not listening, nodded.

  “Ranking officers failing to visit troops at the front lines,” Wainwright said, “is a blunder.”

  The general did not have to mention MacArthur by name.

  “All we have to offer our people right now is morale,” Wainwright continued, the vehicle finally exiting from under the canopy of foliage into bright sunlight.

  General Wainwright’s lecture had the attention of everyone in the car, with the exception of Michael Satariano, who was looking directly at the sun through squinting eyes and tinted glasses.

  The corporal, though he said nothing, had noticed a black speck on the sun, like a blemish on its fiery surface.

  But then that speck grew larger, ever larger, as it hurtled down out of the blazing ball into the blue and—growing wings, which dipped from side to side—bore in on them.

  Satariano said, “Brace yourselves!”

  The brakes screamed, and the vehicle jerked to a stop, each man flung forward but restrained by his safety strap.

  “Out of the car!” the driver yelled. “Now!”

  For a split second, the general and his aides were frozen in shock.

  As the engine/propeller thrum grew to a roar, Satariano turned and in a blur of motion unfastened the safety strap across the general’s seat and seized the man by the arm and pulled him from the car like a fireman’s rescue in a burning building. Locked in their sudden embrace, the corporal and general rolled down a ditch into a thorny bush.

  Dooley and Pugh followed unceremoniously, diving in for cover just as machine-gun chatter joined the thrum and swoop, and the percussive music of bullets chewing up metal and shattering glass told the story of an empty vehicle receiving a welcome meant for all of them.

  As the officers clung to the bushes, Satariano, rifle in hand, ran up and out of the ditch and into the road.

  “Corporal!” Pugh yelled. “It’s coming back.”

  “I know,” Satariano said, positioning himself just behind the shot-up car, taking aim.

  And down the Jap Zero came, for another strafing pass, so close the Rising Suns on the wings and its retracted landing gear were vividly apparent, and bullets danced down the road, making powdery impressions.

  Satariano stood his ground, aiming, and the plane was about at treetop level when the corporal fired three times and the Zero fired many more than that, chewing up the car. Then, behind spiderwebbed blood-spattered glass, the pilot slumped forward, swooping by.

  This was a sight the general and his aides could see very well, from their front-row position.

  The plane slammed hard to earth nose-first, just to the right of the roadside at the edge of a cane field, the crash both sickening and satisfying as metal met the ground, a sound that disappeared within the larger explosion as orange flame and billowing smoke marked the spot.

  The general—giddy with the thrill of having survived this assault and witnessing a remarkable feat of courage—strode out of the ditch with his aides bringing up the rear.

  But the boy was no longer standing.

  Satariano remained in the road, near the bullet-riddled vehicle, though on his knees now, head down, in a posture that might have been prayer, or a man weeping. The “tears” that fell to the pavement, however, were red.

  The general helped the corporal to his feet. The boy looked at him with one eye; shrapnel had removed the other one, leaving a torn, bloody socket.

  “Got him, sir,” the boy said, and grinned, and passed out in Wainwright’s arms.

  Within hours, the general was again at a bedside, this time in the hospital tunnel on Malinta Hill on Corregidor. Limping along in the shot-up vehicle until help met them halfway, they had brought Corporal Satariano—Pugh had performed first aid—to Mariveles and then, on the army’s appropriated Elco cabin cruiser, to the hospital on the Rock.

  Save for the heavily bandaged side of his face, the boy looked his typical angelic self. He was coherent, despite morphine.

  “No one was hurt, sir?” the boy asked.

  “No one but you, son.” He placed a hand on the boy’s arm. “I won’t insult you by pulling any punches—you’ve lost an eye, Corporal. Your left.”

  Satariano said nothing; neither did his expression.

  The general summoned a smile. “You’ve got the Hollywood wound, son—a ticket stateside. You weren’t in this war long, but you already did your share.”

  The bandaged head shook, slowly. “Nobody’s getting off Bataan, General. No matter how badly wounded.”

  “You’re already off Bataan, aren’t you? This is Corregidor.”

  The patient rose up on an elbow; the remaining brown eye was wide. “I can shoot with one eye. You sight with one eye closed, anyway, right, sir? I’m not through here!”

  “Actually, you are. We can’t send you back into combat. You’d be a danger to yourself, and to others, much too vulnerable on your left side, and a
nyway, it’s a matter of regulations… No discussion on this point, son.”

  “…Yes, sir.”

  “But you’ll serve your country just the same.”

  The exposed eye seemed slightly woozy, and the boy was clearly fighting the morphine’s effects, trying to stay focused and not float away. “How can I do that, sir?”

  “You already have. You’re going to be a hero.”

  For the first time, Satariano grimaced, as if pain had finally registered. “What?”

  “I’m recommending you for the Medal of Honor for that little dust-up in the jungle. You’ll have to settle for a DSC for the more minor matter of saving my life…Having a hero come off this peninsula right now’ll mean a lot to a lot of people.”

  “You make it sound like…like I’m…”

  “You’re going home, son. You are going home…You see, I’ve just met with General MacArthur. He and his staff are heading out to Australia tomorrow tonight, and we’re taking advantage of that to get you to a better medical facility, and off Bataan.”

  The boy, startled by this news, sat bolt upright. “MacArthur? Leaving?”

  Wainwright did his best not to reveal his own bitter disappointment; taking over a command could hardly have felt worse. “Yes. It’s a direct order from the president.”

  “But…the men…”

  “The general’s determined to come back with reinforcements and air support. I’m afraid that’s not your concern now. If you want to undertake another mission for me, then by God be the one ordinary GI who got off Bataan to tell our story…and make sure we aren’t forgotten.”

  “All…all right, sir.”

  With an arm pat, the general said, “Now—get some rest, and get ready for a PT boat ride.”

  Satariano nodded, the eye half-lidded.

  The general rose. He nodded toward the Garand rifle, leaned against the metal nightstand. “You did well with my rifle, Corporal.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I want you to take that rifle home with you as a souvenir.”

  “But General, it’s ordnance issue…”

  “To hell with the pencil pushers back in Washington—it’s yours. Take it in thanks for spotting that plane. He’d have gotten us all, if you hadn’t seen him coming in out of the sun. We counted seventy-two bullet holes in that scout car, you know.”