Gracie, working beside her, grabbed her arm. “You all right?”
Margie sniffed and took a deep breath. “Yeah. I think so.” Recovered, but shaky, she returned to her work, assessing, triaging, and relieving her patients’ pain and terror with encouraging words and the often-refilled syringe of morphine.
The hours passed by unnoticed.
While concentrating on removing a sliver of shrapnel from a soldier’s eye, she felt a presence beside her and saw a brown hand. Looking up, she stood face-to-face with a Japanese officer. He wore rumpled khaki and a funny hat with a flap that covered the back of his neck. A long sword hung from his belt, and even in his big boots he was shorter than she.
“Bow,” he demanded.
“What?”
“Bow to a Japanese soldier.” He stiffly bent forward to demonstrate.
Margie put down her instruments and imitated his action. He nodded. “You go over there,” he said, pointing to where the other nurses had lined up against a wall.
Margie picked up a gauze square to cover her patient’s injured eye.
“You go! Now!” the Japanese officer shouted.
She jumped, dropped the gauze, and scurried to join the others, whose faces were pinched with fear and their arms wrapped around themselves protectively.
Japanese officers paraded back and forth in front of them, inspecting their uniforms, the Red Cross armbands that identified them as noncombatants, and the nurse insignia pinned to their collars. Margie began to tremble under the scrutiny, and she hugged herself even tighter.
“What are you women doing here?” one of the officers asked Miss Edwards.
The captain pulled herself up as tall as her elfin size allowed. “We’re nurses in the United States Army.”
“Impossible.” He shook his head in puzzlement. “Army’s for men. There’s no place for women in the army.”
While he conferred with his officers, Margie watched others hang a sign: “THIS IS THE PROPERTY OF THE IMPERIAL JAPANESE GOVERNMENT.”
The officer returned. “You, you, you . . . ,” he said as he pointed to the first ten nurses in line. “Go outside. We get your picture.”
Margie, Gracie, and the others marched outside at the point of a bayonet. Gracie grabbed Margie’s hand.
“No touching. No talking,” a guard admonished them.
As they lined up in front of a camera, a Japanese officer said in perfect English, “Don’t be afraid. We’re going to take your picture and send it to MacArthur so he’ll see you’re okay. I know how you Americans feel. I graduated from one of your universities.”
Margie’s vision focused beyond the camera to the blackened, wasted landscape littered with bloated American bodies now covered with green flies. A hate welled up inside her that she didn’t know existed, and she struggled to hold down bitter bile.
The Japanese allowed the American doctors and nurses to continue their work in the tunnel hospital, though under strict rules and close observation. With ventilators turned off and conversation forbidden, the laterals took on an eerie aura—the little air left to breathe as hot as an oven and noises like the tick of the clock and the clank of instruments magnified.
The stomp of heavy boots announced the arrival of a cadre of Japanese physicians. Margie and Dr. Corolla, working together to debride a patient’s burned leg, stopped their task and stood at attention. Margie stiffened and prayed the Japs would pass by. The patient cowered to make himself smaller.
A Japanese physician took a cursory look at the wound and declared the soldier well. Two guards yanked him from his bed and marched him outside to join the 7,500 soldiers penned on a fenced slab with no food or cover and very little water.
Dr. Corolla yelled out in frustration at seeing another one of his patients prematurely discharged: “If the burns become infected, it’s certain death! The Hippocratic oath—”
Margie watched as the flat side of a bayonet walloped the doctor’s skinny back and sent him sprawling to the floor. She turned aside and wiped tears from her eyes.
In the nurses’ quarters, Miss Edwards urged the women to stick close together and sleep in their clothes. “They’re dangerous,” she cautioned. The elderly lady took the bed nearest the door to deter Japanese soldiers from roaming through, but shifty-eyed guards still woke the women at odd hours of the night with their constant looting and endless damn inspections. Margie stood at attention beside her cot and stoically endured the sight of a guard pawing through her meager belongings.
“He took my watch,” she later hissed at Ruth Ann. “My watch! How am I going to count my patients’ pulse and respirations?”
“You can borrow mine, Margie. It’s a little hard to read. I scratched the face so the yellow bees wouldn’t take it.”
The Japanese held the troops captive on Corregidor for more than two months, during which time Margie endured their petty cruelties during the day and faked sleep at night when they fondled her red hair. She craved a good night’s sleep.
Today, the ventilation system was off—again—and she could barely tolerate the overwhelming heat. She thought about shedding her uniform. Let the bastards get an eyeful of her in her slip—what did she care anymore?
Gracie returned wide-eyed and out of breath from her allocated hour outside the confines of the drab tunnels. She hurried to Margie and glanced around before speaking in a furtive whisper. “I heard we’re leaving. I think it’s true this time, not just a rumor.”
Margie had heard the rumors too. A new one sprouted every day, of ships spotted on the horizon, planes heard in the distance, their imminent rescue, their certain demise. She shrugged dismissively.
“There really are ships in the harbor this time. Several, Margie.”
At that news, she sat up and took notice.
Days later, weakened by hunger and stress, Margie stood in a small wobbly boat, waiting to board the Lima Maru, a Japanese ship taking the evacuees to Manila. There was a hospital there where the nurses could care for the wounded US soldiers. Margie was dubious. She didn’t know a single Jap bastard who had a kind bone in his body. A guard shoved her forward. Stumbling, she grabbed the bottom rung of the rope ladder hanging over the ship’s side and began the long ascent to the top. Brawny hands hoisted her onto the deck, where she landed near Miss Kermit, who was on her knees retching. Margie helped the older woman move out of the way and rubbed her back until she calmed and got her bearings.
As the ship chugged away from the shore, Margie watched the scenery pass by. Less than a year ago, she’d made this same trip through Manila Bay in the company of exuberant soldiers and sailors. Then, bright sunlight danced off pristine water, and lush tropical foliage glowed a brilliant green against a cloudless blue sky. Manila had dazzled her with its beauty—the Pearl of the Orient. Today, however, the bay offered a dismal view, with oil-slicked water, denuded beaches, and the black, bombed-out city just ahead.
The men crammed in the ship’s hold were off-loaded first. They stumbled into the light after days in the dark without food or water. A sad-looking bunch, emaciated, dehydrated, and dirty, they clutched their few belongings to their chests. Some had open, oozing wounds; others could hardly walk and leaned heavily on their buddies. Once queued up, Japanese guards prodded them to march north, jabbing at stragglers with fixed bayonets.
Watching from the deck of the ship, Margie realized how cruelly Royce must have suffered. Her heart squeezed in her chest, unbidden tears streaming.
Seeing her sorrow, Gracie materialized at Margie’s side and took her hand. “It wasn’t like this for him, honey. He cared for his men up to the very end. It was just one sick guard—that’s all.”
Margie felt the comfort of Gracie’s touch. “You really think so?”
“I do. And you should too, or you’re going to go crazy with this grief.”
Margie sniffed and nodded.
Japanese soldiers herded the women onto flatbed trucks that transported them through the dock area before turning so
uth.
“Wait!” Tildy said, standing up. “You’re going the wrong way. Our soldiers went that way.” She pointed north.
A guard stepped up and slapped her on the face with his small, hard hand. She sat down again and kept quiet, hate showing in the grim set of her mouth.
It was a short ride to the University of Santo Tomas, a sixty-acre campus not far from the docks and Manila’s busy city center. An idyllic setting of landscaped gardens, tree-lined walkways, and large limestone buildings greeted Margie’s eyes. As the truck drove along the winding campus road, she spotted a chapel, an athletic field, a gymnasium, and several shops. Maybe it won’t be so bad here.
The truck stopped at the main building, an imposing three-story structure occupying almost two acres of land. An oversized crucifix perched high atop a giant cupola marked the main entrance. Internees swarmed around the nurses, and Margie felt an orange being pressed into her hand.
A woman asked anxiously, “Have you seen my husband? Eddie Bailey? He was on Corregidor. He has dark hair and a small scar right here.” She pointed to a spot above her eyebrow.
He could have been any of the thousands of men Margie had attended. She gave the offered gift back, shook her head, and watched the woman’s face crumple.
Guards shoved the crowd back and hustled the nurses inside, where staircases and hallways teemed with men, women carrying babies, young children, teenagers, and gray-haired grandmas and grandpas. Margie peeked inside a classroom and saw more of the same. Their chattering voices echoed off yellowed walls, and the whole place reeked of unwashed bodies and overused toilets.
“Margie! Margie!” she heard. Whirling around, she saw her friend Helen. So she had survived the bombing of Camp John Hay! Wanting to give her a hug, Margie tried to break away from the group, but a guard pushed her back in line.
When questioned by Japanese officers about her family, her life in the army, and her experience since coming to the Philippines, Margie stood stiffly and answered minimally. Chattering soldiers searched her belongings while she watched with disgust as their quick hands pawed through her letters from home and her few tattered clothes.
“What were they saying?” she asked Tildy afterward.
The daughter of American missionaries, Tildy had grown up in rural Japan. She whispered, “I could only catch a few words. Something about candy.”
Housed in an annex outside Santo Tomas’s high stone and iron fences, the nurses had no contact with the other internees. Fatigued, underfed, and ill with tropical diseases, they rested and regained strength sapped during the violent months on Corregidor. During their six weeks in isolation, a chaplain was twice allowed to visit and conduct a Sunday service.
“Being interned here is different,” he told the new arrivals. “Unlike the POW camps so brutally administered by the Japanese military, Santo Tomas Internment Camp, or STIC, as we scornfully call it—don’t tell anyone I told you that—comes under the governance of the Civilian Department of External Affairs.” He looked at the faces focused on him, his kind eyes gazing from behind round, rimless glasses. “The Japanese military regard us with apathy. That’s a good thing.”
Apathy might be good, Margie thought.
“We internees run the camp ourselves. We have elected executive and advisory committees and appointed subcommittees: the Philippine Red Cross is in charge of the kitchens and the food; Social Services oversees education, recreation, religion, welfare, and the library; Administration handles discipline and work assignments; Essential Services supervises sanitation, hospitals, and fire prevention. The Japanese allow the Executive Committee thirty-five cents per internee a day to administer the camp.”
“Thirty-five cents?” Miss Kermit scoffed. “That won’t feed us, much less provide anything else.”
The chaplain nodded. “It’s barely a subsistence amount. For anything extra, we have a camp store, and Filipino vendors can sell food and wares inside the gate. Some enterprising souls have started their own businesses, such as a coffee bar, shoe repair, laundry, and beauty salon, to name a few. We’re like a small city here.”
“These girls have been living in the jungle and in tunnels. They don’t have any money. How are they going to live?”
“They have an income?”
“Yes, but it’s tied up in the States.”
“Many people in here have contacts to friends and servants in Manila who help them. Clothing, food, almost anything can be delivered through the package line at the front gate. Inspected by the guards, of course. Do you know anyone who lives in Manila who could help you?”
“No. We’re alone here.”
The chaplain paced as he spoke. “That’s a problem. Let me look into it. There are some ways to get around it.”
“How many people live here?” Miss Kermit asked.
“Thirty-five hundred, give or take. They’re mostly American, British, and Australian civilians and their families who worked or lived in the Philippines when the Japanese arrived—‘enemy nationals,’ the Japanese call us. About six hundred children live here. We have a varied and talented group of engineers, journalists, businessmen, missionaries, doctors, bankers, several teachers, and university professors. There’s even a golf pro.” He smiled at his attempt at frivolity. “Everyone is required to work two hours a day.”
“These girls should be working,” Miss Kermit said. “They’ve been locked in this building for weeks reading and playing bridge. Their time could be put to better use. The days are long and boring.”
The chaplain shrugged. “Boredom is a big problem, as is sanitation. Maybe the influence of your young nurses will help keep this place from becoming a swamp.”
Before the chaplain left, Miss Kermit asked, “What advice can you give to help us survive this?”
His manner grew somber as he addressed the young women, all riveted on his every word. “You must stick together. You’ll need each other for support. Keep a low profile, follow the rules, and pull your own weight. Always, always be mindful of the Japanese presence.” He paused before adding, “And don’t forget to pray.”
Old and fearless, Captain Hazel Edwards met with the Japanese commandant and negotiated for the nurses to work four-hour shifts in the hospital and the clinics scattered around campus. The sixty-four nurses moved from the annex into four classrooms on the top floor of the main building. Their presence further crowded the other 250 women assigned to live on that floor and who shared the one available bathroom. The camp administrators issued each nurse a metal cup, a spoon, an enamel plate, one thin towel, and a blanket, all of which they stored under their palm-fiber cots.
Every day began with music blasting over loudspeakers.
Margie yawned, scratched at bug bites all over her body, and took her place in line for the shower. Standing behind her, Helen brushed her back.
“Sorry, Margie. It was just a bedbug.”
“Did you get it off me?”
“It’s gone, but your back’s really bit up. You want me to dab you with calamine lotion?”
“After my shower. Anything to stop the itching.” She sawed her towel across her back, then stepped into the shower and circulated under the spigot with four other women—one smoking, her lower lip thrust out and the fag tilted up, two wearing their underwear, and one with her eyes closed, as suggested by the hand-scrawled sign on the wall: “Want Privacy? Close Your Eyes!”
Margie dressed in a cotton uniform, careful not to bump the other women trying to dress in the tight confines of a room too small for the number of occupants. She packed a tote with her eating utensils and personal items; then she and Helen left for the food-service station, a walk across campus that took them through the shantytowns.
In these cobbled-together communities, internees built clusters of topsy-turvy huts and gave the neighborhoods exotic names, like Foggy Bottom and Glamourville. Construction of the huts was as creative as their resourceful owners, who scrounged for bamboo, scrap wood, palm leaves, and reeds. Streets nam
ed MacArthur Boulevard and Fifth Avenue meandered in and around these hovels that offered the occupants a few square feet of shade and a semblance of privacy during the day. At night, all internees returned to the campus buildings to sleep dormitory-style with the men separated from the women and children.
Helen walked slowly with her hand pressed against her side.
“Are you all right?” Margie asked.
“Just a little stomachache. This diet is too starchy for me. My system is all messed up. Let’s walk along Hollywood Boulevard. I like to watch the kids play. I miss my nieces and nephews.”
At that moment, a general service announcement crackled over the camp’s loudspeakers, reminding the citizens of Santo Tomas to mind their fires, that the okra ripening in the community gardens needed volunteer harvesters, and that all trash must be deposited in the dump area.
A disc jockey shouted, “Good morning, folks! It’s a splendid day in Santo Tomas! For the next two hours, I’ll be spinning your favorite tunes. Let’s start with one we all like to hear, ‘Pennies from Heaven.’”
“Praise the Lord,” Margie whispered.
“God bless,” Helen answered, for the song was code for a successful Allied bombing raid.
Margie and Helen stood in one line to have their meal tickets verified, then queued up in another for a bowl of rice gruel, pineapple, and a cup of weak coffee. They joined Gracie, Ruth Ann, and Tildy at a table. Along with Boots, they considered themselves a family now, bound together by experiences few others would understand. They shared secrets, fears, food, books, and birthdays.
Gracie said, “Wednesday is Boots’s twenty-sixth. Where’s she been?”
“Working nights on the TB ward,” Margie said. “It spreads like wildfire in this heat. How about a party on Friday? Can everyone chip in fifty cents for a gift? I hate to ask you, Tildy.”
A Pledge of Silence Page 14
