Brave Hearts (13 page)

Through her closed bedroom door Catharine dimly heard the shrill peal of the telephone. She fought her way up through heavy sleep, reached out, and switched on her bedside lamp. She blinked and came further awake. The clock read three fifty-four. Who could possibly be calling at this hour? Her heart began to pound. It had to be bad news. Something bad must have happened.

Her bedroom door swung open, slammed open. Spencer stood in the doorway, his hair tousled, his face slack with shock.

“The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor.”

She stared at him, not understanding. Pearl Harbor. Was that in Hawaii?

Spencer shook his head, a man struggling for control.

“They got almost the whole fleet. Oh, God, almost the whole damned fleet.” He shook his head again. “I've got to get out to the Residence. You'd better get up, pack.”

She fixed coffee while Spencer shaved. War with Japan. Despite the war alert of the past week, she'd never really thought it would happen. At least, not this way. Who would ever have predicted that the Japanese would attack without warning and attack at the heart of the American fleet? How had they done it? How had an armada possibly slipped across the Pacific undetected?

Spencer took time for only a few quick swallows of the freshly brewed coffee; then he was at the door.

“I'll call you as soon as I learn more,” and he was gone, his chin nicked from the hurried shave, his tie awry.

When the door shut, she hurried to the telephone. Dawn was just touching the clouds in the east with shafts of crimson when she dialed Jack's apartment.

No answer.

So he already knew. She replaced the receiver. He must already be at the USAFFE Headquarters in Victoria Street. He would keep on top of it, of course, whether he had a job or not, and, probably, INS would be glad to take him on now.

Back in the kitchen, Catharine poured a second cup of coffee. She felt very alone. The orange glow of the sunrise spread over the old walled city and glittered against the glass of the new skyscrapers. People would be rising now, beginning another day, Monday, December 8, and yet she knew that this day would be like no other. How many knew what had happened? And who could have any idea what the future would hold? She knew what the diplomats expected if war came. If war came, the Japanese would invade the Philippines, and the American forces would fight to keep them offshore as long as possible. Then the Americans would withdraw to the peninsula of Bataan and hold out until help could come. They called it War Plan Orange.

Catharine drank deeply of the hot, strong coffee.

Were the Japanese invasion troops en route right now?

She carried her coffee to the bedroom and dressed in tan slacks, riding boots, and a cotton blouse.

The phone rang.

She dropped a stack of underwear, ran to the living room, and yanked up the receiver.

Spencer was hurried. “The wives and staff are ordered to the Residence. Pack necessities and come at once.”

Peggy answered on the first ring. Spencer told her what had happened; then his voice broke. “Oh, God, I knew it was coming but I thought you'd be on your way home first. I wanted you to be safe.”

Peggy clasped a hand to her pounding chest. “Is that why you wanted me to leave?”

“Yes. I wanted you to be safe.”

“Spencer, you love me? You really do?”

“I love you. I always have. I always will.”

Catharine packed as fast as she could, but she tried twice more to reach Jack. When she was ready to leave the apartment, she called the INS office.

A hurried voice answered. “Logan here.”

“May I speak to Jack Maguire?”

“He's at HQ. Sorry, gotta go.” She was left holding a dead line.

So Jack was back with INS.

Catharine stood uncertainly in the middle of the living room. Had she remembered everything? Their passports, of course. Sunburn cream. Mosquito oil. Soap. Aspirin. Toothbrushes and toothpowder. She wondered suddenly if this were how the refugees had felt when they fled Paris ahead of the invading Nazis. Catharine knew what it was to be bombed, but this was her first time to be a refugee.

Refugee to where?

The question turned coolly in her mind as she wrote a note to Manuel and the other servants. She didn't know what to say, what advice to give. Finally, she left them two months' salary and wished them Godspeed.

Refugee to where? Hawaii was five thousand miles away. Australia was fifteen hundred miles distant.

The doorman flagged a cab, and the cabbie talked in sibilant, broken English all the way out Dewey Boulevard. Catharine answered occasionally, but she was looking at the familiar wide sweep of street and the brilliant gleam of the bay and seeing it all with new eyes. It looked so ordinary, familiar, and impervious to change, but she knew so terribly well that buildings which had survived for hundreds of years collapsed in smoldering heaps in London.

The cabbie slowed and started to turn into the big circle drive that curved in front of the Residence, but an MP waved him to a halt and looked grimly inside.

Catharine leaned forward. “I'm Mrs. Cavanaugh. My husband is the special envoy. He told me to come.”

The MP nodded. “You'll have to get out here, ma'am. The drive's closed to traffic. Leave your bags over there. I'll have them sent up in a while.”

Catharine nodded and paid the cabbie. She started up the curving drive. Sweat beaded her face, began to slip down her back. The hard glare of the sunlight, even this early in the morning, reflected off the harsh whiteness of the Residence. A plain black iron grille fence separated the grounds from Dewey Boulevard. Past the sea wall, she could see the deep blue of Manila Bay.

At the entrance to the Residence, MPs stood on either side of the door, checking identification. Once inside, Catharine hesitated. It was like being plunged into a nightmare. The mass of people crowded into the lobby reflected fear, horror, and shock. There had been so much talk of war, but no one actually believed war would come. Men and women, some of them holding fretful children by the hand, were lined up three abreast in front of an improvised counter, clamoring to know if ships could carry them away. Catharine looked closer and recognized piles of gas masks on the counter.

“Catharine.”

The voice sounded pleasantly over the din of the crowd. Catharine turned and smiled at Amea Willoughby.

They struggled through the frantic crowd to meet.

“I'm so glad you've come,” Amea cried.

Catharine reached out and squeezed Amea's hand, then bent close to ask softly, “Have you heard any news?”

Amea's voice dropped, too. “The news is very bad. The Japanese struck on Sunday morning when almost all the ships were in port.”

“Sunday morning,” Catharine repeated blankly. But the attack had been only a few hours ago and this was Monday.

“Hawaii's over the International Dateline,” Amea reminded her. “It's Sunday there, Sunday, December 7. The bombing started just before eight in the morning there, about 2:00 A.M. Monday our time. Apparently, the casualties are very heavy.” She bit her lip, then said quickly, “Have you had your inoculations yet?”

Catharine shook her head. “No, I just got here.”

Amea led her to the line for anti-tetanus shots. Catharine took her place at the end. As the line inched forward, she watched the intense but controlled activity. There were guards everywhere. MPs bustled about, taping and covering the exposed windows and placing sandbags in the rounded archways of the patio.

After her shot, she felt rather dizzy, but she dutifully stood in another line for her gas mask and one for Spencer. Finally, she climbed the curving stairway to the third floor and the ballroom. She said hello to other wives she knew, took a place at one of the trestle tables, and began to roll bandages.

They were eating lunch when word came that the Japanese were bombing Clark Field and Fort Stotsenburg. They could hear the heavy sound of the bombs. Catharine knew about bombings. She knew about the mindless visitation of death, the fortuity.

Where was Jack? Oh, God, was he safe?

Every imaginable kind of vehicle moved at a snail's pace toward Manila, away from the twin columns of thick smoke that hung like sooty black plumes against the bright enamel-blue sky over Clark Field. Filipino families walked behind laden carabao, all their possessions balanced atop the buffalo or packed on their own backs. Buses, two-wheeled carts, Ford coupes, and a Packard limousine jolted forward, then stopped, jolted forward, then stopped, time after time.

Jack guided the half-horsepower motorcycle onto the graveled shoulder past stalled cars, then back to the narrow two-lane blacktop. The nearer he got to Clark Field, the worse it looked—huge, hot columns of fire and smoke twisting hundreds of feet into the air. He narrowed his eyes and tried to make out the silhouette of the field against the flat Luzon plain, but there were no familiar landmarks. Waist-high, thick-stalked stands of cogon grass blazed like burning straw around the perimeter of the field. Oil and gas supplies burned with an angry orange-red flame. No building was untouched. Jack leaned the motorcycle against a chain link fence and stared in disbelief at what had been only hours before a major military airfield. The roar and crackle of the ignited grasses surrounding the field underscored the sense of desolation and devastation.

Amid the burning fury of the fires, men worked to free those still alive. The dead bodies were in rows not far from the bombed mess hall. A bus loaded with wounded set off for Manila. Blood seeped from the bus, spattering the road.

Grim-faced, Jack began his search for a ranking officer. How many casualties were there? Was the USAFFE air arm destroyed? If it was, how the hell had it happened? How had the Japanese found the major portion of the Far East air fleet on the ground hours after the war began? On the ground and parked wing tip to wing tip, because that was clear from the jumbled wreckage. How in the hell?

Jack leaned against Logan's desk. He was exhausted, but determined. His eyes glinted with anger.

“Goddamn it, that's what happened! A complete surprise. A blow out. A goddamn massacre.”