“Parasites,” Sammy said without hesitation. “Japanese bathe more than Americans—they keep themselves clean—and they worry about the local vermin: tapeworms, biting insects, and the like. I’d say our friend here is more anxious than most. He’s from Osaka, not the countryside.”
Americans shared the fear of tropical parasites. One of the first things she’d heard upon arriving in Manila was of a spider called a chupa-ojo, so named by the Spaniards because it crawled onto your eyeballs while you slept, anesthetized them, and sucked out the juices. You woke blind, your eye sockets shriveled like prunes.
Miss Frankie had first told her of the chupa-ojo. When Louise scoffed, Frankie told her to prove that it didn’t exist.
“There’s some strange striations on his back,” she said, poking at Oto’s shoulder blades. She made her tone worried. “I’m concerned he’s infected with greater bone worms.”
“What the devil is that?”
“Nothing. But if it did exist, it would be something you’d want to get rid of at once. Especially if you already had a natural fear of parasitic infection.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“And tell him if his scar is still hurting him, it’s probably because the worms release a chemical toxin that impedes healing.”
Sammy spoke while she pulled Oto’s shirt back down and pointed at various random spots on his back. He tried in vain to look over his shoulder at what she was indicating. When she poked, he winced, as if it had actually caused pain, and said something worried to Sammy. He shook his head in answer.
“Do you have a bowl?” Louise asked. “Good. I want Oto to give me a urine sample. I’ll take it back to the hospital to check.”
“And what will you find?” Sammy asked.
“Whatever I need to.”
“Right.”
Sammy gave Oto the bad news. Soon the thickset soldier was tromping down the stairs with a rice bowl in his hand. At first she thought he would just lower his trousers and do it right there. Some of the villagers would urinate in front of her, and maybe Japanese soldiers would, too. But this one apparently didn’t want to expose himself in front of a foreign nurse. Little did he know that she’d already seen him bathing naked at the cascades.
“Okay,” she said to Sammy. “I’ve got to get out of the hospital for an extended period of time tonight. How will I do that?”
“You’ve set it up perfectly already.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oto shouldn’t be up and about until you’ve treated him. He should stay here on his mat moving as little as possible.”
“That’s right,” she said, catching on. She gave a solemn nod. “Bone worms can migrate. Very dangerous.”
“The two guarding the hospital are no more clever than Oto,” Sammy said. “There’s a reason my brother left these men behind. I’ll bet we can fool them, too. You tell Oto you need me to come with you to translate when you speak to the others, and you’ll do whatever tests you need to do on Oto’s urine until nightfall. Then you come back to check on Oto. That gets you out in the dark with medical supplies.”
It was a good plan, assuming nothing went wrong. The obvious flaw was having to depend on the gullibility of three Japanese soldiers, but other things could go wrong, too. Captain Mori might return, for one thing. Or Kozlowski might die from his wounds before she reached him. Or they might be beyond her abilities to treat.
Oto came in holding the bowl in front of him. He had his hand on his back and was grimacing, as if in real pain. She didn’t doubt his sincerity. Some people would believe whatever a medical professional told them. Tell a man he would be dead by sunrise, and there was a chance he would oblige, even if he’d come to you with nothing worse than a toothache.
Louise took the bowl. “He’s not drinking enough water. His urine is too dark.”
“Probably that fear of parasites again.”
“Tell him he needs to drink more. It’s bad for his kidneys.”
“I’m not telling him that,” Sammy said. “It makes the whole thing sound trivial. You’re worried about a long-term risk to his kidneys when he’s infested with bone-eating worms?”
“Okay, true. Tell him to lie down. That will . . . um, keep the worms from moving around.”
Oto did as he was told. He may have been instructed to guard Sammy Mori and keep an eye on the village, but he’d been easily tricked into abandoning his orders.
“Your leg feels fine?” she asked Sammy.
“The muscle is wasted away from disuse, but it doesn’t hurt. You’re the nurse. Can I walk on it?”
“You’re not at that much risk. Don’t trip or run or do anything stupid. Of course, if you’re seen walking without your crutches, everyone will know you don’t really need them.”
Sammy said something to Oto, who was lying on his back with his hand over his eyes, as if in great pain, or perhaps he was merely on the verge of panic.
Oto nodded. “Hai!” Then something else in Japanese.
“Oto says my crutches are around back, against the building,” Sammy said. “He says I can go with you to the hospital.”
Louise had him hold the bowl of urine while she fetched the crutches. Captain Mori didn’t seem to be trying especially hard to keep his brother from escaping. Was that because there was nowhere to run to, or was Sammy’s brother subtly encouraging an attempt?
Stumpy was still outside waiting, and his half tail wagged furiously to see her. Louise had the sudden thought he was trying to tell her something important, that Fárez wanted her to come back or that Mori and the rest of the enemies had returned to Cascadas. But his thinking wasn’t so deep as all that. He nosed at her pocket, and she remembered that she’d been hauling around the ham bone all this time.
“Oh yeah. I promised, didn’t I? Well, you earned it.”
Louise patted him on the head and fished out the bone. He snatched it and trotted off. Not in any direction where they’d spotted other dogs, she noted. Stumpy had no intention of sharing his prize.
She thought about bringing the bananas, but that would be tricky to manage while carrying the bowl of Oto’s urine. Besides, there were bigger worries now. She’d rather not add one more thing for the guards to fight with her about. Carrying the bowl of urine, she led Sammy through the village, along the dikes between rice paddies, and toward the hospital.
The two soldiers at the hospital were agitated when they saw Louise and Sammy. She’d been gone for some time, and they seemed angry at this. They yelled at her, yelled at Sammy. He shouted back, and for a moment he looked not so different than his brother. Certainly nothing like the calm, poetry-reading man who’d never advanced beyond the rank of corporal. The two soldiers quieted down and listened.
“All right,” Sammy said. “They’re convinced about the worms. I think. Come on, let’s go inside.”
“They won’t make you stay out here?”
“I’m not asking permission. Anyway, we have details to work out.”
There was shock from the hospital residents to see Sammy again. Some of the response was warm, whereas others gave grudging respect. One man called him “our Jap,” and another relayed a dirty limerick and called it his “haiku.” Sammy took all this in with a good-natured smile. Only Frankie looked upset to see him again. Her mouth pinched together, as if she’d eaten a rotten orange.
Louise dumped Oto’s urine into a bedpan, then told the others what had happened and her plan for getting to Lieutenant Kozlowski. Dr. Claypool opened his eyes and listened attentively, raising Louise’s hopes that he was on the mend, but he didn’t speak up.
“And you’ll do what with him?” Maria Elena asked, her voice doubtful. “Stitch him up yourself right there in the jungle?”
Louise glanced at Dr. Claypool, who still didn’t respond. “If I have to.”
“You know what I don’t like,” Frankie said. “It’s this man.” She hooked her thumb at Sammy. “Why did you bring him into it?”
“I h
ad no choice,” Louise said, “as is obvious to anyone.” Her patience was like an old slip that had been washed so many times it was nearly transparent. “Do you seriously think that Sammy is going to sell us out? That he’d pretend all of this so he could lead the enemy to the lieutenant?”
Frankie’s stare hardened. “Well, why not? Anyway, that’s not my worry. They’re watching him, that’s what. He’s been arrested, he’s a prisoner. Using him only puts us in more danger. And when he’s caught, Kozlowski will be caught, too, and all of us for helping. And that means we’ll be punished.”
“So what are we supposed to do? Leave the lieutenant to die?”
“Better him than us,” Frankie said.
This brought angry retorts from many of the men, including some who hadn’t seemed entirely pleased to see Sammy arrive, and who’d listened with worried expressions while Louise explained the plan.
“Wait, that’s not what I meant,” Frankie said hastily. She glanced at Maria Elena, as if hoping to find an ally, but the young nurse looked away, her lips pinched. “Everyone calm down. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“How exactly did you mean it?” Louise asked.
“Don’t try to put words into my mouth. Why did Kozlowski run off? That was his choice. He and Fárez and Zwicker and the rest of them could have chosen to be prisoners, but they didn’t. So they went out to do whatever it is they’re doing, still trying to fight the war and all of that.” She waved her hand vaguely. “Fine, but why do they have to put us at risk, too? Huh? Why? We surrendered, we have to stay here and deal with the Japs. We didn’t ask to be dragged back into it.”
“That’s enough,” Louise said. “I’ll be out there, not you, and I’ll make sure I take all the blame if things go wrong.”
“Me, too,” Sammy said. “They’ll be angriest at the traitor. Not the American nurse.”
Dr. Claypool made a little sound. He tried to lift himself up. Louise and Maria Elena helped him into a sitting position.
“You have to bring Kozlowski here,” he said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “What if he needs blood? What if he needs his spleen out? You’re going to operate out there in a nonsterile environment? Too risky. Then you have postoperative care, pain management.”
“You gonna do all that, Doc?” a man asked. “You look terrible.”
“I feel terrible. But I’ll manage.” He turned his eyes to look at Louise, who let the skepticism bloom fully on her face. “And good old-fashioned nursing once that’s done. He’ll need that, too. It’s a doctor’s job to keep a man from dying, but it’s a nurse who brings him back to life.”
“Even assuming you can operate,” she said, “how would we get Kozlowski in here?”
“Someone else will have to figure that out,” Claypool said. He looked spent by the effort, and Maria Elena helped him lie back down. He closed his eyes. “Take care of everything else, and I’ll find a way to do the surgery even if it kills me.”
“That’s hardly comforting,” Louise said.
Nevertheless, she was thinking hard. At the moment, the whole scheme seemed like a box of puzzle pieces, all mixed up, but she thought she could at least get the borders in place.
“It will have to be tonight,” she said at last. “If we wait until Mori returns with his secret police and his Sakdals, we’ll never manage. The first step is to retrieve the lieutenant and bring him in for surgery without the enemy catching him.”
“You’ve got Oto out of the way,” Sammy said. “But what about the two guards outside?”
“Do you think you can convince them to be treated for bone worms?” she asked.
“Have you treated those men before?”
“The small one had dysentery,” Louise told him. “He seems better now. The other one had a leg wound that I rebandaged.”
Sammy nodded. “That’s Yamaguchi. He got that in Sanduga. Shot by one of the injured men we left behind. The other one is Terasaki. He’s clever enough. But I think they’ll buy it—if you treated them already, that helps. What are you thinking?”
“I’ll bring the guards inside, set up a curtain like I did before to keep them separated from our boys, and put them under for a few minutes. We get Kozlowski, do the surgery. Then the guards wake up, congratulations, men, you’re cleansed of worms, and so on.”
“It could work,” Sammy said. He didn’t sound entirely convinced.
“That only solves the first problem,” Maria Elena said. “After that what do we do? How do we keep the lieutenant hidden?”
Yes, that was the rest of the puzzle, wasn’t it? Get the borders filled in, and the middle was still a jumble of pieces of various shapes and colors that Louise couldn’t yet arrange.
Sammy gave Maria Elena a quizzical look. “Hidden?”
“We have a roll call every morning and afternoon,” Maria Elena explained. “The building is guarded at all times. Maybe we get him in, but how do we get him out again? How do we keep him safe while he’s recovering? The Japanese inspect the building once a day, and there’s that young man who works with Mori. What about him?”
“Fujiwara,” Louise said. “I know what you mean. He’s a clever one, he watches and notices.”
“I have the answer to that part,” Sammy said. All eyes looked to him. “Kozlowski won’t be discovered, because you Americans have one advantage that we Japanese do not.” He smiled. “You all look the same, don’t you?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mori pored over a crude map by the light of a smoking oil lamp. The map was made by a clever Sakdal named Diego, a boy of sixteen or seventeen who had once worked for the Americans in Sanduga, hauling their goods, bringing them supplies. Then the work had dried up, and he approached the Japanese with valuable information.
Mori had added Diego and several other Filipinos to his collection of locals since marching into the mountains. Which was good, because he’d lost Sakdals to enemy gunfire. The other Filipinos grew jittery, but money and fear drove them forward.
Diego had worked as a cargador in Manila off and on since he was twelve, before the Japanese invasion sent him scurrying to his home village. He seemed to have developed an excellent sense of direction while working in the city. His map of the surrounding hills had proven accurate so far and helped locate the Americans and the handful of Filipino gunmen with them. In a few simple pen drawings, he’d identified hills, rivers, possible redoubts for the Americans, as well as the elaborate trail system through the mountains. He’d pointed to certain spots of the map and crossed his arms in an X, shaking his head.
Do not go there.
“Mountain people, sir,” he said in English. “Many, many mountain people, sir.”
“You mean the Negritos?”
“Amerikanos no go, Haponese no go, sir.” Diego traced a callused index finger along one of the trails on the map. “Here fight, sir. Here Amerikanos run, here Haponese find, sir.”
Diego’s English accent was light for a Filipino, which initially led Mori to believe he spoke better than he did. Mori also appreciated the respectful tone with which the boy ended every sentence. But the more he talked to Diego, the more he discovered a gap between what the boy thought he knew of English and what he could actually communicate.
“What do you mean? This is where we first located the enemy, or where we will find them now? And what about the ones we shot who escaped into the brush? Where are they? Or is that what you mean? Is this where they escaped?”
“Yes, sir.” Diego tapped his finger on the map. “Here, sir. Here Haponese go, sir.”
“When? Now? Or is that where we had the firefight earlier?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That is where we went, or where we should go?”
“Where you go, sir. Where you go, sir.”
Mori clenched his teeth. He thought he understood, but he wasn’t sure. There were two other Sakdals who might have translated for him, but they were off scrounging in the bush for the injured American who’d br
oken off from the others. Until they returned, he was left with Diego’s excellent map and wretched English.
“Captain Mori, sir?” a voice said in Japanese outside the door to the shack. Fujiwara.
“Come in,” he said, relieved to be free of the tortuous conversation. Fujiwara came in and bowed, and Mori waved Diego away. The young man trotted off.
“He seems bright enough until you try to get information from him,” Mori said.
“Do you want me to call him back, sir? I can try in Tagalog.”
“Never mind, I’ve got it.” Mori showed Fujiwara the hand-drawn map. “It seems clear enough. He’s saying the partisans are holed up here. See where the trail crosses the river? That’s above us, I think.”
Fujiwara bowed again but looked uncomfortable.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” Mori asked. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s Colonel Umeko, sir. One of his men called and demanded an immediate report.”
“Call him,” Mori said. “Explain the situation. I’ll be in direct contact in a few days.”
“You are to call him yourself, sir. Many apologies, but I believe he is angry. Shall I fetch the radio?”
Mori didn’t like the sound of this. “Go ahead, bring it in.”
Moments later Fujiwara was cranking the handle to provide power for the signal. One of the colonel’s adjutants responded, snapping at Mori to stay on the line while he fetched Umeko. Mori waited anxiously, sweat beading his forehead. Fujiwara sat next to him on the mat, lips held tightly together, expression worried.
“Mori,” the colonel growled at last.
“Yes, sir.”
“If this call mysteriously dies, I’ll have your head, do you understand?”
“I am confident it won’t, sir.”
He shot Fujiwara a look. Don’t stop cranking that handle!
“I want a report on your activities, and I want it now.”
“But, sir, I made contact in Cascadas. I’ve been sending—”
“You’ve been sending lies! Do that again and your next assignment will be as my official ass wiper. Do you understand me?”
The Year of Counting Souls Page 24
