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WINTER, 1942 BATAAN
Carlos lived to relate to whoever showed up, and his tales about growing up in the Chavez Ravine of Los Angeles opened Stan’s eyes to a different way of life. Fortunately, Cap continued to consume the young man’s stories.
Once again, the three of them awaited word from a Filipino reconnaissance team that left in the wee hours. They often checked in with another guerilla group that had finagled a receiver able to bring in reports from the southern islands of the Philippines.
Hopefully the Filipino scouts would bring back word about Japanese build-up on the island of Leyte and in the Leyte Gulf. This would confirm other recent intelligence. If those reports were true, they could anticipate a lot of action on the island of Samar in the future.
While they waited, Carlos regaled them with details about his youth. Even though he was as American as either of them, his family and culture seemed foreign.
“My father came here from Mexico in the twenties to work the fields, and became a citizen two years later. He speaks English better than anybody in our barrio and says we were doing fine until the Navy decided to build the Reserve Armory in our section of Los Angeles.
“He made us all practice our English, and even though my older brother was a Zoot Suiter, my father made him stop wearing the over-sized jacket and baggy pegged-leg pants when the government announced the wartime fabric restrictions.”
“Wait... wait. A Zoot? What’s that?” Cap kept his voice low, but his inflection told Stan he would remain captivated for a good long while.
Carlos raised his eyebrows. “You’ve never heard of Chicanos who wear extra big suits and pork pie hats, a long watch chain, and thick-soled shoes?”
“I grew up a long, long way from Los Angeles, and there was a lot I never heard. Joining the Army broadened my sights, but I’ve still never heard of these Zooters.”
“Zoot Suiters. It’s a dress of our own, for us pachucos, my brother said. So I suppose you’ve never heard of Lalo Guerrero?”
“No.”
“He’s a singer—his music stood for los pachucos. Our community loves him like you love Bing Crosby. When the law started cracking down on our area, my father forbade my brother to sing Guerrero’s songs. Nobody loves America more than my father—he said being called to work here saved his life.
“Of course, my brother obeyed him, but a lot of his friends listened to Lalo even more and kept wearing suits out in public—so what if the sailors mocked them? But after I left, my mother wrote that things got worse.
“A murder in Sleepy Lagoon caused a lot of trouble. The last I heard, seventeen young Chicanos were accused of killing a Latino named Diaz, but nobody really knew how he died. The case can only make things worse in the Chavez Ravine.”
A lumberjack’s son keeping company with a southern California boy named Carlos, and an Illinois native studying to be an English professor—what an unlikely trio they made. And no wonder Carlos had practically conquered the Filipino language. He already knew two languages before coming here, and could translate most of what the natives said.
Not that they spoke much—hand signals and head gestures sufficed, with constant awareness of the enemy. But the natives taught Carlos new techniques with his knife—good men to have guarding your back.
Since Carlos had told this story before, Stan let his mind wander to the violent kicks and yells of four Japanese soldiers they’d recently run across on a trail. Caught by surprise, they all perished in the ensuing fight, but certainly left mark. Stan fingered a bruise on his left knee, still painful to the touch.
Their fighting style reminded him of the merciless guards and the captured GIs they’d seen on the trail to Camp O’Donnell last spring. Meeting up with those poor captured Americans revealed how lost he’d been at the time. He and Captain Burgmeier had whacked way up the mountain to Calumpit, not that far from San Fernando, and met Carlos on the way.
A bamboo forest gave them opportunity to observe the pitiful gaggle of soldiers still being marched toward the camp. Fifty or 60 miles of forced marching had taken its toll on men already ill and dazed by incessant shelling.
So many collapsed while they watched that Stan lost count. When one of them could no longer take a step and sprawled on the rocky earth, a guard came along and beat him with his baton. Then he kicked him again and again, all the while shrieking in Japanese.
Some of the phrases still rang out in Cap’s nightmares. Probably meant something like, “You stupid American, get out of my way,” or worse.
The thrust of a blade and a dying groan often followed the shrieking. That day, far too close to the trail for comfort, Cap fidgeted so much in the underbrush that Stan kept a hand on his shoulder.
Would he really have run out and attacked a guard, knowing he would expose them? Men had been known to crack under far less pressure.
As the days out in this jungle stretched into weeks and months, those images had magnified. To add to his worry, Cap showed more signs of confusion and instability. Pitted against illness, rank amounted to nothing.
Cap’s philosophical nature kept his mind in the clouds a good share of the time, anyway. But lately, it seemed he lost contact with reality at times. Carlos often shot Stan a worried look after Cap said something peculiar.
Suddenly all bird chatter quieted, so the three of them automatically felt for knives. At last, a Filipino hurried down the trail, followed by the guerilla leader.
“Enemy close. We get ‘em.” The fire in his eyes communicated better than words. He hated the Japs—who knew what they had done to his wife and children?
Wait and watch, listen to the tremble in Cap’s breathing and pray for him to make it through this one. Anxiety raked Stan’s insides, but he held steady and swung into action exactly when he needed to. All the while, he visualized those dying Americans on the trail in the spring.
Had he handed over his weapons as ordered, he would have trodden that same mountainous path. But the night before the final surrender, Captain Burgmeier proposed an action that made more sense than sitting out the war in enemy hands.
Why not escape and hide out in the mountains?
But most men—those on that killing climb—did obey General Wainwright’s orders. And they were his people as much as his family back in Wisconsin. Every day he aimed to make life miserable for captors.
Fury at inhuman treatment of the Americans fueled every stab Stan made at a Jap, every neck vertebrae he heard splinter. Every Nip he took out counted as progress in rescuing the surviving captives.
“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” once defined his concept of killing, but the war had changed things. Now, vengeance occurred through him, became his vocation. Conquering the enemy overtook him heart and soul, and he fought as if under a spell.
When this altercation ended, the entire Jap patrol lay dead. Carlos faded into the jungle as naturally as the guerillas, while Cap and Stan followed along at a slower pace. Long minutes later, everyone gathered in a hamlet of grass-roofed huts.
The leader approached Stan. “You captain?”
With a lop-sided grin, Cap stepped up. “Yeah, he’s a captain. Carlos, help me introduce Captain Ford.”
The leader nodded and held out his hand. “You good Captain.” He gestured toward the others. “Teach us more fight like GIs.”
At first, Stan wanted to slug Cap. Everyone knew that impersonating an officer got you court-martialed, but on second thought, maybe Cap knew what he was doing. These saboteurs respected American officers, and Cap knew his limitations when the fever held him in its clutches.
One of his quotes flashed before Stan. “’We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.’ Philosophy 202, William James.”
Cap nudged him in the back. This ragged band of sinewy men waited for his response. Crazy they would ask him for help when they knew so much more about the jungle. But what they sought was not jungle expertise—they wanted tactical guidance.
“All right.” Stan squatted down, and the Filipino leader instantly understood the drawing motions he made on his knee.
“You men know these trails. Draw us a map.”
Someone produced a bark scrap and a chewed-up pencil. Eager eyes stared at Stan, giving him a surprising sense of wellbeing. With a little strategic planning they might create even more troubles for the Jap patrols.
Strangely, at that very moment, he remembered something. According to his calculations, this must be Christmas Day.
***
ONE FEBRUARY DAY, RODNEY sat out front in his truck when Twila exited the school building. She ran over, and he motioned her in.
“What’s up?”
“Are you headed for the café?”
“Nope, tomorrow.”
“Okay then, hop in. I want to show you something.”
Turning a U-turn at the end of the street, Rodney headed west out of town. “One of our saws broke down. Gotta drive up to Austin for a part and thought you might want to ride along.”
His grin reminded Twila how well he knew her—of course, she wanted a break from Halberton. They hadn’t spent any time together lately, but if she dropped in at the lumberyard, he would have welcomed her.
Maybe it was partly her attitude. Everyone played an important role right now. Her meager offerings, going to school and working at the café, seemed paltry in comparison.
Her bit part in the senior play last fall made her feel the same way. The charade, with the hero a poor caricature of Roy Rogers in The Carson City Kid, starred Marilyn Mercer as Joby Madison, the gorgeous saloon singer who won Roy’s heart.
But zooming down the road to Austin with Rodney was a treat. Twila tapped her toes on the floorboard as the truck rounded a wide S-curve.
Once Rodney straightened out the wheel near the Minnesota border, he turned his attention to her. “Not much left of high school, eh? I remember those days—hardly any of the guys in my class are still around.”
His comment brought back the day he’d failed the physical because of a childhood bout with rheumatic fever. Good thing Dad had been here to remind him how important the lumber business was to the war effort.
In Austin’s outskirts, Rodney checked his watch. “Gotta get back soon, and this part’s on the other side of town. Would you mind taking this in to Mom while I pick it up?” He handed her a large manila envelope.
“Sure. What is it?”
“Oh, some business stuff—papers she needs to read. She might have time to look them over on her break.”
He rolled to a stop at the Hormel plant’s back entrance. “Go straight up the stairs. Mom works out in the factory, but maybe they’ll let you see her.”
The paved yard surprised Twila, but this huge area would be a mess without it when the rains came. A line of Hormel trucks lined up along a vast warehouse, and workers hurried in and out.
The distinct odor of slaughtered animals permeated the place, so she adjusted her breathing. Up a short flight of stairs, the low hum of machines and a buzz of voices led her through some double doors.
“Hello, Miss. What can I do for you?”
“I need to deliver this to my mother.”
“And that would be Myra Brunner, sure as day.” The woman’s grin spread. “You’re the spittin’ image—probably heard that a million times. She’s busy on the floor, so you’ll have to wait.”
“How long will it be?”
“Who knows? Sometimes she doesn’t even take her break—been known to work through a full day without one.”
“Could you give her this for me, then? Actually, it’s from my brother—important papers she needs to read.”
“You bet. I’ll put it in her locker.” The worker scribbled on a piece of paper and glanced up. “Ever been here before?”
“No.”
“Want to see where your mother works?”
Twila nodded, so the woman led her down a long hallway to a row of windows looking down on the factory.
“See her? Over under that tin awning. She’s walking the line to make sure everybody stays on track.”
“They all look the same with those uniforms and green hairnets.”
“Yeah, but your mom’s got a patch on her shirt pocket—they’re hard to come by. Not many people supervise two lines. Stay right here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Focusing in on the awning clarified Mom’s slim profile. She gestured with her hand a couple of times, and a worker nodded. Farther along, she wrote something on her notepad.
There must be at least forty women on those two lines, looking like so many mannequins in a department store window. Except hands stayed in constant motion. The woman returned.
“See her?”
“Yes, I found her.” The double meaning moistened Twila’s eyes. Even watching Mom seemed like trespassing.
Just before she left, her guide’s eyes lit up. “I hear you’re a senior this year?”
Twila nodded.
“We’d hire you in a flash. Your mom brags about you, you know. What a worker she is!”
Waiting on the outside stairs, Twila reflected. So much responsibility—no wonder Mom’s feet ached at night and she spoke in fits and starts.
Then she remembered. Rodney had wanted to show her something. Now she understood...he had introduced her to Mom’s other world.
