Eight

Imogene rose. Her legs trembled so she had to catch herself on her father’s arm. “Becky? She came back with you?”

“She went straight to the house,” he murmured, too wretched to meet Imogene’s eyes. “I’m worried about her, Imogene. She didn’t say a word on the way home.”

“She must be terrified for David. Oh, Daddy, what are we going to do?” Imogene clung to her father, counting on his strength as she had as a child, and realized for the first time in her life that he couldn’t protect her.

“God will protect us,” he said, as if he had read her thoughts. “The Bible says, ‘Our soul waiteth for the Lord: He is our help and our shield.’ I believe that, Imogene.”

She only hoped her father was right. At the moment God seemed very far away.

Miss Goldie met them at the door, her sweet face creased with concern. “Rebecca’s in your room. Go to her, Imogene; she won’t talk to me.”

Without knocking, Imogene burst into her bedroom.

Becky was stretched out on the bed; her long, dark hair, usually caught in a French twist, lay in a tangled mass on the pillow. Unlike Imogene who had the rounded curves of their mother who had died, Becky was their father’s child, lean and tall with the strong, assertive body of an athlete. But now her body seemed diminished and melted listlessly into the comforter. Despite the red rimming her soft brown eyes, she had no tears as she stared with an inward gaze at the ceiling above her.

If she’d heard Imogene enter, she did not respond.

Imogene rushed over and kneeled beside the bed. She grasped Becky’s limp hand in both of hers. “Oh, Becky, please look at me. Speak to me.”

Becky turned her head slowly. Gradually her eyes focused on Imogene. “What is there to say?”

“You’re worried about David. I know that’s it. But he’ll be all right. I’m sure he will. He’s so smart—he’ll know where to go to be safe.”

Becky turned away. She closed her eyes, and the first tear dribbled down her cheek. “If he’s dead, I want to be dead, too,” she whispered.

“You mustn’t say that.” Frantically Imogene clutched Becky’s hand. She’d never seen her older sister like this. It was so out of character. Becky, the take-charge one. The strong one. “You can’t mean it.”

“How could you understand, little sister? You’re only twenty. What do you know about loving someone enough to give up everything for him, to trust him with your life?” Becky rolled over on her side, away from Imogene, and began to sob. “To want to die without him.”

Could Imogene love someone that much?

She put her hand in the pocket of her shift where she’d shoved Jimmy’s note.

Before that horrifying moment when her father had pronounced the dreaded word war, before this hollowness where her heart had been and this panic wrenching inside her, her answer would have come easily. Yes. She could love someone that much.

Now she was not sure.

In this new anguish and fear, the trip back from America seemed a dream. Jimmy seemed a dream. But he wasn’t. Her hand left the letter in her pocket and found its way to the heart pendant. Jimmy’s gift of love. A love as real and as true as Becky’s. It was!

“Imogene. Rebecca.” Their father stood in the open door. “We must act immediately.” The strength had returned to his voice and his stance. “Come into the living room. We need to talk.”

Miss Goldie, now considered one of them in this moment of crisis, sat in the rocker in the corner. The girls’ father entered the room and settled into the peacock chair. Imogene perched anxiously on the love seat beneath the window, her despondent sister beside her.

“Miss Goldie and I have been talking,” he began. “We think it prudent for each of us to pack one bag, in case it’s necessary to leave in a hurry. We’ll also have Bertha and Lupe prepare some small containers of staples and a few essentials, light enough for each of us to carry. We need medical supplies, quinine for malaria, a snakebite kit—”

“Bug repellent,” Imogene added.

“Naturally. I’ll take care of all that. In the meantime, I’m sending Pedro to prepare a campsite in the jungle up beyond the mill road, in case we need it.”

He leaned forward. “The important thing is to keep a balanced attitude. Bear in mind that these are just precautions. I stopped by Major Hirsch’s office as we were leaving Dumaguete. He said he expects help to come from the States within the month. He assures me his men can hold out until then.” His gaze swept the silent group in front of him. “Any questions?”

Too dazed to put their thoughts or feelings into words, Imogene and the others glanced at each other briefly and looked away, as if they were embarrassed that they could think of nothing to say.

All but Miss Goldie. Her small hands were folded over the Bible in her lap. “There’s a passage in Psalms I’d like to share, if I may.”

“Please, Miss Goldie,” Imogene’s father said.

She opened the well-worn book, thumbing through the pages until she found the verses she sought. “It is Psalm 46: ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.’ And then further on, ‘He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God.’ ”

For several minutes they remained silent. Miss Goldie, in her gentle way, had reminded them of the source of their strength and refuge.

Imogene studied her sister’s face and that of her father and saw the comfort they’d derived from hearing those profound words. She wished it were the same for her. In the face of everything that was happening, she couldn’t feel that certain.

❧

For the next two months, they tried to maintain at least a pretense of normalcy, but it was almost impossible.

There were landings on the islands to the north and south of theirs. Enemy airplanes roared in formation overhead, and enemy ships were sighted along the coast. The stores were rapidly emptying of food supplies.

Will Pennington buried their important documents in a metal drum out behind the copra dryer.

Imogene’s heart nearly broke at the pitiful sight of the native families passing through their plantation, less frightened of the malarial foothills than the advancing enemy.

Everyone remembered the rape of Nanking and the harsh occupation of Indochina.

A radiogram from her college roommate, Daisy, offered a momentary respite.

Dearest friend abandons me, then brother Court shipped overseas. Boys at Oxy are signing up in droves. Even Ted. College looks like a girls’ school. Who will take me to the senior prom?

But they had no word from Becky’s David.

The new bride was sick with worry, literally, constantly nauseated, unable to keep a meal down. The robust one hundred thirty-five pounds on her five-foot-eight-inch frame shrank by ten pounds in just two weeks. Even Miss Goldie’s efforts to concoct appealing delicacies failed to tempt her.

It was about this time Becky realized she was pregnant.

“What will I do without David?” she cried, distraught.

“Don’t be afraid, Becky. By the time this baby arrives, the Americans will have come back, and you’ll be safe with David.” Imogene knew her words were hollow, but what else could she say?

Frightened as they were, they found solace in their faith. Will Pennington had brought up his daughters so their religion was a daily measure, not just a last resort in times of trouble. For Miss Goldie, it was her life. Even when things looked darkest, some of that “peace that passeth understanding” seemed to be there. Imogene struggled.

The news on the radio intensified their fears as Hong Kong fell, then Manila, Zamboanga, Batavia, Rangoon, Singapore, Bataan, and Cebu, just across the Tañon Strait—within sight of the shores of Negros.

When the last remaining soldiers were forced to surrender, Corregidor fell, and so did their last hope. It was only a matter of time before Negros would be taken, too.

The Pennington household left early the following morning, with little in hand.

“When we’re gone, I want you all to take away everything you can carry,” Imogene’s father instructed the weeping servants.

“Better they should have it than the Japanese,” Imogene overheard him confide to Miss Goldie. “In all likelihood, the house will be looted and burned to the ground.”

Her heart went sick with sadness.

Her father, who had engineered many of the island’s roads and was familiar with the terrain, led the way. Imogene, Miss Goldie, and Becky followed, each bearing a suitcase with her own clothing and a small bundle of either provisions or medical supplies.

As they trudged up the road and rounded the first curve that led up to the old mill, Imogene turned for one last look at the only home she had known since birth.

A wrenching bitterness gripped her. Against the enemy. Against God. If He was their refuge and strength, how could He have allowed this to happen?

Bertha and Lupe stood in a patch of sun on the lawn, waving, tears streaming down their cheeks.

They were more than servants; Imogene and her sister had grown up with them, been playmates since childhood. She set down her suitcase and lifted her hand in response and wondered if she would ever see their dear, sweet faces again.

On such a bright, sunny day, it was hard to believe the darkness rapidly descending over them all.

❧

In the beginning the climb was not too difficult. The trees soared to a height of almost a hundred feet, allowing scant foliage in the perpetual twilight of the jungle floor. But it became more unpleasant as they went along, forging through creeks, backtracking so as to leave no trace. Snakes slithered across their path, and the insects were bold, but no bolder or as feared as the enemy from which they fled.

After a day and a half, they reached a small clearing.

“Our estate,” Imogene’s father said.

In the center was a long, one-room structure that was to be their home. Their foreman, Pedro, and his sons had constructed it without nails, of only the materials at hand. The floor was of split trunks, lashed to supporting rattan poles, the roof of overlapping palm leaves, shaggy from the outside but smooth and neat within.

“No bathroom?” Imogene said.

Becky managed a small smile and pointed at a large tree a few steps deeper into the jungle. “Over there.”

At that moment a brief, torrential rain, one of many they endured in that tropical climate, caused them to scurry for cover.

“With a flush toilet,” Imogene observed, dropping her suitcase onto the rough floor. “All the comforts of home.” And then she laughed out loud. “If only Daisy could see me now. This is certainly a far cry from Oxy and our lovely room in Erdmen Hall that overlooks the rose garden.”

They became used to bathing and washing their clothes in the stinging cold water of the creek and cooking on the tiny earthenware stove they had brought. They amused themselves with cards. And they found comfort in the Bible. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. . .Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.”

They managed to keep the bugs and the snakes at bay, but never the fear that one day the Japanese would find them.

Survival, physical and mental, occupied their days. But nights were hardest, when Imogene couldn’t conquer her mind. When she dreamed of Jimmy—dreams of what was and what might have been—and was awakened by the soft muted sobs of Becky on the cot beside her.