The Lonely War (22 page)

Stokes said, “Sir, will we make it? I mean, will I ever see my girl again?”

Moyer half smiled. “With God’s help we made it this far, and I’m sure if He wills it, we’ll all be going home soon. Of course we may need His undivided attention for that to happen, but let us pray for that, shall we?”

“But sir,” Stokes said, “I’ve got to get word to my girl. You see, she’s waiting for me to come back so we can get married. If she don’t hear from me, she’ll think I’m dead. I gotta let her know so she don’t fall for some other guy. Can you help me, Mr. Moyer?”

“All we can do is pray and hope the Lord listens.”

The men dropped to the floorboards as Moyer began. Only Andrew did not join in. He kept playing his tune to accompany the prayer. Moyer’s voice grew stronger and seemed to fill the room with the Holy Spirit, just as Andrew filled it with Mozart. Some men prayed out loud, others knelt, trembling. Surprisingly, Hudson’s voice was among the most passionate.

Mozart failed to overpower Andrew. Confusing emotions erupted deep inside him. He scrutinized his feelings as he played the doleful melody, probing beneath the humiliation of rape, the pain of beatings, the grip of starvation, and his concern about Mitchell’s well-being, until comprehending that, at his core, he felt utterly grateful. For him the war was over—no more fighting, no killing, no waiting to be killed, and hopefully no more rape. In this camp, he could simply live one moment to the next, follow the rules, and wait for the day he would return home. Overwhelming relief washed through him like a cold stream. The prison was his genesis, he realized, a new beginning. He blew harder and the tempo quickened, filling the hut with spirited music.

Chapter Nineteen

May 26, 1942—0600 hours

A
CLOUDBURST
drenched the camp as the sun rose above the green belt of jungle. Raindrops pelted Andrew’s skin as he performed his tai chi outside Hut Twenty-nine. The downpour enhanced his enjoyment. The retreating darkness, cool air, and bracing rain all coalesced to create a healing energy that descended from his crown to his soles. He felt dizzy, drunk on the rain’s freshness. His dancelike meditation abated into stillness, and he settled into a lotus position on the shady side of Hut Twenty-nine.

The relative coolness helped to keep his mind empty, but three weeks of eating nothing more than rice drew his attention to his vacuous belly.

The rain retreated, the clouds dissipated, the temperature soared. The air carried a sea-salt tang mixed with the delicate sweetness of jungle frangipani. Morning light spread red-orange hues across the camp, causing hundreds of puddles to reflect the colored light, making them resemble pools of shimmering blood.

A few minutes after sunup, the Indian block-leaders charged through camp yelling curses, rousing the men from sleep, many of whom had slept two to a bunk on bug-infested straw pallets. The prisoners stood in ranks for ninety minutes while every man was counted and recounted and the numbers tallied. Those who passed in the night were laid along the south wall and counted as well.

While standing in ranks, Andrew heard the faint ringing of bells from beyond the wall of rainforest. He was reminded of the great eight-hundred-catty iron bell at the Bai Hur Sze Temple, calling the monks to morning prayers. He recalled his last day there, the day he’d had an audience with Master Jung-Wei under a bodhi tree. The monk had told Andrew about a young acolyte who had attended his monastery many years earlier. The acolyte had tried diligently to learn his lessons and he studied the sutras every day, but he had difficulty understanding even the simplest concepts. Monks were notoriously harsh on slow acolytes, and this boy received numerous beatings. Still, he failed to learn. He became a joke. Every monk assumed he was unteachable. They ignored his tiresome questions and often gave him a sound smack to quiet him.

One autumn morning, the monks filed into the prayer hall and occupied every available cushion. Latecomers knelt on the hardwood floor. At one end of the hall sat the altar, and behind that stood a golden statue of the Lord Buddha. The altar was carved from sandalwood in the shape of a lotus flower, and on it sat the venerable monk who ruled the monastery. They said he had the ability to see directly into each man’s heart and know that man’s most private fears.

A smile adorned the abbot’s face that morning. He wore a voluminous cassock, and held a string of jade beads in one hand and a bell in the other. The acolyte sat with his legs folded while he waited for the abbot’s exposition of the dharma, delighting in the pure autumn breeze that drifted through the open doors to mingle with the sonorous voices of chanting monks.

Soon the volume of chanting grew soft, to a whisper, and ripened into silence as the abbot struck a single note on his bell. The tone soared to the hall’s rafters and undulated through the cavernous room.

The abbot leaned forward. “Physical phenomena are illusions created by the duality of the human mind. Enlightenment cannot be understood by the intellect, nor can it be verbally transmitted. Only by abandoning the dualistic mind altogether can one achieve Enlightenment. To do this, you must envision your mind as a mirror that reflects what lies before you in the realm of physical manifestations. You must strive constantly to clean this mirror of the debris from self-absorption, and allow no dust or lint to attach itself to the surface. When the mirror becomes pure, free of any self-important particles, it will vanish altogether and you will enter the Buddha’s realm. What I transmit to you is the Dharma transmitted by the Buddha. Are there any questions?”

Master Jung-Wei had explained that only a handful of monks had completely understood the exposition. Many grasped none of it, but nobody had the courage to admit his confusion. Silence blanketed the hall to a man, until this young acolyte crawled off his pillow and knelt with palms pressed together, saying, “Holiness, I do not understand.”

The abbot’s penetrating eyes opened wide. “State your question.”

The boy stammered, “Holiness, the scriptures claim that there is no such mirror, that it is an illusion—there is nothing that a particle of dust can attach itself to. So how does one clean something that does not exist?”

After a minute’s silence the abbot signaled to his senior disciple, one he had personally tonsured. The disciple rushed to help the old one stand, guiding him off the altar and down the line of monks to face the acolyte.

The boy readied himself for a blow to the head, but the abbot crumpled to the floorboards. He knelt in front of the acolyte and bowed until his palms and forehead touched the floor.

Master Jung-Wei had gazed into Andrew’s eyes, to the soft light shining within. “I told you that story to show you true courage. Instead you form the impression that courage is a man firing a rifle on a battlefield. True courage comes when you see in your heart the moral path before you, and you know you are defeated before you begin, everything and everyone seems against you, but you are compelled to proceed anyway, and you strive to stay the course no matter what. You rarely succeed, but every so often someone sees into your heart and bows at your feet. That acolyte was not afraid of seeming a fool or taking a beating. He placed his love for truth above all else, and he eventually became the abbot of the monastery. He was the bravest man I ever knew.”

A
RUSH
of harsh voices snapped Andrew out of his reminiscence. The Indian guards made their way through the ranks with scowling faces, wielding plaited leather whips. At the least provocation they lashed out at a prisoner’s face or the side of his neck, and all the men around them jumped away en masse. The guards screamed to get them back into ranks and the count would start over. After the count was taken, the Indian guards marched away, and the men scrambled to form an impatient chow line.

Andrew hurried for a place in line while Grady ran to Hut Twenty-nine to retrieve their mess-cans, mugs, and spoons. It was an agonizing wait, made longer by the hunger gripping Andrew’s belly.

They stood for thirty minutes before six men hurried to the front of the line, carrying twelve five-gallon cans that were once used to hold fuel. The men ladled out one cup of rice gruel and one cup of tea to each man in line. Andrew counted how many men stood between him and the food, worrying that there would be nothing left by the time he got there.

“Doggone,” Grady groaned. “Tomorrow we gots to get here faster. This waitin’ kills me.”

Forty minutes crawled by before they neared the mush pots. Andrew paid close attention to how large a portion each man in front of him received. As he held up his own mess-cans, he ensured that he and Grady received the same measure of gruel and tea.

They raced to the shady side of Hut Twenty-nine and sat next to Hudson and Stokes, who were sitting on the ground with their backs against the hut wall. They set their mess-cans in the dirt so they could eat with one hand while fanning flies away with the other.

Andrew squatted on his haunches, native-style, while he ate.

“How do you keep your balance, sittin’ like that?” Grady asked.

“You should try it. It’s comfortable and it keeps your butt from getting dirty.”

“No way. You look like a monkey sitting on a branch.”

The tasteless food brought no complaints. Grady used his spoon to pick a few weevils out of his mush, but Andrew didn’t bother. Bugs were protein and he needed all he could get. The food lifted his mood. It felt splendid to have something in his belly to temporarily stop the gnawing pains. He relished the taste of weak tea, and the rice gruel brought back childhood memories of summers at the monastery.

Andrew noticed that Hudson had altered the way he ate. Aboard ship, he would devour mountains of fried potatoes, slabs of roast beef, bowls of stew, stacks of bread with tasty butter, and wash it all down with mugs of coffee that were thick with cream and sweet with sugar. He would eat so fast that he never tasted any of it, wolfing it down until he was ready to burst. But after a month of near starvation, he had learned to nibble small amounts of rice at a time, munching it into a paste to extract every iota of flavor, rolling it on his tongue and sucking it into the sides of his cheek, holding it there for a moment before swallowing. To make it last.
Yes,
Andrew thought,
rice tastes like ambrosia if you take your time and tease your belly
.

Hudson leaned toward Andrew. “Rookie, I’ve been talking to some of the limeys. They say a man can’t make it on his own, can’t live on the four ounces of rice a day they dole out. You’ve got to form units and pull together to scavenge more food. You need at least three men, one to forage for anything edible, one to guard and cook what you’ve already scrounged, and one spare for when somebody gets sick. If nobody’s sick, then two forage.”

“Makes sense, but what’s there to scavenge?”

“There are ways to make money to buy things like eggs and coconuts and bananas. What you can’t buy, you filch.”

“Steal?”

Hudson shook his head. “It’s a simple redistribution of wealth is all. Don’t look at me like that. This is dog eat dog. How about it, rookie, you, me, and Stokes?”

“And Grady?”

“Sure, but he’s got to pull his weight.”

Grady chuckled. “I gots lots of filchin’ experience.” 

“Alright,” Hudson said. “The four musketeers. All for one and . . . however the hell that goes. We start scouting the camp right after breakfast. Stokes, you’re our supply officer.”

Stokes sat staring at the dirt with a sorrowful expression.

Andrew nudged Hudson. “What’s with him?”

“Aw, he’s got the blues thinking his girl will run off with the next sailor that comes along. I told you bums that women were no good.”

“Hud,” Stokes growled. “I hear another word against my girl and someone’s gonna pay.”

“Hold your milk, boy. I didn’t mean any disrespect. Pull yourself together and tell us what supplies we need.”

Stokes finished his last smidgen of gruel and rolled his eyes upward. “Any kind of food, an electric hotplate, a pot, skillet, knife, soap, razor and blades, hair brush, tobacco and papers, and anything we can sell or barter: watches, rings, lighters, clothes.”

“And toothbrushes,” Andrew said.

“We’re starving to death and you’re worried about your teeth?” Hudson sneered.

“Hud, the Chinese invented toothbrushes. We know the importance of keeping our mouths clean. Trust me, if you want to walk out of here with teeth, use a toothbrush. You don’t even need to brush them all, only the ones you want to keep.”

Hudson snorted. “Okay, put ’em on the list.”

Grady shook his head. “That’s a ton of filchin’.”

Hudson nodded. “That’s why you can’t survive alone. But if the limeys can form units, so can we.”

“Okay, one for all,” Andrew said. “Hand me your mess-cans. I’ll clean up.”

Hudson’s can, which had a few drops of gruel in the bottom, was crawling with flies so thick it looked like a living can of black bean soup. Andrew gathered the cans to wash them in the showers, realizing how important it was to keep everything perfectly clean.

Stokes pulled a wooden match from his breast pocket and a rolled cigarette from behind his ear. He lit it, inhaled, and passed it to Hudson. Hudson took a drag and looked at Grady. He paused to stare at those pink lips before passing the cigarette to him.

“My God, that’s harsh,” Hudson said. “Wonder if there are any cigars in this swamp?”

Fisher marched over to address the crew who were sitting beside the hut. “I need four volunteers for work parties—two for the airstrip and two for wood detail. This afternoon I’ll work up a schedule to divide the work evenly, but for now I need anybody who can carry a shovel or swing an axe.”

Hudson jabbed Stokes in the ribs. “Maybe work will take your mind off your girl and you can scout what there is to scavenge outside the camp.”

“Count me in, sir.” Stokes lifted himself to his feet.

Fisher looked pleasantly surprised. “Okay, who else?” There was a long silence. “Kelso, Smitty, and Nash, fall in.”