“Can I help you?” the man said, his voice irritable.
“Sorry. I’m looking for my friend. His name is Billy Jamison. He’s a corporal in the 15th Marine Infantry. We got separated on the march. You haven’t seen anybody by that name, have you?” I asked.
“Yeah. Six Jamisons. Fourteen Tuckers and seven Smiths,” the man said sarcastically. “How in heck would I know? Most of these men ain’t even wearin’ dog tags, and about one hundred percent of ’em ain’t in any shape to talk. If your friend is here, all you’re doing is getting in our way. Let us do our jobs, and you can look for your friend later.”
“Sorry,” I said. I started to return to the barracks, and was just about to the end of the row when a hand shot out and grabbed my ankle.
“Tree?” the man croaked.
I stopped and glanced down at a face that hardly looked human. The nose was bent to the side, broken and twisted. One eye was completely swollen shut. His lips were split and bleeding.
“Jamison?” I said. “Is that you?”
I dropped to my knees next to Jams—kicking up a cloud of dust—and closely examined his injuries. The poor guy had been beaten until he was practically unrecognizable. For a moment, I was overcome with rage, wanting nothing more than to find whoever had done this to him and make them pay for it.
I gently touched his face, and Jamison winced. “Sorry, Jams,” I said, quickly pulling my hand away. “What happened? Are you all right?”
“I’m right as rain,” Jamison croaked. “I don’t s’pose you got a fresh cig, do ya? Be nice to have a smoke while I’m enjoyin’ this lovely tropical climate.”
“Dang it, Jamison, quit joking around and tell me what happened!”
“I got into a minor disagreement with three, maybe four members of the Imperial Japanese Army. They took a decidedly negative view of my complainin’ over their ungentlemanly treatment of some of my fellow servicemen. And the lot of ’em, well, they decided to kick me in the head, face, and other assorted intensely sensitive areas on my person.”
“You look awful.”
“Awful—” Jamison was interrupted by a phlegmy, racking cough that sounded horrible. I wondered if he had broken ribs. But when he caught his breath he was chuckling. “Believe me. That don’t come nowhere near close to describin’ how I feel.”
Jamison closed his one good eye and groaned in pain.
I took hold of his shoulders. “Jams! What’s wrong?” I looked around. “Corpsman! I need help here!” I shouted.
A medic tending to a soldier in the next row looked at me and shrugged. “You’re going to have to wait your turn, pal. As you can see, the waitin’ room is kind of full.”
I took hold of Jamison and cradled him in my arms. He shuddered and groaned in the throes of some kind of seizure. I tried grasping him tight against my chest to keep him from shaking. But then I grew afraid I’d squeeze too hard and hurt him worse. I gently laid Jamison back on the ground.
“Jams! I’ll be right back. I’m going to get Gunny. He’s got a canteen of water, and he’ll know what to do. I’ll be right back, I promise.”
Jamison said nothing. He was in the midst of whatever had overtaken him, twisting, writhing, and moaning on the ground. I was still banged up, and I moaned as I climbed to my feet. As fast as I was able, I scrambled back toward the barracks, where Gunny was waiting. I desperately wanted to run, but I was in far too much pain and my legs weren’t working right. I was still exhausted from the march. But I shuffled as fast as I could.
I spied Gunny right where I’d left him, eyes closed dozing against the wall. Just as I was about to call out, I tumbled to the ground. It took a brief moment to sink in, but then an excruciating pain in my shins traveled up my legs, and I writhed on the ground, screaming in agony. When the pain subsided and I could focus again, I glanced up to find a shadowy figure blocking out the sun. It was so bright I was unable to see the man’s face. Then I was roughly jerked to my feet.
A Japanese soldier stood facing me holding a wooden club. A scar traveled down his face from his forehead, across his eye, ending at his lip. When the man smiled at me, his teeth were chipped and crooked.
It was the same guard. Scarface. The one who had beaten me the day we surrendered. I could do nothing but watch as the man strengthened his grip on the club and raised it over his head. The blow connected, rocking me to my core and further injuring my already beat-up ribs.
I was about to cry out when the words Gunny said to me before the surrender flashed into my mind. About how things were going to get worse before all of this was over. How I would need to dig down deep to survive. It would be the hardest thing I’d ever done. But Gunny believed in me. He told me I was strong enough to endure what was coming.
And in that briefest of moments, I swallowed the cry in my throat. All that escaped was a small grunt. The Japanese guard looked down at me and sneered. He clearly remembered who I was. With another vicious smile he raised his club and reared back again. It whistled through the air, connecting with the back of my shoulders like a baseball bat hitting a side of beef.
The blow drove me to my hands and knees. The pain was excruciating, but though I desperately wanted to cry out in pain, I refused to let any noise escape. The guard watched, waiting to see what I would do next. I gathered myself and slowly, with great effort, climbed to my feet. I kept my face calm and expressionless.
“Is that all you got?” I asked. Taunting him helped give me something to focus on. It stopped me from giving in to the agony.
The guard stared at me, his eyes narrowed.
“Is that all you got?” I repeated, louder this time.
The guard drove the butt of his stick into my stomach. The force of the blow doubled me over, and I felt the vomit rising in my throat. But I choked it back down. Survive it, Tree.
Slowly, I stood up straight. Forced myself to stay calm. I glared back at the guard, and then I smiled. My lips were swollen and bloody, and I imagined I looked like an evil clown.
“I’m going to get help for my friend,” I said. “You can beat me all you want. It won’t stop me.” I took a step around the guard and collapsed in the dust again when the club connected with the back of my knees. I fell face forward into the dirt. Don’t cry out. Don’t make a sound. I demanded it of myself. I kept the thoughts running through my mind, refusing to think of anything else.
Slowly, purposefully, I placed my hands on the ground. One knee at a time, I rose up. With all of my strength I stood. The guard’s expression had changed. He stared at me with a face cloaked in curiosity. As if he couldn’t figure me out. Why was this Yank not succumbing to his punishment? Why was he not cowering in fear?
“All right, Scarface,” I said. “You want to belt me again, go ahead. You hit like a girl anyway.”
Though he didn’t speak English, the guard understood that he was being challenged or insulted. The idea that I would attempt to take the power away from him was more than he could tolerate.
With both hands on the club, he wound up to deliver a crushing blow. I braced for the collision. No matter how bad it hurts, don’t show anything. Don’t. Show. Anything, I told myself.
A loud shout in Japanese brought the guard to an immediate halt. I turned to see a Japanese officer issuing some kind of order. Apparently the guard was needed somewhere else, and they both ran off together.
I let out a sigh of relief. I’ll see you later, Scarface. I’ll definitely see you later.
Slower and bent slightly with fresh pain, I shuffled off to get Gunny.
It took every bit of strength we had, but Gunny and I finally managed to carry Jamison to our spot in the barracks. The seizure or whatever it was had passed, but Jams was still in bad shape. Gunny got him to drink a few sips of water from the canteen. He ripped a piece off his blouse, soaked it in water, and dabbed at the cuts on Jamison’s face.
“Ow,” Jamison yelled, the pain bringing him back to a level of semiconsciousness. “Why sure, Gunny, that don’t hurt at all
. Not even a tiny little bit. Where’d you learn your first aid? Did you even read the field manual?”
“Shut yer trap, Corporal Jamison. Yer lucky I don’t give you a worse beatin’. What were you thinkin’? Takin’ on three Japanese soldiers … ”
“I guess you could say I wasn’t thinkin’. Not with a clear head anyhow. Last thing I remember is three of ’em using their bayonets, makin’ a pincushion out of this infantryman in the rank ahead of me as we were marchin’. It was sick is what it was. They kept stabbin’ him and he kept bleedin’, but they weren’t stickin’ him anywhere that’d kill him. It was like they wanted to see how long they could make him bleed and how much pain they could cause. He kept beggin’ ’em to stop, but they wouldn’t. They were laughin’. I think it was the most gruesome thing I ever seen. He was screamin’, and it finally got to the point where he couldn’t walk. He fell down in the dirt, and I knew they were going to kill him. That’s when I politely asked them to refrain from murdering my brother-in-arms. One of them rushed me. I think I got in a couple of pretty good licks at first. But the next thing I know, they’d pushed me down, and all three of ’em were practicin’ their karate or judo or whatever you call it, in the general vicinity of my head. Next thing I remember, old Tree here was walkin’ by.”
“Jamison, yer lucky to be alive,” Gunny muttered. “I give ya marks, Corporal. Yer one tough hombre and stubborn as a mule. But just as stupid. We ain’t gonna live through this if we keep provokin’ them guards.”
“I don’t know, Gunny,” Jamison said. “Provokin’ people is about the only talent I got.” He coughed again and winced, holding his ribs.
Gunny probed Jamison’s ribs with his fingers.
“Ow,” Jamison winced. “Gunny, I know you mean well, an’ please don’t take this the wrong way, but you really need to brush up on your doctorin’ skills.”
“Probably got yer ribs busted,” Gunny said, ignoring Jamison’s jibe. “Tree, give me yer T-shirt.”
I pulled my sweaty blouse over my head. Gunny ripped it into a long strip.
“I’m gonna have to wrap yer ribs, and it’s gonna hurt like you just stuck yer head in a hornet’s nest. Tree’ll hold up yer arms.”
As gently as I could, I lifted Jamison’s arms over his shoulders. Jamison tried not to groan and failed. Gunny wrapped the shirt around his ribs. When he pulled it tight and tied it off, the corporal nearly passed out and would have collapsed to the ground if I hadn’t been holding him.
Jamison put his head back against the rough wood wall. He took ragged, shallow breaths. “Whoo boy,” he said when he finally regained his senses. “Now that was an absolute delight.” Gunny handed him the canteen, and Jamison took a small sip.
“What are we going to do?” I asked Gunny. “I mean, look around. This camp is packed with prisoners. There aren’t any supplies or food and barely any water. And men are dying right and left.” I pointed to where the wounded lay. Many of them had been covered with sheets, too injured to survive their wounds. A Japanese guard with a machine gun was ordering prisoners to carry the dead men away. Off in the distance, other guards had captives digging graves.
“I told ya, Tree. I don’t know. I suspect they ain’t all organized yet. Probably didn’t expect to have this many of us make it this far. But both of ya listen to me. Right now they got all the power. So the plan is, we keep us a low profile. Once Jams is back on his feet, we’ll take turns standin’ in the water line and keepin’ the canteen filled. Until then me and Tree’ll be swappin’ turns. We’ll share water until they issue us mess kits or rations or somethin’. Right now, I think we all should just stay here and get some rest.”
Gunny and I sat down on either side of Jamison. The sun was moving through the sky and twilight was coming. There were men everywhere. Barracks were packed full to bursting, and any piece of open ground outside was occupied. Before long the humidity was pressing down on us again, and the heat was unbearable. But we were all exhausted and let ourselves doze.
A few hours later I jerked awake. It was dark now, and the moon was just above the horizon in the east. My muscles ached and I was stiff as a statue. I touched my jaw with my fingers. The swelling had gone down, but it still throbbed. I had to stand and work out some of the soreness. With a grunt I pulled myself up. Gunny and Jamison were still sleeping, and I made sure not to disturb them.
Slowly, I shuffled through the camp. What I saw was an army, thousands of men in various stages of distress. Rations and supplies had already been limited before we surrendered. At that point men were already starving. The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service had control of the skies, so there were no supply drops. Some of the Filipino scouts had gone hunting and fishing for strange creatures that I didn’t really want to think about but ate anyway.
The longer we held out, the worse it got. Then had come the march. Everyone had suffered, and many had died. Still more were dying now. As I walked I noticed the hundreds if not thousands of members of the Filipino Regular Army who remained in the camp. They were poorly trained, underequipped, and unreliable; some of them had slipped away into the jungle when the invasion began. I couldn’t really blame them. Many were drafted right out of the cities and villages. Given little training and poor weapons, they gave up and deserted before things got noisy. I’ll bet they never figured they’d end up here.
But the Filipino scouts who’d been assigned to work under our American forces were a different story. They were some of the toughest men I’d ever met. They stuck with us and fought hard. All of them knew the jungle and how to survive in it. And I believe they hated the Japanese as much as the Japanese hated Americans. The scouts were fierce and loyal and were determined to stay with their American allies. These seasoned warriors huddled together and glared at the guards with hatred in their eyes.
As I walked the compound, it buoyed my spirits to know that some of them had not only survived but also stuck with us. I was glad they had made it this far, but couldn’t help wondering what horrors captivity might bring for them.
I hobbled about and discovered that it was not only American soldiers and Marines or Filipino scouts in the camp. There were British, Dutch, and Australian forces as well. Most of them tended to group together, and I supposed that made sense. When things got horrible, people tended to seek out their own countrymen, I guessed.
As I passed by a barracks full of Australians, I saw a Japanese guard beating an Australian who knelt on the ground before him. The Japanese guard was a small man—the Aussie looked like a giant by comparison, even on his knees. The guard held a thick wooden stick, and with a two-handed swing he clubbed the Australian in the back.
“Hah!” the man shouted as the blow landed.
“That’s right, mate!” one of the men inside the barracks shouted. “You can take it, Marty! Tell him to take another crack!”
The guard swung again, and the club connected with a sickening thud on the big Australian’s shoulders.
“Nothing! Didn’t feel a thing! Was that a fly just landed on me back by any chance? You’re gonna have to swing harder than that to lay a mark on this thick hide, mate!” the man shouted.
I was transfixed. The blows had to hurt. But the Australian was refusing to give the guard the slightest glimmer of satisfaction. He swung again. Another blow landed, and this time the Australians in the barracks cheered, “You show him, Marty!” The man—apparently named Marty—laughed from his knees.
The guard was confused. He stared at the men in the barracks, puzzled and angry. He shouted at them in Japanese, but they just kept laughing.
I smiled. This time the guard swung so hard the club broke on the Australian’s broad back. Welts had opened on Marty’s skin and he was bleeding, but he refused to show pain. This brought cries and shouts of delight from the men in the barracks. They all hooted.
“Attaboy, Marty,” one of them said. “Show him what an Aussie’s made of.”
“Tougher stuff than that puny guard, Willy,” anothe
r one of them shouted. That brought a round of uproarious laughter from the men in the barracks. It also enraged the guard. He tossed away the broken club. Pulling a small sword from his belt, he shouted again, grabbing Marty by the hair. He raised the sword over his head.
“No!” I shouted. The guard and the Aussie were only a few feet away. My muscles were still stiff, but I charged forward and tackled the guard, the two of us tumbling into the dirt. The Australians gave a shout and catapulted out of the barracks. It only took seconds before I lost track of what was happening. All I could see were legs and feet. I was too weak to hold off the guard for long, and the man flipped me over and sat astride my chest. He punched me twice in the face before two of the Australians pulled him off, the two of them twisting the man into the dirt and kicking and hitting him repeatedly.
There was shouting and chaos and more punches as other guards rushed in. Then everyone froze when several pistol shots rang out. I looked up from the ground to see Major Sato marching toward us.
“Enough!” he shouted. “Enough!” He issued several commands in Japanese and the guards grabbed the Australians, shoving them back into the barracks. I rolled over and tried rising to my feet, but I was in pain and it was slow going. Someone grabbed me and roughly jerked me to my feet.
I found myself face-to-face with Scarface. The jagged, lined mug and crooked teeth smiled at me, and I thought right then that I had never seen anything look so evil.
The last thing I remembered was something hard hitting me in the back of the head.
When I came to, I was lying on my side, curled up in a fetal position and completely disoriented. Something was terribly wrong. I tried sitting up, but I banged my head on something metal and collapsed with a groan. The pain in my legs and lower back was all-consuming. I tried to straighten out, but something was in my way. One of my eyes was swollen shut, but when I opened the other one I discovered I was inside some type of cage.
Slowly I remembered the Australian about to be stabbed by the Japanese guard and then not much after that. That seemed to be happening to me regularly. I saw dirt on the ground beneath me and could feel the sun above. I must have been unconscious for quite a while. When I’d left Gunny and Jamison to explore the camp it had been dark.
Prisoner of War Page 6
