Brave Hearts (21 page)

Catharine stared at him in shock. How could Spencer, always gentlemanly, genial Spencer be shouting at her? And her own voice was shrill, rising with anger. They'd never quarreled like this. Never. But so much had happened. They were hungry and frightened, in emotional turmoil. They had crossed a line when betrayal became clear, and now there was no buffer, no restraint, no kindness left between them.

She hated the harsh sound of her voice, but she was too shaken to stop. “Get away from me. Get away. Don't you understand? I love him—and I don't ever want to see you again.”

“The Channel's mined.” Billy Miller said it quietly, unemphatically.

Jack drew deeply on his cigarette and nodded. “I know. I sent word to the underground in Manila. They'll alert Corregidor, tell them we're coming.”

Miller smiled, but the smile held no amusement. “What're the odds that message will ever arrive?”

Jack studied the boyish face of the navy lieutenant. “You don't have to come.”

Miller smiled again. This time it was real. “I know. By invitation only.” The smile slipped away. He looked through the dusk at an ungainly straggle of bushes that seemed to fill the mouth of the creek where it emptied into the sea. When he looked back at Jack, Miller's face wasn't boyish anymore. “That's government property. I don't care who you bought it from.”

Jack took a last drag on his cigarette, then tossed it into the brackish water. He looked, too, at the odd heap of bushes. It was artful camouflage; palm trees and even a couple of firs lashed to the deck of the PT boat.

“You've heard of salvage,” Jack said mildly.

Miller waited.

“Your guys holed the boat when it went aground near Masbate. The natives got it up and patched it. I'd say the transaction's according to Hoyle.”

“Maybe,” Miller said grudgingly. “But if we take that boat to Corregidor, you remember one thing: I'm still in the navy, and I follow orders.”

Jack grinned. “You get us to Corregidor, and I'll worry about the orders.”

“Just so long as we understand each other.”

“We understand each other.”

It wasn't quite an hour later, after the swift fall of tropical night, that Miller eased the PT out of the mouth of the creek.

It seemed to Jack that the roar of the motors was loud enough to rouse every Jap in the province, but it was too late to worry about that now. Jack stood next to Miller by the wheel. As the PT bucketed across the short waves, jouncing them, Jack peered through the night, trying to discern the hump that would be Corregidor. What were the odds that the underground would get the message? If they did, what were the odds they would relay it by short-wave radio to Corregidor? Moreover, what were the odds Corregidor would ignore the message, suspecting a Jap trick?

As he strained to see through the dark, Jack willed away thoughts of failure. He had to make it; he had to. If he didn't, Catharine would be killed or captured.

The breath shortened in Jack's throat. The boat must be close to the electronic minefield. He could imagine the mines swaying sluggishly beneath the dark water.

“Flash the lamp now,” Miller said calmly.

Jack gripped the Aldis lamp and, as Miller had shown him, slowly and carefully flashed the message. He hoped he was getting it right. He hoped to God he was getting it right.

The sky above thundered with the express roar of airplanes coming in to unload their bombs. Light flashed on the island from the exploding bombs and shells. Jack didn't pay any attention. He kept on flashing the lamp, trying not to imagine the huge, powerful mines so close to the top of the water. If Corregidor ignored the message and didn't turn off the minefield, death would spring in this moment or the next. There would be an instant of incredible noise, force, and pressure. It would all be over.

He flashed the message, tried to breathe, and thought of Catharine.

The boat slipped on.

Wainwright's headquarters were in lateral 3 which was about one hundred and fifty yards from the east entrance to Malinta Tunnel. Jack looked longingly at the water fountain at the lateral entrance. His mouth was still cotton-dry from the heart-­stopping journey through the minefield. They passed two desks crammed sideways against the walls. Aides stood by maps, talked on telephones, filled out papers. About twenty-five feet into the lateral, an unshaded bulb dangled above Wainwright's desk. The bright, harsh light wasn't kind to the general.

Jack was shocked at the change in Wainwright since he'd last seen him. God, he'd aged. He'd never had an ounce of weight to spare, but now he was all bones. He'd lost his sunburn from Bataan; his craggy face looked pale and drawn.

The marine saluted briskly. “General, a civilian and a navy lieutenant just arrived from Cavite on a patched-up PT. The civilian says it's important that he talk to you.”

Wainwright looked up from his papers. His glance swung from Jack to Miller, then back to Jack. He knew a civilian when he saw one.

Jack didn't waste his time.

“General, you know Corregidor can't hold out much longer. I salvaged a PT boat and found a navy lieutenant to sail it over here. I'm offering to take anybody off the Rock you want to send—as long as that number includes Catharine Cavanaugh, a State Department wife.”

Wainwright stared at Jack unblinkingly. Jack felt a moment of panic. Wainwright had the final say. If he wouldn't let Catharine go . . .

“You're asking for enough food and fuel to make Australia?”

“Yes, sir.”

Wainwright's light blue eyes narrowed. “Why the hell should I do that, son? I don't have an extra ounce of food—or fuel.”

“If there's anyone or anything you want to get away before Corregidor falls, this is your last chance, sir.”

“It's a damn long way to Australia.”

“Nobody here has a better ticket, General.”

A faint smile touched Wainwright's mouth. “I'd say that's right, son.” He studied Jack. “Cavanaugh. That's the State Department johnny in charge of the gold.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Washington wants the gold,” Wainwright said slowly. He paused for a long moment, then said gruffly, “That PT—you salvaged it? Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to requisition it.”

Jack found Catharine at the outlet.

When she saw him, she ran to him. He took her in his arms, and they clung to each other. Catharine didn't care who saw them. She was past caring about the judgment of others.

“I knew you'd come,” she said over and over again.

Wainwright was impatient. “It's the only possible chance, and I don't have time to jabber about it. I'm going to send the gold out. You can go or not, as you wish. “

Spencer stood stiffly in front of Wainwright's desk. His voice shook with anger. “This is absurd. Maguire's just a newspaper reporter. He's a nobody; he's just trying to save himself.”

“He crossed a minefield to get here,” Wainwright rejoined. “That took guts.” And something more, the general thought. He remembered Catharine Cavanaugh. He'd met her one morning when he'd visited the hospital. Any man alive on Corregidor took notice when he saw a woman, especially a woman like Catharine Cavanaugh. But his concern was to get the damned gold off the island before it fell. Wainwright rattled some papers on his desk. “The gold's going out.”

Spencer stepped closer to the desk. “The gold is my responsibility. “

“You may accompany the gold,” Wainwright said distinctly, “but the man in charge will be Lieutenant Miller.”

It was a small party that boarded the PT. Spencer. Catharine. Jack. And two army nurses. Catharine had glimpsed both of them at work in the hospital lateral. Sally Brainard was a diminutive blond who always worked at top speed but had a cheery smile for every sick soldier. Frances Kelly was older, a tall, once heavy woman shrunken now by the months of privation. Frances's hair was streaked with gray and she looked perpetually worried, her brows drawn down in a constant frown.

Billy Miller didn't spare any of them a glance when they were underway. He and his crew were sucking the last horsepower from the blunt craft, and it bucketed across the water, slapping hard on the waves like a high-stepping trotter.

As dawn streaked the eastern sky, the PT nosed into a cove on one of the thousands of islands that make up the Philippines. Cautiously, the passengers and crew swam in the pale, clear water and spent the day resting in the shade of palms, always wary of Japanese patrol planes.

Each night, the PT charged across the water. The second night passed and the third, and the passengers survived. Jack spent his time with Catharine. Spencer moved restlessly from cabin to deck, checking and rechecking the canvas sheeted over the crates of gold. Every time he passed Catharine and Jack, his eyes darkened with anger.

Billy Miller knew he had an explosive situation on his boat that had nothing to do with the war. Miller knew he'd be damn glad when this trip was over. Each day they survived they bettered their chances of ultimate survival. The trickiest part of the flight was coming up on this, their fifth night. They were running hard toward Mindanao, the enormous southerly island in the Philippine chain. They had to make landfall where the navy had secreted tins of gasoline in the early days of the war. They had to find the fuel and take it aboard to have enough fuel to reach Australia.

Miller strained to see through the darkness. He'd checked his navigation, and he was almost sure they were getting close to their goal, but he didn't like the glitter of the whitecaps breaking in front of him, and he didn't like the smell of the wind. The back of his neck prickled because he knew what storms could do in this stretch of water.

The rain struck without warning as it can in the tropics, but he wasn't surprised. He had a single thought: they'd almost made it.

The hard, straight wind threw up huge phosphorescent waves that struck against them. Sharp, hard pellets of rain. The PT struggled up from a trough, then teetered on the lip of an enormous wave and careened down, down, down before it wallowed sluggishly in the trough and began its next labored ascent.

Miller struggled with the wheel. He had no time or thought for anything but the next moment, the next wave.

Jack held Catharine's arm with one hand and held to a stanchion with the other. Water rushed over the side of the PT, a gray-green wall that sucked greedily at them, tried to tear them loose and fling them overboard. Jack fought against the pull, holding to Catharine and to the stanchion with all his strength. When the wave was gone and they still stood, he shouted against the wind and the rain, “We have to get below!”

They bent low against the wind and rain, clinging to the boat when the waves washed over them, plunging forward in the lull between waves, finally lurching down the companionway to the cabin. As they burst through the door, every face turned toward them.

One of the nurses cried out, “We thought you'd been swept over!” Her eyes widened, and she looked past them. “Isn't Spencer with you?”

“Is Cavanaugh on deck?” Jack shouted.

He knew the answer when he looked at the strained faces of those clinging to any solid piece of wood for support as the cabin shook and moved.

Jack turned back toward the door.

“Oh, no,” Catharine cried. “You can't go back up there.”

She tried to follow Jack, but a seaman reached out and stopped her.

When Jack's head came even with the upper deck, the wind struck him full force; a torrent threatened to pull him headlong to the railing and overboard. He couldn't see. Rain streamed in a solid mass, hurled by the wind like water pounding from a fire hose. The PT moved like a wounded animal; each plunge went lower; each recovery was slower.

Jack clung to the railing and turned aft. He knew Spencer would be by the gold. The bloody, stupid, asinine fool. How could he still care what happened to that shipment when they fled for their lives, when the sky and the sea held enemies everywhere, when life and death hung in the balance?

Jack pulled himself aft, clinging to the railing with every ounce of strength and will. The waves crashed across the deck, tearing away anything not secured, pulling at Jack with deadly force. His eyes burned from the salt water; his body ached from the pummeling of the water. He lost count of time in the whirling maelstrom of wind and water.

The PT tilted forward. Jack lurched and fell to the deck. He looked up and an instant of pure terror transfixed him. A mountainous wave, thirty feet tall, loomed above him.

Then he saw Spencer.

Spencer's body hung limply alongside the railing, secured by a rope. Jack understood. Spencer knew his peril when the storm struck. He'd tied himself to a stanchion, but the rope was giving way. Spencer dangled limply next to the crates of gold, unconscious from a bloody gash on the back of his head.

Jack's eyes moved again, to the top of the mountain of green foam that hung over the ship, ready to break. When it did, Spencer would be swept overboard.

Jack looked again at Spencer, unconscious, helpless, unknowing. When the wave broke, it would be the final strain on the rope. Spencer would be washed away, pulled down into the churning water to his death.

The wave arched, curled.

Jack's chest ached as his heart beat in a frightened, erratic thudding. It was unlikely he could hold on for himself alone against the force of tons of water. If he moved now there might be time, just time enough, to fling himself forward, to find a safer place. If he stayed here and tried to help Spencer his own life would be threatened.

The wave that hung over the side of the PT was breaking now.

Frantically, Jack moved. One arm wrapped itself desperately around a metal stanchion, the other grappled for a hold on Spencer, pulling the heavy, inert body close.

He didn't have time to look up again, to see the gigantic wall of water as it curled over and thundered down upon them.