Brave Hearts (26 page)

With gas rationing, private cars were few and far between on the roads. They had to stop for a long troop train just outside of town. Peggy looked occasionally at Rowley's profile as he drove up the narrow, winding road on Lookout Mountain. She felt a rush of tenderness. Rowley was so patient and kind and generous. He was using his gas to take her for an outing, saying she needed some fresh air. She couldn't spend all her time at the Red Cross rolling bandages, especially now. That was as near as he came to making any comment about her pregnancy. He didn't ask her about her “husband.” She wondered if he would turn away from her if he knew the truth. Peggy sighed, leaned back against the car seat, and closed her eyes. Sometimes she didn't think she could keep on going, but there was the baby growing inside of her. She clung to the thought of that new life.

When Rowley parked the car and got the basket out of the back, they found a picnic area that looked out over the lemon yellow and fiery orange of the Smoky Mountains in their October glory. It was a peaceful hour. They didn't talk of much, but it was as healing to Peggy's spirit as balm. She had a wonderful feeling that everything someday would be all right. She didn't know how or where or when, but the feeling was there, and she smiled at Rowley.

Catharine had known for several weeks, but she didn't tell Jack. She wasn't altogether certain why she didn't tell him. She knew it was a mixture of reasons: love, fear, and an almost superstitious reluctance to put it into words. Then she made a pact with herself; she would tell him after Thanksgiving.

They had fled their hut along with the other residents of their refugee camp twice in the last two months, each time because the jungle grapevine warned of a Japanese probe. Twice, the rumors had been false, and they'd returned and celebrated their homecoming with the Mackeys and the Contis, another mining family that had a hut a hundred yards away on the other side of the clearing.

Each time, they'd crossed paths with the missionary group, Spencer, and the two nurses. Each time, Catharine and Jack had moved on farther to avoid them, although Jack objected. “What the hell, Catharine, let them stick up their noses. We don't care.”

She wouldn't discuss it because she knew Jack didn't understand. Perhaps it was growing up in Pasadena, perhaps it was still a niggling sense of failure and betrayal, but she didn't want to face the disapproving glances. Still . . .

A Filipino in a barrio down the mountain had promised them a big turkey for Thanksgiving and Jack had gone to get it. Catharine tried to push away the internal dialogue that absorbed her these days. She had to tell Jack.

It was a year ago at Thanksgiving that she sat with no appetite at the heaped table at the U.S. Residence and tried to smile cheerfully, but her every thought was with Jack. The next day, they'd taken turkey sandwiches, gone to the beach, and made love in the sun-spangled afternoon. She could never have imagined at that time what lay before them: the horror of Corregidor, their escape, this nomadic existence on Mindanao, hoping to evade capture by the Japanese, praying that someday the American forces would return.

She would never have imagined either that she could have found the courage to leave her husband publicly—but it wasn't a matter of courage, she knew that. It was a matter of her own survival. No matter what the cost, she had to be with Jack.

The hut quivered, and she knew he was back and climbing the ladder. He poked his head in the opening. “Come on down and see the bird.”

When Catharine climbed down, she saw Paco, the Mackey's cook, holding an enormous turkey carcass.

The Mackeys looked out of their hut, grinning, the Contis were coming up the trail from their hut.

Jack pointed at the turkey. “Okay, ladies, here he is. The finest turkey available. I'm confident that when you ladies have finished with him, our dinner will rival dinner at the Waldorf.”

“Do you sell stock in gold mines, too?” Jenny Mackey drawled.

Jack looked at her reproachfully. “Ye of little faith. This is going to be our most unforgettable Thanksgiving.” He pulled his pack around from his back and propped it on his knee to open. “For example . . .” One by one, he pulled out, with appropriate pauses for exclamations of admiration, a small bottle of pickled olives, two cans of green beans, one can of condensed milk, and, miracle of miracles, a tin of coffee.

Catharine, too, was caught up in the laughter as well as the preparations. She and the other women started the turkey baking at dawn in their green-wood oven. They boiled camotes and baked a cake, which they frosted with the whipped condensed milk.

When the two families, Catharine, and Jack sat down to their Thanksgiving dinner in the Mackeys' sala, just before midafternoon, Calvin Mackey said grace: “Dear God, thank you on this very wonderful day for our safety. Help us to go forward and do all such good works as you have in store for us. Bless this food for our sustenance and us to thy service. In Jesus Christ's name, amen.”

It was, Catharine thought, an unforgettable day. After weeks of rice and more rice, with an occasional chicken and eggs, it was a celebration indeed to eat the baked turkey and to share the small servings of canned green beans and the heaping mounds of fluffy camotes. They finished with the cake and dark, thick coffee that, to their deprived senses, could certainly match any served at the Waldorf.

Dishwashing was brief. They carried their tin plates to the nearby stream and dipped them down to wash away the few leftover crumbs. Then the three couples lounged comfortably in the Mackeys' sala and talked politics—was Roosevelt really the best man for the job?—and plotted the Pacific campaign while the Mackeys' son tirelessly chased the Contis' daughter around the clearing.

It was almost dusk when Jack and Catharine walked hand in hand up the path toward their hut. Catharine walked slowly. Her footsteps lagged.

Jack paused. “What's wrong, honey? Are you tired?”

She looked up, but the brilliant setting sun was in her eyes. She couldn't see his face clearly. No, she wasn't tired. She was gathering her courage because now she had to tell Jack.

As she spoke, everything happened in dreamlike, slow motion.

Jack stared at her.

Catharine felt a kind of shriveling inside, a sense of empty despair and utter aloneness. Was he shocked or, even worse, repelled? Why in God's name did he look at her like that, his face almost waxen in the smooth yellow light. When he moved, it seemed to Catharine that he moved so slowly. He rose and walked toward her. Oh, God, he was holding out his arms. In the paleness of his face, she could see eyes shining with tears—and tenderness.

Jack wanted to shout, to rampage through the wilderness to seek safety for Catharine. He knew there was no safety, and now there was worse danger for her. Yet, it was danger that spelled the miracle of creation, danger that could bring forth a human life, his son or daughter, the child he had never expected to have.

“Oh, God,” he said softly, breathing into the soft darkness of her hair, so aware of her body and its vulnerability. “Oh, dear God, Catharine.” He cradled her face in his hands and looked down at her. He couldn't talk; he could only stand there and wonder how he could protect her, realizing that he couldn't. For once in his life, in his brash, irreverent life, he could struggle and fight to no avail because the days would pass and the ultimate reality of life and death would be Catharine's to face.

“It's all right. Jack, it's all right.” Her voice was high and tremulous; he realized she was comforting him.

He put his face down against hers, felt the softness and warmth of her cheek. “I love you,” he said huskily. “I love you so much.” That was all he could offer, all he could give in return for the miracle of creation, but through a haze of tears he could see the joy in her smile. He knew that as paltry as he felt his offering to be, it was enough for Catharine.

Jack was so careful of her. He helped carry the clothes to the mountain stream and insisted upon doing the washing himself. He foraged down the mountain for food, more food. He went as far as the coast, seeking medicines and canned milk and cotton to use for baby clothes.

She was so thin that even as she reached the sixth month of pregnancy, there was little to show. Jack redoubled his efforts to find food, and he wouldn't listen to her pleas to stay close.

“You've got to have more food, Catharine. The baby needs it.”

When the baby first kicked, she held his hand to her swollen abdomen and he grinned in delight. “He's going to be a punter.”

By the eighth month, she was heavy and slow-moving. But she seemed almost to blossom as the time grew nearer. And, no matter how awkwardly she moved, Jack watched and smiled, his eyes filled with love and pride—and fear.

The days passed, and Catharine knew the time was almost upon her.

Catharine lifted her head to look through the doorway. God, if it would only stop raining. Torrential rains had slammed against the peaked roof of the hut for almost a week now. Jack had been gone since the day before the rains began. She always smiled as he left, assured him she would be fine. As soon as he was gone, as soon as there was no rustle of movement on the trail, she would lie down on the sleeping platform, close her eyes, and try to will away the terror that weakened her bones and made ugly pictures in her mind. She could be brave when Jack was there, when she could reach out and touch his hand, when she could see him turning to look at her. But when he was gone, the fear prowled in her mind like a starved animal, ravenous to destroy.

She was terribly afraid.

Her labor with Charles had been difficult. She'd been in labor twenty hours; she'd heard, through the grinding pain, one doctor call to another, “I can't get this baby!” Charles was born with angry bruises on his cheeks, and the doctor told her later, “Well, you're a lucky girl. If you'd lived a hundred years ago, we'd have lost you—and the baby, too.”

There would be neither doctors nor forceps this time.

Catharine pushed herself awkwardly up from the camp chair. It had been one of Jack's prize acquisitions. He'd found it at an abandoned plantation and carried it miles through the jungle to her because she had such difficulty trying to sit on the sleeping platform. She moved heavily toward the kitchen. It was time to fix her dinner. She no longer had nausea, but she had very little appetite. She must eat, so she did. Sometimes, she felt if she ever saw rice again she would be actively ill, but that was all she had. She put on the water to boil and measured out the brown rice, then turned to look toward the doorway. Thank God, the rain was easing. She would go down the ladder in a little while and walk to the stream—perhaps do the washing. It helped to keep busy and disregard the fact that the baby would be coming in just a month now, if her calculations were correct. Sally had come twice to check her and to give advice. She'd promised to come and help when Catharine went into labor, but Jack wasn't satisfied. This last trip was to see if he couldn't find a doctor. Also, they'd heard a rumor that there was a store of baby formula at another refugee camp, and Catharine begged him to try and obtain some. She was afraid she couldn't nurse, and there was no milk available. In reality, her fears were darker than that. If she didn't survive the labor, then Jack must have something to feed the baby.

Catharine put a lid on the rice pot and reached out to hold onto a roof pole. She was tired now, always tired, and it was difficult to move. They had fled three times ahead of Japanese search parties. The last escape from the probing Japanese patrols had been a nightmare, a fighting struggle along sticky clay trails while the rains battered against them, but Jack had been determined to get as far away from known Japanese search areas as possible. The Mackeys and Contis had moved, too, but not as far as she and Jack. Catharine missed the women. It would be nice to see them again and play bridge and talk about silk stockings and movies and shopping in grocery stores. She was smiling as she lifted the lid to check the rice; then she sighed. She was lonely, and the fear that haunted her was much worse when she was alone. Surely Jack would get back tonight.

The ladder which led up to the doorway always gave a little under the pressure of a climber. There had been no call such as Jack usually gave, but Catharine recognized the sudden jolting quiver of the hut and turned, a smile beginning to grow.

The light from the quinqui wavered fitfully in the currents of air that moved through the nipa leaves of the walls. The quinqui didn't give much light, but it gave enough to illuminate the sala and the doorway, which had been a frame for the misty grayness of the rain. Now it framed the head and upper torso of the Japanese soldier staring nearsightedly into the room. The gold rims of his glasses glittered in the soft light of the quinqui. He had a rounded face and a broad, flattened nose, but it was the eyes, magnified behind the thick lenses, that mesmerized Catharine. The eyes burned with lust and cruelty.

He walked slowly toward her, his lips spread in a loose smile. His uniform was wet. Little spatters of dampness sprayed out as he began to unbutton his pants. His rifle hung over his shoulder. He reached up and dropped it behind him with an impatient shrug.

Catharine pressed back against the far wall of the kitchen area. She licked her lips. Oh, God, the gun, the .45 that Jack had taught her to use, was across the room on the floor beside the sleeping platform. The soldier was between her and the gun and coming inexorably nearer.

He would kill her baby.

If he threw her down, if he raped her, he would kill her baby. The baby was nearly due. She often felt the baby's movements now, abrupt, thumping kicks that made her gasp.

He gave a little laugh. Saliva oozed from the corners of his loose lips. He was so near she could smell weeks of sweat and dirt. His pudgy hands came towards her.

The fear moved in her with a vitality and life of its own—the fear for her baby. She moved awkwardly. The heat of the cooking pot seared her hands, but she gripped it, raised it, and flung the boiling water and rice at the soldier's face.

He screamed and raised his hands to his face. Catharine plunged past him but careened into a box of stones and lost her balance. As she fell, she tried to protect her swollen abdomen. She landed heavily on her hip, wrenching her back but she was moving, sobbing and struggling for breath.

She was almost to the sleeping platform when he was beside her. He bellowed and kicked. Unendurable pain exploded in the side of her leg. Even as she screamed, her hand found the little pile of clothing that covered the gun. She clawed for the gun despite the agony of using her hands. She loosened the safety catch, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

The explosion jolted her arm. There was an eddy of cordite, a burning stench, and the smell of blood. The blood spurted in a high arc. Her shot had blown through his throat. His stocky body slumped tiredly to the floor, his eyes glazing into emptiness.

Catharine stared in horror. She leaned to one side and vomited, gagging and retching until she could vomit no longer. Tears furrowed down her face; the pain in her hands and leg throbbed.

Finally, sick and filled with pain, she struggled to her feet and stared down at him. She still cried, but she stared down at him, unrelenting, because he would have killed her baby. Her chest heaving, she walked unsteadily toward the doorway. Was he alone? Were there others with him? No one had come at the racketing sound of the shot. He must have been alone or ahead of his company, perhaps a forward scout.

The horror shifted now in the back of her mind. Had they found Jack? Was Jack dead?

Catharine held onto the rough-edged frame of the doorway and stared out into the misty clearing. The rain was almost over now.

The heavy fronds of a fern rustled to the right. Catharine whirled around and raised the .45, then sighed and sagged against the doorframe when a slender boy ran into the clearing. He had brought them chickens, an occasional bag of rice, and, sometimes, news of the Japanese patrols.

He paused at the foot of the ladder. “Miss, you must hurry and go away. The Japs are burning and killing. They're coming this way.”

“Where are they coming from?”

He pointed to the south.

From the south. That was where Spencer, the American nurses, and some of the missionary families were hidden.

“There are other Americans. That way.” She pointed. “Will you warn them?”

He shook his head. “No time,” he called. “No time. I must go tell my family.” He turned and ran to the west.

Catharine called after him, but he was already gone.

The Japs were coming, and Spencer and his companions didn't know.

It was hard to turn back into the bloodied room where they had been happy, but she limped around the grotesque figure of the dead soldier. She worked swiftly even though her burned hands stung. First, she wrote a note to Jack and pinned it to the nipa wall beside the opening for the door. He couldn't miss it. If he came . . . But she had no time now to think of that. She stuffed essentials into a basket: the little vial of painkiller and the single hypodermic that Sally had given her, some twine and scissors. All the while, her mind refused to think of going into childbirth, alone on the trail. But the fear throbbed inside. She stared at the basket.
What else, what else, think, dammit, Catharine, think!
Matches, a blue enamel basin, the little pile of diapers and two little blankets made from a tablecloth for which Jack had traded his pocketknife, the precious box of boric acid powder to use to clean the baby's eyes, the Mercurochrome, a change of clothing for herself and Jack, cold rice—and the .45.

It was awkward maneuvering down the ladder, its rungs still slick from the rain, while carrying the basket, but Catharine twisted sideways and took her time.

She paused at the edge of the clearing. A faint trail led to the west, the way Jack had gone, the way to safety—but she turned south, plunging into the thick foliage. Pushing vines and ferns out of her way, she found the trail and plunged ahead.

It was dark now, and she estimated she must be very near Spencer's camp.

Then pain burst within her without warning. She reached out helplessly and clung to a twisted rope of thick vines.