by Larry Colton
21
Chuck Vervalin
POW
Half the men had been taken away for questioning when the corporal entered and pointed at Chuck. He followed the corporal into the bright sunlight, then across the courtyard to a two-story building on the left. His legs wobbled. A door opened and the corporal shoved him inside.
The dimly lit room was bare except for a long table at one end and a lone chair in the middle of the floor. Two officers sat rigidly behind the table, flanked on one side by two soldiers with guns and bayonets, and two soldiers on the other side with clubs. One of the officers studied a stack of papers in front of him. Next to him sat a man in civilian clothes, the interpreter.
Chuck stood in front of the table, hands at his side. The corporal whirled around and slapped him hard on his cheek. “You bow,” commanded the interpreter.
Chuck did as instructed, a slight nod of the head. The corporal slapped him again. “Not right,” said the interpreter. “Full bow.” This time Chuck bowed from the waist.
He was ordered to sit down in the chair, eyes straight ahead. He glanced to the guard standing beside him. Another slap. “Do as instructed. You want trouble?”
He shook his head. Unlike Tim, Chuck’s brand of toughness was not going to include defiance. It was like when he was playing for the town baseball team growing up and tore off a piece of skin about the size of Delaware sliding into second on the rock-hard infield dirt. The blood from the raw wound kept sticking to the inside of his uniform pants; every time he moved, it ripped off another little chunk of flesh, but he never let on, he never complained. In Submarine School he’d gotten through by learning to just focus on what was directly in front of him rather than allowing himself to be intimidated by what difficulties lay ahead until he reached his goal—graduation. Now that he’d finally found a young woman he loved and wanted to spend the rest of his life with, he wasn’t going to let these Jap bastards keep him from her.
The guard slapped him again. “Speak when spoken to. What is your name?”
He replied with his name, rank, and serial number.
“What name of your ship?”
Chuck hesitated. “The Goldfish.”
“You lie. We know name of your ship. Tell one more lie, you suffer.”
“Where submarine come from?”
“San Francisco.”
“I tell you not to lie. Now you suffer.”
The guard reached into his pocket and pulled out a bamboo sliver a little bigger than a toothpick. He stuck it up Chuck’s nose and then flicked it, sending a sharp pain shooting through his nose and eyes.
“Lying get you killed.”
The guard flicked the little bamboo stick again.
“Now you tell truth. You been on other sub?”
One of the guards with a rifle moved toward him and waved the bayonet in his face, then dragged it down his chest, pushing just hard enough that Chuck could feel the blade against his sternum. He remembered that one of the officers, Dick Sherry, had been with him on the Gudgeon. Maybe they already knew.
“Yes,” he answered.
“What name of sub?”
“USS Gudgeon.”
“You sink any our ships?”
Chuck felt the bayonet pressing against his chest. “Yes,” he answered.
“What name of that ship?”
“I don’t know.”
“You pick up survivors?”
“There wasn’t anybody to pick up.”
Without warning, the corporal threw a vicious punch, knocking Chuck straight over backwards in the chair.
Chuck felt blood streaming from his nose and lip. The corporal kicked him hard in the ribs. “Get up!”
Chuck struggled to rise, but the corporal kicked him again. A soldier straddled him and poured a pitcher of cold water on his head. “Up!”
Chuck got to his feet and slumped back onto the chair. The corporal slapped him.
“Where you going in your submarine?”
“I don’t know,” he replied.
The corporal grabbed Chuck by the hair and pulled him toward the table where the officers sat. He slapped his hand down on the table and intertwined two pencils between Chuck’s fingers. Then he placed a cloth around his hand, knotted it, stuck another pencil into the knot, and started to turn it, drawing the fingers together. With each turn, Chuck’s fingers twisted and separated between the second joint and knuckle; it felt like they were breaking. He screamed. The corporal twisted another turn.
“Now tell me where submarine going.”
“I swear I don’t know.”
The corporal slugged him in the face again.
When Chuck came to, he was being dragged back across the courtyard and into a large classroom. Through his fog he saw the crewmates who’d been questioned before him. Like him, all the men in the room had been beaten and tortured.
22
Bob Palmer
POW
The guards competed against one another to invent new ways to harass and humiliate the men. They made four men carry another man around the room on a tabletop, their arms raised above their heads until the men’s arms wearied and they dropped the tabletop, sending the man crashing to the floor, where the guards kicked him. They also enjoyed making the men imitate farm animals. Bob was forced down on all fours and told to moo like a cow. Gordy neighed like a horse, and pretty soon the whole room turned into a barnyard symphony of barking, mooing, clucking, and screeching. It would’ve been funny except Goldtooth Maizie wandered around the room, randomly kicking men in the ribs. The shot to Bob’s side sent him tumbling to the concrete, gasping for air.
Goldtooth Maizie ordered the men to sing and dance around the room. Reluctantly, they twirled and spun, some humming, some singing, all trying to remember the songs they’d last heard on leave in Perth … “As Time Goes By” … “Dancing in the Dark” … “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” … “It Had to Be You” … “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire.”
Suddenly, one baritone voice rose above the rest. From where he danced, Bob couldn’t tell who it was, but he recognized the song—“The Old Rugged Cross.” He hadn’t gone to church much as a kid, but he started humming along, and so did everyone else, singing or humming, the sound echoing across the room.
On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suffering and shame …
There’d always been a sentimental side to Bob. As he listened to the hymn, tears streamed down his face.
Dragon entered and ordered them to stop singing, then had them line up and count off in Japanese. He walked down the lines, sneering at each man, telling them that their way of life was no good and that they were cowards.
He stopped in front of Bob. “Why you no die with ship? Not honorable to be captured. Real warrior never give up. That why you lose war. Japanese warrior braver, never surrender. In whole history, we never lose war.”
Bob stood erect, saying nothing.
“You no prisoner of war. You criminal. Red Cross no come for you.”
Bob was no expert on international politics, but he knew that the Japanese had not signed the Geneva conventions and believed that they were not obligated to abide by the agreements’ rules for the humane treatment of captured enemy combatants.
The only positive thing to have happened was with Charles Taylor. It had been a couple of weeks since the guard punctured his swollen testicles. Taylor was recovering, and the guards had even taken to bringing him what they claimed were sulfur pills. Bob believed it was just aspirin, figuring the guards felt guilty about what had happened. No extra punishment had been given to Tim for knocking over the guard.
Despite Taylor’s improved condition, health problems for the crew were mounting. Some of the men had contracted crabs when they were on leave in Fremantle and now everyone had them—in their hair, beards, and eyebrows. Several men had fevers and flu-like illnesses. Tom Courtney had bone-shaking chills and a raging fever, and after a c
ouple of days, he became delirious and then unconscious. Pleas to the guards for medical attention went unanswered. The pharmacist’s mate suspected dengue fever, spread by the bite of infected mosquitoes. There was no treatment other than rest and lots of liquids. The fever usually could last nine or ten days, sometimes, but not often, turning fatal.
When Bob woke up in the middle of the night, shivering and shaking, he knew something was wrong. The chills quickly turned into a fever, and he was drenched in sweat. His head pounded. He moaned, calling out Barbara’s name.
23
Tim “Skeeter” McCoy
POW
A second round of questioning had started, and judging from the tortured screams heard from the interrogation room across the courtyard, the methods used to get information from the men this time were even more brutal. Tim waited to be called.
Despite his cocky, I’m-not-backing-down bravado, Tim shared the same hardships as his buddies—isolation, hunger, anger, despair—but fear was the most powerful emotion. Fear of death, pain, or humiliation. Fear of Japan winning the war and ruling the world. Fear of never seeing Valma again. Or his mother.
It had been several weeks since anyone had seen Captain Fitzgerald. This really depressed Tim. To keep his morale up, he found comfort in the Scriptures he’d learned in the Baptist Church. Since joining the Navy and dabbling in the ways of alcohol and women, he’d strayed from the church, but he hadn’t forgotten passages from the Bible, and he sometimes recited them to himself.
He thought about his mom back in Dallas. He remembered his uncle and the times he’d caddied for him at the country club or rode with him in his big car out to the lake. He imagined himself being rich like that. But mostly he thought about Valma back in Australia, and how lucky he was that she’d promised to wait for him. He imagined taking her home to Texas, and how everyone would see how gorgeous she was and he’d be so proud. He wondered if she knew he’d been captured.
But prayer and imagination were temporary escapes, always interrupted by the reality of his imprisonment. Sleep was the only real escape from their situation, and the guards knew it, rarely letting a night pass without waking the men.
Just as Tim was drifting off to sleep, he heard hobnail boots clicking on the walkway outside. Tim had learned to recognize Goldtooth Maizie’s walk, different from the other guards’ footfalls, and the angry clattering of the wooden window louvers as Goldtooth ran his rifle butt across them. He did it every time, and every time it pissed off Tim. The door flew open, and Goldtooth Maizie marched in, grinning, his gold tooth shining.
Tim braced himself. Maybe he’d spit on Goldtooth Maizie this time, or punch him. No, that wouldn’t be a good idea. Not because he was afraid of what Goldtooth Maizie might do to him, but because the guards knew that the best way to deal with a hotheaded prisoner was to retaliate against one of his crewmates.
Goldtooth Maizie pointed toward Bob Palmer, motioning him toward the interrogation room. Tim watched Bob, who had been ill for several days and was barely able to lift his head, shuffle out of the room, Goldtooth Maizie pushing him in the back.
By Tim’s calculations, it was now late July and they’d been held here for three months. He figured he’d lost fifty pounds and he hadn’t had a bowel movement in twenty days. The worst time was when he, like so many others, including Bob and Chuck, had come down with dengue fever—chills, fever, aching, sweating, drifting in and out of consciousness. It took all his energy just to lift his head. Some nights he’d shiver and shake and moan so badly that it seemed dying would be easier. But after ten days, the fever broke and he regained a measure of strength. And he was one of the lucky ones who hadn’t been called for a second round of interrogation. He guessed it was because he was one of the lowest-ranking men on the ship and the Japanese concluded he didn’t have any information that would be useful to them.
The crew was now housed in rooms down the corridor and around the corner from the larger rooms in which they had first been imprisoned; there were three or four men to a room. Except for the thin mats on the wooden plank floor, Tim’s room was bare. About the size of a toolshed, the room was so small that when he lay down with his head at one end, his feet brushed the opposite wall. Before the Japanese takeover, the nuns had used this room and others like it for prayer and meditation. The only light the men had was what filtered through the shuttered small window in the door.
Tim figured they’d been transferred either because their captors were bringing in more prisoners and needed the bigger rooms or because they were trying to further break the men’s spirit by isolating them. It had been ten days since he’d seen anyone in the crew other than the two men in his room. At least when he’d been in the big classroom, he had had thirty-five other men sharing the pain and humiliation. Now he didn’t even know if his crewmates were still alive.
24
Gordy Cox
POW
On his trips to the benjo, Gordy had eyed the breadfruit and coconuts that had fallen from the nearby trees, but with the guards always watching, they might as well have been a mile away. He’d eaten coconut when he was stationed in Manila, and liked it, but he’d never tasted breadfruit, a lime green oblong fruit that weighed up to ten pounds and grew on fifty-foot-tall trees. To feed the constant gnawing in his stomach, he’d even picked and eaten flowers growing next to the walkway leading to the head. Others in the crew had done the same thing, and now all the plants had been picked clean.
On this night, Gordy hatched a plan, particularly daring for someone so dedicated to being invisible. He was going to retrieve one of the fallen coconuts. With no guard in sight, he slowly opened the door of his small room, checking in both directions. The coconut lay on the ground, a hundred feet away. The courtyard was dimly lit, with little moonlight on this night. The guard station was at the far end. The best way, he decided, was just to make a dash for it.
Crouching low, Gordy shot across the walkway and onto the courtyard. Keeping his eyes on the coconut, he swooped low and gathered it up on the run like a defensive back picking up a fumble. Cradling it in his arm, he sprinted back across the courtyard, making it back inside the room undetected. He was able to pry up a plank from the floor and use it to crack open the coconut, sharing the unexpected feast with his roommates. The men hid the coconut meat under the floor, enjoying it over several days.
Gordy heard noises outside his room and peeked through the shutters. Across the courtyard he saw two guards setting up a .30-caliber machine gun and aiming it toward the row of rooms housing the crew. Maybe this was how it was going to end—to be lined up outside the rooms and then just mowed down. But would that be worse than a slow death by starvation and beating? As the day wore on, he watched more and more movement by the guards.
The next morning, August 5, 1943—103 days after they had been captured—the door to his cell flew open and two armed guards herded him and his two roommates out of the room onto the grassy courtyard. Soon the rest of the enlisted men joined them, forming two lines. Since being isolated, it was the first time he’d seen his crewmates, including Bob Palmer, who’d survived his bout with dengue fever and the second interrogation.
Goldtooth Maizie ordered the men to march toward the big wooden gate they’d passed through when they first arrived at the Convent on Light Street. Shuffling in that direction, they were a pitiful lot: gaunt, dirty, dispirited.
Outside the gate, convoy trucks waited. With bayonets pointed at them, the crew struggled to climb aboard, and then the canvas flaps were closed. This time there were no blindfolds or tied hands. They were too weak to attempt an escape.
The men sat silently as the trucks rumbled down Light Street, heading toward the pier. Nobody knew where they were headed. Gordy thought nothing could be as torturous as what they’d survived the last 103 days. Surely he could endure whatever came next.
The ride was over quickly. The flaps opened, and Gordy saw that they were at the same dock where they’d landed. A small freighter,
the Hir Maru, similar in size to the one on which they had arrived, was waiting. Hurriedly, the men formed two lines and marched up the gangway toward the forward hold.
A guard ordered them to stand at attention. The ship’s commanding officer approached the men, a long, silver sword at his side.
Part Six
FROM BAD TO WORSE
25
Chuck Vervalin
POW
After being reminded by the ship’s commander that they were cowards for surrendering and that the Japanese way of life would prevail, Chuck and the rest of the crew were placed in the hold of the ship. The men were crammed together with barely enough room to lie down. The air in the hold was stale and humid; the men sweated onto the wooden planks of the deck, making it slippery. Chuck and several others were bruised from a rifle beating they’d received upon boarding the ship, but Chuck would not let his captors see his pain.
For five days the Hir Maru rolled and pitched on the open sea, destination unknown. The men had been given two 5-gallon buckets to serve as toilets, but with the heavy sea and meals of bad rice, the buckets overflowed, the situation made even worse when the majority of the crew came down with diarrhea. In the cramped quarters, there was no privacy and no way to escape the growing mess and the stench.
Soon the entire deck of the hold was soaked in waste. There were no mops; Chuck used his shirt to try to clean some space on the floor, but it was futile. He was able to remain standing, but other men were too weak and dehydrated. Some passed out, and others simply lay down on the filthy deck.
