Remy had a bad feeling, the same one he’d experienced dealing the tenth solitaire.
He spun on his heels to a noise behind him. Tal swung the weight of the pistol. In the opposite wing, down the dark hall, Yumi dashed out of the shadows wearing the emerald slacks Remy had bought her. She lifted her small arms and ran like a child. Trailing Yumi, also dressed in an outfit Remy had bought in Anos, came brown Carmen.
Yumi leaped into Remy’s arms, circling his neck, crossing ankles behind his back. Remy hugged her and through her black hair watched Carmen step into his son’s arms.
Yumi babbled in Korean. She shivered in Remy’s grasp.
Carmen said, “We have to go.”
Tal had waited a long time to hold the girl again and had risked much to do it. His embrace pleased her, but she pulled away, her mind on something else, urgent. Tal did not release her as she wished. He reeled her in for a kiss, which the girl made short. Remy reached behind his waist to unlock Yumi’s clutch.
“Come on, darlin’,” he said, “get down.”
Carmen stepped back from Tal, holding his hand to tow him to the stairs. In pink and black, she appeared like any teenage Filipina. Tal, haggard, dirty, and as sleepless as Remy, looked like the one being rescued, though he held a gun.
Yumi chattered in Remy’s ear, gratitude or curses. With both hands behind his neck, he pried at her clasp. He bent to lower her feet to the landing.
Yumi tightened, seizing him. Remy pushed at her ribs, her little breasts, to make her let go. Against his cheek, her head raked from side to side, no.
Above his shoulder, one of her arms tensed. She pointed behind him. Remy straightened. His head turned as she screamed, “Yamete!”
In the hall to Carmen’s room, a tall Japanese in a loincloth advanced, a handgun lifted. At a dozen paces, the snub barrel was aimed at Tal’s back.
Remy, with Yumi hanging off him, could only leap in front of the bullet.
~ * ~
Chapter Forty-six
T
AL WHIRLED and fired before he aimed. The big Colt jumped in his hand. He missed.
The Japanese advanced and shot again. Tal tensed for a bullet. The near-naked soldier’s second round thudded into the wall. Tal ripped free of Carmen to bring his other hand up to the pistol grip. He fired two-fisted like Bolick had shown him. The .45 slug knocked the guard off his bare feet. Tal squeezed off one more shot; this bullet ran high. The naked soldier hit the floor, his gun spun away from him. Yumi tried to stop Remy’s crumple.
Tal kept the Colt riveted on the soles of the downed man’s feet. Was he dead? Tal didn’t know what to do next, go to the Japanese and check him? Remy was shot! Both girls wailed in despair and alarm. Tal risked a quick glance at his father. Remy had fallen but not past one knee. His right arm hung limp, his left clutched against his chest. In the back of his tatty vest, above the right shoulder blade, a neat hole had been drilled. His fedora had come loose, tilted on his head. Yumi fluttered hands around Remy.
“Be quiet!” Tal barked. He threw his attention back to the Japanese, seeing him over the short barrel of the Colt, smelling gunpowder.
One of the soldier’s knees bent, the leg drew in. Tal bore down behind the gun.
Carmen pulled Yumi back from Remy, wrapping the little girl tight to stop her frantic flapping. Remy held himself up on the one knee.
Tal’s pulse raced in his temples, in his raised hands.
“Remy?”
“Son of a bitch.” Remy sounded winded.
“You all right?”
“Damn well hurts. You get him?”
“He’s down. I don’t think he’s dead.”
The girls helped Remy to his feet. He gasped and clung to his chest, though the hole was in his back. Painfully, with one hand, Remy straightened his hat. He hawked and spat a gob of blood.
“I think he nicked a lung.”
The Japanese moaned. His pistol lay far from his hand; he showed no inclination to go after it. A dark wing of blood unfurled under him. Tal lowered the Colt. Carmen stepped toward the hall. Tal snagged her elbow.
“That’s Toshiwara’s interpreter.”
“Yes.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“I was hiding him.”
“Why?”
“He’s a friend.”
Remy hunched and leaned on Yumi. His eyes hid beneath the brim of his hat. Yumi clucked her tongue that Tal and Carmen should linger while Remy suffered.
Tal fumbled for a reply. “You what? You have a Japanese friend?”
“One.”
“Then why’d he shoot Remy?”
“He didn’t mean to. He was trying to shoot you.” She flattened a palm to Tal’s chest. “Stay here.”
Carmen went to kneel beside the interpreter, opposite the puddle of his blood. She inspected his gunshot. The dim hall hid her whispers and his reply. Gently she cupped his left hand to lay it across his right chest, into the armpit. She pressed on his hand, to show him how to plug himself.
The gun nudged Tal to stride forward and find out how this Japanese came to be a friend to his girl.
From below, boots pounded in the stairwell. An American soldier shouted up, “Anyone there?”
“It’s okay,” Tall called down. “We’re all right.”
The footfalls slowed. “We’re comin’ up.”
Carmen came back to Tal. He slid the gun into its holster to quiet it. Crimson stained her fingertips.
The soldiers below reached the second staircase. They came with a deliberate clatter of rifles and laden belts.
Tal walked to his father. He examined the punch in Remy’s vest. Silk threads spiraled around the hole but he wasn’t losing much blood. Under the fedora, Remy gritted his teeth in a drained face.
“That was my bullet, Remy.”
“Mine now.”
Yumi brushed Tal aside with a stream of mutters. Her arm around Remy’s waist, she guided him down the first step. Carmen took Tal’s hand. Three soldiers rounded the railing below.
“Everything all right, folks?”
“Yeah,” grunted Remy, easing to the second stair.
“What was the shootin’ about?” The soldiers eyed the two girls, unsure. One climbed to reach Remy. “Sir, you’re hit.” Instantly all three crouched in the stairwell, aware of some threat that had done this. Rifles came up, hawk eyes narrowed at the landing above them.
“It’s all right,” said Remy, waving a pained hand. Carmen raised hers, too, the bloodied one. Yumi ignored the soldiers and continued to press Remy down the stairs, annoyed and unintelligible.
Remy set a hand on one soldiers shoulder to move past him. The trooper slipped under Remy’s good shoulder to help Yumi get him down the stairs. The remaining two eyed Tal.
“Where’d you get the Colt, buddy?”
“Sergeant Bolick. He’s recon.”
“That Jap dead?”
Carmen said, “Yes.”
The paratrooper’s bronze face stayed expressionless. He asked Tal again, “Is he dead?”
“Yeah.”
Both helmets bobbed. The men pivoted, their interest here waned, no Japs to kill. They clomped down the stairs.
Carmen laid a kiss on Tal’s cheek. Below, Remy wheezed, making his way out of the building. The paratroopers stayed patient behind him and Yumi.
Tal cast a last glance at the hall where the Japanese lay dying.
“Time to go.” He extended his hand the way he’d imagined he would.
Carmen reached into her pocket. She held out the Songu tag.
“One last time,” she said, “bring this back to me.”
She did not put her hand into Tal’s palm, but the piece of wood.
~ * ~
Chapter Forty-seven
N
O, SIR,” Bolick said. “Not a thing.”
The three officers standing around him, and Bolick, too, tuned their ears west to see if they might hear something from Soule’s task forc
e through the morning air.
Major Willcox made a sour face. So did Lieutenant Kraft and Lieutenant Colonel Thibeaux, the officer in charge of the fifty-four amtracs.
Kraft said, “Shorty ain’t comin’, Major. Not in time, anyway.”
High overhead, P-38s, 40s and 51s circled. The fighter planes would be the first to react if the Tiger Division made a move against the American raiders. So far, the planes had made a few low-level dives to strafe fleeing guards, then returned to their pattern. The fighters gave the paratroopers on the ground a security blanket, but what the soldiers really wanted to hear was the thump of Shorty Soule’s artillery getting closer, then the rumble of 150 trucks rolling into camp to whisk them and the internees out of here. So far, none of the 188th’s big guns had been fired close enough to be heard above the engines of the sentinel planes or the occasional croak and squeak from the surrounding jungle. The radio on Bolick’s back had raised no one outside the barbed wire all morning.
Willcox asked Kraft, “Casualties?”
“Between recon and the battalion, two wounded. Two guerrillas killed and four wounded, all in the first minute. Nothing after that.”
“The internees?”
“A few dings, that’s all. The rest are fine.”
The assault had gone off better than hoped. Bolick surveyed the camp from where he stood, on the grassy spot where the guards had been surprised in their exercises thirty minutes ago. The whole Japanese garrison had been either dispersed or eliminated. A hundred and fifty airborne troops were sorting through the camp trying to organize the stunned internees. Three hundred more held positions on the perimeter, blocking the roads into Los Baños, alert for a counterattack.
The only thing missing was their ride home, Shorty Soule’s trucks.
Willcox pulled off his helmet to scratch his balding pate. Big Kraft rested his arms across the tommy gun hanging to his waist. Near the main gate, the guards’ barracks was in flames. Tracers from the firefight with the guards had ignited the sawali walls and nipa roof. A wind from the south blew haze and sparks at the six amtracs that had roared into camp on the paved lane. The rest of the vehicles waited on the ball fields outside the smashed north gate.
Willcox replaced his helmet. “Shorty’s not coming, boys.”
Kraft and Bolick answered as if the observation belonged solely to the major.
“No, sir.”
“All right. I made a decision. Lieutenant.”
Yes, sir.
“You empty the infirmary. Get every stretcher case and internee who can’t walk onto the amtracs first. Load every vehicle. Tell all the folks they’re allowed to take one piece of luggage. One, Lieutenant. They’re going to try to talk you out of that.”
“No worries, sir.”
Willcox addressed Lieutenant Colonel Thibeaux next. Though the man was his superior officer, Major Willcox remained the soldier on the ground in charge of the rescue.
“Colonel, I figure we can get maybe fourteen hundred on your amtracs at a time. I want you to load every one of them with internees as soon as possible. When that’s done, get your vehicles out of the camp and on the water pronto. You’ll ferry the first group back to Mamatid, drop them off, then come back here to evacuate the ones left behind and us. I reckon two trips ought to do it.”
Willcox didn’t wait for the colonel’s agreement. He continued with Kraft.
“Soon as the first wave takes off, I want the rest of the internees walking to San Antonio.”
“That’s three miles, major.”
“It is, and if these folks want to put Los Baños behind ‘em they’ll run it. You’ll arrange security along the route. The battalion will withdraw and head to San Antonio behind you. We’ll wait on the point for the colonel here to come back for us. Questions?”
“Loud and clear, sir.”
Thibeaux, a blocky sort like Kraft but without the muscle, spoke up. His voice carried a Louisiana drip of honeysuckle.
“That’s two trips total.”
“You have a concern, colonel?”
“I do. We got over two thousand folks on our hands. Not a one of ‘em knew we were comin’. They’re not exactly packed.”
“How long ‘til we can load ‘em up?”
“I can’t figure the last one climbing on before noon. By then the Japs are bound to have mortars and artillery in place to make those rides across the bay something we’d rather not have to face.”
“Recommendation?”
“Do the first part of your plan. Load up all the stretchers and the lame, as many women and children as we can carry. I’ll get them the hell out of here, you can count on it. You and your men escort the rest of the internees west. Link up with the task force and roll out on their trucks. That was the original plan and I still believe it’s the safest and fastest way.”
Willcox pursed his lips, considering. His eye rested on the burning Japanese barracks.
“Lieutenant?”
Kraft took his arms off the tommy gun.
“Sir.”
“Get to loading the stretchers. Then load up the elderly, women, and children. Leave the able-bodied men for the second round.”
Willcox nodded for the order to be executed, now. Kraft lit out.
“Colonel Thibeaux?”
“Major.”
“Due respect, sir, but we’re gonna go with my plan. Bolick here hasn’t heard word one from the task force. I got no idea where they are or how far I’ll have to walk my men and the internees to find ‘em. I got no intel on the Tiger Division, where they are or what they’re up to. You get your vehicles ready to roll, Colonel. I’ll have the internees lined up and waiting for you.”
Thibeaux licked his lips, pausing at being overruled. He had one last question.
“Due respect, Major, but how d’you intend to do that, exactly?”
“Sergeant Bolick?”
Bolick snapped rigid. He thought he’d been left out of the discussions.
“Sir.”
“You a smoker?”
“No, sir.”
“How’d you manage to survive a war without smoking?”
“I worry a lot, sir. Keeps me just as good company.”
Willcox produced a silver Zippo. He pointed to the fire consuming the guards’ barracks. Smoke coiled thick on the wind, blowing north. Internees in neighboring structures, fearful the flames would spread, herded toward the six parked amtracs, luggage in hand.
Willcox said, “Those folks have the right idea. Sergeant, take my lighter and head for the south end of the camp. Soon as the stretcher cases are on board, you enter those barracks there along the fence and torch ‘em. The wind’ll do the rest.”
The major flipped the lighter to Bolick.
“That oughtta speed things along. Don’t you think, Colonel?”
~ * ~
Chapter Forty-eight
R
EMY MADE it past the fresh trench, the Japanese corpses at the bunkers, and through the main gate before collapsing.
He labored for breath, dangling from the arms of Yumi and the nameless airborne soldier. Smoke from the guards barracks made him cough. Some of his breath escaped from the perforation in his back.
The soldier left him sitting in the dirt with Yumi beside him to fetch a stretcher. The girl laid her hand over the hole in Remy’s shoulder to block it but his exhalations felt like they were collecting inside him and he asked her to let it vent. She understood and pulled away her hand, a spot of blood on her palm. Remy fingered his chest to feel the nub of the bullet under the skin. The Japanese round had lacked the caliber to go all the way through him.
He tried shallow breaths to ease the stabbing inside his ribs. He couldn’t move his right arm. The shoulder blade was shattered, no question. He fought dizziness and reached for Yumi to come where he could see her.
“Where’s Tal?” The girl rattled her head and shrugged. “Tal,” he repeated. “Carmen? Where are they?”
Yumi lifted a small finger
at the animal husbandry building. The boy and Carmen were still in there? Doing what? The sudden thought struck Remy that the dying Japanese soldier might have revived somehow, enough to grab his gun and shoot Tal, Carmen, or both. Carmen was hiding him. Had Remy and Tal walked into an ambush? Did Carmen set them up? Where was Tal?
Broken Jewel - [World War II 05] Page 37
