by Dean Hughes
Afton slipped off the bench and sat on the grass, apparently tired of obstructing the view.
Richard said, “I want to be educated. I only worried about getting my degree when I was in college. But I’ve started to think about . . . things. I want to see what other people think.”
“And feel?”
“Sure.”
“One of my professors used to say that people read novels to find out where we fit in the universe.”
Richard was still watching Bobbi closely, as though he thought he would understand more from her face than from her words. “Do you feel that way? Like you don’t know where you fit?”
“Not exactly. But when I make a connection—in a book, or with a person, I realize how much I long for deeper relationships.”
Richard finally looked away. “I’ve never been very good at making those kinds of connections. I don’t understand much about myself—so how am I supposed to explain my feelings to someone else?”
“Sometimes, that’s how it happens. You start talking, comparing—and you see yourself for the first time.”
Richard nodded. “Maybe so. But it seems strange to me. Aboard ship, men talk philosophy at times. But they never make it personal.”
“That’s what I dislike about most men. They’re so afraid to admit they feel anything.”
Richard didn’t say anything for a time, but he seemed to be thinking, looking for the words he wanted to say.
Suddenly Afton stood up. “You know, I think I’m going to go for a walk on the beach—see if I can find some shells, or—”
Bobbi laughed. “No, Afton. Don’t go. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. But you know—three can be a crowd.”
Bobbi saw Richard flinch, and she felt herself blushing again. She couldn’t think of anything to say.
“So, anyway, I think I’ll just—”
But Richard stood up. “Why don’t we all walk a little?”
“No, no,” Afton said. “Tell Bobbi how you feel about things, and . . . all that stuff.”
Richard smiled, and he suddenly looked like a little boy caught doing something wrong. “Afton, what you don’t know is that you just saved me. You two were about to find out that I’m nothing more than a military man and an engineer. I’m one of those guys Bobbi can’t stand—who has no idea what he thinks, or what he feels.”
Afton assured him that wasn’t the case, but Bobbi decided it was time to keep her mouth shut. The truth was, Bobbi wasn’t so sure he was wrong. He was very nice to look at, but she really didn’t know whether he and she had anything to share. He certainly wasn’t David Stinson.
That night, though, when Bobbi lay in bed, she couldn’t stop thinking about Richard, and she kept remembering him saying that he wanted to be educated; that he wanted to read good books. That certainly seemed a good sign. And she remembered what he had said about the Japanese soldiers. He had thought a great deal about that—and felt, too—and he hadn’t been afraid to say so.
On the following Sunday Richard was at church again. He came in the morning for priesthood meeting and then stayed for Sunday School. But instead of going to the adult class, he poked his head into Bobbi’s classroom and said, “Could you use some help?”
Bobbi laughed. “I’ll say. These are tough kids to handle.”
“Oh, sure. I can see that.”
There was only one large chair in the room, and Bobbi was using it. Richard walked to one of the little chairs and took a good look at it, as though he were wondering whether he could make it work. “Here, take mine,” Bobbi said. “I think I can do better in the little one than you can.”
“No, that’s—”
But Bobbi pushed her chair toward him and laughed. “Those legs of yours are just too long,” she said.
Richard looked down at the kids. “My legs are long enough to reach the floor,” he said. “And that’s exactly the right length, if you ask me.” The kids laughed, although Bobbi was not entirely sure they understood his joke.
After class, Bobbi walked to the foyer with Richard, and they waited for Afton. When Afton appeared, she beamed. “I see you two found each other,” she said.
“He came in and helped me with my class,” Bobbi said. “The kids loved him.”
“Who doesn’t? Golly, Richard, why do you like Bobbi more than me? The first time I saw you, I said how cute you were. Bobbi just said you weren’t her type.”
Bobbi looked directly at the floor. “Afton, you don’t have to reveal everything, all the time,” she said.
“I know. I’m sorry. My dad always says I should shut the gate before the cows get out. But my cows are track stars. They get out before I remember there is a gate.”
“My best bet is to change the subject,” Richard said.
Bobbi told him, “Good idea.”
“What are you two doing for lunch?” Richard asked.
“We brought our lunch with us,” Afton said. “And I noticed that Bobbi packed more sandwiches than the two of us could ever eat. I’m not sure why she did that.”
“Maybe that’s how she picks up sailors. She carries extra food.”
“I prefer Marines,” Bobbi said. “They’re more manly.”
Richard rolled his eyes, but he let the little insult go. “I have to be back to my ship in less than two hours,” he said, “so I don’t have a lot of time.”
Just then Bobbi saw Sister Aoki, with Lily. “Oh, hi,” she said.
Sister Aoki walked across the foyer to them. “Lily told me a handsome man in white clothes came to her class today. I thought maybe a prophet of old had appeared. But now I see who it was. Hello, Brother Hammond.”
Richard nodded and shook hands, but he didn’t say anything.
“I’m Ishi Aoki. You met my daughter.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Well, anyway, Lily thinks you’re handsome in your uniform.” She looked down at Lily, who pushed her face against her mother’s leg.
“Hey, watch it, Lily,” Afton said, and she gave the little girl a nudge. “Bobbi has first dibs on him.”
Bobbi shook her head and laughed, but when she glanced at Richard, he was looking surprisingly serious. He had taken a step away.
“Why don’t all three of you come to dinner with Lily and me next Sunday?” Sister Aoki said.
“I’m not likely to have Sunday off again next week,” Richard said, “but thanks.”
“We’ll come,” Afton said, and Bobbi nodded.
“Well then, we’ll plan on you girls, and Lily will have to wait for the man in white clothes to come some other time.”
Richard nodded, but he said nothing.
Bobbi retrieved her picnic basket from a corner where she had left it, and she was quite forceful about getting out the door—without hugging everyone. She knew Richard didn’t have much time. At the corner, the three of them caught the bus to the Palace park.
Bobbi found herself wishing that Afton might find something else to do one of these Sundays so Bobbi would have a chance to get to know Richard better—without all of Afton’s joking. But Richard had never suggested the possibility of a date or a visit during the week. In fact, except for the way he looked at her sometimes, Bobbi saw no clear sign that he was interested in anything more than having friends he could spend a little time with. Bobbi wondered whether he had a girlfriend at home, maybe even a fiancée.
At lunch, the conversation turned toward home again. Afton talked about her family, and she laughed about her sheltered childhood. Then she said, “I’ve learned a lot of things by coming over here. I didn’t think I could ever be friends with Ishi—you know, because she’s Japanese. But Bobbi and I just love her now. She invites us over for dinner all the time.”
Richard offered no response.
Afton waited for a time, and then she said, “Richard, you don’t want to go to Sister Aoki’s, do you?”
Richard looked at the grass, not at Afton. “No, I’d rather not,” he finally sai
d.
“Do you know that her husband is in the 100th Regiment that got sent to the mainland for training? Everyone in the regiment is AJA, and they’re going into battle—for us.”
“I do know about that unit. I didn’t know he was in it.”
“Sister Aoki is the nicest person in the world. Can’t you forget the color of her skin? I didn’t think I could, but I did.”
It was a bad moment. Richard looked away. No one spoke for quite some time.
“I know we’re fighting the Japanese,” Afton finally said, “and maybe it’s different for someone actually out there—”
“Afton, anything I say is going to sound wrong. I have nothing against Sister Aoki, but right now, I just can’t sit down to eat with her. I don’t know any way to explain that to you.”
Richard’s face was expressionless, as though he were working very hard to hide what he was feeling. Bobbi didn’t think he was hateful or bitter, but she found herself thinking that she might never really get to know him. He was hiding things away.
Chapter 13
During the winter and spring Wally’s strength had continued to build. It was May now, and he had begun to receive work assignments. Some days he unloaded ships at the Manila docks, or loaded boxcars at the train station. These were good details since he could sometimes scrounge a little food. One day he hauled canned peaches that had been left behind when the American troops had moved into Bataan. Now he finally got his share. He and the other men opened cans when guards weren’t watching, and they ate their fill—enough so that Wally was sick of peaches before the day was over.
But it had been a glorious day, with so much to eat, and the vitamins had to be good for him. The best thing was, the men had been able to eat on the spot and not take the chance of smuggling cans back into Bilibid. Anyone caught with contraband was beaten, at best. If the guards were in a sadistic mood, they would make an apprehended prisoner stand at attention in the sun for hours, or they would force a man to hold his arms out wide and not drop them. When the pain became so terrible that he let his arms come down a little, the guards would beat him until he forced them back up.
One afternoon a group of prisoners was brought in through the front gate. They seemed in decent shape, much better than the usual walking skeletons or bloated beriberi victims who normally arrived. As it turned out, the group was only stopping for the night. They were from a camp near the town of Cabanatuaan, north of Manila, and they were on their way to a work detail in southern Luzon.
Prisoners were always hungry for information, and so that evening the Bilibid POWs gathered around in groups with the men from Cabanatuaan, and they shared what they knew. Wally had spotted a man he thought he remembered. “Weren’t you in O’Donnell?” he asked him.
“Yeah. In the beginning. My name’s Wendell Paxton.”
“Wally Thomas.” The two shook hands. “I was there for a while too. When did you get moved?”
“Last year. In May. They closed up O’Donnell and sent all of us who could travel up to Cabanatuaan. The ones who couldn’t travel, the Japs just left to die.”
Wally told him about the Tayabas work detail, and Wendell remembered the day the group had left. “I had a buddy on that detail. Atterly. Did you know him?”
“Sure. He lasted a long time, but he got worn down with malaria, and then he got dysentery. He died toward the end.”
Wendell swore. “I wish I could kill just one lousy Jap for every one of us they’ve starved to death.”
“The guards out there in Tayabas were bad,” Wally said. “They worked most of the men to death, and they knew they were doing it. They didn’t care.”
“None of these Nips care,” Wendell said.
The prisoner next to Wendell used some foul language to curse the guards, and then he said, “Sometimes I dream about strangling those guys to death—one after another. Just squeezing until their eyes bug out.”
Wally didn’t particularly like the image—but mainly because it reminded him of some of the ugliness he was storing inside himself. “Actually, you guys look pretty good,” Wally said. “It must not be so bad up where you’ve been.” He squatted down by the men. Three of the visitors were sitting in a line, leaning against the building. Their clothes were shabby, but they had more flesh on them than the Bilibid prisoners did.
“Yeah. We were just telling these guys, Cabanatuaan ain’t half so bad as O’Donnell was. The Japs have a big vegetable garden up there. They keep everything clean.”
“So do you eat pretty well?”
Wendell laughed. “Not really. The Japs ship all those vegetables out to their own troops. They might stick a little chunk of sweet potato in your rice at night, but they serve that runny rice water for breakfast, and more rice for supper—the same as they did at O’Donnell. The only difference is, once in a while you can grab a turnip or a leek or something out there in the field while you’re weeding. That makes a difference.”
“I had a couple of air corps buddies—Warren Hicks and Jack Norland. Do you happen to know them, or know if they ended up in Cabanatuaan?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.” He looked over at the other men.
One of them said, “See that guy down at the other end of this building—the one in the middle with the hat on? He’s air corps. Ask him.”
“Okay, thanks.” Wally stood up and walked to the other group of men. They were talking, so Wally waited. But after a time, he said, “I understand you’re in the air corps.”
“Yeah.”
“You weren’t at Clark, were you?”
“No. I was over at Nichols.”
Wally hunched down in front of the guy. “But you were at O’Donnell, right?”
“I sure was.” He grinned. “It was a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there on a permanent basis.”
All the men laughed.
“Do you know a couple of guys from Clark? Warren Hicks and Jack Norland?”
“Sure.” The man nodded, solemnly.
Wally thought he saw what was coming, and his impulse was to walk away and not ask. All the same, he said, “Are they all right?”
“No. They both made it up to Cabanatuaan, but Norland was sick by then, and he kept on going downhill. One night—I don’t recall just when it was—he musta lost his head or something. He took off a-running, and he tried to crawl out under the barbed-wire fence. The Japs beat up on him, awful bad. I didn’t see it, but from what I heard, they broke about half the bones in his body. He died in the morning—after a real bad night.”
Wally felt the strength go out of him, but he asked the other question. “What about Warren?”
“Well . . . them two—Hicks and Norland—buddied up all the time. And it seemed like something went outta Hicks after Norland passed on. He got sick, and the Japs stuck him in that barracks where they take people to die. Not too many are dying in that camp, but the guys who get sick don’t have much of a chance. Hicks only lasted a day or two down there, and then he was gone.”
Wally stood up. He nodded. “Thanks,” he said.
“I guess you were buddies with them guys?” the man said.
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you what happened to them.” Wally was hanging on, trying not to let this take him down. But he felt as though his insides had been scooped out. “I wish I could get hold of those guards who beat up on Jack,” he said, but he couldn’t even manage to sound very angry. Tears had also begun to fill his eyes. So Wally left, and he walked to his building, went in to his spot on the floor, his mattress, and he lay down. He told himself he wasn’t going to cry very long, not give way to this, but he needed to let it out for a minute or two. And so he pushed his head into his dirty, smelly mattress, and he cried. And then, after a time, he rolled onto his back and tried to think about home, about something he could hope for. For so long, he had trusted that Warren and Jack were still out there somewhere, fighting to stay alive. He had always assumed they would e
nd up in the same camp again, and the three of them would do some good scrounging.
Wally understood Warren—how he must have felt with both his buddies gone. But he had always been so strong. If Warren could give up, anyone could lose heart. Wally knew he had to concentrate on the things he was living for. He tried to remember Salt Lake—Sugar House in the spring when the trees were budding out. He pictured the craggy peak of Mount Olympus, drives up the canyons, dances at the Rainbow Rendezvous, his first date with Lorraine when they had driven into the foothills and looked out at the lights in the valley.
Sometimes he could almost picture Lorraine’s face, but it always seemed to slip away just as he was getting it into focus. Still, he needed to keep her alive in his mind. He tried to imagine himself holding her on the dance floor, his hand on her back, her hair against his cheek. The smell of her. He absolutely had to believe that someone like her would be there for him someday.
But it all seemed so far away. It was hard not to think of all the days ahead, the months, maybe years. Suddenly he got up. He needed someone who could help him. He went looking for Alan, and he told him about his friends. Alan didn’t say anything that made any real difference, but he understood.
“Well . . . we just gotta keep each other going—like we’ve been doing,” Alan said.
“That’s right. No matter what happens, we’ll stick together.”
Another two weeks went by, and word began to spread that those who could work would be shipped out to Cabanatuaan. Wally was pretty sure Captain Surmelian had been pulling what strings he could to keep him and Alan around, but he also knew his luck couldn’t hold much longer. So when an officer told Wally he was being transferred, he felt the shock of fear run through him, but then he was relieved to hear that he was going to Cabanatuaan. It hadn’t sounded too bad.
“Alan is going too, isn’t he?” Wally asked.
“Who?” the officer asked. He was a Major named Searle. He was the American whom the Japanese used as their liaison to the prisoners, and he made a lot of decisions about transfers.
“Alan West.”
“No. West is staying a few more days, and then he’s going on a work detail down south.”
