Broken Jewel - [World War II 05]

by David L. Robbins

  “I lied, of course. Said I had no idea where his radio was. Told him a bunch of guerrillas passed by the camp and left us the one we got now.”

  “Did he buy it?”

  “Doesn’t matter. He was most pissed about something else. His personal rice bowl is missing. Seems it was hand painted with the emperor’s flag. I told him I’d look for it. And if I find it, Remy, I’m gonna crap in it before I hand it back over. I swear to God. You want this job?”

  “No, Lucas. I don’t. Nobody with any sense does.”

  “Well, that explains it. But Camp Freedom was nice for a few days, wasn’t it? I’ll see you.”

  Lucas hurried on. Before he could get indoors he was encircled by others pressing to hear the latest.

  Across the camp, people awoke in a surly mood to their prison restored. The guards spread across the grounds. They were met with scowls and rough language, even in Vatican City.

  At breakfast, the portion of corn mush had already been cut in half. No meat or eggs stiffened the yellow glop on Remy’s plate. The coffee again tasted like scorched weeds.

  Remy caught up with Tal at the table. The boy leaned over his plate, circling it with one arm. He looked annoyed.

  “Back to the same ol’ same ol’,” Remy said, indicating his skimpy plate.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” said Tal.

  “What’d I do?”

  The boy scooped up a spoonful of mush. He chewed sullenly.

  “You said I should wait. A few days, then the Americans would be here. That’s what you said. Well, last time I looked, those weren’t Americans with the guns out there.”

  “I’m sorry. It was my best guess.”

  “Well, your best guess kept me from seeing Carmen. And now I got no idea how long it’ll be. Thanks.”

  Remy lifted his plate to eat elsewhere, to let his son cool off. He didn’t regret the advice. Tal was alive to be mad at him.

  Over the next several hours, Remy walked the camp, curious for the internees’ reaction and the guards’ condition. Toshiwara issued a camp-wide statement, insisting on the return of all Japanese foodstuffs and personal items taken during their absence. The internees volunteered nothing. No one knew where the Japanese had gone or what they’d been through, but from the look of them they’d been worked like field mules. The ones on patrol sleepwalked along the fence, the guards at the gate slumped and snoozed. All were grimy with streaked faces and dark quarter-moon fingernails. And whatever adventures the guards had endured outside the camp, they’d pushed Nagata over the edge.

  The vile little guard was bad enough before he left. His loathing of the white race was well known. Immediately upon his homecoming, it became clear he was in a tyrant’s rage. Part insane, part homicidal, Nagata was fired up beyond anything the internees had seen from him before.

  His first act was to cut the camp’s rations down to two thirds of the food that had been available before the Japanese had left. He put an immediate stop to Filipinos bringing food to the gates for sale or trade. He dispatched guards across the camp to rummage for sacks of grain and corn the internees had taken. Nagata stormed through the camp, shouting and berating the internees, all of whom were forced to bow when he passed.

  He arrested the commandant’s chicken.

  The frail bird sat in a makeshift cage on Toshiwara’s steps. A poster, signed by Nagata, explained in Japanese and English that the chicken had eaten its own eggs; the offense was that the eggs belonged to the emperor. The poor chicken was just doing what all starving creatures would do, surviving by any source of nutrition.

  Through the morning, the camp settled into nervous agitation. American warplanes continued racing past, some of them at treetop level. The internees refused to go inside, the flights were so frequent. Two boys climbed into the dao tree. Nagata threatened to have them whipped for signaling the pilots. The boys’ parents appealed to Toshiwara that they were simply exuberant, and that a pair of ten-year-olds had nothing to pass on to American fighter pilots. The boys were released, making Nagata stomping mad.

  The commandant thwarted Nagata again at noon. Two teenagers appeared outside the main gate. They’d been in the village when the Japanese trucks pulled into the camp. They decided the safest way back inside the wire would be in broad daylight. Remy and a hundred anxious others watched them marched into Toshiwara’s office. The boys came out ten minutes later, after only a tongue-lashing from the commandant. Nagata emerged, beet-red and ready to pop. With a sudden, strange, and malevolent calm, he approached Remy and the internees. Beside him walked the tall interpreter.

  “I have changed my mind,” the interpreter announced to the crowd, deadpan. The tall Japanese seemed no fan of Nagata’s, but tried to give the little hothead no reason to turn on him, as well. Nagata grunted more of his statement, sneering the whole time. “You may keep the sacks of grain and corn you took. They are in our storehouse. Pick ten men to collect them. You may put the food in your own warehouse.”

  Remy, as one of the more fit members of the crowd, was selected for this task, as were the two teenagers who’d just returned. Nagata stomped away from the commandant’s office, to the northern reaches of the camp, where a circular sawali hut held all the supplies the guards had found.

  Nagata unlocked the door. Inside were stacked six dozen burlap sacks of rice and corn, each weighing fifty pounds. Remy boosted the first one across his shoulder and set out across the camp to the internees’ warehouse, at the southern end behind the garage.

  Burdened with sacks, the ten made their way through the camp, collecting cheers along the way. Nagata and his interpreter escorted them on their circuits. Nagata waved to the folks surprised by his benevolence. The interpreter looked miffed.

  By the time Remy hauled the sixth sack, he was done in. He asked Clem, straining under the bag beside him, how he was holding up.

  “Half bloody dead,” the sailor replied. “You look about three quarters, chum.”

  “I haven t got the muscles for this sort of work anymore.” Remy glanced at the others. Even the two boys dragged their feet. “None of us do.”

  Clem shot Nagata an evil glare. “You don’t think the little prick knows this, do you?”

  “Just one more round to go,” Remy said. “Suck it up, Clem.”

  The Scotsman sped his steps to pull in front of Remy. “You suck it up, Yank.”

  The two men made a race of the last hundred and fifty yards to the storeroom. The others in line saw this, and with waning stamina all the men jogged the final distance under their loads. Remy staggered to the warehouse first by two strides. Nagata arrived to find the men panting, sitting on the sacks.

  The guard crossed his arms, sweat stains blotting his armpits. He nodded, making a show of some thought. He tapped a finger to his temple.

  “Change mind,” he said.

  Remy, still gasping for air, said, “What? What’d you say?”

  Nagata walked close. Remy, breathing hard, took in the full scent of the little guard, reeking from perspiration and forgotten hygiene.

  Nagata kicked the bag between Remy’s legs. He rammed a finger at the sack, then indicated it be carried back to the Japanese storeroom.

  “No,” Remy said, standing. The others joined him on their feet, ignoring their fatigue. Nagata motioned for the interpreter to come near. The tall Japanese kept his reluctance muted but visible.

  Nagata spoke. His manner remained friendly, as if he’d made an honest mistake.

  “Lieutenant Nagata regrets,” the interpreter said, “but he has decided the grain and corn must be returned to the guards’ storeroom. Now.”

  The men mumbled, “I knew it,” mingled with curses.

  “We can’t do it,” Remy said. “Were beat. Get someone else.”

  Nagata listened to the translation. He rattled his head.

  “You men must move it. If you do not, Lieutenant Nagata will send guards to do it for you, and they may carry off more than just these sacks from
your storehouse. It cannot be helped. Gentlemen, if you please.”

  Behind Remy, Clem crabbed, “Aye, I’ll kill the bugger.”

  The interpreter spoke on his own to Clem. “Should I tell Lieutenant Nagata this?”

  The Scot bit his lip. “No.”

  “Then please do as you’re told.”

  Remy was the last to bend for his sack.

  Nagata approached, puffing up. “Tuck papa-san.” The little lieutenant hooked his thumbs in his belt and tugged many times, to be certain Remy recognized this as the strap that had flogged his son.

  Remy leaned closer. He’d looked in Nagata’s eyes before, but now, more than ever, he saw madness. Remy wanted to throttle him.

  Clem, burlap bag sagging across his shoulder, stepped between them. “That’s for another day, laddie,” he muttered. “Pick up the bloody sack and let’s get this over with.”

  The sailor held his spot, blocking the two until Remy yoked the bag over his back. Clem led him away from Nagata.

  Remy fumed under the first load. With the second bag, he let go of his rancor, again reminding himself never to tip his hand.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Twenty

  T

  he fighter planes speed was incredible, the roar bone-rattling.

  All five Japanese at the main gate ducked for cover.

  Tal watched from the shade of an eave, on guard duty at the kitchen storehouse. He hid his enjoyment.

  The P-38 zipped in so low it flew past the wire before anyone saw it coming. This same routine had been going on all day, planes buzzing near the camp, sometimes directly over it. Their targets lay close by. At every explosion in the near distance or earsplitting howl just above the peaks of the huts, the guards leaped behind trees or into weedy patches. The Yank pilots made a game of seeing how many guards they could spook, how many nipa branches they could lift in their wake.

  Once the plane raced away, the guards dusted themselves off. They glowered at Tal for their loss of face.

  He stayed in place for another hour, to the end of his three-hour shift. Ever since the guards surprise inspection last week, the committee had volunteers around the camp to keep an eye on the Japanese. Their assignment was to give advance notice of the guards’ increasingly unpredictable behavior. Tal had been among the first to sign up.

  The light changed with the sinking sun. The sun cooled, dinner would be served soon. The sounds of preparation rang from the kitchen. Tal stepped away from the bamboo wall to get a better whiff of the evening stew. No scent of meat reached him, just more boiling greens and steaming rice. Remy’s chimneys smoked. Tal rued the return of the Japanese most when he thought of Carmen, and at mealtimes.

  He did not see the rifle shot but jumped at the noise, though all day long there had been shooting in the sky. This sound was different, at ground level. It was personal and frightening.

  At the gate, all five guards had their rifles up, pointed at the road ahead. Tal sprinted the short distance to the fence. Another volley almost tripped his running steps; the soldiers all fired at once. Then, quickly, one more shot. Tal reached the wire before the haze of cordite had drifted into the afternoon.

  Outside the fence, on the edge of the road ten yards away, redheaded Mr. Clemmons lay on his back. His arms were spread, his left leg bent as if he’d tried to stand. Blood speckled the bottom of his white chin. Behind him where he’d dropped them, a dead chicken and a mesh bag of coconuts lay in the road.

  The guards lowered their guns.

  “What did you do?” Tal asked at their backs, horror turning him cold. He gripped the barbed wire, not feeling the spikes. Mr. Clemmons’s left leg flopped over, lifeless. Tal bellowed, “What did you do?”

  Two guards walked toward Mr. Clemmons. Soldiers laid hands on Tal to pull him from the wire, but he did not let go. The barbs dug into his palms. A bayonet pricked his ribs, sharp enough to step him back.

  Tal lost sight of Mr. Clemmons behind a crowd of soldiers and internees swarming to the gate. Someone took him by the elbows, leading him away. Finally, Tal closed his mouth. He focused on Mr. Lucas in front of him.

  With urgency, the man asked, “What did you see?”

  “Where’s Remy?”

  “I don’t know, son. Your father’s never far. He’ll be here right smart, I expect. Now tell me what you saw.”

  Tal described the guards’ jittery reaction to the last low-flying fighter. Moments later he heard one round. While he ran to the fence, more guns fired. Then one last shot. Mr. Clemmons lay faceup on the road. The dropped coconuts and the unplucked chicken. His left leg. Blood under his chin.

  “Come with me,” Lucas said. “I want to confront the commandant. Right now.”

  Lucas walked him to Toshiwara’s office. The man kept his arm on Tal’s elbow, as if he might faint or bolt. Tal had no intention of doing either.

  Remy’s fedora knifed through the internees massing to investigate. He showed up flushed. Before coming to a stop, he asked Tal, “What happened? You all right?”

  “Mr. Clemmons was shot at the main gate.”

  Remy yanked his head around to the gate as if he, too, had heard the rifles.

  Lucas said, “He was murdered, Remy.”

  “What was he doin’ out there?”

  “Your boy and I are on our way to take this up with Toshiwara. When I get answers, you will.”

  Remy extended a hand to Tal, the boy reached back. His father’s mitt came away red.

  “What happened to your hand?” Remy turned over Tal’s wrist.

  “I think I grabbed the wire.”

  “Lucas, hang on a second.” Remy bounded away to accost an older woman, Mrs. Gretsch, a missionary’s wife, for her handkerchief. Tal couldn’t hear what Remy told her but he snatched the white cloth. He hustled back and knotted the handkerchief around Tal’s palm.

  “All right, go ahead,” Remy said. “Thanks, Lucas. Boy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell ‘em to go to hell. They shot Clem.”

  Questions and shouts were flung at Lucas and Tal making their way to Toshiwara’s office door. Lucas knocked, and a guard escorted them in front of the commandant’s empty desk. The undersized soldier took a position beside the desk, barely taller than the tip of his bayonet.

  Tal’s shoulders tingled from the last time he’d stood here. The commandant’s office had changed. The fan and the little bonsai were missing, his desk and walls were blank. Tal unwound the handkerchief from his hand. He would not let Toshiwara see him hurt.

  Tal watched out the windows. Men carried Mr. Clemmons’s body to the infirmary. All the guards had rifles off their shoulders. The gathering internees berated them. The commandant’s office vibrated with the passing of another low-flying fighter headed south.

  Toshiwara left them waiting. Lucas kept a stony resolve, moving only to push his glasses up his nose. Tal dabbed the kerchief at blood seeping from two punctures in his palm.

  The commandant, his interpreter, and sweaty Nagata arrived. Tal crammed the cloth into his pocket.

  Toshiwara took his seat. Nagata stood at his elbow. The commandant set his cap in the middle of the bare desk. The interpreter listened, then spoke for him.

  “I apologize. I have been finding facts.”

  Lucas hardly masked his temper. “And what did you find?”

  “The man was caught trying to escape. The guards prevented it.”

  “Escape? Commandant, I have with me ...”

  “Yes, I recall Mr. Tuck.”

  Lucas turned to Tal. “Tell him what you saw.”

  Tal related everything, how Mr. Clemmons was shot in the chest, returning with food, just outside the wire. Six bullets. “He wasn’t escaping,” Tal concluded. “That’s not true. He was coming back into the camp.”

  Lucas jumped back in. “The guards had absolutely no right to shoot Mr. Clemmons. The Geneva Convention specifies that an escape attempt is only a breach of discipline. The punishment cannot exceed t
hirty days confinement. Mr. Clemmons was not escaping. For him to be murdered for returning to camp with food is in flagrant disregard of any rule of humanity. I remind you, commandant, we are not soldiers but civilians under your care and protection. This was neither.”

  The translator waited for Toshiwara’s response. He said, “Geneva is a long way from here, Mr. Lucas. Thank you. Please go outside.”

  Lucas was jolted. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?”

  “For now.”

  The short guard stepped up to usher Lucas out of the office. Lucas did not move.