"You'll wait, Sailor," DeWitt said.
DeWitt nodded to Mordkin, who dashed out. He paced up and down, hearing a prolonged squeak echo from down the passageway. That was followed by a ripping and tearing of wood. Something clattered to the concrete and soon, Carl Mordkin jogged inside with a shiny black case. He handed it to Major DeWitt with a smirk.
DeWitt nodded to Radtke.
Mordkin stepped to Radtke handing the case to him.
Radtke said, "Sir, this isn't fair. I'm being harassed."
Mordkin said in a low gravelly voice, "Play it, or you're up shit's creek."
Radtke stood straight. "I'm sorry, Sir, but this is extremely unfair. And as you pointed out, I'm under orders from Admiral Nimitz. I respectfully request that I be released and allowed to proceed in accordance with my orders."
Ingram mimicked a falsetto. "'...proceed in accordance with my orders.' Play the trumpet, you bastard," he yelled. Even as he said it, it struck Ingram that Radtke was very cool. And, for some reason he felt wary, almost scared. How could this man, the one who murdered Dwight Epperson, stand there and lie? Radtke was very controlled and didn't act like the sailors who stood before Ingram at Captain's Mast, accused of drunkenness or petty theft. Unlike those, who sniveled and begged to stay out of the brig, this one was very composed. Very much in control. An actor.
"Sir. I protest," said Radtke.
All eyes fixed on Radtke.
Ingram grinned. "He protests, gentlemen."
The Marine sergeant stepped silently before Radtke. Looking the sailor up and down, he eased the case from Mordkin's hands and flipped the latches open. A gleaming brass-lacquered Conn trumpet lay nestled in purple velvet lining. A filigreed brass placard inside announced the owner's initials: LTS. The sergeant removed the trumpet and lay the case on a table. With a dirty thumb, the sergeant flipped open a small compartment in the case, found the mouthpiece, and tapped it in the trumpet.
"Well?" said DeWitt.
Radtke took in their faces, then peered at the ground with pressed lips.
The Marine slapped the trumpet against the man's stomach, none too gently.
Radtke sighed and braced his back against the wall. Staring at Ingram, he accepted the trumpet from the sergeant. His fingers worked the piston valves and he licked his lips two or three times.
Mordkin said, "Go on, swabbie. Blow the damn thing."
Radtke blew. The horn shrieked erratically like a child playing for the first time.
DeWitt said, "I'll be damned."
"No one touches him. The bastard is mine," yelled Ingram triumphantly.
In a semicircle, they started toward Cryptography Technician Second Class Walter A. Radtke.
Radtke raised the gleaming Conn to his lips and blew again. The first two bars of The Star-Spangled Banner floated beautifully from the instrument's bell.
"Son of a bitch," said Mordkin. The men stopped in mid step.
Radtke took a deep breath and played again. The rest of the national anthem pealed elegantly from the trumpet, with the men mesmerized as if hearing it for the first time. They almost stood to attention. Radtke's notes were long, confident, and exquisitely executed as he played with closed eyes.
He finished. The room was silent. It took long moments for them to realize shells pounded overhead.
"Wow," said Mordkin. "That was beautiful, Sailor."
"May I go now, Sir?" Radtke asked.
DeWitt's mouth worked. At length he said, "Yes, of course."
"Thank you, Sir." Radtke grabbed his duffle and walked out.
DeWitt said to Hadley, "Lieutenant, take your men and return to Corregidor. I'm staying the night in Captain Plummer's quarters, if you need me. I caution all of you not to repeat anything you heard in here. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Sir," said Lieutenant Hadley. He and the two Marines walked out.
DeWitt said to Mordkin, "That's all we can do for now. I don't want this man assigned to punitive duties. No filling sandbags or nonsense like that. He might talk casually of something we don't want the Japs to hear. And I mean what I say about everyone here keeping their mouths shut. Is that clear?" DeWitt walked toward the door saying, "Make sure he doesn't--" He paused in mid-sentence.
Mordkin said, "Uh, what's wrong, Sir?"
DeWitt said, "Shhh."
They listened, hearing shells pound. Then, long mournful notes of a horn echoed to them. They almost stood on tiptoe while straining to hear.
Ingram’s eyes snapped to the open trumpet case. The lacquered brass Conn was not there.
Mordkin cocked his head. "Far away. Must be up on A-level by now near the entrance."
DeWitt's eyes darted through the bars to Ingram.
Ingram sat back on the cot. Looking straight at DeWitt he said, "Son of a bitch is laughing at you."
"Bastard," growled DeWitt.
"You think that's him?" asked Mordkin.
"Has to be," said DeWitt. His face was flushed.
Mordkin said, "What the hell's wrong, Major?"
DeWitt's fists bunched. "I grew up in San Antonio."
Mordkin smirked, "You never let us forget that."
DeWitt said absently, "Ingram may be right. That guy's laughing at us."
"What?" said Mordkin.
"He's playing the 'Deguello.'"
Mordkin took a chance. "Texas bullshit."
Whether serious or in jest, DeWitt normally would have taken profound issue with his subordinate's wisecrack. But he ignored Mordkin. Veins bulged on his face and he turned red saying, "1836. Santa Ana took the Alamo. It was a thirteen-day siege and he lost over fifteen hundred men for only one hundred eighty-three Texans. That's about the odds the Japs have on us now, isn't it? And that Sonofabitch killed all the defenders; Colonel Travis, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, everybody."
Mordkin said. "That's right. Jack Armstrong and Captain Midnight got Congressional Medals of Honor posthumously," he snickered.
DeWitt grabbed Mordkin's lapels and pulled him close. He yelled making spittle flew in Mordkin's face. "I'm serious, you stupid bastard! That man's playing the 'Deguello.' It was played during the Alamo's siege--like the Japs are doing to us right now. Deguello means 'no prisoners.' Think about that!" He thrust Mordkin against the wall and walked to the door, looking up the stairwell.
Mordkin shook his head and straightened his soiled khaki shirt, in a beleaguered attempt to recover dignity.
Ingram stood and turned his head slightly. The trumpet's notes came again to him true, whole, and mournful. And although the soloist was farther away now, the bars still drifted from A-level down the stairwell with authority and determination. As if what had happened in 1836 was happening again. A curse.
Gripping the bars tightly, Ingram looked down feeling as if he stood before a firing squad. The hood yanked over his head had been used before; the black cloth had the smell of death. The squad had just worked their bolts home with a clatter and were poised to pull triggers. At that time all that remained of his life on this planet would be the last guttural shout.
He sat and muttered, "No prisoners.
PART TWO
* * *
The Imperial Japanese forces have entered on the wings of victory.
Hideki Tojo, Prime Miniester Of Japan
* * * * *
Corregidor needs no comment from me. It has sounded its own epitaph on enemy tablets. But through the bloody haze of its last reverberating shot, I shall always seem to see a vision of grim, gaunt, men, still unafraid.
General Douglas Macarthur
On Learning Of Corregidor’s Surrender
* * * * *
JAPANESE IMPERIAL HEADQUARTERS ORDER, MAY 5 1942:
BY COMMAND OF HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY TO COMMANDER IN CHIEF YAMAMOTO OF THE COMBINED FLEET:
THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE COMBINED FLEET IS TO COOPERATE WITH THE ARMY IN THE OCCUPATION OF MIDWAY AND STRATEGIC POINTS IN THE WEST OF THE ALEUTIANS.
DETAILED DIRECTIONS WILL BE GIVEN BY THE CHIEF
OF THE NAVAL GENERAL STAFF.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
3 May, 1942
Marinduque Island
Philippines
Helen Durand hid behind the staircase of Fito Diaz's house. Bullets stitched the walls, the noise like knives punching into a rice-filled gunny sack. Kneeling beside her was Doña Valentina Diaz, Fito's petite wife. She held her ears, swallowing rapidly with soundless cries. Everyone was pulled within themselves fighting their fears, real and imagined. In the living room, Helen saw two Army colonels and a Navy commander huddled under the piano, whimpering each time a bullet zipped through or glass tinkled.
The reason the Japanese hadn't yet stormed the house was those crazy Army pilots upstairs wouldn't give in. Seven enemy bodies littered the veranda as the pilots fought back with ancient shotguns and single-shot rifles, the best Fito Diaz could dig up. Besides, these Japanese were only garrison troops, not regular army, and were untrained in coordinated assault, merely bullies, thugs, detritus. And fighting beside the pilots upstairs was Pablo Amador, the Filipino resistance leader and statesman who told the legend of Corregidor the night Helen had been evacuated to the Wolffish.
Someone shouted on the second floor. "Grenade!"
There was an explosion, screams, tinkling glass. Someone ran down the staircase, tore open the front door and stood in the doorway shouting unintelligibly. A breathless Amador charged after him. "Catch him. Gone berserk," he wheezed.
Helen stood, but it was too late. The man, a lieutenant colonel, seemed frozen in time, jerking and jinking as slugs tore through him. She jammed a fist in her mouth as the lieutenant colonel pitched into the black and white tiled foyer and fell on his back with arms splayed.
Still having great momentum, Amador dove over the corpse and tumbled into the living room as Fito Diaz ran behind the door kicked it shut, and fell flat. A submachine gun opened up, drilling four holes diagonally across the door's ornate paneling.
Doña Valentina screamed. "Fito!"
Quickly, Diaz rolled across the hardwood floor into the relative safety of the dining room just as another fusillade of bullets hit the door, chewing it to pieces, blowing it off its hinges. But somehow, it didn't fall over, and stood jammed in the doorway.
There was a lull. Helen sank against the wall incredulous at how fast this had happened. The Wolffish had landed them on Marinduque the night before last when two bancas appeared and Fito Diaz, a local fishing baron, took them ashore around midnight. The Diazes had treated them well, scattering the thirty exhausted evacuees around the beautiful, twelve-room, antebellum home. There was plenty to eat, clean sheets, even hot water for bathing, something Helen had not luxuriated in since last January. Up until a few minutes ago, they were preparing to catch the interisland steamer and head to Mindanao with Pablo Amador.
Instead, Japanese had surrounded the house and opened fire without warning.
Amador, lying in the broad living room doorway shouted across the foyer, "Fito. That's Lieutenant Tuga out there."
"Tuga? Here?"
"Can't miss that stupid white suit. Too bad we're such poor shots. How did he find out?"
"Roberto, I think." spat Diaz. "He didn't show up for work yesterday morning. Nor today."
Amador rolled over, looked up at the ornate ceiling and sighed, "The Hapons pay well."
"Roberto won't live out the week. You can be sure his head will end up in a Hapon stewpot. Even if I am dead." He looked over to Valentina and gave a wan smile. Valentina, now twenty-four, was Diaz's second wife. The fifty-five-year-old Diaz had lost his first wife to tuberculosis eight years ago. He'd married Valentina as a child bride five years ago and they were very happy, with two daughters, ages two and four, fortunately visiting an uncle on Cebu. Diaz also had a son by his first marriage, now serving in the Filipino Scouts on Mindanao.
"Fito." she said softly.
The house shook as another grenade exploded in back. This time there were screams outside and cheers from upstairs.
Doña Valentina hugged herself with her arms and fell against the wall. Helen moved close and put an arm around her shoulder, "Valentina, I'm sorry."
The woman shrugged. "Fito, always talking. Always so flamboyant. His bluster helped him to become Marinduque's fishing king. But look at this..." She waved a hand.
"Who is Tuga?" Helen asked.
Doña Valentina sobbed something.
"Who?"
"Kempetai."
"What's that?"
"Thought police. They torture you." Patterned after the Nazi SS, the civilian-clad Kempetai was a stepchild of Prime Minister General Hideki Tojo. Years ago, he had used it with great effect to crush the rebellious officer corps of Japan's Kwangtung Army based in China. Now, the Kempetai were responsible for ferreting out those suspected of improper loyalties at home and in the new provinces of Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Citizens everywhere were encouraged to spy on one another, then inform the Kempetai.
Helen shuddered. "What can I do?"
"I don't know. I think we're finished. The best thing we can do is to get Senior Amador out of here."
"How?"
"The cellar. There is a secret closet. A cache actually, where Fito keeps all his stupid guns." Tears ran. She turned. Helen and Doña Valentina threw their arms around each other. "There is only room for one. Not even," her body racked with sobs as the Japanese started firing again, "room for my babies."
Helen looked in the living room. One of the Army colonels had taken heart and now popped away with an old Springfield bolt-action rifle. "Why Amador?"
Valentina turned and looked at Helen. "You don't know?"
"No."
"The Amador and Diaz families have been close for decades. Fito and Pablo are among Manuel Quezon's favorites; both are important to the resistance. Fito here, Pablo in Mindanao." Helen nodded having heard about the situation in Mindanao, the southernmost of the major Philippine Islands. The politics there were hideous; fractionated cells jabbed at each other from village to village, some with warlords who went on killing sprees. And then there were the Moros of Western Mindanao.
The colonel cranked his bolt trying to get off a shot, but instead screamed as enemy rifle fire chewed the window frame. The Springfield clattered to the floor and the colonel fell next to it holding his head.
"Pablo, go!" said Diaz. He rose and crawled into the living room, picked up the rifle, and fired out the window. Three other Americans joined him and began shooting. The four were doing a decent job snapping off their rounds, Helen noticed, and there was plenty of ammunition.
"Fito," said Amador.
"Damnit, Amador, get going," shouted Whitney, a blond, curly haired pilot.
"Si!" The silver- haired Amador ran around the staircase and hugged Doña Valentina fiercely. "I won't let them take you to Santo Tomas."
She howled, burying her face into Amador's chest, "It'll be Santiago for Fito." Soon after the Japanese occupation of Manila in January of 1941, Santo Tomas, a university founded in the 1700s, was converted to house civilian prisoners. Santiago, on the other hand, was an old Spanish prison on Manila's Pasaig River. Used for military prisoners, it had original Spanish implements of torture such as quartering racks and giant cauldrons for boiling humans alive. There was one feature the Kempetai appreciated with relish. Locking prisoners in one particular subbasement ensured they drowned when the tide gushed in through barred windows.
Amador pressed his lips together. "I won't let that happen, either."
She took a deep breath, then took his hands and looked up. "No matter. Pablo, you're our future. Go."
Amador kissed her on the forehead. Then he looked at Helen Durand. His eyes flicked down to the Naval Academy ring hanging by a lanyard around her neck. He palmed it for a moment, and then said, "He’s a fine man."
"I hardly know him," Helen said. Why did I say that?
"Better not let the Hapons see it." With a thin smile he kissed Helen's forehead as well. "Via con Dios." Am
ador ran across the foyer, opened a small door, and was gone.
Within minutes, the shooting became louder, more intense. Multiple explosions shook the house, and guttural screams from outside mixed with the screams of death and pain from inside. Smoke grenades crashed through the window. Helen couldn't breathe, smoke filled her lungs; claustrophobic and desperate for air, she jumped up and ran for the kitchen. Tearing open the door, she charged into a grunting Japanese soldier, a stocky, grotesque man wearing a bug-eyed gas mask with a hose connected to a canister mounted on his back. He thrust her aside and ran into the foyer firing his rifle. Several more soldiers followed, their shouts muffled by gas masks.
Helen fell against the door jamb and back into the foyer as more soldiers careened through. Several Americans tumbled down the stairs. One was thrown through the rail upstairs and fell screaming horribly, crashing on the tile floor right before Helen as another soldier stepped up and shot him through the head.
A rough hand grabbed Helen's elbow. With a howl of pain she rose and stumbled across the foyer. At a shout, the front door heaved open and fell across the lieutenant colonel's body with a crash. Immediately, there was a breeze and the smoke cleared. The Japanese soldier holding Helen took off his gas mask and breathed deeply, turned to her and smiled, speaking Japanese in a low voice. Another soldier found Doña Valentina and dragged her beside Helen.
Behind them more prisoners were pitched down the stairs. Soldiers shouted and the Americans who couldn't rise immediately were shot where they lay. After a while, ten or so of the original thirty stood on the veranda, their hands in the air.
A soldier at the door snapped to attention and saluted. The soldiers guarding Helen and Doña Valentina did the same.
First, Helen saw a shadow, then a civilian stepped over a body and walked into the foyer. He was tall for a Japanese, at least six three, weighed close to 195, had a pockmarked face and a long, curved nose with a thick, almost Hitleresque moustache; his eyebrows were bushy, and a thick lower lip hung halfway down his chin. He wore an immaculate, starched white suit and white buckskin shoes.
THE LAST LIEUTENANT: A Todd Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 1) Page 19
