We Were Beautiful Once (34 page)

Bradshaw walked to the side of the easel where two thumbtacks fastened the map to a flip chart. “Yes, by looking at this, part of this area here might be what was considered the escape route down the eastern edge of the peninsula. It begins in the backwater of the Yalu and goes south for about ten miles. Whoever drew this has the Yalu River written in here, but that would not be the Yalu River.  It would be the backwaters. The Yalu River would be off to the left hand side of this.”

Nick understood the testimony to confirm what he had learned from Colonel Park.

Lindquist leaned forward. “It is really the backwaters of the Yalu River, is that it?” he asked, barely audible.

“Yes, sir. That's what it'd be. This speck of an area over here's where we buried 1,800 to 2,500 men.”

Nick flipped the page on the easel, where two thumbtacks fastened the map B-2.

“Let me now draw your attention to Map B-2. Would you know what that hexagon within a hexagon figure means?” Nick asked, making sure Lindquist was paying attention.

“It seems to mark some kind of station or point of interest.”

“Have you ever seen such a mark?”

“No, not a six-sided figure like that, but different mapmakers in intelligence units use their own marks to point things out.”

“Mr. Bradshaw, do you recall seeing any wounded when you arrived in Camp 13 in December?”

“There were many wounded.  There were many sick.”

“Was it the practice of the soldiers other than trained medics to look after the wounded?”

“As well's we could.  Dysentery, that's what killed most, that an' starvation. Lots were dying from wounds that they got at the time of capture. Had no medical.  Had no surgical tools, no medicine.  Without, you know, sulfur, for instance, small infections start going gangrenous. We had a doctor by the name of Bohannon, but he'd done nothing, had nothing to treat us.”

“Did you participate in treating any of the POWs while you were in Camp 13?”

“I dug shrapnel out, I dug bullets out and anything else I could do to help.”

“In tending the wounded in January '51, you say you were digging out shrapnel and bullets...  on a steady basis. Did you ever have occasion to tend anybody with stomach wounds?”

“Stomach wound, no. A side wound, yes.”

“On what occasion did you tend a person with a side wound?”

“Sometime after we got to Camp 13. I'd say maybe ten days, two weeks after I was at Camp 13—I have to explain something here. We were losing a lot of men every day, dying. Death was something we took for granted. Every morning we gathered them up, stacked them —usually they'd freeze during the night. Minus zero, wind constant. We'd stack 'em six feet high. A death room.  A lean-to, really.  Those we couldn't get in the room, we stacked them outside. Then in early spring, after it warmed up a bit, we'd get as many as we could, take them across that inlet, to a finger of land, scrape the snow and put the bodies there, cover them with the snow, say a little prayer.”

Nick saw the judge lift his pen. “What did you do with the medals or tags?” asked Lindquist, again moving away from the emotional moment, objectifying the stacking.

Bradshaw turned. “The dog tags, sir?”

“Yes, the tags.”

“Anytime I handled a body, and if he had dog tags, I would take one of them,” he answered.

As Bradshaw answered, the judge wrote furiously. “Didn't they all have dog tags?” Lindquist asked.

“No, sir.  Some men'd lost them, sometimes the enemy took 'em. For souvenirs, or who knows what. But those that did have 'em, I'd take one for myself, and the other I'd put in the man's mouth.  Stayed in his mouth when we buried him. Later on, the Chinese found out that some of us was keeping 'em, and they had shakedown inspections.  I kept hiding mine. Later when they transferred me to another barracks, I couldn't get to my hiding place. Tags must be still there.”

Lindquist wanted specificity. “Where are they?” he asked skeptically.

“Had 'em hid in a hollow I'd dug in one of the shacks. At the very top I'd dropped 'em. Far as I know, they're in what's left of the camp.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bradshaw, proceed.” Bradshaw picked up on where Nick had been going before Lindquist's detour. The judge picked up his pen and started writing.

“Late January we was stacking bodies, to get back to your question, and there's this man lying right next to the death room.  Most of these shanties, they'd one, sometimes two, what you'd call rooms to live and sleep. We slept on the floor. I was in a room sixteen feet square, ten men. Lot of 'em had the little sheds on the other end. Anyway, this man was laying there, sprawled really.  And, one of the guys who was helping with the bodies said, ‘I guess he'll be one of the ones tomorrow.' I asked, ‘What's wrong?' He said, ‘He's wounded...  bad.' I asked, ‘Well, can't they do nothing?' And he said, ‘Nope.' I just looked at him.”

“He'd a large wound, here,” Bradshaw explained, soberly pointing to his right side. “The wound already turned black. Rotting. Stinking. Man's on fire. I asked, ‘Is there anything else wrong with him?' Guy didn't know. Well, I'm no doctor. I ain't had no medic training...  But I read a lot.  I 'membered some of the old things we used back home.”

Nick felt that the subject of life and death was coming alive. The maps gave bearing to where men buried their atrocities. Yet, in the next instant, Lindquist again interrupted. Nick raised his hand off the lectern, giving the judge one of those ‘I-can't-believe-it-looks.'

“Where's Dr. Bohannon, whatever his name was?” Lindquist asked.

“Up in the officers' compound. Occasionally they'd let him exam the men, all he could do was look, nothing to work with.”

“Wouldn't he have the same tools you had?”

Bradshaw faced Lindquist. “If he'd seen the man, yes, sir. They'd take Bohannon to a certain building, he'd have sick call.  The only people that got over were those who could walk. Those who couldn't, didn't see him.”

Nick hesitated before asking his next question, largely to let the absurdity sink in. Seconds ticked off the clock over the jury box. “What happened next?” Nick asked.

“I went to the latrine, reached down, and scooped out a handful of feces with maggots. I wrenched them from the feces best I could, and placed 'em into the boy's side.  I took a rag and tied it up. I felt that I couldn't hurt him, because he was too near...  well, figured that day that he would've gone ahead and died.”

“When'd you see him again, I mean, after you put the maggots in him?”

“Later on, after the ice melted. Guards would let us go to the reservoir after they segregated the companies—three companies with barbed wire between them, wouldn't let us mingle. I was in Company 1, mostly black, a few whites.  Company 2, all white from everywhere; Company 3, American white and British. Then there were the Turks. Like I said, I was in Company 1. After the river thawed, they'd let us go down, wash clothes, and take a bath.  And after the water warmed some, they'd let us swim. During the first summer, ‘round June, the Chinese came in, issued us what they called a student uniform—a white shirt, Mao hat, tennis shoes, pair of white shorts. Lots of us took the Chinese stuff, like paper and dip-type pens, to write propaganda.  A lot of 'em took the ink, wrote their names, drew pictures of their states, anything they wanted to, on their shirts.”

Bradshaw told the tale like some good ol' boy sitting on his porch telling war stories; his lazy Georgia drawl spoke a simple account of how he remembered what, where, how he came to see it. “One day, water was warmer. Was down there swimmin', some washing clothes, killin' lice, and this boy walked up and said, ‘I think I owe you a heck of a lot,' I asked, ‘Whatca mean?' He said, ‘Think you saved me.' Couldn't remember. He said, ‘You'member puttin' maggots in a man's side?' He raised his shirt. I saw the scar. Could put your fist in it, the scar toughened like leather. He'd wrote his name on his shirt, ‘
Girardin
—G-i-r-a-r-d-i-n.' Told me he'd been with the 24th, remembered he'd been wounded and left for dead, and then captured...  around the spot where his unit had gone to pull out the 1st Cav.”

 

The judge notated his pad, lifted his head and waved his hand in Nick's direction. He had no questions. When the emotion had subsided, Nick asked, “Did you see him again?”

“Yes, I did, but we couldn't get together just anytime, because the guards didn't want socializin'.” Bradshaw answered, anticipating Nick's question. “The last part of August, it was one of the last times we'd go to the water. If the guards knew that you were from one company, and you were trying to talk, or you're talkin' to another company, they'd split ya up. Tried to keep us segregated. While I was at the river we'd sneak a few, you know, slip a few words. Becomin' real familiar?  No.”

“Now, can you describe this person's physical appearance?”

“It's hard. First time I saw him he was on the floor. I'd guess he weighed maybe 120 pounds.  Skin, bones. Soft eyes. Next time was summer. Heavier, not much. Shorter than me.”

“How tall are you?”

“Five-eleven, close to six. I say he was—well—you couldn't say how big the man was, because none of us weighed more than 120, 130 pounds.”

“Do you recall the color of his hair?”

“Maybe brown or sort of dark.”

Nick held a manila folder with a big green “X” across the front. He removed a picture. “Let me hand you a photo, marked for identification as Plaintiff's Exhibit 106. It's of Roger Girardin, taken just before he departed for Japan in 1950. Is this the man you attended to and then saw on the river?”

Bradshaw studied the picture that had been blown up to the size of the manila folder from which it was removed.

“Sir, is this the first time you have seen this picture?”

“Yes, sir,” Bradshaw answered with sureness.

“Mr. Bradshaw, do you recognize the man in that picture?”

“I am sorry, I don't.”

“Thank you for your honesty.”

Lindquist addressed Nick. “This would be a good place to stop, Counsel. Mr. Harris and Mr. Castalano, see me in chambers to discuss how much time we'll need this afternoon. Clerk, please see me in chambers.”

The marshal hollered, “All rise.  This honorable court is in recess until 2 p.m.”

 

As had been his habit, Harris rushed out of the courtroom to report to Russell. He picked up the phone, said hello, pressed the speaker button and put the receiver back into the cradle. Before he had a chance to tell Russell he was on the speaker, the man bellowed, “Harris, did you know that fuck Castalano subpoenaed Hamilton?”

“Shit, no.”

“Shit, yes. Harris, you are in no way to accede to that clown's attempts to have Hamilton appear.”

“Sir, it is not in my purview to tell Castalano who he calls.”

“Remember that chess game I told you about?  Well maybe it's time to call ‘check.' You understand?”

Harris answered, “I don't think that'll work, but let me try to change his mind.”

The response on the other end was predictable, “Let me know, or we'll handle it from our side.”

 

Before court reconvened, Harris walked over to Nick.  “Nick, a word?”

Nick glanced around, “Sure.”

“Look, is subpoenaing Hamilton really necessary?” Harris stood so close that Nick could see a vein pulsing near his temple. “I can't for the life of me understand why he needs to be brought in. He's an important guy. Might be the next governor. Is it worth entangling him in this crap? Frankly, this is going nowhere, even if you prove the man was a POW. I have said it all along, MIA, POW. So what?”

“Are you offering a change of classification if we were to leave Hamilton out?”

“I don't know if we would go that far, but suppose we did?”

“Well, how much would you be willing to tell us about what happened to him?”

“Nick, honestly, we don't know.”

“Would you concede for purposes of assessing damages, that he lived another four or five years after the war ended? The family is entitled to something.”

“Come on, Nick, you know we couldn't arbitrarily do that.  It'd open hundreds of suits from people claiming they're entitled. And I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. Right now, this is about quashing Hamilton's subpoena.”

“Quashing it! Are you crazy? He's my witness. You don't represent him.”

“Look at it like a good game of chess, Nick. You like chess, don't you?  You see, playing the game right can sometimes make the difference between a good business and being stuck above Zorba's, Nick.” Harris smiled, showing all his teeth.

“What are you talking about?” bluffed Nick, but vague, discordant images of whisky tumblers, a white gardenia, a chess board, a river, were already floating through his mind.

“Does your wife know you like to play chess?”

Nick stared at Harris for a moment. Were they talking about what he thought they were talking about? The pulsing along Harris's temple had subsided.

“Fuck you, Harris.”

 

At 2 p.m., in his lazy baritone the marshal shouted, “All rise. Court's back in session.”

Lindquist appeared in the doorway behind the bench, tired, “Please be seated.” His eyes fell on Nick, “Proceed, Counsel.”

“No further questions of this witness.”

Harris chimed in, “Your honor, I have just a few questions for Mr. Bradshaw.”

“Proceed.”

“Mr. Bradshaw, you are not a medical doctor, are you?”

“No, sir.”

“But, you claim that you can cure people of various ailments, true?”

“No, sir, I don't.”