After the Fall

by Lisa Bingham

  Before he could say anything more, a low drone filled the air, becoming louder and louder, until the earth vibrated with the noise. Looking up, John saw a wall of aircraft on the horizon.

  Esteban crossed himself.

  John, motioned for the men to leave. “Go! Now! Forget about the machinery. Get your families to safety before all hell breaks loose.”

  “Where do you think they’re going, boss?”

  John squinted up into the sky, then toward the south. “The American bases. Clark Field. Stotsenberg.”

  Esteban crossed himself again. “Lord help them,” he whispered.

  John began to stride determinedly toward the house. “Lord help us all,” he muttered under his breath.

  • • •

  By noon, the planes had been recalled for refueling. From the tower, Gilhouley watched as, one by one, they bounced onto the runway and taxied out of the way, lining up so that the tanker trucks and ground crews could swarm over them. Apparently taking shifts, some of the pilots headed toward the mess hall while others returned to wait in the dispersal huts.

  The tower fairly crackled with nerves and anticipation, taking on the acrid smell of sweat mingling with cigarette smoke and the all too real tang of fear, until Gilhouley’s head swam with it.

  Needing some fresh air to clear his thoughts, he volunteered to go with Suznovich to the chow line and collect sandwiches for the men who stayed behind.

  “Head on out, I’ll catch up with you,” Suznovich called out.

  “Fine.”

  As he took the stairs that circled around the outside of the building, Gilhouley glanced at his watch. It was a little past twelve o’clock. Under normal circumstances the workday would be winding down. Because of the heat, the Army bases had a five-hour workday—from seven in the morning until noon. After that, soldiers would head for the beach to surf or into town for cold beers. The brass would make their way to the officers’ club along the coast or to the polo fields. At Stotsenberg, there was a theater, pool, or golf course, or a person could catch a train to Manila.

  But today, no one was leaving. As he reached the tarmac and began striding toward the mess hall, Gilhouley shifted his shoulders against the prickling frisson of nerves that started at the base of his spine and crept up, up, until the hairs at his nape stood on end.

  Suddenly, he stopped, not knowing what had raised his hackles. A low drone, like the angry buzz of hornets bled into the chaos of the air base. Squinting against the fierce sunlight, he held a hand up to shade his eyes, catching the distant shapes of planes flying in formation.

  From what he’d remembered, Clark Field had brought in all of its airplanes for refueling. But Suznovich had said that there were other aircraft from bases throughout the Philippines that were still patrolling the area. As the craft drew closer, the sun glinted off the shiny silver of their skin. More P-40’s perhaps? Newer ones that hadn’t received their U.S. markings?

  The planes were flying in a strict V-formation, growing larger and louder, rushing toward the airfield with frantic speed. Frowning, Gilhouley noted that something was falling from the planes, a twinkling metallic confetti that spun and drifted down toward the ground.

  Too late, Gilhouley realized what he was witnessing. He tried to turn, tried to head for cover as the first blast threw him into the air. He landed with a thud against the tower walls as everything around him grew silent and black and slow. Fading…fading…

  Fighting the sensation, he clawed his way back to awareness, pushing away the need to sink into unconsciousness, knowing that if he did, he would be defenseless against the onslaught around him.

  The ground was heaving, dirt and debris pelting him like hail. Gilhouley shook his head, then rued the movement when his brain slammed against his skull. Bit by bit, the tinny ringing in his ears subsided and the thundering noises of the attack assaulted him full force.

  Fighting to breathe against the stench of smoke and burning fuel, he dragged himself to the stairs and clawed his way to his knees, his feet. Staggering forward, he fought to gather his bearings in a world that was suddenly alien to him. Huge holes pockmarked the runway. Outbuildings and hangers were on fire. Men raced frantically toward planes that were yet undamaged, while other machines lay like crippled starlings that had been torn asunder.

  Horrified, he realized that it wasn’t just the equipment that had been blown to bits. His eyes fell on a figure a few feet away. Gorge rose in his throat as he saw the mangled torso, curiously devoid of its legs and one arm. Leaning over, he threw up as he realized that the body was all that was left of Burt Suznovich.

  “Hey! Help me! Help!”

  Looking wildly for the source of the voice, Gilhouley finally saw a figure sitting with his back against the side of a nearby hanger.

  Gilhouley ran toward him, shuddering to a stop when he saw that the man’s leg was a bloody unrecognizable mass.

  Pushing aside his horror, Gilhouley unhooked his belt and knelt beside him, wrapping the leather strap around his upper thigh. “Hold on, I’ve got you.”

  The man gripped at him with bloody fingers. “Patch me up as best you can. I’ve gotta get to my plane.”

  Startled, Gilhouley didn’t know what to say. God himself couldn’t have put the mangled mess back together. He squeezed the man’s shoulder reassuringly, then looped the belt through the buckle and pulled the leather strap as tight as he could before wrapping it around again.

  Another bomb landed nearby, causing the ground to shudder. Debris flew through the air, and Gilhouley bent over the wounded man, trying to shield him as scraps of metal, rocks, and chunks of asphalt whistled through the air. A few yards away, a plane fought its way down the runway, trying to gain speed even as it avoided the larger craters. But just as it was about to lunge off the ground, a round of strafing caused it to erupt into a fireball.

  Gilhouley flattened himself against the pilot as a piece of the propeller whipped through the air like a deadly boomerang, slicing through the sheet metal walls of the hanger.

  From somewhere in the distance, Gilhouley heard the clang of alarms, then the sweet, sweet sound of ambulances in the distance.

  “We’ve got to get you out of here,” Gilhouley said. “If I help, do you think you can stand?”

  The man gritted his jaw, his teeth flashing white against the black soot coating his face. His nod was curt.

  Bending low, Gilhouley wrapped the pilot’s arm around his shoulders and hauled him upright. Trying to take as much of the man’s weight as he could, he half-walked, half-carried him away from the runway toward a transport truck being loaded with wounded.

  “You, there!”

  Gilhouley straightened to see a man kneeling over a prostrate figure further into the truck. He wore what had probably once been a white lab coat, but it was now covered with blood and soot and gore. “I need you here. Right now!”

  Gilhouley climbed into the truck, weaving his way among the wounded to crouch beside him.

  “Give me your hand.”

  Confused, Gilhouley reached out.

  The doctor took his fingers and yanked them toward the neck of the soldier at their feet. Before Gilhouley knew what the doctor meant for him to do, he pressed his fingers deep into a gash that was spurting blood.

  “Press down here, tight as you can!”

  Then the doctor was gone, leaving Gilhouley amid a jumble of men with broken bones and gashes as well as those who hovered near death.

  The chaos outside was so loud that Gilhouley didn’t realize the truck’s engine had rumbled to life until a jolt signaled that they were underway. Bending even closer to the man whose pulse he could feel knocking against his fingertips, he met the soldier’s wide-eyed stare. Gilhouley had seen that look of abject terror before, on a horse that had broken its leg after stepping in a gopher hole.

  Crouching low, he murmured, “You’ll be fine. You’ll see. It’s only a few miles back to the hospital in Stotsenberg. They’ll fix you up good as new
.”

  But the wide-eyed stare of the soldier didn’t abate. Clearly he didn’t believe Gilhouley.

  And Gilhouley couldn’t blame him.

  • • •

  Rosemary was pulling supplies from the infirmary when an explosion nearly rocked her from her feet. Gripping the medical cabinet, she scrambled to keep the bottles from rattling off the shelves as another bomb hit, then another, and another. Finally, she grabbed a nearby basin and scooped the vials of morphine into a shivering pile, then slammed the door closed, not bothering to lock it. If they received the flood of wounded she was anticipating, she didn’t want anyone needing to search for the key.

  She ran to the main ward, just as the doors opened and the first wave of men began to stream in.

  At first, the injuries were not serious—cuts, scrapes, burns, a broken arm. But even as she and her nurses began scrambling to help the doctors who had arrived only moments before, the ambulances began to disgorge the more dire patients. In less time than she would have thought possible, the hospital took on the grim hellishness of shattered limbs, gaping wounds, and death.

  “Dodd! Take some of your nurses outside and set up triage! I don’t want anything but the most critical cases in here until we can get a system going.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Triage. In her twenty years of nursing, Rosemary had never been asked to put the skill to use.

  Signaling to three of the new nurses who stood wide-eyed next to the door, she motioned for them to follow her outside.

  “We’ll set up on the lawn under the trees over here,” she said, ignoring the roar of planes flying overhead. She didn’t even have time to see if they were from the base or something far more sinister.

  The ratcheting sound of strafing caused them all to dive to the ground, but the bullets hit on the street and not on the grass.

  Scrambling back to her feet, Rosemary motioned for the corpsman to bring the patients to her rather than into the hospital. “I want the three of you to sort the wounded according to the gravity of their conditions. Put anyone who’s still ambulatory here, next to the hospital, where they can help us with the incoming injuries. Those who can wait but can’t walk go there, in that shady patch. Those needing immediate attention will be here, near the side door. Arrange them according to severity as much as you can.” She hesitated before saying soberly, “Those who are mortally injured need to be taken over there, beneath the acacia trees to the rear.”

  To their credit, the women she’d chosen shook off their shock, one of them bellowing instructions like a drill sergeant as all manner of vehicles began converging on the hospital—Jeeps, ambulances, farm trucks, and even a motorcycle with a side car laden with a pair of burn victims.

  For a moment, Rosemary stood stock still at the base of the stairs, unable to take in the horrific scene. But then an explosion from somewhere near the parade grounds roused her from her stupor and she hurried back inside, knowing she couldn’t stop, couldn’t think. She could only try to stem the tide of suffering and help as many as she could.

  Her morning soon became a hazy blur of blood and carnage, shattered limbs and men’s screams. With so many needing attention, she ordered one of the nurses to fill a pail with water and morphine to distribute the painkiller more efficiently to the wounded. Another group was assigned the task of ripping up towels and filling buckets of water so that they could attempt to wipe away the debris from those who’d been blinded when they’d dived into earthen trenches, only to be pummeled by the shockwave of the blasts.

  Finally, delegating her authority to Alice, she paired up with Dr. Grimm in one of the surgical rooms. Soon, she was witnessing trauma that she’d only ever read about in books—ruptured spleens, decimated limbs, severed arteries. As if the force of the bombs and shrapnel weren’t bad enough, pulverized bones had become a weapon of their own, driving into men’s bodies like shards of glass. And with each soldier, there seemed to be an invisible clock ticking over Rosemary’s head, warning her that time was precious and dozens of men still awaited attention.

  Try as she might to retain her humanity, Rosemary’s body and her mind soon became numb. She worked by rote, experience, and gut instinct, refusing to allow herself to think about the dead and dying, the ruined lives.

  But, when a nearby blast caused her to throw herself over her patient’s body and squeeze her eyes closed, for an instant, one fleeting instant, her mind flashed back to Gilhouley’s arms, his kisses, the warmth of his body driving into hers…

  May God forgive her for that selfish second when she prayed that last night’s brief interlude of happiness wouldn’t be their last.

  • • •

  “Get up!”

  Glory Bee had barely processed the harsh command before the covers were stripped away and a rough hand shook her shoulder.

  She came up swinging, but by the time she opened her eyes and squinted up at John Macklin, he was already striding toward the opposite side of the room.

  Her fury was instantaneous. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He ignored her, taking her largest suitcase from where it stood, still packed, near the door to the closet. He punched the locks open, then upended the case, dumping everything in a heap on the ground.

  “Hey!”

  He looked at her then, his eyes dark and so cold, so singularly focused on his own goals, that she shrank back against the headboard, scrambling to tug the sheet up to her chin. Then, he turned to the smaller case she’d left open on the chair, upended it as well, and threw the suitcase onto the foot of the bed.

  “Get dressed. Now. You need practical clothes—trousers if you have them—and sturdy shoes. We might be forced to do some walking.”

  Her mouth opened in stunned disbelief. “Now look here…I don’t know what’s come over you since last night, but—”

  He continued on as if she hadn’t spoken. “As soon as you’re dressed, I want you to take the larger case downstairs and fill it with food from the larder. Tinned goods are best, since they’ll keep as long as we need them. Get as much as you can, and don’t forget an opener—”

  “Stop!” she interjected forcefully, flinging the covers aside to spring from the bed and advance toward him, unable to contain her anger any longer.

  John took her hand, dragging her to the window, where he flung the curtain aside and pointed. “Do you see that?”

  “What is it?” she whispered when she saw roiling plumes of inky black smoke boiling into a pristine blue sky. From somewhere came the distant boom of thunder—or maybe it was fireworks.

  John was standing so close to her, she could feel the tension radiating from him in shivering waves.

  “If I were to guess, that’s what’s left of Stotsenberg and Clark Field.”

  She stared at him in horror. “But…”

  “The Japanese bombed one of the naval yards in Hawaii. Now, they’ve come here.”

  Glory Bee’s stomach dropped so suddenly that her teeth suddenly pounded with the thrum of her own heart.

  “All those boys…”

  Instantly, she remembered the raucous servicemen that she’d entertained. In her mind’s eye, she could see them tumbling up to the stage in an effort to catch a glove, a stocking, diving for the discarded items like puppies scrambling for table scraps. Their exuberance had been infectious, exhilarating.

  How many of them now lay hurt, bleeding?

  “The Army will take care of their own,” John said softly, drawing her back to the dangers at hand. “But we’ve got to head somewhere safer. Wilmot has a hunting lodge in the hills. We’ll stay there for the duration. I doubt the Japanese will head that way.”

  He pointed to the empty suitcases. “Fill the small one with clothes,” he said, more gently than the first time he’d issued his orders. “Bring only the necessities. With luck, American reinforcements should arrive in a couple of weeks and drive the Japanese out of Luzon.”

  “A couple of weeks?” she echoed
faintly. “But…”

  Sensing her confusion, he held her shoulders, bending until she looked him straight in the eye. She could see the absolute need he had to make her understand the gravity of his concern.

  “The Japanese won’t be content with a few air raids. They will launch a land invasion—today, tomorrow, who knows. When they do, the Americans won’t be able to hold them for long. Not with the contingent they have on the island. They’ll retreat to Manila and send for reinforcements, but until then, we have to take care of ourselves.”

  She frowned. As much as she wanted to process what he was saying, her brain lagged behind like a phonograph needle stuck in a scratch.

  “But they’ll have reinforcements soon. They can hold Manila until then, can’t they?”

  John straightened again. “Not if their air fleet has been severely damaged.”

  Her gaze ricocheted to the smoke in the distance, then back to John, whose eyes had turned from brown to black.

  “B-but h-how can you know all this? I-I mean, the Army has probably planned for this. I’m sure they have measures in place to protect…American civilians…and…”

  He didn’t answer, merely backed away.

  Glory Bee’s arms crossed protectively in front of her, her palms gripping the warmth left by his hands moments before.

  “Ten minutes,” he said sternly, quietly. “You have ten minutes to pack your things. We leave in twenty.”

  She nodded, jerkily, feeling suddenly numb and clumsy.

  Sensing her compliance, John turned and disappeared down the hall. And even though she knew that she should hurry, Glory Bee couldn’t keep from turning to look out of the window at the billowing black smoke staining the sky.