"What happened, Ollie?"
Toliver's head shook slowly. He folded his arms on his knees and rested his head.
Ingram, close to the boiling point, waited a full minute. "You better start talking. What the hell happened?"
Farwell reappeared and grappled at the hatch with Junior Forester standing just behind.
Ingram raised a palm and shook his head. Farwell turned to Forester and drew a forefinger across his throat, then eased out of sight.
"Ollie. I don't know if I can handle this. Those guys want to kill you."
Toliver's head rolled back and forth.
Ingram shouted, "I haven't time for sniveling, damnit. I've got a ship to blow up and a crew to take care of. Now say something or I'm throwing your ass to the sharks!"
"I don't know what happened," Toliver blurted. He raised his head, tears ran down his cheeks. "I saw their eyes. Someone kicked me, I think it was Whittaker. Something terrible happened, didn't it?"
"Ollie, you were there. Three men were crushed to death under the whaleboat davit."
"Wheat?"
"You were right there. You could have saved them. All you had to do was unwind the line off the boat falls cleat."
"No. I was in the water."
Ingram pointed. "Look, damnit."
"What?"
"Your damned shoes. Still hanging around your neck. Don't you remember stooping on the deck and taking them off?"
"No."
"I yelled at you then, remember?"
"All I know is that I was in the water!" With hands to his face, Toliver cried openly.
Yardly poked his head in the hatch. "Captain?"
"Yes?"
"Muster complete, Sir. Nineteen dead. Twenty-six wounded."
Ingram shook his head. Forty-five casualties out of eighty-two reasonably healthy men. Forty-five men who just minutes before lived in unmutilated bodies.
"Sir?" asked Yardly.
"Got their dog tags?"
"Yessir."
Ingram couldn't help himself. "Did you recover the bodies of the men crushed beneath the davits?"
Toliver's head dropped on his forearms.
Yardly's voice was surprisingly soft. "On their way ashore with the Army major."
Ingram said, "Any wounded still aboard?"
"Ten, Sir."
"Serious?"
"Not too bad. Worst one is a broken clavicle."
"Very well. Get some men. Have them help you pack as much of the medical supplies as you can carry. Now, send in Mr. Holloway."
"Yes, Sir."
Holloway's head popped in the hatch. Bartholomew stood just behind.
"Come on up, you two."
They crawled in and looked curiously at Toliver.
Ingram caught it, too. Toliver's eyes seemed ablaze. In fact--
"Eeeeaagh." Toliver leaped for a bayonet lodged against the binnacle. Ingram was closest and reached for it. But Toliver's fist smacked into his cheek, opening the cut further. He fell toward the bulkhead. Pain shot through his back as he crashed over an upended stool.
Holloway and Bartholomew jumped on Toliver, and all three groped at the bayonet.
Holloway managed to yank Toliver's hand away while Bartholomew bear-hugged the struggling officer's waist, holding him down. Somehow Toliver managed to grab the bayonet and, with a bellow, drove the point at his throat. At the last moment Holloway grabbed his arm, stopping the thrust. He screamed, "Shit! I can't hold him."
Ingram shook off his pain and rose to his feet, falling atop the writhing trio. With a superhuman effort, Toliver wrenched his arm free and swiped the bayonet within inches of Ingram's eyes.
Ingram, looking down into the most tortured face he'd ever seen, drew back and punched his gunnery officer, Lieutenant Junior Grade Oliver P. Toliver, III, full in the jaw.
Toliver sagged and went limp. The bayonet clattered to the starboard bulkhead. For a moment, the only sound was their wheezing. They looked at one another, seeing the horror they'd endured that morning reflected in each other's faces.
"Sonofabitch is stronger than I thought," puffed Bartholomew.
A strange thumping assailed Ingram's eardrums. He shook his head, realizing a convoluted semblance of normality had returned, signaled by Japanese artillery falling sporadically on the fortified islands guarding the entrance to Manila Bay.
Several openmouthed sailors pressed in the hatchway, but Ingram was too tired to compose himself. At length, he took deep breaths and found himself close to Bartholomew's red, craggy face. "Very strong," Ingram agreed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
25 April, 1942
Hospital Tunnel
Corregidor Island, Manila Bay, Philippines
Carefully, Helen rested her thumb on Ingram's jaw and examined the wound. "Pretty deep. It needs sutures."
"How many?"
"Ummm, nine or ten."
"Look. I have to check on my men." said Ingram,
"Later."
"Nonsense." He tried to rise from the gurney.
"Take it easy." She dabbed a damp cloth with one hand and pushed back with the other.
Ingram asked, "Will Doctor Taft do it?"
"Doctor Taft is dead. Doctor Drake has this lateral now."
"What happened?" With more pressure from Helen's thumb, he eased back on the gurney.
"Patching up a colonel in a command bunker above the mortar pits. A shell went directly down the air shaft...twenty-six people..."
"My God." Ingram blinked at the concrete overhead. Condensation beaded the walls. The dust was thick. Like sporadic little earthquakes, the Rock shook with the continuous apocalyptic bombardment. She dabbed a saline solution into the wound. "Ouch! Damnit!" He sat up holding his cheek.
"That shouldn't sting."
"It does."
"You'll have to do better. And we're out of Novocain. So stand by, sailor."
"I don't need this." Ingram made to rise.
She stood in his way. "We're out of anesthetics. We have to do everything without them. Even amputations."
"I know. I was there. Remember?"
"...no." She reached for instruments. "Now, be good and I'll have Doctor Drake sign your purple heart recommendation."
"Thanks. Before you do that, slap on a bandage and I'll be on my way."
"Lay down. That cheek's going to be sewn up."
"No dice, sister."
The saline bottle gurgled menacingly as she stopped it and banged it on a metal table. "Okay. You're free to go outside and grovel. I give you three, maybe four months."
"Four months for what?"
"Then you're dead." She looked at him.
Ingram's shoulders sagged. Even minor wounds in the tropics were subject to virile infections if left untreated. With Corregidor's filthy conditions, the gash could easily become infected and spread; yes, he could die.
He lay back and she dressed his cheek with damp grayish towels. He forced a chuckle as she casually flopped the saturated material over his eyes. "Do I die from an infected wound or grimy towels?"
"They're boiled." Instruments clanked on the table.
Another nurse came up and whispered, then moved away.
Helen said, "Doctor Drake won't be available for another half-hour. You can wait for him or you can let me do it."
"...you do it?"
"Yes. Me."
"Where'd you go to medical school?" He made to rise.
She pushed him back. "University of Corregidor. Which is it?"
Ingram's Adam's apple bounced several times as he tried to swallow. "Okay."
"My rates are cheaper, anyway. So shut up."
Ingram said hoarsely, "Can I have a bullet to bite?"
"Use the rails, cowboy."
He grabbed the gurney's smooth, shiny rails. Even in the tunnel's gruesome heat and humidity, they felt cold, clinical, devoid of life. He let go, wondering how many men had died on this gurney. How many bodies this four-wheel squeaky contraption had shipped outside where
burial details, making sure dog tags were removed, threw them into shell craters. They did their best to cover up the common graves, but on occasion another shell would impact, strewing body parts about the area. The morgue had long been cleared out because it was too small for what would become stacks of bodies. And they couldn't afford to keep it refrigerated. Thus, the irony was the morgue had been converted to an aid station for the sick and wounded.
Something cool, clear, and mildly burning ran into the wound. "How did this happen?" she asked.
"I got run over by a truck."
"Please?" She sounded clinical.
"Fell into the hat rack when the ship capsized."
"Hat rack?"
"Well, yes. On the bridgewing. It's where we stow the helmets. We stack 'em in there."
"Is your hat rack painted?"
"Of course."
"I see." Her rubber gloved fingers probed at the gash.
"Owww...shiiit!" An instrument ranged inside the wound and plucked. Lightning coursed in his cheek; he spasmed briefly with the sharp pain and grit his teeth. "Wh--the hell are you doing? Felt like you ripped out a tendon or something."
"Chunk of paint."
A pair of feet shuffled. Holloway's voice rumbled overhead, "Sure 'nuff, Skipper. It's a paint fleck the size of a dime. Haze gray and underway."
"Okay." Helen's voice was near. Her breath drifted about his neck and chest, taunting him and feeling cool on his skin. She swabbed around the wound. For some reason he thought of Miriam. "You're lucky," she said.
"Why?"
"I have some sulfa left."
"That's peachy."
"And I'll leave it open a little so it'll drain." Her forearm rested on his shoulder. She was poised.
"Wonderful," he said.
"--okay, Skipper?" Holloway patted Ingram's shoulder.
Ingram asked, "Fred. What's the latest on Hopkins?"
"He'll pull through, but two more died."
"Who?"
"Fairfield and that new signalman."
"Redding?"
"Yes."
"Damnit!" Sweat beaded on Ingram's forehead. Someone blotted it with a towel. He raised his wrist. "I can't see my watch."
Two hands cupped his shoulders ready to press. It was Holloway who said, "It's okay, Skipper, about thirty minutes to go."
"For the Saturday matinee?" asked Helen.
Holloway said, "That's when the old bird blows sky high. That is if Forester--"
"--arghhh--!" A hand clamped over Ingram's mouth breaking off his scream as Helen debrided the wound. Then, without hesitation, she ran the first of the interrupted sutures. For sure, he was three feet off the table; yet he found the rails and held on fiercely. He managed to hold his scream to a muted gurgle. His ankles beat a tattoo on the gurney, making it squeak and rattle.
Holloway's hands pressed. "Come on, skipper."
Something hot ran down his cheek. He felt pressure and soon his face throbbed. "You finished?"
"Pumper," she said. She pushed with a sponge. Then the pressure eased and--
"eeeeoooyhou!"
"Captain, damnit! Shut up," said Holloway.
"You can do better than that, Lieutenant." The voice was familiar. Ingram tried to place it as Helen clanked her instruments. Finally, it came to him. The blind B-17 pilot. "Leon?"
"Yeah."
"What are you doing out here?"
"I can see a little bit."
"Yeah? That's neat."
"So I practice by walking to the crapper. Then I hear you yowlin'"
"Glad your eyes are back, Leon. Maybe you'll fly again."
"Maybe...just maybe."
"You still got your .32 nickel plate?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Hand it over so I can shoot this sonofabitchin' nurse."
Laughter rippled among them until someone jammed a section of warm, damp towel in Ingram's mouth. Helen continued suturing and he screamed into the towel while his heels pounded the gurney.
"Damnit, Sir." It was Bartholomew who grabbed his knees.
The needle pierced his flesh once more making Ingram certain Helen had dragged a fifty-foot-length of barbed wire through his cheek. His chest heaved as he fought to control his breathing.
"Water?" asked Helen.
"No. Keep going," gasped Ingram.
"Right. Nine more to go."
"You said nine or ten, total."
"What would you have done if I had said twenty?"
"I would have--eaagh! Damnit! Run like hell."
"Hey, Skipper she's a lady just doin' her job," said Bartholomew.
...another suture: Ingram clutched the rails and yelled through clenched teeth, "does it...?"
Her voice was soft "Does it what?"
"Does it really need twenty?"
"Hold still. Just one more." He did his best to crush the gurney's rails with his hands while she worked. Something clanked in the metal tray and she pulled off the toweling, dabbed a sponge, and bandaged the wound. "Up, Captain."
Ingram sat up feeling woozy. His cheek throbbed and he blinked for a moment, seeing shadows in the background. Five or so men stood in a group. He recognized Whittaker, Kevin Forester, and Sunderland. Bartholomew, still in engineer's overalls and filthy chief's hat, had stepped away and now leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets.
He turned to Helen. "Only seven stitches?
"Out of suckers. Sorry." A corner of Helen's mouth turned up.
He held her gaze for a moment and nodded his thanks. He hadn't been this close to a woman since...when was the last time? Strange, he thought. It's hard to think of a woman as a woman in this garbage pit, even this good-looking nurse. Japs on all four sides: Japs overhead, explosions everywhere, day and night, bodies outside, bodies in the gullies, bloated corpses in Manila Bay. The Pelican was now one of them, laying in Caballo’ s shallows with her back broken. And like Doctor Taft and those guys in the mortar pit command bunker, no one knew when their number would be called.
Reading his mind, she patted his shoulder. Her hand lay there for a moment then she turned, fussing with her instruments. It flooded over him. What a wonderful recollection was the universal comfort of a woman. How much he had taken such a thing for granted. How much he had taken any simple thing for granted like a cool glass of orange juice or an afternoon nap or stepping outside in the snow for the Sunday paper.
But nothing was simple while one lived under the specter of being horribly maimed by artillery fire, or tortured when captured, or prolonged dying while sandwiched shoulder to shoulder with those other hideous creatures in the main tunnels. One needed to survive; one needed to hope, but with all prospect of escape gone, one lived from moment to moment. That was all. Simple pleasures on Corregidor consisted of drawing the next breath; of sleeping for fifteen minutes, when perhaps one wouldn't hear an ear-splitting explosion. But more often one heard the groans of the dying, knowing full well the next anguished groans could be your own. Normality was denied on the Rock. Nobody ate or slept properly. Nobody bathed; they couldn't even defecate properly. In desperation, men crept outside seeking fresh air and a moment of solace. Many times they were ripped apart in the artillery fire.
Nobody gave a thought to sex. Quite simply, they were too scared to think of it. Only food, sleep, and survival counted. One rarely eclipsed the other.
Ingram thought about the last woman he'd dated. It was last Thanksgiving at Manila's Polo Club. He danced with Nancy Goodkin, a delightful, overly made-up nineteen-year-old supply clerk in Cavite. Nancy Goodkin was Lieutenant Colonel Lucien George Goodkin's daughter. With an overwhelming smile, she was an Army brat who loved to tango. He thought he could smell her perfume: a sharp, penetrating imitation of Chanel No. 5. They'd swayed until two in the morning. He took her home finding Colonel Goodkin on his porch exuding San Miguel fumes. With a crimson face, Goodkin pointed a bony finger and gurgled "what have you been doing to my daughter?"
Ingram had done nothing with Goodkin's daughter
, but he yelled back, "the hell with you Colonel". He marched out and was surprised Nancy followed. They went back to the restaurant and--
"I said, 'how do you feel?'" It was Helen. She looked directly into Ingram's eyes.
He eased off the gurney. "Still throbs. But thanks. Send me your bill."
"Fine. Please leave your address, phone number, and five-dollar deposit with my receptionist."
CHAPTER TWELVE
25 April, 1942
Malinta Tunnel, Lateral Three
Corregidor Island, Manila Bay, Philippines
Voices rumbled incoherently as Ingram and Holloway waited for General Moore, Corregidor's garrison commander. The general's deep resonant voice echoed from behind heavy black drapes drawn across the lateral. Sergeants, corporals, and privates stepped about the antechamber with exaggerated purpose. Colonels and majors, with jaundiced faces somberly fixed, swooped in only to swoop out minutes later, their faces drawn even tighter.
"Do you suppose Wainwright is back there?" Holloway asked.
Ingram whispered, "Sergeant said he's over at Fort Hughes."
"Why?"
"I just thought I--"
A brigadier bumped into Holloway, shouldered past a corporal, whisked the curtain aside, and walked through. "Look at that guy," muttered Holloway with hands on his hips. "You'd think he had to give up his afternoon round of golf."
"Quiet, Fred," said Ingram.
"Pasty-faced tunnel rats." Holloway grumbled. "These guys haven't seen daylight since Roosevelt beat Willkie."
Ingram said. "Fred. Be quiet. I don't want to--"
"This where 'Dug-out-Doug' was holed up?" Holloway referred to General MacArthur.
"I think so."
Holloway raised his hands taking in rows of file cabinets, desks, chairs, and map tables. A bank of radios stood against one side of the tunnel, their operators hunched close, tweaking dials and making the speakers squeal. "Look at those goldbricks," Holloway whispered loudly. "Two, three to a desk. Nothing to do. Why not stick these guys in the mortar pits instead of sharpening pencils?"
"The Army takes care of its own." Ingram couldn't help adding his own bitter tone. When one of their sister ships, the Finch had been sunk, her crew was taken ashore and dispersed among the gun batteries and mortar pits of Corregidor and Caballo Islands. Many had since been killed in the lopsided artillery duels.
THE LAST LIEUTENANT: A Todd Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 1) Page 12
