Inside, there was a copy of Johnny’s service record and a series of dispatches and reports tracing Johnny’s whereabouts during captivity. Ellis, his heart beating faster, scanned down to the bottom to find Johnny’s current location. But then he wondered why the General would concern himself this much with a single prisoner. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, General, but why…”
MacArthur didn’t let him finish the question. “Why do I have this? This was found as we were going through all the paper in General Sutherland’s office after his… ah…tragic death.”
That didn’t make sense, either. “Why would General Sutherland be interested in my brother, sir?” Ellis asked.
“Oh…” MacArthur seemed flustered for a moment, then recovered. “Well, I think it’s because… well, when we first met in Hawaii, I promised you… and so Sutherland decided on his own initiative, like a good staff officer should, to follow up and keep track of your brother.”
“Thank you, sir. He’s in this camp? Nomachi?”
“As best as we can tell, yes. Good luck, son.”
Ellis had immediately returned to his own HQ and asked for compassionate leave, but his boss General Kenney suggested he fly some medical supplies up. “That way,” Kenney had told him, “you’ll have an empty plane coming back, in case you just happen to have some passengers or something.”
The ferry docked on the other side of the bay, and the men loaded back into the old truck. It sputtered back to life after a few tries, and the driver maneuvered it carefully off the ferry. It was about a two-mile drive from the ferry to the camp, but it took fifteen minutes for the truck to cover the distance on the rutted dirt road.
There was something about a military base that looked the same no matter where it was or what nationality ran it. A cheap utilitarian wood and wire fence with a few strands of barbed wire on top surrounded the installation. Identical barracks made of wood and tar paper were painted drab gray or not at all. Everything was built in the cheapest, most utilitarian manner possible. If it weren’t for the Japanese faces on the guards, he could have been back in Colorado learning to fly B-26s at Atterbury Field.
The truck rattled into the camp and stopped in front of the hospital barracks inside the prisoners’ compound. The gates to the camp were open, and Americans walked in and out as they pleased. There was a Softball game going on, and both Americans and Japanese sat around watching.
When the truck stopped, Ellis got his first close-up look at some of the inmates. “My God,” he breathed. The uniforms were just hanging off the men as if they were boys dressing up in their dads’ outfits. The men weren’t just skinny; they were walking skeletons.
“Yeah,” said Sergeant Pickens. “Kinda hits you hard the first time you see these poor sons of bitches, don’t it?”
Ellis nodded, speechless. He couldn’t move for a minute, and then he realized he was staring and tore his eyes away from the awful sight. “Who do I talk to?” he asked.
“The senior POW is Lieutenant Sense. The head Jap is called the One-Armed Bandit. He’s got a Jap name, but that’s what the POWs call him. To find the lieutenant, just ask around.”
Pickens jumped out of the truck and began waving to his Japanese workers to unload the supplies before Ellis could ask why a lieutenant was senior POW when there was a captain among the prisoners. There was one obvious reason, and he desperately hoped there was another explanation. Maybe Johnny had been transferred. Maybe he was sick. Maybe.
Ellis slid out and started looking around. The POWs all looked like old men. Hollow-eyed, they shuffled when they walked. Many had the thousand-yard stare that you’d see when crews came back from a particularly tough mission. Ellis started asking “Lieutenant Sense? Captain Halverson?” as he passed each walking skeleton.
After about five blank stares, he got an answer. “Check the camp commander’s office.”
The office was outside the prison compound, behind a flagpole flying the Stars and Stripes. Ellis looked more closely and realized it wasn’t a real flag at all but a painted sheet.
“Hello? Anybody home?” Ellis called out as he entered the building.
“Come on in,” drawled a voice from an office on the right. “Tell all your troubles to the lieutenant, ‘cause we ain’t got a chaplain.”
The camp commander’s office was sparsely furnished: a metal desk in government gray, a file cabinet, a chair behind the desk, two chairs in front. The lieutenant, as gaunt as the rest of the men, was leaning back in the chair with a cigar in his hand. His feet rested on the desk. When he saw the eagles on Ellis’s shoulder, he scrambled to his feet to give a proper salute. Ellis waved him down. “As you were, Lieutenant. I’m not here to bust your balls or anything. In fact, I’m here unofficially. I’m looking for my brother—Captain Johnny Halverson.”
The lieutenant put his feet on the floor and leaned forward. “Damn.” He shook his head. “Colonel, I hate like hell to be the one to tell you this, but Johnny didn’t make it. That’s why I’m senior now.”
Even though Ellis half expected that answer, he could feel the hot tears stinging his eyes. He sat down in one of the two visitor chairs. “You’re sure?” he asked, even while thinking, How could he not be sure?
Sense linked his fingers together on the desktop. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m sure.”
“Of course you are,” Ellis replied. “I mean—”
“I know. Don’t give up hope and all that. Been there myself.”
Ellis felt ashamed. The thin and wasted lieutenant had obviously been through hell, yet he was offering comfort to a well-fed colonel who’d slept in a bed with sheets just about every single night of the goddamned war. Ellis tried to clamp down his emotions. “When did he die?”
Sense looked away. “Two—maybe three—weeks ago, about.”
“Fuck.” Almost to the finish line, Johnny. So damned close.
“Yeah,” agreed the lieutenant.
“What’d he die of?” Ellis asked.
“Here? Who knows? So many bugs get you that in the end it’s hard to say which one gets the final credit. Sometimes it’s an accident. And sometimes people give up.”
Ellis put his face in his hands. “Did you know him?” he asked.
“Johnny? Some. Not well. We bunked in different barracks. Each of us officers took responsibility for a different group of men.”
Ellis and the lieutenant sat silently for a moment, neither knowing what to say next. Then the lieutenant spoke again. “You know who knew him well? Andy Sarnuss. Andy took care of him when he got sick. Hell, Andy was there when he died, come to think of it. And those two had been together at Cabanatuan. You want the story, you should talk to Andy. He’s your best bet.”
“Andy. Where do I find him?”
“He works in the hospital. Assists the doctors. Empties bedpans. Talks to the sick and dying. He’s an officer and ought to do more, but that’s all he can do. He’s not quite there anymore, if you know what I mean.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Ellis said, starting to get up. “Oh—is there anything I can do for you and your men when I get back to Tokyo?”
Lieutenant Sense looked up at the ceiling to think and then looked back at Ellis. “Sure is, if you don’t mind. I could put together a shopping list. If you could get it in the proper hands, maybe say it was a colonel’s priority instead of a lieutenant’s…”
“Can do, Lieutenant.” Ellis started to leave.
“Hey, wait a minute, Colonel,” Sense said.
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t I have someone go fetch Andy and bring him up here? You can have my office, or better yet, take the conference room.”
The conference room had a single round table, four metal folding chairs, a single lightbulb dangling from a ceiling wire, and one dirty window that let gray light into the room. The ubiquitous Sergeant Pickens brought Andy in.
“Thanks, Sergeant,” Ellis said. “Could you have someone bring us a couple of cups of coffee, if t
he mess can handle it, and maybe some—Andy, what would you like?”
Andy was one of those who had the thousand-yard stare. He was a short man. His untrimmed black hair was beginning to recede on top and his beard grew in clumps. He wore a Japanese uniform that hung off his skeletal frame as it did on the other prisoners. Except for the uniform, he could have passed for an ascetic in biblical times, or a mad monk in medieval times.
“Uh, coffee and…uh…” He paused and looked curiously at Ellis. “I don’t know,” he said.
“How about some soup?” suggested Pickens.
“How about it, Andy?” asked Ellis. “Soup sound good to you?”
“Soup.” Andy thought for a moment. “What goes with soup? Crackers?” He gave a small, dry laugh. “I guess I’ve forgotten.”
“Yep, soup and crackers. Good choice,” the sergeant said in a voice normally reserved for children. “I’ll have the mess hall take care of it. Same for you, Colonel? Or a sandwich instead?”
“Soup sounds good to me, too,” Ellis said. “Have a seat, Andy.”
Andy sat. He was looking in Ellis’s direction but not at Ellis. His eyes looked into the distance.
“Cigarette?” Ellis asked.
Andy’s eyes showed a glimmer of expression. “Ossu. Uh… yeah. I mean yes, sir. Please.” His hands trembled a little as he took the cigarette, put it between his thin lips, and let Ellis light it. He took a long, slow drag and let it out just as slowly. He smiled. “Cigarettes. You don’t know what it’s like, going years with only the occasional butt and hard rolls of tobacco.”
Ellis took out his pack of Lucky Strike Greens, shoved them across the table, and put his black Zippo on top of it. “Yours,” he said.
“Colonel, I—” Andy paused. ‘You—you didn’t have to do that.” He looked as if Ellis had given him a thousand dollars.
“No problem. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll bum one of them off you right now.”
There was a brief flicker of resistance in Andy’s eyes, and then he shoved the pack and lighter back. “For us POWs, this used to be money. And this would have been a fortune. But now—well…Help yourself, Colonel.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Ellis said. “Listen, Lieutenant Sense says you knew my brother Johnny. That you took care of him as he died.”
Another brief flicker of emotion passed over Andy’s face. Slowly, Andy nodded his head. “Yes. Johnny was my friend. He was a good friend. I knew him back before it started, and then when we were on the Rock.”
“Corregidor?”
Andy nodded. “Yeah. Then we both became mikado no kyaku. That’s one name the Japs called us. It means ‘guests of the Emperor.’ They called us other names, too.”
He looked off into the distance again as he continued talking. “When we surrendered, we had to pick up the dead bodies on the Rock. Japanese first. Then Americans. Afterward, we rode the train to Cabanatuan together. At least we had a train—you heard about the poor bastards on Bataan?”
Ellis nodded. The story of the Death March was, at last, being reported in its grisly entirely.
“We lived in the same barracks, me and Johnny.” Andy paused again. Then turned and looked into Ellis’s eyes directly for the first time. “We got put on separate ships to Japan.” His eyes squeezed shut tightly. “Separate ships…”
Then his eyes wandered away again and there was silence for a time.
“He talked about you,” Andy said, abruptly changing the subject. “You and… Pete? Another brother?”
“No. Pete was his best friend in high school.”
“He was like a brother, though. That’s what it sounded like.”
“Yes. All three of us were like brothers.”
“What happened to Pete? Do you know?”
“Pete’s a marine. He’s alive, though God knows how. I saw him in Tokyo.”
Andy nodded solemnly. “Pete made it. You made it. Johnny didn’t make it.” Another pause. “He told me about you. He talked about you a lot.” Then a longer pause. “He told great stories. I loved to listen to them.”
“I know,” Ellis said. “I always thought he’d be a writer, and I’d illustrate his stories.”
“That’s what he wanted, too,” Andy said. There was a strange affect to his voice—a lack of emotion, a lack of feeling. However, the words were starting to flow more easily, as if the hinges of thought were beginning to swing again after having been rusted for a very long time.
He’s been to hell and back, Ellis thought. Of course he seems distant and strange.
“You said you were separated when you were put on ships for Japan,” Ellis said. “Did you just end up at the same camp by coincidence?”
A strange half smile played around the edges of Andy’s lips, which were thin and devoid of color. “I was at another camp first. Then I was moved. Yes, it’s a coincidence that Johnny was here too. But I was very glad to see him. I was in bad shape.” He stubbed out his cigarette and reached for another.
There was a knock on the conference room door. “Enter!” Ellis called out, although he was frustrated with the ill-timed interruption.
Nothing happened.
After a minute, Ellis got up and opened the door. An elderly Japanese woman carrying a large tray stood in the doorway. She bowed several times to both men, muttering, “Dozo, dozo,” under her breath.
Ellis knew just enough pidgin Japanese to know that the reply to “please” was “Domo.” Thank you.
Andy waited for the woman to put bowls of soup and cups of coffee in front of both men. Then he stood up and bowed very deeply. “Domo arigato gozaimashita,” he said. That was the most polite form. You said it to your superiors, or if you had reason to be especially grateful.
The woman, flustered, bowed, and also said, “Domo arigato gozaimashita.” Andy bowed again, and then she bowed again. Ellis finally shooed her out of the room.
Andy sat down and looked at Ellis. “I guess it’s been slapped into me. Every Japanese, no matter how low, is higher than a holio—that’s a flower sniffer. A prisoner. Someone not man enough to die in battle. If you aren’t polite enough, you get a slapping.” He must have seen Ellis’s puzzlement, because he continued. “The Japanese are big slappers. If that doesn’t work, they beat you with clubs. And worse.” Andy shivered. “Much worse. You don’t want to know.
“You know, we were sure the guards were going to kill us, rather than let us get liberated. But that day, when the war ended, they just cleared out of here. We woke up and they were all gone. We couldn’t believe it—didn’t know what to think. Then a couple of those big silver bombers flew over and dropped us food, and we really knew. It was over.”
He stopped talking while he bent over his bowl of soup and blew on it. Then he took all his crackers and crumbled them into the broth until it all congealed. By then it was cool enough to eat.
Ellis had finished his entire bowl by the time Andy was ready to take his first bite.
“Can you tell me—” Ellis began and then stopped.
“How he died?” Andy asked. “Or how he lived?”
“Whatever you like. I want to know everything.”
There was a strange look on Andy’s face. “Everything?” he asked.
“Absolutely. As long as you’ve got strength to talk. We don’t have to finish in one day, you know. I can stay here. Or I can take you with me to Tokyo and get you a room at the best hotel in town. It’s the least I can do for a friend of…friend of Johnny’s….” The burning sensation in Ellis’s eyes started up again and he had to choke back tears.
Andy looked on with the same colorless expression. “I can talk,” he said. “If I get too tired, I’ll tell you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Andy slowly spooned mouthful after mouthful of his soup as he began to talk in his curiously dead voice. Ellis listened with a combination of fascination and horror as Andy told the story of their captivity, the years in the Philippines, and the voyage to Japan. Johnny’s shi
p had not been torpedoed like Andy’s. However, the hold had been packed so tightly that there was no room for the men to sit down. For fourteen days and nights on the water they stood.
“No one on that hell ship was ever the same again,” Andy said. “The same would have been true of my ship, but almost all of them died.”
Then Andy explained how he came to Camp Nomachi. The lack of emotion in Andy’s voice as he talked stood in stark contrast to the events he described. From time to time he would pause for anywhere up to a minute. His eyes would travel up and to the left, as if he were peering at an invisible movie screen and watching the action unfold, not as a participant but merely as a viewer. Ellis was fascinated and repulsed.
How do men survive this? Ellis thought. Looking at Andy, he knew part of the answer: they change.
Johnny, too, had changed. If he lived, he might be as distant, as broken inside, as Andy. Dammit, Johnny, Ellis thought, why did this have to happen to you? And why couldn’t you have held on another three weeks?
Andy continued. “…The next morning, after they stitched me up, one of the guards came into the hospital to take me away. I was pretty sure he was going to kill me. Once we got to the train station, I decided he wasn’t going to kill me. The train ride took pretty much all day. It kept getting colder, so I knew we were heading north. That worried me. I didn’t have the clothes for it. Maybe they were going to work me until I froze. That would be a Jap thing to do. You know, ‘waste not, want not.’”
Andy smiled thinly. He reached for one more cigarette. “Last one,” he noted as he lit it. His ashtray was overflowing.
“You okay?” Ellis asked. “I can get more, probably.”
“No. I haven’t smoked in so long it’s going straight to my head. I’ve probably had enough. In fact, I think I’ll save this one for later.” He put the pack in his breast pocket. He picked up the black lighter and began to pass it back and forth between his hands in a random and nervous fashion.
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