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,
Dear Liza: We surrendered on April 10 and I’ve spent the last three months or so as a POW. I escaped and am now fighting as a guerrilla somewhere on Luzon. I have survived a lot and will continue to survive the rest and I’ll be home as soon as we win the war. I love you and Joel and Stella and think about you every minute of every day. Please give my love to them and to Florry. I am with Clay Wampler. His wife is Helen. Please contact her at 1427 Glenwood Road, Lamar, Colorado, and pass along this message. Love, Pete
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.