The Reckoning

Chapter 21

The Peabody hotel was built in downtown Memphis in 1869 and immediately became the center of high society. It was designed in an elaborate Italian Renaissance style with no expense spared. Its sweeping lobby featured soaring balconies and an ornate water fountain filled with live ducks. The hotel was without a doubt the most spectacular in Memphis and had no competition for hundreds of miles. It was instantly profitable as Memphians with money flocked to the Peabody for drinks and dinners, balls, galas, parties, concerts, and meetings.

Around the turn of the century, as the once wealthy cotton plantations in the Delta regions of Arkansas and Mississippi regained their footing, the Peabody became the preferred destination for big farmers looking for fun in the city. On weekends and holidays they took over the hotel, throwing lavish parties and mingling in fine style with their upper-class Memphis friends. Oftentimes they brought their wives for shopping. Other times they came alone for business and to spend romantic weekends with their mistresses.

It was said that if you parked yourself in the lobby of the Peabody hotel and stayed long enough you would see everyone who was someone from the Delta.

Pete Banning was not from the Delta and made no pretension of being so. He was from the hills of northeast Mississippi, and though his family owned land and was considered prominent, he was far from wealthy. In the social order, hill people ranked several notches below the planter class a hundred miles away. His first trip to the Peabody was at the invitation of a Memphis friend he met as a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy. The event was a debutante ball of some sort, but the real attraction, at least for Pete, was a weekend in Memphis.

He was twenty-two years old and had just graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He was spending a few weeks on the farm near Clanton while waiting to report to Fort Riley in Kansas. He was already bored with the farm and ready for bright lights, though he was far from a hick going to town. He had been to New York City many times, for many occasions, and could hold his own in any social setting. A few Memphis snobs were not about to intimidate him.

It was 1925, and the hotel had just reopened after a complete renovation. Pete knew it by reputation but had never been there. For four years at West Point his friend had talked about the dazzling parties and scores of beautiful girls. And he was not exaggerating.

The black-tie debut was in the main ballroom on the second floor, and it was packed. For the occasion, Pete wore his formal army dress whites, solid white from collar to shoes, and he cut a fine figure as he mingled through the crowd, drink in hand. With perfect military posture, a tanned face, and an easy smile, he skipped from conversation to conversation and soon realized that a number of young ladies were taking notice. Dinner was called and he found his chair at a table filled with other friends of his host. They drank champagne, ate oysters, and talked of this and that, nothing serious, and certainly nothing to do with the military. The Great War was over. Our country was at peace. Certainly that would continue forever.

As dinner was served, Pete noticed a young lady at the next table. She was facing him, and every time he glanced over she was glancing too. In a roomful of gorgeous girls, she was undoubtedly the most beautiful one there, with perhaps the rest of the world thrown in as well. Once or twice he found it impossible to take his eyes off her. By the end of dinner, both were embarrassed by their mutual gawking.

Her name, as he soon learned, was Liza Sweeney. He followed her to the bar, introduced himself, and began chatting. Miss Sweeney was from Memphis, was only eighteen years old, and had never been tempted to do all that debutante foolishness. What she really wanted was a cigarette, but she would not smoke in front of her mother, who was trying to keep an eye on her from across the room. Pete followed her out of the ballroom — she seemed to know the hotel well — and to a patio near a pool. There they smoked three cigarettes each and downed two drinks — martinis for her, bourbons for him.

Liza had just finished high school but wasn’t sure about college. She was tired of Memphis and wanted something bigger, something as big as Paris or Rome, but then she was just dreaming. Pete asked if she thought her parents would allow her to date a man four years older. She shrugged and said that for the past two years she had been dating whomever she pleased, but they were all a bunch of high school boys.

“Are you asking me for a date?” she asked with a grin.

“I am.”

“When?”

“Next weekend.”

“You’re on, soldier boy.”

Six nights later they met at the Peabody for drinks and dinner and another party. The following day, a Saturday, they took a long walk along the river, arm in arm now with a lot of touching, and strolled through downtown. That night, she invited him to dinner at her home. He met her parents and older sister. Mr. Sweeney was an actuary for an insurance company and was quite dull. His wife, though, was a beautiful woman who did most of the talking. They were an odd pair and Liza had already told Pete several times that she planned to leave home soon as possible. Her sister went to a college somewhere in Missouri.

Early in their courtship, Pete suspected that Liza was one of a thousand Memphis girls hanging around the Peabody hoping to snag a rich husband. He made it clear that he was not another wealthy Delta planter. His family owned land and grew cotton, but nothing like the big plantations. Liza at first put on some society airs, but once she realized Pete was just a commoner she quit her act. Inviting him home revealed the obvious — her family was quite modest. Pete didn’t care how much money they had, or how little. He was thoroughly smitten and would chase her until he caught her, which, as he soon learned, would not be much of a challenge. Liza didn’t care how big the farm was. She had found herself a soldier she adored and he was not getting away.

The following Friday, they met again at the Peabody for dinner with friends. After dinner, they sneaked away to a bar to be alone. And after drinks, they sneaked off to his room on the seventh floor. Pete had been with women before, but only those who worked the brothels of New York City. It was a West Point tradition. Liza was a virgin and ready for a change, and she embraced the lovemaking with an enthusiasm that made Pete dizzy. Around midnight he suggested that it was time for her to return home. She said she was not going anywhere, was in fact spending the night, and wouldn’t mind staying in bed for most of the next day. Pete acquiesced.

“But what will you tell your parents?” he asked.

“A lie. I’ll think of something. Don’t worry about it. They’re easy to fool and they would never expect me to do something like this.”

“Whatever you say. Can we get some sleep now?”

“Yes. I know you’re exhausted.”

The courtship raged for a month as the two lovers forgot the world existed. Every weekend, Pete got a room at the Peabody, where he spent three nights, often with Liza sleeping over. Her friends began whispering. Her parents were getting suspicious. It was, after all, 1925, and there were strict rules that governed proper young ladies and their beaus. Liza knew the rules as well as her friends, but she also knew how much fun a girl could have if she broke a few of them. She was enjoying the martinis, the cigarettes, and especially the forbidden sex.

On a Sunday, Pete drove her to Clanton to meet his family, see the farm, and get a glimpse of where he came from. He did not plan to spend the rest of his life growing cotton. The military would be his career, and he and Liza would travel the world, or at least that was what he believed at the age of twenty-two.

He was ordered to Fort Riley in Kansas, where he would go through officer training. While he had been waiting eagerly for his orders, his first assignment, he was crushed at the thought of leaving Liza. He drove to her home in Memphis and broke the news. They knew it was coming, but being separated now seemed impossible. When he said good-bye, both were in tears. He rode the train to Fort Riley, and a week later received a letter from Liza. She got right to the point — she was pregnant.

With no hesitation, he devised a plan. Claiming urgent family matters required him to return home, he cajoled his commanding officer into lending him his car. Pete drove through the night and arrived at the Peabody in time for breakfast. He called Liza and informed her that they would now elope. She loved the idea but was not sure how she could sneak a suitcase out of the house with her mother around. Pete convinced her to forget the suitcase. There were stores in Kansas City.

Liza kissed her mom good-bye and went to work. Pete intercepted her, and they fled Memphis, racing away, giggling, laughing, and pawing at each other. They found a pay phone in Tupelo and called Mrs. Sweeney. Liza was sweet, but abrupt. Mom, sorry to surprise you like this, but Pete and I are eloping. I’m eighteen and I can do what I want. Love you and I’ll call again tonight and talk to Dad. When she hung up, her mother was crying. Liza, though, was the happiest girl in the world.

Since they were in Tupelo, a town Pete knew well, they decided to get married. The better housing at Fort Riley was reserved for officers and their families, and a marriage certificate would be an asset. They went to the Lee County Courthouse, filled out an application, paid a fee, and found a justice of the peace stocking minnows in the rear of his bait shop. With his wife as the witness, and after pocketing his customary $2 fee, he pronounced them husband and wife.

Pete would call his parents later. Since the clock was now ticking on child number one, it was important to establish a wedding date as soon as possible. Pete knew the gossips in Clanton would begin looking at calendars as soon as they heard the news from his mother that her first grandchild had arrived. Liza thought the due date was about eight months away. Eight months would raise an eyebrow or two but not stir the gossip. Seven would be a stretch. Six would be downright scandalous.

They were married on June 14, 1925.

Joel was born on January 4, 1926, in an army hospital in Germany. Pete had begged for an assignment on foreign soil to get as far away from Memphis and Clanton as possible. No one there would ever see Joel’s birth certificate. He and Liza waited six weeks before sending telegraphs to the grandparents back home.

From Germany, Pete was transferred back to Fort Riley in Kansas, where he trained with the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry Regiment. He was an excellent horseman, but he was beginning to question whether mounted cavalry had a role in modern warfare. Tanks and mobile artillery were the future, but he loved the cavalry nonetheless and stayed with the Twenty-Sixth. Stella was born at Fort Riley in 1927.

On June 20, 1929, Pete’s father, Jacob, died of an apparent heart attack at the age of forty-nine. Liza, with two sick toddlers, could not make the trip to Clanton for Mr. Banning’s funeral. She had not been home in two years, and she preferred to stay away.

Four months after Mr. Banning’s death, the stock market crashed and the country fell into the Great Depression. For career officers, the collapse of the economy was hardly felt. Their jobs, housing, health care, education, and paychecks were secure, though slightly diminished. Pete and Liza were happy with his career and their growing family, and their future was still in the army.

The cotton market also collapsed in 1929 and farmers were hit hard. They borrowed to pay expenses and debts and to plant again the following year. Pete’s mother was not functioning well since the sudden death of her husband and was unable to manage the farm. His older sister, Florry, was living in Memphis and had little interest in agriculture. Pete hired a foreman for the 1930 planting but the farm lost money again. He borrowed money and hired another foreman for the following year, but the market was still depressed. The debts were piling up and the Banning land was in jeopardy.

During the Christmas holidays of 1931, Pete and Liza discussed the gloomy prospect of leaving the army and returning to Ford County. Neither wanted to, especially Liza. She could not picture herself living in such a small backwater town as Clanton, and she could not stomach the thought of living in the same house with Pete’s mother. The two women had spent little time together, but enough to realize that they needed separation. Mrs. Banning was a devout Methodist who knew the answers to everything because they were written right there in the holy scriptures. Using the divine authority of God’s word, she could and would tell anyone exactly how to live his or her life. She wasn’t loud or obnoxious, just overly judgmental.

Pete wanted to avoid her too. Indeed, he had entertained thoughts of selling the farm to get out of the business. This idea fell flat for three reasons. First, he didn’t own the farm. His mother inherited it from his father. Second, there was no market for farmland because of the Depression. And third, his mother would have no place to live.

Pete loved the army, especially the cavalry, and wanted to serve until retirement. As a boy, he had chopped and picked cotton and spent long hours in the fields, and he wanted a different life. He wanted to see the world, perhaps fight in a war or two, earn some medals, and keep his wife happy.

So he borrowed again and hired the third foreman. The crops were beautiful, the market was strong, and then, in early September, the rains came like monsoons and washed everything away. The 1932 crop produced nothing, and the banks were calling. His mother continued to decline and could hardly take care of herself.

Pete and Liza discussed a move to Memphis or maybe Tupelo, anywhere but Clanton. A bigger city would provide more opportunities, better schools, a more vibrant social life. Pete could work the farm and commute, or could he? On Christmas Eve, they were planning their evening when a telegram arrived. It was from Florry and the news was tragic. Their mother had died the day before, possibly of pneumonia. She was only fifty.

Instead of unwrapping gifts, they hurriedly packed their bags and made the long drive to Clanton. His mother was buried at Old Sycamore, next to her husband. Pete and Liza made the decision to stay and never returned to Fort Riley. He resigned his commission but remained in the reserves.

There were rumblings of wars. The Japanese were expanding in Asia and had invaded China the year before. Hitler and the Nazis were building factories that were building tanks, airplanes, submarines, cannons, and everything else a military needed to aggressively expand. Pete’s colleagues in the army were alarmed at what was happening. Some predicted an inevitable war.

As Pete turned in his uniform and went home to save the farm, he could not hide his pessimism. He had debts to pay and mouths to feed. The Depression was entrenched and had the entire nation in its grip. The country was lightly armed and vulnerable and too broke to fund a wartime military.

But if war came, he would not stay on the farm and miss it.

Chapter 22

After back-to-back bumper crops in 1925 and 1926, Jacob Banning decided to build a fine home. The one Pete and Florry knew as children had been built before the Civil War, and over the decades had been added to and retrofitted. It was certainly nicer than most homes in the county, but Jacob, with money in his pocket, wanted to make a statement and build something his neighbors would admire long after he was gone. He hired an architect in Memphis and approved a stately Colonial Revival design, a two-story home dominated by red brick, sweeping gables, and a wide front porch. Jacob built it on a small rise closer to the highway, but still far enough away so that the traffic could admire it without being worrisome.

Now that Jacob was dead, as was his wife, the spacious home was Liza’s domain, and she wanted to fill it with children. Typically, she and Pete went about this project with great enthusiasm, but the results were disappointing. She had one miscarriage at Fort Riley, then another when they moved to the farm. After a few months of dark mood swings and a lot of tears, she bounced back as vigorous as before, much to Pete’s delight. Liza had only one sibling, as did Pete, and they agreed that small families were boring. She dreamed of having five children, Pete wanted six, three of each, so they pursued their marital duties with a fierce determination.

When he wasn’t in bed with his wife, Pete was aggressively getting the farm into shape. He spent hours in the fields doing the manual work himself and setting the example for his workers. He cleared land, rebuilt a barn, repaired outbuildings, laid down fencing, bought new livestock, and usually worked from sunrise to dusk. He met with the bankers and told them bluntly that they would have to wait.

The weather cooperated in 1933, and with Pete driving his field hands into the ground the crop was abundant. The market cooperated as well, and the farm had its first breathing room in years. Pete kept the banks happy as he made payments, but he also buried some money in the backyard. The Banning land consisted of two sections, 640 acres each, and if more of it could be cleared, more cotton could be planted. For the first time in his life, Pete began to see the long-term potential of his inheritance.

He owned one section, Florry the other, and they struck a deal whereby he would cultivate her land for half the profits. In 1934, she built her pink cottage and moved from Memphis. Her arrival on the farm added some life to the place. She liked Liza and they were amiable, at first.

Not that life was dull; it was not. Liza enjoyed being a full-time mother as she tried in vain to add to her family. Pete taught her how to ride a horse, built a barn, and filled it with horses and ponies. Before long she had Joel and Stella in the saddle, and the three of them rode for hours around the farm and the neighboring countryside. Pete taught her how to shoot and they hunted birds together. He taught her how to fish and the little family spent hours on Sunday afternoons down by the river.

If Liza missed the big city, she rarely complained. At the age of thirty, she had a happy marriage with a husband she adored and was blessed with two beautiful children. She lived in a fine home surrounded by farmland that provided security. For a party girl, though, the social life was disappointing. There was no country club, no fancy hotel, no dance clubs or decent bars. Indeed, there were no bars at all because Ford County, like the entire state, was as dry as a bone. Alcohol sales were illegal in all eighty-two counties and every city. Those of a more sinful nature were forced to rely upon bootleggers, who were plentiful, or friends who hauled back booze from Memphis.

Social life was dictated by the church. In the case of the Bannings, of course, it was the Methodist church, the second largest in Clanton. Pete insisted that they attend faithfully, and Liza fell into the routine. She had been raised as a lukewarm Episcopalian, of which there were none — devout or otherwise — to be found in Clanton. At first, she was a bit turned off by the narrowness of Methodist teachings, but soon understood that things could be worse. The county was full of other, more strident strains of Christianity — Baptists, Pentecostals, and Churches of Christ — hard-core believers even more fundamental than the Methodists. Only the Presbyterians seemed slightly less dogged. If there was a solitary Catholic in town he kept it quiet. The nearest Jew was in Memphis.

People were classified, and often judged, by their denomination. And they were certainly condemned if they didn’t claim one. Liza joined the Methodist church and became an active member. What else was there to do in Clanton?

However, because she was an outsider, regardless of her husband’s pedigree, it would take a long time to fit in. The locals really didn’t trust you unless their ancestors had known your grandfather. She attended faithfully and grew to enjoy the worship services, especially the music. Eventually, she was asked to join a women’s Bible study group that met once a month. Then she was asked to assist in the planning of a wedding. She helped out with a couple of important funerals. A traveling evangelist came to town for the spring revival, and Pete offered their guest room for the week. As it turned out, he was quite handsome, and the ladies envied Liza’s closeness to the charismatic young preacher. Pete kept a close eye on the situation and was pleased when the revival was over.

But there was always another upcoming revival. The Methodists had two each year, the Baptists three, and the Pentecostals seemed to be in a constant state of frenzied renewal. At least twice a year some itinerant street preacher threw up a big top beside the feed store near the square and raged every night through his loudspeakers. It was not at all uncommon for one church to “visit” another church when a hotshot preacher was in town. Every denomination worshipped for at least two hours on Sunday morning. Others came back for more on Sunday evening. (These were the white churches; the black ones kept it going all day and into the night.) Wednesday night prayer meetings were common. Add in all the revivals, religious holiday services, vacation Bible schools in the summer, funerals, weddings, anniversaries, and baptisms, and at times Liza felt exhausted from her church work.

She insisted that they get out of town occasionally. If Florry agreed to keep the kids, they headed for the Peabody and a long weekend of partying. Occasionally, Florry went with them, along with Joel and Stella, and the whole family enjoyed the big city, especially the lights. On two occasions, and with Florry’s insistence, the entire family loaded onto a train and went to New Orleans for a week’s vacation.

In 1936, there was a stark contrast in electrical service in the South. Ninety percent of urban areas had power, while only 10 percent of the small towns and countryside had electricity. Downtown Clanton was wired in 1937, but the rest of the county was still dark. Shopping in Memphis and Tupelo, Liza and the other ladies from the farms were awed by the fancy electrical appliances and gadgets that were flooding the market — radios, phonographs, stoves, refrigerators, toasters, mixers, even vacuum cleaners — and they were untouchable. The country folks dreamed of electricity.

Liza wanted to spend as much time as possible in Memphis and Tupelo, but Pete resisted. He was a farmer now, and as such grew more tightfisted each year. So she settled into the quiet life and kept her complaints to herself.

Nineva and Amos came with the house and the farm. Their parents had been born into slavery and had worked the same land Pete now farmed. Nineva claimed to be “around sixty” but there was no clear record of her birth date. Amos didn’t care when he was born, but to irritate his wife he often said he was born after her. Their oldest son had a birth certificate proving that he was forty-eight. It was unlikely Nineva gave birth when she was twelve. Amos said she was at least twenty. The Bannings knew she was actually “around seventy,” though this subject was off-limits. She and Amos had three other children and a yard full of grandchildren, but by 1935 most had migrated north.

Nineva worked her entire life in the Banning home as the sole domestic servant. Cook, dishwasher, maid, laundress, nanny, babysitter, midwife. She helped the doctor deliver Florry in 1898 and her little brother, Pete, in 1903, and practically raised both of them. To Pete’s mother, she was a friend, therapist, sounding board, confidante, and adviser.

To Pete’s wife, though, she was more of a rival. The only white people Nineva trusted were Bannings, and Liza was not a Banning. She was a Sweeney, a city girl who knew nothing about the ways of country blacks and whites. Nineva had just said good-bye to her dearest friend, “Miz Banning,” and she was not ready to welcome a new madam to the home.

At first, Nineva resented the beautiful young wife with a considerable personality. She was warm and pleasant and gave every indication of wanting to fit in, but all Nineva saw was more work. She had spent the past four years taking care of Miz Banning, who asked for little, and Nineva could admit to herself that she had grown a bit lazy. Who cared if the house wasn’t spotless? Miz Banning noticed virtually nothing in her declining years. Suddenly, with this new woman around, Nineva’s lethargic routines were about to change. It was immediately obvious that Pete’s wife loved clothes, all of which of course had to be washed, occasionally starched, and always ironed. And Joel and Stella, as precious as they were, would require meals and clean clothes, towels, bedsheets. Instead of tending to Miz Banning’s birdlike appetite, Nineva suddenly faced the reality of cooking three meals each day for an entire family.

At first, Liza was uncomfortable with the presence of another woman in her home throughout the day, and a strong and established woman at that. She had not been raised with maids and servants. Her mother had been able to take care of the home, with the help of her husband and two daughters. However, it took only a few days to realize that properly maintaining such a large home was more work than she could handle. Without igniting a turf battle or hurting Nineva’s feelings, Liza quickly acquiesced.

Both women were smart enough to realize that neither was leaving. They had no choice but to get along, at least superficially. The house was big enough to provide space for each. The first weeks were strained, but as they felt each other out the tension subsided. Pete was of no help. He was in the fields, where he was happy and unconcerned. Let the women work things out.

Amos, on the other hand, adored Liza from day one. Each spring, he planted a large vegetable garden that fed the Bannings and many of their dependents, and Liza was drawn to it. As a city girl, she had grown nothing but a few daisies in a small flower bed. Amos’s garden was half an acre of perfect rows of squash, corn, lettuce, beans, carrots, yams, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, okra, strawberries, onions, and at least four varieties of tomatoes. Next to the garden was a small orchard with trees of apples, peaches, plums, and pears. Amos was also in charge of the chickens, pigs, and milk cows. Fortunately, someone else took care of the livestock.

His new assistant was more than welcome. After breakfast each morning, Liza was in the garden watering the plants, pulling weeds, picking off insects, harvesting the ripe produce, and either humming merrily along or asking him a dozen questions about gardening. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat to ward off the sun, and chinos rolled up to her knees and gloves to her elbows. She didn’t mind the dirt and mud but she somehow managed to keep it off her clothing. Amos thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and developed a crush, though he went through his routine of appearing frustrated with her intrusions. She wanted to learn everything about vegetable gardening, and when she ran out of questions they went to the dairy barn, where he taught her to milk cows, churn butter, and make cheese.

They were often assisted by Jupe, the teenage grandson of Amos and Nineva. Jupe’s mother had named him Jupiter, which he couldn’t stand, so he shortened it. She was in Chicago, never to return, but Jupe preferred life on the farm and lived with his grandparents. At fifteen, he was a strapping, muscular boy who was fascinated by Liza but terribly shy around her.

At first, Amos suspected her enthusiasm was driven by a desire to get out of the house and away from Nineva, and this was partly true. But a friendship developed, much to the surprise of both. Liza wanted to know about his family and his background, his parents and grandparents and their harsh lives on the farm. Her father was from the North. Her mother was raised in Memphis. Liza had never been around Negroes and showed sympathy for their plight. Using his words carefully and always choosing less instead of more, he explained that he and Nineva and their children were the luckier ones. They had a nice little house, one built for them by Pete’s father when he tore down the old family place. They had plenty of food and clothing. No one went hungry on the Banning land, but the field hands were quite poor. Their little shacks were barely livable. The children, and there were plenty of them, were always barefoot.

Liza knew that Amos was being cautious. He could not be accused of criticizing his boss. And, he was always quick to point out that there were plenty of poor whites around them who were just as desperate as the field hands.

On horseback and alone, Liza covered the Banning property, about two-thirds of which was farmland. The rest was heavily forested. She found tiny settlements of shacks tucked away in the woods, cut off from the world. The children on their porches were dirty and wide-eyed and refused to speak when she spoke to them. The mothers nodded and smiled as they herded the children back inside. In a village of sorts she found a store and a church with a cemetery behind it. Clusters of shanties lined the dusty streets.

Liza was stunned by the poverty and living conditions, and she vowed to one day find ways to make improvements. Initially, though, she kept her thoughts to herself. She did not tell Pete about her rides through the woods, though he soon knew. One of the field hands reported the sighting of an unknown white woman on a horse. Liza said of course it was her, and what was the problem? She had not been told that some places were off-limits, had she?

No, nothing was off-limits. There was nothing to hide. What were you looking for?

I was riding my horse. How many Negroes live on our land?

Pete wasn’t sure, because the families were always growing. About a hundred, but not all worked for them. Some had other jobs. Some moved away; some came back. A few of the men had multiple families. Why do you want to know?

Just curious. Liza knew the project would take years, and now was not the time to start trouble. Pete still owed the banks. The country was still in a depression. There was little spare money. Even their trips to Memphis were budgeted.

In late March of 1938, as Liza and Amos were taking advantage of a warm, sunny day and planting peas and butter beans, she began to feel dizzy. She stood to catch her breath and then fainted. Amos scooped her up and ran with her to the back porch, where Nineva met them. Nineva, who was the resident nurse, doctor, and midwife, wiped her face with a cold towel and coaxed her back to life. After a few minutes, Liza felt fine and said, “I feel like I’m pregnant.”

No surprise there, Nineva thought but didn’t utter a word. That afternoon, Pete drove Liza to the doctor in Clanton, and he confirmed that she was two months along. Joel and Stella were too young for such news and nothing was said around the house. Privately, Pete and Liza were thrilled. After two miscarriages, and a lot of effort, they had finally succeeded. Pete demanded that she leave the gardening to Amos and take it easy for a spell.

A month later, Liza miscarried again. It was a crushing loss and she fell into a dark depression. She closed the curtains and, for a month, rarely left her bedroom. Nineva, as always, stepped up and waited on her as often as she would allow. Pete spent as much time as possible with her, but nothing seemed to revive her spirits, not even Joel and Stella. Finally, Pete drove her to Memphis to see a specialist. They stayed two nights with her parents, but that did nothing to lighten her mood. Early one morning over coffee, he confided in Nineva that he was terribly worried. It was almost frightening to watch someone as vivacious as Liza fall into such a morbid state.

Nineva had experience with depressed white women. Miz Banning didn’t smile the last four years of her life, and Nineva had held her hand every day. She began sitting with Liza for long periods of time and trying to engage her. At first Liza said almost nothing and cried a lot. So Nineva talked and talked, and told stories of her mother and grandmother and life as a slave. She brought tea and chocolate cookies, and slowly pulled back the curtains. Day after day they sat and talked, and gradually Liza began to realize that her life was not nearly as harsh as others’. She was privileged, and lucky. She was thirty years old, and healthy, with her best days in front of her. She was already a mother, and if she had no more children she would always have a beautiful family.

Nine weeks after the miscarriage, Liza awoke one morning, waited until Pete was out of the house, dressed in her chinos, found her gloves and straw hat, and announced to Nineva that she was needed in the garden. Nineva followed her there and whispered to Amos. He watched her carefully, and when the sun was up and she began to sweat, he insisted they take a break. Nineva arrived with iced tea and lemon, and the three of them sat under a shade tree and had a laugh.

Before long she and Pete were back to their old ways, and while they enjoyed themselves immensely, there was no pregnancy. Two years passed with no news. By her thirty-third birthday, in November of 1940, Liza was convinced beyond any doubt that she was barren.

Chapter 23

The cotton looked especially promising by late summer of 1941. The seeds were in the ground by mid-April. The stalks were waist high by July 4, chest high by Labor Day. The weather was cooperating nicely with hot days, cooler nights, and a heavy rain every other week. After a long winter of clearing land, Pete had managed to plant an additional eighty acres. His bank loans had been extinguished and he was privately vowing to never borrow against his land. As a farmer, though, he knew such vows were not binding. There was so much he could not control.

The encouraging outlook in the fields, though, was tempered by events around the world. In Europe, Germany invaded Poland two years earlier to start the war. The following year it began bombing London, and in June of 1941 Hitler attacked Russia with the largest invasion force in history. In Asia, Japan had been fighting in China for ten years. Its success there prompted it to invade the British, French, and Dutch colonies in the South Pacific. Japan’s goal of the complete domination of East Asia appeared unstoppable. In August of 1941, the United States supplied Japan with 80 percent of its oil. When President Roosevelt announced a complete oil embargo, Japan’s economic and military strength was imperiled.

War seemed imminent on both fronts, and the great debate was how long the U.S. could sit on the sidelines. Pete had many friends who were still active in the army, and not a single one believed the country could remain neutral.

Eight years earlier, he had left the military life behind, and with regret. Now, though, he had no misgivings about his future. He had grown accustomed to the life of a farmer. He adored his wife and children and found happiness in the flow of the seasons, the rhythm of the plantings and harvests. He was in the fields every day, often on horseback and often with Liza at his side, watching his crops and pondering ways to acquire more land. Joel was now fifteen and when he wasn’t in school or doing his numerous chores on the farm, he was in the woods with Pete stalking white-tailed deer and wild turkeys. Stella was thirteen and breezing through school with perfect grades. The family had dinner together every night promptly at seven, and they talked about everything. Increasingly, the conversations were about war.

As a reservist, Pete was certain that he would soon be activated, and the thought of leaving home was painful. He scoffed at his old dreams of military glory. He was a farmer now, too old to be a soldier, at least in his opinion. He knew, though, that the army would not be concerned with his age. Almost weekly he received another letter from a West Point pal who had been activated. All of them vowed to keep in touch.

His orders came on September 15, 1941. He was to report to Fort Riley, Kansas, the home of the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry, his old regiment that was already in the Philippines. He requested a thirty-day delay to oversee the fall harvest, but it was denied.

On October 3, Liza invited a small group of friends to the house to say farewell. In spite of Pete’s efforts to allay all fears, it was not a happy occasion. There were smiles and hugs and offers of good luck and so on, but the fear and tension were palpable. Pete thanked everyone for their thoughts and prayers, and reminded them that across the country scores of young men were being called into duty. The world was on the verge of another great conflict, and in trying times sacrifices were required.

The new preacher, Dexter Bell, was present, along with his wife, Jackie. They had moved to town a month earlier and had been well received. Dexter was young and enthusiastic and a real presence in the pulpit. Jackie had a beautiful voice and had wowed the church with two solos. Their three children were well mannered and polite.

Long after the guests were gone, the Bannings, with Florry, sat in the den and tried to delay the inevitable. Stella clung to her father and fought back tears. Joel, like his father, tried to appear stoic, as if all would be well. He added logs to the fire as they warmed in its glow, each subdued and frightened about the uncertainties before them. The fire eventually died and it was time for bed. Tomorrow was a Saturday and the kids would sleep in.

A few hours later, at sunrise, Pete tossed his duffel into the rear seat of his car and kissed Liza good-bye. He drove away with Jupe, who was now twenty years old and a handsome young man. Pete had known him since the day he was born, and for years Jupe had been one of Pete’s favorites. He had taught the kid how to drive, got him licensed and insured, and he, Liza, and Nineva used Jupe to run errands in town. He was even allowed to drive Pete’s pickup truck to Tupelo for feed and supplies.

Pete drove to Memphis and parked at the train station. He told Jupe to take care of things on the farm and watched him drive away. Two hours later, Pete boarded the train and headed for Fort Riley in Kansas. It was packed with servicemen headed to bases all over the country.

He had left the army with the rank of lieutenant, and reentered as the same. He was reassigned to his old unit, the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry Regiment, and spent a month in training at Fort Riley before being hurriedly shipped out on November 10. He was on the deck of the troop carrier when it sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, and he wondered how long it would be before he returned. On board, he wrote two or three letters a day to Liza and his children and mailed them in port. The troop carrier stopped for supplies at Pearl Harbor, and a week later arrived in the Philippines.

Pete’s timing could not have been worse. His assignment could not have been more unfortunate.

Chapter 24

The Philippines is a collection of seven thousand islands spread over a far-flung archipelago in the South China Sea. The terrains and landscapes change dramatically from island to island. There are mountains that top ten thousand feet, dense forests, impenetrable jungles, coastal floodplains, beaches, and miles of rocky shorelines. Many of its larger islands are crossed with swift rivers that are not navigable. In 1940, it was a country of vast mineral resources and food supplies, and thus crucial to the Japanese war effort. U.S. war planners had no doubt that the Philippines would be an early target, and they also knew that defending it would be next to impossible. It was geographically close to Japan, an ambitious enemy whose imperial army was savagely invading every neighbor in the region.

The defense of the Philippines was in the hands of Major General Douglas MacArthur, U.S. Army. In July of 1941, President Roosevelt coaxed MacArthur out of retirement and appointed him commander of all U.S. forces in the Far East. He established his headquarters in Manila, and went about the formidable task of preparing to defend the Philippines. He had lived in the country for years and knew it well, and he also knew how dire the situation really was. He had repeatedly warned Washington of the Japanese threat. His warnings were heard but not heeded. The challenge of getting his army on a war footing looked impossible, and there was little time.

Upon taking command, he immediately began demanding more troops, armaments, airplanes, ships, submarines, and supplies. Washington promised everything but delivered little. By December of 1941, as relations with the Japanese deteriorated, the U.S. Army in the Philippines numbered 22,500 men, half of whom were the well-trained Filipino Scouts, a crack unit that was comprised of Filipino-Americans and a few natives. Another 8,500 U.S. soldiers were shipped in. MacArthur mobilized the regular Philippine Army, an inexperienced, ill-equipped ragtag army of twelve infantry divisions, at least on paper. Including everyone with some semblance of a uniform, MacArthur had about 100,000 men under his command, the vast majority of whom were untrained and had never heard a shot fired in anger.

The condition of the regular Philippine Army was pathetic. The bulk of its force, the native Filipinos, were armed with World War I — vintage small arms, rifles, and machine guns. Their artillery was outdated and ineffective. Most ammunition proved defective. Many officers and enlisted men were untrained, and there were few training facilities. Few had decent uniforms. Steel helmets were in such short supply that the Filipinos used improvised headgear made from coconut shells.

MacArthur’s air force numbered several hundred planes, almost all of which were leftover hand-me-downs no one else wanted. He repeatedly demanded more planes, ships, submarines, men, ammunition, and supplies, but they either did not exist or were committed elsewhere.

Pete arrived in Manila on Thanksgiving Day and caught a ride on a supply truck to Fort Stotsenburg, sixty miles north of the capital. There he joined C Troop of the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry Regiment. After presenting his orders to his commanding officers, he was assigned a bunk in the barracks and taken to the stables to select a horse.

At the time, the Twenty-Sixth had 787 enlisted men, mostly well-trained Filipino Scouts, and 55 American officers. It was the last remaining fully operational horse-mounted combat unit in the regular U.S. Army. It was well equipped, expertly drilled, and famous for its discipline. Pete spent his first days in the saddle of his newest companion, a dark chestnut thoroughbred named Clyde. Polo was popular with the Twenty-Sixth and used as part of the training. Though somewhat rusty at first, Pete quickly grew to the saddle and enjoyed the games. But tension mounted each day, and the regiment, along with the entire island force, felt the urgency. It was only a matter of time before the Japanese made their move.

In the early hours of December 8, radio operators in the Philippines heard the first reports of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The games were over; the war was on. All American units and installations were ordered to stand ready. According to the master plan for defense of the Philippines, the air force commander, General Lewis Brereton, put his entire fleet on full alert. At 5:00 a.m., General Brereton arrived at MacArthur’s headquarters in Manila to request permission to mount a B-17 bomber strike on the Japanese airfields on Formosa, two hundred miles away. MacArthur’s chief of staff refused a meeting with the commander, saying he was too busy. The prewar plan was well established, well rehearsed, and called for such an attack immediately, but MacArthur had to give the final order to go. Instead, MacArthur did nothing. At 7:15, a panicked Brereton returned to the headquarters and again demanded an audience with the general. Again he was rebuffed, and told to “stand by for orders.” By then, Japanese reconnaissance planes were being spotted and reports of enemy aircraft were pouring into Brereton’s headquarters. At 10:00 a.m., an angry and frantic Brereton again demanded to see MacArthur. A meeting was refused, but Brereton was ordered to prepare for the attack. An hour later, Brereton ordered his bombers into the air, off the ground, to protect them from a Japanese attack. They began circling the islands, without bombs.

When MacArthur finally ordered the attack, Brereton’s bombers were in the air and low on fuel. They immediately landed, along with the squadrons of fighters. At 11:30, all American aircraft were on the ground being refueled and armed. Ground crews were working frantically when the first wave of Japanese bombers arrived in perfect formations. At 11:35, they crossed the South China Sea and Clark Airfield came into view. The Japanese pilots were stunned. Below them were sixty B-17s and fighters parked in neat rows on the runways. At 11:45, the merciless bombing of Clark Field began, and within minutes the U.S. Army’s air force was almost entirely destroyed. Similar attacks were made simultaneously at other airfields. For reasons that would forever remain inexplicable, the Americans had been caught flat-footed. The damage was incalculable. With no air force to protect and resupply the troops, and with no reinforcements on the way, the Battle of the Philippines was decided only hours after it began.

The Japanese were confident they could take the islands in thirty days. On December 22, a force of forty-three thousand elite troops came ashore at various landings and overwhelmed the resisting forces. During the first days of the invasion it appeared as if their confidence was well-founded. However, through sheer stubbornness and uncommon courage, the American and Filipino forces, with no hope of rescue or reinforcements, hung on for four brutal months.

Shortly after the landing invasion on December 22, C Troop was ordered north to the Luzon peninsula, where it conducted reconnaissance for the infantry and artillery and was involved in several rear-guard skirmishes. Pete’s platoon leader was Lieutenant Edwin Ramsey, a horse lover who had volunteered for the Twenty-Sixth because he had heard “they had an excellent polo club.” Lieutenant Banning was second-in-command.

Their days were spent in the saddle as they moved quickly through the peninsula watching the enemy’s movements and gauging its strength. It was immediately evident that the Japanese forces were vastly superior in number, training, and armaments. To take the islands, they used their frontline divisions, battle-hardened veterans who had been fighting for almost a decade. And with control of the skies, the Japanese air forces were free to bomb and strafe at will. For the Americans on the ground, the most terrifying sounds were the screaming engines of Zero attack fighters as they barreled in from just above the trees with their two twenty-millimeter cannons and two seven-millimeter machine guns blasting anything that moved on the ground. Taking cover from the Zeros became a daily, often hourly, ritual. It was even more difficult for the Twenty-Sixth because the men not only had to find a ditch for themselves but had to hide their horses as well.

At dusk, they camped and fed and watered their horses. Each troop was well supported by cooks, blacksmiths, even veterinarians. After dinner, when things were quiet and the men were ready to collapse, they read the mail from home and wrote letters. Until the invasion, and the naval blockade that followed, the mail service had been fairly dependable, even remarkable given the circumstances. By late December, though, it had slowed considerably.

The week before Christmas, Pete received a carton the size of a shoe box filled with letters and cards from his family, his church, and what appeared to be most of the fine folks in Clanton. Dozens of letters and cards, and he read them all. The ones from Liza and the kids were read until practically memorized. Writing to his family, Pete described the islands, a country far different from the rolling hills of north Mississippi. He described the drudgery of life in the army. Never did he portray his situation as dangerous. Not once did he use words that could even remotely convey the notion of fear. The Japanese would soon invade, or had already invaded, and they would be repelled by the U.S. Army and its Filipino comrades.

On December 24, MacArthur put in motion the prewar plan of withdrawing his forces to the Bataan Peninsula for a last stand. Victory was not really in the cards, and MacArthur knew it. The U.S. goal was to dig in at Bataan and occupy the Japanese as long as possible, thus delaying other invasions on other fronts in the Pacific.

“Delay” was the key word. A “delaying action” became the common term.

To protect his forces as they retreated to Bataan, MacArthur established five delaying positions in Central Luzon, where the bulk of the Japanese forces were maneuvering. The Twenty-Sixth Cavalry became crucial in stalling the enemy’s advance.

On January 15, 1942, Lieutenant Ed Ramsey and his platoon had finished a grueling recon assignment and were planning to rest themselves and their horses. However, C Troop received word that a major Japanese force was moving in its direction. A counterattack was planned, and Ramsey volunteered to assist in the assault.

He was ordered to take the village of Morong, a strategic point on the Batalan River in western Bataan. Morong was held by the Japanese but not heavily defended. Ramsey assembled his twenty-seven-man platoon and headed north on the main road to Morong. When they reached the Batalan River on the eastern edge of the village, they cautiously approached and realized it was deserted. The Catholic church was the only stone building in town, and it was surrounded by grass huts on stilts. Ramsey divided his men into three nine-man squads, with Lieutenant Banning leading one. As Pete and his squad approached the Catholic church, the entire platoon came under fire from a Japanese advance guard. Ramsey’s men returned fire, and in doing so caught sight of the lead elements of a huge Japanese force fording the river. If those troops reached Morong, the platoon would be overwhelmed.

Without hesitation, Ramsey decided to launch a horse cavalry charge against an infantry, an attack unseen in the U.S. Army in over fifty years. He ordered his platoon into formation, raised his pistol, and yelled, “Charge!” With his men screaming and firing away, the galloping horses slammed into the Japanese front guard and sent it reeling. The terrified enemy retreated to the other side of the river and tried to regroup. With only three men wounded, Ramsey’s platoon held off the Japanese until reinforcements relieved them.

It would become known as the last cavalry charge in American military history.

The Twenty-Sixth continued to harass and stall the enemy and delay its inevitable siege of Bataan. MacArthur moved the Philippine government and the bulk of his army to the peninsula, but for his command post he chose a bunker on the heavily armed island of Corregidor, protecting Manila Bay. His forces frantically established defensive positions throughout Bataan. Using barges, they ferried men and supplies from Manila in a frenzied effort to dig in. The plan was to warehouse enough food to feed forty-five thousand men for six months. Ultimately, eighty thousand troops and twenty-five thousand Philippine civilians retreated to Bataan. By mid-January, the withdrawal was complete and successful.

With the American forces confined to the peninsula, the Japanese moved swiftly to choke them with a complete air and naval blockade. Flush with confidence, the Japanese made a tactical error. They pulled back their elite divisions for action elsewhere in the Pacific, and replaced them with less capable troops. It was a mistake from which they would recover, but it ultimately added months to the siege, and the suffering.

In the first weeks of the Battle of Bataan, the Japanese incurred heavy losses as the Americans and Filipinos fought furiously to protect their last stronghold. The Allies incurred far fewer casualties, but their dead could not be replaced. The Japanese had an endless supply of men and armaments, and as the weeks wore on they bombarded their prey with heavy artillery and relentless air attacks.

Conditions on Bataan rapidly deteriorated. For weeks the Americans and Filipinos fought with little food in their stomachs. The average soldier consumed two thousand calories a day, about half the number needed for hard combat. Their hunger was acute and the supplies were dwindling. This was primarily due to another inexplicable mistake by MacArthur. In his rush to solidify his forces on Bataan, he had left most of their food behind. In one warehouse alone, millions of bushels of rice had been abandoned, enough to feed his army for years. Many of his officers had begged him to stockpile food on Bataan, but he had refused to listen. When informed that his men were hungry and complaining bitterly, he placed all units on half rations. In a letter to his men he promised reinforcements. He wrote that “thousands of troops and hundreds of planes are being dispatched. The exact time of arrival of reinforcements is unknown.” But help was on the way.

It was a lie. The Pacific Fleet had been severely crippled at Pearl Harbor and had nothing left to break the Japanese blockade. The Philippines was thoroughly isolated. Washington knew it, as did MacArthur.

As the men starved, they ate anything that moved. They hunted and slaughtered carabao, the Philippine version of the water buffalo. Its tough, leathery meat had to be soaked and boiled in salt water and pounded with mallets to become somewhat chewable. It was usually served over a mush of rotten and bug-infested rice. When the carabao were decimated, the horses and mules were killed, though the soldiers of the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry refused to eat their beloved animals.

The starving soldiers hunted wild pigs, jungle lizards, even crows and exotic birds and snakes, including cobras, which were plentiful. Whatever they killed they threw into a giant pot for a common stew. By February, there was not a single mango or banana left on Bataan and the men were eating grass and leaves. The Bataan Peninsula was surrounded by the South China Sea, known for its abundance of fish. Harvesting it, though, proved impossible. Japanese fighter pilots took great pleasure in attacking and sinking even the smallest fishing boats. It was suicide to venture onto the water.

Malnutrition was rampant. By early March, the physical fitness of the troops was so impaired they were unable to mount patrols, stage ambushes, or launch attacks. Weight loss was staggering, with each man losing thirty to fifty pounds.

On March 11, MacArthur, following orders from Washington, fled Corregidor with his family and top aides. He made it safely to Australia, where he set up his command. Although he performed no acts of combat valor, as required by law, and left his troops behind, MacArthur was awarded the Medal of Honor for his gallant defense of the Philippines.

The emaciated men he left on Bataan were in no condition to fight. They suffered from swelling joints, bleeding gums, numbness in feet and hands, low blood pressure, loss of body heat, shivers, shakes, and anemia so severe many could not walk. The malnutrition soon led to dysentery with diarrhea so debilitating the men often collapsed. Bataan was a malaria-infested province in peaceful times, and the war provided countless new targets for the mosquitoes. After being bitten, the men were hit with fever, sweats, and fits of chills. By the end of March, a thousand men a day were being infected with malaria. Most of the officers suffered from it. One general reported that only half of his command could fight. The other half were “so sick, hungry, and tired they could never hold a position or launch an attack.”

The men began to doubt the promises of reinforcements and rescue. Each morning, lookouts scanned the South China Sea looking for the convoys, but, of course, there were none. In late February, President Roosevelt addressed the nation in one of his famous “Fireside Chats.” He told the American people that the Japanese had blockaded the Philippines and that “complete encirclement” was preventing “substantial reinforcement.” And because the United States was at war in two large theaters, the country would have to concentrate the fight in “areas other than the Philippines.”

The men on Bataan were listening too, on shortwave radios in their foxholes and tanks, and now they knew the truth. There would be no rescue.

At home, the Bannings had received no letters from Pete in almost two months. They knew he was on Bataan, but had no idea how grim the situation was. They, too, listened to the President, and for the first time began to grasp the extent of the danger. After the broadcast, Stella went to her room and cried herself to sleep. Liza and Joel stayed up late, talking about the war and trying in vain to find a reason to be optimistic.

Each Sunday morning when Dexter Bell began the worship hour, he called the names of the men and women from Ford County who were off at war, and the list grew longer each week. He offered a long prayer for their well-being and safe return. Most were in training and had yet to see battle. Pete Banning, though, was in a horrible place and received more prayers than the others.

Liza and the family strived to be courageous. The country was at war and families everywhere were living with fear. An eighteen-year-old kid from Clanton was killed in North Africa. Before long thousands of American families would receive the dreaded news.

Chapter 25

Without horses, the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry no longer existed as a fighting unit. Its men were assigned to other units and given tasks they were not accustomed to. Pete was placed with an infantry and handed a shovel with which to dig himself a foxhole, one of thousands along a thirteen-mile reserve line stretching across southern Bataan. In reality, the reserve line was the last line of defense. If the Japanese broke through, the Allies would be shoved to the tip of the peninsula and routed with their backs to the South China Sea.

In March, there was a lull in the fighting as the Japanese tightened the noose around Bataan. They regrouped and reinforced with fresh supplies. The Americans and Filipinos knew what was inevitable, and dug in even deeper.

During the days, Pete and his comrades shoveled dirt around bunkers and breastworks, though labor was difficult. The men were sick and starving. Pete estimated he had lost at least forty pounds. Every ten days or so he punched another notch in his only belt to keep his pants up. So far he had managed to avoid malaria, though it was just a matter of time. He’d had two mild bouts of dysentery but had recovered quickly from both when a doctor found some paregoric. During the nights, he slept on a blanket beside his foxhole with his rifle by his side.

In the foxhole to his right was Sal Moreno, a tough Italian sergeant from Long Island. Sal was a city kid from a large, colorful family that produced a lot of good stories. He had learned to ride horses on a farm where his uncle worked. After a couple of scrapes with the law, he joined the army and found his way to the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry. A severe case of malaria almost killed him, but Pete found quinine on the black market and nursed him back to decent health.

In the foxhole to Pete’s left was Ewing Kane, a Virginia blue blood who had graduated with honors from the Virginia Military Institute, as had his father and grandfather. Ewing was riding ponies when he was three years old and was the finest horseman in the Twenty-Sixth.

But their horses were gone now, and the men lamented the fact that they had been reduced to infantry status. They spent hours together talking and their favorite subject was food. Pete described with relish the dishes prepared by Nineva: battered pork chops, raised on his farm, and smoked ribs, and fried okra, fried chicken, fried green tomatoes, potatoes fried in bacon fat, fried squash, fried everything. Sal marveled at a style of cooking that involved so much grease. Ewing described the joys of smoked Virginia hams and bacon and all manner of pheasant, dove, quail, hens, and Brunswick stew. But they were amateurs compared with Sal, whose mother and grandmother prepared dishes the other two had never heard of. Baked lasagna, stuffed manicotti, spaghetti Bolognese, balsamic pork scaloppine, garlic tomato bruschetta, fried mozzarella cheese, and on and on. The list seemed endless, and at first they thought he was exaggerating. But the depth of his detail made their mouths water. They agreed to meet in New York after the war and do nothing but binge on Italian delicacies.

There were moments when they managed to laugh and dream, but morale was low. The men on Bataan blamed MacArthur, Roosevelt, and everybody else in Washington for abandoning them. They were bitter and miserable and most were unable to resist complaining. Others told them to shut up and stop the bitching. Complaints did nothing to help their rotten conditions. It was not unusual to see men weeping in their foxholes, or to see a man crack up and wander away. Pete kept his sanity by thinking of Liza and the kids, and the sumptuous meals Nineva would one day cook for him, and all those vegetables in Amos’s garden. He wanted desperately to write some letters but there were no pens, no paper, no mail service. They were thoroughly blockaded with no way to correspond. He prayed for his family every day and asked God to protect them after he was gone. Death was certain, either by starvation, disease, bombs, or bullets.

While the Japanese infantry took a break, its artillery and air force never stopped pounding away. It was a lull, but there were no quiet days. Danger was never far away. To wake things up each morning, Japanese dive-bombers strafed at will, and as soon as the planes disappeared the cannons began unloading.

Late in March, 150 big guns were positioned near the American line and began a ferocious bombardment. The assault was continuous, around the clock, and the results were devastating. Many Americans and Filipinos were blown to bits in their foxholes. Bunkers thought to be bombproof disintegrated like straw shacks. Casualties were horrendous and the field hospitals were packed with the injured and dying. On April 3, after a week of nonstop artillery fire, Japanese infantry and tanks poured through the gaps. As the Americans and Filipinos fell back, their officers tried to rally them into defensive positions, only to be overrun within hours. Counterattacks were planned, attempted, and destroyed by the vastly superior Japanese forces.

By then, an American general estimated that only one soldier in ten could walk a hundred yards, raise his rifle, and shoot at the enemy. What had once been a fighting army of eighty thousand had been reduced to an effective fighting force of twenty-five hundred. Low on food, morale, ammo, and with no support from the skies or seas, the Americans and Filipinos battled on, throwing everything they had at the Japanese and inflicting horrendous casualties. But they were outnumbered and outgunned, and the inevitable soon became the reality.

As the enemy continued its relentless push, the American commander, General Ned King, huddled with his generals and colonels and discussed the unthinkable — surrender. Orders from Washington were clear: The American and Filipino forces were to fight to the last man. That might sound heroic when decided in a comfortable office in Washington, but General King now faced the awful reality. It was his decision to either surrender or have his men slaughtered. Those who were still able to fight were putting up a resistance that grew weaker each day. The Japanese were within a few miles of a large field hospital that held six thousand wounded and dying men.

At midnight on April 8, General King assembled his commanders and said, “I am sending forward a flag of truce at daybreak to ask for terms of surrender. I feel that further resistance would only uselessly waste human life. Already one of our hospitals, which is filled to capacity and directly in the line of hostile approach, is within range of enemy light artillery. We have no further means of organized resistance.”

Though the decision was inevitable, it was still difficult to accept. Many of those present wept as they left to resume their duties. General King ordered the immediate destruction of anything of military value, but he spared buses, cars, and trucks to carry the sick and wounded to the prison camps.

With approximately seventy thousand soldiers under his command, General King’s surrender was the largest in American history.

Pete heard the news at noon on April 9 and could not believe it. He, Sal, Ewing, and others from the Twenty-Sixth at first planned to disappear into the bush and keep fighting, but that strategy seemed almost suicidal. They hardly had the energy to mount an escape. They were ordered to destroy their weapons and ammunition, find and eat whatever they could, fill their canteens with water, and begin walking north in search of the Japanese. The men were stunned, defeated, even emotional at the reality that a once proud American army had surrendered. Their sense of shame was profound.

As they walked slowly and with a sense of fear and dread, they were joined by other dazed and emaciated Americans and Filipinos. Dozens, then hundreds of soldiers filled the road, all walking to a future that was uncertain but would certainly be unpleasant. They cleared the way for a transport truck packed with wounded Americans. On its hood sat a solitary private, holding a stick with a white flag on it. Surrender. It did not seem real.

The men were frightened. Japan’s reputation as a brutal occupier was well-known. They had read stories of its war crimes in China — the rape of countless women, the execution of prisoners, the looting of entire cities. At the same time, though, they were somewhat comforted by the fact that they were American prisoners and thus protected by international law, which forbade their mistreatment. Wasn’t Japan bound by the agreements of the Geneva Convention?

Pete, Sal, and Ewing stuck together as they trudged north to meet their captors. As they topped a hill, they saw a sickening sight. A row of Japanese tanks was assembled in a clearing, waiting. Behind it was a column of Japanese soldiers. In the distance, airplanes were still dropping bombs; cannons were still firing.

“Get rid of all your Jap stuff and quick,” someone yelled back. The warning was repeated again and again down the line, and most of the men heard it and complied quickly. Japanese coins and souvenirs were dropped in the dirt and tossed in ditches. Pete had only three small tins of canned sardines in his pockets, along with his wristwatch, wedding band, blanket, mess kit, and a pair of sunglasses. He had twenty-one American dollars sewn inside the canvas cover of his canteen.

They were approached by Japanese soldiers waving rifles and barking in their language. Every rifle was equipped with a long bayonet. The prisoners were directed to a field, lined up in rows, and told to remain silent. One of the Japanese spoke enough English to bark commands. One by one, the prisoners were told to step forward and empty their pockets. They were frisked, though it was obvious the guards wanted little contact. Punching and slapping were okay, but nothing that required finesse around the pockets. Almost everything was stolen, or “confiscated,” by the Japanese. Fountain pens, pencils, sunglasses, flashlights, cameras, mess kits, blankets, coins, razors, and blades.

Jack Wilson from Iowa was standing directly in front of Pete when a Japanese soldier began yelling at him. Jack had in his pocket a small shaving mirror, and unfortunately it had been made in Japan.

“Nippon!” the guard screamed.

Jack didn’t answer in time, and the soldier rammed the butt of his rifle into his face. He fell to the ground as the soldier pounded him with the rifle butt until he was unconscious. Other guards began punching and slapping the prisoners while their officers laughed and egged them on. Pete was stunned by the sudden violence.

They would soon learn that the Japanese believed that any of the money, coins, or trinkets held by the prisoners must have been taken from their dead comrades. Thus, retaliation was called for. Several prisoners were beaten until they could not move, but the retaliation reached an unimaginable apex when a captain, not from the Twenty-Sixth, emptied his pockets. An angry little private began screaming at the captain and ordered him to step forward. The private had found some yen on the captain and was out of his mind. An officer stepped forward, a tall lanky sergeant with skin much darker than the others, and began screaming at the captain. He punched him in the gut, kicked him in the groin, and when the captain was down on all fours the “Black Jap,” as he would become known, yanked out his sword, raised it above his head with both hands, and struck the captain at the back of his neck. His head sprang off his shoulders and rolled a few feet away. Blood gushed in buckets as the captain’s body twitched for a few seconds, then became still.

The Black Jap smiled and admired his handiwork. He stuck his sword back in his sheath and snarled at the other prisoners. The private kept the yen and went through the captain’s pockets, taking his time. The other guards lost all restraint and began beating other prisoners.

Pete gawked at the head lying in the dust and almost went berserk. He wanted to attack the nearest soldier, but to do so would be suicidal. He breathed deeply while waiting to get punched. He was lucky, at least for that moment, and was not kicked around. Down the line, another private got excited and slapped a prisoner. The Black Jap strode over, saw more yen, and pummeled the American. When he yanked out his sword, Pete looked the other way.

Two quick beheadings. The Americans had never imagined anything like it. Pete was sickened and shocked and could not believe what was happening. His shock would wear off, though, as the murders became routine.

The prisoners stood in formation for over an hour as the tropical sun beat down on their bare heads. Pete had always hated his helmet and had left it behind. Now he wished he’d kept it. A few of the prisoners had caps, but most had nothing to shield the sun. They were soaked with sweat and many began to blister. Almost all had canteens but drinking water was forbidden. When the guards grew weary of abusing their prisoners, they retreated to the shade and took a break. The tanks eventually left. The prisoners were led back to the road and headed north.

The Bataan Death March had begun.

They walked three abreast through the heat and dust. Sal was to Pete’s left, Ewing to his right. When the trail ended, they turned east on the national highway that runs across the southern tip of Bataan. Coming toward them were endless columns of Japanese infantry, trucks, tanks, and horse-drawn artillery, all preparing for the assault on Corregidor.

When the guards could not hear them, the men talked incessantly. There were about twenty from the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry. The rest had been scattered in the chaos of the surrender. Pete ordered them to organize into groups of three, to keep up with one another and help if possible. If they were caught talking, they were beaten. For sport, the guards randomly grabbed the prisoners for quick searches and more beatings. After three miles or so the men had been stripped of everything valuable. Pete received his first slap in the face by a guard who took his sardines.

The ditches beside the road were littered with fire-gutted trucks and tanks, all rendered useless by the Americans and Filipinos the day before. At one point they passed a large pile of captured rations, just waiting to be eaten. But there was no mention of food, and the men, most already suffering from malnutrition, were starving. The heat was scalding and men began to collapse. As they quickly learned, it was unwise to render assistance. The guards kept their bayonets ready and were eager to gore any prisoner who stopped to help another one. Those who fell and could not get up were kicked to the side and into the ditches and left to be dealt with later.

The Japanese bayonet was thirty inches long overall with a fifteen-inch blade. Affixed to a fifty-inch Arisaka rifle, it gave a soldier a five-and-a-half-foot spear. The privates were proud of their bayonets and eager to use them. When a prisoner stumbled and fell, or simply collapsed, he got a quick jab in the butt as encouragement. If that didn’t work, he got the full blade and was left to bleed out.

Pete marched with his head down and his eyes squinted in an effort to avoid the dust and heat. He was also watching the guards, who seemed to fade away and then materialize out of nowhere. A few seemed sympathetic and unwilling to kick and slap, but most were enjoying the cruelty. Anything could set them off. They could be quiet and stern-faced one moment, then crazy with rage the next. They beat their prisoners with their fists, kicked them with their boots, pummeled them with rifle butts, and stabbed them with bayonets. They beat them for looking this way or that, for talking, for moving too slow, for not answering a question barked in Japanese, and for trying to help a comrade.

Everyone was brutalized, but the Japanese were especially cruel to the Filipinos, whom they considered an inferior race. Within the first few hours of the march, Pete witnessed the murder of ten Filipino Scouts, with all bodies kicked to the ditches and left to rot. During a break, he watched in disbelief as a column of Scouts came by. All had their hands tied behind their backs and were struggling to keep pace. The guards delighted in knocking them down and watching them roll and flounder in the dust as they tried to scramble to their feet.

Handcuffing the prisoners served no purpose. As awful as things were, Pete was thankful he wasn’t a Filipino.

As they plodded along under the unrelenting sun, the men began to dehydrate. In spite of the many obvious problems, water was their principal thought. Thirst was the primary demon. Their bodies reacted by trying to conserve fluids. They stopped sweating and urinating. Their saliva turned sticky and their tongues stuck to their teeth and the roofs of their mouths. The dust and heat caused severe headaches that blurred their vision. And there was water everywhere, in fresh artesian wells along the roads, in wells near the roads and highways, in spigots on farmhouses and barns, in bubbling creeks they crossed over. Their guards saw the misery and enjoyed long drinks from their canteens and refreshing splashes on their faces. They wet bandannas and tucked them around their collars.

As the prisoners approached the charred remains of Hospital Number One, they saw many of the patients in soiled gowns and green pajamas wandering around with no idea what to do or where to go. Some were missing limbs and on crutches. Others had bloody wounds in need of care. The hospital had been bombed days before and the patients were in shock. When the Japanese commander saw them, he ordered them rounded up and added to the march. Again, assistance was forbidden, and many of the patients managed to walk only a short distance before collapsing. They were kicked aside and left to die.

When they encountered a massive traffic jam of Japanese trucks and tanks, they were led to an open field and ordered to sit in the blazing sun. This would become known as the “sun treatment,” and it drove some of them to the point of breaking. As they baked, a prisoner attempted to sneak a drink of tepid water from his canteen, and this upset the guards. They yelled and punched and went from prisoner to prisoner, grabbing canteens and spilling the water on the parched soil. The guard who emptied Pete’s canteen threw it back with such force it opened a small cut above his right eye.

After an hour, they resumed the march. They passed men who had been bayoneted and were begging for help as they bled to death. They passed the bodies of dead Americans. They watched in horror as two wounded Filipino soldiers were dragged from a ditch and situated in the middle of the road for tanks to run over them. The longer they marched, the more dead and dying they passed in the ditches. Pete marveled at his brain’s ability to adjust to the carnage and cruelty, and he soon reached the point where he wasn’t shocked anymore. The heat, hunger, and deprivation deadened his senses. But the anger boiled, and he vowed revenge. He prayed that one day soon he would find a way to kill as many Japanese soldiers as humanly possible.

He kept talking, kept encouraging the others to take another step, climb the next hill, endure another hour. Surely, at some point, they would be fed and allowed to drink water. At sundown, they were led off the road into a clearing where they were allowed to sit and lie down. There was no sign of food or water, but it was refreshing to rest for a spell. Their feet were covered with blisters and their legs were cramping. Many collapsed and fell asleep. As Pete was nodding off, a ruckus broke out as a fresh supply of guards arrived and began kicking the prisoners. They were ordered to their feet and into a column. The march resumed in the darkness, and for two hours they limped along, never at a pace fast enough to satisfy the guards.

Throughout the first day, Pete and those close to him counted three hundred prisoners in their column, but the number changed constantly. Some men collapsed and died, others were murdered, stragglers joined them, and their column often merged with others. At some point in the night, and since they had been robbed of their watches they had no idea of the hour, they were led to a clearing and told to sit. Evidently, the Japs were hungry too and it was time for dinner. After they ate, they moved through the prisoners with buckets of water and offered one small ladleful to each. The water was warm and chalky but delicious nonetheless. Each prisoner was given a ball of sticky rice. A thick steak with fried potatoes could not have been more delicious.

As they savored their food, they heard small-arms fire down the road and it soon became apparent what was happening. The “buzzard squads” were behind them, calmly finishing off those who had been unable to keep up.

The food had revived Pete’s senses, if only briefly, and he was once again stunned at the wanton murder of American prisoners of war. His ordeal on the death march would last for six days, and each night he and others listened in horror at the work of the buzzard squads.

After sleeping in a rice paddy for a few hours, the men were awakened again, scolded back into formation, and forced to march. After the idleness, many found it difficult to walk, but they were encouraged by the ever present bayonets. The highway was packed with American and Filipino prisoners.

At sunrise, they were met by another massive caravan of Japanese troops and artillery. The road was too crowded for the prisoners and they were led to a field next to a small farmhouse. Behind a shed was a creek with what appeared to be clear water bubbling over the rocks. The sound of water chattering about was maddening. Their thirst was torturous and was more than some could stand. A colonel stood bravely, pointed to the creek, and asked if his men could have a drink. A guard knocked him out cold with a rifle butt.

For at least an hour, the prisoners squatted and listened to the creek as the sun rose. They watched the convoy roll past, stirring up clouds of dust. The guards drifted away and gathered by the road to enjoy a breakfast of rice cakes and mangoes. As they ate, three Filipino Scouts belly crawled to the creek and buried their faces in the cool water. A guard glanced around, saw them, and alerted the other Japanese. Without a word, they moved to within twenty feet of the creek, formed an impromptu firing line, and murdered the Filipinos.

When the traffic slowed, the prisoners were hurried back into formation and the march continued. “Soon there will be food,” a guard said to Pete, who almost thanked him. As badly as his stomach ached, his thirst was far worse. By midmorning, his mouth and throat were so dry he could no longer talk. No one could, and a grim silence fell over the prisoners. They were halted near a swamp and told to squat in the sun. A guard allowed them to walk to the edge of a stagnant wallow and fill their canteens with a brown brackish liquid that had been contaminated with seawater. If not lethal it would certainly cause dysentery or worse, but the men drank it nonetheless.

At midday, they stopped near a compound and were ordered to sit in the sun. The unmistakable aroma of something cooking wafted over the prisoners, most of whom had eaten only one rice ball in the past thirty hours. Under a makeshift tent, cooks were boiling rice in cauldrons over fires. The prisoners watched as the cooks added pounds of sausage links and fresh chickens to the rice and stirred their mix with long wooden spatulas. Beyond the tent was a makeshift pen secured by barbed wire, and inside it there were about a hundred bedraggled and starving Philippine citizens, support staff who had worked for the army. More guards arrived and it became apparent that this would be a lunch site. When it was served, the Japanese ate from their mess kits and enjoyed a nice meal. One walked to the pen, held up a thick link sausage, and tossed it through the barbed wire. A mob descended upon it, squealing, scratching, clawing, fighting. The guard bent double laughing, as did his buddies. It was too much fun to pass up, so several of them walked to the barbed wire and held up chicken legs and sausages. The prisoners reached and begged and then fought viciously when the food hit the ground.

Nothing was tossed to the Americans. There was no lunch, only the putrid water and an hour in the sun. The march continued through the long afternoon with more men falling and being left behind.

Around midnight on April 12, the second day of the march, the men arrived at the town of Orani, some thirty miles from where they had started. Such a hike would have been challenging for healthy soldiers. For the survivors, it was a miracle they had made it so far. Near the center of town they were led off the highway and into a barbed-wire compound hastily built to house five hundred prisoners. There were at least a thousand already there when Pete’s column arrived. There was no food or water and no latrines. Many of the men suffered from dysentery, and human waste, blood, mucus, and urine covered the ground and stuck to their boots. Maggots were everywhere. There was no room to lie down, so the men tried to sleep sitting back to back, but their cramped muscles made it impossible. The screams of the deranged did not help. Sick, dehydrated, exhausted, and starving, many of the men lost all sense of where they were and what they were doing. Many were delirious, half or fully crazed, and others were catatonic and stood about in a stupor, zombielike.

And they were dying. Many lapsed into comas and did not wake up. By sunrise, the camp was filled with dead bodies. When the Japanese officers realized this, they did not order food and water. Instead, they ordered shovels and instructed the “healthier” prisoners to start digging shallow graves along the edges of the fencing. Pete, Sal, and Ewing were still functioning and thus chosen as gravediggers.

Those who were merely delirious were stuck in a wooden shed and told to be quiet. A few of the comatose were buried alive, not that it made much difference. Death was only hours away. Instead of resting, those with shovels labored through the night as the casualties mounted and bodies were piled next to the barbed wire.

At dawn, the gates opened and guards dragged in sacks of boiled rice. The prisoners were told to sit in neat rows and hold out their cupped hands. Each received a ladleful of sticky rice, their first “meal” in days. After breakfast, they were walked in small groups to an artesian well and allowed to fill their canteens. The food and water calmed the men for a few hours, but the sun was back. By midmorning, the crazed shouting and shrieking was at full chorus. Half the prisoners were ordered out of the compound and back onto the road. The march continued.

Chapter 26

Anticipating the fall of Bataan, the Japanese planned to use the peninsula as a staging area to attack the nearby island of Corregidor, the last American stronghold. To do so, it was necessary to quickly clear the area of American and Filipino prisoners. The plan was to march them sixty-six miles along the Old National Road to the rail yards at San Fernando, and from there they would be taken by train to their destinations at various prisons, including Camp O’Donnell, an old Philippine fort the Japanese had converted into a POW camp. The plans called for the quick removal of about fifty thousand.

However, within hours of the surrender, the Japanese realized that they had grossly underestimated. There were seventy-six thousand American and Filipino soldiers, along with twenty-six thousand civilians. Everywhere the Japanese looked there were prisoners, all hungry and in need of food and water. How could the enemy surrender with so many soldiers? Where was their will to fight? They could not contain their contempt and hatred for their captives.

As the march dragged on, and the ranks of the prisoners continued to rise, the Japanese guards were pressured to speed it along. There was no time to eat or drink, no time to rest, no time to stop and assist those who had fallen. There was no time to bury the dead, and no time to worry about stragglers. The generals were yelling at the officers to hurry. The officers were physically abusing the privates, and they in turn released their frustrations on their prisoners. As the columns swelled and slowed, the pressure wound even tighter and the march became even more chaotic. Dead bodies littered the ditches and fields and decomposed in the blistering sun. Black clouds of flies swarmed the rotting flesh and were joined by hungry pigs and dogs. Packs of black crows waited patiently on fences, and some began following the columns, tormenting the prisoners.

Pete had lost track of the men of the Twenty-Sixth. He, Sal, and Ewing were still together, but it was impossible to keep up with anyone else. Groups of emaciated prisoners were added to one column one day and left behind at the camps the next day. Men were falling, dying, and being killed by the hundreds. He stopped thinking about anyone but himself.

On the fourth day, they entered the city of Lubao. The once busy town of thirty thousand was deserted, or at least the streets were. But from the windows upstairs, the residents were watching. When the column stopped, the windows were raised and the people began tossing bread and fruits to the prisoners. The Japanese went into a frenzy and ordered them to ignore the food. When a teenage boy darted from behind a tree and tossed a loaf of bread, a guard shot him on the spot. Prisoners who had managed to eat a bite or two were pulled from the column and beaten. One was bayoneted in the stomach and hung from a lamppost as a warning.

They marched on, somehow mustering the will to take another step, notch another mile. So many men were dying from dehydration and exhaustion that the Japanese relented somewhat and allowed them to fill their canteens, usually at a roadside ditch or a pond used by livestock.

On the fifth day, the column of prisoners ran into another long convoy of heavy trucks packed with soldiers. The stretch of road was narrower, and the guards ordered the men into single file along both shoulders. Being so close to the filthy and unshaven Americans inspired the soldiers in the trucks. For some, it was their first sighting of the hated enemy. They taunted the captives, threw rocks at them, spat on them, and cursed them. Occasionally, a truck driver would spot a prisoner a step or two out of line and ram him with the heavy bumper. If he fell under the truck, he would soon be dead. If he landed in a ditch, the buzzard squads would take care of him later. If he knocked over other prisoners, then the soldiers had a big laugh as they rode away.

Pete was choking on a face full of dust when a soldier leaning from a truck swung his rifle and made perfect contact. The stock crashed into the back of Pete’s head and knocked him unconscious. He fell into a muddy ditch and landed on a tire next to a fire-gutted wagon. Sal and Ewing were ahead of him and did not see it happen.

The highway became a traffic jam and the prisoners were led to a rice paddy for another sun treatment. When Sal and Ewing couldn’t find their comrade, they began whispering around. Someone told them what had happened. Their first instinct was to go find him, but their second instinct kept them in place. The mere act of standing without permission would draw a beating. Any effort to look for Pete would be suicidal. They grieved for their friend in silence, hating the Japanese even more, if that was even possible. By then, though, they had seen so many dead bodies that their senses were numb, their emotions subdued or nonexistent.

They marched until after dark, then were given the luxury of sleeping in a rice paddy. There was no makeshift compound nearby. The guards passed out filthy rice balls and gave them water, and as they tried to rest they waited to hear the unmistakable sounds of the small-arms fire from the buzzard squads. Soon enough they heard them, and they wondered which bullet had found Pete Banning.

He regained consciousness and, still stunned and groggy, had the presence of mind to simply play dead. His head ached mightily and he could feel blood oozing down his neck. The column was endless and he listened to the sounds of the miserable men as they lumbered past him. He heard the trucks roll by, with the soldiers laughing, sometimes singing. He heard the guards yell their commands and curses. After dark, he crawled through the dirt and hid under the gutted wagon. The convoys finally went away but the prisoners continued coming. Late into the night, there was finally a break. The road was empty and quiet, at least for a moment. He heard pistol fire approaching and could soon see the orange flashes as the buzzard squads finished off those who were dying or already dead. He pulled himself tighter into a ball and didn’t breathe. They moved on.

Pete decided to crawl into a thicket of trees and try to escape. Escape to where? He had no idea. He was certain he would not get far, but he was a dead man anyway, so what the hell? He waited and waited. Hours passed and he fell into a deep sleep.

A bayonet interrupted his slumber. A Japanese private pressed it into his chest deep enough to wake him, but not to break skin. The sun was up and it glistened off the bayonet, which seemed ten feet long. The private smiled and motioned for him to get up. He shoved Pete back to the road, where he fell into another endless column of suffering ghosts. He was marching again. The first few steps were painful as his cramped legs tried to limber up, but he managed to keep pace. He recognized none of the other prisoners, but by then they all looked the same.

After six days, they arrived at their first destination, the city of San Fernando. They were placed in another makeshift camp with barbed wire and given nothing to eat. They were beyond starvation and convinced they were indeed on a march to death. The conditions were the worst so far. The camp had been used by hundreds of other prisoners and the ground was covered with human waste and blood. Rotting and decomposing bodies attracted maggots and flies by the millions.

San Fernando marked the end of the Bataan Death March. Seventy thousand prisoners were forcibly transferred, 60,000 Filipinos and 10,000 Americans. For Pete, the ordeal lasted six days. For many others, it took more than a week. Along the sixty-six-mile trail, an estimated 650 American and 11,000 Filipino prisoners died from disease or exhaustion, or were outright murdered. Countless Philippine civilians died. Only a fraction were buried.

And the worst was yet to come.

During his first night in the San Fernando camp, Pete managed to find a spot away from the shit and scum and rested with his back against barbed wire. The men were packed in so tight that sitting was not possible. The lucky ones who found a spot like Pete were constantly badgered to move over and make room. All semblance of discipline was long gone. A few officers tried to establish order but it was impossible. Fistfighting was out of the question because the men were too weary, so they simply cursed each other and made idle threats. The deranged ones roamed about, stepping on others while begging for food and water. Most of the men had dysentery, and with no latrines and no room to relieve themselves, they had no choice but to soil themselves where they stood.

At dawn, the gates opened and the guards spilled in. They barked orders, kicked men out of the way, and managed to organize the prisoners in rows of squatting skeletons. Three large pots of rice arrived and the guards began dishing it out into cupped hands. Those closest to the gates were fed, and when the pots were empty the guards left and locked the gates. Fewer than half the prisoners received anything, and there was precious little sharing.

Through the fence the guards promised more food and water, but the prisoners knew better. Pete was too far back to get a handful of rice. He could not remember his last bite of food. He withdrew into his shell and sat in a stupor as the morning sun arrived with all its fury. From time to time, he looked at the gaunt faces of those around him, looked in vain for Sal and Ewing or anyone he might recognize, but saw nothing familiar. He cursed himself for falling asleep under the wagon and losing his chance to escape. His head wound was bleeding but not badly. He feared infection but considered it just another affliction on a growing list of ways he might die. And what was he supposed to do about it? If he found a doctor the poor guy was probably worse off than he was.

Around midday, the gates were opened and the guards began removing prisoners one by one. They segregated them into groups of a hundred, and when there were five units, they marched them away and through the town. Pete was in the last unit.

By now, the residents were accustomed to the gaunt, filthy, and unshaven Americans being herded through their town. They hated the Japanese with as much venom as the prisoners, and they were determined to help. They tossed bread, cookies, and fruits from windows, and for some reason the guards did not intervene. Pete picked up a banana and ate it in two bites. Then he found a large broken cookie in the dirt. When it became apparent that the guards were indifferent, more food rained down upon the prisoners, who scooped up everything and ate on the march without breaking stride. From an alley, an old woman tossed a mango to Pete and he devoured it skin and all. Like before, he was amazed at how quickly his body was reenergized with the nourishment.

They stopped at the train station, where five ramshackle boxcars were waiting. They were known as “Forty and Eights,” narrow freight cars twenty feet long and just large enough for either forty people or eight horses, mules, or cows. The guards were stuffing a hundred men into each one and then slamming the doors, leaving the prisoners in total darkness. Crammed shoulder to shoulder, they immediately felt suffocated and had trouble breathing. They began beating on the wooden side walls and screaming for relief. As they waited, the temperature rose dramatically and men began fainting. There was no ventilation, only a few cracks in the walls, and men fought to stick their noses into the openings.

Guards took their positions on top of the boxcars and beat the roofs with rifles while yelling, “Shut up, you assholes!”

Finally, the train jerked and rocked and began moving. As the boxcars swayed and rolled many of the men were seized with nausea and began vomiting. The food they had so eagerly devoured an hour earlier reappeared in a putrid mess, and the floor was soon covered with waste and vomit. The smell was beyond description. The air was so hot and thick with vile odors that breathing was painful.

A man fell at Pete’s feet and closed his eyes. Pete’s first reaction was to kick him away, but he realized he wasn’t breathing. Other men were dying too, and some had no room to fall.

As the train picked up speed, the guards opened the doors to three of the boxcars and allowed ventilation. Men fought to get near the doors. One managed to jump and landed on a pile of rocks. He never moved again.

Along the three-hour ride, the train passed through several small towns. The residents lined the track and tossed food and cans of water to the open cars. The engineers were Filipino, and they slowed the train to allow the men to collect anything possible. Almost all of the food was shared.

When the train finally stopped, the men spilled out onto the platform. Those still alive were ordered to drag out the dead. The bodies were stacked like firewood near the tracks. Dozens of Filipino citizens were waiting with food and water, but they were threatened away by the guards. The men were marched a hundred yards and herded into an open field for another hour of sun treatment. The ground was almost too hot to touch.

By then the men knew they were headed to the prison camp at O’Donnell, where, surely, conditions would improve. As they began the seven-mile trek, it was obvious that many of them would not make it. Pete expected mass murder of the weaker ones, but the guards had changed strategies and now allowed the stronger prisoners to assist. But, there were few strong enough to render aid, and men began falling in the first mile. By then the locals had seen plenty of prisoners, and they hid cans of water and mangoes along the dirt trail. The guards smashed and kicked away as much as possible, but miracles happened. Pete found a can of clear water and drained it without getting caught. He would believe that he owed his life to the kindness of some unknown Filipino. When the man in front of him collapsed, Pete grabbed his skeletal remains, threw an arm over his shoulder, told him that he’d made it this far and he was not about to die, and shuffled along with him for the remaining six miles.

Their first view of O’Donnell was from the top of a hill. Spread before them was a forbidding sprawl of old buildings encircled by miles of shiny barbed wire. Guard towers stood ominously, all proudly adorned with the Japanese flag.

Pete would remember that moment well. He would soon realize that had he known the horrors that awaited him at O’Donnell, he would have bolted from the trail and run like a madman until a bullet stopped him.

Chapter 27

Before the war, O’Donnell had been used as a temporary base for a Philippine Army division, about twenty thousand men. With little upgrade, the Japanese had converted it into their largest POW camp. It covered six hundred acres of rice paddies and scrubland and was divided into several large, square compounds. These were sectioned off into rows of barracks and buildings, some dilapidated, some unfinished. After the fall of Bataan, some sixty thousand prisoners, including ten thousand Americans, were crammed into the dilapidated old fort. Water was scarce, as were latrines, medicines, hospital beds, stoves, and food supplies.

Pete and the other survivors limped through the eastern portal, along with hundreds of others as they were pouring into O’Donnell from all over the islands. They were greeted by guards in crisp white shirts swinging clubs that appeared to be designed solely for beating unarmed and defeated men. Eager to impress their new arrivals with their toughness, the guards began pummeling men at random while yelling orders in pidgin English no one understood. It was all so unnecessary. By then the prisoners had seen enough violence and were not impressed, and they had no fight left, no will to resist. They were pushed and shoved to a large parade ground and ordered to stand at attention in perfect rows. They baked in the sun as others arrived. They were searched again, as if they’d had the opportunity to pick up anything valuable along the way.

After an hour, there was a flurry of activity in front of a building that served as the commandant’s headquarters. The great man strutted out to greet them in a goofy uniform that included baggy shorts and riding boots up to his knees. He was a runt-like, funny-looking creature with an air of great importance.

He began to roar and bellow, with a hapless Filipino interpreter trying to keep up. The commandant began by telling them that they were not honorable prisoners of war but cowardly captives. They had surrendered, an unpardonable sin. And since they were cowards they would not be treated like real soldiers. He said that he would like to kill them all but he lived by the code of a true warrior, and true warriors showed mercy. However, if they disobeyed any of his camp rules, he would gladly execute them. Then he launched into a loud, windy tirade on race and politics, with the Japanese people, of course, being the superiors because they had won the war, they had defeated America, their eternal enemy, and so on. At times the interpreter lagged far behind and was clearly making up stuff as the commandant waited for his brilliant words to be rendered in English.

In their dismal state, most of the prisoners paid little attention. As to his threats, they wondered what else the Japanese could possibly do to them, other than perhaps a quick beheading.

He roared and rambled until fatigue set in, then abruptly turned and marched away, with his bootlickers close behind. The prisoners were dismissed and divided by country. There was a camp for the Filipinos and one for the Americans.

General Ned King had been appointed by the commandant as the prisoner commander, and he met his men at a second gate. He shook their hands, welcomed them, and when they grouped around him he said, “You men remember this — you did not give up. I did. I did the surrendering. I surrendered you. You didn’t surrender. I’m the one who has the responsibility for that. You let me carry it. All I ask is that you obey the orders of the Japanese so that we don’t provoke the enemy any more than he already is.”

The new arrivals were then turned over to their officers for orientation and a discussion of the rules. The Twenty-Sixth Cavalry had scattered and there was some confusion about who last commanded it. Pete was assigned to a group of the Thirty-First Infantry and taken to his new home. It was a ramshackle building fourteen feet wide and twenty feet long, with a partial bamboo roof that looked as though it had been torn off in a storm. The men were exposed to the sun and rain. There were no cots or mats, just two long shelves of split-bamboo poles lashed together with rattan. The men, thirty of them, slept on bamboo. Most had no blankets. When Pete asked a sergeant what happened when it rained, he was informed that the men took cover under the bamboo poles.

O’Donnell had only one artesian well with a working pump and it dispensed water through a half-inch pipe to both camps, Filipino and American. The pump worked occasionally but its gasoline engine often sputtered and died. And since there was always a shortage of gasoline, the Japanese routinely let the tank run dry to conserve.

Pete desperately wanted water, as did everyone, and eventually found his way to the water line, a long, sad assemblage of men. As he walked down the line looking for its end, he passed hundreds of men, all with the same detached and defeated eyes. No one talked as they waited and waited. The line barely moved. It took him seven hours to fill his canteen.

At dark, the men were lined up and told to sit. Dinner was served, a scoop of rice. There was no meat, bread, or fruit. After eating, the men drifted back to the barracks, which had no lighting. There was nothing to do but face the nightly adventure of sleep. Pete found it impossible to get comfortable on the bamboo poles and eventually found a pile of weeds in a corner and curled himself into a ball.

His mouth was parched and sticky and he craved water. The starvation was painful enough, but the lack of water was driving men mad. There was barely enough to drink and cook with and operate the hospital, and not a spare drop for anything else. Pete’s skin was filthy and raw in places from the lack of soap and water. He had not bathed in weeks, had not shaved since before the surrender on Bataan. His clothes were rags and there was no way to clean them. His one pair of underwear had been tossed days ago. He could not remember the last time he brushed his teeth and gums and they ached from such a rotten diet. He smelled like a walking sewer, and he knew it because every other prisoner reeked.

During his first night at O’Donnell, a sharp crack of thunder awakened Pete and his bunkmates. A storm was rolling through. As the rain began, thousands of men staggered into the open and looked at the skies. They opened their mouths, spread their arms, and let the sheets of cool rainwater wash over them. It was delicious, and precious, and there was no way to collect it. The rain went on for a long time and turned the walkways into muddy ditches, but the men stood through the storm, savoring the water and happy to get a good cleansing.

At dawn, Pete hustled through the mud to the hospital. He had been told that getting there early was advisable. It was a wretched place, filled with dying, naked men, many lying on the floor in their own waste and waiting for help. A doctor looked at the gash in the back of Pete’s head and thought he could help. Pete was lucky; there was no infection. With a pair of electric army shears, the doctor shaved Pete’s scalp and took his whiskers while he was at it. It was refreshing and Pete felt lighter and cooler. The doctor had nothing in the way of anesthesia, so Pete gritted his teeth while six stitches were sewn to close the wound. The doctor was happy to see a patient he could treat, explaining as he worked that there was so little he could do for the others. He gave Pete some antibiotics and wished him well. Pete thanked him and hurried back to the barracks in anticipation of food.

Breakfast was rice, as were lunch and dinner. Filthy rice, often with bugs and weevils and mold, and it didn’t matter, because starving men will eat anything. The rice was steamed and stewed and boiled and stretched as thinly as possible. Traces of meat sometimes appeared, beef or water buffalo, but the portions were too small to taste. Occasionally the cooks added whatever boiled vegetables they could find, but they were tasteless. There was never fruit. As they starved between meals, the men ate leaves and grass and before long O’Donnell was picked clean of all vegetation. And when there was nothing to eat, the listless prisoners lounged in whatever shade they could find and talked about food.

They were dying of starvation. On average, they were given fifteen hundred calories a day, about half of what they required. Added to the fact that most had been starving for four months on Bataan, the diet at O’Donnell was lethal, and intentionally so.

Like water, food was plentiful in the Philippines.

The lack of it only intensified their diseases. Every man suffered from something, be it malaria, dengue fever, scurvy, beriberi, jaundice, diphtheria, pneumonia, or dysentery, or combinations of these. Half the men had dysentery when they arrived. The officers organized teams to dig latrines, but they were soon filled and overflowing. Some men were so crippled by the violent diarrhea they could not walk and soiled themselves where they lay. Some died from it. With no medicine and a pathetic diet, dysentery was soon epidemic. The entire prison reeked of a huge, open sewer.

Pete had suffered through two mild bouts of dysentery since Christmas, but he had been able to get paregoric from doctors. During his second day at O’Donnell, he was suddenly short of breath and fatigued. The warning signs arrived, and like all the prisoners he spent a few hours self-diagnosing and wondering which disease was coming. When his stomach began cramping, he suspected dysentery. Halfway through his first bout of bloody diarrhea, he knew for sure. The first few days would be the roughest.

His new pal was Clay Wampler, a cowboy from Colorado who had been a machine gunner with the Thirty-First. Clay shared a space in the barracks next to Pete and had welcomed him to his miserable new home. With Clay’s assistance, Pete went to the hospital in search of paregoric, but the demand was so high there was none in the prison. Clay was a dutiful nurse and joked that he was happy to help Pete because he, Clay, would expect the same attention when he got hit with the damned disease. On the third day, Pete was somewhat relieved when he realized his current bout was not as severe as many he had witnessed. Dysentery killed many men. Others suffered the cramps and diarrhea for a week and shook it off.

That night, Pete awoke soaking wet and with violent chills. He had seen enough malaria to know the signs.

The remnants of the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry were housed in the northeast compound, as far away from Pete as possible. When it had retreated to Bataan, it was still intact and operating, with forty-one American officers and about four hundred Filipino Scouts. Early in the siege, though, cavalry proved ineffective in the treacherous jungles of the peninsula, and the horses were soon needed elsewhere as hunger became an enemy. April 9, the day of the surrender, the Twenty-Sixth had lost fourteen officers and about two hundred Scouts. At O’Donnell, thirty-six of the Americans were together, including Sal Moreno and Ewing Kane. Six of the missing were known dead, including Pete Banning. Others had evaded capture and were still at large, including Lieutenant Edwin Ramsey, the leader of the last cavalry charge at Morong. Ramsey was on his way to the mountains, where he would organize a guerrilla army.

In charge of the Twenty-Sixth was Major Robert Trumpett, a West Pointer from Maryland. He had arrived at O’Donnell two days before Pete and was busy organizing his men into a survival unit. Like everyone else, they were suffering from starvation, dehydration, exhaustion, wounds, and disease, primarily dengue fever and malaria. They had survived the death march and were quickly realizing that they would have to survive O’Donnell as well. Trumpett prepared a list of the six men killed either in action or on the march, and managed to hand it to an aide for General Ned King. The general had asked all commanders to do this so families back home could be notified.

Of the six, four had died in action, with two known to have been buried. Pete and another lieutenant had died on the march and their bodies would never be recovered.

General King asked the commandant to pass along the names of the dead and captured to an American administrative staff working under house arrest in Manila. At first the commandant refused, but later changed his mind when his superiors ordered it. The Japanese were proud of the large numbers of American casualties and wanted it known.

The hospital was a collection of flimsy bamboo huts on stilts. There were five wards, long buildings with no beds, blankets, or sheets. Patients lay shoulder to shoulder on the floor, some in agony, others in comas, still others already dead. Under manageable conditions, it could safely house two hundred patients at a time. By late spring there were over eight hundred men lined along the floors, waiting for medicines that were not going to arrive. Most of them would die.

Not long after the Bataan prisoners began flooding O’Donnell, the hospital became more of a morgue than a place to be treated. The doctors and medics, most of them also suffering from one or more maladies, had almost no medicine. Even the basics such as quinine for malaria, or paregoric for dysentery, or vitamin C for scurvy were in urgently short supply. Most of the supplies — tape, gauze, disinfectant, aspirin, and so on — were smuggled in by doctors from other hospitals. The Japanese provided virtually nothing.

The doctors were forced to hoard the medicines and give them only to the men who seemed most likely to survive. Giving drugs to a severe case was, in effect, wasting the drugs. As the supplies got thinner, the doctors devised a simple lottery system to determine the winners.

Clay dragged Pete back to the hospital and finally managed to corner a doctor. He explained that his friend had not only dysentery but malaria as well, and seemed to be fading fast. The doctor said he was sorry, but he had nothing. Clay had heard the rumor, and with so many idle men the rumor mill raged nonstop, that there was a black market for some of the more common medicines. Clay asked the doctor about this, and he claimed to know nothing. But, as they were leaving, the doctor whispered, “Behind ward four.”

Behind ward four, sitting under a shade tree was a plump American with a deck of cards. On a makeshift table, he was playing some type of game that needed only one participant. The fact that he was not emaciated was clear evidence that he was gaming the system. When they had surrendered, Clay had noticed a few heavier American captives. They were generally older and worked somewhere in the army’s vast administration abyss. When forced to march, many of them had fallen quickly.

This guy had not marched anywhere. Nor had he missed many meals. He was powerfully built with a thick chest, muscled arms, a squat neck. And a sneer that Clay instantly hated. He dealt some cards to himself, glanced up at Clay, and asked, “Need something?”

Clay released Pete, who managed to stand on his own, and assessed the situation. It was one he did not care for. It was one that infuriated him. Clay said, “Yeah, my friend here needs some quinine and paregoric. Somebody said you got it.”

On the table, there were four small bottles of pills next to the deck of cards. The dealer glanced at the bottles and said, “Got a few pills left. A buck a pop.”

Without a word, without a warning, Clay growled, “You bloodsuckin’ sack of shit!” He attacked, kicking the table and sending the cards and bottles flying. The dealer jumped up, yelled “What the hell!” and threw a roundhouse right at Clay, who was charging. Clay ducked low, and with a right upper cut caught the dealer square in the testicles. As they popped together, he screamed and fell to the dirt. Clay kicked him viciously in the face, then dropped to his knees and pounded away as a blind rage overcame fatigue, starvation, dehydration, and whatever else Clay had at the moment. All was forgotten as he could finally, after days of wanting to fight back and kill the enemy, deliver some resistance and revenge. After a dozen or so shots to the face, he stopped and slowly stood. He said, “You low-life son of a bitch. Making a buck off men who are dying. You’re lower than the damned Japs.”

The dealer was not done. He managed to maneuver onto all fours, undoubtedly with more pain in his crotch than in his bloody face, then stood, although unsteadily. He glanced around and noticed that a crowd was gathering. Nothing was more enjoyable than a good fistfight, primarily because so few of the prisoners had the energy to start or finish one.

He was bleeding from the nose and the mouth and a cut above his right eye, and he should have stayed on the ground. With a limp caused by his aching balls, he stepped toward Clay and growled, “You son of a bitch.”

The word “bitch” had barely escaped his mouth when a fist smacked it with such speed that the punch was barely visible. With a perfect left-right combo, Clay drew even more blood. The dealer wasn’t much of a boxer and had never brawled with a cowboy, and as they sparred he had a terrible time landing a punch. Clay circled him, firing away and pretending he was punching a Jap. A hard right to the chin dropped the dealer again. He fell onto the board he’d been using as a table, and Clay, still in a rage, grabbed the board and began pounding his hapless opponent. The sound of hardwood cracking against his skull became sickening, but Clay could not stop. He had seen so much death that life was now cheap, and who in hell cared if he killed a man he considered lower than a Jap?

A guard with a bayonet on a rifle stepped next to him and stuck him gently in the back. Clay stopped his pounding, looked at the guard, and stood. He tried to catch his breath and was suddenly exhausted.

The guard smiled and said, “No stop. Fight more.”

Clay looked at the battered face of the dealer. He looked at Pete, who was standing under the tree and shaking his head no. He looked at the gaunt men in the crowd who’d hurried over to watch.

He looked at the Jap and said, “No. I’m finished.”

The guard raised his bayonet, poked Clay in the chest, nodded at the guy in the dirt, and said, “Kill him.”

Clay ignored the bayonet and said, “No. That’s what you do.”

He took a step back, fully expecting the guard to lunge at him and begin something awful, but the guard only lowered his rifle and stared at Clay, who walked to the tree to retrieve Pete. The crowd slowly dispersed as the dealer came to his senses and started to move.

Pete had found a new best friend. An hour later, they were hiding from the sun behind the barracks. The odors inside their building had become so noxious that they tried to avoid it. Pete was sitting under a tree with Clay nearby. They were chatting with others, whiling away the hours, when the same guard found them. He addressed Clay, who stood and bowed and faced him in anticipation of a bad scene. Instead, the guard pulled a small bottle from his pocket, handed it to Clay, nodded at Pete, and said, “For your friend.” Then he turned in a perfect about-face and marched away.

The pills were quinine, lifesavers for Pete and a few others in his barracks.

Chapter 28

As was her ritual, at 6:00 p.m. Nineva left supper on the stove and walked to her cottage. Liza watched her leave through a bedroom window, thankful once again that she was gone and the family was alone. In the nine years that Liza had lived in the main house, she and Nineva had learned to coexist, often side by side as they canned fruits and vegetables from the garden and talked about the children. With Pete gone, they leaned on each other daily, with each trying to appear stronger than the other. In front of the kids, they were stoic and confident that the Allies would win the war and he would be home soon. Both women shed plenty of tears, but always in private.

On Tuesday, May 19, the family was in the middle of supper, and the conversation was about the summer. Vacation began tomorrow, and Joel and Stella were eager to start the three-month holiday. He was sixteen, a rising senior, and the youngest in his class. She was fifteen and would be a sophomore. They wanted to travel some, perhaps to New Orleans or Florida, but the truth was that no definite plans could be made. They had not heard from their father in over four months, and this uncertainty dominated their lives.

From just outside the kitchen window, Mack started barking as a wave of headlights swept through the kitchen. A car had approached and was somewhere out front. Since no one was expected, the three gave each other a fearful look. Liza jumped to her feet and said, “Someone is here. I’ll see who it is.”

At the front door were two men in army uniforms. A moment later, they were seated in the den, facing the family on the sofa. Liza sat between Joel and Stella and held their hands. Stella was already in tears.

Captain Malone said solemnly, “I’m afraid I have some bad news, and I’m sorry. But Lieutenant Banning is now missing and presumed dead. We do not know for certain that he is dead, because his unit was unable to recover his body. But, given the circumstances, the men with him are reasonably certain that he is dead. I’m very sorry.”

Stella’s head fell in her mother’s lap. Liza grabbed both and squeezed them close. They gasped and cried and held each other tightly as the two officers stared at the floor. The men had not volunteered for this assignment, but they had their orders and were now making such dreadful visits almost every day throughout north Mississippi.

Liza gritted her teeth and asked, “What does ‘presumed dead’ mean, exactly?”

Captain Malone said, “It means we did not recover the body.”

“So there’s a chance he’s still alive?” Joel asked, wiping his cheeks.

“Yes, there is that chance, but I caution you that, under the circumstances, the men with Lieutenant Banning are reasonably certain that he was killed.”

“Can you tell us what happened?” Liza asked.

“We have some details, but not many, and I’m not sure how accurate our facts are, ma’am. Lieutenant Banning was captured when the Allied forces surrendered to the Japanese on the Philippines. It was last month on April 9 and 10. The men were being marched to a POW camp when he was injured and left behind, as were many men. He was then killed by the Japanese soldiers.”

At that moment it didn’t really matter how he died. The shock of the moment blurred the details. The horrible truth was that Pete Banning was gone and they would never see him again. Husband, father, patriarch, friend, boss, brother, neighbor, and leading citizen. There were so many who would share their pain. They wept for a long time, and when the officers had nothing else to say, they stood, offered their condolences once more, and left the house.

Liza wanted nothing more than to go to her bedroom, lock the door, get under the covers, and cry herself to sleep. But that would be indulgent and was not an option. She had two wonderful children who now needed her more than ever, and while she wanted to collapse into a puddle of tears, she instead stiffened her spine and took the first step.

“Joel, get in the truck and drive down to Florry’s. Bring her back here. Stop along the way and inform Nineva. Tell Jupe to get on a horse and spread the word among the Negroes.”

Word spread rapidly enough, and within an hour the front yard was filled with cars and trucks. Liza would have preferred to spend the first night in quiet mourning with just her kids and Florry, but things were not done that way in the rural South. Dexter and Jackie Bell arrived in the first wave and spent a few moments alone with the Bannings. He read some scripture and said a prayer. Liza explained that the family was not ready to confront a horde of well-meaning mourners, and they huddled in her bedroom while Dexter quietly asked folks to come back later. At ten o’clock, they were still arriving.

In Clanton, the gossip was of nothing else. At 8:00 a.m., Dexter opened the sanctuary of the Methodist church so those who knew Pete could stop by for a moment of prayer. In the early hours of the tragedy, much was made of the fact that he was missing and not officially dead. So there was hope, and the hope inspired his friends and neighbors to pray long and hard.

Later in the morning, Dexter and Jackie returned to the Banning home to sit with Liza and the children, who were still in no mood to greet the crowd. He quietly encouraged people to leave, and they did. They arrived in carloads and delivered cakes, pies, casseroles, food no one needed but there were traditions to follow. After a few soft words with Dexter, and once they realized they would not be allowed to hug and cry with Liza, they quietly left the house, returned to their cars, and drove away.

Liza made the decision that there would be no memorial service. There was a chance her husband was still alive, and she and her children would focus on that and ignore the bad news. Or, they would at least try to. As the days dragged on, Liza began seeing a few close friends, as did Joel and Stella. The shock gradually wore off, though the aching, numbing pain did not.

Routines developed to maintain normalcy. The family ate breakfast and supper together, often with Nineva sitting with them, a new wrinkle. Each weekday Dexter Bell arrived around ten for a short devotional — a verse or scripture, a comforting word, and a thoughtful prayer. Jackie came occasionally, but usually he was alone.

Two weeks after receiving the news, Florry took Joel and Stella to Memphis for a long weekend. Liza insisted they go in an effort to get away from the gloominess of their home, and to have a little fun. Florry had some eccentric friends in Memphis who could make anyone smile. She and the kids checked into the Peabody. Joel’s room was not far from where he was conceived, though he would never know it.

While they were away, Dexter Bell arrived each day for the morning devotion. He and Liza sat in the den and talked quietly. From the kitchen, Nineva listened to every word.

Some black-market paregoric worked, and Pete’s third round of dysentery improved but did not go away. His malaria lingered too. He could function with it, though at times the chills and fevers caused him to lie in the dirt and shake from head to toe. He hallucinated and thought he was back home.

He and Clay sat in the shade of the barracks and watched the parade of dead bodies being hauled to the cemetery across the road. By late April, twenty-five Americans were dying each day. By May, the number was fifty. By June, a hundred.

Death was everywhere. The living thought about dying because they saw the dead bodies, which were often piled haphazardly. They thought about dying because they too were facing death. They starved a little more each day and came closer to a collapse from which they would not recover. Diseases were running rampant and there was no way to stop them, and it was inevitable that one of a dozen would arrive any day now and bring a miserable death with it.

Pete watched men give up and die, and on several occasions he was tempted. All of them were hanging on by a thread anyway, and only those with an iron will to live managed to survive. Giving up was painless, while living meant waking up in the morning and facing another day in hell. Some were determined to cling to all hope and survive whatever the enemy threw at them, while others grew too weary from the suffering and closed their eyes.

Pete survived by thinking of his wife and kids, his farm, and his family’s long and rich history in Ford County. He recalled stories he had heard as a boy about old wars and battles and feuds, all colorful tales that had been handed down from one generation to the next. He thought about Liza and those wonderful days at the Peabody when they were spending nights together, something no well-respected couple would think of doing in the 1920s. He thought of her body and her constant desire for physical pleasure. He remembered hunting and fishing with Joel in the woods on their land and bringing home deer, turkeys, rabbits, bream, and crappie that they cleaned by the barn and gave to Nineva to cook for supper. He remembered Stella as a little girl with those beautiful eyes curled up on the sofa in her pajamas listening as her father read bedtime stories. He longed for the warmth of her soft skin. He wanted to be there when his children finished college and got married.

Pete had made the decision that he would not die from disease or starvation. He was a tough farm boy, a West Point man, a cavalry officer, and he had a beautiful family back home. Perhaps luck had given him a stronger physical and mental constitution. He was tougher than most of the others, or at least he told himself so. He wanted to help the weaker ones, but there was nothing he could do. Everyone was dying, and he had to take care of himself.

As conditions worsened at O’Donnell, the men talked more and more of escape. As prisoners, they were expected to attempt it, though in their condition it seemed nearly impossible. They were too weak to run far, and there were Japs everywhere. It would be easy to get outside because of the work crews, but they were not healthy enough to survive in the jungle.

To suppress the urge to run, the Japs implemented some rules that were simple in their understanding but exceedingly brutal in their application. Initially, if you ran and got caught, you were to be struck with a bullwhip until you bled to death. To demonstrate how this rule worked, the guards rounded up several thousand prisoners one afternoon for a show near the commandant’s quarters.

Five Americans had tried to escape and been caught. They were stripped naked and their hands were bound together above their heads and attached to ropes looped over a rail so that their toes barely touched the ground. At first it looked like they might be hanged. All five were emaciated, with their ribs jutting out. An officer with a bullwhip strutted in front of the prisoners, and through an interpreter explained what was about to happen, though it was rather obvious. He was an expert with the bullwhip, and his first stroke against the back of the first soldier caused him to scream. The bullwhip popped with each blow, and his back and buttocks were soon bloodied. When he appeared to be unconscious, the officer moved a few steps to the second soldier. The mauling lasted for half an hour, under a hot sun. When all five were bloodied and still, the commandant stepped forward and announced a new rule: If a prisoner escaped, then ten of his comrades would be whipped and left to die in the sun.

Needless to say, the demonstration curtailed many escape schemes that had been in the works.

Clay found a Filipino Scout who was working as a truck driver and had managed to establish a black market for food within the American section of O’Donnell. His prices were fair and he offered tins of salmon, sardines, and tuna, along with peanut butter, fruit, and cookies.

Pete and Clay made a decision. They would take the cash hidden in Pete’s canteen cover, buy the food they could afford, share it between themselves but include no one else, and try to survive. The scheme would take both of their efforts because it was difficult to hide and eat black market food. Everyone was ravenous and watching everyone else. They felt lousy hiding and not sharing, but they damned sure could not feed the sixty thousand starving souls at O’Donnell. Clay’s first haul was a tin of salmon, four oranges, and two coconut cookies, and for $1.50 they ate like kings.

The plan was to stretch the money as far as possible, and when it was gone, they would think of something else. The extra food energized Pete and he began roaming the prison looking for his old friends from the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry.

The Japanese rarely entered the camp and had little interest in what went on there. They knew the conditions were inhumane and deteriorating, but they simply ignored the prisoners when possible. As long as they remained locked up, and worked when they were instructed, the Japanese didn’t seem to care.

However, the piles of dead bodies could not be ignored. The commandant ordered that they be burned, but General King pleaded for a more respectful burial. The Japanese might believe in cremation, but the Americans did not.

With the Americans dying at a rate of a hundred per day, General King organized burying rituals. Groups of gravediggers took turns at the shovel, while other groups hauled the bodies. Most came from the morgue at the hospital, but there were decomposing bodies all over the prison.

Pete and Clay learned that those who stayed busy lived longer than those who sat around in a stupor, so they volunteered to dig. They left the barracks after breakfast and walked to the American cemetery just outside the main camp, about eight hundred yards from the hospital. They were handed their tools, old spades and pieces of metal bent here and there and barely able to scratch up a pound of dirt. An American officer stepped off the boundaries of the next mass grave — six feet wide, twenty feet long, four feet deep. The diggers began their work. There were dozens of them and the work was urgent because the bodies were rotting.

They arrived in blankets strung between bamboo poles, or on litters fashioned from old doors. The burial parties used anything that would haul a hundred-pound skeleton, many of which had begun decomposing in the heat. The rotting corpses emitted a noxious odor that stung when inhaled.

At each grave, a registration officer handled the paperwork and recorded the name and exact location of each man as he was laid to rest. However, some of the dead had no dog tags and were unknown. Each grave held twenty or more men. When one was filled, the gravediggers went about the glum business of covering their comrades.

The cemetery was nicknamed the Boneyard, and how fitting that became. Pete could count the ribs on virtually every corpse he buried, and he never failed to utter a curse at the Japanese as he covered each American soldier.

Day after day, he and Clay volunteered to dig graves. For Pete, it was a way to hang on to his humanity. Someone had to make sure each soldier received a proper burial, or at least the best under the circumstances. If Pete died, he would do so with the assurance that some kind soul had dug a real grave for him.

As the casualties mounted, the digging became more intense. And with lousy tools and straining energy, the work was difficult. The Boneyard expanded as more graves were necessary. The pallbearers arrived in a steady stream.

A grave was filled and an officer ordered it closed. Pete and Clay and four others began the chore of backfilling, of covering the men. As Pete did so he stopped cold. Below him, just a few feet away, was a face he recognized, even with its closed eyes and thick black whiskers. He asked the registration officer for the name. Salvadore Moreno, of the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry.

Pete closed his eyes and stood motionless. “You okay, Pete?” Clay asked. Pete backed away from the grave and stumbled a few feet to a fence post. He sat down, covered his face with his hands, and wept bitterly.

Chapter 29

As things developed, the grave digging was not such a good idea after all. The Japanese were watching from a distance. They needed some of the “healthier” Americans to ship back to Japan to work as slave laborers in coal mines. Pete and Clay were chosen in a group of about a thousand. The first hint of change came after breakfast in late June when a guard appeared and ordered five men from their barracks to follow him. At the parade ground, they formed lines and stood at attention. A convoy of trucks arrived, and as each man boarded he was given a rice ball, a banana, and a can of water.

Pete and Clay knew that this was not a normal work detail, and as they rode for more than an hour some excitement crept into the conversations around them. Could it be possible they were leaving O’Donnell for good? The Japanese were constantly moving prisoners around, and wherever they were going had to be an improvement over O’Donnell.

Soon they were entering the busy streets of Manila, and speculation ran wild about their destination. When they stopped at the harbor, the men were confused. Should they be delighted that O’Donnell was behind them, or terrified of being shipped to Japan? Before long, all excitement vanished.

They were herded onto a dock and began waiting. A group of prisoners from another camp arrived and spread the gossip that the Red Cross had negotiated a prisoner exchange and that they were headed to Australia, and freedom. By that time, though, Pete and the men from O’Donnell believed nothing. As they waited, Pete stared at the freighter, an ancient, rusting vessel with no markings whatsoever. No name, no registration, no nationality.

Finally, they queued up in a long line and began to slowly climb the gangway. On board, they passed the forward bulkhead and came to an open hatch with a ladder down to the hold. Guards were nervous and barking commands. As Pete began to step down into the hold, he was hit with a vile odor from below. As he descended farther, he saw the sweaty faces of hundreds of prisoners already on board. As he would learn, about twelve hundred men had been loaded from a prison north of Manila. And they had been informed by the guards that they were headed to Japan to work in the coal mines.

As more prisoners were stuffed into the hold, the men began to suffocate. They were shoulder to shoulder, body to body, with no room to sit, lie, or even move about. They began shouting and cursing and all order broke down. The guards kept stuffing more men below, beating the reluctant ones with rifle butts. The temperature rose to a hundred degrees and men began fainting, but there was no room to fall. Soon, they were dying.

The emperor Hirohito refused to ratify the Geneva Convention, and from the beginning of its war in Asia his imperial army treated its captured prisoners as slaves. With a severe shortage of labor at home, the Japanese devised a grand scheme to ship American POWs to the coal mines on their mainland. To do so, they used every available cargo vessel, regardless of age and seaworthiness. All ships were commissioned and stuffed with soldiers bound for the Philippines and then restuffed with sick and dying American boys bound for the labor camps.

Throughout the war, 125,000 Allied prisoners were shipped to Japan, with 21,000 dying on board or going down with the ships. On August 6, 1945, four hundred American POWs were underground digging for coal in a mine near Omine, only fifty miles from Hiroshima. When the first atomic bomb landed, the ground rolled and shook and they knew it was something far beyond the usual daily bombings. They fervently prayed it was the beginning of the end.

Among their many great miscalculations in the war, the Japanese failed to build enough boats to haul troops and supplies. Added to this was their failure to eliminate the U.S. submarine fleet at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere during the early days of the war. By the summer of 1942, U.S. subs were roaming like lone wolves in the South Pacific and feasting on Japanese merchant ships. To overcompensate, the Japanese simply crammed more of their soldiers onto their ships to go fight, and more of their POWs to bring home to work. Their freighters were perpetually overloaded, slow, outdated, easily stalked, and unmarked.

They were known as hellships. Between January of 1942 and July of 1945, the Japanese hauled 156 loads of war prisoners to the mainland to work in labor camps, and the voyages were worse than any abuse the Americans had yet to encounter. Locked below deck with no food, water, lights, toilets, or breathable air, the men succumbed to fainting, madness, and death.

And torpedoes. Because the Japanese did not mark their troop carriers, they were fair game for Allied submarines. An estimated five thousand American POWs crammed into the holds of Japanese freighters were killed by American torpedoes.

Pete’s ship left Manila Bay six hours after he boarded, and men around him were already suffocating and screaming. The guards mercifully opened the portholes and a whiff of air spread through the hold. A colonel managed to convince a guard that men were dying, and what good was a slave if he arrived dead? The hatches were opened and the prisoners were allowed to climb to the deck, where they could at least breathe and see the moon. Fresh air was plentiful. Food and water were not mentioned. Guards stood gun to gun, waiting to shoot any poor prisoner who tried to vault into the sea. Though suicide was a constant thought, no one had the energy.

Pete and Clay spent the night on the deck with hundreds of others, under a brilliant sky that back home would have been admired. Now, though, it was just another reminder of how far they were from freedom.

Evidently, the guards had been instructed to kill only when necessary. Slave labor was now deemed valuable, and the fact that men were dying below was unacceptable. At dawn, dead bodies were lifted from the hold and shoved up the ladder and buried unceremoniously at sea. Pete watched them hit the water, then float for a moment before disappearing, and with each one he thought of the mother and father and young wife back home in Oregon or Minnesota or Florida who were at that moment saying their prayers and waiting for a letter. How long would it be before a man in a uniform knocked on the door and shattered their world?

The sun was up and there was no shade on the deck. No shade, no food, no water, and the prisoners complained to the guards more and more with each passing hour. The guards kept their fingers on their triggers and returned the curses in their language. As the day wore on, so did the nerves and tension. Finally, a prisoner ran for the railing, took a flying leap, and dove for the ocean, eighty feet below. He landed with a splash and in a hail of gunfire. The Japs, while proficient with swords and bayonets, were notoriously bad shots, and it was not possible to know if the prisoner was hit. However, the prolonged volley that followed him down was enough to discourage more diving.

Hours passed as the men baked in the sun. To escape it, they went below for brief respites, but the stench was so overwhelming they could not last. Most were still suffering from dysentery, and the guards allowed them to hang by ropes off the stern and bow to discharge their bloody diarrhea. Anything to keep it off board.

Mercifully, some clouds arrived late in the afternoon of the second day and blocked the sun. The prisoners were ordered below and were promised that food would be served before long. They loitered in long lines to avoid the descent into hell, and the guards seemed somewhat sympathetic and didn’t push them. Darkness came, with no hint of food. Suddenly there was a panic among the guards. Some were running from the bow, yakking in extreme agitation for no apparent reason.

The first torpedo hit in the rear by the engine room. The second hit perfectly in the middle. Both explosions rocked the ship. Its steel frame echoed and vibrated. It was an old boat that wouldn’t last long, and even Pete, a cavalry guy who’d grown up landlocked, knew they would sink fast. He and Clay squatted on the deck and watched as the panicked guards slammed the hatches, sealing over eighteen hundred Americans below. About a hundred remained on deck, and the guards were suddenly unconcerned with them. The ship was going down. It was every man for himself.

A prisoner, one braver than the others, ran forward and attempted to open a hatch. A guard shot him in the back of the head and kicked his body aside. So much for heroism.

A third torpedo knocked the men off their feet and total chaos ensued. The guards frantically unhitched rubber rafts and tossed life vests into the sea. Prisoners vaulted over the sides and into a black ocean with no idea where they might land. As Pete and Clay scurried to a railing, they passed a guard who had laid down his rifle while he struggled with a raft. Pete instinctively grabbed it, shot the son of a bitch in the face, tossed the rifle over the side, then jumped and followed it to the water, laughing as he fell.

The landing was hard but the water was warm. Clay fell nearby and they began dog-paddling and looking for something to hold on to. The sea was pitch-black and everywhere men were crying for help, both in English and in Japanese. The ship began exploding and Pete could hear the anguished cries of those trapped. He swam away from it as fast as his fatigued and depleted limbs could take him. For a second, he lost Clay, and he called for him.

“Over here,” Clay called back. “I’ve got a raft.”

They scrambled into what appeared to be a six-man raft, and as soon as they caught their breath Clay said, “You shot that son of a bitch!”

“I did,” Pete said proudly. “And with his own gun.”

They heard Japanese voices on the water and went silent. Using the small oars they found in a pocket — along with a flare but no food or water — they paddled furiously away while watching the ship list and begin to sink. The distant screams were sickening.

For ten, fifteen, twenty minutes they paddled, and when their escape was certain they stopped and rested. A thousand yards away, the ship tilted abruptly on its stern and sank in a matter of seconds. By locking the hatches, the guards had killed another eighteen hundred sick and starving American boys.

From the blackness of the sea, a voice called out, and it was not in English. Pete and Clay slid down into the raft and waited. Before long they heard a thump against the raft, then a head popped up. They grabbed the guard and pulled him into their raft. Like most Japs, he was tiny, five feet five max, 120 pounds, and without a bayonet or sword or rifle he looked much smaller. He had no canteen, no backpack, no food or water, so he was a worthless Jap who only minutes earlier had been tormenting his prisoners. Clay punched him so hard his jaw cracked. They took turns punching and strangling him, and when the Jap stopped breathing they tossed him into the ocean, where he would rest forever with their brothers he had just killed.

And they felt good. In spite of their dehydration and hunger, and in spite of drifting in a raft and having no idea where they were, they felt an immense satisfaction. They had finally struck back, drawn blood, killed the enemy, turned the tide in favor of the Allies. For the first time in weeks, they were free. There were no brutal guards with guns or bayonets watching them. They were not digging burial trenches. There were no dead bodies stacked around them.

They were adrift under a clear, star-filled sky, with no idea which direction held the most promise. So they laid down the paddles and rested on a calm sea. The South China Sea was a busy place, and tomorrow someone would find them.

The first boat was a Japanese frigate, and as soon as Pete recognized the flag he and Clay slid out of the raft and hid under it. The ship seemed unconcerned with the empty raft and never slowed down. It appeared to be going in the direction of the wreck, probably searching for Japanese survivors. Pete and Clay had vowed to drown themselves before being captured again.

The second boat was a forty-foot Filipino fishing rig owned by a man named Amato and manned by him and his two sons, three of the nicest people on the face of the earth. When they realized that Pete and Clay were Americans, they pulled them aboard, wrapped them in blankets, and handed them water at first, then hot black coffee, a delicacy they had not had in months. As Teofilo partially deflated the raft and hid it, Tomas captained the boat while Amato peppered the Americans with questions. Where were they from? Where were they imprisoned? For how long? He had a cousin in California and loved America. His brother was a Filipino Scout who was hiding in the mountains. Amato hated the Japanese even more than Pete and Clay did.

Where were they headed? Since they had no idea where they were, they certainly had no destination. Amato said they were about twenty miles from land. He said that last week the Americans had torpedoed another ship filled with their own soldiers. Why were they doing this? Pete explained that the troopships were unmarked.

Teofilo served them bowls of hot rice with pandesal, a fluffy roll that was the national bread. They had eaten it before the war and thought little of it. Now, though, it was manna from heaven, with a little butter added. While they ate, and Amato cautioned them to eat slowly because it was easy to overwhelm their fragile systems, Teofilo grilled small fillets of mackerel and milkfish in a skillet on a portable gas grill. Pete and Clay knew to eat slowly. Starvation had been a way of life for the past six months and they had learned too much about it. But, they struggled to control their desire to stuff their mouths. With his first bite of the warm fish, Pete hardly chewed, and he smiled as it descended wonderfully to his stomach.

Amato was under contract to the Japanese army to deliver his catch each day, so it was important that they go about their business. They worked their lines, catching yellowfin tuna, salmon, and ruby snapper, while Pete and Clay slept for hours in the cabin. When they awoke, they ate more rice and fish, and drank water by the gallon. At dusk, as Tomas mopped the deck and put away the rods, Amato opened a fruit jar filled with a fermented rice home brew and poured it into their empty coffee cups. It was bitter and tasteless and not something Pete would ever find at the Peabody bar, but it was potent, and the alcohol hit fast and hard.

By the second serving, Pete and Clay were giddy. They were free, well fed for the first time since Christmas, and happily getting buzzed on a home brew that improved with each sip.

Amato’s home was the small fishing village of San Narciso on the west coast of the Luzon peninsula. By land, Manila was four hours away, or five or six depending on the roads, mountain paths, and ferries. By sea, it was three hours and the route curved around Bataan, the last place they wanted to see. Amato said Manila was crawling with Japanese and they should stay away. He would not take his boat there.

Late in the day, when San Narciso came into view, Tomas reduced the engine to an idle. It was time for a serious discussion. There would be Japanese at the harbor waiting for their fish, but they were cooks, not soldiers, and they would not inspect the boat. Pete and Clay would be safe to sleep on the boat that night, but tomorrow they must move on. If they were seen or caught, Amato and his sons would lose their boat and probably their heads.

Their first option was to escape, and Amato had a friend they could talk to. But escape meant a long voyage across open seas in a bad boat, and Amato didn’t like the odds. Since the war started, he knew of several Americans who had tried it. No one knew if they were successful. Plus, there was the issue of compensation, and most of the prisoners were penniless. Pete assured him that they were too.

The second option was to fight. Amato had contacts who could take the men into the mountains where the guerrillas were operating. There were a lot of Americans and Filipino Scouts organized in the dense jungles of Luzon. They were hitting the enemy from all directions, at times seriously disrupting the movements of troops and supplies. The imperial army had declared war on the guerrillas and was offering bounties. The situation was beyond dangerous.

“We’re not running away,” Pete said. “We came here to fight.”

“And we have some scores to settle,” Clay added.

Amato smiled and nodded his agreement. He was a proud Filipino and sickened by the Japanese invasion. If he could somehow poison his fish to kill enemy soldiers he would gladly do so. He prayed that the Americans would one day prevail and free his country, and he longed for that moment.

With the harbor in sight, Pete and Clay went below deck and hid in the cabin. At the pier, Tomas and Teofilo removed the heavy tin crates filled with their catch and waited for their only customer. A short, fat Japanese man in a bloodied apron approached without a hello or any greeting and inspected their fish. He made an offer, one that Amato laughed at. His counteroffer was rejected outright, and this went on, back and forth, the same ritual every afternoon. The cook was in too much of a hurry to weigh the fish. He made his final offer, one that Amato really could not reject, and the deal was done. Money changed hands, and from the look on Amato’s face he had been shortchanged again. Two privates arrived with a wagon, loaded the fish, and left while the cook was bargaining with the captain of the next fishing boat.

When they were gone, Teofilo fired up his grill again and prepared dinner. The menu was the same — boiled rice, hot buttered pandesal, and grilled mackerel fillets. It had been ten hours since their breakfast, and neither Pete nor Clay felt sick from overeating. They had consumed a light lunch, been through a couple of cocktail hours with the home brew, and so far their traumatized bodies were holding up well. When they had been starved, all they thought about was food. Now that it was available and the gnawing hunger pains were gone, their thoughts drifted elsewhere.

Amato instructed them to stay in the cabin, regardless of how hot and humid it became. The harbor would be deserted throughout the night, but no one could be trusted. If a deckhand or some kid on a bike saw two Americans on a fishing boat, that information could be sold to the Japanese.

The three packed their rucksacks and said good night. Wisely, Amato took the home brew with him. The Americans had had enough.

It wasn’t long before the cabin was suffocating. Pete cracked the door and took a peek. The harbor was pitch-black. The boat next to them was a silhouette. The only sounds were of the water gently splashing against the boats. “It’s clear out here,” he said, and Clay joined him. They kept low and still on the deck. When they talked, and it wasn’t often, they whispered. There were a few lights in the town, but they saw not a single person moving about.

In the cabin there was a small basin. Next to it was a bar of soap that had evidently been shrinking for some time. Pete took it, broke it cleanly in two, and handed Clay his portion. Pete stripped naked, eased over the side of the boat, and without a sound entered the water. He assumed it was polluted and filthy, like all harbors, but he didn’t care. He squeezed every possible bubble out of his soap and bathed in luxury. When he finished, Clay tossed down his shirt, pants, and socks, and he washed them for the first time in months. They were rags, but he had nothing else.

At some point, they had no idea of the hour, the heat broke suddenly and a gentle wind brought relief. They retreated to the cabin and locked the door. They were tempted to sleep on the deck, under the stars, but the fear of being seen was too great. So far, they had survived everything a brutal war could throw at them. It would be a tragedy to get caught by a kid on a bike.

The date was around June 20; they weren’t sure. There was no calendar in the cabin and they had not seen one in months. After a while, a starving prisoner stops worrying about the date. They had surrendered on April 10. Pete had marched up the Bataan Peninsula for six days. For Clay it had been five. They had spent approximately two months at O’Donnell, and thinking of that miserable hellhole made them cringe. But they had survived it, as they had the death march, the siege of Bataan, the fighting, the surrender, the packed railcars, the hellships, along with starvation and disease and death scenes they could never forget. They marveled at the human body’s ability to endure, and the spirit’s resourcefulness in the face of deprivation.

They had survived! The war was not over, but certainly they had seen the worst of it. They were no longer captives, and now they would soon be on equal footing with the enemy.

With the issue of food temporarily behind them, they talked about their wives and families. They desperately wanted to write letters and send them home. They would discuss it with Amato in the morning.

A kid on a bike rode down the wooden pier, looking for nothing, expecting nothing. He heard voices from the cabin of a fishing boat and eased closer to listen. Strange voices in another language. English.

He rode away, finally went home, where his mother was looking for him, and told her. She was angry and smacked him about the ears. Such a strange kid, always telling tall tales and exaggerating.

Chapter 30

Amato and his sons arrived at dawn as the harbor came to life. Of the three, Teofilo was the tallest, but only slightly, maybe five feet eight. His clothing would fit neither Pete, who was six feet two, nor Clay, who was an inch shorter. Length was the problem, not the waistlines. The Americans were so gaunt that their belts could almost make two loops around.

Last night, after dinner, Amato had visited the home of a friend, a man believed to be “the tallest man in town.” He had negotiated the purchase of two pairs of work pants and two khaki work shirts, along with two pairs of socks. The man at first refused to sell his meager clothing, which was practically his entire wardrobe, and would consider doing so only if Amato divulged what was going on. When the tall man realized who needed the clothing, he refused to accept money. He sent his best wishes, along with his clothes. Amato’s wife then washed and ironed the outfits, and as he proudly pulled them from his rucksack and laid them on a cot in the cabin, he had tears in his eyes. So did Pete and Clay.

Amato went on to say that he had been unable to secure new boots. American feet are long and narrow. Filipino feet are short and wide. Only one store in town sold footwear and the merchant almost certainly stocked nothing for foreigners. Amato apologized profusely.

Pete finally asked him to stop and said they had an important matter to discuss. They desperately wanted to write letters to their wives. They’d had no contact since before Christmas and they knew their families were worried sick. They considered this a simple request, but Amato didn’t like it. He explained that mail service was unreliable and being watched closely by the Japanese. There were thousands of American soldiers on the loose throughout the Philippines, men just like them, and everyone wanted to send a letter home. Very little mail was allowed to leave the islands. The enemy had a noose around everything. The postal clerk in San Narciso owned the grocery store and they suspected he was a sympathizer. If he, Amato, handed him two letters written by Americans, there would be serious trouble.

The mail was too risky. Pete pressed him and asked if it was possible to mail the letters from another town. Amato finally yielded and sent Tomas into the village. He returned with two sheets of flimsy onion paper and two small square envelopes. Amato found a piece of a pencil. Sitting at the small folding table in the cabin, Pete wrote,

He addressed the envelope, gave no return address, sealed the letter, and handed the pencil to Clay.

They puttered out of the harbor, the old diesel chugging along as if the day might be its last. They left no wake and were soon on the sea. Straight ahead and due west was Vietnam, a thousand miles away. To the right was China, closer at seven hundred miles.

Teofilo brewed a pot of strong coffee, and as they savored it he prepared breakfast of rice, pandesal, and more grilled mackerel. Pete and Clay ate carefully. Amato’s wife had baked ginger cookies and for the first time in months they tasted real sugar. Though they had not mentioned cigarettes, Amato produced a fresh pack of Lucky Strikes, somehow smuggled all the way from Manila, and the tobacco had never tasted better.

After two hours, the boat found a school of tuna. As Amato and Tomas reeled them in, Teofilo clubbed them with a mallet until they were still, then gutted and cleaned them. Through a haze of tobacco smoke, Pete and Clay watched and marveled at their efficiency.

At midday Tomas turned the boat back toward Luzon. Its jagged mountain ranges had never been out of sight, and as they grew nearer Amato gave them the plan. The boat finally stopped about two hundred yards offshore along a deserted stretch of rocky shoreline. Teofilo inflated the raft that had saved their lives and helped them into it. Amato handed them a rucksack filled with food and water and wished them well. They saluted, offered their humblest thanks again, and cast off. Teofilo turned the boat around and headed back to sea.

When Pete and Clay were out of sight, Amato took the two envelopes, ripped them into tiny pieces, and flung them into the ocean. His boat had been searched twice by the Japanese navy, and he simply could not run the risk.

They came from the cavalry and the infantry and were not competent with a boat of any size. The raft proved hard to navigate and crashed into some rocks. Pete managed to keep the rucksack dry as he and Clay scrambled over the rocks and came close to drowning. Once on dry soil, they waited. Hiding in the bush and watching their arrival was a Filipino named Acevedo. He sneaked into position behind them, whistled, and waved them over.

Acevedo was just a kid in a straw hat, but his hardened face and lean body gave the clear impression that he was a seasoned guerrilla. Most important, he was heavily armed, with a rifle strapped over his shoulder and pistols on both hips. In good English, he explained that they would hike on some dangerous trails into the mountains, and if all went well they should reach the first camp by dark. Japs were everywhere, and it was imperative that they move fast and silently, without a word.

The bush immediately became a dense jungle with trails that only Acevedo could see. And all trails were headed up. After an hour of climbing, they stopped for a rest. Pete and Clay were exhausted. The thinning air didn’t help. Pete asked if they could smoke, and Acevedo frowned and shook his head vehemently. He knew something of what they had endured and it was obvious they were not strong. He promised to slacken the pace. He lied. They took off again, even faster. He suddenly raised a hand, stopped cold, and ducked low. As they peeked over a ridge they saw a road in the distance, and it was crammed with Japanese troop carriers on the move. They watched the convoy as they gasped for breath and said nothing. Moving again, they caught a break and descended into a narrow valley. At a creek, they stopped while Acevedo scanned the area for the enemy. Seeing none, they quickly waded across and disappeared into the jungle. The terrain changed and they began climbing again. When his calf muscles were burning and he was out of breath, Pete called for a break. They sat in a thicket and ate rice cakes and coconut cookies.

In a soft voice, Acevedo said that his brother had been a Filipino Scout and had died down on Bataan. His vow was to kill as many Japanese as possible before they killed him. So far, his body count was eleven known dead and there were probably others. The Japs tortured and beheaded every guerrilla they caught, so it was part of the code that you never surrendered. Far better to blow your own brains out than to allow the Japs to do it their way. Clay asked when they might get guns, and he said there would be plenty at the camp. Food and water too. The guerrillas were not well fed but nobody was starving.

The food energized them and they were off again. As the sun began to dip behind the mountains, they came to a narrow trail hugging the side of a steep hill. It was a treacherous walk over loose rocks. The wrong step could send them falling into a bottomless ravine. For about fifty yards they were exposed. Halfway into the clearing, as they ducked low and tried not to stumble, shots rang out from the other side of the ravine. Snipers, just waiting. Acevedo was hit in the head and fell backward. A bullet nicked Pete’s right sleeve, barely missing his chest. He and Clay jumped into the ravine as bullets landed around them. They tumbled violently downward, bouncing off saplings and tearing through the bush. Clay managed to snatch a vine and stop his fall, but Pete continued down, head over heels. He crashed into a dao tree and almost lost consciousness.

Clay could barely see the back of Pete’s shirt and managed to slide down on his rear. When they were together they took stock and counted no broken bones, yet. Their faces and arms were scratched and bleeding, but the cuts were not deep. Pete had taken a blow to the head and was groggy but after a moment was ready to move on. They heard voices, and not in English. The enemy looking for them. As quietly as possible, they continued down, but in doing so knocked stones loose and made a racket. At the bottom, near a creek, they ducked into a thicket of brush and stickers and waited. Something was splashing in the water. Three privates with rifles at the ready were wading their way. They walked within ten feet of Pete and Clay, who lay still and barely breathed. An hour passed, maybe two, and the ravine grew dark.

In whispers, they discussed the insane idea of climbing back up and looking for the rucksack and possibly Acevedo. They were sure he was dead, but they needed his guns. They knew the Japanese would not simply give up and return to their camp. The trophy of two American heads was too tempting. So Pete and Clay didn’t move. Alone, deserted, unarmed, hunted, with no idea where they were or where they might be headed, they spent the sleepless night covered with insects, bugs, lizards, sticker cuts, and prayed the pythons and cobras would stay away. At one point, Pete asked who had had the bright idea of becoming guerrilla fighters. Clay chuckled and swore that he had never had such a ridiculous thought.

At dawn, they had to move. Hunger returned with a vengeance. They drank from the creek and decided to follow it, to where they had no clue. Throughout the day they moved in shadows, never for a second leaving themselves exposed. Twice they heard voices and soon realized that they would have to move at night and rest during the day. Move to where, exactly?

The creek fed into a narrow river, and from the bush they watched a Japanese patrol boat drift by. Six men with rifles, two with binoculars, all scouring the shorelines in search of someone. Late in the afternoon, they stumbled upon a foot trail and decided to follow it after dark. They were not sure where to go but their current location was too dangerous.

The trail was impossible to follow in the blackness of the night. They soon lost it, walked in circles, found it again, then gave up when they lost it again. They bedded down under a formation of rocks and tried to sleep.

When they awoke in the early morning, a thick mist had settled through the jungle. It provided cover and they soon found another footpath that was barely noticeable. After they had climbed for two hours, the sun burned away the mist and the trail widened. They were exhausted and starving when they came to a cliff over a steep and rocky ravine. A hundred feet below was a creek filled with boulders. They rested in the shade, looked down at the creek, and discussed the possibility of simply jumping. Death would be better than the torture they were enduring. At that moment, death would be welcome. Their chances of survival were nonexistent anyway. If they jumped, they would at least die at their own hands.

Gunfire erupted not too far away and they forgot about suicide. Gunfire meant the two sides had found each other. There were guerrillas close by. The gunfight lasted only a minute or so but inspired them to keep walking. The trail turned down and they crept along it, always with their heads low, always looking for a break in the bush that would expose them. They found a creek with clear water and refreshed themselves. They rested for an hour and moved on.

When the sun was directly above them, they came to a clearing. In its center was a small fire that was still smoldering. Sitting against a large boulder was a Japanese soldier, apparently taking a nap. From the bush, they studied him for a long time and noticed blood on both legs. Evidently, he had been wounded and left behind by his unit. Occasionally, his right arm moved, proof that he was alive. Without a sound, Pete moved through the cover of the bush while Clay inched closer behind trees. Pete climbed the boulder, and when he was directly above the target, he lifted a ten-pound rock and lunged. The rock landed squarely on top of the Jap’s head. Clay was on him in an instant. Pete struck him again with the rock while Clay grabbed his rifle and gutted him with the bayonet. They dragged him into the bush and ripped open his backpack. Tins of sardines, salmon, and mackerel, along with a packet of dried beef. They ate quickly, their shirts and hands covered with his blood. They hid his body in a thicket and hustled away from the clearing.

For the first time in months, they were now armed. Clay carried the Arisaka rifle with the bayonet, along with his canteen. Pete wore his holster with a semiautomatic Nambu pistol. In the belt, he stuffed thirty cartridges, two magazines, and a six-inch knife. They ran for an hour before stopping to rest and devouring another tin of sardines. If captured now, they would be tortured and beheaded on the spot. Capture, though, would not happen. With bloody hands, they shook and made a pact that neither would be taken alive. If surrounded, they would shoot themselves with the pistol. Pete first, then Clay.

They pressed on, climbing again. They heard gunfire again, heavy at times, a more prolonged skirmish than before. They could not decide if they should move toward it, or away. So they waited, hiding beside the trail. The gunfire faded, then stopped. An hour passed and the sun began to fade in the west.

At a turn in the trail they came face-to-face with a young Filipino who was sprinting in their direction. He was slight, skinny, sweating from his run, and unarmed. He stopped cold and wasn’t sure about the strangers.

Pete said, “Americans.”

The teenager stepped closer and looked at their weapons. “Japanese,” he said, nodding at the bayonet.

Clay smiled, pointed to the blood on his hands and arms, and said, “No, this is Japanese blood.”

The boy smiled and said, “American soldiers?”

They nodded. Pete said, “We need to find the guerrillas. Can you take us to them?”

His smile widened and he proudly drawled, “Aw shit, where y’all from?”

Pete and Clay exploded with laughter. Clay bent double and dropped his new rifle. Pete laughed and shook his head in disbelief. He had the image of this Filipino kid sitting around a campfire with a bunch of Americans having too much fun teaching him their brand of colorful English. Without a doubt, there were some boys from Texas or Alabama in the gang.

When the laughter passed, the kid said, “Follow me. About an hour.”

“Let’s go,” Pete said. “But not so fast.”

The kid was called a runner, one of hundreds used for communication by the guerrillas, who had almost no radios. The runners often carried written messages and orders. They knew the trails intimately and were rarely caught, but if that happened they were tortured for information and killed.

They climbed again for a long time as the air continued to thin. The break in the heat was welcome, but Pete and Clay struggled to keep up. As they approached the first bivouac point, the kid whistled three times, waited, heard something that Pete and Clay did not, and continued. They were on guerrilla turf now, and as safe as any American soldier could be in the Philippines. Two heavily armed Filipinos appeared from nowhere and waved them through.

They passed through a tiny barrio where the people barely noticed them. The trail led to the first camp, where more Filipino guerrillas were cooking over a small fire. There were about twenty of them, living in lean-tos and preparing for the night. At the sight of the two Americans, they stood and saluted.

Half an hour later, still climbing, they walked into a small compound hidden under a dense jungle canopy. An American in faded fatigues and fresh combat boots greeted them. Captain Darrell Barney, formerly of the Eleventh Infantry Brigade but now of the unofficial West Luzon Resistance Force. After introductions were made, Barney yelled at a row of bamboo huts and other Americans came forth. There were a lot of smiles, handshakes, backslapping, congratulations, and soon enough Pete and Clay were seated at a split-bamboo table and served rice, potatoes, and grilled pork chops, a delicacy reserved for special occasions.

As they ate, they were peppered with questions from around the table. The biggest talker was Alan DuBose from Slidell, Louisiana, and he proudly admitted that he was indeed teaching the Filipinos all manner of American slang. In all, there were six Americans, in addition to Pete and Clay, and none of the others had been on Bataan. After the surrender, they had fled to the mountains from other parts of the islands. They were far healthier, though malaria was everywhere.

The Americans had heard about the death march and they wanted the stories, all of them. For hours, Pete and Clay talked and talked, and laughed and reveled in the safety of their surroundings. For two soldiers who had seen so much, it was at times difficult to fathom the fact that they were with American soldiers who were still fighting.

Pete savored the moment, but he could not stop the flashbacks to O’Donnell. He thought about the men he knew there, many of whom would not leave alive. They were still starving while he feasted. He thought about the Boneyard, and the hundreds of starved corpses he had buried. He thought about the hellship and heard the screams of the trapped men as they went under. One moment he enjoyed the food and banter and soothing American English with its variety of accents, and the next moment he sat muted, unable to eat as another nightmare flooded his memory.

The flashbacks, nightmares, and horrors would never go away.

Late in the evening, they were led to the showers and given bars of soap. The water was lukewarm and felt marvelous. At first they wanted to shave, but every other American had a heavy beard, so they passed on the opportunity. They were given underwear and clean socks and mismatched army fatigues, though in the bush there were no established uniforms. The doctor, also an American, examined them and noted the obvious problems. He had plenty of medicines and promised them that after a couple of weeks they would be ready to fight. They were shown to a bamboo hut, their new barracks, and given real cots with blankets. In the morning, they would meet their commander and be given more guns than they could carry.

Alone in the darkness, they whispered of home, which seemed closer than ever.

Chapter 31

The West Luzon Resistance Force was under the firm command of General Bernard Granger, a British hero from World War I. Granger was about sixty, lean and tough and military to the core. He had lived in the Philippines for the past twenty years and at one time owned a large coffee plantation that the Japanese confiscated, killing two of his sons in the process and forcing him to flee to the mountains with his wife and what was left of his family. They lived in a bunker deeper in the jungle, and from there he commanded his force. His men adored him and referred to him as Lord Granger.

He was at his desk under a canopy of camouflaged netting when Pete and Clay were ushered in and introduced. He sent his aides away, though his bodyguards stayed close. He welcomed the Americans in his high-pitched, very proper British cadence and ordered a round of tea. Pete and Clay sat in bamboo chairs and admired him from the first moment. At times his left eye was partially hidden by a crease in his smart safari hat. When he spoke he removed the stem of a corncob pipe, and when he listened he stuck it between his teeth and chewed it as if digesting every word. “I hear you survived the nastiness down on Bataan,” he said in his singsong voice. “Probably worse than we’ve heard.”

They nodded and described it for a few moments. Bataan was brutal, but O’Donnell was worse.

“And the Nips are shipping off boys to the coal mines back home, I hear,” Granger said as he poured tea in porcelain cups.

Pete described the hellship and their rescue at sea.

“We’ll get the bloody bastards eventually,” Granger said. “If they don’t get us first. I hope you realize that your odds of survival have improved, but in the end we’re all dead men.”

“Better to go down fighting,” Clay said.

“That’s the spirit. Our job is to create enough mischief to hamstring the Nips and prove that these islands are worth saving. We fear that the Allies might try to beat them without bothering with us. The high command thinks it can bypass these islands and hit Japan, and it’s entirely possible, you know? But MacArthur promised to return and that’s what keeps us going. Our Filipino boys must have something to fight for. It’s their property to begin with. Milk and sugar?”

Pete and Clay declined. They would have preferred strong coffee, but they were still thankful for the large breakfast. Granger chatted on, then abruptly stopped and looked at Pete. “So what’s the skinny on you?”

Pete went through a short bio. West Point, seven years active in the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry, then sort of a forced retirement for personal reasons. Had to save the family farm. Wife and two kids back in Mississippi. Rank of first lieutenant.

Granger’s eyes danced and never blinked as he caught and analyzed every word. “So you can ride a horse?”

“With or without a saddle,” Pete said.

“I’ve heard of the Twenty-Sixth. Expert marksman, I take it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We need snipers. Never enough snipers.”

“Give me a rifle.”

“You were at Fort Stotsenburg?”

“Yes, but only briefly before December.”

“Bloody Nips are using the base there for their Zeros and dive-bombers. Heavier stuff they moved out after Corregidor. I’d like to hit some planes on the ground but we haven’t put together a plan yet. And you?” he asked, looking at Clay.

Enlisted in 1940, Thirty-First Infantry. Mortar specialist. Rank of sergeant. A cowboy from Colorado who could also ride and shoot.

“Jolly good. I like men who want to fight. Sad to say but we have some Americans here who are simply hiding with us and want to go home. Some are mad. Some are too sick. Some went AWOL from their units and wandered through the jungles, I suspect. They’re deadweight, to be honest, but we can’t exactly run them off. The first lesson you’ll learn is to not ask questions of the others. Everyone has a story, and the cowards never tell the truth.”

He sipped his tea and pulled out a map. “A bit about our operations. We’re here in the middle of the Zambales Mountains, really rugged terrain, as I’m sure you’ve learned. Elevation of nine thousand feet in places. We have about a thousand fighters scattered over a hundred square miles. If we dug in and hid we could last for a long time, but digging in is not in our cards. We are guerrillas and we fight dirty, never in frontal assaults, never in the open. We strike quick and disappear. The Nips raid our camps at the lower elevations and it’s very dangerous down there. You’ll find out soon enough. We’re gaining in numbers as more Filipinos run for the hills, and after a rough start we’re finally landing some punches.”

“So you don’t worry about the Japs coming here?” Pete asked.

“We worry about everything. We pack light, always ready to pull back at the slightest danger. We can’t fight them one on one. We have almost no artillery, save for a few mortars and light cannons, goodies we stole from the enemy. We have plenty of rifles, pistols, and machine guns, but no trucks or carriers. We’re foot soldiers, with the advantage of the terrain. Our biggest problem is communication. We have a few old radios, nothing portable, and can’t use them because the Nips are always listening. So we rely on runners to coordinate things. We have no contact with MacArthur, though he knows we’re here and fighting. To answer your question, we are relatively safe here, but always in danger. The Nips would bomb us from the air if they could see us. Come along and I’ll show you our goodies.”

Granger sprang to his feet, grabbed his walking stick, and took off. He rattled something in Tagalog to his guards and they sprinted in front of him. Others followed as they left the camp and started up a narrow trail. As they walked Granger said, “The Twenty-Sixth, quite an outfit. Don’t suppose you know Edwin Ramsey?”

“He was my commander,” Pete said proudly.

“You don’t say. Bloody good soldier. He refused to surrender and headed for the hills. He’s about a hundred miles from here and organizing like mad. Rumor is that he has over five thousand men in Central Luzon and plenty of contacts in Manila.”

They turned a corner and two sentries pulled back a wall of vines and roots. They entered a cave. “Get the torches,” Granger barked and two guards lit the way. The cave became a cavern, an open room with stalactites dripping water from above. Candles were lit along the walls and the scope of the armory came into focus.

Granger never stopped talking. “Supplies left behind by the Yanks and taken from the Nips. I’d like to think we have a bullet for every one of the bloody bastards.”

There were pallets of ammunition. Crates of rifles. Stockpiles of canned food and water. Thick bags of rice. Barrels of gasoline. Stacks of boxes holding supplies that were not identified.

Granger said, “Down the hall in another room we have two tons of dynamite and TNT. Don’t suppose you have any experience with explosives.”

“No,” Pete said. Clay shook his head.

“Too bad. We are in dire need of a good bomb boy. Last one blew himself up. A Filipino, and a damned fine one. But one will come along. Seen enough?”

Before they answered, he whirled around. The tour was over. Pete and Clay were shocked at the stash of supplies, but also greatly comforted by it. They followed Granger out of the cave and began their descent. They stopped at an overlook and took in a stunning vista of waves of mountains that went on forever.

The general said, “The Nips won’t get this far, really. They’re afraid to. And they know that we are forced to come down for the fight. So we do. Questions?”

Clay asked, “When do we fight?”

Granger laughed and said, “I like that. Sick and malnourished but ready for battle. A week or so. Give the doctors some time to fatten you up and you’ll soon see all the blood you want.”

For the next two days, Pete and Clay lay about in luxury, napping and eating and drinking all the water they could hold. The doctors plied them with pills and vitamins. When they were finally bored, they were outfitted with rifles and pistols and taken to a firing range for a round of practice. A Filipino veteran named Camacho was assigned to them, and he taught them the ways of the jungle: how to build a small fire to cook, always at night because the smoke could not be seen; how to build a lean-to out of vines and shrub to sleep under in the rain; how to pack a rucksack with only the essentials; how to keep their guns and ammo dry; how to handle an angry cobra, and a hungry python as well; how to do a hundred essentials that might one day save their lives.

On the third day, Pete was summoned to Lord Granger’s post for tea and cards. They sat at a game board and chatted, with the general doing the bulk of the talking. “Ever play cribbage?” he asked as he pulled out a deck of cards.

“Sure. I played it at Fort Riley.”

“Bloody good. I have a round each afternoon at three with tea. Relaxes the soul.” He shuffled as he talked and dealt the cards. “Two nights ago the Nips raided an advance post a good ways down the mountain, one that was well defended. They surprised us with a large unit. There was a nasty fight; we lost. They were looking for Bobby Lippman, a tough major from Brooklyn, and they found him, along with two other Americans. The Filipinos in the unit were either killed in battle or beheaded on the spot. That’s a favorite of the Nips, whack off the heads and leave them lying near the bodies to frighten the neighbors. Anyway, Lippman and the other Americans were taken to a prison in Manila to have a chat with some of the Nips’ toughest interrogators. I’m told that some of these officers speak the King’s English better than most Brits. Lippman’s in for a nasty time. They’ll whip him and burn him for a few days, they have a variety of methods, and if he talks we could feel it here. If he doesn’t, and I doubt he will, then they’ll have a little ceremony for him that involves one of those long swords you’ve seen. It’s a war, Banning, and as you’ve seen there are many ways to kill.”

“I thought there were bivouacs and rings of sentries at each post,” Pete said. “How did they pull a surprise?”

“We’ll never know. Their favorite trick is to bribe a local, some Filipino who needs money or rice and is willing to sell information. As the Nips close the noose, we’re starting to see less food. In some villages the peasants are skipping meals. The Nips know how to bribe. We have many posts in these mountains. Sometimes we stay in them, sometimes we don’t, but they’re our safe houses. If we’re in for the night, or perhaps a week, the locals usually find out. It’s rather easy to find a Nip and sell the intel. Are you ready for combat?”

“Damned right I am.”

“The doctor says you’re in reasonably good shape. Hell, we’re all underweight and sick with something, but you and Clay look especially gaunt. Suppose you’ve seen the worst of it.”

“We’re fine and we’re bored. Give us an assignment.”

“The two of you will go with DuBose, a squad of about ten. Camacho will always be with you, and he’s the best. You’ll leave in the middle of the night, hike three or four hours, have a look. It’s part recon, part assault. If Lippman is talking under duress we should know it by what the Nips do and where they go. After a couple of days on the trails, you’ll hook up with another unit, some of our boys from another mountain. They’ve borrowed a bomb maker who’ll string some wires and such. The target is a convoy. Should be an easy job and you’ll get to shoot some Nips. Jolly good fun.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Assuming all goes well, the bomb maker is willing to spend some time with you boys and teach you how to play with TNT. Listen and learn.”

As Pete shuffled and dealt, Granger reloaded his pipe with tobacco, and managed to do so without missing a word. “Poor Lippman. All of us vow that we’ll not be taken alive. It’s a far better thing to put a bullet in one’s head than let the Nips have their way. But it’s not always that easy. Men are often wounded first and unable to shoot themselves. Sometimes they’re asleep and surprised. And often, Banning, I think that we become so adept at survival that we believe we can survive anything, so we drop our guns, raise our hands, and are led away. Usually, I suppose, within hours there is an awful feeling of regret. You ever come close to ending it all?”

“Many times,” Pete said. “The thirst and hunger drove us all crazy, along with the constant killing. I thought that if I could only go to sleep, then I would pass on the bit about waking up. But we survived. We’re surviving now. I plan to get home, General.”

“Attaboy. But don’t let the Nips take you alive, hear me?”

“Don’t worry.”

Chapter 32

They left camp shortly after midnight, ten guerrillas in all, following two runners who could find the trails in their sleep. Six Filipinos and four Americans, all heavily armed and loaded with backpacks full of tinned food, canned water, blankets, tarps, and all the ammo they could carry. Mercifully, all movements were downward. The first lesson Pete and Clay learned was to concentrate on the boots of the man in front of them. Looking around was fruitless because there was nothing to see in the blackness. A missed step could cause a stumble and a fall and an uncertain landing.

For the first hour nothing was said. As they approached the first barrio, a lookout greeted them. In an unknown dialect, he informed Camacho that all was well. They had not seen the enemy in days. The squad circled around the huts and kept moving. There was no lookout at the second barrio and not a sound from the settlement. After three hours the ground leveled and they stopped at an advance post, four shelters built into the bush and empty. They rested for half an hour and snacked on sardines and water. DuBose drifted over and asked quietly, “Y’all doin’ all right?”

Pete and Clay assured him that they were having fun, though they were already fatigued. The others looked like they were just warming up. Off again, they began to climb, and after an hour stopped again to rest. DuBose knew what his two rookies had been through and wanted to protect them. The squad descended into a ravine, waded across a creek, and came upon a large barrio. From the bush, they watched the area for a few minutes; then Camacho ventured forth and found the lookout. Again, there had been no sign of the enemy. As they waited, DuBose eased beside Pete and drawled, “Folks here are pretty safe. Each little village is run by a boss, and the one here is a solid guy. From here, though, it’s no-man’s-land.”

“Where’s the road?” Pete asked.

“Not far.”

At daybreak, they were hiding in a ditch beside a dirt highway that was obviously well used. They heard movements on the other side, then silence. Someone said, “DuBose.”

He answered, “Over here.”

Heads suddenly popped out of the brush, and an American named Carlyle stepped forward. He commanded a dozen men, including three Yanks with mangy beards and the same weatherbeaten look. They hurried to retrieve wooden boxes filled with more TNT, and for an hour they laid the explosives and ran wires to the detonators. The bomb maker was a Filipino veteran who had obviously laid many traps. When the TNT was in place, the men retreated to the bush, with DuBose assigning positions. Pete, the sniper, hid behind some rocks and was instructed to shoot anything that moved. Clay was given a light machine gun and positioned fifty yards away.

Camacho stayed close to Pete and whispered as the sun rose. The Japanese were moving tons of supplies inland on many routes, and their mission was to harass and disrupt the lines. Spies at the port had sent word that a convoy of four or five trucks was on the way. They had no idea of the cargo, but blowing it up would be a thrill. You’ll see.

As he waited, Pete’s trigger finger itched as his stomach flipped in anticipation. It had been months since he’d been in combat and the waiting was nerve-racking. When he heard the rumble of trucks, Camacho said get ready.

Four of them. The lead and rear trucks were filled with troops to protect the cargo in the middle two. The guerrillas waited and waited and for a long moment Pete thought the explosives would not work. But when they did, the ground shook with such a fury that Pete was thrown against the rocks. The lead truck flipped like a toy, slinging soldiers into the air. The third and fourth trucks were blown onto their sides. Gunfire exploded from the bush as two dozen hidden guerrillas unloaded a brutal barrage. The Japs who had survived the explosions crawled and staggered and most were shot before they could fire a shot. The driver of the second truck crawled through the shattered front window, and Pete picked him off. Clay was in a nest to the rear of the convoy with a direct line of fire into the troop carrier. Using a Japanese Type 99 lightweight machine gun, he mowed down one Jap after another as they tried to crawl out and find their weapons. Several of them took cover behind the trucks but were shot in the back by guerrillas on the other side of the road. There was no place to hide. The gunfire was withering and went on for a good five minutes. One Jap managed to hide between trucks two and three and spray a few rounds into the trees before being hit high and low.

Slowly, the shooting came to a halt. During a lull, they watched and waited, hoping a Jap on the ground would move for a weapon. All was still as the dust began to settle. DuBose and Carlyle crept forward and waved their men back onto the road. Every Jap, dying or already dead, got an extra bullet to the head. Prisoners were nothing but baggage. There was no place to hold them and no extra food to feed them. In this version of the war, neither side took prisoners, unless American officers were captured. Their deaths were delayed.

DuBose and Carlyle barked orders with a sense of urgency. Two Filipinos were sent back down the road to watch for more trucks. Two were sent ahead. The dead bodies — thirty-seven of them — were stripped of weapons and backpacks. Luckily, the second supply truck had not been disabled. It had been packed with boxes of rifles, grenades, machine guns, and, unbelievably, hundreds of pounds of TNT. In every ambush there is a miracle, and the fact that a stray bullet had not hit the explosives was a gift. The first supply truck was on its side and a total wreck. It was filled with boxes of rations. DuBose made the decision to pack as much food as possible in with the armaments and use the second truck for their getaway.

Stepping over dead bodies, and kicking them out of the way, the guerrillas managed to roll the first truck into a ditch. With a Filipino behind the wheel, the second truck limped away. Pete and five others sat on top of it, their butts just inches above tons of explosives. As they turned a corner, the men looked back with great satisfaction at the mayhem they had caused. Three smoldering trucks, piles of dead bodies, and not a single wounded soldier on their side.

Japanese Zeros routinely watched the roads at an altitude that seemed just inches above the trees, and it was only a matter of time before they arrived. DuBose wanted to get off the road before they were spotted and a Zero hit the truck and blew them all to bits. The pilots would see the carnage, know immediately what had happened, and attack with a vengeance.

Their driver turned in to a clearing and gunned the engine. The truck was exposed until it found a parking spot under a canopy of thick trees. It stopped and DuBose ordered the men to quickly cover it with vines and brush. When it couldn’t be seen from twenty feet away on the ground, the men retreated to the shade and tore into the Japanese backpacks. They feasted on tins of fish and loaves of hard rice bread. One Jap, obviously a guy with a drinking problem, had been carrying four cans of sake, and the break became an impromptu cocktail hour.

While their troops had a drink, DuBose and Carlyle huddled by the truck. Their discussion was interrupted by the unmistakable high-pitched whining of approaching Zeros. Two of them swooped low over the highway, then pulled up fierce vertical ascents. They circled back for another look and disappeared.

There was talk of returning to the road and to the wreckage. The spot had proven perfect for the ambush, and the Japs would undoubtedly send a large search party. The killing had been so easy, the body count so impressive, it was tempting to go back for more. But DuBose thought better of it. Their job was to hit and run, not to plan offensives. Besides, at that moment the contraband was far more important than a few more dead Japs.

The truck could not handle the mountain trails, and DuBose made the decision to unload it and devise a scheme to transfer the goodies back to their base. Since his men certainly couldn’t carry it all, he sent a dozen Filipinos into the nearest barrios to barter for oxen and pack mules. They offered plenty of food for the “rentals” of the animals.

The party ended abruptly when DuBose ordered the remaining men to begin the arduous task of unloading. After noon, a few oxen and mules began to appear, not nearly enough, but a good number of local men had agreed to swap their labor for food. The first elements of the convoy had just disappeared into the bush when a runner sprinted from a trail with the news that a large unit of Japanese soldiers was just around the corner. Without hesitation, DuBose order the bomb maker to rig the truck and the explosives still on board. He and Carlyle agreed that the wreckage would block the road, giving them some extra time. The guerrillas uncovered the truck so the Japs could find it, then retreated into the bush and waited.

The advance team arrived on motorcycles, saw the truck, and got excited. Before long, three troop carriers stopped and dozens of soldiers spilled out, all crouching low in anticipation of another ambush. There was none, and they advanced slowly upon the truck. When they realized the enemy was gone, they relaxed and milled around the truck, all yakking with great concern. When their officer strutted forward and stepped into the truck for a quick look, the bomb maker pulled a wire from a hundred feet away. The explosion was magnificent and sent dozens of bodies flying.

DuBose and his men admired it with a quick laugh, then scurried back to their trails. Each man was now laden with as much gear and stolen armaments as possible, and they were climbing again. Pete and Clay were fatigued to the point of collapse, but they trudged on. They had marched under much worse conditions, and they knew their weak bodies could endure the hardship.

Well after dark, they arrived at their first advance post, and everyone collapsed. Runners had reported to Lord Granger and he sent more men to help with the haul. DuBose called it a day and ordered them to set up camp. More runners arrived with the welcome news that they were not being followed.

The men ate until they were full, and even managed another shot of sake. Pete and Clay found a spot on the dirt floor of a hut and relived the glory of the day. Their whispers soon faded, and they fell fast asleep.

For two days, the convoy climbed over the mountains, stopping often to rest and eat. Twice, they were diverted when runners warned them that the enemy was near, searching in full force. Zeros patrolled the skies like angry wasps, itching to strafe something, but seeing nothing. The men took cover in ravines and caves.

When they finally arrived home, Lord Granger was waiting on them with a smile and hug for every man. Splendid work, boys, splendid work. Other than blistered feet and aching muscles, not a single man had been wounded.

They rested for days, until they were bored again.

The rainy season arrived in a fury when a typhoon swept through the northern Philippines. Torrents of rain pounded the mountains and the winds ripped the roofs off the bamboo huts. At its peak, the men retreated to the caves and hunkered down for two days. The trails turned to mud and many were impassable.

But the war raged on and the Japanese had no choice but to continue moving men and supplies. Their convoys were often mired in knee-deep mud and stalled for long periods. They became easy targets for the guerrillas, who moved on foot, though not as quickly. Granger kept his squads busy, hitting targets with brutal strikes, then disappearing into the bush. Japanese reprisals were vicious and the civilians paid the price.

Pete was given his own squad, G Troop, twenty men that included Clay and Camacho, and he was promoted to the rank of major in the West Luzon Resistance Force. Such a position would not be officially recognized by the real army, but then the real army had retreated with MacArthur to Australia. Lord Granger ruled his own force and promoted as he saw fit.

After a successful raid on a convoy, Major Banning and his men were withdrawing when they approached a barrio. They smelled smoke from the trail and soon came upon a horrible scene. The Japanese had raided and destroyed the village. Every hut was on fire and children were running everywhere, screaming. In the center there were about fifteen dead men, all with their hands tied behind their backs. Their bodies were bloodied and mutilated; their detached heads were a few feet away, lined in a neat row. Several women had been shot and they lay where they fell.

A teenage boy bolted from the bush and ran toward them, crying and screaming. Camacho grabbed him and spoke to him in a dialect. As the boy wailed he shook his fists angrily at the guerrillas.

Camacho said, “He blames us, says we brought the Japanese here.” Camacho kept talking to the boy, who was inconsolable.

“He says the Japanese came here a few hours ago and accused the people of helping the Americans. They demanded to know where the Americans were hiding, and since we didn’t know and couldn’t tell them, they did this. Both his mother and his father were murdered. They took his sister and some of the young women away. They’ll rape them and then kill them too.”

Pete and his men were speechless. They listened to the exchange and gawked at the carnage.

Camacho went on, “He says his brother went to find the Japanese and tell them that you’re here. It’s all your fault, all your fault. The Americans are to blame.”

Pete said, “Tell him we’re fighting the Japanese, we hate them too. We’re on the side of the Filipinos.”

Camacho jabbered on but the boy was out of his mind. He was bawling and kept shaking his fist at Pete. He finally tore away and ran to the dead men. He pointed at one and screamed at the corpse.

Camacho said, “That’s his father. They were forced to watch as the Japs cut off their heads, one at a time while threatening to kill all of them if they didn’t give up the information.”

The boy ran to the bush and disappeared. Children were clinging to the bodies of their mothers. The huts were still burning. The guerrillas wanted to help in some way, but the situation was too dangerous. Pete said, “Let’s get out of here.” They hurried away, sloshing through the mud. They marched until dark as heavy rain began, then set up camp under leaking lean-tos and tarps. The rain was unrelenting and they slept little.

Pete had nightmares about the ghoulish scene.

Back at the base, he reported to Lord Granger and described the raid on the barrio. Granger refused to show emotion, but he knew Major Banning was rattled. He ordered him to rest for a few days.

Around the fire that night, Pete and Clay told the story to the other Americans. They had their own stories and they had grown callous to such tales. The enemy had a limitless capacity for savagery, and it made the guerrillas vow to fight even harder.

Chapter 33

In Pete’s absence the cotton grew anyway, and by mid-September the picking began. The weather cooperated, the prices held firm on the Memphis exchange, the field hands worked from dawn to dusk, and Buford managed to keep enough itinerant labor in place. The harvest brought a level of normalcy to the land and to a people living under the dark clouds of war. Everyone knew a soldier who was either waiting to be shipped off or already fighting. Pete Banning was the first casualty from Ford County, but then other boys were killed or wounded or missing.

Four months into widowhood, Liza managed to establish some semblance of a routine. Once the kids were off to school, she had coffee with Nineva, who slowly became her sounding board and her strength. Liza puttered in the garden with Amos and Jupe, met each morning with Buford to discuss the crops, and tried to stay away from town. She quickly grew tired of the endless inquiries about how she was doing, how she was holding up, how the kids were handling it all. If spotted in town, she was forced to endure hugs and tears from people she hardly knew. For the sake of her children, she forced the family to go to church, but the three of them grew to dislike the Sunday ritual. They began skipping occasionally to avoid the constant condolences, and instead walked to Florry’s cottage for brunches on the patio. No one condemned them for their “chapel cuts.”

Most weekday mornings, Dexter Bell drove out to visit Liza. They had coffee, a devotional, and prayer. They sat in Pete’s study with the door closed and talked in soft voices. Nineva, as always, hovered nearby.

Pete had been gone for almost a year, and Liza knew he was not coming home. If he were alive he would find a way to send a letter or a message, and as the days and weeks passed without a word she accepted the unspeakable reality. She admitted this to no one, but gamely went about her dark days as if she held out hope. It was important for Joel and Stella, and for Nineva and Amos and everyone else, but in private she wept and sat for hours in her dark bedroom.

Joel was sixteen, a senior in high school, and was talking of enlisting. He would soon turn seventeen, and upon graduation could join the army if his mother agreed. She said she would not and such talk upset her. She had lost her husband and was not about to lose her son. Stella fought with Joel to quell such nonsense, and he reluctantly stopped talking about fighting. His future was in college.

In early October, the rains stopped and the skies cleared. The soggy terrain bred a fresh wave of mosquitoes, and malaria hit the guerrillas hard. Virtually every man had it to some degree, many for the third or fourth time, and living with it became normal. They carried bottles of quinine and cared for their sicker comrades.

With the roads passable, the Japanese convoys became more frequent, but the guerrillas were often too weak to strike. Pete had gained a few pounds, though he guessed he was still fifty pounds below his fighting weight, when fevers and chills knocked him down for a week. During a lull, when he was wrapped in a blanket and semilucid, he realized it was October 4, one year to the day after he left home. Without a doubt, it had been the most memorable year of his life.

He was sleeping when a runner woke him with orders to report to Lord Granger. He and Clay staggered from their hut and reported to the general’s post. Intelligence had reported a large convoy of oil tankers leaving a port and headed inland. Within an hour, G Troop was moving down the mountain in the darkness. It bivouacked with DuBose’s D Troop, and forty guerrillas were on the move, most of them weakened with malaria but excited to have a mission. The rains and mosquitoes had not stopped the war.

Engineers from the imperial army had carved a new supply road, one that Granger had heard rumors of. DuBose found it first, and he and Pete hiked it with their men in search of an ambush point. Finding none, they began to backtrack when four Zeros suddenly appeared at treetop level. Majors Banning and DuBose ordered their men to retreat to a hillside and bury themselves in the bush to wait. A recon unit soon appeared, two platoons of Japanese soldiers on foot. They carried machetes and hacked their way through the bush beside the road, looking for guerrillas. It was a new tactic, one that clearly showed the importance of the convoy. Trucks could soon be heard, and lots of them. The first three were open carriers packed with soldiers at the ready. Behind them were six tankers loaded to the brim with gasoline and diesel fuel. Their rear was protected by three more carriers.

The plan was to attack with hand grenades and ignite a massive fireball, but the guerrillas were not close enough. The target was tempting, but Major Banning wisely backed off. He signaled DuBose a hundred yards away. DuBose agreed and the guerrillas withdrew even deeper. The convoy inched along and was soon out of sight.

The hike back to base was dispiriting.

The clear skies brought not only waves of mosquitoes but waves of Zeros and scout planes as well. Granger feared the Japanese knew his location and were closing in, though he still maintained that a ground assault was unlikely. The enemy had shown little interest in a prolonged fight up the mountain into forbidding territory. What worried Granger, though, was a threat from the air. A few well-aimed bombs could do immeasurable damage. He met daily with his commanders and discussed moving the base, but they were not in favor of it. They were heavily camouflaged. Their supplies and armaments were untouchable in the caves. Moving the base would create too much activity that might be noticed from the air. They were at home and felt as though they could defend anything.

An informant had passed along the news that the Japanese were offering a bounty of $50,000 on the head of Lord Granger, but, typically, he took it as an honor. Rewards of up to $5,000 were offered for the capture of any American officer involved with the resistance.

One afternoon, over a game of cribbage and a cup of tea, Granger handed Pete a small green metal box about the size of a brick but much lighter. At one end there was a dial and a switch. Granger explained, “Called a Lewes bomb, a new toy from a bomb maker in Manila. Inside is a pound of plastic explosive, a quarter pound of thermite, a bit of diesel fuel, and a detonator. The back side is magnetized. Stick it to the side of an airplane near the fuel tank, turn the dial, flip the switch, run like hell, and a few minutes later enjoy the fireworks.”

Pete admired it and set it on the table. “Brilliant.”

“Cooked by a British commando named Jock Lewes in North Africa. Our boys there wiped out entire fleets of Italian and German planes. Bloody good idea if you ask me.”

“And so?”

“And so the Nips have a hundred Zeros at Fort Stotsenburg, the bloody buggers that are tormenting us. I’m thinking about a raid. You know the place well, I take it.”

“Very well. It was the home of the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry. I spent time there before the hostilities.”

“Can it be done, Major? Nips would never see it coming. Dangerous as hell, though.”

“Is this an order?”

“Not yet. Think about it. You and DuBose, forty men. Forty more from a base operating above Stotsenburg. The Lewes bombs can be delivered from Manila to a post near the fort. From here it’s a three-day hike, grueling. I’m thinking that you go prepared for the raid, and have a look. Security is tight, Nips on the ground everywhere. If it’s impossible, back away and don’t get hurt.”

“I like it,” Pete said, still admiring the Lewes bomb.

“We’ve got maps, the layout and all. Plenty of intelligence on the ground. You’ll be in command, it’s all yours. And you probably won’t come back.”

“When do we leave?”

“Are you strong enough, what with the shivers and all?”

“We’ve all got the fevers, but I’m recovering.”

“Are you sure? It’s not an order and you can say no. As you know, I don’t order suicide missions.”

“We’ll be back, I promise. Plus, I’m bored.”

“Jolly good, Major. Jolly good.”

They left at dark, with DuBose and D Troop half an hour behind. They hiked for ten hours and stopped at dawn above a village. They rested throughout the day and noticed several Japanese patrols moving through the area. At dark, they moved on. The mountains turned to hills and vegetation thinned. At dawn of the third day, they topped a rise and Fort Stotsenburg was before them, about a mile away in the center of a sweeping plain.

From his position, Pete took in the vastness of his old fort. Before the war, it had housed not only the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry Regiment but also four artillery regiments, two American and two Filipino, along with the Twelfth Quartermaster Regiment. The rows of barracks housed eight thousand soldiers. The stately gateposts at the front entrance were visible. Between two long runways were dozens of buildings once used by good guys and now bustling with the enemy. Behind them were the wide parade grounds where Pete had played polo, but the moment did not allow nostalgia. Parked in neat rows along the runways were more Zeros than he could count, along with twenty or so two-seated fighters the Allies called Nicks. There was no wall around the fort, no fencing or barbed-wire barriers. Just thousands of Japs going about their business. Troops drilled on the parade grounds while Zeros took off and landed.

The runners led them to an advance post where they met a squad led by Captain Miller, a baby-faced enlisted man from Minnesota. His squad had ten men, all Filipinos, and they knew the area well. Miller was waiting on another squad that was supposed to have arrived the day before. At the post, the men huddled over maps, and waited. At midnight, when the fort was quiet, Pete, DuBose, and Miller crept closer to it and spent the rest of the night circling the area. They returned at dawn, exhausted but with a plan.

The shipment of Lewes bombs did not arrive as scheduled, and they waited two days for word from Manila. They also waited on the other guerrillas Granger had promised, but they did not materialize. Pete worried that they had been captured and the entire mission had been compromised. In all, he had fifty-five men available for some mischief. By the third day at the post food was running low and the men were becoming irritable. Major Banning scolded them and maintained discipline.

The Lewes bombs finally arrived on the backs of three mules led by teenage boys, skinny kids who would hardly raise suspicions. Again, Pete marveled at Granger’s network.

The fort was outside Angeles City, a sprawling town of 100,000, with plenty of bars and brothels to keep the Japanese officers entertained. The raid began at one in the morning with a carjacking when two drunken captains staggered out of a nightclub and headed to their sedan for the ride back to the fort. Three Filipino guerrillas posing as local peasants slit their throats in an alley, stripped off their uniforms, and changed clothes. They fired three shots as a signal, then ten minutes later drove the car past the sentries at the front gate of Fort Stotsenburg. Once inside, they parked the car in front of the commander’s residence and disappeared into the darkness. Three Lewes bombs were stuck to the car’s undercarriage, and the explosion disrupted the peaceful night. Guerrillas hiding behind the gymnasium began firing into the air, and the guards panicked.

The airplanes were watched closely at night by sentries. At the sound of the explosion and wild gunfire, they broke ranks and began running in the direction of the commotion. Major Banning swept in from the north, DuBose from the east, Miller from the west. They gunned down every sentry in sight, then quickly began sticking the Lewes bombs to the underside of eighty of the hated Zeros. In the darkness, the precious little bombs were not visible.

As they backed away, Don Bowmore, a brawler from Philly, caught a bullet in the head. He was near Pete, who quickly dropped the sentry and grabbed his pal. Camacho helped him drag Bowmore a hundred yards to cover, but he had died instantly. When it was apparent he was dead, and couldn’t talk, Pete decided to leave his body. The code of the jungle did not allow the dead to be retrieved. Guerrillas relied too much on speed. Pete took Bowmore’s rifle and handed it to Camacho. From his holster he grabbed his Colt .45, one he would use for the rest of the war and carry with him back to Mississippi.

Within minutes, the guerrillas retreated into the darkness as lights and sirens came on and hundreds of spooked Japanese soldiers scurried about in a frenzy. Most gathered in the vicinity of the burning car and waited for orders. The dazed officers barked conflicting commands and pointed here and there. The shooting had stopped. The sentries finally convinced the officers that the planes were targeted, with something. Patrols were organized to search the planes, but the fireworks began.

Five minutes after setting the Lewes bombs, Pete ordered his men to halt. They turned and watched. The explosions were not loud, but quite colorful, and remarkably efficient. In quick succession, the Zeros began popping as the little bombs erupted and ignited the fuel tanks. Each Zero was consumed in its own fireball, and they burned in the neat rows where they sat. In the glorious glow of the fires, the soldiers could be seen backing away, stunned.

Pete savored their handiwork for only a moment, then ordered his men to withdraw, and rapidly. The Japanese would immediately send out search squads, and there was no time to waste gawking. They would not be safe until they were in the bush.

Casualties were astonishingly light, but crucial. Three guerrillas had slight wounds that did not impede their getaway. In addition to Bowmore, a Filipino had been killed by a sentry, and two had been shot, could not escape, and were captured. They were quickly rounded up and taken to the jail, where the torture began.

At the advance post, a head count revealed fifty-one survivors. They were giddy with their success and still pumped with adrenaline, but when Pete learned of the two wounded left behind he knew it meant trouble. They would be tortured without mercy. It was never safe to assume a man wouldn’t talk under duress. Some were able to withstand incredible pain and never break. Others suffered for as long as they could, then gave up information. Sometimes the information was false, sometimes accurate.

Regardless, the men were dead.

Pete ordered his men to pack as lightly as possible and hit the trail. He said good-bye to Miller and his men, and led D and G Troops into the darkness.

The first Filipino prisoner was bleeding heavily from a chest wound. The Japanese assessed it and assumed he was dying. They tied him to a table, cut off his clothing, and attached wires to his genitals. When the first current hit, he screamed and begged. Next door, the second Filipino, also strapped to a table, heard his comrade beg for mercy.

The first one gave no information. When he was unconscious, he was taken outside and decapitated with a sword. His head was retrieved and taken inside, where an officer placed it on the chest of the second one. The officer explained the obvious — don’t talk and you’ll soon take your secrets to your grave. Wires were tightened around his testicles and penis, and after half an hour he began talking. The severed head was removed from his chest and placed in a corner. The wires were removed from his genitals and the prisoner was allowed to sit and drink water. A doctor looked at his shattered fibula and left without treating it. The prisoner gave the name of General Bernard Granger and a bogus location of his base in the mountains. He gave the names of all of the American officers he knew, and revealed that Major Pete Banning had led the raid. He had no idea who made the small bombs but they came from someone in Manila. To his knowledge, no further raids were being planned.

The doctor was back. He cleaned the wound, wrapped it in a bandage, and gave the prisoner some pills for pain. They helped little. The interrogation lasted through the night. When the prisoner could not answer all the questions, he simply created fiction. The more he talked the friendlier the Japanese became. At dawn, he was given hot coffee and a bread roll and informed that he would be given special treatment because of his cooperation. When he finished eating, he was dragged to a corner of the parade ground where his buddy’s nude and headless body hung by the feet from a gallows. Not far away, the burned skeletons of seventy-four Zeros continued to smolder.

The prisoner was strung up by his hands and lashed with a bullwhip as a crowd of soldiers laughed and enjoyed the mauling. When he was unconscious, he was left to bake in the sun as the cleanup began.

Chapter 34

When news of the Stotsenburg raid reached Australia, General MacArthur was ecstatic. He immediately cabled President Roosevelt and, characteristically, took full credit for an operation he knew nothing about until a week after it was over. He wrote that “my commandos” executed “my detailed plan” with incredible brazenness and bravery and suffered only minor losses. His guerrilla forces were striking the Japanese in similar raids throughout Luzon, and he was orchestrating all manner of havoc behind enemy lines.

The raid embarrassed and infuriated the Japanese, and by the time the men of D and G Troops staggered home, exhausted and starving, four days after the attack, the skies were buzzing with fresh Zeros. The Japanese had an endless supply, and they intensified their efforts to find Granger. They did not, but their constant strafing at anything that moved in the mountains caused the guerrillas to thicken their camouflage and hunker down even deeper into the jungle. It also hampered their movements.

The Japanese stepped up their patrols around the barrios at the lower elevations and brutalized the locals. Food became scarcer and resentment toward the Americans increased. Never one to sit idly by, Granger began sending squads to ambush Japanese patrols. The highways and convoys were heavily protected and too dangerous to hit. Instead, his men stalked the trails and lay in wait. The attacks were quick and led to fierce gunfights that annihilated the patrols. The Japanese foot soldiers were no match for the well-hidden guerrillas, all of whom were excellent snipers. As the weeks passed and their casualties mounted, the Japanese lost interest in finding Granger and retreated to the valleys where they guarded the highways. Not once did the guerrillas and their intelligence gather information that indicated plans for a full-scale assault on their home base.

Granger and his growing forces were safe in the mountains, but the war was happening elsewhere. By the spring of 1943, Japan was in firm control of the South Pacific and threatening Australia.

The bridge crossed the Zapote River at the bottom of a steep and forbidding valley. From it, cliffs on both sides rose at such steep angles that crossing them on foot was impossible. The river was narrow but deep and fast, and the Japanese engineers had been unable to build suitable pontoons to ford it. So they built a bridge out of narra trees, which were plentiful and sturdy. Its construction was treacherous, with dozens of Filipino slaves lost in the process.

When Granger received orders to destroy it, he sent Majors Banning and DuBose with a squad of ten to have a look. They hiked two days through difficult terrain and finally found a safe ridge to observe from. The bridge was in the distance, deep in the valley, at least a mile away. Using binoculars, they watched it for hours, and the convoys never stopped. Occasionally, a single truck or troop carrier went across, and a few sedans with high-ranking officers were spotted. The bridge’s importance was evident by the packs of soldiers guarding it. There was a post on each side with dozens of guards milling about, and on top of each hut were mounted machine guns. Below, at the edges of the river, even more Japanese camped around the abutments and killed time. The current was too swift and violent for boats.

After dark, the convoys became scarce. By 8:00 p.m., the bridge was much quieter. The Japanese had learned that their enemy worked best at night, and for this reason kept their supplies off the roads. An occasional truck, presumably empty, crossed going west to reload.

Banning and DuBose agreed that it would be impossible to destroy the bridge with explosives. An assault with men and guns would be suicide. Other than a few grenade launchers, the guerrillas had nothing in the way of artillery.

They returned to camp and briefed Granger, who was not surprised. His runners had reported as much. After resting a day, the commanders met with their general under his canopy, and over tea debated their options, of which there were precious few. A plan emerged and became the only idea with even a remote chance of success.

Most of the convoys were loaded with armaments, food, fuel, and other supplies from several ports along the western shore of Luzon, and from there they fanned out through the mountains over a grid of highways and bridges the Japanese worked hard to maintain. The first stop for most trucks was a sprawling munitions fort outside the city of Camiling. There, in endless warehouses, the enemy stored enough supplies to win the war. Once inventoried and safe, the supplies were later shipped throughout Luzon. Camiling was at the top of every guerrilla wish list, and the Japanese knew it. Even Granger had decided it was unassailable.

Truck traffic in and around Camiling was chaotic. The roads were inadequate, so the Japanese hastily built more. Riffraff always follows the army, and around the city the highways were lined with new truck stops, cafés, bars, flophouses, brothels, and opium dens.

What Major Banning needed was an empty cargo truck with a canvas cover, and there were plenty of them parked almost bumper to bumper outside the busy bars and cafés on the main highway into Camiling. Camacho and Renaldo wore the matching uniforms of officers of the imperial army. Their disguises were detailed down to the round wire-rimmed eyeglasses worn by virtually every Jap and hated by every American. The cargo truck they were watching was empty; thus, headed west to reload. Its fuel tank was full.

After a few beers, the drivers, both privates, left the bar and headed to their truck. They bumped into Camacho and Renaldo, who suddenly began throwing punches. Fights were common outside the bars — hell, they were army boys — and bystanders hardly noticed. The fight ended abruptly when Camacho slit both throats and tossed the bodies into the back of the truck, where Pete was hiding. With no pity whatsoever, he watched them bleed out as Camacho drove away. On the outskirts of a barrio, they bivouacked with G and M Troops and took on a hundred pounds of TNT and twenty gallons of gasoline. The guerrillas packed into the truck, after flinging the two dead soldiers into a ravine. An hour later, as they began the steep descent into the valley, the truck stopped and the guerrillas got off. A runner led them along a treacherous trail that fell to the Zapote.

As the truck approached the bridge and its guard post, Camacho and Renaldo gripped their weapons and held their breath. After hours of observation, they knew the guards never checked their own trucks. And why should they? Hundreds passed each day and night. In the back, Pete crouched with a finger on the trigger of his machine gun. The guards hardly noticed and waved the truck through.

Camacho volunteered because he was fearless, and unafraid of water. Renaldo claimed to be an excellent swimmer. As commander, Pete would never consider sending someone else on such a dangerous mission.

The truck stopped in the middle of the bridge. Camacho and Renaldo shed their weapons, strapped on makeshift life vests, and hustled to the rear of the truck. Pete, who had become proficient with explosives, rigged the detonator, and gave the one-word order “Jump.”

They hit the blackness of the cold, raging Zapote and were swept up by the current. In a bend half a mile away, DuBose perched on a rock and waited. His men were in the water, roped together in a human lifeline, ready to fish their comrades out of the river.

The explosion was beautiful, a violent shock in the otherwise peaceful, moonlit night. A fireball engulfed the truck and the bridge fifty feet in both directions. Panicked guards raced from both sides until they realized they could do nothing. Then they realized a collapse was imminent and retreated to safety.

Pete thrashed about in the current and tried to orient himself. The life vest worked well enough and he stayed afloat. He heard guards yelling and gunshots, but he felt safe in the rushing water. Swimming was impossible and he tried to steady himself. Several times the current swept him under, but he fought to find air. In one split second he looked back and caught a glimpse of the burning truck. Near the bend, the current slammed him into boulders he couldn’t see, and his left leg splintered. The pain was instant and almost overwhelming, but he managed to get away from the rocks. He soon heard voices and screamed a reply. The current quelled in the bend, and the voices were closer. Someone grabbed him and he was pulled to the bank. Camacho was already there, but Renaldo was not. As minutes passed, they watched the fire in the distance. A second explosion tore a gaping hole in the bridge, and the flaming skeleton of the truck dropped into the river.

DuBose and Clay linked their arms under Pete’s and they hit the trail. The pain was excruciating and radiated from his toes to his hip. The trauma made him dizzy and he almost lost consciousness. After a short hike they stopped and DuBose administered a shot of morphine. The guerrillas had put together many stretchers in the jungle, and they quickly cut two bamboo poles and looped them with blankets. While they worked, the others watched the river for any sign of Renaldo, but he was never found.

For two days, Major Banning writhed in agony, but never complained. The morphine helped considerably. Runners alerted Granger, and as the men began their final ascent to home a medic arrived with even more of the drug, along with a bona fide field stretcher. Fresh troops carried him into camp for a hero’s welcome. Granger strutted around like a peacock, hugging his men and promising medals.

A doctor set the leg in tight splints, and informed Pete that his fighting days were over for a few months. His femur was broken in at least two places. His tibia was snapped in two. His kneecap was cracked. Surgery was needed to reset it all, but that was not possible. Pete was forbidden to move off his cot for two weeks, and thoroughly enjoyed making demands of Clay.

He was instantly bored and began moving about as soon as Clay found a set of crutches. The doctor demanded that he remain stationary, but Pete pulled rank and told him to go to hell. He parked himself each morning under Granger’s canopy and became a nuisance. Without being asked, he began advising the general on all aspects of guerrilla warfare and operations, and to shut him up Granger pulled out the cribbage board. Pete was soon beating him almost daily and demanded payment in U.S. dollars. Granger offered only IOUs.

Weeks passed as Pete helped the general plan one raid after another. He watched forlornly as the guerrillas cleaned their weapons, stuffed their backpacks, and set off for their missions. Clay was elevated to the rank of lieutenant and put in command of G Troop.

On a damp, misty morning in early June, a runner sprinted to Granger’s canopy with the news that DuBose and D Troop had been ambushed as they slept. The Filipino guerrillas had been shot. DuBose and two Americans had been captured before they could commit suicide. They had been beaten severely, then hauled away.

Pete hobbled back to his hut, sat on his cot, and wept.

By the summer of 1944, American forces were within three hundred miles of the Philippines and close enough to bomb the Japanese with B-29s. Warplanes based on U.S. aircraft carriers were hitting Japanese airfields with strikes and sweeps.

The guerrillas watched the skies with grim satisfaction. An American invasion was imminent, and MacArthur was demanding more and more intelligence from the jungles. The Japanese were amassing troops and constructing garrisons along the west coast of Luzon, and the situation, at least for the guerrillas, was more dangerous than ever. Not only were they expected to continue their raids and ambushes; they were needed to monitor the enemy’s troop movements and strengths.

Granger had finally secured a serviceable radio and was in sporadic contact with U.S. headquarters. He was barraged with orders to find the enemy and report daily. Intelligence supplied by the West Luzon Resistance Force became crucial for the American invasion. Granger was forced to split his men into even smaller groups and send them farther afield.

Pete’s G Troop was reduced to himself, Clay, Camacho, three other Filipinos, and three runners. His wounded leg had healed to the point of being somewhat serviceable, but every step was painful. In camp, he limped about on a cane, but on the trails he gritted his teeth and, aided with a light walking stick and a dwindling supply of morphine, led his men. They packed even lighter, moved even faster, and used the runners to keep Granger informed. Their patrols went on for days and they were often without food and sufficient ammunition.

Luzon was being fortified with divisions of Japanese infantry, and they were everywhere. Ambushes were avoided because gunfire only attracted enemy forces that could not be overcome.

On October 20, 1944, the U.S. Sixth Army landed on the shore of Leyte, east of Luzon. Supported by naval and air bombardments, the American and Australian forces overwhelmed the Japanese and continued westward. On January 9, 1945, the Sixth Army landed on Luzon, routed the Japanese, and rapidly pushed inland. Granger again changed tactics and enlarged his squads. Once more, they were let loose to ambush the retreating Japs and attack convoys.

On January 16, after a successful raid on a small munitions camp, Pete and G Troop stumbled into the middle of an entire Japanese battalion. They were immediately taking fire from three directions with little room to escape. The Japs were as weary as they were, but they had the advantage of men and weapons. Pete ordered his men to take cover behind some boulders and from there they fought for their lives. Two of his Filipinos were hit. Mortars began dropping. A hand grenade landed near Camacho and killed him instantly. A shell landed behind Pete and shrapnel tore into his right leg, the good one. He went down screaming and dropped his rifle. Clay grabbed him, lifted him onto his shoulders, and disappeared into the bush. The others covered them for a moment, then abandoned the fight and backed away. There was only one trail and where it led no one knew, but they scrambled on. Evidently, the Japs were too tired to pursue, and the gunfire stopped.

Pete’s leg was bleeding and Clay was soon covered with blood, but he didn’t stop. They came to a creek, crossed it cautiously, and finally collapsed in a thicket. Clay took off his shirt, ripped it into pieces, and wrapped Pete’s wounds as tightly as possible. They smoked cigarettes and counted their losses. Four men were gone, including Camacho. Pete would grieve later. He tapped his Colt .45 and reminded Clay that they would not be taken alive. Clay promised him they would not be taken at all. Throughout the afternoon, they took turns shouldering Pete, who insisted on walking with assistance. At dark, they slept near a barrio, one they had never seen before. A local boy pointed one way and then the other. They were far from Granger’s base, but the boy thought some Americans were close by. Real soldiers, not guerrillas.

At dawn, they hiked again and soon came to a road. Hiding in the bush, they watched and waited until they heard trucks. Then they saw them — beautiful trucks, filled with American soldiers. When Pete saw the Stars and Stripes waving from the antenna of the lead jeep, he felt like crying. He walked without aid to the center of the road, his torn fatigues covered with blood, and waited for the jeep to stop. A colonel got out and came forward. Pete saluted him and announced, “Lieutenant Pete Banning, of the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry Regiment, U.S. Army. West Point class of 1925.”

The colonel looked him over. He studied the bedraggled crew around him. Unshaven, half-starved, some also wounded, armed with a hodgepodge of weapons, most of which were Japanese.

The colonel never saluted. Instead, he stepped forward and bear-hugged Pete.

The remnants of G Troop were taken to the port of Dasol where the Sixth Army was still coming ashore. Dozens of landing craft poured fresh soldiers onto the beaches while naval gunboats roamed the coastline. Thousands of army personnel swamped the port. It was chaos, but one big beautiful mess of it.

The men were rushed to a first aid tent where they were fed and given hot showers, soap, and razors. They were examined by doctors who were accustomed to treating battle wounds inflicted on healthy young men, not disease-ravaged guerrillas from the jungle. Pete was diagnosed with malaria, amoebic dysentery, and malnutrition. He weighed 137 pounds, though skinny as he was he had managed to gain weight during the past two and a half years. He guessed that he had been twenty pounds lighter when he left O’Donnell. He and three others with wounds were examined by doctors in an adjacent hospital. It was quickly determined that Pete needed surgery to remove shrapnel from his leg, and he was given priority. The hospital was filling up with casualties from the front.

Clay and the others were outfitted in crisp, new army fatigues. His new waist size was twenty-eight inches, down six from boot camp. They were shown to a tent with cots, told to rest, and given a pass to the cafeteria, where they ate nonstop.

The following day, Clay visited his commander in a hospital ward and was relieved to hear that the surgery went well. The doctors could treat wounds, but they did not have the tools to reset Pete’s broken bones. That would have to wait until he was stateside. Pete and Clay worried about their comrades back at the home base and said a prayer for Camacho, Renaldo, DuBose, and the others they had lost. They thought of those still suffering at O’Donnell and the other camps and prayed they would soon be rescued. They also managed to laugh at themselves and their wild adventures in the jungles.

Clay returned the next day with the news that he was being given the choice of fighting with the Sixth Army or being reassigned to a base in the U.S. Pete insisted he go home, and Clay was inclined to. They had fought enough.

Three days later, Pete said good-bye to his men, most of whom he would never see again. He and Clay embraced and vowed to keep in touch. He and ten other badly wounded men were gently arranged on a medical pontoon and ferried to a large army hospital ship. They waited two days for it to fill, then cast off and headed home. The ship was staffed with pretty nurses who fed him four times a day and treated him like a hero. The sight of their legs and shapely backsides, along with the smell of their perfume, made him long for Liza’s embrace.

Four weeks later, the ship sailed into the San Francisco Bay, and Pete remembered the last time he had seen the Golden Gate Bridge. November of 1941, just days before Pearl Harbor.

He was transported to Letterman Army Hospital in the Presidio. Like every other soldier on board, all he wanted was a telephone.

Chapter 35

The news that Pete Banning was alive was even more shocking than the news that he was dead. Nineva heard it first because she was in the kitchen when the phone rang. Always reluctant to answer it, because she considered it a toy for the white folks, she finally said, “Banning residence.” A ghost spoke to her, the ghost of Mista Banning. When she refused to believe it was Pete, he raised his voice an octave or two and told her to go find his wife, and to hurry.

Liza was standing outside the barn holding the reins of her horse while Amos repaired a stirrup. Both were startled at the scream from the back porch, and ran to see what was wrong with Nineva. She was on the porch, in a fit, jumping up and down, crying, yelling, “It’s Mista Pete! It’s Mista Pete! He’s alive! He’s alive!”

Liza was certain Nineva had lost her mind but ran to the phone anyway. When she heard his voice, she nearly fainted but managed to fall into a kitchen chair. With some effort, Pete convinced her he was indeed alive and resting comfortably in a hospital in San Francisco. He had several wounds but all his limbs were intact and he would recover. He wanted her on a train as soon as possible. Liza could hardly say a word at first and tried not to burst into tears. As she regained her senses she remembered that their conversation was probably not private. Someone was always listening on their rural party line. They agreed that she would scoop up Florry, rush into town, and call Pete on a private line. She sent Amos to fetch Florry while she changed clothes.

Agnes Murphy lived a mile up the highway and was known to eavesdrop on every call. The neighbors suspected she had nothing better to do than sit by the phone and snatch it when it rang. Indeed, she had listened to Pete’s call, in disbelief, and immediately began calling friends in town.

Florry arrived in a rush and the two women jumped into Liza’s Pontiac. Liza hated to drive and was even worse at it than Florry, but at the moment that didn’t matter. The two raced toward town, weaving along the drive and slinging gravel. Both were crying and babbling at the same time. Liza said, “He said he was wounded but okay, said he had been captured but escaped, and that he had been fighting as a guerrilla for the past three years.”

“Good God Almighty!” Florry kept saying. “What in the world is a guerrilla?”

“I have no idea, I have no idea. I can’t believe this.”

“Good God Almighty.”

They roared to a stop in the street, and raced into the home of Shirley Armstrong, Liza’s closest friend. She was puttering around the kitchen when Liza and Florry barged in with the news. After a round of crying and hugging, Liza borrowed her phone, on a private line, and called the hospital in San Francisco. While she waited and waited, she wiped tears and tried to compose herself. Florry made no such effort and sat on the sofa with Shirley, both bawling away.

Liza chatted with Pete for ten minutes, then handed the phone to Florry. She left the house, drove to the school, found Stella in class, pulled her into the hallway, and delivered the unfathomable news. By the time she checked her out of school, the teachers and principal were gathering around the office for another round of hugs and congratulations.

Meanwhile, Florry worked the phone. She called the president’s office at Vanderbilt and demanded that Joel be located immediately. She called Dexter Bell at the church. She called Nix Gridley at the jail. As the high sheriff, Nix served as the county’s unofficial contact point for crucial news.

Within an hour of Pete’s call, every phone in town was ringing.

Liza and Florry returned home and tried to put together a plan. It was late February and the fields were idle. In the backyard, the Negroes were coming on foot to see if it was true. Liza stood on the rear porch and confirmed the news. Dexter and Jackie Bell arrived first to share in the moment, and they were soon followed by a parade of cars as friends flocked to the Banning home.

Two days later, Florry drove Liza to the train station, where they were met by a farewell party. Liza thanked and hugged them all, then boarded for a three-day journey to San Francisco.

The first surgery lasted for eight hours as doctors went about the complex job of breaking and resetting most of the bones in Pete’s left leg. When they finished, it was encased in a thick plaster cast from hip to ankle, with pins and rods running through it. The leg was elevated to a painful angle and held in place with straps, pulleys, and chains. His right leg was wrapped in gauze and was just as painful. The nurses plied the patient with painkillers, and for two days after the surgery Pete was rarely awake.

And that was a blessing. For a month on the hospital ship, he had suffered nightmares and flashbacks and slept little. The horrors of the past three years haunted him day and night. A psychiatrist spent time with him and made him talk, but reliving his ordeal only made things worse. The medications only confused him. One moment brought euphoria so extreme he laughed out loud, and the next moment he crashed into utter depression. He slept fitfully during the day and often screamed at night.

At Letterman, the nurses eased off the painkillers when they learned his wife would soon arrive. He needed to be as alert as possible.

Liza followed a nurse onto the ward and saw two long rows of beds separated by thin curtains. As she walked she couldn’t help but look at the patients, most of them just boys not too far removed from high school. When the nurse stopped, Liza took a deep breath and pulled back the curtain. Careful not to touch the chains and pulleys and injured legs, she fell onto his chest for a fierce embrace, one that she had never expected. Pete, though, had been dreaming of it for years.

She was as gorgeous as ever. Dressed to the hilt and smelling of a perfume that he had never forgotten, she kissed him as they whispered and wept and laughed as time stood absolutely still. He rubbed her backside in full view of the nearby patients, and she didn’t care. He clutched her to his chest, and all was right in the world.

In voices as low as possible, they talked for a long time. Joel, Stella, Florry, the farm, their friends, all the gossip from home. She carried the bulk of the conversation because he had no desire to describe what he had been through. When the doctors arrived on rounds, they gave her a quick summary of the patient’s condition and what was to be expected. They anticipated several more surgeries and a long recovery, but with time he would be as good as new.

An orderly brought her a comfortable chair with a pillow and blanket, and she set up camp. She hauled in books and magazines and read, and talked and talked. She left his side only after dark to return to her hotel.

Before long, Liza knew the names of the other boys and was flirting shamelessly. They perked up when she was around, delighted to have such a lively, beautiful woman showering them with attention. She virtually commandeered the wing. She wrote letters to girlfriends and made phone calls to mothers, always with news that was cheerful and optimistic, regardless of the wounds. She read letters from home, often fighting back tears. She brought in chocolates and candy when she could find them.

Pete was one of the luckier ones. He was not paralyzed or disfigured and all limbs were intact. Some of the boys were pitiful, and they received even more of her attention. Pete was more than happy to share his wife and reveled in her ability to brighten up a hospital ward.

She stayed for two weeks and left only because Stella was at home with Florry and Nineva. When she was gone, the ward returned to its gloominess. Every day the patients yelled at Pete and asked when Liza was coming back.

She returned in mid-March and brought the family with her. Joel and Stella were on spring break and eager to see their father. For three days, they camped around his bed and in general turned the ward upside down. When they were gone, Pete slept for two days, aided by sedatives.

On May 4, he was taken by ambulance to the train station and loaded onto an army hospital ward car for a ride across the country. It stopped many times as men were carried away to other hospitals closer to home. On May 10, it arrived in Jackson, Mississippi, and Liza, Stella, and Florry were waiting. They followed the ambulance across town to the Foster General Hospital, where Pete spent the next three months convalescing.